8 Jewish Archaeological Discoveries

Over at NBC News:

It’s been decades since the first pieces of the Dead Sea Scrolls were found in the caves of the Judean desert, but yet another piece of parchment bearing 2,000-year-old scriptures – verses from the Book of Leviticus – was found just recently. Such finds demonstrate that the Holy Land can still produce ancient treasures, thousands of years after the events described in the Bible…

Check them out here.

HT:  PaleoJudaica

More Jews Live in Israel than in US for 1st Time

For the first time, there are more Jews living in Israel than in America, making the Jewish state the home of the largest Jewish population in the world. There are 6 million Jews in Israel and 5.5 million in America, 2 million of whom live in New York. Roughly 500,000 Jews live in France and almost 300,000 live in the United Kingdom.

Among the 8 million residents of Israel, there are 1.6 million Arabs and 350,000 non-Arab Christians or other groups.

The number six million has obvious significance to Jews the world over, since six million Jews were murdered in the Holocaust. But for the first time in thousands of years, it can legitimately be claimed that a plurality of Jews live in Israel — and if demographic trends continue, Jews in Israel will soon constitute a majority of Jews on the planet.

Source

 

Seeking the Peace of Jerusalem—or a Piece of Jerusalem?

There is no end of controversy about Jerusalem, old and new.  Archeology has become a full-fledged battlefield in the dispute over who has the superior claim to the city, Jews or Muslims…

Read on here.

 

RIP Leon Leyson, Youngest Survivor on Schindler’s List

As noted on The Deacon’s Bench:

The Los Angeles Times notes his passing:

Among the 1,100 Jews saved from the Nazis by German industrialist Oskar Schindler was an emaciated 13-year-old boy named Leon Leyson, who had to stand on a box to reach the machinery in the Krakow factory where Schindler sheltered him and his family.

The boy Schindler called “Little Leyson” survived the Holocaust to start life over in Los Angeles. He taught high school in Huntington Park for 39 years, rarely mentioning to anyone the pain and perils he experienced during the war that claimed the lives of 6 million Jews.

Then came the celebrated 1993 movie “Schindler’s List,” which ignited public interest in the stories of Holocaust survivors. Coaxed into breaking five decades of near-silence on the subject, Leyson — the youngest member of the group rescued by Schindler — embarked on a public speaking career that took him across the United States and Canada to share his story about coming of age during the Nazis’ brutal reign.

“Any time he told his story he never used notes, he never gave the same talk twice. It always came from the head and the heart,” said his friend and Chapman University religious studies professor Marilyn Harran. “It made people walk away wanting to be better people, to care more, to remember not only the Holocaust but to remember that we can never be indifferent.”

Leyson, a longtime resident of Fullerton, died Saturday in Whittier after a four-year battle with lymphoma, his daughter Stacy Wilfong said. He was 83.

Read more.

 

SSPX Head, Bernard Fellay: Jews Are ‘Enemies Of The Church’

What’s with the perpetual anti-Semitic leanings of this Society?!

The head of a controversial Catholic sect says that Jews are “enemies of the Church,” but the sect has denied any anti-Semitic intentions.

Bishop Bernard Fellay, head of the traditionalist Society of St. Pius X, declared Jews “enemies of the Church” during a talk that aired on a Canadian radio station, the Catholic News Agency recently reported. Fellay’s remarks took place on Dec. 28 at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Chapel in New Hamburg, Ontario.

Fellay, discussing negotiations with the Vatican in 2012 concerning the Society’s future, said the following during the address: “Who, during that time, was the most opposed that the Church would recognize the Society? The enemies of the Church. The Jews, the Masons, the Modernists.”

Fellay said Jewish leaders’ support of the Second Vatican Council “shows that Vatican II is their thing, not the Church’s,” according to the Catholic Register.

The Second Vatican Council modernized the Catholic Church in the 1960s and is the reason the Society of St. Pius X split from the main body and was founded in 1970 as part of the Traditionalist Catholic movement. Some traditionalists blame Jews for the reforms that took place during the Vatican II council meetings, notes the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

The Society of St. Pius X posted a press release in response to Fellay’s “enemies of the Church” comment, denying any anti-Semitic connotations. The release reads that “enemies” refers to “any group or religious sect which opposes the mission of the Catholic Church and her efforts to fulfill it: the salvation of souls.”

The release continued thus:

By referring to the Jews, Bishop Fellay’s comment was aimed at the leaders of Jewish organizations, and not the Jewish people, as is being implied by journalists. Accordingly the Society of St. Pius X denounces the repeated false accusations of anti-Semitism or hate speech made in an attempt to silence its message.

This is not the first time one of the sect’s members has spoken out against Jews.

In 1985, one of the Society’s founders, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre also identified enemies of the sect as “Jews, Communists and Freemasons,” according to JTA. In addition, traditionalist Bishop Richard Williamson has denied that the Nazis used gas chambers to kill Jews in the Holocaust and that no more than 200,000 to 300,000 died during WWII.

Jesuit Priest Rev. James Martin expressed his disapproval of Fellay’s comment and of the Society in general. “I cannot imagine how any further talks can continue with the group,” Martin told The Huffington Post. “Theologians have been silenced for dissenting in lesser ways from official church teaching.

Meanwhile, via the Washington Post:

The Vatican reaffirmed its commitment to dialogue with Jews on Monday (Jan. 7) after the head of a traditionalist breakaway group called them “enemies of the Church.”

The Vatican chief spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said that it was “meaningless” and “unacceptable” to label Jews as “enemies” of the Catholic Church.

“Both Pope Benedict XVI and his predecessor John Paul II personally engaged in dialogue with Jews,” he said. As a sign of their commitment, Lombardi noted the two popes’ visits to Jerusalem’s Western Wall, Judaism’s most sacred site, and to synagogues in Rome and elsewhere.

The Vatican reassurance came after Bishop Bernard Fellay, head of the traditionalist Society of St. Pius X (SSPX), said on Dec. 28 that “the enemies of the Church: the Jews, the Masons, the modernists” were opposing the group’s reconciliation with the church.

Fellay assessed the status of relations between the SSPX and the Vatican in a long speech at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Academy in New Hamburg, Ontario. The audio of the speech was posted on YouTube on Dec. 30.

At Benedict’s prompting, the Vatican in 2009 opened talks to repair the decades-long breach with the SSPX, focusing on the group’s rejection of the modernizing reforms of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), which revolutionized the church’s relations with Judaism.

Anti-Semitic strains within the SSPX have been a major headache for the Vatican; shortly after Benedict lifted the 1988 excommunications of four SSPX bishops, it emerged that one of the bishops, Richard Williamson, was a vocal denier of the Holocaust…

On Monday, Lombardi stressed that he was not directly responding to Fellay’s words but merely restating the church’s official position on relations with Jews, which dates to the Second Vatican Council. He declined to comment on the potential impact of Fellay’s words on the dialogue between the Vatican and the SSPX.

And the Jerusalem Post:

Jews are “enemies of the Church,” the head of a radical Catholic sect said in Canada.

Bishop Bernard Fellay, superior of the traditionalist Society of St. Pius X, made the remark during a Dec. 28 address at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Academy in New Hamburg, Ontario, about 90 minutes’ drive west of Toronto. He was reviewing the situation of the society, which opposes Catholic Church reforms decided by the Second Vatican Council and is not recognized by the Church.

According to an audio recording posted on YouTube two days later, Fellay spoke about the society’s three years of discussions with the Vatican over the society’s future and explained how he interpreted behind-the-scenes communications.

Apparently speaking without a text, Fellay asked, “Who during that time was the most opposed that the Church would recognize the society? The enemies of the Church: the Jews, the Masons, the Modernists.”

According to the Catholic News Service, Fellay added that Jewish leaders’ support of reforming Second Vatican Council “shows that Vatican II is their thing, not the Church’s.”

As of Friday, there was no response from the society’s Swiss headquarters to a Catholic News Service email request for comment, the agency reported.

The Society of St. Pius X, , was founded in 1970 as a reaction against the Vatican’s efforts to modernize. In 2009, Pope Benedict launched talks with the society and lifted excommunications imposed on its four bishops.

One of the bishops was Richard Williamson, who has denied that the Nazis used gas chambers and asserted that no more than 200,000 to 300,000 Jews died during  World War II…

Totally unacceptable.

 

Adolf Hitler Praying Statue

Causes controversy. The Telegraph:

 

A statue of Adolf Hitler praying on his knees is on display in the former Warsaw Ghetto, the place where so many Jews were killed or sent to their deaths by the Nazis, provoking mixed reactions…

You can find more here.

It does seem rather inappropriate. However,

Poland’s chief rabbi, Michael Schudrich, said he was consulted on the installation’s placement ahead of time and did not oppose it because he saw value in the artist’s attempt to try to raise moral questions by provoking viewers.

He said he was reassured by curators who told him there was no intention of rehabilitating Hitler but rather of showing that evil can present itself in the guise of a “sweet praying child.”

 

Militant Islam the Greatest Threat to Middle Eastern Christianity

A British think tank has released a lengthy report claiming that militant Islam is the greatest existential threat to Middle Eastern Christianity, bringing Christian communities in the region “close to extinction.”

The London-based Civitas, also known as the Institute for the Study of Civil Society, published the report in December. “Christianity is in serious danger of being wiped out in its biblical heartlands because of Islamic oppression,” reads a statement from the group issued Sunday.

“But Western politicians and media largely ignore the widespread persecution of Christians in the Middle East and the wider world because they are afraid they will be accused of racism.”

Titled “Christianophobia” and written by reporter and Religion Editor for The Times Literary Supplement Rupert Shortt, the report details the persecution of Christians in Burma, China, Egypt, India, Iraq, Nigeria, and Pakistan…

Read on here.

While noting the large-scale persecution of Christians in societies that are  Communist, Buddhist, or Hindu, Shortt stressed the growing impact of intolerance  in Islamic countries.

“In the large area between Morocco and Pakistan, for example, there is  scarcely a country in which church life operates without restrictions. Syria has  been one of the exceptions until now,” wrote Shortt.

“The prognosis for the rest of the Middle East is hardly encouraging: there  is now a serious risk that Christianity will disappear from its biblical  heartlands…

 

The Chief Rabbi of Canterbury

Last week, after a two-year search, Ephraim Mirvis was announced as the successor to Jonathan Sacks, who is stepping down after 21 years as the Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of Great Britain and the Commonwealth.  Rabbi Sacks’ tenure will end concurrently with that of the most senior clergyman in the Church of England, Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury.  The coincidence of their retirements is apt, since the two men are in many ways alike.  Both are admired in Britain and internationally for their intellect, erudition, and knowledge.  Both speak the language of Britain’s increasingly secular educated elite.  And both have struggled to lead their respective institutions.

Moreover, the Chief Rabbi has in some respects eclipsed the Archbishop as the religious voice of the country.

Rowan Williams’ decade-long stewardship of the Church of England has not been a happy one.  A liberal by temperament, the Archbishop has attempted to appease liberals and conservatives in the Church but satisfied neither.  He angered liberals by blocking the appointment of Jeffrey John, a gay priest, as a bishop in 2003 and again in 2010. But he offended conservatives by failing to sanction the Episcopal Church in the United States for ordaining Gene Robinson, also gay, as Bishop of New Hampshire in 2003; the incident led to a formal declaration of schism by several African churches in 2008.  After the Episcopalians consecrated another gay priest as a bishop in 2010, Williams did impose sanctions—causing yet another rift in the Anglican Communion.  He attempted to heal the divisions through an “Anglican Covenant,” which satisfied no one.

Williams’ efforts to resolve a decade-long dispute over female bishops have likewise angered both sides. His compromise amendment to a bill to introduce women bishops was defeated in 2010.  Subsequently, some 60 clergy and 1,000 parishioners, fearing that Anglican women bishops were inevitable, defected to Catholicism.  But last month the General Synod rejected the bill—through the votes of the conservative laity, which outweighed those of the liberal clergy.  Thus, Williams leaves the Church little different, but much more embittered.

If the Archbishop can be excused for failing to unify increasingly divergent Anglican opinions, he must bear some responsibility for the fact that the number of Christians in Britain has fallen by a staggering four million in the past decade: for Williams’ interventions in public life have been not religious but political.  Rather than decrying the secularism of Britain’s Guardianista elite, he has adopted its fashionable causes, attacking the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, bankers involved in the financial crisis, and politicians entangled in Parliament’s expenses scandal.  He has provoked outrage by backing the establishment of sharia courts in the U.K.  He has also condemned the current Conservative government for their modest aim of closing the national deficit by 2015 by trimming public spending (which they have, so far, utterly failed to accomplish).  After he lambasted the education and health reforms of Prime Minister David Cameron as “radical, long-term policies for which no one voted,” Cameron told Williams, in effect, to mind his own ecclesiastical business.

Thus, though the leader of Britain’s established church, the Archbishop has become an unwelcome figure to whom to turn for religious counsel.

Into this breach has stepped the Chief Rabbi…

You simply must read on here.

Judaism having more religious credibility than Anglicanism in Britain? Not hard to believe.

 

 

Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis to be Next UK Chief Rabbi

And he is South African born.

Britain’s chief rabbi-designate is to be Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis of Finchley Synagogue, the United Synagogue has announced.

He will be Anglo-Jewry’s 11th chief rabbi. And, like most of his predecessors, Rabbi Mirvis is not British-born.

But the 56-year-old South African-born rabbi, the son and grandson of religious leaders, has spent a large part of his career serving Anglo-Saxon communities.

This, of course, is not his first chief rabbinate. He was Chief Rabbi of Ireland from 1985 to 1992, and for three years before that was minister of Dublin’s Adelaide Road Synagogue.

Rabbi Mirvis comes from a family of rabbis and teachers. His grandfather, Rev Lazar Mirvis, was a minister in Johannesburg, while his father, Rabbi Dr Lionel Mirvis, led the Claremont Synagogue and also the Wynberg Hebrew Congregation in Cape Town.

His mother, Freida, was principal of the Athlone Teachers Training College, which, during the apartheid years, was the only college for black teachers of pre-school instruction in South Africa.

After leaving Cape Town for Israel, where he attended a number of yeshivot and obtained his semicha (rabbinical qualification), Rabbi Mirvis married Zimbabwe-born Valerie Kaplan, a former senior social worker with Jewish Care, who now works for a local authority in the same capacity. The couple have four sons.

Along the way Rabbi Mirvis qualified as a shochet, mohel and chazan. Between 1992 and 1996 he was the rabbi of Marble Arch Synagogue. Since 1996 he has become synonymous with the ever-growing Finchley Synagogue, one of the biggest congregations in London.

A member of his congregation said on Monday night: “The congregation is torn. They know he is the best candidate to be chief rabbi. But they will miss him desperately. They think he is irreplaceable.”

It is more than two years since Lord Sacks’ retirement date was announced.

His departure was announced at a United Synagogue council meeting on December 13, 2010.

Then US President Simon Hochhauser made clear that there would be a successor and said focus groups would be used during the recruitment process.

Rabbi Mirvis was the long-time frontrunner for the role, but the US selection procedure nonetheless took months longer than expected. It was first intended to name the new chief by Rosh Hashanah 2012.

 

Israel, Jerusalem and the Western Wall Will Remain Ours Forever

Prime Minister Netanyahu:

“Over the weekend, Hamas held festivities and demonstrations in Judea and Samaria to mark 25 years since it was founded. With the approval of Mahmud Abbas, they called for the destruction of Israel and the expulsion of Jews from Jerusalem and from every point in the State of Israel. We have been here in Jerusalem , not for 25 years; we have been here in Jerusalem for 3,000 years. We have been in the Land of Israel for close to 4,000 years. We have a strong and steadfast national will, continuous historical consciousness and strength of soul of a people that have struggled for its homeland and know how to maintain its state.

“Last night, I lit the eighth Chanukah candle from the closest possible place to the spot where the miracle of the jar of oil occurred, I actually touched the Western Wall. I said it there and I say it here: The Western Wall is not occupied territory. The Western Wall is ours; it symbolizes the foundation of our existence here for thousands of years. We will stand steadfast in the face of all those who want to expel us from here. The State of Israel, Jerusalem and the Western Wall will remain ours forever.”

Source