During the week covered by this review, we received 10 articles on the following subjects:
Israeli/Jewish Attitudes Concerning Christians/Christianity
Christian Tourism
Archaeology
Political Issues
Anti-missionary Attitudes
Jewish/Christian Relations
Israeli/Jewish Attitudes Concerning Christians/Christianity
Yahadut BeAhava, May 20, 2022
This article referenced the eternal covenant God made with Israel, quoting Lev. 26:42-45: “I will remember my covenant… with their ancestors whom I brought out of Egypt in the sight of the nations to be their God. I am the Lord.” According to the article, we are seeing today how God is faithful to his covenant, after centuries of exile during which two religions attempted to undermine the covenant between God and His Chosen People – Islam and Christianity. The Christians did it by claiming to have a new covenant with God, and the Muslims, by claiming that their prophet was the final prophet, who cancelled previous prophecies; and they are both fighting us, openly, as the Muslims do, and covertly, as the Christians do, with their “sweet-talking” mission and by supporting the enemies of Israel. However – the article assured us – the day is near when everyone will see that Israel is the true nation of God’s eternal covenant.
Christian Tourism
Yedioth Ahronoth, May 23, 2022
The Franciscan monastery of San Salvatore in Jerusalem’s old city, which houses 90 monks, a workshop, an enormous church, a printing house, a music school and a huge underground winery under the Christian Quarter, is usually closed to the public, but for Jerusalem Day, which took place last Sunday, it opened its gates to tour groups. The author visited the monastery and shared his impressions. One of the things described was the impressive church, one of the biggest in the Old City, and recently renovated in Spanish style. The 14 stations of the Cross are displayed along its walls. The adjacent bell tower is very remarkable as well. One of the monks described the order, which was founded in the 13th century in Italy by Saint Francis of Assisi, who gave away his fine clothing to a beggar, in exchange for a plain, rough robe, which is what is worn by his followers even today. The Franciscans have held on to their place in the Holy Land throughout all the historical turmoil, and were appointed in the 14th century by the pope to be “Custodians of the Holy Land”.
Laisha, May 23, 2022
This article described a trip to the south of Bavaria, Germany, praising the wonderful views, the pleasant weather and the delicious cuisine. An emphasis was put on an event which occurs once every ten years, since 1633, in the town of Oberammergau – a Passion play, covering the final period of Jesus’ life from his visit to Jerusalem and leading to his execution by crucifixion. The play is a very important event in Bavaria, and hundreds of thousands of visitors from all over Europe attend it every time.
Archaeology
The Jerusalem Post, May 23, 2022
The modern-day city of Harran has existed in the same location in southeastern Turkey for 4,000 years. According to local tradition, this is the city mentioned in Genesis where Abraham’s father, Terach, decided to settle after setting out to Canaan. Local tradition also says that this is the place Adam and Eve went after having been thrown out of the Garden of Eden; that the mountain where Noah’s ark rested after the flood is not Mount Ararat in Armenia but a mountain range nearby; and that Harran was one of the seven cities to be established after the flood. Among the finds of the earliest archaeological excavations at the ancient mound inside the city of Harran were two cuneiform inscriptions from the sixth century BCE regarding the Babylonian king Nabunaid. In recent excavations, figurines from the Early Bronze Age, Assyrian cylinder seals dating from 1950 BCE and thousands of objects from the Hittite, Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine, Islamic, Umayyad, Abbasid, Fatimid, Zhendie, Ayyubid and Seljuk periods have also been found. The renovation of the ruins of the 2,000-year-old castle in Harran is scheduled to be open to visitors next year. Local residents have already begun to open their ancestral home to visitors “following in Abraham’s footsteps”, and some of the buildings have been converted into museums.
The Jerusalem Post, May 23, 2022
Scholars from the Bar-Ilan University and the University of Manitoba have found evidence for gaming in the form of game boards and game pieces that were recovered in the excavations of the Early Bronze Age levels at Tell es-Safi, aka Gath, the city of origin of David’s giant foe, Goliath, located northwest of Hebron. According to a report, digging at the site found game boards featuring the Canaanite game known as 30 Houses and another included a game called Senet, which was played in ancient Egypt, where it was used in cultic contexts.
Political Issues
Israel Hayom, May 24, 2022
The article spoke of the importance of the “Shema Yisrael”, the most famous prayer in the Jewish faith, mentioning a story about Rabbi Yitzhak HaLevi Herzog, who was the Chief Rabbi of the Jews in Israel after WWII ended. He set out to retrieve Jewish children who had been hidden in monasteries and convents and bring them back into the fold. At one convent, upon receiving no reply when he asked, “Who here is a Jew?” he cried out the “Shema Yisrael” in a loud voice, to which dozens of children responded, shouting “mama!” and “papa!” as tears filled their eyes. There is no sentence more Jewish than this basic proclamation of faith, exclaimed the article, and we must remember this truth when today, in the Temple Mount, the “Mount of Israel”, Israeli police officers drag away Jews who read the prayer there, and the courthouses are prosecuting cases, whose title should be “The State of Israel vs. Shema Yisrael”.
Yedioth Ahronoth, May 25, 2022
This was an interview with Julie Abouarraj, the head of IDF’s Digital Division for the Arab World. Julie was born in Lebanon to a Christian family. Her father was an officer with the South Lebanon Army (SLA) which fought alongside Israel. In her position, Julie is responsible for shaping the messages used in the IDF’s war on its enemies on social media, but for her, it is also about settling a personal score with Hizballah, responsible for murdering her father and forcing her family to flee to Israel. The article dealt extensively with various aspects of the volatile political situation in Lebanon.
Jewish/Christian Relations
Maariv, May 24, 2022; The Jerusalem Post, May 24, 2022
Former US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo and former Ambassador to Israel, David Friedman “want to teach Christians and Jews about the places where Ruth wept and Jacob dreamed” in an upcoming Trinity Broadcast Network documentary entitled “Route 60: The Biblical Highway”. The documentary, produced by filmmaker and TBN president Matt Crouch, sets out a “challenge to the viewer,” said Friedman, adding that “this is where the bible happened, and it’s still here.”
Anti-missionary Attitudes
Ha’hdashot Kfar Chabad, May 25, 2022
The Or L’Achim anti-missionary organization is warning the public regarding missionaries distributing MP3 players containing dangerous missionary material to random children in public parks. According to Or L’Achim, a man in Tel Aviv reported receiving such MP3 player while in a park, but the organization is warning the public now about what they believe the missionaries might do next.