A group of prominent Episcopalians is criticizing their church’s stand on Israel, urging it to join 15 other denominations who call for an accounting of U.S. aid to Israel.
The public letter released on Friday (Jan. 18) notes that leaders of 15 religious groups, including Lutherans, Presbyterians and Methodists, asked Congress to take that step last October, and that the “voice of the Episcopal Church is woefully missing.”
More than six decades since the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls – and thousands of years after they were written – Israel on Tuesday put 5,000 images of the ancient biblical artifacts online in a partnership with Google.
The digital library contains the Book of Deuteronomy, which includes the second listing of the Ten Commandments, and a portion of the first chapter of the Book of Genesis, dated to the first century B.C.
Israeli officials said this is part of an attempt by the custodians of the celebrated manuscripts – often criticized for allowing them to be monopolized by small circles of scholars – to make them broadly available.
One of the holiest sites in Christendom has also been one of the most contested. The Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem lies on the site where Jesus Christ is said to have been crucified and buried.
Multiple Christian denominations share the church uneasily, and clerics sometimes come to blows over the most minor of disputes. The Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox, Armenian Apostolic, Coptic Orthodox, Ethiopian Orthodox and the Syriac Orthodox all have a presence in the church.
But the most recent conflict at the 4th century church was over something entirely different: an unpaid water bill.
The people must be alert, analytically and democratically. Populist movements are gaining strength, forcing emotional, hasty, binary and often blind reactions. Political and religious leaders, intellectuals and students, women (in the heart of their legitimate struggles) as well as ordinary citizens bear a heavy responsibility. They must become the masters of their fate. If democratisation is to mean anything at all, it must be in terms of freedom and responsibility. Time has come to stop blaming the West, the neighbouring countries and the “powers” for the crises they continue to suffer.
The Great Powers undoubtedly played a role in the uprisings – they continue to wield great influence and have not stopped promoting their interests, dictatorships or not, democracy or not. Engaged as they are in a painful transition, the MENA countries must now face their destiny. However, beyond the strategic planning of the Great Powers – both the western countries and the BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India, China) – these countries have a historic opportunity to take their destinies in their hands; to create a new regional balance of power, new ways of handling the religious reference. They can profit from the emerging multi-polar economic order to celebrate cultural and artistic creativity, and take seriously the welfare and the superior interests of their peoples.
Where to begin? With a true process of liberation, an intellectual and psychological revolution that must first overcome the obsession with western approval, as if, once liberated, these countries must still seek legitimacy and tolerance.
In the Gaza Strip fighting, where a cease-fire was reached Wednesday, the Israeli military pounded Gaza with hundreds of airstrikes. Hamas, the militant Palestinian group that rules Gaza, launched hundreds of rocket attacks on Israel.
The weeklong battle temporarily diverted attention from Iran, the archenemy of Israel and a key ally of Hamas. Israeli leaders have threatened to strike Iran over its nuclear program.
Yet the Gaza fight may offer insights into what a possible confrontation between Israel and Iran would look like.
Israel said its air force bombed the house of a Hamas commander in the Gaza Strip after militants fired more than a dozen rockets toward southern Israel, trampling hopes for a three hour ceasefire during a brief visit by Egypt’s premier to the tiny stretch of land.
Israel had agreed to halt it’s three-day assault on Hamas in the Gaza Strip if militants refrained from firing rockets at Israel. It would have been the first break in the escalating conflict….
Israeli warplanes struck dozens of militant sites in Gaza early on Thursday, the second day of Israel’s deadly offensive against Hamas and other militant groups, and rockets fired from the enclave reached far into Israel, killing three civilians when one struck an apartment block in this small southern town.
The regional perils of the situation emerged in ever sharper relief, meanwhile, as President Mohamed Morsi of Egypt said in a national address on Thursday that his country stood by the Palestinians against what he termed Israeli aggression, news reports said, echoing similar condemnation on Wednesday.
Thursday’s deaths were the first casualties on the Israeli side since Israel launched its most ferocious assault on Gaza in four years in response to persistent Palestinian rocket fire.
I am in Auckland, NZ, at the 15th meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC15). The agenda moved into high gear today with presentations on “The Bible in the Life of the Church” (BILC), the Network for Interfaith Concerns (NIFCON) Report “Promised Land?”, an Anglican Communion resource for addressing Israeli-Palestinian relations, and the Inter-Anglican Standing Commission on Unity, Faith and Order (IASCUFO) report on The Instruments of Unity.
I believe that the discussion on BILC revealed an important major conclusion that tips the hand of the ACC’s leadership: that the process of how Anglicans interpret scripture is as important as the substance of scripture. Two conclusions will follow from this premise: (1) Context reigns supreme in how people interpret, and in the diversity of interpretations that flow from diversity of contexts NO interpretation is better than another (a point made by the preselected TEC leader of one of the small groups), and (2) There are no “limits” on faithful interpretation (point made by the preselected Church of England rep from another reflection group).
In this discussion, initial enthusiasm for the affirmation of Bible study gave way to sharp differences over the language in the proposed resolution, and then to frustration that there was not enough time to consider the resolution.
Established by Jewish philanthropists Charles Bronfman and Michael Steinhardt, among others, in collaboration with the Israeli government and various Jewish communal organizations, Birthright’s goal is “to strengthen Jewish identity, Jewish communities and solidarity with Israel.” As the generation that experienced the Holocaust and the creation of Israel grew older and died, younger Jews began to view the issue of a Jewish state with less and less urgency.
Birthright’s founders wanted to counter the waning interest in Judaism among the young. So far, the organization has sent more than 300,000 Jews from 59 countries to Israel””mostly from the U.S. and Canada.
Mark Shapiro, a former consultant for McKinsey & Co. who worked on the original plans for Birthright, says that some of the impetus for the project came from the 1990 Jewish Population Survey that showed an intermarriage rate for American Jews of greater than 50%….
Iranian warships have arrived in Port Sudan in an apparent show of support for the government in Khartoum, one week after it accused Israel of bombing an arms factory in the Sudanese capital.
Iran’s state news agency confirmed yesterday that two vessels, a destroyer and a helicopter carrier have docked in Sudan’s main port on the Red Sea and their commanders will be meeting Sudanese officials.
His Beatitude the late Patriarch Torkom Manougian was an exceptional figure both in the Armenian Church and in the wider Christian world, within and beyond the Holy Land.
An intellectual, scholar, musician and poet, he was also a skilled statesman who represented all the most impressive aspects of the Armenian character and the Armenian tradition.
The United States Postal Service chose Washington National Cathedral’s Bethlehem Chapel to issue its Holy Family Forever stamp on Oct. 10. The stamp depicts the Holy Family’s flight into Egypt after Christ’s birth. The family appears in silhouette against a deep orange sky with the brightly shining Christmas star ahead of them. Joseph leads a donkey on which Mary and the infant Jesus ride.
The contemporary artwork on the stamp, now available nationwide, is a departure from some of previous Christmas stamps featuring traditional artwork of Mary and Jesus. Indeed, the 1980 USPS Christmas stamp showed the Madonna and Child in Bethlehem Chapel’s Epiphany stained-glass window.
I was recently struck by some photos and reports I saw on the al-Arabiya network, the most respected news outlet in the Middle East. There was a starving child in Yemen, a burnt-out ancient souk in Aleppo, Syria, car bombs in Iraq and destroyed buildings in Libya.
What links all these images is that the destruction and the atrocities were not perpetrated by an outside enemy. The starvation, the killings and the destruction in these Arab countries were carried out by the same hands that are supposed to protect and build the unity of these countries and safeguard their people. Who, therefore, is the real enemy of the Arab world?
Many Arabs would say it is Israel ”” their sworn enemy, an enemy whose existence they have never recognised. From 1948 to today there have been three full-scale wars and many confrontations. But what was the real cost of these wars to the Arab world and its people? The harder question that no Arab wants to ask is: what was the real cost of not recognising Israel in 1948 and why didn’t the Arab states spend their assets on education, healthcare and infrastructure instead of wars? But the very hardest question of all is whether Israel is the real enemy of the Arab world and the Arab people.
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Israeli military experts Sunday worked around the clock to examine the remains of a mysterious drone that was shot down after penetrating Israeli airspace from the Mediterranean Sea.
The Israeli military announced Saturday that the unmanned aerial vehicle was shot down over the northern Negev Desert. They say the drone did not take off from Gaza, leading them to consider the possibility that it originated in Lebanon.
Israeli security experts point the finger at Israel’s longstanding rival Hezbollah, the Shiite militia based in southern Lebanon.
Events in recent days have illustrated just how quickly the violence in Syria could spiral into a regional war. After Syrian mortar bombs once again fell on Turkish soil, this time killing five civilians, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan felt compelled to act. The Turkish military’s retaliation on Wednesday and Thursday startled the international community.
With its actions, Turkey obviously proceeded with caution: It answered the repeated attacks from Syria with a few artillery shots — not missiles. And the permission for further military action granted to Erdogan by his parliament is intended primarily as an intimidation measure. There is no apparent intent to declare all-out war — at least for the time being. The United Nations Security Council, meanwhile, has strongly condemned the Syrian attack on Turkish soil and called on both sides to show restraint.
The fact of the matter is that the longer Syrian civil war continues, the more often incidents like that seen earlier this week will occur — particularly in Turkey and Lebanon. A large part of the border region around Syria has already become a war zone. Previously, the international community had worried that a military intervention could fuel a regional wildfire, but now it is being forced to look on as this increasingly appears to be the reality — without it ever even having gotten involved.
With participants from Church of England dioceses, pilgrimage tour operators and Christian organisations linked to the Holy Land, the conference aimed to share ideas, resources and connections to help deepen the pilgrimage experience. The day sought to foster pilgrimages that make connections, using the resources and landmarks of the past to engage with the present, and encountering the present to transform understanding of the Bible.
Read it all (and note the audio link).
….[Bishop Suheil Dawani] said the task was harder than ever, with a Christian population that has shrunk from about 30 percent of the population of the overall total just after World War II to about 1 percent today.
The Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem oversees the Anglican community in Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria, but only has 29 parishes and about 7,000 members. Its reach, though, is deeper and wider than what shows up in the pews, with direct support of two hospitals, five health clinics, five rehabilitation centers and 17 schools.
“Our main influence is through the work of our institutions,” Dawani said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu drew his “red line” for Iran’s nuclear program on Thursday despite a U.S. refusal to set an ultimatum, saying Tehran will be on the brink of a nuclear weapon in less than a year.
By citing a time frame in an address to the U.N. General Assembly, Netanyahu – who has clashed with President Barack Obama over the urgency of military action against Iran – appeared to suggest no Israeli attack was imminent before the November 6 U.S. presidential election….
They are in their 80s now, the last living links to Janusz Korczak, the visionary champion of children’s rights who refused to part with his young charges even as they were herded to the gas chambers.
When they speak of him, the old men are young again: transported to their days in his orphanage, a place they remember as a magical republic for children as the Nazi threat grew closer.
“It was a utopia,” said Shlomo Nadel, 85, one of the surviving orphans who managed to flee Poland before the Jewish orphanage was forced into the ghetto.
The rift between top U.S. and Israeli leaders appeared to deepen Tuesday as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu leveled the sharpest attacks in years by an Israeli leader against Washington, over differences on how to address Iran’s nuclear program.
Tensions had so escalated that President Barack Obama spent an hour on the phone with the Israeli leader in a hastily arranged call hours after both governments said the White House wouldn’t agree to an Israeli request for a meeting between the two leaders at the United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York this month.
The Israelis said their request was refused; the White House said there was a scheduling conflict and there could be a meeting elsewhere at another time.
Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has called Israel “an insult to humankind”. It follows a week in which Israel has been carrying out an increasingly public debate about whether to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Some people have suggested that an attack is more likely to happen before America’s presidential election in November, because it would be harder for President Obama to stop it.
The world must “never forget” the terrorist attacks that killed Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics, David Cameron has said.
On the 40th anniversary of the attack, the Prime Minister led tributes to the 11 men who lost their lives on “one of the darkest days in the history of the Olympic Games”.
He said Britain understands the terrible impact of terrorism as the London 2012 Olympics were announced the day before the bombings on July 7, 2005.
Read it all and then please take the time to read the whole speech.
Last week the EU rejected Israel’s request to declare Hezbollah a terrorist organisation. The recent attack in Bulgaria, in which five Israeli tourists were killed and 30 others wounded, and the concern that Syria may provide Hezbollah with chemical weapons, added urgency to Israel’s request. Nonetheless, Europe, which is vulnerable to terrorism on its own soil, refused the request, in part on the grounds that Hezbollah is also a political party.
Hezbollah does indeed play on both fields: it is a terrorist organisation operated by Iran and a Lebanese political party. But the EU’s stance, whereby political activity is regarded as sound defence against being declared a terrorist organisation provides legitimacy to terrorism, encourages violence, and fatally harms moderates.
Europe, the cradle of democracy, should have stated unequivocally: one cannot be involved in terrorism and enjoy the legitimacy of a political party….
Read it all (requires subscription).
Two small portable shrines are giving Bible scholars new clues about Israelite religious practices during the time of David and Solomon. They also indicate a pendulum swing in the world of biblical archaeology.
Presbyterians in favor of divestment said that their church could not in good conscience hold stock in companies that they said perpetuate an unjust occupation and undermine the search for peace between Israel and the Palestinians. But opponents said that divestment would unfairly vilify Israel, and accomplish little but further polarization.
Arthur Shippee, a delegate from southern New England, said: “What divestment will achieve is this: We will add a whisper soon lost in the storm, but we will further the divisions in our church when we have our own serious problems to address, and we will precipitate divisions with the synagogues within our communities whom we work with frequently on a variety of issues. This will be perceived as picking on Israel, and how could it not?”
Speaking in favor of divestment and against the pro-investment resolution, Tim Simpson, a delegate from the Presbytery of St. Augustine in Jacksonville, Fla., said: “The Palestinians aren’t asking us for a check, sisters and brothers. The Palestinians are asking us for justice. They’re asking us for dignity. How can you write a check to a people who don’t control their own water?”
I am delighted to announce the appointment of The Reverend Canon Hosam Elias Naoum as the new Dean of the Cathedral Church of Saint George the Martyr in Jerusalem.
Canon Naoum, 38, has served as the Canon Pastor of the Cathedral since 2005, and was the Acting Dean for three years (2007-2009). As Dean, Canon Naoum will continue to serve as Pastor to the Arabic and English-Speaking Congregations at the Cathedral. He did his first theological training at the College of the Transfiguration and Rhodes University in Grahamstown, South Africa, and a Master of Theology degree in Canon Law (MTS) at the Virginia Theological Seminary (VTS), Alexandria, Virginia in the USA.
The IDF has issued emergency call up orders to six reserve battalions in light of new dangers on the Egyptian and Syrian borders. And the Knesset has given the IDF permission to summon a further 16 reserve battalions if necessary, Israeli media reported on Wednesday.
An IDF spokesperson said intelligence assessments called for the deployment of more soldiers.
Israel’s military chief said in an interview published Wednesday that he believes Iran will choose not to build a nuclear bomb, an assessment that contrasted with the gloomier statements of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and pointed to differences over the Iran issue at the top levels of Israeli leadership.
The comments by Maj. Gen Benny Gantz, who said international sanctions have begun to show results, could relieve pressure on the Obama administration and undercut efforts by Israeli political leaders to urge the United States to get as tough as possible on Iran.
T he discovery this week of a massive light crude oil field in southern Iran adds another layer of complexity to one of the world’s most acute problems. Iran and Israel appear to be heading for war unless something unexpected happens and this week’s discovery will only strengthen the resolve and confidence of Tehran.
For many Australians the name Iran conjures images of bearded and severe Ayatollahs and a wide-eyed President Ahmadinejad occupying the no-man’s land between sanity and fanaticism. We see a persistent stream of refugees who seem to validate the assumption they must be fleeing a toxic regime. Since this country could easily become the biggest, cataclysmic news story of the year, it is worth spending a few minutes trying to understand its pathology….