Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on January 2, 2022

30 December 2021 Last night, Palestine received its largest COVAX shipment to date, containing more than 453 600 doses of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine, funded by the Governments of Germany and Italy. The vaccine doses were transferred to the Ministry of Healths vaccine storage facilities in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Further consignments of COVAX vaccine doses are planned for Palestine to cover 20% of the population approximately 1 million people. These doses are for both the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, according to the prioritization criteria of the national deployment and vaccination plan.

COVAX is a global facility representing partnership between the World Health Organization (WHO), GAVI - the Vaccine Alliance, United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) working on the equitable distribution of COVID-19 vaccines. It includes 190 countries with a total population of more than 7 billion people and ensures fair and equal access to COVID-19 vaccines supplied through UNICEF. WHO and UNICEF are supporting the Government of Palestines national vaccination campaign.

For more information:

Damian RanceChief of CommunicationsUNICEF Palestinedrance@unicef.org

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Palestine receives its largest COVAX shipment, funded by the Governments of Germany and Italy - occupied Palestinian territory - ReliefWeb

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Posted By admin on January 2, 2022

Editors Note: We took a look at the stories that made the news in 2021 and narrowed down our picks for the Top 10 to include stories that captured the most attention or affected the most readers throughout the year.

We invite you to follow along with the news of the day in 2022 through our print and digital outlets: The printed edition of the Palestine Herald Press; our web presence at palestineherald.com; our Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/palestineheraldpress; and our Twitter feed, found @PalestineHerald.

Best wishes for a happy and successful 2022 from the staff and management of the Herald Press.

Now, in the order, our picks for the Top 10 Local Stories of 2021:

1. Winter storm Uri ravages Texas, shuts down power grids

A winter storm dropping snow and ice also sent temperatures plunging across the southern plains Feb. 13 through Feb. 17, 2021, prompting a power emergency in Texas a day after conditions canceled flights and impacted traffic across large swaths of the United States.

Rotating power outages were initiated by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, meaning hundreds of thousands went without electricity as temperatures fell into the teens near Dallas and 20s around Houston.

Palestine and Anderson County residents had no idea the harsh realities they would endure throughout the week of Sunday, Feb. 14 through Friday, Feb. 19.

Frozen roads and problems with no electricity or water were issues throughout the county.

Many travelers were stranded in local hotels with limited resources, however, local residents and business owners did their best to help make them comfortable, providing food and meals when they could.

Locally, the storm not only kept residents in the cold and dark, it also wreaked havoc on Palestine water system. Initially, officials thought the problem was two fold, the gauges that show how much water is stored in the city tanks froze up, making it seem there was more water available than there actually was, and the feeder lines for the chemicals that treat the incoming water, stored inside the treatment plant, also froze.

Once the lines thawed, and the plant was operational, city water crews realized there was a power outage to the system that signals the river to send water to Palestine.

2. COVID-19, the continuation

Anderson County Judge Robert Johnston responded to the onset of COVID early in the year by working with the hospital and other stakeholders in procuring and administering hundreds of vaccines to the citizens of the county.

As vaccines became available to the masses in early 2021, and the economy slowly began to recover from the Alpha variant of COVID, the community was hit hard with the Delta variant. Palestine Regional Medical Center was overwhelmed with COVID cases, working at capacity with no available beds in its ICU. Patients that need to be in ICU are on hold in the emergency room and the hospital is still on diversion for outside transfers.

To help alleviate the strain on local hospitals, Johnston facilitated the opening of COVID-19 infusion center and a rapid testing center in the Anderson County Civic Center.

Both centers were staffed with volunteers. The infusion center was also staffed by Dr. Brandy Ricard-Watson, the Anderson County Health Advisor, retired nurses, Dr. Carolyn Salter and nine students from Liberty Medical School who are on rotation with PRMC.

During the time the center was in operation, 1,005 people were tested for COVID and 583 people were infused with the monoclonal antibodies.

Our local COVID numbers have fluctuated throughout the year but dropped off tremendously in the late fall. Those numbers began to climb again just after Christmas as the Omicron variant made it to Texas.

Judge Michael Davis listens to arguments regarding Union Pacific's agreement with the city of Palestine

3. Union Pacific jobs must stay

Union Pacific Railroad met with Palestine staff April 15 and told them they have 60 days until the Palestine car facility closes. Union Pacific said in a statement it has been accelerating its continuous improvement plan and implementing Precision Scheduled Railroading principles undertaking operational changes across its system. One of those operational changes is the closing of its main car repair facility in Palestine. The closure of the Palestine car repair facility would result in the abolishment of as many as 57 positions.

In June, the city of Palestine and Anderson County met Union Pacific in the 369th District Court in Cherokee County, presided over by Judge Michael Davis, in ongoing litigation with regard to the 1955 judgment between the parties. Union Pacific was found by the court to be out of compliance with the 1955 judgment requiring UP to provide employment numbers and payroll reports on a monthly basis to the city. UP had been out of compliance with this since December 2020.

In July, Davis ordered Union Pacific Railroad to stick to the 1955 judgment with the city of Palestine. Davis said he would strictly interpret the 1955 judgment as it was written. Davis said he would revisit the case if proper pleadings are filed in the future.

In a separate ongoing lawsuit, Union Pacific alleges that the Interstate Commerce Commission Termination Act of 1995 preempts the 1872 Agreement between the company and the city of Palestine/Anderson County and asked the court to void its obligations to Palestine to maintain a facility here and a percentage of employees at that facility.

Left to right: Mayor Dana Goolsby, Interim City Manager Teresa Herrera and John Christon, Palestine Mall Redevelopment, LLC

4. SOLD! Redevelopment plans coming for Palestine mall

The city of Palestine finalized the sale of the mall to the Christon Company.

The Christon Company got the 206,259 square foot shopping center, located at 2000 S. Loop 256, for the bargain price of $1.5 million, which pays off what the city owes on the building and gets it back on the tax rolls.

The mall was built in 1980 and renovated in 1991. The city purchased the mall in 2009 for $3.5 million.

The Christon Company has been interested in the mall since 2015 and has big plans for redevelopment of the property. Those plans include attracting national brands.

Current tenants include Aarons, Burkes Outlet, the Palestine City Library, the V.A. Clinic, Texas Workforce Office and Trinity Valley Community College.

5. Neches ISD principal indicted, arrested

Former elementary principal at Neches Independent School District, Kimberlyn Snider was indicted by the grand jury on charges of tampering/fabricating physical evidence with intent to impair, a third degree felony and five counts of official oppression in January. Snider turned herself into the Anderson County Sheriff's Office Feb. 2.

Despite the indictment and subsequent arrest, the Neches Board of Trustees voted Feb. 22 to extend Sniders contract, after her husband, Superintendent Randy Snider decided to retain his wife as elementary principal.

The Neches Independent School District accepted the retirement letter of Randy Snider as superintendent May 17. Sniders retirement was effective June 30.

Kimberlyn was eventually put on administrative leave by the school district.

She was in court on Aug. 27 for a pre-trial hearing. During the hearing District Court Judge Deborah Oaks Evans set the trial announcement for Dec. 16 and the trial for January 10, 2022. Snider has pled not guilty to all charges.

Snider is also currently under review by the Texas Education Agency.

The TEA reported there were 33 complaints against her since Jan. 1, 2021 and that shes under review by the agencys Educator Investigation Division. The TEAs review of Snider remains ongoing.

Employees with the city of Palestine raised $10, 314 in around three hours with a barbecue fundraiser for the family of a fellow employee, Dustin Rodgers, who was shot and killed Saturday, March 20. Dustin Rodgers, 28, a mechanic with the city of Palestine, was well liked by his fellow staff members. Pictured from left, Dustins mother, Lisa Rodgers, his wife, Kayla Rodgers holding their youngest child and Patsy Smith, City Parks and Recreation Director. For those who couldnt make it, but would like to help the family can make donations through a GoFund Me account at http://www.gofundme.com/f/dustin-rodgers-family.

6. Elkhart man killed, child injured in shooting

In March, Dustin Rodgers, 28, of Elkhart was killed and his son, 6, injured in a shooting in Palestine.

The Palestine Police Department responded to reports of a shooting around Spring and Magnolia Streets where they found a truck stopped in the road. Rodgers was shot in the torso and his son suffered a gunshot wound to the foot. Rodgers wife and daughter were also in the vehicle, but were uninjured. Rodgers and his son were taken to Palestine Regional Medical Center where Rodgers passed away from his injuries and his son was treated and released.

Based on witness statements, the gunfire came from another vehicle also traveling on Spring Street. According to police, the circumstances leading up to the shooting are unknown.

Rodgers, 28, a mechanic with the city of Palestine, was well liked by his fellow staff members.

Later in the month of March, employees with the city of Palestine raised $10, 314 with a barbecue fundraiser for the family of Rodgers.

The Palestine Police Department has issued no new updates on this case and no arrests have been made.

Republican candidate for Anderson County Sheriff, Rudy Flores

7. Theres a new sheriff in town

At midnight on New Year's Eve 2021, Anderson County ushered in a new year and welcomed new sheriff Rudy Flores.

Surrounded by family and friends, Flores was sworn into office by the Honorable Michael Davis, judge of the 369th Judicial District Court. Afterwards, Flores swore in his new leadership team, made up of his new Chief Deputy Nick Webb and three captains.

This was Flores first bid for public office.

8. Museum for East Texas Culture tops discussion in city council

The Museum of East Texas Culture, currently closed, was a big topic of conversation during the Palestine City Council meetings this year.

The Reagan Building, home of the Museum of East Texas Culture, is owned by the city and they are responsible for that building. Through a study done by the city, when they were considering moving the library into the building with the museum, they were quoted a cost of $10 million for a complete renovation including Americans with Disabilities Act upgrades. ADA requirements include a reasonable and achievable plan in place by the owner and any lessee before it can be opened to the public. The city is in favor of allowing the museum to reopen, but there are some requirements that must be met first, including a lease and an ADA Compliance Plan.

An issue that complicated the situation was disagreements among museum board members and an attempt to form a new board. The city does not know which board to recognize and will have to wait to go forward with the museum, until the two entities can come to an agreement.

The new location for the Palestine Library will actually be one of its former locations--the Carnegie building on N. Queen St.

9. Palestine Library headed back to one of its former homes

The search for a new home for the Palestine Library began in July when the city council sold the mall and signed a one-year lease with the Christon Company, who purchased the Palestine Mall and gave them 12 months to relocate.

Surveys and studies to build a new library and to possibly rehabilitate the Reagan School building met dead ends when the costs were too exorbitant for the current city budget, however the cost to rehab Reagan School for the library is estimated at $10 million.

City Manager Teresa Herrera suggested the Carnegie building as an alternative for the library, at a cost of roughly $600,000 to rehab and make it ADA compliant. The Carnegie building, 502 N. Queen St., was a previous home of the library. Built in 1914, the Carnegie building will soon once again become home to the Palestine Library.

This solution will be a reduction of space for the library, but will allow for them to continue their programs and services.

Robert Roberson leaving courthouse on Wednesday afternoon, March 10.

10. Evidentiary hearing in death penalty case

After a two and a half year hiatus, the evidentiary hearing in the death penalty case of Robert Roberson was held in March in a hybrid of Zoom and in-person testimony at the Anderson County Courthouse.

Roberson was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death in 2003 in Anderson County for the death of Nikki Curtis, his two-year-old daughter.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals stayed his scheduled June 21, 2016 execution and sent Robersons case back to the trial court level to consider the merits of four distinct claims including a junk science claim.

An evidentiary hearing initially began in August 2018 but was placed on continuance Aug. 14, 2018 after District Clerk Teresia Coker found 15-year-old evidence, including Nikkis lost head CAT scans in the Anderson County Courthouse basement.

The evidentiary hearing took eight days and was a hybird of Zoom and in-person testimony at the Anderson County Courthouse.

Robersons legal team, lead by Gretchen Sween, called a total of six witnesses, including three experts, to the stand before resting after six days of testimony.

The attorneys and judge then each wrote Findings of Facts and conclusions of law and submitted them back to Court of Criminal Appeals. The CCA will review these finding and conclusions, which could take over a year, before a decision is rendered by the highest appeals court in Texas.

Roberson has long maintained he does not understand what happened to his daughter and he had no intent to harm her, or cause her death.

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Year in Review: Palestine Herald Press' Top 10 Stories of 2021 - Palestine Herald Press

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Posted By admin on January 2, 2022

The City of Palestine has announced closings for the upcoming New Year's Holiday.

The following city offices and facilities will be closed Friday, Dec. 31 and will resume normal business hours at 8 a.m. Monday, Jan. 3.

City Hall, which includes Customer Service, Municipal Court, Finance, Development Services, Public Works, Utilities, City Managers Office, Police Administration, Fire Administration, City Secretary, Human Resources, Streets, and Emergency Management Office

Palestine Economic Development and Main Street Offices

Palestine Parks and Recreation Offices

Palestine Visitor Center

The Palestine Library will be open 12 p.m. to 6 p.m. Thursday and will be closed Friday. Materials may be returned in the exterior book drop 24/7.

The following is scheduled for Public Works:

City garbage will not be affected and will run as scheduled.

The Compost Site on Spring Street will be open 7:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Dec. 29 and closed on Saturday, Jan. 1. The site will reopen on Wednesday, Jan. 5 for regular scheduled hours of 7:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.

To report after-hours and holiday water/sewer/road issues that require immediate attention, please contact City Hall at 903-729-2254, and press 0 for immediate assistance.

Residents are asked to dial 911 for emergency issues.

For questions or additional information, you may contact the City of Palestine/Police

Department PIO at 903-731-8418 or by email at mherbert@palestine-tx.org.

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City of Palestine Announces Closings for the New Year's Holiday - Palestine Herald Press

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Posted By admin on January 2, 2022

Palestinian Authority television broadcast live in December a young girl calling to banish the scoundrels from my land and liberate it from the Jews, in footage translated this week by the by Middle East Media Research Institute.

During a December 28 broadcast on Palestine TV of a ceremony held in honor of Fatahs 57th anniversary, a young girl at a primary school in Jenin read out a poem asking God to banish the Jews from the region.

Jerusalem is lost. It was sold to the plunderers by our greatest enemies. Oh Lord take them to hell and gather them with sinners like Abu Lahab and save us, the girl said, referring to Muhammads half paternal uncle, who opposed the Muslim prophet during Islams formative years.

Oh Lord, support the Muslims and return them to their lands, where they lived blissfully, she said. Banish the scoundrels from my land and liberate it from the Jews and from those who slayed the prophets. Thank you!

Israel has repeatedly denounced what it deems to be incitement to terror and hate speech in Palestinian textbooks and media. American and European legislators have also held hearings on the matter.

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The Palestinian Authority says that its media and curricula content reflect the national narrative and do not constitute hate speech.

We have to explain and justify what appears in our curriculum, which reflects our narrative and national identity, while no one is demanding to review the Israeli curriculum and media, PA President Mahmoud Abbas told the United Nations General Assembly in September.

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On official Palestinian TV, young girl calls to liberate the land from Jews - The Times of Israel

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Posted By admin on January 2, 2022

Palestinian artist Mohammed Tutah. (Photo: Mahmoud Ajjour, The Palestine Chronicle)

By Mahmoud Ajjour - Gaza

Mohammed Tutah lost his leg when an Israeli missile fell on his house in the Zaytoun neighborhood, east of Gaza City on December 29, 2008.

Several members of his family were killed on that day. Tutah survived, but only to live with a permanent disability. At the time, he was only 19 years old.

Since then, this young Palestinian artist has fought for a permit to leave the besieged Gaza Strip. His desire to leave Gaza was not merely in search of freedom but to find a way to receive a prosthetic implant for his right leg.

For many years, Tutah has been sending messages to the world through his art, mostly on the Gaza beach. This year, he used the anniversary of his injury to send a message of steadfastness from Gaza.

Tutah told The Palestine Chronicle that under no circumstance he would ever give up. In fact, he said that he is getting ready to achieve a very large sculpture so that he may enter into the Guinness Book of Records and represent Palestine in international art competitions.

On behalf of Mohammed Tutah and all Palestinian artists, The Palestine Chronicle wishes its readers, and the world, a prosperous, productive and a just new year.

(All Photos: Mahmoud Ajjour, The Palestine Chronicle)

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Hope Through Art: Happy New Year from Mohammed Tutah (PHOTOS) - Palestine Chronicle

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Posted By admin on January 2, 2022

Again in 2021, the United Nations General Assemblyoverwhelmingly passed 14 resolutionsaimed at criticizing Israel (and supporting the Palestinians). On every resolution, only a handful of countries (among them the USA, Canada, and a sprinkle of small Pacific island nations) stood with Israel. Some others abstained.

The assembly debates the SAME (or nearly the same) motions every year, and all of them denounce Israel's repeated violations of U.N. General Assembly resolutions.

Example:

Since the creation of the State of Israel in 1948, the U.N. General Assembly has passed more resolutions criticizing Israel than ALL OTHER STATES COMBINED!!

WHY??

For Palestinian activists and human rights supporters around the world, the answer is obvious.

Israeli human rights abuses of Palestinians are flagrant and well documented.

Reports from a wide range of organizations including the U.N., the International Court of Justice, B'Tselem, Human Rights Watch, and Amnesty International, leave no doubt that Israel's actions deserve condemnation. Repeated reports from the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories have highlighted abuses in the West Bank, in Jerusalem, and in Gaza. Even Israeli organizations like the Association for Human Rights in Israel (ACRI) and Breaking the Silence are critical of Israeli actions. So it's not surprising that the U.N. is vocal in its condemnation.

Israel's defenders are indignant. "Why so much focus on Israel when there are many other countries in the Middle East and elsewhere whose human rights abuses are at least as bad as those in the West Bank?", they ask. "Surely Saudi Arabia's public floggings and beheadings, Egypt's feared prisons, and Jordan's secret police deserve as much criticism as Israel."

Furthermore, point out Israel's supporters, many of the countries voting against Israel are themselves serial human rights offenders. So why the double standard?

The underlying suspicion of course, sometimes stated, sometimes only hinted at, is that the U.N. applies a double standard, perhaps revealing an underlying antisemitism.

(U.N. resolution in December 2021 on UNRWA. All of Israel's new "Abraham Accord" partners voted to support UNRWA over Israeli objections. Only four countries supported Israel. Source: U.N. Watch)

Yet there are reasons for the special focus. Let's explore them.

There are 193 member states in the United Nations. Three quarters of them were still colonies in 1947 when the decision was made to give part of Palestine to European Jewish refugees to form a state of their own. The Global South does not feel any responsibility for the Holocaust, nor does it share the European guilt. The U.N. General Assembly is the biggest forum where the Global South gets to present its anti-colonial case to the world. It sees Israel as a prime case of European colonialism and feels justified in opposing it.

As the U.N. General Assembly stated a year ago:

"The United Nations has a permanent responsibility towards the question of Palestine until the question is resolved in all its aspects in a satisfactory manner in accordance with international legitimacy."

Israel has a unique relationship to the United Nations. U.N. General Assembly resolution 181 of 1947 proposed carving a new Jewish state out of historic Palestine. It was passed 33-13, with 10 abstentions. Israel quickly embraced U.N. resolution 181. Its own Declaration of Independence cites U.N. 181 as recognition of its right to exist.

While "awarding" 55% of historic Palestine to the new Jewish State, resolution 181 also included provisions for the protection of minorities inside each of the two new states. These included:

But it rapidly became clear to the international community that Zionist forces had no intention of respecting many of the U.N.'s provisions. In fact, by its Independence Day on May 14, 1948, Zionist militias had already seized more land than had been allotted under the U.N. plan and had driven out over 350,000 Palestinians.

The U.N. General Assembly responded by voting through another resolution (194) in December 1948 affirming that those refugees have the right to return and to compensation. (Thevote was 35-15with 8 abstentions.)

When Israel sought membership in the U.N. a few months later, it promised to respect all relevant U.N. resolutions. The U.N. was divided on whether Israel should in fact be admitted, but U.S. and European domination of the U.N. awarded Israel U.N. membership.

But while Israel adopted the part of the U.N. proposal giving it a Jewish state, Israel defied the U.N. proposal in that it:

As former General Secretary Kofi Annan said in remarks after leaving the U.N. in 2006, Israel's defiance of U.N. provisions is a painful and festering sore for the U.N.

"The failure to achieve an Arab-Israeli peace remains for the U.N. a deep internal wound as old as the organization itself, [] a painful and festering sore consequently felt in almost every intergovernmental organ and Secretariat body."

"No other issue carries such a powerful symbolic and emotional charge affecting people far from the zone of conflict."

Kofi Annan,Interventions(2011), p. 254

The repeated UNGA votes condemning Israel and supporting the Palestinians are not based on the claim that Israel is the worst abuser of human rights in the world. There are others that are just as bad or perhaps worse.

Nor is it because the whole world is antisemitic. Many of the countries which vote to support Palestinian rights have never had any significant Jewish communities.

The fundamental reason is that Israel, a U.N. member, continues to ignore the commitments it made to the U.N. when it was admitted in 1949 and repeated U.N. warnings about the occupation of 1967.

But there is also a significant element of political posturing. The annual spate of U.N. resolutions on "The Question of Palestine"gives the Global South a forum for brandishing their opposition to the effects of European colonialism. Even some rather reactionary regimes, like Saudi Arabia and the other Abrahamic Accord states, voted to support the Palestinians in the UNGA resolutions.

Politics is often a mixture of principle and posturing. But if Israel continues to ignore U.N. resolutions, it can expect mounting frustration in the international community and a continuation of world criticism every year at the UNGA.

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Opinion | Here's Why the UN General Assembly Criticizes Israel More Than All Other States Combined - Common Dreams

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Posted By admin on January 2, 2022

The practice of gematria, or the spiritual interpretation of numbers, is onetechnique for understanding sacred texts.

The followingnumbers are consideredsymbolic and/or sacred in Judaism:

One indicates unity, divinity, and wholeness, as exemplified by God.

Three signifies completeness and stability, as represented by the three Patriarchs and the three pilgrimage festivals Passover, Shavuot, and Sukkot (I Kings 17:21; Daniel 6:10).

This is a number cluster that signals the fulfillment of Gods plans (Amos 1; Daniel 7:25).

Four is a recurrent number in both exoteric and esoteric Jewish traditions. The Passover Seder is particularly structured around fours: the Four Questions, the Four Sons, and four cups of wine. There are four cardinal directions and there are four Matriarchs. Four is also a common factor in esoteric interpretations: four angels surround the Throne of Glory, there are four kingdoms of the eschaton, and the famous four Sages who enter Paradise.

There are five books of Moses and five divisions to the Psalms. Magical/mystical texts are also sometimes separated into divisions of five. Five is the number of protection, as symbolized in the hamsa, the talismanic hand.

Seven is one of the greatest power numbers in Judaism, representing Creation, good fortune, and blessing. A Hebrew word for luck, gad, equals seven in gematria. Another Hebrew word for luck, mazal, equals 77.

The Bible is replete with things grouped in sevens. Besides the Creation and the exalted status of the Sabbath, the seventh day, there are seven laws of Noah and seven Patriarchs and Matriarchs. Several Jewish holidays are seven days long, and priestly ordination takes seven days. The Land of Israel was allowed to lie fallow one year in seven. The menorah in the Temple has seven branches. The prophet Zechariah describes a strange celestial stone with seven eyes (Chapter 4).

This emphasis on seven continues post-biblically with seven wedding blessings, seven circuits performed about a groom, and seven days of mourning after the death of a close relative.

Events, prayers,and esoteric observances that involve multiples of seven are also common. Entities both natural (gold) and supernatural (angels) are often grouped by sevens (I Enoch 20; II Enoch 19). Seven is a factor in many occult elements and events.

The first verse of the Torah consists of seven words and seven is the recurrent number in Pharaohs divinatory dreams in Genesis. The walls of Jericho fall after the Israelites encircle it seven times. In the Zohar, the seven lower sefirot are those aspects of God that are present in asiyah, our world of action. Seven is also the preferred number in spells, magic squares, amulets, and the like (Genesis 7:2; I Kings 18:43; Deuteronomy 16:9; Pesahim 54a; Sotah 10b).

Eight is the number of completion. The Tabernacle was dedicated in an eight-day ceremony. Male children are circumcised on the eighth day (Genesis 17). Hanukkah is an eight-day holiday.

Ten is a symbol of good luck and power: there are 10 commandments. God requires 10 righteous individuals in Sodom to avert divine punishment, and 10 men constitute a traditional minyan, a spiritual community (Genesis 18, 24:10;Exodus 26:1; Daniel 7:7-24).

Twelve represents totality, wholeness, and the completion of Gods purpose. There are 12 tribes of Israel (10 of which must be restored), 12 months in the year, and 12 houses of the zodiac (Genesis 27:20, 25:16; Exodus 24:4, 25:27; Ezekiel 43:16;Yoma 75b, 77b; Taanit 25a; Hullin 95).

Eighteen is the value of the Hebrew letters chetand yod, which together spell the word chai, life. For this reason, 18 is considered the luckiest number. God is mentioned 18 times in both Psalm 29 and the Song of the Sea (Exodus 15:1-21), giving these verses special protective power.

The number 24 symbolizes abundance. At its prime, Jerusalem once had 24 dream interpreters you could consult, 24 main thoroughfares with 24 side streets leading to 24 alleys each containing 24 houses (Lamentations Rabbah I).

According to Sefer Yetzirah, 32 is the number of the wonderful ways of wisdom, the number of organizing principles that underlie the universe. These are the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet plus the decimal numbers that form the basis for the sefirotic tree.

Forty appears many times in the Bible, usually designating a time of radical transition or transformation. Among the most famous examples are these: It rained for 40 days and 40 nights during the Flood (Genesis 7). Exodus records that Moses spent 40 days on Mount Sinai with God. Forty is the number of years the Israelites were required to wander in the wilderness until they were allowed to enter Canaan. Corporeal punishment in the Torah involved 40 lashes. Elijah fasted for 40 days prior to receiving his revelation on Mount Horeb. Multiples of 40 are also common: 40,000 men rallied to Barak in the book of Judges.

The Talmud also reports wondrous phenomena occurring in units of 40. It also appears in mystical texts, usually as an element of purification. Thus the Book of the Great Name advises its readers to abstain from sleeping in ones own bed for 40 days and nights after using the book, mimicking the time Moses spent away from camp while he received the Ten Commandments (Genesis 7; Exodus 24; I Samuel 17:16; I Kings 19:8; Gittin 39b, 40a; Sotah 34a).

This number symbolizes the world. There are 70 nations in the world, 70 languages, and 70 princely angels. The Greek translation of the Bible, the first to make it available to the gentile, was done by 70 Jewish scholars, who, though working separately, produced 70 identical translations.

Finally, it is important to note that odd numbers are considered lucky; even numbers (especially pairs) are considered bad luck.

Reprinted with permission from the The Encyclopedia of Jewish Magic, Myth, and Mysticism (LlewellynWorldwide).

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Judaism and Numbers | My Jewish Learning

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Posted By admin on January 2, 2022

The two state-solution in Israel-Palestine is dead, and its erstwhile championsliberal Zionists and foreign diplomats, mainlyare clinging to an obsolete political program, leaving the field wide open to the Israeli right and far right to shape reality as they please.

These forces have already been shaping reality for a while, entrenching the military occupation and inextricably integrating the settlement enterprise in the occupied West Bank with the economy and society of Israel proper. Theres no way now to deconstruct the settlement project without sending cracks running throughout Israel within its pre-1967 borders. To this extent, the liberal Zionist vision of partition has been outmaneuvered and defeated by its opponents.

But liberal Zionism has also fallen victim to its own internal contradictions and double standards. Its cardinal flaw and original sin: convincing itself that the cataclysm of 1948, when Israels nation state was entrenched through widespread and systematic ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, can be sidestepped by tidying up one of its aftershocks, the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza in 1967, by creating a Palestinian state on a mere 22 percent of historic Palestines territory.

The Israeli right, meanwhile, has always insisted that the Palestinians fundamental contention was with the existence of Israel as established in 1948. While undoing 1948 is unthinkable and compromising merely on 1967 wouldnt solve the problem, successive right-wing governments opted to contain the consequences, doing their utmost to strengthen the Israeli presence and the militarys control between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.

Such governments have been in power in Israel from 1977 until today, with only minor interludes. The price of this kind of conflict management is there for all to seein more than five decades of harrowing headlines, photographs, and statistics. But worse may be to come: As the postwar liberal world order cracks at the seams and new bars for violence (Syria) and brazen expansionism (Crimea) are set, the tantalizing prospect of finishing the job begun in 1948 by means of formally annexing the occupied territories and expelling all or most of their Palestinian inhabitants is mesmerizing to many on the Israeli right.

Theres little doubt if former U.S. President Donald Trump had won a second term, annexation of at least part of the West Bank would have begun in earnest. Although talk of mass ethnic cleansing (in polite right-wing circles, the preferred Orwellian term is transfer) is still relegated to a relatively small minority of even todays hardened Israeli right, its all too easy to see the practice would be applied if Palestinians offered significant resistance.

The steadily worsening status quo can go one of two ways: either annexation with reduced rights for Palestiniansa formalized apartheidor a rapid descent into horrific violence on a scale not seen since 1967 or even 1948. The only path liberal Zionism has to offer, meanwhile, is a return to the Oslo process of the early 1990sin other words, time travel. If it is to survive, it urgently needs to offer a path forward.

This bleak (but all-too-convincing) reading of todays reality and the vivid (but less convincing) suggestion for a way forward bookend Omri Boehms Haifa Republic: A Democratic Future for Israelnamed after the city that, in Boehms mind, enjoys the kind of Palestinian-Jewish coexistence hed like to see across the land.

Assuming theres any future, or practical value, in resuscitating liberal Zionism after more than two decades of consistent electoral failure in Israel and increased polarization in diaspora communities, this is the most honest and ambitious liberal Zionist text to be published in decades.

It is certainly a world apart from the overrated 2014 opus by Ari Shavit, My Promised Land: The Triumph and Tragedy of Israel, which acknowledges the Nakba while actively endorsing its rewards. (If it wasnt for them, Shavit writes of Israeli troops who ordered and carried out massacres and expulsions, I would not have been born. They did the dirty, filthy work that enables my people, myself, my daughter, and my sons to live.).

But despite Boehms best efforts, the policy proposal he presents is a model that disintegrates as soon as one peels away the buzz of spending a day in Haifas pleasantly bilingual city center.

Before getting to Haifa, however, Boehm revisits Oslonot the city but the abortive two-state process of the 1990s, which still frames how many observers view the conflict today. The opening chapters elegantly and swiftly dispense with this tainted prism.

The list of things Boehm gets right is long: He is correct that the two-state solution is well and truly dead and that mass ethnic cleansing is metastasizing from a fever dream to a tangible possibility. He is entirely correct that the peace camp elevated one particular approachtwo statesto a kind of religion and has undermined itself by superstitiously refusing to explore any other resolution, even as the feasibility of the two-state plan withers away.

He is correct that the foundational traumas of both communitiesthe Holocaust and the Nakbaneed to be confronted by Palestinians and Israelis, respectively, not because the two events are symmetrical or identical but because the trauma they engendered in each community is too fundamental to keep stoking, whether deliberately or by ignorance.

He is correct that to make a binational arrangement palatable to Israelis, it would need to be plausibly Zionist in some shape or form, and what would today be recognized as binationalism has a long history in Zionist thought, from Theodor Herzl himself all the way to Menachem Begin, the first revisionist Zionist prime minister and the progenitor of the Israeli right we know todaywho suggested offering Palestinians full citizenship as late as 1980.

Boehm overstates the present-day importance of these roads not taken and, in Begins case, the good faith they were entertained in. But he is largely correct that making the same offer to Palestinians today would be a non-starter because Israel is now defined as the ethnic state of the Jewish people, not a Jewish nation state in the European sense. A Palestinian immigrant to Italy might become Italian, but even a Palestinian with an Israeli passport will never become part of the group for whom the state exists. (This has been made all the more explicit with the 2018 passage of the Jewish Nation-State Law, which openly prioritized one community over another, but in practice, this has always been the case.)

Indeed, as Boehm points out, many people who identify as Jewish are also excluded or discriminated against, beginning with children of mixed marriages and those who convert to Judaism through any avenue other than Orthodox.

The books real troubles commence when Boehm starts to grasp for a solutionbeginning with the rather limited parameters he sets. Without much explanation or consideration of alternatives, he appears to take for granted that liberal Zionism and liberal democracy are each desirable in their own right and should be reconciled. Much of the book is preoccupied with saving liberal Zionism from itself (by offering it a vision compatible with its values and transcending the expired two-state solution) and rescuing liberal democracy from nationalism by creating two overlapping liberal, one-person, one-vote democracies entwined in a confederation.

Unfortunately, the book does not ask if, perhaps, liberal Zionism is such a spent force that it now only has an auxiliary role to play, with the actual compromising and state-building more likely to be carried on by each communitys nationalist advocates, or if, indeed, the ideal of liberal democracy is remotely up to the task of transforming a convoluted ethnonationalist conflictespecially with pragmatic alternatives like consociational power-sharing yet to be seriously explored.

In the service of this project helike others before himsummons the ghosts of binationalists, especially of the pre-state era, from Ahad Haam and Martin Buber to Zeev Jabotinsky and David Ben-Gurion in their earlier years. Boehm spends some time asserting this Zionism of yore, with its express preference for Jewish self-determination over exclusive Jewish sovereignty, is somehow the true form of Zionism while everything that followed is a regrettable andsomehowreversible deviation. But he spends no time at all explaining why any Israeli today would care about Ahad Haam or pre-premiership Ben-Gurionor indeed choose the Zionism that failed to materialize over the one that triumphed and has shaped the only Israel they have ever known.

There are two more important omissions in the book, both glaring and alarming. The first is a serious exploration of who the communities entangled in the conflict actually are, and what they actually desire. Rather than the monolithic question of what (dwindling) percentage of each community supports a two-state solution, Boehm omits how the different subgroups that compose the two national communities are invested in the various aspects and mechanisms of the status quomaterially, politically, culturally, and even emotionallyas well as how each of those needs can be engaged to forestall further segregation or ethnic cleansing.

In fact, apart from an examination of Palestinian politician and Israeli parliamentarian Ahmad Tibis admittedly landmark speech acknowledging the trauma of the Holocaust, Palestinian voices are entirely absent from the book. Granted, the books subtitle is A Democratic Future for Israel, but this hardly lends gravitas to Boehms consideration of a shared future, certainly a future shared among equals. And there is no exploration of how to win over, or even defeat, the players Boehm identifies as spoilers, be they Palestinian militants or Israeli ultra-nationaliststhe groups that managed to derail the peace process even before they seized power across most of the territory between the river and the sea.

The arrangement Boehm desires will need to be negotiated, it seems, between center-left leaders of a resurgent liberal Zionist camp and something like the Palestine Liberation Organizationin other words, a parity not seen in Israel-Palestine since the 1990s. Ironic, considering Boehms castigation of todays liberal Zionists for clinging to a departed past.

A more serious flaw still is the failure to articulate a compelling reason for Israelis to entertain a departure from the status quo. Israel is currently more secure, more stable, and more prosperous than at any point in its history.

No standing army menaces its borders; Iran, by and large, is successfully contained; Gulf Arab leadership is rapidly abandoning the Palestinian cause altogether; and contrary to warnings that the world will not stand for an unending military occupation, no external pressure has yet been applied or even entertained by a meaningful player. (If anything, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad have successfully demonstrated that the international community wont be provoked into action by violations of international law even graver than Israels occupation, of which the Israeli right has duly taken note.)

Palestinian armed movements have been debilitated or wiped out, and even Hamass rocket arsenal is used to jostle for inches around the status quo, not as a strategic game-changer. Nonviolent Palestinian organizationsfrom Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbass Palestinian National Authority to the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movementhave not managed to put a dent in Israels comfortable hegemony. The same is true of Europe and the United States.

Boehm is asking for this hegemony to be given up but never articulates a way Israel can be coaxed or coerced to do so. The only motivation the book implies for Israelis to fix a machine that, for them, is already working perfectly appears to be a moral onea national crisis of conscience about present injustices or apprehension about worse injustices to come.

Israels ever-growing indifference to Palestinian lives suggests the likelihood of such a moral reckoning is slim. As for the latter, while Boehm is right that a second Nakba may be on the horizon, Israelis collectively recoiling at the prospect is not a given. The first generation of Israelis accepted the Nakba in real time, and then quietly buried it. The present generation exhumed it, inspected it in the light, and is in the processas Shavits book didof re-embedding it even in liberal national narratives as a somewhat regrettable but necessary evil.

Boehms own take on the Nakba is a significant improvement; he stresses the Israeli need to acknowledge the Nakba to defuse its immense emotional charge. But this utilitarian approachthe promise that once Israel duly acknowledges the Nakba and embeds it into the states national narrative, Palestinians can be persuaded to let gois not a call, or even a demand, any Israeli can make. Acknowledging the deed is a start; where to go from there depends, first and foremost (even if not exclusively) on the survivors. More than anywhere else in the book, this is where its unilateralism jars the most.

The book concludes with a back-of-the-napkin solution that, despite lending its title to the book, reads almost as an afterthought. Haifa is quickly sketched as a model of coexistence to aspire to, but little consideration is given to the fact that this coexistence is between a roughly 90 percent majority and a 10 percent minoritya vastly different power dynamic with far lower stakes for Jewish Israelis than the almost 50-50 parity in Israel-Palestine as a whole. Nor does it consider the fact that since 1948 and its expulsions, Haifa never had an Arab mayor and considerable socioeconomic gaps between the two populations (beyond a commendable but thin and fragile middle class) exist.

If one were to take Boehms analogy literally, its quite plausible Israel would tolerate a 10 percent Palestinian minority that can freely move anywhere, provided they are barred access to executive office. But thats barely worth founding a new republic for. Boehm caveats his idealized sketch of Haifa by acknowledging this cohabitation is far from equal; however, without a deeper exploration of what brought about this state of affairs, its political and historical importance is difficult to ascertain.

In fairness to Boehm, this is not at all what he is calling for. His pitch is a confederation of two local governments with separate parliaments ruling over members of their ethnic groups and territorial heartlands while allowing for complete freedom of movement across the space. Unlike groups such as A Land for All, which similarly argues for a confederation, Boehm doesnt grapple with the myriad logistical issues this brings up, from criminal law and taxation, to even loftier questionslike accountability for violence enacted during the conflict.

Theres no elaboration when it comes to why some institutions would need to be doubled (two parliaments) but others kept joint (the Supreme Court), and its unclear how a shared identitywhich he mentionsis supposed to emerge from a tangled model that segregates some of the most important arenas where political identities can be forged, such as the electoral process. He notes that many two-state scenarios are similarly vague, but demolishing the two-state program only to offer an equally half-baked solution is not a satisfyingor practicalconclusion.

Still, Boehms book is worth readingand lending to anyone who believes the two-state solution still lurks just around the corner. It is the most clear-eyed liberal Zionist text in many years, albeit not clear-eyed enough to admit itself a swan song. Perhaps unintentionally, it shows that achieving equality and national sovereignty while trying to straddle both ethnic nationalism and liberal democracy is a fools errand, however whimsically you rearrange the pieces on the board. But its not bold enough to change the game completely.

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The Two-State Solution Is Deadand Liberal Zionists Can't Save It - Foreign Policy

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Posted By admin on January 2, 2022

ROME Every year, certain storylines dominate news coverage of the Vatican. Some are largely positive, though many tend to be negative, such as the clerical abuse scandals that have been a strong contender for biggest Vatican story of the year for each of the last 20 years.

Reporters being basically pack animals, the inevitable effect of a few stories looking so large is that others tend to slip through the cracks. Thats not always a measure of their relative importance, but rather the judgments of news organizations about which stories are more likely to sell.

There were plenty of well-covered storylines out of the Eternal City this year, from the popes triumphant trip to Iraq in March to his colon surgery over the summer, as well as his highly controversial decision to largely suppress the old Latin Mass. (Given that a subsequent poll of American Catholics found two-thirds unaware Francis had even done anything on the Latin Mass, that development in particular is also a good example of how large numbers of people dont have to be invested in a story in order for it to make a lot of noise.)

At years end, its worth a look back at some of the other noteworthy Vatican stories of the year that never quite made the cut, generating some ripples but never a wave in the sea of todays 24/7 media coverage.

In the United States, Bishops Joseph Hart in Cheyenne and Nicholas DiMarzio of Brooklyn had become identified with the clerical abuse scandals, in part because both faced their own charges of abuse. Both, however, were cleared by the Vaticans Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Hart in January and Di Marzio in September.

The cases were different, in that Hart faced a dozen separate charges of abuse while DiMarzio was accused by two persons. In Harts case, there are seemed to be a history of dubious personal conduct that lent some credibility to the accusations.

In the end, the Vatican cleared Hart of seven of the accusations and found that the other five couldnt be proven, but nevertheless rebuked him publicly for what it called his flagrant lack of prudence in being alone with minors. In DiMarzios case, the congregation simply determined that the two accusations lacked the semblance of truth.

In any event, the Hart and DiMarzio cases were reminders in 2021 of an iron-clad law of journalism: When they indict you, itll be on the front page; when youre cleared, itll get kicked inside.

Granted, the bitter lesson of the abuse scandals has been that smoke means fire more often than not, and that every accusation must be taken seriously. Hart and DiMarzio are also reminders, however, that accusation is not the same thing as evidence, and that reality often is far messier and more complex than simplistic narratives would suggest.

In itself, the fact that American Monsignor Robert Oliver was let go as chief of staff for the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors in April was no big thing. Hed been in the Vatican for nine years, which is a long run, and his job is among the more frustrating and emotionally draining in the system.

Moreover, its not as if his departure signaled a retreat on the cause. His successor is British Father Andrew Small, an Oblate whos a former foreign policy advisor for the US Bishops and former National Director of the Pontifical Mission Societies. Small is smart, tenacious and on board with the need for reform.

What makes the Oliver ouster noteworthy isnt the what, but the how. Were talking about a kind, generous, and completely committed worker who gave almost a decade of his life in service to the Vatican. So, when they decided to cut him loose, did someone high up in the system pull him aside and thank him for a job well done? Did they maybe put together a small going-away party, giving him a papal medal or something?

Nope. Instead, Oliver discovered he was out from a blas news release, listing people whod been reappointed to the commission without his name on the list, issued while he was on a brief trip to the States.

In fairness, its not just Oliver thats how the Vatican treats most of its employees, which is why the place suffers from what Ive called an HR pandemic.

The only reason the Vatican hasnt imploded from chronic abuse and neglect of its most valuable assets, i.e., its workforce, is that for every Bob Oliver, theres an Andy Small another talented, dedicated person willing to answer the bell when the pope calls, no matter how dysfunctional the system may be.

Thats a wonderful thing, but, frankly, its no excuse.

If you dont even remember this happened during 2021, no need to feel bad, because it attracted almost no interest anywhere outside Israel. However, in August Pope Francis stirred controversy in the Jewish world for his comments on the Torah, meaning the Jewish law.

The law (Torah) does not give life, the pope said during a General Audience on August 11.

It does not offer the fulfilment of the promise because it is not capable of being able to fulfil it Those who seek life need to look to the promise and to its fulfilment in Christ.

For some veteran participants in Jewish-Catholic dialogue, such rhetoric smacked of supersessionism, a theological view which holds that Judaism is obsolete now and has been superseded by the Gospel of Christ. The Chief Rabbinate, which is the supreme rabbinic authority for Judaism in Israel, sent a letter of protest to the Vatican, asking for a clarification so that any derogatory conclusions drawn from this homily are clearly repudiated.

During a later General Audience in early September, Francis addressed the controversy, saying his comments had been simply a catechesis and nothing else. The suggestion was, he didnt intend to declare infallible teaching on Judaism or any other subject, so, really, nothing to see here.

In the meantime, Franciss top deputy for Jewish/Catholic relations, Swiss Cardinal Kurt Koch, sent a letter to the rabbis containing a quote from Francis in 2015: The Christian confessions find their unity in Christ; Judaism finds its unity in the Torah. Later, Francis also appeared to try to make amends, issuing greetings for Rosh Hashanah in which he prayed the new year be good for those who walk faithfully in the law of the Lord.

This story is a reminder of how narratives control the way popes are seen. Francis is seen as a liberal reformer who favors inter-faith dialogue, so any development suggesting disrespect on his part is played down or ignored. Just imagine, though, what the public reaction might have been had Pope Benedict XVI said exactly the same thing, and youll appreciate the point.

In many respects, the Catholic Church is where logic goes to die, and Pope Franciss crackdown on lay movements in June is a good example of the point. In most respects you might think Francis would be a let a thousand flowers bloom kind of guy, and especially favorable to lay initiatives that challenge the clerical grip on power.

Further, Francis is also highly enamored of one of these movements, the Community of SantEgidio, which is his go-to option for a wide range of matters, including taking care of the refugees he periodically brings back to Rome.

Yet no pope in recent memory has been tougher on the lay movements than Francis, as his June decree illustrates. In effect, it imposed term limits for the leaders of these movements, whose founders heretofore tended to run the show for life, and also ordered the movements to ensure that all members have a voice in choosing leaders.

In part, the move was simply a response to the fact that, over the years, the Vatican has fielded countless complaints from current and former members of these groups, usually centering on abuses of power by leadership. Ensuring turnover and a democratic method of succession is, therefore, a natural administrative response.

Beyond that, many observers believe the lay movements are also the next frontier in the Churchs abuse scandals that dioceses, seminaries and religious orders have largely cleaned up their acts by now, but these semi-autonomous lay organizations, with only nebulous oversight by church authorities, remain a potential mine field.

In any event, this was an important display of papal power with potentially far-reaching consequences, which didnt really light up the scoreboard in terms of American news coverage because the movements are a much bigger deal in other parts of the Catholic world.

When Vatican prosecutors decided over the summer to indict a sitting cardinal and former papal chief of staff as part of their investigation of a London land deal gone wrong, it ensured the subsequent trial would become a cause clbre, drawing intense interest. They may regret that decision now, since their trial of the century seems as if it might collapse under its own weight, but anyway, people are still paying attention.

In the meantime, the other big Vatican trial of the year sort of flew under radar the case pivoting on the Preseminary of St. Pius X, until recently located on Vatican grounds, and featuring charges that one minor seminarian had sexually abused another.

Father Gabrielle Martinelli, whos now 28, was accused of having sexually abused a slightly younger pre-seminarian, identified only as L.G., between 2007 and 2012, at a time when both were still minors. (Martinelli entered the pre-seminary in 2005 and remained there until 2013.) Also charged was Father Enrico Radice, the rector of the facility at the time the alleged abuse occurred, and who was accused of hampering the investigation what, in American parlance, would be known as obstruction of justice.

In part, many reporters may have decided to take a pass on this story because it was just so complicated.

For one thing, when its one minor allegedly abusing another, its not as clear-cut as when an adult is the alleged perpetrator. For another, L.G. appeared to give shifting accounts of events, raising issues of credibility. To muddy the waters even further, there were apparently deep tensions among the pre-seminarians over the Latin Mass, with Martinelli belonging to one camp (upholding the post-Vatican II Mass) and his accuser to the other (favoring the older rite), and it was impossible to know to what extent those rivalries may have exacerbated things.

In the end, both Martinelli and Radice were acquitted. The court accepted that Martinelli had a sexual relationship with another pre-seminarian, in addition to his accuser, but found no evidence that second relationship was coercive.

Heres why the trial was a big deal.

A key point that emerged during the trial was that nobody really knew who was in charge of the pre-seminary. It had been founded by an Italian religious order, the Opera Don Folci, and was sponsored by the Italian Diocese of Como. Yet because it was located on Vatican grounds, most people tended to assume it was overseen by the Archpriest of St. Peters Basilica, or, maybe, the Government of the Vatican City State.

In reality, it was a classic case of when everybodys in charge, no one is. As a result, the pre-seminary operated in a kind of oversight vacuum, in which nobody was minding the store.

Think about the timing: The alleged abuse occurred during the Benedict XVI years, when the abuse scandals were already well known and reform campaigns were allegedly ushering in a new day. Even if there was no abuse, there clearly was a sexualized environment. The lack of clarity about oversight actually persisted all the way up to 2021, when Francis ordered the facility moved off Vatican grounds making it clear that whoevers problem it is now, its not the popes.

One has to ask how its possible that the Vatican had a residence for minor boys on its own territory, one in which those boys had regular contact with all manner of older seminarians and clergy, and yet no one in authority, at at least three distinct levels of the church, apparently took it upon themselves to exercise any quality control until the dam broke.

Thats a worrying insight about the state of reform, and theres no reason to believe the problem of overlapping jurisdiction to which it points has been resolved. One can only wonder how many more institutions, schools, movements, and other Catholic entities may be in similar circumstances, albeit not on Vatican grounds and whos minding the store in those places too.

Follow John Allen on Twitter:@JohnLAllenJr

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Top Five Most Under-Covered Vatican Stories of 2021 - Crux Now

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Posted By admin on January 2, 2022

(RNS) In a year in which we expected the news to get better, the stories followed most closely by the Jewish community in 2021 were for the most part sequels to the difficult and dire stories of 2020: COVID-19, surging antisemitism and strife between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. But a new government in Jerusalem and Israels broadening ties to Arab countries brought glimmers of hope for peace.Here are the 10 most important stories on topics of Jewish concern this year:

In June, after four indecisive elections in two years, Israeli leaders Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid assembled a broad-based coalition that enabled Bennett to replace Netanyahu as prime minister. In power for 15 years, Netanyahu was the longest-serving PM in the nations history.

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An early major achievement of the new coalition was the Israeli parliaments adoption of a national budget, something that had not been done for three years.

In May, 11 days of military hostilities between the Gaza-based Hamas terrorist group and Israel resulted in Arab-Jewish unrest in several Israeli cities. Hamas launched more than 4,000 rockets from Gaza toward the Jewish state, including the holy city of Jerusalem for the first time.

Israel responded to the attacks with strong military action and defended itself with the Iron Dome anti-rocket defense system.

In this May 4, 2019, file photo, Israeli air defense system Iron Dome takes out rockets fired from Gaza near Sderot, Israel. The Israeli Defense Ministry said March 16, 2021, that the Iron Dome air defense system has been upgraded and is now capable of intercepting rocket and missile salvos as well as simultaneous attacks by unmanned aerial vehicles. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit, File)

The year saw a continuing antisemitic upsurge, especially in the United States, Britain and continental Europe. The mounting anti-Jewish attacks were both verbal and physical. Several members of the U.S. Congress spewed obscene anti-Jewish conspiracy theories and antisemitism was an integral component of the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

The Abraham Accords were strengthened in 2021 as Israel continued to increase its diplomatic, tourism, security and economic links with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Oman and Morocco. Bennetts December visit to Abu Dhabi in the UAE was an historic first.

Israels new prime minister, Naftali Bennett, raises his hand during a Knesset session in Jerusalem June 13, 2021. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)

Faced with the continuing global COVID-19 pandemic, synagogues around the world made significant innovations for new creative forms of worship, study and other activities that had always been in-person events.

Sofa synagogues electronically linking geographically separated people via the internet became the norm. Many of these solutions are likely to become fixtures of Jewish life even when and if the dangerous virus is finally crushed.

The Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion Reform Judaisms flagship educational institution issued a devastating public report late in the year documenting a long record of faculty sexual abuse, much of it aimed at female rabbinical students. The report included two former HUC-JIR presidents. The new year may see similar negative reports from other major Jewish institutions and organizations.

The campus of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati in January 2019. Photo by Warren LeMay/Wikimedia/Creative Commons

Many Orthodox Jews in Israel, the U.S. and other regions of the world remained unvaccinated against COVID-19. Their refusal reflected the increasing tension and polarization that exists within the global Jewish community. Both Israeli chief rabbis urged vaccinations as a way of curbing the number of infections and deaths, but other prominent Orthodox leaders refrained from endorsing anti-COVID-19 measures.

For decades, the Israeli organization Women of the Wall has pressed for the right of women to worship publicly at Judaisms most holy site, the Western Wall, a remnant of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem. Orthodox Jewish authorities who control access to the Wall have just as adamantly forbidden public prayers by women at the sacred site.

But after several significant court victories and the change in the Israeli government, Women of the Wall seemed to have turned the tide. In November, Israeli police at the Wall protected a group of 300 women and men who came to pray there from the intense harassment of thousands of young Orthodox men.

A member of the Women of the Wall clutches a Torah scroll as she is surrounded by Israeli security forces holding back protesters at the Western Wall, the holiest site where Jews can pray, in the Old City of Jerusalem on Nov. 5, 2021. Thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jews gathered at the site to protest against the Jewish womens group that holds monthly prayers there in a long-running campaign for gender equality at the site. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo)

The once small, frequently ignored Israeli film industry gained artistic acclaim and wide international audiences in 2021. Netflix, the popular streaming TV service, featured several Israeli movies, while Israeli hit shows such as Fauda, Shtisel, When Heroes Fly and Hashoter Hatov (The Good Cop) became virtual water cooler talk.

A Pew Research survey showed Orthodox Jews constitute only 9% of the American Jewish community. But in the 18-to-29 age group, the share of Orthodox Jews rises sharply to 17% of all Jews in that vital young adult cohort. The survey also indicated a total U.S. Jewish population of 7.5 million, an increase from 6.8 million eight years ago. Much of that increase came from Orthodox Jews.

Notable deaths in 2021 include Rabbi Richard Hirsch, a pioneering leader of Reform Judaism in Israel; beloved actor Ed Asner; longtime TV talk show host Larry King; Faye Schulman, a 101-year-old Holocaust survivor whose remarkable photographs, taken in secrecy and under difficult conditions, documented both Nazi German acts of brutality and the Jewish armed partisan fighters who lived in Polish forests; and the brilliant composer-lyricist Stephen Sondheim.

(Rabbi A. James Rudin is the American Jewish Committees senior interreligious adviser and author of the upcoming book The People in the Room: Rabbis, Nuns, Pastors, Popes and Presidents. He can be reached atjamesrudin.com.The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of Religion News Service.)

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The top 10 Jewish news stories of 2021 - Religion News Service

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