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Standing in support of Israel, Jews, and believers in all the nations, in the name of Jesus (Yeshua). Sharing biblical truth, encouragement, news and prophecy.
Showing posts with label Chief Rabbi. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Chief Rabbi. Show all posts
Friday, January 5, 2018
As Israel Braces for Massive Storm, Chief Rabbi Prays on Kinneret Drought Island - Breaking Israel News
Saturday, February 13, 2016
ISRAEL MAKES BIG CHANGES AT THE WESTERN WALL - TouchPoint Israel
SINCE ISRAEL REGAINED CONTROL OF JERUSALEM IN 1967, THE WESTERN WALL PLAZA HAS BEEN OPEN TO PUBLIC PRAYER. BUT UNTIL NOW, IT WAS EXCLUSIVELY UNDER THE OVERSIGHT OF THE ULTRA-ORTHODOX RABBINIC LEADERSHIP AND STRICT RULES WERE ENFORCED TO PREVENT NON-ORTHODOX PRACTICES. WOMEN AND MEN WERE SEPARATED BY A BARRIER JUST AS THEY WOULD BE IN AN ORTHODOX SYNAGOGUE, AND WOMEN WERE NOT ALLOWED TO CARRY TORAH SCROLLS OR LEAD PRAYER SERVICES.
For years, groups within Israel have worked to break the ultra-Orthodox monopoly on the site, but the highly-sensitive religious nature of the topic has caused tremendous controversy. Two years ago, Prime Minister Netanyahu instructed a committee to work on finding a solution. This week, the Prime Minister’s cabinet voted on a compromise and it passed 15-5.
Israel will construct a separate platform against the Western Wall for egalitarian prayer, with it’s own entrance, so that the Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox worshipers may continue their traditional practices on one side and the Conservative and Reform worshipers may worship freely in a mixed-gender setting on the other side.
As with any compromise, not everyone is fully satisfied with the result, but those who are opposed are still relieved that the controversy is at an end.
Shmuel Rabinowitz, chief rabbi of the Western Wall, gave a statement expressing relief that there would no longer be quarrels at the Wall among Orthodox and non-Orthodox worshipers. In part, he said, “The Western Wall will continue to remain open to any worshiper — man or woman — at all hours of every day, with respect and loyalty to Jewish tradition and Jewish heritage, as the Western Wall is the clear symbol of these.”
Anat Hoffman, Chairwoman of the controversial women’s rights group Women at the Wall, celebrated the news. She said, “This is a dramatic and meaningful victory for the women of Israel and the people of Israel.”
While the new prayer platform is being built, the current ultra-Orthodox practices must still be followed at the Western Wall. Once the project is complete, all visitors will have full access to either side to pray, but must follow the customs assigned to each.
Wednesday, January 27, 2016
Holocaust – 'atheists at the heart of the problem' | Charles Gardner ISRAEL TODAY
Holocaust – 'atheists at the heart of the problem'
Wednesday, January 27, 2016 | Charles Gardner ISRAEL TODAY
As UK Christians remember the Holocaust, marked on January 27 as the day in 1945 when Auschwitz was liberated, they have been reminded that it was spawned by godlessness and the rejection of faith.
Steven Jaffe, a member of the UK’s Jewish Board of Deputies, was addressing a largely Christian audience at a church in Sheffield, Yorkshire.
He said the exodus from Egypt was immediately followed by the battle with Amalek, who had no reason to attack Israel. There was no territorial dispute or history of conflict, for example. And they attacked the sick and the elderly – those who were most vulnerable. (Deuteronomy 25.17-18)
“The conflict with Amalek is not over,” he said. Amalek denied God and his power in the same way the Nazis did, and the latter mirrored their lack of mercy.
He recalled that Britain’s former Chief Rabbi, Lord Sachs, was once asked where God was during the Holocaust, to which he is said to have replied: “Where was man?”
My worry is that the growing influence of rank atheism in Britain and Europe will have a bearing on the future of anti-Semitism. The poisonous view that God does not exist naturally leads to godless behaviour and thought, even among those previously tutored in godly ways. The result is that even some who claim to have faith, and who perhaps stand in pulpits, start believing the lie that is proclaimed so often through almost every strand of media.
It is indeed frustrating that, as fast as we spread word about the horrors of the Holocaust, vowing that it should never be repeated, the vile infestation of anti-Semitism creeps into every crack and crevice of a broken society as the walls of a Judeo-Christian civilization come crashing down around us.
In polite Britain, hatred of Jews is generally not expressed openly, but often takes the form of a loathing of Israel, so that the very mention of the Jewish state is enough to raise the hackles, not only of the politically-aware man in the street, but of the semi-biblically aware man in the pew.
As Steven told the Bush Fire Church, such loathing cannot be explained in rational terms. But he was spot on target, I believe, in linking the phenomenon with a society that has thrown God out of the window. Pledges of never letting it happen again are not enough, in my opinion; without a recovery of faith in the God of Israel, there can be no guarantee that another holocaust won’t take place.
Even as I write, Iran is boasting of a nuclear deal that “has provided an historic opportunity to… face threats posed by the Zionist entity.” It is well to recall that the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, collaborated with Hitler, thus setting the stage for today’s jihad against Israel. And yet, bizarrely, former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and current Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas have both publicly denied that the Holocaust ever took place.
Against such a dark background, however, there is plenty of encouragement. The Sheffield gathering heard much about the heroic acts of so-called ‘righteous Gentiles’ like Sir Nicholas Winton, who rescued 669 children from Czechoslovakia in 1938. Generations of people – almost 7,000 of some of the world’s greatest doctors, lawyers, teachers and inventors – owe their lives to the act of one man’s efforts to help Jewish children escape the Nazis.
And Steven Jaffe himself, through the launch last year in the neighbouring city of Leeds of the Shalom Declaration, committing to pray for the peace of Jerusalem and fight against anti-Semitism, is sending out a clear message of Christian support for Britain’s Jewish community. “There isn’t a corner of the British Isles that the Shalom Declaration has not been signed,” he said.
Making nonsense of campaigns to boycott Israel, he pointed out that one in six of the drugs and medicine dispensed through Britain’s famous health service have either been manufactured or developed in Israel.
And on the faith front, we were told that “there are more Jews learning the Torah today in Israel that at any time in our history”.
All of which is preparing them well for the great event we are perhaps soon to witness when Jesus reveals himself on a grand scale to his brothers in the flesh.
Though many Jews quite understandably have a problem with this, especially with the Holocaust in mind, the key is forgiveness.
British television viewers were treated to a remarkable Channel 4 documentary, The girl who forgave the Nazis, recounting the story of how Hungarian Jew Eva Kor, now 81, a former inmate of Auschwitz, has publicly forgiven 94-year-old Oskar Groenig, the death camp’s former accountant, who was recently sentenced to four years in jail for his part in the Nazi’s evil scheme.
Eva and her twin sister Miriam were experimented on by the infamous Dr Josef Mengele, but survived the camp, though Miriam died in 1993 possibly through the effects of the experiments. Eva said: “It’s time to forgive, but not forget… I believe that forgiveness is such a powerful thing... and I want everybody to help me sow these seeds of peace throughout the world.”
This takes amazing courage. But it’s worth remembering that Jesus, our Messiah, made the first move when he prayed, as he died in agony on a cross in Jerusalem: “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” (Luke 23.34)
When Joseph revealed himself to his brothers, he had already long since forgiven them for acting treacherously against him.
“Praise the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits – who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases…” (Psalm 103.2-3)
“Seek the Lord while he may be found…for he will freely pardon.” (Isaiah 55.6-7)
Charles Gardner is author of Peace in Jerusalem, available from olivepresspublisher.com
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Thursday, December 10, 2015
Never Submit (Day 3) - Lt. Col. Robert Maginnis & Tom Horn - The Jim Bakker Show
Jim & Lori Bakker
Jim Bakker Show 2015 | Show# 2894 | Aired on December 9, 2015
Sunday, April 13, 2014
Jerusalem on Passover, 1928
Israel's History - a Picture a Day (Beta) |
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Posted: 12 Apr 2014
No other information is provided, but we can deduce quite a bit. The picture above shows the Chief Rabbi of Palestine, Abraham Isaac Kook, delivering a Torah discourse to a large audience. Where? Quite possibly near his home between Jerusalem's Prophets Street and Jaffa Road. While women are sitting separately from the men, the audience is most certainly not an ultra-Orthodox crowd. With their heads covered, they are more likely a religious Zionist grouping. Their holiday dress suggest that it either the Passover holiday or the Sabbath of Passover.
The next picture shows the pilgrims' destination -- the Western Wall in Jerusalem's Old City. The crowd entered the Old City through Jaffa Gate and is streaming into the shuk at the end of David Street on the way to the Kotel. The Thomas Cook travel office was a prominent landmark already prior to 1898 and could be seen in the last picture on this page.
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Tuesday, October 8, 2013
Rabbi Ovadia Yosef dies at 93 - 800,000 attend funeral - (Jerusalem, Israel)
Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, founder of Shas and Sephardic sage, dies at 93
Rabbi Ovadia Yosef
Rabbi Ovadia Yosef died in Jerusalem on Oct. 7.
Photo by Amos Ben Gershom/GPO/Flash90
Posted: Monday, October 7, 2013 9:17 pm
TEL AVIV - Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, the Israeli sage who founded the Sephardic Orthodox Shas political party and exercised major influence on Jewish law, has died.
Yosef died Oct. 7 at Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital in Jerusalem. He was 93.
He served as Israel’s Sephardic chief rabbi from 1973 to 1983, and extended his influence over the ensuing decades as the spiritual leader of Shas, which politically galvanized hundreds of thousands of Sephardic Israelis, though Yosef himself never served in Knesset. In 1999, at its height, Shas was the third-largest Knesset party, with 17 seats.
Though he adhered to a haredi Orthodox ideology, Yosef, a charismatic speaker, published relatively liberal Jewish legal rulings and drew support both from traditional and secular Sephardic Israelis. Known to his followers as Maran, “our master” in Hebrew, Yosef’s main Jewish legal goal was to take diverse Jewish practices from the Middle East and North Africa and mold a “united legal system” for Sephardic Jews.
As his influence grew, Yosef presided over a veritable empire of Sephardi religious services. Shas opened a network of schools that now has 40,000 students. Yosef managed a kosher certification called Beit Yosef that has become the standard for many religious Sephardim. And he was a dominant power broker when it came to electing Sephardic chief rabbis and appointing Sephardic judges in religious courts. This year, Yosef’s son - and preferred candidate - won the Israeli Sephardic chief rabbi election.
Through his work, Yosef hoped to raise the status of Israel’s historically disadvantaged Sephardic community, both culturally and socioeconomically. He dressed in traditional Sephardic religious garb, including a turban and an embroidered robe, even as most of his close followers adopted the Ashkenazi haredi dress of a black fedora and suit.
As a scholar, Yosef was known for his ability to recite long, complex Jewish tracts from memory. His best-known works, “Yabia Omer,” “Yehave Da’at” and “Yalkut Yosef,” cover an array of Jewish legal topics.
“He was a character that people capitulated in front of, a man of Jewish law that created a political entity with strong influence on Israeli politics and culture,” said Menachem Friedman, an expert on the haredi community at Bar-Ilan University. “It raised up Middle Eastern Jewish culture, gave legitimacy to Middle Eastern Jewish traditions.”
Outside the religious community, Yosef was best known for his sometimes controversial political stances. His authority within Shas was virtually absolute, and even in his ninth decade he remained closely involved in the party’s decisions.
While Yosef favored policies that served the religious community’s interests, he also supported peace treaties involving Israeli withdrawal from conquered territory. He argued that such deals were allowed under Jewish law because they saved Jewish lives.
In the 1990s and 2000s, Shas joined left-wing governing coalitions multiple times, allowing for the advancement of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process - though Yosef opposed the 2005 Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip because it was done unilaterally.
In his later years, Yosef also stirred controversy with a number of inflammatory statements, often made at a weekly Saturday-night sermon. In 2000, he said that Holocaust victims were reincarnated sinners, and in 2005 he said that the victims of Hurricane Katrina deserved the tragedy “because they have no God.” In 2010, Yosef said, "The sole purpose of non-Jews is to serve Jews."
"Rabbi Ovadia was a giant in Torah and Jewish law and a teacher for tens of thousands," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement on Oct. 7. "He worked greatly to enhance Jewish heritage and at the same time, his rulings took into consideration the times and the realities of renewed life in the State of Israel. He was imbued with love of the Torah and the people."
Ovadia Yosef was born Abdullah Yosef in Baghdad, Iraq, on Sept. 23, 1920. Four years later his family moved to Jerusalem, in what was then Palestine, where Yosef studied at the Porat Yosef yeshiva, a well-regarded Sephardic school. At 20, he received ordination as a rabbinic judge, and at 24 he married Margalit Fattal. She died in 1994.
Yosef began serving as a rabbinic judge in 1944, and in 1947 moved to Cairo to head the rabbinic court in the Egyptian capital, returning in 1950. He continued serving as a religious judge until becoming Sephardic chief rabbi of Tel Aviv in 1968, a position he held until he was elected Sephardic chief rabbi of Israel in 1973. During that period, he began publishing his well-known works, beginning with his Passover Haggadah, “Hazon Ovadia,” in 1952. In 1970, the government awarded him the prestigious Israel Prize in recognition of his books.
Yosef defeated a sitting chief rabbi in the 1973 election, itself a controversial move. In the wake of the Yom Kippur War that year, he ruled that women whose husbands were missing in action could remarry. Later in his term, he endorsed the Ethiopian Jews’ claim to Judaism, helping them immigrate to Israel under the Law of Return.
Yosef founded Shas in 1984, one year after finishing his term as chief rabbi. The party now holds 11 Knesset seats.
Save for four years, Shas was part of every governing coalition between 1984 and 2013, acting as a kingmaker in Israeli politics. Because the party represents both haredi and poor Sephardim, it advocates a unique mix of dovish foreign policy, conservative religious policy and liberal economic policy. Yosef took an active role in shaping Shas through this year’s elections, heading a council of rabbis that chose the party’s slate and mediating leadership conflicts.
What was most impressive about Yosef, says Friedman, was his influence over almost every aspect of Sephardic religious and political life – making it unlikely that another rabbi will be able to take his place.
“He’ll create an empty space politically and an empty space religiously,” Friedman said. “He was a source of strength and great control in Middle Eastern Jewish religious society. I don’t know what will happen.”
In memory of Rabbi Ovadia Yosef
| Over 800,000 Israelis attend Rabbi Ovadia Yosef's funeral |
Mourners crowd streets, sidewalks, rooftops and balconies in Jerusalem, blocking traffic • More than 300 receive medical treatment, 15 evacuated to hospitals • Police arrive from all over Israel to control crowds • "We are left without a father."
Yehuda Shlezinger
More than 800,000 Israelis attended Rabbi Ovadia Yosef's funeral in Jerusalem on Monday night
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Photo credit: Yonatan Sindel | ||||||
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More than 800,000 people filled the streets of Jerusalem Monday for the funeral of Shas spiritual leader and former chief Sephardi rabbi of Israel Rabbi Ovadia Yosef.
Yosef died Monday at Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital in Jerusalem of complications from multiple organ failure. His health declined steadily following a mild stroke in January. He was hospitalized just over two weeks ago with a host of medical problems, including kidney and heart failure and sepsis. He was 93 years old.
The rabbi was renowned in the Jewish world as one of its foremost Talmudic scholars and halachic authorities, as well as a prominent political figure.
Mourners crowded roofs, balconies, sidewalks and streets in Jerusalem for a final parting from Yosef. The Sephardi community -- including the ultra-Orthodox, religious, traditional and secular, as well as many from the national religious movement -- took part in a funeral of unprecedented magnitude in Jerusalem, or Israel.
Even before Yosef's body was taken to the Sanhedria cemetery, hundreds of thousands of people arrived in Jerusalem, causing huge traffic jams inside the city and around its entrances.
Jerusalem District police put into action the operational plan prepared when Yosef's health was reported to be deteriorating, and hundreds of policemen arrived from all over the country to reinforce security at the event. Jerusalem District Police Commander Maj. Gen. Yossi Pariente said that it was the biggest funeral the Jerusalem District police had ever dealt with. The police received 17,000 calls regarding traffic issues as compared with 5,000 on a regular day.
"There is no one like him in our generation and no one to take his place"
"There is no one like him in our generation and no one to take his place"
The funeral procession left from Yeshivat Porat Yosef, where Yosef studied from the age of 12 and where he began writing his religious books. It was repeatedly delayed due to concern for the crowd's safety. Even so, more than 300 people required medical treatment for fainting, dehydration and other injuries. Fifteen people were evacuated to hospitals for treatment.
At the yeshiva, Yosef's sons gave eulogies. "My father, my father, chariot of Israel and its knights," said his youngest son, Rabbi David Yosef, "today's sky is not the sky of yesterday, today's world is not yesterday's world." Rabbi Moshe Yosef, with whom Yosef lived, said, "When a stranger dies, one can give a sermon, but when a father dies, one can cry, one can scream. All I ask from you is forgiveness. Perhaps I did not know how to appreciate [you] enough."
"The crown has been removed, the crown has fallen, father to us all," cried Rabbi Avraham Yosef, "father, how many torches you left behind. You showed us the path of the patriarch Abraham, to open the tent to the four winds of the earth, to exonerate the masses, to reach the nation with tales. There is no one like him in our generation and no one to take his place."
Shas head Aryeh Deri, who Yosef redesignated as leader of the movement, delivered a moving speech: "Our rabbi, our rabbi, why have you left us? Forty years ago, we stood on these stairs at Yeshivat Porat Yosef, you and I, and I saw you felt the pain of Sephardi Jewry and the dismal situation facing the boys in Sephardi yeshivas. Then, there were only a few hundred boys in Sephardi yeshivas in all of Israel, and you understood their sorrow.
A man of action and vision, I saw in your holy eyes the vision of a true revolution, of the establishment of the Sephardi world of Torah, its upright establishment. And now, our rabbi, look how many hundreds of thousands are here to lead you on your final path. You have orphaned us. We are left now without a father and without a leader."
The decision of who, if anyone, will succeed Yosef as spiritual leader of Shas, will be made by a committee, Deri said. "We will continue to sacrifice ourselves for the sake of continuing the large enterprises you have begun in the biblical education system and the construction of Judaism for hundreds of thousands of Jews.
We know what you have always told us, to stay undivided and united. To continue to unite around the Council of Torah Sages, around the sages of Israel, to continue everything you started, and to do more and more to spread the word of the Torah and to help the poor. Thanks only to you, and only with your power."
Yosef was buried beside his late wife Margalit, who died in 1994.
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