Wednesday, January 8, 2014

The Algemeiner E-paper - Source: Italian Tenor Andrea Bocelli to Attend Historic Auschwitz Event

Source: Italian Tenor Andrea Bocelli to Attend Historic Auschwitz Event

JANUARY 8, 2014

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Algemeiner Staff

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Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli. Photo: Wikipedia.

Famed Italian tenor, Andrea Bocelli, plans to attend a historic memorial event at the site of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Nazi concentration camp later this month, a source with knowledge of the matter revealed to The Algemeiner.

The event, which will take place on International Holocaust Remembrance Day on January 27th, will also be attended by more than half of Israel’s Knesset, other international politicians, and Holocaust survivors. The Knesset members will host a discussion on anti-Semitism at the memorial site.

“This event has the potential not just to be a memorial but to develop into a symposium for elected officials to discuss how the Holocaust and anything like it can never happen again,” Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein told The Jerusalem Post in September, when the event was first announced.

“The symbolism of the majority of the Knesset coming and standing with the survivors in a place in which 69 years ago they didn’t imagine they’d live another day is so strong,” said Jonny Daniels, founder of From the Depths, the organization planning the event.

Bocelli has expressed his appreciation for Israel in recent interviews.

In 2012, when asked by the UK’s Daily Telegraph about his best holiday, he responded: “A country that has really resonated with me and I was really impressed with was Israel. I found that the whole country had a very special atmosphere. I was there to perform but it was one of the few places that I’ve visited over the years that I had some free time to explore, and I was hugely impressed by all the religious history there.”

Writing for the UK’s Daily Mail last year, he said, “Places in the world I have especially enjoyed include Israel, which left a very powerful impression on me.”

Bocelli last visited Israel in 2011, performing at Masada in collaboration with members of the Rishon Lezion Symphonic Orchestra.

It is unclear of Bocelli plans to sing at the event, or just to attend as a guest.

Jewish Jerusalem Captured on Canvas: landscape painter Alex Levin

Published on Nov 19, 2013

From the tender age of 6, Alex Levin, was identified as a talented painter. When the Kiev native immigrated with his family to Israel at age 16, a very strong emotion towards his Jewish roots evoked and ever since he only captures in his art moments in Jewish life and places important to the Jewish faith.

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Steven Spielberg bought on of Alex's paintings

Israel's History - a Picture a Day (Beta) - Hansen's Hospital (for "Lepers") in Jerusalem

Israel's History - a Picture a Day (Beta)

A Reader Shares Her Knowledge of Hansen's Hospital (for "Lepers") in Jerusalem

Posted: 07 Jan 2014

Our original caption:"Lepers, presumably in

Jerusalem, (Library of Congress, circa 1900)"

Several weeks ago, we received a note from reader Rivka Regev:

I saw the feature you did on "Lepers" of Jerusalem. It was excellent. I have only 2 small comments:

Your first photo is labeled "probably" in Jerusalem. It is absolutely; it's to the west of the original Hansen compound ("Jesus Hilfe"). The patients are sitting in what we now call the western Moon Grove, and I would be very happy to show you in person where it is. That photo is probably from 1908.

Secondly, I am sure you know that the "lepers" were not suffering of what was described in the Bible. Therefore, I find it important to avoid the L word and stick to "Hansen's Disease."

We asked Rivka how she had such expertise on the Hansen hospital. When she explained her father was the in-house physician at the hospital for decades, we appealed to her for additional photos and an article to accompany them. We thank her for the following feature and encourage readers to view her Internet site http://ganneimarpeh.brinkster.net/page33.html

A Riddle Solved at the Historic Hansen Hospital in Jerusalem

By Rivka Regev

Dr. Moshe Goldgraber, the author's father, in front of Hansen

Hospital, 2002 (Photo courtesy of the author and Michel Horton)

Dr. Moshe Beer Goldgraber 1913-2007, was born in Zamosc, Poland, studied medicine in Padova, Italy, took his final exam in August 1939, went straight to a shipyard, and got on a freight ship to Palestine. Two weeks later Germany took over Poland. He lost his whole family to the Nazis.

One day at the end of 1964 he went to hear a lecture at Hansen [“Lepers”] Hospital in Jerusalem. Dr. Goldgraber became involved in research and soon became the attending on-call physician (a specialist in internal medicine, among other specialties) at Hansen Hospital from 1965 until the last patients left in 2000.

The hospital's Jesus Hilfe nursery (circa 1907, from the

author's collection)

Beyond all that, my father, Dr. Goldgraber was the only one who took care of the Hansen Gardens from 1965-2003.

I grew up living in the “small house,” built in 1893, on the hospital grounds.

Beginning in 2003, I led a volunteer project to rehabilitate and restore the historic gardens of Hansen Hospital and Gardens in Jerusalem.

Since 2005, I wanted to find remnants of a mule-drawn machine that appeared in this photo dated approximately 1912. The scene shows a plant nursery situated below the great rainwater collecting cistern that was built from 1898. I thought the machine might be a mill to grind something. I hoped that by unearthing it, either old seeds or grains would lead to some answers. After groping in the earth that had already become a therapeutic garden of herbs for five years, our volunteers hit the jackpot in November 2010. Seven sides of the hexagon that we sought were perfectly intact and formed a structure that was half a meter deep.

Mule drawn pump at the Hospital (1912, from the

author's collection)

But to our surprise the far side of the structure in the old photo turned out to be open. We continued to dig (northward to the farther part of the old photo, towards the cistern) and eventually reached the terrace wall. The old photo actually shows three wooden boards that are clearly visible that covered up the eighth side of the hexagon suggesting how the mule could safely walk over the channel.

The volunteers and their discovery (courtesy of

the author and Michael Horton )

More digging began from the other side of the terrace wall at an outlet of the cistern itself. There, the hand carved pavement stones created a very large rectangular opening (looking like a great planter) which had filled with soil and deep rooted plants over the years.

When the two tunnels finally connected the riddle was solved. This was not a mill to grind olives or oats (they grew plentifully in the historic gardens). This was a pump that drew out water and forced it into metal pipes that lead first up to the small water tank visible in the old photo just above the right corner of the cistern. Then, using mule power, the water was pushed up about five more meters and about 40 meters away into the hospital's kitchen!

This was the way to supply rainwater to a vibrant and active hospital in a pre-electric and pre-water faucet era!

For more information, see the author's website http://ganneimarpeh.brinkster.net/page33.html

We welcome scanned 100-year-old pictures of Eretz Yisrael from your private collections or your great-grandparents' albums.

Tuesday, January 7, 2014

Over 50,000 Books Burned in Christian Library - The Christian Post

Over 50,000 Books Burned in Christian Library in Lebanon Over Blasphemy Claim; US Leader Says 'Violent Hysteria' Spreading in Muslim World6

(Photo: Reuters/Hasan Shaaban)
Lebanese and Syrian Christian Maronites pray for peace
in Syria, in Harisa, Jounieh September 7, 2013.

American leaders denounced the burning of a Christian leader's library in Tripoli, Lebanon, last Friday night as based on false pretenses and said it's a threat to religious liberty.

"The really bad news is that this is not out of the ordinary," Robert P. George, chair of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), told The Christian Post in an interview on Monday. George emphasized the need to advocate for religious freedom across the world to prevent attacks like this one.

The Friday night fire burned two-thirds of some 80,000 books and manuscripts in the Al-Saeh library owned by Greek Orthodox priest Ibrahim Surouj, RT reported. The arsonists targeted Surouj due to an alleged pamphlet insulting the Prophet Mohammed was found in one of the library books. When Surouj met with Islamic leaders in the city, he stated that he had nothing to do with the pamphlet.

International Security Forces Brig. Imad Ayyoubi also denounced the connection. "Father Surouj has nothing to do with the article and the source of the website is from Denmark and was published on Jan. 7, 2010," Ayyoubi said, The Blaze reported. Hundreds of Lebanese citizens demonstrated Saturday in support of the priest.

"Flames of a violent hysteria against all perceived threats to Islam are spreading rapidly through the Muslim world today," Nina Shea, director of the Hudson Institute's Center for Religious Freedom, told CP on Monday.

The co-author of Silenced: How Apostasy and Blasphemy Codes are Choking Freedom Worldwide, Shea traced the backlash to any perceived insult to Islam back to its sources. She denounced the governments of Saudi Arabia and Iran, and called on the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) to "end its own worldwide campaign of stirring passions against religious insult."

Shea called on the OIC to change course entirely, urging the organization to "condemn the violence that is now waged against the Lebanon Christian library, and, even more critically, against the Christian minorities in all parts of the Arab world."

USCIRF's George touched on Lebanon's history of sectarian violence. "This goes all the way back to the Lebanese Civil War," from 1975 to 1990, the USCIRF chair explained. "If you travel in Lebanon, as I have, you will start noticing security checkpoints. The country is suffering acts of violence, and often religiously based acts of violence."

"Beirut itself was known as the Paris of the Middle East," George explained, hearkening back to a more peaceful era. "It was held up as a city where people of various faiths could live together in peace," the USCIRF chair recalled, listing the different faith traditions in Lebanon: Maronite Catholics, Roman Catholics, Sunni and Shia Muslim, Eastern Orthodox, and Antiochian Christians.

Despite this violence, George praised the country of Lebanon for rebuilding an ancient Jewish Synagogue. Nevertheless, he lamented the loss of the Jewish population, which is now "vanishingly small."

"We see the Middle East emptying of its historic Christian populations," the USCIRF chair explained. George even referred to his own relatives who fled from Syria. "My father's family is Syrian, from the ancient Antiochian Orthodox community," he explained. "They lived peacefully with their Muslim neighbors, they were able to make a life for themselves, and now they have fled."

"It's impossible for them to live in their country – they would be in complete fear," George said. He explained that the mission of USCIRF is to urge President Obama and his administration to make religious freedom a priority in foreign relations.

George argued that the responsibility of any government is to allow for religious freedom and to prevent and punish attacks against it. The government of Lebanon has a responsibility "to bring some amelioration to people who are being abused like this priest was abused," and to punish the perpetrators, he said.

But governments should not do this just to be on good terms with the United States. George argued that the economic and political success of a country depends on how it respects religious freedom. "If you want your country to flourish, you should establish religious freedom," he declared. "that's true for Lebanon, that's true for Syria, that's true for everywhere."

Contact: tyler.oneil@christianpost.com, @tyler2oneil (Twitter)

A Word of Love From Sweden - Eva Haglund

Shalom Steve!

I wish you a nice beginning of the new year!

I saw on your blog that there were a man who lived in Peru who did painting. Is he a relative? There were nice paintings! My husband comes from Peru.

You wrote about Rick Joyner. I do not know him so much but have gotten a good impression of him. For instance he talks about love in Body of Christ - fellowship and care of each other.

Not so many talk about this and I think it is important to talk about what Jesus did. He prayed that there will be love from God in the Body of Christ, which will be a testimony to the world (John 17:21.) I think it is, for instance, as in Acts 2:46. The enemy has stolen it from quite a lot in the Body of Christ. Instead there sometimes are as if clubs. In 1 Cor.12 we can read that we need each other much in friendship.

Jesus say in John 15:13, "Greater love has no one than this than to lay down ones life for his friend." Jesus talked about love. Why then are there not so many who preach this. To be hospitalble and have fellowship. That is love - not just a smile. There needs to be much more fellowship.

Jesus says also, "This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you." Sometimes some Christians have a good heart to evangelize but are not interested in friendship. You also have to have friendship so people who get saved have friends to come to.

We can see that Jesus had fellowship. For instance in John 21 they were eating together, talking and Jesus made breakfast and a warm fire. Jesus is the Friend. You can talk to Him when you eat breakfast or go on a walk. He is the best Friend among friends.

Our heavenly Daddy and Jesus have much fellowship and are not impersonal. They talk to each other.

Christian conferences can be good and it can be good to be at one. But if you want to go to conferences, when is there time to have a cup of coffee with a friend and have time with God? I like to be at a good conference but also to have time in fellowship with God and friends.

Jesus gave time and shared His bread. For me this also means fellowship because I think to share bread can also be to talk with each other around a table. Where there is just a club in the Body of Christ I think God wants to restore so it will become as He wants.

There are also friendships but I think there needs to be more. I think also that we are not created just to do things for God or just to ask God for things but to be a close friend to God.

This I think is where worship comes in because it has to do with the relation to God. Dance as unto God I think is also worshiping Him with the body as Mirjam and David did.

To have a relation with God is to read His Word because Jesus is the Word.

I think the Bible symbol for instance can be bread. Jesus is the Bread, the Life of Bread. (John 6:35)

Jesus did not just talk or preach about love For instance, when He told us to wash each others feet, He did this to show care. He lived love. He was like a servant and gave all in love. He is life. He is love.

Thank you for many good things you write and give on the blog!

Blessings,

Eva

A HEAVENLY TREASURE …

Money.

Love. Love not. What will I choose?

Who is God- a hard God?

A God of love?

The money, the idol in the bank.

Is it worth to live for?

Is money, things more worth than care and love?
Who is God?

Did he keep his love in heaven or did he gave?

He gave his Bread - his life…

He gave ALL he had not because he had to but by FREE WILL…

He preached by his life that he is a God of love.

He gave ALL he had in a deepest pain - NAILED for us…

The pain he carried he carried for us - a love more worth than money-

He the King - thought that we were more worth than all money in the world…

You are rich if you have him…

Eva Haglund.

Jerusalem Channel - Is This the Year of the Great Deception? (Christine Darg)

Christine Darg

The Jerusalem Channel on Cross TV

Video on Cross TV: Jerusalem Channel - Is This the Year of the Great Deception? (Christine Darg)

Home | Journal | Photos | Events | Contact

Christine has ministered on every continent and in the most far-flung islands. Her healing and revival ministry has planted a number of “Tabernacle of David” Gospel tents, and she ministers daily on TV channels across the world. Her “Exploits Ministry” based upon Daniel 11:32 and John 14: 12 is obeying the Great Commission to the ends of the earth, also in fulfillment of Acts 1:8.

Because of her love of the Jewish and Arab peoples and all the spiritual descendants of Abraham in the Church, Christine has received a most unique ministry to share God’s love and ministry of reconciliation. She is the author of several books, including “Miracles Among Muslims,” “The Wounded Lover,” “Let Ishmael Live!”

Christine encountered Jesus supernaturally as a child. Facing a life-threatening illness, she still remembers when Jesus appeared to her in an open vision as a Jewish king and healed her.

When she was 16 years old, Christine was seated in the back seat of a car that was hit by a train, but when she was flung into the road, her life was miraculously saved. The Lord said, “I have spared your life for a purpose!”

A third attempt on her life through a serious emergency happened before Christine and her husband moved to Jerusalem to begin a strategic television work. She had to learn much about spiritual warfare and healing through practical experiences.

Christine’s father, a conservative Presbyterian minister, and her mother, an accomplished classical pianist and nationally award-winning composer, raised her with a deep love of the Christian faith and with a notable reverence for the Jewish people.

During a season of fasting, Christine was called by the Lord to the work of television. Furthemore, in an epic dream, the Lord Himself commissioned Christine to stand with His holy End-Time purposes concerning the preservation of Israel when all the nations encompass Jerusalem.

Following a successful career as an award-winning journalist in Richmond, Virginia, Christine and her broadcaster husband Peter moved to Jerusalem in 1982 to began a life-long love affair with the region and all its people. Truly Christine is a minister of reconciliation to both Jew and Arab and she appreciates all the historic and apostolic churches of the Middle East, enjoying favor in many quarters.

For five years in the 1990s, the Dargs traveled extensively with Evangelist Reinhard Bonnke in Africa to document confirmation of the preaching of God’s word with miraculous signs and wonders . . . the deaf hearing, the blind seeing and the lame walking. Christine has held her own large Gospel meetings primarily in Eastern Europe, the Philippines, Egypt, India and Pakistan with testimonies of many healings to the glory of God.

Favourite Quotations
LIFE VERSES: ‘You shall receive power to be witnesses from Jerusalem to the ends of earth’ (Acts 1:8) to proclaim ‘saving health to all nations’ (Ps 67: 2) with ‘the ministry of reconciliation’ (2 Cor 5: 18)
“Who Dares Wins”–Motto of Special Air Service (SAS)
John Wesley: “Do all you can for as many people as you can as often as you possibly can.”
“Preach faith until you believe it, and then when you believe it, preach faith.”
Reinhard Bonnke: ‘We trouble ourselves for the Gospel.”
…”An evangelist doesn’t wait for opportunities, but creates them!”

Jerusalem Dateline - Chris Mitchell, CBN News Middle East Bureau Chief

Jerusalem Dateline

Chris Mitchell, CBN News

Middle East Bureau Chief

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<< Jerusalem Dateline: The Year in Review | Blog Home

Jerusalem Dateline Show: The Year Ahead

This week on Jerusalem Dateline: A look ahead to 2014 and the stories that will shape the Middle East.

The nation of Israel faces some of the greatest dangers in its modern history. Every day, the Islamic Republic of Iran gets closer to producing a nuclear bomb, while Syria's civil war threatens to spill over its borders, and the international community continues to push Israel to trade its security for peace.

All the while, Christians in the Middle East are facing some of the harshest persecution in centuries and hundreds of thousands are fleeing the region.

Click here: View the Video

Palestinians Prefer to Live in 'Racist' Israel - Israel Today

Palestinians Prefer to Live in 'Racist' Israel

Tuesday, January 07, 2014 | Ryan Jones Israel Today

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Arab members of Israel’s Knesset who insist on being called “Palestinians” and who regularly accuse the Jewish state of racism are now adamant they will not become citizens of a new Palestinian state.

Loud-mouthed parliamentarians like Ahmad Tibi (pictured) have responded with fury to Israel’s reported proposal to US Secretary of State John Kerry that the Jewish state surrender sovereignty over a portion of the lower Galilee with a heavy Arab population to the Palestinian Authority in a future peace deal.

In return, Israel would be allowed to retain control of large Jewish “settlement blocs” in Judea and Samaria.

It would seem to be a win-win situation for all involved. Israel wouldn’t have to uproot hundreds of thousands of Jews from their homes, and hundreds of thousands of Arabs would finally be free of the oppressive racism under which they currently live.

So it was a bit curious that Tibi reacted to the proposal by calling it unacceptable from the podium of the Knesset plenum. Unless, of course, Tibi and his ilk have been lying all along, and life for Arabs in Israel really isn’t all that bad.

Why else would Tibi turn down the opportunity to become a citizen of the state for whose creation he has so long advocated?

If Tibi and most other Arabs really do prefer life in Israel to that in a future Palestinian state, then, as Arab journalist Khaled Abu Toameh wrote for the Gatestone Institute, “they should be working toward integration into, and not separation from, Israel.”

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