Budapest, Hungary - Jim Clint Family Update - Third Anniversary

Love For His People Editor's Note: In early July we first made contact with the Jim Clint family, after an email from them, in which they wrote to us in response to this website showing our love for Israel. 

We have now begun support their work with monthly contributions. They seek to help Jews make aliyah (immigrate) to their homeland in Israel.

Here is their most recent newsletter.

Shalom,

Steve Martin

Founder/President

Love For His People, Inc.

Clint Family Update

Third Anniversary

It’s now been three years since we all left Northern Ireland to dedicate ourselves to serving the LORD amongst Hungary’s Jewish community. On July 1st 2013 we all arrived to a very hot Hungarian summer. In these three years we’ve come a long way, with many challenges, with both disappointments and blessings.

We’ve always been aware that we have many people praying for us from many countries around the world. Some of these people we have never met before, still in Yeshua we are family and look out for each other. As parents Nauszika and I are extremely proud to how the three children have progressed.

The girls are now young ladies and not children, Sara Rose will be fourteen on July 18th, Naomi Ruth is now thirteen, and Yonatan Israel will be seven on September 7th. All three have worked very hard at school, learning the Hungarian language which is considered to be one of the most difficult languages in the world. Yes there are times when we miss Northern Ireland, hopefully we’ll be able to get back to see family in the winter.

We’ve been able to build up good relationships with the Jews of Hungary, especially here in Budapest. Being able to meet with the Jewish Agency has been a key factor in winning trust in the community. Apart from the Jewish Agency we are the only group helping Hungarian Jews to make Aliyah to Israel. Above all, the LORD is the one who has sustained us throughout these last three years.

1st Corinthians 15:58…. So, my dear brothers, stand firm and immovable, always doing the LORD’s work as vigorously as you can, knowing that united with the LORD your efforts are not in vain.

Aliyah Work

Please continue to pray for all those Olim (new immigrants) we have assisted with funds. A few days ago we were happy to hear that Benjamin had made Aliyah. Benjamin an 18 year old from Budapest was assisted a few months ago. After he completes his Hebrew language course in the Galilee he will start his army service as a “Lone Soldier”. This means that he has no family living in Israel to connect with. I know that Lone Soldiers often find it difficult in their first few months of army service. Anyone wishing to help Benjamin with a small donation can Email me.

Yair, another Lone soldier we helped over a year ago is now serving with an elite army unit. Another girl caller Sara will get married early in 2017. We also helped Sara with funds over a year ago. I make a point of keeping in touch with every Olim we help. Please remember to pray for all the Hungarian Olim we help back to their Land of Promise.

The “S” family from Koszeg in western Hungary are also expected to leave very soon. I remember well the day when I gave them the funds for Aliyah, we all sat in the Jewish Agency office in tears. They appreciated Ezra’s help, without which they would never have been able to afford to pay the required expenses. In order to help these dear people and also operate ourselves we depend upon the love offerings of brothers and sisters with a heart for the Jewish people.

Synagogue Attack

In late June the synagogue in the town of Gyöngyös 25 miles north-west from Budapest was attacked two days in a row, on a Wednesday and a Thursday. On the Thursday a few older men from the Jewish community in the town were in the synagogue when the second attack happened. The synagogue had some of its windows smashed. I believe that the police are still trying to find those responsible for the attack. Please pray for Rabbi Peter Weise (pic above) from Gyöngyös, I know Peter personally, he’s a quiet and humble man. I know that he will be very concerned because of what has happened.

Meeting friend from Northern Ireland

In early July we had a visit from Véronique a friend who lives and works in Northern Ireland. It was good for us all to get together and have lunch in Budapest’s Jewish quarter. We were able to take Véronique on a tour to see some of Budapest’s Jewish sites and memorials.

Political Situation in Hungary

The political climate in Hungary is steadily getting worse. The present right wing FIDESZ government is becoming increasingly unpopular because of its decisions. Both the schools and hospitals are underfunded, this has led to protests in both hospitals and schools. Sadly this is playing into the hands of the Far Right Jobbik party. Eastern Hungary is a Jobbik stronghold, in the east the people are poorer and employment is difficult to find. Please pray that the Jews of Hungary will see the danger which in on the horizon. Nationalism is on the rise all over Europe, again the Jews will be blamed for all problems!! Please pray that the LORD will guide us as we seek warn Hungarian Jews about this danger.

Contact & Support

To support the CLINT family in Hungary please contact:

EZRA UK…  (Pat)  ezraint.uk@gmail.com

My Jewish Hungary Webpage

http://jewish-hungary.weebly.com/contact-page.html

hungarianaliyah@yahoo.com

Those That Wanted To Get Prepared Have Already Gotten Prepared By Now - Michael Snyder THE ECONOMIC COLLAPSE BLOG

Those That Wanted To Get Prepared Have Already Gotten Prepared By Now Posted: 11 Jul 2016   Michael Snyder  THE ECONOMIC COLLAPSE BLOG Is the time for warning people to prepare for what is ahead coming to an end?  For years, bold men and women all over America have been sounding the alarm and warning people to get prepared physically, financially, mentally, emotionally and spiritually for the great storm that is rapidly approaching.  Personally, I have written more than 2,500 articles on my primary two websites combined, and so nobody can accuse me of not blowing the trumpet.   It has gotten to the point that sometimes I am even tired of listening to myself warn the people.  But now we are shifting into a new phase. The other day I was reflecting on some of the things that I have been hearing lately.  Sales of emergency food and supplies are way down across the entire industry.  Many organizations and websites that have been instrumental in sounding the alarm for a long time are really struggling right now.  On my websites, traffic has hit a bit of a plateau after experiencing a tremendous surge late last year.  Overall, “prepping” was very hot just a few years ago, and at one time it was estimated that there were approximately three million “preppers” in the United States.  But these days there seems to be a tremendous amount of apathy out there. As I reflected on all of this, I came to one inescapable conclusion. Those that wanted to get prepared have already gotten prepared by now, and those that did not want to get prepared are not likely to do so any time soon. I personally know a lot of people that are very, very prepared and have been for a long time.  Yes, there is still a small minority of people out there that only recently woke up and started prepping, but overall most of the preparation that people wanted to do has already been completed.  And for those that have not done anything to prepare, you could argue with them until the moon turns to cheese and they still won’t take any action. At this point the die has been cast.  Most of those that felt that they should prepare have already prepared.  Most of those that felt that they should repent have already repented.  Most of those that felt that they should warn America have already sounded the alarm. So now all that is left is to wait for the shaking to begin. In looking back at what has transpired over the last several years, I think that it would be appropriate to say something about the failure of the church in America. You see, if the churches of America were doing their job, all of the “watchmen” out there would not even be needed.  Our voices would simply be lost in a chorus of thousands upon thousands of pastors, teachers, ministers and evangelists boldly warning people about what is coming to this nation. But instead, there is just deafening silence coming from most of the mainstream churches. The sad thing is that many, many church leaders understand very clearly what is coming, but they have purposely chosen not to warn the people.  Some time ago, George Barna conducted a study that looked into why our churches are not addressing the key issues of the day, and what he discovered was absolutely astounding… “‘What we’re finding is that when we ask them about all the key issues of the day, [90 percent of them are] telling us, ‘Yes, the Bible speaks to every one of these issues,” he explained. “Then we ask them: ‘Well, are you teaching your people what the Bible says about those issues?’ and the numbers drop…to less than 10 percent of pastors who say they will speak to it.” Most churches in America don’t want to talk about the hard things, because they desperately want to make people feel comfortable.  They want to entertain people and make them happy so that they will come back week after week and drop their money into the offering plate. When it comes to defining success as a church, Barna found that there were five primary factors that were important to the majority of pastors, and none of them had anything to do with repentance and salvation through Jesus Christ… “There are five factors that the vast majority of pastors turn to,” he outlined. “Attendance, giving, number of programs, number of staff, and square footage.” Sadly, most Christians in America actually prefer these lukewarm churches, and the Apostle Paul warned that these times were coming nearly 2000 years ago.  The following is what 2 Timothy 4:3-4 says in the Modern English Version… 3 For the time will come when people will not endure sound doctrine, but they will gather to themselves teachers in accordance with their own desires, having itching ears, 4 and they will turn their ears away from the truth and turn to myths. You may not want to hear this, but the majority of churches in America have already gone apostate, and that is the truth. We are slowly but surely losing an entire generation of Americans, and yet our dead and dying churches just continue to slumber.  I shared the following numbers in a previous article, but they bear repeating.  The following comes directly out of a Pew Research Center report… Millennials – especially the youngest Millennials, who have entered adulthood since the first Landscape Study was conducted – are far less religious than their elders. For example, only 27% of Millennials say they attend religious services on a weekly basis, compared with 51% of adults in the Silent generation. Four-in-ten of the youngest Millennials say they pray every day, compared with six-in-ten Baby Boomers and two-thirds of members of the Silent generation. Only about half of Millennials say they believe in God with absolute certainty, compared with seven-in-ten Americans in the Silent and Baby Boom cohorts. And only about four-in-ten Millennials say religion is very important in their lives, compared with more than half in the older generational cohorts. Those numbers are absolutely horrifying.  Yes, there are still a few really good churches scattered across the country.  But overall, the church in America is in really sorry shape, and the numbers don’t lie.  Christianity is in rapid decline in the United States, and somebody better wake up and start doing something about it. Over the years, I can’t tell you how many dead churches that I have sat in.  That is why it is so refreshing when I actually find one where the gospel is preached and where people truly love one another.  I have had the privilege of sharing my message in such a church in recent months, and I wish that there were a lot more of them out there. Unfortunately, most ministers in America are really busy doing things other than what they should be doing.  For instance, have you ever heard of “clergy response teams”?  If you can believe it, the government has actually recruited ministers to help the population accept martial law when it is declared someday.  The following comes from KSLA News… Could martial law ever become a reality in America?  Some fear any nuclear, biological or chemical attack on U.S. soil might trigger just that. KSLA News 12 has discovered that the clergy would help the government with potentially their biggest problem: Us. Can you believe that? Here is more from the report… Such clergy response teams would walk a tight-rope during martial law between the demands of the government on the one side, versus the wishes of the public on the other.  “In a lot of cases, these clergy would already be known in the neighborhoods in which they’re helping to diffuse that situation,” assured Sandy Davis.  He serves as the director of the Caddo-Bossier Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness. For the clergy team, one of the biggest tools that they will have in helping calm the public down or to obey the law is the bible itself, specifically Romans 13.  Dr. Tuberville elaborated, “because the government’s established by the Lord, you know.  And, that’s what we believe in the Christian faith.  That’s what’s stated in the scripture.” I don’t know about you, but I found that article to be extremely chilling. But this is the state of things in America today.  We have a dead church that is stuffed to the gills with dead ministers, and the people are not being told the truth about the great shaking that is coming to America. And when the great shaking comes, there will be multitudes of these dead churches and ministries that will go under and never rise again. Meanwhile, God will be raising up a Remnant, and that Remnant is going to shake the world.

Does the Church Need a Hanukkah? - Brian Hennessy ISRAEL TODAY

Does the Church Need a Hanukkah?

Tuesday, July 12, 2016 |  

Brian Hennessy  ISRAEL TODAY

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This is not a campaign to add one more feast day to the Christian calendar. It’s about the church’s pressing need to celebrate a victory over a tyrannical ruling power as the Jews did over Greece in first century BC. Especially since the tyrannical power that has imprisoned and defiled the body of Messiah for centuries is the same Greek culture of corruption. 

As testimony to the Hellenization of the church, I could introduce a whole card catalogue of eminent historians and theologians. But I’ll let the words of one Biblical scholar, Norman H. Snaith, speak for all:  “Our position is that the re-interpretation of Biblical theology in terms of the Greek philosophers has been both widespread throughout the centuries, and everywhere destructive to the essence of the Christian faith…Neither Catholic nor Protestant theology is based on Biblical theology. In each case we have a domination of Christian theology by Greek thought” (The Distinctive Ideas of the Old Testament, p 187,188)

How did this happen, you ask? And why are so few Christians aware of it? More importantly, what can be done given that most are as clueless of this dreadful state of affairs as I was once. It took a class in Bible College entitled “Early Christian Thought” to open my eyes. That’s where I learned (with no help from the professor) how the early Church Fathers corrupted the church by interpreting the Bible through the philosophical “wisdom” of Aristotle, Plato and Socrates. 

Unlike the Jewish disciples who had faithfully delivered the gospel to us, these new Gentile leaders had not been raised on the Scriptures, but converted from paganism. In their zeal to define and defend the new faith, and to steer us away from Jewish hopes and promises for which they had little sympathy or understanding, they moved the church off the bedrock of revealed truth on to the shifting sands of man’s reasoning. 

Like a true Trojan Horse, Greek philosophy was ignorantly inserted into the life of the church.  But it didn’t take full control until a church council met at Nicea in 325 AD, presided over by the high priest of all Rome’s religions, the Emperor Constantine. The parallel between this man and Antiochus IV, the Greek tyrant who tried to snuff out all worship and knowledge of the one true God in Israel, is eerie. Constantine’s conquering “soldiers,” however, were Christian theologians schooled in Alexandria, Egypt, a hotbed of Greek philosophical study. Applying their scholasticism to the most dividing issues in the church, he imposed a cruel theological unity upon the church backed by the power of the state. 

In doing so, compliance to church creeds replaced love as the hallmark of the true believer. From then on, any departure from an approved creed - even when refuted by the plain text of Scripture - defined you as a heretic. Consequently, millions of both Jews and true followers of Yeshua were martyred.

It was at Nicea that the stripping of Christianity from its Hebraic roots began in earnest. The oneness of God, as capsulized in Deuteronomy 6:4, along with the Jewish humanity of Yeshua, were redefined in Greek philosophical terms. The Saturday Sabbath was changed to the Sun’s Day to become the official Christian holy day of rest. The celebration of Yeshua’s resurrection was moved to a week after the Jewish Passover (and later called “Easter”).  And to give this new Gentile religion its own worship places, Constantine soon launched a church building program to rival the synagogues. 

Through it all, Paul’s dire warning went unheeded: “See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Messiah” (Col. 2:8).

Well, the body of Messiah has been imprisoned in this Greco/Roman dominated church system now for almost two millennium. Will we get a Hanukkah deliverance? Yes, but only as each of us allows the “Maccabee” spirit within us to rise up and renew our mind in the Scriptures, and to cleanse our own temple. But the institutional church system, like the leavened bread of Pharaoh’s Egypt, must be left behind. 

 Isaiah cries to us from across the centuries: “Awake, awake, clothe yourself in your strength, O Zion….Shake yourself from the dust, rise up, O captive Jerusalem. Loose yourself from the chains around your neck, O captive daughter of Jerusalem” (Isa. 52:1,2).

Remember too, Antiochus IV, like Constantine, are but types and shadows of the coming Satanically-possessed “man of lawlessness” who will martial a world gone mad to try and  obliterate all worship of God from this earth. He will no doubt appear as a champion and unifier of apostate Christianity and unite it to the State, as did Constantine.  And then, as Antiochus IV did, try to crush the one nation that by its very existence testifies the Lord Almighty lives - Israel. 

What can believers do? We’ve already been told: “Return to the stronghold, O prisoners who have no hope; This very day I am declaring I will restore double to you. For I will bend Judah as My bow, I will fill the bow with Ephraim. And I will stir up your sons, O Zion, against your sons, O Greece; And I will make you like a warrior’s sword” (Zech. 9:12,13).

Brian Hennessy is author of Valley of the Steeples

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Boycott of Israel Makes Inroads in Europe - Israel Today

Boycott of Israel Makes Inroads in Europe

Tuesday, July 12, 2016 |  Israel Today Staff

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Archaeologist Find Reveals New Truth Behind Wicked Philistines - ARI RABINOVITCH/REUTERS CHARISMA NEWS

Professor Lawrence E. Stager, Dorot Research Professor of the Archaeology of Israel, speaks during an interview with Reuters near a partly unearthed skeleton at excavation site of the first-ever Philistine cemetery at Ashkelon National Park in southern Israel. ( REUTERS/Amir Cohen)

Archaeologist Find Reveals New Truth Behind Wicked Philistines

 7/11/2016 ARI RABINOVITCH/REUTERS  CHARISMA NEWS

Join us on our podcast each weekday for an interesting story, well told, from Charisma News. Listen at charismapodcastnetwork.com.

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Philistines were no "philistines," say archaeologists who unearthed a 3,000-year-old cemetery in which members of the biblical nation were buried along with jewelry and perfumed oil. 

Little was known about the Philistines prior to the recent excavation in the Israeli port city of Ashkelon. The famed arch enemies of the ancient Israelites -- Goliath was a Philistine -- flourished in this area of the Mediterranean, starting in the 12th century BC, but their way of life and origin have remained a mystery. 

That stands to change after what researchers have called the first discovery of a Philistine cemetery. It contains the remains of about 150 people in numerous burial chambers, some containing surprisingly sophisticated items. 

The team also found DNA on parts of the skeletons and hope that further testing will determine the origins of the Philistine people. 

We may need to rethink today's derogatory use of the word philistine, which refers to someone averse to culture and the arts, said archaeologist Lawrence Stager, who has led the Leon Levy Expedition to Ashkelon since 1985. 

"The Philistines have had some bad press, and this will dispel a lot of myths," Stager said. 

Stager's team dug down about 3 meters (10 feet) to uncover the cemetery, which they found to have been used centuries later as a Roman vineyard. 

On hands and knees, workers brushed away layers of dusty earth to reveal the brittle white bones of entire Philistine skeletons reposed as they were three millennia ago. 

Decorated juglets believed to have contained perfumed oil were found in graves. Some bodies were still wearing bracelets and earrings. Others had weapons. 

The archeologists also discovered some cremations, which the team say were rare and expensive for the period, and some larger jugs contained the bones of infants. 

"The cosmopolitan life here is so much more elegant and worldly and connected with other parts of the eastern Mediterranean," Stager said, adding that this was in contrast to the more modest village lifestyle of the Israelites who lived in the hills to the east. 

Bones, ceramics and other remains were moved to a tented compound for further study and some artifacts were reconstructed piece by piece. The team mapped the position of every bone removed to produce a digital 3D recreation of the burial site. 

Final reports on the finds are being published by the Semitic Museum at Harvard University. 

© 2016 Thomson Reuters. All rights reserved.

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Ron Cantor: WATCH: Parts 4-6 in Romans 11 Series

VIDEO SERIES ON ROMANS 11 (Parts 4-6) BACKGROUND IS EVERYTHING! I once sent my father an email. It said, "Send IT and Leave me Alone." My mother saw the email and was shocked at my rudeness. But that was only because she did not understand the context of the email. My father sends out our books. We received an order and I asked him to "Send IT (Identity Theft) and Leave me Alone (I'm Jewish)—the names of our books—to a certain person. Because I knew the context, I didn't proof it with the eyes of someone who didn't. Also my father understood it clearly. In the same way, without knowing the shocking background of the book of Romans, there is no way to understand why Paul is so adamant about God's continued call on Israel. We have created a video series to explain this. We have received much encouragement over these videos as people's eyes have been opened. You can see all six by clicking here or on the videos themselves. Video seven will be out soon!     PRAISE FOR "THE JERUSALEM SECRET" I ordered the first in this series, "Identity Theft", by mistake thinking it was a Christian Living type book. I don't read fiction, but I thought I might as well read it.Wow! I was pleasantly surprised by it's captivating story filled with historical content about the early church, Jesus and the Jews of Jesus' time. So I waited, and waited, and waited for Ron to write the sequel.️ When it finally was available I was excited! "Jerusalem Secret" did not disappoint! It was a great continuation of "The Identity Theft." It was filled with lots of historical content with a fast paced, fun story that had me laughing at times. I think I read that this was suppose to be a trilogy. I hope so, because I want to hear more and see how David moves forward in his new found faith.   Our mailing address is:  Messiah's Mandate PO Box 535788 Grand Prairie, TX 75053 Add us to your address book

Hating Israel: New Film Delivers Hard Truths with a Dash of Humor - CBN News Chris Mitchell

Hating Israel: New Film Delivers Hard Truths with a Dash of Humor

07-11-2016

CBN News Chris Mitchell

JERUSALEM, Israel – The growing worldwide anti-Israel movement claims Israel practices apartheid like the former regime of South Africa. Known as BDS, the movement urges countries and businesses to boycott, divest and sanction the Jewish state. Now a cutting-edge documentary is attacking this notion with satire and humor.

The film, called "Hating Israel," features Christian comedian Brad Stine and his search for the truth behind the BDS movement.

The documentary takes a humorous approach to puncture the stereotype of what the world says about Israel.

One clip from the movie says, "They say it's an apartheid state, the world's pariah, an occupier, basically the world's greatest bogeyman, even 'badder' than North Korea, Iran and Sudan combined, especially if you ask the United Nations. What do you get? It's as if they enter the Twilight Zone. There is a fifth dimension beyond that, which is known to man."

"I hope that the format that we created with the humor does not trivialize in any way this very important subject, but makes it palatable enough that people that didn't even think it matters, give it a listen and think, 'You know what, this is wrong,'" Stine told CBN News.

Filmmaker Stan Moore and his wife, Laurie, produced the movie.

"The new platform to deliver anti-Semitism today is through the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement," she explained.

"We can't just take what the mainstream media tells us. We can't just listen to some of the leaders and academics who are trying to convince us that we should be boycotting Israel. We should be supporting the Zionist state," she said.

The film's cutting-edge style aims to reach a new generation.

"This is not your Daddy's documentary, okay? This is aimed at a Millennial, younger audience, okay?" Stine explained. "We got to get to those younger people because they're the ones that's going to make the difference. Preaching to the choir is one thing that will get you so far – if we can't get the young people to realize that hating Israel is not funny."

Moore agreed.

"Especially as Christians, it is our biblical responsibility to stand up and not allow our brother, Israel, or the Jewish people to stand alone or fight this battle alone," he said.

It's a funny movie about a serious topic. Stine says he felt compelled to tell Israel's story.

"And I believe I'm at a time in my career I can make money and make people laugh or I can leave a legacy and I felt this was me," he said. "That I was like going to put myself in the position where what God has gifted me with as a communicator to tell Israel's story to remind Christians that this is your duty by God to defend this nation, this people."

Ancient Philistine Cemetery Unearthed in Ashkelon By Michael Bachner - BREAKING ISRAEL NEWS

Senior staff discuss 9th-10th century BC burial in excavation of Philistine cemetery. (Photo: Tsafrir Abayov/Leon Levy Expedition.)

Ancient Philistine Cemetery Unearthed in Ashkelon

By Michael Bachner July 11, 2016  BREAKING ISRAEL NEWS

“And the Philistines had war again with Israel; and David went down, and his servants with him, and fought against the Philistines; and David waxed faint.” II Samuel 21:15 (The Israel Bible™)

A Philistine cemetery has been discovered for the first time in Israel, possibly shedding light on the mystery of the Philistines’ origins. According to biblical accounts, the Philistines were the arch-foes of ancient Israel.

“After decades of studying what the Philistines left behind, we have finally come face to face with the people themselves,” said Daniel Master, a professor of archaeology at Wheaton College. “With this discovery we are close to unlocking the secrets of their origins.”

Archaeologists and scholars have long searched for the Philistines’ origin. Artifacts found in the cemetery, which date back 2,700 to 3,000 years, may support the biblical account of the Philistines as migrants who arrived on the shores of ancient Israel from western lands in approximately the twelfth century BCE.

“Ninety-nine percent of the chapters and articles written about Philistine burial customs should be revised or ignored now that we have the first and only Philistine cemetery found just outside the city walls of Tel Ashkelon, one of the five primary cities of the Philistines,” said Lawrence Stager, Dorot Professor of the Archaeology of Israel at Harvard University.

The discovery was made by the Leon Levy Expedition to Ashkelon more than thirty years after the excavation began. The digs that took place in Ashdod, Ekron, Ashkelon, and Gath have shown how culturally distinct the Philistines were from their Israelite contemporaries.

Philistine burial practices were not like those of the Bronze Age Canaanites, nor were they similar to burial practices in later Iron Age Judea. The Philistines buried their dead primarily in pits that were dug for each deceased individual: male or female, adult or child. Later, more bodies were sometimes placed in the same pit, which was dug again along roughly the same lines, but the new remains were interred with their own grave goods. The cemetery was also found to contain evidence of cremations, together with pit interments and multi-chambered tombs.

After quelling Bar Kochba’s revolt in the Roman province of Judaea in 135 CE, Emperor Hadrian renamed the area Syria Palaestina, for the Israelites’ ancient enemies.

Research on artifacts found at the site, including bones, ceramics, jewelry and weapons, may connect the Philistines to related populations elsewhere in the Mediterranean Basin. Bone samples taken from the site are also being tested in order to ascertain the Philistines’ origins.

Physical anthropology member documents discovered skeleton in Ashkelon excavation. (Photo: Melissa Aja/Leon Levy Expedition)

Most of the items found in the graves were storage jars, small bowls, and decorated juglets filled with what is believed to have been perfumed oil. While bracelets and earrings were found upon some of the remains and weapons with others, most of the individuals seem not have been buried with personal items.

The discovery was made in Ashkelon, a key port and maritime trade center from the Bronze Age to the Crusades, when it was destroyed and left uninhabited until modern times.

The excavation was organized and sponsored by the Leon Levy Foundation; the Semitic Museum at Harvard University; Boston College; Wheaton College; and Troy University, under license from the Israel Antiquities Authority and the Israel Nature and Parks Authority.