‘Clear signs’ Hezbollah behind Burgas bombing
(JNS.org) There are “clear signs that say Hezbollah is behind the Burgas bombing” that killed five Israelis and their Bulgarian bus driver on July 18, 2012, Bulgarian Interior Minister Tsvetlin Yovchev said Thursday on the one-year anniversary of the attack.
Yovchev told reporters at a ceremony for the opening of a monument for the victims of the attack that Bulgaria’s new Socialist government, since taking office in late May, has received more information implicating Hezbollah in the bus bombing.
Meanwhile, most of the 28 European Union (EU) member nations support a British proposal to have the EU place Hezbollah on its terror watch list, but Austria, the Czech Republic and Ireland are among the EU countries refusing to back the move, which needs unanimous approval among the 28 countries, Reuters reported.
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Remnants of King David’s palace unearthed southwest of Jerusalem
(JNS.org) Two large structures believed to have been a part of King David’s palace have been unearthed in a joint seven-year excavation led by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Israel Antiquities Authority, the two announced Wednesday.
The discovery was made in the site of the ancient city of Khirbet Qeiyafa, located southwest of Jerusalem and borders Beit Shemesh and the Elah Valley, Israel Hayom reported. The city dates back to the early 10th century B.C.E., and archeologists believe it met a sudden end around 980 B.C.E.
Antiquities Authority researchers Professor Yossi Garfinkel and Saar Ganor identified one of the structures as King David’s palace and the other as a large storehouse structure on the royal compound, which, according to archaeologists, stretched some 1,000 square meters (about 11,000 square feet).
“The ruins are the best example to date of the uncovered fortress city of King David. … This is indisputable evidence of the existence of a central administration in Judea during the time of King David,” the Antiquities Authority said.
BDS activist voted in as University of California student regent
(JNS.org) Sadia Saifuddin, an activist in the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel, on Wednesday in San Francisco was voted in as a 2014-15 student regent on the University of California (UC) Board of Regents, the governing board of the 10-school UC system.
Saifuddin, a Pakistani American, co-sponsored and vocally promoted a student government resolution this spring calling for UC Berkeley, where she is a student, to divest from Israel. She has been involved with anti-Israel groups including the Muslim Brotherhood’s Muslim Students Association and Students for Justice in Palestine.
Representatives from the pro-Israel education group StandWithUs and the Simon Wiesenthal Center attended Wednesday’s Board of Regents vote to speak out against Saifuddin’s candidacy. Roberta Seid, research-education director of StandWithUs, said she told the regents they “should be trying to find a bridge builder, not a bridge burner” like Saifuddin to be their student board member.
“What I would call for [following the vote] is for the regents to re-double their efforts to speak against bigotry, anti-Jewish bigotry, and BDS, and that they should re-double their efforts to uphold an inclusive environment, tolerance, and intellectual responsibility,” Seid told JNS.org.
Richard Blum was the only regent who abstained from the board’s voice vote, due to his belief that Saifuddin “led a movement that was so divisive” on campus, raising concern about her ability to be representative of all students, according to Seid. Regent Bonnie Reiss acknowledged her personal opposition to Saifuddin’s views, but maintained that the regents “would not have selected Sadia if we thought she was anti-Semitic,” the San Jose Mercury News reported.
The Wiesenthal Center had organized an online petition opposing Saifuddin’s nomination on the grounds of the Israel divestment resolution she co-sponsored at UC Berkeley, as well as a bill she authored “to curb the First Amendment rights of free speech for UC lecturer and pro-Israel activist Tammi Benjamin, which violates the very essence of being a member of the Board of Regents.”
The 26-member UC Board of Regents appoints one student regent for a one-year term. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) said it respects the Board of Regents’ independent confirmation process, but that it is “troubled by Saifuddin’s prior leadership role in anti-Israel activities on campus.”
“As a Student Regent, Saifuddin has an obligation to represent the interests of the entire UC student body,” ADL said. “We will observe her actions as a Student Regent closely and will not hesitate to speak out if she runs afoul of this obligation.”
State Department corrects ‘East Jerusalem, Palestinian Territories’ error after ZOA outreach
(JNS.org) The U.S. State Department corrected an errant reference to “East Jerusalem” as part of the Palestinian territories following outreach from the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA).
In a press released titled “U.S. Department of State Announces Museums Connect Cultural Exchange 2013 Awardees,” the department had said the Palestinian Heritage Museum is located in “East Jerusalem, Palestinian Territories.”
“The State Department should not be referring to East Jerusalem as part of the ‘Palestinian Territories,’” ZOA wrote in a letter to Michael A. Hammer, assistant secretary in the Bureau of Public Affairs for the State Department. “The statement is inaccurate, contradicting longstanding U.S. policy that the status of Jerusalem is as yet undetermined and must be resolved in final status negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs.”
ZOA on Wednesday thanked the State Department “for its immediate correction.”
Christian leaders set to complete 13-month educational program on Judaism
(JNS.org) The American Jewish Committee (AJC) and the Shalom Hartman Institute have partnered together on a soon-to-be-completed educational program on Judaism for 16 Christian leaders.
The partnership, known as the Christian Leadership Initiative (CLI), has allowed Christian leaders of diverse denominations to engage in long-distance study of classical Jewish texts with leading Israel scholars over a 13-month period. The program began in Jerusalem in July 2012 and will finish there this year in the program’s final stage from July 17-25.
“CLI fosters a unique approach in advancing interreligious relations. It provides an open space for Christian leadership to experience and study Judaism and Israel from a Jewish perspective,” said Rabbi Noam Marans, AJC’s director of interreligious and intergroup relations. ”We look forward to working with the CLI fellows as they apply their learning to Christian education and Jewish-Christian relations.”
“The mixture of Jewish and Christian scholars challenges all of us,” said Dr. Marcie Lenk, the Shalom Hartman Institute’s co-director of New Paths: Christians Engaging Israel. “There is an honesty and depth which comes from studying together.”
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UK clergyman calls on church to repent for past anti-Semitism
(JNS.org) An Anglican clergyman criticized the Church’s history of anti-Semitism and called on the institution to repent at the annual UK conference of the Church’s Ministry to the Jewish people.
“The Apostles would not recognize much in the church today. A Christianity divorced from its Jewish roots has always opened itself up to the demonic spirit of anti-Semitism,” said Rev. Simon Ponsonby, a theologian from St Aldate’s Church in Oxford, UK, according to the ASSIST News Service.
Ponsonby said that Christian figures and theologians incited hatred against the Jewish people in ways that were later re-used during the Holocaust. For instance, well-known Christian Reformation Figure Martin Luther used to say that the Jewish God can be found in the backside of a pig and called for the expulsion of Jews from Germany in his final sermon. Centuries later, these ideas would be implemented by Adolph Hitler.
“I felt ashamed to be a Christian when I read these things,” he said. “I was appalled and traumatized.”
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Egypt Coptic Christians subjected to increased persecution after Morsi’s ouster
(JNS.org) Coptic Christian Egyptians are being subjected to increasing religious violence after the ousting of Muslim Brotherhood President Mohamed Morsi.
According to the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), the Muslim Brotherhood has blamed the Coptic Christian community and Coptic Christian Pope Tawadros II for Morsi’s ouster, which they believe “openly and secretly led the process of opposition to the Islamic stream and this stream’s rise to power,” an article on the Muslim Brotherhood’s website recently stated.
Four Coptic Christians have been killed in the Luxor area since Morsi’s ouster, and churches have been destroyed, including one recently in a village near the central Egyptian city of Minya, according to the BBC. A Coptic Christian was decapitated last week after being kidnapped in the Sinai Peninsula five days earlier, and a Coptic priest was shot to death in the same region a week earlier, Middle East Online reported.
“Reliable reports indicate that there are Copts living in fear and urgently needing protection,” American Jewish Committee Executive Director David Harris said. “People of good will must impress upon Egypt’s leaders that every effort needs to be made to end the targeting of Copts.”
“The reported lack of security around Coptic churches is especially troubling, sending a message of communal vulnerability,” Harris added. “How the Coptic minority is treated will be a key indicator of the course Egypt takes in its historic struggle for democratic stability.”
Naguib Gabriel, a Coptic Christian and head of the Egyptian Federation of Human Rights, called the religious violence in Egypt “ethnic cleansing and organized slaughter.”
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Preceding provided by JNS.org