NASA astronaut ‘fascinated’ by view of Israel from outer space
(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) Days before Passover 2016 on the International Space Station, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) astronaut Jeff Williams uploaded a photo of Israel and its neighbors—and shared his feelings with the world.
“We finally have a Sunday (no cargo vehicle this weekend!) with some personal time to take in the view out the window,” Williams wrote on Facebook.
“Every time we pass over, I have been fascinated with this view, considering it contains the vast majority of Biblical history. My father, a high school history teacher, gave me a love and appreciation for history, and I have a special appreciation for that history. ‘Your testimonies are my meditation.’ It is a good day of rest off the planet!” he wrote.
Williams titled the post, “I have been fascinated with this view.”
The photo drew almost 2,000 online comments on Facebook alone. One user wrote, “Such a beautiful picture…looks like you are looking down from Heaven.” Another user commented, “Perfect creation of my Heavenly Father. God bless you.”
Over the past few weeks, Williams has been uploading pictures from other parts of the world, including the Sahara Desert, Istanbul, and the Strait of Gibraltar.
The International Space Station orbits the planet roughly once every 90 minutes.
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Pro-Israel group, legal forum challenge UNESCO to change (.org)
(Joshua Sharf/JNS.org) The pro-Israel education group StandWithUs and the International Legal Forum have started a petition at Change.org that urges the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) to stop denying the connection between Jews and their religion’s holy sites.
The petition states that UNESCO “is obligated to promote and educate about religious tolerance. UNESCO’s denying the Jewish connection to Jerusalem and its holy sites violates UNESCO’s own mandate by erasing the heritage of millions of people and violating their religious and cultural rights.”
The move comes in response to a recent UNESCO resolution that refers to the Temple Mount only by its Arab name, “Haram al-Sharif.” The location was the site of both the First and Second Jewish Temples, a fact that goes unmentioned in the UNESCO resolution.
The resolution also refers to the Western Wall Plaza—the last remnant of the Second Temple—by its Arabic name. An earlier version of the resolution had included the plaza as part of the Temple Mount’s Al-Aqsa Mosque complex.
UNESCO’s measure also calls both Hebron and Bethlehem “integral” parts of “Palestine.” Hebron is the site of the Cave of the Patriarchs, considered by both Muslims and Jews to be the burial tomb of Abraham and Sarah, and by Jews to also be the final resting place of Isaac, Rebecca, Jacob, and Leah. Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus, also contains Rachel’s Tomb. Israel, the resolution claims, is “planting Jewish fake graves in other spaces of the Muslim cemeteries.”
This is not the first time UNESCO has made controversial claims regarding Israel holy sites. In 2010, it classified Rachel’s Tomb as the “Bilal bin Rabah Mosque.” Prior to that, even Palestinian literature had always referred to it as “Rachel’s Dome.”
In February 2012, the Palestinian Authority (PA) applied to UNESCO for World Heritage Site status for the old city of Hebron and its environs, including the Cave of the Patriarchs. That application acknowledges the Jewish patriarchs, but only mentions the mosque on the site, without referencing the synagogue.
In 2014, UNESCO recognized the farming terraces near Battir as a heritage site, following an emergency request, in order to block further construction of Israel’s security fence.
The PA has the ability to apply for such status for sites as a result of its 2011 accession to membership in UNESCO. Under two U.S. laws, that membership triggered a suspension of U.S. funding for UNESCO, which had amounted to $80 million annually. Nevertheless, in 2012, the Obama Administration unsuccessfully sought to restore that funding, a request that it has renewed this year.
In 2014, under pressure from the Arab League, UNESCO halted an exhibit at its headquarters about the Jewish connection to the land of Israel. UNESCO permitted the exhibit to proceed that June, but only after the word “Israel” was removed from its title.
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Family says its famed medieval Passover haggadah was stolen by the Nazis
(JNS.org) The grandchildren of a German-Jewish lawmaker say that the famous Birds’ Head Haggadah, a medieval copy of the Passover haggadah that is currently on display at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, was stolen from their family by the Nazis.
Calling the Nazis’ stealing and subsequent selling of the haggadah a “long-standing illegal and moral injustice,” the family members have enlisted E. Randol Schoenberg—the lawyer made famous by Ryan Reynolds in the film Woman in Gold for his role in the legal battle that restored Gustav Klimt’s paintings to their Jewish heir—to help them secure compensation for what occurred.
The family has agreed that the manuscript can remain in the Israel Museum, where it is currently being displayed in a special Passover exhibit, but asks that the museum pay the family compensation and rename the manuscript in its name—or face a lawsuit. The haggadah is believed to have been sold to an institution that later became the Israel Museum.
“We want a compromise,” said Jerusalem resident Eli Barzilai, 75, who is leading the legal demand on behalf of his cousins in the U.S. and Germany.
The Birds’ Head Haggadah was written in southern Germany around the year 1300 by someone who identified only as “Menahem.” The manuscript has long stumped historians because of its unusual illustrations. Marc Michael Epstein, a Vassar College professor and author of the book “The Medieval Haggadah,” called the manuscript “as mysterious as the Pyramids of Giza, the monoliths of Easter Island, or Mona Lisa’s smile.”
Barzilai said his grandfather received the manuscript as a wedding gift from the family of his bride, Barzilai’s grandmother. His grandfather, Ludwig Marum, was a lawyer who served in Germany’s parliament and opposed Hitler. He later died in a concentration camp. A lawyer for the Israel Museum acknowledged that the Marum family owned the Haggadah “for a period of time up until 1933,” the Associated Press reported.
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At least 35 passengers hurt in major Haifa bus accident
(JNS.org) At least 35 passengers were hurt in a major vehicular accident in the northern Israeli city of Haifa on Thursday, in which Egged bus number 101 crashed into a wall inside the Carmel Tunnels roadway.
Magen David Adom paramedics and other first responders who arrived on scene reported various degrees of injuries. At least one woman is in very serious condition, and six other people are in serious condition. At least 27 people were evacuated to hospitals in the area.
“When I arrived at the scene I was confronted by a difficult crash scene with the involvement of a bus that crashed into a wall and a truck,” said Naftali Rotenberg, director of the Carmel branches of the United Hatzalah organization, Israel National News reported.
“Together with other volunteers from United Hatzalah’s motorcycle unit we gave initial medical treatment to more than 20 wounded in serious, moderate and light condition. Some of the wounded were trapped in the bus that crashed into the wall of the tunnel, and they were rescued by the firefighting teams,” he said.
The Carmel Tunnels were built to reduce road congestion in Haifa. Israel’s Haaretz newspaper cited statistics by the NGO Green Light showing that buses, which make up only 0.5 percent of all vehicles on Israeli roads, are involved in 4.5 percent of serious road accidents in the Jewish state.
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Israel arrests Hamas members for Jerusalem bus bombing
(JNS.org) Israeli authorities have arrested “a number” of Hamas members on suspicion of involvement in Monday’s bombing of a bus in Jerusalem, in which 20 people were wounded, confirming that the Palestinian terror group was likely behind the attack as opposed to a lone-wolf terrorist.
“Through intensive intelligence and field activity, the Shin Bet, the Israel Police, and the IDF arrested a number of suspects about a day after the attack on the Jerusalem bus—Hamas suspects from the Bethlehem area—who are suspected of being involved in planning the attack and executing it. Their questioning is in progress, and their identities are classified,” the Jerusalem Police said in a statement.
“It has been cleared for publication that the critically wounded man from the attack, who died at the Shaare Zedek hospital, is the terrorist who perpetrated the attack on the Egged line 12 bus. The terrorist, Abd al-Hamid Abu Srur, [who was] about 19 years old, [a] resident of Beit Jala, and affiliated with the Hamas movement, was, as stated, critically wounded during the perpetration of the attack and died of his wounds [on Wednesday] at the hospital. The attack wounded 20 civilians, one of them severely, seven moderately, and the others lightly,” the statement added.
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Netanyahu and Putin meet in Moscow, discuss Golan Heights and Syria
(JNS.org) Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow to discuss the nations’ security coordination at the Israel-Syria border and the necessity to maintain the Golan Heights as a sovereign Israeli territory.
“Mr. President, thank you very much. I very much appreciate both your heartfelt hospitality and the ongoing connection between us. I came here with one main goal—to strengthen the security coordination between us so as to avoid mishaps, misunderstandings, and unnecessary confrontations,” Netanyahu told Putin, referencing the ongoing Russian-Israeli mechanism to avert clashes between their military forces in the region.
Netanyahu reiterated that Israel wants “to prevent the transfer of advanced weaponry from Iran and Syria to Hezbollah in Lebanon,” and secondly, “to prevent the establishment of an additional terror front against us on the Golan Heights,” which “will remain under Israeli sovereignty.” The Israeli cabinet recently held its first-ever meeting in the Golan Heights, a move intended as an affirmation of Israeli sovereignty there in response to reports that the territory is being discussed as part of Syrian civil war peace talks.
The visit to Moscow is the third face-to-face meeting between the two leaders in seven months.
This year, Israel and Russia are marking 25 years of full diplomatic relations.
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Nelson Mandela sculpture to go up in Ramallah square
(JNS.org) A bronze sculpture of South Africa’s first black president, the late Nelson Mandela, will be erected in a Ramallah square on April 26, the Palestinian radio station Raya reported.
“Ramallah is preparing to receive the sculpture of Mandela, making him our ambassador for freedom and justice. His character tells us that the chains that were once broken by Mandela will be broken by our prisoners,” said Ramallah’s mayor, Musa Hadid.
The six-meter (20-foot) sculpture is a gift from the Johannesburg Municipality to Ramallah, the de facto capital of the disputed Palestinian territories. The two cities have a twinning partnership.
“The erection of Mandela’s sculpture in Ramallah carries a symbolic significance, since he was an international symbol of peace and a torch to people striving for freedom and liberty,” Hadid said.
Mandela is known to have supported the Palestinians’ statehood quest, but he also endorsed Israel’s right to exist and had close diplomatic ties with the Jewish state. Anti-Israel activists around the world often compare Israeli treatment of the Palestinians to apartheid-era South Africa.
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