(ANALYSIS) The parallels were striking — and surely not coincidental. Exactly 50 years and a day after being taken completely off guard by a coordinated military attack by its neighbors — Egypt and Syria — Israel was again caught by surprise.
Read More(OPINION) Heartbreak. Shock. Agony. Devastation. Confusion. Rage. These are just a few of the emotions flooding the hearts of millions of Israelis in the midst of an unprecedented terrorist attack by Hamas. This is a time to stop and pray for the merciful intervention of God.
Read MoreAfter four years of excavation, archaeological preservation, extensive engineering work and construction — and just in time for the sweltering heat wave now baking Jerusalem — an indoor swimming pool was inaugurated July 3 at the Terra Sancta School in the Old City’s Christian Quarter.
Read MoreTourists and pilgrims despairing about finding a genuine souvenir of their visit to the Holy Land that wasn’t mass-manufactured in China, India, Turkey or Egypt might wish to consider visiting the Bethlehem Icon Centre — perhaps the only school in the Middle East that teaches the ancient Christian tradition of iconography.
Read MoreJERUSALEM — Israel’s central — and arguably shameful — role in the global antiquities business was the subject of a Zoom lecture on May 2 sponsored by the W.F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research in Jerusalem and the Palestine Exploration Fund headquartered in London.
Read MoreMousseline, a small gourmet ice cream shop directly across the street from the president’s residence on Hanasi Street, found itself swamped on Saturday nights, the regular night for the demonstrations in recent months.
Read More(ANALYSIS) Marking April as Arab American Heritage Month – a time to learn about the history, culture and contributions of our nearly 4 million strong community – is gaining traction across the country. In 2022, Joe Biden made history as the first U.S. president to recognize the month, which he did again in 2023.
Read MoreModeled after soccer’s World Cup and organized after the International Olympic Committee’s decision in 2005 to remove baseball from the Summer Olympics, the World Baseball Classic is contested every three years. The WBC returned this month with 20 teams, including Israel, which is made up largely of Americans of Jewish heritage.
Read MoreFor a fraction of the cost of a comparable hotel in relatively expensive Bollywood, all Jews are welcome in the air-conditioned kosher guesthouse that operates thanks to the perpetual generosity of the Sir Jacob Sassoon Trusts. And the impact of the Sassoon family traces forward to 2023, when a valuable Hebrew Bible from 1,000 years ago, the Sassoon Codex, goes to auction at Sotheby’s this spring as previously reported by ReligionUnplugged.com.
Read MoreThe Codex Sassoon has 24 books divided into the Pentateuch, the Prophets, and the Writings, abbreviated as TaNaKH in Hebrew. About 15 chapters are missing, including 10 from Genesis, but it is far more complete than the Aleppo Codex. Another medieval Bible text, the Leningrad Codex, is “entirely complete,” but is more than a century younger than Sassoon 1053, Sotheby’s said.
Read More(ANALYSIS) Israel’s new government is the most right-wing and religious leadership the country has had in the 75 years of its existence, as many observers have pointed out. And this style of leadership may last because it represents the next generation of Israelis.
Read MoreThe town in the West Bank where the Magi are believed to have followed the star toward newborn Jesus is today a shrinking community of Greek Orthodox Christians. At a recent Christmas tree lighting, residents spoke about family members who have moved abroad, mostly to the United States, South America and Europe, leaving behind an ever-shrinking and aging community.
Read MoreWassim Razzouk and his sons are carrying their family’s Egyptian Coptic Christian tattooing tradition into its eighth century in Jerusalem’s Old City. ReligionUnplugged.com talked to Razzouk to learn more about his family history, the craft of tattooing, why Christian megachurch pastors and Catholic priests are coming to his shop and promoting the Razzouks on social media and how the Coptic faith propels his family business.
Read More(REVIEW) We are all consumers of news. Many have shunned the news altogether in recent years. Increasingly, Christians are those people — especially the mainstream media — because they don’t see in it the values that reflect their lives. If you’re one of those people, then a new book out now helps you understand why and how to fix it.
Read MoreIn July, after five years of work, Father Francesco Patton inaugurated the multimedia exhibition “The Experience of Resurrection,” housed at the Franciscans’ Christian Information Center located inside the Old City of Jerusalem’s Jaffa Gate. The 656-square-foot installation, spread over six rooms, takes 40 minutes to view.
Read MoreAfter an Israeli Supreme Court ruling, a right-wing Jewish group may proceed through the courts to evict the Palestinian Arabs who are protected tenants at two historic hotels in Jerusalem’s Christian Quarter. The Greek Orthodox Church leasing the properties is opposing the transfer of leases by arguing the agreement made by a former church finance director is void and illegal.
Read MoreSix years after Israeli authorities arrested the director of World Vision International’s work in Gaza and charged him with diverting money to the Islamic terrorist organization Hamas, a court in Beersheba found him guilty of terrorism charges last week, citing classified information that has been kept from the public.
Read More(OPINION) The most strictly religious Jews — the mystical-oriented Hasidic followers of historic rabbinic lineages and the “mitnagdim,” Hasidism’s more intellectually focused religious critics — suffered some of the worst losses in the Holocaust. But a new survey says that by 2040, if their current growth rate persists, about a quarter of the world’s Jews will likely be Haredi.
Read MoreAs Russia’s two-month-old invasion of neighboring Ukraine continues, Russian President Vladimir Putin is demanding that Israel grant the Kremlin control of a Russian Orthodox church in Jerusalem’s Christian quarter as the previous Israeli government had promised. Granting the request would be a diplomatic headache for Israel.
Read MoreBahá’í leaders will resume construction soon on the shrine of ʻAbdu’l Bahá, the Iran-born head of the faith who popularized the religion outside the Middle East. A fire on April 8 caused significant damage to the main building under construction at the holy site on Israel's coast just north of Haifa.
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