Levitt Letter Extra News

JPost.com Staff , THE JERUSALEM POST

Anti-Semitism is being used to delegitimize the State of Israel, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said recently.

Speaking at the Foreign Ministry’s third annual Global Forum for Combating Anti-Semitism, Lieberman said “classic anti-Semitism, along with Iranian funding and Islamic anti-Semitism, is being used to incite hatred against Jews, and to delegitimize the State of Israel.”

He said that global anti-Semitism had “crossed the line,” and that those behind the effort were “seeking to destroy the Jewish state piece by piece… using academic boycotts and economic sanctions.” He also noted “human rights groups’ effort to deny Israel legitimacy by pushing the United Nations Security Council to adopt the Goldstone Report,” which accused Israel of war crimes and possible crimes against humanity during Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip.

“Modern anti-Semitism,” the foreign minister asserted, “has taken on the form of being anti-Israel… Instead of saying ‘throw the Jews into the sea,’ they talk of a world without Zionism, and without Israel.”

Referring to the matter of Iran, Lieberman said, “It’s scary that 60 years after the horrors of the Holocaust, we see examples of anti-Semitism being funded by Iran.” He added that the Islamic republic “denies the Holocaust, calls for the destruction of Israel, and is trying to achieve nuclear capability. These efforts remind us of [the Nazis' rise to power] 70 years ago.”

According to the registration list, over 500 participants to attended the two-day conference at Jerusalem’s Crowne Plaza Hotel. Delegations comprising diplomats, academics, and policy makers from the United States, Germany, France, Hungary, Ukraine, the United Kingdom, Turkey, Venezuela, and Argentina were listed on the GFCA roster.

Also speaking at the conference was Diaspora Affairs Minister Yuli Edelstein, who cited anti-Semitic attacks around the world in the past year, noting that they took place “in 2009, not 1937.”

He too spoke of a change in the nature of anti-Semitism: “No longer permissible to openly proclaim hatred of the Jews? So the anti-Semite must seek new forms and forums to release his poison.”

“No longer politically correct to openly hate Jews? So he has repackaged his hate, and in doing so has been able to gain endorsement from academics, media outlets, and even political parties.”

Edelstein went on to tell delegates that Israel had become the focus of global anti-Semitism, saying, “There are no more Jews. Instead there are Israelis. [So, the anti-Semite claims that] Israeli soldiers kill babies; Israeli soldiers attack pregnant mothers; Israelis started wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

During his travels abroad, the minister said, he often heard people expressing support for the creation of a Palestinian state, as well as the removal of the Jewish state, which they called “inherently racist.” In response to such sentiments, Edelstein said, “I do not know if a more contradictory, irrational, and illogical argument has ever been made in the same sentence. The Palestinians are a people and therefore deserve a state. The Jews are a people, and therefore should not be allowed to have a state.”

He concluded his address by stressing the need for education on tolerance, saying, “It is our moral duty to educate our children about anti-Semitism and the evils of senseless hatred.”

By Arieh O’Sullivan, www.JPost.com

If you send a letter to Santa Claus, it may or may not reach the North Pole. But if you address one to God, Jesus, the Queen of Sheba, or King David, chances are it will wind up in a warehouse in Jerusalem.

The world’s mailmen, it seems, ascribe divine power to this city. So it’s not surprising that God has his own mailbox here.

Every day, trucks deliver hundreds of sacks of letters to the Israel Postal Authority’s Dead Letter Department. Manager Aviv Yaniv admits that while he doesn’t have a special connection to God, he can make sure the letters get pretty close.

“People believe that Israel and Jerusalem is the holiest spot on earth,” Yaniv said. “The Western Wall is the remnant of the Jewish Temple so people believe that this place is the closest place to God.”

Yaniv, 66, and his assistants can read more than a dozen languages which makes it quite handy when trying to decipher the million and a half letters they receive from around the world every year. Some are addressed to Dios, Spanish for God, while others are written in Russian and Arabic. Some have even misspelled it, writing DOG instead of GOD.

The Dead Letter Department is located in a non-descript, Bolshevik-style cement-block building in Jerusalem’s Givat Shaul behind a bakery. Yaniv’s staff also deal with letters whose addresses are insufficient, unreadable or in languages unfamiliar to mail sorters in the originating country.

“We are able to return something between 75% to 80% of the letters we receive to their senders,” Yaniv said.

Workers do their deciphering at a large table. They are the only department allowed to actually open letters and read private mail. That is for the sole purpose of finding the sender so it can be returned to them. During the period of the British Mandate, women were not allowed to work in the dead letter department since it was believed women did not know how to keep a secret.

“I know the feelings of people writing these letters,” Yaniv said. “Some are anxious or depressed, or some just want something so they send what I call a checklist letter and ask for a beautiful wife, a good job, a nice car, a lot of money and a pretty house.”

Some of the letters are registered, which makes it a little challenging to get someone to sign off on them. Some are sent from prisons. Sometimes large envelopes filled with letters to God are received. These are usually mailed by a teacher somewhere across the globe, perhaps in Africa, or South America, who perhaps have turned it into a writing assignment for their pupils. These are placed in special boxes labeled “Letters to God.”

Among the hundreds of letters waiting to be delivered were some addressed to: “The Son of the Nun, Joshua Cult,” and “Rabi Jesus, Tel Aviv,” and “King Saddam Hussein, Jerusalem Palace.” Some were from Israelis addressed to “My Mother,” and “Mr. Bashir Assad, Damascus,” and “President Ahmadinejad, Iran.” These were stamped “no postal service.” One Egyptian repeatedly sends letters to Moshe Dayan, the iconic former general and minister who died 28 years ago.

Yaniv said that since the fall of the Soviet Union, they have noticed a dramatic increase in letters to God from Russia and other former Soviet countries, a sign of the new religious freedom in their societies.

So what happens to these letters of various faiths addressed to God, Jesus, and mystical characters like King David or The Mother Mary? Twice a year they are brought to Jerusalem’s Old City where the chief rabbi of the Western Wall receives them. They are removed from their envelopes, folded and workers add them to the thousands of messages that are stuffed into the divine cracks between the wall’s massive stones.

“This is a service we do as a gesture to people out of a sense that we want to help folks,” Yaniv said.

Quite a few of the letters contain money or items the Postal Authority says it tries to return.

“We get a lot of cash,” Yaniv said. “And I want to tell you we are experts at finding the person who sent it, even if they’re under the earth, and return the money to them.”

Yaniv says he’s just an ordinary postman – with an extraordinary route.

“First of all it’s my job,” Yaniv said. “But secondly, there are folks who write out of deep sorrow and pour out their heart in the letters so if I can help the letter wind up in a place they think it was meant to reach, then that makes me feel good.”

By Mark H. Plumpton, www.SeacoastOnline.com

In this time in which we live, is there still room for Christmas? Oh, I don’t mean all the usual festivities that accompany the “holiday” season. Most people dutifully make their way to the stores to buy gifts for their loved ones. They may hang pretty lights up and make their homes come alive with bright colors. And they tell everyone they encounter to “have a nice holiday.”

Is there still room for Christmas, however? Do we even remember what happened 2,000 years ago in the “little town of Bethlehem?” No, no, I mean what really happened, and why that is of paramount importance even today? We know that Christmas is the day that the birth of Jesus is celebrated. It’s a sweet story, of a baby born in a stable of an inn, and laid in a feeding trough, but what practical relevance does it have to our lives in the 21st century?

Who was this Jesus? What does his name mean? It was a common name in the land of Israel at the time; it is the Greek form of the name Joshua, which means “Jehovah saves,” and it was given to this newborn baby because “it is he who will save his people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21Matthew 1:21
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21 She shall bring forth a son. You shall call his name Jesus, for it is he who shall save his people from their sins.”

WP-Bible plugin). The record of history tells that this baby grew up to be a teacher and miracle worker. He taught about the Kingdom of God which He was bringing to Earth, and how possessors of that kingdom should live. He revealed that He Himself was to be the fulfillment of the promises of the Hebrew Scriptures of one who would be the Savior of Israel and the Light to the nations. To a skeptical world, not unlike ours today, He foretold that He would die for the sins of His people, and more astoundingly, that He would rise from death in three days. His death by Roman crucifixion is recorded in the New Testament and in secular history, and three days later, His tomb was empty and hundreds of people were talking excitedly about having seen Him risen, alive and well.

Returning to our question, how is this relevant to us today? We have the same need as those in the first century, whether we are aware of it or not. Like them, we try to find purpose in life, but it is an unavoidable fact that in a short time those purposes will die with us, much as we hate to think about it. If we do wonder about God and life after death, we must know that God is holy and demands that we, as His image bearers, be holy as well. Deep down we know that we are broken, that we are not the people we should be. The bad news is that our best efforts are simply not sufficient to satisfy the righteous standard of a holy God. The good news of Christmas is that God has not left us without hope, but has sent Jesus, the baby in the manager, His Son, to be what is called the “propitiation” for our sin. This means that, in His death on the cross, Jesus paid the sin debt for all would come to Him in faith. Therefore, “he who believes in the Son has eternal life, but he who does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him” (John 3:36John 3:36
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36 One who believes in the Son has eternal life, but one who disobeys The same word can be translated “disobeys” or “disbelieves” in this context. the Son won’t see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.”

WP-Bible plugin). This life is there for the believing and the asking. This is the message of Christmas.

Mark H. Plumpton is a resident of Exeter and member of the Exeter Presbyterian Church.

By Albert Mohler, www.CrossWalk.com

As the celebration of Christmas fast approaches, our attention quickly goes to the familiar words of the infancy narratives found in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke.  This is a healthy reflex.  After all, the Gospel of Jesus Christ rests upon the historicity of the events that took place in Bethlehem as Christ was born. Our understanding of the identity of Jesus Christ is directly rooted in these narratives and our confidence is in the fact that Matthew and Luke give us historically credible and completely truthful accounts of the events surrounding the birth of Christ.

A closer look at the narratives in both Matthew and Luke reveals a richness that familiarity may hide from us. Matthew begins with the genealogy of Christ, demonstrating the sequence of generations as Israel anticipated the birth of David’s Son — the Messiah. Luke, intending to set forth “an orderly account” of the events concerning Jesus, begins with the anticipation of the birth of John the Baptist and then moves to tell of the virgin conception of Jesus.

A careful reading of Matthew and Luke reveals both the elegance of detail and the grand expanse of the story of Christ’s birth. Matthew gives particular attention to the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy. The virgin birth, the birth of Christ in Bethlehem of Judea, the Herodian massacre of the innocents, the flight to Egypt, and the role of John the Baptist as forerunner are all presented as the fulfillment of specific Old Testament prophecies.

Every word of the Old Testament points to Christ. He is not only the fulfillment of all the Old Testament prophecies concerning Him, He is the perfect fulfillment of the law and the prophets — the entirety of the Old Testament Scriptures. The Christmas story does not begin in Bethlehem, for Israel had been promised the Messiah. As Luke reveals, Simeon beheld the baby Jesus in the Temple and understood this infant to be “the Lord’s Christ” — the Davidic Messiah.  Simeon understood this clearly — the Christmas story did not begin in Bethlehem, or even in Jerusalem.

So, where does the Christmas story begin? In the Gospel of John we read: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made.” [John 1:1-3John 1:1-3
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The Gospel According to John ^{1 1} In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ² The same was in the beginning with God. ³ All things were made through him. Without him was not anything made that has been made.

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The prologue to John’s Gospel points to Creation and to Christ, the divine Logos, as the agent of Creation. Yet, with language drawn directly from Genesis, John begins his Gospel “in the beginning.”

In other words, the Christmas story begins before the creation of the world. As we celebrate Christmas and contemplate the Christmas story, we must be very careful not to begin the story in Bethlehem, or even in Nazareth, where Mary was confronted by Gabriel with the message that she would be the mother of the Messiah.

We must not even begin with Moses and the prophets, and with the expectation of the coming Son of Man, the promised Suffering Servant, and the heralded Davidic Messiah. We must begin before the world was created and before humanity was formed, much less fallen.

Why is this so important? Put simply, if we get the Christmas story wrong, we get the Gospel wrong. Told carelessly, the Christmas story sounds like God’s “Plan B.” In other words, we can make the Christmas story sound like God turning to a new plan, rather than fulfilling all that He had promised.  We must be very careful to tell the Christmas story in such a way that we make the Gospel clear.

Christmas is not God’s second plan. Before he created the world, God determined to save sinners through the blood of His own Son. The grand narrative of the Bible points to this essential truth — God determined to bring glory to Himself through the salvation of a people redeemed and purchased by His own Son, the Christ. Bethlehem and Calvary were essential parts of God’s plan from the beginning, before the cosmos was brought into being as the Son obeyed the will of the Father in Creation.

The Christmas story does not begin in Bethlehem, but we appropriately look to Bethlehem as the scene of the most decisive event in human history — the incarnation of God. Even as we turn our attention to Bethlehem, we must remember that the story of our salvation does not begin there. That story begins in the eternal purpose of God.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.” That is where the Christmas story begins, and John takes us right to the essence of what happened in Bethlehem: “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” [John 1:14John 1:14
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14 The Word became flesh, and lived among us. We saw his glory, such glory as of the one and only Son of the Father, full of grace and truth.

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Let’s be sure to get the Christmas story right, start to finish.

Albert Mohler is president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

By Adon Taft, www.MiamiHerald.com

Many Americans see the present politically correct view of the holidays as a jihad against the Christian celebration of Christmas.

Retail chains now mandate that clerks greet customers with “Happy Holidays” rather than the traditional “Merry Christmas.” Scattered school districts have banned the singing of Christmas carols, and many have relabeled the holiday from classes the “winter break.” Nativity scenes or even decorated trees (if they are called Christmas trees) in public places prompt legal challenges because the observance of the Western world’s most popular and widely celebrated — whether by believers or not — religious holiday may be offensive to some.

But the knotty subject of Christmas has been controversial from the beginning. Scholars still debate when and where the birth of Jesus Christ, the event the holiday ostensibly marks, actually occurred. One thing is certain: it was not Dec. 25. It probably was in March or April in Bethlehem (because of where shepherds would have had their sheep at the time), though some scholars say October. The exact year is uncertain because of the change in calendars since that time.

It was three centuries later that Constantine, the first Christian emperor backed by a Catholic bishop, picked the December date. He wanted to give a Christian spin to the popular Roman festival supposedly marking “the birthday of the invincible sun.” The newly designated holiday would celebrate “the birth of the Son of God” in keeping with the Church’s view of Jesus.

At the time of His birth, the appearance of the baby acknowledged by Christians to be the Messiah, or Savior, had been seen by King Herod and his religious advisors to be a threat to the authority of the monarch and the state religion. So, according to the biblical account in the book of Matthew, the king ordered that all the infants aged 2 or younger in the Bethlehem area be put to death in hopes of including Jesus among those slaughtered.

Tipped off by an angel, Joseph and Mary had taken Jesus to Egypt where they waited until the death of Herod before returning to Israel to raise Mary’s son, whose life and death was and remains controversial.

It was what many take to be the deeper meaning behind the sweetness and light most of us associate with the birth of the baby Jesus and today’s celebration of Christmas that brought conflict of religious ideas and eventually the violent physical death of Christ on the cross. For believers, that was the ultimate meaning — that the sacrificial offering for man’s sin had been made by God Himself after spending a short life on Earth as a godly man teaching and showing the way to a forgiven and everlasting life.

Consequently, the death of Christ meant more to the early Church than the anniversary of Jesus’ birth which had no particular significance in the Church calendar before Constantine. Since then, the observance of the holy day has been sporadic, in part because of its association with the pagan holiday and subsequent pagan traditions such as the Christmas tree.

Any celebration of the Dec. 25th date was banned in 17th century England under the Protestant rule of Oliver Cromwell and in the early days of colonial America. It was a crime to celebrate that day in Massachusetts from 1659 through 1681.

But by the 19th century in this country, the celebration of Christmas — spurred by such events as the publication of literary works such as Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, Washington Irving’s The Keeping of Christmas at Bracebridge Hall, and R. H. Hervey’s The Book of Christmas — was growing in popularity.

Alabama became the first state to make Christmas a legal holiday, in 1836. By 1907 every contiguous state had followed when Oklahoma proclaimed the holy day an official holiday. Similar growth in the recognition of the event occurred in Europe and other parts of the world.

Secular and commercial observances of the season blossomed along the way. Macy’s department store first stayed open till midnight on Christmas Eve of 1867 and in 1874 was decorating its windows for the occasion. Today, the store-sponsored, nationally televised Christmas parade is a staple of the season.

Now not only do some Christians feel threatened by what they consider a jihad against the observance of their holy day, there are complaints that the holiday is too commercialized and has lost its “good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.”

“And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men.”—Luke 2:10-11,13-14Luke 2:10-11,13-14
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10 The angel said to them, “Don’t be afraid, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy which will be to all the people. ¹¹ For there is born to you, this day, in the city of David, a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. ¹³ Suddenly, there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly army praising God, and saying, ¹⁴ “Glory to God in the highest, On earth peace, good will toward men.”

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Adon Taft is the retired religion editor of The Miami Herald.

By Gary Bauer, www.HumanEvents.com

At a time of year when faith is celebrated by most Americans, it may surprise some to learn that many students of faith and history believe we are living in a post-Christian age. It is not apparent at the local malls now so festively decorated, but it can be seen in some telltale cultural indicators. One of those is the number of attacks on people of faith, particularly Jews.

Throughout much of the world today, where decreasing Christianity means rising attacks on Jews. In post-Christian Europe, Jews are often victims of a deeply entrenched anti-Semitism. Synagogues and other Jewish institutions are regularly vandalized. Jews are sometimes beaten in the streets. Combative anti-Israel rallies are commonplace.

There were hundreds of incidents of anti-Semitic behavior in France and England during the three weeks of the Gaza war a year ago. The world collectively yawned during months of Hamas’s attacks against Israel. But when Israel did what any sovereign state would do under the same circumstances — strike back at those responsible for the aggression — it was met with a chorus of condemnation led by the United Nations and the European Union.

It is true that the citizens of the U.S. are more religious than those of many European countries, where the decline of faith has been much reported. Still, in the U.S., legal attacks on Christmas have become as much of the tradition as the holiday itself, and church attendance among American youths has reached all time lows. Those are only a few of the signs of declining faith.

Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion and Public Life survey earlier this year found that “the number of Americans who say they are unaffiliated with any particular faith today is 16.1 percent, more than double the number who say they were not affiliated with any particular religion as children.” Research by authors Robert Putnam and David Campbell finds that young Americans are dropping out of religion at 5-6 times the historic rate (30 – 40 percent have no religion today versus 5-10 percent a generation ago).

America’s secular momentum coincides with an increase in persecution of American Jews. The Federal Bureau of Investigation recently released 2008 hate crimes statistics showing that 65.7 percent of religion-motivated hate crimes were anti-Jewish. There were 1,013re 1,013
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13 Othniel the son of Kenaz, Caleb’s younger brother, took it: and he gave him Achsah his daughter as wife.

WP-Bible plugin cases of hate crimes motivated by anti-Semitism last year, the most since 2001.

Although you might not know it by following the reactions of our political and journalistic elites, aggressive anti-Semitism is a much greater problem in America than attacks on Islam. According to the FBI statistics, there were only 105 reported cases of anti-Islamic hate crimes in 2008.

This is part of a trend. Sixty-eight percent of the nearly 7,000 religion-based hate crimes reported between 2002 and 2006 were committed against Jews, while just 11 percent were committed against Muslims. Similar numbers were reported for 2007.

It’s not all bad news for American Jews. An October survey commissioned by the Anti Defamation League found that 12 percent of Americans polled hold views defined as “anti-Semitic.” That’s down from 29 percent in 1964.

But the 12 percent is still unacceptable, representing more than 30 million Americans with anti-Semitic views.

The relationship between America’s Christians and Jews has often been defined by distrust and skepticism. But many Christians and Jews have found solidarity in their mutual support for the beleaguered Jewish State, as well as for each other’s right to freely and openly practice the traditions of faith. In today’s America, there is no greater alliance against a culture that seeks to expunge religion from public life, not to mention the mounting domestic Islamic threat.

Theologically, Christians believe God came into this world through the Jewish people and that the Jewish faith is the foundation of all that was to come. That God has directed Christians to love His people is a great counterweight to increasing anti-Semitism in the U.S.

There are a lot of what Jews call “righteous gentiles,” Christians and others who feel a moral obligation to speak out against anti-Semitism and assaults on Jews to prevent the kind of violent anti-Semitism evident in Europe from becoming widespread in the U.S. It is vital for such defenders of their fellow man to speak and act boldly. The courage of our convictions has never been so needed.

These are anxious times for Jews across the world. Iran announced this week that it had successfully test-fired an upgraded version of its longest-range solid fuel missile, making its leader’s threat to “wipe Israel off the map” even more credible. The new missile has a range of approximately 1,200 miles, which puts not only the Jewish State, but also U.S. military bases in southern Europe well within range.

We are in the midst of an important time of the year for both Christians and Jews. Jews just celebrated Hanukkah, a time to commemorate the rededication of the holy Temple in Jerusalem and their victory over the anti-Semitic Hellenic empire. Christians meanwhile are observing Advent, a time of penance and of anticipation and preparation of the birth of Jesus Christ, a Jew.

Christians and Jews have also reached an important time in their relationships with one another. In an increasingly hostile world, Christians and Jews must stand together to defend against attacks on Judeo-Christian values. It is a friendship as old as Abraham, as new as a baby in a manger.

By Daniel Williams, www.Bloomberg.com

On a side street in the far northeast Cairo suburb of Ain Shams, the door of a five-story former underwear factory is padlocked.

This is, or was supposed to be, the St. Mary and Anba Abraam Coptic Christian Church. Police closed it Nov. 24, 2008, when Muslims rioted against its consecration. Since then local Copts have had to commute to distant churches or worship in hiding at each other’s homes.

While Muslim leaders criticized the Nov. 29 vote in Switzerland that banned construction of minarets, they don’t support Christians who want to build churches in some Islamic countries. Restrictions in Egypt have exacerbated sectarian violence and discrimination, say Copts, a 2,000-year-old denomination that comprises about 10 percent of the population.

The day after the Swiss vote, Ali Gomaa, one of Egypt’s top Muslim clerics, called the decision “an attempt to insult the feelings of the Muslim community in and outside of Switzerland.”

Copts quickly said that neither Gomaa nor any other Islamic leader mentioned the Christian situation in Egypt.

“Without the merest attempt to put our house in order, are we in any position to taunt others to put theirs?” Youssef Sidhom, editor-in-chief of the Cairo-based Egyptian Coptic weekly newspaper El-Watani, said in a telephone interview. “They should be ashamed.”

The contrast between criticism of the Swiss and silence about local parallels isn’t limited to Egypt. Censure of Switzerland, where about 5 percent of the population is Muslim, was widespread in Islamic countries where Christians face restrictions on practicing their faith.

“The decision of the Swiss people stood to be interpreted as xenophobic, prejudiced, discriminative, and against the universal human-rights values,” said the Organization of the Islamic Conference in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, which represents 57 Muslim-majority nations.

Members include Saudi Arabia, where non-Muslims are arrested for worshipping privately; Maldives, the Indian Ocean atoll where citizenship is reserved for Muslims; Libya, which limits churches to one per denomination in cities; and Iran, where conversion from Islam is punished by death, according to a 2009 U.S. State Department report on religious freedom.

“The Copts are a minority. Why do they need more churches?” Ain Shams café owner Harbi Muhammed Ali said in an interview. “There are other churches around. If you have one car, do you need two?”

As for Switzerland, “the West is always preaching human rights,” he said. “It’s their problem.”

Requests for interviews with government officials and state-controlled Al-Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt’s largest institution of Islamic learning, went unanswered. Requests for interviews at the Islamic conference’s Geneva office, which issued the criticism of the Swiss ban, were rejected because officials were too busy, said a person who answered the phone there.

Local officials oversee permits for church construction and renovation, which must receive endorsement from Muslims in the neighborhood and final approval from President Hosni Mubarak.

“Church and human-rights leaders complain that many local officials intentionally delay the permit process,” the State Department report said. “As a result, congregations have experienced lengthy delays, years in many cases, while waiting for new building permits.”

Ain Shams is a sprawling district of narrow lanes and multi-story housing with a majority Muslim population. The rioting there began after Copts renovated the factory and held mass, Muslim and Christian residents said. Rioters carried a banner that read “No to the church,” chanted “There is no god but Allah” and threw stones at police who kept them at bay. Only a wrought-iron cross design on the locked front door marks the place as a church.

Just down the street, Muslim residents constructed a lime green Mosque of Light at the same time the Copts were modifying their building.

“Of course, they closed us down, but the mosque is open,” said Hossama Sedik, 30, a Coptic day laborer.

There are about 40 Coptic churches in Egyptian cities and scores more in towns and villages, especially in south Egypt, along with larger numbers of clandestine prayer houses, said Bishop Thomas, a Coptic priest who operates a retreat outside Cairo.

In October, Muslims hurled stones at Christian workers in Al-Badraman, a village south of the city, because they were going to raise the steeple and add a bell at a church, according to press reports. In 2007, riots erupted in Behma, another southern village, after word spread that Copts were going to build a church without a permit. About 27 Christian-owned houses and shops were torched.

Parallel to these incidents are clashes over such issues as conversion and alleged harassment of Muslim girls by Copts and Coptic girls by Muslims.

’’It’s a challenge to hold onto the concept of love and peace,’’ said Thomas, 52.

After he founded his retreat 10 years ago, Muslims set up four small mosques, complete with minarets — towers from which Muslims are called to prayer–just outside the four corners of the rectangular enclosure.

“They make a point that if we are here, the Muslims must be, too,” he said.

Even so, he joined Muslims in denouncing the Swiss ban.

“If I want freedom to build in Egypt, I must also want it in Switzerland,” he said.

By Vanessa Gera And Ryan Lucas, Associated Press

ec. 18, 2009ec. 18, 2009
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Izbrano poglavje ne obstaja!

WP-Bible plugin. The photo below shows an exact replica of the sign, produced when the original received restoration work years ago, which was quickly hung in its place, Friday Dec. 18, 2009ec. 18, 2009
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Izbrano poglavje ne obstaja!

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OSWIECIM, Poland – Thieves stole the notorious sign bearing the cynical Nazi slogan “Work Sets You Free” from the entrance to the former Auschwitz death camp on Friday, December 18, cutting through rows of barbed wire and metal bars before making their escape through the snow.

The brazen seizure of one of the Holocaust’s most chilling symbols brought worldwide condemnation.

“The theft of such a symbolic object is an attack on the memory of the Holocaust, and an escalation from those elements that would like to return us to darker days,” Yad Vashem [Israel’s Holocaust Museum] Chairman Avner Shalev said in a statement from Jerusalem.

“I call on all enlightened forces in the world who fight against anti-Semitism, racism, xenophobia and the hatred of the other, to join together to combat these trends.”

The 16-foot sign bearing the German words “Arbeit Macht Frei” — “Work Sets You Free” — spanned the main entrance to the Auschwitz death camp, where more than 1 million people, mostly Jews, were killed during World War II.

Working under the cover of darkness and timing their theft between regular security patrols, the culprits unscrewed the 90-pound steel banner on one side and tore it off on the other, then carried it 300 yards to an opening in a concrete wall.

The opening, which had been left intentionally to preserve a poplar tree dating back to the war, was blocked by four metal bars, which the thieves cut. Footprints in the snow led to the nearby road, where police believe the sign was loaded onto a vehicle.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, who spoke with Israeli President Shimon Peres about the theft, ordered authorities to do all in their power to recover the sign swiftly and catch the perpetrators. “I treat this as a priority,” Tusk said.

Police deployed 50 officers, including 20 detectives, and a search dog to the Auschwitz grounds, where barracks, watchtowers and rows of barbed wire stand as testament to the atrocities of Nazi Germany.

The sign disappeared between 3:30 a.m. and 5 a.m., a police spokeswoman said. Authorities were reviewing footage from a surveillance camera that overlooks the entrance gate and the road beyond, but declined to say whether the crime was recorded or if the suspects could be seen in the darkness.

However, Auschwitz memorial director Piotr Cywinski told reporters the camera broadcasts live images on the Internet and the footage is not recorded. He announced a $34,000 reward for information leading to the sign’s recovery and the apprehension of the culprits.

German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle called the theft a “disgraceful act.”

Poland’s chief rabbi, Michael Schudrich, said he had trouble imagining who was behind the theft.

“If they are pranksters, they’d have to be sick pranksters, or someone with a political agenda. But whoever has done it has desecrated world memory,” Schudrich said.

He said the theft could have been committed by neo-Nazi extremists, or even people scheming to sell the sign on the black market.

British historian Andrew Roberts, author of The Storm of War and other books about World War II, said the sign would generate huge interest on the burgeoning market for Nazi memorabilia.

“This is the biggest thing to happen in that sinister black market in a long time,” Roberts said. “I fear that this being the ultimate image of the Holocaust that it’s been stolen to order by a collector of Nazi paraphernalia.”

He said the market for Nazi goods started in the 1960s and is centered in Germany—where it is illegal—Britain, and the United States.

“When one thinks about what the medals and weapons of the Third Reich are worth, you can imagine what this would be worth to a seriously warped person,” he said.

An exact replica of the sign, produced when the original underwent restoration work years ago, was quickly hung in its place.

After occupying Poland in 1939, the Nazis established the Auschwitz I camp in the southern Polish city of Oswiecim, which initially housed German political prisoners and non-Jewish Polish prisoners.

In 1940, Nazi guards ordered the Polish inmates to make the sign with its cruelly ironic slogan, museum spokesman Pawel Sawicki said.

Two years later, hundreds of thousands of Jews began arriving by cattle trains to the wooden barracks of nearby Birkenau, also called Auschwitz II, where most were killed in gas chambers.

The slogan “Arbeit Macht Frei” appeared at the entrances of other Nazi camps, including Dachau and Sachsenhausen, but the long curving sign at Auschwitz is the best known.

Friday’s theft was the first major act of vandalism at the site, which previously has suffered graffiti, including spray-painted swastikas.

In Jerusalem, the International Auschwitz Committee said the theft “deeply unsettles the survivors.”

“The sign has to be found,” said Noach Flug, an Auschwitz survivor. “The slogan and the camp itself will tell what happened even when we won’t be able to tell any more.”

Other Holocaust memorials have suffered neo-Nazi vandalism. Sachsenhausen on the outskirts of Berlin was attacked in 1992, when two barracks were set on fire. That crime remains unsolved.

By Greg Laurie. www.WND.com

How often do you look at your watch in a given day? Or check the time? Or ask someone else what time it is? Why do we do that? We do it because we govern our lives by time. There is a time that we get up in the morning. There is a time when we go to work or school. There is a time when we go home. There is a time when we go to bed and when we get up the next morning and repeat the process. We live our lives by the clock, and we have a constant awareness of time.

According to the Bible, we even live our lives for a certain period of time – not a moment longer and not a moment shorter. You can eat free-range chicken and organic vegetables and use all of the lotions and potions and special vitamins available, but you will not live one day longer than God wants you to live. Nor will you live one day shorter. The Bible says, “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under Heaven: a time to be born and a time to die” (Ecclesiastes 3:1-2Ecclesiastes 3:1-2
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3 ¹ For everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven: ² A time to be born, And a time to die; A time to plant, And a time to pluck up that which is planted;

WP-Bible plugin NIV).

As one person said, “Men talk of killing time while time quietly kills them.” The problem is that we spend a lot of our lives doing things we would rather not be doing. We have control over some of these things, but not all of them. For example, the average Americans will spend six months of their lives sitting at traffic lights, one year searching desk clutter for misplaced objects, five years waiting in lines, three years in meetings and eight months opening junk mail.

As C. S. Lewis said, “The future is something that everyone reaches at the rate of 60 minutes an hour, whatever he does, whoever he is.”

We live by time, while God exists outside of time. I am not implying that God is unaware of time, because He is completely aware of every minute and second of our lives and everything that is happening in them. But God lives in the eternal realm. Therefore, we might say that God’s interpretation of time is quite different from ours.

God has His own timing, and there are times in life when it appears to us as though God is late, as though God is somehow disengaged and not paying attention. And sometimes as we look at the way the world is going, we wonder whether God is aware of what it is like right now.

That is how it was at the time of Jesus’ birth. Israel was tired of waiting. They felt it was time for the Messiah to arrive. Those were difficult and dark days in the history of Israel. In fact, the time in which they were living when Christ finally came was almost as bad as it was under Pharaoh’s rule in Egypt, because they were under the control of Rome and the tyrannical rule of the puppet King Herod.

While Herod was known for the great buildings he erected, he was also known for his paranoia. He would have anyone he saw as a potential threat to his throne killed. He had two of his sons put to death because he thought they would try to lead a coup against him. It was said of Herod that it was better to be one of his pigs than one of his sons.

The fact is that 6 B.C. was a lousy time to be living in Judea. People were wondering when God was going to intervene. They had not heard from Him for 400 years. Not a single prophet had delivered a message from Heaven. There had been no miracles and no angelic appearances – only a stony silence from Heaven. The people were probing. They were searching. They were wondering when things were going to change.

But there was a sense that something was in the air, that something was about to break. And indeed it was – because the moment was coming for the Messiah to arrive. It all started with the aged priest, Zacharias. As he was in the Temple bringing sacrifices on behalf of the people, the angel Gabriel came to him with the announcement that he would be the father of the forerunner of Jesus, John the Baptizer. The wonderful story was about to unfold.

But we need to understand that the Christmas story did not start in Luke or in Matthew. The Christmas story began much farther back. Although Jesus was born in a manger in Bethlehem, being God and being a part of the Trinity, He is pre-existent. He is eternal. When we celebrate His birth in the manger in Bethlehem, we are celebrating when He came to this world as a man. But He has always been and always will be. Jesus said, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End” (Revelation 21:6Revelation 21:6
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6 He said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. I will give freely to him who is thirsty from the spring of the water of life.

WP-Bible plugin NIV).

Isaiah summed it up well when he said, “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given” (Isaiah 9:6Isaiah 9:6
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6 For to us a child is born. To us a son is given; and the government will be on his shoulders. His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

WP-Bible plugin). That gives us the story of the arrival of Jesus from both Heaven and Earth’s perspective. “To us a child is born” is the story of a birth. “To us a son is given” is the story of a departure from Heaven.

From Heaven’s perspective, the Son left glory and came to walk among us and breathe our air and live our life and then die our death. From Earth’s perspective, God came to us as a man who was deity in diapers – God almighty as a little, helpless baby.

When the angel appeared to a group of shepherds and announced, “Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; He is Christ the Lord” (Luke 2:11Luke 2:11
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11 For there is born to you, this day, in the city of David, a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.

WP-Bible plugin NIV), essentially he was saying, “Don’t look to the palace for the savior of the world. Look to the manger in Bethlehem. Don’t look at that self-proclaimed god in Rome wrapped in satin, but look at the baby wrapped in swaddling clothes. There is the savior of the world.” He came and gave up everything to serve us. It was the ultimate gift to humanity. His pain was our gain.

Someone wisely said that history swings on the hinge of the door of a stable in Bethlehem. This was the moment in human history that God chose to bring us a Savior. And our world has never been the same.

By Ethan Bronner, www.NYTimes.com

JERUSALEM — When Prof. Gadi Wolfsfeld asks his political science students at Hebrew University if Israel really should free 1,000e 1,000
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Štetje svetopisemskih vrstic se začne z ¹! Vrstica ⁰ ne obstaja!

WP-Bible plugin Palestinian prisoners, including organizers of terrorist attacks, for one seized soldier, as the Israeli government is currently contemplating, he faces a stony silence.

“People feel extremely uncomfortable raising it,” he said. “It’s so politically incorrect that you run the risk of being labeled a monster. We all feel like we know this boy and we know his family.”

The negotiations for the release of Staff Sgt. Gilad Shalit, seized more than three years ago in a raid into southern Israel by Hamas and other militant groups, are entering a crucial stage through German and Egyptian mediation. While the details of the talks are hidden here behind military censorship, the outlines are widely known.

Last week, the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, told reporters there was still no deal on a prisoner exchange, saying that the two sides had “stopped at the details concerning the numbers and nature of people to be released,” according to Reuters.

The negotiations have raised surprisingly little controversy given the risks of future seizures of Israelis and attacks at the hands of those freed and the equally serious risk of raising the fortunes of Hamas. Although Israel has spent decades trying to build a reputation as a tough self-sacrificing society that spurns negotiations with terrorists, polls show a strong majority in favor of the trade.

“To us it seems reasonable although it is totally not,” said Tal Goren, who produced and directed a documentary on the Shalit family called “Family in Captivity.” “It is emotional, not logical.”

But sociologists, politicians and religious scholars say that rescuing captives has deep Jewish and Israeli roots, and that the mix of familial intimacy here, a relentless and well conceived campaign by the family and a media culture in overdrive has placed Sergeant Shalit, a shy, bookish 23-year-old, at the heart of nearly every Israeli Jew.

“When I walk the street, people come up to me and say, ‘Bring back Shalit,’ ” Welfare Minister Isaac Herzog said in an interview. “In this country, it is very difficult to differentiate between the personal and the political.”

Levi Weiman-Kelman, an American-born rabbi who has been here for 30 years and presides over Congregation Kol Haneshama in Jerusalem, said the focus could be traced back to Genesis 14, when Abraham’s nephew Lot was captured in war and the biblical patriarch gathered up a huge posse to rescue him.

“The whole Jewish obsession of ‘pidyon shvuyim,’ rescuing captives, is based on that,” he said. “In the Middle Ages, some Jewish communities went bankrupt when faced with piracy and the need to rescue people.”

Alon Liel, who spent 30 years as an Israeli diplomat, including as director-general of the Foreign Ministry and now lectures in international relations, said he knew of no other country whose foreign ministry included a division for rescuing its citizens facing difficulties abroad.

“We have a division for it and a budget for it,” he said. “It is not unusual for a senior diplomat to go 300 or 400 miles to a village where an Israeli has gotten lost or kidnapped or injured. A lot of other nations refer you to your insurance company.”

Lopsided prisoner exchanges have occurred from the early days of the state he said, including hundreds for half a dozen after the 1956 Sinai War and, most famously, in 1985 when Israel handed over 1,150r 1,150
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WP-Bible plugin security prisoners to a Palestinian guerrilla group in exchange for three Israelis captured in the Lebanon war three years earlier.

That latter deal was criticized when it became clear that those released had formed much of the command structure of the first Palestinian uprising in the late 1980s. Today, while dissent over the impending deal remains muted, those who have expressed their concern have generally focused on such future risks.

“There will be a massive release of all the greatest murderers in the last and present century,” lamented Rami Igra, former director of the Prisoner of War department of the Mossad intelligence agency, in an opinion article in the conservative newspaper Israel Hayom. “This is shameless and bottomless surrender to Hamas’s demands. It’s true that all of us, as citizens of the State of Israel, have an obligation to each other and particularly to the soldiers we sent into battle, but this obligation must have a rational basis and should not lead to suicide.”

But others say that the risk from those expected to be released is exaggerated for two reasons. First, the combination of Israeli and Palestinian security forces in the West Bank is keeping a lid on violence. And second, the prisoners are part of a political organization with which Israel is trying to make peace.

“These people, although they are murderers, do it for a political cause and even if they don’t represent a country they are being sent by a military organization that is our rival and one day will make peace with us,” Mr. Liel, the former diplomat, said. “They are not regular criminals. We know that sooner or later when we have a peace deal they will be released.”

The focus on Sergeant Shalit also reveals the way in which the army is an intimate part of the vast majority of households here. Yair Lapid, a columnist for Yediot Aharonot and a television news host, said that during the 2006 Hezbollah war, he had a conversation with the then military chief of staff, Dan Halutz.

“When a Hezbollah missile killed a grandmother, no one said anything, saying it was the cost of war,” Mr. Lapid remembered saying to Mr. Halutz. “But when the first soldiers started to die, people said this has to end. I said this is weird. He said, a citizen is somebody we don’t know but a soldier is somebody we all have at home.”

Still, Mr. Lapid said, the planned deal over Sergeant Shalit was a dangerous and bad idea. A government committee led by a retired Supreme Court justice is expected to recommend that a law be passed after this trade barring such lopsided arrangements in the future.

Rabbi Weiman-Kelman of Jerusalem said that the controversy over Sergeant Shalit was precisely what made life so different in Israel from his native United States and to him so appealing.

“There is zero distance between the Shalit family and the rest of the country,” he said. “It is very, very personal. That is part of the thrill of living here, although it is also suffocating and overwhelming. For those of us who are junkies for meaning, living here is pure heroin.”