Biblical site where Jesus healed blind man excavated for public view: 'Affirms Scripture'

(Photo: Shalom Kveller, City of David Archives)

By Benjamin Weinthal - January 2, 2023

JERUSALEM — The Israel Antiquities Authority, the Israel National Parks Authority and the City of David Foundation announced days before the new year that the Pool of Siloam, a biblical site cherished by Christians and Jews, will be open to the public for the first time in 2,000 years in the near future.

"The Pool of Siloam’s excavation is highly significant to Christians around the world," American Pastor John Hagee, the founder and chairman of Christians United for Israel, told Fox News Digital. "It was at this site that Jesus healed the blind man (John:9), and it is at this site that, 2,000 years ago, Jewish pilgrims cleansed themselves prior to entering the Second Temple.

"The Pool of Siloam and the Pilgrimage Road, both located within the City of David, are among the most inspiring archeological affirmations of the Bible.

"Christians are deeply blessed by the City of David’s work and Israel’s enduring commitment to ensuring religious freedom to all who visit and live in the Holy Land, especially Jerusalem — the undivided capital of Israel."

Read More: FoxNews

Silver coins found near Temple Mount prove Jewish history of Israel

(Photo: Tal Rogovski)

By Judy Siegel-Itzkovich - December 15, 2022

A rare, half-shekel coin from the Great Revolt from 66 CE to 70 CE during the Second Temple period has been discovered in Jerusalem’s Ophel excavations south of the Temple Mount.

Only a few days ago, a wooden box containing 15 silver coins that serve as proof of the Hanukkah story of the Maccabees – which was found recently during an excavation in the Negev Desert – was announced.

The Ophel – or citadel – is the still-extant Herodian, cased-in Temple Mount bordered to the south by a saddle, followed by the ridge known as the southeastern hill that stretches down to the King’s Garden and the lower Siloam Pool. Two kings of Judah, Yotam and Manasseh, are described in the Book of 2 Chronicles to have massively strengthened the Ophel fortifications and was either very close to or identical with the “stronghold of Zion” conquered and reused by King David.

Read More: Jerusalem Post

Dept. of Education to probe UC Berkeley Law School over antisemitism allegations

By Gabby Deutch - December 15, 2022

The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights is opening an investigation into the University of California, Berkeley Law School, in response to Jewish students who complained of a “hostile environment” at the law school after nine student organizations pledged not to invite pro-Israel speakers to campus.

In August, nine registered student organizations at Berkeley’s law school adopted a bylaw prohibiting pro-Israel speakers from participating in their events, sparking an outcry from Jewish students and alumni. The bylaw states that the groups “will not invite speakers that have expressed and continued to hold views or host/sponsor/promote events in support of Zionism, the apartheid state of Israel, and the occupation of Palestine.”

A Jewish Journal op-ed by Ken Marcus, president of the Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, went viral under an eye-catching headline: “Berkeley Develops Jewish-Free Zones.”

Read More: Jewish Insider

Young Israelis, Moroccans visit each other’s nations to deepen person-to-person ties

By Judah Ari Gross - December 15, 2022

The group had been supposed to learn about Druze culture on Saturday night, but Morocco’s World Cup quarter-final was on, so instead the young Moroccans and Israelis gathered in the northern Druze town of Isfiya’s HaNoar HaOved VeHaLomed clubhouse to watch the match.

Morocco, of course, stunned with a 1-0 win, marking the first time an Arab country has ever made it to the World Cup semifinals.

“When the goal went in, everyone was dancing and hugging. Everyone forgot who was Israeli, who was Moroccan, who was Muslim, who was Jewish, who was Druze. Everyone just joined in the celebration,” said Abdou Ladino, the head of the Moroccan organization Mimouna, which looks to strengthen Jewish-Muslim ties in the country. Mimouna was founded in 2007 at Al Akhawayn University in Morocco and has since expanded to become a nationwide organization.

Read More: Times of Israel

British PM Rishi Sunak plans to visit Israel for its historic 75th birthday next year

(Photo: Simon Walker/HM Treasury/Flickr via Wikimedia Commons)

By JNS - December 12, 2022

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak told a packed Conservative Friends of Israel reception that he plans to visit Israel next year for the Jewish state’s 75th anniversary of independence.

According to a report by the U.K.’s Jewish News, while speaking at an event attended by three former prime ministers—Liz Truss, Boris Johnson and Theresa May—Sunak said, “Next year I will visit Israel on what will be its 75th birthday and landmark year—after so many years of struggle—and also success.”

Sunak noted that Israel is now at the forefront of “remarkable achievements” in technology, which he said are “something which Israel’s detractors in the BDS movement would do away with.”

“I will fight very hard for the security of the Jewish state,” he said, according to the report.

Read More: JNS

2,200-year-old coin hoard gives hard proof of Book of Maccabees, say archaeologists

(Photo: Shai Halevy, Israel Antiquities Authority)

By Amanda Borschel-Dan - December 13, 2022

Archaeologists have uncovered a cache of 2,200-year-old silver coins near the Dead Sea, which they say is the first physical proof that Jews fled to the Judean Desert during the upheaval and persecution under Hanukkah villain Antiochus IV Epiphanes.

As told in I Maccabees 2:29, in the period prior to the Maccabean Revolt, righteous men were exhorted to leave everything and flee to the desert. “At that time, many who sought righteousness and justice went to live in the desert.” Subsequently, while upholding the laws of Shabbat, they were slaughtered by the king’s forces.

During rescue excavations in May, a small, incredibly preserved wooden box holding 15 silver tetradrachma coins was discovered in a cave in the Darageh Stream Nature Reserve. The coins were minted by Ptolemy VI, king of Egypt, and date to up to 170 BCE, which is just before Seleucid King Antiochus IV Epiphanes began handing down harsh measures against Jews’ freedom of worship.
Read More: Times of Israel

LA Hate Crimes Highest in 19 Years, Jews Targeted in 74% of Religiously Motivated Crimes: Report

(Photo: Stig Nygaard/Flickr)

By Andrew Bernard - December 8, 2022

Los Angeles County’s annual hate crime report released Wednesday showed that in 2021 LA experienced the highest level of hate crimes in 19 years, with religious crimes “overwhelmingly” targeting Jews.

The Los Angeles County Commission on Human Relations, a government body that reports to the Board of Supervisors, recorded a 23% increase in reported hate crimes last year, from 641 to 786.

Read More: Algemeiner

Russian and Ukrainian Jewish women bond during first-of-its-kind trip to Israel

(Photo: Aviram Valdman/Momentum)

By Judah Ari Gross - December 9, 2022

Some 200 Jewish women, most from Russia and Ukraine, landed in Israel last week to learn about Judaism, Zionism and the country’s history and present.

In any other year, it would have likely been a lovely but unexceptional trip, but in 2022, in light of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, it was a profound experience for participants and organizers alike, despite a host of logistical, emotional and political complications.

The trip was put together by the organization Momentum, which seeks to deepen the connection between Jewish mothers, or at least mothers with Jewish roots, to Judaism and Israel. The organization believes that mothers still play an outsized role in things like children’s education, family practices and religious observance. (Get it? MOM-entum.)

Read More: Times of Israel

2,200-year-old Greek sling bullet may have been used against Jews in Hanukkah story

(Photo: Dafna Gazit/Israel Antiquities Authority)

By Michael Bachner - December 8, 2022

Some 2,200 years ago, a Greek soldier stood in battle in what is now the Israeli city of Yavne, aimed his sling at Jewish Hasmonean troops, and launched a projectile at them during battles that would later become part of the story of Hanukkah.

At least, that is one option suggested following the discovery in Yavne of a sling bullet made of lead and bearing a Greek inscription reading “Victory for Heracles and Hauron” — a possible attempt at psychological warfare against enemies.

The Israel Antiquities Authority, which revealed the finding, told The Times of Israel that the sling bullet was discovered about a year ago and has been studied since then. It timed the announcement for Wednesday, 10 days before Hanukkah.

Read More: Times of Israel

New Inscriptions in Roman City in Israel Shed Personal Light on Early Christians

By Ruth Schuster - November 20, 2022

People of yore were deeply religious, it seems – including in Hippos (Sussita) of the Decapolis, a Greco-Roman city perched high above the Sea of Galilee.

No less than seven churches have been found in the city from the early Christian era. Now, four inscriptions newly discovered in one of its ancient churches – the Martyrion of Theodoros, or “Burnt Church” – during the summer 2022 excavation season shed rare personal light on actual people. So say excavation directors Dr. Arleta Kowalewska and Dr. Michael Eisenberg of the Zinman Institute of Archaeology at the University of Haifa, and epigraphist Prof. Gregor Staab of the Institute of Classical Studies at University of Cologne.

Two of the four inscriptions, revealed here for the first time, were exposed by the expedition conservator Yana Qedem while conserving previously found mosaics in the Martyrion. They were quite the surprise.

Read More: Haaretz

Book of Psalms in Terror Victim's Possession May Have Saved His Life

(Photo: Shaare Zedek Medical Center)

By CBN News - December 5, 2022

JERUSALEM, Israel – The November 23rd bombing attacks on the outskirts of Jerusalem produced many stories of heartbreak and loss. Two people were killed and 18 were injured during the sophisticated attack including Aryeh Shechopek,16, and Tadasa Tashume Ben Ma'ada, a father of six.

Still, at least one bright story emerged from the tragedy. When medical personnel operated on one of the survivors, a 62-year-old man at Jerusalem's Shaare Zedek Hospital, loved ones going through his possessions discovered that a piece of shrapnel almost completely penetrated a Book of Psalms he had with him.

The shrapnel lodged in the book, stopping at a verse in Psalm 124: "Our soul is like a bird that escaped from a box of hardships." Authorities believe the book may have saved his life.

Read More: CBN

Buried alive by a Russian strike, a Ukrainian policeman fights to walk in Israel

(Photo: Inna Lazareva/Times of Israel)

By Inna Lazareva - December 5, 2022

When Ukrainian rescue workers discovered the blasted-out hole surrounded by masses of rubble at the spot where Roman Bashenko was last seen standing, they abandoned all hope of finding him alive.

“They thought I had been… blown to pieces,” Bashenko told The Times of Israel quietly, trying to choose his words carefully as he glanced at his wife sitting on the terrace of Tel Aviv’s Ichilov hospital.

Ordinarily a policeman from Dnipro who had previously served in Donbas in 2014, Bashenko was drafted to serve in the war following Russia’s invasion earlier this year.

In the early hours of July 27, a Russian guided missile tore through the building in the city of Bakhmut, Donbas region, where he was stationed. The city has been the target of relentless Russian attacks over the past six months, and, with almost constant gunfire, missile strikes, air raids as well as trench warfare, most of its 70,000 residents have fled. In recent days Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky described the situation in Bakhmut as “the hottest, most painful.” “Everyone there deserves the highest gratitude!” Zelensky added.

Read More: Times of Israel

‘Highway of ancient world’: Part of an 1,800-year-old Roman road found in Galilee

(Photo: Alex Wigman, Israel Antiquities Authority)

By TOI Staff - December 3, 2022

Archeologists have uncovered part of an 1,800-year-old Roman road in northern Israel, built in the time of emperor Hadrian, the Israel Antiquities Authority announced.

In a statement, the IAA said the road section, measuring some 8 meters (26 feet) wide and 25 meters (82 feet) long, was found near the village of Rumat al-Heib, some 20 kilometers (12 miles) west of the city of Tiberias on the Sea of Galilee. It was discovered during development work on a walking trail.

The IAA branded the road as “the Highway 6 of the ancient world,” referencing Israel’s major north-to-south highway.

It said the road, which runs between Acre, Sepphoris and Tiberias, was paved in the 2nd century AD during Hadrian’s. The road was completed by his successors and later renovated in the Byzantine period.

Read More: Times of Israel

Jerusalem to build stations in city center for fast train service to & from Tel Aviv

(Photo: Israel Railways/Pelleg Architects)

By Danielle Nagler - December 1, 2022

Jerusalem is set to extend fast train services to and from Tel Aviv into the capital with plans to deliver two more stations in central Jerusalem, in addition to the Yitzhak Navon train station inaugurated in 2019.

The new stations are expected to begin services by 2030, after the National Committee for the Planning and Construction of National Infrastructures gave its initial approval for the project this week, according to reports in the Hebrew-language media, and has invited comments from the relevant local committees and from the public.

At the moment, the train track to and from Jerusalem starts and ends at Navon station near the Chords Bridge at the western entrance to the city, in the area known as the Jerusalem Gateway where significant new development is planned in the coming years.

Read More: Times of Israel

The Cafe Where Nazareth Folk Have Met For Tea Since 1914

By Elena Shap - November 24, 2022

There’s a whiff of woody cinnamon as you enter Café Abu Salem in Nazareth’s Old Market quarter. The source of this spicy aroma is an orange-tinted tea being prepared in a large silver kettle over a gas flame.

Exactly as it has been done since Andraos Abu Salem opened his coffee shop in 1914 when the country was still under Ottoman rule.

The name of this baladi (local) drink, as it is listed on the menu, is Aynar, and it’s served in traditional tulip-shaped Turkish teacups with a sprinkling of chopped walnuts on top.

Wassem Abu Salem, the 45-year-old owner and grandson of the founder, is grinding the secret spice mix for the drink with a pestle.

Read More: Israel21c

Gaza child, 5, gets life-saving heart surgery in Israel

(Photo: Tomer Neuberg)

By Meir Turgeman - November 21, 2022

A five-year-old child from the Gaza Strip has recently undergone a life-saving surgery at a hospital in Israel, it was revealed Monday.

Amir Yahya Mabukh from the city of Jabalia was suffering from a congenital heart defect that could have led to heart failure.

According to his family, the child contracted the flu when he was two months old. His mother, Maha, took him to the family doctor, who diagnosed the baby with a birth defect due to a blockage in one of the arteries of the heart.

The doctor told Amir's parents about the "Save a Child's Heart" foundation, which facilitates the transfer of children from the Gaza Strip and the West Bank to Israel to have life-saving procedures.

"We were happy to hear about that option," his mother said. "Everybody in Gaza say Israeli doctors are the most professional in the world and can be counted on. The doctor helped us contact the foundation and we began the process."

Read More: Ynetnews

In first, 4 children from South Sudan to get life-saving heart surgery in Israel

(Photo: Hadas Parush/Flash90)

By Nathan Jeffay and TOI Staff - November 28, 2022

Israeli aid workers are poised to airlift four children from South Sudan to Tel Aviv to receive life-saving heart surgery.

Three years after the end of South Sudan’s civil war, the country’s health system is in chaos and doctors simply can’t provide specialist treatments like those needed for children with congenital heart conditions.

The Tel Aviv-based non-profit IsraAID has been planning for almost three years to bring four such children — Gai, aged 8, Habiba, 6, Phillip, 5, and Joel, 5 — to Israel for treatment. Now, they are finally leaving their homes in the Internally Displaced People (IDP) camps of Juba and preparing to fly.

Read More: Times of Israel

Jerusalem-led mentorship program to help Gulf women in tech climb up career ladder

(Photo: Nati Shohat/Flash90)

By Sharon Wrobel - November 24, 2022

A group of up to 30 women working in junior tech positions from Israel, Bahrain, Morocco and the United Arab Emirates are set to come together in January to participate in a Jerusalem-led program to help them break through the glass ceiling and take up managerial roles.

The three-month program led by FemForward, a Jerusalem nonprofit founded in 2020, aims to support women in junior tech positions with the tools and network to advance their career to senior levels. In collaboration with the UAE-Israel Business Council and funded by the US embassy in Israel, the junior-to-manager program will next year for the first time include women in tech from the Abraham Accords countries.

The initiative comes after Israel started to normalize ties with Gulf countries in 2020 as part of the US-brokered Abraham Accords with Arab states, including the United Arab Emirates, Morocco and Bahrain.

Read More: Times of Israel

Israeli teenager killed, more than 20 injured in Jerusalem terror bombings

(Photo: Olivier Fitoussi/Flash90)

By JNS - November 23, 2022

One Israeli was killed and more than 20 injured on Wednesday in two explosions at bus stops located near entrances to Jerusalem.

Authorities believe that the source of the blasts were two remotely detonated bombs packed with nails to cause maximum damage.

Police described the explosives as “high quality,” and suggested an organized terror cell planned and carried out the attack.

The first explosion occurred near the main entrance to the Israeli capital shortly after 7 a.m., and the second followed about 30 minutes later, at the Ramot junction.

Read More: JNS

‘I’m talking to an Israeli journalist!’ Giggles and grace from Iranians at World Cup

(AP Photo/Frank Augstein)

By Ash Obel - November 22, 2022

DOHA, Qatar — Wearing the white shirt of the Iranian national soccer team, Mohammad turned to his friend with a broad smile and told him, “I’m talking to an Israeli journalist!” a notion so ridiculous to the two men that it elicited a bout of laughter, in which I very tentatively joined.

As the sun set behind Khalifa International Stadium, Iranian fans filed into the mega venue in western Doha for their national team’s clash with England on Monday. Outside the grounds, much of the media circus was focused on the rare opportunity to hear from Iranian citizens face-to-face, away from the prying eyes of the regime.

As I approached people wearing Iranian colors for comment, many seemed happy to talk — that is, until I quickly introduced myself and the publication I write for. At that point the polite excuses began. “I’m in a rush, sorry,” was a common refrain.

Read More: Times of Israel