Genetic map of Jewish diasporas supports record of ancient settlement in North Africa

Another backlog item, as reported by Ynet News, October 8, 2012 (link inserted by blogger):

A new genetic analysis focusing on Jews from North Africa has provided an overall genetic map of the Jewish Diasporas. The findings support the historical record of Middle Eastern Jews settling in North Africa during Classical Antiquity, proselytizing and marrying local populations, and, in the process, forming distinct populations that stayed largely intact for more than 2,000 years.

The study, led by researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University, was published online recently in the "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences."

“Our new findings define North African Jews, complete the overall population structure for the various groups of the Jewish Diaspora, and enhance the case for a biological basis for Jewishness,” said study leader Harry Ostrer, M.D., professor of pathology, of genetics and of pediatrics at Einstein and director of genetic and genomic testing for the division of clinical pathology at Montefiore Medical Center.

Dr. Ostrer noted that obtaining a comprehensive genetic fingerprint of various Jewish subpopulations can help reveal genetic links to heart disease, cancer, diabetes and other common diseases.

In a previous genetic analysis, the researchers showed that modern-day Sephardic (Greek and Turkish), Ashkenazi (Eastern European) and Mizrahi (Iranian, Iraqi and Syrian) Jews that originated in Europe and the Middle East are more related to each other than to their contemporary non-Jewish neighbors, with each group forming its own cluster within the larger Jewish population.

Further, each group demonstrated Middle-Eastern ancestry and varying degrees of mixing with surrounding populations. Two of the major Jewish populations - Middle Eastern and European Jews - were found to have diverged from each other approximately 2,500 years ago.

The current study extends that analysis to North African Jews – the second largest Jewish Diaspora group. Their relatedness to each other, to other Jewish Diaspora groups, and to their non-Jewish North African neighbors had not been well defined.

The study also included members of Jewish communities in Ethiopia, Yemen and Georgia. In all, the researchers analyzed the genetic make-up of 509 Jews from 15 populations along with genetic data on 114 individuals from seven North African non-Jewish populations.

North African Jews exhibited a high degree of endogamy, or marriage within their own religious and cultural group in accordance with custom. Two major subgroups within this overall population were identified: Moroccan/Algerian Jews and Djerban (Tunisian)/Libyan Jews.

The two subgroups varied in their degree of European mixture, with Moroccan/Algerian Jews tending to be more related to Europeans - most likely stemming from the expulsion of Sephardic Jews from Spain during the Inquisition, starting in 1492. Ethiopian and Yemenite Jewish populations also formed distinctive genetically linked clusters, as did Georgian Jews.

Dr. Ostrer’s paper is titled, “North African Jewish and non-Jewish populations form distinctive, orthogonal clusters.”

Jerusalem police accused of harassing Jews who visited Temple Mount during Sukkot

Another backlog item, as reported by Kobi Nahshoni of Ynet News, October 7, 2012:

Jewish organizations focusing on the Temple Mount are accusing the Jerusalem Police of harassing Jews who visited the religious site during the holiday of Sukkot.

According to the organizations' activists, their visiting hours to the Mount were restricted and the police threatened them with false arrests and administrative restraining orders in numbers which had yet to be seen.

Jews are legally allowed to visit the Temple Mount and pray at the site, but the police have determined that visitors must avoid praying for fear of sparking riots, which could endanger the public.

The organizations encouraging Jews to visit the Mount claimed that more than 10 Jews had been arrested during the three intermediate days of Sukkot, compared to a monthly average of several detainees on regular days.

In addition, three activists were arrested Thursday morning while trying to enter the Temple Mount compound after it was closed.

According to the Temple activists, in the past the police only arrested worshippers arriving in groups, but that now that policy has changed and the treatment of all Jewish visitors to the site has been toughened.

The organizations stressed that contrary to the police's stand, the court had released all detainees – proving that the procedure was unnecessary and justified.

Jerusalem Magistrate's Court Judge Malka Aviv even commented that "the argument that the Muslims do not look favorably upon Jews praying on the Temple Mount cannot in itself prevent a Jew from implementing the religious command and praying on the Temple Mount."

The activists also complained that the police shut the Temple Mount gates to Jewish visitors earlier than usual, allowing each person to visit the place for just a few minutes – and in small groups.

"This is a shame and disgrace. We have never seen such a thing," said Yehuda Glick, chairman of the Foundation for the Heritage of the Temple Mount.

"The police simply wet their pants every time they fear friction, and the Jews are the ones who suffer. The Arabs have already learned the method and are threatening to riot, because they know that will stop us from going up to the Mount. They understood that recently on Tisha B'Av, when Jewish visitors were completely banned."

Moshe Fischer, a Jerusalem resident who tried to visit the Temple Mount one afternoon during the hours Jews are permitted to enter, claimed he was blocked and that the police used violent measures against the Jewish visitors – including children – in order to keep them away from the entrance gate.

As a person who visits the site from time to time, he said, he had not encountered such conduct in the past. "It's very unusual," he noted.

Following the high tensions, the joint staff of the Temple movements demanded that Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin convene an urgent recess session in light of what they referred to as "the Israel Police's outrageous collaboration with the Muslim Waqf against Jews at the Temple Mount throughout the holiday of Sukkot."

The Jerusalem Police rejected the claim and offered the following in response: "The Temple Mount was open to visitors at regular hours, despite the provocations on both sides.

"The police will take a firm hand against any provocation from any source, and will continue carrying out arrests and keeping suspects away in order to maintain order and security on the Temple Mount."

University of California officials investigate allegations of anit-Semitism at Berkeley

An item from the backlog, as reported by the Los Angeles Times, October 3, 2012 (updated October 11, 2012):

The federal government is investigating charges that UC Berkeley officials fomented a hostile campus climate for Jewish students by failing to sufficiently tamp down anti-Israel protests.

The U.S. Department of Education’s civil rights office confirmed this week that it has launched an investigation into the charges, first filed in July by two recent Berkeley graduates. They complained that an annual “Apartheid Week” in February featuring protests against Israel's treatment of Palestinians was one of several campus events that have stoked anti-Semitic hate speech.

By failing to curb such activities, the university is presenting “a disturbing echo of incitement, intimidation, harassment and violence carried out under the Nazi regime and those of its allies in Europe against Jewish students and scholars ... during the turbulent years leading up to and including the Holocaust,” the complaint alleges.

University spokesman Dan Mogulof rejected the allegations Wednesday, saying the campus protests were constitutionally protected speech and that officials had made extensive efforts to maintain a safe and inclusive climate. Among other things, he said, the university has set up a website for anonymous complaints, dispatched teams of students and administrators to monitor the campus climate and provided funding for Jewish and Muslim students to promote dialogue and coexistance.

He said U.S. District Court Judge Richard Seeborg recognized the university’s actions last year in dismissing a complaint with similar allegations filed by the same students. A campus poll showed that 80% of Jewish students said they felt respected on campus, about the same proportion as Muslims, Mogulof said.

“We completely reject any allegations that this university has failed to respond promptly and in an effective fashion any time the line that divides constitutionally protected speech from illegal activities gets crossed,” said Mogulof, who described himself as a dual American-Israeli citizen.

Joel H. Siegal, one of two attorneys who filed the complaint, said the actions by activists with the Muslim Student Assn. and Students for Justice in Palestine went beyond protected political protest. During “Apartheid Week,” the San Francisco attorney said, student activists posing as Israeli guards forcing people through mock checkpoints wore Stars of David and skullcaps to attack Judaism and portray all Jews as “bloodthirsty barbarians.”

[Updated, 11:30 a.m. Oct. 11: This post reported allegations that pro-Palestinian students forced classmates through a mock checkpoint to attack Judaism and portray all Jews as “bloodthirsty barbarians.” American Muslims for Palestine, however, said only pro-Palestinian students involved in the annual “Apartheid Week” campus protest went through the checkpoint and that the intent was to show support for Palestinians against Israeli government policies. San Francisco attorney Joel H. Siegal, who filed the complaint with the U.S. Department of Education’s civil rights office, said students in past years had reported they were funneled through mock checkpoints and asked about their religion but that no such complaints were reported this year.]

Daren Briscoe of the federal civil rights office said that opening an investigation “in no way implies that [the office] has made a determination with regard to its merits.” Under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, recipients of federal funds are barred from discriminating on the basis of race, color or national origin.

Last year, a Hebrew language lecturer filed a similar allegation that the UC Santa Cruz campus was a hostile environment for Jewish students because of anti-Israel protests and attitudes. That campus also denied the allegation and predicted the probe would find the claim unmerited.

Unfortunately, Israeli Apartheid Week is becoming a tradition on many campuses, including the University of Alberta. All in the name of "tolerance" and "diversity," of course.

25 years ago: The death of Pete Maravich

On January 5, 1988, Pete Maravich went to be with the Lord Jesus Christ at the age of 40. Pistol Pete's 44.2 average points per game at Louisiana State University (1967-70) is an NCAA record that still stands. Mr. Maravich played in the National Basketball Association with the Atlanta Hawks, New Orleans Jazz, and Boston Celtics from 1970-1980, retiring because of a leg injury. He was a five-time NBA all-star in his 10-year career.

Mr. Maravich came to know Jesus Christ as his Lord and Saviour at the age of 35, and died in the arms of Dr. James Dobson while on a visit to the headquarters of Focus on the Family. His death was caused by a heart defect so rare (a missing left coronary artery) that it was said that only 2 of every 500 doctors would ever see it during the course of their careers. At the age of 25 Pistol Pete made the eerily prophetic comment that he didn't want to play 10 years in the NBA and die of a heart attack at the age of 40. Fortunately, when that event did happen, he entered into the presence of the Lord. Pistol Pete is still able to witness for his Lord after his death: a recording of his testimony helped lead Mickey Mantle to saving faith in Jesus Christ just days before the baseball legend's death in 1995.

Scholars in Mali are trying to save valuable archival documents from destruction by Islamists

Another episode in the wonderful word of Islamism, as reported by Geoffrey York of the Toronto newspaper The Globe and Mail, December 27, 2012:

As rebels searched the bags of the truck passengers at a checkpoint near Timbuktu, one man was trying to hide his nervousness.

Mohamed Diagayete, an owlish scholar with an eager smile, was silently praying that the rebels would not discover his laptop computer. Buried in his laptop bag was an external hard drive with a cache of thousands of valuable images and documents from Timbuktu’s greatest cultural treasure: its ancient scholarly manuscripts.

Radical Islamist rebels in northern Mali have repeatedly attacked the fabled city’s heritage, taking pickaxes to the tombs of local saints and smashing down a door in a 15th century mosque. They demolished several more mausoleums this week and vowed to destroy the rest, despite strong protests from UNESCO, the United Nations cultural agency.

With the tombs demolished, Timbuktu’s most priceless remaining legacy is its vast libraries of crumbling Arabic and African manuscripts, written in ornate calligraphy over the past eight centuries, proof of a historic African intellectual tradition. Some experts consider them as significant as the Dead Sea Scrolls – and an implicit rebuke to the harsh narrow views of the Islamist radicals.

But now the manuscripts, too, could be under threat. And so a covert operation is under way to save them.

That’s why Mr. Diagayete was so anxious to smuggle his hard drive out of Timbuktu. For years, he’s been helping preserve the manuscripts by digitizing them. But the project was halted when the Islamists seized Timbuktu in April. A few months later, Mr. Diagayete made an undercover visit to Timbuktu and brought back as many of the digital images as he could.

The quest to save the documents rarely leaves his thoughts. “What will happen to the manuscripts?” he asks from the safety of Mali’s capital, Bamako, where he fled after the fall of Timbuktu.

“I’m always asking myself thousands of questions about the manuscripts,” he says. “When we lose them, we have no other copy. It’s forever.”

Mr. Diagayete is a researcher at the Ahmed Baba Institute, which has been digitizing the manuscripts for nearly a decade with support from foreign governments. But because of technical delays, and the huge number of manuscripts in the city (up to 700,000 by some estimates), only a tiny fraction has been copied so far.

The manuscripts, dating back to the 13th century, are evidence of ancient African and Islamist written scholarship, contradicting the myth of a purely oral tradition on the continent.

Many of the manuscripts are religious documents, but others are intellectual treatises on medicine, astronomy, literature, mathematics, chemistry, judicial law and philosophy. Many were brought to Timbuktu in camel caravans by scholars from Cairo, Baghdad and Persia who trekked to the city when it was one of the world’s greatest centres of Islamic learning. In the Middle Ages, when Europe was stagnating, the African city had 180 religious schools and a university with 20,000 students.

Timbuktu fell into decline after Moroccan invasions and French colonization, but its ancient gold-lettered manuscripts were preserved by dozens of owners, mostly private citizens, who kept them in wooden trunks or in their own libraries.

Today, under the occupation of the radical jihadists, the manuscripts face a range of threats. Conservation experts have fled the city, so the documents could be damaged by insects, mice, sand, dust or extreme temperatures. Or the Islamist militants could decide to raise money by looting and selling the documents.

There’s also a risk that the militants could simply destroy the manuscripts, since some are written by African mystics or moderate Sufis, regarded by the Islamist rebels as ideological enemies. Another threat is the planned Western-backed military campaign against the rebels, which could lead to house-to-house fighting in Timbuktu, further endangering the manuscripts.

The government-run Ahmed Baba Institute holds nearly 40,000 manuscripts in two main buildings, including a headquarters built with South African assistance in 2009. But the Islamist rebels have seized the institute, looting its computers and using its new building as a sleeping quarters.

“It’s a big setback for the institute,” said Susana Molins Lliteras, a researcher at a South African-based project to protect the Timbuktu manuscripts.

“It’s very possible that things have been lost,” she said. “We haven’t even had a chance to research the manuscripts – we haven’t scratched the surface. So if they are lost, we won’t even know what is lost.”

Since the rebel takeover, the private owners have scrambled to protect the manuscripts. Nobody knows exactly what they have done, but it is believed that some owners have hidden the manuscripts, buried them in the sand, or smuggled them to villages.

This, too, is dangerous, since the ancient texts can easily be damaged when they are moved. “They are very fragile,” Mr. Diagayete said. “The choice is difficult: Either we lose them all or we lose part of them. Everyone is trying to find a way to protect their manuscripts.”

Adama Diarra, a Malian journalist, saw three owners piling their manuscripts into 50-kilogram rice bags in April, shortly after the Islamists seized Timbuktu, apparently in an effort to move them to safer places. “The pages were falling out,” he said.

Mohamed Galla Dicko, director of the Ahmed Baba Institute for 17 years before leaving the institute this year, says the threat to the manuscripts is serious. “The old pages can be damaged just by touching them,” he said. “And the people who are moving them are not specialists in handling them.”

While the Timbuktu manuscripts are in trouble, there is better news from another ancient Malian town, Djenne, south of the rebel-controlled territory. With help from the British Library, researchers are digitizing thousands of Djenne’s historic manuscripts – some nearly 500 years old.

Even when fuel and electricity were rationed after the rebel advances, dedicated workers kept toiling on the project at Djenne’s manuscript library. “We’ve saved a large number of the manuscripts,” said Sophie Sarin, a Swedish hotel owner in Djenne.

The project aims to collect 200,000 images by next July. After the rebels captured northern Mali this year, Ms. Sarin travelled to London with a hard drive containing 80,000 digital images of the Djenne manuscripts. She brought them to specialists at the British Library, who were very relieved to see them, she said.

2,750-year-old pagan cult temple found in Israel

As reported by the Israel Antiquities Authority, December 26, 2012:

Figurines of a person (Photo: Clara Amit, courtesy of Israel Antiquities Authority)

Rare evidence of the religious practices and rituals in the early days of the Kingdom of Judah has recently been discovered at Tel Motza, to the west of Jerusalem. In excavations the Israel Antiquities Authority is currently conducting at the Tel Motza archaeological site, prior to work being carried out on the new Highway 1 from Sha'ar HaGai to Jerusalem by the National Roads Company (previously the Public Works Department), a ritual building (a temple) and a cache of sacred vessels some 2,750 years old have been uncovered.

According to Anna Eirikh, Dr. Hamoudi Khalaily and Shua Kisilevitz, directors of the excavation on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority, "The ritual building at Tel Motza is an unusual and striking find, in light of the fact that there are hardly any remains of ritual buildings of the period in Judaea at the time of the First Temple. The uniqueness of the structure is even more remarkable because of the vicinity of the site's proximity to the capital city of Jerusalem, which acted as the Kingdom's main sacred center at the time." According to the archaeologists, "Among other finds, the site has yielded pottery figurines of men, one of them bearded, whose significance is still unknown."

Tel Motza and the surrounding region are renowned for their prime archaeological importance. Many finds have previously been uncovered at the site, from a variety of different periods. From the 1990's to the beginning of the present millennium, the site was excavated in preparation for the new route taken by Highway 1. At the time, the site's archaeologists proposed once more identifying the site with the Biblical settlement "Mozah" mentioned in the Book of Joshua - a town in the tribal lands of Benjamin bordering on Judaea (Joshua 18: 26). The proposal was based, among other things, on the discovery at the site of a public building, a large structure with storehouses, and a considerable number of silos. At the time, archaeologists identified the site as a storehouse, run by high-ranking officials, for Jerusalem's grain supplies.

The current excavations have revealed evidence that provides another aspect to our understanding of the site. According to archaeologists Eirikh, Dr. Khalaily and, Kisilevitz, the current excavation has revealed part of a large structure, from the early days of the monarchic period (Iron Age IIA). The walls of the structure are massive, and it includes a wide, east-facing entrance, conforming to the tradition of temple construction in the ancient Near East: the rays of the sun rising in the east would have illuminated the object placed inside the temple first, symbolizing the divine presence within. A square structure which was probably an altar was exposed in the temple courtyard, and the cache of sacred vessels was found near the structure.

The assemblage includes ritual pottery vessels, with fragments of chalices (bowls on a high base which were used in sacred rituals), decorated ritual pedestals, and a number of pottery figurines of two kinds: the first, small heads in human form (anthropomorphic) with a flat headdress and curling hair; the second, figurines of animals (zoomorphic) - mainly of harnessed animals. The archeologists stress that "the find of the sacred structure together with the accompanying cache of sacred vessels, and especially the significant coastal influence evident in the anthropomorphic figurines, still require extensive research."

Ritual elements in the Kingdom of Judah are recorded in archaeological research, especially from the numerous finds of pottery figurines and other sacred objects found at many sites in Israel, and these are usually attributed to domestic rituals. However, the remains of ritual platforms and temples used for ritual ceremonies have only been found at a few sites of this period.

According to the site's directors, "The finds recently discovered at Tel Motza provide rare archaeological evidence for the existence of temples and ritual enclosures in the Kingdom of Judah in general, and in the Jerusalem region in particular, prior to the religious reforms throughout the kingdom at the end of the monarchic period (at the time of Hezekiah and Isaiah), which abolished all ritual sites, concentrating ritual practices solely at the Temple in Jerusalem."

Ancient Hebrew manuscripts from Afghanistan provide evidence that Jewish communities were there 1,000 years ago

(Photograph: Associated Press)

(Photograph: Associated Press)

(Photograph: Associated Press)

(Photograph: Associated Press)

As reported by Mario Ledwith of the London Daily Mail, January 3, 2013:

A collection of manuscripts from caves in Afghanistan has provided the first evidence of Jewish communities living in the devoutly Muslim country 1,000 years ago.

The cache of Hebrew documents are thought to have originated from the country's northeast region, a Taliban stronghold.

The documents, which include biblical commentaries, personal letters and financial records, were unveiled by Israel's National Library after being purchased from private dealers.

Researchers have described the collection as one of the greatest Jewish archives ever found.

The stash has been dubbed the 'Afghan Genizah'. Genizah is a Hebrew term that loosely translates as 'storage' and refers to a storeroom adjacent to a synagogue or Jewish cemetery where Hebrew-language books and papers are kept.

Jewish law forbids any writings containing the formal names of God to be thrown away, so the documents are either buried or stashed away.

The collection of documents has provided scholars with fascinating details into the lives of early Jewish communities in ancient Persia.

Conditions in the dry, shady caves have helped to preserve the documents, which were identified using carbon-dating technology and by the use of the unique unique Judeo-Persian language.

The documents include writings in Hebrew, Aramaic, Judea-Arabic and the unique Judeo-Persian language from that era.

Haggai Ben-Shammai, the National Library's academic director, said the documents related to the 'Yiddish of Persian Jews'.

He said the manuscripts included mentions of distinctly Jewish names and evidence of their commercial activities along the 'Silk road' connecting Europe and the East.

It remains unclear how the ancient manuscripts emerged. Ben-Shammai said the library was contacted by various antiquities dealers who got their hands on them.

The library purchased 29 out of hundreds of the documents believed to be located around the world last month, after long negotiations with antiquities dealers, and they arrived in Israel last week...

...Mr Ben-Shammai said it was too early to compare the cache to the Cairo Genizah - a storage of documents found in a synagogue in the late 1800s including thousands of historically important documents.

He said it would take a long time to sift through the findings from Afghanistan and that the documents were already significant since no other Hebrew writings had even been found so far from the Holy Land.

The Jewish community in the region at the time lived largely like others in the Muslim world, as a 'tolerated minority' that was treated better than under Christian rule, according to the academic.

Afghanistan's Jewish community numbered as many as 40,000 in the late 19th century, after Persian Jews fled forced conversion.

By the mid-20th century, only about 5,000 remained, and most emigrated after Israel's creation in 1948.

Aviad Stollman, curator of the library's Judaica collection, said: 'They were Jews living a thousand years ago in this place. I think that is the most exciting part.'

Dead Sea Scrolls are now online

As reported in the London Daily Telegraph, December 18, 2012 (link in original):

One of the most important archaeological finds of the 20th century is now available for all to see online after the Israel Antiquities Authority and Google digitised the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Anyone with an internet connection will now be able to take a new look into the Biblical past through an online archive of high-resolution images of the 2,000-year-old Dead Sea Scrolls completed by the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) and Google.

The scrolls, most of them on parchment, are the oldest copies of the Hebrew Bible and include secular text dating from the third century BC to the first century AD.

IAA, the custodian of the scrolls that shed light on the life of Jews and early Christians at the time of Jesus, said it has collaborated with Google's research and development centre in Israel for the past two and a half years to upload digitised images of thousands of fragments from the collection.

Yossi Matias, the head of Google-Israel R&D centre, described the project launch as "exciting".

"What's exciting about this launch is that users from all over the world can access these ancient scrolls, through wherever they are, and they can experience them through any device, anywhere in the world. This project brings to life the ten commandments, Genesis book, known verses from the Psalms and some 5,000 images of fragments from the scrolls," Matias said.

Since its discovery, the Dead Sea Scrolls have been extensively researched by scholars across the world. Vast amounts of information are now available on each scroll and many of the fragments.

Approximately 4,000 fragments have been already uploaded to the website, with the aim to eventually upload all tens of thousands of them, the IAA said.

"It's a project that I believe that every human being around the globe is very excited (about). Again, because it's not only for the Jews, it's not only the story of the Jews. it is the story of Christianity, and Islam and all the others. This is the old Testament," said Shuka Dorfman, the IAA director.

For many years after Bedouin shepherds first came upon the scrolls in caves near the Dead Sea in 1947, only a small number of scholars were allowed to view the fragments.

But access has since been widened and they were published in their entirety nine years ago.

A few large pieces of scroll are on permanent display at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.

View the Dead Sea Scrolls at http://www.deadseascrolls.org.il/

Jews from "lost tribe" move from India to Israel

That then the Lord thy God will turn thy captivity, and have compassion upon thee, and will return and gather thee from all the nations, whither the Lord thy God hath scattered thee.
If any of thine be driven out unto the outmost parts of heaven, from thence will the Lord thy God gather thee, and from thence will he fetch thee:
And the Lord thy God will bring thee into the land which thy fathers possessed, and thou shalt possess it; and he will do thee good, and multiply thee above thy fathers. Deuteronomy 30:3-5

As reported by Associated Press, December 23, 2012:

A group of 50 Jews said to descend from one of the 10 Lost Tribes immigrated to Israel Thursday from their village in northeastern India.

The members of the Bnei Menashe community prayed in their local synagogue and then hugged their crying relatives before heading off to the airport in the Manipur state capital of Imphal, 34 miles away.

The Bnei Menashe say they are descended from Jews banished from ancient Israel to India in the eighth century BC.

An Israeli chief rabbi recognized members of the Bnei Menashe community as a lost tribe in 2005 and about 1,700 moved to Israel before the Israeli government stopped giving them visas.

The government recently reversed that policy. About 7,200 of them remain in India.

April 27, 2026 update: As reported by Adam Eliyahu Berkowitz of Israel365 News, April 24, 2026 (links in original):

More than 250 members of the Bnei Menashe community landed at Ben Gurion Airport Thursday night, marking the first wave of a government-funded operation to bring thousands of their community members from northeast India to Israel. The arrivals, bleary-eyed from their long flight, walked under an arch of blue-and-white balloons and down a red carpet at Terminal 1 while well-wishers waved Israeli flags and a recording of “Oseh Shalom” filled the hall. Men wore knitted kippahs or hats; married women wore head coverings, in keeping with Orthodox Jewish practice.

The flight is the first of three scheduled over the coming weeks, with approximately 600 immigrants expected to arrive in total. The broader operation — dubbed Miftza Kanfei Shachar, “Operation Wings of Dawn” — aims to relocate the remaining 6,000 members of the Bnei Menashe community to Israel by 2030, with 1,200 arriving in 2026 alone.

The operation follows a government decision approved in November, spearheaded by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Aliyah and Integration Minister Ofir Sofer, and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich. The new olim — immigrants to Israel — will initially be settled in absorption centers in Nof HaGalil, a northern city overlooking Nazareth, and in Kiryat Yam, where existing Bnei Menashe communities are already established.

Manipur has seen periodic clashes for nearly three years between the predominantly Hindu Meitei majority and the mainly Christian Kuki community, which have killed more than 250 people, endangering the Bnei Menashe community, which has been caught in the middle of the fighting.

Sofer, who welcomed the newcomers at the airport, called their arrival a “historic moment.” Addressing the new olim directly, he said: “We are making history as we bring the entire Bnei Menashe community to Israel. There is no more fitting and moving time to welcome a plane full of olim than right after the State’s 78th Independence Day. Welcome home.”

Jewish Agency chair Maj.-Gen. (res.) Doron Almog framed the moment in broader terms. “Aliyah is the State of Israel’s growth engine, and every new oleh is a lighthouse of hope,” he said, adding that responsibility extends beyond arrival to ensuring successful absorption and opportunity for each immigrant.

The Shavei Israel organization, which traces the descendants of the Lost Tribes and has facilitated the community’s immigration to Israel, estimates that some 4,000 Bnei Menashe have immigrated to Israel since the 1990s, with roughly 7,000 still living in India. The new arrivals will undergo formal conversion before receiving Israeli citizenship.

The Bnei Menashe — literally “sons of Manasseh” — claim descent from the tribe of Menashe, one of the Ten Lost Tribes exiled by the Assyrian Empire more than 27 centuries ago, roughly 140 years before the Babylonian exile sent the tribe of Judah into its own dispersal. Their ancestors wandered for centuries through Persia, Afghanistan, Tibet, and China before settling in what is today the northeastern Indian states of Mizoram and Manipur, along the borders of Burma and Bangladesh.

While it is extraordinary that they survived, their continued connection with the nation of Israel is even more remarkable. Through every century of wandering, the Bnei Menashe maintained Shabbat observance, kept kashrut, celebrated the Jewish festivals, and upheld the laws of family purity. They practiced circumcision. They held onto the dream of returning to the Land of Israel. In the 19th century, Christian missionaries converted many of them, yet even that rupture could not extinguish the ancestral memory passed from generation to generation.

The Prophet Ezekiel described this very moment. God commanded him:

“Take one stick and write on it, ‘For Judah and for the children of Israel his companions’; then take another stick and write on it, ‘For Joseph, the stick of Ephraim, and for all the house of Israel his companions.'” (Ezekiel 37:16)

Michael Freund, founder of Shavei Israel, who has dedicated his life to finding and returning the scattered remnants of Israel, sees in the Bnei Menashe’s arrival a direct fulfillment of that prophecy. “The return of the Bnei Menashe is a clear and explicit indication that we have entered a new stage of the Redemption,” Freund said. “The prophets talked about the return of Judah and the return of Israel. It seems repetitive unless it was intended to tell us that the tribes of Israel were meant to return separately from the tribe of Judah. The prophecy clearly states that the tribes of Israel and Judah will return separately, and that is what is happening right now with the Bnei Menashe.”

The Sages understood geulah — redemption — not as a single thunderclap but as a gathering process, incremental and purposeful. The ingathering of the exiles spoken of throughout the prophets was never meant to be only the return of one tribe. It was always meant to be the reconstitution of an entire nation. Most Jews today descend from the tribe of Judah, exiled to Babylon. The Bnei Menashe are something different — a living remnant of the Northern Kingdom, the other half of a people split apart by Assyrian conquest and now, piece by piece, being made whole again.

Thursday night at Ben Gurion Airport, as families who had spent years apart finally embraced and wept, that ancient process moved forward. Twenty-seven centuries of exile, wandering through the heart of Asia, ended not with fanfare from world powers but with blue-and-white balloons, a red carpet, and the words “Oseh Shalom” — He who makes peace — echoing through Terminal 1. The lost were found. The exiles came home.

30 years ago: The world premiere of The God Makers

On December 31, 1982, The God Makers, produced by Jeremiah Films, received its premiere screening at Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California. The film is a hard-hitting expose of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, better known as the Mormons.

Ed Decker and Dick Baer, former members of the Mormon Melchizededk priesthood, attempted to persuade a Los Angeles law firm to launch a class-action suit against the LDS on behalf of people like themselves who had seen their marriages and families destroyed. The film is centred around a reenactment of Mr. Decker and Mr. Baer's presentation to the law firm, which paints a very different picture of the Mormon Church from that which the church presents to the public. Despite overwhelming evidence to support the complaints against the church, the law firm decided against pursuing the matter because they didn't believe that the complainants had enough money to offset the deep pockets of the Mormon Church.

According to Grace Community Church pastor John MacArthur, "This film is dynamite, the most powerful thing I've seen! Get your Mormon friends to view it!"

The film was followed in 1984 by a book of the same title authored by Ed Decker and Dave Hunt, and by a subsequent documentary and book (written by Ed Decker and Caryl Matrisciana) titled The God Makers II in 1988. Both dcoumentaries and both books are recommended by this blogger.

University of Windsor caves in to whiny atheists and removes prayer from convocation ceremony

The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good. Psalms 14:1 (see also Psalms 53:1)

Just the thought of one public mention of God in four or more years of university is enough to prompt atheists to require smelling salts and grief counselling. The cowardice of university administrators in caving in to loud, politically-correct minorities is typical. As reported by Dalson Chen of the Windsor Star, October 5, 2012:

There’s going to be a conspicuous absence at the University of Windsor‘s fall convocation ceremony next week. Namely, a prayer.

For the first time in the university’s history, the graduation event won’t include an entreaty to God — nor any other religious reference.

In place of a prayer, the ceremony will have a non-religious request for a moment of reflection.

“I ask that you take a moment to reflect on those who guided you along your path of learning,” the chancellor will read.

“To appreciate our families, our teachers, our peers, the world we live in, and all that inspires us.”

According to the university’s Office of Human Rights, Equity and Accessibility, the permanent change is meant to reflect a “more inclusive atmosphere” at the learning institution.

Kaye Johnson, the university’s director of human rights, described the new secular format as “widening the circle.”

“A moment of silent reflection will allow people to use this time as they need to, not as someone else decides,” Johnson said in a press release.

Johnson noted that many other universities have already adopted non-religious approaches to their ceremonies.

“In fact, many people are surprised to find that the convocation ceremony included a prayer,” she said in the press release.

On Friday, Johnson said she considers the change “timely.”

“If we only maintained tradition, we wouldn’t have a lot of the advances that our society has made,” she noted.

The decision pleases the Windsor-Essex County Atheist Society, a student-run club.

Shawna Scott, the atheist society’s president and founder, said she “feels reassured that the university actually does take student concerns seriously, and that they strive to respect diversity.”

A PhD student in the university’s clinical psychology program, Scott wrote letters to the human rights office about feeling “extremely excluded and uncomfortable” when she was asked to stand in prayer for her undergraduate convocation in 2010.

Scott wrote that she believes it is “totally unfair and disrespectful” to push prayer at a public university.

Asked on Friday how she feels about tradition and the University of Windsor’s roots as a Roman Catholic institution, Scott said: “You know what? Sometimes re-evaluating tradition is a thing to be done.”

Scott pointed out that the new convocation text still allows attendees to pray, if they count religion as something that inspires them. The major difference is that prayer “is no longer dictated to us.”

Asked how she feels about prayer in other facets of public life — such as city council meetings, remembrance ceremonies and community events — Scott said she disagrees with that as well.

“Religion should not be mixed into that,” Scott said.

Past University of Windsor convocation ceremonies have made direct references to “Eternal God.”

In the fall convocation of 2011, Rev. Mary Templer of the University Community Church led the audience in a prayer that described God as “the source of all goodness, discipline and knowledge.”

“We pray you to bless this assembly, gather to recognize achievement, and celebrate life. Bless this and all universities in their quest for excellence. Be with teachers and students everywhere,” Templer recited, finishing with the traditional “Amen.”

The Catholic Campus Ministry didn’t respond to a request for comment on Friday before press time.

Johnson said she didn’t personally consult with the campus ministry about the change, but there were discussions about the issue at other levels in the university administration.

When "widening the circle" places atheism on the same level as the Roman Catholicism of the University of Windsor's founders, the "circle" no longer has any shape. Typically, it never occurs to the atheists that they're being "unfair and disrespectful" in demanding that prayer be removed from the convocation ceremony. As for "re-evaluating tradition," how come it's never the atheists who feel any need to re-evaluate their traditions?

As reported by Darryl Gallinger of the University of Windsor newspaper The Lance, October 9, 2012:

The prayers of atheists have been answered by the University of Windsor with the removal of Christian prayer from convocation ceremonies in favour of a personal moment of reflection.

Holly Ward, chief communications officer for the university, confirmed the change. “It’s definitely a tradition of the University of Windsor to use a prayer, as it has been a tradition to use prayers at most universities nationwide,” she said. “Having a moment of reflection is not unusual. It’s changed because we have a changing campus. We have a lot of diversity on our campus … we want to make sure you feel included.”

“The decision was made at the president [Alan Wildeman’s] level because concerns had come to his office,” Ward added.

Shawna Scott, student and president of the Windsor-Essex County Atheist Society, was in favour of removing the prayer and feels validated by recent decision. “I’m really proud of the university for making this change,” she said.

Scott challenged the line of the convocation prayer, which refers to an “eternal God” as “the source of all goodness, discipline and knowledge,” explaining that, “The end result of us graduating is a product of our hard work, support from our family and friends and everyone working really hard to build our own success. To us, it doesn’t come from a deity … it makes it really awkward to be there and feel excluded like that.”

Scott founded the atheist group in 2010. Its 170 members fundraise for charities and provide a network of non-believers with resources and support.

“The sentiment of a prayer is a beautiful one,” said Paul Anderson, a member of the atheist society. “However, it’s impossible to write it in such a way that can accommodate all faiths, including those who don’t believe in god.”

“Or even those who believe in more than one god,” Scott added.

Scott first expressed concerns about the prayer following her undergraduate graduation in 2010 and again in 2011 in formal letters to university. She never received a reply from administration. In preparation for the fall 2012 convocation ceremony, where Scott would be recognized for obtaining her master’s degree, she wrote the university once more, suggesting a moment of personal reflection as an alternative to the traditional prayer.

A month after the letter was sent, Ward confirmed the change to The Lance.

According to the new script, Reverend Mary Templer of the University Community Church will ask the graduates to, “Take a moment to reflect on those who guided you along your path of learning, to appreciate our families, our teachers, our peers, the world in which we live and all that inspires us.”

“There’s another piece that people miss,” pointed out Kaye Johnson, director of the university’s human rights office. “There is a lot of diversity within Christianity and the type of prayer is not reflective of all of Christianity. There was discomfort that’s not only within people who have a different faith, but also of Christian faith.”

“The thing with public prayer in a context like that, it also imposes words onto people,” Johnson said, explaining that even those who wish to pray at convocation cannot choose what is being prayed to and why.

Jordan Legg of the Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship is not troubled by the change. “I’m more concerned about people actually engaging with who Jesus is and loving him completely with their words and actions rather than giving him lip service at a convocation ceremony,” he said.

Legg explained that his group talks about Christianity with students on campus, and for him “teaching others to love Jesus” is more important than maintaining a campus tradition.

Please note the wimpy reaction of the Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship spokesman, speaking with all the courage and conviction of a typical evangelical pastor. The excerpts from the prayer by "Rev." Mary Templer, quoted above, are as bland and inoffensive as you could get and still legitimately call it a prayer. If their website (in addition to the presence of a female "pastor") is any indication, University Community Church, with its roots in a liberal Presbyterian congregation, isn't likely to be full of the fire-breathing fundamentalism that atheists so love to caricature.

Edmonton public schools will offer Yoga for credit

You tell me just how I can take this Yoga serious
When all it ever gives to me is a pain in my posterious.

Yoga is as Yoga Does, as performed by Elvis Presley (with Elsa Lanchester) in the movie Easy Come, Easy Go (1967).

The definition of yoga from Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary (1965):

1 cap: a Hindu theistic philosophy teaching the suppression of all activity of body, mind, and will in order that the self may realize its distinction from them and attain liberation 2: a system of exercises for attaining bodily or mental control and well-being

Of course, the exercises are based on the philosophy. Yoga comes from the Sanskrit word yunakti, meaning “he yokes.” The yoking is with Brahma, the ground of all being in Hinduism. Until it became “westernized,” Yoga was mainly about teaching old Hindus how to die. It’s no more about relaxation and relieving stress than Transcendental Meditation, which is also Hinduism. Neither one caught on in the west until they decided to change the marketing approach to appeal to westerners’ priorities, such as financial prosperity, physical health and emotional well-being. I'm waiting for the day when public schools will offer credits for courses in practicing Christianity.

As reported by Andrea Sands in the Edmonton Journal, December 11, 2012:

EDMONTON - Students enrolled in Kim Hertlein’s holistic health class at Ross Sheppard High School sample yoga in a wide-ranging course that focuses on healthy living and alternative healing.

As early as next semester, however, high school students in Edmonton could earn credit for taking a Yoga 15 or Yoga 25 course, after public school trustees voted last week to import a yoga curriculum developed in Calgary.

“I’m very excited. I would be thrilled to teach a yoga class,” said Hertlein, a certified hatha yoga instructor who teaches social studies at Ross Sheppard, as well as the holistic health option, nicknamed “H2O.”

“If this is made available to Edmonton Public, I know it will be wildly popular. A lot of my friends are phys-ed teachers and they all do yoga, so they’d be willing to offer it. It’s not just a physical exercise. It’s a balance of body, mind and spirit.”

Students are constantly stimulated by a barrage of information, so a yoga course is a valuable tool to promote healthy and balanced living, Hertlein said. It also appeals to students, particularly women, who don’t like competitive team sports, she said.
“I can honestly tell you, my holistic health class is the only class they don’t bring their cellphones to,” Hertlein said.

Students taking Hertlein’s holistic health class try out a variety of physical activities including yoga, kick boxing, spin class, circuit training, Pilates, Zumba and belly dancing. They also discuss alternative approaches to health, eating, sleep and exercise and explore meditation and relaxation techniques to reduce stress.

“I’ve had a lot of students come to me and say, ‘I don’t like the belly dancing. I just want to do yoga every day,’” Hertlein said.

They could have that option as early as next semester, which begins in February, said Stephen Wright, supervisor in projects and research with Edmonton Public Schools.

Wright looked into whether any Alberta schools had introduced yoga as an option after Ross Sheppard and Victoria School expressed interest in running the course.

With the public school trustee’s approval last week, the school district will take the yoga curriculum developed in Calgary and make it available to schools here. Alberta Education still has to approve the plan, which shouldn’t take long, Wright said.

Then schools can start offering the three-credit, halftime block as an option. It does not replace regular physical education, or any core courses that are part of the provincial curriculum.

“It is an option course,” Wright said. “So students could take French, art, woodworking, foods, anything like that — and students have to take some option courses to complete their diploma — but it doesn’t have to be yoga.”

The yoga courses, along with a Reading 25 class, are the first new “locally developed courses” Edmonton Public Schools has approved since a provincial moratorium on such courses ended in September.

Locally developed courses are developed by various school districts to teach subjects outside the provincial curriculum, which allows school districts to respond to local needs. Edmonton Public Schools runs dozens of locally developed courses such as American Sign Language and deaf culture, theatre performance, sports performance, marine biology, pre-engineering, painting and various language programs including Arabic, German and Mandarin...

...The Calgary Board of Education introduced Yoga 15 and Yoga 25 in 2009 for Grades 10 and 11 students, said CBE spokeswoman Karen Drummond.

“Last year, we had four high schools that offered it, with right around 200 students who were enrolled,” Drummond said.

Schools need to find a teacher who is trained in yoga instruction before introducing the course as an option, which has possibly limited student enrolment numbers, Drummond added.

Calgary’s Yoga 15 course introduces students to basic yoga postures, breathing techniques and relaxation methods, and teaches them about yoga’s historical roots, basic anatomy and physiology, and body acceptance, according to information posted on the Ernest Manning High School website.

“The program is designed to allow students to experience the benefits of increased flexibility, strength, focus and concentration,” the course description says. “Students will learn to be non-judgmental about their own and others’ yoga practice. Through continued practice, students will relieve stress, learn to relax and experience the health benefits of yoga practice.”

I can't leave without including the comments of Elvis, as quoted at the top of this post:

75 years ago: Before the "holy laughter" of the "Toronto Blessing" there was the "holy howling" of the "Woodstock Revival"

The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun. Ecclesiastes 1:9

For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all churches of the saints...Let all things be done decently and in order. I Corinthians 14: 33, 40

From The Toronto Daily Star, November 22, 1937 (pp. 1-2):

JUDGE ASKS IF "HOWLING" IS A "RELIGIOUS SERVICE"
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Rev. Eno Kulbeck Appeals Against Conviction by Woodstock Magistrate
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APPEAL IS DISMISSED
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Rev. Eno Kulbeck appealed to the appellate court at Osgoode Hall today against his conviction at Woodstock.

The appeal was dismissed.

He was charged of having committed a common nuisance on Aug. 28 and numerous other occasions at Grace Tabernacle, Woodstock, "by conducting gatherings of persons in the said tabernacle in such a manner that the continued and repeated loud shouting and screaming and other noise, created until nearly midnight endangered and disturbed the peace and comfort of the public."

On the conviction Magistrate McCrimmon placed Mr. Kulbeck on suspended sentence and ordered him to pay the court costs or in the alternative to serve 30 days in jail.

W.R. Marshall, Ingersoll, and John A. Reid, Toronto, appeared for the appellant, and A.O. Klein for the crown.

"He was put on a bond to terminate his meeting, not later than 9:30 at night," said Mr. Marshall.

He contended that Kulbeck was convicted under Sections 222 and 223.

"He disturbed the whole neighborhood," said Mr. Justice Middleton. "I don't think that is correct," replied Mr. Marshall.

"Here was a minister of the Gospel who was conducting a religious service," said Mr. Marshall.

"Do you call that a religious service, howling and shouting?" asked Chief Justice Latchford.

Counsel, replying to the chief justice as to the evidence of shouting before the magistrate, said there was some.

"I have obtained four photographs of that section," continued counsel.

"Of the noise?" asked the chief justice.

"Why can't he conduct the services with decorum?" asked Mr. Justice Middleton.

The regular service was over at 9:30. After that persons had the privilege of approaching the altar and thank their Maker, explained counsel.

Revival Services

During the whole week they had revival and Sunday night was the final meeting, and having a special minister there it was a larger service.

Some of the residents heard the noise of a gang of boys outside the tabernacle, declared counsel.

"The charge against you," said the chief justice, "is what was going on inside, not what was going on outside the building."

"I would like to describe the type of religious service going on there," continued counsel.

"The type of service, according to the evidence, was a nuisance to people in the community," said Chief Justice Latchford.

"In the first instance, I contend that the holding of a religious service is not an unlawful act," said Mr. Marshall.

"No, it is the irreligious service, shouting, howling and screaming," returned the chief justice.

"We are faced with the fact that there was noise from boys outside," said counsel.

"I would not judge what was a religious service," said counsel, who added that the religion followed that of old time when people came close to their Maker. "They hear the old hymns and sing them," he said.

"Paul was force to preach in the open," counsel reminded the court.

Mr. Marshall contended that Kulbrick was illegally convicted under the sections referring to endangering the health and safety of the public.

"One woman says she could not get to sleep," remarked Mr. Justice Middleton.

110 years ago: Lecturer denounces churches and the "1%"

The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun. Ecclesiastes 1:9

From the The Toronto Daily Star, November 17, 1902, page 7:

RICH RULE THE CHURCHES
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AND THEY PREACH ALMS-GIVING INSTEAD OF JUSTICE.
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Hon. E.H. Crosby Explains the Attitude of the Laboring Man to Religious Bodies.
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"The Church and the Labor Problem" was the subject of the address yesterday afternoon at the Toronto Opera House by Hon. Ernest Howard Crosby, given under the auspices of the Single Tax Association. Speaking of the unequal distribution of wealth, the lecturer declared that while one laborer produced to-day as much as thirteen did 150 years ago, the results of the wonderful discoveries of the past century have gone into few hands, and have widened the chasm between the rich and the poor. In the United States one per cent. of the population owes more property than the other 99 per cent. The inventions of new machinery led to overproduction, and men in consequence were thrown out of employment and made incapable of buying. As production increased, the number of buyers decreased. This forced us to seek foreign markets, and when these are exhausted a crisis comes upon us. The speaker condemned the Socialistic remedy as impracticable and Utopian. The monopolies should be dealt with and rooted out before trying a complicated system of organized industries. The Church to-day too much represents the rich and their class interests. Instead of justice, it preaches an ineffectual kind of charity. It must take the side of labor.

Church of England rector hands out 10-pound notes to parishioners to invest

And said unto them that sold doves, Take these things hence; make not my Father's house an house of merchandise. John 2:16

A clergyman whose name I don't recall has referred to the Church of England as "the natural spiritual home of the Queen and Mr. Bean." Submitted for your approval as evidence is this article by Tom Whitehead of the London Daily Telegraph on November 19, 2012, as published by the Canadian newspaper National Post:

A U.K. rector has handed out 10-pound notes to his parishioners in the hope that they can turn them into a fortune.

The Rev. Richard Steele has challenged his congregation to invest the cash wisely to help boost funds for repairs to Kirkheaton parish church in West Yorkshire.

The church needs 73,000 pounds, and the Rev. Steel hopes the 450 pounds he has handed out will return a profit.

He said he hoped his congregation would not use the money to gamble on horses or lottery tickets but hinted that he would accept any winnings.

“I rather think that it is not the kind of thing my people would do but I have not laid down any rules,” he said.

“It would be an interesting ethical debate that would have to be had if they did win.”

The Rev. Steel took the idea from the Parable of the Talents in the Bible, in which three servants are given the task of investing their master’s money.

He said: “Not everyone in the church has money to give so I thought I’d offer them some ‘seed capital’ to invest—maybe in baking cakes for sale, buying a car-washing kit, material to make cards or a woolly hat to keep warm when offering a dog-walking service. I’m not entirely sure what people will do but I’m looking
forward to hearing about all these great investments.”

For another article on the same subject, go here. The parable of the talents is found in Matthew 25:14-30.

Mayas in Mexico aren't expecting the end of the world on December 21, 2012

My rough translation of an article in French by Judith Lachapelle that appeared in the Montreal newspaper La Presse on July 7, 2012:

CANCUN--"I don't believe it will be the end of the world. The Mayas likewise say that it will be the end of a cycle, or something like that. So, no, I don't think it will be the end of the world."

Mariana was there to extol the charms of Cancun, celebrated spa of the Mexican Riviera. She wasn't dodging the famous question on the imminence of the end of the world on account of December 21, 2012, it is believed in certain interpretations of the Maya calendar.

"You say "I believe." Aren't you sure?"

Mariana appeared disconcerted for several seconds. "It's true that many things happen since the beginning of the year, she candidly reflected in a high voice. I was in Mexico in March when there was an earthquake. I tell myself after all, maybe it's the end of the world, or "of one" world...No?"

Why not? Everything is sold, even the end of the world. The promise is based on a strongly doubtful interpretation of the Maya calendar, but business and tourism in Cancun leapt to the occasion. Talk about it for good, or talk about it for evil, but talk about it, as they say...

So, tour operators have found a "spiritual" message to transmit: end of the world or not, it's the ideal occasion "to make the point, to reflect on what we want to change in our life, and on the planet," recites Paula Gomez, representative of the tourist association who drew in May a group of journalists to extol the Maya Riviera, end of the world version.

The Yucatan peninsula evidently has all that's necessary to wash and purify the human spirit before the final Judgment. To start lots of of salt water and good temperature.

But it's not only on the sea that one surfs: spas now offer "Maya care," spectacles of grand unfolding and Maya ceremonies, and "Maya gastronomy" is repeated on the tablecloths.

And the Mayas inside there? They haven't disappeared--famines and diseases drove away their venerable cities before the arrival of the Spanish, but the Mayas, their language and their culture are still present in several regions of Mexico. But to find the authentic Maya in the carnival of the end of the world, it is necessary to go back to the sources.

A trip in the ancient cities of Tulum, Chichen Itza and especialy Coba, allows for better understanding of the roots of this advanced civilization which had--like many others of its contemporaries elsewhere--devised its own calendar. A calendar that has previewed, thus far, the end of a cycle of 5300 years in December 2012.

And after the end of the cycle? Herculano Kuyoccan, our May guide in Coba, lifts his eyes to the sky. And it's not to invoke Bolan Ok Te, the deity who is supposed to come at the end of the year. After December 2012? "Another cycle begins again. That's all."

50 years ago: Second Vatican Council opens

On October 11, 1962, Pope John XXIII opened the Second Vatican Council at St. Peter's Basilica. Vatican II, the first ecumenical council of the Roman Catholic Church since Vatican I in 1870, concluded on December 8, 1965 under Pope Paul VI, who succeeded John XXIII in 1963. The council addressed the church's relations with the modern world and other churches and religions, and is widely believed to have led to a liberalization in Roman Catholic doctrine.

It may come as a surprise--as it did to this blogger some years ago--to discover that Vatican II resulted in no major doctrinal changes in the Roman Catholic Church. Vatican II upheld the decrees of preceding ecumenical councils, including the Council of Trent, which contained many anathemas against Protestants. As promulgated by Pope Paul VI in Lumen Gentium on November 21, 1964:

51. This Sacred Council accepts with great devotion this venerable faith of our ancestors regarding this vital fellowship with our brethren who are in heavenly glory or who having died are still being purified; and it proposes again the decrees of the Second Council of Nicea, the Council of Florence and the Council of Trent.

According to George Weigel in the Denver Catholic Register, October 10, 2012:

Vatican II was like no other ecumenical Council in history, in that it did not provide authoritative keys for its own interpretation: the Council Fathers wrote no creed, condemned no heresy, legislated no new canons, defined no dogmas...Vatican II did not displace the Church’s tradition. Vatican II did not create do-it-yourself-Catholicism.

For example, who think that the Roman Catholic Church had abandoned the practice of indulgences after the battle with Martin Luther in the 16th century may be surprised to read this excerpt from the Apostolic Constitution of Pope Paul VI titled Indulgentiarum Doctrina, proumulgated January 1, 1967:

In an indulgence in fact, the Church, making use of its power as minister of the Redemption of Christ, not only prays but by an authoritative intervention dispenses to the faithful suitably disposed the treasury of satisfaction which Christ and the saints won for the remission of temporal punishment.

The aim pursued by ecclesiastical authority in granting indulgences is not only that of helping the faithful to expiate the punishment due sin but also that of urging them to perform works of piety, penitence and charity—particularly those which lead to growth in faith and which favor the common good.

And if the faithful offer indulgences in suffrage for the dead, they cultivate charity in an excellent way and while raising their minds to heaven, they bring a wiser order into the things of this world.

The Magisterium of the Church has defended and illustrated this doctrine in various documents. Unfortunately, the practice of indulgences has at times been improperly used either through "untimely and superfluous indulgences" by which the power of the keys was humiliated and penitential satisfaction weakened, or through the collection of "illicit profits" by which indulgences were blasphemously defamed. But the Church, in deploring and correcting these improper uses "teaches and establishes that the use of indulgences must be preserved because it is supremely salutary for the Christian people and authoritatively approved by the sacred councils; and it condemns with anathema those who maintain the uselessness of indulgences or deny the power of the Church to grant them."

9. The Church also in our days then invites all its sons to ponder and meditate well on how the use of indulgences benefits their lives and indeed all Christian society.

To recall briefly the most important considerations, this salutary practice teaches us in the first place how it is "sad and bitter to have abandoned ... the Lord God." Indeed the faithful when they acquire indulgences understand that by their own powers they could not remedy the harm they have done to themselves and to the entire community by their sin, and they are therefore stirred to a salutary humility.

Furthermore, the use of indulgences shows us how closely we are united to each other in Christ, and how the supernatural life of each can benefit others so that these also may be more easily and more closely united with the Father. Therefore the use of indulgences effectively influences charity in us and demonstrates that charity in an outstanding manner when we offer indulgences as assistance to our brothers who rest in Christ.

10. Likewise, the religious practice of indulgences reawakens trust and hope in a full reconciliation with God the Father, but in such a way as will not justify any negligence nor in any way diminish the effort to acquire the dispositions required for full communion with God. Although indulgences are in fact free gifts, nevertheless they are granted for the living as well as for the dead only on determined conditions. To acquire them, it is indeed required on the one hand that prescribed works be performed, and on the other that the faithful have the necessary dispositions, that is to say, that they love God, detest sin, place their trust in the merits of Christ and believe firmly in the great assistance they derive from the Communion of Saints.

In addition, it should not be forgotten that by acquiring indulgences the faithful submit docilely to the legitimate pastors of the Church and above all to the successor of Blessed Peter, the keybearer of heaven, to whom the Savior himself entrusted the task of feeding his flock and governing his Church.

The salutary institution of indulgences therefore contributes in its own way to bringing it about that the Church appear before Christ without blemish or defect, but holy and immaculate, admirably united with Christ in the supernatural bond of charity. Since in fact by means of indulgences members of the Church who are undergoing purification are united more speedily to those of the Church in heaven, the kingdom of Christ is through these same indulgences established more extensively and more speedily "until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the deep knowledge of the Son of God, to perfect manhood, to the mature measure of the fullness of Christ."

While Vatican II made no significant doctrinal changes, the council was significant in how it approached ecumenism and relations with non-Christian religions. For example, four decades before A Christian Response to 'A Common Word Between Us and You'--in which the "Christian" signatories and endorsers acknowledge that their god is the same as that of the Muslims to whom they're responding--came along, there was this statement from Pope Paul VI's declaration on the relation of the Church to non-Christian religions titled Nostra Aetate, proclaimed October 28, 1965:

3. The Church regards with esteem also the Moslems. They adore the one God, living and subsisting in Himself; merciful and all- powerful, the Creator of heaven and earth, who has spoken to men; they take pains to submit wholeheartedly to even His inscrutable decrees, just as Abraham, with whom the faith of Islam takes pleasure in linking itself, submitted to God. Though they do not acknowledge Jesus as God, they revere Him as a prophet. They also honor Mary, His virgin Mother; at times they even call on her with devotion. In addition, they await the day of judgment when God will render their deserts to all those who have been raised up from the dead. Finally, they value the moral life and worship God especially through prayer, almsgiving and fasting.

Since in the course of centuries not a few quarrels and hostilities have arisen between Christians and Moslems, this sacred synod urges all to forget the past and to work sincerely for mutual understanding and to preserve as well as to promote together for the benefit of all mankind social justice and moral welfare, as well as peace and freedom.

25 years ago: Jerry Falwell resigns as PTL chairman

On October 8, 1987, Rev. Jerry Falwell resigned as chairman of the PTL television “ministry” and the entire board of directors also resigned, more than six months after Rev. Falwell had taken the reins at the request of the “ministry’s” founder, Jim Bakker, when Mr. Bakker had become entangled in a sex scandal. The resignations of Rev. Falwell and the board came the day after a U.S. federal bankruptcy court rejected a reorganization plan submitted by Rev. Falwell, and ordered creditors of PTL to submit their own plan.

Sam Johnson, a member of the "ministry" team, took over from Mr. Falwell and incorporated a new entity called Heritage Ministries to run the PTL Club television program and other functions while the assets of the "ministry" and Heritage USA theme park were tied up in bankruptcy reorganization. Mr. Falwell, a Baptist, would have been wiser to led the "ministry" collapse under the "management" of Mr. Bakker, whose credentials were held by the Assemblies of God. When I think of Jerry Falwell's time as chairman of PTL, the main thing that comes to mind is the photo of him in his business suit going down the water slide at Heritage USA. A downhill slide was indeed an appropriate image for Heritage USA and televangelism in general.

Break Forth Canada 2013 lineup includes adulteress Amy Grant

May 10, 2013 update: I've been informed that the Gary Chapman who appeared at Break Forth 2013 was the author of The Five Love Languages, not the musician of the same name, who is Amy Grant's ex-husband. I was relying on information provided by the Break Forth website, which listed the names of those appearing at the conference. The link provided by the Break Forth website for Gary Chapman was to the musician, not the author, so I assumed that was the one who was at the conference. I apologize for the error, and the post has been corrected.

It hath been said, Whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a writing of divorcement:
But I say unto you, That whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery: and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery. Matthew 5:31-32

The Pharisees also came unto him, tempting him, and saying unto him, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause?
And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female,
And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh?
Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.
They say unto him, Why did Moses then command to give a writing of divorcement, and to put her away?
He saith unto them, Moses because of the hardness of your hearts suffered you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so.
And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery. Matthew 19:3-9

And in the house his disciples asked him again of the same matter.
And he saith unto them, Whosoever shall put away his wife, and marry another, committeth adultery against her.
And if a woman shall put away her husband, and be married to another, she committeth adultery. Mark 10:10-12

Whosoever putteth away his wife, and marrieth another, committeth adultery: and whosoever marrieth her that is put away from her husband committeth adultery. Luke 16:18

Anyone looking for evidence of declining standards of holiness in the professing evengelical church of Jesus Christ in the United States and Canada need look no further than the 2013 edition of the "Christian Youth" event known as Break Forth (I think "Break Wind" would be a better name) scheduled to take place in Edmonton, Alberta from January 25-27. The lineup includes contemplative spirituality proponent John Ortberg, psychologist Steve Arterburn (author of, among other books, Toxic Faith, one of the worst books of the 1990s). Most notably, Amy Grant, who has returned to "Christian" music now that her career as a mainstream popular artist has run its course (quite some years ago, actually) has been added to the lineup, which could make for some interesting dynamics, since her first husband, Gary Chapman, is also listed among the scheduled performing artists.

The item announcing Ms. Grant's appearance uses the following euphemistic language:

Like so many, Amy went through challenging times as her superstar status launched her to a level that no Christian artist has ever visited. Yet, these times forged her faith in the fires of trials and she came out stronger. When Amy speaks and sings she now brings a depth to her walk with Jesus that is known for its authenticity and humility.

To read the paragraph above, one would think that Ms. Grant passed whatever tests of faith she was subjected to. I can't judge her actual spiritual condition, but I'm entitled to an opinion based on behaviour, and when "challenging times" result in the collapse of a marriage and subsequent remarriage with no apparent remorse or repentance, I have my doubts about "authenticity and humility."I believe that it's possible for Christians to commit great sins; the church at Corinth in the 1st century was characterized by immorality (see I Corinthians 5:1 for a particularly grievous example), but even in this state Paul addressed them as Christians. He did, however, rebuke the believers at Corinth (see I Corinthians 5:2 ff.) for taking a boastful, rather than mournful, attitude. Fortunately, the Corinthians took Paul's attitude to heart (see II Corinthians 2) and repented. So far, I see no such repentant attitude toward immorality among celebrities in American and Canadian evangelicalism in the early 21st century. These celebrities should have the decency to shut up and refrain from proclaiming the name of Jesus Christ until they repent and give some evidence that He's actually the Lord of their lives, instead of exhibiting an attitude of "Let's just put this behind us and move on." As for Break Forth, I recommend that Christians call on those in charge to restrict the lineup of speakers and performers to those who are demonstrating faithfulness to Jesus Christ and the Bible not only in their doctrine, but in their lives as well.

Venus has always appealed to New Agers

According to Scott Van Wynsberghe in the Canadian newspaper National Post, September 4, 2012:

The existence of the planet has been known to humanity, in one way or another, for thousands of years. Yet much of its modern reputation rests on a dubious Russian-born mystic named Helena Blavatsky.

Celebrated as the co-founder (in 1875) of the occult movement Theosophy, but also denounced as a charlatan, Blavatsky issued a sort of planetary manifesto on behalf of Venus in 1887 that helped usher in decades of fascination with our closest planetary neighbour, Earth’s so-called “sister planet.”

Considering how its rival Mars has regularly hogged humanity’s attention, Venus needed the help, and it snagged a big fish with Blavatsky. Although she was already in her twilight years in the late 1880s (she died in 1891), Blavatsky had toured the world in search of arcane knowledge ranging from Western paganism to Eastern metaphysics. She also has exploited a number of men along the way, and otherwise misbehaved so badly that she was accused of both systematic plagiarism (by near-contemporary scholar William Emmette Coleman) and spiritualist fraud (by Britain’s Society for Psychical Research, in 1885).

Prior to 1887, Venus had received only sporadic interest. French novelist Achille Eyraud imagined a trip there in an 1865 book that apparently had little impact. More important was American occultist Thomas Lake Harris, who, around Eyraud’s time, wrote about such topics as his belief in a Venusian master-race that oversaw early human development. L. Sprague de Camp, a historian of such claptrap, regarded Harris as a forerunner to Blavatsky.

Blavatsky issued her Venusian manifesto in the form of a magazine and an essay. The magazine, which she founded, was ominously entitled Lucifer, and its first issue was dated September 1887. Inside, one found her article entitled The History of a Planet, which clarified the publication’s title. Venus, she announced, was an occult casualty of early Christian arrogance — “sacrificed to the ambition of our little globe to show the latter [as] the ‘chosen’ planet of the Lord.”

In ancient Greek times, Blavatsky continued, Venus had been known under a variety of names that came to be translated by the Romans into Latin as Lucifer (“Light-bringer”). Unfortunately, an ambiguous Old Testament passage (Isaiah, 14:12), once rendered into Latin, also used that name and gradually came to be regarded by early Christian theologians as a reference to Satan. So Venus became tainted, along with all pagan beliefs associated with the planet, making Blavatsky’s initiative an effort to reclaim that non-Satanic pre-Christian heritage. (For the record, Blavatsky was rather accurate about that problematic Isaiah passage, judging from Bible scholars Otto Kaiser and Jeffrey Burton Russell.)

Regardless of the state of what might be called Venusian popular culture before Blavatsky, that culture certainly flourished after her — but it was weird.

According to L. Sprague de Camp, one Frederick Spencer Oliver claimed in an 1894 tome that he had encountered a secret society of mystics that had taken him on an out-of-body visit to Venus. Likewise, around the turn of that century, British Theosophist W. Scott-Elliot began reiterating the notion of Venusian supervision for prehistoric humanity.

Not helping matters at this point was astronomer Percival Lowell, now infamous for claiming non-existent canals on Mars. Lowell insisted he saw spoke-like structures spreading from a central hub on the face of Venus, but nobody else did, and it is now thought that glaring light from the planet inadvertently illuminated the blood vessels of Lowell’s eye, as in an ocular examination.

Such novelists as Gustavus W. Pope (1895), John Munro (1897), George Griffith (1901), and Garrett P. Serviss (1911) all described trips to Venus. Going by Den Waldron, who has reviewed some of this material for the ERBzine website, the Serviss book may be particularly important, because it describes a Venus that is partly oceanic. This concept of a “wet” Venus received backing in 1918, when Sweden’s Nobel-laureate chemist (and part-time astronomer) Svante Arrhenius recklessly declared in a book that “everything on Venus is dripping wet.”

Sorry, Svante: As described by British astronomer Bernard Lovell in a 1967 article for the Times of London, a spectroscopic analysis of light from Venus in 1922 showed very little water or even oxygen. This study was repeated a decade later with even more disappointing results, with large amounts of carbon dioxide now turning up. However, the influence of Venusian popular culture was such that denial set in. In a 1932 adventure set on Venus, Edgar Rice Burroughs acknowledged discouraging data but went ahead with his tale anyway. Another science fiction writer, Stanley G. Weinbaum, did the same thing in a 1935 short story.

Occultists were even more oblivious. In 1934, the American couple Guy and Edna Ballard formed the “I AM” sect, which drew heavily on Theosophy, and featured Venusian elements. In 1943, Britain’s C.S. Lewis restaged the Garden of Eden fable on Venus in his Christian-mystical novel Perelandra. In 1945, John Whiteside Parsons ­— a ubiquitous figure who linked the worlds of rocketry, science fiction and the supernatural — reportedly had a vision in the Mojave Desert involving a Venusian. In turn, Parsons knew L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology, who later claimed his own Venusian experience (although this would be downplayed by Scientology officials in the early 1970s). Other religious groups related to Venus included the Aetherius Society (founded in 1956) and Eckankar (1965). By the 1950s, Venus was so influential in popular culture that it sometimes outdid Mars — even, amazingly, in the UFO field.

Of course, Venus always has had the advantage of its brightness, which has caused countless mistaken reports of flying saucers. Although UFO researchers can be touchy about Venus, such prominent figures as J. Allen Hynek, Jacques Vallee and Frank Salisbury all conceded that the planet caused a lot of false sightings. As well, many of the people who surfaced in the 1950s to report not just sightings but actual contact with alien beings were talking about Venusians. In a 1977 survey by J. Gordon Melton, a sampling of 35 of these early “contactees” featured 13 cases of Venusians and only 11 with Martians. Suspecting something other than spacemen, UFO writers Jerome Clark and Loren Coleman have commented: “The Venusian claims usually contain the strongest religious overtones..."

...And then it all came crashing down. In 1962, the U.S. unmanned space vehicle Mariner 2 flew close to Venus and became the first Earth probe to complete an interplanetary mission. A flurry of U.S. and Soviet spacecrafts followed, and the results were nasty. The atmosphere turned out to be mostly carbon dioxide (with a bit of sulfuric acid) and was so thick that surface pressure was 90 times that of Earth, while the surface temperature was not far off 500C...

...So the fun was gone, and Venus really did merit a Satanic image. Interest among authors and filmmakers dwindled, although environmental scientists now had a poster girl for the dangers of greenhouse gases. “Venus,” concluded space historian William Burroughs in 1998, “was a warning.”

Britain's chief rabbi accuses Richard Dawkins of anti-Semitism in his view of the Bible

The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. Psalms 14:1a (also Psalms 53:1a)

As reported by Jewish Telegraphic Agency, September 14, 2012:

Britain's chief rabbi has accused the evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins of relying on an anti-Semitic view of the Bible in his recent book.

Speaking at a debate filmed by the BBC earlier this month in Salford, Sacks said that a remark in Dawkins’s best-selling book "The God Delusion" was based on “centuries of prejudice.”

"I read it as a profoundly anti-Semitic passage,” the chief rabbi said.

Sacks was referring to a passage in the book that said the God of the Old Testament was the “most unpleasant character in all fiction”.

Dawkins, a professor at Oxford University, dismissed the allegation as “ridiculous” and said he was not “anti-Jewish” just “anti-God”.

Dawkins said he was joking when he asserted that the stories of the Old Testament suggested God was “jealous,” “petty,” “pestilential,” a “megalomaniac” and a “bully."

“There are Christian atheists and Jewish atheists, you read the Bible in a Christian way," Sacks said in response. "Christianity has an adversarial way of reading what it calls the Old Testament -- it has to because it says 'We’ve gone one better, we have a New Testament.'"

Of course, Rabbi Sacks' comment that there are "Christian atheists" is just as silly as the drivel spewed by Richard Dawkins.

Scientology treatment to be used on Vietnamese Agent Orange victims

As reported by Chris Brummitt of The Associated Press, September 6, 2012:

HANOI, Vietnam - Alleged victims of Agent Orange in Vietnam are set to receive a controversial "detoxification" treatment developed by the Church of Scientology.

Scientologists use the "Hubbard Method", which involves saunas and vitamins, to try to cure drug addiction and alcoholism. The church set up a center in New York after the 9/11 attacks offering a similar service for first responders who may have been exposed to toxins.

Many researchers have criticized the method as pseudoscientific and useless.

A hospital official and state-controlled media said 24 people were at a Hanoi hospital on Thursday waiting for the program. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

The U.S. military dumped some 20 million gallons (75 million liters) of Agent Orange and other herbicides on about a quarter of former South Vietnam between 1962 and 1971, decimating about 5 million acres (2 million hectares) of forest , roughly the size of Massachusetts.

Dioxins in it have since been linked to birth defects, though the United States maintains there is no evidence of any link between Agent Orange and health problems among Vietnamese.

"I hope my wife and I will fully recover completely and will not suffer after-effects to pass on to my descendants," prospective patient Nguyen Dai Sang was quoted as saying in the Viet Nam News daily.

U.S. Embassy spokesman Christopher Hodges said Washington was not funding the program and said "we are not aware of any safe, effective detoxification treatment for people with dioxin in body tissues."

Last month, the U.S. began a landmark project cleaning up toxins from the site of a former air base in Danang in central Vietnam. Part of the former base consists of a dry field where U.S. troops once stored and mixed the defoliant before it was loaded onto planes.

Washington has been quibbling for years over the need for more scientific research to show that the herbicide caused health problems among Vietnamese. It has given about $60 million for environmental restoration and social services in Vietnam since 2007, including to disabled people, but the Danang project is its first direct involvement in cleaning up dioxin, which has seeped into Vietnam's soil and watersheds for generations.

The "Hubbard Method" is named after Scientology's founder, L. Ron Hubbard.

Its adherents have tried unconventional approaches to health issues in Asia at least once before. In 2004, they travelled to Indonesia's Aceh province to offer massages to survivors of the Asian tsunami, claiming they could relieve trauma from the disaster.

Go here to see the article in Viet Nam News.

Jewish Democratic county chairman in Florida resigns after inflammatory remarks about Christians

As reported by Jewish Telegraphic Agency, September 9, 2012:

The chairman of the Palm Beach County Democratic Party resigned after saying that pro-Israel Christians want to see Jews "slaughtered and converted."

Mark Alan Siegel resigned on Friday, a day after he apologized for the remarks he had made two days earlier during an interview on the sidelines of the Democratic National Convention.

“My comments merely served as a distraction to the good work of Democrats in Palm Beach," Siegel said in a statement released Friday by the state party, according to the Palm Beach Post. "Again, I express my deepest apologies to anyone I may have offended.”

Siegel, an attorney, had apologized the day after making the comments but reportedly refused to resign, instead offering to take an extended leave of absence.

Siegel had told the conservative Patriot Update website that as a Jew, he was "not a fan of any religion other than Judaism." Asked if he is a fan of Christianity, Siegel responded, according to the Palm Beach Post, "No, I'm not. The Christians just want us to be there so we can be slaughtered and converted and bring on the second coming of Jesus Christ."

He continued, “They’re not our friends. They want Israel to pursue policies which are antithetical with its security and existence. The worst possible allies for the Jewish state are the fundamentalist Christians, who want Jews to die and convert so they can bring on the second coming of their Lord. It is a false friendship. They are seeking their own ends and not ours."