PALESTINE - ISRAEL - JORDAN - SINAI

Off the beaten track tours • Visit sites • Meet locals • Discuss Human Rights & Politics

Top 10 most beautiful religious sites in the Holy Land

– by Alexander Jones –  Most people visit places associated with miracles and spirituality on a trip to the Holy Land. Regardless of your own faith, this list presents the ten most beautiful religious sites which you can visit on your next trip to Israel and Palestine. 10. Abuhav Synagogue (Safed – also known as […]

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Rosh Hashana 5779

by Fred Schlomka – Rosh Hashana (ראש השנה) literally means the ‘Head of the Year’, and celebrates the birthday of the Universe, which according to Jewish tradition was created 5,779 years ago. Known also as the ‘Jewish New Year’, Rosh Hashana is a time for introspection, to ponder one’s lesser nature and to prepare for […]

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A Brief History of the Ascent of the National-Religious Movements in Israel

By Miri –  During the last Israeli elections in 2013, for the first time in many years, the ultra-orthodox parties, for a long time celebrated as the kingmakers of Israeli politics, did not succeed in forming part of the new government. While many devoted secularists in Israel celebrated the end of the orthodox influence on national […]

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On Love and Legal Restrictions in the Holy Land

By Miri –    Shay Agnon, one of the central figures of modern Hebrew fiction, was born as Shmuel Yosef Halevi Czazkes. He adopted his surname from his first published novel “Agunot”, meaning “the Chained” and referring to Jewish women, who were abandoned by their legal husbands and left without a writ of divorce. Those […]

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Kabbalah or Crapbalah?

By Miri –   Kabbalah Celebrities wearing the red wristband against the “Evil Eye” With celebrities like Madonna and Britney Spears sporting red wristbands, and news headlines such as “the exposure of the great Kabbalah con”, Jewish mysticism has created quite a buzz in recent years – both among Jews and non-Jews. But what is really […]

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An Introduction to Messianic Judaism

By Miri –  According to Messianic Jewish believers, a Messianic Jew is “a person who was born Jewish or converted to Judaism, who is a genuine believer in Yeshua [Jesus], and who continues to acknowledge his or her Jewishness.” While most Jews and Christians would agree that the belief in Jesus as the Messiah constitutes […]

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Anti-Semitism in the Middle East

By Miri –  There is a common saying that Arab people by definition cannot be perpetrators of anti-Semitism for they are Semites themselves. If we look at the etymology of the word this is obviously true, as the term “Semitic” actually only refers to a language group, that includes among others also Arabic. If we […]

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Back to Buber – Thoughts on Binationalism

By Miri –   In light of unhalted settlement construction and expansion in the West Bank and Jerusalem, by now housing almost 5% of the overall Israeli population, the two state solution has increasingly been declared as dead. As a consequence voices advocating a binational state as the only viable alternative are getting louder. This does […]

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The Ancient Goddesses of Palestine

By Miri – As a child I was fascinated by Greek mythology; the stories about fighting and raging goddesses appealed to me much more than those about the one and only (male) god commanding a guard of mainly male prophets. At the time, I was not familiar with the predecessors of the monotheistic system, that, […]

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Intra-Religious Conflict in Israel: Ultra-Orthodox Versus Secular Jews

By Miri –  Jerusalem’s streets during Ovadia’s funeral Last week an estimated 800,000 people gathered in Jerusalem to mourn the death of Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, the spiritual leader of Israel’s Sephardic community, turning the event into the largest funeral in Israeli history. Ovadia is considered to be one of the greatest rabbinical scholars in recent […]

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Jews of India – The Bené Israel

By Miri –   India’s historic Jewish communities are usually subdivided into the Cochinis, the Baghdadis, and the Bené Israel, the latter of which constitutes by far the biggest of the three groups.  Bené Israel in India While there is no historic documentation of their origin, it is widely believed that the Bené Israel have descended […]

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Leila Mourad – A Jewish Egyptian Diva

By Miri – The singer and actress Leila Mourad appeared in 27 films and sang over 1,000 songs, many of which became classics and reserved her a space among the greatest Arab vocalists of the golden age of the 20th century. Until today she is considered to be one of the greatest Egyptian singers, second […]

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