• facebook
  • twitter

News Briefs

... See MoreSee Less

6 hours ago

This is so exciting -- The plans for moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem are progressing. The road signs are already being made.
  • Likes: 8
  • Shares: 2
  • Comments: 2

 

Comment on Facebook

May the Lord God Bless Israel.

Shared; America acknowledged rebirth of Israel First; now America is First to acknowledge Jerusalem as Israel's Eternal Capital & move our Embassy there in support of TRUTH !!

WIN's Steve Leibowitz speaks with visitors to Har Herzl, Israel's military cemetery ahead of Yom HaZikaron, Israel's Memorial Day when the Jewish state remem... ... See MoreSee Less

4 days ago

Video image
  • Likes: 2
  • Shares: 4
  • Comments: 0

 

Comment on Facebook

600 Holocaust survivors & their families sing in Jerusalem ... See MoreSee Less

1 week ago

Video image
  • Likes: 8
  • Shares: 6
  • Comments: 2

 

Comment on Facebook

am yisrael chai

shiyr yafeh 😀 yashar koach 🕎🇮🇱️

American Truth Project
JERUSALEM TUNNEL TOUR - Join Barry Nussbaum and IDF Major Amit Grinfeld on a tour of Jerusalem's ancient Tunnels. ... See MoreSee Less

2 weeks ago

PlayAmerican Truth Project
  • Likes: 4
  • Shares: 3
  • Comments: 1

 

Comment on Facebook

truth

youtube.com ... See MoreSee Less

3 weeks ago

Video image
  • Likes: 2
  • Shares: 4
  • Comments: 0

 

Comment on Facebook

http://www.israel.org Passover, one of Judaism's three pilgrimage festivals, commemorates the liberation of the Israelites from slavery in ancient Egypt. Thr... ... See MoreSee Less

3 weeks ago

Video image
  • Likes: 1
  • Shares: 1
  • Comments: 0

 

Comment on Facebook

JORDANIAN GOV’T SLAMS ISRAEL FOR ALLOWING JEWISH PRAYER NEAR AL AQSA
http://jordantimes.com/news/local/…

AMMAN — Minister of State for Media Affairs Mohammad Momani on Tuesday condemned an Israeli decision to allow a Passover Sacrifice celebration by Jewish settlers near Al Aqsa Mosque/Al Haram Al Sharif, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

Momani blamed the Israeli government for its “provocative and unacceptable practices [carried out] for well-known intentions”.

He said that Israel, as the occupying power, must comply with its responsibilities under international and humanitarian laws related to the safety and sanctity of Al Aqsa Mosque/Al Haram Al Sharif and any Waqf properties in Jerusalem, including the Umayyad palaces south of the mosque where the celebration was organised on Monday, stressing that the venue fall under the jurisdiction of the Jerusalem Awqaf Department.

Momani stressed that Israel must cease all such acts that offend Muslims worldwide and would only feed religious conflict and extremism in the region.

In a related development, Momani expressed the government’s absolute rejection of a ruling issued by an Israeli court in Jerusalem, allowing Jews to pray outside the gates of Al Haram Al Sharif. He said that the government does not recognise any authority of Israeli courts in occupied Eastern Jerusalem, whose affairs are governed by to the provisions of the international law.

Also on Tuesday, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates issued a diplomatic note of protest to the Israeli ministry of foreign affairs for organising the said celebration. ... See MoreSee Less

3 weeks ago

Pesach (Passover) begins tonight — And the Arab world is in a uproar about Israel celebrating in Jerusalem in the way that we have done for centuries before Muhammad was born and Islam was even invented!
  • Likes: 3
  • Shares: 2
  • Comments: 1

 

Comment on Facebook

blow the shofar and let the celebrations begin

Hillel Neuer
Video: my latest U.N. clash. If you scratch away the veneer, what the U.N. and hard-left groups like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have done is, in effect, to define Jews who are faithful to Jerusalem and Judaism as supporters of war crimes. It's why Amnesty banned the British Jewish community -- and me -- from their London office in January. I will have all of them in mind this Friday night when, at the conclusion of the Passover Seder, I will sing "Next Year in Jerusalem." ... See MoreSee Less

4 weeks ago

PlayHillel Neuer
  • Likes: 2
  • Shares: 4
  • Comments: 2

 

Comment on Facebook

This is pure manure: bias against only one Sovereign State: ISRAEL. May America stop funding this spreading of manure: the putrid u.n.

And not ONE word against what the dictatorship is doing in Venezuela against the people.

IN FIND OF BIBLICAL PROPORTIONS, PROPHET ISAIAH’S SEAL CLAIMED TO BE UNEARTHED
https://timesofisrael.com/in-find-of-biblical-prop…;

Chanced upon near a seal identified with King Hezekiah, a tiny clay piece may be the first-ever proof of the prophet, though a missing letter leaves room for doubt

By Amanda Borschel-Dan

The hand of the Prophet Isaiah himself may have created an 8th century BCE seal impression discovered in First Temple remains near Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, according to Hebrew University archaeologist Dr. Eilat Mazar.

“We appear to have discovered a seal impression, which may have belonged to the prophet Isaiah, in a scientific, archaeological excavation,” said Mazar this week in a press release announcing the breathtaking discovery.

Mazar’s team uncovered the minuscule bulla, or seal impression, during renewed excavations at the Ophel, located at the foot of the southern wall of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. The discovery was published on Wednesday in an article, “Is This the Prophet Isaiah’s Signature?” as part of a massive March-June issue of the Biblical Archaeology Review dedicated to its recently retired founding editor, Hershel Shanks.

The clay impression is inscribed with letters and what appears to be a grazing doe, “a motif of blessing and protection found in Judah, particularly in Jerusalem,” according to the BAR article.

The oval-shaped bulla, however, is not intact. On its legible portion, there is an inscription with First Temple Hebrew letters that seem to spell out the name l’Yesha’yah[u] (Belonging to Isaiah). On a line below, there is the partial word nvy, which presumably spells out “prophet.”

“Because the bulla has been slightly damaged at the end of the word nvy, it is not known if it originally ended with the Hebrew letter aleph, which would have resulted in the Hebrew word for ‘prophet’ and would have definitively identified the seal as the signature of the prophet Isaiah,” Mazar said.

In the BAR article, Mazar leaves room for the possibility that the inscription on the Isaiah bulla does not refer to the biblical prophet. “Without an aleph at the end, the word nvy is most likely just a personal name. Although it does not appear in the Bible, it does appear on seals and a seal impression on a jar handle, all from unprovenanced, private collections.”

“The name of Isaiah, however, is clear,” she said.

Millennia-old connections between a prophet and his king
The most well-known of the biblical prophets, Isaiah is thought by scholars to have been active circa in the late 8th century and early 7th century BCE.

The Isaiah bulla was discovered in wet-sifted material that was taken from an Iron Age layer close to bedrock that was near a foundation trench cut for a wall of a Herodian vault. The material was found close to a structure that was first discovered in 1986-87 and is today thought to have been a “royal bakery.”

It was found only 10 feet away from where in 2015 Mazar’s team discovered an important, intact bulla with the inscription “of King Hezekiah of Judah.” The 12th king of the Kingdom of Judah, King Hezekiah ruled from circa 727 BCE-698 BCE, during the period in which the northern Kingdom of Israel fell to the Assyrians in 721 BCE. Some 20 years later, Hezekiah successfully fought off the Assyrian siege of Jerusalem, in part due to fortifications and a water channel which can still be seen today.

Upon the discovery of the Hezekiah bulla in 2015, Mazar called the artifact “the closest as ever that we can get to something that was most likely held by King Hezekiah himself.”

This week Mazar said in a press release released by BAR that it is logical that the Isaiah and Hezekiah bullae would be discovered in such close proximity.

“If it is the case that this bulla is indeed that of the prophet Isaiah, then it should not come as a surprise to discover this bulla next to one bearing King Hezekiah’s name given the symbiotic relationship of the prophet Isaiah and King Hezekiah described in the Bible,” said Mazar.

There are several biblical instances of interactions between Isaiah and Hezekiah which indicate the prophet was a spiritual advisor to the king. He consoled the ruler that the Israelites would survive the siege. In the BAR article, Mazar writes, “The names of King Hezekiah and the prophet Isaiah are mentioned in one breath 14 of the 29 times the name of Isaiah is recalled (2 Kings 19–20; Isaiah 37–39). No other figure was closer to King Hezekiah than the prophet Isaiah.”

The Hezekiah and Isaiah bullae join other similar finds from previous excavations. Digging in 2005-2008 at the summit of the City of David in a large structure which may have been the palace of biblical King David, she discovered a clay impression with a First Temple Hebrew inscription bearing the name of a high-ranking Israelite official who is recorded by the biblical Jeremiah, “Jehucal, son of Shelemiah, son of Shovi.” Years later, a few meters from the Jehucal bulla, she found a seal impression belonging to a second high-ranking official, “Gedaliah, son of Pashur,” who is also found in Jeremiah. Dozens more bullae have been discovered.

Mazar recently reopened the Ophel excavation and is currently digging in the House of the Medallion, which she excavated in 2013, and a rare untouched Second Temple-period cave.

The find has not been peer reviewed and some have already begun to push back against Mazar’s hypothesis, noting that the lack of an aleph after the nvy leaves room for doubt.

“The critically important letter that would be needed to confirm that the second word is the title ‘prophet’ is an aleph. But no aleph is legible on this bulla, and so that reading cannot be confirmed at all,” Semitic languages professor Christopher Rollston told National Geographic.

“The assumption that this is a [seal] of Isaiah the prophet is scintillating, but it is certainly not something that we should assume is at all certain,” he added. “It’s not.”

While Mazar herself admits that the missing aleph can be problematic, she says the discovery is important nonetheless.

“Whether or not the bulla we found in the Ophel excavations is the bulla of the prophet Isaiah, it remains, nevertheless, a unique and fantastic discovery,” writes Mazar in the BAR article.

“Finding this bulla leads us to consider the personality and the proximity of the prophet Isaiah as one of the closest advisers to King Hezekiah — not only with regard to the events of his time, but also in assessing them from an informed perspective and foreseeing their influence over future events,” she writes.

A gift fit for a true friend to archaeologists

On his way to catch a plane, the new editor of the Biblical Archaeology Review, Dr. Robert Cargill, told The Times of Israel that the publication of the exciting new find in his magazine “came about by very fortunate timing.”

As Cargill was preparing the double issue of BAR in honor of founding editor Shanks, he approached Mazar to ask her for a contribution.

“She said, ‘Your timing couldn’t be better,'” related Cargill. Mazar was getting ready to publish this new discovery. “She allowed us to publish it as a gift to Hershel [Shanks] to say thank you for his support of archaeology and Israel,” said Cargill.

The magazine was first published in 1975 and has focused, sometimes controversially, on finds that claim to offer insights into the ancient workings of the Holy Land — often in approachable articles written by top scholars.

Shanks, not an archaeologist himself, is a lawyer by training. But in the past four decades, he has written, at times controversially, innumerable articles and several books about ancient Israel and biblical archaeology.

In part of her “gift” to Shanks, Mazar wrote: “Like the prophet Isaiah, Hershel is very caring and enthusiastic about current events pertaining to Israel and the greater Near East, in this case those relating to excavations, discoveries, and studies of Biblical archaeology… Creating this valuable link between scholars and the public in the sphere of Biblical archaeology was his ‘prophetic’ vision.”

Cargill, a religious studies assistant professor at University of Iowa, said he respected Mazar’s “careful, responsible treatment” of the bulla in the BAR article.

“She didn’t rush to conclusively say she had found the seal of Isaiah… In our article she gives the possible alternatives,” said Cargill, who called himself “a natural skeptic.”

Drawing by Reut Livyatan Ben-Arie of the Isaiah Bulla, a 2,700-year-old clay seal impression which potentially belonged to the biblical prophet Isaiah.

“But if you’re asking me, I think she’s got it. You’re looking at the first archaeological reference of the prophet Isaiah outside of the Bible,” said Cargill. “It’s amazing.” ... See MoreSee Less

1 month ago

The evidence and TRUTH about Jerusalem are everywhere. All you need to do is open your eyes and your mind.
  • Likes: 6
  • Shares: 2
  • Comments: 1

 

Comment on Facebook

so interesting

... See MoreSee Less

1 month ago

Shabbat Shalom to all from Israels eternal unified capital! .
  • Likes: 39
  • Shares: 22
  • Comments: 3

 

Comment on Facebook

Jerusalem was, is & always will be the Undivided Capital of Israel: Psalm 132:14 !!! Amen !!!

Jerusalem was and is and will be always the Capitol of Israel

shabbat shalom ps132:14

American Truth Project
NIKKI HALEY BASHES UN AT AIPAC - US Ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley excoriates the UN and its various agencies for the blatant anti-Israel bias that dominates the world body. ... See MoreSee Less

2 months ago

PlayAmerican Truth Project
  • Likes: 21
  • Shares: 13
  • Comments: 4

 

Comment on Facebook

Shared with Respect & Appreciation ~

She's terrific.

what can i say? wow! everyone in america needs to hear this. this was an eye-opener.

halleluYHWH! Yehovah hu ha'Eloheinu, en od milvado Yisrael nim'tza kan netzakh 🕎🇮🇱️

Israeli Ambassador to the United States Ron Dermer is interviewed live on stage by Israeli journalist Dana Weiss at the 2018 AIPAC Policy Conference. ... See MoreSee Less

2 months ago

Video image
  • Likes: 1
  • Shares: 5
  • Comments: 0

 

Comment on Facebook

Eight stone courses of the Western Wall that had been buried under an 8-meter layer of earth were recently uncovered in excavations conducted by the Israel A... ... See MoreSee Less

2 months ago

Video image
  • Likes: 2
  • Shares: 4
  • Comments: 0

 

Comment on Facebook

The Palestinian Authority pays convicted terrorists hundreds of millions of dollars. The more they kill, the more they get. The Palestinian Authority should ... ... See MoreSee Less

2 months ago

Video image
  • Likes: 1
  • Shares: 4
  • Comments: 0

 

Comment on Facebook

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas gives a rare address at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) in New York on Tuesday, February 20, during a monthly ... ... See MoreSee Less

2 months ago

Video image
  • Likes: 3
  • Shares: 9
  • Comments: 1

 

Comment on Facebook

Facebook Iconfacebook like button
+MENU