By Anshel Pfeffer
An eight-centimeter-square piece of the 1087-year-old Aleppo Codex will be given to a representative of the Ben Zvi Institute in Jerusalem on Thursday, following 18 years during which Israeli scholars tried to retrieve it from businessman Sam Sabbagh.
Sabbagh salvaged the fragment from a burning synagogue in Aleppo, Syria in 1947.
Inscribed on both sides, it is one of the lost fragments of the codex, a copy of the Bible written in 920 C.E. in Tiberias by the scribe Shlomo Ben Buya'a. The fragment Sabbagh had bears verses of Exodus chapter 8, including the words of Moses to Pharaoh: "Let my people go, that they may serve me..."
Sabbagh believed the small piece of parchment was his good luck charm for six decades. He was convinced that thanks to the parchment, which he kept with him always in a transparent plastic container, he had been saved from riots in his hometown of Aleppo during Israel's War of Independence, and he had managed to immigrate from Syria to the United States in 1968 and start a new life in Brooklyn and make a living. The charm was with him when he underwent complicated surgery.
Just two years ago, ...   more »

Some 3,000 of the 22,000 Sderot residents fled the beleaguered western Negev town in June, July and August, Yediot Aharonot reported on Tuesday.
The figure amounts to an unprecedented 1 in 7 people that escaped the incessant Kassam attacks over the summer when some 1,500 rockets were fired at the town.
Sderot officials assessed that the mass summer exodus was due to growing exhaustion of residents and the fact the many left so that their children could start the new school year elsewhere.
Sderot Mayor Eli Moyal revealed that many of those who left were from a medium to high economic level. "They are the families that were the fuel, the power and the engine that were driving Sderot forward. These are the people who opened businesses, employed people and raised their living standards - most of them have now disappeared. It is a tremendous blow to the town, also because of the harm to the Interior Ministry budget."
Sderot Municipality workers said that from conversations with families that have left the town, it emerged that most had set up new homes in Ashkelon, Ashdod and Rishon Lezion - further away for the threat of Kassam attacks.
Streets lined with ...   more »

By Caroline B. Glick      
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | From October 26-30, a mob of Druse villagers in Peki'in in the Galilee launched what has all the markings of a pogrom against the four Jewish families in the village. They burned their cars and surrounded and torched their homes.
The police took a full day to come to the Jews' defense. And when they did, the Druse mob kidnapped a policewoman and only set her free in exchange for their cohorts who had been arrested. The police then set about evacuating the Jews from their encircled homes and did nothing to prevent their homes from being destroyed by the mob.
Now the Knesset's Interior Committee is demanding that a governmental commission of inquiry be set up to investigate what the Druse claim was police brutality in attempting to disperse the violent mob. For its part the Olmert government is distancing itself from Internal Security Minister Avi Dichter's decision to suffice with an internal police investigation of the policemen's behavior at the scene.
The question that arises is whether the leftist-dominated Knesset and the Olmert government act as they do out of fear or conviction. This question is given increased urgency as the ...   more »

President says current peace initiative enjoys US-support while Israel's concerns are addressed in full. Meanwhile Olmert is hoping a Syrian presence in Annapolis will lead to successful negotiations with Damascus
Roni Sofer
"Annapolis is a tremendous opportunity, it won't be an instantaneous solution to everything, but I have spoken to the Arab leaders and there is a spirit of trust and optimism there," said President Shimon Peres on Tuesday following a briefing with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.  
"Our starting point for the negotiations is far better than anything we could have expected," said Peres.
The president also noted the apparent cooperation between the triumvirate – Washington, Jerusalem and Ramallah.  
"This is different from Oslo, without the support of the Americans. Today no one is twisting Israel's arm, no one is writing off its yearning for peace," he said, noting that when the peace process began more than a decade ago, both sides were unable to trust each other.  
Ahead of his upcoming official visit to Ankara, Peres said that Turkey "could absolutely play a key role in the peace process." The president is scheduled to address the Turkish parliament, a diplomatic feat  
described as "historic" by ...   more »

sheera claire frenkel
"Israel is prepared to go very far at the Annapolis conference," Defense Minister Ehud Barak told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Tuesday.
During the Middle East conference, Barak said, "Israel is going to seek important agreements that would require the Palestinians to implement the first stage of the road map."
"This includes dismantling all terrorist organizations," said the defense minister, adding that "the demand to dismantle terror camps extends to Gaza as well." Barak hinted that Fatah might need to go into the Strip to confront Hamas head on.
Regarding a possible large-scale IDF operation in Gaza, Barak said that although the time had not yet come for such a mission, "at some point sooner or later, we will have to engage in such an operation if Kassam rocket fire and weapons smuggling continue as they have of late."
Barak said Israel had the ability to enter Gaza and operate there using all military options, indicating that in a possible confrontation, the IDF would not hesitate to use the air force, ground forces and perhaps even the Israel Navy.
"Every day that passes," Barak added, "brings Israel closer to being forced to confront the ...   more »

Israel's major newspapers and television news outlets largely ignored a Sunday evening demonstration attended by thousands of Israelis expressing their opposition to the upcoming US-hosted Israeli-Palestinian "peace" summit scheduled to take place in Annapolis, Maryland later this month.
The protesters started at the residence of the US consul general in Jerusalem and marched several hundred yards to the nearby King David Hotel, where US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and international Middle East envoy Tony Blair were meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to hash out a joint statement Olmert is expected to present with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas at the conclusion of the Annapolis gathering.
The crowd was addressed by leading rabbis and lawmakers, who warned the people that their leaders were, under pressure from the international community, leading Israel down a path of destruction.
"Ehud [Olmert], [Defense Minsiter] Ehud [Barak], and [Foreign Minister] Tzipi [Livni] are deceiving an entire people and leading all of us to the Annapolis trap while ignoring the facts on the ground," Israel National News quoted Knesset Member Yuval Steinitz of the opposition Likud party as saying.
Israel is expected to find itself isolated at Annapolis, where a Bush Administration determined to oversee ...   more »