by Rabbi Ari Kahn
In an apartment in Jerusalem, there reside two Scrolls of Esther that tell a story of exile and escape, hope and failure.
For as long as I can remember my parents have had two Megilot Esther in their home. Neither was new, but one was far older than the other. Of course, the newer one was easier to use and read; it was beautiful with large clear letters. It was the one we used almost every year to follow the reading of the Megila in Shul. The other one was older with some letters a bit blurred. The old parchment didn't always obey the reader and tried to roll up of its own accord. But aside from the words written on it, this Megila had another fascinating story to tell: It was the Megila of my great grandfather - my father's father's father.
My grandfather left Europe during World War I. He spent some time in Germany and eventually made his way to the U.S. where he was married in 1923. He married the daughter of a great Rabbi, the former Rabbi of Riminov, who had emigrated to the lower Eastside of Manhattan. My grandparents had ...   more »

Sderot is a ghost town. The streets are empty; the parks are barren; the stores are closed, and for sale signs are on some of the homes. Only ‘some’ of the homes because many residents are resigned to the notion expressed to them by representatives of the government of Israel, that in the near future there is no solution to the constant barrage of Kassams which have plagued the city for the past six years. So why bother putting up a for sale sign? Who’s going to buy? Those who couldn’t stand it and managed to sell did so with a loss of 30-40 percent of what they paid. Sderot is in trouble.
Sderot is a beautiful city, with lots of trees, parks, and some magnificent homes; it was created as a peaceful alternative to the cities of Beer Sheva and Ashkelon, with the air of small town permeating the roads and market places. People who came there had high hopes, big dreams. Now, those dreams have turned into nightmares, as families are paralyzed by their socioeconomic condition and their feelings of abandonment from those who should have been with them on the front lines.
A city of 25,000, it ...   more »

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert remains committed to the dismantling of Jewish West Bank settlements, but the scope of removal depends on whether Hamas recognizes Israel, Vice Premier Shimon Peres said Saturday.
Olmert shelved the unilateral approach after last summer's war with Hizbullah; Israel had unilaterally pulled out of Lebanon in 2000, and the withdrawal was widely seen as a seed for the 2006 war, sparked by a Hizbullah cross-border attack on Israel.
Asked Saturday whether the dismantling of settlements was still on the government's agenda, Peres told Channel Two: "Settlements will be removed, yes. Not all settlements, and I'm not even sure that most of the settlements (will be removed)."
Original Source

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TEL AVIV – Israel this week conducted military training exercises in a Palestinian city for a possible war scenario against Syria or Iran, top Palestinian intelligence officials claimed to WND.
The Israeli government denied the claim.
The Israel Defense Forces today completed a week-long, large-scale operation in Nablus, the largest West Bank Arab city. The operation, codenamed "Hot Winter," utilized four IDF battalions, reservists and border police guards and purportedly was aimed at arresting top wanted terror leaders in the city.
Nablus is a stronghold of several major Palestinian terror organizations, most notably the Iranian-backed Islamic Jihad and the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the declared military wing of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party. The Brigades and Islamic Jihad are responsible for every suicide bombing in Israel the past two years.
During the large operation, the IDF did not arrest any top terror suspects, but the army said it found three weapons factories as well as an arms cache.
One top Palestinian intelligence official said he found the operation "unusual" in that it involved a rotation of Israeli forces and "didn't achieve anything militarily as far as fighting terrorism."
"On the ground you had a massive number of soldiers ...   more »

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By Caroline B. Glick      
| With the Bush administration now happily basking in the glory of positive coverage in The New York Times and enjoying the warm embrace of the James Baker/Brent Scowcroft wing of the Republican Party, it is hard to imagine that it will reconsider its decision to abandon the Bush Doctrine. That doctrine, named after President George W. Bush and most forcefully enunciated by him, eschewed appeasement of terror supporting, weapons of mass destruction proliferating enemies of the free world.
Today, what Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice refers to as a "diplomatic initiative" aimed at appeasing terror supporting, and weapons of mass destruction proliferating Iran, and its terror supporting, and weapons of mass destruction proliferating Syrian colony is about to take off in Baghdad. So too, this week the US began normalizing its relations with the terror supporting, weapons of mass destruction proliferating Stalinist dictatorship in Pyongyang.
Bush's traditional opponents are beside themselves with glee.
With regard to North Korea, these opponents are quick to note that there has always been great uncertainty about the level to which Kim Jung Il has advanced in his illicit uranium enrichment program. With regard to Iran, in an interview ...   more »

WASHINGTON, March 2 (UPI) -- The Bush administration has given U.S. states an extra 20 months, until the end of 2009, to meet requirements for a national driver's license.
The move did little to quell criticism that the Real ID Act would seriously undermine personal privacy and stick states with a big bill for checking and verifying identity documents, the Los Angeles Times said.
The Bush administration views the new policy as an essential weapon in the war on terrorism. Opponents say linked the databases would create a kind of national ID card.
Criticism of provisions of the law from officials and others displays a shift from the almost total initial support for the administration's national security agenda after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Some governors now dismiss the Real ID Act as a "nightmare." Almost two dozen states are weighing legislation to oppose the change.
The new law requires licenses to have tamper-proof security features issued only to people who can prove citizenship or legal status with verifiable identification such as passports and birth certificates.
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ATHENS, Greece - Archaeologists have discovered extensive remains of what is believed to be an ancient marketplace with shops and a religious center at the southern edge of Athens, the Culture Ministry said Friday. The finds, in the coastal neighborhood of Voula, date from the 4th or 5th century B.C.
"It is a very large complex," the ministry said. "It was a site of rich financial and religious activity, which was most probably a marketplace."
Marketplaces - or agoras - teemed with shops, open-air stalls and administrative buildings, and were the financial, political and social center of ancient Greek life.
Archaeologists believe the complex belonged to the municipality of Aexonides Halai, among the largest settlements surrounding ancient Athens.
The main building was a hollow square with a rock-cut reservoir in the center. The building had 12 rooms - probably shops - and a small temple with an open-air altar.
Finds included large quantities of pottery, coins and lead weights that would have been used in transactions by traders.
Last month, archaeologists discovered an ancient theater in the northwestern Athens suburb of Menidi.
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Although a new public relations campaign has been launched to convince Congress and the American people that open homosexuality would be good for the United States' armed services, a group that assesses military preparedness says such a policy shift would seriously damage future U.S. military capabilities.
Elaine Donnelly, president of the Center for Military Preparedness, told WND yesterday that proponents of the new congressional plan to open the armed services to self-proclaimed homosexuals are using a skewed poll to support their arguments. The plan comes from U.S. Rep. Marty Meehan, D-Mass., and would overturn existing law, which states "the unique circumstances of military service" support "the prohibition against homosexual conduct" as well as those "persons whose presence in the armed forces would create an unacceptable risk to the armed forces' high standards of morale, good order and discipline, and unit cohesion."
But forcing the military to provide an open door to those who choose the homosexual lifestyle would threaten the recruiting potential for the military, she said.
Donnelly told WND that Congress went all through the issue in 1993, when Bill Clinton was president, and ultimately affirmed the legal ban on homosexuals in the military. Clinton responded to that political ...   more »

Richard Owen in Rome
Read Ruth Gledhill's Articles of Faith weblog
An arch-conservative cardinal chosen by the Pope to deliver this year’s Lenten meditations to the Vatican hierarchy has caused consternation by giving warning of an Antichrist who is “a pacifist, ecologist and ecumenist”.
Cardinal Giacomo Biffi, 78, who retired as Archbishop of Bologna three years ago, quoted Vladimir Solovyov (1853-1900), the Russian philosopher and mystic, as predicting that the Antichrist “will convoke an ecumenical council and seek the consensus of all the Christian confessions”.
The “masses” would follow the Antichrist, “with the exception of small groups of Catholics, Orthodox and Protestants” who would fight to prevent the watering down and ultimate destruction of the faith, he said.
The Pope traditionally withdraws from public view during the first week of Lent, conducting “spiritual exercises” in retreat with close advisers.
The choice of Cardinal Biffi raised eyebrows in the Vatican, given his sometimes eccentric views. The cardinal gave a warning of the coming of the Antichrist during his two decades as the Archbishop of Bologna, and said that an “invasion” of Muslim immigrants was undermining Europe’s Christian values.
Cardinal Biffi said that the Antichrist was not necessarily a person but “the ...   more »

 The new, lavishly illustrated book – described by its marketer as a "postmodern" edition of the Bible – takes Darwin's theory of evolution as gospel and presents Jesus as being born, "not to a virgin, but to a gorilla."
According to Ruth Rimm, Bronx school teacher and book artist, her version of the Scriptures – titled "Lost Spiritual World" – "explores the emergence of a new global spirituality that mixes the best of each wisdom tradition with the latest findings in psychology, quantum physics, neuroscience, and linguistics."
It is a "Bible for skeptics, seekers, and people of different faiths."  
The first volume in the series – which will eventually present the Torah, Bhagavad Gita, Buddhist sutras, and Sufi mysticism – covers the Gospel of Mark.
Rimm, however, includes parables not found in Mark, such as the Parable of the Dolphin, the Parable of the Snow Leopard and the Parable of the Gorilla, which are illustrated in a series of irreverent videos to be made available on YouTube as part of the book's marketing campaign.
The Parable of the Gorilla begins with a Renaissance painting of Mary and baby Jesus. The voice over by a standup comedian begins: He was ...   more »

Hands On
By Amal Graafstra
How radio-frequency identification and I got personal
When I open my front door, I don't reach for a key. When I log into my computer, I don't touch my keyboard. When I start my motorcycle, again, no key needed. Instead, I just wave my hand and I'm in business.
I was one of the first do-it-yourselfers to have a radio-frequency identification (RFID) tag implanted under my skin. In fact, I have two—one between the thumb and index finger in my left hand, the other in the matching spot on my right hand.
So what's a nice guy like me doing with a microchip in each of my hands? My life as an RFID guinea pig started in early 2005. At the time I was managing servers for medical facilities around Seattle, a job for which I carried around a ring of keys to almost 100 different doors and drawers.
That bulky key ring got me thinking. It struck me that modern keys are just crude identification devices, little changed in centuries. Even if each lock were unique—most aren't—keys can be copied in any hardware store and, once distributed, are hard to control.
I considered biometric ...   more »