by Rabbi Ken Spiro
These extraordinary sages defined the essence of Judaism for the Jews of Israel and the Diaspora.
The Men of the Great Assembly -- in Hebrew, Anshei Knesset HaGedolah -- was an unusual group of Jewish personalities who assumed the reigns of Jewish leadership between 410 BCE and 310 BCE. This time period follows the destruction of the First Temple, and includes the early decades of the Second Temple, up until the invasion of the Greeks, led by Alexander the Great.
Realizing that the Jewish people were growing weaker spiritually, a group of wise leaders came together -- expanding the Sanhedrin, the Jewish Supreme Court, from 70 to 120 members -- with a special aim of strengthening Judaism. Initially gathered together by Ezra, they defined Judaism in this tumultuous time when prophecy and kingship were all but gone from the Jewish people.
(Today's Israeli Parliament, which is called "the Knesset," also has 120 members in imitation of the Great Assembly although the Knesset of today serves an entirely different function of the Great Assembly of 2,500 years ago.
Among them we count the last of the prophets Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi, as well as the sages Mordechai, ...   more »

Ministry of Tourism's next target: Bringing gay and lesbian tourists to Israel. The means: A campaign featuring a same-sex couple on a camel, two men in yarmulkes kissing in Jerusalem
Nurit Felter
The proudest campaign ever was launched by the Tourism Ministry in cooperation with the Association for Civil Rights and the Israeli Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Association (the “Aguda”). The goal: To encourage GLBT tourism to Jerusalem.  
For the past few years, Tel Aviv, along with Berlin, Barcelona, and San Francisco, has established itself as a GLBT friendly city and a popular vacation site for the community's members.  As a result, the Tourism Ministry decided to launch a new campaign aimed at attracting "proud visitors" to the Holy Land. The campaign focuses on scenes from the Israeli gay community's lifestyle.   
Representatives of Israeli travel companies will distribute thousands of brochures to participants in pride events worldwide.  
The photos for the campaign was taken in many sites throughout Israel, including Jerusalem and the Dead Sea. "I chose sites that represent the country," said Eitan Tal, the campaign's photographer, "in Jerusalem the models wore yarmulkes for the religious GLBT crowd. In the Dead Sea I shot the ...   more »

New 'pink Jerusalem' campaign aimed at promoting gay tourism in capital and partly sponsored by state, angers religious legislators who threaten no-confidence motion over issue
Ronny Sofer
"This is a delusional campaign for a minority with a normative defect," Deputy Prime Minister Eli Yishai said Tuesday, responding to reports about a new Ministry of Tourism international campaign promoting gay tourism in Jerusalem.  
The campaign, produced by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel and the Homosexuals and Lesbians organization, together with the Tourism Ministry, features same-sex couples photographed at tourist attractions and places of historic interest in the capital.   
"I unequivocally reject the attempt to focus a state-sponsored campaign on a delusional minority that suffers from a normative defect," Yishai said, "Jerusalem and Amsterdam are the same for these people. Therefore, those who fail to recognize Jerusalem's holiness had better stay away from it."  
Tourism Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch said that the campaign was initiated by his predecessor, Abraham Hirchson, and then he himself rejected it strongly.  
'Campaign undermines status-quo' 
MK Benyamin Elon (National Union), a former tourism minister, harshly protested the issue to the tourism minister Tuesday, and received a reply from Aharonovitch that the campaign ...   more »

HILARY LEILA KRIEGER
As violence raged this week in the Gaza Strip between Hamas and Fatah, US officials stressed the importance of American efforts to bolster forces loyal to the latter and said further help was necessary.
"This chaotic situation is why the USSC [United States security coordinator] is focused on the legal, legitimate security forces in our attempts to reestablish law and order," said Lt.-Gen. Keith Dayton, the USCC working with the Palestinians, in testimony Wednesday before the House Subcommittee on the Middle East. But he added, "The legal security forces of the Palestinian president still lack what they need to achieve … law and order."
The State Department has in the past denied that America's non-lethal training of the presidential guard of Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah - largely aimed at securing the Karni border crossing and protecting Abbas and other VIPs - amounted to the US taking sides in Fatah's fight with Hamas.
But at the hearing Dayton highlighted the US role in helping Fatah as it faces attacks from the Islamic radicals in Hamas.
"We are leading, through the acts of this Congress, the international effort to possibly affect this worrisome situation," he said. ...   more »

The idea of executing child rapists, even when there in no loss of life, is making headway in the United States.
The Louisiana Supreme Court last week upheld the death sentence for a pedophile, and the governor of Texas is soon to sign into law legislation to that effect.
In 1995, Louisiana was the first state to adopt legislation authorizing the death penalty for child rapists.
Ten years later, the movement to make pedophilia punishable by death really picked up steam after nine-year-old Jessica Lunsford was raped and buried alive in Florida by a man with a prior conviction for sex crimes.
Various versions of the "Jessica Law" sprang up all over in the country, imposing in most cases a minimum 25 year jail sentence and the wearing of an ankle bracelet for life for raping a child aged 12 or younger.
But in some states, elected officials amended their versions of the "Jessica Law" by adding the possibility of condemning a pedophile to death.
They include Louisiana, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Georgia and Montana.
An overwhelming majority of lawmakers in Texas chose to join the list. Texas is responsible for a third of all executions carried out in the United ...   more »

There is no better illustration of Google's corporate immorality and avarice for personal, private information than Chief Executive Officer Eric Schmidt's latest announcement about where he wants to take the company.
He told journalists in London the company's goal is to maximize the personal information it holds on you.
"The goal is to enable Google users to be able to ask the question such as 'What shall I do tomorrow?' and 'What job shall I take?'"
I don't know about you, but I don't want any private or public entity to have that kind of private, personal information about me.
"We cannot even answer the most basic questions because we don't know enough about you," Schmidt frets. "That is the most important aspect of Google's expansion."
Google's lust for private, personal data on individual users is unsatisfied even though it currently maintains records of your Internet searches for at least two years.
Why would Google need to know every search you conducted for the last two years? What do you suppose the company might do with that information? Did you know your searches were being tracked and maintained in an electronic dossier for future use? Do you trust Google to ...   more »

Imagine an American reporter tipping off the enemy of an imminent offensive during World War II.
Imagine a U.S. news company jeopardizing the secrecy of an impending operation against Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan.
Imagine a major media outlet aiding a nation sworn to the destruction of the U.S. and Western civilization.
Sadly, tragically, shamefully, we really don't have to imagine such a scenario any longer. Something like this scenario just happened when ABC News aired a broadcast by reporter Brian Ross announcing the president has approved a covert operation to destabilize the Iranian government, attributing the discovery to anonymous sources.
It should be enough to make Americans sick to their stomachs on this solemn occasion of Memorial Day and while U.S. troops are, at this moment, under attack in Iraq from Iranian surrogates and Iranian arms.
It is more than enough to make me, as a lifelong American journalist, wonder what kind of evil motivations are behind this treasonous act by Ross and his supervisors at ABC News.
Yes, that's right, I said "treason." How else can one accurately characterize such a despicable act of cowardice and disloyalty?
Why is it cowardice?
Because Ross and ABC News know there ...   more »

ORCAS ISLAND, Wash. (AP) - Vandals burned dozens of small American flags that decorated veterans' graves for Memorial Day and replaced many of them with hand-drawn swastikas, authorities said Monday.
Forty-six flags were burned completely and another 33 were found in charred tatters Sunday in the cemetery, authorities said. Swastikas drawn on paper appeared where 14 of the flags had been.
Members of the American Legion on this island off Washington's northwest coast replaced the burned flags with new ones Sunday afternoon.
The vandals repeated the stunt on Memorial Day after a guard left at dawn, the San Juan County sheriff's office said. This time, the vandals left 33 of the hand-drawn swastikas.
"This is not an act of free speech. This is a crime," Sheriff Bill Cumming said in a statement released Monday afternoon.
Sheriff's department officials declined to comment further on Monday
Original Source
   more »