by Rabbi Doniel Baron
Tapping into the fiery, spiritual energy that is embedded in every iota of creation.
Fire. With dancing, leaping, flashing tongues of flame, fire lights up the Lag B'Omer night sky. Jews light bonfires to commemorate the holiday, continuing a tradition that dates back hundreds of years. Lag B'Omer is the day on which Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai revealed the chief mystical work, the Zohar, through an explosion of fire, and it is the day on which he died.
The tongues of flame whisper a message. What is the mysterious, inner meaning of all the fire?
To unravel the mystery, we need to go 3,500 years back in time to young Abraham in Mesopotamia, left to mind his father's idol shop. He looked at the sun, the moon, the stars and heavenly bodies and concluded that it would be ridiculous to think that inanimate, man-made idols had control over these things. As he contemplated more and more evidence of design in the world, he concluded that there must be a Creator who controls all.
The world around him thought otherwise, and even united to build a tower to "fight" their conception of God. But the more Abraham ...   more »

A recently conducted Palestinian public opinion poll shows that most Palestinian Arabs do not support a long-term two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, calling into question the premise upon which the land-for-peace process is based.
Israeli leaders and the international community have built the current peace process on the assumption that if the Palestinian Arabs are given a state in Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip, they will end their desire to destroy Israel and accept the Jewish state as a permanent neighbor.
The new poll revealed that the Palestinians will accept a sovereign state in Judea, Samaria and Gaza, but only as a first step toward removing Israel from the map. Yasser Arafat long admitted this was the ultimate goal, even after he signed the so-called "Oslo Accord."
A 57.6 percent majority of those surveyed said they still identify with the diabolical long-term strategy of their deceased leader and reject the permanent establishment of two states, Israel and Palestine, on the lands west of the Jordan River.
The poll was conducted by the Center for Opinion Polls and Survey Studies at An-Najah University in the Samarian town of Nablus.
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 Jerusalem: A Cup of Reeling (Zech. 12:2)
Meir Shamgar, the former chief justice of Israel’s Supreme Court, quoted this verse during a conference on Jerusalem to illustrate that, 3,800 years after Jacob’s dream, Jews and Arabs still revere the Holy City.
The forum posed this question: Will a compromise on the holy places in Jerusalem ever be possible? The answer from both Jewish Knesset (parliament) member Arieh Eldad and his Moslem counterpart Ahmed Tibi was a resounding, “No!” Neither Jews nor Arabs will be willing to relinquish control of the Temple Mount, marking the site of the biblical Temples and the holiest place in Judaism, and home to the Mosque of Al Aksa, the third holiest place in Islam.
Speaking to an audience of 200 professors, judges, rabbis, lawyers, journalists and Armenian and Greek Orthodox Church leaders, Eldad noted that Jerusalem has never been the capital of any other nation but Israel. That Israel reclaimed its capital after 2,000 years of exile is a thorn in the flesh of the Moslems.
“Jerusalem, meaning the city of peace, has not had one day of real peace in its history,” said Eldad, of the hawkish National Union party. “Jerusalem is affected by ...   more »

Google co-founder Sergey Brin was in Israel last week to participate in a gathering of world political, economic and scientific leaders, and also to pay a visit to an Israeli leader in the field of geothermal energy that rumors say the Internet giant is thinking of buying.
Speaking to the Israeli business newspaper The Marker, Brin called Ormat "an amazing company," and indicated there were several other Israeli alternative energy companies Google may consider acquiring in the near future.
Ormat has been working for years to develop renewable and alternative energy, a mission near and dear to Brin and fellow Google co-founder Larry Page, who recently visited
Ormat's geothermal plant in Nevada.
Google maintains a large research and development center in Israel, which Brin also visited during his stay.
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MOSCOW, May 19 (RIA Novosti) - A group of Syrian military officials arrived in Moscow on Monday to discuss prospects for bilateral military and technical cooperation, a Russian Air Force spokesman said.
During the five-day visit, the delegation led by Syrian Air Force and Air Defense Commander Gen. Akhmad Al Ratyb will meet with Russian Defense Ministry and Air Force officials, visit several military units and defense industry plants, Col. Alexander Drobyshevsky said.
Russia's Kommersant newspaper earlier wrote that Moscow and Damascus had agreed on deliveries of the latest Russian MiG-29SMT fighter. Syria also bought 36 Pantsir S1E air-defense systems from Russia, and hopes to receive Strelets short-range air defense systems, Iskander tactical missile systems, Yak-130 aircraft, and two Amur-1650 submarines.
Israel and the U.S. are sensitive about Russian-Syrian military and technical cooperation, fearing not only a reinforcement of Syria's Armed Forces, but also the possibility that modern weapons could fall into the hands of Hezbollah fighters and Iran, in violation of the existing international embargo.
Original Source

 

 

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 THE JERUSALEM POST 
Orthodox Jews have burned hundreds of New Testaments in the latest act of violence against Christian missionaries in Israel.
Uzi Aharon, the deputy mayor of the central Israeli town of Or Yehuda, says he got into a loudspeaker car last Thursday and urged people to turn over hundreds of New Testaments and missionary material recently distributed by missionaries.
The books were dumped into a pile and religious students set them afire in a lot near a synagogue, he said.
The Maariv newspaper reported Tuesday that hundreds of students took part in the book-burning.
But Aharon told The AP on Tuesday that only a few students were present and he was not there when the books were torched. Hundreds of New Testaments were burned, he said.
Original Source
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By Betsy Pisik - NEW YORK — A U.N. expert on racism and xenophobia arrived in Washington yesterday for a three-week fact-finding visit to examine human rights lapses in the United States.
It is the second time in recent weeks that international attention has focused on the U.S. record on human rights. Earlier this month, the advocacy group Freedom House released an evaluation critical of the U.S. record on access to health care, education and equal justice for minorities and immigrants.
U.S. officials publicly are taking the high road on the visit of U.N. rapporteur Doudou Diene of Senegal.
"I think it's important for the [U.N.] Human Rights Council to spend its time on real problems and the problems of violations of human rights of countries that are notorious violators," said Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, offering a list of suggestions. "But we welcome the visit."
Mr. Diene's U.S. tour coincides with the General Assembly's annual elections of new members to the Geneva-based Human Rights Council. Several countries with less-than-stellar human rights records are in the running for the vote tomorrow.
The rapporteur plans to visit New York, Chicago, Omaha, Neb., Los Angeles, New Orleans, Miami ...   more »

White House denies Iran attack report
JPost.com Staff
The White House on Tuesday flatly denied an Army Radio report that claimed US President George W. Bush intends to attack Iran before the end of his term. It said that while the military option had not been taken off the table, the Administration preferred to resolve concerns about Iran's push for a nuclear weapon "through peaceful diplomatic means."
Army Radio had quoted a top official in Jerusalem claiming that a senior member in the entourage of President Bush, who concluded a trip to Israel last week, had said in a closed meeting here that Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney were of the opinion that military action against Iran was called for.
The official reportedly went on to say that "the hesitancy of Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice" was preventing the administration from deciding to launch such an attack on the Islamic Republic for the time being.
The Army Radio report, which was quoted by The Jerusalem Post and resonated widely, stated that according to assessments in Israel, the recent turmoil in Lebanon, where Hizbullah has de facto established control of the country, was advancing an ...   more »

Iran's disputed nuclear program has sent a wave of interest in atomic energy across the Middle East, a think tank said Tuesday, warning that it risked setting the scene for a regional nuclear arms race.
At least 13 Middle Eastern countries either announced new plans to explore atomic energy or revived pre-existing nuclear programs between February 2006 and January 2007, the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, or IISS, said in a report.
While the flurry of interest in nuclear power is still tentative, the report said countries such as Saudi Arabia, Algeria or Egypt could soon feel the need to match Iran's nuclear ambitions.
"If Tehran's nuclear program is unchecked, there is reason for concern that it could in time prompt a regional cascade of proliferation among Iran's neighbors," it said.
Israel, the United States and others have accused the Islamic republic of covertly seeking nuclear weapons under the guise of a civilian nuclear program.
Iran insists its intentions are peaceful, but its program has helped push nearly all its Middle Eastern neighbors into drawing up their own nuclear plans.
The report cautioned that most of the programs were still immature — it noted that sustainable new reactor projects ...   more »

Herb Keinon
A nuclear Iran is as much "a nightmare" for Russia as it is for the US and Israel, and Moscow doesn't differ with Washington and Jerusalem on the need to stop Teheran, only on the way to do it, Russian Ambassador to Israel Petr Stegniy said Monday.
According to Stegniy, who has served extensively in the Arab world, including as the then-Soviet Union's charge d'affaires in Libya from 1986-1990, during the height of US-Libyan tension, it is counterproductive to push Iran, or similar regimes - such as that of Muammar Gaddafi in the 1980s - into a corner.
Stegniy's comments came during a lecture he gave on Russian foreign policy at Hebrew University's Harry S. Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace.
Stegniy remembers talks he had with the Americans while he was posted in Tripoli - a period that witnessed the bombing of a disco in West Berlin that prompted US air raids on Libya, and the Lockerbie bombing - and shared advice with the US at the time about how to get Libya to change its behavior.
The best advice, he said, was to "get Gaddafi's name off the front pages, leave him alone with ...   more »

By Charles Abbott
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. food prices will rise by 5 percent this year, the largest increase since 1990 and propelled by sharply higher prices for bread, cookies and other bakery products, the Agriculture Department said on Monday.
It would be the second year in a row of high food-price inflation, with another year or two of large increases expected. Until 2007, food prices tended to rise more slowly than the overall U.S. inflation rate.
"This year, we expect food prices to increase about 5 percent," Joe Glauber, USDA chief economist, told reporters. At the start of the year, USDA foresaw a 3.5 percent rise.
Prices of cereals and bakery products are forecast to zoom by 8 percent this year, up 2 percentage points from USDA's initial forecast.
"That's what happens when wheat prices double in six months," said Ephraim Leibtag, the USDA economist who tracks food prices.
Sharp increases are forecast for eggs and for fats and oils this year. Cereals and bakery goods account for a larger share of food spending than do eggs and fats and oils.
Americans spend more than $1 trillion a year on groceries, snacks, carry-out food and meals at restaurants. Farmers ...   more »

By CALVIN WOODWARD and CHRISTINE SIMMONS, Associated Press Writers
They were a sailor, a bookkeeper and a factory worker, men of humble roots and distant times whose kin would run for president in 2008.
Although they are long gone, these three are heard about on occasion through the voices of their descendants — John McCain, Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Now there's another way to get to know them. Under an agreement being announced Tuesday, a vast range of records held by the National Archives will become more easily available online, offering information on some 100 million ancestors.
McCain talks in the campaign about granddad "Slew," the brilliant, foul-mouthed seaman. Obama speaks of the "straight-backed" Methodist ways of his great-grandfather, Rolla Payne of Kansas.
Clinton talks about the times of Hugh Simpson Rodham, the grandfather who labored in a Scranton, Pa., lace factory, back when that was enough for a stable life
The ancestors are anecdotes these days. Once they were making their own way.
The documents provide a snapshot of who these men were.
Among the papers: a 1910 census statement showing John Sidney McCain serving as an ensign aboard the USS Washington; a 1917 draft registration card ...   more »

A lobby for homosexuals and transgenders in Maine has announced plans to shadow individuals who will be working to collect signatures on the "YES for Marriage and Equality" pro-family referendum, which is intended to put a marriage protection plan on the 2009 election ballot.
In a report in the New England Blade this week, Betsy Smith, executive director of the Equality Maine activist organization, outlined "a plan that asks volunteers to stand with the people the [Christian Civic] League recruits to collect signatures for the petition."
"I think it is disgusting that so-called 'gay' groups plan on harassing dear Christian grandmothers who simply want to gather signatures on Primary Election Day. Shame on Equality Maine," said Michael Heath, chief of the CCL.
"They need to call off this totalitarian campaign of intimidation and apologize. Yesterday wouldn't be soon enough," he said in a statement today. 
The Equality report said, "this way … signers will not misinterpret the petition's purpose and understand before they sign that the so-caled (sic) 'equality' the League wants is really equality for straight couples, not equality for all."
A report from CCL said, "Smith went on to state the Equality Maine petition blockers 'will offer a ...   more »

'Mr. Gore's movie has claims no informed expert endorses'
By Bob Unruh
More than 31,000 scientists across the U.S. – including more than 9,000 Ph.D.s in fields such as atmospheric science, climatology, Earth science, environment and dozens of other specialties – have signed a petition rejecting "global warming," the assumption that the human production of greenhouse gases is damaging Earth's climate.
"There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate," the petition states. "Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth."
The Petition Project actually was launched nearly 10 years ago, when the first few thousand signatures were assembled. Then, between 1999 and 2007, the list of signatures grew gradually without any special effort or campaign.
But now, a new effort has been conducted because of an "escalation of the claims of 'consensus,' release of the movie 'An Inconvenient Truth' by Mr. Al Gore, and related events," according to officials with the project....   more »