JEWISH KING JESUS IS COMING AT THE RAPTURE FOR US IN THE CLOUDS-DON'T MISS IT FOR THE WORLD.THE BIBLE TAKEN LITERALLY- WHEN THE PLAIN SENSE MAKES GOOD SENSE-SEEK NO OTHER SENSE-LEST YOU END UP IN NONSENSE.GET SAVED NOW- CALL ON JESUS TODAY.THE ONLY SAVIOR OF THE WHOLE EARTH - NO OTHER.
1 COR 15:23-JESUS THE FIRST FRUITS-CHRISTIANS RAPTURED TO JESUS-FIRST FRUITS OF THE SPIRIT-23 But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming.ROMANS 8:23 And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.(THE PRE-TRIB RAPTURE)
LUKE 21:28-29
28 And when these things begin to come to pass,(ALL THE PROPHECY SIGNS FROM THE BIBLE) then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption (RAPTURE) draweth nigh.
29 And he spake to them a parable; Behold the fig tree,(ISRAEL) and all the trees;(ALL INDEPENDENT COUNTRIES)
30 When they now shoot forth, ye see and know of your own selves that summer is now nigh at hand.(ISRAEL LITERALLY BECAME AND INDEPENDENT COUNTRY JUST BEFORE SUMMER IN MAY 14,1948.)
JOEL 2:3,30
3 A fire devoureth (ATOMIC BOMB) before them;(RUSSIAN-ARAB-MUSLIM ARMIES AGAINST ISRAEL) and behind them a flame burneth: the land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness; yea, and nothing shall escape them.
30 And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke.(ATOMIC BOMB AFFECT)
ZECHARIAH 14:12-13
12 And this shall be the plague wherewith the LORD will smite all the people that have fought against Jerusalem; Their flesh shall consume away while they stand upon their feet,(DISOLVED FROM ATOMIC BOMB) and their eyes shall consume away in their holes,(DISOLVED FROM ATOMIC BOMB) and their tongue shall consume away in their mouth.(DISOLVED FROM ATOMIC BOMB)(BECAUSE NUKES HAVE BEEN USED ON ISRAELS ENEMIES)(GOD PROTECTS ISRAEL AND ALWAYS WILL)
13 And it shall come to pass in that day, that a great tumult from the LORD shall be among them; and they shall lay hold every one on the hand of his neighbour, and his hand shall rise up against the hand of his neighbour.(1/2-3 BILLION DIE IN WW3)(THIS IS AN ATOMIC BOMB EFFECT)
EZEKIEL 20:47
47 And say to the forest of the south, Hear the word of the LORD; Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will kindle a fire in thee, and it shall devour every green tree in thee, and every dry tree: the flaming flame shall not be quenched, and all faces from the south to the north shall be burned therein.
ZEPHANIAH 1:18
18 Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them in the day of the LORD'S wrath; but the whole land shall be devoured by the fire of his jealousy: for he shall make even a speedy riddance of all them that dwell in the land.
MALACHI 4:1
1 For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven;(FROM ATOMIC BOMBS) and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the LORD of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.
And here are the bounderies of the land that Israel will inherit either through war or peace or God in the future. God says its Israels land and only Israels land. They will have every inch God promised them of this land in the future.
Egypt east of the Nile River, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, The southern part of Turkey and the Western Half of Iraq west of the Euphrates. Gen 13:14-15, Psm 105:9,11, Gen 15:18, Exe 23:31, Num 34:1-12, Josh 1:4.ALL THIS LAND ISRAEL WILL DEFINATELY OWN IN THE FUTURE, ITS ISRAELS NOT ISHMAELS LAND.12 TRIBES INHERIT LAND IN THE FUTURE.
Netanyahu ‘disappointed’ by Modi’s rejection of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital-Despite Delhi's UN vote condemning Washington over recognition, PM says India visit attests to the 'special relationship' between the two countries-By AFP-JAN 15,18
NEW DELHI, India — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday he was “disappointed” by India’s refusal to back recognition of Jerusalem as his country’s capital but would not let it spoil his landmark visit to the Asian giant.Netanyahu also vowed that Israel would “catch up” with the killers of a Jewish couple murdered in 2008 attacks in Mumbai whose son is accompanying him on a six-day trip to India.The Israeli leader arrived Sunday at the head of the biggest business delegation he has taken on a foreign visit.Netanyahu told the India Today media group, in an interview released Monday, that he has a “special relationship” with his counterpart Narendra Modi.But the run-up was clouded by India joining more than 100 countries at the United Nations in voting last month to condemn Washington’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.“Naturally I am disappointed but I think this visit is a testament to the fact that our relationship is moving forward on so many fronts,” Netanyahu said in the interview.Ahead of the visit, India also canceled a $500 million deal for Israeli Spike anti-tank missiles.Israel exports an average of $1 billion of military equipment each year to India, but Modi wants to end India’s status as the world’s top defense importer.But Netanyahu was again optimistic on the missile deal.“I hope that this visit can help resolve this issue because I think there is a reasonable chance we can reach an equitable solution,” he said.Declaring that no details could be given until the end of his tour, Netanyahu added: “Our defense relationship is quite significant and it encompasses many things.“I think the keyword is defense. We want to defend ourselves. We are not aggressive nations, but very committed to making sure that no one can commit aggression against us.”Netanyahu is the first Israeli leader to visit India in 15 years.The prime minister and his wife Sara were welcomed at New Delhi airport by Modi, who made history in July when he became the first Indian leader to visit Israel.Modi also stressed how the “historic” visit would “further cement the close friendship between our nations.”Netanyahu expects to sign new agreements in energy, aviation and cinema production. He is to visit the Taj Mahal and Modi’s home state of Gujarat as well as hold meetings with Bollywood stars in Mumbai.But he will also make an emotional visit to a Chabad-run Jewish center targeted in the 2008 Mumbai attacks, a symbolic gesture to India’s tiny Jewish community.Netanyahu is accompanied by 11-year-old Moshe Holtzberg whose parents were among 166 people killed by Pakistani terrorists in coordinated attacks on the city.“Ultimately we will catch up with the killers but the objective is also to prevent future killers,” Netanyahu said in the interview.Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.
Did Abbas just give his valedictory speech, blaming everyone for his failures?-Saving his harshest rhetoric for Trump, 82-year-old PA president tells PLO Central Council, 'This may be the last time you see me here'-By Avi Issacharoff-JAN 15,18-TOI
Sunday’s address by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to the Palestine Liberation Organization’s Central Council sounded like the farewell of a leader at the end of his political path, and he admitted as much.“This may be the last time that you see me here,” Abbas said in his speech in Ramallah.In March, Abbas will celebrate his 83rd birthday, and he will be hard-pushed, in celebration, to point to a single significant achievement over the past few years. With no political solution on the horizon, the idea of a two-state solution becoming a sad joke, and the prospects of a unity deal with the Hamas terror group fading daily, it seems that even Abbas has thrown up his hands in despair.Telling US President Donald Trump, “May God demolish your house,” could be attributed to the general “Trumpism” which has seized world leaders, but it also points to the deep despair of the Palestinian leadership.In his first years as Palestinian leader, and especially after Hamas seized control of Gaza in 2007, Abbas succeeding in doing what his predecessor, Yassar Arafat, had not attempted. He ended the chaos that ruled in the West Bank and established a degree of law and order. Together with the Palestinian security forces and with the help of Israel, Abbas managed to stabilize the West Bank and to remove the gunmen from the streets of Palestinian cities. That had previously appeared an impossible goal.However, since the change of government in Israel, after the resignation of Ehud Olmert — who had offered Abbas the entire West Bank and never received an answer — together with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s 2009 election victory, and especially since Trump entered the White House in 2017, the vision of two states realized through negotiations with Israel has evaporated into the thin air of history.The banner that Abbas waved time after time, as official and unofficial policy — establishing the State of Palestine along the 1967 borders — became an idea disconnected from reality. It is easy to blame Trump for this situation, but to be realistic, that has been the case since 2009.The rule of Hamas in Gaza and Israeli settlement building showed clearly that the dream was one thing and the reality was another. Trump’s December 6 White House speech, in which he recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, only made matters clearer for the Palestinians, as did the message sent from Saudi Arabia about the “deal of the century” being drawn up by the Trump administration.The frustration of Abbas and his colleagues was palpable. Furthermore, on Sunday, he did what he is so good at doing — blaming the entire world for the situation of the Palestinians, from the US, to Israel, Hamas, and even the Europeans, for their role in sending the Jews to Israel.Abbas also dedicated a large part of his address to his internal critics — not only Fatah activists who refused to participate in the conference, but also Hamas and the Islamic Jihad terror groups, who stayed away as well.Israel, he further charged, destroyed the Oslo accords. “Israel is a colonialist project, which has nothing to do with the Jews,” he added.Trump gave the Palestinians a slap in the face, he lamented. “The deal of the century became the slap of the century.”Only a few in the Palestinian Authority and the top echelons of Fatah and the PLO were left off of his list of the culprits behind the failure.When one looks at the faces of those participating in the Sunday-Monday conference, it is clear how insistently the PLO and Fatah have refused to change or reform. The leaders today are much the same ones who led the PLO in the 1980s in Lebanon and the West Bank.In this vein, over the last few years, Abbas has made sure that he has no heir, nor even a clear official process for choosing a successor. He ignored calls for reform and any kind of criticism. He made sure to isolate and weaken the most popular leader in the West Bank, Marwan Barghouti, imprisoned since 2002 and sentenced by a civilian Israeli court to five life terms for orchestrating a series of terrorist murders during the Second Intifada.In what seemed like a valedictory address Sunday, Abbas promised that the Palestinians would not give up their rights, that payments to families of terrorists would not stop, and that he would not allow the Americans to mediate in the negotiations. These and many other “nos.”“We do not take instructions from anyone, and say ‘No’ to anyone, if it is about our destiny, our cause, our country and our people… 1,000 times no,” he said.Which left many Palestinians asking themselves a simple question — one that many people in Israel also ask their leaders: “So what is ‘yes?'”It seems unlikely that the answer will be forthcoming during the Abbas-Trump-Netanyahu era.
Netanyahu and India’s Modi meet on arms deal, regional issues-Ahead of confab, Netanyahu says two countries on cusp of 'new era' of relations, hopes to revive canceled defense agreement-By Joshua Davidovich-JAN 15,18-TOI
NEW DELHI, India — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with his Indian counterpart Monday, looking to deepen the countries’ diplomatic relationship and get a massive arms deal back on track.The meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi followed an official state ceremony and a wreath-laying by Netanyahu at a memorial for Gandhi.In a brief statement to the press before the meeting, Netanyahu said Israel was on the cusp of a “new era” of relations with India.“This visit heralds the flourishing of our friendship,” Netanyahu said.Netanyahu and Modi’s meeting was expected to center on deepening “Israel’s standing as a strategic partner of India” and “advancing defense sales” among other topics, an official in the Prime Minister’s Office said.A source in Netanyahu’s office said the two leaders would also discuss regional security issues.Netanyahu is keen to revive a canceled $500 million deal between Israeli arms manufacturer Rafael and India for Spike anti-tank missiles.“I hope that this visit can help resolve this issue because I think there is a reasonable chance we can reach an equitable solution,” Netanyahu told India Today in an interview published on Monday.Israel exports an average of $1 billion of military equipment each year to India, but Modi wants to end India’s status as the world’s top defense importer.Declaring that no details could be given until the end of his tour, Netanyahu added: “Our defense relationship is quite significant and it encompasses many things.“I think the keyword is defense. We want to defend ourselves. We are not aggressive nations, but very committed to making sure that no one can commit aggression against us.”While Netanyahu and Modi have shown off their close friendship, via what some have termed the Indian prime minister’s “hugplomacy,” the countries’ ties have been hampered both by India’s continued trade with Iran and Delhi’s recent vote in the United Nations General Assembly condemning US President Donald Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.Netanyahu told India Today he was “disappointed” by India’s UN vote on Jerusalem, but made clear he would not let it spoil his visit.“Naturally I am disappointed but I think this visit is a testament to the fact that our relationship is moving forward on so many fronts,” Netanyahu said in the interview.The prime minister and his wife Sara were welcomed at New Delhi airport by Modi, who made history in July when he became the first Indian leader to visit Israel.Modi also stressed on Sunday that the “historic” visit would “further cement the close friendship between our nations.”Netanyahu expects to sign new agreements in energy, aviation and cinema production. He is to visit the Taj Mahal and Modi’s home state of Gujarat as well as hold meetings with Bollywood stars in Mumbai.But he will also make an emotional visit to a Chabad-run Jewish center targeted in the 2008 Mumbai attacks, a symbolic gesture to India’s tiny Jewish community.Netanyahu is accompanied by 11-year-old Moshe Holtzberg whose parents were among 166 people killed by Pakistani terrorists in coordinated attacks on the city.AFP contributed to this report.
US envoy sends condolence letter to family of rabbi slain in terror attack-David Friedman says Raziel Shevach, killed in drive-by shooting in West Bank, epitomized the 'dedicated individuals who have built' Israel-By TOI staff-JAN 15,18
US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman on Monday sent a condolence letter to the family of an Israeli who was killed last week in a West Bank drive-by shooting terror attack.“On behalf of the United States, I offer our nation’s condolences upon the tragic murder of your husband, and father, Rabbi Raziel Shevach,” Friedman wrote.Shevach was shot dead while driving down a highway near his home in the Havat Gilad outpost last Tuesday night. He was survived by his wife and six children.Friedman said that he had received “countless communications extolling the virtues of this very special man.”“As an emergency first responder, a mohel [circumciser] and a revered teacher, Rav [rabbi] Shevach clearly was an extraordinary person more concerned with others than himself,” the envoy wrote. “He epitomized the hard working, dedicated individuals who have built and sustained the State of Israel.”Friedman said he wanted to personally deliver his message to the family during the week-long mourning period at the West Bank outpost but was not able to pay a visit due scheduling constraints.The ambassador indicated that he still hopes to see the family in the future.“Please accept this letter in the interim until we are able to meet in person,” he wrote.Following the deadly terrorist attack, Friedman had sharply criticized the Palestinian Authority, blaming it for the failure to reach peace with Israel.“An Israeli father of six was killed last night in cold blood by Palestinian terrorists. Hamas praises the killers and PA laws will provide them financial rewards,” Friedman said in a statement last Wednesday posted to Twitter in response to the killing.“Look no further to why there is no peace. Praying for the bereaved Shevach family,” he added, echoing accusations leveled by Israeli officials in the wake of the terror attack.In response to the tweet, the Palestinian Foreign Ministry issued a statement accusing Friedman of a “prejudiced and selective attitude” toward the conflict.It pointed to Friedman’s silence over what Palestinians say was the killing by Israeli forces of a disabled Palestinian man during recent protests and clashes on the Gaza Strip border and other killings as evidence of his bias.“Friedman’s remarks and positions further complicated the road towards the peace process and the resumption of negotiations between the Israeli and Palestinian sides, specifically after President Donald Trump’s declaration on Jerusalem.” the ministry said.Since Shevach’s murder, settler leaders and right-wing lawmakers have called on the government to legalize Havat Gilad. On Sunday Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman submitted a proposal to the cabinet that would start the process of legalizing the outpost.Last Thursday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu instructed the Defense Ministry to officially hook up Havat Gilad to the electricity grid. The outpost, southeast of Nablus, currently receives electricity through a makeshift connection to the power grid.Unlike previous US envoys, Friedman was known as a strong supporter of Israeli settlements before he took the job, serving as president of American Friends of Bet El Institutions, an organization that supports the large West Bank settlement near Ramallah.That support has continued since his appointment as ambassador. In September, Friedman said that settlements “are part of Israel.”In November, he canceled an appearance at a memorial ceremony for slain American teen Ezra Schwartz in the wake of a media report that it would be taking place at an illegal West Bank outpost.Earlier this month, Friedman paid a condolence visit at the home of Likud MK Yehudah Glick in the settlement of Otniel, following the death of his wife.The PA, which has expressed a refusal to engage in peace talks with Israel unless the Trump administration walks back the US president’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, has issued no statement on Shevach’s killing.Trump’s December 6 announcement that he would move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem was hailed by Netanyahu and by leaders across much of the Israeli political spectrum. Trump stressed that he was not specifying the boundaries of Israeli sovereignty in the city, and called for no change in the status quo at the city’s holy sites.However, the move enraged the Palestinians who said they will no longer engage with the Trump administration’s push for fresh peace talks.Two weeks ago, Israel’s Kan public broadcaster reported that Friedman had asked the US State Department to stop calling Israel’s presence in the West Bank an “occupation” in official documents. He reportedly recommended using the term “West Bank territory” instead of the “occupied territories.”The State Department rejected the request, according to the report, but agreed to take up the subject again in the future. A State Department official later called the report “twisted and misleading” when asked for comment.
26 killed, 90 injured in Baghdad twin suicide blasts-Bombing in bustling Tayyaran Square targets day laborers in second attack in three days-By AFP-JAN 15,18
BAGHDAD, Iraq — A double suicide bombing killed 26 people in Baghdad on Monday, officials said, the second such attack in the Iraqi capital in three days.Dr Abdel Ghani al-Saadi, health chief for east Baghdad, reported “26 dead and 90 wounded.”“Two suicide bombers blew themselves up in Tayyaran Square in central Baghdad,” said General Saad Maan, spokesman for the Joint Operations Command, which includes the army and the police.Tayyaran Square is a bustling center of commerce and a place where day laborers gather in the early morning waiting for jobs.It has been the site of deadly attacks in the past.An AFP photographer at the site of the bombing said many ambulances had gathered and security forces had been deployed in large numbers.There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but most such attacks in Iraq are the work of the Islamic State terror group.In December, the government announced the “end of the war” against IS, which has been expelled from the Baghdad region and urban areas of Iraq that it controlled.Terror groups are still active, however, north of Baghdad.
El Al passengers on way to Israel after 13 hours stuck at Canada air force base-Flight LY008 from New York to Tel Aviv was forced to make emergency landing in Newfoundland and Labrador province after the pilot reported a malfunction in the cockpit-By TOI staff-JAN 15,18
An El Al passenger flight carrying some 400 passengers took off on its way to Israel Sunday night from a Canadian air force base, 13 hours after their plane made an emergency landing there due to a technical fault.Flight LY008 from New York to Tel Aviv was forced to land at the Goose Bay air force base in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador after the pilot reported a malfunction in the plane’s cockpit.The plane landed in Goose Bay at 5.55 a.m EST, nearly five hours after it had taken off from JFK airport at 12.41 a.m., according to El Al’s flight tracker service. But despite the airline’s immediate announcement that it would be sending a replacement aircraft to take the passengers on to Israel, it was over 13 hours before they were once again airborne.With temperatures outside reportedly at -22 degrees Fahrenheit (-30 degrees Celsius), passengers huddled under blankets to stay warm.“We’ve been here about six and a half hours,” Chen Harel, one of the passengers told Hadashot news earlier Sunday. “Every minute that passes is harder and harder for us, and we hope it will end quickly – there are adults and children here.”The flight was set to arrive in Tel Aviv at 10.00 a.m Israel time, over 26 hours after it first took off.
A Rust Belt synagogue faces the end with dignity and gathers to bury its past-The shrinking industrial town of New Castle, Pennsylvania, once housed up to 400 Jewish families. Today, the community can barely scrape together a prayer quorum-By Alanna E. Cooper-JAN 15,18-TOI
NEW CASTLE, Pennsylvania (JTA) — It was a frigid 10 degrees Fahrenheit on Sunday, the last day of 2017, but some 20 people gathered at Congregation Tifereth Israel’s cemetery in this city of 22,000 on the Ohio border. A blue tent and folding chairs had been set up for attendees, and a pit in the ground had been opened.No hearse would be arriving at this unusual burial, which was not for a person. Still, a few attendees choked up when they greeted each other with hugs and wiped tears from their cheeks. This was a subdued sort of mourning because no friend or relative had been taken from their midst. Nor was the “death” a sudden one. Indeed, the congregation had been preparing for this day for years.Deep below, the hole was lined with cardboard boxes containing yahrtzeit plaques, tallit prayer shawls and other ritual items that cemetery caretakers had carefully lowered in a few days before.The mourners had come to bury, in a sense, their synagogue.Congregation Tifereth Israel was founded nearly 125 years ago. In 1894, synagogue members lived in a busy town with a suddenly booming economy. Linked first to the canal system and later to the railroad, the population of New Castle swelled at the turn of the 20th century as the town’s manufacturing base grew. Tin plate and paper mills and steel and ceramic factories brought great prosperity to the region. Ancillary businesses cropped up to support the growing population. Many of these – drug stores, department stores, furniture stores, groceries – were owned by New Castle’s Jewish residents.Bright eyed and lively, Bruce Waldman told me that he was born in New Castle in 1942, and that one day he will be buried here. His plot in the Tifereth Israel cemetery is already designated. Waldman’s father also was a New Castle native and is buried here. His grandfather, who was among the New Castle Jewish community founders, had emigrated from Eastern Europe via Pittsburgh, 50 miles south.When Waldman was a boy in the 1950s, the town’s population reached its peak of 48,834. At the time, the Jewish community boasted two synagogues, the Reform Temple Israel joining Tifereth Israel, with 300 to 400 active families in total.As the economy changed in the 1960s, New Castle’s population dwindled, along with so many other Rust Belt cities. By 1990, the numbers had dipped to 28,334 residents; today the number stands at about 23,000. Those looking for a more robust Jewish community for their children went elsewhere. Others simply moved away for better economic opportunities. Waldman’s two sons left for college and never returned. One now lives in Sydney, Australia, and the other in New York.Faced with shrinking numbers, the town’s two Jewish congregations merged in 1997. The newly named Temple Hadar Israel operated out of the Tifereth Israel building and remained affiliated with the Conservative movement. The consolidation helped retain some vibrancy. Still, as the population continued to age and young people became scarce, it became difficult to gather a minyan, or quorum, for Shabbat services. Members began to consider the possibility of winding down synagogue operations.“We never ran out of money,” Sam Bernstine, the congregation’s president said, “but we ran out of people.”About five years ago, Temple Hadar Israel members reached out to the Jewish Community Legacy Project, or JCLP, an organization that works with small, dwindling congregations to help insure their legacies. A partnership of the Jewish federations, the Reform and Conservative movements, and two national Jewish historical societies, the JCLP helps congregations preserve historic documents, catalog and dispose of ritual objects, create oral histories and divvy up assets. JCLP says it has worked with 50 such communities and identified 100 more that meet its criteria for assistance.Bernstine cares deeply about the congregation, which helped raise him after he lost his mother to cancer when he was 9 years old. His loyalty, though, never got in the way of his pragmatism.“Do you want a dignified end?” he asked his fellow congregants. “Or do you want the last person left to have to shut off the lights?”Bernstine said his goal was to have the congregation face its own end in a “respectful manner,” to be “in control of our own destiny.” Step by step the synagogue divested of its material assets. The congregants sold the building, with the agreement that they could rent back space from the new owners and continue to meet in the sanctuary. They donated their synagogue records, photographs and a few ritual items to the Rauh Jewish History Archives at the Heinz History Center in Pittsburgh, the Klau Library of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion and the Lawrence County Historical Society.The yahrtzeit plaques posed a more delicate problem because each of them has a connection to a particular person. Members who still live in New Castle claimed their family members’, and efforts were made to locate relatives of those who grew up in New Castle but were now scattered across the country.Whoever took control had to face the question of what to do with the plaques.“I am not going to throw them out, but I don’t want them hanging in my living room,” one woman told me, speaking about her parents’ plaques. She placed them in a box and keeps them in her basement. Alan Samuels took his parents’ plaques to the cemetery and affixed them into their headstones.Temple Hadar’s nine Torah scrolls went to congregations across the world to help those struggling to get by and reinvigorate others. One went to the new Progressive congregation Beit Centrum Ki Tov in Warsaw and another was sent to a tiny community in Indonesia that recently revived its connection to the Jewish world. One went to a Houston congregation that suffered damage in the recent floods. Other recipients included a Reconstructionist congregation in Cleveland, a Reform temple in South Carolina and three summer camps.Next month, the last remaining scroll will be donated to the Hillel Jewish University Center of Pittsburgh amid a weekend of festivities.Even with the great care to find a home for each ritual object, some remained orphaned. Among them were prayer books, prayer shawls, curtains for the Torah ark and many unclaimed yahrtzeit plaques. Rather than dispose of them, a burial was planned.On Devember 30, the members of Temple Hadar Israel held prayer services in their sanctuary for the last time. Every person was called to recite a blessing during the Torah reading — an honor known as aliyah — and people offered reflections at the final kiddush lunch. The following day, congregants drove through the snowy cemetery grounds to the pit that held the last of their items. Their part-time rabbi, Howard Stein of Pittsburgh, was not in attendance, as his own father had passed away the day before. I attended as part of my research into what congregations do with their material objects when they merge, downsize or shut down.A few weeks prior, Stein told me that his plan was to conduct the ceremony like a funeral. In his absence, the event was brief, ad hoc and raw. One man read a passage about the Cairo geniza, a famed storehouse of centuries of damaged Jewish texts and ritual objects. Another man spoke about honoring the word of God in the same way that we honor a deceased person.The ground was too cold to shovel dirt. Instead, congregants took hold of a few final items – including the prayer books that had been used for Shabbat services the day before — and together tossed them into the hole.To close the ceremony, Eric Lidji, director of the Rauh Jewish History Program and Archives, offered a few words of reflection on the verse from Ecclesiastes: “There is a time for scattering stones and a time for gathering stones.” Although Temple Hadar Israel has disbanded, Lidji explained, its stones have been gathered in the archives and here, too, in the cemetery.“These are big things that say ‘we are here’ and ‘we belong here,’” he said. The markers convey that “everything that happened here matters, and will continue to matter.”As Lidji concluded, someone in the huddled group spoke up.“Shall we say Kaddish?” this person asked, referring to the Mourner’s Prayer.Their prayer books were in the pit, but everyone seemed to know the words by heart. They recited the prayer together, memorializing their shared past, their last act as a congregation. Final hugs were exchanged as the group dispersed with lowered heads. They returned to their cars, driving in a procession up the snowy hill and out of the cemetery.Alanna E. Cooper is director of Jewish Lifelong Learning at Case Western Reserve University and an adjunct assistant professor in its Department of Anthropology.
THAT HE/SHE-GAY NOW IT TREASONOUS MANNING WILL BE RUNNING FOR SENATE. THE IT INSISTS TRUMP IS A DEMOCRAT. THIS LIBERAL RETARD IT LOSER OF OBAMA SHOULD BE BANNED FROM RUNNING FOR OFFICE DUE TO ITS TREASONOUS LEAKING OF CONFIDENTIAL E-MAILS TO WIKI LEAKS.
28 And when these things begin to come to pass,(ALL THE PROPHECY SIGNS FROM THE BIBLE) then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption (RAPTURE) draweth nigh.
29 And he spake to them a parable; Behold the fig tree,(ISRAEL) and all the trees;(ALL INDEPENDENT COUNTRIES)
30 When they now shoot forth, ye see and know of your own selves that summer is now nigh at hand.(ISRAEL LITERALLY BECAME AND INDEPENDENT COUNTRY JUST BEFORE SUMMER IN MAY 14,1948.)
JOEL 2:3,30
3 A fire devoureth (ATOMIC BOMB) before them;(RUSSIAN-ARAB-MUSLIM ARMIES AGAINST ISRAEL) and behind them a flame burneth: the land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness; yea, and nothing shall escape them.
30 And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke.(ATOMIC BOMB AFFECT)
ZECHARIAH 14:12-13
12 And this shall be the plague wherewith the LORD will smite all the people that have fought against Jerusalem; Their flesh shall consume away while they stand upon their feet,(DISOLVED FROM ATOMIC BOMB) and their eyes shall consume away in their holes,(DISOLVED FROM ATOMIC BOMB) and their tongue shall consume away in their mouth.(DISOLVED FROM ATOMIC BOMB)(BECAUSE NUKES HAVE BEEN USED ON ISRAELS ENEMIES)(GOD PROTECTS ISRAEL AND ALWAYS WILL)
13 And it shall come to pass in that day, that a great tumult from the LORD shall be among them; and they shall lay hold every one on the hand of his neighbour, and his hand shall rise up against the hand of his neighbour.(1/2-3 BILLION DIE IN WW3)(THIS IS AN ATOMIC BOMB EFFECT)
EZEKIEL 20:47
47 And say to the forest of the south, Hear the word of the LORD; Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will kindle a fire in thee, and it shall devour every green tree in thee, and every dry tree: the flaming flame shall not be quenched, and all faces from the south to the north shall be burned therein.
ZEPHANIAH 1:18
18 Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them in the day of the LORD'S wrath; but the whole land shall be devoured by the fire of his jealousy: for he shall make even a speedy riddance of all them that dwell in the land.
MALACHI 4:1
1 For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven;(FROM ATOMIC BOMBS) and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the LORD of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.
And here are the bounderies of the land that Israel will inherit either through war or peace or God in the future. God says its Israels land and only Israels land. They will have every inch God promised them of this land in the future.
Egypt east of the Nile River, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, The southern part of Turkey and the Western Half of Iraq west of the Euphrates. Gen 13:14-15, Psm 105:9,11, Gen 15:18, Exe 23:31, Num 34:1-12, Josh 1:4.ALL THIS LAND ISRAEL WILL DEFINATELY OWN IN THE FUTURE, ITS ISRAELS NOT ISHMAELS LAND.12 TRIBES INHERIT LAND IN THE FUTURE.
Netanyahu ‘disappointed’ by Modi’s rejection of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital-Despite Delhi's UN vote condemning Washington over recognition, PM says India visit attests to the 'special relationship' between the two countries-By AFP-JAN 15,18
NEW DELHI, India — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday he was “disappointed” by India’s refusal to back recognition of Jerusalem as his country’s capital but would not let it spoil his landmark visit to the Asian giant.Netanyahu also vowed that Israel would “catch up” with the killers of a Jewish couple murdered in 2008 attacks in Mumbai whose son is accompanying him on a six-day trip to India.The Israeli leader arrived Sunday at the head of the biggest business delegation he has taken on a foreign visit.Netanyahu told the India Today media group, in an interview released Monday, that he has a “special relationship” with his counterpart Narendra Modi.But the run-up was clouded by India joining more than 100 countries at the United Nations in voting last month to condemn Washington’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.“Naturally I am disappointed but I think this visit is a testament to the fact that our relationship is moving forward on so many fronts,” Netanyahu said in the interview.Ahead of the visit, India also canceled a $500 million deal for Israeli Spike anti-tank missiles.Israel exports an average of $1 billion of military equipment each year to India, but Modi wants to end India’s status as the world’s top defense importer.But Netanyahu was again optimistic on the missile deal.“I hope that this visit can help resolve this issue because I think there is a reasonable chance we can reach an equitable solution,” he said.Declaring that no details could be given until the end of his tour, Netanyahu added: “Our defense relationship is quite significant and it encompasses many things.“I think the keyword is defense. We want to defend ourselves. We are not aggressive nations, but very committed to making sure that no one can commit aggression against us.”Netanyahu is the first Israeli leader to visit India in 15 years.The prime minister and his wife Sara were welcomed at New Delhi airport by Modi, who made history in July when he became the first Indian leader to visit Israel.Modi also stressed how the “historic” visit would “further cement the close friendship between our nations.”Netanyahu expects to sign new agreements in energy, aviation and cinema production. He is to visit the Taj Mahal and Modi’s home state of Gujarat as well as hold meetings with Bollywood stars in Mumbai.But he will also make an emotional visit to a Chabad-run Jewish center targeted in the 2008 Mumbai attacks, a symbolic gesture to India’s tiny Jewish community.Netanyahu is accompanied by 11-year-old Moshe Holtzberg whose parents were among 166 people killed by Pakistani terrorists in coordinated attacks on the city.“Ultimately we will catch up with the killers but the objective is also to prevent future killers,” Netanyahu said in the interview.Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.
Did Abbas just give his valedictory speech, blaming everyone for his failures?-Saving his harshest rhetoric for Trump, 82-year-old PA president tells PLO Central Council, 'This may be the last time you see me here'-By Avi Issacharoff-JAN 15,18-TOI
Sunday’s address by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to the Palestine Liberation Organization’s Central Council sounded like the farewell of a leader at the end of his political path, and he admitted as much.“This may be the last time that you see me here,” Abbas said in his speech in Ramallah.In March, Abbas will celebrate his 83rd birthday, and he will be hard-pushed, in celebration, to point to a single significant achievement over the past few years. With no political solution on the horizon, the idea of a two-state solution becoming a sad joke, and the prospects of a unity deal with the Hamas terror group fading daily, it seems that even Abbas has thrown up his hands in despair.Telling US President Donald Trump, “May God demolish your house,” could be attributed to the general “Trumpism” which has seized world leaders, but it also points to the deep despair of the Palestinian leadership.In his first years as Palestinian leader, and especially after Hamas seized control of Gaza in 2007, Abbas succeeding in doing what his predecessor, Yassar Arafat, had not attempted. He ended the chaos that ruled in the West Bank and established a degree of law and order. Together with the Palestinian security forces and with the help of Israel, Abbas managed to stabilize the West Bank and to remove the gunmen from the streets of Palestinian cities. That had previously appeared an impossible goal.However, since the change of government in Israel, after the resignation of Ehud Olmert — who had offered Abbas the entire West Bank and never received an answer — together with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s 2009 election victory, and especially since Trump entered the White House in 2017, the vision of two states realized through negotiations with Israel has evaporated into the thin air of history.The banner that Abbas waved time after time, as official and unofficial policy — establishing the State of Palestine along the 1967 borders — became an idea disconnected from reality. It is easy to blame Trump for this situation, but to be realistic, that has been the case since 2009.The rule of Hamas in Gaza and Israeli settlement building showed clearly that the dream was one thing and the reality was another. Trump’s December 6 White House speech, in which he recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, only made matters clearer for the Palestinians, as did the message sent from Saudi Arabia about the “deal of the century” being drawn up by the Trump administration.The frustration of Abbas and his colleagues was palpable. Furthermore, on Sunday, he did what he is so good at doing — blaming the entire world for the situation of the Palestinians, from the US, to Israel, Hamas, and even the Europeans, for their role in sending the Jews to Israel.Abbas also dedicated a large part of his address to his internal critics — not only Fatah activists who refused to participate in the conference, but also Hamas and the Islamic Jihad terror groups, who stayed away as well.Israel, he further charged, destroyed the Oslo accords. “Israel is a colonialist project, which has nothing to do with the Jews,” he added.Trump gave the Palestinians a slap in the face, he lamented. “The deal of the century became the slap of the century.”Only a few in the Palestinian Authority and the top echelons of Fatah and the PLO were left off of his list of the culprits behind the failure.When one looks at the faces of those participating in the Sunday-Monday conference, it is clear how insistently the PLO and Fatah have refused to change or reform. The leaders today are much the same ones who led the PLO in the 1980s in Lebanon and the West Bank.In this vein, over the last few years, Abbas has made sure that he has no heir, nor even a clear official process for choosing a successor. He ignored calls for reform and any kind of criticism. He made sure to isolate and weaken the most popular leader in the West Bank, Marwan Barghouti, imprisoned since 2002 and sentenced by a civilian Israeli court to five life terms for orchestrating a series of terrorist murders during the Second Intifada.In what seemed like a valedictory address Sunday, Abbas promised that the Palestinians would not give up their rights, that payments to families of terrorists would not stop, and that he would not allow the Americans to mediate in the negotiations. These and many other “nos.”“We do not take instructions from anyone, and say ‘No’ to anyone, if it is about our destiny, our cause, our country and our people… 1,000 times no,” he said.Which left many Palestinians asking themselves a simple question — one that many people in Israel also ask their leaders: “So what is ‘yes?'”It seems unlikely that the answer will be forthcoming during the Abbas-Trump-Netanyahu era.
Netanyahu and India’s Modi meet on arms deal, regional issues-Ahead of confab, Netanyahu says two countries on cusp of 'new era' of relations, hopes to revive canceled defense agreement-By Joshua Davidovich-JAN 15,18-TOI
NEW DELHI, India — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with his Indian counterpart Monday, looking to deepen the countries’ diplomatic relationship and get a massive arms deal back on track.The meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi followed an official state ceremony and a wreath-laying by Netanyahu at a memorial for Gandhi.In a brief statement to the press before the meeting, Netanyahu said Israel was on the cusp of a “new era” of relations with India.“This visit heralds the flourishing of our friendship,” Netanyahu said.Netanyahu and Modi’s meeting was expected to center on deepening “Israel’s standing as a strategic partner of India” and “advancing defense sales” among other topics, an official in the Prime Minister’s Office said.A source in Netanyahu’s office said the two leaders would also discuss regional security issues.Netanyahu is keen to revive a canceled $500 million deal between Israeli arms manufacturer Rafael and India for Spike anti-tank missiles.“I hope that this visit can help resolve this issue because I think there is a reasonable chance we can reach an equitable solution,” Netanyahu told India Today in an interview published on Monday.Israel exports an average of $1 billion of military equipment each year to India, but Modi wants to end India’s status as the world’s top defense importer.Declaring that no details could be given until the end of his tour, Netanyahu added: “Our defense relationship is quite significant and it encompasses many things.“I think the keyword is defense. We want to defend ourselves. We are not aggressive nations, but very committed to making sure that no one can commit aggression against us.”While Netanyahu and Modi have shown off their close friendship, via what some have termed the Indian prime minister’s “hugplomacy,” the countries’ ties have been hampered both by India’s continued trade with Iran and Delhi’s recent vote in the United Nations General Assembly condemning US President Donald Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.Netanyahu told India Today he was “disappointed” by India’s UN vote on Jerusalem, but made clear he would not let it spoil his visit.“Naturally I am disappointed but I think this visit is a testament to the fact that our relationship is moving forward on so many fronts,” Netanyahu said in the interview.The prime minister and his wife Sara were welcomed at New Delhi airport by Modi, who made history in July when he became the first Indian leader to visit Israel.Modi also stressed on Sunday that the “historic” visit would “further cement the close friendship between our nations.”Netanyahu expects to sign new agreements in energy, aviation and cinema production. He is to visit the Taj Mahal and Modi’s home state of Gujarat as well as hold meetings with Bollywood stars in Mumbai.But he will also make an emotional visit to a Chabad-run Jewish center targeted in the 2008 Mumbai attacks, a symbolic gesture to India’s tiny Jewish community.Netanyahu is accompanied by 11-year-old Moshe Holtzberg whose parents were among 166 people killed by Pakistani terrorists in coordinated attacks on the city.AFP contributed to this report.
US envoy sends condolence letter to family of rabbi slain in terror attack-David Friedman says Raziel Shevach, killed in drive-by shooting in West Bank, epitomized the 'dedicated individuals who have built' Israel-By TOI staff-JAN 15,18
US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman on Monday sent a condolence letter to the family of an Israeli who was killed last week in a West Bank drive-by shooting terror attack.“On behalf of the United States, I offer our nation’s condolences upon the tragic murder of your husband, and father, Rabbi Raziel Shevach,” Friedman wrote.Shevach was shot dead while driving down a highway near his home in the Havat Gilad outpost last Tuesday night. He was survived by his wife and six children.Friedman said that he had received “countless communications extolling the virtues of this very special man.”“As an emergency first responder, a mohel [circumciser] and a revered teacher, Rav [rabbi] Shevach clearly was an extraordinary person more concerned with others than himself,” the envoy wrote. “He epitomized the hard working, dedicated individuals who have built and sustained the State of Israel.”Friedman said he wanted to personally deliver his message to the family during the week-long mourning period at the West Bank outpost but was not able to pay a visit due scheduling constraints.The ambassador indicated that he still hopes to see the family in the future.“Please accept this letter in the interim until we are able to meet in person,” he wrote.Following the deadly terrorist attack, Friedman had sharply criticized the Palestinian Authority, blaming it for the failure to reach peace with Israel.“An Israeli father of six was killed last night in cold blood by Palestinian terrorists. Hamas praises the killers and PA laws will provide them financial rewards,” Friedman said in a statement last Wednesday posted to Twitter in response to the killing.“Look no further to why there is no peace. Praying for the bereaved Shevach family,” he added, echoing accusations leveled by Israeli officials in the wake of the terror attack.In response to the tweet, the Palestinian Foreign Ministry issued a statement accusing Friedman of a “prejudiced and selective attitude” toward the conflict.It pointed to Friedman’s silence over what Palestinians say was the killing by Israeli forces of a disabled Palestinian man during recent protests and clashes on the Gaza Strip border and other killings as evidence of his bias.“Friedman’s remarks and positions further complicated the road towards the peace process and the resumption of negotiations between the Israeli and Palestinian sides, specifically after President Donald Trump’s declaration on Jerusalem.” the ministry said.Since Shevach’s murder, settler leaders and right-wing lawmakers have called on the government to legalize Havat Gilad. On Sunday Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman submitted a proposal to the cabinet that would start the process of legalizing the outpost.Last Thursday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu instructed the Defense Ministry to officially hook up Havat Gilad to the electricity grid. The outpost, southeast of Nablus, currently receives electricity through a makeshift connection to the power grid.Unlike previous US envoys, Friedman was known as a strong supporter of Israeli settlements before he took the job, serving as president of American Friends of Bet El Institutions, an organization that supports the large West Bank settlement near Ramallah.That support has continued since his appointment as ambassador. In September, Friedman said that settlements “are part of Israel.”In November, he canceled an appearance at a memorial ceremony for slain American teen Ezra Schwartz in the wake of a media report that it would be taking place at an illegal West Bank outpost.Earlier this month, Friedman paid a condolence visit at the home of Likud MK Yehudah Glick in the settlement of Otniel, following the death of his wife.The PA, which has expressed a refusal to engage in peace talks with Israel unless the Trump administration walks back the US president’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, has issued no statement on Shevach’s killing.Trump’s December 6 announcement that he would move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem was hailed by Netanyahu and by leaders across much of the Israeli political spectrum. Trump stressed that he was not specifying the boundaries of Israeli sovereignty in the city, and called for no change in the status quo at the city’s holy sites.However, the move enraged the Palestinians who said they will no longer engage with the Trump administration’s push for fresh peace talks.Two weeks ago, Israel’s Kan public broadcaster reported that Friedman had asked the US State Department to stop calling Israel’s presence in the West Bank an “occupation” in official documents. He reportedly recommended using the term “West Bank territory” instead of the “occupied territories.”The State Department rejected the request, according to the report, but agreed to take up the subject again in the future. A State Department official later called the report “twisted and misleading” when asked for comment.
26 killed, 90 injured in Baghdad twin suicide blasts-Bombing in bustling Tayyaran Square targets day laborers in second attack in three days-By AFP-JAN 15,18
BAGHDAD, Iraq — A double suicide bombing killed 26 people in Baghdad on Monday, officials said, the second such attack in the Iraqi capital in three days.Dr Abdel Ghani al-Saadi, health chief for east Baghdad, reported “26 dead and 90 wounded.”“Two suicide bombers blew themselves up in Tayyaran Square in central Baghdad,” said General Saad Maan, spokesman for the Joint Operations Command, which includes the army and the police.Tayyaran Square is a bustling center of commerce and a place where day laborers gather in the early morning waiting for jobs.It has been the site of deadly attacks in the past.An AFP photographer at the site of the bombing said many ambulances had gathered and security forces had been deployed in large numbers.There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but most such attacks in Iraq are the work of the Islamic State terror group.In December, the government announced the “end of the war” against IS, which has been expelled from the Baghdad region and urban areas of Iraq that it controlled.Terror groups are still active, however, north of Baghdad.
El Al passengers on way to Israel after 13 hours stuck at Canada air force base-Flight LY008 from New York to Tel Aviv was forced to make emergency landing in Newfoundland and Labrador province after the pilot reported a malfunction in the cockpit-By TOI staff-JAN 15,18
An El Al passenger flight carrying some 400 passengers took off on its way to Israel Sunday night from a Canadian air force base, 13 hours after their plane made an emergency landing there due to a technical fault.Flight LY008 from New York to Tel Aviv was forced to land at the Goose Bay air force base in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador after the pilot reported a malfunction in the plane’s cockpit.The plane landed in Goose Bay at 5.55 a.m EST, nearly five hours after it had taken off from JFK airport at 12.41 a.m., according to El Al’s flight tracker service. But despite the airline’s immediate announcement that it would be sending a replacement aircraft to take the passengers on to Israel, it was over 13 hours before they were once again airborne.With temperatures outside reportedly at -22 degrees Fahrenheit (-30 degrees Celsius), passengers huddled under blankets to stay warm.“We’ve been here about six and a half hours,” Chen Harel, one of the passengers told Hadashot news earlier Sunday. “Every minute that passes is harder and harder for us, and we hope it will end quickly – there are adults and children here.”The flight was set to arrive in Tel Aviv at 10.00 a.m Israel time, over 26 hours after it first took off.
A Rust Belt synagogue faces the end with dignity and gathers to bury its past-The shrinking industrial town of New Castle, Pennsylvania, once housed up to 400 Jewish families. Today, the community can barely scrape together a prayer quorum-By Alanna E. Cooper-JAN 15,18-TOI
NEW CASTLE, Pennsylvania (JTA) — It was a frigid 10 degrees Fahrenheit on Sunday, the last day of 2017, but some 20 people gathered at Congregation Tifereth Israel’s cemetery in this city of 22,000 on the Ohio border. A blue tent and folding chairs had been set up for attendees, and a pit in the ground had been opened.No hearse would be arriving at this unusual burial, which was not for a person. Still, a few attendees choked up when they greeted each other with hugs and wiped tears from their cheeks. This was a subdued sort of mourning because no friend or relative had been taken from their midst. Nor was the “death” a sudden one. Indeed, the congregation had been preparing for this day for years.Deep below, the hole was lined with cardboard boxes containing yahrtzeit plaques, tallit prayer shawls and other ritual items that cemetery caretakers had carefully lowered in a few days before.The mourners had come to bury, in a sense, their synagogue.Congregation Tifereth Israel was founded nearly 125 years ago. In 1894, synagogue members lived in a busy town with a suddenly booming economy. Linked first to the canal system and later to the railroad, the population of New Castle swelled at the turn of the 20th century as the town’s manufacturing base grew. Tin plate and paper mills and steel and ceramic factories brought great prosperity to the region. Ancillary businesses cropped up to support the growing population. Many of these – drug stores, department stores, furniture stores, groceries – were owned by New Castle’s Jewish residents.Bright eyed and lively, Bruce Waldman told me that he was born in New Castle in 1942, and that one day he will be buried here. His plot in the Tifereth Israel cemetery is already designated. Waldman’s father also was a New Castle native and is buried here. His grandfather, who was among the New Castle Jewish community founders, had emigrated from Eastern Europe via Pittsburgh, 50 miles south.When Waldman was a boy in the 1950s, the town’s population reached its peak of 48,834. At the time, the Jewish community boasted two synagogues, the Reform Temple Israel joining Tifereth Israel, with 300 to 400 active families in total.As the economy changed in the 1960s, New Castle’s population dwindled, along with so many other Rust Belt cities. By 1990, the numbers had dipped to 28,334 residents; today the number stands at about 23,000. Those looking for a more robust Jewish community for their children went elsewhere. Others simply moved away for better economic opportunities. Waldman’s two sons left for college and never returned. One now lives in Sydney, Australia, and the other in New York.Faced with shrinking numbers, the town’s two Jewish congregations merged in 1997. The newly named Temple Hadar Israel operated out of the Tifereth Israel building and remained affiliated with the Conservative movement. The consolidation helped retain some vibrancy. Still, as the population continued to age and young people became scarce, it became difficult to gather a minyan, or quorum, for Shabbat services. Members began to consider the possibility of winding down synagogue operations.“We never ran out of money,” Sam Bernstine, the congregation’s president said, “but we ran out of people.”About five years ago, Temple Hadar Israel members reached out to the Jewish Community Legacy Project, or JCLP, an organization that works with small, dwindling congregations to help insure their legacies. A partnership of the Jewish federations, the Reform and Conservative movements, and two national Jewish historical societies, the JCLP helps congregations preserve historic documents, catalog and dispose of ritual objects, create oral histories and divvy up assets. JCLP says it has worked with 50 such communities and identified 100 more that meet its criteria for assistance.Bernstine cares deeply about the congregation, which helped raise him after he lost his mother to cancer when he was 9 years old. His loyalty, though, never got in the way of his pragmatism.“Do you want a dignified end?” he asked his fellow congregants. “Or do you want the last person left to have to shut off the lights?”Bernstine said his goal was to have the congregation face its own end in a “respectful manner,” to be “in control of our own destiny.” Step by step the synagogue divested of its material assets. The congregants sold the building, with the agreement that they could rent back space from the new owners and continue to meet in the sanctuary. They donated their synagogue records, photographs and a few ritual items to the Rauh Jewish History Archives at the Heinz History Center in Pittsburgh, the Klau Library of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion and the Lawrence County Historical Society.The yahrtzeit plaques posed a more delicate problem because each of them has a connection to a particular person. Members who still live in New Castle claimed their family members’, and efforts were made to locate relatives of those who grew up in New Castle but were now scattered across the country.Whoever took control had to face the question of what to do with the plaques.“I am not going to throw them out, but I don’t want them hanging in my living room,” one woman told me, speaking about her parents’ plaques. She placed them in a box and keeps them in her basement. Alan Samuels took his parents’ plaques to the cemetery and affixed them into their headstones.Temple Hadar’s nine Torah scrolls went to congregations across the world to help those struggling to get by and reinvigorate others. One went to the new Progressive congregation Beit Centrum Ki Tov in Warsaw and another was sent to a tiny community in Indonesia that recently revived its connection to the Jewish world. One went to a Houston congregation that suffered damage in the recent floods. Other recipients included a Reconstructionist congregation in Cleveland, a Reform temple in South Carolina and three summer camps.Next month, the last remaining scroll will be donated to the Hillel Jewish University Center of Pittsburgh amid a weekend of festivities.Even with the great care to find a home for each ritual object, some remained orphaned. Among them were prayer books, prayer shawls, curtains for the Torah ark and many unclaimed yahrtzeit plaques. Rather than dispose of them, a burial was planned.On Devember 30, the members of Temple Hadar Israel held prayer services in their sanctuary for the last time. Every person was called to recite a blessing during the Torah reading — an honor known as aliyah — and people offered reflections at the final kiddush lunch. The following day, congregants drove through the snowy cemetery grounds to the pit that held the last of their items. Their part-time rabbi, Howard Stein of Pittsburgh, was not in attendance, as his own father had passed away the day before. I attended as part of my research into what congregations do with their material objects when they merge, downsize or shut down.A few weeks prior, Stein told me that his plan was to conduct the ceremony like a funeral. In his absence, the event was brief, ad hoc and raw. One man read a passage about the Cairo geniza, a famed storehouse of centuries of damaged Jewish texts and ritual objects. Another man spoke about honoring the word of God in the same way that we honor a deceased person.The ground was too cold to shovel dirt. Instead, congregants took hold of a few final items – including the prayer books that had been used for Shabbat services the day before — and together tossed them into the hole.To close the ceremony, Eric Lidji, director of the Rauh Jewish History Program and Archives, offered a few words of reflection on the verse from Ecclesiastes: “There is a time for scattering stones and a time for gathering stones.” Although Temple Hadar Israel has disbanded, Lidji explained, its stones have been gathered in the archives and here, too, in the cemetery.“These are big things that say ‘we are here’ and ‘we belong here,’” he said. The markers convey that “everything that happened here matters, and will continue to matter.”As Lidji concluded, someone in the huddled group spoke up.“Shall we say Kaddish?” this person asked, referring to the Mourner’s Prayer.Their prayer books were in the pit, but everyone seemed to know the words by heart. They recited the prayer together, memorializing their shared past, their last act as a congregation. Final hugs were exchanged as the group dispersed with lowered heads. They returned to their cars, driving in a procession up the snowy hill and out of the cemetery.Alanna E. Cooper is director of Jewish Lifelong Learning at Case Western Reserve University and an adjunct assistant professor in its Department of Anthropology.
THAT HE/SHE-GAY NOW IT TREASONOUS MANNING WILL BE RUNNING FOR SENATE. THE IT INSISTS TRUMP IS A DEMOCRAT. THIS LIBERAL RETARD IT LOSER OF OBAMA SHOULD BE BANNED FROM RUNNING FOR OFFICE DUE TO ITS TREASONOUS LEAKING OF CONFIDENTIAL E-MAILS TO WIKI LEAKS.
