Far-right activists chanted “death to Arabs” and engaged in violent clashes ahead of the annual “Dance of the Flags” march through the Old City that commemorates the reunification of Jerusalem during the 1967 Six Day War.
Palm Sunday procession in Jerusalem cancelled due to war
Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, has announced that the traditional Palm Sunday procession, which goes from the Mount of Olives up to Jerusalem, has been cancelled and will be replaced by a moment of prayer for the city…
Israel’s parliament moves toward ban on mixed-gender prayer at Jerusalem’s Western Wall
Israel’s parliament has given preliminary approval to a bill that would put the country’s Orthodox chief rabbinate in charge of the entire Western Wall in Jerusalem, raising fears among liberal Jews that mixed-gender prayer at the site will soon be…
2,000-year-old ‘Pilgrim’s Path’ opens in Jerusalem
An ancient road built in the days of Jesus that led from the Pool of Siloam up to the Jerusalem Temple Mount has been opened to the public for the first time.
Mikveh unearthed beneath Western Wall plaza shows evidence of Temple’s destruction
Archaeologists have uncovered a 2,000‑year‑old Jewish ritual bath beneath the Western Wall Plaza in Jerusalem that bears ash and destruction debris from the Roman conquest of the city in 70 C.E., officials said.
My Jerusalem Holy Week remembrances
This Friday is Jumaa’ al Hazeeneh (Arabic for Good Friday), and to Palestinian Christians this phrase is pregnant with connotative nuances that commemorate the Passion of Christ. Sorrowful, grief-stricken, distressing, troubling, excruciatingly painful, agonizing, harrowing, laborious are just a few of…
Congressman John Lewis is my choice in this election
John Lewis has been called the moral conscience of the United States Congress. His death in July 2020 was a great loss to all of us. I mourn his death, but I call on his dream, his spirit, for our…
Franklin Graham plans Easter Sunday broadcast from Jerusalem
Franklin Graham, one of the foremost allies of Israel among American evangelicals, will broadcast a special Easter message from Jerusalem March 31. He will be joined by Christian music artist Michael W. Smith. As Israeli Defense Forces have killed 31,000…
Loneliness and tyranny
“What prepares men for totalitarian domination … is the fact that loneliness … has become an everyday experience of the ever-growing masses,” according to Hannah Arendt in The Origins of Totalitarianism, written in 1951. Loneliness, it seems, has moved from…
On praying for peace in Jerusalem
Over the last couple of weeks, my heart has been heavy over the turmoil erupting in Gaza between Palestinian and Israeli forces. As missiles and bombs dropped on buildings that serve as places of governmental power and countless lives were…
Baptist convention denounces ‘oppression and violence’ toward Palestinians
Leaders of the African-American Baptist group denounced use of the Bible to justify oppression in the Holy Land in a statement issued as the United States moved its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv.
2017’s top religion stories are a doozy
The year 2017 may not have been the biggest ever for religion news in the U.S. or the world, but it has to be close.