So humans descend from SPONGES! The humble creature is our oldest ancestor!

So guys let's soak all this in.....

 ... and I thought that we came from apes and that only the Kollel guys descended from sponges!

It's one of biology's most-heated debates – what are the origins of animals?

Now, researchers have waded into the debate with a new study, suggesting that the humble sponge may be our earliest ancestor.

The findings cast doubt on previous studies, which have suggested that complex comb jellies may be the oldest lineage of living animals.

In 2008, one of the early phylogenomic studies suggested that comb jellies were the earliest members of the animal kingdom, rather than sponges. 

Since then, studies have flip-flopped between whether sponges or comb jellies are our deepest ancestors.

Now, researchers from the University of Bristol have identified the cause of this flip-flop. 

And in doing so, the researchers believe they have revealed that sponges are the most ancient lineage.

Professor Davide Pisani, lead author of the study, said: 'The fact is, hypotheses about whether sponges or comb jellies came first suggest entirely different evolutionary histories for key animal organ systems like the nervous and the digestive systems.

Therefore, knowing the correct branching order at the root of the animal tree is fundamental to understanding our own evolution, and the origin of key features of the animal anatomy.'

In the study, the researchers used a new statistical technique to test whether evolutionary models can effectively describe the genetic datasets used to study early animal evolution.

Their analysis revealed that, for the same dataset, more precise models favour sponges at the root of the animal tree. 

Meanwhile, more unreliable models favour comb jellies.

Professor Pisani said: 'Phylogenomics, the use of genomic data in phylogenetics, is a relatively new science.

'Evidence for comb jellies as the earliest branching animal lineage first emerged in 2008, a decade ago, in the first, large-scale, phylogenomic analysis of the animal phyla.

'We have now better analytical tools and data and this study seriously challenges the accepted status quo.'

Hell hath no fury like a Reform Jewish leader scorned.

Tzipi Hotolovy

Almost since the day the State of Israel was established, there have been American Jews of prominence who have criticized it. That’s a 69-year-old fact of life to which Israelis long ago became accustomed. But if an Israeli official dares to say something critical of American Jews, watch out: Hell hath no fury like an American Jewish leader scorned.

In countless op-eds, sermons, conferences, and petitions over the years, American Jewish critics have charged Israel with obstructing peace, mistreating various aggrieved parties, or embarrassing U.S. Jews. How many times have we heard the accusation that Israel’s policies are causing it to “lose its soul”?

But what’s good for the goose is not always good for the gander, as Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely recently discovered. She noted in an interview how difficult it is for some American Jews to appreciate the dangers Israelis face, since their own lives are much more secure. American Jewish leaders responded by demanding that MK Hotovely publicly apologize, or even that she be fired.

Hotovely is not the first Israeli leader to find herself in such a situation. In 1949, Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion remarked that Israel was hoping for large-scale immigration by young American Jews. U.S. Jewish leaders were livid. American Jewish Committee president Joseph Proskauer threatened to withhold financial contributions from the new state. AJC chairman Jacob Blaustein flew to Israel and, according to the AJC’s authorized history, spent eight hours “alternately cajoling and threatening” Ben-Gurion until the prime minister agreed to publicly back down.

A decade later, Ben-Gurion ruffled American Jewish feathers by citing the Talmudic statement that a Jew who lives outside of the Land of Israel is “considered as one who does not have a God.” (Ketubot 110-b) American Jewish leaders exploded in fury. The Zionist Organization of America accused Ben-Gurion of “impugning the religious faith” of all diaspora Jews. B’nai B’rith charged the prime minister was trying “to negate 2,000 years of diaspora Jewish existence.”

Israel could not even catch a Nazi war criminal without catching flak from some American Jewish leaders. The president of the World Jewish Congress publicly criticized the Israeli government for putting Adolf Eichmann on trial; the Central Conference of American (Reform) Rabbis denounced Israel for sentencing Eichmann to death.

Criticism of Israeli policies became a regular feature of U.S. Jewish communal life beginning in the 1970s. Officials of various Jewish organizations criticized Israel over (among other things) Jewish housing construction in the territories, the negotiations with Egypt, the Lebanon War, possible changes to the “Who is a Jew” law, and the Jonathan Pollard affair.

When an Israeli cabinet minister suggested, in 1980, that American Jews should actively oppose U.S. pressure on Israel, Jewish leaders accused him of being “strident” and “interfering in American Jewish affairs.” The American Jewish Congress criticized Israel’s conduct in the inquiry into the death of a captured Arab terrorist (1986). The Union of American Hebrew (Reform) Congregations declared that Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s tactics in combating Arab rioters “betray[ed] the Zionist dream” (1987). B’nai B’rith lambasted Israel for insisting that intifada violence halt before Palestinian Arab elections could be held (1989). The Anti-Defamation League chastised Israel for not implementing electoral reform (1990).

Over the past four decades, numerous American Jewish organizations have been created to advocate positions that often are at odds with those of the Israeli government. A partial list of such groups includes Breira, the Shalom Network, Americans for Peace Now, New Jewish Agenda, the Committee of Concerned American Jews, the Jewish Peace Lobby, Project Nishma, American Jews for Responsible Advocacy, Brit Tzedek v’Shalom, and J Street.

Recent weeks have seen particularly vehement criticism of the Israeli government by American Jews. Rabbi Rick Jacobs, president of the Union for Reform Judaism, criticized the government’s position on prayer arrangements at the Western Wall as “a betrayal”; yet Rabbi Jacobs now is demanding that the deputy foreign minister be fired for criticizing some American Jews. Jerry Silverman, president of the Jewish Federations of North America, has forthrightly expressed his view of the Israeli government’s stance on the Western Wall; yet now he is denouncing MK Hotovely for expressing her view of American Jews.

For nearly seven decades, prominent American Jews have publicly criticized the Israeli government when they felt strongly about a particular issue. And every once in a while, an Israeli official has said something critical about American Jews. The willingness to criticize, and be criticized, is an integral component of a mature, healthy Israel-diaspora relationship. The “off with their heads” approach of demanding public apologies or even firings represents an extreme overreaction to what is nothing more than the free exchange of opinions.

Dr. Rafael Medoff is the author or editor of 18 books about Jewish history and Zionism, including The Historical Dictionary of Zionism, coauthored with Chaim I. Waxman.

New York Times Obsesses About Israel’s ‘Ultra-Orthodox’ Ignores Catholic bishops!

One of the clearest warning signs of bias in the press is a double standard — a similar story that’s treated one way if it involves Jews or Israel, and a different way if it involves a different religion or a different country.

One such case is on display in the New York Times this week.

The November 27 Times features a news article of about 700 words by a Times journalist, Isabel Kirshner, under the headline “Railway Work in Israel on the Sabbath Threatens to Unravel Netanyahu’s Coalition.” The online version features two photographs. The article is about the politics of conducting repair work on Israel’s state-owned railway on the Sabbath. It reports the prime minister agreed to introduce “legislation to limit the opening of convenience stores on the Sabbath.”

Meanwhile, in another country, Poland, lawmakers, at the behest of Catholic bishops, voted to eliminate Sunday shopping in the country entirely by the year 2020. The Times didn’t cover that article in the print newspaper at all; it handled the matter instead with a brief online item by the Associated Press of about 200 words, with no photographs.

Got that? The New York Times paid a lot of attention to the political news about the Sabbath and Israeli Jews, while downplaying to the point of almost ignoring the news about the Sabbath and Polish Catholics.

Is it because Israel is a larger country than Poland? No. Poland has four or five times Israel’s population. 

Is it because there are more American Jews than there are Polish-Americans or American Catholics? No — if the Times is trying to cater to American readers, there are actually more Polish-Americans and Catholics than there are American Jews, leaving aside any possible overlap, such as American Jews whose families are from Poland.

Now, the Times might reply that the Israel news got covered because, as the headline put it, the controversy “threatens to unravel Netanyahu’s coalition.” But that’s a bait-and-switch: the Times article itself concedes “the government did not appear to be in imminent danger of collapse.” The Times further quotes Abraham Diskin, professor emeritus in the department of political science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, as saying, “‘All the indications are that nobody is interested’ in breaking up the coalition.” So the “coalition in jeopardy” excuse is not much of an excuse, either.

Maybe it’s because the ultra-liberal, ultra-secular Times has an obsessive interest in portraying the Israeli government as being at the mercy of the whims of those that the Times, three times in the article, describes as “ultra-Orthodox.” If that is indeed the reason, it’s ultra-bad journalism.

The miracle of Israel lives on 70 years later

by MICHAEL GOODWIN

On Nov. 29, 1947, the United Nations voted to partition Palestine into two states, one Jewish, one Arab. Most Zionists accepted the deal, while Arabs almost universally rejected it and declared war.

One Muslim delegate, referring to Jews living in Arab nations, warned that “The blood will flow like rivers in the Middle East.” Iraq’s prime minister threatened that the Jewish state would not survive, saying “We will smash the country with our guns and obliterate every place the Jews seek shelter in” while Syria’s leader claimed “We shall eradicate Zionism.”

Seventy years later, a lust for Jewish blood is a staple of Islamic State, Hezbollah and Hamas, whose charter calls for the elimination of Israel. Iran’s leaders call Israel “Little Satan” and vow to wipe it off the map.

In important ways, then, not much has changed. Jew hatred remains mainstream enough to flourish in the sunshine as well as the shadows, including at major American university campuses and European parliaments. Year in, year out, Jews are the victims of most of the religious hate crimes in the United States.

Some UN bodies exist to demonize Israel while ignoring wholesale slaughter and oppression in other lands. Indeed, if that partition proposal were submitted to a much-larger General Assembly today, it probably would not get majority support, let alone the two-thirds approval it got in 1947.

Yet in other ways, everything has changed. Israel, which declared independence in 1948, is a mighty regional power militarily and its economy and technical innovations are world-renowned. This is exceptionalism, Israeli-style.

Politically, it’s made progress, too. Peace treaties with Jordan and Egypt have proved remarkably durable and other Arab states have established quiet working relationships with the nation they tried repeatedly to destroy.

Paradoxically, the rise of Islamic terrorism has created common ground with some former enemies. Even Barack Obama’s flawed nuclear deal with Iran, vehemently opposed by both Israel and Saudi Arabia, is bringing the two nations closer because they share a vision of Iran as an existential threat.

A recent article in the Jerusalem Post described growing relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia as “perhaps the most significant shift in the region” and called a secret visit by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to Israel in September evidence that official diplomatic relations are possible.

Jared Kushner, President Trump’s top mideast adviser, also visited both countries in a bid to improve Israeli-Arab ties and help broker an Israeli-Palestinian deal.

On that second point, pessimism remains the safe bet. Although Trump reversed Obama’s tilt toward the Palestinians, neither president has had success in changing the essential dynamics: The violent refusal of Palestinian elements to accept Israel’s right to exist.

While much of the public debate is couched in terms of borders and settlements and sovereignty over Jerusalem, the larger truth is that Palestinians have pursued Israel’s destruction with more zeal than they applied to building their own state.

While you would never know it from most coverage in the American media, a two-state solution was offered to both Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas, but neither would say yes. To do so would have meant signing their own death warrants at the hands of fellow Arabs committed to Israel’s destruction.

The result is that many Palestinians remain scattered in “refugee camps” around the region established nearly 70 years ago, unwanted by their hosts while serving as political pawns. In their own self-governed territories, they are bitterly divided and impoverished, with much of the population living on international handouts and a fantasy that a Palestine without Jews is inevitable.

At times, there have been brief interludes of hope that internal change was coming. Abbas, head of the Palestinian Authority, which governs the West Bank, told an Israeli journalist that he believed the Arabs’ 1947 rejection of the partition was a mistake that he hoped to correct.

That was six years ago. Since then, Abbas, finishing the 13th year of a four-year term, has done little to turn that idea into reality.

As I prepare for an upcoming trip to Israel and the West Bank, my third visit to the region, I expect to find an even more dynamic Jewish state, where even the constant threat of catastrophe does not interfere with a zest for life.

Then again, that’s Israel. A miracle among nations.

Miriamhontas (Sen Warren) Now Claims She is Jewish

So Pocahontas our  token "Indian"  in the Senate, lies again, this time claiming that she is Jewish as well! 

On Thursday, during Krias Ha'Torah, I will name her "Miriamhontas"!!

Chareidie "terrorist liars" Make Up"Bubba Maaseh" That IDF Arrested Female Draft Dodger Just so they can Riot!!!

The Israel Defense Forces denied arresting a female ultra-Orthodox draft dodger, after the rumor sparked violent protests by ultra-Orthodox demonstrators at a Jerusalem IDF recruitment center on Tuesday.

In a statement on its Twitter account, the army said there was no truth to the “erroneous reports” it had detained an ultra-Orthodox woman for avoiding enlistment.

It also strongly condemned Tuesday’s violent attacks on police officers by ultra-Orthodox protesters and stressed “that any act of this type will not deter the recruitment of those designated for military service in accordance with the laws of the State of Israel.”

The denial from the IDF came after 34 ultra-Orthodox demonstrators were arrested Tuesday during violent protests in Jerusalem against the imprisonment of community members who ignored army draft orders. The rumor of the woman’s detainment fueled Tuesday’s violent demonstrations, according to Hebrew reports.

Demonstrators gathered outside the IDF draft office on Rashi Street in the capital and blocked the entrance to the building, as well as the road outside. Officers who arrived to disperse the protesters were pelted with rocks, eggs, and other items, leading to three officers being lightly injured, police said.

Cops, including mounted officers, cleared the roadway.

“Police restored public order” after arresting the “rioters,” police said in a statement.

Ultra-Orthodox Jewish men protest outside the IDF recruiting office in Jerusalem, November 28, 2017. (Flash90)

The demonstration came days after a fringe religious group caused mayhem during hours of confrontations with police in Jerusalem on Sunday.

On Tuesday morning, two other demonstrators were also arrested outside the draft office.

חדשות עשר

✔@news10

כמה עשרות חרדים מתעמתים עם שוטרים מחוץ ללשכת הגיוס בי-ם @Yossi_eli

8:15 AM - Nov 28, 2017

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As Der Rebbe Tanzt - Leonard Cohen

Burglar Breaks Into Airmont Monsey Home In Bathrobe, on Shabbos Morning

Police have released surveillance video of a brazen burglary involving a man in a bathrobe that took place over the weekend in Rockland County.

The Ramapo Police Department has are currently investigating the residential burglary, which happened in the early morning hours on Saturday, Nov. 25 in Airmont.

In the video, a man with a mohawk and beard can be seen squeezing into the home through a kitchen window. The suspect was wearing a grey bathrobe and looked directly into the camera before making his way into the home.

The incident is under investigation by the Ramapo Police Department. Anyone with information or who can identify the suspect has been asked to contact investigators by calling (845) 357-2400.

Fatso "Terrorist" Protestor Back At It

Black Tuesday Sale!!! Photo of "Hidden Tzaddik" ..framed!

Menachem Begin on keeping Shabbas

Reform US Jewish leaders are fighting the wrong battle

by Rabbi Berel Wein

Often times, if not even always, telling the truth is a painful experience both for the teller and for the listener. 

Our entire life is wrapped up in avoiding painful truths. And even if we are aware of them, not communicating them to others because that will make us very unpopular is also stressful. 

The rabbis of the Talmud called this world “a world of falsehood.” This is so ingrained within us that we expect that our leaders, political and otherwise, are never telling us the truth. Our political campaigns are based on slogans and promises that we all know to be false but since these are apparently the rules of the game, we accept them even though we know they contain little truth. 

No politician runs on the truth that taxes have to be raised, deficits have to be closed and that there is no guarantee for an easy life for anyone else. Instead we are surrounded by promises of rose gardens, unending prosperity and a chicken in every pot. However, when one of our government leaders or ministers steps out of line and actually tells us the truth, the reaction from his or her colleagues, the media and all of the professional experts is one of shock and horror.

 Apologies must be made for telling the truth so that we can continue to flow along the river of falsehoods that eventually will endanger our survival and success. In the “world of falsehood” we really cannot expect a different result in such situations.

Recently a government official here in Israel dared to say that the Emperor known as American Jewry has no clothes.

 There can be no denying the fact that for the vast majority of American Jews, Judaism, the state of Israel and traditional observance of the Jewish way of life no longer exists. The birth rate and American Jewry, if one factors out the Orthodox population, is insufficient to maintain the weak numbers that already exist. 

The intermarriage rate, again factoring out the Orthodox, encompasses 2/3 to 3/4 of American Jewish youth. 

The alienation of most Jewish youth in the United States towards any Jewish causes, philanthropic, religious or communal is a true and tragic fact. 

So, when an Israeli political leader and government minister noted this publicly and warned about the deterioration of Jewish values and especially of support for the state of Israel financially and politically, she was immediately castigated by the powers that be for having spoken the truth. 

It was not politically correct for her to do so and she was forced to apologize in order to restore the fake picture of American Jewry that our leadership continues to assert. The crisis of faith and identity that has beset American Jewry is in my opinion the greatest challenge and potential tragedy of our time. 

American Jews in the main may know that somehow they are the people of the book but they don't know what book is being referred to. Under these circumstances there is little hope for their eventual survival as a vital part of the Jewish people. It is good that someone had the nerve to say so. It is tragic that instead of supporting that message of truth, all of the sycophants deny it and force unnecessary and very false apologies.

In my opinion this is very telling regarding the Conservative and Reform movements here in Israel and in the United States. They are witness to their decline in numbers and in Jewish loyalty. Many of their congregations are no longer populated by Jews, no matter what standard of conversion may be applied to them. 

They have been unable to inspire generations of Jewish children to remain loyal to the Jewish people no matter what type of rules of observance exist. There are very few great-grandchildren or even grandchildren that exist within these groups. Their struggle here in Israel against the traditions of the Jewish people that most Israelis, secular or observant, hold dear is really one of the shameful chapters in our current story.

Instead of fighting about location at the Western Wall, should not the battle be against intermarriage, against remaining single, against a declining birthrate, against an abandonment of all moral tenets in the face of popular current political correctness? 

The truth hurts both the teller and listener as I have mentioned above. But at least once in a while it should be publicly stated so that we will realize the true problems that face us and in what direction we should turn.

Lakewood Yungerleit Join Anti-Semitic Protest In Manhattan

Below video hear them calling other Jews that don't agree with their bizarre SHIT'ah "Rashoim" Wicked!

Hear the mamzeirim call Rabbi Litzman, Rabbi Gafni, Rabbi Purish......

רשעים,מסיתים ומדיחים

Then watch the stupid Lakewood Yungereleit shaking like poisoned monkeys

Chaim Shragai 66 Year old Yerushalmie "Chazir" Serial 'mikva rapist' charged for assaults on teens

A 66-year-old Jerusalem man was indicted on charges of sexual assault and sodomy Sunday in a Jerusalem district court. The charges stemmed from a series of rapes and sexual assaults which took place in a Jerusalem mikva (ritual bathhouse) where the accused worked.

According to Sunday’s indictment, the suspect, Haim Shragai, raped three local teenage boys over the course of three years.

The victims ranged in age from 13 to 16.

Shragai helped manage the mikva where the attacks took place, Behadrei Haredim reported, and used his position to trap his victims.

Authorities say Shragai would approach the teenagers while they were using the mikva, and blocked their exit if they tried to escape.

When the teens refused to submit to his demands, Shragai would threaten to leave the victims locked inside the facility, and warned that he would tell the victims’ parents that they were guilty of various offenses. In some instances, Shragai showed his victims pornographic material, then threatened to tell their parents.

After each incident, Shragai would pay the victim a small sum, usually several shekels.

The prosecution has requested that Shragai be denied bail and be held in custody until the end of his trial.

Jackson Township NJ Routinely Monitored Jewish-Owned Homes .... This in the USA!!!

New leaked documents appear to show a pattern of surveillance of Jewish-owned homes in Jackson, New Jersey. Attached emails show the practice was discussed over a span of several months among upper-level township officials, including council members, zoning officials and the township’s chief counsel.

One must wonder why the township was monitoring lawful activities conducted in the privacy of resident’s homes, and with whom they were doing it with. It appears the township used spies in unmarked cars to monitor houses on a regular basis, who kept detailed notes on the otherwise benign activities at private properties.

Reform "Rabbis" Trying to Destroy Tzipi Hotovely

by Rabbi Prof. Dov Fischer

The writer is adjunct professor of law at two prominent Southern California law schools, Senior Rabbinic Fellow at the Coalition for Jewish Values, congregational rabbi of Young Israel of Orange County, California, and has held prominent leadership roles in several national rabbinic and other Jewish organizations. He was Chief Articles Editor of UCLA Law Review, clerked for the Hon. Danny J. Boggs in the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, and served for most of the past decade on the Executive Committee of the Rabbinical Council of America. His writings have appeared in The Weekly Standard, National Review, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Jerusalem Post, American Thinker, Frontpage Magazine, and Israel National News. 

There are moments in life when a person gets “discovered.”  Entertainers perform for decades before getting “discovered.”  So it is with the writers of great books, the thinkers of great thoughts, the leaders of political movements.  Often, when they finally experience their breakthrough, they inevitably are asked: “Where were you all this time?  What were you waiting for?”

November 2017 has been the month of Tzipi Hotovely.  She finally — finally! — has been discovered.

I have been following the Deputy Minister from her earliest notices, even as she was just emerging as a novice within the Likud.  An Orthodox woman.  Law school graduate.  Quite photogenic and telegenic.  Incredibly brilliant.  Well spoken.  Fabulous command of English. Uncompromising in her support for the Jewish right to Yehudah and Shomron (Judea and Samaria).  Kind-of “too good to be true.”

Replica of Arch of Titus in New York

Lindsay Neathawk first saw the Arch of Titus on a visit to Rome in 1998. A teenager at the time, she could not have imagined that two decades later she would make the first hi-tech replica of the ancient monument’s famous “Spoils of Jerusalem” panel commemorating Roman forces’s capture of Jerusalem and destruction of the Holy Temple in 70 CE.

Using cutting-edge digital tools, Neathawk, a graphic designer and owner of a sign carving business in Williamstown, Massachusetts, spent a straight 49 days last summer creating the replica.

It was carefully transported in late August to New York City, becoming the centerpiece of the current “The Arch of Titus – from Jerusalem to Rome, and Back” exhibition at Yeshiva University Museum.

The replica is made of high density urethane foam and weighs around 1,000 pounds. It is a one-to-one copy of the panel on the monumental arch erected on Rome’s Via Sacra, the “Sacred Road,” around 82 CE, shortly after Emperor Titus’s death. One of three interior relief panels on the arch, “Spoils of Jerusalem” depicts Titus’s triumphal procession into the Eternal City in July 71 CE. Roman soldiers are seen carrying sacred vessels of the Jerusalem Temple, and at the center is the seven-branched golden menorah.

The replica produced by Neathawk in collaboration with VIZIN: Institute for the Visualization of History, is based on three-dimensional and polychrome scanning conducted in 2012 by an international team of scholars led by cultural historian Dr. Steven Fine, founding director of the Yeshiva University Center for Israel Studies.

Fine, an expert on the Greco-Roman period, immersed himself in the study of the Arch of Titus, and last year published a book on the Menorah and its evolving symbolic significance over 3,000 years.

Fine’s enthusiasm for the monument rubbed off on Neathawk, 37, who decided to take on the Spoils replica project despite having never carved anything bigger or more complicated than signs for local merchants.

“This project was in a totally different league, both in terms of size and intricacy,” Neathawk said.

“But our motto is, ‘If you can think it, we can do it,’ so we went for it,” she said.

According to Fine, a handful of other replicas of the Spoils panel exist around the world. Some are casts, and one is what Fine described as “an artful reproduction.” This latest one is the first to use advanced digital tools to not only make a copy of the relief as it exists today, but also to project onto it what it would have looked like at the time of its original creation.

Archeologist Donald Sanders of VIZIN, who oversaw Neathawk’s work, provided her a digital rendering of the panel based on Fine’s scans from Rome. This was converted into code read by Neathawk’s computer numerical control (CNC) carving machine.

Neathawk used her expertise to choose the correct bits for the CNC machine, many of which broke due to intensity and duration of the carving, which on many days went nonstop around the clock.

Exhibition co-curator Jacob Wisse noted that although the $50,000 replica is a crucial element of the Yeshiva University Museum exhibition, it is not the only star of the show. Also highlighted are rare artifacts from all eras on loan from more than 20 individual collectors and institutions, ranging from the Library of Congress in Washington, to the Israel State Archives in Jerusalem, to the Istituto Luce Cinecittà Historical Archive in Rome.

“The exhibition is about the changing nature of the Arch of Titus, and not only in terms of physical changes, such as its restoration by Pope Pius VII in the 1820s after its falling into a ruinous state by the 19th century,” Wisse said.

“It also looks at how this monument has been appropriated over the course of history as a symbol by everyone from emperors and popes to Jews and Christians, who re-interpreted the meaning of the arch in modern times,” he continued.

The most notable reinterpretation by Jews in the current era is the State of Israel’s adoption of the Menorah as its official symbol in 1949. Exhibition visitor Bonnie Zaben found this to be of major emphasis, and somewhat at the expense of the Spoils replica.

“I really didn’t expect the Menorah as Israel’s symbol to be such a large part of the show. I was actually surprised that the Spoils replica was not more central. It’s the biggest element in the room, but it is at floor level and placed against a wall instead of elevated as a centerpiece,” Zaben said.

“You don’t even see it immediately upon entering the gallery. It’s on a wall to the left of the entrance,” she added.

Wisse said the replica’s placement was deliberate, with it serving as a point of reference, both literally and figuratively, for the entire exhibition. The layout is such that the Spoils panel is repeatedly in visitors’ line of sight as they walk through the various sections of the show.

“The Arch of Titus – from Jerusalem to Rome, and Back” exhibition runs at Yeshiva University Museum until January 14, 2018.

Anger as ultra-Orthodox demonstrators block Jerusalem entrance for 3 hours

Hundreds of ultra-Orthodox youths from a fringe religious group took to the streets of Jerusalem on Sunday, causing traffic mayhem and shutting down the capital’s light rail service to protest the jailing of young seminary students for draft-dodging. The demonstrators blocked the main entrance to the capital for three hours.

The fresh disruptions sparked anger, with public figures calling on police to take a tougher stance against the protesters.

Police used force to try and disperse the protesters, some of whom clashed with angry motorists and resisted attempts by police to remove them. They also used water cannons and a foul-smelling skunk spray.

Police said they had detained 35 “extremists” who refused to clear the road. One demonstrator received medical treatment from police. Demonstrators later moved on from their original protest and shut the main entrance and exit to the city.

The main entrance to the city was shut for more than three hours despite police efforts, until the demonstrators headed a call from the head of the so-called “Jerusalem Faction” Rabbi Shmuel Auerbach to return to their yeshivas.

The disruption to residents and commuters sparked widespread anger.

“The time has come to end this disruption to the lives of Jerusalem residents. The right to demonstrate is a sacred right when it is done legally. Anyone who breaks the law, for any reason, must be dealt with harshly,” said Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat.

“The police must use all means at its disposal to disperse the illegal demonstrations. I call on the police to restore normal life in the city,” he said.

Likud lawmaker and Temple Mount activist Yehudah Glick also slammed the protesters.

“The demonstrations in Jerusalem now have no connection to Torah,” Glick tweeted. “It is simply hooliganism. I hope that the police will deal with the protesters as they deal with all hooligans.”

Auerbach had announced on Sunday morning that the demonstrators would return to the streets to defend the “dignity of the Torah.”

The protest began at around 3:30 p.m., when dozens of ultra-Orthodox men blocked the busy intersection of Jaffa and Sarei Yisrael streets.

The location, adjacent to the city’s Central Bus Station, is on several main bus routs as well as the track of the light rail, which was canceled from there to the Damascus Gate of the Old City because of the protests.

The statement from the “Committee to Save the Torah World,” which has been responsible for organizing recent demonstrations against the army draft, said that Auerbach had ordered the demonstration “to protest for the dignity of the Torah, which has been ground into dust by the incarceration of 12 prisoners of the Torah world for extended periods. Last week, the Haredi masses took to the streets to protest, and hundreds were arrested and four more prisoners of the Torah world were handed over to the military authorities.”

On Saturday night, the statement explained, committee members visited Auerbach and heard him reiterate “the requirement to continue protesting and taking to the streets.”