3,300 year old skeleton with Ring of Pharaoh discovered לכבוד פסח

This photo released by Israel’s Antiquities Authority shows a scarab seal ring encased in gold, carved with the name of Pharaoh Seti I, who ruled ancient Egypt in the 13th century BC, found at Tel Shadud, an archaeological mound in the Jezreel Valley. (AP Photo/Israel’s Antiquities Authority)

 A 3,300-year-old coffin was uncovered during excavations by the Israel Antiquities Authority near Kibbutz Sarid in the Jezreel Valley.

The coffin dates back to the Late Bronze Age, and contained the personal belongings of a wealthy Canaanite believed to be an Egyptian army official, according to the IAA.

The cylindrical clay coffin featured a lid in the shape of a person, and was surrounded by a variety of pottery, including food storage vessels, tableware and animal bones. The items were used as offerings to the gods, as well as sustenance for the dead in the afterlife, according to ancient Egyptian tradition.

An adult skeleton was inside the coffin, buried with a bronze dagger, a bronze bowl, and other trinkets. The graves of two men and two women who may have been family members were found nearby.

“Since the vessels interred with the individual were produced locally, we assume the deceased was an official of Canaanite origin who was engaged in the service of the Egyptian government,” researchers said.

A rare gold Egyptian scarab seal on a ring was found next to the skeleton. The seal bore the name of Pharaoh Seti I, who ruled Egypt in the 13th century BCE.

Seti I was the father of Ramses II, believed by some scholars to be the pharaoh depicted in the Passover story of the Israelites’ exodus from Egypt.

Another possibility was that the coffin belonged to a wealthy individual who chose to imitate Egyptian burial customs, the IAA said.

This was the first casket of this sort to be found in Israel in the last 50 years, according to the archaeologists.

The discovery of the coffin serves as evidence of Egyptian control of the area in the Late Bronze Age, according to the IAA.

During this time pharaohs ruled the country and Egyptian culture had a great influence on the local Canaanite elite. Signs of ancient Egyptian influence are occasionally discovered in different regions of modern-day Israel, the IAA said.

The coffin was found during preparations for the installation of a natural gas pipeline by the Israel Natural Gas Lines Company, which also financed the excavation.

Content is provided courtesy of the Jerusalem Post

This undated photo released by Israel’s Antiquities Authority shows a sarcophagus found at Tel Shadud, an archaeological mound in the Jezreel Valley. Israeli archaeologists have unearthed a rare sarcophagus featuring a slender face and a scarab ring inscribed with the name of an Egyptian pharaoh, Israel’s Antiquities Authority said Wednesday April 9, 2014. (AP Photo/ Israel’s Antiquities Authority)

"Ameleik" Rabbi appointed Leader of Shas Party!

Dear Readers, I think we lost the war. Time to start a new Religion and call it "Yehudit Emet"we will follow the saying of the Tanna Rebbi Akivah and Hillel whose motto was ואהבת לרעך כמך
We will wear grey hats with 1" brim, Woody Allan style glasses, long blue frocks made of denim, neon yellow ties,pink shirts and Skverer boots!
For the ladies: neon green baggy blouses and neon red skirts
No shaitels permitted only neon orange scarfs .... Only yellow  lipstick no other makeup!Bright Blue sneakers with 3" heels! 

Rabbi Shalom Cohen has been named the head of the Shas Council of Torah Sages.

Cohen, 83, has been a member of the Shas rabbinical council since its founding 30 years ago, and is the head of the Porat Yosef Yeshiva in Jerusalem.

Haaretz (http://bit.ly/1epkgjI ) reports, the title of maran will be added to Cohen’s name in tomorrow’s edition of the Shas party newspaper

A reception celebrating the placement will be held during the Passover holiday.

Cohen will be known as the party’s “head” and not its president, a title held by the late Rabbi Ovadia Yosef.

Cohen grew up in Jerusalem’s exclusive Sephardic Torah community, and is considered a master teacher among yeshiva students. He is also known as being somewhat controversial, as when he called those who wear a knitted kippot “Amalek” or the Jews’ enemy, and when he said that anyone who votes for the Habayit Hayehudi party would go to hell.

Did "juicing" kill the Jewish Peaches Geldof?

Geldof, 25, who was found dead at her home in the village of Wrotham, Kent, had spoken about her drastic eating habits in the past.

“I do juicing. You juice vegetables and then you drink it three times a day. It’s gross. I do it usually for about a month,” Peaches, a mother of two, told OK! magazine.

In 2011, she said she could lose about 10 pounds in four weeks by following the diet,the Daily Mail reported.
“I will lose it, then I’m back going mental for the chips.

“I have no willpower but with the juicing I’m like, ‘I have to do it because I have to lose this extra 10 pounds.’

“I’ll juice and then I eat chips.”

When the interview was published, Cath Collins, a spokeswoman for the British Dietetic Association, warned Peaches about her health.

“Surviving on fruit is a very dangerous diet,” Collins said.

“Peaches is at high risk of electrolyte abnormalities which could lead to acute cardiac arrest.

“Rapid dieting like this not only makes you lose muscle strength but wastes away your internal organs.

“It is what kills anorexics.”

Peaches responded to her worried fans on Twitter, after her dramatically transformed frame was revealed.

She said: “To those telling me I look skinny and to eat something, I can assure you I’ve just cut out eating crap.

“I still eat like a horse.”

She confessed that she was very aware of the pressure to be thin in the media spotlight.

“Sometimes it’s hard. If you open any high-fashion magazine, the girls in it are stick-thin and then they’ve been airbrushed down to the point where it’s just ludicrousness,” she said.

Kent police said officers were investigating the “unexplained sudden death,” and will hand their findings to a coroner, with a post-mortem to be performed in the next few days, but did not consider it suspicious.

Peaches was the daughter of Irish musician Bob Geldof and TV host Paula Yates, who died of a drug overdose in 2000. She grew up in the glare of Britain’s press, which reveled in the late-night antics of her teenage years.

More recently, she married for a second time, to musician Tom Cohen, had two children and worked as a broadcaster and writer.

Bob Geldof said the family was “beyond pain.”

“What a beautiful child. How is this possible that we will not see her again? How is that bearable? We loved her and will cherish her forever,” he wrote in a statement.

Cohen said in a statement: “My beloved wife Peaches was adored by myself and her two sons Astala and Phaedra and I shall bring them up with their mother in their hearts every day. We shall love her forever.”

Peaches was just 11 when her mother died of an accidental heroin overdose at 41. Yates divorced Bob Geldof in 1996 after forming a relationship with INXS frontman Michael Hutchence.

Hutchence was found dead in a hotel room in Sydney, Australia, in 1997, and Yates went on to lose custody of the three daughters she had with Geldof — Peaches, Pixie and Fifi — the following year. Bob Geldof later adopted Yates and Hutchence’s daughter, Heavenly Hiraani Tiger Lily.

Peaches Geldof’s death came as a shock to Britain’s entertainment and fashion circles. She was a frequent attendee at fashion shows in London and New York, and was photographed just last week at a London show for Tesco brand F & F.

In an interview last spring, she described how she had never fully recovered from the divorce of her parents when she was 6 years old and her mother’s death five years later.

“The transition of my mother, who was amazing, who wrote books on parenting, who gave us this idyllic childhood in Kent; and who then turned into this heartbroken shell of a woman who was just medicating to get through the day,” she said.

“On top of that, there was my father who was very embittered and depressed about it and for us children, an environment that was impossible, veering between a week with my mother that was complete chaos, and then with my father, which was almost Dickensian — homework, dinner, bed — because he was trying in his own way to combat what was going on at my mother’s.”

In her last interview, given to Mother and Baby magazine, Peaches wrote of her enthusiasm about being a mother and said that it had “broken” her “in the best possible way.”

“Becoming a mother was like becoming me, finally,” she wrote.

Modal Trigger

“After years of struggling to know myself, feeling lost at sea, rudderless and troubled, having babies through which to correct the multiple mistakes of my own traumatic childhood was beyond healing.

“I felt finally anchored in place, with lives that literally depend on me, and I am not about to let them down, not for anyone or anything.”

Monsey Meshugoyim put Matza Bakery in a Yeshiva Dormitory!

A matzo oven, as seen inside a trailer at 33 Forshay Road in Ramapo.(Photo: Ramapo Building Department)
A town judge told the director of a Jewish congregation
onTuesday that it's not kosher to illegally bake matzo at an illegal school and dormitory.

"It's chutzpah to put a matzo oven near an illegal dormitory," Justice Alan Simon said in ordering Chaim Rosenberg, director of Congregation Ateres Yisroel, to remove the oven and all students from the Forshay Road complex until the proper permits have been obtained.

"I would strongly suggest that you keep (the school) clear from people," Simon said, adding that the complex, which includes a wood-frame single family house and three modular trailers, is "endangering lives."

Rosenberg appeared in court after the congregation was hit with two new violations Monday, when inspectors found a commercial matzo oven mounted 10 feet above the floor on cinder blocks, level with and blocking a handicap ramp in a wooden trailer next to the house on the 4.4-acre property. The congregation was cited for unsafe burning, and for burning too close to a structure.

Many congregations make their own matzo for Passover and do so in self-contained installations that officials said are safe. The ovens are temporary.

Ramapo Fire Safety Inspector Adam Peltz said he found the violations at Congregation Ateres Yisroel while responding to the complex Monday after complaints of heavy smoke in the neighborhood.

"The (Monsey) Fire Department determined that there was a matzoh oven at 33 Forshay," said Peltz, adding that the congregation also lacks the proper permits and fire safety devices required for a school and dormitory. He said the town does not issue permits for commercial ovens in residential properties.
Before Tuesday's arraignment on 19 violations, Rosenberg said the congregation does have a permit for the matzoh oven, but he was unable to produce one in court. He also said applications to operate the school have been filed with the Ramapo Planning Board.

The congregation had twice failed to appear in Town Court on violation charges in connection with the school and dormitory; Rosenberg appeared Tuesday after Simon issued warrants ordering officials to show up. The congregation was cited in 2009 and 2012 for operating a school inside the two-story building.
"They vacated the school and that abated the violations," Peltz said. "They subsequently sneaked back into the building."

Rosenberg didn't directly respond when the judge asked him if he would shut down the oven and keep the dormitories and school empty until all approvals were given. Simon told Peltz to re-inspect to make sure Rosenberg closed down the oven, which was fueled by burning coals.

Controversy over matzo ovens pops up in Ramapo during the Passover season. In April 2007, a rabbi built an oven into a yellow school bus on his property in Spring Valley. The rabbi used a pedaling system to heat the oven, with gas lines leading into the bus. The village closed him down.

Peltz said building inspectors were tipped off that the Ateres Yisroel school was operating again in February.

Many profit-generating schools in the town operate illegally and, if caught, get temporary approvals as long as fire safety requirements are met while the planning and zoning boards consider applications.

Congregation Ateres Yisroel has been cited for having no building permit, no certificate of occupancy, and no fire safety equipment, such as smoke detectors, interconnected smoke detectors and sprinklers, Peltz said. The facility also has electrical hazards and doors not on hinges, he said.

Peltz said the illegal five-room dormitory had 24 beds. Three 60-foot modular trailers were being used as a synagogue and lunchroom.

"The three trailers were latched together for one big room," Peltz said.Rosenberg said the dormitory was vacated, but Peltz told the judge that's normal during the holiday season and the students could return after Passover.

Rosenberg said the town wants the congregation to move faster on getting approvals.

Jew Rotting in Cuban Prison, No Asifas, No Pidyan Shevuois, No Aguda, No Yom Tefilah

How many girls do you have to rape, to get Satmar's attention to make a fundraising dinner to get you out of prison! Where is the self-righteous Agudah? Where is Lakewood ? Rabbi Moshe Green from Monsey won't get involved because Gross, the jailed Jew, hasn't had incest with his daughters, like  Weingarten!
Naw! He is a modern Jew languishing in a Cuban prison and didn't do any thing wrong, he didn't rip anyone off, so let him rot!

Rabbi Arthur Schneier, left, meets with imprisoned U.S. subcontractor Alan Gross March 6, 2012 in the facility where he is being held in Havana.

The U.S. contractor sentenced to a 15-year prison term in Cuba for attempting to establish an Internet service has gone on a hunger strike to protest his treatment by the Cuban and U.S. governments, his lawyer said on Tuesday.

The lawyer also criticized the United States for putting Alan Gross’s life in further jeopardy by launching a secretive “Cuban Twitter” after his arrest in 2009.

Gross, 64, was a subcontractor for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) when he was arrested on his fifth trip to Cuba in an attempt to establish an online network for Jews in Havana.

In 2011, a Cuban court sentenced him to 15 years in prison, adding greater tension to already fraught U.S.-Cuban relations.

Gross also repeated his plea for U.S. President Barack Obama to become personally involved in efforts to get him released.

Gross had already lost 110 pounds (50 kg) in prison before starting his hunger strike, according to a statement released by his lawyer, Scott Gilbert. He is confined to a small, constantly lit cell with two other prisoners for 23 hours a day, the statement said.

“I’ve been begging our government for more than four years to bring Alan home,” Gross’s wife Judy Gross said in the statement. “I’m worried sick about Alan’s health, and I don’t think he can survive much more of this.”

An Open Letter to R' Chaim Kanievsky

Shmully Hecht Writer of Letter

I write to you in your capacity as one of the leaders of the ultra-orthodox Jewish community of Israel, often referred to as the haredi movement.

On a flight last week from Israel to New York, I had a rather disturbing conversation with one of your of disciples. 

The individual was an ultra orthodox Jew and a successful Swiss real estate developer who resides in Jerusalem with his wife and seven children. He was on his way to New York for the wedding of a relative. 

I was returning home from Israel where I had spent the day attending the funeral of the father of a dear Israeli friend of mine from Yale, where I am the campus rabbi.  I had met the deceased last year at his son’s wedding in Caesarea, where I was honored to officiate. 

On a subsequent trip to Israel I had put Tefillin on with this 77 year old man, preceded by an in-depth theological conversation about his Judaism and beliefs.  On this return trip to Israel it was at the Shiva house where, upon meeting many of the members of my friend’s F16 squadron, a troubling conversation began. This was a conversation that crystallized on the flight back to New York while talking with your disciple.

Israeli air force pilots are in their mid-20s and 30s, a ripe time for young people to be seriously dating and in many instances newlyweds. It was ironic yet promising that despite being in the shiva house of my friend, we found ourselves discussing weddings and choices of rabbis. 

Here I was, surrounded by Israel’s bravest military officers, who held the most coveted spots reserved for only the brightest and best, that I began to hear about one particular pilot’s wedding. 

He had just returned from a trip to the US where he got married in a civil marriage ceremony in City Hall of NYC. He explained that he, like many of his friends, had done so because they had nothing in common nor any dialogue with the rabbis of Israel. I reminded him that on that particular morning we had witnessed three Israeli rabbis bury our friend’s father, a total stranger. I continued to point out some of the many great things rabbis were doing in Israel. In vain, I tried to shed some light on the rabbinate and build a bridge to this rather secular group of Israel’s elite.

Listening to him describe the gap that sadly divides the secular “chiloni“ and ultra-orthodox “haredi“ leaderships of Israel, I was dismayed and  saddened by how far this split has actually wedged a division among our people. 

Could we have reached such a low point in our history that Jews living in our ancient homeland were flying across the world to avoid having to engage with our very own rabbis? How ironic I thought it was that I, an American rabbi, had flown to Israel first to marry and now bury a son and father of the most secular type of Israelis. Would this young pilot’s first encounter with an Israeli rabbi be at his own funeral?

Harav Kanievsky, I am convinced that the fault lies largely with us, the “religious,” and less so with them, the “secular. “ In fact I don’t believe there is an “us” and “them.”  I was born a Chabadnik, where we are taught that there is only one Jew in the world. Yes, one Jew. But it wasn’t until the conversation with your disciple on my return flight that I began to comprehend the mindset that actually fuels this terrible divide. It is for this reason, and with hope of healing this terrible National wound, that I write you this letter.

“You look like a Chabadnik,” he started off, as he leaned across the aisle of our ElAL plane, “so tell me a story of your great Rebbe.” 

Not sure if I was sensing sarcasm or sincerity in his tone, I told him about my experience of once praying with the man I had just buried and how this person carried a photo of The Rebbe in his wallet for 20 years, despite claiming to be an agnostic. The truth is that “Rebbe miracle stories” were never really my forte, so I figured I would challenge him to a more serious theological debate in this final hour of our cross Atlantic flight. After all, I don’t get to meet many “haredis“ on the sprawling campus of Yale University.

 “What will you do about the pending proposed military draft?” I curiously asked my flight mate. “Well if it actually passes,” he said, “they will have to put a million of us in prison, for how can a pork eater, the son of a pork eater, tell us  G-d fearing Jews to close the yeshivas and serve in the army? These Jews need to be despised and excommunicated for the way they treat the religious community.”

I was so shocked by the venom he was espousing in front of his wife and 16 year old son that I felt like stopping the conversation right there just to avoid embarrassing him. This verbal assault on the majority of Jews alive and the Jews who I consider my dearest constituents was not going to pass without a fatal blow.  One, of course, I would have to deliver with love.

This man was by no means a Torah ignoramus, nor lacking in any level of sophistication. He was clearly a successful businessman, philanthropist, and learned Torah scholar. “I’m not sure you can blame a Jew for eating pork if that is what he was brought up eating,” I replied. It was an elementary response to such a loaded attack.

“After all,” I continued, “doesn’t your son [who was sitting next to him on the plane] eat what you eat?”

“How can you preach such hatred of a Jew,” I asked, “when the Torah explicitly says, ‘Thou shall not hate your brother in your heart’? Is that verse any less a part of the Torah you embrace?”

He replied, “well Esau, despite being the son of Isaac the patriarch, was the enemy of the Jews,” as if to suggest that any secular Jew had the status of an enemy. I explained that the Torah explicitly tells us that Esau and Ishmael had abandoned the ways of their parents’ home and clearly attained the status of another nation early in our history. 

To suggest that every non-observant Jew in Tel Aviv born to non-observant parents, or simply brought up in a non religious home, was now the enemy, was ludicrous.

His self-righteousness and arrogance was so revolting that I knew I needed to win this debate before we landed. I reminded him that the Jewish people were a family first and called over the flight attendant who was not wearing a kipa, and clearly the type of Jew he was critiquing.  I asked the man if he believed we were all part of one family, to which he replied, “of course.” “If the plane went down at this moment,” I continued, “do you think your prayers would be any different than this gentleman? Do you really think your cry of Shema Yisroel would sound any different than his? Have you ever considered the probability of living parallel lifestyles should you have been born into his family, and he into yours?”

He would not concede. “The Finance Minister of Israel [he refused to mention him by name] is a pork eater, the son of a pork eater, and will suffer for the terrible anguish he is causing our community. He is no different than Jesus whom, though born to Jewish parents, is responsible for the murder of so many Jews through European history.” 

I reminded him that according to one account in the Talmud, Jesus left the seminary because of the lack of sensitivity of his Rabbi and perhaps that was why Christianity started to begin with. I reminded him of the commandment to love thy neighbor as you love yourself–to no avail.  As I sat there I started to comprehend why my new friend from the squadron had flown to NY to have his wedding. How could he have any respect for Jewish leaders that did not officially declare this type of talk absolute heresy? Who could stomach this unapologetic self hatred by a “religious” Jew.  All in the name of Torah and G-d!

But then I digressed and mentioned one of the greatest Rabbis in our collective history.

Reb Chaim of Volozhin. 

He is, after all, the icon and example of Torah Judaism, who embodied the ultimate divine manifestation of Torah in a human being. In addition to being the crown disciple of the Gaon of Vilna and the author of Nefesh Hachaim, he was also the patriarch of the great Saloveitchik Talmudic family dynasty. So in a final attempt at reconciliation I asked:

What if I told you that the current President of Yale is named Peter Salovey, short for Saloveitchik? Though he is not particularly observant by your standards, he is a direct descendant of Reb Chaim. He is a dear friend of mine and despite being of the more secular type, he is   extremely proud of his Judaism. In fact, he proudly quoted the great Mishnaic authors in his inaugural address as President of Yale. Do you know that he often engages in Talmudic discussions with me and others of the Yale community? Would you dismiss, excommunicate, and forsake the grandchild of the holy Reb Chaim of Volozhin in your self-righteous pursuit of an Israel that excommunicates the non-orthodox Jew?

It was at this moment that he got out of his seat and approached mine with an urgency. He finally realized what we were actually talking about.  We were talking about that one Jew, the Jew that he could never forsake for it would mean forsaking Reb Chaim Volozhin. And so I got up and together we stood near the emergency exit door as he softly whispered these words into my ear, but more so into my heart and into my soul:

I envy you so much my dear Shmully, because in the merit of showing unconditional love to his grandson, I assure you that when you die, the great Reb Chaim of Volozhin will be waiting for you in heaven, and he will single-handedly open the gates of Gan Eden for you to enter.

These final moments of my flight were an absolute affirmation that there is hope for our people. I could not hold back my tears and replied, “how ironic, that upon my death, at the moment I would have to face my Maker, I would not be greeted, escorted, and defended by my Rebbe, Reb Schneur Zalman of Liaidi, the founder of Chabad, but rather by his opponent, the prize student of the Gaon of Vilna, Reb Chaim of Volozhin.”

And then he said, “You know, when you return to Israel, I’m going to take you to visit our leader the great Reb Chaim Kanievsky.  I want you to tell him what we talked about.”

Rav Kanievsky, I don’t want to wait until my next trip to Israel. I will simply ask you what I asked him:

What would Israel look like this Pesach if you asked each and every one of your followers today to invite one non religious friend for Pesach? How amazing would it be if 1 million non orthodox Jews came home tonight and told their spouse that their religious friend or acquaintance invited them to their Seder? What if we reinterpreted, “all who are hungry may they come and eat, all who are needy may they come and enjoy Pesach,“ to mean, “not only the physically or  materially poor but those less observant than us”?

Just as I’ve been assured that Chaim of Volozhin will be waiting for me in heaven, I sincerely hope Schneur Zalman of Lyadi is waiting for you. Let us hope there will be no need to imprison 1 million Jews but rather have 1 million more guests this year at the Seder.

I look forward to embracing you on my next trip to Israel.

Shmully Hecht is the Rabbinical advisor of Eliezer: the Jewish Society at Yale and can be reached at shmully@279crown.org

Denmark will allow you to marry your cat but bans Shechita!

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