The God Eaters

Among the Cannibal Christians, by Earl Lee.
Did the early christians take the command, "Eat of my body," just a bit too literally? And just what did the "Body and Blood of Christ" really consist of? For evidence that the attitude of the early christians toward mind-altering substances was a wee bit more liberal than that of their brethren today, check this out.

Christian Cannibalism
(Communion, Eucharist)

“Jesus said, ‘Blessed is the lion which becomes man when consumed by man; and cursed is the man whom the lion consumes, and the lion becomes man.’” (The Gospel of Thomas)

"If, however, you (Christians) bite and devour one another, take care that you (Christians) are not consumed by one another." (Paul, Ga 5:15)

Christianity is the literal and symbolic consumption of the man god, the human sacrifice meant to atone for humanities original sin. Thus it was to be the final sacrifice to end religions based on sacrifice. Or it was supposed to be. However since then the sacrifice continues to be celebrated with ritual consumption of the god, and the sacrifices continue to be made in the gods name.

As repulsive as the notion may seem, it is a fact that "theophagy"--the technical term for the consumption of a god's body and blood--has been considered a religious experience worldwide for thousands of years. While certain cults/religions may think that they invented the concept of the Eucharist, and that the Eucharist has nothing whatsoever to do with cannibalism, the ritual of sacrificing a god or goddess and sharing his or her blood and body as a sacrament is an act found throughout the ancient world. The only thing so-called modern religion has done is to maintain the form of the Eucharist in a symbolic rather than literal sense, and for that perhaps we should be grateful.

The success of Christianity as a religion in ending cannibalism and human sacrifice is because it incorporates them as symbolic instead of actual practices in their rites.

In fact, the spread of Christianity is believed to have significantly diminished cannibalism worldwide.

An early example is J. A. MacCulloch in the year 1932. He discusses all possible theories
why cannibalism decreased in many places. In this context MacCulloch mentions the
“presence of a higher developed civilisation and especially a higher developed religion”.
He hints at the fact that Islam made an end to cannibalism in North- and East Africa and
only at the end, so to say, casually concludes: “Christianity together with other European
civilising influences has put an end to it (to cannibalism), that is in many parts of South
America, New Zealand, on many islands of the South Pacific, the former center of
cannibalism and in many parts of the African continent”.

Apparently the value principle takes precedence over the exchange principle. (The cannibal may kill his enemy because he sees him as food.) It is important for the Christian, however, to note that the basis for definition of value can differ. The Christian "cannibal" loves his enemy because he sees him as a human soul. Such a perception is difficult to make, however, unless there is a more abundant food supply.

Lestringant's point about cannibals, in the plural, is that anthropophagy (the practice of eating human flesh) does not equal cannibalism. He objects both to the reduction of the cannibal to the anthropophagite, and to the association of all anthropophagous rituals (not the least of which is the Christian Eucharist) with cannibalism. Cannibals demonstrates that, from the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries, the identities of cannibals and the meanings of cannibalism were multitudinous and uncertain, and the figure of the cannibal was employed by European authors toward various rhetorical and didactic ends. By the nineteenth century, however, the identity and qualities of the cannibal had been reduced to a wholly non-European savage, who possessed "natural" appetites for human flesh and engaged in "primitive" cannibalistic rites. Montaigne's noble Brazilian cannibals, whose loquacity had dazzled the king's court in 1562, were replaced by hairy and lubricious African savages, whose nineteenth-century performances in two-bit colonial sideshow filled the likes of French novelist Gustave Flaubert with dread and disgust.

The term "cannibal," Lestringant reminds us, was invented by Christopher Columbus upon his 1492 arrival in Cuba. The word was a corruption of "Caribs," the enemies of the peace-loving Arawaks who welcomed the Italian captain. In the coining of canibal, Columbus created a portmanteau word by joining canis (the dog-headed cynocephalous of Pliny) with bal (belonging to "the lordship of the Great Khan"). On his second voyage, Columbus discovered the remains of cooked human flesh in a recently abandoned Carib village on Guadeloupe. Thus, Columbus's canibals came into being, an impossible combination of dog-headed and human flesh-eating descendants of the Great Khan. Although the canine and Asiatic genealogy was soon put behind, the "monstrous table manners" (p. 17) of the cannibal swiftly and tenaciously captured the imagination of Europeans.

Although colonial records are replete with references to "cannibals," consider the historical context. A 1503 decree from Queen Isabella of Spain, during the heyday of Spanish colonial conquest, allowed the enslavement of cannibals.

The edict, Whitehead says, "created quite a strong interest in 'discovering' cannibals in the New World. Then you wouldn't even have to observe the minimum notion of human rights they would get as human beings and as God's subjects. It demonized the native population, and legally produced an economic benefit."

So during the first 100 years of colonization of the vast Spanish New-World dominion, you could make good money by branding someone a cannibal. Indians were plantation slaves until about 1600, when legions of African slaves arrived. (Over the past quarter-century, some anthropologists have used this history to question the very existence of cannibalism. In their view -- see "The Man-eating Myth..." in the bibliography -- all evidence for cannibalism is so sketchy or biased as to be incredible.)

The accusation of blood libel begins with Christianity. It was first applied against the early Christians by the Romans. The Christians in Europe would later use this same accusation against Jews. Despite human sacrifice being a sin in the Old Testament; the Hebrew Bible strictly prohibits human sacrifices (e.g., Lev 18:21, 24-25; Deut 18:10; Jer 7:31, 19:5; Ezek 23:37,39).

In the early centuries of Christianity, the church existed under the Roman Empire, which granted its subjects freedom in some issues, but demanded conformity to its own ideals in others. Romans commonly thought Christians strayed from certain core morals of the state, summarized by three widespread stereotypes — that Christians practiced atheism, cannibalism, and incest.

As for cannibalism, Romans were appalled to hear that Christians ate the body and drank the blood of their Lord. The "rumors grew to absurd proportions," historical theologian D. Jeffrey Bingham writes. "Christians were even accused of eating infants."

The charges of incest and cannibalism arose from the fact that only the baptized were permitted to attend the Eucharist. What, therefore, was done in secret by such people was quite likely, in the pagan's mind, to be immoral. Moreover, the fragmentary knowledge which the pagan gained by hearsay about the meaning of the Lord's Supper—eating and drinking the body and blood of Christ—quickly led to the suspicion of cannibalism; while the Christian emphasis on love and brotherhood was easily distorted into a cloak for incest.

Ancient History Sourcebook: The Ritual Cannabilism Charge Against Christians

Now the story about the initiation of young novices is as much to be detested as it is well known. An infant covered over with meal, that it may deceive the unwary, is placed before him who is to be stained with their rites: this infant is slain by the young pupil, who has been urged on as if to harmless blows on the surface of the meal, with dark and secret wounds. Thirstily - O horror! they lick up its blood; eagerly they divide its limbs. By this victim they are pledged together; with this consciousness of wickedness they are covenanted to mutual silence.

From Minucius Felix, Octavius, R. E. Wallis, trans. in The Ante-Nicene Fathers
(Buffalo, N. Y.: The Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1887), Vol. 4, pp. 177-178.

Cannibals and Christianity

A strange relationship has developed between Christianity and cannibalism over the centuries. Christianity is a faith that believes in one god, believes in forgiveness and being kind to one’s neighbour. However there is firm evidence that believers in this one faith became at times a believer of eating one’s enemies. For example Syrian crusaders 1000 years ago reverted to cannibalism due to their Christian beliefs.

A report found that was written by a Christian leader Rudolph Caen about the village of Maarra stated:"Our troops boiled pagan adults in cooking pots; they impaled children on spits and devoured them grilled."

The Blood Libel is still with us today applied to other religions in competition with Christianity.

Increasingly since 1970 fundamentalist Protestant sects, almost exclusively from the United States, have taken up the strong battle against Voodoo, accusing it of devil worship, suggesting cannibalism and demanding of converts a complete separation from their Voodoo connection.

Easter then is the celebration not only of death and resurrection but of consumption of the flesh and blood of the sacrificed god as a Passover feast. The ancient pagan tradition of eating corn or other forms of bread as the body of God is present in the Passover feast and later in the Easter feast of the Body and Blood of Jesus.

The Bible is the source for all things Christian.

Does it mention Easter?

Yes.

Notice Acts 12:1. King Herod began to persecute the Church, culminating in the brutal death of the apostle James by sword. This pleased the Jews so much that the apostle Peter was also taken prisoner by Herod. The plan was to later deliver him to the Jews. Verse 3 says, “Then were the days of unleavened bread.” The New Testament Church was observing these feast days described in Leviticus 23. Now read verse 4: “And when he [Herod] had apprehended him, he put him in prison, and delivered him to four quaternions [sixteen] of soldiers to keep him; intending after Easter to bring him forth to the people.”

Is this Bible authority for Easter?

This passage is not talking about Easter. How do we know? The word translated Easter is the Greek word pascha (derived from the Hebrew word pesach; there is no original Greek word for Passover), and it has only one meaning. It always means Passover—it can never mean Easter! For this reason, we find a Hebrew word used in the Greek New Testament. Once again, this Hebrew word can only refer to Passover. And other translations, including the Revised Standard Version, correctly render this word Passover.

Instead of endorsing Easter, this verse really proves that the Church was still observing the supposedly Jewish Passover ten years after the death of Christ!

What About the New Testament?

If the Passover was instituted forever, then New Testament instruction for its observance should be clear. This instruction is found in I Corinthians 5:7-8: “Purge out therefore the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, as you are unleavened. For even Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us: Therefore let us keep the feast (of unleavened bread, which always followed Passover, as explained above)…”

Christ, as the Lamb of God (John 1:29; Acts 8:32; I Peter 1:19; Rev. 5:6), replaced the Old Testament lamb eaten on Passover evening each year. The New Testament symbols of the bread and wine were instituted so that Christians could eat the body and drink the blood of Christ, the true Lamb of God. Jesus’ sacrifice replaced the need to kill a spring lamb. Luke 22:19 shows that Jesus substituted the bread and wine to be taken annually in commemoration of His sacrifice for the remission of our sins—both spiritual and physical.

Christian Cannibals

Even if you still stubbornly cling to the belief that the Eucharist represents only a symbol of eating flesh and drinking blood, that still makes you a cannibal, if only a symbolic cannibal. If you partake in communion as a metaphorical representation of eating Christ's body, then that still makes you a metaphorical cannibal. You simply have no easy out of this predicament as a symbolic cannibal sits as a subset of cannibalism.

Communion: Ritualized Cannibalism

From such a beginning, thousands and thousands of years ago, there developed and evolved basic ritualistic behavioral patterns, and mythological motifs, or themes, that have spread by a process of diffusion from, at least, the Neanderthal period through Cro-Magnon caves, and into the Christian churches and cathedrals of 20th-century America.

One of the more obvious of these is the "sacred meal" or ritualistic cannibalism. We still practice this ritual today in the Protestant and Roman Catholic communion, where we eat the body and drink the blood of the divine leader.

The Christian church calls it "communion," or "taking communion." The communicant eats and drinks, symbolically or literally, the flesh and blood of the divine "leader." The traditional invitation to Communion, spoken by the presiding clergy, is this: "Take, eat, this is my body . . . this cup is the new covenant is my blood . . . drink."

Eating a body and drinking blood is a cannibalistic theme, no matter how hard the clergy try to water it down, or theo-babble around it by calling it "only symbolic" cannibalism. In the 9th century, the clergy said that God made the flesh of Jesus only look like a wafer so as not to upset the worshipers. They were really cannibals, but they didn't have to face up to it, admit it, or be vividly aware of it.

And the blood libel about Christian Cannibalism continues even now, except the blood libel is used against liberals and Catholics. So it is not all Christians that are cannibals just those that are Catholic. Which is rather ironic considering it was the Catholic Empire that declared those it colonized cannibals.

Published 13 April 1998 in the News & Record (Greensboro, NC)

Could Clinton actually be a cannibal, too?

I have a problem with President Clinton's recent trip to Africa.

As a Republican who was raised blue-collar, union, and Southern (Do I have to say Democrat?), I'm not surprised that the president would make politically motivated blanket apologies for historical transgressions for which no one living is responsible. I'm not perturbed that while he was apologizing for our ancestors' wrongdoing that he didn't call on his African hosts to apologize for their ancestors' complicity in the slave trade as well.

As an atheist who was raised as a Protestant, I'm not upset that the president took Holy Communion while in South Africa, or that he, as a Southern Baptist, did so inappropriately in a Catholic church, or even that he, as a political partisan, did so as a shameless photo op.

The problem I have with the president's participation in this sacrament involves the Catholic dogma of transubstantiation. By this doctrine, the bread and wine retain their appearance but miraculously become the actual body and blood of Christ upon their consecration. Persons who participate in the Catholic Eucharist do so believing that they are eating real human flesh and drinking real human blood.

As if being an inveterate liar, an unapologetic draft dodger, and a self-confessed adulterer weren't bad enough, I am absolutely horrified to learn that Bill Clinton is also a cannibal.

James M. Wallace
Greensboro

Documents selected as Scripture

The Scriptures, too, are testimony by the early Christians. In 1 Cor 10:16, St. Paul states: "The chalice of benediction, which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? And the bread, which we break, is it not the partaking of the body of the Lord?" In the next chapter, he draws the same association we find in the Didache and elsewhere, i.e. the need for purity in receiving the Eucharist. First, Paul narrates the meal with Jesus: (11:24) "And giving thanks, broke, and said: Take ye, and eat: this is my body, which shall be delivered for you: this do for the commemoration of me." Likewise with the chalice; then Paul states (11:27) "Therefore whosoever shall eat this bread, or drink the chalice of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and of the blood of the Lord." So we find that the early letters and documents, as well as the letters that became Holy Scripture among Christians, appear strongly to affirm a belief in what is today called by many the Real Presence, a summary term that refers to the notion that Jesus Christ is "really, truly, and substantially present" in the Eucharist.

Over the centuries

Christian documents show that this dogma was maintained with the passage of time. From Origen, c 244: "[W]hen you have received the Body of the Lord, you reverently exercise every care lest a particle of it fall..." (Jurgens §490). From St. Ephraim, ante 373: "Do not now regard as bread that which I have given you; but take, eat this Bread, and do not scatter the crumbs; for what I have called My Body, that it is indeed" (Jurgens §707). From St. Augustine, c 412: "He walked here in the same flesh, and gave us the same flesh to be eaten unto salvation. But no one eats that flesh unless first he adores it; and thus it is discovered how such a footstool of the Lord's feet is adored; and not only do we not sin by adoring, we do sin by not adoring" (Jurgens §1479a). At the Roman Council VI, 1079, Berengarius affirmed: "I, Berengarius, in my heart believe and with my lips confess that through the mystery of the sacred prayer and the words of our Redeemer the bread and wine which are placed on the altar are substantially changed into the true and proper and living flesh and blood of Jesus Christ, our Lord..." (Denziger [Dz] §355). In a discussion of the form of consecration (the word now used to refer to the blessing given by Jesus), Pope Innocent III states (1202) "For the species of bread and wine is perceived there, and the truth of the body and blood of Christ is believed and the power of unity and of love.... The form is of the bread and wine; the truth, of the flesh and blood..." (Dz §414-4). The dogma was affirmed repeatedly by the Roman Catholic Church and within Roman Catholic theology, e.g. at the Council of Lyon, A.D. 1274 (Dz §465); by Pope Benedict XII, 1341 (Dz §544); by Pope Clement VI, 1351 (Dz §574a); at the Council of Constance, 1418 (Dz §583); at the Council of Florence, 1439 (Dz §698); by Pope Julius III at the Council of Trent, 1551 (Dz §874); by Pope Benedict XIV, 1743 (Dz §1469); by Pope Pius VI, 1794 (Dz §1529); and by Pope Leo XIII, 1887 (Dz §1919), inter alia. Other examples can be found to flesh out any interim.

And we would not be forgiven if we didn't round our post with some Crowley.

THE GODEATER
1903
<<1.>>
[The idea of this obscure and fantastic play is as follows: By
a glorious act human misery is secured (History of Christianity).
Hence, appreciation of the personality of Jesus is no excuse for being a Christian.
Inversely, by a vile and irrational series of acts human happiness is secured (Story of the
play).
Hence, attacks on the Mystics of History need not cause us to condemn Mysticism.
Also, the Knowledge of Good and Evil is a Tree whose fruit Man has not yet tasted: so
that the Devil cheated Eve indeed; or (more probably) Eve cheated Adam. Unless (most
probable of all) God cheated the Devil, and the fruit was a common apple after all. Cf. H.
Maudsley, "Life in Mind and Conduct."]

See:

Pagan Origins of Easter

Passover Song

Palm Sunday April Fools Day

Judas the Obscure



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Jesus, Gnostic, Gospels, Easter, Passover, cannibalism, God Eater, Christianity, gnostic

RELIGION KILLS
Report: Fatal assisted living fire linked to cleaning ritual


FILE - Firefighters work on extinguishing hotspots from a fire that burned down the Evergreen Court Home for Adults, Tuesday, March 23, 2021, in Spring Valley, N.Y. A published report says a father and son charged in the deadly fire at the suburban New York assisted living facility had been performing a pre-Passover cleaning ritual that involves heating kitchen utensils to burn off traces of forbidden food. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig, File)


SPRING VALLEY, N.Y. (AP) — A father and son charged in a deadly fire at a suburban New York assisted living facility had been performing a pre-Passover cleaning ritual that involves heating kitchen utensils to burn off traces of forbidden food, the Journal News reported.

It remains unclear what specific role Rabbi Nathaniel Sommer of Monsey and his son, Aaron Sommer, allegedly played in the March 23 fire at Evergreen Court Home for Adults in Spring Valley that killed a resident and a firefighter, the newspaper reported.

The Sommers were arraigned Tuesday on charges of manslaughter, assault and arson in connection with the fire and are due back in court Friday. Information on their attorneys wasn’t available.

Volunteer firefighter Jared Lloyd and a 79-year-old resident of the facility were killed in the fire, which caused a partial collapse of the building.

Records show that the Evergreen Court fire was reported about 90 minutes after the Nathaniel and Aaron Sommer had left the facility after preparing the kitchen for Passover, the Journal News reported.

Observant Jews refrain from eating anything with leavening during the eight-day Passover holiday. Preparing kitchens for Passover involves removing any trace of bread or other foods that contain a leavening agent, including subjecting utensils to high heat.

Evergreen officials said after the fire that Nathaniel Sommer had been performing the cleaning ritual at the facility for 15 years.

The Sommers were among six people charged in connection with the fire. Two other men who prosecutors said worked in the town’s buildings department were charged with filing false documents and falsifying business records, while a woman who worked at the facility was facing a misdemeanor charge of reckless endangerment and another man faced a misdemeanor criminal impersonation charge.

Dozens injured as Israeli forces attack worshippers
Palestinians resist brutal Israeli soldiers' attacks in east Jerusalem


Israeli border police attacked worshippers in Al Aqsa mosque.

Israeli forces attacked Palestinian worshippers in the occupied city of Jerusalem twice over the weekend, as they gathered during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. The attacks come almost a year after similar raids sparked an uprising across all of Palestine.

Israeli border police stormed the site of the Al Aqsa mosque on Sunday, in the east of occupied Jerusalem. They used tear gas and rubber-coated steel bullets to clear Palestinians from the large square inside the mosque’s compound. It came after an even bigger raid on Friday of last week when Israeli police arrested as many as 300 Palestinians at the mosque all at once. They also injured at least 158 people.

The Islamic endowment that runs the site said Israeli police entered in force before dawn on Friday, as thousands of worshippers gathered for early morning prayers. Videos show Palestinians fighting back heroically, throwing rocks at the heavily armed cops and barricading themselves inside the mosque. The Palestinian Red Crescent medical charity said Israeli forces also hindered the arrival of ambulances and paramedics to the site.

Israel said the raids were meant to ensure that Jewish worshippers—who also consider the site holy—could enter during the Passover holiday. They, and many media reports in Britain, want to present the fighting as an issue of Palestinian Muslims’ hostility to Israeli Jews. It is actually about whether Palestinians can live freely in their own city.

Israel invaded and occupied the eastern side of Jerusalem in 1967. Though it later declared the entire city its capital, it denies the Palestinians who live there full citizenship rights. It has used a raft of laws that can remove a Palestinian’s right to live in the city to push them out gradually.


Palestinians fight back against Israel’s aggression

Meanwhile Israeli settler groups, backed by the state, run years-long campaigns to evict Palestinians and take over their homes and neighbourhoods. Battles over access to the mosque are about control of a site central to Palestinian life in the city. The compound is still managed by an authority based in neighbouring Jordan, but Israeli settler groups want to claim it and deny Palestinian access altogether.

Right wing settler groups use Ramadan and Passover to stage provocative stunts and invasions at the site. Last week a settler group offered a cash prize to anyone who entered the Mosque and sacrificed a goat—a Jewish religious ritual that is prohibited inside. Palestinians at the mosque prepared to resist incursions by Israeli settlers and police.

Attacks on Palestinians in east Jerusalem last April triggered a mass uprising. Israeli cops cracked down on protesters resisting the eviction of Palestinian families in the neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah. They then tried to stop Palestinians from coming to Al Aqsa mosque to pray. After Palestinians fought back, resistance spread across all areas of historic Palestine, including a historic general strike.

Hundreds of Israeli settlers storm Al-Aqsa complex in Jerusalem

Settlers celebrate Jewish Passover holiday

News Service

April 19, 2022

AA

File photo


Hundreds of Israeli settlers on Tuesday forced their way into the flashpoint Al-Aqsa Mosque complex in occupied East Jerusalem, according to a Palestinian agency.

In a statement, the Jordan-run Islamic Waqf Department, which oversees holy sites in Jerusalem, said 622 settlers stormed the site in groups under heavy police protection and stayed for more than three hours inside the compound.

Prior to their incursion, Israeli police forced Palestinian worshippers to leave the courtyards of Al-Aqsa Mosque where they were held inside the Qibli Mosque, one Al-Aqsa's main mosques, during the settler tour, eyewitnesses said.

According to previous statements, hundreds of settlers stormed Al-Aqsa complex since Sunday to mark their week-long Jewish Passover holiday.

Tension has mounted across the Palestinian territories since Friday when Israeli forces raided the Al-Aqsa Mosque courtyards and attacked worshippers, injuring hundreds.

Daily settler incursions into the flashpoint site to celebrate the Passover holiday have further inflamed the situation.

Al-Aqsa Mosque is the world's third-holiest site for Muslims. Jews call the area the "Temple Mount," claiming it was the site of two Jewish temples in ancient times.

Since 2003, Israel has allowed settlers into the compound almost daily.

Israel occupied East Jerusalem, where Al-Aqsa is located, during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. It annexed the entire city in 1980, in a move never recognized by the international community.

*Writing by Ahmed Asmar

OVERPROOF BURNS WELL IN LADA'S
Spirit with sprawling Jewish history gets UNESCO World Heritage protection

Predominantly associated with Ashkenazi Jews in Poland, slivovitz - a kind of plum brandy - became a Passover staple across Europe when it was first introduced

David Klein/JTA|

Slivovitz, a plum brandy traditionally associated with Passover by many Ashkenazi Jews, has been added to the United Nations’ list of items with “intangible cultural heritage.”

The decision was made at UNESCO’s conference in Morocco this week where France successfully campaigned for the inclusion of the baguette on the list, a complement to the regular tally of physical sites that the agency seeks to preserve.


Bottles of slivovitz
(Photo: Wikipedia)

It wasn’t Jews leading the charge for the hard-burning brandy, but rather Serbia, where the spirit is a mainstay, as it is across much of the Balkans, Eastern and Central Europe.
That’s where Jews first got turned onto the drink, according to Martin Votruba, a Slovak studies professor whose research included the history of slivovitz and who died in 2019.

“Jews would acquire this local drink after moving into European kingdoms,” Votruba told Moment magazine in 2014. “They would simply pick it up as part of the culture.”
The spirit became particularly associated with Polish Jewry in the 19th century, as Jews became prominent in the field of alcohol production and the running of inns and taverns. They found special utility in slivovitz when it came to maintaining the Jewish laws around keeping kosher.

Unlike wine, traditional brandy and some types of vodka, being made from plums (the root “sliva” means plum in several Slavic languages) meant that slivovitz was not subject to the same stringent rules that apply to grape-based alcoholic beverages.


Jewish man drikning Slivovitz
(Photo: Getty Images)

And unlike beer, whiskey and other types of vodka, it had no wheat or other grains, so it was acceptable for consumption on Passover. It was also relatively inexpensive.
As a result, the Slow Food Foundation for Biodiversity at Italy’s University of Gastronomic Sciences wrote in a primer on the drink, “the Polish Orthodox Jews adopted the plum brandy as [their] festive spirit,” which in some cases became known in Polish as Śliwowica Paschalna or literally Passover slivovitz.

When masses of Polish Jews arrived in America, they brought slivovitz with them, and it quickly became associated with the Jewish community. Today, much of the slivovitz sold in the United States is marketed to Jewish consumers, typically around Passover each spring.

Though its popularity has waned, it can still be found on some synagogue kiddush tables, and remains in the cultural memory of American Jewry.

Author Michael Chabon chose it as the spirit of choice for his hard-drinking, Yiddish-speaking detective, Meyer Landsman in “The Yiddish Policemen’s Union,” a crime novel set in an alt-history Jewish state in Sitka, Alaska.



(Photo: Motti Kimchi)
Meanwhile, the 1990 Barry Levinson film, “Avalon,” which tells the story of a family of Polish Jewish immigrants in the United States, presents it as the drink of choice of the main character’s father in the old country.

“He never drank water. And oh, boy, could he drink! What was that stuff called he always used to drink?” one character asks. Another answers, “Slivovitz. Slivovitz. He used to call it ‘block and fall.’ You have one drink of that, you walk one block and you fall!”
Slivovitz gradually gave way to other favored spirits as Eastern European immigrants, Jewish and otherwise, assimilated into the United States.
But the drink is having a bit of a nostalgic renaissance: It’s on the menu at several swanky bars in New York City, such as the Second Avenue Deli’s Second Floor Bar & Essen, which makes Jewish-themed cocktails with both Manischewitz and slivovitz, as well as Kafana, a high-end Serbian restaurant in Alphabet City.

NOT A MOB BUT MUSLIM WORSHIPPERS
Israel claims Muslims barricaded in Al-Aqsa Mosque are 'dangerous mob' after Jordan warning
By Adam Schrader

Palestinian women cross the Qalandia checkpoint between the West Bank and Jerusalem, to attend the third Friday prayer of the holy month of Ramadan at Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem.

 Photo by Alaa Badarne/HEPA-EFE


April 8 (UPI) -- Israel claimed without providing evidence Saturday that Muslims barricaded inside the Al-Aqsa Mosque in East Jerusalem are a "dangerous mob" after a warning from the Jordanian Foreign Ministry about breaching the sacred site and assaulting worshippers.

Tensions in the Middle East have been rising after Israeli police raided the Al-Aqsa Mosque and assaulting Palestinian worshippers celebrating the month of Ramadan, forcing them out to allow Israelis inside.

The Al-Aqsa Mosque is located at the Temple Mount, the highly contested holy site for Muslims, Jews and Christians. The site is under the management of the government of Jordan and Jewish religious law prevents visiting the site.

Jordan's Foreign Ministry released a statement Saturday warning Israeli officials that there are "disastrous consequences" for Israel's "continued violation" of the sanctity of the mosque and the right of Muslims to worship Ramadan as Israel plans to again remove worshippers from the holy site.

Israel strikes Gaza, Lebanon in escalation of conflict after Al-Aqsa mosque raid

The Israeli Foreign Ministry responded by alleging that everyone holed up inside the mosque are a "dangerous mob" who are "radicalized and incited by Hamas and other terrorist groups."

Israel holds Hamas, a U.S.-designated terrorist organization, responsible for all actions from Gaza.

"We call on Jordan, through the Waqf guards, to immediately remove from the Al-Aqsa Mosque these extremists who are planning to riot tomorrow during Muslim prayers on the Temple Mount and the Priestly Blessing at the Western Wall," the Israeli Foreign Ministry said.

The United States and Israel are long-time allies and U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin called Yoav Gallant, his Israeli counterpart, on Saturday to underscore "his support for Israel's security against all threats," according to a readout from the U.S. Defense Department.

The news came as the Palestinian Authority Health Ministry said in a statement that Israeli forces shot dead a young Palestinian man in the West Bank.

The provocative scene at Al Aqsa mosque
07 Apr 2023



Israeli police carry off a Palestinian from the Al Aqsa Mosque compound following a raid of the site in Jerusalem’s Old City. APThe settled international norm is that only Muslims can worship in the Al Aqsa mosque, the third holiest Islamic shrine in the world, has been under siege as Israeli troops stormed into the mosque compound and earlier in the week fired tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse Palestinians gathered inside the mosque, and several of the Palestinians were seriously injured. The Palestinians wanted to stay overnight and offer the traditional night prayers but the Israeli authorities usually allow this only in the last 10 days of Ramadan. The Palestinians were also readying themselves as they were responding to the threat of some Jews who wanted to sacrifice an animal to mark the Jewish religious observance of the Feast of Passover in the mosque compound. This was a provocative act in the holy month of Ramadan, and the hardline groups from the Gaza Strip fired rockets into Israel, and it looked like that another vicious cycle of violence had begun. Both the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia condemned the Israeli troops entering the Al Aqsa. On the other hand, Israelis have been offering prayers at the Wailing Wall, the remaining part of the old Jewish temple attributed to the legendary Solomon, and this in violation of the international norm.

Meanwhile Israel has been bombing Syrian targets backed by the Iranians. And on Wednesday, rockets were fired from Lebanon into north Israel, and a Lebanese security official speaking on condition of anonymity said that it were Palestinian groups which were firing the rockets and not the Israel-backed anti-Israel group Hizbollah. The Hizbollah had already condemned Israeli troops storming the Al Aqsa. This statement if accepted would help avoid a wider conflagration. But tensions are rising mainly due to the provocative stance of the far-right parties in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu-led coalition government.

The United States had defended the aggressive stance of the Israeli government, both in Gaza and in Syria. Principal Deputy State Department spokesman Vedant Patel said, “Israel has legitimate security concerns and has every right to defend themselves.” But he was also careful enough to assert: “We emphasise the importance of upholding the historic status quo at the holy sites in Jerusalem and any unilateral action that jeopardises the status quo to us is unacceptable.” But the question is how much the aggressive elements in Netanyahu’s government would heed the American warnings, especially National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.

The new Israeli government while facing massive unrest over its attempt to weaken the Israeli Supreme Court though legislation, but the government’s far-right elements are only too eager to provoke the Palestinians on the religious score, and it is this provocative attitude that could alienate Israel from its newly-made friends like UAE among the Gulf Arab states. And America is not in position to rein in the extreme elements in Israel’s coalition government. It would be unreasonable to demand that the Palestinians, who are hemmed in the crowded West Bank cities and towns that they should not be provoked by the Israelis. The tactic of the Israeli authorities is to humiliate the Palestinians by hurting their religious sentiments. That is an incendiary policy if there is one. Israel is overconfident that it can parry any military response from its Arab neighbourhood. But that could be changing fast enough with Russia and China entering the Middle Eastern checkerboard in terms of diplomatic and military intervention. Until now, it were the US and Israel which were able to dictate the Middle East security scenario. This is fast changing. The recent moves by Gulf Arab leaders to integrate Syria and its leader Bashar Al Assad into the Gulf Arab security architecture reveals the determination of the Gulf Arab states to pursue their own specific geo-strategic interests. Israel cannot hope to control the narrative with the help of the Americans.

After Days Of Violence, Jerusalem Prayers End Peacefully

April 9, 2023


Ramadan prayers and Jewish Passover visits at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound passed without incident on Sunday, after days of tension at the flashpoint Jerusalem site which led to cross-border exchanges of fire.

Small groups of Jewish visitors under heavy police guard walked through the mosque compound, known in Judaism as Temple Mount, as thousands of worshippers gathered for the Passover holiday’s special “Priestly Blessing” at the Western Wall below.

The Al-Aqsa compound – sacred to Muslims and Jews – has been at the centre of a security crisis set off last week when Israeli police raided the mosque to dislodge what they said were youths barricaded inside armed with rocks and fireworks.

Footage of the raid, showing police beating worshippers, triggered a furious reaction across the Arab world, sparking rocket attacks on Israel by Palestinian factions that were met with Israeli strikes on sites in Gaza, south Lebanon and Syria.

There were no reports of casualties.

Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, leader of Lebanon’s armed Shi’ite movement Hezbollah, met with Palestinian Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh in Lebanon, the group said on Sunday, and discussed the Al-Aqsa events.

Israeli security experts have said that Iran-backed Hezbollah likely gave its permission to Islamist Hamas to fire the rockets from Lebanon.

“Our enemies were wrong when they thought that Israel’s citizens were not united in support for the IDF (Israel Defence Forces),” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – who is facing unprecedented protests at home against judicial changes – said in a statement.

In Gaza, Hazem Qassem, a Hamas spokesperson urged “all fronts to unite and confront the escalation by the arrogant (Israeli) occupation.”

HOLIDAY CLOSURE

The Israeli military said that in light of the security situation, it would extend a closure on the West Bank and Gaza until April 13, when Passover ends.

On Friday, two Israeli sisters from a settlement in the occupied West Bank were killed when their car came under fire by suspected Palestinian gunmen. Hours later, an Italian tourist was killed when a car driven by a man from an Arab city in Israel ploughed into a group in a shoreline park in Tel Aviv.

The funeral of the two sisters, who had dual Israeli and British nationality, is due to be held later on Sunday.

After a year of escalating Israeli-Palestinian violence, tensions are running especially high as Ramadan and Passover coincide, with a focus on the Al-Aqsa compound in Jerusalem’s walled Old City. Clashes there between police and worshippers helped spark a 10-day war Israel-Gaza war in 2021.

As in previous years, the government is expected to ban entry to the compound to non-Muslims for the last 10 days of Ramadan, which is expected to end on April 20 or 21, though far-right Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has called for the ban not to be imposed this year.

The post After Days Of Violence, Jerusalem Prayers End Peacefully appeared first on International Business Times.

Tensions build around Jerusalem shrine after Syria rockets


By Associated Press

Apr 9, 2023

Israeli warplanes and artillery have hit targets in Syria following rare rocket fire from the north-eastern neighbour, as Jewish-Muslim tensions reach a peak at a volatile Jerusalem shrine with simultaneous religious rituals.

Thousands of Jewish worshippers gathered at the city's Western Wall, the holiest place where Jews can pray, for a mass priestly benediction prayer service for the Passover holiday.

At the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, a walled esplanade above the Western Wall, hundreds of Palestinians performed prayers as part of observances during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

Israeli police escort Jewish visitors marking the holiday of Passover to the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, known to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary and to Jews as the Temple Mount, in the Old City of Jerusalem, on Sunday. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean) (AP)

Hundreds of Jews also visited the Al-Aqsa compound under heavy police guard on Sunday, to whistles and religious chants from Palestinians protesting their presence.

Such tours by religious and nationalist Jews have increased in size and frequency over the years, and are viewed with suspicion by many Palestinians who fear that Israel plans one day to take over the site or partition it.

Israeli officials say they have no intention of changing long-standing arrangements that allow Jews to visit, but not pray in the Muslim-administered site.

However, the country is now governed by the most right-wing government in its history, with ultra-nationalists in senior positions.

Tensions have soared in the past week at the flashpoint shrine after an Israeli police raid on the mosque.

On several occasions, Palestinians have barricaded themselves inside the Al-Aqsa Mosque with stones and firecrackers, demanding the right to pray there overnight, something Israel has in the past only allowed during the last 10 days of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

Covered in prayer shawls, Jewish men of the Cohanim Priestly caste participate in a blessing during the holiday of Passover, in front of the Western Wall, the holiest site where Jews can pray, in Jerusalem's Old City. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg) (AP)

Police removed them by force, detaining hundreds and leaving dozens injured.

The violence at the shrine triggered rocket fire by Palestinian militants from the Gaza Strip and southern Lebanon, starting on Wednesday, and Israeli airstrikes targeted both areas.

Late on Saturday and early on Sunday, militants in Syria fired rockets in two salvos toward Israel and the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights.

A Damascus-based Palestinian group loyal to the Syrian government claimed responsibility for the first round of rockets, saying it was retaliating for the Al-Aqsa raids. 

Israeli police escort Jewish visitors marking the holiday the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean) (AP)

In the first salvo, one rocket landed in a field in the Golan Heights. Fragments of another destroyed missile fell into Jordanian territory near the Syrian border, Jordan's military reported.

In the second round, two of the rockets crossed the border into Israel, with one being intercepted and the second landing in an open area, the Israeli military said.

Israel responded with artillery fire into the area in Syria from where the rockets were fired. Later, the military said Israeli fighter jets attacked Syrian army sites, including a compound of Syria's 4th Division and radar and artillery posts.

  Jewish men of the Cohanim Priestly caste participate in a blessing. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg) (AP)
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan discussed the violence in a telephone call with Israeli counterpart Isaac Herzog late Saturday, telling Herzog that Muslims could not remain silent about the "provocations and threats" against the Al-Aqsa Mosque, and said the hostilities that have spread to Gaza and Lebanon should not be allowed to escalate further.

In addition to the cross-border fighting, three people were killed over the weekend in Palestinian attacks in Israel and the occupied West Bank.

The funeral for two British-Israeli sisters, Maia and Rina Dee, who were killed in a shooting was scheduled for Sunday at a cemetery in the Jewish settlement of Kfar Etzion in the occupied West Bank.

'Fantastic' find under future Aldi site a colourful link to Roman times
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An Italian tourist, Alessandro Parini, 35, a lawyer from Rome, had just arrived in the city a few hours earlier with some friends for a brief Easter holiday. He was killed Friday in a suspected car-ramming on Tel Aviv's beachside promenade.

Over 90 Palestinians and have been killed by Israeli fire so far this year, at least half of them affiliated with militant groups, according to a tally by The Associated Press. Palestinian attacks on Israelis have killed 19 people in that time. All but one were civilians.

People gather and lay flowers at the site where Alessandro Parini, an Italian tourist, was killed in a Palestinian attack, in Tel Aviv, Israel, Saturday, April 8, 2023. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty) (AP)

As Easter, Passover and Ramadan near, religious leaders adapt holiday observances during the coronavirus pandemic

Elise Solé, Yahoo Lifestyle•March 31, 2020

As the coronavirus pandemic spreads, religious institutions — and how we celebrate holidays — are changing. (Photo: Getty Images)

Churches, synagogues and mosques are closing to contain the coronavirus global pandemic, and religion is traversing a new virtual world without physicality or roadmaps for prayer and celebration. As such, religious leaders are employing artistic license and bending holy rules while families create new rituals that respect social distancing.

Last week, Pope Francis was depicted praying alone in a haunting photograph captured in Rome’s St. Peter's Square while public celebrations for Holy Week festivities (Palm Sunday, Holy Thursday and Good Friday) will pivot to livestream, per the Vatican website. And “considering the rapidly evolving situation” of the pandemic, a decree called “In time of COVID-19” outlines resources to amend April holidays, including Easter.

Churches are holding “drive-thru” services, and a New Jersey bishop has eased rules for the remainder of Lent (until April 9), permitting the consumption of meat on Fridays, except on Good Friday, “given the difficulties of obtaining some types of food and the many other sacrifices which we are suddenly experiencing given the coronavirus,” according to a tweet from the Diocese of Metuchen.

From the Bishop's Desk:

"I have granted a dispensation from abstaining from meat on Fridays for the rest of Lent, except Good Friday which is universal law. " - Most Rev. James F. Checchio, Bishop of Metuchen pic.twitter.com/Lwr1GBso6n

— Diocese of Metuchen (@diocesemetuchen) March 26, 2020

Meanwhile, bar and bat mitzvahs, large Jewish coming-of-age ceremonies which demand years of vigorous studying and preparation, have been moved online or postponed. And Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has encouraged Jewish, Christian and Muslim citizens to “avoid family visits” during respective April holidays.

In Georgia, St. Anne Catholic Church in Columbus provides virtual-only services on social media (an option since January 2019 to include elderly, homebound or military members), but speaking to empty naves, not friendly faces, got lonely. So last week, leaders taped photographs of congregant faces onto their pews.

“From the altar, there’s now a sea of photos,” Rev. Emanuel Vasconcelos tells Yahoo Lifestyle. “It’s a way to stay united in prayer, not look out into an empty space.”

Designing a fair seating chart for 650 photos was hard, as regulars have their preferred places, but the church did its best. “This has been a challenge for everyone — we’ve never faced anything like this in our lifetime,” he says. When pandemic restrictions are eventually lifted, there may be a ceremonial photo removal.

On March 15, the Clackamas United Church of Christ (UCC) in Milwaukie, Ore. closed for the first time since its inception in 1895. “This is a political, economical and spiritual crises and everyone is anxious,” Pastor Adam Ericksen tells Yahoo Lifestyle. “It brings up a lot of questions about where God is in all this.”

Bible study and prayer meetings via Zoom haven’t been easy for everyone, so Ericksen has personally counseled his 70 communicants over the phone and created a phone tree pairing “buddies” together for spiritual support. There are plans to organize a multi-church online Easter service and possibly a 72-hour “Easter Triduum” from the evening of Holy Thursday to Easter morning with pastors taking shifts to lead continuous prayers.

And the church posted an outdoor sign displaying the phone number for a “senior loneliness line” during isolation. “Nothing will go smoothly but we have to embrace the mess and go with the flow,” says Ericksen, who is planning an at-home Easter egg hunt for his three children.

Rabbi Josh Stanton of the East End Temple in Manhattan has brought his entire synagogue online, including bat-and-bar mitzvah tutoring and Shabbat services. “Judaism is 4,000 years old and records that date back to plagues and quarantines have guided us,” he tells Yahoo Lifestyle. “We’ve had this in our religious discord for generations.”

Ahead of Passover, which falls between April 8 and 16 and observes the freeing of Israelites from slavery in Egypt, Stanton says “we’re trying to host the world’s largest virtual seder that’s open to the world — singing, eating and reflecting together, even if it’s not at the same table. This Passover could be holier than any other time in our lives.”

Families traditionally abstain from or donate leavened bread (which contains yeast) and avoid technology, but Stanton dismisses perfectionism. “What matters is intention and in circumstances like this, creativity.” When food is scarce, he says, there’s little reason to discard bread, and technology is permissible for online seders provided cameras are activated one hour before sundown.

“Why not have a virtual seder with someone in Israel or South America?” says Stanton. “This might forever change Passover.”

For the holy month of Ramadan, this year from April 23 to May 23, Muslims self-reflect and perform good deeds, and pray and fast from dawn to sunset. “This is done in groups, however while living in our comfort zones, we can rely on online services,” Imam Tahir Kukaj, vice president of the Albanian Islamic Cultural Center in Long Island, N.Y. and chaplain of the New York Police Department, tells Yahoo Lifestyle.

At the end of the month, a celebration called Eid al-Fitr breaks the month-long fast. Typically held in mosques or outdoor areas, it’s marked by a feast with lamb, desserts and other dishes. “We have to play by the rules in isolation,” says Kukaj. “This year, how about we celebrate modestly and donate any money toward finding a cure for this virus? Why not invest in science?” says Kukaj, adding that celebrators can “eat whatever is available to you.”

SEE

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=RAMADAN

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=PASSOVER

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2007/04/pagan-origins-of-easter.html

Christian leader in Jerusalem: We'll die in defence of Al-Aqsa Mosque


Senior Christian Priest in Ramallah Father Manuel Musallam

 [Syrian news 1/Facebook]

April 14, 2022 

Christians alongside Muslim Palestinians will die in defence of Al-Aqsa Mosque, and will never hand over its keys to the Israeli occupation, head of the World Popular Organisation for Jerusalem Justice and Peace, Father Manuel Musallam, said yesterday.

Musallam's remarks came after adverts appeared online calling on extremist Jewish groups to storm Al-Aqsa Mosque during the Passover holiday, which begins tomorrow, and sacrifice animals in its courtyards. Financial rewards have been offered to those who are able to carry out a sacrifice.

"We will die strong with our heads up around Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Church of Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem's Old City," he vowed. "We will never hand over the keys of these holy sites at any price."

A Hebrew advert calling on people to join the Passover Sacrifice at Islam's third holiest site Al-Aqsa Mosque and win monetary compensation. It reads:
"You didn't succeed? You were arrested – You won!"

"In light of the Hamas threats and the police objection to let us make the Passover sacrifice in its due time in an approved manner – join the attempts to make the Passover sacrifice and receive a financial reward!"

Musallam stressed that carrying out the alleged Jewish holy sacrifices inside Al-Aqsa Mosque "proves that the Zionists are manoeuvring to occupy the mosque, destroy it and build their alleged temple in its place."

He warned that "remaining silent at this moment wastes our right to defend Al-Aqsa Mosque in the future."

"Al Aqsa Mosque is the seam line between seriousness and unseriousness."

The senior Christian figure in Palestine said that Christians will defend Al-Aqsa Mosque and Muslims will defend the Church of Holy Sepulchre. "All of us belong to the same nation and same culture," he said.

"Al-Aqsa is calling on you and its eyes are weeping," he said, "so do not fail it."

Hamas Leader in Gaza: Be Ready for Great Battle

Sunday, 1 May, 2022 - 07:45

Sinwar (L) with several members of the Qassam Brigades, Hamas' military wing,

 in Gaza on Saturday. (AFP)

Ramallah - Asharq Al-Awsat

The leader of the Hamas movement in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, called on Palestinians Saturday to be ready for the "great battle" against Israel to defend Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem.

"Our people must prepare for a great battle if the occupation does not cease its aggression against the Al-Aqsa Mosque," he said during a meeting with military leaders from several Palestinian factions, in addition to journalists and intellectuals in Gaza.

Displaying a photo of Israeli police raiding Al-Aqsa Mosque, he said, "This photo will not be repeated. Whoever makes the decision to allow this photo to be repeated, has decided to allow the violation of thousands of synagogues all across the world."

He accused Israel of seeking to turn the clashes into Al-Aqsa into a religious war.

The Palestinians do no want such a conflict, but they are up to the challenge if it is imposed on them, he added.

A religious war, such as the one desired by Israel, will not spare anyone, he warned.

He called on the Palestinian factions and all Palestinians to prepare for the "great battle" if the Israelis do not cease their violations at Al-Aqsa.

"The battle will not conclude with the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, but it will only begin if the violations persist," Sinwar said.

However, he called on the world to act to prevent this war.

"Currently, there is an opportunity to prevent this war, but our military wings must still be prepared for it,” he stressed.

Moreover, Sinwar confirmed that Hamas has prepared 1,111 missiles that will be launched in the next confrontation with Israel.

CLUELESS AND TONE DEAF

VP Harris serves wine made in West Bank settlement at Passover seder

Psagot Winery has named a blend after Trump envoy Mike Pompeo, challenged labeling laws; vice president’s aide says choice ‘not an expression of policy’

By JACOB MAGID 

TOI

Vice President Kamala Harris (R) and Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff host a Passover seder in the Vice President's Residence, serving wine from the Psagot settlement winery, on April 16, 2022. 

(Doug Emhoff/Twitter)

US Vice President Kamala Harris and Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff served wine made in a West Bank settlement at their Passover seder on Friday.

The surprising choice in spirits, given the Biden administration’s critical stance toward Israeli settlements, was spotted on the vice president’s seder table in photos posted on Twitter by Harris and Emhoff.

The bottle was from the Psagot Winery, a company based in the West Bank north of Jerusalem that has made headlines in recent years.

The winery challenged a 2016 French court ruling that said goods made in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Golan Heights must be labeled as originating in an “Israeli settlement.” The challenge to the European Court of Justice was unsuccessful.

Psagot released a wine blend named after former US secretary of state Mike Pompeo in 2020 after he repudiated a 1978 State Department legal opinion that said civilian settlements in the West Bank were “inconsistent with international law.”

Pompeo was Washington’s top envoy under former US president Donald Trump, whose administration largely supported the settlement movement, unlike US President Joe Biden’s White House.

Pompeo visited the winery in November 2020, together with Trump’s ambassador to Israel David Friedman.

The winery’s CEO, Yaakov Berg, who hosted Pompeo, said Sunday that the vice president’s seder planners appeared to have chosen a Cabernet Sauvignon that sells for around $40. He quipped to Army Radio that he’d make a wine named for Harris if she votes against a revival of the 2015 P5+1 nuclear deal with Iran.


Then-US ambassador to Israel David Friedman (L) and former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo (2nd L) during a visit to the Psagot Winery in the West Bank, on November 19, 2020. 

(State Department/Twitter)

The Biden administration harshly criticized Israel when it advanced plans for some 3,000 settlement homes last year, calling such steps “completely inconsistent” with efforts to maintain prospects for peace.

But the administration has not heeded calls from progressive groups like J Street to more formally back that stance up by reversing the decision made by Pompeo, or repudiating the Trump peace plan, which envisioned Israel annexing the West Bank settlements.

Israeli winemaker Yaakov Berg holds a bottle of his red blend named after former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo at the Psagot Winery in the Sha’ar Binyamin industrial park near the Psagot settlement in the West Bank, north of Jerusalem, on November 18, 2020. 

(Emmanuel Dunand/AFP)

Some pro-Palestinian voices jeered Harris’s Passover wine choice, including James Zogby, the president of the Arab American Institute.

“Psagot’s vineyards are on stolen Palestinian land. It’s not cool,” Zogby said.

The vast majority of the land on which the winery was established historically was farmed by residents of the adjacent Palestinian village of al-Bireh. It was seized by the IDF in 1979 for what it said were security reasons, though some of the farmers were still able to reach their land. That changed after the Second Intifada when the Psagot settlement established a security fence around the community. It extended well beyond the 140 dunams (34 acres) that the IDF had allocated for the settlement, to 650 dunams (160 acres). The winery founders used that extra land on the outskirts of the town, but inside the security fence, to plant their grapes.

Berg, at the time of Pompeo’s visit, declared: “We are here forever. We have been praying to come back to Israel and specifically to here for 2,000 years… We didn’t conquer. We just came to our homeland.”

In response to the vice president’s use of Psagot wine, former ambassador Friedman cracked, “Next year I would recommend that the Second Family serve the ‘Friedman’ vintage from the Psagot Winery. I may be biased but I think it’s very good.”

Harris’s senior aide Herbie Ziskind said, “The wine served at the Seder was in no way intended to be an expression of policy.”

ToI staff contributed to this story.

Israeli-Palestinian Clashes Erupt in Jerusalem as Holidays Converge

The violence broke out at the Aqsa Mosque compound, known to Jews as the Temple Mount, on the first day of a rare concurrence of Ramadan, Passover and Easter.


Palestinian demonstrators and the Israeli police clashing at the Aqsa Mosque 

compound in Jerusalem on Friday.

Credit...Mahmoud Illean/Associated Press

By Patrick Kingsley and Raja Abdulrahim
April 15, 2022

JERUSALEM — Clashes between Israeli riot police and Palestinians erupted at one of the holiest sites in Jerusalem early on Friday, the first day of a rare convergence of Ramadan, Passover and Easter, culminating weeks of escalating violence in Israel and the occupied West Bank.

The clashes between the Israelis and Palestinians throwing stones lasted for hours at the site, the Aqsa Mosque compound in the Old City, known to Jews as the Temple Mount, as tens of thousands of Muslim worshipers were gathered there for dawn prayers on the second Friday of Ramadan, the holy fasting month.

Many more people were expected to pour into the Old City during the day for the Muslim weekly Friday Prayer and to celebrate Good Friday and the first night of Passover, which begins at sundown.

The Israeli police fired sound grenades and rubber bullets during hours of clashes at the site, which is sacred to both Muslims and Jews. The police expelled many of the worshipers, but some returned afterward. At least 117 Palestinians were injured, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent. The Israeli police said that several officers had also been injured.

The confrontation raised the risk of further escalation following a recent wave of Arab attacks on Israelis and deadly Israeli raids in the occupied West Bank. Tensions and violence around the Aqsa Mosque compound played a central role in the buildup to an 11-day war last May between Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza.

Patrick Kingsley is the Jerusalem bureau chief, covering Israel and the occupied territories. He has reported from more than 40 countries, written two books and previously covered migration and the Middle East for The Guardian. @PatrickKingsley

Raja Abdulrahim is a correspondent in Jerusalem focused on Palestinian affairs. @RajaAbdulrahim

Israeli police, Palestinians clash at Jerusalem holy site

According to cops protestors entered compound, revered by Jews as Temple Mount and by Muslims as Noble Sanctuary, to break up a violent crowd that remained at the end of morning prayers

Palestinian protestors clash with Israeli security forces.
Reuters

Reuters | Jerusalem | Published 15.04.22

At least 152 Palestinians were injured in clashes with Israeli police at Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa mosque compound, the Palestine Red Crescent said, two weeks into the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

Israeli security forces have been on high alert after a series of deadly Arab street attacks throughout the country during the past two weeks, and confrontations at the sacred Jerusalem site carry the risk of sparking a slide back into wider conflict between Israelis and Palestinians.

In a statement, Israeli police said hundreds of Palestinians hurled firecrackers and stones at their forces and toward the nearby Jewish prayer area of the Western Wall in Jerusalem's Old City after Ramadan morning prayers.

Police entered the Al-Aqsa compound to "disperse and push back (the crowd and) enable the rest of the worshippers to leave the place safely", it said, adding that three officers were injured in the clashes.

Reuters video showed officers, some in riot gear, chasing a small number of people after most of the crowd had left.

Israeli police arrested more than 80 Palestinians, Sheikh Omar Al-Kiswani, director of Al-Aqsa Mosque, told Palestine TV.

The Palestinian Foreign Ministry said it "holds Israel fully and directly responsible for this crime and its consequences".

“Immediate intervention by the international community is needed to stop Israeli aggression against Al-Aqsa mosque and prevent things from going out of control,” said Nabil Abu Rudeineh, spokesperson for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas who governs self-ruled areas of the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist group that controls Gaza, said Israel "bears responsibility for the consequences".

The Al-Aqsa compound, which sits atop the Old City plateau and is known to Muslims as al-Haram al-Sharif, or The Noble Sanctuary, and to Jews as Temple Mount, is the most sensitive site in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Tensions this year have been heightened in part by Ramadan coinciding with the Jewish celebration of Passover.

Last year saw nightly clashes between Palestinians and Israeli police during the Muslim fasting month. Threats of Palestinian displacement in East Jerusalem and police raids at Al-Aqsa helped ignite an 11-day Israel-Gaza war that killed more than 250 Palestinians in Gaza and 13 people in Israel.

Since March, Israeli forces have killed 29 Palestinians as in the course of carrying out raids in the West Bank after Palestinian assailants killed 14 Israelis in a string of attacks in Israeli cities.

Al-Aqsa is the third holiest in Islam and is also revered by Jews as the location of two ancient temples.

Israel captured the Old City and other parts of East Jerusalem in the 1967 Middle East war and claims the entire city as its eternal, indivisible capital. Palestinians seek to make East Jerusalem, including its Muslim, Christian and Jewish holy sites, the capital of a future state.

At least 67 Palestinians injured after clashes erupt at Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa mosque

By Euronews with AP • Updated: 15/04/2022 - 

Israeli security forces gather during clashes with Palestinian demonstrators at the Al Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem's Old City - 

 Copyright AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean

Israeli security forces entered the Al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem before dawn on Friday as thousands of Palestinians were gathered for prayers during the holy month of Ramadan.

The resulting clashes wounded at least 67 Palestinians, medical teams on the scene said.

Israel said its forces entered to remove rocks and stones that had been gathered in anticipation of violence.

The clashes come at a particularly sensitive time. Ramadan this year coincides with Passover, a major weeklong Jewish holiday beginning Friday at sundown, and Christian holy week, which culminates on Easter Sunday.

The holidays are expected to bring tens of thousands of faithful into Jerusalem's Old City, home to major sites sacred to all three religions.


Israeli police scuffle with protesters in Sheikh Jarrah

Israeli forces 'kill Palestinian attacker' after manhunt following Tel Aviv shooting

Videos circulating online showed police firing tear gas and stun grenades and Palestinians hurling rocks and fireworks on the sprawling esplanade surrounding the mosque.

Others showed worshippers barricading themselves inside the mosque itself amid what appeared to be clouds of tear gas.

The Palestinian Red Crescent emergency service said it evacuated 67 people to hospitals who had been wounded by rubber-coated bullets or stun grenades or beaten with batons.

The endowment said one of the guards at the site was shot in the eye with a rubber bullet.
Police acted to prevent violence, Israeli authorities say

The Israeli police said three officers were wounded as a result of “massive stone-throwing”, with two evacuated from the scene for treatment.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry said dozens of masked men carrying Palestinian and Hamas flags marched to the compound early Friday and gathered stones.

“Police were forced to enter the grounds to disperse the crowd and remove the stones and rocks, in order to prevent further violence,” it tweeted.

The police said they waited until prayers were over and the crowds started to disperse. In a statement, it said crowds started hurling rocks in the direction of the Western Wall, a nearby Jewish holy site, forcing them to act. They said they did not enter the mosque itself.

Israel's national security minister, Omer Barlev, who oversees the police force, said Israel had “no interest” in violence at the holy site but that police were forced to confront “violent elements” that confronted them with stones and metal bars.

He said Israel was committed to freedom of worship for Jews and Muslims alike. Police said Friday's noon prayers at the mosque — when tens of thousands of people were expected — would take place as usual.

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Palestinians view any large deployment of police at Al-Aqsa as a major provocation.

The holy site, which is sacred to Jews and Muslims, has often been the epicentre of Israeli-Palestinian unrest, and tensions were already heightened amid a recent wave of violence.

Clashes at the site last year sparked an 11-day war with Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip.

Israel captured east Jerusalem, home to Al-Aqsa and other major holy sites, in the 1967 war and annexed it in a move not recognized internationally.

Palestinians want the eastern part of the city to be the capital of a future independent state including the West Bank and Gaza, which Israel also captured during the war nearly 55 years ago.

The mosque is the third holiest site in Islam. It is built on a hilltop in Jerusalem's Old City that is the most sacred site for Jews, who refer to it as the Temple Mount because it was the site of the Jewish temples in antiquity.

It has been a major flashpoint for Israeli-Palestinian violence for decades and was the epicentre of the 2000-2005 Palestinian intifada, or uprising.
Tensions keep soaring

Tensions have become increasingly heightened in recent weeks following a series of attacks by Palestinians that killed 14 people inside Israel.

Israel has carried out a wave of arrests and military operations across the occupied West Bank, setting off clashes with Palestinians.

The Palestinian Health Ministry said a 17-year-old died early Friday from wounds suffered during clashes with Israeli forces in Jenin, in the occupied West Bank, the day before.

At least 25 Palestinians have been killed in the recent wave of violence, according to an Associated Press count, many of whom had carried out attacks or were involved in the clashes, but also an unarmed woman and a lawyer who appears to have been killed by mistake.

Weeks of protests and clashes in Jerusalem during Ramadan last year eventually ignited an 11-day war with the Islamic militant group Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip.

Rocket barrage fired at Israel after Hamas commanders killed

Israel strikes Hamas targets as Gaza conflict continues

Israel had lifted restrictions and taken other steps to try and calm tensions ahead of Ramadan, but the attacks and the military raids have brought about another cycle of unrest.

Hamas condemned what it said were “brutal attacks" on worshippers at Al-Aqsa by Israeli forces, saying Israel would bear "all the consequences." It called on all Palestinians to “stand by our people in Jerusalem.”

Earlier this week, Hamas and other militant groups in Gaza had called on Palestinians to camp out at the Al-Aqsa mosque over the weekend. Palestinians have long feared that Israel plans to take over the site or partition it.

Israeli authorities say they are committed to maintaining the status quo, but in recent years nationalist and religious Jews have visited the site in large numbers with police escorts.

In pictures: Israeli forces storm al-Aqsa Mosque in dawn raid


Israeli forces have injured scores of Palestinian worshippers inside al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied East Jerusalem

MEE and agencies
15 April 2022 

Israeli security forces entered the al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied East Jerusalem before dawn on Friday as thousands of Palestinians were gathered for prayers during the holy month of Ramadan (Reuters)



Footage showed worshippers attempting to barricade themselves inside the mosque as Israeli forces stormed the area (Reuters)



Scores of people were injured as Israeli security officers fired rubber-coated steel bullets, teargas and stun grenades inside the courtyards and prayer halls of the mosque (AFP)



Hamas, which governs the Gaza Strip, condemned the raid and said Israel "bears responsibility for the consequences" (AFP)



Medics, journalists, mosque volunteers and women were targeted, according to Palestinian media reports (AFP)



The raid came ahead of the Jewish holiday of Passover, set to start on Friday and last until 23 April, during which far-right Israeli settlers have vowed to raid al-Aqsa Mosque and slaughter animals inside its courtyard as a religious sacrifice (Reuters)

More than 100 hurt in Jerusalem clashes as religious festivals overlap


By AFP
Published April 15, 2022
Guillaume Lavallee

More than 100 people were wounded Friday in clashes between Palestinian demonstrators and Israeli police at Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa mosque compound, in fresh violence as Jewish and Christian festivals overlap with Ramadan.

Israeli police said that before dawn “dozens of masked men” marched into Al-Aqsa chanting and setting off fireworks before crowds hurled stones towards the Western Wall — considered the holiest site where Jews can pray.

A Palestinian Red Crescent official said 117 people were rushed to hospitals and “dozens of other injuries” were treated at the scene. Israeli police said three officers were hurt.

The latest clashes come after three tense weeks of deadly violence in Israel and the occupied West Bank, and as the Jewish festival of Passover and Christian Easter overlap with the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

Al-Aqsa is Islam’s third-holiest site. Jews refer to it as the Temple Mount, referencing two temples said to have stood there in antiquity.

Witnesses said Palestinian protesters threw stones at Israeli security forces, who fired rubber-coated bullets and sound grenades towards some of them.

An AFP photographer said more than 100 Palestinians were seen hurling projectiles towards the Israeli security forces.

– ‘Violent riot’ –

Last year during the Muslim month of fasting, clashes that flared in Jerusalem, including between Israeli forces and Palestinians visiting Al-Aqsa, led to 11 days of devastating conflict between Israel and the Gaza Strip’s Islamist rulers Hamas.

The mosque compound is at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, falling within Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem.

Israeli police said that on Friday, dozens of masked men “marched into Al-Aqsa mosque at 04:00… chanting inciting messages and setting off fireworks” and collecting “stones, wooden planks and large objects, which were then used in a violent riot”.

“Despite these actions, police forces waited until the prayer was over,” a statement said.

“Crowds then began to hurl rocks in the direction of the Western Wall… and as the violence surged, police were forced to enter the grounds surrounding the Mosque,” it said, adding police “did not enter the mosque.”

The violence subsided later in the morning, AFP correspondents said.

“We have no interest in the Temple Mount becoming a centre of violence, which will harm both the Muslim worshippers there and the Jewish worshippers at the Western Wall,” Israeli Public Security Minister Omer Bar-Lev said on Twitter.

Before Ramadan began this month, Israel and Jordan stepped up talks in an effort to avoid a repeat of last year’s violence.

Jordan serves as custodian of the mosque compound, while Israel controls access.

– Spiralling violence –

Israel has poured additional forces into the West Bank and is reinforcing its wall and fence barrier with the occupied territory after four deadly attacks in the Jewish state that have mostly killed civilians in the past three weeks.

A total of 14 people have been killed in the attacks since March 22, including a shooting spree in Bnei Brak, an Orthodox Jewish city in greater Tel Aviv, carried out by a Palestinian attacker from Jenin.

Twenty-one Palestinians have been killed in that time, including assailants who targeted Israelis, according to an AFP tally.

On Thursday Israel announced it would block crossings from the West Bank and Gaza Strip into Israel from Friday afternoon through Saturday, the first two nights of the week-long Passover festival, and potentially keep the crossings closed for the rest of the holiday.

Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has given Israeli forces a free hand to “defeat terror” in the territory which Israel has occupied since the 1967 Six-Day War, warning that there would “not be limits” for the campaign.

Some of the attacks in Israel were carried out by Arab citizens of Israel linked to or inspired by the Islamic State group, others by Palestinians, and cheered by militant groups including Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

Three Palestinians died Thursday as Israeli forces launched fresh raids into the West Bank flashpoint district of Jenin, a week after the Bnei Brak attack.