Long
identified as part of the country’s minority Arab population,
Israel’s Christian community has recently begun asserting its own unique
identity—one that is deeply tied to the Jewish State of Israel. Meet the
Arameans. When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu strode into a banquet
hall in the northern Galilee town of Upper Nazareth on a mid-December evening
in 2014, approximately 1,000 people rose to their feet and gave Netanyahu a
standing ovation. Was this typical election-year enthusiasm? It was enthusiastic
for sure. But it was hardly typical. The crowd consisted of Arabic-speaking
Christians who insist that they are not Arabs. Instead, they consider
themselves “Arameans,” and the event, hosted by the Forum for Christian
Enlistment in the Israel Defense Forces, was a Christmastime coming-out party
for a community that is celebrating a recent Israeli decision to legally recognize their old-new
identity. Read complete article at -- http://www.thetower.org/article/christians-in-the-holy-land-dont-call-us-arabs/
The witnesses, laying their coats at the feet of Saul, were the men that would cast the first stones at Stephen in Acts 7. Why did they all lay their coats at Saul’s feet? The Talmud contains a very interesting account of the act of stoning that may provide the answer. “When the trial was over, they take him [the condemned person] out to be stoned. The place of stoning was at a distance from the court, as it is said, ‘Take out the one who has cursed.’ [i] A man stands at the entrance of the court; in his hand is a signaling flag [Hebrew sudarin = sudar , ‘scarf, sweater’]. A horseman was stationed far away but within sight of him. If one [of the judges] says, ‘I have something [more] to say in his favor,’ he [the signaler] waves the sudarin , and the horseman runs and stops them [from stoning him]. Even if [the condemned person] himself says, ‘I have something to say in my favor,’ they bring him back, even four of five times, only provided that there is some substance to...
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