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Newsletter : 9fax0219.txt
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>PD
>Israel Faxx
>JN Feb. 19, 1999, Vol. 7, No. 35
Worshipers Help Out
Israel Faxx Staff Report
Bags full of ten-agorot coins (worth 2.5 cents each) totaling
30,000 shekels will be brought to the offices of the Jerusalem
Religious Council. The money was collected during a Sunday
prayer-rally to pay the fine levied by the Supreme Court on Council
head Rabbi Yitzchak Ralbag. He was fined for not adhering to the
orders to convene the Religious Council with the participation of
Reform members.
Police Establish Millenium Task Force
By IsraelWire
Upwards of three million foreign pilgrims are expected to flock to the Holy Land for the coming millennium, the vast majority of them mainstream Christians marking the 2,000th anniversary of the birth of Jesus.
A minority, however, will arrive convinced that the end of the
world is in sight and eager for "front row seats" at the Second
Coming on the Mount of Olives. The prospect that zealots with
apocalyptic visions might use violence to try to hasten the final
showdown has galvanized Israel's security services.
Mindful of the charged religious atmosphere in a city holy to
Christians, Muslims and Jews, Israel has set up a special task
force embracing members of the General Security Service
(GSS/Shin-Bet) and Mossad intelligence services to tackle any acts
of fanaticism.
Police indicate they are taking measures to prevent any attacks
against Islamic targets on the Temple Mount, explaining that
intelligence reports indicate that "fanatic Jewish elements" will
attempt to strike out against the Al Aksa Mosque to clear the way
for the building of the Third Temple.
"We will take the most severe security measures ever taken in the
State of Israel in the past 50 years to ensure that nothing we
don't want to have happen occurs," Jerusalem Mayor Ehud Olmert told
reporters last month. "There will be an iron fist against any crazy
cults that want to put the Middle East in flames just because of
their ideas."
In January, Israeli police traced 14 members of an American
doomsday cult to two rented properties near Jerusalem and swiftly
deported them on the grounds that they were plotting violence and
mass suicide to mark the millennium.
The 14, six of them children, were part of a larger group of followers of the Concerned Christians cult who disappeared from Denver, several months previously.
Their leader, Monte Kim Miller, has prophesied that he will die in
Jerusalem in 1999 and be resurrected three days later. Miller
remains at large.
The Jerusalem Syndrome
By IsraelWire
The Jerusalem weekly Kol Ha'ir, recently quoted police sources as
saying Israel had identified some 400 foreign cult members who
posed a danger, of whom a few dozen were already in the country.
Georgia, a sprightly 75-year-old from Colorado, does not plan to be
around when they show up. "It's like suicide," said Georgia,
counseling the rush of pilgrims expected for the millennium to be
anywhere but Jerusalem in 2000.
Georgia left Jerusalem in early February after a three-month stay
near the Old City's Damascus Gate proclaiming the good news that
the world would not end until 2020. The bad news is that the next
two decades are going to be hell.
"There's going to be an earthquake. There's going to be war and the
Prophet Zecharia says that two thirds of the people right here will
be cut off. This is a war zone," she said, standing by Damascus
Gate.
"The first thing I noticed of the signs is the UFOs. The UFOs are
really a sign of the end time," said Georgia, referring to
Unidentified Flying Objects she sees in the sky.
Yair Bar-El, the Jerusalem district psychiatrist, is bracing for
business as the millennium approaches. In 1982, Bar-El identified
a disorder that afflicts a minority of pilgrims to the Holy City
and called it the Jerusalem Syndrome.
Some sufferers arrive mentally disturbed and convinced they are
biblical figures, others come with apocalyptic convictions. A third
type turns up perfectly sane yet, overwhelmed by the city's
religious magnetism, somehow feels compelled to don white robes --
usually their hotel bed sheets -- and preach sermons.
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