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Newsletter : 0fax0329.txt
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>JN March 29, 2000, Vol. 8, No. 59
Possible Murder in Beersheva
By IsraelWire
The body of a 35-year-old man was discovered on Friday in his Beersheva apartment. Police have indicated they have not ruled out that the death was a homicide. Four friends of the deceased found their friend intoxicated and bleeding, explaining they decided to let him sleep it off. When they returned later in the afternoon, they discovered he was dead. They told police he was injured in a brawl. Police have arrested the persons involved and an investigation is underway.
Magen David Adom Joins Red Cross
By IsraelWire
The International Red Cross has informed Israel that it will admit Israel into the organization following years of a boycott.
IRC President Dr. Bernadine Healy, of Columbus, Ohio, in her appeal to admit Israel last year pointed out that the Red Cross is pledged to universality and is composed of 176 member societies from every corner of the earth, with one exception: Israel. Israel's Magen David Adom.
The excuse is the Magen David Adom's symbol: not a red cross or (as do Muslim societies) a red crescent, but a red Shield (or Star) of David. To admit the Israeli society, says the federation (and its associate body, the International Committee of the Red Cross), would lead to a proliferation of other symbols.
It is noteworthy to point out that the Red Cross was not intended at its founding to be a religious symbol at all. It was drawn from the Swiss flag as a symbol of neutrality and as homage to its Swiss founders.
Israel-Christian Exhibit
By Susan Sappir (VOA-Jerusalem)
An exhibit about Christianity at the Israel Museum signals a new willingness of Jews and Christians to get to know each other and learn about each other's faith.
The Holy Land pilgrimage by Pope John Paul II left many Israelis
with the feeling that something important has changed in relations
between Jews and Christians. In the past, fears of anti-Semitism,
as well as Arab territorial claims, made Israeli Jews defensive
about their country's Christian and Muslim history. But today,
there is a new openness.
A new exhibit at the Israel Museum about early Christianity, in
honor of the Millennium, highlights Israel's Christian heritage.
The exhibit displays more than 300 archeological artifacts found in
Israel. Museum director James Snyder says the message is that this
country has more than one story.
"Having observed as all of you did the Pope's visit in these last several days, clearly one of the challenges of that visit was the notion of recognizing that this is a country which is also a holy place with respect to the development of three religions. We are a museum. We are about artifacts and we are about objects. What we are trying to say is that these objects, the same objects, have a connection to the concurrent development of each of these faiths, and particularly with respect to this exhibition, not the museum's collection generally, Christianity and Judaism."
While all the objects on display originated in Israel, some are on loan from collections outside the country, including the British Museum and Vatican collections. The Israel Museum curators reconstructed what life was like in biblical times. A display of weights and coins of the time illustrate the tools and currency the moneychangers that operated around the Temple may have used.
Museum curator Yael Ashkenazi says a display of large stone jars illustrates the first miracle performed by Jesus -- turning water into wine at the wedding in the Galilean village of Cana.
"These are stone vessels of the second temple period of the 1st century AD that were found in excavations in Jerusalem, in many excavations, and a few of them were already shown. But we show them here in connection with the miracle at the wedding at Cana because there it is said that there were standing six water vessels made of stone that the Jews used for purification...
"Now the only stone vessels we know of from that period are these ones. So although these are from excavations in Jerusalem, we put together six of them in order to tell the story to people who don't know about the first miracle that is told about Jesus."
Another part of the exhibit relates more directly to the life and death of Jesus -- a burial ossuary (burial urn) found in Jerusalem bears the name Caiaphas, the high priest in Jesus' day, and another inscription bears the name Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of Judea at the time.
Museum Director Snyder says he hopes the exhibition will be of interest and educational value both to Christian visitors and to the Israeli public. "We felt very strongly that this would be a moment in a country that is very involved in the archeology of ancient Israel, of the ancient Holy Land, for us to look at the archeology of the history of Christianity."
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