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PBI News Religious American Jews are actively supporting a demographic trend that threatens the fabric of American Jewish life: the unchecked growth of Jewish fundamentalism. Known as ultra -Orthodox Jews, "fervently Orthodox" Jews, Haredim or black hats, they will soon become the majority of affiliated Jews in the metropolitan New York area, and the religious majority in Israel. Jewish fundamentalism arose in response to modernity, and it radically changed Jewish values. — Jewish Daily Forward, 5/27/2013The mass exodus of millions of Christians from one part of the Islamic world to another as the result of persecution by Muslims has reached epidemic proportions, says a Middle East and Islam expert. In fact, Christians may completely disappear from Iraq, Afghanistan, and Egypt, warns the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. "This matter of Muslim persecution of Christians is a humanitarian crisis at this point," said Raymond Ibrahim in a recent interview with Robert Spencer, director of Jihad Watch. Ibrahim is the author of the recently released book, Crucified Again: Exposing Islam’s New War on Christians. — Christian Post, 5/9/2013An unprecedented run on membership over the past few years has drained the finances of the Finnish Lutheran Evangelical church. The Church has had to give up 300 properties annually across the country due to what church financial planner Pasi Perander says is a financial crunch the likes of which it has never before experienced." The weakening of tax incomes (money from the state) and the growth in costs associated with personnel as well as property maintenance means that we must either increase the church tax or sell our properties." A church official said that last year there were 41,000 resignations from the church. — YLE.fi, 6/16/2013Italian scholar Mauro Perani recently discovered what he believes to be the oldest complete Torah scroll. The recently -dated Sefer Torah — a handwritten Torah scroll containing the full texts of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy-was written between 1155 and 1225 CE. The monumental value of the sheepskin document went unnoticed for over a century as it was mistakenly cataloged in the University of Bologna Library as a 17th-century Sefer Torah. While compiling a catalog of Heb-rew manuscripts held at the library, Perani recognized that the script on the nearly 120-foot-long scroll was significantly older than its catalog date and subsequent carbon-14 tests confirmed the 12the-century date. — Bible History Daily, 5/31/2013Gains in Asia and Africa are making up for losses in Europe among the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics, according to Vatican statistics signaling a shift of the church’s center of gravity toward the Global South that was heralded by the election of the first Latin American pope. According to Vatican data, the Catholic population worldwide surpassed 1.2 billion in 2011. Catholic growth in Africa and Asia was almost double the regions’ population growth. Data published in the 2013 Statistical Yearbook of the Church also show that while the number of priests in the Americas and in Europe is declining compared to the overall Catholic population, those losses were offset by increasing ranks of permanent deacons. — Huffington Post, 5/13/2013One of the largest Presbyterian Church congregations in the United States is presently weighing the possibility of leaving the denomination due to theological differences. First Presbyterian Church of Houston, founded in the early nineteenth century and with an estimated 3,600 members, takes issue with the apparent drifting of the Church away from the authority of Scripture and the nature and work of Jesus Christ, and the historical mission of evangelism and church planting. — The Christian Post, 5/23/2013Pope Francis and the new head of the world’s Anglicans acknowledged deep differences over issues but pledged to seek unity when they met for the first time since both took office in March. Welcoming Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby to the Vatican, Francis called for Christians to work together to protect the "foundations of society" such as respect for human life and the institution of the family built on marriage. In 2009, Pope Benedict decreed that Anglicans who feel their Church had become too liberal could find a home in Catholicism in a parallel hierarchy that allows them to keep some of their traditions, such as parts of the Anglican liturgy and the Anglican Book of Common Prayer. — Reuters, 6/14/2013 A new national study shows that, while Canada remains overwhelmingly Christian, Canadians are turning their backs on organized religion in ever greater numbers. Results from the 2011 National Household Survey show that only two -thirds of Canadians, some 22 million people, said they were affiliated with a Christian denomination. At 12.7 million, Roman Catholics were the largest single Christian group, representing 38 percent of Canadians. — Huffington Post, 5/15/2013A Philadelphia judge has ordered that a couple who believe in faith healing over medicine be held without bail on third -degree murder charges in the April death of their 8-month-old son. Herbert and Catherine Schaible (SHY’-bul) are charged in the death of their baby, Brandon. They’d been convicted of involuntary manslaughter after another child, 2-year-old Kent, died in 2009. — AP, 5/24/2013Social The Hubble Space Telescope has given astronomers their clearest view yet of Comet ISON, which experts believe could light up the sky in a breathtaking display later this year. The image of Comet C/2012 S1 (ISON) was photographed on April 10, with the comet slightly closer than Jupiter’s orbit 386 million miles from the Sun, and 394 million miles from Earth. Experts believe it will get dramatically brighter as it swings around the sun in late November, with some claiming the comet could shine brighter than Venus or even the full moon. — Daily Mail, 4/24/2013 A Swiss-made Solar Impulse plane made a solar-powered trip across America. Andre Borschberg, Solar Impulse’s co-founder and CEO, piloted the solar-powered plane. Solar Impulse is designed to demonstrate a host of clean-energy technologies, ranging from lightweight carbon composites to the 12,000-solar-cell system that powers the plane. The airplane is as light as a typical passenger car, but its wingspan matches the width of a jumbo jet. — MSNBC, 5/22/2013 After 2000 years, a long-lost secret behind the creation of one of the world’s most durable man-made creations ever-Roman concrete has finally been discovered. Over the past decade, researchers from Italy and the US analyzed 11 harbors in the Mediterranean basin where, in many cases, 2000-year-old breakwaters constructed out of Roman concrete stand perfectly intact despite constant pounding by the sea. They extracted from the floor of Italy’s Pozzuoili Bay, in the northern tip of the Bay of Naples, a sample of concrete breakwater that dates back to 37 BC. Their analysis reveals the lost recipe of Roman concrete. "The Romans made concrete by mixing lime and volcanic rock. For underwater structures, lime and volcanic ash were mixed to form mortar, and this mortar and volcanic tuff were packed into wooden forms. The seawater instantly triggered a hot chemical reaction. The Portland cement formula crucially lacks the lime and volcanic ash mixture. — Bloomberg Business Week, 6/14/2013 Political The Muslim Brotherhood is the most powerful group in Syria’s exiled political opposition network. It is also emerging as a significant presence in rebel-held territory in northern Syria, where it is rebuilding its grassroots movement after thirty years in exile. — Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 5/5/2013 Egypt is bracing for what organizers promise will be massive protests by liberal and secular Egyptians who demand Morsi’s ouster after a year in office. But Egypt’s first democratically elected leader also faces growing disenchantment from an unexpected quarter: the Islamists who voted for him. While the Muslim Brotherhood loyalist appears to retain support within the organization, Morsi’s backing among harder-line Islamists known as Salafists has weakened considerably. The president, they say, has failed in his promise to move the country toward Islamic law. — Washington Post, 6/17/2013 Al-Qaida’s Iraq arm is gathering strength in the restive northern city of Mosul, ramping up its fundraising through gangland-style shakedowns and feeding off anti-government anger as it increasingly carries out attacks with impunity, according to residents and officials. It is a disturbing development for Iraq’s third-largest city, one of the country’s main gateways to Syria, as al-Qaida in Iraq makes a push to establish itself as a dominant force among the rebels fighting to topple the Syrian regime. Al-Qaida’s rise is particularly worrying because it is thought to be behind the bulk of the bombings across Iraq and because it is trying to assert itself as a player in neighboring Syria’s civil war. — AP, 6/20/2013 History is being made at the Louvre Museum in Paris. For the first time, an official Israeli exhibition will be displayed in the world’s most visited museum. The spectacular Lod mosaic that was uncovered in an archaeological excavation by the Israel Antiquities Authority will be on display in the Cour du Sphinx (Sphinx Courtyard) in the Roman wing of the museum. So far, the mosaic has been shown at five museums in the United States, foremost among them a successful presentation held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and approximately 700,000 visitors have attended the exhibitions in America. — AA Press, 5/22/2013 The slaying of a British soldier in southeast London cast a spotlight on radical preachers that influenced Michael Adebolajo, the attacker seen in videos with bloody hands holding a butcher knife. It also raised questions about the reach of the terrorist group al-Shabab, after a British government official said one of the two men tried to go to Somalia to train or fight with the group. — AP, 5/24/2013 Many hundreds of religious communities across Russia were among non-governmental organizations (NGOs) inspected by state officials this Spring, in a sweep apparently seeking to uncover foreign backing for political opposition initiatives. It "wasn’t simply the initiative of the Prosecutor," Konstantin Andreyev, a Moscow-based lawyer specializing in the rights of religious organizations, explained to Forum 18 News Service on 16 May. "There’s a political subtext." — Forum 18 News Service, 5/22/2013 Financial China’s private debt soared to 168 percent of gross domestic product in the third quarter of last year, from 119 percent four years previously, according to Citigroup Inc. That jump is bigger than those of the U.S. and euro area in their pre-crisis years. The country also faces the potential for non-performing loans after lending a record 17.5 trillion Yuan in 2009-10. — Bloomberg, 6/21/2013 The top 1 percent of families in the U.S. doubled their share of national income between 1979 and 2011: their take went from 10 percent to 20 percent of the whole. — Washington Post, 6/16/2013 Colombian armed groups are reaping profits from illegal gold mining that are five times greater than returns from cocaine, according to Colonel Hector Paez, acting director of the country’s rural police division. Cocaine typically takes six months to produce and requires considerable knowledge, while an illegal mining operation in the Colombian jungle can extract two kilograms of gold a week. Gold, which slumped below $1,300 an ounce for the first time since September 2010, has become Colombia’s biggest export after oil and coal. The precious metal is also relatively easy to legalize while cocaine remains banned. — Bloomberg, 6/21/2013 Electric car maker Tesla Motors has promised to boost the number of fast charging stations in the U.S. and Canada to make cross country travel by electric car possible in the next year. The company will soon triple the number of charging stations it runs from the current eight, and the number will go to around 100 in the coming year, putting stations within reach of almost the entire populations of both countries. The pace of construction is about twice as fast as the company had previously announced. — Daily Mail, 6/1/2013 Waze, founded in 2009, boasts almost 50 million users. Unlike a dashboard-mounted GPS, which costs at least [US] $150 in Israel, Waze is completely free for download to a Smart phone. Google, Inc. will acquire the company for [US] $1.3 billion. Google already has a swanky office in Tel Aviv. Some Internet analysts say the deal will give the Israeli high-tech industry a boost. — The Media Line, 6/10/2013 Israel One in five Israelis and one in three Israeli children live in poverty according to a report published by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), which placed Israel first place in poverty rate among developed nations. The alarming findings show Israel’s poverty rate standing at 21% of the entire population, in comparison to only 13.8% in 1995. — Ynet News, 5/15/2013In a rare example of cooperation among Mideast states-in-conflict, a joint project between Jordan, Israel and the Palestinians to save the Dead Sea is continuing. The project is a plan to dig a canal linking the Red Sea to the Dead Sea, providing potable water to the three nation-partners. The Dead Sea, whose level has been sinking significantly for years and is feared to be nearing a critical stage, would also benefit from the project. Red Sea water from a Jordanian desalination plant would be channeled to the benefit of Israel’s southern desert region, the salt being channeled to the Dead Sea. Israel, in turn, would send water from its primary reservoir, the Sea of Galilee, for Jordanian and Palestinian use. — Media Line, 4/25/2013 Israeli internist Dr. Uri Yoel, 43, demonstrated that dogs can differente between the scent of cancer cells and non-cancerous cells. "Our research proves that dogs can smell cancer cells in vitro [in lab cultures], and that different types of cancer share the same smell print," says Yoel, who practices at Soroka Medical Center in Beersheva and teaches at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev’s Faculty of Health Sciences. It was known that dogs can detect cancer with their noses. But Yoel wanted to find out whether the dogs are actually smelling cancer cells or an odor from the body’s physiological reaction to them. He tested the dogs’ ability to sniff out lung and skin cancer cells, which they had not been trained to detect. Significantly, the canines got it right every time. — Israel21c.org, 5/28/2013 The Church of Scotland will reword a controversial report that said "scripture" provides no basis for Jewish claims to Israel. According to a statement by the church, a 10-page report, entitled "The Inheritance of Abraham" published online, has been taken down from the Church of Scotland’s website until it is rewritten. A message posted on the church’s website said that following talks with Jewish leaders, the church has agreed to change the report by adding "a new introduction to set the context for the report and give clarity about some of the language used." The statement, co-signed by Board of Deputies of British Jews and three other Jewish groups, also said the church "needs to be explicit "about its recognition of Israel’s right to exist. — Haaretz, 5/12/2013 About half of all people at risk of death from heart attacks could gain the chance to live, once Israeli entrepreneur Leon Eisen’s new Oxitone device goes to market in about 18 months. Using two optical sensors, and another special high-tech tool, he’s developed the world’s first "watch" that can just about tell when your time may be up. It’s no joke: Oxitone was developed to cheat fate. Half of all people who die from cardiac or pulmonary arrest would be alive if someone had been there to get them to the hospital in time. Oxitone is made to be worn on the wrist to provide a heads-up for someone to get medical assistance on their own, before it’s too late. — Israel21c, 5/22/2013 The Al-Aqsa Mos-que has sustained serious earthquake damage over the years due to its construction on fill dirt from Herod’s first century Temple Mount expansion. As a result, the Al-Aqsa Mosque has been rebuilt and renovated several times since its original construction. R.W. Hamilton’s 1949 publication on the dismantling of the Al-Aqsa Mosque already noted that many beams showed signs of secondary use. Recent carbon-14 tests on the beams confirm their antiquity. Some predate Herod’s Temple Mount: One beam dates to the ninth century BCE. — the First Temple period! — Biblical Archaeology Review, May/June, 2013
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