Dai: Looking for Trebitsch desperately

Did you see the Dalai Lama recently, I mean in Israel? I am not sure that all these People magazines have given some updates about any arrival of His Holiness in HaAretz? The Knesset is definitely right to courageously try to launch the debate about the Armenian mass murder or genocide that also concerns other nations and religious Christian denominations as the Syrian Orthodox, the Nestorians/Assyrians and some Greeks). With regards to the Armenians, it is a normal question at the eve of a new decade anniversary of the State of the Jews. The Armenian Church and people have many points in common in a tragic history. Their permanence is a quest for all the nations and it would really be beautiful for Israel to finally recognize the singularity of the Armenian extermination. It would also allow to giving a push to the numerous studies that are on hold about the Oriental Churches, located on the Persian side of the deployment of Christian faith along with Jewish caravans.

Lashon/lush'n: tongues of fire

On this January 7th, 2008, the Eastern Orthodox Church and all Oriental Churches mainly located on an axis that starts in Caucasus (Armenia, Georgia) to slide down through Ancient Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Iran Israel, Palestinian Territories, Jordan, till Egypt and Ethiopia celebrate the Nativity or birth of Jesus of Nazareth. I refer to the region because I live in Jerusalem and in the State of Israel. Other Christians follow this old style or Julian calendar that shows a difference of 13 days. On January 7th, the date corresponded to December 25th, for instance, in the pre-Revolutionary Russian Empire. Until now, the Orthodox Church of Jerusalem, Russian Church and some other Churches only admit this calendar. The Western Churches celebrate the Theophany, i.e. the revelation of Jesus at the Jordan River. 

In a recent post, I wrote in advance about the 150th anniversary of the birth of Eliezer ben Yehuda, Eliezer Perlman in Luzhky on the 21st of Tevet 5618 according to the Jewish calendar. The man was a huge prophet, with an innate sense of the meaning of the Jewish family and school teaching. It makes him a dominant personality with regards to all the problems encountered at the present by Israeli society. He was born, as most of the Jewish Israel-envisioning State, in the Russian Empire and, though it was quite difficult, he could get to the Russian gymnasium-high school. From the very beginning, the Jewish State revival in Eretz Israel is rooted in the Russian and Slavic weltanschauung (miropriyatie).  

Herayion: a time of birthing

In the night from 24th to 25th of December 2006, the Western Churches, i.e. the Roman Catholic, Protestant, Anglican (Episcopalian in Israel - more Lutheran in the Palestinian Territories) most Christian congregations will celebrate the “Nativity of Jesus”: Christ... who took flesh and became a man (Nicaene Creed). The Eastern Orthodox Church of Jerusalem (the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem historically assures the spiritual assistance to all Christian Orthodox believers living in present-day Israel, Territories under Palestinian Authority, Jordan), the Russian, Serbian, Georgian and Romanian Orthodox Churches together with the ancient Orthodox Syrian-Orthodox, Coptic and Ethiopian Churches will celebrate the Feast of the Nativity on January 6th to 7th, 2007. For various reasons, the ancient Apostolic Armenian Church is the only denomination to honor the feast on January 18-19, celebrating both the Nativity and the Baptism of Jesus (on January 16th in Armenia). The Greek-Catholics who follow the same rites as the Eastern-Orthodox but recognize the Pope of Rome - as also the Maronites (originally from Lebanon), Chaldeans (from Iraq), Syrian and Armenian Catholics will mark Christmas with the Roman Catholic Church.