#holy sites

[th3-0bjectivist]

Gryphon's Perch

Acrylic paint on canvas (Click here for lore)

The Remnants of Atma’Zae: The New and Once-Great Settlements of The World, After the Nemesis. Art Entry # 4 of the series.

Click here for Entry # 1: God’s Port, Entry # 2: Ruins of Qraeto and Entry # 3: Esmer-Alda

[nickysfacts]

The Dome of the Rock is one of the most beautiful and historically important landmarks in Palestine!

🇵🇸💛🇵🇸

🇵🇸💙🇵🇸

[athena5898]

LEBANON (RNN) — IOF warplanes carried out a number of airstrikes on Beirut, targeting the Laylaki, Choueifat, and Burj Al-Barajneh areas (Media 1-4). Additional strikes in Lebanon targeted a mosque in Yaroun in the south (Media 5), three drone strikea near Debbine in Marjeyoun which wounded a security officer, and a strike on Khiam. Strikes were also recorded in Baraachit (twice), Aitaroun, Beit Yahoun, Tebnine (three times), Shaqra (twice), Aadchit, and Jibbene, as well as the outskirts of Baalbek.

[vox-anglosphere]

Reflections of India's most famous building, bathed in evening light.

[agentfascinateur]

What's one more? The most "moral" one...

[eretzyisrael]

No Jews attended opening of renovated Ben Ezra synagogue

A  restoration project undertaken in 2022 by the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities culminated in a grand opening with Egyptian dignitaries of Cairo’s Ben Ezra Synagogue – site of the Cairo Geniza –   at the end of August 2023. There were no Jews in attendance for the opening: Egypt is more interested in encouraging tourism than in restoring cultural ties with the Egyptian-Jewish diaspora. Meanwhile it bans access to historical records and has aggressively seized a Geniza discovered in 2022. Must-read by Kate Fitz Gibbon in Cultural Property News (with thanks: Boruch)

Interior of the Ben Ezra synagogue: the Cairo Geniza was discovered in the attic

The Ben Ezra Synagogue is located in Fustat, in Old Cairo. Originally founded in the 9th century CE, it is considered the oldest synagogue in Cairo. The current building dates mostly to the 1890s; the synagogue has been partially destroyed and rebuilt several times over the centuries. The synagogue has been restored more than once and has served as a tourist destination in Cairo for years. Visits are expected to increase after the current rehabilitation of the synagogue.

Since the number of Jews remaining in Egypt can now be counted on one hand, the Sisi government’s focus is exclusively on promoting foreign tourism, not on restoring cultural ties with the Egyptian Jewish diaspora. Cairo’s Jewish population numbered almost 50,000 before the 1956 and 1967 wars. The forced emigration of the vast majority of Egyptian Jews in the mid-20th century left the Ben Ezra synagogue deserted and dilapidated for decades.

For its re-opening as a tourist site, the synagogue has been cleaned, its ceiling repaired and its lighting and wall decoration restored. The synagogue is not intended for worship, but to be seen as a relic of Jewish history in Egypt.

Tourist travel to Egypt underwent a significant drop in popularity after turbulence of the Arab Spring and the violent crackdowns that followed. It has still not recovered, but rather than learning from the travel industry’s dictum that “democracy promotes tourism,” the Egyptian government appears to hope that building museums and promoting new venues will distract the world from its authoritarian rule. Notwithstanding Egypt’s appalling human and civil rights abuses against political dissenters and multi-year prison sentences given to TikTok-ing teenage girls for “violating family values,” Egypt’s government has made conciliating gestures in some areas of culture. One is to encourage cooperation between Egyptian authorities and foreign Jewish heritage organizations dedicated to restoring ancient sites and cemeteries.

Egypt’s on-again off-again support for restoration of Jewish heritage in Cairo demonstrates both its government’s interest in promoting Jewish tourism to Egypt and its marked reluctance to commit to a more significant commitment to allow researchers and scholars access to the Jewish community’s historical records.

In the last decade, a number of Jewish sites have been refurbished and restored – with the approval of the Egyptian government but with much of the funding coming from the USA.  The Egyptian government not only cooperated in the restoration but also provided much of the funding for cleaning and restoring the Eliyahu Hanavi synagogue in Alexandria and most recently, the Ben Ezra synagogue in Cairo.

The newly restored Ben Ezra is known worldwide as the original holding place of the Cairo Geniza, discovered in an attic in the women’s section, the most private in the synagogue, in 1896. The term Geniza designates a repository of discarded writings. According to medieval Jewish tradition, no writing that contains the name of God should be destroyed by fire or otherwise; it should instead be put aside in a special room for perpetuity or buried in a cemetery. (…)

The refurbishment of two synagogues is a welcome move – but one tinged with bitterness when looking to the decades of past vandalism and deliberate destruction of Jewish cemeteries and places of worship. The importance of the known Geniza records to scholarship in the last 100 years also points to the depth of loss of another potential treasure trove of information when Egyptian authorities seized a newly discovered Geniza from a Jewish cemetery in 2022 – a treasure whose whereabouts remains unknown.

The story of the lost Geniza begins with how decades of neglect of Jewish synagogues and cemeteries in Egypt inspired foreign activists and historians to extraordinary efforts to retrieve and preserve what remains. Prof. Yoram Meital of Ben-Gurion University’s Middle East Studies Department has been active in helping Cairo’s Jewish community to restore cemeteries and places of worship. He has expressed appreciation for the Egyptian government’s support of restoration and cleanup of Jewish sites, saying that the government’s attitude has much improved under the Sisi regime. He told Israel’s Haaretz News Magazine that, “conserving Jewish heritage as part of Egypt’s heritage depends on the wide support of Egypt’s government and society.”

The position of the Jewish heritage workers volunteering in preservation projects in Egypt today is that in principle, Jewish items should remain in Egypt. The Egyptian government has remained rigidly tied to this position, and even Torahs are listed in an Egyptian agreement executed by the U.S. State Department that blocks imports of Torahs taken from Egypt and requires returning them to its government. Jewish and Christian ritual objects, including antique Torah scrolls, tombstones, books, Bibles and religious writings are covered under these agreements.

Meital has also said that the volunteers understand that restored synagogues could be used as public community centers, “on condition that they don’t change anything having to do with artifacts and architecture.” This perspective is controversial among Egyptian Jews in the diaspora, for whom Jewish religious objects should belong to Jewish communities and a synagogue is exclusively a place for worship and study.

Without the efforts of the Jewish volunteers and that of Egyptian supporters who share concerns for preservation, almost all Jewish religious heritage, whether synagogues or cemeteries, would be at risk of destruction through neglect or appropriation. Meital says that he and others working to restore synagogues have recovered over 1000 books from disused buildings, “strewn all over the place.” They also found a metal container in the cellar of a Cairo synagogue filled with records of the entire Ashkenazi community in Egypt. Their most important find was in a Karaite synagogue in Cairo, a manuscript of the Bible written 1,000 years ago. The project hopes to establish a library in Cairo to hold all the materials they have collected and are now documenting, but for now, the finds are being held in a “safe location.”

Meital’s main focus has been to photograph and document in detail the existing conditions, any inscriptions, architectural forms, or remaining ceremonial objects in old Jewish sites in Egypt for a comprehensive database. Meital says that there are 16 known synagogue buildings in Egypt – 13 of these are in Cairo. A number of cemeteries were deemed abandoned by surrounding communities and simply used as garbage dumps. Meital described how the Bassatine cemetery was so covered in trash that 250 truckloads of garbage were removed before tombstones could be cleared and righted, gates to tombs reinstalled, paths cleaned and restored, and graves polished. However, not all has gone smoothly with that renovation.

The renovation project at the Bassatine cemetery was originally inspired by Magda Haroun, one of handful of Egyptian Jews remaining in Cairo today and a staunch supporter of the preservation of Jewish history. The cleaning and restoration of the cemetery was approved by Egyptian authorities and paid for by American Jews and other sponsors. However, the authorities’ attitudes have not been entirely supportive.

In 2022, members of the Jewish community were working to clear the tons of old tires and rubbish from the Bassatine cemetery in Cairo when a Geniza – a buried storehouse of religious, family, and economic records – was discovered buried in the cemetery.

While the Jewish sponsors of the restoration have insisted that all finds from Jewish buildings and cemeteries will remain in Egypt, and only asked to be able to safely preserve them there, Egyptian authorities aggressively took possession of what appear to have been thousands of records in the buried Geniza.

As soon as the news of the Geniza’s discovery spread, the government’s Antiquities Authority broke through a cemetery wall and interrupted their removal by the Jewish community. The Jews present pleaded that at the least, a rabbi should oversee the dismantling of the relics of their community, but they were ignored. Government agents threw the records into 165 plastic sacks, loaded them onto trucks and took them away.

No access has been granted since. All information about when the records in this Geniza were made, their contents and the light they could shed on the historical community remains unknown. Sen. Gary Peters, a Michigan Democrat, has urged the Biden administration to protest the seizure of records that rightly belong to Egypt’s Jewish community. It is not known whether the U.S. State Department has made a serious effort to reclaim these records for Egypt’s tiny remaining Jewish community – or sought greater access for the world’s scholars. The Egyptian government has also remained silent on what has been done with this lost Geniza.

Read article in full

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

The Palestinian Authority, which is in charge of security in Nablus, has -- despite official agreements in the Oslo Accords -- nevertheless refused to fulfill its commitment to protect and ensure free access to Joseph's Tomb.

So far, no one has called out the Palestinian Authority for its grave violations of the international commitments signed with Israel ensuring free access to, and the protection of, all holy sites.

Encouraged by the silence of the international community, the Palestinian Authority has been trying to prevent Jews from visiting another holy site, the Temple Mount in Jerusalem... which is abutted by the Western Wall.... This wall happens to be the holiest site in Judaism where Jews are permitted to pray.

Instead of denouncing Abbas for his incitement and the Palestinians for their denial of Jewish links to the holy site, the United Nations General Assembly in 2021 approved a resolution that disavowed Jewish ties to the Temple Mount.

Without the presence of the Israeli security forces in Jerusalem, Jews would have been attacked and slaughtered every day on their way to the Temple Mount and the Western Wall.

If the city or these sites were ever to be handed over to the Palestinian Authority, Jewish worshippers would have to visit their holy sites in bullet-proof vehicles accompanied by platoons of soldiers and police officers, as is necessary these days at Joseph's Tomb in Nablus.

The Biden administration and the rest of the international community would do well to wake up to the fact that the Palestinian state they are clamoring for means the continued slaughter of Jews and the denial of their safe access to Jewish holy sites.

Tolerance and freedom of worship are not terms that can be found in the Palestinian lexicon. The Palestinians will be satisfied only when they replace Israel with an Iranian-backed terror state and erase all traces of Jewish history and faith.

[ryanranney]

Ala Bathia

On the sacred mound of ages ago where man met the flames of burning bushes and feet of the holy tread   There alone the hammer fist surrounded the waters where leviathan sleeps until such time   Declare declare forevermore the sights and sounds of smoke it’s token memory not forgotten and cities no man remembers   There my home from east to west gather the southern wind bring forth the north flow…

[setokaibapetty]

Monday's Muse: Writing Prompt

Well, that's one place to keep a church.

[andnowanowl]

Reminds me of how they occasionally find Mexica holy sites, sometimes entire pyramids, under churches in Mexico.

An IDF solider posing next to a fallen mosque minaret in Gaza with the message written on it:

"The temple shall be built soon."

Destruction of a place of worship with the intention of replacing it with another from a different religion is a war crime under international law, it violates the provisions of Geneva Conventions, Hague Convention, and the Rome Statute.

جندي من جيش الاحتلال الإسرائيلي يقف بجوار مئذنة مسجد تم هدمه في غزة مع رسالة مكتوبة عليها:

سيتم بناء المعبد قريبا".

يعد تدمير مكان للعبادة بقصد استبداله بآخر من دين مختلف جريمة حرب بموجب القانون الدولي، وينتهك أحكام اتفاقيات جنيف واتفاقية لاهاي ونظام روما الأساسي.

[gravityfying]

she said "see ya later, boy"

[nyaa]

When I was like 11 or 12 I tried to make an Oblivion mod of a friendly goblin village but I couldn’t figure out how to give creatures a dialogue menu so I just shrunk wood elf shopkeepers to 0.1 scale and hid them under the floors where the goblins were standing

[mylittleredgirl]

fyi i tried to nominate hawkeye x trapper x frank x margaret for a recent fandom exchange and with all the canon ao3 character tags (which include their nicknames) it was TOO LONG to accept as a tag. errored out. even ao3 itself took one look at this and went..... GIRL. no

[agentfascinateur]

Fanatic settlers transgress Al Aqsa Mosque

Eyewitnesses reported heavy deployment of Israeli troops in Al Aqsa's courtyards to facilitate the settlers.

Another violation of the Geneva Convention.

[eretzyisrael]

Short-sighted Israel could have resolved communal property issue

Writing in Maariv, Jacky Hugi explains why one person notable by her absence from the recent inauguration of the renovated Ben Ezra synagogue in Cairo was the  Jewish ‘community’ head, Magda Haroun. The inauguration is an opportunity to  examine exactly who owns Jewish communal property in Arab countries. It is  a neglected issue, and the Israeli government  has never dealt seriously with it. (With thanks: Boruch)

Exterior of the recently renovated Ben Ezra synagogue

The reasons for Magda’s  absence lie in her strained relationship with the organizers of the ceremony, the members of the Supreme Antiquities Authority. Although the Egyptian government financed the renovation and initiated it, the key is in the hands of the community, and they are the authority to decide when to open the place.  As of today, almost two weeks after it was renovated, the site is closed to visitors until the head of the community decides to open it. Soon, probably, the winds will calm down, and this unique site will be opened to visitors. Tourists and locals, including many non-Jews, usually visit this special place and hear the wonderful story of the Geniza, look up to its second floor and look for the narrow opening through which Jews  threw the documents of the Holy Scriptures for hundreds of years.

Ben Ezra is not the only synagogue in Egypt. Throughout the city there are 12 synagogues, and there are even active ones (the Maadi synagogue is only used over the High Holydays – ed). This renovation provides an opportunity to discuss an issue that goes beyond the boundaries of the religious sites in Cairo –  the ownership of Jewish property in Arab countries where the last Jews still live. For example Egypt, Iraq, Syria and Yemen. In these countries, and others, there remains much public property that was in the hands of the community, as well as spiritual treasures such as books and scriptures. In Egypt, for example, the government realized decades ago that Jewish properties are a tourist treasure, and declared them national property. In Iraq, on the other hand, the community property is in the hands of the handful of Jews (three) who still remain there. What will happen when the last Jews in these communities pass away, who will own the properties accumulated over hundreds of years and left behind?

If they were not without vision, it is possible that Israel’s governments over the years could have found a solution to this issue decades ago. But Israel decided to sacrifice the cultural treasures of the Jewish communities in Arab countries. In the various contacts with the Palestinians, and also in the statements of our leaders, the governments of Israel subordinated the property issue of Arab Jews to the permanent agreement with the Palestinians. These countries know from now on that they are under no obligation to enter into negotiations regarding the fate of the property of the Jews living there, as long as the Palestinians have not received their property as part of a peace agreement with Israel. The Ministry of Diaspora Affairs, or various departments of the government ministries that dealt with the Diaspora, have never seriously dealt with this issue. This does not mean that Israel should have claimed this property for itself. But it was certainly possible to establish, through diplomatic means and over the years, even with countries with which it has no relations, outlines for handling property and holy books. Whom do they belong to, who will the financial profits they generate go to, and how to preserve them in the best way.

Currently, it is not known what will happen to the property after the end of these communities. Especially in countries that have experienced wars, such as Yemen, Iraq and Syria, where such assets could be prey for looters.

Read article in full (Hebrew)

The post Short-sighted Israel could have resolved communal property issue appeared first on Point of No Return.