By: Tovah Lazaroff – The Jerusalem Post; jpost.com

Ari and Naomi Zivotofksy asked for a passport that recorded their son’s birthplace as Israel 18 years ago, but the US government would only say he was born in Jerusalem.

After their son Menachem’s birth in Jerusalem in 2002, Ari and Naomi Zivotofksy asked for a passport that recorded his birthplace as Israel, but they were granted the document only this Friday – some 18 years later.“

I am honored to receive this passport as a representative of the many American citizens who were born in Jerusalem, who can now have their official government documents reflect the fact that they were born in Israel,” said Menachem.

He spoke at a brief ceremony at the US embassy in Jerusalem, in which US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman officially handed him his passport, the first one ever to link Jerusalem with the State of Israel.

https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/zivotofskys-18-year-quest-for-us-passport-stamped-jerusalem-israel-ends-647508

By: Abigail Klein Leichman – Israel21c; israel21c.org

The warm relationship developing between Israel and UAE and Bahrain has led to a rise in the number of businesspeople in the Gulf learning Hebrew online.

Maysoon Hameed comes home from work as a vice president of an Emirati bank, spends time with her family – and then begins a 90-minute live Hebrew class online.

“After the UAE signed [the Abraham Accords] with Israel, there are a lot of investment opportunities” for both sides, Hameed tells ISRAEL21c.

“To make connections and build relations, you need something in common with the other party no matter where in the world they are. You have to find a common comfort zone,” she says.

“If I have colleagues from Israel, we don’t have to speak English all the time, even though that is the international business language,” says Hameed. “We will feel closer speaking in a mother tongue.”

https://www.israel21c.org/arabs-from-gulf-states-rush-to-learn-hebrew/

By: Walter Bingham – The Jerusalem Post; jpost.com

“When a knock on the door meant terror.”

All over the Western world Jews are experiencing a resurgence of antisemitism. Synagogue doors are being reinforced; Jewish businesses are being attacked; Jewish monuments have been defaced; people are careful not to wear anything that can identify them as Jews, and those who do are in danger of verbal or even physical attacks. It happens now predominantly in European cities, as well as in Jewish areas in the United States.

Members of Antifa, the supposedly anti-fascist organization, have been known to support the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. And in Germany, where antisemitism was suppressed after the defeat of Nazi regime, it is again unashamedly raising its ugly head.

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/82-years-after-the-kristallnacht-and-antisemitism-is-rising-647023

By: Franklin Graham – Billy Graham Evangelical Association; billygraham.org

With Election Day a couple of weeks away, Franklin Graham is calling for a day of prayer and fasting this Sunday.

Coming on the heels of the September 26 Washington Prayer March, he posted the following appeal on Facebook, asking others to join him in seeking God’s direction for our country:

When the survival of King Jehoshaphat’s nation was at stake and his people were in danger from their enemies, he called for a fast. The people sought the Lord and His help—and He delivered them.

Today, our nation is at a critical juncture. We need to call out to God for His help, His intervention, and His mercy. It is only by His hand that America will survive and be able to thrive again.

We have an election coming up with so much at stake—two vastly different directions for the future of this country. This not only affects us, but our children and our grandchildren.

By: Baruch Yadid/TPS – Israel Today; israeltoday.co.il

Saeb Erekat slammed normalization between Israel and UAE. But when he gets sick, where does Erekat turn? To Israel.

Saeb Erekat, secretary-general of the PLO and chief Palestinian Authority negotiator, is currently hospitalized in serious condition at Jerusalem’s Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital. Erekat had a lung transfer a year ago, and has contracted COVID-19.

There is a great embarrassment in the PA following Erekat’s hospitalization because it is a step that requires civilian and security coordination with Israel and exposes the discrimination of senior PA officials over its residents, who are banned from seeking medical treatment in Israel.

In recent months, since PA head Mahmoud Abbas severed ties with Israel, patients in the Gaza Strip and the PA have found it difficult to receive medical treatment.

https://www.israeltoday.co.il/read/hypocrite-arab-media-mocks-palestinian-official-for-seeking-israeli-help/

By: Leah MarieAnn Klett – The Christian Post; christianpost.com

China has been tightening restrictions on the distribution of religious materials in recent months by threatening fines, the closure of printing shops, or even imprisonment for selling Christian books or allowing customers to photocopy hymns.

Bitter Winter, a publication that monitors religious liberty violations in China, reports that this month, Chinese Communist Party officials in Luoyang, a prefecture-level city in the central province of Henan, searched a local printing house for banned religious materials.

“Any religious content makes the issue political, not religious. Although banners on the streets say people are allowed religious beliefs, the only faith they can practice freely is that in the Communist Party,” a store manager told Bitter Winter.

https://www.christianpost.com/news/china-bans-christians-from-photocopying-hymns-religious-material.html

By: Israel 365 – israel365news.com

“It is no secret that Christian scriptures have been misused over the centuries to incite antisemitism,” says Tricia Miller, who holds a PhD in the Hebrew Bible and currently works as a senior research analyst in the Christian department of the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis (CAMERA).

“Too often, biblical passages have been taken out of context,” she says. “Influential translations and commentaries sometimes omit the Jewish dimensions of the ancient texts, leaving out the Jewish faith and practices that provided the context for the growth of Christianity in first century Judea and Samaria.”

But a new translation called the Hebrew Heritage Bible Newer Testament seeks to rectify the problem by highlighting the Jewish roots of Christianity.

https://www.israel365news.com/159589/new-christian-bible-translation-underscores-jewish-roots-of-christianity/

But contrary to conventional wisdom, the Jewish state is one of the few where young Arabs are content

By: Ryan Jones – Israel Today; israeltoday.co.il

Israel as the great and intractable foe of the Arab world is a notion that’s crumbling before our eyes, in more ways than one.

The Jewish state was supposed to be a place where all an Arab could expect was discrimination and racial hatred. It’s an “apartheid” state, they told us. So why, then, is Israel one of the very few places in the Middle East from which young Arabs aren’t trying to escape?

 Trying to escape

Every year since 2008, the Dubai-based research group ASDA’A BCW has conducted the “Arab Youth Survey.” And every year the numbers have been getting progressively worse.

The 2020 edition of the survey found that more young Arabs than ever before see no future for themselves in the Middle East. It’s a situation no doubt exacerbated by the coronavirus crisis, but equally driven by government corruption and sectarian violence, which combine to leave little, if any, economic hope.

Among Arabs aged 18-24, a full 42 percent across all the Middle East and North Africa want to emigrate, and 15 percent are taking steps to do so.

https://www.israeltoday.co.il/read/survey-most-young-arabs-want-to-leave-middle-east/

By: Leah MarieAnn Klett – The Christian Post; christianpost.com

A Chinese Christian has opened up about the severe persecution he and other Christian children have endured for their faith, from bullying and discrimination at school to restrictions on freedom of thought and religious expression. 

“Growing up as a Christian in China was a difficult experience,” a Chinese Christian identified only as “Enoch” said during the United Nations Human Rights Council Side Event: China Bans Faith for All Children webinar, hosted by the Jubilee Campaign on Monday. 

Because his father was a pastor, Enoch’s entire family was monitored by Chinese Communist Party officials, neighbors, and surveillance cameras 24 hours a day.  The family was prohibited from worshiping together in church, while Enoch and his siblings were ordered to refrain from sharing their faith at school.  

“We were to only believe in the CCP,” he recalled. “If our religious affiliation was discovered, we would receive punishment from the school.”

https://www.christianpost.com/world/chinese-christian-children-persecuted-for-their-faith.html

By: AP and Times of Israel staff – The Times of Israel; timesofisrael.com

Britain’s Roger Penrose and American Andrea Ghez receive physics award along with German Reinhard Genzel for showing phenomenon predicts general theory of relativity

Three scientists won this year’s Nobel Prize in physics Tuesday for advancing our understanding of black holes, the all-consuming monsters that lurk in the darkest parts of the universe.

Briton Sir Roger Penrose, descended from a Hebrew scholar and of Russian Jewish heritage, received half of this year’s prize “for the discovery that black hole formation is a robust prediction of the general theory of relativity,” the Nobel Committee said.

German Reinhard Genzel and American Andrea Ghez, who also has Jewish heritage, received the second half of the prize “for the discovery of a supermassive compact object at the center of our galaxy.”

https://www.timesofisrael.com/scientist-of-jewish-heritage-among-trio-to-win-nobel-prize-for-black-hole-finds/