Page Links To 2013 News |
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| Date | News |
| Day to Day | Daily News Concerning Israel, Judaism and the Middle East from Israel National News |
| 11-27-2013 | Largest Menorah In The World |
8-20-2013 |
New School Opens To Teach Priests How To Conduct Temple Style Sacrifice |
| 6-3-2013 | Oldest Torah Scroll Found |
11-27-2013 Largest Menorah in World To Be Lit in Tel Aviv:
The largest menorah (candellabrum) in the world will be lit in Tel Aviv on the eighth and final night of Hanukkah, the Jewish holiday commemorating the Maccabean revolt which ended the Greek Empire's occupation of Israel over 2,000 years ago. Israel Electric Company (IEC) created the menorah, which will be presented on December 4 at a formal lighting ceremony at the Reading Power Station in Tel Aviv.
The menorah, which has been submitted to the Guiness Book of Records, measures in at 28 meters (92 feet) high. The branches of the menorah will shine 9 white light beams until midnight to a height of 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) where they will be visible from the surrounding region.
Source: Arutz Sheva News Daily Email 11-27-2013 by Ari Yashar
8-20-2013 New School Opens To Teach Priests Proper Way to Conduct Temple Sacrifices.
One Step Closer to the Holy Temple: On the evening of Tuesday, August 20th, 2013, the 14th day of Elul, 5773, the Temple Institute, in cooperation with Mishmeret Kehunah (the Organization for the Renewal of the Priestly Shifts) and other Temple organizations inaugurated a new school dedicated to teaching Kohanim the 'lost' art of performing the daily Tamid service in the Holy Temple. That evening, for the first time since the destruction of the Holy Temple, a historic practice drill of the daily Tamid offering was reenacted by a group of contemporary kohanim-in-training.
Source: The Temple Institute daily email 8-30-2013. For more on this event please visit templeinstitute.org
5-29-2013 The World’s Oldest Complete Torah Scroll Found..
The world's oldest complete Torah scroll has been found in a university archive in Bologna, according to an Italian professor who said the text could be from the 12th century.
The precious parchment scroll had been classified by the university library as being from the 17th century and was named simply "Scroll Number Two".
However, Hebrew Studies professor Mauro Perani told the AFP news agency on Wednesday he noticed that the text did not conform to key changes in Torah writing brought about in the 12th century.
"I immediately thought it was much older," he said, adding that it contained letters and signs that were banned by Jewish scholar and philosopher Moses Maimonides in the 12th century.
The Torah was among around 30 Jewish manuscripts in the university library that Perani began to catalogue in February of this year.
"The scroll is very rare because when manuscripts spoil they lose their holiness and can no longer be used. They are then buried," he said, referring to the halakhah that forbids erasing G-d's name, leading to the burial or storage ("genizah", in Hebrew) of holy documents.
"The state of conservation is excellent," he added.
Tens of thousands of Torah scrolls were also destroyed by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy or re-used to bind books, he said.
The oldest previously known scroll dates from the late 13th century, although a biblical codex -- which has a book form instead of being rolled up-- exists in Saint Petersburg that dates from 1008.
Carbon dating in Italy and the United States confirmed his findings, placing the manuscript between the late 12th and early 13th centuries.
The intact scroll is 36 meters (118 feet) long and 64 centimeters wide and the report said it had been mislabeled by an archivist in 1889.
"He said the text looked awkward and contained uncommon annotations. He was completely wrong, it is a splendid manuscript," Perani said, according to AFP.
The city of Bologna has long had a large Jewish community and the university first began teaching Hebrew Studies in the 15th century.
Source: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/168436#.VMvL1HYwbUk (Israel National News)
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