Thousands of Christians from around the world are gathering in Jerusalem this week to celebrate the Biblical festival of Succoth.

More than 7,000 Christians from about 100 nations are attending the International Christian Embassy’s annual Feast of Tabernacles celebration, which coincides with the Jewish holiday and is Israel’s largest single tourism event each year. The pilgrims will spend an estimated $18 million here.

By Julie Stahl, CNS News, Oct 15, 2008

Haaretz writes in its editorial section about its own responsibility in solving disputes between different Christian groups in Jerusalem.

"Israel's responsibility for the holy places in Jerusalem sometimes involves it in disputes and power struggles between religious communities. There is no better example than the centuries-old dispute between the Ethiopian Orthodox Church and the Coptic Church over the control of the Deir al-Sultan Monastery on the roof of the Holy Sepulchre in the Old City"

Haaretz, October 10, 2008

Violence against Christian evangelical and Messianic Jewish communities in Israel increased significantly during the period between July 1, 2007 and June 30, 2008, according to the US State Department's Annual Report on International Religious Freedom.

The report, released last week, put blame for the "tensions" on "certain Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities."

By Matthew Wagner, The Jerusalem Post, Sep 23, 2008

Nazareth Baptist school delegation to the 58th annual gathering of holders of Nobel Prize in Physics in Lindau in Germany returned to the country early this week. The delegation consisted of Dr. Ousama Moalem, NBS principal and Physics teacher and two 12 graders Amin Asfour and Jeries Nashashibi.

The invitation to this conference was sent to Dr. Moalem as a token of appreciation to NBS for the outstanding achievements in Scientific research in Physics and especially in the international contest “First Step in Nobel prize in Physics” where Students from NBS won 9 prizes in the last 12 years-a large number relatively to other schools and countries that participated in the contest.

Special for "Come and See", July 8, 2008

Safety pins and screws are still lodged in 15-year-old Ami Ortiz's body three months after he opened a booby-trapped gift basket sent to his family. The explosion severed two toes, damaged his hearing and harmed a promising basketball career.

Police say they are still searching for the assailants. But to the Ortiz family the motive of the attackers is clear: The Ortizes are Jews who believe that Jesus was the Messiah.

By The Associated Press, June 20, 2008

Leaders of Ireland's main Christian churches were barred from praying at Jerusalem's Western Wall Thursday because they refused to remove the crosses they were wearing.

Roman Catholic Cardinal Sean Brady, Church of Ireland Archbishop Alan Harper and Presbyterian and Methodist Moderators John Finlay and Roy Cooper arrived at the wall, Judaism's holiest prayer site, without giving prior notice to Israeli authorities, Brady told the Irish broadcast network RTE.

By Steve Weizman. Associated Press Writer

In a landmark decision today, the Supreme Court of Israel ratified a settlement between twelve Messianic Jewish believers and the State of Israel, which states that being a Messianic Jew does not prevent one from receiving citizenship in Israel under the Law of Return or the Law of Citizenship, if one is a descendent of Jews on one's father's side (and thus not Jewish according to halacha).

Jerusalem Institute of Justice mail-blast, April 17, 2008

Christian pilgrims from around the world on Sunday flocked to celebrate Easter in Jerusalem's Old City where many believe Jesus was resurrected after his crucifixion 2,000 years ago.

Thousands of faithful filled every nook and cranny of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, a cavernous labyrinth of chapels and crypts built on the site where most churches believe Jesus to have been crucified and buried.
"It's great to be here where it happened," Manuella Anduku of the Philippines told AFP after attending the chaotic service inside one of Christianity's most revered sites. "It seems more real."

by Joseph Krauss, AFP, Mar 23, 2008

A teenager in the city of Ariel was severely injured after opening package he believed was Purim basket; Police investigating all possible leads, including "cult" involvement.

 "Come and See" Editor reports that the child is a son of a Messianic Pastor. Messianic Jews are considered a "cult" by the Israeli Police. Ariel is the biggest Israeli settlement in the West Bank with around 20,000 residents.
From Yent, March 20, 2008

What a shame! A Professor at the Hebrew University claims that Moses and the children of Israel were on drugs. According to him, this is the best interpretation of what happened at the mount of Horeb and at the burning bush!

"And all the people perceived the thunderings, and the lightnings, and the voice of the horn, and the mountain smoking." Thus the book of Exodus describes the impressive moment of the giving of the Torah on Mount Sinai.

The "perceiving of the voices" has been interpreted endlessly since these words were first written. When Professor Benny Shanon, professor of cognitive psychology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, reads the verse, he recalls a powerful hallucinatory experience he had when he visited the Amazon and drank a potion made from a plant called ayahuasca.

By Ofri Ilani, March 4, 2008, Haaretz