Divers find huge trove of statues, coins in 1,600-year-old shipwreck

By Stuart Winer for The Times of Israel

In ‘biggest find in 30 years,’ archaeologists rescue rare bronze figures of gods, animals, that sank off Caesarea along with ship carrying metal for recycling

Two recreational divers discovered a 1,600 year-old shipwreck on the seabed off the coast of Israel, leading to a salvage operation which uncovered one of the largest caches of marine artifacts ever found, antiquities officials revealed Monday.

The hoard was discovered off the coast of Caesarea, a major Roman-era seaport, sometime last month, the Israel Antiques Authority said in a statement, calling the find the most extensive underwater discovery in 30 years.

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In India, with the Lost Tribe of Ephraim

by Rabbi Keith Flaks for aish.com

We transcended barriers through the power of music and prayer.

 

This Passover my wife and I went to Southern India to visit the "lost tribe of Ephraim."

This clan of about 150 claims to be descendants of the lost tribes of Israel. They practice Jewish traditions, celebrate most of the holidays, and have started to observe many mitzvot, often in their unique style.

For example, in their tradition, on Erev Pesach they actually slaughter a goat and put the blood on their doorposts! They were shocked to discover that the Jewish world doesn't do that. In general they were thrilled to learn more about how "mainstream Judaism" is being practiced in the rest of the world. Many dream of a day when they could move to the holy land of Israel.

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With All of Your Heart

By Rabbi Sharon G. Forman for ReformJudaism.org

The mezuzot (plural of mezuzah) snuggle next to one another in a ceramic bowl like a litter of newborn puppies seeking each other’s warmth. Peeking out from painted purple butterflies, the golden crown of a Hebrew letter shin reflects a ray of thin February light bouncing off its companion’s metal covering. Shards of the blue glass my husband stepped on at our wedding sparkle in a test tube inside the twisting copper of another family artifact – a mezuzah designed especially for wedding couples. An elephant trunk on my sons’ Noah’s ark mezuzah has broken in half, releasing the intact parchment scroll bearing 22 perfectly copied lines from the Book of Deuteronomy.

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Jewish Customs in Judith

By Tal Ilan, bibleodyssey.org

The book of Judith was composed sometime after the Hebrew Bible was completed. It came into being, however, considerably earlier than the books that canonized rabbinic law (the Mishnah and the Talmud). Thus, Jewish customs recorded in Judith were influenced by the Hebrew Bible and reflect an earlier Judaism than that practiced today. The Jewish customs in Judith relate to fasting, widowhood, kosher food, immersion, conversion, and slavery.

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Honor Thy Mother and Father

By Adam Kirsch for Tablet Magazine

Literary critic Adam Kirsch is reading a page of Talmud a day, along with Jews around the world.

Why do Jews wear kippot? For men, the habit of covering their heads—when studying, eating, and praying, or else all the time, depending on their level of observance—is such a basic feature of Judaism that it seems like it must go back to the very beginning of the faith. Yet the fact is that covering one’s head is not mentioned at all in the Bible. The custom originates much later, in the Talmud, and even there it is not actually a law. It was in this week’s Daf Yomi reading, in Kiddushin 31a, that the origin of the kippa appeared: “Rav Huna, son of Rav Yehoshua, would not walk four cubits with an uncovered head. He said: The Divine Presence is above my head.” For Rav Huna, always keeping his head covered appears to have been an act of exceptional piety, or else the Talmud wouldn’t bother recording it. But it eventually became standard, and now Jews follow Rav Huna’s example.

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