Showing posts with label ingathering. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ingathering. Show all posts

Wednesday, February 24, 2016

DNA Study Offers Definitive Proof That Jewish Ancestry Traces Back To the Land of Israel By Adam Eliyahu Berkowitz - BREAKING ISRAEL NEWS


(Photo: API Flickr/Wikimedia Commons)

(Photo: API Flickr/Wikimedia Commons)

DNA Study Offers Definitive Proof That Jewish Ancestry Traces Back To the Land of Israel


“And He brought him forth abroad, and said: ‘Look now toward heaven, and count the stars, if thou be able to count them’; and He said unto him: ‘So shall thy seed be.’ And he believed in the LORD; and He counted it to him for righteousness. And He said unto him: ‘I am the LORD that brought thee out of Ur of the Chaldees, to give thee this land to inherit it.’”
Genesis 15:5-7 (The Israel Bible™)
There are those who claim that present day Jews are not the descendants of the original Hebrews and therefore have no claim to the land. This claim also discredits the idea that the modern State of Israel could be part of the Messianic return, the ingathering of the exiles predicted by the prophets. For those willing to listen to scientific proof, this claim has been entirely discredited by recent studies in genetics.
Perhaps the strongest voice claiming the present day Jews settling in Israel are not descended from the original Hebrews is Tel Aviv University historian Shlomo Sand. In his international best-seller, The Invention of the Jewish People (2008), he asserts that the Jews of today did not originate in the Mediterranean and that a “nation-race” of Jews never existed.
Jews today, he claims, share a common religion but not a common ethnic background. His book argues that there is no evidence of the expulsion of the Jews from ancient Israel, and therefore it never happened, meaning that the diaspora is a modern invention.
He claims that Judaism was a religion which arose outside of Israel based on massive conversions that continued until the rise of Christianity in the fourth century and that most Jews today are the descendants of people who lived elsewhere in the world, the products of conversion.
Sand equates the Jews’ longing for Israel, what he calls “the mythical Kingdom of David”, with other European nationalist movements. The significant difference according to Sand is that the holy land was to be longed for but not lived in until the divinely sent Messiah arrives.
Sand’s theory has becoming a lightning rod for controversy, attracting criticism as well as high praise. His book received the “Prix Aujourd’hui” in France and has been translated into more languages than any other Israeli book. Haaretz called it a “success for Israel”. Eric Hobsbawm, a Jewish retired professor of history and fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, selected Sand’s book as one of his “Books of the Year” for 2009.
However, Professor Sand has also been criticized for his methodology and how he relates to sources and physical evidence. In addition, he admits that this area of history is not his expertise. But without a doubt, the strongest objection to Sand’s rebuttal of modern Jewish claims on the land of Israel comes from recent developments in the area of practical genetics.
Is there archaeological proof of the Exodus? Find out in "Patterns of Evidence: the Exodus" DVD
In 2010, Harry Ostrer, a medical geneticist from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, published a study concluding that many “geographically and culturally distant Jews still have more genes in common than they do with non-Jews around them,” and that such genes were of “Levantine origin”.  Ostrer said, “I would hope that these observations would put the idea that Jewishness is just a cultural construct to rest.”
Sand replied to the genetic study’s refutation by saying, “Hitler would certainly have been very pleased.”
Breaking Israel News spoke to Bennett Greenspan about the genetic aspect of Judaism and how it relates to the Jewish claim to the Land of Israel. Greenspan founded Family Tree DNA, the first American company to offer genealogical DNA testing directly to the general public, and his conclusions are based on a database of hundreds of thousands of genetic samples .
“On the Y-DNA test that tracks the paternal line, 75-85% of Jews have a Semitic ancestry, that is to say they are from the Middle East. ‘Semitic’ may also include Turkey and Northern Syria, going back 3,000 years,” Greenspan explained.
He said that according to the genetic results, “I am a Jewish Arab. The world has Christian Arabs, Muslim Arabs, and Jewish Arabs. The difference is that 2,000 years ago, the Muslim Arabs didn’t yet have a religion, and the Jewish Arabs did. Our Temple was defiled, the Jews revolted, and we got beat. The Jews were exiled from our land by the superpower of the day.”
“Shlomo Sand is wrong when he says that Jews are no more related to other Jews in other places in the world than to Christians or Muslims,” Greenspan stated unequivocally to Breaking Israel News. “The genetic facts do not at all support that theory, and do support the opposite. The genetic evidence is strikingly clear.”
Sand’s premise, even when he wrote the book, was outlandish to many critics. His reason for taking such an untenable stance was that he believed a common ethnic basis for Judaism “nourishes anti-Semitism”. However, by denying Jewish ethnicity in an attempt to prevent anti-Semitism, Sand’s thesis has become a battle cry for haters of Israel.
The creation of the modern State of Israel has once again made Judaism a national identity and not just a religion limited to the occasional visit to the synagogue. The scattered children of Abraham have gathered together as an unmistakeable result of God’s covenant. Science has proven this to be undeniably true.

Tuesday, September 29, 2015

The Miraculous Ingathering of Jews in the World

The Bet Eliahu synagogue in Belmonte, Portugal. (Photo: Bricking/ Wiki Commons)The Bet Eliahu synagogue in Belmonte, Portugal. (Photo: Bricking/ Wiki Commons)


Bnei Anusim: The Miraculous Ingathering That Could Double the Number of Jews in the World

“Even if your exiles are at the end of the heavens, the Lord, your God, will gather you from there, and He will take you from there. And the Lord, your God,will bring you back to the land which your forefathers possessed and you will take possession of it, and He will do good to you, and He will make you more numerous than your forefathers.” (Deuteronomy 30:3-5)
A new global campaign has been launched to locate Bnei Anousim, Jews who were forcibly converted during the Spanish Inquisition, which began in 1391 and continued until 1497.  The initiative, headed by Shavei Israel, has the potential to return millions of Jews to the global community in a massive ingathering of exiles. Estimates by the Jewish Agency have put the potential total population of Bnei Anusim at twice the present Jewish population.
“We are at the beginning of an historic turning point, one that will see millions of people throughout the Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking world reconnecting with their Jewish roots,” said Michael Freund, chairman and founder of Shavei Israel, in a statement. “There are millions of people throughout Spain, Portugal, and Central and South America who are descended from Iberian Jews, and we believe it is time for the Jewish people to reach out to them.”
According to genetic studies conducted over the past decade, 20 percent of men in the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal) have Jewish ancestry. Similar studies in Brazil estimate that 5-10 million people there are descendants of Bnei Anousim.
Shavei Israel set off a wave of interest when the organization published a free Spanish-language practical guide to discovering Jewish heritage, “Do You Have Jewish Roots?”, which has been distributed to almost 10,000 people. It contains information on subjects such as how to conduct a genealogical search, traditionally Jewish names, names unique to Bnei Anusim, and identifying hidden Jewish customs.
The term “crypto-Judaism” describes the phenomenon of secretly observing Judaism while publicly professing to be of another faith. Often, secret observance of Jewish customs and commandments can go on for many generations within a family. There have even been cases discovered of entire communities continuing to observe customs they no longer understand and don’t realize have Jewish origins.
Many Bnei Anusim keep Jewish burial customs, wrapping the deceased in white shrouds as opposed to coffins. Some dietary customs are clear indications of Jewish heritage. Many Bnei Anusim have an oral tradition of having an allergy to pork or not eating blood in the form of the traditional Spanish blood sausage. There have been cases of Bnei Anusim who refrained from eating leavened products during Holy Week, which coincides with the observance of Passover. Some Bnei Anusim relate to Saturday as their day of rest. Lighting candles on Friday night is another tradition that has lasted throughout many generations, even after the connection to Judaism has been lost.
The legacy of the Inquisition and hidden Jews is not a myth or a legend, but a reality recognized by the Spanish and Portuguese governments, which have extended an offer of citizenship to the millions of descendants of expelled Sephardic Jews.
This is not a uniquely European phenomenon. Many communities in remote corners of the globe have been discovered to have Jewish roots. The discovery of the Jews of Ethiopia led to a dramatic rescue mission by the State of Israel. The Subbotnik Jews of Russia, the Jewish community of Kaifeng in China, descendants of Jews living in Poland, and most recently, the Bnei Menash Jews who arrived in India by way of China, have all been able to trace their roots back to a Jewish source.
Jews hide their identity not out of shame, but as a reaction to the anti-Semitism which has accompanied the Jewish people throughout their exile. During that time, they were scattered  among the nations. Many were lost in their wanderings, intermarrying and converting, their descendants assimilating into their adopted cultures until their Jewish identity disappeared. Part of the messianic prophecy, the proof as well as the promise, is the ingathering of the exiles, a miracle that is happening in front of our eyes.  These prophetic days are bringing back Jews from the farthest corners, reawakening Jewish souls that have forgotten their roots in the Holy Land.

Read more at http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/49651/bnei-anusim-the-miraculous-ingathering-that-could-double-the-number-of-jews-in-the-world-jewish-world/#8EBz5OYav1kH30QP.99


Saturday, July 6, 2013

The MOST Important Video About Israel You'll Ever See!





Can ancient prophecies about Israel be true? 

Is the Bible true or relevant today?

This video will put those questions to rest!!





Amen! Steve Martin