Dead Sea Scrolls Online

One of Jerusalem's must see the Dead Sea Scrolls will now be available for the world to view online. Israel's Antiquities Authority has begun photographing the thousands of fragments and scrolls for the first time since the 1950s and it wants to put those new images on the internet for everyone to see. The Shrine of the Book at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem is where some of the Dead Sea Scrolls are on display.
The scrolls have fortunately survived a lot of damage and some are quite readable - if you can read Hebrew, but I am sure there are translations on line.
The Dead Sea Scrolls consist of almost 1,000 documents, including texts from the original Hebrew Bible. The scrolls were discovered between 1947 and 1979 in eleven caves in and around the Wadi Qumran (near the remains of the ancient settlement of Khirbet Qumran, on the northwest shore of the Dead Sea) in the West Bank. The texts are of great religious and historical significance, as they include practically the only known surviving copies of Biblical  made before 100 AD, and prove there was considerable diversity of beliefs and practices within late Second Temple period. They are written in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek, mostly on parchment, but with some written on papyrus.
Israel Antiquities Authority head of conservation Pnina Shor began this project as way of monitoring the scrolls to make sure they were being held in the right conditions. They are housed in the Israel museam with the distinctive encasing.
Surely any person who is interested in the Bible or in religious manuscripts written 2,000 years ago will really be touched by seeing the scrolls.That is when the idea expanded to put all of the images on the internet where they could be seen and studied by anyone who wanted.Professor Steven Fassberg is a scrolls expert from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and says every new letter show will be enlightening.
The Dead Sea Scrolls speak about something that happened or something that will happen in the future many say.The scrolls are incredibly fragile, with only four people in the world allowed to handle them.
This fantastic project will take up to five years to complete.

Dead Sea Scrolls Online

One of Jerusalem's must see the Dead Sea Scrolls will now be available for the world to view online. Israel's Antiquities Authority has begun photographing the thousands of fragments and scrolls for the first time since the 1950s and it wants to put those new images on the internet for everyone to see. The Shrine of the Book at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem is where some of the Dead Sea Scrolls are on display.
The scrolls have fortunately survived a lot of damage and some are quite readable - if you can read Hebrew, but I am sure there are translations on line.
The Dead Sea Scrolls consist of almost 1,000 documents, including texts from the original Hebrew Bible. The scrolls were discovered between 1947 and 1979 in eleven caves in and around the Wadi Qumran (near the remains of the ancient settlement of Khirbet Qumran, on the northwest shore of the Dead Sea) in the West Bank. The texts are of great religious and historical significance, as they include practically the only known surviving copies of Biblical  made before 100 AD, and prove there was considerable diversity of beliefs and practices within late Second Temple period. They are written in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek, mostly on parchment, but with some written on papyrus.
Israel Antiquities Authority head of conservation Pnina Shor began this project as way of monitoring the scrolls to make sure they were being held in the right conditions. They are housed in the Israel museam with the distinctive encasing.
Surely any person who is interested in the Bible or in religious manuscripts written 2,000 years ago will really be touched by seeing the scrolls.That is when the idea expanded to put all of the images on the internet where they could be seen and studied by anyone who wanted.Professor Steven Fassberg is a scrolls expert from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and says every new letter show will be enlightening.
The Dead Sea Scrolls speak about something that happened or something that will happen in the future many say.The scrolls are incredibly fragile, with only four people in the world allowed to handle them.
This fantastic project will take up to five years to complete.

Birthright

So many young people hvae been in Jerusalem over the last several weeks and all seemed to be brimming with Jewish pride.It’s always a place many of them would  picture, but now they are here. This is all due to the program of Birthright. The 10-day tour of Israel sponsored by Birthright Israel, which takes its name from the Zionist notion that all Jews, no matter their nationality, have the right to call Israel home.

The program, which is offered free to Jews between ages 18 and 26 who have never visited Israel in an organized group, is becoming a rite of passage for young American Jews.
The highly structured tour seeks to forge ties between diaspora Jews and Israel, and to strengthen Jewish identity in countries, such as the United States, where intermarriage among faiths is common.
But critics say the tour presents a one-sided portrait of Israel and misses an opportunity to educate a new generation on the complexities of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
This year, 42,000 people are expected to visit Israel on a Birthright tour. Last year, 39,000 visited. Since the program was launched eight years ago, 190,000 young Jews from 53 countries, roughly 70 percent from the United States, have visited Israel on a Birthright tour.
American billionaire philanthropist Sheldon Adelson and his wife, Miriam, donated $30 million to Birthright last year and another $35 million this year. This, combined with a current lull in Israeli-Palestinian violence, has significantly boosted the number of participants.“It has a strategic importance for the state of Israel because in a way it’s a completion of the Zionist dream,” said Gidi Mark, director of marketing for Birthright Israel.  “It’s important especially today when we don’t have as many new immigrants as we had in the past.”
The tours showcase Israel as Jewish, modern and thriving. “We didn’t want them coming away with the idea of camels, Orthodox Jews or an island under siege,”

For more information

http://www.hillel.org/israel/travel/bri_hillel/default

http://www.mayanotisrael.com/index.asp

Paris has arrived in Israel this summer. In June, a 4-meter (13-feet) fountain – almost an exact copy of one of the fountains located in Paris – was unveiled in Jerusalem’s Place de France (also known as Paris Square) in the heart of the Israeli capital. The fountain was given to the residents and vistitors of Jerusalem as a gift from Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoë in honor of the State of Israel’s 60th anniversary. Delanoe was on an official visit to Israel when he joined Jerusalem Mayor Ouri Loupolyanski for the dedication of the fountain., The fountain and all of it's constuction was said to cost the equivalent of $100,000. Fountains are a common feature in Paris, creating characteristic oases of calm in the city. Now Jerusalem’s Paris Square can be a cooler place for tourists and locals alike to hang out this summer. Mayor Loupolyanski expressed delight with the present, and said it would add charm to his city, which while embattled politically, is still a magnet for tourists.Now you have another stop on your tour of Jerusalem.