The Story of a 1,500-Year-Old Egyptian-Jewish Papyrus

Nov. 30 2023

Last week, I recommended a fascinating video about a marriage document belonging to one of the Jewish soldiers in the Persian army who were stationed in Egypt in the 5th century CE. The document is one of many historical Egyptian artifacts in Moscow’s Pushkin Museum. Today, I’m recommending another video from the same series, about another item from the same collection: a papyrus dating from the 6th or 7th century CE, written in Hebrew, describing the Temple service on Yom Kippur. Matti Friedman tells its story. (Video, 6 minutes.)

Read more at Beit Avi Chai

More about: Egypt, Egyptian archaeology, Jewish history, North African Jewry, Yom Kippur

How Democrats Will Blame Israel for Their Defeat

Sometimes it takes a smart outside observer to see things about U.S. politics that Americans might miss. Stephen Daisley is one such observer:

Progressives in search of a scapegoat for their defeat will quickly arrive at Israel, specifically what they regard as the Biden administration and the Harris campaign’s support for Jerusalem in its fight against Hamas and Hizballah terrorists. Expect leftists to point to Harris’s loss of Michigan and especially the collapse of the Democrat vote in Dearborn, a city with significant Arab and Muslim populations. Expect them to say that a different approach, one supportive of the Palestinians rather than the Israelis, would have seen the Democrats hold on to Michigan.

It won’t matter that Michigan voted for Trump in 2020 and that his support there has much more to do with non-graduate white men than it does with Arab-American voting behavior. It won’t matter that Trump’s attitude towards Israel is far more sympathetic than Harris’s. It won’t matter that going down this path will bring resentment and hostility to bear on Arab Americans or Jews or both.

Progressives will see their chance to do something they have longed to do for decades: cleave the United States from Israel and leave the Jewish state vulnerable in a dangerous neighborhood. The surest way to do that is by adopting for the Democrat party the sort of views about Israel seen in center-left parties across the West.

Read more at Spectator

More about: 2024 Election, American Muslims, Democrats, U.S.-Israel relationship