Though he is little known in the West, Coptic priest Zakaria Botros — named Islam’s “Public Enemy #1” by the Arabic newspaper, al-Insan al-Jadid — has been making waves in the Islamic world. Along with fellow missionaries — mostly Muslim converts — he appears frequently on the Arabic channel al-Hayat (i.e., “Life TV”). There, he addresses controversial topics of theological significance — free from the censorship imposed by Islamic authorities or self-imposed through fear of the zealous mobs who fulminated against the infamous cartoons of Mohammed. Botros’s excurses on little-known but embarrassing aspects of Islamic law and tradition have become a thorn in the side of Islamic leaders throughout the Middle East.

Raymond Ibrahim, National Review Online, March 25, 2008

The Middle East isn't known as a breeding ground for comedians. So it was no loss to the region when stand-up comic Nazareth Rizkallah emigrated to America when he was 19.

He's performed all over the United States. Everywhere he goes, evangelicals love him.

But he's careful to play down his Palestinian roots among his audience of fundamentalist pastors and congregations, at least until the show is over. The churches he performs in are largely ignorant of their Palestinian brethren, while ironically sending political and financial support to Israel.

Josh Dulaney, March 22, The Sanbernandino Sun

Police and sappers were once again dispatched to Ariel's IDF Street during the Purim holiday Friday morning. A few minutes earlier, a man had knocked on the door of the Leibovitz family home and left a cardboard box with the boy who answered the door. "It's mishloach manot, a Purim gift basket," explained the visitor before disappearing.

The boy and his older brother trembled with fear. Their parents, who were out of town, ordered the boys by phone to get away from the package and call the police. In another residential building, 50 meters away, a bomb planted in a Purim gift basket had exploded the day before.

By Yair Ettinger, Haaretz, March 24, 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

A special reception was held on Saturday, the 8th of March, for Dr. Rev. Dale Thorne and his wife, Anita, in the Nazareth Baptist School hall. Baptists from Nazareth and veteran teachers of the Nazareth Baptist School (NBS) attended this reception.

Rev. Thorne served in Nazareth for 17 years (1966-1983) as a Baptist missionary and General Director of NBS. After leaving Nazareth, they moved to Haifa wherein Rev. Thorne served as Secretary of the Middle East and North African Region for the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention until they returned to the U.S. and started a new church in Cincinnati, Ohio. In January 2008 they returned to Israel in order to start a prayer center in the “Jerusalem House” in East Jerusalem.

Special For Come and See, March 9, 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

Jordan has continued deporting foreign evangelical pastors, as the government last week admitted to expelling foreigners for “illegal” missionary activities.


Acting Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh told the Jordanian parliament on Wednesday (February 20) that authorities had expelled missionaries operating “under the cover of doing charitable work,” suggesting that evangelistic activity is illegal in Jordan.

A Church Council member said that an official from Jordan’s Foreign Ministry had approached the council, Jordan’s highest Christian body, requesting that it respond to accusations of increased pressure on foreign Christians printed in the January 29 Compass article.

Compass Direct News, Feb 26, 2008

The Rev. Munib A. Younan, bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in the Holy Land and Jordan, offered "sincere condolences to all who are mourning the loss of loved ones" in the wake of a March 6 shooting incident at a rabbinical seminary in Jerusalem that left eight people dead, and after the violence that has killed at least 120 people in Gaza this past week.

Web site of Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, March 8, 2008