Makor HaTikvah, the only government-funded primary school for Messianic Jewish children in Jerusalem, has earned the right to continue operating—at least through the end of the school year.

Christians, Muslims, and civil authorities in one area of Jerusalem have signed a local treaty of friendship that, if successful and replicated, could ease religious tensions in the Holy City and other Middle East communities.

Update (April 15): Morning Star News reports that Jack Teitel has been sentenced "to two life terms in prison plus 30 years," and the Ortiz family is satisfied that "justice has been done."

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Last week, Jack Teitel, a former U.S. marine labeled as a “Jewish terrorist” in the news media, was convicted in an Israeli courtroom of two murders and one attempted murder.

According to new numbers from the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), the size of Israel's Christian community is increasing, making it "one of the few countries in the Middle East" where this is happening.

A few news items to add to CT's coverage of Bethlehem and Christmas:

(Update: Bloomberg News reports that Israeli authorities reached a deal to end eight years of disagreement between the government the Church of the Holy Sepulchre over the church's US$2.3 million water bill debt. The Israeli government has agreed to cancel the outstanding debt, but the church will pay water bills from 2012 forward.)

An established interfaith group is in danger of disintegrating as major American Jewish groups and prominent mainline Protestant churches differ over U.S. aid for Israel--a long-standing argument that the group was established, in part, to diffuse.

Leaders of Reform and Conservative Judaism, the American Jewish Committee, and other Jewish groups sent a letter Wednesday (Oct. 17) to their Christian counterparts on the Christian-Jewish Roundtable saying they would not be attending a long-planned Oct. 22-23 meeting.

At issue is an Oct. 8 letter that many Christian leaders--from the National Council of Churches, the United Methodist Church, the Presbyterian Church (USA) and other denominations--sent to Congress, asking that U.S. aid to Israel be re-evaluated in light of the Jewish state’s alleged human rights violations.

Israel has long been the largest cumulative recipient of U.S. foreign assistance, almost all of which is military aid and contracts, according to the Congressional Research Service.

“As Christian leaders in the United States, it is our moral responsibility to question the continuation of unconditional U.S. financial assistance to the government of Israel,” the letter from the Christian leaders read, criticizing Israel's treatment of Palestinians.

“Realizing a just and lasting peace will require this accountability, as continued U.S. military assistance to Israel--offered without conditions or accountability--will only serve to sustain the status quo and Israel’s military occupation of the Palestinian territories.”

The Jewish groups withdrew from the planned October meeting and are now asking the Christian members of the roundtable for a different meeting: to discuss the letter and “reset the framework for ongoing dialogue.”

“There is no question in our minds that this is an unbalanced demonization of Israel completely lacking in context,” said Rabbi Noam Marans, the interfaith director at the American Jewish Committee.

“It pretends that Palestinian human rights violations do not exist, but above all, our concern is that when the world currently is focused on the Iranian nuclear threat, Christian leaders have chosen to mount another political attack on Israel,” Marans said.

Marans said he isn’t sure whether the eight-year-old roundtable will survive the congressional letter flap. “The current conversation with some Christian leaders is unacceptable and needs to change,” he said.

Representatives from the NCC, Presbyterian Church (USA), and the United Methodist Church did not respond immediately to requests for comment.

Update (June 3, 2013): Jerusalem's churches continue to fall victim to "price-tag" attacks. The latest case involves the well-known Church of the Dormition, built where some Christians believe the Virgin Mary died.

The Associated Press reports that "the words 'price tag' were found scrawled on the church's exterior" along with other, anti-Christian slurs.
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In the latest case of vandalism against a Christian building in Israel, police suspect Jewish extremists of spray painting the words "price tag", along with other offensive phrases, on the Monastery of St. Francis, located near Mount Zion in Jerusalem.

Following the recent evacuation of an illegal Israeli settlement in the West Bank, vandals attacked a 120-year-old Trappist monastery just west of Jerusalem, setting the door on fire and spray painting the phrase "Jesus is a monkey" in the entryway.

Other Christian sites in Israel have experienced similar attacks in recent months. But the attack at Latrun Monastery drew condemnation from top Israeli leaders, as well as exasperation from Catholic leaders in Israel.

Update: UNESCO approved the Church of the Nativity as an endangered World Heritage site today in a 13-6 secret vote that has been decried for its political overtones.

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UNESCO is expected to decide this weekend whether Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity will be granted protected status as an endangered World Heritage site.

The Palestinian Authority has rushed a UNESCO vote by applying for endangered status for the Bethlehem church. Most observers regard the application as a bid for international recognition; the Palestinians failed in their statehood bid before the United Nations last year, but did succeed in gaining status as a UNESCO member state.

The three Christian denominations that serve as the church's caretakers have misgivings about the idea, while UNESCO investigators seem unconvinced that the Church of the Nativity is truly endangered, according to the AP.

CT's past coverage of Bethlehem can be found here.

Postal workers in Ramat Gan have refused to deliver thousands of copies of Hebrew-language Christian materials, including copies of the New Testament. They asserted that distributing the materials would violate Jewish law because it would be proselytizing. Israeli law does not prevent the dissemination of written materials.

It was not clear who mailed the materials. The Israel Postal Company said that as a government entity, it had no right to control what it can or cannot distribute and would therefore ensure that the materials were distributed.

Update: Nov. 6, 2009.

As noted below, the Ortiz family has now commented about the arrest in the bombing case. Father, mother, and son extend forgiveness to the suspect, Jack Teitel.

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Original post from earlier this week:

A former US Marine who is now an ultra-Orthodox activist in Israel has confessed to security services inside Israel to a bombing that nearly killed Ami Ortiz, son of a Messianic pastor.

See: US-born Jewish terrorist suspected in series of attacks over 12 years.

Here are additional details from the Jerusalem Institute of Justice, a legal defense organization:

The Jerusalem Institute of Justice would like to congratulate the Israeli Police and the General Security Services for their successful apprehension of Yaacov "Jack" Teitel, the self-described "anti-missionary" activist, who confessed to the bombing of Ami Ortiz on April 20, 2008. Besides his violent activities against Messianic Jews, Teitel a 37 year old former US Marine turned ultra-orthodox, admitted to carrying out several other crimes, including the murder of at least two Palestinian Arabs and the bombing of Israel Prize Laureate Prof. Ze'ev Sternhall.

This religious hate crime is the direct result of the daily incitement which is spread without interference by ultra-orthodox extremists against minority groups in Israel, solely because of their faith and religious affiliation. These same extremists, who do not view Israel as a legitimate state because it is not a rabbinical theocracy, purposefully incite violence and persecute innocent citizens simply because these minorities do not fit into their warped definition of who is a Jew. Indeed, the prosecution of Jack Teitel is an important milestone for Israeli democracy.

The sad reality is that shortly before this religious hate crime in Ariel, posters were spread throughout the neighborhood inciting hatred against the Ortiz family, an act which was ignored by the local law enforcement authorities. It is impossible to overlook the fact that Jack Teitel probably received his evil motivation to murder the Ortiz family from those same posters.

I met with the Ortiz family in Israel in 2008 as their son was recovering from his injuries. I will update this entry, hopefully with comments from the family as soon as those are available.

See the CT editorial from last year, Israel Reconciled to All:

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2008/june/12.20.html

The nation-state of Israel will have its 60th birthday celebration on Thursday, May 8. This will be a milestone event in Middle East history. It comes at a time when Israel faces near-daily rocket attacks from northern Gaza.

While lovers of Israel from around the world will celebrate, there are others who will observe the anniversary and also maintain a deep commitment to justice for Palestinians.

Two individual Christians Ben White and Philip Rizk recently composed:

A Joint Declaration by Christians on Israel's 60th Anniversary This statement says in part: "...We recognise that today, millions of Israelis and Jews around the world will joyfully mark the 60th anniversary of the establishment of the state of Israel (Yom Ha'atzmaut). For many, this landmark powerfully symbolises the Jewish people's ability to defy the power of hatred so destructively embodied in the Nazi Holocaust. Additionally, it is an opportunity to celebrate the wealth of cultural, economic and scientific achievements of Israeli society, in all its vitality and diversity.

We also recognise that this same day, millions of Palestinians living inside Israel, the Occupied Palestinian Territories, and the worldwide diaspora, will mourn 60 years since over 700,000 of them were uprooted from their homes and forbidden from returning, while more than 400 villages were destroyed (al-Nakba). For them, this day is not just about the remembrance of a past catastrophic dispossession, dispersal, and loss; it is also a reminder that their struggle for self-determination and restitution is ongoing.

To hold both of these responses together in balanced tension is not easy. But it is vital if a peaceful way forward is to be forged, and is central to the Biblical call to "seek peace and pursue it" (Ps. 34:14). We acknowledge with sorrow that for the last 60 years, while extending empathy and support to the Israeli narrative of independence and struggle, many of us in the church worldwide have denied the same solidarity to the Palestinians, deaf to their cries of pain and distress.
To acknowledge and respect these dual histories is not, by itself, sufficient, but does offer a paradigm for building a peaceful future. Many lives have been lost, and there has been much suffering. The weak are exploited by the strong, while fear and bitterness stunt the imagination and cripple the capacity for forgiveness."

A number of influential evangelicals have signed this declaration, including: