I first learned who Geraldine Brooks was when her 2005 novel “March” won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. My mother had gone to journalism school with Brooks, and the novel was about the absent father in one of her favorite books, Louisa May Alcott’s “Little Women.” Those two connections were enough to make Brooks a…
(JTA) — Dimly lit, the stone slab, or stele, doesn’t look particularly noteworthy, especially when compared to the more lavish sphinxes, jewelry and cauldrons one encounters en route to the room where it is installed. Indeed, in a Twitter post this fall, art journalist Lee Rosenbaum described the nearly 13-by-16 inch c. 830 BCE rock,…
A skilled paleographer or specialist in ancient writing can sometimes guess what a mere fragment of that writing is about. A month ago, Haifa University biblical historian Gershon Galil published such a guess in an Israeli journal. If he’s right, not only has he correctly deciphered a puzzling inscription written in the ancient Phoenician/Hebrew alphabet,…
The site is situated on a hilltop overlooking the Elah Valley in the Judean hills, where according to the Bible, David and Goliath held their legendary battle. The excavators, Yossi Garfinkel of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Saar Ganor of the Israel Antiquities Authority, have identified Khirbet Qeiyafa as the biblical town of Shaarayim,…
A serious act of vandalism, a string of coincidences, and a decision by the Israel Antiquities Authority have combined to change the character of King David’s Tomb on Mt. Zion from a Muslim site into a synagogue. On Tuesday this week, two painters were busy applying the last coats of paint on the building’s doorposts,…
Two or three rows of stones stretching across 30 meters. That is what remains of what is believed to be King David’s palace, or at least the palace of a senior district governor that served the king some 3,000 years ago, according to scholars from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and the Israel Antiquities Authority….
Gen. David Petraeus is not the first famous David in history to be ensnared in the web of infidelity. King David was an adulterer and a fellow military hero as well. However, the similarities end there. While the biblical David was able to retain his kingship because he repented and was forgiven, the contemporary David…
It’s the ultimate big bucks breakfast. “You are invited to a photo opportunity and breakfast roundtable with Governor Mitt Romney,” reads the bold blue print on the invitation sent to a select few. Then comes the price: $50,000 per couple. The event was planned to be completely closed to the press, a fact that attracted…
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