Jerusalem and its environs have many historic trees, including the grove of gnarled olives in the Garden of Gethsemane – under which Jesus may have sheltered two millennia ago. But now Jerusalem has a new contender – a sapling seeded by Anne Frank’s white horse chestnut tree in Amsterdam, which is growing at Yad Vashem near its International Institute for Holocaust Research. For more than two years until her arrest on August 4, 1944, Frank – a precocious teenage diarist (1929

AMMAN, Jordan – While the media has depicted the Middle East as roiling in violence since last month’s decision by American President Donald Trump recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, an exhibit of 60 B&W antique photos of the Holy City and the Levant at Jordan’s National Gallery of Fine Arts on Hosni Fareez Street here has mounted a temporary exhibit documenting that people of various faiths and nationalities shared the region in peace until European colonial powers st

JERUSALEM – In Europe, the Giro d'Italia bicycle race ranks in status with baseball’s World Series. Since the beloved Italian sports extravaganza’s initial race in 1909, the multi-stage event’s “Big Start” has never been held outside of Europe – until now. Next May 4, the annual peloton’s green starting flag will be waved here in the Holy City, thanks in big part to Sylvan Adams – the ex-Montreal billionaire now living in Tel Aviv who himself is a competitive racer. Adams, 58

JERUSALEM – Having recently acquired Toronto’s troubled 65-storey Trump International Hotel and Tower now being rebranded as The St. Regis Toronto, Joseph Waldman – one of the principals of the city’s Rothner Highgates Group – could only look up. The Antwerp-born developer, 45, and his partner, Ricky Rothner, are hoping to do it again with Merom Yerushalayim (Jerusalem Heights) – a prestigious project of 218 luxury condominiums located on Malchei Israel Street at the highest

And Joseph also went up from Galilee... unto ... Bethlehem... with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child. - Luke 2: 4-5 Hidden in plain sight in an olive grove in southern Jerusalem by the side of the road to Bethlehem and Rachel’s Tomb are the ruins of a unique Christian holy site called the Kathisma – Greek meaning “seat.” Here according to tradition, the very pregnant Virgin Mary sat down to rest on her way by donkey from Nazareth to Bethlehem – where she gave bir

Beersheva’s new Negev Museum of Islamic and Near Eastern Cultures opened its second exhibition last Monday (Dec. 14, 2015). Called “From Iznik to Jerusalem: A Cross-Cultural Meeting”, the exhibition examines the pottery once produced by Armenian ceramic artists in Iznik, Turkey (formerly known in Greek as Nicea) in western Anatolia, and its connection to Far Eastern ceramics from the Ming dynasty (1368–1644) to the present. While the exhibition includes historic artifacts fro

Most historians writing about Jerusalem in the first half of the twentieth century focus on the city’s multifaceted political and military legacy at the expense of everyday people and their quotidian affairs. Thus Days of Ticho: Empire, Mandate, Medicine and Art in the Holy Land, examining the period 1912-1960 through the lens of pioneering ophthalmologist Dr. Avraham (Albert) Ticho and his wife artist Anna, comes as a most welcome addition to the historiography of the Holy C

While a cornerstone laying ceremony was held recently for the rebuilding of the Old City of Jerusalem’s Tiferet Israel Synagogue – dedicated in 1872 and dynamited by Jordan’s Arab Legion in 1948, don’t expect to see the 20-meter-high new / old Chassidic landmark reappear to its former glory anytime soon. Speaking at the event in May, Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat said, “Today we lay the cornerstone of one of the important symbols of the Jewish community in Jerusalem. The Municip

Jerusalem, a city of 1,000 secrets, revealed one of them last week when for the first time ever the press were invited to view the secco paintings of Crusaders at the 19th century Hôpital St. Louis des Français – the long-term care facility and hospice for terminally ill Jews, Christians, and Muslims, located opposite the New Gate, which is closed to the general public. The media tour, organized by Jerusalem District archaeologist Amit Reem of the Israel Antiquities Authority