Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice

Articles written by Nadav Shragai


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  • Israel freezes plans to connect Jerusalem to Ma'ale Adumim due to US, Meretz pressure

    Nadav Shragai|Feb 18, 2022

    (Israel Hayom via JNS) - Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz and Prime Minister Naftali Bennett have ordered the Civil Administration in Judea and Samaria's supreme planning council to halt discussions on the authorization of construction to connect Ma'ale Adumim to Jerusalem in the E-1 corridor. Construction had been planned for some 3,000 acres of largely government-owned land and was to include some 3,500 housing units. The committee began to discuss the plan, which had been frozen for...

  • 49 cisterns tell the story of the destruction of the Temple, and much more

    Nadav Shragai|Aug 6, 2021

    (Israel Hayom via JNS) - Like a well-kept secret, the cisterns of the Temple Mount are concealed, barred and padlocked by the Jerusalem Islamic Waqf. In ancient times, the cisterns refreshed pilgrims arriving at the Temple. A few originally functioned as shaft graves or quarries from which stones were carved to build the Temple, filling with water only years later. According to archaeologists' calculations, to transport 26,417 gallons of water from the Gihon Spring 2,624 feet to one small...

  • Israel straddles the divide as Saudis vie for influence over Temple Mount

    Nadav Shragai|Mar 26, 2021

    (JNS) — Two events of religious and historical significance that very nearly took place last week point to a deeper layer in Jordan and Saudi Arabia’s struggle for guardianship of Islamic holy places on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount. Israel has now been dragged into this struggle against its will. Jordanian Crown Prince Hussein, King Abdullah’s son, was about to enter the gates of the Temple Mount on March 10 to perpetuate Jordan’s formal status as the Muslim world’s guardian of the site. However, the visit was canceled at the last minute, supposedl...

  • Let's start talking about our rights in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria

    Nadav Shragai|Feb 5, 2021

    (JNS) — Now is the time to unpack the arsenal of arguments that were not so necessary during the era of former U.S. President Donald Trump, and refresh the discourse about Israeli rights to Jerusalem and to Judea and Samaria, that latter home to half a million Jews. Doing so has become urgent in the wake of the inauguration of U.S. President Joe Biden, a sworn opponent of Israeli settlements, and his appointment of figures like former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power. Israel is already in low-level contact with the new admin...

  • A new challenge to Jordan's status on the Temple Mount

    Nadav Shragai|Dec 25, 2020

    (JNS) Fifty-one years have passed since the establishment in Rabat, Morocco, of one of the most hostile organizations toward Israel ever. One of the more prestigious committees in the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, formerly known as the Organization of the Islamic Conference, is the Jerusalem Committee. Morocco’s kings, the “defenders of Islam’s holy sites in Jerusalem,” have led this committee for decades. From Morocco’s standpoint, normalization of ties with Israel is not just a renewed embrace of the Moroccan Diaspora in Israel, b...

  • Thank heaven we're done with UNESCO 

    Nadav Shragai|Jan 11, 2019

    (JNS)—Thank God, it’s over. When 2018 ended, Israel’s withdrawal from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization took effect. Don’t feel bad. Under existing conditions, there was no reason to keep our place at the table with the gang of hypocritical liars that every few months rewrote another chapter of the history of the land of Israel and the Jewish people, and co-opted it for the Palestinians. Rather than thrilling at the glorious cultural, religious, historic and archaeological legacy of the Jewish people in the la...