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The packages found on U.S.-bound airplanes contained explosives and were intended to hit “two places of Jewish worship in Chicago,” President Obama announced Friday. The packages originated in Yemen and were identified in Dubai and London, he said, calling it a “credible terrorist threat against our country.”

  What happened to Jewish Holy Sites and places of worship in lands controlled by the Arabs? On May 28, 1948 the Arab Legion completed the capture of the Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem, the site of numerous ancient synagogues and the Western Wall of the Temple, destroyed by the Romans in the year 70 AD. These were and remain the holiest sites in the Jewish religion.After the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem was captured, the destruction, desecration and systematic looting of Jewish sites began and continued. 57 ancient synagogues (the oldest dated to the 13th century), libraries...

The NYPD is investigating why two men were videotaping outside two large Jewish synagogues in Brooklyn on Saturday afternoon, police said Sunday. The two men shot videos with their phones at two shuls on Ocean Parkway starting about 4:15 p.m. and drove away in a car with an expired Delaware license plate, according to sources and surveillance video from one of the synagogues. The tape shows one man wearing a black jacket and blue jeans posing in front of Safra synagogue at Ocean Parkway and Ave. R while his bearded friend begins to tape him with his cellphone. The men...

A recent announcement from the Islamic Society of Baltimore (ISB) / Masjid Al-Rahmah advised that it will be receiving a grant from the Nonprofit Security Grant Program administered through the Maryland Emergency Management Agency (MEMA): ISB will be receiving $74,675.00 which will go towards upgrading, enhancing and adding to our security infrastructure. Over the next several months you will see contractors on-site conducting these security enhancements. The Nonprofit Security Grant Program (NSGP) is nationwide and overseen by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Part of DHS’s Urban Areas Security Initiative (UASI), it has been in effect since 2005. To...

Activists from the Bayit Yehudi (Jewish Home) party’s Young Leadership movement spent the Sabbath in one of the neighborhoods of southern Tel Aviv, and were shocked at what they found. The young visitors were horrified to hear that the synagogue they visited, Etz Chaim, had been left nearly empty due to violence from illegal infiltrators living in the area. The gabbai of the synagogue, who coordinates the prayers, told them that infiltrators would hit worshipers in the area of the synagogue, until many were afraid to come. Until the young activists’ visit, it had been three years since the synagogue...

Inside the synagogue, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice, who mindlessly called Israeli settlements obstacles to peace, was going to speak. Outside B’nai Torah, in Boca Raton, Florida, members were anxiously pointing out Alan Bergstein, writer and pro-Israel activist, to the reinforced law enforcement detail. Bergstein and other anti-Obama Jews were denied entrance and told by law enforcement to leave the property. How far and how shamelessly some in the Jewish community have sunk in their embrace of Obama is ineradicably seen in this action. A Jew being denied entrance to a synagogue brings to mind Germany in...

A member of U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron’s government is calling for a ban on marriages at Christian churches if they refuse to also perform same-sex unions. “As long as religious groups can refuse to preside over ceremonies for same-sex couples, there will be inequality,” wrote Mike Weatherley, the Conservative MP for Hove and Portslade, in an August 21 letter to Cameron. While Weatherley’s proposal is currently a “minority view,” it “could quickly become a main stream point of view,” warned Neil Addison, national director of the U.K.‘s Thomas More Legal Centre. The U.K.‘s 2004 Civil Partnership Act, which legalized...

Two men from East Elmhurst, Queens have been arrested and charged with plotting to blow up a Manhattan synagogue. Mayor Michael Bloomberg was joined by top city law enforcement officials at City Hall earlier today in announcing the arrests of Ahmed Ferhani, 26, and Mohamed Mamdouh, 20. Ferhani, who is from Algeria, and Mamdouh, was is from Morocco, are both charged with engaging in terrorism, weapons possession and hate crimes. An arraignment is expected later today. Police Commissioner Ray Kelly says the men told undercover officers that they hated Jews and wanted to kill them. He also says they had...

Two men trying to buy weapons including AK 47s and hand grenades as part of a plot to attack Manhattan synagogues were arrested in New York City, averting a terror threat, law enforcement sources said. This is the 13th plot thwarted against the city since the Sept. 11. The men were arrested last night in Midtown Manhattan as part of a police operation that had begun prior to Osama bin Laden's death and was not a result of any retaliatory plan, sources said. While the suspects talked about attacking synagogues in Manhattan no specific synagogue had been targeted. (snip) The...

MONTREAL - Montreal police believe attacks against five Jewish institutions in the city on the weekend could be related. Const. Raphael Bergeron says three synagogues, and a Jewish school and daycare located in the west-end areas of Cote St. Luc and Hampstead Montreal-West, had windows broken. He says the attacks took place sometime between Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning. No arrests have been made.

Officials from the United States Department of Homeland Security visited Chicago this week to deal with security issues involving local synagogues. Jewish centers in the city were apparently the targets in a recent bomb plot. On Wednesday, officials will begin conference calls with Jewish leaders across the country to discuss security. Officials working with the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) released guidelines for dealing with packages from abroad. “If there's an odor to the package, or if the packaging looks funny, treat it cautiously and with suspicion,” said the ADL's Mark Briskman. “Don't play with it. Don't open it. Get away from...

A law enforcement source tells CBS News that two packages from Yemen were found on planes that were rigged in some way. One was a UPS plane stopped in the U.K. The ot

Just the facts, Imam. A Muslim terrorist attack damaged a building, allowing Muslims to pick it up for a fraction of the price, in order to build a mosque on the spot. Some people might say that sort of thing is tacky. A little like coming by to make an offer on the house, after your cousin murdered the entire family who lived there. Sure, you might claim that you're not responsible, but it just doesn't look good. Especially once you start palling around with your cousin, and suggesting that maybe he was just misunderstood. And maybe that family brought...

New York City police arrested two youth who vandalized two Lower East Side synagogues on Thursday with eggs, smoke bombs, and swastikas. The teenagers, a 15-year old Asian and a 16-year old black, drew a large swastika on the United Hebrew Center on East Broadway. The two then set off a smoke bomb before heading to the Bialystoker synagogue on Willet Street, where they drew a second swastika and threw eggs at the building.

SNIPPET: "The word Nazi and at least eight other swastikas also were painted on a sidewalk and driveway in the area, Bikur Cholim Machzikay Hadath member Sarah Rivkin told the newspaper. Congregants at Bikur Cholim Machzikay Hadath and the Sephardic Bikur Holim Congregation were attending Selichot services during the incident."

SANTA ANA – A man was sentenced to 70 months in prison today for his role in a domestic terrorism plot to wage war on the United States by attacking Jewish synagogues and military bases. Hammad Riaz Samana is the fourth member of Jami'yyat Ul-Islam Is-Shaheeh, or JIS, a prison-founded group that wanted to make a political statement that also had plans to attack the Israeli consulate in Los Angeles and El Al Israel Airlines at the Los Angeles International Airport. Samana was 21 when he was charged in the case in July 2005, along with the cell's mastermind, Kevin...

There has been suprisingly little reportage of the actual details of would-be shopping mall terrorist, Mr. Talib Abu Salam Ibn Shareef's mindset and intentions. So as a public service, here the FBI agent's affidavit (pdf file) in easy to read format. Talib Abu Salam Ibn Shareef STATE OF ILLINOIS)) COUNTY OF COOK)AFFIDAVIT1. I, Jared Ruddy, Federal Bureau of Investigation, being duly sworn, state as follows: I am a Special Agent in the Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”) and have been so employed for more than two years. I am currently assigned to an FBI Counterterrorism squad as well as the...

President Obama has done a lot of speechifying in recent days about America's "responsibilities" in fighting terror. So you'd think he'd have a word of encouragement for the team of crack FBI agents and NYPD officers that foiled a real-life terror attack against two Bronx synagogues on Wednesday. Alas, not a peep. Obama yesterday spoke at commencement ceremonies at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md. -- largely rehashing the themes of his address the day before on terror detainees currently held at Guantanamo Bay. "As Americans, we reject the false choice between our security and our ideals," he said....

EXCLUSIVE: Four New York City men were arrested Wednesday in connection with an alleged plot to blow up New York City synagogues and other city locations, WNBC's Jonathan Dienst has learned. Raids by the FBI-NYPD Joint Terrorist Task Force in the Bronx captured the suspected ringleader and three followers in what law enforcement sources are calling a homegrown terrorist plot. Investigators stress the suspects' meetings had been infiltrated early on and there was "no chance" the alleged plot could succeed. Investigators said several of the suspects are Muslims who allegedly talked about destroying two Jewish temples, including at least one...