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Clara Amit/Israel Antiquities Authority

Obituaries from page 61

ISRAEL REVEALS
ARTIFACT
BEARING NAME
OF HASMONEAN
LEADERS

A fragment of a 2,100-year-old stone bowl that
bears the Hebrew inscription “Hyrcanus,” which
was the name of two Jewish Hasmonean dynasty
leaders from the era of the Chanukah story.

(JNS.org) Just in time for this year’s cel-
ebration of Chanukah (Dec. 24-Jan. 1),
the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA)
announced archaeologists’ discovery of
a 2,100-year-old stone bowl bearing the
Hebrew inscription “Hyrcanus,” which
was the name of two of the leaders of
the Chanukah story’s Jewish Hasmonean
dynasty.
A fragment of the bowl was unearthed
in 2015 during an archaeological excava-
tion at Jerusalem’s City of David landmark,
but the finding was not revealed until last
week. Researchers said the bowl was fash-
ioned from chalk — a type of limestone
— and is “one of the earliest examples of
chalk vessels to appear in Jerusalem.”
“These stone vessels were extensively

used by Jews because they were consid-
ered vessels that cannot become ritually
unclean,” the IAA’s Dr. Doron Ben-Ami
and Bar-Ilan University’s Prof. Esther
Eshel said in a statement.
The name Hyrcanus, explained the
researchers, was “fairly common in the
Hasmonean period.”
“We know of two personages from this
period who had this name: John Hyrcanus,
who was the grandson of Matityahu the
Hasmonean and ruled Judea from 135-104
BCE, and John Hyrcanus II, who was the
son of Alexander Jannaeus and Salome
Alexandra; however, it is not possible to
determine if the bowl belonged specifi-
cally to either of them,” said Ben-Ami and
Eshel.

*

U.N. PASSES ANTISETTLEMENT
RESOLUTION; U.S. ABSTAINS

((JTA) — The U.N. Security Council
adopted a resolution condemning
Israeli settlements, with the United
States abstaining.
The resolution was adopted Friday
afternoon with 14 votes in favor and
only the U.S. abstention. It called Israeli
settlements “a flagrant violation of
international law” that damage the
prospects of a two-state solution to the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Samantha Power, the American U.N.
envoy, in a lengthy explanation of the
American vote, said the resolution is
consistent with longstanding U.S. policy
opposing Israeli settlements and accu-
rately reflects the facts on the ground.
Previous American presidents had
allowed Security Council resolutions
critical of Israel to pass. As recently as
2011, Obama vetoed a similar resolu-
tion.
“The U.S. has been sending a mes-
sage that the settlements must stop
privately and publicly for decades,”
Power said. “Our vote today is fully in

line with the bipartisan history of how
presidents have approached this issue.”
Power said the United States could
not support the resolution outright
because it ignores other relevant issues
and because Israel is often mistreated at
the United Nations. She talked at length
about the latter sentiment.
“The simple truth is for as long as
Israel has been a member of this insti-
tution, Israel has been treated different-
ly from other members of the United
Nations,” the ambassador said.
Power emphasized that the absten-
tion did not reflect any change in the
American commitment to Israeli secu-
rity.
“Our commitment to that security
has never wavered and never will,” she
said.
The Conference of Presidents of
Major American Jewish Organizations,
the Jewish community’s foreign policy
umbrella group, issued a scathing
denunciation of the resolution and the
American vote.

*

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62 December 29 • 2016

Obituaries

