The proxy war in Ukraine is heading to a denouement with the US and Russia dividing the spoils while the European powers stand bewildered by events they have been wilfully blind to, says KEVIN OVENDEN
Easter and the return of martyrdom
JAMES CROSSLEY sees parallels between the death of Jesus on the cross and the martyrdom of those fighting for the Rojava revolution today
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THIS weekend clergy will be informing their congregations that there is more to Easter than chocolate eggs and bunnies.
No doubt they would prefer their congregations, politicians and the public to focus on the suffering of Jesus and the meaning of his death by crucifixion.
And perhaps our hypothetical clergy have a point. The earliest traditions about Jesus that gave rise to the Easter story suggest that he was brutally killed because of overturning the tables of the moneychangers and dove-sellers in the Jerusalem Temple.
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JAMES CROSSLEY charts how anti Jewish sentiment developed from ancient days and the dawn of Christianity to the Middle Ages, the birth of Protestantism and the sinister era of of the Nazis
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