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1. History According to tradition, a plague that swept Germany in 1633 spared the Bavarian village of Oberammergau, and in gratitude for their deliverance the townspeople promised to honor God by performing a play the following year that depicted the death of Jesus (Passion, Account of the; Religious Drama). In following years the town repeated the play, and now, almost four centuries later, it still continues to do so every ten years. The 2000 production involved six months of performances that attracted nearly 500,000 viewers from all parts of the world. The elabo…

1. In Antiquity Zionism is the national movement to establish Jewish sovereignty in the biblical land of Israel (Eretz Yisrael). “Zion” itself is the name of a Jerusalem hillock, but as early as the biblical period the name was used to signify the Holy City and the entire land of Israel. The word “Zion” appears in Hebrew Scriptures 180 times; following the Babylonian destruction of the First Temple in 586 b.c.e., the term represented the spiritual hope of remembrance, return, reconstruction, and redemption. ¶ Following the Roman Empire’s destruction of the Second Temple in 70 c.e., “Zion”…