UN-Truth

The new website Jerusalem.com — officially launched yesterday — is pushing its prayer product.

A promotional email received yesterday offers: “record your prayer on Jerusalem .com and it will be play towards the holy city walls – allowing believers around the world to pray towards their holy places in Jerusalem, even when they cannot make it to actually visit holy city”.

This is a patented prayer product, we are informed in a follow-up email: “One of the highlighted features the site is offering (patented written by Jerusalem.com) is the ability to submit vocal prayers and have them actually heard via real speakers overlooking the old city of Jerusalem. The site is reporting that hundreds of prayers have already been submitted from more than 72 different countries the world over”.

As part of the opening promotion, Princess Padmaja Kumari Mewar of Rajasthan was invited to post a prayer on the Jerusalem.com website, in which she not only says that wanted to take the opportunity to “hope and pray for the world peace”, but she also politely mentions that the hospitality she has received has been “unparalleled”, in what she calls the “holy land of Israel”.

The follow-up email we received says that Princess Padmaja’s prayer will “be heard in Jerusalem’s old city”.

Princess Padmaja’s Prayer can also be watched on Youtube
here .

Princess Padmaja’s prayer is supposed to be broadcast — by loudspeaker, apparently (is there a schedule, or are all the prayers broadcast at once, and if so is there no limit on noise? ) — somewhere in Jerusalem.

Internet praying may be a growth industry, during the current global economic crisis. Israel’s Ministry of Tourism reported today that tourist visits to Israel have been declining, “with a decrease of 22% since the beginning of the year over January – May 2008″. The one exception, the Ministry said, was during the Pope’s visit: “During the week in which Pope Benedict XVI visited Israel (11-15 May), the Tourism Ministry succeeded in bringing over 25,000 tourists to Israel. Most of these tourists, who came specifically for the papal visit, were from Italy, Spain, France and Germany. 11,300 visitors came from Italy during May (an increase of 21% over May 2008) and 5,500 visitors arrived from Spain (an increase of 41%) … At the same time, the recovery of incoming tourism from Russia continues: In May 2009, more than 33,000 visitors arrived from Russia, an increase of 10% over May 2008. Russia remains the second largest source country for incoming tourism to Israel, after the USA (124,500 Russian visitors have come to Israel since the beginning of the year)”.

Filed under: Boundaries & Borders, Israel, Middle East Peace Process, Palestine & Palestinians