In 2011, Thailand's Princess Chulabhorn visited Jerusalem to discuss scientific cooperation, including cancer and brain research. A scientist with a doctorate in chemistry, she had professional reasons for making the journey. But during a meeting, she expressed something more personal.

"In my heart I feel half-Israeli," she declared. "I think like an Israeli." She even added the Israeli name Tzila to her signature in the presidential guest book.

The warmth was striking. So was the setting. For centuries, Jews had traveled to Thailand to trade, earn a living and sometimes escape persecution. Now a Thai princess was seeking scientific partners in a Jewish country.

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Twenty-five years after the September 11 attacks, Americans still do not know everything their own government knows about who may have helped the Islamic terrorists who carried them out.

This week, the US once again mourns the nearly 3,000 people murdered when al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked four passenger planes and turned them into weapons.

Yet a quarter-century later, evidence continues to emerge linking Saudi government personnel, and others tied to the kingdom, to assistance provided to the terrorists before the attacks.

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On Friday night, Aug. 14, an angry crowd gathered outside a new Chabad center in the Sri Lankan beach town of Hiriketiya as Jews were preparing to welcome Shabbat.

More than 100 protesters, including Buddhist monks, reportedly took part. They hurled stones and firecrackers at the building, and a window was shattered. The unrest resumed the following night.

What made the episode all the more striking is that Jewish life is hardly something new to Sri Lanka. Long before Israeli backpackers began flocking to its beaches, Jews had been finding their way to the island for centuries.

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Long before there was a Jewish exile, the Torah already spoke of the Jewish return.

In Parshat Nitzavim, the first of this week's double portion, Moshe tells the Jewish people that a day will come when they will be scattered among the nations. But he also promises that exile will not last forever.

"Then the Lord your G-d will return your captivity and have compassion upon you, and He will return and gather you from all the peoples among whom the Lord your G-d has scattered you" (Devarim 30:3).

Two verses later, Moshe goes even further: "And the Lord your G-d will bring you to the Land which your fathers possessed, and you shall possess it" (30:5).

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With millions facing hunger and displacement in Sudan, dissidents enduring prison and torture in Iran, and thousands of political prisoners languishing in Myanmar's jails, the world is hardly suffering from a shortage of worthy humanitarian causes.

Yet some of the biggest names in the movie business have decided that what the world really needs is the release of Marwan Barghouti, a Palestinian terrorist and convicted murderer serving five life sentences in an Israeli prison.

More than 20 actors associated with Marvel films have joined the "Free Marwan" campaign demanding his release, including Benedict Cumberbatch, Mark Ruffalo, Don Cheadle, and Cate Blanchett.

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