The kidnappers, who have not been identified, abducted Greek Orthodox Metropolitan Boulos Yazigi and Syriac Orthodox Metropolitan Youhanna Ibrahim, both of Aleppo, while they were undertaking a “humanitarian mission” to help Syria’s Christian minority, according to Syrian Christian expatriates in the U.S.

The bishops’ Syrian Orthodox driver was killed in the attack.

Since 2011, more than 70,000 Syrians have died in fighting in the bloody civil war between forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad and rebels seeking to oust Assad’s strong-arm regime.

In a statement over the weekend, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation called for the bishops’ “immediate and unconditional” release.

Such acts, it said, “contradict the principles of true Islam and the (high) status held for Christian clergymen in Islam.”

The OIC’s statement followed earlier pleas by the Greek, Syrian and Melkite churches, as well as Pope Francis, who asked that the bishops “be returned quickly to their communities.”

New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said the abductions and murder of the driver “weigh heavily on the hearts of people of good will.”

Dolan said the kidnapping of “two men of peace is a sign of the terrible violence that is destroying the fabric of Syrian society,” and added that U.S. bishops “will continue to work through all channels” – the Holy See, the diplomatic and international community – to help secure the bishops’ release and an end to the hostilities in Syria.

Monsignor Jean-Clement Jeanbart, the Greek Melkite bishop of Aleppo, told AsiaNews that the Catholic and Orthodox churches “are doing their best” to bring the bishops home, but did not elaborate. “At present, no one understands the reasons for this act and who is behind these criminals,” he said.

Jeanbart said that fighting in Aleppo had intensified this week, and that one of the city’s Christian neighborhoods was shelled by mortars that killed four people and destroyed several homes.

“The situation in the city is terrible; no one is safe, not even the Christians,” who have remained outwardly neutral during the war, Jeanbart said.

Ibrahim’s nephew, Jamil Diarbakerli, who represents the Assyrian Democratic Organization, told the World Watch Monitor watchdog group that the two bishops had chosen to remain in Syria, despite the dangers.

“The two bishops stayed and want their people to do the same – not to leave the country, not to empty Syria of Christians,” he said.

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Despite a 2003 Supreme Court decision stating women cannot don prayer shawls at the Western Wall, many members and supporters of Women of the Wall pray with prayer shawls. They want the Israeli government to accommodate the needs of all Jews at the Wall, not just those of the ultra-Orthodox. RNS file photo by Michele Chabin

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Israeli police arrested five women on April 11 who were dressed in prayer shawls while praying with Women of the Wall, an activist group that prays at Judaism’s most sacred site once a month.

Immediately following those arrests, a lower court judge ruled that the women had not violated “local custom,” a legal concept intended to keep the fragile peace at holy sites. The Western Wall is a remnant of the Second Temple that was destroyed nearly 2,000 years ago.

Thursday’s ruling by the higher court upheld that ruling and rejected an appeal filed by the police, who argued Women of the Wall’s practices violate a 2003 Supreme Court decision and disrupt the public order.

Israel’s ultra-Orthodox religious establishment has long maintained that the group’s practices offend more traditional Jews, who believe only men are allowed to lead group prayers or wear prayer shawls.

Following Thursday’s ruling, Anat Hoffman, the group’s chairwoman, said that “today, Women of the Wall liberated the Western Wall for all Jewish people. … We did it for the great diversity of Jews in the world, all of whom deserve to pray according to their belief and custom at the Western Wall.”

Shira Pruce, the group’s spokeswoman, said the struggle will continue until they see “girls permitted to have a bat mitzvah (coming of age ceremony) at the Wall with a Torah, with a tallit (prayer shawl) , or however they wish and believe.”

In a statement, Natan Sharansky, the chairman of the Jewish Agency and a government emissary charged with trying to quell the dispute, said the ruling “only strengthen(s) the need for a sustainable, agreed solution, which will allow every Jew to feel at home at the Western Wall, as the basis for any resolution.” Sharansky had recently proposed adding a third egalitarian section that would allow mixed-gender prayers.

A spokesperson for the Justice Ministry told the Times of Israel that it was too soon to comment on a possible appeal by the state prosecutor to the Supreme Court. A police spokesman could not be reached for comment.

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During the Women of the Wall’s last prayer session in March, a dozen police stood between them and the men’s section of the Western Wall, in an effort to keep the peace. Ultra-Orthodox Jews, opposed to non-traditional prayer at the Wall, tried, unsuccessfully, to drown out the WOW worshippers. RNS photo by Michele Chabin

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Tensions have grown between traditional Jews and reform-minded women over prayers at the Western Wall, which contains the remains of the Temple that was destroyed nearly 2,000 years ago.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has tapped Natan Sharansky, chairman of the Jewish Agency, with defusing the conflict and ensuring “that every Jew in the world can pray in the manner that they are accustomed to at Judaism’s most important national and religious site,” according to a statement issued by the Jewish Agency.

Sharansky met with Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz, the caretaker of the Western Wall, on Thursday, three weeks after the Israeli police told the Women of the Wall prayer group that their recitation of the Kaddish mourner’s prayer at the site would be grounds for arrest.

The Kaddish mourner’s prayer is the newest flashpoint in the ongoing dispute; ultra-Orthodox Jews say women should not sing or pray aloud in public because their voices are provocative to men. Because the mourner’s prayer traditionally is recited only when a quorum of 10 men is present, a group of women reciting the prayer in public is doubly offensive to traditionalists.

Sharansky went into the meeting “to express his shock” at the March 14 police letter, but “Rabbi Rabinowitz assured Sharansky that, contrary to the letter, no woman would be arrested for reciting Kaddish at the Western Wall,” the agency statement said.

Rabinowitz could not be reached for comment.

Despite a court decision stating women cannot don prayer shawls at the Western Wall, many members and supporters of Women of the Wall pray with prayer shawls. They want the Israeli government to accommodate the needs of all Jews at the Wall, not just those of the ultra-Orthodox. RNS photo by Michele Chabin

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Members of Women of the Wall, a group of Reform, Conservative and modern-Orthodox women, have been praying at the Western Wall for more than two decades despite objections from the ultra-Orthodox religious establishment, which has attempted to put further restrictions on the women’s prayer options.

In recent months the police have detained several WOW members and their supporters for wearing prayer shawls and bringing in a Torah scroll to the women’s section — both banned by a 2005 High Court ruling that mandated the status quo at the holy site.

The women’s group holds monthly prayer services at the site, and in March three female Israeli parliamentarians, dressed in prayer shawls, joined the group. The presence of the lawmakers deterred the police from detaining any of the 300 worshippers.

Anat Hoffman, WOW’s chairwoman, said that “prohibiting women from saying Kaddish is a shanda,” using the Yiddish term for a shameful thing, and said Rabinowitz “has, without a doubt, crossed a clear red line, as women’s right to say Kaddish is respected and accepted by the entire Jewish world, including Orthodox factions.”

Elana Sztokman, executive director of the New York-based Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance, said “it is not up to the state of Israel, the police, or the (Wall’s) administrator,” to dictate when women can say the Kaddish.

“The idea that the police are being recruited to incarcerate women for failing to comply with the particularly radical opinion of the ultra-Orthodox rabbi … is a frightening invasion of fanatic religious opinions into women’s real lives,” she said.

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With Passover just three weeks away, the timing of a massive infestation of locusts in Egypt is striking many Israelis as downright biblical. RNS photo courtesy tvnewsbadge via Flickr (http://flic.kr/p/d7PtLQ)

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Millions of the grasshopper-like insects swarmed Israel’s southern neighbor, damaging crops. Some have since made their way to southern Israel.

On the eve of Passover, which this year begins at sundown on March 25, Jews around the world will recall the Exodus story and the 10 plagues that befell Egypt.

According to the Old Testament Book of Exodus, God sent 10 plagues to Egypt because the pharaoh refused to free the Israelites from captivity.

Locusts were the eighth plague. The pharaoh relented after the 10th plague and the Israelites left, but the Egyptian army pursued them until the soldiers drowned in the sea.

The last sporadic swarm of locusts was eight years ago, Keith Cressman, the senior locust forecasting officer at the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization’s headquarters in Rome, told NBC News. Cressman said the insects started along the Sudan-Egypt border after breeding and got caught up in a weather system that carried them north and east.

Though Israeli agricultural experts are on high alert and fear that the locusts could devastate crops, many Israelis have been more laid back, with some noting that some varieties of the leggy pests are kosher.

“Not only does the Torah permit man to eat certain mammals, birds and fish, but it even permits him to eat certain insects – namely several types of locusts,” Rabbi Natan Slifkin wrote in The Times of Israel.

Although most Jews of European descent have scant experience with locusts and don’t know how to identify the kosher kinds, some Jews of North African descent do have the expertise, Slifkin said.

Slifkin proceeded to explain how best to cook the locusts – with some oil and spices.

“My wife, however, insists that I do not use her kitchen utensils for the task; she is locust-intolerant,” the rabbi said.

“The rationale for certain locusts being kosher may be a practical matter – when your crops are wiped out by locusts, at least you’re not left with nothing to eat.”

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The commission said the owners, whose businesses are located in an ultra-Orthodox neighborhood, violated human rights law with signs that read: “No shorts, no barefoot, no sleeveless, no low-cut neckline allowed in this store.”

Ultra-Orthodox Jews practice a strict form of Judaism; men, women and older children are expected to wear clothes that cover their arms, legs and necklines.

Clifford Mulqueen, deputy commissioner and general counsel to the Human Rights Commission, told the Haaretz newspaper in Israel that the signs “are pretty specific to women. It seems pretty clear that it’s geared toward women dressing modestly if they choose to come into the store, and that would be discrimination.”

The seven business owners deny the charges.

Marc Stern, associate general counsel at the American Jewish Committee, told Religion News Service that the commission’s suit appears to unfairly single out Hasidic Jews.

“What’s disturbing about the action is that gender-specific dress codes are a common phenomenon at upscale restaurants and clubs. It’s at least perplexing and maybe worse that the only type of code that the commission has challenged are those that seem to have a religious basis, even though they’re gender neutral.”

Devora Allon, the attorney representing the businessmen, insisted that the signs “are gender neutral, they do not discriminate and there is no discriminatory intent. I believe the commission’s claims have no merit.”

Allon said that “no customer has ever been denied service at the stores on the basis of how he or she dressed.”

A pre-trial conference is scheduled for March 12.

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