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2102660 obituaries » Obituaries from page 61 62 December 29 • 2016 Obituaries ((JTA) — The U.N. Security Council adopted a resolution condemning Israeli settlements, with the United States abstaining. The resolution was adopted Friday afternoon with 14 votes in favor and only the U.S. abstention. It called Israeli settlements "a flagrant violation of international law" that damage the prospects of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Samantha Power, the American U.N. envoy, in a lengthy explanation of the American vote, said the resolution is consistent with longstanding U.S. policy opposing Israeli settlements and accu- rately reflects the facts on the ground. Previous American presidents had allowed Security Council resolutions critical of Israel to pass. As recently as 2011, Obama vetoed a similar resolu- tion. "The U.S. has been sending a mes- sage that the settlements must stop privately and publicly for decades," Power said. "Our vote today is fully in line with the bipartisan history of how presidents have approached this issue." Power said the United States could not support the resolution outright because it ignores other relevant issues and because Israel is often mistreated at the United Nations. She talked at length about the latter sentiment. "The simple truth is for as long as Israel has been a member of this insti- tution, Israel has been treated different- ly from other members of the United Nations," the ambassador said. Power emphasized that the absten- tion did not reflect any change in the American commitment to Israeli secu- rity. "Our commitment to that security has never wavered and never will," she said. The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, the Jewish community's foreign policy umbrella group, issued a scathing denunciation of the resolution and the American vote. * Clara Amit/Israel Antiquities Authority A fragment of a 2,100-year-old stone bowl that bears the Hebrew inscription "Hyrcanus," which was the name of two Jewish Hasmonean dynasty leaders from the era of the Chanukah story. (JNS.org) Just in time for this year's cel- ebration of Chanukah (Dec. 24-Jan. 1), the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) announced archaeologists' discovery of a 2,100-year-old stone bowl bearing the Hebrew inscription "Hyrcanus," which was the name of two of the leaders of the Chanukah story's Jewish Hasmonean dynasty. A fragment of the bowl was unearthed in 2015 during an archaeological excava- tion at Jerusalem's City of David landmark, but the finding was not revealed until last week. Researchers said the bowl was fash- ioned from chalk — a type of limestone — and is "one of the earliest examples of chalk vessels to appear in Jerusalem." "These stone vessels were extensively used by Jews because they were consid- ered vessels that cannot become ritually unclean," the IAA's Dr. Doron Ben-Ami and Bar-Ilan University's Prof. Esther Eshel said in a statement. The name Hyrcanus, explained the researchers, was "fairly common in the Hasmonean period." "We know of two personages from this period who had this name: John Hyrcanus, who was the grandson of Matityahu the Hasmonean and ruled Judea from 135-104 BCE, and John Hyrcanus II, who was the son of Alexander Jannaeus and Salome Alexandra; however, it is not possible to determine if the bowl belonged specifi- cally to either of them," said Ben-Ami and Eshel. * ISRAEL REVEALS ARTIFACT BEARING NAME OF HASMONEAN LEADERS U.N. PASSES ANTISETTLEMENT RESOLUTION; U.S. ABSTAINS