ARAMAIC WATCH: The APF reports on more efforts in Israel to preserve Aramaic as a spoken language, combined with yet another land dispute. Excerpt:

"Shlomo malfonito" -- "Hello teacher" -- intone some 20 pupils in the Arab-Israeli village of Jish, where half the population is Maronite, a people who for centuries have lived in the mountains of Lebanon and nearby.

The children get free lessons in Aramaic, an ancient tongue spoken during the time of Jesus Christ and kept alive down the centuries by fellow Maronites.

Shadi Khalul, 33, organised the lessons and teaches the language of his ancestors along with his brother, sister-in-law and three others so the young people in the northern village remember their roots in Biram some four kilometres (2.5 miles) away.

That village was razed by Israel in 1953, nearly five years after the authorities of the then six-month-old Jewish state evacuated its 1,050 residents in November 1948. They said it would be a temporary measure.