Byliners

Children’s Literature: ‘The Rabbi and the Painter’

‘The Rabbi and the Painter,’ a children’s book imagines a fictional friendship between the Mannerist painter Tintoretto and Rabbi Leon of Modena, whose most famous work, Historia de gli riti Hebraici, describing for non-Jews the rites and customs of the Jewish people, was written more than 40 years after Tintoretto’s death.

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. Harrison, Jewish Fiction

The Lasting Significance of David Hume

The pandemic, which has taken over three million lives and continues to ravage parts of the world; the rise of Trumpism, culminating in the January 6th attack on the Capitol; the degradation of the environment and the threat posed by anthropogenic climate change; these things, and others, have served to alert many of us that the comfort we take in the notion that what has always been the case one’s whole life will always remain the case is nothing more than a pleasant fiction. Several centuries ago, a Scottish philosopher made a similar observation, and notably took it quite a bit further. [Sam Ben-Meir, Ph.D]

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Sam Ben-Meir, Science, Medicine, & Education

Wartime Chaos and Speculation

Lots of missiles coming from Gaza to Israel. Lots of damage in Gaza. And something close to civil war within Israel, with Arab mobs attacking Jews and their property in what had been peaceful settings with two communities; plus Jewish mobs doing the same to Arabs and their property.Overall, leaving aside the actions of the security forces in Gaza, it’s not too different from occasional bursts of racial violence in the US and some European cities. [Ira Sharkansky, Ph.D]

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Ira Sharkansky, Middle East

A Jewish Odyssey from Ethiopia to Israel and Back

“From Africa to Zion” is a remarkable memoir that takes us from the author’s childhood in a rural Ethiopian village without electricity or running water through his perilous journey to a crowded, multi-ethnic refugee camp in the Sudan, where disease and crime were rampant, and onto his arrival to the modern world of Israel, in which his family were initially mystified by such conveniences as toilets and refrigerators. [Donald H. Harrison]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. Harrison, International, Jewish History, Jewish Religion, Middle East

Making Our Nation Safe From Computer Hackers

Some small-minded sages are chortling in America that people with electric cars don’t have to worry about the Colonial Pipeline, shut down by a cyber attack, because they can get their “gas” from the electric company. They go on to argue for more electric cars. Of course if it was the power company that was knocked out, the electric cars would not run. And power companies have been knocked out.  The Russians killed one in Ukraine, putting it offline for some time. [Stephen D. Bryen]

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Business & Finance, International, Stephen D. Bryen, USA

Good News from Israel (May 16, 2021)

NETANYA, Israel — In the May 16, 2021 edition of Israel’s good news, the highlights include:
–US doctors use an Israeli device to remove blood clots from stroke patients.
–Israel has sent tons of coronavirus aid to India.
–4 top multinationals are expanding Israeli hi-tech operations.
–Israeli innovators are turning CO2 emissions into an energy source.
–Israel’s economy continues to improve.
–An Israeli has won France’s top literary prize.
–The festival of Shavuot is uniting Israelis, just as it did 3,333 years ago
[Michael Ordman]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Business & Finance, Jewish Religion, Michael Ordman, Middle East, Science, Medicine, & Education, Sports & Competitions, USA

Ethnoreligious War in Gaza and Israel

Here is my latest update about Operation Guardian of the Wall. Luckily, our city, Kfar Saba, has been spared any damage. But because (3,000) rockets are still being launched  into Israel from Gaza, Israelis of all types have had to contend with ethnoreligious rioting in mixed Arab-Jewish towns, even to an actual pogrom in Lod, a city near Ben Gurion Airport, where synagogues, houses, stores, and cars were torched and residents attacked. [Steve Kramer]

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Middle East, Steve Kramer

A Word of Torah: Standing Together

This week we begin the fourth of the five books of the Torah, the book of BaMidbar. BaMidbar means ‘In the Desert.’ It is also called Sefer HaPikudim, which translates as the Book of Numbers. The portion has the same name as the book itself. It is telling that this portion is read before the holiday of Shavuot, which comes out this year Sunday night through Tuesday night. [Rabbi Yeruchem Eilfort]

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Jewish Religion, Middle East, Yeruchem Eilfort-Rabbi

Frightening sectarian violence within Israel

“Here we go again!”  That was the heading of a post I wrote a few weeks ago about the general election, but heck, it works just as well for what I’m writing about today, the escalation of violence in Israel and Gaza.
The first time I realized that things were getting serious was when I was in my German lesson at the community centre near my house in Mevasseret Zion. “What’s that noise?” I asked the lady sitting next to me. “It’s the siren,” she said, whereupon we and the other participants (all elderly ladies like myself) got up and moved to the shelter, which happened also to house the toilets. We heard (and saw) fire trucks and ambulances racing past, and after hanging around for a while, we all packed up our things and went home to watch the news on TV. A rocket fired from Gaza had landed on a nearby hill, causing very little damage and no injuries, thank goodness. [Dorothea Shefer-Vanson]

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Dorothea Shefer-Vanson, Middle East

George W. Bush’s Warm Embrace for Immigrants to U.S.

If this book’s title, Out of the Many, One  sounds familiar, it is the English translation of the Latin expression  E pluribus unum, the unofficial motto of the United States, which can be found on the back of the $1 bill above the wings of the eagle.  Former President George W. Bush decided to include 43 portraits within this book, a number that was not happenstance.  He was the 43rd President of the United States. [Donald H. Harrison]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. Harrison, International, Middle East, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, USA