Jewish Trivia Quiz: UFO’s

Haim Eshed, the director of space programs for the Israel Ministry of Defense for nearly 30 years, gave an interview on the topic of UFOs. Eshed is considered to be the father of Israel’s space program, and has won many awards, including the Israel Defense Prize (the highest civilian defense honor of the State of Israel) on three occasions. What did Eshed say regarding the possibility of life on other planets? [Mark D. Zimmerman]

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Mark D. Zimmerman, Trivia, Humor & Satire

A loving couple, the mother of a miracle, a baseball dad all victims of Surfside condo collapse

Published by Miami Herald SURFSIDE, Fla. — As the hope of finding survivors dimmed at the site of the Surfside condo collapse, some heartsick families were already grieving an unfathomable loss. Five residents of Champlain Towers South, which collapsed early Thursday morning, were identified among the nine dead recovered by rescuers. This leaves 152 residents

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USA

Torah on a Tatami: How One Couple Found Community In a Pandemic World

She grew up in Brooklyn, New York, her roots deep in the Ashkenazi culture of Poland, Hungary, and Lithuania. He grew up in Long Beach, California, a third generation Japanese American, and he barely knew a single Jewish person. On paper, they might not sound like an obvious match: Jewish Brooklyn versus Buddhist Japan, kvetching as a collective mode of connection versus pursuit of inner peace. But while Leah and Randy Matsui may come from disparate ethnic backgrounds, “two different flavors” as Randy puts it, over the past four decades, they have become one woven unit, and their story teaches a great deal about what love is, what true connection looks like, and most significantly, what diverse Jewish journeys look like in the 21st century. [M. Evan Wolkenstein]

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International, Jewish History, Jewish Religion, Lifestyles, Science, Medicine, & Education, USA

Jews in ‘The Decameron’

Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375) authored The Decameron around 1348, a word meaning “ten days,” referring to the activities described in the book. The book’s subtitle Prencipe Galeotto refers to the legendary friend of Lancelot, an enemy of King Arthur. He helped Lancelot seduce and bed Arthur’s wife Guinevere. The subtitle catches the theme found frequently in the book of tricks played on unworthy men, usually husbands, and of lonely women who were confined in their homes in the 14th century by their spouse and fathers while longing for sex, while men engaged in a fun-filled life which included bouts of drinking and forbidden sex. [Rabbi Dr. Israel Drazin]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Israel Drazin-Rabbi Dr.

A Response to Surfside

There are some things for which there are no words. On Thursday I did two funerals where I spoke about why we thank God at times of tragedy-because when we feel vulnerable, that the world has slipped out from underneath our footsteps, we need to find some rock to anchor ourselves, and that rock with a capital R is God. However, how can we thank God in the midst of a tragedy: the structural collapse of the Champlain Towers South Building? How can we be thankful when people are missing and all that might remain of them are DNA traces under the rubble? How can we be grateful when so many don’t know if their loved ones are alive or dead? [Rabbi Ben Herman]

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Jewish Religion, USA

Extricating Oneself from the Muddy Middle

Each of us hears an internal voice, it talks to us every day. For some, this voice repeats the harmful and disheartening comments made by parents, teachers, siblings, and friends. It reminds us of our failures and insecurities. This voice, according to Rabbi Shimshon Frankel, a clinical psychologist with more than a quarter century of experience, and author of The Wisdom of Getting Unstuck, is your Antagonist, and “when we start to identify ourselves with the negative messages that it delivers, we’re bound to start experiencing a heightened degree of discomfort, emptiness, pain, and tension.” [Fred Reiss, Ed.D]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Fred Reiss, EdD, Jewish Religion, Lifestyles

Israeli, Mexican rescuers bring distinct experience to Miami building collapse

Published by Reuters By Daniel Trotta (Reuters) – The Israelis come trained by war. The Mexicans, by natural disaster. Search-and-rescue teams from Mexico and Israel have joined the phalanx of local firefighters and other specially trained experts combing the rubble for survivors where a residential high-rise collapsed near Miami on Thursday, killing at least nine

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USA

Therapy dogs comfort families of the missing in Miami building collapse

Published by Reuters SURFSIDE, Fla. (Reuters) – Some families of the missing at the Miami-area building collapse have found comfort in therapy dogs brought in during the agonizing wait for news. With some 150 people unaccounted for, many of whom could be buried beneath the rubble, the Boricuas de Corazon disaster relief team brought in

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USA

Biden orders airstrikes in Iraq-Syria against Iran-backed militia groups

Published by New York Daily News President Biden on Sunday ordered precision airstrikes against facilities used by Iran-backed militia groups in the Iraq-Syria border region, the U.S. Department of Defense said in a statement. The targets were facilities that Iran-backed militias were using to engage in drone attacks against U.S. personnel and facilities in Iraq,

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Middle East, USA

Cracks in Israel’s Government Coalition, Opposition

Some instances from the beginning of Israel’s new government: Likud has picked on a law of family reunification in order to embarrass, and perhaps defeat the Bennett-Lapid government. It’s a law that prevents Palestinians, who marry Israeli Arabs, to acquire citizenship in Israel. It’s been on the books since 2003, but has effect only for a year. Thus, it has to be renewed annually. It is something widely supported by predominantly Jewish political parties. But its current renewal has been opposed by Likud. [Ira Sharkansky, PhD]

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Ira Sharkansky, Middle East

Israel summons Polish envoy over Holocaust property bill

Published by Reuters By Maayan Lubell JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel summoned Poland’s ambassador on Sunday to express its “deep disappointment” over a Polish bill that critics say will make it harder for Jews to recover property seized by the country’s Nazi occupiers during World War Two and then kept by post-war communist rulers, the foreign

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International, Middle East

Israel’s new FM tells US of Iran concerns but promises to work together

Published by AFP Rome (AFP) – Israel’s foreign minister on Sunday voiced concern over US diplomacy with Iran but promised a less confrontational approach, in the new government’s first high-level talks with the Jewish state’s closest ally. Foreign Minister Yair Lapid, a centrist who masterminded a coalition that this month unseated veteran right-wing leader Benjamin

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Middle East, USA