Growing young and happy in older age

We learn profound lessons from the lives of Sarah and Abraham about growing young and happy in older age. Yet we still seem to have the need to turn to, for example, a famed Harvard University study that found the following personality characteristics relating to happiness in aging: A future orientation and the ability to plan positively (“I figure if I can do this when I’m 85, I’ll be doing pretty well.”) The capacity for both gratitude and forgiveness The ability to see the world through the eyes of another The desire to do things with, and for, people. [Michael R. Mantell, Ph.D]

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Jewish Religion, Michael Mantell

Saeb Erekat, spokesman and negotiator for the Palestinians, dies at 65

Saeb Erekat, a veteran peace negotiator and prominent international spokesman for the Palestinians for more than three decades, died on Tuesday, weeks after being infected by the coronavirus. He was 65.The American-educated Erekat was involved in nearly every round of peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians going back to the landmark Madrid conference in

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Middle East

Graham says Trump should consider a 2024 run if every legal option is exhausted

COLUMBIA, S.C. — Saying the presidential race is “by no means over,” South Carolina’s senior Republican lawmaker suggested that President Donald Trump exhaust every legal avenue before conceding the contest, and if he concedes, run again in four years and “keep his movement alive.”“All I’m asking people to do is run down every credible allegation

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USA

Georgia Democrats Re-Start Campaign With 2 Runoff Senate Races To Decide Control Of U.S. Senate

Georgia Senate candidate, Democrat Jon Ossoff, has faith that Georgia can keep the momentum and replace the two current Republican senators with Democrats in the January runoff elections.“There’s a huge sense of enthusiasm and momentum here in Georgia right now,” said Ossoff in an interview with CNN on Monday, claiming that Georgian Democrats have “the

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USA

Israeli Observer Worries about Ilhan Omar

Why are American Jewish organizations silent about Congressional anti-Semitism and anti-Israel slander?

Why is it that the ZOA is the only Jewish organization in America that initiated instant condemnation of Ilhan Omar’s latest anti-Semitic drumbeat against Israel. The new set of Omar’s lies, tweeted after the US election, included the blood libel that Israel is ethnically cleansing the Palestinians, accusing the Jewish State of “leaving an entire community homeless in direct violation of international law.” [Barry Shaw]

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Barry Shaw, Middle East, USA

Film Review: The Last Vermeer

The Last Vermeer – producer Dan Friedkin’s directorial debut – is a well-paced and thoroughly engaging World War II drama. Joseph Piller (played by Claes Bang), is a Dutch Jew who fought with the Resistance during the war; and is now commissioned with uncovering and redistributing art stolen by the Nazis. Enter the flamboyant painter and art dealer, Han van Meegeren (masterfully played by Guy Pearce) who is suspected of selling Dutch art treasures to Field-Marshal Hermann Goering and other top Nazi officials. Piller’s story is complicated by a fraught relationship with his wife (played by Marie Bach Henson), who remained in Holland during the occupation; and while she provided intelligence to the Resistance, the implication is that she was only able to acquire such intelligence by carrying on a romantic dalliance with Nazi officers. [Sam Ben-Meir, Ph.D]

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International, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, Sam Ben-Meir

Contest Dec. 10 for San Diego City Council President

Two Democratic San Diego City Councilwomen — Jennifer Campbell, who is Jewish, and Monica Montgomery Steppe, who is African American — have announced their intentions to compete for the position of President of the San Diego City Council, which Georgette Gomez will relinquish next month when she leaves office following an unsuccessful run for the U.S. Congress. [Donald H. Harrison]

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Donald H. Harrison, San Diego County

Biden: Latest Republican challenge to Obamacare is ‘simply cruel’

US President-elect Joe Biden has said the Republican challenge in the Supreme Court to Obamacare – which greatly expanded health-care access and protections – is “simply cruel and needlessly divisive.””This case represents the latest attempt by the far-right ideologues to do what they have repeatedly failed to do for a long time,” he said in

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International, USA

White Supremacist Tom Metzger dead at 82

Tom Metzger, one of the nation’s most notorious white supremacists and anti-Semites, has died, according to a post on his White Aryan Resistance website. He was 82. The post said: “Thomas Linton Metzger, born April 9th, 1938 in Warsaw, Indiana, passed away in Hemet, California, on November 4th, 2020.” [Ken Stone, Times of San Diego]

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Donald H. Harrison, Jewish History, Ken Stone, San Diego County, USA

Book is irreverent but useful guide to Jewish practice

Why Jews Do That, authored by Rabbi Avram Mlotek, co-founder and the Rabbi of Base Manhattan, a group described as an “organization aiming to be a pluralistic Jewish salon for the post-college set,” is occasionally irreverent, often amusing, and always succinct and to the point with its answers. [Fred Reiss, Ed.D]

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

Trump’s defeat means dicey times for U.S., Israel

The refusal of the top man to accept the decision of the voters may have its parallel here in Israel. Bibi, like Trump, wants to hold on to his power. Among other reasons, to protect himself from the judicial process. Bibi’s style is far more polished than Trump’s But he’s a liar. He accepted the suspension of any annexation of the West Bank, and the sale of advanced planes and other military equipment to the UAE in dealings with the United States, but he acted in both cases as those were temporary matters agreed to by others, without a role for himself. [Ira Sharkansky]

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Ira Sharkansky, Middle East, USA

Jewish ideas and belief in Western modernity set Rabbi Sacks apart

The untimely death of Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks on Saturday generated a wave of sorrow throughout large sectors of the Jewish world and beyond, with an outpouring of tributes from across the Jewish religious spectrum as well as from the highest pinnacles of the British establishment, including the prime minister, Charles Prince of Wales, and

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International, Jewish Religion, Obituaries & memorials