And yes, I am angry at God. God knows it, and I remind Him of it all the time. I have a relationship with God, and just as in every relationship there are good times and bad times, so too ours.

 

Angry at God, with perfect faith 

 

No matter their lifestyle or belief, every single fallen soldier was special, and I need to scream: 'Enough, God! We've already suffered too much'

Yakir Hexter (the author's nephew) and David Schwartz, study partners at Yeshivat Har Etzion, both killed on January 8, 2024, in Gaza, fighting Hamas

 

OTHER JEWS WITH NOTHING BETTER TO DO!

Seeing that there are so many extended family members who have also joined the circle of bereavement during this war, and understanding that we are largely invisible in this whole picture, the Jerusalem municipality decided to open up workshops and group sessions for all of us bereaved aunts and uncles. As I was sitting in a group session, our conversation turned to faith. We were a very mixed group of religious and non-religious, aunts and uncles of both fallen soldiers and of those who were murdered at the Nova Festival. Even the siblings who came together were of different religious persuasions. Each of us has our own perspective on everything that has happened. One of the non-religious women turned to us religious folk and said: “It is easier for you guys, because you have faith.” I tried to explain that faith gives meaning and purpose to life, it gives us hope for the future and the ability to carry on, but it is not a panacea for tragedy and terrible suffering. Faith does not take away the pain, the anger, the sadness and the suffering.

I believe that there is a God who created and controls the world. I believe that God cares. I believe that God does everything with intention and purpose. I believe that there is a good reason behind everything that happens; that all is for the good and for the betterment of mankind. I also believe that every single one of us has a relationship with God, whether we know it or not. There is a famous quote in the name of Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev: “One can be for God or against God, but one can never be without God.”

Having said that, I am also left extremely traumatized, horrified, desperately saddened, distraught, shocked, worried, and yes, furious from the events of this past year. There really are no words to describe what we have been through here in Israel, on a personal, national and international level. And yes, I am angry at God. God knows it, and I remind Him of it all the time. I have a relationship with God, and just as in every relationship there are good times and bad times, so too ours. I cannot understand why God is making His people suffer so. Are we perfect? No. Are we supposed to be? No. Can and should God save us, even from ourselves? Yes, He should. Is that a “chutzpadik” (cheeky) thing for me to say? Maybe, but the Gemara in Sanhedrin (105a) states: “Is there any father who hates his son?” That is to say: God could never hate us, we are His children and He will surely help the Jewish people. The Gemara continues: “Rav Nacḥman says: Chutzpah/Impudence is effective even toward Heaven.” The meaning is clear, God loves us, and if we beseech and demand of Him, God will have no choice but to acquiesce.

Let me clarify that I am using the terms angry and chutzpah in a respectful way. The definition of angry that I am using here is: having the feeling people get when something unfair, painful, or bad happens; or being indignant at injustice. As for Chutzpah, it can be good or bad. I am speaking of the good kind: having the gumption and fearlessness to stand up against injustice, evil and suffering; to demand what is right, good and just, even from God. I do not mean that one should lash out at God in a disrespectful way. I often tell my students that they can question and comment on anything they want to in my class, as long as it is done in a respectful way and with the intention to grow. The same applies here.

Sitting at the shiva house of good friends of ours whose son was killed in Gaza (shortly before my nephew was killed), I recall that many of the soldiers there were speaking of all the miracles that happened to them in Gaza. My friend, the mother of the fallen soldier, turned to me and said that she wonders why her son did not receive a miracle. He was a very special boy and he certainly deserved one. In fact, when one hears all of the stories of the fallen soldiers, you realize that every single one of them was an incredibly special person, no matter their lifestyle or belief system. A deep sense of sadness, anger, and chutzpah boils up in me every time we lose another precious soul. I want to scream: “Why God, why? Enough already! Your people have suffered far too much; Look at how Am Yisrael remains faithful to You, despite thousands of years of persecution! Have mercy! What more can You want? Bring salvation and redemption, NOW!”

I am fully aware that many will disagree with my approach. How many times have I heard people say that they have no complaints against God, that they accept His judgement completely and they are not angry with Him at all? I admire them if they can say that wholeheartedly, but I think being angry at and challenging God are legitimate Jewish and human responses, and we can see as much throughout the Tanach/Bible. Moshe, Avraham, Iyov (Job), David, Jeremiah, Rachel, and Chana (and the list goes on and on), all questioned/challenged/argued with God. There is also the element of trying to change that which can be changed vs. accepting that which cannot. We humans don’t know what God’s plan is for us. We don’t know how much of the plan we can really change, so we have to try. Humans do not like suffering, and we do not (and may never) understand the need for it. I think that there is a difference between accepting God’s judgement versus attempting to understand and agree with it.

King David himself said (Tehillim 22:2): “My God, my God, why have You abandoned me? [You are] far from my salvation, from the words of my anguished cries.” That verse always jumps out at me. He also said in chapter 43: “Avenge me, O God, and plead my cause against an unkind nation, from a man of deceit and injustice You shall rescue me. For You are the God of my strength, why have You abandoned me? Why should I walk in gloom under the oppression of the enemy? Send Your light and Your truth, that they may lead me; they shall bring me to Your Holy Mount and to Your dwellings.”

I  have been saying the whole book of Tehillim\Psalms since the beginning of the war (I am on week/book #46 – who would believe?!), and I have to admit that the week my nephew, Yakir Hexter HY”D, was killed, I had a hard time touching the book. My hands shook violently every time I picked it up. What happened to the thousands of Tehillim I said for our beautiful Yakir? Why was his beautiful soul plucked from us at such a young age? I know my/our prayers are never in vain, that they have a power beyond words. But I also know that Yakir, and all the other soldiers who gave their lives, and all Jews today and throughout the ages who have been so brutally slaughtered, did nothing to deserve such cruel deaths. As far as I am concerned, God could have waited another 50 years to take them all. But He didn’t, and I know that He is correct, even as I argue, disagree, sob and beseech. God’s job is to do what must be done, my job is to shake the Heavens and rally against the suffering. I think we make a great combination! 

 

https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/angry-at-god-with-perfect-faith/

“I think when we talk about child sexual abuse, often people think that only happens in the church, that doesn’t happen to us. When the Royal Commission happened, there was a reckoning in the Jewish community.

‘An earnest attempt at communal healing’

 

Jacob Sacher's daring new comedy show explores what it means to be Jewish within a community reckoning with painful revelations of trauma and abuse.

 

Comedian Jacob Sacher’s latest show dives into themes of trauma, abuse and religion

“What does it mean to be a survivor?”

I’m interviewing 29-year-old comedian Jacob Sacher, and it’s not going well.

To the above, he offers a simple – unsatisfactory – response: “That’s the fundamental question of the show”.

I try a different angle.

“To what extent is the show based on your lived experience of abuse?”

Sacher does not budge. “That’s the big question. That’s what the show is about,” he answered.

No doubt sensing the distress in my voice, Sacher offers slightly more context: “A lot of shows about trauma really discuss trauma. It’s like the ticket to entry is telling the audience exactly what happened. I’m questioning to what extent the artist needs to share with the audience their trauma in order to be able to talk about these topics.”

We’re discussing Promising Young Mensch, Sacher’s latest comedy show set to premiere at the Sydney Fringe Festival next week – coincidentally on his 30^th birthday – before moving onto his Melbourne hometown in October.

"Being Jewish when I was growing up changed in the wake of the Royal Commission... It made me question to what extent I wanted to be part of the patriarchal makeup of the Jewish community."

Jacob Sacher

Told from the perspective of his 13-year-old alter ego, the 50-minute show reflects on Sacher’s ultra-Orthodox upbringing at a time when the Jewish community was reckoning with painful revelations surrounding the trial and conviction of principal Malka Leifer and the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

“I’ve been thinking a lot about how a religious outlook in childhood affects you in adulthood,” said Sacher, who remains connected to Judaism but not in a strictly religious sense.

“Being Jewish when I was growing up changed in the wake of the Royal Commission. That changed the way we were seen, and I went to Yeshiva College, the school in the heart of the storm. It made me question to what extent I wanted to be part of the patriarchal makeup of the Jewish community.

“I think when we talk about child sexual abuse, often people think that only happens in the church, that doesn’t happen to us. When the Royal Commission happened, there was a reckoning in the Jewish community.

“I can’t avoid being Jewish. A big part of my show is that my body is Jewish – I’ve got a circumcision – but I’ve now got a foot out of the ultra-Orthodox squad. It is a comedy about trauma.”

Such themes don’t often pair easily with humour, but Sacher found inspiration in comedians including Hannah Gadsby (Nanette) and Richard Gadd (Baby Reindeer) who have successfully used their comedic skills and platform to deconstruct their trauma.

Even the name Promising Young Mensch is a nod to Emerald Fennell's highly-acclaimed movie, Promising Young Woman, a black comedy and thriller that unpacks rape and revenge.

Sacher first started in the comedy scene a decade ago, and in that time has practiced across multiple forms including stand-up, sketch, improvisation and modern clowning. He has toured his unique brand of comedy around the country, as well as in New Zealand and America.

Sacher also chairs Melbourne’s non-profit Cornershop Comedy Theatre, and is currently undertaking a master’s degree in Jewish comedy at Monash's Australian Centre for Jewish Civilisation, with the aim of continuing onto a PhD.

Leaning into his experience, Sacher describes Promising Young Mensch as both an “alternative" and "explicitly Jewish" comedy show, which means it involves all types of comedy and responds to the experience of being Jewish in the wider world.

"I don’t think this is going to fix the discourse, but hopefully people who see the show will understand themselves a bit better."

Jacob Sacher

While Promising Young Mensch comes with a strict content warning and recommendation for audiences to be aged 15 and up, Sacher never considered an alternative method of delivery to share his experiences.

“Let's take a question like, who counts as a survivor or how do we break the cycle of abuse, for instance. If I was a journalist, I’d write a news article about it. If I was a rabbi, I’d give a sermon. If I was an author, I'd write a book. But I’m a comedian. These are the questions that have been on my mind and so I will answer them through the medium of comedy.”

Sacher says the show is “an earnest attempt at communal healing” and hopes audiences leave with some introspection.

“I am presenting a story. I am sharing my healing to heal the community. To what extent will people connect or resonate with it? To what extent will it be successful? I don’t know.

“I don’t think this is going to fix the discourse, but hopefully people who see the show will understand themselves a bit better.”

As the interview reaches a conclusion, I brace myself for Sacher’s reply to my final question.

“How long has this show been in the works?”

His response: “The wanky answer is the show has been brewing for 29, almost 30 years – and the show does open with a real discussion of circumcision. But in a smaller sense, it’s been an everyday endeavour since the start of this year.”

https://thejewishindependent.com.au/an-earnest-attempt-at-communal-healing

The Not So "Hebrew Union College" One-Ups Hershel Schachter - From The "Hebrew" RCA - Rabbinical Council of America...

 

SCHACHTER'S TRUMPNERS

60%  61% of American Jews who married in the last decades have married non-Jewish partners.

Hebrew Union College to admit and ordain rabbinical students in interfaith relationships, ending longstanding ban

 

Hebrew Union College- Jewish Institute of Religion's main campus is in New York City's Greenwich Village

 

Hebrew Union College, the Reform movement’s rabbinical seminary, will begin admitting and ordaining students who are in relationships with non-Jews, following a decision by its board to drop a longstanding ban on interfaith relationships for rabbinical students.

The decision brings the rules for rabbinical students at HUC in line with norms across the Reform movement, where intermarriage is prevalent. It also means that within less than a decade, three of the largest Jewish seminaries in the United States will have all begun admitting students in interfaith relationships, with only the Conservative movement’s Jewish Theological Seminary continuing to bar them — a significant shift from a once widespread Jewish communal rejection of intermarriage.

HUC’s president, Andrew Rehfeld, said in an interview that the policy change — which followed a series of discussions over 18 months — reflected the school’s educational values, as well as recent data undercutting the idea that intermarriage is a death knell for Jewish identity.

“We’re not backing down from the statement that Jewish endogamy is a value,” Rehfeld said. “But we are saying that a prohibition around Jewish exogamy … is no longer rational because intermarriages can result in engaged Jewish couples.”

To replace the intermarriage ban, HUC is adopting a new requirement that students with children pledge to raise them “exclusively as Jews engaged with Jewish religious practice, education, and community.”

The commitment is in line with what Reform rabbis are asked to require of couples they wed and reflects the movement’s stance on determining who is a Jew: While historically Judaism was largely conferred through conversion or matrilineal descent, for four decades, Reform Judaism has considered any child of one Jewish parent to be Jewish as long as they are raised with a “positive and exclusive Jewish identity.”

The change at HUC comes nearly a decade after the last time the school publicly reconsidered the policy barring rabbinical students from being in interfaith relationships. Since then, two other major seminaries have dropped their own requirements: Reconstructionist Rabbinical College did so in 2015 and the pluralistic Hebrew College followed suit last year — amid increasing competition over a shrinking pool of aspiring rabbis.

Dwindling enrollment at HUC caused it to begin phasing out most operations at one of its four campuses, its original location in Cincinnati, in 2022. But Rehfeld said the admissions change was not a gambit to woo more applicants. He noted that neither RRC nor Hebrew College had expanded rapidly once they began admitting students in interfaith relationships.

“This is a principled decision about the kind of leaders we should have in the institution,” he said. “For every student that we’re going to get because of this, we risk losing students who will not come to us because of this.”

SO I PRONOUNCED HER JEWI$H - NOW SHE MAKES LATKES!

 

Andrew Rehfeld

He also emphasized that the decision’s timing was unrelated to Hebrew College’s rule change last year and to the unexpected death in December of Rabbi David Ellenson, HUC’s widely beloved former president, who was a staunch defender of the ban on interfaith relationships. Rehfeld said the process had begun in the fall of 2022, prior to the Hebrew College announcement. It had effectively concluded, he said, prior to a planned board meeting in October that was scuttled because of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel.

In a position paper prepared for the October meeting, HUC Provost Andrea Weiss wrote, “I believe our focus should be on our students, not their partners (if they have one),” and urged the school to give its students tools “to lead authentic, engaged, meaningful Jewish lives.”

Rabbi Rick Jacobs, who heads the Union of Reform Judaism representing the movement’s nearly 900 congregations, said he did not expect the policy change to affect many applicants directly. But he said he believed many current students and congregations would “strongly support” it.

“Many of our best rabbis and cantors were raised in homes with only one formally Jewish parent. … Many of our temple lay leaders are married to people who are not formally Jewish,” Jacobs said. “I think it’s pretty clear at this moment in time that it is possible — demonstrably more than possible — to have a deeply committed Jewish family with only one partner who is formally Jewish.”

For its critics, HUC’s ban on intermarried rabbinical students had long been seen as out of step with the Reform movement’s values. Marriages between Jews and non-Jews are prohibited under traditional Jewish law, known as halacha. But the Reform movement, which emerged in the 19th century and is by far the largest denomination in the United States, has always regarded halacha as a cultural tradition and spiritual tool — but not as binding law. In keeping with that outlook, HUC does not require students to keep kosher or observe Shabbat, making the requirement around relationships stand out.

Many people have called for change in the past. In 2007, a student named Yael Shmilovitz used her senior sermon, a rite attended by many members of the seminary community, to decry the policy and call for a broad embrace of intermarriage.

In 2012, Daniel Kirzane, now a pulpit rabbi in Chicago, likewise used his senior sermon to call for a policy change. “It flies in the face of Reform values and reflects an obsolete and narrow-minded understanding of the Jewish community,” Kirzane said about the ban. “It shuts out those who should be brought in.”

60% 61% of American Jews who married in the last decades have married non-Jewish partners.

 

“You must choose between an inclusive vision of Jewish leadership and an exclusive one,” Lippmann wrote. “Let your bold decisions to ordain women, lesbians, gay men and transgender rabbis show you the way.”

And four years ago, an aspiring rabbinical student named Ezra Samuels, then a 20-year-old college student in a relationship with a non-Jewish man, ignited an outcry after writing about feeling “crushed” after learning about the rule while exploring how to become a rabbi in the denomination in which they were raised.

“All my life, my community had told me that no matter who you are or who you love, you are equal in our community and according to the divine. But now it feels like I’ve been betrayed, lied to, misled,” Samuels wrote.

Some students have lied about or, like Lippmann, obscured their relationship status until they are ordained, at which point they are permitted to intermarry while working in the Reform movement. Rehfeld said he believed those who had lied had done so out of a principled objection to the policy. He noted that the ban meant they could not bring their whole selves to their studies and could not fully contribute to conversations around ministering to communities with many intermarried couples.

Others who were honest suffered because of it. Rehfeld recounted an applicant with a stellar resume — including a stint in the armed forces and time working in Jewish education — who was turned away after disclosing a relationship with a non-Jew and instead sought ordination elsewhere.

“It was to me the most tangible way of showing that this policy is just not consistent with our values or the society in which we live,” he said. “We are losing great leaders of the Jewish people, for reasons that make no sense.”

Rehfeld, who became president in 2018, emphasized that the decision was not easy and that there are members of the HUC community and the broader Reform movement who will be unhappy about the change. He said he thought dissatisfaction would be largely generational. Older Reform rabbis came of age at a time when intermarriage was widely feared within the movement, he said, while many younger ones are products of interfaith marriages themselves.

Rehfeld said he hoped that both camps would resist the urge to take the decision personally, especially cautioning against celebrations by “those who have been waiting for this decision” and who have decried the policy as discriminatory, language that he rejects.

“I think that’s the wrong comportment,” he said. “We need to be, in our comportment and in our reaction, respectful and not personalizing our disagreement.”

Opposition to the policy change reflects longstanding concern among American Jewish leaders that high rates of intermarriage would endanger the future of Judaism by shrinking an already small Jewish population. Jewish leaders once assumed that Jews who intermarried, and their children, would not engage in Judaism or identify with the Jewish people.

At a 1991 conference of the Jewish federations, speakers likened intermarriage to the Holocaust. Even as organizations later adopted a less hostile posture, some sociologists posited that rising intermarriage rates signified an American Jewish demographic decline. (One of the most outspoken advocates of this view was Steven Cohen, who worked at HUC until 2018, when he resigned amid allegations of sexual misconduct.)

As data has piled up, however, there is mounting evidence that intermarriage does not mean the end of Jewish identity. The 2020 Pew survey of American Jews found that nearly three-quarters of non-Orthodox Jews who married in the previous decade did so to non-Jews — and that most intermarried couples with children are raising those children Jewish. An additional 12% reported raising their kids partly Jewish.

The study did report that the Jewish identities of children raised by intermarried parents differed from those of children with two Jewish parents. The survey found that in-married Jewish couples raise their children Jewish at higher rates and more frequently with markers traditionally associated with Judaism. Advocates for embracing interfaith families say the gap can be explained in part by the tendency of Jewish institutions not to fully welcome such families.

For those advocates, HUC’s policy change is likely to register as a powerful signal of inclusion. Still, Rehfeld said some expressions of interfaith partnership would remain out of bounds as the school’s personalized admissions process continues to elicit conversations about how Judaism is experienced in applicants’ homes.

“If you say, ‘Well, on Saturday morning, we are in shul, and on Sunday morning, we go celebrate Mass,’” he said, “we would say to you, ‘Thank you, it sounds like the home and family life is not exclusively Jewish. We’re not the place for you.’”

https://www.jta.org/2024/06/20/religion/hebrew-union-college-to-admit-and-ordain-rabbinical-students-in-interfaith-relationships-ending-longstanding-ban?utm_source=JTA_Maropost&utm_campaign=JTA_special&utm_medium=email&mpweb=1161-73833-25499

TRUMP FAMILY CHRISTMAS DECEMBER 25, 2011 - NO POLITICS INVOLVED - JEWISH LAW ONLY: THEY MANAGED TO REMOVE THE VIDEO:

Schachter's jew Celebrating Xmas Post Halachic Fraud

https://theunorthodoxjew.blogspot.com/2011/12/trump-family-christmas-december-25-2011.html

 

Rav Moshe Feinstein’s “Bit of Limmud Zechut”

Rav Moshe Feinstein (Teshuvot Igrot Moshe Y.D. 1:157) clearly states that if a convert does not intend to observe mitzvot, his conversion is invalid. Rav Moshe does, however, offer “a bit of a Limmud Zechut” (defense) for those Orthodox rabbis who convert individuals who clearly have no intention of observing mitzvot in Teshuvot Igrot Moshe Y.D. 1:160. Rav Moshe suggests that in today’s circumstances, when most Jews do not observe the Torah, many converts perceive non-observance of Halachah to constitute mainstream Jewish practice. They perceive observance of mitzvot as a preferred manner of Jewish living, not as an absolute requirement.

In such a situation, the convert may be compared to the Gemara’s case of one who converted amongst non-Jews and was not informed about the mitzvot yet was considered to be a full-fledged Jew. In today’s environment, it is as if the convert was not informed of the mitzvot, since many converts do not accept what they are taught about the obligation of mitzvot.

Rav Moshe Feinstein does not endorse such conversions. Rather he presents this reasoning “so that they (the rabbis involved in such conversions) should not be considered worse than uneducated - עם הארץ.” Interestingly, Rav Moshe Feinstein does not disqualify these rabbis from serving as dayanim due to their lenient approach to conversion. On the other hand, he does not endorse or recognize such lenient conversions. Similarly, I recall that Rav Yosef Dov Soloveitchik presented a bit of a limmud zechut for those who adopt the lenient approach to geirut, based on the aforementioned Rashi to Shabbat 31a. However, Rav Soloveitchik did not validate such conversions. 

 

Rabbi Moshe Feinstein also states the very marriage of a gentile woman to a non observant Jew, is equivalent to an open declaration that she will not observe the precepts. This is so, because it is highly unlikely that the gentile member of such a union, will be more committed to Judaism than her remiss Jewish husband (certainly when they are living together prior to their marriage). Unlike mental or tacit negations, explains Rav Feinstein, open declarations do invalidate conversions. When such cases appear before a rabbinical court, its members actually become witnesses to an acceptance declaration that is not sincere. Therefore, it is no longer a tacit insincerity, but rather an obvious one. As such, they are forbidden to sanction the conversion.

Regardless of what this Jewish court may declare, the conversion is invalid and the person is not deemed a member of the Jewish nation. In Iggros Moshe, Letters of Moshe (Yoreh De’ah, no. 157), he writes that “According to the Law, it is certain that one who converts for the sake of marriage, does not intend to keep the commandments, and is not a proselyte at all.”

This contrasts sharply (Limmud Zechut) with the approach of Rav Moshe Shternbuch (Teshuvot V’hanhagot 4:230) who classifies rabbis who adopt the lenient approach to conversion as disqualified from dayanut. Rav Shternbuch goes as far to suggest that even if such rabbis conduct a conversion where the convert sincerely commits to Torah observance and belief, the conversion is invalid due to the disqualification of the rabbis as being a עם הארץ.

Conclusion

The consensus opinion amongst poskim is that kabbalat mitzvot is an indispensable component of geirut,  reflecting the mainstream halachic approach endorsed by the consensus of poskim of the past hundred years.

The Last I Heard, "The Polio Vaccine Is A Hoax" A Giant Of Thought & Knowledge!

But Tatty...... Rabbi Shmuel Kamenetsky said "Even The Polio Vaccine Is A Hoax"

http://theunorthodoxjew.blogspot.com/2022/03/but-tatty-rabbi-shmuel-kamenetsky-said.html

 

 “I see vaccinations as the problem,” Rabbi Shmuel Kamenetzky told the Baltimore Jewish Times in a story published in late August. “It’s a hoax. Even the Salk [polio] vaccine is a hoax. It’s just big business.”

If you are, or anyone you know is a godol --- please register at https://gedolim.com/

 

Gazans Prepare to Launch A Hoax Mass Polio Vaccination Campaign

Workers unloading a shipment of polio vaccines at a depot belonging to Gaza’s health ministry on Sunday

As polio vaccines arrive in Gaza, distributing them is the next challenge.

More than 1.2 million doses of the polio vaccine arrived in Gaza on Monday, in preparation for an expansive effort to inoculate more than 640,000 Palestinian children and curb a potential outbreak, the United Nations, Israel and health authorities in Gaza said.

The vaccines landed after the first case of the disease in the territory in 25 years was confirmed earlier this month.

UNICEF, the U.N. children’s fund, said it was delivering the vaccines in cooperation with the World Health Organization, the main U.N. agency that aids Palestinians, UNRWA; and other groups. UNRWA officials said they hoped to deliver the first vaccines to Gazan children starting on Saturday.

But the campaign will be “a very difficult operation and its success will depend very much on the conditions on the ground at the time,” Sam Rose, a senior official from the agency, said at a news briefing on Monday.

The Gaza Health Ministry confirmed that the vaccines had reached Gaza and that preparations to begin the campaign to inoculate children under 10 were underway. It was not immediately clear how quickly the vaccines could be distributed to medical centers in Gaza, particularly after the U.N. said on Monday that its already hamstrung humanitarian operations had been brought to a temporary halt after the Israeli military ordered the evacuation of Deir al-Balah, where the agency has its central operations.

But a senior U.N. official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to speak publicly about the issue, said at a briefing on Monday that there was no change to plans to begin polio vaccinations, despite the fact that the temporary pause in the U.N.’s humanitarian mission.

Speaking from Zawaida, in central Gaza, Mr. Rose, of UNRWA, said that more than 3,000 people would be involved in the vaccination campaign, about a third of them from UNRWA. Mobile health teams would help deliver the vaccines to shelters, clinics and schools, but he said a humanitarian pause was needed for parents and children to safely meet aid workers at those sites.

Aid workers “will do our absolute utmost to deliver the campaign because, without it, we know that the conditions will just be worse someday,” Mr. Rose said. “It is not guaranteed that it will be a success.”

For children who contract polio, he added, the prospects of receiving proper treatment remain “incredibly bad” while many of Gaza’s hospitals and health clinics are closed or only partly functioning as a result of the conflict.

Children walking near garbage and raw sewage at a camp for displaced Palestinians in Deir al Balah in central Gaza this month

 

The W.H.O. chief, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said in a statement on Thursday that a 10-month-old child in Gaza had contracted polio and had become paralyzed in one leg. The virus was found last month in wastewater samples, but this was the first confirmed case in Gaza in a quarter-century.

At least 95 percent of children in Gaza will need to receive both doses of the vaccine to prevent the spread of the disease and reduce the risk of its re-emergence, according to UNICEF, “given the severely disrupted health, water and sanitation systems in the Gaza Strip.”

UNICEF and the W.H.O. have called on “all parties” in the conflict to put in place a weeklong humanitarian pause in Gaza to allow both rounds of vaccines to be delivered, saying that “without the humanitarian pauses, the delivery of the campaign will not be possible.”

COGAT, the Israeli defense ministry’s agency that oversees policy for the Palestinian territories, said in a statement on Monday that the vaccines had been delivered to Gaza through the Kerem Shalom border crossing with Israel. The agency added that the campaign would be conducted in coordination with the Israeli military “as part of the routine humanitarian pauses” that it observes, which, it said, would allow Palestinians to reach vaccination centers.

In June, Israel announced that it would observe partial daily suspensions of its military activity in some areas of Gaza, calling them humanitarian pauses, saying they were aimed at making it safer for groups to deliver aid in the territory.

The Gazan Health Ministry has warned that inoculations alone will not be effective amid a lack of clean water and personal hygiene supplies in Gaza, as well as issues with sewage and waste collection in overcrowded areas where displaced families were sheltering. It said medical teams would have to spread out across the territory, “which requires an urgent cease-fire.”

 

FOOTNOTE: 

Israeli Scientists Warn UN Polio Vaccine Isn’t Safe, May Spread the Disease in Gaza and Israel

 

Yehezkeli and Levy added that the vaccine brought to Gaza is not recognized in the West and is prohibited for use in Israel. “The nOVP2 vaccine designated by the World Health Organization for Gaza children is not approved for use in any of the Western countries, and its clinical studies have not yet been completed.

“The vaccine is produced in Indonesia – a developing country where there is no access to information about the production conditions in the factory, and it is only administered in developing countries, under an emergency permit from the World Health Organization,” they wrote, adding, “Even in Israel, the pharmacy division did not allow it to be imported for these reasons. Gaza will, therefore, be used as an experimental laboratory by the World Health Organization, and the children of Gaza will serve as guinea pigs for this vaccine.”

GUINEA PIGS

The NY Times reported on Monday that the Hamas Health Ministry confirmed the arrival of vaccines in Gaza, with preparations underway to vaccinate children under 10. However, the distribution timeline to medical centers remains uncertain, especially given the UN’s recent announcement of a temporary halt to its humanitarian operations. This pause came after the Israeli military ordered evacuations in Deir al-Balah, where the UN’s central operations are based.

Despite this setback, a senior UN official, speaking anonymously, told the Times on Monday that plans for polio vaccinations would proceed as scheduled.

Thomas White, Director of UNRWA Affairs in Gaza, outlined that more than 3,000 individuals would participate in the vaccination campaign, with about one-third of the vaccines administered by UNRWA employees. Mobile health teams are set to deliver vaccines to shelters, clinics, and schools. However, White emphasized the need for a humanitarian pause to ensure parents and children can safely access these vaccination sites.

 

 https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/08/26/world/israel-hamas-gaza-war

Douglas Murray Vs Mehdi Hasan - Is Criticizing Zionism Anti-Semitism? Worth Listening To --- Understand The Depth Of The Hate!

Yesterday's Babylonians - Today's Kabbalists/Thieves ---- “The purpose of the omen texts was to figure out what the gods wanted to communicate, good or bad, so as to take action to avoid any trouble ahead”

 

Ancient Babylonians thought solar eclipses predicted disasters

 

Deciphering four Mesopotamian tablets, team led by Assyriologist Andrew George shows Babylonians understood celestial events as messages from the gods

 

 In total, the newly translated tablets contain 61 such predictions, including a barley shortage, a lion rampage, and a famine so terrible that “people will trade their infant children for silver.”

Ancient Mesopotamian tablets recently deciphered by Assyriologist Andrew George

 

Ancient Babylonians attributed prescient meaning to celestial events, a study published this month argues, shedding fresh light on the Mesopotamian people of the second millennium BC.

The paper, published in the University of Chicago’s Journal of Cuneiform Studies, says that the people of Babylon — an ancient city in Mesopotamia— viewed solar eclipses as omens predicting an upcoming catastrophe that could come in the form of a natural disaster, military defeat or the death of a king.

“The reading of omens was how the Babylonians made sense of the world,” Andrew George, an esteemed Assyriologist and emeritus professor at the University of London who led the study, told The New York Times.

George’s conclusion was based on his deciphering of four tablets from about 1894 BC to 1595 BC that have been held in the British Museum since the late nineteenth century. The tablets are believed to have originated from Sippar, an ancient city located on the banks of the Euphrates River in what is now Iraq.

“The purpose of the omen texts was to figure out what the gods wanted to communicate, good or bad, so as to take action to avoid any trouble ahead,” George told the Times.

According to George, the tablets record observations of lunar eclipses made by Babylonian astrologers that foretell unwanted occurrences like the death of monarchs, leading rulers to go into hiding and even to sacrifice one of their subjects so that the danger would subside.

 

In total, the newly translated tablets contain 61 such predictions, including a barley shortage, a lion rampage, and a famine so terrible that “people will trade their infant children for silver.”

“It is possible that this theory arose from the coincidence of an eclipse and a king’s death — that is, actual experience early in Mesopotamian history,” George told the Times. “But it is also possible that the theory was developed entirely by analogy. We cannot know.”

George says the Babylonians believed the cataclysms could be mitigated, or even prevented, by appropriate religious rituals, such as sacrificing a sheep and having a priest evaluate its internal organs. “Basically, the diviner was looking for anything unusual,” George told the Times, such as “deformations, absence of features, doubling of features, splits and grooves in surfaces.”

According to George, the priest would compare the number of distortions on the right and left side of the organ, with the former being considered good and the latter bad, and accordingly make a prediction. If the results were ambiguous, another sheep could be sacrificed.

George proposes that such rituals were a method of keeping rulers in check. “One suspects that some kings were more superstitious, and thus more susceptible to manipulation by diviners than others,” he told the Times. “Since lunar eclipses were, by their nature, ill portents for the king, the omens attached to them spoke to his deepest anxieties about what catastrophes might happen to him and his people.”

Much work remains for Assyriologists like George to fully understand ancient Babylon; most of the approximately 100,000 tablets held by the British Museum remain undeciphered.

“There are too many tablets and not enough Assyriologists,” George told the Times. “Only a tiny fraction of the tablets are on display. One hundred or so public galleries stuffed with cuneiform tablets would excite very few visitors.”

https://www.timesofisrael.com/ancient-babylonians-thought-solar-eclipses-predicted-disasters-study-finds/?utm_source=The+Daily+Edition&utm_campaign=daily-edition-2024-08-25&utm_medium=email

Confronting Sexual Abusers with Dr. Gavriel Fagin

How much do you know about its most dire consequences? Anti-vaxxers, take note: Down the road, if the world doesn't aggressively immunize youngsters, future healthcare professionals will definitely see more measles-maimed children, including some like Manju with a ticking time bomb in their brain.

 

Measles' Deadliest Sequelae

 

— How much do you know about its most dire consequences?

by Claire Panosian Dunavan, MD, Contributing Writer, MedPage Today, 

 

KAMENETSKY - KOTLER - SALOMON

In the late 1990s, my long-time colleague, Pam Nagami, MD, met a petite, Indian-American student she later called "Manju" when writing a terrific bookopens in a new tab or window about patients with infectious diseases. Some of the stories by Nagami end happily, but Manju's did not -- and all because of a case of measles she contracted early in life.

So, now that WHO experts are predicting that more than half the world could face serious measles outbreaksopens in a new tab or window by the end of this year, I've begun to wonder: just how many modern-day doctors, much less vaccine-hesitant parents, know the virus's most calamitous blows?

Mind you, I'm not just talking about classic complicationsopens in a new tab or window -- pneumonia in one in 20 infected children, acute encephalitis in one in 1,000, death in as many as three in 1,000 children -- but stealthy assaults that are sometimes far deadlier.

In the case of Manju, who was adopted by a single mom in Chicago when she was not yet 2 years old, 20 years had passed before the girl from Calcutta with big, brown eyes showed early, non-specific signs of subacute sclerosing panencephalitisopens in a new tab or window (SSPE), a rare but fatal condition in which measles lies dormant, then goes rogue in a person's brain. Soon Manju was losing her vision and started to stutter, stumble, and twitch. Her diagnosis was confirmed by an EEG and measles-specific antibodies in her spinal fluid. Finally, 10 months after Nagami started administering twice-per-week, intrathecal injections of alpha-interferonopens in a new tab or window in a last-ditch effort to prolong Manju's life, her patient was dead.

I'll return to Manju soon. But first let's review additional facts about SSPE, then segue to one more murderous blow by the illness once described by Rhazesopens in a new tab or window (Abu Bakr al-Razi), a 10th century Persian physician, as "more dreaded than smallpoxopens in a new tab or window."

My closing message will come as no surprise. Anti-vaxxers, take note: Down the road, if the world doesn't aggressively immunize youngsters, future healthcare professionals will definitely see more measles-maimed children, including some like Manju with a ticking time bomb in their brain.

An Expert Weighs In on SSPE

Not far from my university lives a 93-year-old medical icon whose publisher will soon release the 9th edition of his weighty 2-volume textbookopens in a new tab or window on pediatric infectious diseases. So, today -- after decades spent caring for children injured by vaccine-preventable infections -- it's natural that UCLA's distinguished professor James Cherry, MD, MSc, is speaking out about measles.

Our currentopens in a new tab or window global resurgence of measlesopens in a new tab or window -- mainly linked to pandemic-related declines in immunizationsopens in a new tab or window and rising vaccine hesitancyopens in a new tab or window among parents -- raises the risk of serious complications and deaths, Cherry told NBC Newsopens in a new tab or window just last week.

Cherry is also worried about SSPE based on research in collaboration with the California Department of Public Health. In a 2017 paperopens in a new tab or window ominously sub-titled "The Devastating Measles Complication That Might Be More Common Than Previously Estimated," he and his co-authors reviewed all SSPE cases reported to the California Department of Public Health between 1998 and 2015, ultimately concluding that SSPE was 10 times more common than once assumed. Their research also showed that the age when children contract measles is an important SSPE predictor. Actual numbers? A deep dive into 18,000 cases of measles diagnosed in California between 1988 and 1991 revealed that SSPE later struck one in 609 youngsters under 12 months of age when first infected and one in 1,367 who were under 5 years old.

Finally, what exactly causes SSPE? A wild-type measles virus in the brain develops one or more point mutationsopens in a new tab or window in its genome that initially halt the virus's replication and spread, but later cause chronic encephalitis, inflammation, and demyelination. In a typical SSPE patient, the latent period preceding symptoms is 7 to 10 years, but sometimes exceeds two decades. Final clinical findings include a poignant constellation of visual abnormalities, convulsions, myoclonic jerks, and cognitive decline eventually culminating in mutism, spasticity, coma, and death.

Lessons Learned in London

I'm old enough to have seen plenty of patients with measles, both here and abroad, but my true awakening to its final furtive harm began while attending lectures at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM).

Back in 1979, when I was a student at LSHTM, annual global deaths due to measles were still shockingly high -- an estimated 2.6 million per year. But what was also drummed into our heads by researchers and clinicians who had worked for years in Africa and Asia, were the secondary woes that could follow it like evil dominoes.

For example, in a marginally-nourished child, an acute case of measles could infect the gut, cause diarrhea, and tip its sufferer into life-threatening protein-calorie malnutrition, also known as kwashiorkoropens in a new tab or window. In a child severely deficient in vitamin A, measles could suddenly produce blindness. Finally, a so-called "simple case of measles," we learned in that venerable lecture hall, could initiate a one-two immune punch leading to a subsequent death from malaria, typhoid, or another common infection.

Today, far more is known about the mechanisms by which measles paralyzes pre-existing human defenses against many infectious pathogens in a process called "immune amnesiaopens in a new tab or window" that sometimes lasts not just for months but years, as demonstrated in a seminal studyopens in a new tab or window published in Science in 2015.

Why these facts are not better known and shared with vaccine-hesitant parents is, in my view, both mystifying and concerning, since the simple antidote to all of the above ills are two doses of measles vaccine, which -- according to Cherry -- should ideally be given before the age of 2 years.

A Death With Dignity

One day, as Manju lay on a metal gurney in an outpatient exam room, my other writer-colleague asked her patient: "Are you afraid?" As Nagami's book attests, the deeply-loved, former orphan from India -- whose speech was now so slow and slurred it was difficult to understand -- sadly smiled and shook her head no.

In fact, Manju and her mother had already discussed what they would do when Manju's SSPE finally progressed to an irreversible, vegetative state. In short: no intubation, no ventilator, no resuscitation.

Six days after she was finally hospitalized and lost consciousness, Manju developed pneumonia, received morphine for comfort, and passed away.

 Claire Panosian Dunavan is a professor of medicine and infectious diseases at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and a past-president of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene.

https://www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/parasites-and-plagues/108905?xid=nl_secondopinion_2024-08-20&mh=c690d021d02f45e18afec8a8f9c0a4d0

 

Anti-Vaccine Rabbi Sits on Prominent Ultra-Orthodox Panel as Measles Spread

Rabbi Shmuel Kamenetsky, who calls vaccines a “hoax,” is on the policy-making council of the influential Agudath Israel of America.

 

https://www.thecity.nyc/2019/05/23/anti-vaccine-rabbi-sits-on-prominent-ultra-orthodox-panel-as-measles-spread/

Is a hostage deal in Israel's best interest?

 

 

The released terrorists will incentivize future kidnappings, pour gasoline onto the terrorist fires already raging, and catapult Hamas towards its intended takeover of Judea and Samaria.

According to government sources, the deal currently under discussion between Israel and Hamas would see between 500 and 1,000 Palestinian terrorists, 100 of them considered "heavy" terrorists (i.e., bloodthirsty butchers), released from Israeli jails in exchange for 22 live Israeli hostages, mainly women and other civilians, alongside the bodies of another dozen deceased hostages.

The plan also theorizes second and third tranches of terrorist/hostage exchange, but nobody really believes this likely. Too many conditions apply to the supposed next stages, ranging from international supervision of Gaza's borders (against Hamas's wishes) to IDF withdrawals. And nobody in Israel can say for sure that additional hostages are still alive/will still be alive for a second or third stage.

Many Israelis will say that the deal under discussion is sad but necessary and that it is the government's moral obligation to free as many hostages as possible as soon as possible despite the high price. The suffering of our hostages and their families is intolerable on personal and national levels. Giving freed hostages one big national hug will be the greatest triumph of all, something so necessary for Israel's collective spirit and its resilience over the long term. 

Many Israelis might feel this to be so even if the deal entails the complete withdrawal of the IDF from Gaza. In other words, even if Hamas retains power and essentially wins the war.

Some Israelis will argue that the IDF can be sent back to continuously crush Hamas in Gaza after the deal is done (although manifestly, this will not be possible given inevitable diplomatic restraints). Some will say that the need for further strikes will be obviated by better border technologies, more IDF sentries, and allied foreign forces (although this is patently ridiculous in the near term). Some will add that the deal will collapse the current government (which, in their view, may be more important than hostage release).

Oh, what a horrible situation! How can the heart not bleed in pain? However one finesses the moral and strategic dilemmas here, there is one additional grand security calculus that seems absent from public discourse. This is the piercingly high price of releasing so many Palestinian terrorists.

The released terrorists assuredly will strike again, with God-only-knows how many Israeli casualties in the future. Their release certainly will incentivize future kidnappings, pour gasoline onto the terrorist fires already raging in Judea and Samaria, and catapult Hamas towards its intended takeover of Judea and Samaria, too.

I know this to be a fact because this has been the case with every previous terrorist release. Israel repeatedly has erred by letting terrorists loose to murder more Israelis. And each time, in advance of every deal, the Israeli "security establishment" arrogantly and falsely has assured Israeli politicians and the public that it "would know how to manage the situation," i.e., how to track the terrorists and crush any nascent return to terrorist activity without too much harm done. But this has never proven to be true. Every deal involving the release of terrorists has led to much bloodshed, planned and carried out by these released terrorists.

There are no exact statistics on this (because, unsurprisingly, the security establishment refuses to release such statistics). Still, estimates range from 10 to 50 percent of released terrorists swiftly return to hard-core terrorist activity, with devastating effects.

The 1,150 Palestinian prisoners released by Israel in the 1985 Jibril deal in exchange for three Israeli soldiers proceeded to fuel the First Intifada. According to the Ministry of Defense, about ten percent of the released Palestinian terrorists returned to active terrorist duty.

Then came the Oslo Accords when Israel mistakenly allowed at least 60,000 (!) Palestinians from "abroad" into the territories, including 7,000 card-carrying PLO terrorists. Between 1993 and 1999, Israel released many additional Palestinian terrorists as "gestures" to the PLO, which fueled the Second Intifada.

In 2004, Israel released more than 400 Palestinian prisoners and some 30 Lebanese prisoners, including leaders of Hezbollah, for one civilian captive, Elhanan Tannenbaum, and the bodies of three IDF soldiers. The Second Lebanon War against Hezbollah followed not long after.

The 2011 deal for Gilad Shalit was the worst. Among the more than 1,000 Palestinian security prisoners released in exchange for a single staff sergeant were Yihye Sinwar, Warchi Mushtaha, Ahmed Andor, Abdulah Barghouti, Izzadin Sheikh Khalil, Musa Dudin, Jihad Yamour, and Hassan Salameh – today's Hamas leaders. In fact, almost the entire Hamas command structure that planned last year's Simchat Torah assault on Israeli towns and cities, which killed over 1,200 Israelis in one day, was made up of terrorists released in the Shalit deal.

Other Palestinian terrorists released in the Shalit deal proceeded to carry out the most notorious terrorist murders of the past 13 years: Baruch Mizrachi by Ziad Awad, Dr. David Applebaum and his daughter Navah (on the eve of her wedding) by Ramez Sali Abu Salim, Malachi Rosenfeld by Ahmas Najjar, Rabbi Miki Mark (a father of ten kids) by Mohamed Fakih, and more.

Mahmoud Qawasameh, another terrorist released in the Shalit deal, planned the kidnapping and murder of the three teenagers Naftali Fraenkel, Eyal Yifrach, and Gilad Shaer in Gush Etzion in 2014. Jasser Barghouti, also released from Israeli prison in the Shalit deal, directed from Gaza the murders of Yosef Cohen and Yuval Mor-Yosef and a child, Amiad Israel.

After the kidnapping and murder of the three boys, the IDF acted to rearrest many of the terrorists freed in the Shalit deal. Col. (res.) Maurice Hirsch, who was chief prosecutor of the IDF in the territories, says that half of the 130 "heavy" terrorists released into Judea and Samaria in the Shalit deal had returned to terrorist activity and were rearrested. Many others, he says, also reactivated their terrorist ties in the territories and engaged in terrorist support activities outside of Israel, but Israeli authorities could not always get to them for operational or legal reasons.

Dr. Gadi Hitman of Ariel University, who has studied terrorist releases, says that numbers count, not just the identity of "key" terrorists with known terrorist records. The more terrorists released, even "pedestrian" ones, the more likely that some of them will become "key terrorists" themselves and ignite the territories.

There is some debate among experts as to whether Israel has a better chance of interdicting terrorist activity of released terrorists in the territories or abroad, meaning whether it is preferable to keep terrorists under surveillance in Gaza and Judea and Samaria (where they can be eliminated, if necessary), or to "exile" terrorists to Turkey, Lebanon, and Syria (where targeting them is politically and operationally more difficult).

Lt. Col. (res.) Baruch Yedid, former adviser on Arab affairs to the IDF's Central Command, and Moshe ("Mofaz") Fuzaylov, former Israel Security Agency investigations chief, say that the current terrorist free-for-all in Jenin and Tulkarem, for example, proves that released terrorists must be expelled as far away as possible. Otherwise, they will bolster the already solid, Iranian-backed military machine that terrorists have built in these areas and will expand them.

Either way, the danger of mass-releasing Palestinian terrorists is clear. A deal that frees vicious murderers of Israeli Jews, including the Nukhba killers and rapists of October 7, in exchange for Israel's innocent suffering hostages endangers even more Israeli lives down the road – and that road is not notably long.

Dvora Gonen, whose son Danny was murdered near Dolev in 2015 by a terrorist released in the Shalit deal, told journalist and researcher Nadav Shragai last month, "The difference between the hostages currently held in Gaza and the next generation of Israeli victims who will be murdered by those released in the impending Hamas hostage deal – is that the hostages have faces and names, while future victims remain as yet unknown. On the other hand, the previous generation of terrorist victims like my son Danny, murdered by Palestinian terrorists released in previous deals, have both faces and names."

What Dvora Gonen is saying, I think, is beware and be aware. Making deals for the hostages held in Gaza now might be the most humanitarian and morally necessary thing in the world to do. Yet, it also may be the most dangerous and potentially disastrous thing Israel can do. The cost will pay out over a prolonged period and will be steep. An agonizing dilemma for Israel, indeed.

 

https://www.israelhayom.com/opinions/terrorists-for-hostages-the-agonizing-dilemma/