Editor-in-chief: David Suissa
May 25, 2022
America has been thrown into shock and speechlessness in the wake of Tuesday’s shooting attack at a Texas elementary school which took the lives of at least nineteen children and two adults. More on this unfolding story at New York Times.
…the indiscriminate mass murder of children is in a separate class of unspeakable horror. Children, with their boundless energy, zest for life and endless potential, demand society’s utmost care and protection. Those who were killed Tuesday were undoubtedly excited about the school year ending on Thursday and the carefree days of summer ahead.
Whether any particular killer proves to be a racist, a jihadist, a sexually frustrated incel, or a randomly malignant carrier of sorrow and grief, can Americans ever break the pattern of empty thoughts, meaningless prayers, and more and worse bloodshed to follow?
Mass shootings have become so common in the US that we have developed a pathology for how to react. The aggrieved families who have lost someone they loved are the recipients of thoughts and prayers. Law enforcement is praised for keeping the tragedy from becoming even more horrific… But nothing happens to prevent another shooting.
After the shooting in Uvalde, Texas, a debate around gun control is unfolding in America along familiarly partisan and emotionally volatile lines. How does Israel handle this same issue?
In Israel, anyone who qualifies can get a gun — but those qualifications make all the difference. You must meet a list of criteria to ask for a license… I am guilty, I admit, of fantasizing that American conservatives who throw their support behind Israel would want to emulate its more sensible domestic policies, starting with gun control.
When Bennett recommended guns for everybody, he didn’t rule out the gangs of rightists Miri Regev and Itamar Ben-Gvir. And when they’re not excluded, they’re in, with Lebanon-style militias.
Illegal firearms that plague both the West Bank and inside the Arab-Israeli sector within the State of Israel’s borders have a range of sources. Illegal Palestinian workshops in the West Bank produce locally made “Carlo” submachine guns. Thefts of assault rifles from IDF bases have been an ongoing challenge.
An Israeli lower court revoked a restraining order against three Jewish Israeli teens who prayed on the Temple Mount, throwing the delicate status quo at Temple Mount into question. The Israeli police are appealing this ruling.
With all due respect to the freedom of worship of a handful of Jews on the Temple Mount, it does not outweigh the right of millions of Palestinians to freedom and equality, and isn’t worth the blood that will be shed over it.
There is no phrase more Jewish than the basic declaration of faith in “Shema Yisrael.” There is no prayer more Jewish than the one that accompanies us from the moment we enter the world until the moment we leave it… We need to remind ourselves of these simple truths today, when Israeli policemen are dragging Jews who recite “Shema Yisrael” on the Temple Mount away from it
Israel’s descent from identifying with the Jewishness of the Temple Mount, as if dismounting, will not placate Islamists but only encourage them.
In the wake of the leaked SCOTUS draft which indicates the likely overturn of Roe v. Wade, a number of Jews took to social media to proclaim that Halacha (Jewish law) permits abortion.
…to state that Halacha is pro-choice regarding abortion is the equivalent of claiming that Halacha is pro-theft or pro-lying concerning the Torah’s prohibition to steal and its requirement to be honest. There are legitimate exceptions to the rule but they are not the rule.
…that the term “pro-choice” is inappropriate for those who would halachically permit abortion in many cases, as even the most lenient scholars of halacha assert that abortion is much more serious than the word “choice” indicates.
As distinct from much of the contemporary “either/or” discourse around abortion, Jewish law embraces a “both/and” approach. There is both a mandate to protect life, even a future life, and, at the same time, a religious obligation to protect the health and psychic well-being of every human being.
What can you (and the world) do to combat rising antisemitism? Here are three takes on the matter:
No matter what the slogans say about “ending” this or that evil, until the Messiah shows up the world’s oldest hatred is not going away. That doesn’t mean we abandon the fight; it means we pivot to fight from a position of strength.
If the Jewish community is to successfully confront the rising tide of anti-Semitism on the left that the BLM moment empowered, there must first be a reckoning about why these groups failed to stand their ground against this dangerous trend in 2020.
IF CBT, cognitive behavioral therapy, cures individuals caught in this perceptual cyclone of negativity, perhaps ZBT – Zionist behavioral therapy – can cure anti-Zionist SICos sucked into this vortex of lies. Reframing begins with understanding the Zionist trinity: that (one) Jews are a people, with (two) a 3,500-year-old love affair with one piece of land, and (three) the right to establish a state on that homeland.
Apple is at last discontinuing its production of the iPod, the device that changed the world and led to the smartphone revolution.
For nostalgic purists, old iPods will continue to be bought and sold on eBay. But for most people looking to reconnect with the appeal of the iPod: Turn off your notifications, eliminate as many distractions as possible, and listen to the music.
Fortunately, the latest iPod Touch remains a great buy for kids, digital music snobs or hardcore Apple collectors. If you want to own what very well could be the last iPod ever made, don’t miss your chance.
[My] iPod [.] is still going strong: dented, scratched, overused, but still singing. Once, close to tears, I begged a man in a phone shop on the Reeperbahn in Hamburg, Germany to sort out the broken headphone jack… So why end the musical marriage now, 15 years on?