Editor-in-chief: David Suissa
November 29, 2021
A new Covid-19 variant called the Omicron variant is making its way around the world. The variant was discovered in South Africa and cases have been confirmed in Israel, Italy, Australia, the UK, Germany, and elsewhere.
While it will take scientists some weeks to understand the omicron variant [.] the World Health Organization has already labeled omicron a “variant of concern,” which means it could be more transmissible, more virulent, or more able to evade the protection granted by vaccines than the original strain of Covid-19.
Also of concern is how rapidly Omicron appears to have spread within South Africa, where there has been a surge of cases in the past two weeks. More than 80% of these were from Gauteng province, and preliminary analysis suggests Omicron has rapidly become the dominant strain.
The good news is we’re better prepared if Omicron does spread and proves more virulent than other strains. BioNTech and Pfizer say they can quickly adjust their mRNA vaccine to combat the new variant if necessary… Americans and the rest of the world need to learn to live with an ever-mutating virus. So do our politicians.
Nuclear talks between the United States and Iran begin today. Israeli officials are worried that the US will lift sanctions on Iran without gaining strong assurances that they will not pursue a nuclear weapon.
Either negotiations move forward in a fruitful way (unlikely), or in a way that’s not fruitful but still half satisfactory (unlikely), or in a way that’s satisfactory enough for the U.S. but not Israel (much more likely), or in a way that’s not satisfactory to either country (also likely). What happens then?
While the administration is eager to push for a diplomatic solution, Israel says it’s preparing for a fight. Last week, Israeli army chief of staff Lt. Gen. Aviv Kohavi said that his country’s forces were “speeding up the operational plans and readiness for dealing with Iran and the nuclear military threat.”
“Concerning Iran, we must influence our partners and have ongoing discussion with them,” Gantz said. “Our other obligation is to build a military force, which is an important issue by itself. I ordered [the military] to improve its force build-up, in parallel to our discussions with our strategic partners.”
A federal jury in Charlottesville, VA, found white supremacist leaders Richard Spencer, Jason Kessler and Christopher Cantwell, and others liable for “civil conspiracy” for their role in the 2017 “Unite the Right” rally, which began with racist and antisemitic rhetoric and ended in deadly violence.
It is a sobering reflection that, even as this trial is ending, no one can honestly say that the spread of these hateful ideas has diminished today in comparison to four years ago.
The multimillion dollar verdicts against individuals and groups responsible for organizing the rally are testament to an evolving American consensus against hate, a reflection of our desire to move beyond a century-and-a-half of white supremacist terror.
Despite a jury’s $25 million verdict against a group of white nationalists, neo-Nazis and organizers of the 2017 Charlottesville, Virginia, “Unite the Right” rally, Republican leaders, once again, will not take the opportunity to repudiate the alt-right.
Legendary songwriter Stephen Sondheim, known for his work on “West Side Story,” “Into the Woods,” and “Gypsy,” passed away on Friday at the age of 91.
All you have to do is listen to one of his songs — any one — to see it: The playfulness, the troubled and sublime love for human experience, the profound clarity of observation, the deft, remarkable instinct for beauty.
Broadway musicals also became more artistic and Sondheim played a key role in their evolution, critics said. He explored such weighty topics as political assassinations in “Assassins,” the human need for family and the pull of dysfunctional relationships…
He found mentorship and a father figure in his teen years in a family friend, Oscar Hammerstein II, the lyricist of Jewish descent who had heralded an earlier revolution in the American musical, leading its transition in the 1920s from lighthearted reviews to novelistic treatments of major issues.
Hanukkah gets a lot of attention during the holiday season, which always prompts some Jews to point out that it’s actually a rather minor holiday in the Jewish calendar. Is that true?
Chanukah is a major rabbinic holiday of Judaism, a rabbinic religion.
It represents the purity of the soul, its ability to outshine forces of oppression and the potential for luminous resilience that transcends the natural order.
It is awesome… Just like you are!
Judaism doesn’t have “Minor holidays” and “Major holidays.” We have holidays “that require excessive amounts of tin foil” and holidays “that don’t.”
“Hanukkah is actually a minor holiday” implies that a holiday’s significance is some static, unchanging fact that exists “out there.” Yes, it’s post-Biblical. But for some Jews, post-Biblical holidays (Tisha B’av, Sigd, Mimouna, Hanukkah) can be hugely significant.
These days, sending back items purchased online has never been easier—but what happens to them after we send them back?
All of that unwanted stuff piles up. Some of it will be diverted into a global shadow industry of bulk resellers, some of it will be stripped for valuable parts, and some of it will go directly into an incinerator or a landfill.
As the world pays new attention to supply chains, much of the focus has been on delays in delivering products to stores and consumers. What is called the forward supply chain, the path from raw material to the customer, is being scrutinized. But the other side of the supply chain — the process of returning a product — also plays a significant role.
Free returns are widespread in the retail industry, but they come at an enormous cost to the planet, accelerating climate change and clogging up landfills.