Can We Prevent Alzheimer's? Scientists Say New Tests and Treatments are "a Game Changer"

 https://www.newsweek.com/2023/10/20/can-we-prevent-alzheimers-scientists-say-new-tests-treatments-are-game-changer-1832957.html

To be sure, these drugs are not cures. They offer little relief for patients already in the late stages of Alzheimer's dementia, for whom the effects of the new drugs are modest. They can slow the decline, giving those in whom the disease is moderately advanced an extra year of cognitive lucidity. For those patients and their families that's certainly significant, but nowhere close to a reversal.

PMO: False reports Israel received warning of Hamas attack from Egypt

 https://www.israelnationalnews.com/flashes/616243

The Prime Minister's office said: "The report to the effect that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu received a message in advance from Egypt is absolutely false."

Why Hamas Tried to Sabotage Arab-Israeli Peace Prospects With a Massive Unprovoked Attack

 https://time.com/6321671/why-hamas-sabotaged-peace-prospects-israel-attack/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=sfmc&utm_campaign=newsletter+brief+default+ac&utm_content=+++20231008+++body&et_rid=207247165&lctg=207247165

History again echoes, as the predicate for Hamas’ attack had less to do with anything that the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may have done—now is not the moment to blame the victim. Rather, the trigger to the attack was likely that the prospect of a wider Mideast peace was almost at hand through an impending deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia. Hamas’ sabotage parallels the disruption of the prospective Israeli-Palestinian peace plan in 2000 on the heels of a Camp David Summit when the devastation of the Second Intifada ruined any dreams of normalization and resulted in the deaths of thousands of civilians.

Ilhan Omar Reacts to Hamas Assault on Israel

 https://www.newsweek.com/ilhan-omar-reacts-hamas-assault-israel-1832893

"I condemn the horrific acts we are seeing unfold today in Israel against children, women, the elderly, and the unarmed people who are being slaughtered and taken hostage by Hamas. Such senseless violence will only repeat the back and forth cycle we've seen, which we cannot allow to continue. We need to call for deescalation and ceasefire," Omar wrote. "I will keep advocating for peace and justice throughout the Middle East."

Reprehensible: Congresswoman calls on US to stop funding Israel amid Hamas attack

 https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/378069

The congresswoman concluded: "As part of achieving a just and lasting peace, we must do our part to stop this violence and trauma by ending US government support for Israeli military occupation and apartheid. I am continuing to closely monitor the situation, and my Office is ready to support residents of the First District with family members and loved ones in the region."

‘Bring Them Home’: Israeli Families Plead for the Lives of Hamas’ Civilian Hostages

 https://www.thedailybeast.com/hamas-militants-take-israeli-civilians-hostage-prompting-desperate-outcry-from-families?ref=scroll

Hamas deputy chief Saleh al-Arouri was quoted telling Al Jazeera on Saturday that all the Israeli hostages taken to the Gaza Strip would likely be freed in exchange for Palestinians serving out sentences in Israeli prisons.

“Our detainees in [Israeli] prisons, their freedom is looming large. What we have in our hands will release all our prisoners. The longer fighting continues, the higher the number of prisoners will become,” he said.

Pentagon says it will support Israel after Netanyahu declares war

 https://thehill.com/policy/defense/4243366-pentagon-says-it-will-support-israel-after-leader-declares-war/

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the U.S. stands squarely by Israel and will ensure it “has what it needs to defend itself” after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared war against Palestinian militants that launched a surprise attack on his country.

300 Patients Sue Columbia University Over Doctor's Sexual Abuse

 https://www.newsweek.com/300-patients-sue-columbia-doctors-sexual-abuse-1832067

More than 300 women are suing Columbia University, accusing the institution of "enabling" the serial sex abuser Robert Hadden, who was a gynecologist in its affiliated hospital system.

Marrying again while being married // The International Beit Din has taken upon itself the mission of freeing agunos, but rabbanim from across the spectrum have warned that their methods violate halachah and endanger klal Yisrael

 https://www.amimagazine.org/2021/07/14/marrying-again-while-being-married/

However, the scholarship its members use to justify their decisions has been determined to be sorely deficient. The IBD has published 13 of its “psakim,” which are available for anyone to read on its website. These “teshuvos” were panned by a host of leading poskim, including Rav Hershel Schachter and Rav Mendel Zilber, who said that these supposed psakim are actually error-laden misreadings and misunderstandings of Rishonim and Acharonim. (See our interview with Rav Hershel Schachter for a more detailed explanation.)

Rabbis finally break silence on sex abuse

 https://www.thejc.com/news/world/rabbis-finally-break-silence-on-sex-abuse-1.23372?reloadTime=1656201600011

MAY 26, 2011

The rabbinical advice was both candid and clear. In response to the observation that allegations of abuse had been suppressed out of fear of communal disgrace (hilul hashem), Rabbi Daniel Eidensohn, author of Child and Domestic Abuse, responded: "Covering up is a much worse hilul hashem." Where a child is in danger, he noted that the halachic concept of pikuach nefesh (danger to an individual) mandates the - legally required - reporting of the situation to secular authorities.

Trump's defense in $250M NY fraud case: 'That is not fraud — that is real estate'

 https://nypost.com/2023/10/02/trump-fraud-trial-in-nyc-live-updates-reactions-photos-more/

Donald Trump pumped up his net worth as a vanity project – to climb up Forbes’ list of billionaires – and also so he could save millions on loan and insurance terms, the New York Attorney General’s Office claimed at the start of the former president’s $250 million civil fraud trial Monday.

Israel is fighting a holy war on Judaism, ultra-Orthodox leader claims

 https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/politics-and-diplomacy/article-761164

Gafni launched a scathing attack on economists whom he claimed to have met with over the past few months, stating that "their war is not socio-economic or security-related, it's a war on religion.

Coping with Modernity: An interview with Rabbi Emanuel Rackman

 https://thejewishreview.org/articles/?id=184

Jewish Review: One of the arguments against the ?modern Orthodox? or ?Torah im derekh eretz? point of view is that it seems to inevitably produce individuals who are less committed to halakha and who are less involved in Jewish learning.? Could you comment on this charge?

Rabbi Rackman: It is true, and there is no doubt that the rabbis of the Talmud recognized this too.? They spoke of four men who went into an orchard (the orchard, presumably, is Greek philosophy); one of them looked and went berserk, another one looked and converted to another faith, and one looked and died.? Only one of the four, Rabbi Akiva, entered in peace and came out in peace.? This indicates that we have always been aware of the danger, and that, therefore, not everybody should feel that all secular learning should be approached through an open door.? This is why many Orthodox parents who send their children to universities encourage them to study accounting, to become businessmen, chemists even, but not to engage in the study of philosophy and psychology.? The threats and challenges to Judaism come from the humanities and the social sciences, not so much from the natural sciences.? Natural science, we know, has no pretense to absolute truth; at best it gives you a good guess, a relative truth, and thus most observant Jews can safely enter its realm.? By the same token it is very important for some people to study the humanities, philosophy and social sciences, because, first, we know that the majority of Jews are going to be exposed to modern culture, and hence our permitting the dual exposure to Torah and philosophy, for example, helps to allow those who want to remain loyal Jews to do so without undue conflict.? In addition, we ultimately discover, for example, that the writings of the Rambam and his successors (including those who frowned upon him and prohibited his works) showed an influence of ?secular? ideas.? There were some ideas which emerged from the encounter of torah and secular thought which are of everlasting religious value.? For example, the writings of Samson Rafael Hirsch are so influenced by Immanuel Kant that we cannot fully appreciate Hirsch without an understanding of Kant, and there are indeed some insights of Hirsch, albeit stemming from a Kantian or Hegelian influence, which are valid despite these influences and have and will outlive (what might be perceived to be) the failure of Kant or Hegel.

Context of the Rav Soloveitchik Transcription

 https://jewishlink.news/letters/30336-context-of-the-rav-soloveitchik-transcription

This talk was delivered by the Rav as a response to proposals by Rabbi Emanuel Rackman to resolve the problems faced by women whose husbands refused to grant them a Jewish divorce. Rabbi Rackman was also in line at that time as a top candidate to become president of Yeshiva University.

Rav Soloveitchik’s strident remarks in the piece that you published characterized (without spelling this out) that the innovations that Rabbi Rackman wanted to make in divorce law were (1) heretical and (2) liable to “destroy yahadus (Judaism)” and (3) “methods of self-destruction and suicide.” Harsh words indeed.

And to justify his positions against the Rackman modifications, the Rav made several declarations about the nature of women that he called “permanent ontological principles rooted in the very depth of the human personality,” in particular that “the chazaka of ‘better to dwell with two bodies than to dwell as a widow’” (i.e., the presumption of the Talmud that a woman is better off married than single) is a “metaphysical curse, rooted in the feminine personality.”

The Rav’s speech succeeded to suppress Rabbi Rackman’s proposals at the time and to marginalize him at YU, thus ending his chances to ascend to the presidency of Yeshiva University. Rackman went on to become president and chancellor at Bar Ilan University in Israel and to initiate independent innovations in the area of Jewish divorce without the approval of Rav Soloveitchik or other rabbis at Yeshiva University.