Thursday, April 18, 2019
Brooklyn measles outbreak: How a glossy booklet spread anti-vaccine messages in Orthodox Jewish communitie
nbcnews
As New York officials declared a public health emergency in parts of Brooklyn this week, establishing mandatory vaccinations in an effort to stop the city’s worst measles outbreak in almost 30 years, health advocates pointed to what they believe is a major source of vaccine misinformation in the affected neighborhoods.
The false messages that they say convinced hundreds of New Yorkers not to vaccinate their children weren’t spread in a Facebook group or on YouTube, but through a glossy magazine written by and for Orthodox Jewish parents. Copies of the magazine were shared in a way that seems old-fashioned in the age of misinformation — through family, friends and neighbors.
“The Vaccine Safety Handbook” looks legitimate but is filled with wild conspiracy theories and inaccurate data. Published by an anonymously led group called Parents Educating and Advocating for Children’s Health, or PEACH, the handbook disputes the well-established dangers of illnesses like measles and polio, challenges the effectiveness of vaccines in eradicating those illnesses, and likens the U.S. government's promotion of vaccines to the medical atrocities of Nazi Germany.
Wednesday, April 17, 2019
Families sue DC synagogue preschool, alleging it ignored child sexual abuse
The families of eight children who attended the preschool at a prominent Washington, D.C., synagogue have filed a lawsuit accusing the school of ignoring signs that a teacher was abusing children.
The civil suit accuses the school of failing to protect the children from “a known and avoidable risk of sexual abuse” by a teacher employed at the Washington Hebrew Congregation’s Edlavitch-Tyser Early Childhood Center from 2014 until he was suspended in 2018 over allegations that he “may have engaged in inappropriate conduct involving one or more children.”
A spokeswoman for Washington Hebrew, Amy Rotenberg, said the temple is still reviewing the lawsuit, The Washington Post reported.
“In August 2018, Washington Hebrew Congregation immediately reported the allegations to DC Metropolitan Police Department (MPDC) and Child Protective Services as soon as we learned of them,” Rotenberg said in an email. “Since that moment and for the past eight months we have continually and fully cooperated with the ongoing criminal investigation.
“We have taken this matter seriously and have kept the community regularly apprised of what we know,” she wrote.
A spokesman for the Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia told CNN on Monday evening that an investigation into alleged sexual abuse of children at the school is ongoing.
Washington Hebrew, which is affiliated with the Reform movement, has about 3,000 member families and is the oldest congregation in the city. The synagogue has deep roots in Washington’s political establishment and counts among its members prominent influencers of both parties.
Tuesday, April 16, 2019
Donald Trump's Changing Positions On Releasing His Taxes
time
Donald Trump said he would release his tax returns. Then he said he’d do it after an audit. Now he says the public doesn’t care.
Over the years, the president and members of his Administration have changed tactics several times on the question of whether he would follow a decades-old precedent and release his old tax returns.
In a 2014 interview, Trump said he would release the returns, without any qualifications.
“If I decide to run for office, I’ll produce my tax returns, absolutely,” he told “Ireland AM.” “And I would love to do that.”
Pro-Israel groups to Trump: Let Israel decide on sovereignty
Twenty diverse pro-Israel organizations sent a joint letter to President Trump today, urging the President to permit Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a free hand to extend Israeli sovereignty over Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria. The letter comes in response to one from left-wing groups, dominated by arms of the American Reform and Conservative Jewish movements, calling upon the President to indicate that he will "not support any Israeli proposals to annex the West Bank, in whole or in part."
The new letter was organized by Rabbi Pesach Lerner and Rabbi Yaakov Menken of the Coalition for Jewish Values (CJV) and Rabbi Yechezkel Moskowitz of the Jewish Heritage Preservation Society. "It is important for those who believe in traditional values, who believe in a strong and safe State of Israel, who appreciate the actions of President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu, to speak up," said Rabbi Lerner, President of the CJV. "We cannot allow the liberal left to be the only voice."
Signatories on the new letter included well-known organizations such as the Endowment for Middle East Truth, the Rabbinical Alliance of America, the Republican Jewish Coalition, the Zionist Organization of America, and Turning Point USA. "We are delighted to see such a strong alliance of Jewish and non-Jewish, Orthodox and non-Orthodox, political and apolitical organizations joining together in a single letter supporting Israel's right of self-determination," added Rabbi Moskowitz. "But what made this possible is that the letter simply rebuts an effort to pressure Israel to bow to anti-Israel advocates."
The pro-Israel coalition letter fails to address some of the demands found in the first, as some signatories would have preferred. Mort Klein, National President of the Zionist Organization of America, maintained that "the 'two-state solution,' endorsed as the 'only formulation to resolve the conflict' in the earlier letter, is a euphemism for creating an Iranian-Hezbollah-Hamas-Fatah-Palestinian-Arab terror state in the Jewish homeland. It would place all of Israel in existential danger."
Rav Kook on Pesach
We are charged to sing out in joy - God answered our prayers and rescued us from the bondage of Egyptian slavery:
| "I am Eternal your God Who raises you up from the land of Egypt. Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it." (Psalms 81:11) |
What is the connection between our redemption from Egypt and "opening our mouths wide" to receive God's blessings?
Ongoing Elevation
A careful reading of this verse will note two peculiarities about the word ha-ma'alcha, 'Who raises you up.' First of all, it does not say that God 'took you out' of Egypt, but that He 'raises you up.' It was not merely the act of leaving Egypt that made its eternal impact on the destiny of the Jewish nation, and through it, all of humanity. The Exodus was an act of elevation, lifting up the souls of Israel.
Additionally, the verse is not in the past tense but in the present - 'Who raises you up.' Is it not referring to a historical event? We may understand this in light of the Midrash (Tanchuma Mikeitz 10) concerning the creation of the universe. The Midrash states that when God commanded the formation of the rakiya, the expanse between the upper and lower waters (Gen. 1:6), the divide between the heavens and the earth began to expand. This expansion would have continued indefinitely had the Creator not halted it by commanding, 'Enough!' In other words, unless they are meant only for a specific hour, Divine acts are eternal, continuing forever. So too, the spiritual ascent of 'raising you up from Egypt' is a perpetual act of God, influencing and uplifting the Jewish people throughout the generations.
There is no limit to this elevation, no end to our spiritual aspirations. The only limitations come from us, if we choose to restrict our wishes and dreams. But once we know the secret of ha-ma'alcha and internalize the message of a Divine process that began in Egypt and continues to elevate us, we can aim for ever-higher spiritual goals.
It is instructive to note the contrast between the Hebrew word for 'Egypt' - Mitzrayim, literally, 'limitations' - and the expression, 'open up wide.' God continually frees us from the confining restraints of Mitzrayim, enabling us to strive for the highest, most expansive aspirations.
Now we may understand why the verse concludes with the charge, 'Open your mouth wide.' We should not restrict ourselves. We need to rise above all self-imposed limitations and transcend all mundane goals and petty objectives. If we can 'open our mouths wide' and recognize our true potential for spiritual greatness, then 'I will fill it' - God will help us attain ever-higher levels of holiness.
Seven common myths about quantum physics
I have been popularising quantum physics, my area of research, for many years now. The general public finds the topic fascinating and covers of books and magazines often draw on its mystery. A number of misconceptions have arisen in this area of physics and my purpose here is to look at the facts to debunk seven of these myths.
Don't worry, you don't need to know much about quantum physics to read this article. I will mostly be explaining what quantum physics isn't, rather than what it is…
1. "Quantum physics is all about uncertainty"
Wrong! Quantum physics is probably the most precise scientific discipline ever devised by humankind. It can predict certain properties with extreme accuracy, to 10 decimal places, which later experiments confirm exactly.
This myth originated partly in Werner Heisenberg's "uncertainty principle". He showed that there is a limit to how accurately two quantities – for instance a particle's speed and its position – can be measured simultaneously. When quantum physics is used to calculate other quantities, such as the energy, or the magnetic property of atoms, it is astounding in its precision.
2. "Quantum physics can't be visualised."
Quantum physics describes objects that are often "strange" and difficult to put into pictures: wave functions, superimposed states, probability amplitude, complex numbers to name but a few. People often say that they can only be understood with mathematical equations and symbols. And yet we physicists are always making representations of it when we teach and popularise it. We use graphs, drawings, metaphors, projections and many other devices. Which is just as well, because students and even veteran quantum physicists like us need a mental image of the objects being manipulated. The contentious part is the accuracy of these images, as it is difficult to represent a quantum object accurately.
Working together with designers, illustrators and video makers, the Physics Reimagined research team seeks to "draw" quantum physics in all its forms: folding activities, graphic novels, sculptures, 3-D animations, and on and on.
3. "Even scientists don't really understand quantum physics"
One of the leading lights in the field, Richard Feynman himself said: "I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics." But he then immediately added: "I am going to tell you what nature behaves like." Niels Bohr, one of the founding fathers of the discipline, gives a good summary: "Those who are not shocked when they first come across quantum theory cannot possibly have understood it."
Physicists do understand what they're doing when they're manipulating the quantum formalism. They just need to adapt their intuitions to this new field and its inherent paradoxes.
4. "A few brilliant theorists came up with the entire concept of quantum physics"
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