Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Robert Califf recently took to X to mourn the “catastrophic” decline in U.S. life expectancy.
But his post, which hit on smoking, diet, chronic illness and health care, ignored the obvious: People are dying in abnormally high numbers even now and long since COVID-19 waned. Yet public health agencies and medical societies are silent.
Harvard forces a Jewish student group to hide its menorah each night after its lighting over fears of vandalism that “won’t look good” for the Ivy League school, the rabbi of Harvard Chabad said.
“On our campus in the shadow of Widener Library, we in the Jewish community are instructed, ‘We’ll let you have the menorah, you made your point, OK. Pack it up, don’t leave it out overnight because there will be criminal activity we fear and it won’t look good’,” Rabbi Hirschy Zarchi said at a Hanukkah lighting Wednesday night.
National security adviser Jake Sullivan pressed Israeli leaders to shift from a reliance on airstrikes and ground assaults in Gaza toward targeted military operations and warned that a protracted conflict would make the Palestinian territory harder to govern after the war, U.S. officials said.
Sullivan’s meetings with Israeli political and military leaders Thursday seemed to have made little headway addressing the growing rift between the U.S. and Israel over civilian casualties, the length of the conflict, flagging international support for Israel’s campaign, and the future governance of the Gaza Strip.
The U.S. is undertaking a full-court press in the region for the Israelis to begin to wrap up the conflict. U.S. officials have said privately the U.S. wants to see the fight end in weeks, not months, though the Biden administration continues to support Israel’s campaign to destroy Hamas’s ability to wage military operations or govern Gaza.
https://www.newsweek.com/putin-admits-russia-suffered-huge-losses-ukraine-1852660
Despite the figures from Matveev, it is not clear that Putin was admitting to 363,000 lost soldiers. However, the figure does come close to the 315,000 claimed Russian troop casualties that were revealed in a leaked declassified U.S. intelligence document this week.
The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine claimed in a Facebook post on Wednesday that Russia had lost 342,800 troops since first launching its invasion on February 24, 2022. The U.K. military also estimated in mid-November that 302,000 Russian personnel had been lost.
https://www.positive.news/society/the-finnish-approach-to-psychosis/
In the 1980s, Finnish psychiatrists developed an approach to treating mental illness that dramatically improved outcomes for those in crisis. As a five-year study of ‘open dialogue’ nears completion in the UK, Alex Riley – whose family has seen our mental healthcare system at close quarters – meets the doctors who believe the results could revolutionise treatment of mental illness in Britain, and beyond
An Australian mother who spent two decades in prison after she was wrongly found guilty of killing her four children had her convictions formally quashed Thursday, as her lawyers called for legal reform and “substantial” compensation.
Kathleen Folbigg was pardoned and freed in June on the recommendation of retired judge Tom Bathurst, who re-examined all the evidence put to her 2003 trial and found “reasonable doubt” as to her guilt.
The fact is that the Maharal was ignored for centries
There are two explanations given
1) He was overshadowed by the Arizal until the Chassidic world realized his true value and actively promoted and republished his works
In his letter of approbation to Rabbi Hartman’s work on Nesivos Olam, the late Rav Shmuel Auerbach attributes the relative eclipse of the Maharal’s writings to the appearance in Europe of the astounding new kabbalistic insights of the Maharal’s younger contemporary, the Arizal, which were brought from Tzfas to Europe by the Shelah Hakadosh. Though there is no indication that the Maharal knew of Lurianic Kabbalah, legend has it that the Arizal said on his deathbed, “There is another like me in the West,” referring to the Maharal.
https://mishpacha.com/a-page-from-his-book-2/
2) He is not part of the Mesorah, his Rebbe is unknown, and he presents a mixture of Kabbah Philosophy and ideas he made up - many of which are hard to understand
Rav Shlomo Fisher wrote
ציטוט מכ"י של רבינו זצוקללה".
(ודרך המהר"ל בזה בס' פירושי האגדות שלו דרך תמוהה ומסוכנת. ולא לחינם לא נדפס ספר זה עד דורנו ונשאר בכת"י, ודע עוד דהמהר"ל אינו מחכמי הקבלה המוסמכים, וכל דבריו דרך סברא בעלמא.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leib_Tropper
On 14 February 2010 Tropper was to be summoned to a meeting in the Yeshiva Bais Mikroh of Monsey where the Rabbonim were to demand that Tropper resign all his posts and leave Monsey. Before the meeting, Tropper signed an agreement which stated “In not fulfilling the requirement of Shulchan Aruch that a leader be 'Pirko No’eh' (פרקו נאה), the undersigned is relinquishing his position.” Tropper also stated that he "released all rights and severs any connection he has to his former Yeshiva in Monsey and withdraws forthwith as a trustee of the organization." Tropper also stated his agreement to move out of Monsey within a few months.[13][14]
https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/article-777750
US President Joe Biden warned Israel that it was losing support for the Israel-Hamas war and called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to change the membership of his coalition which is largely opposed to the creation of a Palestinian state.
https://www.newsweek.com/joe-biden-sends-warning-israel-netanyahu-1851798
U.S. President Joe Biden said Tuesday that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government is "starting to lose support" and that changes need to be made considering the mounting death toll in Gaza.
https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/politics-and-diplomacy/article-777637
"This is the time to remind you, Mr. Secretary-General, that Yahya Sinwar himself was sentenced to five life sentences in Israel for murdering Palestinians – not Jews. Gaza should be freed from Hamas, not from Israel. Hamas is ISIS."
Ronen Bar continues: "Out of respect for the thousands of lives that have already been lost, and in order to save many more lives, please help us remove the rule of evil from the Gaza Strip and restore faith in the most basic human rights, human dignity and the value of human life, as written in the UN Charter. Help us restore the belief in equal rights between men and women, Palestinians, Israelis, Muslims, Christians, Jews, and others," he implored.
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/12/11/stefanik-democrats-higher-education-00131193
But it is the movement against the university presidents from a chorus of Democrats that suggests a possible realignment of a traditional political alliance, one that could see bipartisan pushback against the elitism of the ivory tower.
