The real lesson of Ms. Gay’s resignation is that too much of the American academy has abandoned its core mission of learning and free inquiry in favor of political indoctrination. In other words, it has abandoned the classical liberal tradition that earned it public respect over decades. That respect won’t return until these institutions return to that mission.
Friday, January 5, 2024
Thursday, January 4, 2024
China, Saudi Arabia Top Spenders at Trump Properties During His Presidency
China and Saudi Arabia topped a list of 20 countries whose governments or state-linked entities pumped millions of dollars into Donald Trump’s properties while he was president, according to a new report and previously undisclosed records that shed light on Trump’s potential business conflicts as he seeks a second term.
Public documents and internal financial records obtained by Democrats on the House Oversight Committee and seen by The Wall Street Journal showed that countries spent lavishly at Trump’s hotels in Washington and Las Vegas. They also shelled out for payments at his New York properties, spending a total of at least $7.8 million during his time in office.
Israel’s Supreme Court Divides and Rules
There was no good reason for Israel’s Supreme Court to rush and every reason to wait. “United we win” is the ubiquitous slogan on the Israeli home front, where even bitter rivals have formed a wartime unity government. By acting now to quash the remnant of judicial reform, the court risks plunging Israel into the peacetime squabbles of Oct. 6—and the ruinous, provocative months that preceded it.
Hamas Killed My Daughter. My Husband Is Still a Hostage
https://www.newsweek.com/hamas-killed-daughter-husband-still-hostage-1857040
Almost three months later, the kids are still crying. They miss their father every day. My son only sleeps with me. The Red Cross hasn't visited Tsachi or any of the other hostages, we are told. But, our entire family and a community of friends that has embraced us is resolved to bring Tsachi home. I am doing everything in my power to bring him home alive and well. He's my husband, of course, and my better and stronger half. He has to live for our daughter Maayan, and be able to hug our living children again. He needs to come home.
Harvard agitators turn their ire toward Penny Pritzker
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/01/03/harvard-antisemitism-billionaires-00133742
The announcement comes after Bill Ackman, a hedge fund manager and outspoken critic of Harvard’s handling of claims of antisemitism, called on Pritzker, the former U.S. Commerce secretary, to resign over the handling of Gay’s hiring and ultimate exit from the Ivy League school.
“The Board Chair, Penny Pritzker, should resign along with the other members of the board who led the campaign to keep Claudine Gay, orchestrated the strategy to threaten the media, bypassed the process for evaluating plagiarism, and otherwise greatly contributed to the damage that has been done,” Ackman wrote in a lengthy screed on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Call it the battle of the billionaires. Ackman and Pritzker both sit on the Forbes billionaire list and are noted political donors to Democratic candidates. They are also both Jewish Americans and Harvard alums.
Wednesday, January 3, 2024
Top Hamas Leader Killed in Suspected Israeli Strike in Beirut
A suspected Israeli attack targeted a Hamas gathering in Beirut on Tuesday, killing at least seven members of the Palestinian militant group, including one of its most influential founding members, according to Lebanese and Palestinian security officials, sending shock waves through the Middle East and bringing weekslong hostage negotiations to a halt.
Powerful blasts rocked a Beirut neighborhood early Tuesday evening, killing Saleh al-Arouri, a founder of the Hamas military wing, deputy head of its political bureau and, according to the group, an architect of the group’s Oct. 7 attacks in southern Israel that killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians. The explosions sent shattered glass and car parts flying through the streets near one of the city’s famed sweet shops.
Harvard President Resigns After Plagiarism Allegations, Campus Antisemitism Backlash
Harvard University President Claudine Gay resigned from her leadership role Tuesday, capping a dramatic fall from power fueled by both her response to antisemitism on campus and mounting allegations of plagiarism.
The resignation comes after weeks of criticism over her initial response to Hamas’s Oct. 7 attacks on Israel and early December comments at a House committee hearing that equivocated on whether calling for the genocide of Jewish people violated the campus code of conduct.
Though she had maintained the support of Harvard’s governing body, she also faced escalating external calls to resign over allegations that she failed to properly credit other researchers in her published work.
Claudine Gay, first Black woman president at Harvard, to resign
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/01/02/harvard-claudine-gay-resign-00133459
Harvard’s embattled president Claudine Gay announced that she is resigning from her post Tuesday afternoon.
In a statement, Gay said “it has become clear that it is in the best interests of Harvard for me to resign so that our community can navigate this moment of extraordinary challenge with a focus on the institution rather than any individual.”
Divine Providence and the Natural Order (2)
In the previous shiur, we discussed the theory of the Ramban and the Rambam, who maintain that Divine Providence is not universal. Only the righteous enjoy consistent Divine Providence. Regular people who are not particularly righteous have less Divine Providence, and therefore must fend for themselves within the natural order. The Torah expects us to work for a living, to conscript armies and fight wars, and in general to work in the natural order, because not everyone is on the level at which they enjoy consistent Divine Providence.
Tuesday, January 2, 2024
Wealth depends on Profession
Pesachim (113a) R. Papa said: If I were not a beer manufacturer I would not have become wealthy. Others say, R. Hisda said: If I were not a beer manufacturer, I would not have become wealthy.
Skills and crafts - where did they come from?
Radak (Bereishis 4:22) This story teaches us that all crafts and technical skills are not part of the human nature of the early humans that they would automatically realize them by intellectual effort and reasoning. The fact is that each of these humans was born with a different nature and each one was born with a predisposition to a particular skill and craft. They each had a desire to practice that skill and wisdom when they grew up. They naturally and easily acquired that skill much faster than others.
Israel's War on Hamas: How Many Palestinian Deaths Is Too Many?
https://www.newsweek.com/israels-war-hamas-how-many-palestinian-deaths-too-many-1851121
To try to answer the question of whether so many civilian deaths and injuries are indeed too many—according to legal definitions of proportionality—Newsweek spoke to over a dozen active and retired Israeli Defense Force (IDF) and U.S. military and intelligence officers, all of whom were able to speak more candidly because they were granted anonymity, often in criticizing the conduct of the war. Newsweek also spoke to a number of prominent human rights experts and has reviewed Israeli and American classified data relating to the conflict.
Nazi rockets over Britain and Hamas rockets over Israel: Similarities and Differences
Guest post by RaP Rocket warfare is frightening and unique, especially when used against civilian populations. As all Israelis have come to know first-hand facing the rocket barrages from Hamas in the south (and from Hezbollah in the north). This type of warfare first came into its own during World War Two (1939-1945) when armies began to deploy the new technology of launching missiles and rockets hurling them with devastating effect at enemies.
Rocket warfare was used by the Russians against the Nazis, the most famous of which was the "katyusha" rockets (also known as "Stalin's organ"). TheUnited States launched mass rocket attacks from US Navy ships against theJapanese. The Nazis used the world's first most precise rockets, the V-1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V-1_rocket and V-2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V-2_rocket , mostly against the British. When their planes could no longer fly far out the Nazis invented the world's first true ballistic sub-sonic and supersonic missiles with sophisticated guidance systems to reach their intended targets with deadly effect. The Iraqis used it against the Iranians in the Iran-Iraq Wars.
Obviously with the Hand of Hashem helping all the way and had Israel not had its "iron dome" ("kipat habarzel') anti-missile systems, something that the British lacked to the misfortune of their own civilians, and had the Hamas people not been so technically incompetent unlike the Nazis who had mastered murder by missiles down to a sick "science", Israeli casualties could very easily have equaled in four weeks what the British suffered in a year, not even talking proportionately just missile for missile Hamas rockets=Nazis rockets!
If the "iron dome" system would not be in existence, and the obvious Hand of God protecting Israel from major harm, then those rockets fired by Hamas would have caused proportionately as much and even greater bomb damage than the Nazi rocket attacks against the British. Like the Nazis, Hamas fires directly on civilian centers in order to terrorize the people. As the Israelis say, while Hamas uses civilians as "shields" to protect their rockets, Israel uses its rockets to protect their own civilians.
If one compares what happened to the British under Nazi rocket attacks to what Israel has had to endure under Hamas rocket attacks the comparisons are frightening as to what could have been but was miraculously averted.
Consider the following, according to Wikipedia: "The first V-1 was launched at London on 13 June 1944...At its peak, more than one hundred V-1s a day were fired at south-east England, 9,521 in total" and casualties were "22,892"!
Then: "Beginning in September 1944, over 3,000 V-2s were launched by the German Wehrmacht against Allied targets during the war, mostly London...According to a BBC documentary in 2011, the attacks resulted in the deaths of an estimated 9,000 civilians and military personnel, while 12,000 forced laborers and concentration camp prisoners were killed producing the weapons."
Thus in total over about 13,000 missiles were fired by the Nazis at Britain from 1944 to 1945 and the number of victims was about 32,000, not to mention damage to property.
According to current news reports, prior to the current outbreak of war, Hamas was in possession of a stockpile of at least 10,000 or more sophisticated rockets and missiles of various types and sizes many stored in underground silos ("tunnels") just as the Nazis hid many of their deadly accurate V1s and V2s underground, or on highly mobile launchers, and Hamas
fired most of their stockpile within four weeks.
Had Israel not had its "iron dome" anti-missile systems (something that the British lacked to the misfortune of their own civilians!) and had the Hamas people not been so technically incompetent (unlike the Nazis who had mastered murder by missiles down to a sick "science"), Israeli casualties could very easily have equaled in four weeks what the allies suffered in a year, not even talking proportionately just rocket for rocket and missile for missile!
Israel has a lot to be thankful to Hashem for and many should rightfully be bentching gomel!
Effort is very necessary for all good things
Pele Yoetz (hishstadlus). Effort is very necessary for all good things whether mundane worldly matters or spiritual matters - even though everything is from G-d. In fact G-d has decreed that according to effort exerted will be the success. This is especially true regarding the great effort needed to be done in order to save the lives of those condemned to death. Many times we have seen or heard about cases where someone could have been saved easily but because of inaction and unwillingness to spend money and the price was raised considerably to possibly save the person from a horrible and painful death and sometimes the opportunity was lost. Therefore, everyone is obligated, especially the rich and famous, to quickly rescue all those that they can at the earliest possibility. It is widely known that the saving of life is a great mitzvah for which the observing of the Torah is displaced and a sefer Torah can be sold and clearly a person is obligated even to spend all his wealth. Our Sages say Saving a single Jew is equivalent to saving the entire world.
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