A Submarine, Some Suitcases, and Salvation: On Increasingly Inaccessible Testimony and the Perfection of the Dunera Story

 https://www.academia.edu/48906680/A_Submarine_Some_Suitcases_and_Salvation_On_Increasingly_Inaccessible_Testimony_and_the_Perfection_of_the_Dunera_Story

According to a story that is popular in religious Jewish circles, the HMT Dunera, transporting Germanspeaking Jewish internees to Australia in the summer of 1940, was miraculously saved from destruction because the captain of a German submarine discontinued his torpedo attack on the ship. He did so because he inferred, from German-language materials in suitcases floating in the sea behind the Dunera, that the ship was full of German POWs. In fact, however, the ship was full of Jewish internees, whose suitcases had been thrown overboard by corrupt and cruel British guards. Thus, the story illustrates the wondrous ways of divine providence and, accordingly, man's inability to judge God's administration of events, for what the internees perceived as a catastrophe, namely the loss of their property, was in fact the instrument of their salvation. This study of the story's origin, and of its growth and perfection over time, focuses on two points: (1) over time, the authority claimed for the story has become less and less susceptible to corroboration (and, hence, to refutation); (2) those who tell the story are not liars,

However, it seems that we should also recognise that among those who tell the story, for many or perhaps even most, the question of historical truth is not a central one, for they are involved in teaching another type of truth, which Christian theologians aptly term ‘kerygmatic truth’ – the type of truth that is ‘proclaimed’ (Greek: kēryssō) by religion.85 Namely, just as many Dunera Boys  were starting to give up on the story, it wandered – on the basis  of the impetus afforded by Patkin’s 1979 volume – into the centres of ultra-Orthodoxy in New York and Israel. For writers in those contexts, what was important for the story is what beliefs  it preaches, not its historical truth

The case of the Dunera suitcase-salvation story thus seems to be similar to the one sensitively reconstructed by Baumel and Schacter in their study of a much better-known Holocaust story –that of the 93 Bais Yaakov martyrs of Cracow, young women who committed suicide to avoid enslavement in a Nazi brothel. That story too, which they are, in the end, unable to confirm or to deny, but which they tend to doubt as history, is one that is believed and circulated because it fulfils an edifying function and corresponds to other great stories of the Jewish past – and so it is disseminated by those who believe it and repeat it. In that case the story contributes to fitting the Holocaust into a long tradition of Jewish martyrdom; in ours – into a long tradition of salvation stories, of stories of miraculous reversals, of blessings in disguise. In both cases, to call those who disseminate the stories ‘liars’ is not only to assert more certainty about the stories’ historical untruth, and about the storytellers’ awareness of that, than is actually warranted. It also amounts to mixing categories improperly, for what they really claim for the story is kerygmatic truth. Historical truth might be taken for granted, but is not the point.

Here too, finally, the same distinction between historical truth and kerygmatic truth applies. How many people who watch the Aish HaTorah movie, for example, would assert that it is historically true? To assume that numerous viewers would make that assertion, we would have to assume that they would uncritically accept the blatantly vague report that ‘in approximately 1980 somebody opened the German navy archives from the Nazi era, and somebody was able to find the handwritten diary [of] a German submarine commander in the English Channel [sic] in July of 1940’ – but how many of them would depend on such vague statements in making any decisions about their own lives or businesses? Presumably, very few. And even if they were happy to believe the story, would they be willing to testify to its truth, or to invest money on the premise that it is true? Perhaps some would. But probably many more would respond with something like ‘I really don’t know, but “they” say it is true, and as far as I know it hasn’t been disproven; anyway, “se non è vero, è ben trovato”, by which I mean that even if it didn’t happen, it could have happened. What is important, for me, is that the lesson it teaches – that even in the face of tragedy we should remain optimistic and retain our faith in a providential God – is one that we believe is true and important to disseminate.’

Donald Trump proves he’s the stupidest man in the Situation Room

My Parents’ Secret for Living Well Into Their 90s: Embracing Strangers

 https://www.wsj.com/health/wellness/my-parents-secret-for-living-well-into-their-90s-embracing-strangers-6586769b?mod=hp_lead_pos9

I have spent my career studying what makes people live healthier and longer. My mom and dad are proof that the key is staying socially connected.

I have spent my professional life studying what makes people live healthier and longer. I have analyzed data sets on longevity the world over and reviewed hundreds of clinical studies. I have heard numerous new claims about supplements, diets and tech devices that are supposed to extend life. But nothing I have read in the scientific literature explains longevity better than the lives of my incorrigibly social parents, Benjamin and Marsha Emanuel.

More than 69,000 Israelis left Israel in 2025, as population reached 10.18 million

 https://www.timesofisrael.com/more-than-69000-israelis-left-israel-in-2025-as-population-reached-10-18-million/

More than 69,000 Israelis left the country in 2025 under the shadow of Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza, leading the country to record a negative migration balance for the second straight year, the Central Bureau of Statistics said Wednesday in a year-end report.

According to the CBS, about 24,600 new immigrants arrived in 2025, 8,000 fewer than in 2024. (That’s more than the 21,900 the Immigration and Absorption Ministry announced Monday.) Most of the decline was attributable to a sharp drop in immigrants from Russia, after numbers from that country spiked following the start of Russia’s war with Ukraine in 2022.

Meanwhile, some 19,000 Israelis returned to Israel after an extended time living abroad, and 5,500 people arrived for family reunification purposes, the CBS said. That brought the total migration balance to a net loss of about 20,000 people.

Rav Kook's dilemma: Hesped for Hertzl

Shaalvim   On the twentieth of Tammuz, 5664 (July 3,1904), Dr. Theodor Herzl (Benjamin Ze’ev) Herzl, founder of the Zionist movement, died at the tragically young age of forty-four. Rav Avraham Yitzhak Kook, the newly installed rabbi of the port city of Jaffa, was asked to participate in a memorial service to honor the departed leader. Rav Kook was placed in a difficult situation, for which there was no totally satisfactory solution. On the one hand, the Halakha is quite specific when it comes to those who have deviated from the norms of Torah:

Whoever secedes from the way of the community, namely persons who throw off the yoke of commandments from upon their neck, and do not participate with the Jewish People in their observances, in honoring the festivals, and sitting in the synagogue and study house, but rather are free to themselves as the other nations, and so too the apostates and informers — for none of these persons does one mourn. Rather, their brothers and other relatives wear white (festive garments) and eat and drink, and make merry (Shulhan ‘Arukh, Yoreh De’ah 345:5).

However one might lionize Herzl, there was no getting away from the fact that his lifestyle was that of an assimilated Jew far from observance of traditional Judaism. If one were to adhere literally to the passage in Shulhan Arukh, the customary hesped or eulogy for the deceased would be out of the question.

On the other hand, Rav Kook knew his flock. If in Jaffa itself Rav Kook might find a few individuals capable of relating to the halakhic objection to memorializing a declaredly secular Jew, in Rehovot and the other outlying settler communities, Herzl, with his patriarchal beard and searing eyes, was regarded as nothing less than a modern-day “prophet.” And Rav Kook had been engaged not only as rabbi of Jaffa, but of the recently established moshavot (colonies) as well. [...]

Insulation Is Not Education

 https://mishpacha.com/insulation-is-not-education/

Exposure to diversity within Torah-true life is not a threat; it is a gift

Insulation is largely fool’s gold, because you won’t be able to insulate your child forever — and it comes with a hefty price. Because beneath the surface of that determination lies something else — something quieter, and far less noble: fear. Fear that if your daughter sits next to someone whose father davens without a hat, she will abandon everything she was taught. Fear that if your son is in a class with boys whose families daven a different nusach, he’ll lose his identity. Fear that anything outside your type of Yiddishkeit is a threatening force that must be sealed off completely.

Because when a child grows up in a bubble so hermetically sealed that even minor differences are treated as contamination, we aren’t raising stable, confident bnei Torah — we’re raising spiritual porcelain. Children who either panic when encountering a different nusach or a slightly different minhag, or are disillusioned when they realize that “hey, that kid across the street is not that bad!”

Trump’s Kennedy Post After Tatiana Schlossberg Death Sparks Anger

 https://www.newsweek.com/tatiana-schlossberg-death-trump-kennedy-11288529

President Donald Trump has sparked outrage after posting negative content about the Kennedy family as they reel from the death of Tatiana Schlossberg.

On his social media platform, Truth Social, Trump posted a series of X posts including one calling the Kennedy Center "a crumbling monument to liberal neglect." Another post said Trump "revived the Kennedy Center" and another said "the only Kennedy who is politically important in this country is [current Health and Human Services Secretary] Bobby Kennedy Jr." A fourth said the Kennedys were "totally Democratic Socialists now rooting for America and Trump to fail."

MeidasTouch, an account critical of Trump with 1.2 million followers wrote: "On a day when the Kennedy family is grappling with an unimaginable personal loss, Donald Trump chose to use his platform to launch petty, vindictive attacks against them. Yet another stunning display of cruelty and utter lack of basic human decency."

Trump claims his ‘real’ approval rating is 64 percent

 https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5667894-donald-trump-claims-approval-rating-higher/

President Trump claimed Tuesday that his “real” approval rating is at 64 percent, despite polls showing it is below 50 percent.

“The polls are rigged even more than the writers,” Trump said in a late-night Truth Social post. “The real number is 64%, and why not, our Country is ‘hotter’ than ever before.”

Earlier this month, Trump suggested the economy under his second administration would get an “A-plus-plus-plus-plus-plus” rating, despite rising inflation and lackluster job reports. Instead, he has pinned much of the blame on former President Biden and signaled his White House is working to fix the issue.

Simonim vs Divination

 Rabbeinu Bachya (Kad HaKemach Mezuza) This that there is a widespread practice not to marry except when the moon is full there is no prohibition in this custom since it is serves merely as a sign that the marriage should be good and successful. This is similar to our custom on the night of Rosh HaShanna. This is also like the custom of appointing kings next to a spring as a good sign that his kingdom be viable for a long time. Anyone who views the custom of marrying at the full moon  as anything other than more than a sign of success for the marriage makes it into darchei Emori 

Kennedy Center changed board rules months before vote to add Trump’s name

 https://www.washingtonpost.com/style/2025/12/31/kennedy-center-board-trustees-bylaws/

The Kennedy Center adopted bylaws earlier this year that limited voting to presidentially appointed trustees, a move that preceded a unanimous decision this month by board members installed by President Donald Trump to add his name to the center.

The current bylaws, obtained by The Washington Post, were revised in May to specify that board members designated by Congress — known as ex officio members — could not vote or count toward a quorum. Legal experts say the move may conflict with the institution’s charter.

Trump took over the Kennedy Center in February, purging its board of members he had not appointed. The months that followed saw struggling ticket sales and programming changes that began to align the arts complex with the Trump administration’s broader cultural aims, culminating with the annual Kennedy Center Honors hosted by the president.

'We have become like Russia': Ret. Army Lt. Gen. slams strike on Venezuela

You can’t gaslight people’: MTG calls out ‘billionaire’ Trump on economy hype

The Trump Economy: Three Years of Volatile Continuity

 https://www.cato.org/regulation/summer-2020/trump-economy-three-years-volatile-continuity

During the first three years of Trump’s presidency, the economy expanded, unemployment and poverty fell, wages increased, taxes were cut, the stock market moved upward, and some reforms of federal regulation were introduced. So far so good.

The “Trump economy” is thus a misnomer. Like any other president, Donald Trump is only partly responsible for what has gone well and gone wrong during his years in office and in the years to come. A president can do more damage to an economy than help it. And three years is a short time to evaluate the consequences of complex policy packages. All these caveats must be kept in mind.

Overall, the poverty and unemployment picture improved slowly from 2009 to 2019, with no radical break when the occupant of the White House changed. The Obama economy and the Trump economy seem to be the same economy. This observation applies to many other measures of American prosperity.

Trump inherits a labor market at full employment. Can he keep it there?

 https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/trump-inherits-labor-market-full-employment-can-he-keep-it-there-2025-02-07

Defying fears of a pandemic-driven Great Depression and bucking Federal Reserve interest rate hikes as well, the U.S. job market closed out the Biden era at the cusp of full employment, if not beyond it, with steady job gains, growing wages, and enough momentum to possibly rekindle fears of overheating.