Dispute between Chabad & Russia - Derails Art Loans From Russia

NYTimes

Diplomats in Washington and Moscow have been seeking to negotiate an agreement to pave the way for the loans but have so far been unsuccessful.

The legal dispute centers on the so-called Schneerson Library, a collection of 12,000 books and 50,000 religious documents assembled by the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic movement over two centuries prior to World War II, and kept since in Russia.

For decades the Chabad organization, which is based in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, has been trying to regain possession of the library, saying that it was illegally held by the Soviet authorities after the war.

In 1991 a court in Moscow ordered the library turned over to the Chabad organization; the Soviet Union then collapsed, and the judgment was set aside by the Russian authorities. The Russian government now says it wants to preserve the library for Russian Jews and scholars. [...]

Shaken-Baby Syndrome Faces New Questions in Court

NYTimes

There are two irreconcilable versions of how that calm shattered. Rueda says that Noah was crying, and she picked him up, sat on the couch and gave him the bottle to help put him to sleep. While she was feeding him, she felt Noah's arm go limp, and when she moved to take the bottle out of his mouth, he made a sound that she didn't recognize. "I could tell something was happening," she says. She stood up and put Noah on her shoulder, patting him on the back. "As I did this, his body tensed up in a ball. It was as if he was looking for air, and he couldn't breathe." Rueda put Noah on the floor and started C.P.R., at the same time reaching for her phone to call 911. She put the dispatcher on speakerphone so she could keep tending to Noah. "I said, 'Please, please get someone here,' " she said. "I knew it could hurt him if there wasn't enough oxygen going to his brain."

Erin Whitmer's account of the moments before Noah lost consciousness is entirely different. "Around 2:30 on April 20, 2009, Noah was shaken," she wrote on her blog Noah's Road, on the one-year anniversary of the incident. "He'd been crying. He needed something that his day care provider wasn't providing him. Maybe he was tired of lying on the mat where she'd had him. Maybe he needed a hug, a laugh, a kind touch. Instead, she picked him up, her fingers gripping him tightly, feeling the softness of his velour pants and his cotton onesie under her fingers, and she shook him." [...]

Israel, Alone Again?

NYTimes

ISRAELIS want to rejoice over the outbreak of protests in Egypt's city squares. They want to believe that this is the Arab world's 1989 moment. Perhaps, they say, the poisonous reflex of blaming the Jewish state for the Middle East's ills will be replaced by an honest self-assessment.

But few Israelis really believe in that hopeful outcome. Instead, the grim assumption is that it is just a matter of time before the only real opposition group in Egypt, the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood, takes power. Israelis fear that Egypt will go the way of Iran or Turkey, with Islamists gaining control through violence or gradual co-optation.

Either result would be the end of Israel's most important relationship in the Arab world. The Muslim Brotherhood has long stated its opposition to peace with Israel and has pledged to revoke the 1979 Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty if it comes into power. Given the strengthening of Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas's control of Gaza and the unraveling of the Turkish-Israeli alliance, an Islamist Egypt could produce the ultimate Israeli nightmare: living in a country surrounded by Iran's allies or proxies. [...]

Pleasure is desirable but governed by mitzvos

Copyrighted translation from Daas Torah

Shaloh (Asarah Mamaros): It says in Chullin (109b), "Yalsa the wife of Rav Nachman said to him, 'It is known that all that the Torah has prohibited there is something similar to it that has been permitted. For example, blood is prohibited while liver is permitted,… – I want to [know what it is like to] eat meat cooked in milk.' Rav Nachman had the cook prepare fried udder for her." It is puzzling why such a distinguished woman such as Yalsa was discussing such an apparently trivial topic with her husband. It is doubly puzzling why the gemora itself would mention such a discussion. …My father explained that this a very important issue. For every prohibited pleasure a person should be aware of the fact that it is pleasurable and yet avoid enjoying it only because G d has prohibited it. R Shimon ben Gamliel (Toras Cohanim Kedoshim): A person should not say it is impossible to eat pork but rather say that it is possible but what can I do since G d decreed me not to eat it. This is what Yalsa was saying when she stated that all that the Torah prohibited there was something similar that was permitted. Yalsa wanted to know what she was missing by observing the prohibition of meat and milk. By knowing what pleasure she was prohibited, she could have a genuine desire for the prohibited pleasure so that she could refrain from solely because of G d's command. Because the Torah prohibited eating meat and milk together she wanted to know what it tasted like so she could genuinely say that she wanted to eat meat and milk together but G-d had prohibited it. To this her husband answered that the taste was the same as fried udder. This explanation of my father is very sweet.

Are We Hard-Wired to Doubt Science or Reality e.g., child abuse?

NYTimes

But some very intelligent people I interviewed had little use for the existing (if sparse) science. How, in a rational society, does one understand those who reject science, a common touchstone of what is real and verifiable?

The absence of scientific evidence doesn't dissuade those who believe childhood vaccines are linked to autism, or those who believe their headaches, dizziness and other symptoms are caused by cellphones and smart meters. And the presence of large amounts of scientific evidence doesn't convince those who reject the idea that human activities are disrupting the climate. [...]

Fake Guggenheim's Fleece Millions From Investors

Fox News

Toumei told potential victims she was brokering deals on behalf of the fictitious "Guggenheim Fund" and "Guggenheim Bank," according to fraud charges filed in Manhattan federal court. But her connection to the real Guggenheims seems limited to her following their museum on Twitter.

Meanwhile, her two alleged cohorts, David Birnbaum, 67, of Brooklyn, and Vladimir Zuravel, 45, of Queens, posed as "David B. Guggenheim" and "Vladimir Z. Guggenheim" to help dupe investors into a slew of phony precious-commodity deals, the complaint states. [...]

Medical Clown Increases Pregnancy Rates with IVF

Time

A study of 229 Israeli women undergoing in-vitro fertilization (IVF) to treat infertility found that a 15-minute visit from a trained "medical clown" immediately after the embryos were placed in the womb increased the chance of pregnancy to 36%, compared with 20% for women whose embryo transfer was comedy-free.

After controlling for factors such as the women's age, the nature and duration of their infertility, the number of embryos used and the day on which they were transferred into the uterus, researchers found an even greater effect of therapeutic laughter: the women who were entertained by a clown were 2.67 times more likely to get pregnant than those in the control group. (More on Time.com: 5 Pregnancy Taboos Explained (or Debunked))

The quasi-randomized controlled study was published in one of the leading journals on infertility research, Fertility and Sterility, and led by Israeli researcher Shevach Friedler. It is considered only quasi-randomized because the timing of the recruitment of the control group was slightly different from that of the clown group.

In the trial, the professional medical clown — who was dressed as a chef and performed the same light routine each time — visited patients during the half-hour after embryo transfer, when women typically stay lying down and allow the embryos to settle in. The idea was to help reduce women's stress, which laughter has been shown to do, and, hopefully, reap the physiological benefits. [...]

Punishment after death for pleasure which is not for a mitzva or for the sake of heaven

Gra (Even Shleima 2:12): All the pleasures that a man enjoys in this world will become bitter in the grave. The lusting flesh will be punished in the travails of the grave. There in the grave, judgment will be exacted from every limb of his body which enjoyed material pleasure in this world that was not part of a mitzva. In fact the pleasure he experiences in this world will turn into the fiery venom of a snake. And even though the tzadikim will suffer the travails of the grave, but not for partaking in gratuitous pleasure in this world - since their intent was always for the sake of heaven. In fact for the tzadikim all the pleasure they have is considered as a mitzva since it is done for the sake of heaven and their eating is considered as a sacrificial offering.

Money Isn't Everything, Even to Doctors

Time Magazine

Many health policy experts, including those who wrote the Affordable Care Act, believe there's only one thing that can get doctors to change their behavior — money. A new study may blow a giant hole in that belief, just in time to save the government millions or even billions of dollars.

"Pay-For-Performance" is the theory that health care wonks believe could bring the U.S. health care system back from the financial brink. Pay for quality; compensate for competency. If we can just reward doctors when their patients stay or get healthy, we can solve a lot of what ails us systemically. Healthier patients are less expensive to care for and place less strain on the medical system. If doctors are incentivized to keep their patients from getting sick (or sicker), staggering amounts of money and time could be saved. At least that's the theory behind some of the most experimental and innovative provisions in the new health reform law. (More on TIME.com: In Rural Areas, There May Be No Doctors to Tend to Your Sick Kid)

Right now, doctors don't get paid this way. For the most part, the government (via Medicare or Medicaid) or private insurance companies pay physicians for each individual task they perform. There are no penalties or rewards if these doctors choose the wrong treatments or if a patient's chronic disease isn't well managed. The more treatments, surgeries, or office visits a doctor performs, the more money he or she makes. [...]

California rabbis bring show of unity

JPost

The diversity of Jewish religious practice was on display when an eclectic group of 37 male and female rabbis visiting from Northern California shuffled into the Bina Center for Jewish Identity and Hebrew Culture seminary in grimy south Tel Aviv last Thursday.

Some were affiliated with Chabad Hassidut and sported bushy beards and tallit fringes sticking out from their shirts. Others were Reform and Conservative rabbis wearing little or no visible Jewish garb, and at least one female rabbi was wearing a kippa.

They had agreed to put aside their differences and in a show of crossdenominational solidarity come to Israel for a week-long fact-finding mission. [...]

Bostoner Rebbe zt"l

Jewish Action

A very long and productive life came to an end last December—long not just because the Bostoner Rebbe died at the age of eighty-eight (18 Kislev 5770), but because of what he packed into each day.