Published on Nov 9, 2017
Monday, November 13, 2017
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I remember the moment distinctly, and it was almost a decade ago: a group of stylish women walked into the main sanctuary of my shul in Baltimore for a Torah class. They all had a similar panache about them, sporting long, curled sheitels (wigs) that reached mid-back, large designer handbags slung over the shoulders, and outfits that were trendy, expensive-looking and mainly black. I stood at the side of the room and observed something that was clearly a new “look.” I had never seen religious women look like this before (living outside of NY most certainly contributed). Sure, religious women always have worn expensive clothes and lots of black. But it was the sheitels — they now were the accessory that put it all together. And they were so long.
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I remember the moment distinctly, and it was almost a decade ago: a group of stylish women walked into the main sanctuary of my shul in Baltimore for a Torah class. They all had a similar panache about them, sporting long, curled sheitels (wigs) that reached mid-back, large designer handbags slung over the shoulders, and outfits that were trendy, expensive-looking and mainly black. I stood at the side of the room and observed something that was clearly a new “look.” I had never seen religious women look like this before (living outside of NY most certainly contributed). Sure, religious women always have worn expensive clothes and lots of black. But it was the sheitels — they now were the accessory that put it all together. And they were so long.
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Jerusalem – Israeli Rabbis Tell IDF Chief Women Are Weakening The Army
.vosizneias
Jerusalem – A group of leading Orthodox rabbis met with the Israeli army’s chief of staff to complain. According to Israel’s Arutz Sheva news website, the rabbis told Gadi Eisenkot on Tuesday that the growing ranks of female combat soldiers in the Israel Defense Forces are creating an immodest environment. They demanded changes to accommodate [...]
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Jerusalem – A group of leading Orthodox rabbis met with the Israeli army’s chief of staff to complain. According to Israel’s Arutz Sheva news website, the rabbis told Gadi Eisenkot on Tuesday that the growing ranks of female combat soldiers in the Israel Defense Forces are creating an immodest environment. They demanded changes to accommodate [...]
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Never forget the Har Nof massacre
arutz 7
We used to feel safe.
We used to think that Har Nof was just another frum community in Yerushalayim.
But three years ago, everything that we thought was normal was shattered.
Terrorists stormed into our synagogue, our Mikdash Me’at, brutally slaughtering the bodies and stealing the Neshamos of Tzadikim wrapped in Talis and Tefilin.
Wednesday, November 8, 2017
Thursday, November 2, 2017
I Want ‘Allahu Akbar’ Back
ny time
Allahu akbar. It’s Arabic for “God is greatest.” Muslims, an eccentric tribe with over a billion members, say it several times in our five daily prayers. The phrase is also a convenient way to express just the right kind of gratitude in any situation.
I say “Allahu akbar” out loud more than 100 times a day. Yesterday, I uttered it several times during my late-evening Isha prayer. Earlier, during dinner, I said it with my mouth full after biting into my succulent halal chicken kebab. In the afternoon, I dropped it in a conference room at the State Department, where I’d been invited to address a packed room of government employees about the power of storytelling. Specifically, I expressed my continuing gratitude for the election of Barack Obama, whom, in a joking nod to the Islamophobic paranoia that surrounded him, I called “our first Muslim American president,” adding “Allahu akbar!”
People in the crowd laughed and applauded, the world continued to spin, no one had an aneurysm, and only a few people seemed to wonder with arched, Sarah Sanders-like eyebrows, “Wait, is he ...?” I even confess to saying “Allahu akbar” two days ago in a restroom after losing the battle, but ultimately winning the war, against a nasty stomach virus.
I’m 37 years old. In all those years, I, like an overwhelming majority of Muslims, have never uttered “Allahu akbar” before or after committing a violent act. Unfortunately, terrorists like ISIS and Al Qaeda and their sympathizers, who represent a tiny fraction of Muslims, have. In the public imagination, this has given the phrase meaning that’s impossible to square with what it represents in my daily life.
Allahu akbar. It’s Arabic for “God is greatest.” Muslims, an eccentric tribe with over a billion members, say it several times in our five daily prayers. The phrase is also a convenient way to express just the right kind of gratitude in any situation.
I say “Allahu akbar” out loud more than 100 times a day. Yesterday, I uttered it several times during my late-evening Isha prayer. Earlier, during dinner, I said it with my mouth full after biting into my succulent halal chicken kebab. In the afternoon, I dropped it in a conference room at the State Department, where I’d been invited to address a packed room of government employees about the power of storytelling. Specifically, I expressed my continuing gratitude for the election of Barack Obama, whom, in a joking nod to the Islamophobic paranoia that surrounded him, I called “our first Muslim American president,” adding “Allahu akbar!”
People in the crowd laughed and applauded, the world continued to spin, no one had an aneurysm, and only a few people seemed to wonder with arched, Sarah Sanders-like eyebrows, “Wait, is he ...?” I even confess to saying “Allahu akbar” two days ago in a restroom after losing the battle, but ultimately winning the war, against a nasty stomach virus.
I’m 37 years old. In all those years, I, like an overwhelming majority of Muslims, have never uttered “Allahu akbar” before or after committing a violent act. Unfortunately, terrorists like ISIS and Al Qaeda and their sympathizers, who represent a tiny fraction of Muslims, have. In the public imagination, this has given the phrase meaning that’s impossible to square with what it represents in my daily life.
Former Fugitive Rabbi Berland to Be Released From Israeli Jail Today
Eliezer Berland was convicted of sexual assault and prosecutors have decided not to appeal a decision granting him early release after five months.
haaretz
haaretz
Trying the Feldenkrais Method for Chronic Pain
ny times
After two hourlong sessions focused first on body awareness and then on movement retraining at the Feldenkrais Institute of New York, I understood what it meant to experience an incredible lightness of being. Having, temporarily at least, released the muscle tension that aggravates my back and hip pain, I felt like I was walking on air.
I had long refrained from writing about this method of countering pain because I thought it was some sort of New Age gobbledygook with no scientific basis. Boy, was I wrong!
Seven Bizarre Notions Trump and His Team Have About America
ny times
President Trump, his motley crew of White House and cabinet ideologues, and many other Republicans claim to have a better understanding of American values, traditions and history than the rest of us. They are the “real Americans,” as the historically illiterate Sarah Palin loved to say many times a day.
But a great many of their notions about America are deeply puzzling at best and, at worst, truly scary ideas infused with racism and intolerance of dissent.
The list defies comprehensive accounting. (Time magazine has to keep updating a handy guide to the world according to Trump that it started after his first 100 days in office.) But here are some of my favorites.
The Civil War: Back in August, after racists marched in Charlottesville to defend monuments to those who fought to preserve slavery, Trump’s lawyer, John Dowd, forwarded around an email saying that there was “literally no difference” between George Washington and Robert E. Lee.
More recently, John Kelly, the White House chief of staff, told Laura Ingraham on Fox News that the “lack of an ability to compromise led to the Civil War.”
Continue reading the main story
Andrew Rosenthal
Politics, technology, national security, popular culture and whatever else seems interesting, important or just funny.
The F.B.I.’s Black Phantom Menace
OCT 19
Trump’s Self-Absorption on War Deaths
OCT 17
Trump’s Latest Outrage Against Puerto Rico
OCT 12
The N.F.L.’s Workplace Dodge
OCT 11
The Debate That Goes Nowhere
OCT 4
See More »
RECENT COMMENTS
Patricia G 2 hours ago
There's much commentary here about the big compromises in our history and whether the Civil War was about secession or slavery. But,...
DebbieR 3 hours ago
Mr. Rosenthal, it doesn't matter what you, or other elites think about what Trump says, because he is speaking to his base, and only his...
Charles 3 hours ago
Trump is not a political discussion, it's a discussion about psychology. Reporters were taken off guard because they were ready to write...
SEE ALL COMMENTS WRITE A COMMENT
What possible compromise could there have been over slavery? But it’s also false history. There were plenty of “compromises.” All of them enshrined the evil institution of slavery and made the civil war more likely, not less.
It might be tempting to write Kelly’s remarks off as the ravings of a man whose boss must drive him crazy on a daily basis and who had earlier talked of a mythical time when women in America were held “sacred” (by blocking their career aspirations and paying them less than men, denying them birth control and access to abortions, and refusing them the right to vote for more than a half-century after the Civil War).
But Trump’s press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, picked up Kelly’s false history the next day. There was, she said, “pretty strong consensus” among people from “the left, the right, the North and the South” that a failure to compromise caused the war.
Questioning the military: Kelly, a retired four-star Marine general, lied on Oct. 19 about a speech given by Representative Frederica Wilson of Florida when he was making his defense of Trump’s conversation with the widow of an American soldier.
Asked about that later, Sanders said, “If you want to go after General Kelly, that’s up to you, but I think if you want to get into a debate with a four-star Marine general, I think that’s something highly inappropriate.”
President Trump, his motley crew of White House and cabinet ideologues, and many other Republicans claim to have a better understanding of American values, traditions and history than the rest of us. They are the “real Americans,” as the historically illiterate Sarah Palin loved to say many times a day.
But a great many of their notions about America are deeply puzzling at best and, at worst, truly scary ideas infused with racism and intolerance of dissent.
The list defies comprehensive accounting. (Time magazine has to keep updating a handy guide to the world according to Trump that it started after his first 100 days in office.) But here are some of my favorites.
The Civil War: Back in August, after racists marched in Charlottesville to defend monuments to those who fought to preserve slavery, Trump’s lawyer, John Dowd, forwarded around an email saying that there was “literally no difference” between George Washington and Robert E. Lee.
More recently, John Kelly, the White House chief of staff, told Laura Ingraham on Fox News that the “lack of an ability to compromise led to the Civil War.”
Continue reading the main story
Andrew Rosenthal
Politics, technology, national security, popular culture and whatever else seems interesting, important or just funny.
The F.B.I.’s Black Phantom Menace
OCT 19
Trump’s Self-Absorption on War Deaths
OCT 17
Trump’s Latest Outrage Against Puerto Rico
OCT 12
The N.F.L.’s Workplace Dodge
OCT 11
The Debate That Goes Nowhere
OCT 4
See More »
RECENT COMMENTS
Patricia G 2 hours ago
There's much commentary here about the big compromises in our history and whether the Civil War was about secession or slavery. But,...
DebbieR 3 hours ago
Mr. Rosenthal, it doesn't matter what you, or other elites think about what Trump says, because he is speaking to his base, and only his...
Charles 3 hours ago
Trump is not a political discussion, it's a discussion about psychology. Reporters were taken off guard because they were ready to write...
SEE ALL COMMENTS WRITE A COMMENT
What possible compromise could there have been over slavery? But it’s also false history. There were plenty of “compromises.” All of them enshrined the evil institution of slavery and made the civil war more likely, not less.
It might be tempting to write Kelly’s remarks off as the ravings of a man whose boss must drive him crazy on a daily basis and who had earlier talked of a mythical time when women in America were held “sacred” (by blocking their career aspirations and paying them less than men, denying them birth control and access to abortions, and refusing them the right to vote for more than a half-century after the Civil War).
But Trump’s press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, picked up Kelly’s false history the next day. There was, she said, “pretty strong consensus” among people from “the left, the right, the North and the South” that a failure to compromise caused the war.
Questioning the military: Kelly, a retired four-star Marine general, lied on Oct. 19 about a speech given by Representative Frederica Wilson of Florida when he was making his defense of Trump’s conversation with the widow of an American soldier.
Asked about that later, Sanders said, “If you want to go after General Kelly, that’s up to you, but I think if you want to get into a debate with a four-star Marine general, I think that’s something highly inappropriate.”
Tuesday, October 31, 2017
Mindfulness Training for Teens Fails Important Test
scientific amrican
x
Mindfulness involves a conscious focus on and awareness of your present state of mind and surroundings, without judgment or reaction. Mindfulness is rooted in Buddhism and was developed in the 1970’s as a therapeutic intervention for stress in adults by Jon Kabat-Zinn, who founded the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Clinic at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. Over the past several decades, the practice of mindfulness has evolved into a booming billion dollar industry, with growing claims that mindfulness is a panacea for host of maladies including stress, depression, failures of attention, eating disorders, substance abuse, weight gain, and pain.
Not all of these claims, however, are likely to be true. A recent critical evaluation of the adult literature on mindfulness identifies a number of weaknesses in the extant research, including a lack of randomized control groups, small sample sizes, large attrition rates, and inconsistent definitions of mindfulness. Moreover, a systematic review of intervention studies found insufficient evidence for a benefit of mindfulness on attention, mood, sleep, weight control, or substance abuse.
That said, there is empirical evidence that mindfulness offers a moderate benefit for anxiety, depression, and pain, at least in adults. Can mindfulness also be used as an effective tool for mitigating depression and anxiety in teens? Some research suggests it can, but the research is plagued by the same shortcomings identified in the adult literature (e.g., lack of a randomized control group, small sample sizes). In an effort to address these limitations, Catherine Johnson, Christine Burke, Sally Brickman, and Tracey Wade conducted a large-scale study including a randomized control group to assess the benefits of mindfulness training in teens.
They evaluated the efficacy of mindfulness training in 308 middle and high school students (average age 13.6 yrs) from diverse socio-economic backgrounds. The students were enrolled in 17 different classes across 5 different schools. Students opted in to the study, and were randomly assigned to the control group or the mindfulness training group. Students in the control group received no mindfulness training but instead participated in community projects or received lessons in pastoral care. Students in the mindfulness group completed 8 weeks of training in the .b (“Dot be”) Mindfulness in Schools curriculum, which is based on the “gold standard” Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) intervention for adults. The training sessions varied in length from 35 to 60 min and were administered once a week. All mindfulness training was conducted by the same certified instructor. Beyond the weekly training sessions, teens in the mindfulness group were encouraged to practice mindfulness techniques at home and were given manuals to assist in this practice.
x
Martin Luther: Definitely Not a Jew
In Wittenberg, Germany, right now, walking around without a city map in one hand and camera in the other makes you stand out. The Protestant Reformation began, one could argue, 500 years ago this month, and tourists have been coming in droves to its birthplace. Martin Luther did not begin the Reformation but gave it a major kick in the pants here, and just about everything here is named after him, including the city’s official name, which in 1938 became Lutherstadt Wittenberg.
Outside the central train station, a billboard advertises the Luther-Hotel’s “Luther Burger and Käthe Nuggets”—Käthe for Katharina von Bora, Luther’s wife. Shops lining old town Wittenberg’s cobblestone streets sell cookie cutters shaped like Luther’s head and Playmobil’s special-edition Luther figurine. The city’s free public Wi-Fi network pays tribute, too: +LutherWLAN.
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