Odds & Ends

The opinions expressed on this webpage represent those of the individual authors and, unless clearly labeled as such, do not represent the opinions or policies of TBS. Bob Levine went to Israel – 93 times How a Brooklyn boy went from skipping shul for baseball, to becoming a pillar of Teaneck’s Beth Sholom By Joanne Palmer June 3, 2016   Where do you start when you talk about Robert Levine? With his 93 trips to Israel? (That’s 93. As in nearly one hundred. As in that’s amazing.) With his memory of listening to the declaration of Israel’s birth in 1948? With his nearly lifelong connection with Young Judaea? With his half-century connection to Teaneck? With his deep devotion to the Jewish National Fund, and his leadership role there? With his bone-and-muscle-deep connection to Israeli dance? With his devotion to his synagogue, Congregation Beth Sholom, whose history he knows intimately, and…

The opinions expressed on this webpage represent those of the individual authors and, unless clearly labeled as such, do not represent the opinions or policies of TBS. Israel’s Palestinian dilemmas By EFRAIM INBAR - 06/02/2016 17:33 Jerusalem has given up conflict resolution in the short run, but a strategy of conflict management presents its own predicaments.   Israel has gradually come to realize that the Palestinians are neither a partner for peace nor capable of establishing a viable state. Therefore, Israel’s recent governments have adopted a de facto conflict- management approach, rather than a conflict-resolution strategy.This prompts several questions. Should Israel speak explicitly about the dim prospects of a two-state solution, or play along with the illusory preferences and pretensions of the international community? Should Israel apply more “stick” than “carrot” to the hostile Palestinian Authority? Would the collapse of the PA serve Israel’s interests? And how diplomatically active should…

The opinions expressed on this webpage represent those of the individual authors and, unless clearly labeled as such, do not represent the opinions or policies of TBS. Selection from Dr. Mütter's Marvels by Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz. In the early 1800s, if you wanted to study medicine you went to Paris, where there was a proliferation of hospitals in part because each citizen was entitled to free medical treatment by royal decree. There was even a hospital where you could abandon your child: "Where else but Paris would there be not one but two hospitals devoted entirely to the treatment of syphilis? Afflicted women were sent to the Hôpital Lourcine, a hospital filled with the most frightful instances of venereal ravages. The men were sent to the Hôpital du Midi, which required that all patients be publicly whipped as punishment for contracting the disease, both before and after treatment."Hôpital des Enfants-Malades…

The opinions expressed on this webpage represent those of the individual authors and, unless clearly labeled as such, do not represent the opinions or policies of TBS. Jerusalem in Photos from 1862: No mosques, no Palestinians – only ghost towns of massacred Christian areas https://palestineisraelconflict.wordpress.com   Posted on November 10, 2014   A new photographic exhibition in London follows the journey taken by England’s Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII) in 1862, as he undertook a four month tour around the Middle East. And as usual, no sign of mosques or active Palestinian presence as the decades old argument from the Palestinian side to keep up the saga to fight and occupy, for the sake of jihad and foreign aid. In the exhibition we find more photographs from Jerusalem in 1862, when the so called “palestinians” allegedly were already 1 million in population on land they profess to have “lost to…

the opinions expressed on this webpage represent those of the individual authors and, unless clearly labeled as such, do not represent the opinions or policies of TBS. 9,000 Photos from 1800’s British Mandate of Palestine – with no trace of ‘Palestinians’ https://palestineisraelconflict.wordpress.com  Posted on February 13, 2013   Where ARE all those Palestinians, the proclaimed one million of them who lived in Israel before they were ‘displaced’? Nowhere. Nowhere, because they never existed. And where are all the mosques for those “1 million Palestinians”? With Muslims comes mosques. There can be no Muslim population without a large proportion of mosques. If they had been 1 million at the turn of the Century, or even in 1920 after they began immigrating to fight the British, with their rapid population growth Palestine would consist of over 40 million people today and not 4 million. That alone proves the Palestinian jihad lies. Their…

The opinions expressed on this webpage represent those of the individual authors and, unless clearly labeled as such, do not represent the opinions or policies of TBS. Conservative Movement Overturns 800-Year-Old Passover Ban on Rice and Legumes April 14, 2016 Liza Schoenfeid When she was a rabbinical student at The Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem, the Conservative rabbi Aviva Fellman met and married her husband, Ari Fellman, whose Syrian family immigrated to Israel when he was a baby. A month after they became engaged, Aviva Fellman, whose background is Ashkenazi, hosted a large Seder for their two families in Israel. Her husband’s mother showed up with a microwave Tupperware rice cooker. “I took it as a ‘Welcome to the Sephardi family; you will forever more be eating kitniyot on Pesach,’” said Fellman, now the rabbi for Congregation Beth Israel in Worcester, Massachussets. As a Sephardic Jew living in…

The opinions expressed on this webpage represent those of the individual authors and, unless clearly labeled as such, do not represent the opinions or policies of TBS. What would drive a man to bury his own amputated leg? Jewish paranoia, of course. Find out about what's possibly the weirdest religious custom ever in three minutes of animated narashkeit.BEST NARRATIVE SHORT, SEATTLE JEWISH FILM FESTIVALOfficial Selection atPALM SPRINGS SHORTFEST * LA JEWISH FILM FESTIVAL * SAN DIEGO JEWISH FILM FESTIVAL * PHILADELPHIA JEWISH FILM FESTIVAL * WASHINGTON DC JEWISH FILM FESTIVAL * DAM SHORT FILM FESTIVAL Click the triangle on the picture to view and listen. {source} </iframe> <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/kFD17nSmXfo?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>   {/source}

The opinions expressed on this webpage represent those of the individual authors and, unless clearly labeled as such, do not represent the opinions or policies of TBS By Tamar Rotem ~ Haaretz ~ Jan 23, 2016   For Israelis who flee the ultra-Orthodox fold, a brave new world The Hellers, before leaving the community. Courtesy of the familyEvening was beginning to fall on the playground that one sees from thebalcony of the Heller family home in Beit Shemesh. Six-year-old Pini enteredthe house excited, his cheeks flushed. “Mom, I played with the ball,” hedeclared, speaking in Yiddish. There was an unmistakably triumphant tone inhis words. Yisrael Heller and his wife, Rachel “Cheli” Heller, exchanged a quick look.They were sitting at a table on the balcony, their 1-year-old baby cavortingbetween them. It looked like another ordinary day, as though a boy cominginto the house holding a ball was an everyday event. In…

The opinions expressed on this webpage represent those of the individual authors and, unless clearly labeled as such, do not represent the opinions or policies of TBS By AMOTZ ASA-EL ~ 01/17/2016 04:46 Middle Israel: A Middle Eastern Finland With conflicts rapidly multiplying around it, Israel is steadily adopting a mind-set of neutrality.   People protest in front of Saudi Arabia's embassy during a demonstration in Tehran January 2, 2016. Iranian protesters stormed the Saudi Embassy in Tehran early on Sunday morning as Shi'ite Muslim Iran reacted with fury to Saudi Arabia's execution of a prominent Shi'ite cleric.. (photo credit:REUTERS)   There was a time when Switzerland epitomized the idyll Israel would never enjoy: wealth, Alps and neutrality. While eternally snowcapped summits remain an exoticism, Switzerland’s economic success is no longer so antithetical to Israel’s, and neither is its neutrality.In what is emerging as a new Israeli mind-set, Jerusalem is…

The opinions expressed on this webpage represent those of the individual authors and, unless clearly labeled as such, do not represent the opinions or policies of TBS  What did Jesus really look like? By Joan Taylor - 24 December 2015 Joan Taylor is professor of Christian Origins and Second Temple Judaism at King's College London and the author of The Essenes, the Scrolls and the Dead Sea.     Everyone knows what Jesus looks like. He is the most painted figure in all of Western art, recognised everywhere as having long hair and a beard, a long robe with long sleeves (often white) and a mantle (often blue). Jesus is so familiar that he can be recognised on pancakes or pieces of toast. But did he really look like this? Probably not. In fact this familiar image of Jesus actually comes from the Byzantine era, from the 4th Century onwards,…