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Bklyn Nets Coach Amar’e Stoudemire Won’t Work on Shabbat After Conversion in Israel

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Amar’e Stoudemire strictly observes the Jewish Sabbath and in August of 2020, completed his conversion to Judaism while in Israel. Photo Credit: Wikipedia

By: TJVNews.com

Former NBA star Amar’e Stoudemire has a new job! The one-time all star for the Phoenix Suns is currently serving as an assistant player development coach for the Brooklyn Nets and is on former teammate Steve Nash’s staff. In addition to Phoenix, Stoudemire played for the New York Knicks and the Dallas Mavericks.

As Stoudemire gets into the groove with his new position, he also knows that he won’t be compelled to work seven days a week. As has been previously reported, Stoudemire strictly observes the Jewish Sabbath and has undergone a formal Orthodox conversion to Judaism.

According to a report on the Sports Rabbi web site, Stoudemire recently completed his conversion in Israel. He completed his conversion in August of 2020, taking on the Biblical name Jehoshaphat.

Last season, Stoudemire won an MVP award with the Maccabi Tel Aviv team as well as winning the Israeli League championship.

According to the Sports Rabbi site, when asked how he stays grounded and humble despite being a celebrity, the former Six Time NBA All-Star answered that “The Torah helps help and knowing that we are all created by God.” Many people wanted to know if Stoudemire was married and if he was looking for a “Shidduch” a match, he said that he was no longer married and that he is ready, hopes to find one and needs to create a Shidduch resume.

On Monday, Marc Stein of the New York Times, who had written about Stoudemire and his new position on the coaching staff of the Brooklyn Nets as well as his request to take off for the Sabbath on a weekly basis, Stein tweeted that:

Following up on my recent story on Amar’e Stoudemire joining the Nets’ coaching staff as a player development assistant:@NYTSports has confirmed that the Nets are granting Shabbat off to Stoudemire every week — Friday sundown through Saturday sundown — at Stoudemire’s request https://t.co/Nht93Lv8sU

— Marc Stein (@TheSteinLine) January 25, 2021

According to a JTA report, Stoudemire detailed his Jewish journey in a late December talk with the UJA-Federation of New York.

In addition to working for the Brooklyn Nets, Stoudemire also regularly attends Torah classes and takes classes at the University of Miami, according to the Sports Rabbi site. Moreover, Stoudemire’s collection of wines (stoudemirewines.com) are kosher.

New Attacks on Israel and Zionism May Fuel Campus Anti-Semitism

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Tammi Rossman-Benjamin, co-founder and director of the California-based AMCHA Initiative. Credit: IU Europe Gateway.

“I would urge college and university stakeholders to pay special attention to the way in which schools handle the harassment of Jewish and pro-Israel students, and whether it’s consistent with how they treat all other students on campus,” Tammi Rossman-Benjamin, co-founder and director of the AMCHA Initiative, told JNS.

By: Sean Savage

Amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and the fallout from the 2020 election, anti-Semitism continued to morph and grow during 2020.

While the school year for many students consisted of online or hybrid learning, anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist attacks on Jewish and pro-Israel students increased precisely because of more Internet usage, albeit in new forms.

The switch to remote learning brought new challenges for individuals, social groups and organizations of all kinds as instances of “Zoombombing” emerged. At the same time, universities saw a continued uptick in faculty engaging in anti-Zionist activity, attempts to link Zionism to racism and uncoupled Zionism from Judaism on campus.

To learn more about the challenges from the past year and look ahead to 2021, JNS spoke with Tammi Rossman-Benjamin, co-founder and director of the AMCHA Initiative, a nonprofit organization that investigates, documents and combats anti-Semitism at institutions of higher education in America.

The campus of San Francisco State University, where the director of the Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diaspora program has been accused of spreading anti-Semitism and false propaganda against Israel. Source: Screenshot via Google.

The interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.

Q: Looking back on 2020 and all the challenges it brought with COVID-19, what are some of the major issues regarding anti-Semitism that you saw emerge?

A: We witnessed three main concerning trends in 2020.

The first is faculty abuse, specifically, anti-Zionist faculty misusing their university positions and funding to promote anti-Semitic propaganda and advance anti-Zionist political agendas. Faculty are flagrantly promoting BDS in their classrooms as well as on university social-media sites and using university funding to host departmental events with anti-Zionist, BDS-promoting speakers.

The second trend is an increase in the reliance of anti-Zionist student groups, particularly Students for Justice in Palestine, on the concept of “intersectionality,” where the grievances of one group are opportunistically linked to the grievances of other groups. In a year of extraordinary social upheaval around issues of race and policing, anti-Zionist groups have forged alliances with other minority groups on campus to make sure that their anti-Israel propaganda is promoted as part of more high-profile anti-racism campaigns.

And the third trend involves attempts to uncouple Zionism from Judaism. It’s common for the perpetrators of anti-Semitism on campus to attempt to separate Zionism from Judaism, so they can claim they are not anti-Semitic, just anti-Zionist. And since the Trump administration signed the Executive Order regarding anti-Semitism, we are seeing more and more of this in the form of activity intending to undermine and discredit the global acceptance of anti-Zionism as a form of anti-Semitism. Expression challenging the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition’s identification of anti-Zionism as a form of anti-Semitism—the definition relied on in the Executive Order—increased by 300 percent in 2019, and that trend continued in 2020.

The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA)

Q: Naturally, the pandemic also greatly impacted college campuses, sending many students into remote learning and reducing in-person events. Given this, how would you assess the situation on campus for Jewish and pro-Israel students?

A: There’s both good and bad news here. The good news is that we saw a substantial decrease in anti-Semitic incidents this past year. And this is due to two reasons. The first is that with students remote and off-campus, the physical harassment and the intensity of coordinated harassment of Jewish students by other students was cut back considerably.

However, the bad news is that given the pandemonium around the pandemic, university administrators’ attention was also elsewhere, which afforded motivated anti-Zionist student groups and faculty the opportunity to run amok. For example, San Francisco State University Professor Rabab Abdulhadi inappropriately inserted herself and her hateful anti-Zionist incitement into a student government debate on a BDS resolution. Professor Abdulhadi’s involvement, as well as activists from outside SFSU, who were able to “helicopter” in via Zoom to shout “Death to Israel” and “Long Live the Intifada,” caused student representatives to feel so intimidated that they decided to vote by secret ballot. This was not an isolated occurrence.

San Francisco State University Professor Rabab Abdulhadi inappropriately inserted herself and her hateful anti-Zionist incitement into a student government debate on a BDS resolution. Photo Credit: David Horowitz Freedom Center

Q: What are some of the biggest challenges that you have seen emerge on campus for students, especially as a result of the pandemic?

A: I would say that cyberbullying has been the biggest challenge for Jewish and pro-Israel students, many of whom were, and continue to be, on virtual rather than physical campuses since the start of the pandemic.

If all that students have are interactions with their peers and professors on videoconferencing platforms like Zoom, or via social media, emails, etc., then all of “campus life” is effectively reduced to written and verbal expression. So when students experience online anti-Semitic harassment or cyberbullying—in a Zoom classroom, student or faculty speaker event or student government meeting, in a social-media post or an op-ed in the online student newspaper—if it’s not properly addressed by school administrators, that harassment has the potential to drastically curtail a student’s ability or desire to fully participate in campus life.

And while school administrators have in general responded promptly and vigorously to instances of online classical anti-Semitic harassment, such as high-profile cases of neo-Nazi “Zoombombing” of online events at a few universities early in the pandemic, when the online harassment of Jewish and pro-Israel students is Israel-related, administrators are much less likely to respond promptly and vigorously, or at all.

Q: What campus trends do you see continuing into 2021 and beyond, even when campuses return to normal?

A: I believe the trends we saw in 2020—faculty abuse, the exploitation of “intersectionality” to push anti-Zionist activism and attempts to uncouple Zionism from Judaism—will all continue this year.

Q: One issue that has emerged from California is the ethnic-studies curriculum, which has been accused of anti-Semitism. Could you provide an update on where this stands and what the broader implications are?

A: The third draft curriculum is now being reviewed by the State Board of Education and is likely to be approved, with few changes, in March.

On the surface, the second and third revised drafts seem much improved over the rejected first draft: the overtly anti-Zionist material has been removed, some of the more highly politicized language has been deleted or watered down, and material on Jewish Americans and anti-Semitism has been added.

However, what has not changed is the curricular framework of the drafts, which remains firmly rooted in the principles of Critical Ethnic Studies, with its division of society into oppressed and oppressor based on race and class, its commitment to challenging “forms of power and oppression” as defined by neo-Marxist ideologies, and its encouragement of “transformative resistance.” In addition, and most profoundly concerning for the Jewish community, is that while both revised versions include lessons on Jewish Americans, the portrayal of Jews, filtered through the lens of Critical Ethnic Studies, is as “white” and “privileged” – clearly on the oppressor side of the race-class divide. At a time when anti-Jewish sentiment, hostility and violence has reached truly alarming levels, indoctrinating students to view Jews as “white” and “racially privileged” is tantamount to putting an even larger target on the back of every Jewish student.

But there’s another twist in the ethnic-studies curriculum story that’s important to be aware of. While the state educational offices have been busy revising the rejected first version of the curriculum, the original authors of that draft have been on a crusade to promote their highly politicized curriculum, including the anti-Zionist and BDS-promoting lessons, throughout the state. Immediately after their draft was rejected, they started an organization called Save CA Ethnic Studies and launched a petition demanding that the State Board of Education adopt their draft.

After that they lobbied individual school districts throughout the state to vote on a resolution in support of their curriculum, and to date, at least 20 districts have adopted it. More recently, members of the original drafters established the Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum coalition to further promote the rejected first draft as well as to offer school districts their educational expertise in implementing the curriculum in their schools.

Meanwhile, the recent revival of a state bill making a course in ethnic studies a graduation requirement in every California public and charter high school raises the stakes of the curriculum debate enormously. That bill, AB 101, recommends that school districts use the state’s model curriculum as the basis for the required courses, though it allows school districts to use any curriculum their board approves, even the original rejected draft being vigorously promoted by activists throughout the state.

Last year, realizing that coercing all high school students to take a highly politicized, divisive course in Critical Ethnic Studies would be a disaster for California students, especially Jewish students, AMCHA led a successful coalition effort urging the governor to veto AB 331, the precursor of the recently introduced AB 101. In light of the near certainty that the state’s model curriculum will be rooted in Critical Ethnic Studies, as well as the aggressive and successful campaign by a group of educator-activists to promote the adoption and implementation of an even more radical curriculum in hundreds of school districts statewide, we will be opposing AB 101 as well.

Q: Trump’s executive order on anti-Semitism was seen as a watershed moment in efforts to combat anti-Semitism on campus. What do you hope to see from the incoming Biden administration in this area?

A: Although Jewish students have been considered a protected minority under Title VI for several years, their complaints of Israel-related harassment have regularly been dismissed by the Department of Education and ignored by university administrators. It was therefore hoped that the use of the IHRA definition would allow government officials and university administrators to recognize and adequately address Israel-related harassment as antisemitism.

Unfortunately what we’ve documented over the past year is a dramatic and alarming uptick in challenges to the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism.

This is a deliberate campaign on the part of anti-Zionist groups to decouple Zionism from Judaism. And it is likely a response to recent federal, state and student efforts, as well as the Trump administration’s Executive Order, to get government agencies and universities to use the IHRA definition to ensure that Jewish students are adequately protected from antisemitic harassment under anti-discrimination laws, such as Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, and university harassment policies based on them. And this is highly concerning to us.

We believe a more long-term approach that involves ensuring all students are afforded equal protection and equal redress from behaviors that deny their right to self-expression, regardless of the motivation of the perpetrator or the identity of the victim, can provide Jewish students with permanent protection from anti-Semitic behavior that has previously been denied to them.

And since this is accomplished on the university level, it is not dependent on who holds elected office at any moment in time.

Q: Moving forward, what should people be paying attention to when it comes to anti-Semitism?

A: Although the alarming increase in classical anti-Semitic expression, including acts of lethal violence from neo-Nazis and white supremacists, constitutes a clear and present danger not only to Jews but to civil society as a whole, on U.S. campuses we have not seen a comparable rise in such classical anti-Semitic expression. I don’t expect that we will, given the political leanings of the majority of students and faculty on campuses where most Jewish students find themselves.

Rather, the growing ideological attack on Israel and Zionism, along with the perception of Jews as being racially privileged and part of the “white supremacist, patriarchal, heteronormative, capitalist system”—an idea that comes out of neo-Marxist academic theories popular at many colleges and universities—will both be prominent sources of campus anti-Semitism that the Jewish community should be paying attention to.

But no less important than these sources of anti-Semitism are university administrators’ responses to them. I would urge college and university stakeholders, including parents or grandparents, alums, donors or taxpayers, to pay special attention to the way in which schools handle the harassment of Jewish and pro-Israel students, and whether it’s consistent with how they treat all other students on campus. Every time stakeholders communicate with schools regarding the harassment of Jewish or pro-Israel students, they need to state this message—equal protection for all students—loudly and clearly.

            (www.JNS.org)

10 Things You Didn’t Know About Tu B’Shvat

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Dried fruit on sale at the Machane Yehuda Market in Jerusalem. Photo by Kobi Gideon/Flash90

From almond trees and veganism to ancient languages and Middle Ages sources, Tu B’Shvat is one fascinating festival.

By: Naama Barak

With the recent New Year’s Eve being a rather underwhelming event courtesy of Covid-19, it’s a good thing that there’s another one just around the corner: Tu B’Shvat, the Jewish New Year of the Trees, celebrated on January 28 this year.

The festival is one of the lesser-known ones on the Jewish calendar, tucked in between the more famous Hannukah and Purim. Nonetheless, it’s pretty cool and also very easy to celebrate – even in accordance with health regulations.

Here are 10 fabulous facts about Tu B’Shvat to get into the holiday spirit, best enjoyed while nibbling on some dried fruit (more on that below).

  1. It’s one of four Jewish New Years, but celebrated like Passover
Yemenite children celebrating their first Tu B’Shvat at Rosh Ha’ayin in central Israel in 1950. Photo by Zoltan Kluger/Government Press Office

While we’re all familiar with the Jewish New Year – the one that involves dipping apple in honey – there are actually four New Years on the Jewish calendar and one of them is Tu B’Shvat, which marks a new year for trees and the revival of nature. Somewhat confusingly, Tu B’Shvat is reminiscent of Passover since many people also celebrate it with a type of Seder. What can we say, it’s the best of both worlds.

  1. It’s not mentioned in the Bible

Tu B’Shvat is not mentioned in the Bible but first appears in Jewish sources in the text of the Mishnah collection of oral traditions circa the third century CE. Evidence of Tu B’Shvat celebrations during the Middle Ages have been found in the Cairo Geniza and in multiple Jewish texts, shedding light on ancient customs and prayers relating to the holiday.

  1. It got its name from the Akkadian language

As you can see, the name Tu B’Shvat is comprised of two words. The first, “Tu,” equals 15 in gematria, where each Hebrew letter represents a number. The second, “Shvat,” is the name of the Hebrew month in which the festival is celebrated. Shvat got its name from a word in the ancient Akkadian language that means “beat” or “hit” to describe the beating winds and rains that characterize this time of year. Joined together, the two words then mean “The 15th of Shvat” – the Hebrew date of the holiday. Not complicated at all.

  1. You can tell it’s Tu B’Shvat by the almond trees

Aside from checking the Hebrew calendar, the surest way to realize that Tu B’Shvat is upon us is the sight of blooming almond trees in Israel. The magnificent pink and white bloom takes place around the same time as the holiday, making the tree a symbol of the festival and earning it an honorable mention in festive nursery rhymes sung in kindergartens across the country.

  1. It’s the most vegan holiday ever

The Jewish New Year has its fish heads (eeww), Passover the chopped liver (yum for some) and Shavuot the most delicious cheesecakes known to mankind. Tu B’Shvat, however, is the most vegan celebration on the Jewish calendar since it is marked by eating lots of dried fruit and nuts and drinking wine. Perfect.

Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, center, plants a tree on Tu B’Shvat at what was known as Bab El Wad near Jerusalem in 1949. Photo by David Eldan/GPO
  1. People eat dried fruit, but it used to be fresh ones

As stated above, Tu B’Shvat is celebrated by gifting and eating copious amounts of dried fruit. But where does this weird tradition come from? Originally, Jews in the Land of Israel marked the holiday by eating the fruit of the land – this being the New Year of the Trees – but once they found themselves in the diaspora these fruits were no longer readily available. The solution was to eat dried versions of the fresh stuff, and this tradition stuck. Raisins, anyone?

  1. Dried fruit is good for you, but also not

Although dried fruit does contain fiber, vitamins and minerals, and is definitely better for you than, say, the oil-drenched donuts of Hanukkah, it does contain lots of natural sugar and sometimes added sugar as well. Dried fruits’ small size compared to their original, non-dehydrated selves makes it easier to eat really huge amounts. So enjoy in moderation. Or not – after all, it’s been a horrible year.

  1. It’s all about planting trees

As stated above, Tu B’Shvat is celebrated by gifting and eating copious amounts of dried fruit. But where does this weird tradition come from? Originally, Jews in the Land of Israel marked the holiday by eating the fruit of the land – this being the New Year of the Trees – but once they found themselves in the diaspora these fruits were no longer readily available. The solution was to eat dried versions of the fresh stuff, and this tradition stuck. Raisins, anyone?

  1. Dried fruit is good for you, but also not

Although dried fruit does contain fiber, vitamins and minerals, and is definitely better for you than, say, the oil-drenched donuts of Hanukkah, it does contain lots of natural sugar and sometimes added sugar as well. Dried fruits’ small size compared to their original, non-dehydrated selves makes it easier to eat really huge amounts. So enjoy in moderation. Or not – after all, it’s been a horrible year.

The Hebrew month of Shvat is named after the beating winds and rains that characterize this time of year. Women walk on Herzliya beach in between storms. January 2021. Photo by Nicky Blackburn
  1. It’s all about planting trees

In the late 19th century, Tu B’Shvat got a Zionist flavor when it was decided to mark the occasion by planting trees on land newly acquired by the Jewish National Fund. The JNF kept raising donations worldwide to purchase more lands and make them greener, and a custom evolved for schoolchildren to plant trees in forests to celebrate the holiday. The effect is impressive – overall, the last 120 years have seen some 250 million trees planted in Israel.

Don’t let a little thing like a global pandemic or the lack of flights stop you from planting a tree in Israel. Just log on to the Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael – Jewish National Fund website, select the geographical area and then the specific forest where you’d like to plant a tree, make your payment and you’re done. You’ll even have a personalized online certificate to show for it.

  1. Nowadays, it’s all about the environment

As you may have noticed, Tu B’Shvat has always been a pretty green holiday. But the past few years have really seen the day being used to prompt discussion and interest in ecology, with environmental talks, lectures and activities gaining center stage.

Which is an excellent thing, considering that we want our planet’s trees to enjoy many more years to come. Happy New Year!

            (www.Israel21C.org)

Parshat Beshalach–“Don’t Forget the Tambourines!”

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Miriam, the sister of Moses, will always be remembered for her enduring faith and bitachon in Hashem

By: Rabbi Tzvi Hersh Weinreb

It is a familiar domestic scene, one that we have all experienced. The family is about to leave on a well-deserved long vacation. All the suitcases are packed and ready to go. Then, someone, usually the mother, shouts out: “Did we all remember everything? Once we get started, we’re not turning back!”

Then the cross questioning begins: “Sally, did you remember your toothbrush?” “Sam, did you remember your sneakers?” “Dad, did you remember your reading glasses?” And so on.

All is well if the answer to all those questions is, “Yes!” Things are not too bad, then, if Sally has forgotten her toothbrush but rushes upstairs to fetch it. The real crisis begins when the family car has progressed five miles down the road when Dad suddenly realizes that, although he did remember his reading glasses, he forgot to bring along the book that he had looked forward to reading on this vacation.

Now, a decision is called for. Will the family turn around and return home? Or is it not important enough to waste precious vacation time retrieving Dad’s book? After all, one can always buy another one somewhere down the road.

Whether or not the forgotten object justifies a U-turn depends very much upon its significance. Toothbrushes and sneakers can easily be replaced. Reading glasses, less so. And books? Well, it depends. Some books are easily replaced; for others, a U-turn is required.

This week’s Torah portion, Parshat Beshalach (Exodus 13:17-17:16), calls this little family drama to mind. The Jewish people are finally leaving Egypt. They are packing their belongings. It is likely that they limited what they took with them just to what they could carry. Do we have any idea what they took and what they left behind?

They certainly took with them the gifts that the Egyptians themselves pressed upon them. As we read in last week’s parsha, “The children of Israel did according to the word of Moses; and they asked of the Egyptians jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, and raiment. And the Lord gave the people favor in the sight of the Egyptians, so that they let them have what they asked” (ibid. 12:35-36).

Did they take anything else along? They surely left behind their ragged clothing, and those tools and utensils which would only remind them of their enslavement. But allow me to demonstrate to you that several items besides the “jewels of silver and jewels of gold and raiment” were carefully included with their baggage.

One of these “items” is explicitly mentioned in the Torah. “And Moses took the bones of Joseph with him.” Moses faithfully fulfilled the oath that the Children of Israel swore to Joseph when he said to them centuries before: “God will surely remember you; and ye shall carry out my bones hence with you.”

The Midrash (Shemot Rabbah 20:19) sharply contrasts Moses’ “baggage” with the booty that the other Children of Israel stuffed into their suitcases. “All of Israel busied themselves with silver and gold, but Moses was preoccupied with Joseph’s bones, to which the Holy One Blessed is He applied the verse, ‘He who is wise of heart accepts mitzvot’” (Proverbs 10:7).

From a spiritual perspective, the silver and gold that the Jews took with them were not very different from Sally’s toothbrush and Sam’s sneakers. Moses, however, carefully took along something far more significant: Joseph’s sacred bones.

Did anyone besides Moses pack items in their baggage aside from jewelry and clothing? Scripture tells us nothing in response to this question. But our oral tradition, as recorded in the Midrash, records other items that were, in fact, taken along on the journey.

Later in this week’s parsha, we read the Song of the Red Sea, at the climax of which “Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron took a timbrel in her hand; and all the women went out after her with timbrels and with dances.” (Exodus 15:20). Where on earth did these timbrels, an ancient form of tambourine, come from? Tambourines don’t grow on trees, and even if they did, trees don’t grow in in the desert.

Did it ever occur to you to ask this question? It never occurred to me until I encountered it in a collection of ancient midrashic fragments (Yalkut Shimoni Shemot 253), which answers that Miriam, and many other righteous women, left Egypt fully confident that they would one day have occasion to sing and dance. Thus, they brought musical instruments with them out of their place of enslavement.

Moses left Egypt dedicated to preserving the past history of our people. So he took with him the bones of Joseph, and according to the Talmud, the bones of all of Joseph’s brothers. Miriam and her companions anticipated a hopeful future, and took with them the wherewithal to celebrate it in song and dance.

Moses and Miriam were not the only ones to pack their suitcases with more than just “jewels of silver and gold and raiment.” Others did too. For this, we turn to yet another midrashic passage (Bereshit Rabbah 94:4). It comments upon a verse that we will read several weeks from now, in Parshat Terumah. There the Torah describes the component parts of the Tabernacle and the boards of acacia wood which comprised its walls. One of these boards was known as the briach hatichon, the middle bar: “…and the middle bar in the midst of the boards, which shall pass through from end to end.” (Exodus 26:28).

On this verse, the Midrash asks: Did acacia wood grow in the desert? The answer is a fascinating one. The Midrash maintains that Jacob brought these trees out of Canaan to Egypt, prophesizing that they would be eventually necessary to help construct the Tabernacle. As they were about to finally depart from Egypt several of the newly freed slaves foresaw a time when those trees would be needed to help build a house of worship. They therefore stowed a large haul of lumber along with their baggage. The uprooted trees were also “packed into the suitcase.”

Moses took Joseph’s bones, Miriam carried out tambourines, and some unnamed Israelites loaded huge trees onto their wagons. Nothing essential was forgotten. The family of Israel could proceed on its journey with having to make that unwanted U-turn.

What great symbolic significance these three items have for our people today!

Moses knew how vital it is for us to revere our ancestry and preserve our past.

Those who took the trees knew the importance of houses of prayer and study.

With her womanly wisdom Miriam grasped what we often forget. Tradition and ritual are necessary but not sufficient. The capacity for joyous celebration must also be assured.

Let us thank Miriam for “schlepping” those tambourines into the desert. Let’s credit her for enabling us to celebrate this coming Shabbat as Shabbat Shirah, the Sabbath of Song.

(Rabbi Tzvi Hersh Weinreb is the Executive Vice President, Emeritus of the Orthodox Union)

Parshas Beshalach – Shabbos Shira

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The special song that Moses composed is “Oz Yoshir”, which means “Then Moses will sing…,” teaching us that Moses not only sang at the Sea of Reeds, but he will lead us in song once again when we behold the final redemption — the coming of Messiah. In the interim, we the Jewish people, recite the song of Moses every morning in our prayers as we express our gratitude to G-d.

By: Rabbi Osher Jungreis

This Shabbos is known as the “Sabbath of Song” because it is in this parsha that Moses leads the Jewish men, and Miriam the prophetess, the Jewish women in singing the song of praise and exultation” to the Almighty G-d following the crossing of the Red Sea.. The special song that Moses composed is “Oz Yoshir”, which means “Then Moses will sing…,” teaching us that Moses not only sang at the Sea of Reeds, but he will lead us in song once again when we behold the final redemption — the coming of Messiah. In the interim, we the Jewish people, recite the song of Moses every morning in our prayers as we express our gratitude to G-d.

Miriam the prophetess, not only led the women in song, but she did so with tambourines and drums.

Miriam the prophetess, not only led the women in song, but she did so with tambourines and drums. From whence did she obtain those instruments? The desert was hardly a place to purchase them. In these instruments are to be found a profound lesson. In the midst of the darkness of Egypt, while enveloped in cruel bondage, Miriam the prophetess prepared drums and tambourines, with the faith that one day redemption would come and give cause to sing and celebrate. It is this faith that Jewish women instilled in our people–it is this faith that enabled us to survive the centuries, and it is this faith that we must summon whenever we find ourselves in situations that appear hopeless.

THE LONG WAY IS THE SHORT WAY

It is written that when our forefathers departed from Egypt, G-d took them via a circuitous route rather than through the path that would lead them directly to the land of Israel. At first glance, this is difficult to understand Why would G-d have us traverse an inhospitable desert where there was no provision for food or water… when we could have passed through the land of the Philistines and be assured of sustenance? There is an important teaching to be learned here.

The Almighty was concerned that we would not be able to withstand the temptations and the pressures of Philistine society–that contact with them might prompt us to return to Egypt…. not only in a physical sense, but in our outlook as well. It is not only from the land of Egypt that we had to depart–more significantly, we had to remove the immorality and corruption of Egypt from ourselves. We had to experience the desert so that we might be recreated, re-shaped, and become the Priestly Kingdom, the Holy nation that G-d willed us to be.

We all must derive a lesson for life from this. That which appears to be short and comfortable sometimes turns out to be arduous and hazardous. Physical risks can be overcome, but once we lose our values and our morals, we lose the very essence of our lives. Accordingly, we must be cautious of those with whom we associate; the neighborhood in which we live; the environment in which we work, and the place where we vacation. We are never to underestimate the deleterious effects of living in a corrupt environment.

            (www.Hineni.org)

Jewish Families on Winter Break Head Down to Turnberry Isle Resort, Spa & Country Club in North Miami

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This year, families and kids of all ages, thoroughly enjoyed Tidal Cove Waterpark, the newest addition to the Turnberry Resort & Spa in Miami. Photo Credit: JW Marriott

Edited by: TJVNews.com

Now that yeshiva week is upon us, and so many of us are just thrilled to relax and not feel compelled to navigate the inherent challenges that the coronavirus presents, we turn our attention to a very special travel destination.

This January, both Sephardic and Ashkenazic families have descended upon Turnberry Isle Resort, Spa and Country Club for a well needed winter break.

Turnberry Isle, the iconic resort in the heart of Aventura, Florida underwent a transformative $265 million expansion and renovation project where it emerged as, JW Marriott Miami Turnberry Resort & Spa. At the core of the expansion was a new luxury 16-story tower encompassing 323 spacious new guest rooms, designed by Nichols, Brosch, Wurst, Wolfe and Associates with interiors by Champalimaud Design.

Located in North Miami Beach, Turnberry Isle Country Club is without question one of the most unique private country clubs in the country. After all, how many clubs offer members seamless access to the unsurpassed services and amenities of a JW Marriott resort–complete with a world-class spa, sprawling water park, multiple restaurants and bars, and 36 holes of championship golf?

The ame Spa & Wellness Collective is an exceptional wellness facility spanning three floors in the heart of Aventura. Ame features a full-service spa and beauty salon, a 3,600-square-foot fitness center, and the Center For Integrative Medicine & Holistic Rejuvenation.

All cardio equipment is equipped with streaming video and audio including Netflix™, Hulu™, Pandora® Radio, Lifepulse™ Digital Heart Rate Monitoring, limitless workout personalization options with LFconnect, and more. The highlight of the space is the SYNRGY360T, Insignia Collection’s groundbreaking weight training equipment that allows up to eight users to train simultaneously, focusing on different muscles of the body.

This year, families and kids of all ages, thoroughly enjoyed Tidal Cove Waterpark, the newest addition to the Turnberry Resort & Spa in Miami. From conquering a gravity-defying waterslide to lounging in one of the 25 breezy cabanas, guests are guaranteed to have a fun-filled day under the South Florida sun.

And that is exactly what they did. On site was a truck selling a wide variety of kosher food and beverages and all amenities for Orthodox Jewish guests were provided to make their stay even more spectacular.

Tidal Cove Waterpark features a 60-foot tower with seven water slides, a 4,000-square-foot kids pool with an aquatic play structure, the first-ever FlowRider® Triple in the nation, and an additional VIP pool, Oasis Pool.

Steeped in a rich country club tradition, Turnberry features two legendary 18-hole championship golf courses in Aventura. Originally designed by renowned golf course architect Robert Trent Jones, Sr., both the Soffer and Miller have been re-imagined by famous golf icon Raymond Floyd, and have played host to numerous South Florida PGA and LPGA championships.

Home to LPGA and PGA events, the Soffer course offers a risk and reward scenario at nearly every hole. When you reach 18, prepare for a par four that tests your fortitude with a picturesque Peninsula Green sitting on a legendary finishing hole. The Soffer Course is a champion masterpiece.

Turnberry Associates is a company owned by Donald Soffer and his family that develops real estate in the United States. It has developed over $7 billion worth of properties, according to a report on Wikipedia. The company is named after the Turnberry luxury Scottish golf resort on the Ayrshire coastline.

Wikipedia reported that in 1967, along with partner Edward J. Lewis of Oxford Development, Donald Soffer purchased 785 acres (3.18 km2) of submerged and undeveloped swamp and marshland facing the Intracoastal Waterway in North Dade County. In 1970, the company acquired Aventura Club and changed its name to Turnberry Isle Resort & Club. In 1980, the company opened Turnberry Yacht & Racquet Club. In 1983, the company opened Aventura Mall.

In the 1990s, the company began plans for Turnberry Place Las Vegas. In the 2000s, the company built condominium towers at the Fontainebleau Miami Beach. In 2003, the company partnered with MGM Resorts International to build The Signature at MGM Grand. In 2011, the company sold an office building in Aventura, Florida for $53 million. In 2014, the company announced plans to build a 35-story luxury JW Marriott hotel in Nashville. In 2016, the company broke ground on Turnberry Ocean Club Residences, a 154-unit, 650-foot luxury condominium tower in Miami. In 2017, the company got a $259 million construction loan for the property. In 2017, the company announced plans for the expansion of Turnberry Isle Miami, including a re-branding into a JW Marriott property.

According to Wikipedia, in 2005, the company bought the Fontainebleau Miami Beach hotel for $325 million from Stephen Muss and launched a $150 million renovation plan.In 2007, the company sold a 50% stake in the hotel to Dubai’s Nakheel Leisure for $375 million after the company faced a cash shortfall.In October 2008, the company reopened the Fontainebleau Miami Beach hotel after its renovation, with a ceremony featuring Mariah Carey.In 2013, the company bought back the 50% stake that was previously sold to Nakheel Leisure.

Who Will Defend Jewish Students Against Anti-Semites?

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A panel of experts from the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs and the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA) discuss anti-Semitism in the media, campus and public life. Photo by Kineret Rifkind.

If the Biden administration reverses Trump’s policy penalizing Jew-hatred on college campuses, it may be open season on pro-Israel kids for BDS advocates.

By: Jonathan S. Tobin

Following the U.S. Capitol riot, there has been a renewed emphasis on the threat from white-supremacist hate groups from the Biden administration, much of the media as well as the organized Jewish community. The anti-Semitic imagery seen at the rally organized by former President Donald Trump as well as in the mob storming Congress was frightening.

No one should discount the fact that although their numbers are few, such violent right-wing extremists are dangerous. If there was any complacency about such threats, the deadly attacks on synagogues in Pittsburgh and Poway, Calif., in 2018 and 2019 should have dispelled that notion. Jewish institutions should remain on alert, as they have been for years, and law enforcement should also be better prepared to act to prevent criminal behavior from such persons and groups.

But it’s equally true that just as a riot by a despicable mob was rhetorically inflated into an “insurrection” more as a way of expressing revulsion against Trump and partisan fury against his supporters than anything else, building these extremists up as being more than a marginal sub-sector of American society is just as dubious.

While we obsess about what the far-right is up to on college campuses around the country, the ordinary work of fighting the example of anti-Semitism that has the most impact on Jews on a day-to-day level continues.

The BDS movement continues to lose ground internationally as the four normalization agreements with Arab and Muslim countries concluded last year further undermine a movement that was already a terrible flop with respect to its efforts to damage Israel’s economy. But the impact of the hate spread by groups promoting boycotts of Israel and its supporters within the academy continues to be felt even as most students are studying remotely during the pandemic.

In that context, the most important questions about fighting anti-Semitism aren’t solely focused on white supremacists. Instead, the key variable is whether the federal government will continue—as it did under Trump but hadn’t under his predecessor, President Barack Obama—to protect Jewish students on campuses where anti-Semitic incitement is encouraged or tolerated.

As a feature published in The New York Times last week detailed, Jewish kids are still being bombarded with anti-Zionist propaganda and either shunned or marginalized if they aren’t willing to bend to the intellectual fashion of the day. As even Columbia University Professor Todd Gitlin, himself a leftist stalwart, acknowledged, “Hatred of Israel became a bellwether for the orthodox left,” meaning that acceptance of the delegitimization of Israel has become a litmus test for social acceptability. We are not unreasonably focused on right-wing lunatics with guns, but it is on college campuses that the most frequent interactions with anti-Semites occur for most American Jews.

Yet as the Times article made clear, in much of the mainstream media, the narrative about the fight against campus anti-Semitism is often flipped to portray the victims as the victimizers and the hate groups as an oppressed minority. When Jews band together to respond to the anti-Semitic invective of the BDS movement, those preaching hate against Jews and Israel cry foul, saying their right to free speech is being impinged upon by Zionist bullies.

A lot of the debate on this issue now is focused on how the reliance on technology for remote learning forced upon schools by the coronavirus pandemic has altered the playing field. Hosting veteran terrorists like Palestinian Leila Khaled at university symposiums on panels alongside others who promote hatred for Israel and Jews has become more difficult. Platforms like Zoom have found themselves in the cross-hairs of both outraged Jewish activists and the potential for being prosecuted for violating federal laws against facilitating terrorists.

The same people who complain are equally furious about activism from groups that seek to expose anti-Semites in academic settings. As the Times reports, the ability of groups like Canary Mission or cell-phone apps like Act.IL are especially frustrating because they have allowed the general public to better understand the anti-Jewish hate that has flourished at some universities.

That’s a shock to elites who have heretofore felt invulnerable to public criticism for their attacks on Jewish targets.

In this same context, the pushback from left-wingers against the International Holocaust Remembrance Association’s definition of anti-Semitism, which has been accepted by the U.S. government and that of many other countries, is especially telling. The definition rightly declares that, among other things, judging Israel by a double standard and demonizing the one Jewish state on the planet and its backers is anti-Semitic. That means the BDS movement can’t continue to disingenuously claim to be merely expressing support for Palestinian or human rights when they engage in such conduct.

The key to this discussion isn’t so much whether some university administrations will wink at violations of the IHRA definition by BDS advocates or condemn them. Rather, it is whether the U.S. Department of Education will continue to enforce the law in such a way as to threaten schools where hate is tolerated with penalties involving cuts in federal funds.

That’s what happened while Trump appointees Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos and department civil-rights chief Kenneth Marcus were in charge. It remains to be seen whether Biden’s appointees will be just as vigilant about policing anti-Semitism on campuses as they might be if it were African-Americans, Hispanics or other protected minority groups whose rights were being violated the way BDS threatens Jews. While liberal Jews routinely denounce Trump as an anti-Semite, they ignore the fact that whatever his other faults, this was an issue that he took a particular interest in, as even the recent Times feature conceded.

There are many within the Democrats’ left-wing base that have embraced intersectionality, critical race theory and its myths about Israel being an “apartheid state,” or the Palestinian war on its existence as akin to the U.S. civil-rights movement. But other mainstream liberals have also accepted the false arguments that ignore the evidence that BDS groups are anti-Semitic by virtue of their ideology and also engage in regular acts of Jew-hatred.

The government must not only understand that anti-Semitism exists on the left as well as the right. It must also realize that the former operates under respectable academic titles instead of being part of easily exposed and marginalized extremist groups as is the case with right-wingers. It is imperative that Biden’s Department of Education continue Trump’s policies of fighting anti-Semitism and enforcing the law in such a manner as to ensure that Jew-hatred is neither legitimized nor tolerated on college campuses. If not, all of the hot air we have been hearing from Biden’s supporters about fighting hate will be exposed as empty partisan rhetoric.

             (www.JNS.org)

Jonathan S. Tobin is editor in chief of JNS—Jewish News Syndicate. Follow him on Twitter at: @jonathans_tobin.

Now That Psychiatric Care Has Gone Online, Many Patients Want It to Stay There

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During the pandemic, telehealth has been responsible for saving small mental health practices while also continuing to help patients, said Vaile Wright, senior director of health care innovation for the American Psychological Association.

By: Cara Murez

Only a year ago, Michigan Medicine psychiatrists were trying to recruit patients to give telepsychiatry a try, with very little success.

The psychiatrists worked with people by video only 26 times in six months, while 30,000 visits happened in person. But that changed quickly when the coronavirus pandemic forced closures in the area in late March.

Now, not only have patients seeking help with mental health issues been working through their emotions and experiences by video and phone for months — many would like to keep those options, a new study shows.

“Telepsychiatry is an interesting tool for various reasons in terms of providing early access to care, connecting patients in rural areas or who live far away from clinics to be able to get good evidence-based care,” said study author Dr. Jennifer Severe, a psychiatrist who helped launch a test of telehealth initiatives at the University of Michigan’s outpatient psychiatry clinic.

“Even patients who are closer, based on life burden and expectation, they might not be able to keep up with their appointments, so telehealth actually offers a way to remain connected with care, regardless of how busy people’s lives might be,” Severe said.

For the study, published recently in the journal JMIR Formative Research, researchers surveyed 244 patients or parents of minor patients in summer 2020. The patients had mental health appointments in the first weeks of the pandemic shutdown.

Most of the survey participants had their own or their child’s first pandemic-time appointment through a video call. A minority of patients, 13.5%, started telepsychiatry with phone visits. That group was more likely to be older than 45.

Nearly all of the study participants who had a telepsychiatry visit said it went as well as expected or better.

About half (46.7%) said they were likely to continue with telepsychiatry even after in-person visits were available again. Those who had appointments by phone instead of video were much less likely to want to continue remote mental health care in the future.

“The excitement is there, but we need to make sure that we have a way to keep up with the demand,” Severe said.

This data could help inform the decisions of health insurers and government agencies who will make decisions about whether and how to pay mental health care providers for future virtual care, Severe said.

To improve access, while the survey was ongoing, senior study author Dr. Mary Carol Blazek led development of a program called Geriatric Education for Telehealth Access, or GET Access, to help older patients.

The study didn’t cover the issue of no-shows and appointment cancellations, but those have been reduced substantially, according to Michigan Medicine.

Phone and video visits within established patient-mental health provider relationships are equally effective, Severe said.

However, for first visits, the therapists typically try to avoid using the phone because it can reduce communication cues and limits observing facial expressions, interaction and movement, which can help evaluate mental health status. Sometimes physical exams can be required to assess a patient’s balance and mobility, as well as check for medication side effects.

“Sometimes communication might be difficult. Sometimes you might need to do a physical exam. There might be a lack of important physical exam approaches and communication techniques that might be missing,” Severe said. “So, that’s one reason I will say telehealth might not be for everyone.”

Severe hopes to see more of a blended approach after the pandemic, where a patient may do a face-to-face visit, followed by a couple of telehealth visits, and then return for another face-to-face visit.

During the pandemic, telehealth has been responsible for saving small mental health practices while also continuing to help patients, said Vaile Wright, senior director of health care innovation for the American Psychological Association.

“The evidence is pretty strong. People are having mental health difficulties, much more so than in the past and, thankfully, they are seeking out treatment,” Wright added. “I think telehealth makes it possible for them to do so safely.”

For some people, it may be harder to connect in a virtual environment. For others, it may make it easier because they don’t have to get time off work, figure out child care or travel to the office.

Issues to consider are ensuring that patients understand the online platform, have adequate internet accessibility and have adequate privacy in their homes to have a mental health appointment. Backup safety plans also need to be considered, Wright said.

“What happens if somebody is in a crisis? When they’re in your office [you] have a system in place, but when they’re not, maybe [you’re] not even sure where they’re located exactly, that can make it challenging,” Wright said. “So, ensuring that you’ve got those sorts of backups in place is important.”

                        (www.consumer.healthday.com)

City & State Names NYC Health + Hospitals & MetroPlus CEOs to “2021 Health Power 100” List

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President and CEO of NYC Health + Hospitals Mitchell Katz, MD is ranked fourth for his leadership overseeing the largest public health system during the pandemic, treating New York City’s most vulnerable patients, and in leading the city’s contact tracing efforts. Photo Credit: nychealth+hospitals.com

President and CEO of NYC Health + Hospitals Mitchell Katz, MD ranked 4th;

Edited by: TJVNews.com

President and CEO of NYC Health + Hospitals Mitchell Katz, MD and President and CEO of MetroPlus Health Plan Talya Schwartz, MD have been named on City & State’s “2021 Health Power 100” list. This year, the publication is recognizing leaders’ contribution amidst the pandemic and their commitment to helping New Yorkers find a path forward. Dr. Katz is ranked fourth for his leadership overseeing the largest public health system during the pandemic, treating New York City’s most vulnerable patients, and in leading the city’s contact tracing efforts.

CEO of MetroPlus Health Plan Talya Schwartz, MD is ranked 26th and recognized for leading MetroPlus Health’s expansion to more than 560,000 members and rapidly initiating outreach and support efforts to serve the plan’s membership during the pandemic, which has played a key role in Mayor Bill de Blasio’s effort to deliver health care to all New Yorkers

Schwartz is ranked 26th and recognized for leading MetroPlus Health’s expansion to more than 560,000 members and rapidly initiating outreach and support efforts to serve the plan’s membership during the pandemic, which has played a key role in Mayor Bill de Blasio’s effort to deliver health care to all New Yorkers. City & State’s “2021 Health Power 100” program honors individuals in healthcare who are deemed by their peers and the outlet’s senior editors to be the most influential individuals in the industry, in terms of leadership and impact.

“I consider it an honor to be recognized among City & State’s “2021 Health Power 100” list that includes so many incredible health advocates like my colleague Dr. Talya Schwartz, but the honor is shared with NYC Health + Hospitals’ doctors, nurses, pharmacists, social workers and staff on the front lines serving New Yorkers daily amidst this unprecedented health crisis,” said President and CEO of NYC Health + Hospitals Mitchell Katz, MD. “I am proud to lead a health system of heroes who provides lifesaving and compassionate care to New Yorkers.”

“It is a great honor to be recognized by City & State for my work to ensure access to medical care during the pandemic,” said President and CEO of MetroPlus Health Plan Talya Schwartz, MD. “To be recognized along such exceptionally accomplished health advocates – including my colleague Dr. Katz – only adds to my gratitude for being named to this list.”

Dr. Katz was appointed President and CEO of NYC Health + Hospitals in January 2018. During this time, Dr. Katz has focused on advancing the transformation of the public health care system with numerous new initiatives to expand access to primary care services, reduce administrative costs, invest in more front-line clinical staff, and build financial stability. In September 2020, NYC Care, a healthcare access program for New Yorkers who are not eligible for or cannot afford health insurance, went live city-wide four months ahead of schedule under Dr. Katz’s stewardship.

Dr. Katz’s initial transformation strategy helped set the groundwork for the public health system to combat the challenges of the unprecedented global health crisis, COVID-19. Under his stewardship, the system was able to more than triple its ICU capacity, stand-up a COVID-19-dedicated hotline to help mitigate dangerous overcrowding in the system’s emergency departments, transition nearly all existing appointments to telemedicine, and establish the city’s Test & Trace Corps. The public health system is now also providing critical support to facilitate the City’s roll-out of COVID-19 vaccines to those who are eligible.

As President and Chief Executive Officer, Dr. Talya Schwartz was appointed to MetroPlus Health Plan in May 2019. During the Covid-19 pandemic, Dr. Schwartz worked quickly to initiate outreach and support efforts to serve the plan’s membership. Dr. Schwartz joined MetroPlus from the private sector. She has been a founding member of a behavioral health technology startup company and prior to that served in various leadership roles in regional and national health plans.

Prior to her appointment, Dr. Schwartz served as the Chief Medical Officer at MetroPlus, leading the Medical Management division. Under her leadership MetroPlus ranked among the top plans in the State for quality. She has led technology solutions that enhance access to health care and pertinent health information for its more than 560,000 members. She transformed the care management program into a holistic, field-based program that now also addresses social determinants of health with special focus on housing for its homeless population.

 

Heart Disease & COVID-19: Focusing on Exercise, Mental Health, & Nutrition for High-Risk Groups

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According to the American Heart Association, about one in three people with COVID-19 has cardiovascular disease, making it the most common underlying health condition. Photo Credit: YouTube

Edited by: TJVNews.com

February is American Heart Month and cardiologists from the Mount Sinai Health System are sharing tips on heart disease prevention to lower the risk of heart attack, stroke, and COVID-19.

According to the American Heart Association, about one in three people with COVID-19 has cardiovascular disease, making it the most common underlying health condition. COVID-19 patients with underlying conditions are six times more likely to be hospitalized and 12 times more likely to die than patients without any chronic health problems. Nearly half of adults in the United States—more than 121 million people—have some type of cardiovascular disease. It is the leading cause of death among men and women in the United States; nearly 650,000 die from it every year. Yet heart disease is preventable 80 percent of the time.

Mount Sinai cardiologists say many patients are exercising less during the pandemic. Some are afraid of going outside and potentially exposing themselves to people who may have COVID-19. As a result, a subset of patients have run out of medication, putting them at risk of cardiac complications. Nutrition has become an issue as well: some cardiologists say 25 percent of their patients have gained up to 20 pounds because they’re not eating a healthy diet. A decline in mental health is also a contributing factor for worse eating habits and being less active.

“It is critical to stay physically fit and in your best personal health to combat heart disease, COVID-19 infection and the post-COVID effects. We tell our patients that participating in home-exercise programs, taking a short walk, dancing, stretching, and even house cleaning will get them moving and make a difference. Keeping a good mental outlook is also key and it’s important for people to find ways to ensure that this happens by staying active, meditating, or simply doing things that make them happy,” says Icilma Fergus, MD, Director of Cardiovascular Disparities at The Mount Sinai Hospital. “During this pandemic some patients have expressed they’re dealing with stress, anxiety, insomnia, and depression. We discuss techniques to improve their mental and emotional wellness, which carries over to their cardiovascular health.”

 

COVID-19’s Impact on the Heart and Recovery

COVID-19 can cause an inflammatory response in the body, along with clotting that can impact the heart and how it functions. Mount Sinai researchers discovered that some hospitalized COVID-19 patients have structural damage after cardiac injury that can be associated with deadly conditions including heart attack, pulmonary embolism, heart failure, and myocarditis, or inflammation of the heart.

Non-hospitalized COVID-19 patients can also experience complications including heart rhythm disorders, hypertension, myocarditis, and chest pain that feels similar to a heart attack. Cardiologists say it’s important for COVID-19 survivors—even without cardiac symptoms—to have a heart exam two to three weeks after recovery, as there could be residual effects that may go undetected and lead to future health problems.

“For anyone who developed heart issues post-COVID-19, exercise should be delayed two to three weeks after resolution of symptoms including chest pain, palpitations, and shortness of breath. Remember to ‘go slow’ as recovery from this illness is not a sprint; it is a marathon,” explains Maryann McLaughlin, MD, Director of Cardiovascular Health and Wellness at Mount Sinai Heart. “Anyone who has been diagnosed with myocarditis needs to be under a physician’s direction when deciding to exercise, and competitive athletes may need three months to recover from the illness before returning to full routine.”

Recovered COVID-19 patients with a history of heart attack, coronary artery disease, or cardiac stents, should get a monitored stress test before getting back to a full workout. Anyone who had chest pain while sick with COVID-19 should talk to their doctor about evaluation with an echocardiogram or other cardiac imaging.

The Mental Health Benefits of Exercise

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People who exercise regularly tend to do so because it gives them an enormous sense of well-being.

You already know that exercise is good for your body. But did you know it can also boost your mood, improve your sleep, and help you deal with depression, anxiety, stress, and more?

Edited by: TJVNews.com

What are the mental health benefits of exercise?

Exercise is not just about aerobic capacity and muscle size. Sure, exercise can improve your physical health and your physique, trim your waistline, improve your sex life, and even add years to your life. But that’s not what motivates most people to stay active.

People who exercise regularly tend to do so because it gives them an enormous sense of well-being. They feel more energetic throughout the day, sleep better at night, have sharper memories, and feel more relaxed and positive about themselves and their lives. And it’s also a powerful medicine for many common mental health challenges.

Regular exercise can have a profoundly positive impact on depression, anxiety, and ADHD. It also relieves stress, improves memory, helps you sleep better, and boosts your overall mood. And you don’t have to be a fitness fanatic to reap the benefits. Research indicates that modest amounts of exercise can make a real difference. No matter your age or fitness level, you can learn to use exercise as a powerful tool to deal with mental health problems, improve your energy and outlook, and get more out of life.

Exercise and depression

Studies show that exercise can treat mild to moderate depression as effectively as antidepressant medication—but without the side-effects, of course. As one example, a recent study done by the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health found that running for 15 minutes a day or walking for an hour reduces the risk of major depression by 26%. In addition to relieving depression symptoms, research also shows that maintaining an exercise schedule can prevent you from relapsing.

Exercise is a powerful depression fighter for several reasons. Most importantly, it promotes all kinds of changes in the brain, including neural growth, reduced inflammation, and new activity patterns that promote feelings of calm and well-being. It also releases endorphins, powerful chemicals in your brain that energize your spirits and make you feel good. Finally, exercise can also serve as a distraction, allowing you to find some quiet time to break out of the cycle of negative thoughts that feed depression.

Exercise and anxiety

Exercise is a natural and effective anti-anxiety treatment. It relieves tension and stress, boosts physical and mental energy, and enhances well-being through the release of endorphins. Anything that gets you moving can help, but you’ll get a bigger benefit if you pay attention instead of zoning out.

Try to notice the sensation of your feet hitting the ground, for example, or the rhythm of your breathing, or the feeling of the wind on your skin. By adding this mindfulness element—really focusing on your body and how it feels as you exercise—you’ll not only improve your physical condition faster, but you may also be able to interrupt the flow of constant worries running through your head.

Exercise and stress

Ever noticed how your body feels when you’re under stress? Your muscles may be tense, especially in your face, neck, and shoulders, leaving you with back or neck pain, or painful headaches. You may feel a tightness in your chest, a pounding pulse, or muscle cramps. You may also experience problems such as insomnia, heartburn, stomachache, diarrhea, or frequent urination. The worry and discomfort of all these physical symptoms can in turn lead to even more stress, creating a vicious cycle between your mind and body.

Exercising is an effective way to break this cycle. As well as releasing endorphins in the brain, physical activity helps to relax the muscles and relieve tension in the body. Since the body and mind are so closely linked, when your body feels better so, too, will your mind.

Exercise and ADHD

Exercising regularly is one of the easiest and most effective ways to reduce the symptoms of ADHD and improve concentration, motivation, memory, and mood. Physical activity immediately boosts the brain’s dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin levels—all of which affect focus and attention. In this way, exercise works in much the same way as ADHD medications such as Ritalin and Adderall.

            (Helpguide.org)

Ahead of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, Erdan warns UN of Iran threats

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Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations Gilad Erdan addressed the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday, warning member states that it was time for “an institution charged with safeguarding peace and security to begin addressing the gravest danger in the Middle East: the regime in Tehran.”

“Tomorrow, here at the U.N. and around the world, we will mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day and mourn the unfathomable murder of 6 million Jews. 76 years after the liberation of Auschwitz, there is another genocidal regime epitomizing the very words and actions of the Nazis,” he told the council.

“Iran does not try to hide its intention of destroying the world’s only Jewish state. Spreading anti-Semitism, denying the Holocaust and even proposing legislation calling for Israel’s destruction by the year 2041. How is it possible that the Iranian Parliament proposing to annihilate a member state is not at the top of this council’s agenda?” he said.

Additionally, Erdan warned against a return to the Iran nuclear deal and called on the Security Council to take action against Iran’s violations, pointing out that lessons have been learned since the deal with signed in 2015.

“What we all know today about Iran is not what the international community knew when it signed the nuclear deal with Iran. Now we know, contrary to the signatories’ premise, Iran did not use the removal of sanctions to improve the lives of its citizens but doubled down instead on its malign activities,” he said.

“Rather than using the dividends of the nuclear agreement to build schools and hospitals, it built an arsenal of missiles. Rather than using its resources to fight COVID-19, it wasted them on funding terrorist proxies and undermining peace and security. Iran deceived the world when it signed the agreement and it continues to deceive the world today,” said Erdan.

Erdan, who is also serving in a dual role as ambassador to the United States, thanked the newly inaugurated Biden administration for its stated commitment to preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear capabilities and stated that Israel will continue to work with America to achieve that goal.

On the Palestinian issue, Erdan also referred to the request of Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas to convene an international peace conference, stating that if he was “truly serious about peace, he would stop inciting violence. He would not be bending over backward to find new ways to continue his pay for slay policy, including by trying to establish a new bank to transfer funds to terrorists. He would come to the negotiating table without making outrageous demands and not call for another pointless international conference.”

Erdan also referred to the Palestinian lies about Israel’s distribution of the COVID-19 vaccines, calling them a “blood libel,” and that those who use this rhetoric are driven by political or anti-Semitic considerations.

Tuesday’s session came at the directive of Tunisia, which is serving as president of the U.N. Security Council for January. It included ministerial-level representation, with Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, the Secretary-General of the Arab League and the foreign ministers of Tunisia, Ireland and others delivering statements.

Biden Admin Assures “Two-State Solution” For Israeli-Palestinian Conflict at UN

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U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden, left, talks with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas ahead of their meeting in the West Bank city of Ramallah, Wednesday, March 10, 2010. Israel's new plan to build 1,600 homes for Jews in Palestinian-claimed east Jerusalem overshadowed Vice President Joe Biden's visit to the West Bank on Wednesday. Biden was to hold talks with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, in part to ease their doubts about the latest U.S. peace efforts. (AP Photo/Tara Todras-Whitehill)

Edited by: TJVNews.com

President Joe Biden’s administration announced Tuesday it was restoring relations with the Palestinians and renewing aid to Palestinian refugees which represents a reversal of the Trump administration’s cutoff. It is also a key element of its new support for a two-state solution to the decades-old conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, as was reported by the AP.

Acting U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Richard Mills made the announcement of Biden’s approach to a high-level virtual Security Council meeting, saying the new U.S. administration believes this “remains the best way to ensure Israel’s future as a democratic and Jewish state while upholding the Palestinians’ legitimate aspirations for a state of their own and to live with dignity and security.”

Acting U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Richard Mills said that “President Biden has been clear that he intends to restore U.S. assistance programs that support economic development programs and humanitarian aid to the Palestinian people, and to take steps to reopen diplomatic relations that were closed by the last U.S. administration.” Photo Credit: usun.usmission.gov

President Donald Trump’s administration provided unprecedented support to Israel, recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, moving the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv, slashing financial assistance for the Palestinians and reversing course on Israeli settlements on land erroneously claimed by the Palestinians.

Israel captured east Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria in the 1967 war. The international community considers both areas to be occupied territory, and the Palestinians seek them as parts of a future independent state. Israel has built a far-flung network of settlements that house nearly 700,000 Jewish settlers in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem since their capture in June of 1967.

AP reported that the peace plan unveiled by Trump a year ago envisions a Palestinian state that turns over key parts of the Judea and Samaria to Israel, siding with Israel on key contentious issues including borders and the status of Jerusalem and Jewish settlements. It was vehemently rejected by the Palestinians.

Mills made clear the Biden administration’s more even-handed approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

“Under the new administration, the policy of the United States will be to support a mutually agreed two-state solution, one in which Israel lives in peace and security alongside a viable Palestinian state,” he said.

AP reported that Mills said peace can’t be imposed on either side and stressed that progress and an ultimate solution require the participation and agreement of Israelis and Palestinians.

“In order to advance these objectives, the Biden administration will restore credible U.S. engagement with Palestinians as well as Israelis,” he said.

“This will involve renewing U.S. relations with the Palestinian leadership and Palestinian people,” Mills said.

“President Biden has been clear that he intends to restore U.S. assistance programs that support economic development programs and humanitarian aid to the Palestinian people, and to take steps to reopen diplomatic relations that were closed by the last U.S. administration,” Mills said, according to the AP report.

U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden, left, talks with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas ahead of their meeting in the West Bank city of Ramallah, Wednesday, March 10, 2010. Israel’s new plan to build 1,600 homes for Jews in Palestinian-claimed east Jerusalem overshadowed Vice President Joe Biden’s visit to the West Bank on Wednesday. Biden was to hold talks with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, in part to ease their doubts about the latest U.S. peace efforts. (AP Photo/Tara Todras-Whitehill)

Trump cut off funding for the U.N. Relief and Works Agency known as UNRWA, which was established to purportedly aid the 700,000 Palestinians who fled or were forced from their homes during the war surrounding Israel’s establishment in 1948. It provides education, health care, food and other assistance to some 5.5 million refugees and their descendants in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, as well as Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. The U.S. was UNRWA’s major donor and the loss of funds has created a financial crisis for the agency.

AP reported that the Trump administration closed the office of the Palestine Liberation Organization in Washington in September 2018, effectively shutting down the Palestinians’ diplomatic mission to the United States.

Mills said the United States hopes to start working to slowly build confidence on both sides to create an environment to reach a two-state solution.

Acting U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Richard Mills said that “President Biden has been clear that he intends to restore U.S. assistance programs that support economic development programs and humanitarian aid to the Palestinian people, and to take steps to reopen diplomatic relations that were closed by the last U.S. administration.” Photo Credit: usun.usmission.gov

To pursue this goal, Mills said, “the United States will urge Israel’s government and the Palestinians to avoid unilateral steps that make a two-state solution more difficult, such as annexation of territory, settlement activity, demolitions, incitement to violence, and providing compensation for individuals in prison for acts of terrorism.”

Israel has accused the Palestinians of inciting violence and has vehemently objected to the Palestinian Authority paying families of those imprisoned for attacking or killing Israelis, as was reported by the AP.

Mills stressed that “the U.S. will maintain its steadfast support for Israel” — opposing one-sided resolutions and other actions in international bodies that unfairly single out Israel and promoting Israel’s standing and participation at the U.N. and other international organizations.

AP reported that the Biden administration welcomes the recent normalization of relations between Israel and a number of Arab nations and will urge other countries to establish ties, Mills said.

“Yet, we recognize that Arab-Israeli normalization is not a substitute for Israeli-Palestinian peace,” he said.

Mills stressed that the fraught state of Israeli-Palestinian politics, and the fact that trust between the two sides “is at a nadir,” don’t relieve U.N. member nations “of the responsibility of trying to preserve the viability of a two-state solution.”

AP reported that before Mills spoke, Palestinian Foreign Minister Riad Malki sharply criticized the Trump administration for using “the United States’ might and influence to support Israel’s unlawful efforts to entrench its occupation and control” and reiterated Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ hopes “for the resumption of relations and positive engagement.”

“Now is the time to heal and repair the damage left by the previous U.S. administration,” he said. “We look forward to the reversal of the unlawful and hostile measures undertaken by the Trump administration and to working together for peace.”

Malki called for revival of the Quartet of Mideast mediators — the U.S., U.N., European Union and Russia — and reiterated Abbas’ call for an international peace conference “that can signal a turning point in this conflict.” He also expressed hope that “the U.S. will play an important role in multilateral efforts for peace in the Middle East.”

The Trump administration closed the office of the Palestine Liberation Organization in Washington in September 2018, effectively shutting down the Palestinians’ diplomatic mission to the United States. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)

Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Moscow is convinced that the Quartet, working closely with both sides and Arab states, “can play a very, very effective role.”

In support of Abbas’ call for an international conference, Lavrov proposed holding a ministerial meeting this spring or summer with the Quartet and Egypt, Jordan, United Arab Emirates and Bahrain as well as Saudi Arabia to analyze the current situation and assist “in launching a dialogue” between Israeli’s and Palestinians.

Arab League Secretary-General Ahmed Aboul Gheit said “Palestinians suffered from unprecedented pressure from the former U.S. administration” and said the organization’s 22 members look forward to Biden correcting Trump’s actions and working with international and regional parties to relaunch “a serious peace process.”

AP reported that Israel’s U.N. Ambassador Gilad Erdan told the council that instead of focusing on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it should focus on Iran, which “does not try to hide its intention of destroying the world’s only Jewish state.”

On the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, he suggested that the council discuss what he called “the real obstacles to peace: Palestinian incitement and culture of hate,” according to the AP report.

Israel remains willing to make peace “when there is a willing partner,” Erdan said, accusing Abbas of inciting violence, and saying he should come to the negotiating table “without making outrageous demands and not call for another pointless international conference … (which) is just a distraction.”

Israel National News reported on Tuesday that IDF Chief of Staff Aviv Kochavi warned the Biden Administration not to return to the 2015 Iran Nuclear deal in an address to the Institute for National Security Studies (NSS) Tuesday.

“I would like to clarify my position regarding the JCPOA”, he said, according to the INN report. “Even if an improved agreement is reached, it will be a bad agreement at the operational and strategic level. Therefore, such an agreement must not be enable”

“If the 2015 nuclear deal had been implemented, Iran eventually would have been able to construct a bomb, because the agreement did not include restrictions and oversight to prevent it. Anything similar to the current agreement or even an improved agreement would be unacceptable and should not be allowed,” he said, as was reported by INN.

“Iran is not only a threat to Israel, it is a threat to the entire world. If the Iran deal of 2015 had materialized, ultimately Iran could have obtained a bomb. The Iran of today is not the Iran of 2015 when the JCPOA was signed,” Kochavi added, according to the INN report.

INN reported that Kochavi also addressed the threats facing Israel from the north and the south. “In the next war, we will alert populations in Lebanon and in Gaza the moment tensions begin that they must leave areas in which rockets and missiles are being stored,” he said,

“The enemy chose to entrench itself and its weapons, including missiles and rockets, in urban areas. They deliberately ignore international law; the clearest proof of this is that they intend to fire all these missiles toward Afula, Metula and Gush Dan. They have dispersed and decentralized all their networks, so it is imperative to adapt both the State of Israel, the IDF, and the international community to this reality.

“The changing nature of the battlefield requires changes of us as well. We must expose the capabilities of our enemies more effectively, and this is the essence of our multi-year plan,” he said,

INN reported that he called on Hamas to return the Israeli soldiers and civilians currently being held in Gaza. “To the inhabitants of Gaza, I say that your quality of life can be vastly improved – but not until our missing soldiers are returned to us.”

He warned Israel’s citizens that should a war break out, many missiles and rockets would fall on Israel’s population centers, as was reported by INN. “This is an opportunity and an obligation for me to remind the citizens of the State of Israel as clearly as possible that on D-Day, during a war, many missiles and rockets will explode here and it won’t be easy.”

“In the face of these threats, we will respond with an extremely significant counterattack that will include targeting rockets, missiles and weapons, whether in open areas, or adjacent to and inside buildings,” Kochavi declared, as was reported by INN.

In a related development, AP reported that on Tuesday the Senate confirmed Antony Blinken as America’s top diplomat, tasked with carrying out President Biden’s commitment to reverse the Trump administration’s “America First” doctrine that allegedly weakened international alliances.

Senators voted 78-22 to approve Blinken, a longtime Biden confidant, as the nation’s 71st secretary of state, succeeding Mike Pompeo. The position is the most senior Cabinet position, with the secretary fourth in the line of presidential succession.

Blinken, 58, served as deputy secretary of state and deputy national security adviser during the Obama administration. He has pledged to be a leading force in the administration’s bid to reframe the U.S. relationship with the rest of the world after four years in which President Donald Trump questioned longtime alliances. He is expected to start work on Wednesday after being sworn in, according to State Department officials.

Despite promising renewed American leadership and an emphasis on shoring up strained ties with allies in Europe and Asia, Blinken told lawmakers that he agreed with many of Trump’s foreign policy initiatives. He backed the so-called Abraham Accords, which normalized relations between Israel and several Arab states, and a tough stance on China over human rights and its assertiveness in the South China Sea, as was reported the AP.

He did, however, signal that the Biden administration is interested in bringing Iran back into compliance with the 2015 nuclear deal from which Trump withdrew in 2018.

Trump’s secretaries of state nominees met with significant opposition from Democrats. Trump’s first nominee for the job, former ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson, was approved by a 56 to 43 vote and served only 13 months before Trump fired him in tweet. His successor, Pompeo, was confirmed in a 57-42 vote.

Opposition to Blinken centered on Iran policy and concerns among conservatives that he will abandon Trump’s “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran, as was reported by the AP.

Blinken inherits a deeply demoralized and depleted career workforce at the State Department. Neither Tillerson nor Pompeo offered strong resistance to the Trump administration’s attempts to gut the agency, which were thwarted only by congressional intervention. (AP & INN)

Bklyn Nets Coach Amar’e Stouemire Won’t Work on Shabbat After Conversion in Israel

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Photo Credit: Wikipedia

Former NBA star Amar’e Stoudemire has a new job! The one-time all star for the Phoenix Suns is currently serving as an assistant player development coach for the Brooklyn Nets and is on former teammate Steve Nash’s staff. In addition to Phoenix, Stoudemire played for the New York Knicks and the Dallas Mavericks.

As Stoudemire gets into the groove with his new position, he also knows that he won’t be compelled to work seven days a week. As has been previously reported, Stoudemire strictly observes the Jewish Sabbath and has undergone a formal Orthodox conversion to Judaism.

According to a report on the Sports Rabbi web site, Stoudemire recently completed his conversion in Israel. He completed his conversion in August of 2020, taking on the Biblical name Jehoshaphat.

Last season, Stoudemire won an MVP award with the Maccabi Tel Aviv team as well as winning the Israeli League championship.

According to the Sports Rabbi site, when asked how he stays grounded and humble despite being a celebrity, the former Six Time NBA All-Star answered that “The Torah helps help and knowing that we are all created by God.” Many people wanted to know if Stoudemire was married and if he was looking for a “Shidduch” a match, he said that he was no longer married and that he is ready, hopes to find one and needs to create a Shidduch resume.

On Monday, Marc Stein of the New York Times, who had written about Stoudemire and his new position on the coaching staff of the Brooklyn Nets as well as his request to take off for the Sabbath on a weekly basis, Stein tweeted that:

Following up on my recent story on Amar’e Stoudemire joining the Nets’ coaching staff as a player development assistant:@NYTSports has confirmed that the Nets are granting Shabbat off to Stoudemire every week — Friday sundown through Saturday sundown — at Stoudemire’s request https://t.co/Nht93Lv8sU

— Marc Stein (@TheSteinLine) January 25, 2021

According to a JTA report, Stoudemire detailed his Jewish journey in a late December talk with the UJA-Federation of New York.

In addition to working for the Brooklyn Nets, Stoudemire also regularly attends Torah classes and takes classes at the University of Miami, according to the Sports Rabbi site. Moreover, Stoudemire’s collection of wines (stoudemirewines.com) are kosher.

 

 

 

Regeneron says antibody cocktail effective in preventing COVID-19

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(INN) Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc announced Tuesday that its antibody cocktail was effective in preventing infection from the novel coronavirus, Reuters reported.

According to the interim study, the treatment caused a 100% reduction in the rate of infections in which symptoms were displayed and a 50% reduction in the overall rate of infection. The findings were based on the experience of 400 participants in the study who had a household member with the coronavirus.

The two-antibody cocktail, called REGEN-COV, received an emergency use authorization (EUA) from the US Food and Drug Administration in November for use in the treatment of coronavirus patients in mild to moderate condition. Regeneron stated that it would seek to expand the EUA in light of the encouraging findings.

According to the organization, REGEN-COV can provide recipients with immediate passive immunity to the coronavirus, as opposed to the Pfizer and Moderna coronavirus vaccines which take two doses and an additional two weeks to provide full immunity.

“These data using REGEN-COV as a passive vaccine suggest that it may both reduce transmission of the virus as well as reduce viral and disease burden in those who still get infected,” said George Yancopoulos, president and chief scientific officer of Regeneron.

The full results of the trial are expected in early Spring

In a Paranoid Nation, “Treason” Is Everywhere

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FBI agents across the nation are tracking down and arresting Trump supporters who walked into the US Capitol during the January 6 protest that turned into a brawl. Scores of protestors have already been charged with unlawful entry—“knowingly entering or remaining in a restricted building or grounds without lawful authority.” The media is treating this as a heinous and self-evident offense, but my own experience at Washington protests makes me wary of treating transgressions as treason.

I roamed downtown Washington on the day before the inauguration. The city was a ghost town, and most of the stores were either boarded up or out of business. More than a dozen subway stops were barricaded shut to prevent any guys wearing furry hats with horns from suddenly appearing from underground to strike terror into the hearts of the media.

Practically the only folks on the streets were National Guard troops touting automatic weapons (mostly without ammo magazines). There were snipers on rooftops and helicopters occasionally buzzing overhead—all part of what DC mayor Muriel Bowser hailed as the “peaceful transition of power in our country.” If it had been even more “peaceful,” drones would have been blowing up manhole covers. Deploying twenty thousand troops in the nation’s capital was noncontroversial for the nation’s media, because the soldiers were supposedly protecting America against right-wing extremists.

At Farragut Square, I entered the “green zone”—the official term for the area the military locked down and the same term the US military used earlier in Baghdad. I ambled over to the edge of Lafayette Park next to the White House, scene of clashes between demonstrators and police last June and a Trump photo op that went awry. I have witnessed many rowdy protests at this park over the decades, but it was walled off with thick wire fencing. I could see the forms of soldiers on the other side of the barrier but not much else. No chance of getting even a glimpse of the White House.

I chatted with a Secret Service policeman guarding the entrance to the park. When I said I was heading toward the Mall, he replied: “You can’t go through here but if you go down to the next block—Seventeenth Street—you can walk to Constitution Avenue from there.”

I thanked the dude and made tracks. But after walking a block or two on Seventeenth, further progress was barred by a tangle of high barriers.

I saw a solitary soldier standing guard to make sure that no pickpockets carted off one of the four thousand–pound concrete jersey barriers blocking the road. He told me that if I went one block over, to Eighteenth Street, that was clear all the way to the Mall.

At Constitution Avenue, I saw that the Mall was completely barricaded. On the other side of the high fences, I saw troops patrolling with their rifles at the ready in case anyone tried to kidnap the geese in the Reflecting Pool.

In the distance, I could see the Washington Monument, but that was as close as I could get—that landmark was protected by row after row of barricades, from the edge of Constitution Avenue onward. To justify writing off my subway fare as a business expense, I took a bevy of bad photos, including a few with a large yellow Police Line Do Not Cross sign juxtaposed with the base of the monument.

Heading back up Eighteenth Street, I ran into another military roadblock—a half dozen soldiers staked out by a closed subway station. I told them I was looking to get to Dupont Circle. A young soldier with a heavy Southern accent replied, “You can’t go this away. The road is closed at the end of this block.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. I’m just following orders. You can go over to the next block—Seventeenth Street—and go up on that road.”

I tipped my hat to the dude and ambled along. There was no rhyme or reason to the street closures—just a long series of arbitrary edicts.

A pack of Metropolitan Police bicyclists suddenly came up the street. There was a slight incline in the road, so the cops were struggling like Tour de France riders crossing the highest peak in the French Alps.

As I watched their arduous ascent, I flashed back to fifteen years earlier when I had roamed the same street on my road bike while hundreds of thousands of marchers protested the Bush administration’s Iraq War. That event was well organized, with plenty of activist lawyers stationed along the route with cameras to document if the police used any brutality on the peaceful demonstrators. I had walked my bike with the marchers as they passed the Treasury building on the east side of the White House, where I snapped my all-time favorite photo of a glassy-eyed cop.

After hoofing for a mile with the protestors, I hopped on my bike, zipped down the street between Lafayette Park and the White House and then swung down Seventeenth Street on the west side of the White House. That road was almost empty except for two cops standing in the middle twenty-five yards ahead of me. As I got closer to them, a fat cop suddenly raised his four-foot wooden pole over his head and began moving directly into my path.

I was puzzled until I heard the other cop mumbling about how I wasn’t allowed on that street. His partner was getting ready to bust his stick over my head.

I revved up my speed, veered to the right, and laughed at the flatfoot over my shoulder. The street closing was not marked, but cops were still entitled to assail any violators—as long as there was no one around to film the beating. Actually, if that cop had smashed me with that pole, I might have been arrested on ginned-up charges such as assaulting a policeman. In the same way that cops routinely justify shooting motorists by claiming the driver was trying to run them down, so the pole dude might have claimed I was trying to run him over.

This struck me as a microcosm of what American society is becoming—more and more government agents waiting to whack anyone who violates a secret, unannounced rule.

I rode around the area to the west of the White House and, hearing some speakers in the distance, swung down another street toward the Ellipse in front of the White House. As I reached the intersection with Seventeenth Street, a gnarly police commander with a burning cigar butt clenched between his teeth screamed at me: “How did you get here!?!”

“I rode down the street,” I replied.

“You’re not allowed to come down on this street!”

“I didn’t see any signs or anything prohibiting it,” I said.

“I had two policemen at the entrance of the street,” he raged. “How did you sneak by them?”

I said I hadn’t seen anyone.

The cop boss was tottering on the edge of arresting me. Another policeman, dressed in civvies, suggested to this cigar chomper that he just let me go through the opening of the metal sawhorses.

Not a chance. The boss cop insisted that I reverse course and ride back down that street. I did so and, at the end of that block, I saw four DC police officers lounging in the shade, talking and laughing among themselves. Regardless of his subordinates’ negligence, the police commander took great satisfaction in reversing one bicyclist’s path. Maybe he even reported it as an “antiterrorism success” to superiors that day.

What the hell, I avoided getting thumped that day. But the flashback made me think of the plight of the hundreds of protestors who entered the Capitol on January 6 and now are facing legal ruin or long prison sentences.

In the past few weeks, the media and Democratic politicians have caterwauled that the clash at the Capitol was an attempted coup, putsch, or “insurrection” (the preferred label in the House of Representatives’s impeachment of Trump). A small number of participants assaulted police and did serious property damage. But most of the protestors entered the Capitol through open doors and wreaked no havoc once they had crossed the threshold. Videos show Capitol policemen doing nothing to impede legions of protestors who often stayed inside the designated rope lines for visitors. As American Conservative founder Pat Buchanan noted, “Had it been [A]ntifa or BLM that carried out the invasion, not one statue would have been left standing in Statuary Hall.” Many of the participants said they didn’t realize they were prohibited from entering the Capitol, and the vast majority left peacefully after a brief visit.

Most Americans support vigorous prosecution of protestors who physically assaulted police at the Capitol. But partly because of the thundering chorus that all participants were guilty of treason, and partly because of Democrats’ and media allies’ howling about the Capitol being “holy” and a “temple,” peaceful protestors also face legal ruin and possibly long jail sentences. The Washington Post reported, “Authorities say they could ultimately arrest hundreds, building some of their cases with the social media posts and live streams of alleged participants who triumphantly broadcast images of the mob.”

Federal prosecutors may pile “seditious conspiracy” charges atop the “unlawful entry” offense, threatening protestors with twenty-year prison sentences. Overcharging is routinely done by the feds to browbeat guilty pleas from people who cannot afford thousands of dollars in legal fees to prove their innocence. But the Justice Department may be realizing that many of its cases against the roughly eight hundred protestors who entered the Capitol could explode in the government’s face. Most of the 135 people charged thus far have no criminal records, and many are former military. The Washington Post noted on Saturday that

some federal officials have argued internally that those people who are known only to have committed unlawful entry—and were not engaged in violent, threatening or destructive behavior—should not be charged….Other agents and prosecutors have pushed back against that suggestion, arguing that it is important to send a forceful message that the kind of political violence and mayhem on display Jan. 6 needs to be punished to the full extent of the law.

One federal law enforcement official commented, “If an old man says all he did was walk in and no one tried to stop him, and he walked out and no one tried to stop him, and that’s all we know about what he did, that’s a case we may not win.” If the cases are all tried in Washington, then that would mean that the DC federal court would have to handle almost three times as many criminal cases as its total caseload for 2020. The Post noted that top officials are keenly aware that “the credibility of the Justice Department and the FBI are at stake in such decisions” on prosecuting protestors. It will take only a few cases against protestors to be squashed by jury nonguilty verdicts to severely damage the histrionic sedition storyline of the January 6 clash.

Americans who hanker to legally impale peaceful Capitol protestors should pause to recognize that far more turf in this nation may soon be permanently off limits to private citizens. DC Mayor Bowser warned that after the inauguration, “We are going to go back to a new normal. I think our entire country is going to have to deal with…a very real and present threat to our nation.” Some members of Congress favor turning Capitol Hill into the equivalent of a supermax prison, permanently surrounding the area with a high fence with razor wire. House speaker Nancy Pelosi says every day on Capitol Hill should be a “national security event.” Will that mean TSA-style checkpoints with far more pointless prodding of anyone who deigns to step onto federal grounds? The George W. Bush administration was notorious for decreeing vast “restricted zones” around the president when he traveled around the nation. Anyone who protested or even held up a critical sign in those areas could face arrest and federal prosecution. That type of repression could be revived by Biden, who was notorious for his dreadful record on civil liberties when he was chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

In a free society, peaceful citizens deserve the legal benefit of the doubt. In an age where government agents have endlessly intruded onto people’s land and into their emails, citizens should not be scourged for transgressing unknown or unmarked federal boundaries. There are enough real criminals in this nation that federal prosecutors don’t need to seek publicity by destroying people who may have unknowingly illicitly violated politicians’ sacred turf.