Israeli soldiers man a post during the Independence War, June 5th, 1948.Photo Credit: Benno Rothenberg/Wikimedia Commons
By: Karen Bekker
Mohammad Zarqa, an 88-year old Palestinian man from Ein Karem who now lives in New Jersey, inadvertently revealed the crux of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict when he told a CNN reporter, as quoted in a May 15 article online, “We will never stop wanting to return.”
Palestinian leaders rejected offers of independence and statehood in 2000, 2008, 2014 and 2020, in part because those offers did not permit them to use the Palestinian refugee issue to turn the world’s only Jewish-majority state into the world’s 57th Muslim-majority state. Of course, it was also Palestinian and other Arab leaders that created the refugee issue to begin with in 1948 when they refused to accept partition of Mandatory Palestine into one Jewish and one Arab state. But CNN’s Alaa Elassar omits both of these facts, in her quest to promote the narrative of a “catastrophe” that the Jews brought upon the Palestinian Arab people. (“From one generation to the next, Palestinians aim to keep the history of al-Nakba alive,” May 15, 2024.)
Like the demand for a Palestinian capital in Jerusalem, the demand for “return” to Israel of millions of descendants of refugees is a non-starter in peace talks between Israel and representatives of the Palestinians. Indeed, Jewish refugees from Arab countries who were expelled in the wake of the founding of Israel, whose descendants now make up about half of the Jewish population of Israel, were long ago integrated into the country, rather than retaining perpetual refugee status and nursing unrealistic hopes of return.
Joan Donoghue of the International Court of Justice refuted the claim that Court had found it was ‘plausible’ that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.
In 1947 a much larger population exchange occurred in India and Pakistan, displacing 15 million people. Europe, too, saw mass expulsions in the wake of Word War II. Yet Elassar quotes a UN official calling the Palestinians “the world’s longest-standing protracted refugee crisis,” seemingly without a trace of irony or of knowledge of these other world events. Again, the vast majority of other refugees resettled and moved on with their lives. That is why only the Palestinian refugee “crisis” lives on.
Though Elassar’s piece is not labelled “opinion,” it contains several unfalsifiable claims based on personal recollections of events that happened many decades ago. Such claims can make for riveting reading, regardless of whether they are true or not. So it is with CNN’s retelling of Zarqa’s account of the events of 1948 in Deir Yassin.
But, as CAMERA has noted before, in 1998, the Telegraph, a British outlet, has quoted another individual who also claimed to be an eyewitness to the events, stating:
The Arab radio talked of women being killed and raped, but this is not true… I believe that most of those who were killed were among the fighters and the women and children who helped the fighters. The Arab leaders committed a big mistake. By exaggerating the atrocities they thought they would encourage people to fight back harder. Instead they created panic and people ran away.
In addition, as CAMERA previously quoted from a 1998 article in the Jerusalem Report:
In a BBC television series, “Israel and the Arabs: the 50 Year Conflict,” Hazem Nusseibeh, an editor of the Palestine Broadcasting Service’s Arabic news in 1948, describes an encounter at the Jaffa Gate of Jerusalem’s Old City with Deir Yassin survivors and Palestinian leaders, including Hussein Khalidi, the secretary of the Arab Higher Committee (the representative body of the Arabs of British Palestine).
“I asked Dr. Khalidi how we should cover the story,” recalled Nusseibeh, now living in Amman. “He said, ‘We must make the most of this.’ So we wrote a press release stating that at Deir Yassin children were murdered, pregnant women were raped. All sorts of atrocities.”
A Deir Yassin survivor identified as Abu Mahmud, said the villagers protested at the time. “We said, ‘There was no rape.’ [Khalidi] said, ‘We have to say this, so the Arab armies will come to liberate Palestine from the Jews.’”
The events at that location have been highly contested, including in a recent book by Eliezer Tauber. But CNN’s readers would have no way to know that, as Alaa Elassar provides only one version of the story, with no countervailing claims, as if it were a known fact.
Nor is Elassar’s account of more recent events free from distortion. To make her case, Elassar relies on some common red herrings, such as the false claim that “the International Court of Justice says it’s “plausible” Israel is committing genocide,” – a claim that CNN itself has already corrected three times. She also points to comments made by Minister of Agriculture Avi Dichter, who described the war as “the Nakba of Gaza 2023,” though it’s not clear why she would think the Minister of Agriculture would set the agenda for the conduct of a war.
She writes, “Israel launched its war in Gaza after Hamas’ brutal attack in Israel on October 7, in which 1,200 people were killed and hundreds of others taken hostage, Israeli officials say.” (Emphasis added.) She continues, “In the seven months since that attack, Israel’s bombing campaign and ground offensive in Gaza has killed more than 35,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health. It also has imposed a siege and razed entire communities, rendering nearly 90% of the population displaced and everyone food insecure.” Of course, there has not been anything remotely resembling a siege since October 18, and her dutiful recitation of Hamas’s casualty statistics ignores that 15,000 of those killed have been Hamas fighters.
But most importantly, what she ignores about the current war is the same thing she ignores about the 1948 war: none of it had to happen. Had Israel not been attacked, beginning with Palestinian Arab militias in late 1947, leading up to the invasion by five (not, as Elassar claims, three) Arab armies, and then again on October 7, 2023, none of it would have happened. And, still today, Hamas could end the war in Gaza immediately if it returned the hostages and surrendered.
May 24, 2024 Update:
After hearing from many of CAMERA’s members, CNN removed the false claim that “the International Court of Justice says it’s ‘plausible’ Israel is committing genocide” – a claim that CNN had previously corrected three times. However, they substituted a quote from Francesca Albanese, whose antisemitic comments have made her notorious. When she was first appointed to her position as the United Nations’ Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in the Palestinian Territory, the Times of Israel reported:
A review of her past social media posts, media appearances and talks with activist groups found that aside from inveighing against a “Jewish lobby,” she has also sympathized with terror organizations, dismissed Israeli security concerns, compared Israelis to Nazis and accused the Jewish state of potential war crimes. … She rarely acknowledges Palestinian terrorism.
More recently, the U.S. Permanent Representative to the UN Human Rights Council, Michèle Taylor, has said of Albanese, “Francesca Albanese has a history of using antisemitic tropes. Her most recent statements justifying, dismissing, & denying the antisemitic undertones of Hamas’ October 7 attack are unacceptable & antisemitic.”
Although CNN removed the false claim about the International Court of Justice, they have arguably made the article even worse by including the words of someone well-known for her anti-Israel bias.
Karen Bekker is the Assistant Director of CAMERA’s Media Response Team. Prior to joining CAMERA, she practiced law for nine years as a commercial litigator.
The Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis (CAMERA) is an international media-monitoring and educational organization founded in 1982 to promote accurate and unbiased coverage of Israel and the Middle East. CAMERA is a non-profit, tax-exempt, and non-partisan organization under section 501 (c)(3) of the United States Internal Revenue Code. To learn more or receive our newsletters please visit CAMERA.org.
According to a senior-level Customs and Border Protection source, the latest executive order signed by President Biden on Tuesday will do little more than make Americans grow accustomed to more than 2 million migrant entries into the United States annually. The source, not authorized to speak to the media, says the order will do little to change the landscape of an out-of-control border even if legal challenges by pro-migrant civil rights groups fail to kill the order outright.
Tuesday’s executive order titled “A Proclamation on Securing the Border” will deny migrants the opportunity to apply for asylum when a 7-day average of migrant apprehensions at the southwest border reaches 2,500 or more per day. The proclamation, according to the source, could allow for nearly one million migrant apprehensions per year with no limitations on asylum eligibility if cartels or the Mexican government meter crossings at less than 2,500 per day.
In addition, the source says other “lawful pathways” to entry into the United States implemented during the Biden administration have opened the border to nearly one million additional migrants at ports of entry under the cover of darkness in many cases.
“The everyday citizen has already become accustomed to 2,400 crossings being allowed through land border ports of entry and airports based on the whim of this administration,” the source told Breitbart Texas. “These asylum claims are not vetted to any greater extent than an illegal crossing between the ports. Admissions through the CBP One application are just a mechanism to impact the unpopular optics of crossings between ports of entry.”
The source says the order does nothing to address the 800 to 1,000 or more known migrant got-aways the Border Patrol counts daily. In all, through the “lawful pathways,” crossing the border illegally in numbers under 2,500 daily, and counting those that the Border Patrol fails to apprehend, the source says more than 2 million migrants could cross the border each year without triggering any consequences outlined in the order signed on Tuesday.
“Some of the statements contained within the order are outright lies,” the source added. “The order attributes low migrant crossings in 2020 to travel restrictions placed by other countries during the Covid pandemic — that’s a lie.”
“Strong enforcement policies put in place under the previous administration lowered the crossings from previous years in 2020,” the source explained. “Under the Trump era Title 42 COVID-19 authority, we removed 3 million migrants that reached our borders, and most countries didn’t care who headed to the United States illegally.”
The source stated the dilemma that will quickly impact the Border Patrol is a shortage of detention space for those migrants that cannot be removed due to the lack of diplomatic ties or logistical limitations.
“We only have so many planes and it takes time to prepare a migrant for removal to non-contiguous countries,” the source said. “That time has been lengthened by the cancellation of previous policies negotiated under the Trump administration.”
“If anything, this will direct more traffic to the CBP One application and keep the border open but less visible to the everyday citizen as the election year concludes,” the source lamented.
Randy Clark is a 32-year veteran of the United States Border Patrol. Prior to his retirement, he served as the Division Chief for Law Enforcement Operations, directing operations for nine Border Patrol Stations within the Del Rio, Texas, Sector. Follow him on Twitter @RandyClarkBBTX.
White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan. Photo Credit: AP
( JNS) U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said on Tuesday that Israel has accepted the ceasefire proposal President Joe Biden revealed on Friday, and that “the ball is in Hamas’s court.”
“We are waiting for a response from Hamas,” said Sullivan. He acknowledged that the terror group in Gaza might well choose to continue the conflict instead.
“That wouldn’t be terribly out of character for a vicious and brutal terror group, but what we hope they do in the end is see that the best pathway to an end to this war, the return of all the hostages, a surge of humanitarian assistance, is to accept this proposal,” he added.
The war started on Oct. 7 when Hamas led a mass invasion of Israel’s northwestern Negev, murdering, wounding and kidnapping thousands of people, while committing widespread atrocities.
“The onus is on Hamas and will remain on Hamas until we get a formal response from them,” said Sullivan.
The Biden envoy also clarified that Israel had accepted the deal when a reporter suggested otherwise.
“I take issue with the end of your question when you said Israel rejected the proposal,” said Sullivan. “The prime minister’s own adviser went out publicly and said they accepted the proposal. They have reaffirmed that they have accepted the proposal…[it] is a proposal Israel accepted before and continues to accept today. The ball is in Hamas’s court,” he added.
Sullivan also said that CIA Director William Burns is making another trip to the region, arriving in Doha to talk with Qatari mediators on the ceasefire proposal, which would see Israeli hostages released in exchange for Palestinian terrorists in Israeli prisons. U.S. Middle East adviser Brett McGurk also departed on Tuesday for the Arab Gulf state. An Egyptian security delegation will also reportedly join the American and Qatari talks in Doha on Wednesday.
Qatar’s foreign ministry said on Tuesday that it had handed Biden’s three-phase ceasefire proposal to Hamas and that the document is much closer to the positions of both sides.
A spokesman for Hamas on Tuesday repeated the terror group’s demands for a “clear” Israeli commitment to end the war and withdraw from Gaza. That goes against the stated goals of Israel’s War Cabinet, which remain in place: to defeat Hamas, return the hostages and ensure the terror group can never again threaten Israel.
“We asked the mediators to get a clear Israeli position to commit to a permanent ceasefire and a complete withdrawal from Gaza,” Hamas official Osama Hamdan told a press conference in Beirut.
Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, together with Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, threatened on Saturday to exit the coalition if Netanyahu agrees to a deal under the terms made public by Biden on Friday.
Netanyahu reportedly met with Ben-Gvir on Monday to discuss the details of the proposal, which he has said differ from the outline presented publicly by the U.S. president.
Israel Hayom quoted sources in Netanyahu’s office as saying that the premier intended to show Ben-Gvir the full draft of the proposal, which contrary to Biden’s remarks contains no clause requiring Israel to end the war.
An Israeli official told Channel 12 on Tuesday night that the deal currently on the table is the best one Hamas will be offered, adding, “We went as far as possible.”
Biden, in an interview with Time published on Tuesday, said that Netanyahu was under “enormous pressure” to make a deal.
“The last offer Israel made was very generous in terms of who [Palestinian prisoners] they’d be willing to release, what they’d give in return, et cetera. Bibi [Netanyahu] is under enormous pressure on the hostages…and so he’s prepared to do about anything to get the hostages back,” he said.
She not only de-emphasizes her Jewish identity but during her campaign, she was seen wearing a crucifix.
By Barry Shaw, Israel Institute for Strategic Studies
Mexico voted in a new female Jewish President, but is Claudia Sheinbaum good for Israel?
She celebrates her grandfather, who escaped Lithuania where he was expelled for being “a Jew and a communist.” She praises her mother and father not for raising her as a Jew but for “loving Mexico and its history.”
In November 2023, she married Jesús Tarriba who is not Jewish.
She not only de-emphasizes her Jewish identity, but during her campaign, she was seen wearing a crucifix hanging off a string of Catholic prayer beads.
She is clearly a life-long left-wing Socialist politician and she identifies more with Jews who have been active in political activism than biblical or Israeli Jewish heroes.
In Mexico, 0.1% identify as Jewish. Even so, anti-Semitic political rivals have attacked her both as a Jew and as a foreigner.
In Mexico, Sheinbaum wants to be identified for her politics not her ethnicity, So what are her politics, and how does this clash with her ethnicity?
When Israel was forced to wage a previous war against Hamas in 2009, after being under a constant rocket bombardment and terror incursions from Gaza into Israel, Sheinbaum expressed herself in a letter to the editor of La Jornada, a Mexico City newspaper, she said:
“Because of my Jewish origin, because of my love for Mexico and because I feel like a citizen of the world, I share with millions the desire for justice, equality, fraternity and peace, and therefore, I can only see with horror the images of the state bombings”.
“No reason justifies the murder of Palestinian civilians. Nothing, nothing, nothing, can justify the murder of a child.”
She was silent about Israeli children.
Following her election on Monday, several pro-Palestinian activists posted images of Sheinbaum wearing a Palestinian keffiyeh, and posing with an unidentified man wearing a t-shirt that says Palestine.
Israeli opinion is still out on Sheinbaum, but the evidence that Mexico will move closer to Israel under a Jewish president does not look promising.
The Gulag Doctors: Life, Death, and Medicine in Stalin’s Labour Camps. Credit: Amazon.com
By: Stanley Goldfarb
Although progressive leftists have pretty much pirouetted from their love affair with Communist Russia in favor of close comradeship with various Middle Eastern terrorist groups, it’s worth reminding them of some of the more dehumanizing aspects of the Stalinist enterprise. Dan Healey, a professor emeritus of modern Russian history at the University of Oxford, delves deeply into the Russian Gulag system and the physicians and other health care workers who provided medical care to both the prisoners and to the staff that maintained this vast prison system. (The term “Gulag” is an acronym for the “main administration of corrective labour camps.”)
Solzhenitsyn’s masterwork, The Gulag Archipelago, is always called to mind when considering the topic of Stalin’s brutal empire of concentration camps spread out along the vast northern reaches of Siberia. Healey cites Solzhenitsyn’s assessment of the medical work in the Gulags:
In a few bitter pages, Solzhenitsyn dismissed evidence of “good doctors” practicing medicine conscientiously such that they could still be doctors in a professional sense. He argued that subordination to the Gulag machinery of camp commandants, internal surveillance, production managers, and medical bureaucrats, meant that doctors, however noble, could only comply meekly to serve “the common purpose” of squeezing the maximum labor out of the “sloggers”—prisoners in hard labour in the system’s mines, construction, and timber-felling tracts.
But Healey has a more nuanced view of medicine in the Gulags. He has extensively researched the history of individual physicians and other health care workers whose stories are now revealed after camp archives and worker memoirs became available in Russia. He tackles the paradox that while the Gulags mostly functioned to work the prisoners to death either through malnutrition or endemic tuberculosis, the camps represented an enormous effort to provide medical care to these same individuals. For example, by the time of Stalin’s death in 1953 there were nearly 2.5 million prisoners and over 110,000 hospital beds in the Gulag. Healey parts with Solzhenitsyn by describing some of the truly heroic efforts, particularly by many of the prisoner-physicians, to treat their fellow humans.
Another paradox of the camps was their role as both a penal colony and, at the same time, a crucial national effort to “colonize” the barren but mineral-rich Siberia. The Gulags were not only prison camps but were crucial sources of raw minerals, gold, and certain radioactive materials for Stalin’s dictatorship.
One of the fascinating aspects about medicine in the Gulags was that the most capable and senior physicians and nurses were typixxcally prisoners, often Jews. The medical staff who had volunteered to work in the Gulags were mostly the newly trained or those who were ideologically committed to the Marxist state and felt duty-bound to provide care in those godforsaken camps. The prisoner-doctors were often the elite of Russian medicine, trained in the most advanced Russian institutes in Moscow and Leningrad, only to be denounced for “Trotskyite thinking,” among other crimes, and sent to the vast tundra of the Kolyma Republic.
Healey is meticulous about reminding readers of the potential unreliability of the memoirs, particularly those of the volunteer workers. It was unwise to be too forthcoming even after Stalin died. But he does an admirable job in re-creating the travails of the medical establishment in internal exile. He does so through evocative tales of the lives of physicians and workers in the Gulags. In many of these stories, we encounter the ethical morass of physicians supporting a slavery enterprise while also glimpsing the political minefield of Stalinist Russia.
Take the story of Yan Pullerits. He was a physician hired to work for the OGPU, the then-secret police of the Soviets. He followed his mentor to the Gulag to set up medical care for the hired workers and for the prisoners, all of whom were working to exploit the resources of the region. He became medical director of the Dalstroi, a socialist project that built the roads required to access the gold-mining region of Siberia. That region eventually contributed 50 tons of gold to Stalin’s treasury. Despite setting up the vast medical network in Kolyma and being awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labour for his efforts to treat the scourge of scurvy (a vitamin deficiency condition), Pullerits did not escape the Great Terror. He was arrested after his father-in-law criticized the arrest of another family member, denounced in absentia by some workers in the Gulag without any clear rationale, and executed on the same day he was convicted of antigovernment activity. Even his wife was imprisoned for eight years as “the wife of a traitor to the Motherland.”
Conditions in the camps’ medical facilities were as brutal as the popular imagination would expect. The death rate of about 15 percent of prisoner workers in the minefields was due to malnutrition and the plague of tuberculosis. Malnutrition was generally the result of dietary deficiency of vitamin C and B complex vitamins. In the 1930s, medical science had identified specific causes of these deficiencies, and supplements were available in Western societies. But the Soviet Union was not a Western society, and instead of fresh fruit to provide a source of vitamin C, a concoction from pine needles was used to attempt to treat the prisoners. In fact, the health care provided sounds more like a gigantic hospice care network than anything resembling mid-20th-century medicine.
Healey recounts some amazing stories of resilience and redemption by the prisoners in the Gulag. Viktor Samsonov was a peasant boy convicted of antigovernment activity as an 18-year-old and sentenced to eight years imprisonment. He started working in the mines but developed night blindness because of dietary vitamin A deficiency. He was hospitalized and then scheduled to return to hard labor but was recognized as uncommonly intelligent by his treating physician. He became an orderly in the hospital, but the bureaucracy prevailed and he returned to work in the timber-felling region.
He became ill again and was treated by a specialist, Nikolai Viktorov, who was again impressed by his intelligence and his previous medical activities. Viktorov “rescued” the young man. Samsonov was made an orderly in Viktorov’s ward, finished his sentence, but remained in the Gulag for the rest of World War II. He was given increasing authority in the health care system and earned certificates in basic scientific subjects, ultimately leaving the Gulag to achieve his dream. He was admitted to medical school, became a full professor, and went on to be named an “Honored Scientist of the Russian Federation.”
These sorts of vignettes populate Healey’s reexamination of medicine in the Gulag. One doesn’t come away with any sort of admiration for the often-barbaric nature of this system. But one does at least appreciate the resilience and endurance of a small slice of the health care workforce. The real heroes of the book are the prisoners who overcame Stalin’s Great Terror to provide some small humane efforts toward the suffering slave workers or, like Samsonov, were able to overcome incredible barriers to have meaningful careers.
This book is a scholarly and detailed examination of a brutish enterprise in Soviet Russia. It is an effective counterpoint to Solzhenitsyn’s complete disgust with health care in the Gulag. It ventures into the gray zone of history where individual stories may diverge from the conventional narrative. Nonetheless, it was a terrible time and a terrible thing.
In the Hebrew year 24481 (1313 BCE), on the 6th (or 7th) day of the Hebrew month of Sivan, G‑d gave us the Ten Commandments and the entire Torah (the Pentateuch and the 613 laws contained therein). Photo Credit: OU
The Sequence and Significance of the Events of the Giving of the Torah at Sinai
By: Eli Landes
In the Hebrew year 24481 (1313 BCE), on the 6th (or 7th) day of the Hebrew month of Sivan, G‑d gave us the Ten Commandments and the entire Torah (the Pentateuch and the 613 laws contained therein). This was no simple handing over of a book of lore; G‑d gave us His Divine laws for us to study and follow. This was a transitional moment in our history—a moment known as Matan Torah (the Giving of the Torah.)
No longer were we merely the descendants of a great man named Abraham, or simply a Middle-Eastern people known as the Israelites. We had now become G‑d’s people, chosen to learn His Torah and keep its laws. It’s a moment we celebrate every year on the festival of Shavuot.
Let’s paint a detailed description of the events surrounding this momentous occasion.
The Events
With the Exodus from Egypt only three months in the past, the Jews arrive at Mount Sinai to hear the Ten Commandments and receive the Torah. Here’s a summary of the events leading up to Matan Torah:
Sivan 1 (Rosh Chodesh): The Jews reach Sinai and camp at the foot of the mountain.
Sivan 2: G‑d tells Moses that He not only wants to give the Jews the Torah, but also wants to make them His chosen, holy nation, who will follow His commandments. The Jews wholeheartedly agree, replying, “All G‑d wishes we will do.”
Sivan 3: Moses relays the Jews’ answer to G‑d. Moses then returns to the Jews to tell them that he will be the messenger for the Ten Commandments; G‑d will speak them to him, and he will in turn tell the Ten Commandments to the Israelites. They reply by saying they want to hear from G‑d directly.
Sivan 4: Moses relays the Jews’ request to G‑d, and G‑d agrees. Moses tells the Jews to prepare for Matan Torah. (There’s a disagreement among the sages whether he told them to prepare for two or three days, the practical difference being whether Matan Torah was on Sivan 6 or 7.)
Sivan 6 or 7: The big moment—Matan Torah.
The Jews awake to thunder and lightning and a deep, powerful horn blast. As they approach Mount Sinai, they see it ablaze, a thick cloud at its peak. Trembling in awe and fear, they gather at the foot of the mountain as Moses ascends alone to the top.
Against this incredible backdrop, G‑d speaks the first two of the Ten Commandments. With each one, the entire Jewish people die from the intensity of the Divine voice. G‑d subsequently brings them back to life.5 After the first two commandments, the people decide that it’s too much for them, and they ask Moses to transmit the remaining eight commandments. (Don’t worry, the remaining commandments are not considered to be lacking in any way. Moses was so in sync with G‑d’s will that he was considered to be G‑d’s vessel; G‑d “spoke through his throat.”
See here for a comprehensive overview of the story.
What Was Given and How
Though the name of the event—the Giving of the Torah—implies that the entire Torah was given that day, this is not the case. In fact, only the Ten Commandments were taught to us that day, and even they were only transmitted verbally. The physical luchot—the tablets—were not given for another 40 days.
Nevertheless, the name remains, as it marks the day G‑d began the process of giving us the Torah. First we were taught the Ten Commandments. Then, Moses stayed on Mount Sinai for 40 days learning with G‑d. During that time, G‑d taught Moses all the rules of how to interpret and understand the Torah.
The Talmud even says that Moses learned every single future interpretation of Torah that would ever exist. Though it is clearly impossible for him to have learned them all, he did learn the rules they are based on, and so it is considered as if he actually learned them. The rest of the Torah was communicated in stages throughout the Jews’ 40-year sojourn in the desert.
The Ten Commandments
Believe in G‑d.
Do not believe in other deities.
Do not take G‑d’s name in vain.
Keep Shabbat.
Honor your parents.
Don’t murder.
Don’t commit adultery.
Don’t kidnap.
Don’t give false testimony.
Don’t covet another’s possessions.
What Makes This Day So Important
Although Matan Torah is known as the time when G‑d gave us His Torah to study and keep, there were a few Israelites who had kept the entire Torah of their own volition before Matan Torah. This raises the question: what makes this day so important? True, only a select few had been keeping the Torah, and after Matan Torah we were all expected to keep it, but this seems to be merely a quantitative difference. The hype over Matan Torah makes you think that something unique was given to us that day, something that we simply did not have before. What was that?
Two things changed that day. The first was our connection to G‑d. Before Matan Torah, those who observed Torah did so entirely of their own accord. Their connection to G‑d, therefore, was only as deep as their understanding and feeling. At Matan Torah, however, G‑d connected His Essence to the Torah and gave it to us.12 When we observe the Torah, therefore, we are connected to G‑d’s essence, no matter who we are and how much we understand or feel.13
Secondly, the effect Torah has on the world was permanently changed. Before Matan Torah, Torah and mitzvahs were considered spiritual matters, and were incapable of affecting the physical world. At Matan Torah, however, G‑d forever changed matters: Torah and mitzvahs could now affect the world. For example, post-Matan Torah, one can take the hide of a cow and turn it into tefillin, and those tefillin will now be holy.
It is for these two reasons that Maimonides states that when we do mitzvahs now, we do them because G‑d commanded us to at Sinai, not because our forefathers did them.
It’s that time of year again, when cheesecakes galore are popping up all over the place. To be honest, I am not cheesecake’s biggest fan, but this recipe is one even I enjoy. The actual cheesecake is lighter, with a slight lemony undertone, and the fresh fruit helps temper the richness.
You can use this cheesecake as a base and add the topping of your choice. Some suggestions: caramel, chocolate ganache, fresh berries, pie filling, lemon curd, roasted rhubarb, etc. I went very simple with oranges, kiwis and strawberries.
Why are we talking about cheesecake? The holiday of Shavuot is almost upon us, when we celebrate the giving of the Torah by hearing the Ten Commandments being read in the synagogue. Some of the customs specific to this holiday include decorating our homes with greenery and eating dairy foods.
This recipe is closely based on Matt Preston’s cheesecake recipe. I’ve made one or two very small adjustments.
Prepare the pan:
You will need a 9-inch springform pan for this recipe. If you don’t have a springform pan, you can use a regular pan, but the cake will be difficult to remove. You may need to cut it while it’s still in the pan.
This cheesecake cooks best in a water bath, so you’ll need a larger pan that the springform pan can sit in.
Wrap the outside of the springform pan in 2–3 layers of foil. This helps keep the water from seeping through the crack around the base.
Crust Ingredients:
4 oz. / 120 grams tea biscuits, crushed
⅓ cup sugar
8 tbsp. butter, melted
Pinch of salt
Crust Directions:
Crush the tea biscuits to a fine crumb, and mix with the sugar, salt and melted butter.
Press the mixture down firmly into the base of the springform pan. Use the back of a spoon to help compress the mixture.
Bake at 350° F for 10 minutes, then set aside to cool.
Cheesecake Ingredients:
24 oz. cream cheese (3 cups)
1 cup sugar
4 eggs
2½ tbsp. lemon juice
1 tsp. vanilla extract
¼ tsp. salt
1¼ cup heavy cream
Cheesecake Directions:
Let the cream cheese come to room temperature.
Using an electric mixer (stand or handheld), beat the cream cheese until smooth. Add the sugar, and mix until fully incorporated.
Add the eggs one a time. Wait until each one is fully incorporated before adding the next.
Pour in the lemon juice, vanilla and salt, and mix. Slowly pour in the heavy cream, and mix until smooth.
Pour the cheese mixture over the base.
Place the springform pan into the larger pan, and add 1 inch of water to the larger pan.
Bake at 350° F for approximately 60–75 minutes. In order not to overcook the cake, turn off the oven when the center is still jiggly (but not completely wet). Leave the cheesecake to cool in the oven for an hour. Then remove and let it cool completely.
Refrigerate cake until cold. Run a knife around the edge of the pan, then gently release the springform.
Top with fresh fruit. I used orange, kiwi and strawberries.
Easy Cherry-Cheese Tarts for Shavuot
Easy Cherry-Cheese Tarts for Shavuot
I used store-bought puff pastry for these, and the cheese filling can be mixed with a spoon–no blenders or mixers required. Feel free to change up the flavor and use blueberry or strawberry pie filling instead.
Ingredients
2 sheets puff pastry
8 oz cream cheese
4-6 tbsp. sugar
1 ½ tsp fresh lemon juice
1 egg, beaten
1 cup cherry pie filling (or other flavor of your choice)
Directions
Pre-heat oven to 400°F (200°C).
Place a sheet of parchment paper down on your workspace. Roll out a sheet of puff pastry on the parchment paper, then pick up the whole piece of parchment paper and place on a baking sheet. This way you can do the rest of the work directly on the baking sheet and won’t have to move anything around.
Use a round cookie cutter (or large mug) to cut out circles (mine are 3.5”). Prick the center of each circle several times with a fork.
Soften the cream cheese for approx 12 seconds in the microwave. Mix in the sugar and lemon juice. Spread the cheese mixture on the center of each circle, leaving the edge clear. Add a dollop of your preferred pie filling.
Beat the egg and brush over the edges. Sprinkle the edges with sugar (coarse sugar if you have it).
Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 15-18 minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature.
Yields: 16 (will vary depending on the size of your cookie cutter)
Maple Pumpkin Pie Ice Cream
Maple Pumpkin Pie Ice Cream With Pecan Crunch Topping
With Pecan Crunch Topping
It’s that time of year again . . . the blogosphere has erupted with fall-inspired dishes, with a heavy propensity towards pumpkin. Pumpkin pie, pumpkin brownies, pumpkin milkshake, pumpkin bread, pumpkin everything!
Today I’m sharing my Maple-Pumpkin Ice Cream Pie with Pecan Crunch Topping. If you love fall flavors, prepare to fall in love with this dessert. You’ve got pumpkin, maple, brown sugar and pecan, with a hint of cinnamon and nutmeg.
It’s quick and easy, and presents beautifully—an great way to impress friends and family.
For the ice cream, you’ll need heavy cream, pumpkin purée, sugar, maple syrup, pumpkin pie spice and salt.
A couple of things to keep in mind:
You can make your own pumpkin purée, or buy it canned. If you’re buying canned, make sure you buy pumpkin purée and not pumpkin pie filling. The cans are very similar, so make sure to read the label carefully. To make you own purée, boil the pumpkin until soft, then drain and mash.
I used an ice cream machine. But if you don’t have one, there are two other methods you can use: (1) Buy a tub of good quality vanilla ice cream. Leave it out of the freezer to soften slightly (but do not let it melt completely). Blend it with the pumpkin purée, pumpkin pie spice and salt, and continue with the rest of the recipe instructions. Or, (2) beat the heavy cream until stiff. Add the sugar; mix until incorporated. Add the pumpkin purée, maple syrup, salt and pumpkin pie spice, and give a quick mix until it’s fully incorporated. Pour into pie crust, and continue with the rest of the instructions.
To make the ice cream, blend all ice cream ingredients (except the pie crust). Pour the mixture into the bowl of your ice cream machine.
Meanwhile, lightly toss the topping ingredients together and spread over a baking pan in a single layer.
Bake at 375° F for approximately 5 minutes. Remove and allow the crunch to cool completely.
Two weeks after donning Moshiko Davino’s tefillin, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu invited Ruchama Davino and Rabbi Or Ziv to thank them for the opportunity to wear this fallen soldier’s miraculous tefillin. Credit: Chabad of Katamon & Gonen
After donning Moshiko Davino’s tefillin, Prime Minister thanks killed soldier’s mother
By: Bruria Efune
Tuesday morning, in the midst of wartime meetings and urgent phone calls, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Ruchama Davino and Chabad Rabbi Or Ziv to his office, to say thank you in person.
Two weeks earlier, on Israel’s day of remembrance for its fallen soldiers and victims of terror, Netanyahu donned tefillin in his office and prayed. An image snapped of the prime minister of Israel proudly wearing tefillin ricocheted around the world.
“The prime minister needed to give strength to the nation at a difficult time,” says Rabbi Ziv, who co-directs Chabad-Lubavitch of Katamon, in Jerusalem. “Wearing tefillin was the most moving way to do it.”
The tefillin themselves carry quite a story. They once belonged to Ruchama Davino’s son, Moshe, known by one and all as Moshiko, an Israeli soldier killed in Gaza in 2014.
The photo of Netanyahu donning Moshiko’s tefillin and reciting the ancient words of the Shema prayer soon began circulating around the world. Credit: Benjamin Netanyahu / Twitter
That summer, during “Operation Protective Edge,” Moshiko was one of the first Israel Defense Force (IDF) soldiers to enter Gaza in a mission to find terror tunnels. He led troops in, clearing the road of mines with his D9 bulldozer. Tragically, a missile hit his cab, and he was killed at the young age of 20. When Rabbi Ziv learned that Ruchama was sitting shiva for her son in Katamon, he went to visit.
From there, a train of mitzvot in memory of Moshiko began.
‘Taking Care of Our Heroes’
“Ruchama wanted to do something good in her son’s memory, and to keep him alive, at her side,” says Rabbi Ziv. “We came up with the idea of the ‘Fun Truck.’”
The Fun Truck is a trailer built in memory of Moshiko, which Rabbi Ziv, Ruchama, and her family drive to distant army bases, bringing barbecues and joy to IDF soldiers. It continues Moshiko’s legacy as a young soldier who was always looking out for others, uplifting, and taking care of them. Since Oct. 7, the truck has been going out every single day, reaching soldiers on lonely outposts all along the Gaza border, and even up north under fire at the Lebanon border.
“It’s very satisfying to be able to give back to our soldiers, and to take care of our heroes,” Ruchama told Chabad.org. “We have so many volunteers and donors joining in. It’s wonderful.”
One day a few weeks after Oct. 7, after Israel had already launched its Iron Swords military response to the Palestinian declaration of war, Rabbi Ziv visited Ruchama and her family in their home. “I noticed that she has a small breakfront with a photo of Moshiko, and a few sentimental items that belonged to him,” he recalls. “Among them was a pair of tefillin.”
Ruchama told the rabbi the story of the tefillin. “All the soldiers knew Moshiko for his tefillin. Before every battle, he encouraged them to put them on as well, and say a prayer. He wanted every soldier in his company to be protected by the tefillin. It was important to him, and an inseparable piece of who he was.”
Netanyahu embraces Rabbi Ziv in a heartfelt moment. Credit: Chabad of Katamon & Gonen
Moshiko put his tefillin to good use up until his last day. After Moshiko’s vehicle was hit, it caught on fire. The soldiers managed to retrieve Moshiko’s body but nothing else before it was completely engulfed in flames. Everything inside was burned to ashes, except for two items which were left in pristine condition: Moshiko’s tefillin and his Chitas, a compendium containing Chumash, Psalms, and Tanya (the foundational work of Chabad Chassidism), and a prayer book.
Rabbi Ziv was moved by the story. An idea popped into his head. “What do you think about having the Prime Minister don the tefillin?”
Ruchama reacted enthusiastically. She had always wanted to see Moshiko’s tefillin back in use, especially in a way he would have loved. After having the tefillin checked, and a few small repairs done, Ruchama wrote a letter to Netanyahu, and Rabbi Ziv sent it and the tefillin with a friend who had a forthcoming meeting with the prime minister.
Netanyahu had seldom—if ever—been seen publicly wearing tefillin. But soon they received an update: A promise to Ruchama that Netanyahu would don the tefillin, and send them a photo as well.
‘The Name of the Lord Upon You’
Months passed, and they heard nothing. It was understandable—the prime minister was busy with one crisis after the other. Soon things got really tense. Washington, D.C., was threatening a halt to vital weapons shipments and important military advancements were being delayed.
Finally, on the morning of Israel’s most painful memorial day in recent memory, Netanyahu donned Moshiko’s tefillin and recited the ancient words of the Shema prayer, “Hear, O Israel: G‑d is our L‑rd, G‑d is one.” A photo of the moment was snapped and soon began spreading in Israel, and then around the world.
“His senior aides who were with him at the time tell me it was extremely emotional,” says Rabbi Ziv. “Some were moved to tears. The prime minister was visibly shaken. It was not an ordinary moment, not something they’d seen before.”
Netanyahu promised Ruchama that he will wear Moshiko’s tefillin on every Remembrance Day. Credit: Chabad of Katamon & Gonen
When Netanyahu himself publicly shared the photo, he did so accompanied by a verse from the book of Devarim: “Then all the peoples of the earth will see that the name of the Lord is called upon you, and they will fear you.”
It’s the same verse which the Rebbe—Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory—quoted in the runup to the 1967 Six-Day War, adding the Talmud’s explanation that this verse is a reference to tefillin. Every effort should be made, the Rebbe declared at the time, to assist Jewish soldiers protecting their brethren in the Holy Land in putting on tefillin, which would instill fear in the hearts of their enemies, and bring about certain victory.
Israel is a nation like no other, the Rebbe explained, “a people that will dwell alone” whose fate and ultimate victory lies in G‑d’s hands. With their decisions impacting the lives of millions of Jews, this was something Israel’s political and military leaders needed to understand and appreciate even more than anyone else.
The Rebbe was thus particularly happy when, in the immediate aftermath of becoming an Israeli hero in 1967, then-Gen. Ariel Sharon proudly donned tefillin at the Western Wall. The photo of the event likewise made waves in Israel, being published in every major newspaper. In a letter to Sharon, the Rebbe noted “the tremendous inspiration that you aroused in the hearts of many of our Jewish brethren when you put on tefillin at the Western Wall, an act which merited great publicity and echoed powerfully and positively into the various strata of our nation … ”
A Mother’s Consolation
Netanyahu was moved by the tefillin, and the fact that they were Moshiko’s. He wrote about thinking about Moshiko and the scent of the flames still lingering on the tefillin covers. He added, “I promised Ruchama that I would dedicate the tefillin for the elevation of Moshiko’s soul and for the elevation of all our fallen. That’s what I do today with holy reverence. May the memory of our fallen be blessed and kept in our hearts forever.”
“That our Prime Minister was wearing tefillin and holding a prayer book was very moving,” says Ruchama. “It was a message to the world: we have Hakadosh Baruch Hu, G‑d, with us. The tefillin are our connection with Him, and because of Him, we will win.”
When the Prime Minister welcomed Ruchama Davino and Rabbi Ziv to his office this past Tuesday, it was to give a personal thank you to the mother who gave him strength and helped him inspire so many—with reactions far beyond what he had expected.
“In here,” he told Ruchama, pointing to Moshiko’s tefillin, “is a special power of our people.”
Netanyahu promised Ruchama that he will wear Moshiko’s tefillin on every Remembrance Day. Ruchama says she is filled with emotion, and more than anything, feels that her son is standing with her, bringing his light into the world. “It was his tefillin, again doing what he always did, up until his last day—connecting our nation to G‑d Above, giving strength. I know he is filled with joy.”
Choices. Dilemmas. Life altering decisions. Each of the individuals in Megillas Rus is faced with a choice, a decision that would determine their future
By: Chaya Sora Jungreis-Gertzulin
Choices. Dilemmas. Life altering decisions. Each of the individuals in Megillas Rus is faced with a choice, a decision that would determine their future. While Rus was written about three thousand years ago, its teachings are relevant to us today. We learn that the choices we make do matter, and can profoundly alter the trajectory of our lives.
Megillas Rus opens with the words “Va’yehi bimei shefot hashoftim, And it was in the days that the judges judged.” The Talmud teaches us that “Kol makom sheh’neh’emar ‘Vayehi’, aino elah lashon tzaar, Wherever the term ‘Vayehi’ is mentioned, it is nothing but an expression of pain” It foreshadows that something tragic is about to occur. Va’yehi – a time of “Oy Vay”.
Megillas Rus tells us about a famine in the Eretz Yisroel. Food was scarce, people would go searching in the fields, but to no avail. We are introduced to Elimelech, who was the “parnes ha-dor”, the philanthropist of the generation. A wealthy man, a leader of the nation, a man to whom all would turn in times of need.
The hungry made their way to the home of Elimelech, knocking on his door, with the hope of returning to their families with some bread, some food to bring to the table, some nourishment for their children.
But there was “no one home”. The doors were locked, the windows shuttered. Elimelech abandoned his people. Together with his wife, Naomi, and their two sons, Machlon and Chilyon, he left his home town of Bais Lechem, and went to live in Moav.
Elimelech was faced with a challenge. Would he be there for his people during that difficult time? He had the power and financial means to sustain the poor, but he was unable to live up to the test. He feared that by helping just a few, many more would come knocking for assistance. How would he decide whom to help and whom to turn away? How could he possibly help the many that would turn to him with outstretched hands?
Instead of being a source of support and sustenance, Elimelech packs up and leaves to Moav. How ironic that Elimelech, who came from Bais Lechem – meaning “House of Bread”, a community known for giving and sharing, abandons his people and relocates to Moav, inhabited by a people who were the exact opposite, a nation who refused to give or share. The Torah tells us that when the Am Yisroel left Egypt and met up with the people of Moav, the Moavites didn’t even offer water to the tired, hungry and thirsty travelers.
We tend to think of challenges as deprivations or hardships. However, even the blessings of great wealth or extraordinary talents can be challenges. The test is how to channel these gifts in positive ways. Will we give of what HaShem has blessed us with to others? Will we help make the world a better place? The choice is ours.
Elimelech and his family settle in Moav, but one calamity after another befalls them. Elimelech loses his fortune, and passes away, a broken-hearted man.
Machlon and Chilyon are faced with their own choices. To remain in Moav after their father’s death, or return to Eretz Yisroel. The Midrash tells us that while their mother desired to return to Eretz Yisroel, they chose to remain in Moav, and she stayed with them.
The brothers marry sisters, Moavite princesses – Machlon marries Rus and Chilyon marries Orpah. Once again tragedy befalls Naomi, with both sons passing away, leaving her with two childless daughters-in-law.
Upon learning that the famine is over, Naomi decides to return home. She begs her daughters-in-law to return to their families, knowing that it will be a difficult life for them in Eretz Yisroel. Both women are at a loss for words, and begin to cry. They both loved Naomi and didn’t want to leave her. As the Megilla relates, “they raised their voices and wept…”, they had no words.
Ultimately, Orpah kisses Naomi good-bye and returns home. But Rus “dovkoh boh” – she clung to Naomi and refused to leave.
Once again – choices. Orpah chose to remain in Moav, while Rus chose to follow Naomi. Rus speaks from her heart, telling Naomi “Where you go, I will go, where you sleep, I will sleep, your people are my people, your G-d is my G-d, where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried.”
The choices we make can change our lives forever. Sometimes, our choices not only affect us, but our future generations as well. Orpah’s great-grandson was Goliath, while Rus was the great-grandmother of Dovid HaMelech. We all know the story of how these two men stood against each other. Goliath who wanted to terrorize and harm the Jewish people, and Dovid who stood up to protect his nation.
We can ask, where did Orpah go wrong? After all, Naomi begged her daughters-in-law to remain in Moav, which is exactly what Orpah did. So how is it that Orpah became the great-grandmother of Goliath, while Rus became the “Eim b’Malchus”, a mother of royalty – the great-grandmother of King David.
It wasn’t Orpah’s decision to remain in Moav that was wrong. It was her mindset after making that decision. Orpah gave up on herself. She viewed herself as inadequate, a failure, and acted accordingly. She went on to live a promiscuous lifestyle and continued on a downward spiral of spiritual decline.
Wherever you go…I will go. What was it about Naomi that got Rus to follow her and become one with Klal Yisroel? We don’t find any philosophical discussions between Naomi and Rus. No mention is made of discussions about HaShem, Torah, mitzvos, Shabbos, kashrus, etc. What touched Rus was the love and kindness that she saw in the heart of Naomi. That was what compelled her to give up her life in Moav and follow Naomi to Eretz Yisroel, even without knowing what would be awaiting her, what life would be like in a new country.
A life lesson for all of us. How do we touch another soul? How do we connect to another neshama? Through love, kindness and understanding.
Elimelech had a choice to remain in Eretz Yisroel and support his people, but he chose to abandon them. His sons similarly had choices to return to Eretz Yisroel after their father’s death, but they chose to remain in Moav. Rus and Orpah had the choice of returning to Eretz Yisroel with Naomi. Orpah chose to remain in Moav. Rus chose to follow the path of Naomi, a path that changed the destiny of Am Yisrael.
We are not always in control of life’s circumstances. Elimelech couldn’t stop the famine. Naomi, Ruth and Orpah couldn’t bring their husbands back to life. But we can control how we react to what life brings us. We don’t understand HaShem’s ways. But we can control how we react, and the choices we make.
Our lifestyle choices make us who we are. We daven that HaShem be with us and guide us in making the right choices. Choices that bring bracha to us, our family, our community and the world around us.
Wishing all a most joyous and uplifting Shavuos.
Chaya Sora Jungreis-Gertzulin
This article was written L’zecher Nishmas/In Memory Of HaRav Meshulem ben HaRav Osher Anshil HaLevi, zt”l and Rebbetzin Esther bas HaRav Avraham HaLevi, zt”l
Somewhere in our attic storage room, there remains a copy of a paper I wrote as a sophomore in college. It was based upon a book by the eminent sociologist C. Wright Mills, entitled The Power Elite. In it, the author cautions against the development of a small group, or “inner core,” controlling all the institutions in power in a given society. Photo Credit: Amazon
By: Rabbi Tzvi Hersh Weinreb
Scholars have had a lot to say about the role of aristocracy in the course of human history. Those of us who grew up in the United States of America were taught about the advantages of democracy and thus developed a prejudice against the very word “aristocracy.” We were convinced that aristocracy meant government by a select group of people who earned their right to govern by virtue of their birth.
Along with the virtues of democracy, we were taught to value meritocracy. Individuals should be granted positions of authority on the basis of their merit. If they prove themselves to be expert in business, they should be given control of the economy. Those who successfully prove their administrative experience should run the government.
As our formal education proceeded, we learned about the danger of another philosophy; namely, elitism. Somewhere in our attic storage room, there remains a copy of a paper I wrote as a sophomore in college. It was based upon a book by the eminent sociologist C. Wright Mills, entitled The Power Elite. In it, the author cautions against the development of a small group, or “inner core,” controlling all the institutions in power in a given society. A more recent book by David Rothkopf makes a similar point and speaks of a “super-class” that dominates contemporary American society. Personally, I suspect that we can detect in the present presidential elections a revolt, by a substantial portion of the populace, against “the power elite” or the “super-class.”
In my rabbinic teaching experience, I have found that students tend to question, or at least wonder about, the existence of aristocracy or elitism in the society prescribed by our Torah. This tendency is especially common among students who have been raised to value “the American way.” I have discovered that it is this week’s Torah portion, Parashat Bemidbar (Numbers 1:1-4:20), which evokes these questions more than any other.
This week’s parasha begins with an enumeration of the leaders of each tribe. The leader of the tribe of Reuben is named Elizur son of Shedeur, and so are named the leaders of every tribe. That is, every tribe but Levi. The Torah then proceeds with the details of the results of the census that Moses conducted. The total population of each tribe is listed, beginning with Reuben and ending with Naphtali. Again, the tribe of Levi is not recorded. The Torah itself remarks, “The Levites, however, were not recorded among them by their ancestral tribe.” Indeed, the Almighty specifically commands Moses: “Do not on any account enroll the tribe of Levi, or take a census of them, with the Israelites,” (Numbers 1:47-48).
The Torah continues to describe the configuration of the tribes as they marched through the wilderness: Three tribes in the north, three tribes in the south, and three tribes, each in the east and west. The glaring omission from this formation is the tribe of Levi.
It is only when we reach the third chapter of this week’s Torah portion that we learn of the special treatment that the tribe of Levi is to receive. It is then that we learn that the Levites are to substitute for the firstborn Israelites and will serve in their stead in the special roles of maintaining the Holy Tabernacle. Finally, the Torah describes the division of the tribe of Levi into three and names the leaders of each of those three divisions. It is only at this later point in the parasha that we are informed about the central position of the Levites in the nation’s march through the wilderness.
It is no wonder that students often ask about elitism. Their question is usually phrased along these lines: “Aren’t the Levites being designated by the Almighty Himself as a “power elite” or “super-class?” Are we not to be concerned that the rest of the Israelites will experience the resentment typical to victims of discrimination? Wasn’t the Levites’ special position in this parasha accorded them only because they were born Levites, having done nothing to merit their special distinction?”
The Sages of the Talmud and Midrash respond emphatically to these questions. Here is an especially poetic example, to be found in the Midrash Bemidbar Rabba, chapter 3: “It was the tribe of Levi who were heroes and blossomed forth with their deeds at the time that the Israelites crafted the Golden Calf. It is written, ‘Moses stood up in the gate of the camp and said, “Whoever is for the Lord, come here!”‘ And all the Levites rallied to him. Therefore, the Holy One, Blessed Be He raised them above the Israelites. Like the cedar which is taller and higher in the forest of Lebanon than all other trees, so too are they elevated above all of Israel. Thus, it is written in the book of Psalms (92:14), ‘Planted in the house of the Lord, they flourish in the courts of our God.’”
The point of this Midrash, and of many similar rabbinic passages, is this: The elite position of the Levites was not merely a function of their privileged birth. Rather, they earned their position because of their firm commitment to God. They merited their special role because of their courage and dedication.
In the classes that I have led, however, these rabbinic passages do not suffice. Questions persist: “What about nowadays? Can any person not born a Levi gain access to that tribe’s privilege by virtue of his commitment and courage? Or, is membership in this special group closed to non-Levites forever?”
The response to such questions was given centuries ago by none other than Maimonides: “It is not just the tribe of Levi alone, but each and every person from all of the world’s inhabitants, if his spirit but moves him and his intellect matures, can distinguish himself from the masses and stand before God to serve Him and to worship Him. He can come to know God, and if he walks upright in the manner in which God fashioned him and is willing to discard all the many considerations which other humans naturally seek, such a person is sanctified as the holiest of holies. He too can become God’s special portion and heritage forever and ever.” (Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, concluding paragraph of the Laws of the Sabbatical Year and Jubilee)
Simply put, Maimonides is teaching us that every human being can become a Levite.
Not many of us are familiar with Maimonides’ astonishing remarks.
But there is a statement, spoken daily by every regular synagogue attendee, which symbolically transforms each of us into a Levite. For near the conclusion of the morning service every day of the year, weekday or Sabbath or Festival, we recite a psalm. The psalm differs from day to day, but there is a brief prelude that we all utter: “Today is the first day of the week (or second, or third day, as the case may be) on which the Levites used to say this psalm in the Temple.”
(Rabbi Tzvi Hersh Weinreb is the Executive Vice President, Emeritus of the Orthodox Union)
The sanctuary of the Central Sofia Synagogue in the Bulgarian capital’s Square of Religious Tolerance, April 18, 2024. Photo by Joshua Marks
Saved from the Nazi gas chambers during the Holocaust, the community was reborn in the nascent state of Israel.
By: Joshua Marks
Less than a two-hour drive from and southeast of the capital, Sofia, lies Plovdiv, a remarkable ancient Bulgarian city. Plovdiv, known as Europe’s oldest, continuously inhabited city—and one of the oldest cities in the world—is nestled among the famous seven hills along the banks of the Maritsa River. It is here that our Jewish journey begins.
During the Roman imperial period in the 3rd century C.E., the city was called Philippopolis. It is in Plovdiv that the only ancient synagogue in Bulgaria was discovered. At the archaeological museum, visitors can admire a fragmented mosaic floor adorned with a menorah and Greek inscription.
The exterior of the Central Sofia Synagogue in the Bulgarian capital’s Square of Religious Tolerance, April 17, 2024. Photo by Joshua Marks
However, the Jewish presence in this region and its surroundings can be traced back even further, as mentioned in the book Bulgarian Jews: Living History by Clive Leviev-Sawyer and Imanuel Marcus. Hellenistic Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria, in his letter “On the Embassy to Gaius,” written around 41 or 42 C.E., refers to Jews residing in Thessaly, Boeotia, Macedonia, Aetolia, Attica and Argos.
In the northern part of Bulgaria, specifically in the city of Oescus, which was part of the Roman province of Moesia Inferior, a Latin inscription from the late 2nd century C.E. was discovered. This inscription features a menorah and mentions the archisynagogos (head of the synagogue).
Joseph Benatov, a Hebrew teacher at the University of Pennsylvania who grew up in Sofia’s Jewish community, shared insights with JNS on the history of Jewish communities in Bulgaria. He stated, “The oldest known communities date back to the Roman Empire, the so-called Romaniote Jews, who are the Greek-speaking Jews. And we have clear evidence of organized Jewish communities from that Roman period when Bulgaria was part of the Roman Empire.”
A plaque commemorating the site where Metropolitan Kiril of Plovdiv protected the local Jews from deportation to the Nazi death camps. Photo by Joshua Marks
Following the Romaniote Jews, Ashkenazi Jews arrived in Bulgaria during the 13th and 14th centuries, migrating from central Europe, as explained by Benatov, who conducts tours of the area through his travel agency Sephardic Balkans.
“It was only after these two groups that a significant wave of Sephardic Jews arrived and settled in the region, being embraced by the Ottoman Empire following their expulsion from Spain and Portugal in 1492 and 1497,” noted Benatov, who is of pure Sephardic descent. “Upon the arrival of the Sephardic Jews, they essentially assumed control of Jewish life in the region.”
According to Benatov, many Ashkenazi Jews learned Ladino and adopted Sephardic prayer customs, leading to a rise in Ashkenazi-Sephardic marriages, particularly in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Nonetheless, there were still distinct Ashkenazi communities in Bulgaria in the early 1900s, constituting around 5% of the Jewish population, while the vast majority, 95%, of Bulgarian Jews in the 20th century until World War II were Sephardic. The Sephardim largely absorbed the Romaniotes, unlike the Ashkenazim who maintained a minor presence.
A Holocaust memorial next to the Basilica of Saint Sofia in the Bulgarian capital, April 18, 2024. Photo by Joshua Marks
Benatov highlighted the fact that the Bulgarian-Jewish identity is a relatively new development, stemming from Bulgaria’s independence in 1878. Throughout the previous 400 years that Sephardic Jews resided in the region, they primarily identified as Ottoman Jews, considering themselves subjects of the Ottoman Empire, and were closely tied to their respective hometowns.
My wife’s DNA is particularly interesting, as it reflects the historical encounters between the Ashkenazi and Sephardic communities in Bulgaria. On her maternal side, her family is of Sephardic descent. However, the genetic analysis also revealed a percentage of Ashkenazi ancestry, which can be attributed to her great-great-grandfather, Mr. Berenstein.
In April, we embarked on a journey from Tel Aviv to Sofia to explore Bulgaria’s Jewish sites. We were fortunate to have a highly recommended tour guide, a knowledgeable local named Philip Stanimirov, who was recommended by Joseph. Accompanying us on the tour were family members from my hometown of Washington, D.C.
One of the initial highlights of our tour was the awe-inspiring Central Sofia Synagogue. This magnificent house of Jewish worship is not only one of the largest Sephardic synagogues in Europe; it’s also the largest in the Balkan Peninsula. It is an absolute must-visit for any Jewish traveler exploring Bulgaria.
The sanctuary of the Zion Plovdiv Synagogue in southern Bulgaria, April 19, 2024. Photo by Joshua Marks
The Moorish Revival synagogue in Sofia, designed by Austrian architect Friedrich Grünanger, was constructed on the site of the previous Ahava ve Chesed synagogue. Completed in 1909, this architectural masterpiece stands as a testament to the Bulgarian people’s renowned tolerance. The Square of Religious Tolerance, located in the heart of Sofia, evokes the ambiance of Jerusalem’s Old City. Within close proximity, one can find the synagogue, the Banya Bashi Mosque, the Eastern Orthodox Hagia Nedelya Cathedral and the Roman Catholic St. Joseph’s Cathedral, which showcase the diverse religious landscape of the area.
Benatov highlighted the significant role that the Bulgarian Eastern Orthodox Church played in condemning discrimination against Jews and protecting the community from persecution during World War II and the Holocaust. Metropolitan Kiril of Plovdiv and Metropolitan Stefan of Sofia spearheaded efforts to rescue Bulgaria’s Jews, and both were recognized in 2002 as Righteous Among the Nations at Yad Vashem. They are buried at the Bachkovo Monastery just south of Plovdiv.
In a remarkable act of civil disobedience, Kiril, who would later become the patriarch of the Bulgarian Church, led a group of 300 church members to the train station in Plovdiv. This station was where thousands of Jews were being forcibly packed into boxcars, awaiting transportation to Treblinka. Despite the presence of Nazi SS officers, Kiril fearlessly pushed through and attempted to enter one of the train cars. However, he was prevented from doing so by the guards. Undeterred, he proceeded to walk to the front of the train and made a bold declaration that he would lie down on the tracks if the train were to start moving.
It is worth noting that Stephan, the bishop of Sofia, fully supported Kiril’s actions. In fact, he even sent a letter to the king, warning that if the Jews were deported, he too would lie down on the train tracks as a form of protest.
A sign outside of the Central Sofia Synagogue in the Bulgarian capital’s Square of Religious Tolerance, April 18, 2024. Photo by Joshua Marks
Benatov stated, “This is something that I think Bulgarians are rightly very proud of, that even on the religious level, the Bulgarian East Orthodox Church as a national institution was adamantly pro-Jewish and defensive of its Jewish neighbors and friends in the country.”
The remarkable story of Bulgaria’s nearly 50,000 Jews who were spared from the horrors of the gas chambers during World War II, despite the country’s alliance with Nazi Germany, distinguishes it from many others that willingly handed over their Jewish population for deportation to death camps.
Regrettably, not all Jews under Bulgarian control were saved. In April 1941, the Germans entrusted Bulgarian Tsar Boris III with the administration of Greek Eastern Macedonia, Western Thrace and the Yugoslav provinces of Vardar Macedonia and Pirot.
Under Bulgarian authority, approximately 11,343 Jews were deported to German-held territories (7,122 from Macedonia and 4,221 from Thrace), where the majority met their tragic fate at the Treblinka extermination camp in Nazi-occupied Poland.
One heroic figure who defied the pro-Nazi cabinet was Dimitur Pešev, the deputy speaker of the Parliament. On March 10, 1943, he courageously intervened and prevented the deportation of 8,500 Jews who had already been rounded up and placed on trains bound for Treblinka.
“He single-handedly halted the initial deportation of Bulgarian Jews,” explained Benatov. “Thanks to him, I believe, King Boris III himself later changed his stance and became much more resolute in defending Bulgaria’s Jewish population when the second attempt to deport them occurred.”
Pešev’s hometown of Kyustendil, situated in far western Bulgaria near the borders of Serbia and North Macedonia, is a stop on Benatov’s tours.
In March 2023, Bulgaria commemorated the 80th anniversary of its decision not to deport its Jewish population. Underscoring the mixed legacy of Boris and the strong emotions he elicits today, however, representatives of the Jewish community refused to attend the official ceremony.
These Jewish leaders cite Boris’s alliance with Hitler’s Germany as the leader of a fascist government, his imposition of discriminatory racial laws against Jews and the deportation of the Jews in Bulgaria’s occupied territories.
However, the book Crown of Thorns: The Reign of King Boris III of Bulgaria, 1918-1943, by the late Bulgarian-born journalist Stephane Groueff, offers a more nuanced and sympathetic take on Boris’s wartime legacy.
For example, Groueff writes, “Boris often received foreign Jewish leaders visiting Bulgaria, like the prominent Zionist Nahum Sokoloff, who declared after the audience: ‘You can be proud of your king; he is a friend of ours.’”
Boris died mysteriously after returning from meeting Adolf Hitler in Germany in 1943. He was buried at Rila Monastery, but his remains were removed by Communist authorities and secretly reburied at Vrana Palace, near Sofia. After the fall of Communism, his heart was reinterred at Rila.
While touring Bulgaria, we also visited several Holocaust memorials, including the three stone tablets situated behind the Basilica of Saint Sofia, a 6th-century Byzantine church. These tablets pay homage to the Bulgarian leaders who were instrumental in saving the Jews during that time.
Last November, a new Holocaust memorial was revealed at Vazrazhdane Square in the capital city. This monument specifically honors the lawyers, judges and prosecutors who played significant roles in rescue operations during the Holocaust.
Local Jews established the Monument of Gratitude in Plovdiv, Bulgaria’s second-largest city, in 1998. This monument commemorates the successful prevention of the deportation of the city’s Jewish community on March 10, 1943. The inscription on the monument is in Bulgarian, Hebrew and English, expressing gratitude to all those who contributed to the rescue efforts on that day.
This article commenced by discussing an ancient synagogue in Plovdiv. In addition, a contemporary synagogue in the same area was explored, showcasing the continuous presence of Jewish culture in this Balkan country despite challenges and discrimination. Constructed in 1892 following the Ottoman architectural style, the Zion Plovdiv Synagogue stands as the sole functioning Jewish place of worship apart from the Central Sofia Synagogue. Situated amid the traditional Jewish district of Orta Mezar, this Sephardic synagogue underwent a complete restoration in 2003.
The two active synagogues in Bulgaria have numerous empty seats, underscoring the limited number of Hebraic individuals in the country today. This also serves as a poignant reminder that most of Bulgaria’s Sephardic Zionist Jews relocated to Israel following World War II. About 42,000 of the 50,000 surviving Jews made aliyah between 1947 and 1952. Another 3,000-4,000 Jews who endured the Communist era migrated to Israel in 1990, marking the final and most recent wave of aliyah from Bulgaria.
Based on the 2011 census, Bulgaria is home to 1,162 Jews. However, the World Jewish Congress estimates that the country’s Jewish population ranges from 2,000 to 6,000 individuals.
Benatov explained that during the Communist period after World War II, there was a significant amount of intermarriage within the Jewish community. As a result, it is common to encounter community members who come from intermarried families. In many cases, only one grandparent may have Jewish heritage, often of Sephardic origin. Nevertheless, the local Jewish community considers all these individuals as full members.
Despite the community’s small size, there has been a revival of Jewish life and a growing acknowledgment of the historical importance of Jews in the region. This phenomenon is evident in Vidin, a port city on the southern bank of the Danube River in northwestern Bulgaria, near the borders of Romania and Serbia.
The city was previously inhabited by a significant Jewish population, reaching its peak at approximately 2,000 Jews just before World War II, constituting 5% of Bulgaria’s Jewish community. Following the war, most of Vidin’s Jewish residents relocated to Israel to start anew. A recent $6 million initiative successfully transformed the deserted 19th-century main synagogue into a cultural center and communal focal point, which Benatov says is “very worth visiting.”
Benatov also recommended visiting Samokov in the southwestern part of the country, an hour’s drive from Sofia, where the wealthy Sephardic dynasty, the Arie family from Vienna, settled and built an empire. One of the Arie family homes has been turned into a museum. A synagogue built by the Arie family is a national historical monument.
The Zionist movement first emerged within the Ashkenazi Jewish communities of central and eastern Europe during the late 1800s. But the Sephardic Jews of Bulgaria stood out as some of the most enthusiastic advocates for the restoration of Jewish self-governance in the ancestral land of Israel.
Benatov asserted that the Bulgarian-Jewish community embraced Theodore Herzl’s concept of a Jewish national home in the eastern Mediterranean because of the groundwork laid by local proto-Zionist organizations. Moreover, the Jewish community in Bulgaria, being more secular, adopted Zionism as the central principle guiding Jewish life, supplanting religion.
According to Benatov, the Bulgarian Jewish community exhibited a strong sense of pride in their Jewish heritage, viewing it from a Zionist perspective.
Bulgaria boasted numerous Zionist organizations, including sports and cultural clubs, camps, women’s groups, international Zionist organizations and Maccabi.
“Zionism truly governed and organized Jewish life in Bulgaria,” Benatov explained. “It served as the foundation for the school system in Jewish schools, which followed a Zionist-driven curriculum emphasizing Hebrew and other subjects of significance to political Zionism.”
Upon their arrival in Israel, most Bulgarian Jews chose to settle in Jaffa, an ancient port city located in southern Tel Aviv. Over time, Jaffa earned the nickname “Little Bulgaria” due to the prevalence of Ladino and Bulgarian languages spoken there.
Similar to their reputation in Bulgaria, the Bulgarian Jews quickly established a positive image in Israel. They were recognized for their strong work ethic, honesty, humility and lack of demanding nature, as stated by Benatov.
Furthermore, the Bulgarian Jews gained recognition for their athletic abilities. In 1949, they founded the Maccabi Jaffa Football Club, which started as the Zionist association of Maccabi Jaffa. The team came close to winning the championship twice during the 1960s and was affectionately known as “The Bulgarians.”
As a successful immigrant community, the Bulgarian Jews gradually expanded beyond Jaffa’s confines and became an integral part of modern Israeli society.
In his book From Sofia to Jaffa: The Jews of Bulgaria and Israel, author Guy H. Haskell describes Jaffa as a sentimental hub for the Bulgarian Jewish population, even as their numbers dwindled. As the new immigrants became more established, they moved on to other areas. Today, only a small community of mostly retirees and their social clubs remain in Jaffa.
My wife’s grandparents were part of the wave of Bulgarian Jews who migrated to Israel. They both came in 1948 when they were just 14 years old, her grandmother aboard the steam merchant Pan York (also known as Kibbutz Galuyot and later Komemiyut) and her grandfather on a rundown ship from Bulgaria. Following David Ben-Gurion’s declaration on the radio, her grandmother joyously joined the crowds dancing in the streets to celebrate Israel’s independence, marking a new beginning for the Sephardic Jews who were expelled from Iberia to the Ottoman Balkans, then Bulgaria, and finally found their home in Israel, the Jewish homeland.
The frontiers of microbial health still hold significant, unexplored territory, yet insights about bacteria and their health effects are forging their way into new treatments for gut issues. Credit: (Baba.Images/Shutterstock)
Apps that tell you what to eat based on your gut microbes are growing in popularity but questions remain about whether the concept is ideal.
By: Amy Denney
The frontiers of microbial health still hold significant, unexplored territory, yet insights about bacteria and their health effects are forging their way into new treatments for gut issues.
In a recent study, an “artificial intelligence-assisted personalized diet” went head-to-head with a low-FODMAP diet, an elimination diet considered the “gold standard” for treating irritable bowel syndrome (IBS).
The randomized trial published last month in the American Journal of Gastroenterology showed the artificial intelligence (AI)-powered personalized diet compared favorably to the low-FODMAP diet for IBS management. The AI-generated diet also had the added benefit of creating more diversity in the gut microbiome—and diversity in bacteria has been associated with better health outcomes.
FODMAP is the acronym for fermentable oligosaccharides, disaccharides, monosaccharides, and polyols—small carbohydrates the body can’t digest without a robust microbial community. The diet was developed by Monash University, particularly for IBS and other digestive symptoms.
“It is a very strict elimination diet that only suppresses symptoms and does not address the root cause of the problem. Due to its nature, sustainable adherence to the diet is very hard and alerts risk for nutritional deficiencies,” said Yüsra Serdaroğlu, head of nutrition at Enbiosis Biotechnology, designers of the app, said in an email to The Epoch Times. “Professionals have already started to highlight even personalization of the low-FODMAP diet.”
The low-FODMAP diet is a medical diet for those with IBS and uses three steps aimed to correct food intolerances and alleviate symptoms such as abdominal pain, gas, and irregular bowel habits such as frequent diarrhea or constipation.
The three steps are:
Eliminating all FODMAP foods for two to six weeks
Introducing those foods back into the patient’s diet one at a time over eight to 12 weeks
Adjusting the diet to include only those foods that don’t trigger symptoms
The goal is a less restrictive diet in the long term.
Research continues to add to the credibility of a low-FODMAP approach for alleviating IBS symptoms, with a study published in April in the Lancet Gastroenterology and Hepatology comparing it with another dietary approach and medication.
In the study, 76 percent of those on the low-FODMAP diet had a reduction in symptoms compared to 71 percent on a low-carbohydrate diet, and 58 percent in the medical treatment group.
Designing an Ideal Diet
By comparison, the Enbiosis app aims to only remove foods from the diet that are identified as problematic for that person’s unique gut microbiome. It rates foods for each user based on a database that gives food microbiome modulation rankings. In other words, the food’s score is based on how well it increases specific good bacteria users are lacking.
Low-ranked foods are to be avoided, and the diet calls for eating those foods rated from four to 10. Foods from eight to 10 are particularly needed for that user. There are 300 foods scored in the app, which also includes food plans and recipes.
The first thing the app does, however, is use each person’s microbiome composition, derived from a stool sample, to assess metabolism, immunity, food intolerances, damage to the gut microbiome, and their gut-brain axis, according to Özkan Ufuk Nalbantoğlu, who has a doctorate in engineering from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and is chief technology officer of Enbiosis.
“The second capability is determining the optimal nutrient composition needed to modulate the microbiome towards healthier states,” Mr. Nalbantoğlu told The Epoch Times in an email. “These functions are achieved through machine learning algorithms and recommendation systems, respectively. Lastly, a generative AI translates these findings into practical dietary plans. As an end-to-end system, it allows for an analysis of your gut microbiome DNA and the provision of your optimal diet plan.”
Improving Bacteria and Symptoms
The study included 70 patients following Enbiosis personalized diets and 51 following the low-FODMAP approach. In addition to testing the microbiome before and after the six-week intervention, the study also evaluated symptom severity, anxiety, depression, and quality of life. It broke down results into three types of IBS—described by stool type—as IBS-C for mostly constipation, IBS-D for mostly diarrhea, and IBS-M for mixed stool type.
Only the IBS-C and IBS-D groups experienced a significant improvement in their microbiome health. There was no change in the low-FODMAP group.
Key study results, according to Ms. Serdaroğlu, were:
Positive microbiome shifts, including an increased level of Faecalibacterium prausnitzii (F. prausnitzii)
40 percent decrease in the severity of abdominal pain and distention
30 percent decrease in the frequency of abdominal pain, irregular bowel habits, and life interference
Enhanced quality of life
Reduced anxiety and depression scores
F. prausnitzii is “notable for its anti-inflammatory properties and its ability to produce short-chain fatty acids, especially butyrate, which nourishes the gut lining cells and reduces inflammation,” the study noted.
Previous research has reported that low levels of F. prausnitzii and IBS go hand-in-hand, indicating that an increase in this particular species could be one way to minimize IBS symptoms.
According to the study, F. prausnitzii is not found in any probiotic supplements, so the only way to increase the bacteria is through diet. A 2021 study in Frontiers Pharmacology noted that diets rich in certain non-digestive carbohydrates, or prebiotics, can increase F. prausnitzii. The study also noted that other research has found a kiwi-based supplement can increase F. prausnitzii.
AI Apps Growing in Popularity
Enbiosis isn’t the first to design an app to help alleviate gut symptoms and/or improve health outcomes.
Some improvements in IBS symptoms were noted in a 2021 study in the Journal of Medical Internet Research that looked at whether an app called Heali could improve adherence to the low-FODMAP diet over four weeks.
Only 25 of 58 participants recruited completed the study in which they were randomly assigned to receive either educational materials about the diet or the materials along with access to the app.
Participants recorded experiences before and after the study to determine their knowledge of the diet and adherence to it, as well as quality of life and symptom improvement. There was a small improvement in symptom severity among app users, as well as better satisfaction with bowel habits.
Another popular app called ZOE incorporates stool and other testing with food recommendations that are best suited to how users’ blood fat and blood sugar levels respond to food.
Zoe members also agree to be part of ongoing research—and a big part of that is figuring out how gut microbes contribute to or harm human health. So far ZOE has incorporated 100 microbes—50 good ones and 50 bad ones—including bacteria new to science, in its app from among data of 35,000 stool samples.
Those labeled as “bad” are associated with higher risk of cardiovascular disease, inflammation, Type 2 diabetes, and visceral or belly fat.
Are Apps for Everyone?
Nicola Moore, a nutritionist who specializes in cognitive reframing, noted on her website that apps like ZOE that include strict food logging and restrictions could be damaging, especially for anyone who’s struggled with dieting.
“If you come from a background of yo-yo dieting, restriction, a challenging relationship with food, or health anxiety, my fear with ZOE is that it could become something that causes a degree of stress and unhelpful preoccupation with food, along with feelings of shame and guilt if you’re not able to ‘do it properly,’” she wrote. “It encourages a microscope style approach to eating that may very well zap the joy out of food (and possibly life).”
There’s another reason to be concerned about the restrictive element of diets, including those in apps, according to Dr. William Davis, cardiologist, best-selling author, and founder of Infinite Health.
“All they’ve done is gone a step beyond the … FODMAPS concept to refine it a little bit,” he told The Epoch Times. “In their defense, they did show some beneficial effects in the microbiome changes.”
Dr. Davis pointed out that the technology could contribute to normalizing food intolerances, which he sees people wearing as a “badge of honor” as their diets become even more prohibitive even while symptoms expand.
While the ultimate goal of a low-FODMAP diet is to reintroduce foods that were at one point causing symptoms, that doesn’t appear to ease suffering for everyone, as a 2017 article in Gastroenterology and Hepatology pointed out.
“As a restrictive diet, the low-FODMAP diet carries risks of nutritional inadequacy and of fostering disordered eating, which has received little attention. Strict FODMAP restriction induces a potentially unfavorable gut microbiota, although the impact of this consequence upon health is unknown,” the article stated.
Eliminating foods can cause people to lose bacterial species and make it hard for them to regain them, Dr. Davis said. That could put people at risk of severe microbial imbalances and cause conditions like small intestinal bacterial overgrowth (SIBO), where “bad” bacteria proliferate in the small intestine.
More than 400 million people in the world suffer from brain diseases that cannot be treated with modern drugs (biological therapies such as antibodies) because of one major obstacle: a barrier to the brain.
For the average healthy person, the blood-brain barrier (BBB), an extra layer found on blood vessels in the brain, is what protects and defends the sensitive organ from harmful substances, germs and many other sources of potential damage.
But when it comes to treating brain cancer and neurodegenerative diseases, the blood-brain barrier is less of a protective layer and more of a hindrance to effective treatments, presenting one of the biggest medical challenges in modern medicine today.
Nanocarry Therapeutics is hoping to bring an end to this devastating situation. The Ness Ziona-based biopharmaceutical company is developing a novel class of drugs, based on their innovative nano-platform technology, which are able to increase penetration to the BBB and deliver potentially life-saving therapies to the brain.
“This platform has limitless possibilities because we can attach any antibody to it and deliver it to the brain,” Michal Roytman Haham, Chief Business Officer of Nanocarry, tells NoCamels.
With a successful non-invasive technology for traversing the blood-brain barrier, Nanocarry could ultimately extend the reach of already existing therapies to the brain – a location that was previously out of reach.
To get the process started, the company selected HER2 positive breast cancer brain metastases as the area of focus for their first drug development.
The Mayo Clinic explains HER2 positive metastatic breast cancer as a condition that tests positive for a protein called human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2), which promotes the growth of cancer cells.
Cancer cells growing on healthy tissue. Nanocarry says it can help innovations in cancer treatments include tumors that have spread to the brain (Image: Depositphotos)
Nanocarry says it chose to tackle this medical condition because there is already a highly effective treatment for HER2 metastatic breast cancer, but it is in desperate need of what the company is offering – a successful platform to deliver the drug through the BBB to provide direct treatment to the brain.
Roytman Haham says that while HER2 positive metastatic breast cancer has undergone a “really dramatic revolution” over the past two decades, primarily due to the introduction of biological therapies, this unfortunately does not include the cases that have spread to the brain, which happens in 50 percent of patients, because of the inability of these biological drugs to cross the BBB in sufficient quantities.
“The drugs that normally work very well outside the brain cannot enter the brain and therefore, the prognosis actually plummets to less than one year,” Roytman Haham tells NoCamels.
“This is exactly what we were looking for when searching for a disease where our technology can make a real difference in patients’ lives. A disease that has a systemic and brain manifestation and while the systemic disease, meaning outside the brain, is treated effectively, the brain remains unreachable,” she says.
“That leads to an extremely tragic situation where women who achieved disease control and potentially still have a life to live, lose their lives because of brain metastases.”
Roytman Haham explains that for metastatic HER2 positive breast cancer that has not metastasized to the brain, there has been transformative advancement in treatment over the past 20 years, with the introduction of biological therapy.
Known commercially as Herceptin (trastuzumab) and Perjeta (pertuzumab), these two antibodies are considered the gold standard in treating HER2 positive metastatic breast cancer patients.
With the help of Nanocarry’s BBB technology platform, Herceptin and Perjeta could penetrate the blood-brain barrier, together, to reach the brain and deliver treatment directly to the site of the tumor, potentially transforming the survival of patients with brain metastases as well.
Indeed, the US government’s National Cancer Institute says HER2 positive breast cancer that has not spread to any other organs in the body or the axillary lymph nodes has a 5-year relative survival rate of between 97.3 to 98.8 percent.
Roytman Haham stresses that Nanocarry is not the only company that targets blood-brain barrier penetration, with both invasive and noninvasive technologies already under development.
While the technologies that are invasive do disrupt the blood-brain barrier, the noninvasive technologies are based on a scientific concept called the “trojan horse,” which leverages the brain’s natural processes by targeting receptors on the BBB, enabling large molecules to enter the brain.
Nanocarry says it has innovatively combined this approach with nanoparticle technology to enhance its effectiveness. The company is using insulin as its trojan horse, attached to nano-particles that also carry multiple copies of antibodies.
The insulin binds to insulin receptors that are abundant on the BBB cells, resulting in quick internalization across the barrier and providing efficient drug delivery.
What sets Nanocarry apart from the other “trojan horse” technologies is that it is the only company able to utilize insulin as the shuttle molecule, made possible by the distinctive design of their gold nanoparticles platform. Insulin is considered to be 10 times more effective than other shuttle molecules in penetrating the blood-brain barrier and delivering treatment.
This capability holds great promise in delivering sufficient doses required for diseases such as breast cancer brain metastases.
“It remains stable, and it reaches the brain, safely delivering the drug in high amounts. So basically, we’re the only company that has been able to devise this very, very effective shuttle across the blood-brain barrier,” Roytman Haham says.
The first therapy being developed with Nanocarry’s BBB technology carries multiple copies of Herceptin and Projeta, delivering them directly to the tumor site inside of the brain.
The potentially lifesaving technology was developed over the course of a decade at the Bar Ilan University Faculty of Engineering, in the lab of Prof. Rachela Popovtzer, a world expert in nanomedicine and today Nanocarry’s chief scientific officer. And the solution was formulated by Nanocarry COO Dr. Oshra Betzer as part of her PhD and postdoctoral work.
Popovtzer and Betzer founded Nanocarry in 2021, along with its CEO and experienced biotech executive Dr. Revital Mandil Levin. Today, the three women founders run the company with their small team, also made up primarily of women.
Having successfully completed proof of concept studies in animal models, the biopharmaceutical company is now starting their studies towards receiving Investigational New Drug (IND) status by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which is granted to experimental therapies for serious or immediately life-threatening conditions that show promise in clinical testing.
With the urgent unmet needs in treatment of brain metastases in breast cancer patients, Roytman Haham explains, the FDA usually expedites the approval process for pharmaceutical companies in order to bring such life-saving treatments to market as soon as possible.
Based on the timeline for drugs that have been approved for similar life-threatening diseases, Nanocarry are confident that they will have that fast track to market. Nanocarry expects to run two clinical trials, which are estimated to begin next year, followed by the expedited FDA approval.
“Our results are truly unprecedented,” says Roytman Haham.
“We’ve shown massive brain penetration and accumulation within the tumor site and very significant tumor growth inhibition – exactly the effect these drugs achieve outside the brain.”
In its early days, Nanocarry’s main backer was the US-Israeli venture capital firm NFX. Additional firms now also provide funding, including Sapir Venture Partners and UnBox Ventures, the on-site venture studio at Bar-Ilan University. It has also received support from the Israel Innovation Authority, the branch of the government dedicated to promoting the national high-tech sector, and several private investors.
Nanocarry is focusing first on FDA approval, which it intends to follow with EU authorization, and hopes to be on the market in 2028.
If they achieve their date target, Nanocarry will have made it to market just seven years after the company’s founding. The development time of new drugs takes on average 10 to 15 years, and even longer for newer branches of medicine.
Ultimately, Nanocarry hopes to continue to develop their BBB drugs and provide more effective forms of treatment for many of the other devastating brain diseases for which treatment has proven elusive.
“Potentially, we can attach any drug and deliver it to the brain,” Roytman Haham concludes, “unlocking limitless possibilities in a wide range of central nervous system diseases, including Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, neuro-inflammatory diseases and beyond.”
Glaucoma is the second leading cause of blindness next to cataracts. (Illustration by The Epoch Times)
Affecting over 3 million Americans, glaucoma is an eye disease that can lead to vision loss or blindness caused by fluid buildup in the front of the eye.
By: Mercura Wang
Glaucoma is a group of eye diseases that can lead to vision loss or blindness by damaging the optic nerve at the back of the eye. This damage typically occurs due to increased pressure caused by fluid buildup in the front part of the eye, harming the optic nerve over time. Glaucoma ranks as the second most common cause of blindness globally (next to cataracts), affecting over 3 million Americans.
What Are the Types of Glaucoma?
There are two main categories of glaucoma: primary and secondary. Primary refers to cases where the exact cause of the condition is unknown. When other medical conditions cause glaucoma, it’s called secondary glaucoma.
Primary
Primary open-angle: Open-angle glaucoma is the most common type in the United States, comprising 90 percent of all glaucoma cases. It is characterized by damage to the optic nerve, a wide anterior chamber angle (the space between the cornea and the iris surface), and increased intraocular pressure (IOP; eye pressure) of over 21 millimeters of mercury (mmHg). This type of glaucoma is a significant cause of blindness, particularly among African Americans, where it accounts for nearly 20 percent of all cases.
Normal-tension: Normal-tension glaucoma is a form of open-angle glaucoma that occurs in people with regular eye pressure (below 21 mmHg). In the United States, between one-third and one-half of people with glaucoma have this type.
Angle-closure: Also called narrow-angle or acute glaucoma, angle-closure glaucoma is a medical emergency. It accounts for approximately 10 percent of all glaucoma cases in the United States.
The “angle” is where the iris and cornea meet at the outer edge of the anterior chamber. Angle-closure glaucoma occurs when the outer edge of the iris obstructs fluid drainage from the front of the eye, leading to rapid fluid buildup and a sudden rise in pressure. Without prompt treatment, this type of glaucoma can result in severe vision loss or blindness within a few days. Chronic angle-closure glaucoma progresses gradually and may not exhibit symptoms other than vision loss.
Primary congenital: Primary congenital glaucoma is a rare condition resulting from improper development of the aqueous drainage system before birth. It affects approximately 0.01 percent of babies born in the United States.
Secondary
Other medical conditions, such as cataracts, tumors, diabetes, eye surgery complications, and the use of certain medications can also cause the following glaucomas:
Neovascular: Neovascular glaucoma occurs when excessive blood vessel growth obstructs the eye’s drainage area, typically due to underlying medical conditions such as diabetes or high blood pressure.
Pigmentary: Pigment dispersion syndrome occurs when pigment rubs off from the back of the iris, potentially increasing eye pressure and causing pigmentary glaucoma.
Exfoliation: Exfoliation glaucoma, also known as pseudoexfoliation glaucoma, is a form of secondary open-angle glaucoma occurring in individuals with exfoliation syndrome. This syndrome leads to the accumulation of cellular material on various parts of the eye, thus obstructing fluid drainage.
Uveitic: Uveitic glaucoma is a common complication of uveitis, which causes eye swelling and inflammation. Around 20 percent of people with uveitis develop uveitic glaucoma. Experts believe inflammation and scar tissue formation in the eye’s middle region may block fluid drainage, leading to increased eye pressure, uveitic glaucoma, and eventual vision loss.
Secondary childhood: Secondary childhood glaucoma results from an eye developmental anomaly unrelated to the aqueous drainage system, a syndrome, or another eye condition.
Some individuals may have increased eye pressure without visible damage. These patients are called “glaucoma suspects” as they have an increased risk of developing glaucoma later on. Even those with normal eye pressure may be considered glaucoma suspects if their optic nerve shows unusual characteristics. However, most glaucoma suspects do not experience symptoms, underscoring the importance of regular monitoring by an ophthalmologist.
What Are the Symptoms and Early Signs of Glaucoma?
Glaucoma often begins without noticeable signs, so 50 percent of those affected are unaware of their condition. As it progresses, vision loss typically begins with peripheral vision, which may go unnoticed initially due to its slow development. Without intervention, glaucoma can lead to blindness.
The specific symptoms also vary depending on the type of glaucoma, as indicated in the following:
Primary open-angle: This type is nicknamed “the silent thief of sight” as patients often experience no symptoms until vision damage becomes significant when blind spots start developing in the side vision. The symptoms include increased IOP and tunnel vision.
Normal-tension: Patients typically don’t experience symptoms until it’s too late, which is the same for people with open-angle glaucoma (except open-angle exhibits elevated IOP). Patients may also experience bleeding in the nerve fiber layer of the optic disc.
Angle-closure: Symptoms include severe eye pain, nausea, red eye, and blurred vision. If you suddenly experience these symptoms, seek medical attention immediately.
Primary congenital: Children diagnosed with congenital glaucoma often exhibit cloudiness in their eyes, light sensitivity, abnormally high tear production, and possibly larger-than-normal eye size.
Neovascular: Symptoms include eye pain or redness and loss of vision.
Pigmentary: Individuals with pigment dispersion syndrome or pigmentary glaucoma may experience halos (rainbow-colored rings around lights) or blurred vision following activities such as jogging or playing basketball.
Exfoliation: While exfoliation glaucoma shares the same symptoms as primary open-angle, it can advance more rapidly and frequently results in increased eye pressure.
Uveitic: Uveitic glaucoma can damage the optic nerve and induce a loss of visual field. Patients with it experience symptoms of both uveitis and glaucoma, including red eyes, pain, sensitivity to light, spots in vision, and blurred vision.
What Causes Glaucoma?
In glaucoma, retinal ganglion cells and nerve fibers in the optic nerve are gradually lost. This leads to a telling appearance of the optic nerve head and progressive vision decline. The pattern of peripheral vision loss is a key feature that sets glaucoma apart from other eye conditions.
Researchers believe that glaucoma occurs when there’s too much aqueous humor, the fluid that nourishes the eye, leading to high pressure (IOP) inside the eyes.
Usually, this fluid moves like water filling a sink. The faucet (the ciliary body) produces it, and drains (drainage canals) remove it from the eye to maintain a normal fluid level. As drainage canals become clogged, the fluid doesn’t drain properly, resulting in an imbalance. When pressure becomes abnormally high, it harms the optic nerve, leading to glaucoma.
Low- or normal-tension glaucoma can occur when eye pressure is within the normal range but still too high for the optic nerve.
Certain factors put people at higher risk, including:
Age: African Americans 40 years old and above and people of all ethnicities who are 60 years old and above (particularly Hispanics) are at a higher risk of developing glaucoma. Males in their 30s are at the highest risk for pigmentary glaucoma, with the ratio of males to females ranging from 2:1 to 5:1, depending on the study.
Mouthwash containing match may prevent and treat inflammatory gum disease. Credit: (Brent Hofacker/Shutterstock)
In two studies, researchers found catechins in mouthwash containing matcha green tea powder inhibit P. gingivalis bacteria that causes periodontitis
By: Megan Redshaw, J.D.
New research suggests that using a mouthwash containing matcha, a finely ground green tea powder, may prevent and treat inflammatory gum disease.
In a report published on May 21 in Microbiology Spectrum, researchers from Japan found that matcha inhibits the growth of Porphyromonas gingivalis (P. gingivalis)—a type of bacteria known to cause periodontitis.
Periodontitis, or gum disease, is a serious infection of the oral cavity triggered by poor oral hygiene. The condition causes a sticky biofilm of anaerobic bacteria to build up on the teeth and, if left untreated, destroys the supporting tissues and bones.
In their initial study, the researchers conducted in vitro experiments to test the efficacy of a matcha solution against 16 bacterial species found in the mouth, including three strains of P. gingivalis. Within two hours of exposure to the solution, nearly all of the P. gingivalis cells were killed. At four hours, all the cells died, suggesting matcha inhibits bacterial growth and has bactericidal properties.
In a second clinical study, the same researchers divided 45 people with chronic periodontitis into three groups and gave each group either sodium azulene sulfonate hydrate, barley tea powder, or matcha powder to assess whether mouthwash solutions derived from the powders eliminated P. gingivalis in the oral cavity.
The participants prepared mouthwashes at home using specific tap water concentrations and rinsed twice daily with 10 milliliters of mouthwash for a month. After rinsing, they avoided eating and drinking for 30 minutes.
The researchers found that participants in the matcha mouthwash group had significantly lower levels of P. gingivalis in their saliva samples at the end of the study compared with the two other groups.
While the report isn’t the first to find that tea-derived compounds have antimicrobial effects on P. gingivalis, the authors said their study supports using matcha as a prevention or treatment plan for people with periodontal disease.
How Matcha Differs From Green Tea
Matcha, along with green, white oolong, and black teas, are produced from the Camellia sinensis plant. However, they differ in how they’re cultivated, processed, and prepared. For example, green tea leaves are not shielded from direct sunlight before harvesting, which results in a lighter green color and a different nutrient profile. Green tea is prepared by steeping whole leaves in hot water, which are then removed before drinking.
Matcha is derived from the same plant that is cultivated in the shade for several weeks before harvesting. This method protects the young leaves from the sun and increases the accumulation of biologically active compounds such as chlorophyll, caffeine, theanine, and catechins. The leaves are then ground into powder and infused into water.
Although matcha is lower in catechins compared with other teas derived from the same plant, once it is dissolved in water, it produces three times more catechins than loose-leaf green tea. Compared to green tea, the nutrients in matcha are more bioavailable and higher in antioxidants, caffeine, and amino acids.
Catechins May Explain Bactericidal Effects
Studies suggest catechins in matcha may explain the bactericidal effects observed by researchers. Catcheins are the main polyphenols and antioxidant agents found in the leaves of the tea plant that give it antimicrobial and other beneficial properties. The preparation methods of the plant and the differences in variety, origin, and growing conditions influence the quality and quantity of the catechins.
A new study shows a rise in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Credit: (Francisco Moreno/Unsplash.com)
By: Amie Dahnke
A new study shows a rise in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among American college students. PTSD rates increased by 4.1 percentage points, jumping from 3.4 percent in 2017-2018 to 7.5 percent in 2021-2022.
Researchers from the University of Alabama at Birmingham, who conducted the study, suggest the stark increase likely stems from a combination of events, including campus shootings, nationwide racial tensions, and the loss of loved ones during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Trauma Grips US Colleges
In the analysis, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the team examined student populations from a diverse array of 332 higher education institutions across the U.S., encompassing a broad geographic range and various institutional types. Their extensive survey captured data from nearly 400,000 college students, with females comprising a slight majority at 57.7 percent.
Over the five-year period from 2017 to 2022, the researchers also observed an increase in the prevalence of acute stress disorder (ASD) among college students. ASD prevalence rose by 0.5 percentage points, growing from 0.2 percent to 0.7 percent over the same timeframe.
Even after accounting for demographic differences among participants, statistical analysis confirmed these upward trends remained statistically significant.
“These trends highlight the escalating mental health challenges among college students, which is consistent with recent research reporting a surge in psychiatric diagnoses,” the authors wrote.
The authors warned that “PTSD and ASD can severely impair college students’ academic and social functioning.” These conditions can have far-reaching negative impacts that extend well beyond the college years. They have been linked to persistent, long-term health problems.
The wide-ranging societal repercussions of PTSD and acute stress disorder include diminished productivity in the workforce and escalating financial strains on health care systems and the broader economy, according to the study.
A 2023 annual report from the Center for Collegiate Mental Health at Pennsylvania State University suggested that nearly half of all college students seeking counseling have experienced some form of trauma. This figure represents a staggering 10 percentage point spike compared to the center’s initial 2012 report, surging from 37.5 percent to 46.8 percent.
1 in 16 Americans Grapple with PTSD in Their Lifetime
Approximately 6 percent of Americans will experience PTSD at some point in their lifetime, according to the National Center for PTSD. In 2020 alone, around 13 million Americans grappled with this disorder. Women are more susceptible, with an 8 percent likelihood of developing PTSD compared to 4 percent for men. Veterans face an even higher risk due to the traumatic nature of wartime experiences, which are a common trigger for PTSD.
The American Psychiatric Association defines it as a psychiatric disorder that can occur after an individual has experienced or witnessed a traumatic event, series of events, or set of circumstances. In the aftermath, the person may perceive the trauma as emotionally or physically harmful, or even life-threatening. When reliving the trauma, people with PTSD often experience intense, disturbing thoughts and emotions so vivid that it feels like they are re-experiencing the traumatic event all over again. Common symptoms include intrusive thoughts, avoidance behaviors, alterations in cognition and mood, and changes in arousal and reactivity.
Finding Relief
While symptoms of PTSD can occasionally subside on their own, more frequently, people require professional treatment to overcome the psychological distress caused by this disorder.
Professional treatment typically involves working with a psychiatrist or other mental health professional who can provide medication management or talk therapy approaches.
