Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on August 2, 2017

Indictment says victim, 24, hit accused in head with bottle, then accused, 21, pulled knife and killed him during Haifa party

A 21-year-old man has been indicted for stabbing another man to death during a party in the Elyakim forest in northern Israel in June.

Manslaughter charges were filed against Tiran Zazan of the Haifa suburb of Kiryat Ata, who allegedly stabbed the victim, Moshe Ashkenazi, 24, of Migdal Haemek in a quarrel over money that Mizrahi owed Zazan.

According to the indictment filed in Haifa District Court, the two men knew each other, and a few weeks earlier had begun to quarrel over money. Zazan allegedly threatened Ashkenazi on various occasions that he would hurt him if he didnt repay the debt.

The indictment states that the two ran into each other at the party, and Zazan asked Ashkenazi about the money. When Ashkenazi said he wouldnt give it to Zazan, the latter said he would not leave without it. At some point Zazan and a friend, who is a minor, moved away from Ashkenazi and began talking to each other. The indictment says Ashkenazi then ran over to the two and hit Zazan over the head with a glass bottle. Zazan was unhurt, and he and Ashkenazi began to scuffle. Zazan then allegedly pulled a knife with a blade 10 to 12 centimeters long and stabbed Ashkenazi in the stomach. Ashkenazi died before reaching the hospital.

In addition to manslaughter, Zazan is facing charges of causing grievous bodily harm and possession of a knife. His attorney, Tzion Shimon, said the case was clearly one of self-defense, maintaining that Zazan had been attacked by four men simultaneously. The minor who was with Zazan is being charged with causing grievous bodily harm and illegal possession of knife, and an arrest warrant has been issued against him.

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Young Israeli Man Charged With Lethal Stabbing at Party Over Money - Haaretz

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Posted By admin on August 2, 2017

The ability to cheaply and quickly sequence entire genomes is changing the way diseases are identified and treated. But it is also likely to change the way we make some of the most important and personal decisions of our lives: how, and with whom, we have children.

Pre-conception genetic screening (testing for carrier status before pregnancy) has usually only been available to couples already known to be at risk of a particular disease. Ashkenazi Jews, for example, are most likely to be carriers of the mutated HEXA gene linked to Tay-Sachs disease, a fatal genetic disorder. Screening for the HEXA mutation is therefore recommended for all Ashkenazi Jews planning children. Today, though, genome sequencing is more affordable and accessible than ever before. It is now (at least, technically) possible to screen everyone to find out if they are a carrier of a genetic disease.

These technological changes have triggered increased enthusiasm for carrier screening. Recently, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists recommended that carrier screening be offered to everyone, and at the very least to all pregnant women. Similarly, private companies in the UK are now offering pre-conception screening for large panels of genetic conditions, simultaneously.

It is estimated that the average person carries three to five serious genetic conditions, such as spinal muscular atrophy or cystic fibrosis, so the routine use of pre-conception screening could affect a lot of people and the way they approach relationships.

The genetic compatability of a couple is set to become an important consideration for future generations, changing the way relationships are formed. Dating apps, for example, which give users snapshot information about a potential mate, could become places where carrier status is disclosed alongside other notable physical characteristics such as hair and eye colour.

Some of these apps are already emerging one has been dubbed Tinder for Tay-Sachs. Indeed, through the Dor Yeshorim initiative, the Ashkenazi community has long operated an anonymous programme of pre-marital genetic screening for this very purpose.

Unlike an Ashkenazi Jew, who may be more prepared for the news that they are a carrier of Tay-Sachs, research shows that most people who undergo carrier screening are entirely unprepared for a positive result. As most genetic disorders screened for are considered rare, those having the screening will probably have never experienced, or even heard of, the condition they have been found to carry.

This lack of experience is significant because research shows that it makes an important difference to the way people make decisions about having a baby with that condition. For example, a recent study my colleagues and I conducted showed that people without prior experience of spinal muscular atrophy took a much dimmer view of the condition than families who live with it. They were also more likely than families with spinal muscular atrophy families to consider termination of an affected pregnancy as acceptable.

This contrast highlights that decisions about whether to introduce pre-conception screening, and which conditions it should be used for, are not as straightforward as they initially appear. What may be a liveable disability to one person, may be an intolerable experience to another. Yet pre-conception genetic screening calls on us to make this impossible judgement before that person is even conceived.

Given the wide variability and unpredictability of genetic disease, it may appear logical to avoid all forms of it as far as current technology allows, anyway. However, the emergence of groups, such as dont screen us out, which lobby against screening for Downs syndrome, highlight the difficulties that surround such blanket avoidance.

Many people can, and do, live happy and fulfilling lives with a genetic disease. Yet, once introduced on a mass scale, screening programmes can become difficult to refuse. Having a disabled child, when the technology existed to prevent it, could come to be seen as knowingly inflicting that condition on the child.

While personal choice and control are at the heart of the drive towards pre-conception screening, we also need to consider what other choices become closed off by its introduction. Neutralising the genetic gamble does not come without a cost. And, as a society, we need to carefully consider just what sacrifices we are prepared to make for it.

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Why we should be worried about gene-carrier screening - The Conversation UK

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Posted By simmons on August 2, 2017

This week, Vice President Mike Pence is visiting Montenegro. His historic visit signals a new chapter not only in bilateral relations, but also strengthen the overall trans-Atlantic alliance.

Most importantly, the visit will celebrate just how far the Montenegrin economy has come due in large part to quiet American leadership and a growing Montenegrin commitment to Western values.

When 97 senators voted on March 28 to add Montenegro to NATO, a clear message was sent across the Atlantic. Senators made clear to this young multiparty parliamentary democracy, no bigger than a congressional district, that its years of painstaking judicial, economic, and military reforms were worth it.

NATO is a military alliance. Much has been written about the Montenegrin military and the overall future of NATO. Sen. Marco Rubio alluded to the forgotten benefit of NATO enlargement in a floor speech before the vote, saying the "alliance helps advance our economic interests." The vote, CODELs beforehand and, most certainly the VP's trip all advance American economic interests.

Indeed, the Preamble of the NATO Treaty articulates that the alliance was "founded on the principles of democracy, individual liberty and the rule of law." Furthermore, Article 2 makes clear that members "will seek to eliminate conflict in their international economic policies and will encourage economic collaboration." These NATO precepts are American values and have helped transform the American economy following World War II.

According to the Heritage Foundation's 2017 Index of Economic Freedom, Montenegro ranks significantly ahead of its neighbors, Croatia and Serbia. Indeed, the journey to NATO has fostered a commitment to free market and capitalist economic principles. In just 11 years of independence and only 25 years after the bloody breakup of Yugoslavia, Montenegrin officials have discovered the ingredients to a dynamic economy. These are a robust private sector engaged in international trade with a defined, but not burdensome, regulatory and legal framework. This is what Pence has championed throughout his entire career. The vice president will find a country that appreciates the importance of a strong private sector economy.

Visitors from Washington matter. In November 2014, perhaps not coincidentally one month after the visit of Sen. Chris Murphy, the Montenegrin Parliament passed legislation to reform the judicial sector, including the establishment of a special prosecutor's office for organized crime and an anti-corruption agency.

Currently, the Montenegrin government has welcomed investors from 107 different countries. The high point of foreign direct investment, 2009, included over $1.2 billion of capital coming into this country of less than 650,000 residents. Last year, Norway remained the largest investor in private sector projects with $189M. American companies invested $5.6M in the economy in 2016.

Surely, Pence's trip will prompt additional American investment and tourist visits.

The words of Prime Minister Dusko Markovic during his June visit to Washington ring true in the days leading up to the vice president's trip, "This is a small day for the United States and its allies, but a great day for Montenegro." It was American leadership which ended two ethnic wars in the region. It will be continued American government leadership and fostering of American values which will continue this positive momentum.

In 1979, my family fled the brutality of Soviet Communism to celebrate our Jewish faith and embrace the freedoms of America. America has only grown stronger since the height of the Cold War by embracing the freedoms articulated by our Founding Fathers and the principles outlined by NATO.

So too, can Montenegro grow stronger, as it aligns with America and shuns a past defined by despotism and government bureaucracy.

Neil Emilfarb, a native of West Hartford, Connecticut, has lived and worked in Montenegro since 2006. He is CEO of Stratex Group which has developed and managed properties throughout Montenegro.

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America is helping Montenegro's democracy mature - Washington Examiner

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Posted By simmons on August 2, 2017

Welcome to August: Youre tired of the heat. A chance to walk romantically through falling leaves maybe even while wearing a sweater, of all things is beginning to sound appealing, and youve suffered too many sunburns to be coaxed back to the pool. Never fear! With great new television premieres, music and theater festivals galore, and the opening of a thrilling new museum exhibit or two, you, too, can enjoy the end of your summer. Here are 12 ways to celebrate the month:

1. Sail away with Rodgers & Hammerstein.

Lincoln Center Theaters production of The King and I went all-out, complete with sets so enchanting as to be almost alarming. Residents of Washington, D.C., who missed the productions New York run will have a chance to catch it at the Kennedy Center, where it will play through August 20. Then they, like their Manhattan fellows, can spend the next year getting Getting To Know You out of their heads.

Getty Images/Walter McBride

Harold Prince, both the subject and director of Prince of Broadway.

2. Pay homage to Broadways Prince.

Producer and director Harold Prince has won 21 Tony Awards for shows as iconic as West Side Story, Sweeney Todd and The Phantom of the Opera. Come August, selections from the 34 works hes mounted on Broadway will appear together in Prince of Broadway, a musical making its American premiere on the Great White Way. If youre a sucker for show tunes, this is the extravaganza youve been waiting for especially as it features all-new arrangements of the famous songs Prince helped bring to the stage, courtesy of Jason Robert Brown, himself a three-time Tony winner.

3. Witness an unusual world premiere.

The illustrator and writer Maria Kalman has won hearts for her inventive examinations of subjects ranging from the fictional canine poet named Max Stravinsky to a very adult experience of American democracy. At the Jacobs Pillow Dance festival, located, like Williamstown, in the Berkshires, witness the world premiere of John Heginbothams evening-length program based on Kalmans writing and art. Called The Principles of Uncertainty, the work will feature an original score by violinist and composer Colin Jacobsen of Brooklyn Rider and of the Silk Road Ensemble.

4. Unwind at Ravinia.

Ravinia, a well-loved outdoor music venue in the northern suburbs of Chicago, plays host to an eclectic music festival each summer. This August the hits include an evening of works by the ever-morbid composer Gustav Mahler back-to-back with a performance by Gladys Knight. No matter how varied your tastes, we think youll find a match.

5. Listen to Gershwin under the California sky.

The Los Angeles Philharmonics summer programming at the Hollywood Bowl is full of treats, from the dreamily conceived Gershwin Under the Stars to a guest appearance by violinist Joshua Bell, who will try his hand at Stravinsky. (No, not the dog.) An All-Mendelssohn program August 8 is also not to be missed.

Getty Images/Theo Wargo

Members of the cast of An American in Paris perform at the 2015 Tony Awards.

6. Speaking of Gershwin.

Chicagoans, get whisked off to Paris! The Broadway production of the Gershwin-heavy An American in Paris arrived in the Windy City in late July and will depart come mid-August. Dont miss a chance to see the gorgeously choreographed musical, directed by ballet wunderkind Christopher Wheeldon, and tap your foot quietly to some classic tunes. As George and Ira Gershwin would say: S wonderful! S marvelous!

7. And speaking of Joshua Bell.

Lincoln Centers Mostly Mozart Festival is an annual favorite, and Bell will appear there before heading to Hollywood, playing Brahms with cellist Steven Isserlis. Another festival highlight will be Gil Shahams take on Tchaikovskys Violin Concerto. Two Jewish violin dynamos in one month? Why not!

8. Seek the next great American playwright.

Theres a strong tradition of great American Jewish playwrights to put it lightly from Arthur Miller and Lillian Hellman to Tony Kushner and Annie Baker. Who will be next to join their ranks? Head to Williamstown, Massachusetts, where the annual Williamstown Theatre Festival often heralds great new work, to find out. The August lineup includes works by the young playwrights Halley Feiffer, represented by a new take on Anton Chekhovs Three Sisters, and Anna Ziegler, whose Actually is a contemporary take on privilege and morality.

Wikimedia Commons/Israel National Photo Collection

An image from the 1961 trial of Adolf Eichmann.

9. Experience Eichmanns trial.

It doesnt officially open until September, but if youre a member or friend of Manhattans Museum of Jewish Heritage A Living Memorial to the Holocaust, get a sneak peek at the new exhibit Operation Finale: The Capture and Trial of Adolf Eichmann in August. The immersive exhibit, which includes newly declassified artifacts never previously exhibited outside Israel, re-creates the setting of the 1961 trial of the infamous Nazi official who oversaw the deportations of European Jews to concentration camps.

10. Engage in the religious life of early America.

Before rounding the corner into the High Holidays, visit Washington, D.C.s National Museum of American History as it plays host to an exhibit on the religious life of the early United States. Jews were a tiny minority in the new country, but far from invisible; one of the objects in the exhibit will be a Torah scroll from Manhattans Spanish-Portuguese Congregation Shearith Israel, founded in 1654.

11. Head back to camp with old friends.

Wet Hot American Summer, a classic early-2000s send-up of summer camp, received an unexpectedly delightful reboot in the 2015 Netflix series Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp. Come August 4, the old gang, including Paul Rudds arrogant man-child, Elizabeth Bankss high-powered if ethically conflicted journalist, and Michael Showalters unlucky-in-love-and-hairstyles Coop, returns in Wet Hot American Summer: Ten Years Later. Expect a talking can, deadpan humor and bad make-outs, and to laugh until you cry.

12. And get high with Abbi and Ilana.

Craving 80s hairstyles, frank discussions of masturbation, merciless ridiculing of SoulCycle, screams of Yass and a genuinely enormous amount of marijuana? Hurray for you: Broad City is coming back. Follow the cringey-comedic exploits of aimless New York 20-somethings Abbi and Ilana when they return to Comedy Central on August 23.

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12 Things To Do In August That Will Make You Just A Little More Jewish - Forward

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Posted By simmons on August 2, 2017

According to a post on YouTubes official blog, videos will now be subject to the rule of the mob. If enough users flag a video as hate speech or violent extremism, YouTube may impose restrictions on the content even if it breaks none of the platforms rules.

Well soon be applying tougher treatment to videos that arent illegal but have been flagged by users as potential violations of our policies on hate speech and violent extremism. If we find that these videos dont violate our policies but contain controversial religious or supremacist content, they will be placed in a limited state. The videos will remain on YouTube behind an interstitial, wont be recommended, wont be monetized, and wont have key features including comments, suggested videos, and likes.

YouTubehas also rolled out a trusted flagger program, in which 15 expert NGOs and institutions to help them identify hate speech and extremism on their platform.

Among these organizations are the No Hate Speech Movement, a left-wing project pushed by the Council of Europe, as well as the Anti-Defamation League, an organization whose presidenthas been accused of manufacturing outrage by the World Jewish Congress.

YouTube is also planning to artificially alter its search results so that searches for sensitive topics on YouTube no longer return the most popular videos, but a playlist of curated YouTube videos that directly confront and debunk violent extremist messages.

The platform also plans to artificially promote videos created via its Creators for Change program, which, in YouTubes words, features creators who are using their voices and creativity to speak out against hate speech, xenophobia and extremism.

Weve started rolling out features from Jigsaws Redirect Method to YouTube. When people search for sensitive keywords on YouTube, they will be redirected towards a playlist of curated YouTube videos that directly confront and debunk violent extremist messages. We also continue to amplify YouTube voices speaking out against hate and radicalization through our YouTube Creators for Change program. Just last week, the U.K. chapter of Creators for Change, Internet Citizens, hosted a two-day workshop for 13-18 year-olds to help them find a positive sense of belonging online and learn skills on how to participate safely and responsibly on the internet.

YouTube framed its blog post around fighting terror content, yet their announcement also strays into areas that have nothing to do with fighting terrorism, like the companys diversity efforts. The blog post boasts about YouTubes involvement with the Creators for Change workshop in which creators teamed up with Indonesias Maarif Institute to teach young people about the importance of diversity, pluralism, and tolerance.

A final note: YouTubes Creators for Change program is filled with progressives who, in YouTubes words, are tackling social issues and promoting awareness, tolerance and empathy on their YouTube channels. YetLaci Green,MTVs famous feminist sex educator, one of Time Magazines 30 most influential people on the internet, and one of the most successful feministson YouTube is nowhere to be found.

Really makes you think!

You can followAllum Bokhari on Twitter,Gab.aiandadd him on Facebook.Email tips and suggestions toabokhari@breitbart.com.

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Posted By admin on July 31, 2017

Although the Torah is wonderfully rich in its narratives, poetry, and laws, it is inadequate as a law code. For example, Deuteronomy decrees that if a man divorces his wife and she remarries and the second marriage ends in divorce or death of the husband, the first husband is forbidden to remarry her (24:1-4), but nowhere does the Torah clearly define how the divorce is to be effected or what is to be written in a bill of divorcement.

Nevertheless, Jews sought to determine from the Torah all of the details of a complete legal system. As tradition describes it, from the time of the very giving of the written Torah, Moses already had received a companion Torah shebal peh (oral Torah), which he proceeded to teach to the people of Israel during their travels in the desert. It is clear that from the very beginning, Jews needed additional authoritative law, or halakhah (going, or path), to govern regular life. These halakhot (plural) were passed on through the generations, and during the period of the Second Temple (fifth century BCE-first century C.E.), halakhot, both those developed through custom and those derived from interpretation of the Torah, were collected and transmitted. Following the destruction of the Temple in 70 C.E., the earliest rabbis gathered and transmitted the laws learned from earlier sages.

During the first two centuries, the rabbis apparently worked out how, as an educated leadership, they were to transmit and develop new law through agreed upon rules of interpretation. Much of our understanding of this period comes from later texts which were not intended as histories and which probably should not be relied upon for history. Nevertheless, it is clear that by the close of the second century, the rabbis had agreed on enough of the basics that their various opinions could be compiled and compared to each other. At this point, around the year 200 C.E., Rabbi Judah the Patriarch, used his unique position as a leader of the Jewish people who actually got along with the Romans to publish the first major Jewish work following the Bible, a study book of rabbinic law called the Mishnah (literally, teaching or repeating).

The Mishnah defined the basic contours for later discussion of Jewish law. The name, which means repeating, reflects that the book was designed for oral transmission and memorization, as a rabbi would repeat each tradition for his student. But the orality of the Mishnah is not just a matter of its form; the content is composed almost entirely of the statements of different rabbis, juxtaposed against and in conversation with the varying opinions of other rabbis. From the Mishnah onward, all of the literature of the Torah shebal peh is more than just oral Torah; in fact, a more descriptive translation of the term might be conversational Torah, because it is the conversation and the interaction of different ideas that defines the essence of what eventually became known as the Talmud (study).

During the three or four centuries following the Mishnahs publication, the rabbinic sages whose work was eventually compiled in the documents which we call Talmud, analyzed each halakhah in the Mishnah. They compared the various statements of a rabbi to determine how his different positions could be seen as parts of a consistent legal theory. They harmonized the opinions in the Mishnah to other early opinions that were not included in the Mishnah. They tried to show the relationship between the various opinions in the Mishnah to their presumed derivations from Scripture.

Everywhere and throughout the Talmud, the rabbis worked with several basic assumptions. Given a controversy between two early sages, the goal was not to determine according to whom was the practical law; the goals was to make sense of each opinion. This underlying assumption that opinions are not simply fickle choices but the rational decisions of sages confronting differing ways of describing legal reality, is the hallmark of the Talmudic process. The rabbis expressed this concept succinctly: both these and those are the words of the living God or, as it may also be translated, both these and those are the living words of God.

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About Talmud | My Jewish Learning

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Posted By admin on July 31, 2017

After years of study, Sacramentos Jewish Community has two reasons to celebrate

The Jewish community of Sacramento gathered together Thursday to celebrate the culmination of learning.

Five years ago,Rick Brodovsky, a Sacramento, California native, was at a crossroads. Confronted with difficult decisions and an unclear future, Brodovsky turned to his local Chabad rabbi for advice.

What does G-d want from me? he asked.

Considering the situation, Rabbi Mendy Cohen, director of Chabad of Sacramento, suggested that they begin to study Torah together. Rick agreed, and soon his Wednesday Chumash lessons with Rabbi Cohen became an integral part of his week.

After completing all five books of the Chumash, the two werent satisfied. They wanted more. They turned their sights to the Tanach, which is composed of the twenty four books that make up the Jewish Bible, and after five years, they completed the entire selection.

The exercise, offers Brodovsky, was impactful. I now have a deep and reliable relationship with G-d. He finds he worries less. I keep studying Torah. It keeps me strong.

The process also taught Brodovsky valuable skills. I needed the fundamental understanding that comes from learning the whole Tanach. Now, I can read the Talmud with other interpretations and gain even deeper insights.

An experienced teacher with years of Torah study under his belt, Rabbi Cohen acknowledges that learning with Rick has also had a deep impact on myself. It has made me better able to understand Talmudic and Chasidic concepts.

On Thursday, July 26, the Sacramento Jewish community celebrated two cycles of Torah study. The first was for the Tanach completed by the rabbi and Brodovsky, and the second commemorated the completion of all 2,711 pages of the Babylonian Talmud by Rabbi Cohen and his fellow community members.

For seven years, every Sunday through Thursday, Rabbi Cohen taught a Talmud class at the Chabad House. Longtime Sacramento resident Harry Weiss, who Rabbi Cohen calls the backbone of the course, attended the classes every day without fail.

It was a pleasure learning with Rabbi Cohen, Weiss reflects. He really prepared for each class and brought the pages to light.

The event, sponsored in loving memory of Yitzchak Chaim ben Chana, was celebrated with due pomp: a guest speaker was flown in from Israel, the Kehot Publication Society printed a book in honor of the event (Of Tears and Laughter, an exegesis adapted from talks of the Lubavitcher Rebbe after he concluded two Talmudic tractates), and several California state representatives have come together to declare July 29, 2017 Talmud Day, calling it a day to be utilized by educators, clergy and civic leaders to highlight and emphasize the G-d given innate rights endowed to each and every human being. In addition, certificates of achievement from the congressmen were presented to both Rabbi Cohen and Mr. Brodovsky.

Both Rabbi Cohen and Brodovsky are excited to share their journey. Were publicizing this story of our studying with the hopes that it will inspire others to be excited about learning Torah, Cohen says.

For more information about Chabad of Sacramento, visit http://www.sacjewishlife.org.

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Talmud Day Commemorates Years of Learning in Sacramento - Lubavitch.com

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Posted By simmons on July 31, 2017

For the first time in the history of the country, a sitting Israeli prime minister paid a diplomatic visit to the Hungarian capital of Budapest.

Last Thursday, Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu met the heads of Hungarys Jewish community, noting that he sees it as the duty of the Israeli government to protect every Jew in the world and to ensure that Jews can live freely, without religious oppression.

During the meeting, Chabad emissary to Hungary Rabbi Shlomo Koves, gave a powerful speech. I grew up as a 'Hungarian child' to parents who received a purely communist education, who thought that Judaism was a thing of the past, he shared. Now, Hungarys 100,000+ Jews are serviced by seven Chabad houses and 28 Chabad emissaries.

Koves presented netanyahu with a copy of the Hungarian Talmud, which was recently published weeks after a decade of work by Hungarys chief Chabad emissary, Rabbi Boruch Oberlander.

For the first time in the history of the country, a sitting Israeli prime minister paid a diplomatic visit to the Hungarian capital of Budapest.

Last Thursday, Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu met the heads of Hungarys Jewish community, noting that he sees it as the duty of the Israeli government to protect every Jew in the world and to ensure that Jews can live freely, without religious oppression.

During the meeting, Chabad emissary to Hungary Rabbi Shlomo Koves, gave a powerful speech. I grew up as a 'Hungarian child' to parents who received a purely communist education, who thought that Judaism was a thing of the past, he shared. Now, Hungarys 100,000+ Jews are serviced by seven Chabad houses and 28 Chabad emissaries.

Koves presented netanyahu with a copy of the Hungarian Talmud, which was recently published weeks after a decade of work by Hungarys chief Chabad emissary, Rabbi Boruch Oberlander.

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Hungary Emissary Presents Netanyahu With Translated Talmud - Lubavitch.com

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Posted By admin on July 31, 2017

Published on: July 31, 2017 | Last Updated: July 31, 2017 5:08 PM MDT

Edmonton police are investigating after fire damaged a recycling bin outside of Talmud Torah School on Saturday in Edmonton, as seen on Sunday, July 16, 2017. Ian Kucerak / Postmedia

Edmonton police have arrested two suspects after a series of arsons in Callingwood.

Southwest division detectives began investigating after a fire was reported at Talmud Torah School at 6320 172 St. on July 15.

Surveillance footage captured male suspects lighting fires in dumpsters and garbage cans behind a condominium unit, near a baseball diamond, in a dog park and three incidents at Talmud Torah School.

Detectives believed those male suspects could be connected to nine suspected arsons that occurred within blocks of each other between July 15 and 26.

Investigators arrested two suspects in connection to the investigation, including one youth.

Additional details were expected to be made public Tuesday.

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Edmonton police make arrests in Callingwood arson spree investigation - Edmonton Journal

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Posted By richards on July 31, 2017

Tisha BAv, the fast day that commemorates the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE, comes this year at a particularly fraught moment for the Jewish people. The only surviving architectural element of the Temple, its western restraining wall, has become a site of contention both between different religious movements and between world Jewry and the Israeli government. At such moments, there is a strong temptation to appeal, as the U.S. ambassador to Israel recently did, to the idea of Jewish unitythat nobody ever has to win if we all work together and respect one another.

An appeal to solidarity has particular power on Tisha BAv, a day that is often connected, at least in the American Jewish imagination, to the sin of sinat hinamsenseless hatred. The tradition of connecting the destruction of the Temple with needless enmity between Jews has an ancient pedigree. In the Babylonion Talmud (Yoma 9b), the rabbis suggest that the Second Temple was destroyed due to senseless hatred, and elsewhere (Gittin 56a) they provide an example of that hatred through a story of two rivals whose discord led, indirectly, to the Roman invasion: The story of Kamsa and Bar Kamsaa friend of Kamsas hates Bar Kamsa, and insults him to the point where he turns to the Romanshas a neat pedagogical clarity, which partially explains why contemporary Jews turn to it again and again in their sermons, school lessons, and camp activities.

Its not clear, however, that this focus on sinat hinam takes the right political lessons from the story of Tisha BAv. A closer look at that same Talmudic passage suggests that the lesson of Tisha BAv is not about mending divisions within the Jewish community. Its about the danger of failing to stand up for a set of valueseven at the cost of intracommunity strife.

The very next paragraphs in the Talmud recount the rabbinic reaction to Bar Kamsas actions: The sages thought to kill [Bar Kamsa] so that he would not go and speak [to the Romans], but ultimately they did nothing. Rabbi Yochanan (other versions say Rabbi Yossi) says it was this act of humility that destroyed our temple, burned our sanctuary, and exiled us from our land. The Talmud is not shy in assigning blame for the destruction: It happens because of the unwillingness, or inability, of the rabbis to challenge the actions of their fellow Jews.

The Babylonian Talmud was redacted some 500 years after the events described in this story, but the outlines of the rabbinic account agree in large part with the version of events related by Flavius Josephus, who was present outside the walls of the city on the 9th of Av. Despite his later reputation as a Jewish quisling, Josephus was and remains the most reliable witness to the siege and loss of Jerusalem. The heroes, in Josephuss story, are the leaders who take a stand against those whom Josephus calls the so-called Zealots (he prefers to use the Greek word lestes, meaning thug or pirate).

One of the turning points in Josephuss narrative is the stirring speech one such leader, the High Priest Ananus, makes against the Zealots. O bitter tyranny that we are under! But why do I complain of the tyrants? Was it not you [the people of Jerusalem], and your sufferance of [the Zealots], that have nourished them? The actions Ananus describes the Zealots as committingthe forceful monopoly over the sacred spaces of Jerusalem, the pillaging of houses and the wanton destruction of propertyhave a distinctly modern ring, as does the striking language Josephus chooses to use for the two parties. The Zealots are tyrants, and what is at stake, Ananus argues, is nothing less than the political liberty of the Jewish people.

Josephus later describes Ananus as equal-minded, freedom-loving, and a pursuer of democracy. Of course, these words didnt mean exactly the same thing to Josephus that they do in modern usage, but they ring clearly enough to give the contemporary reader pause. Even more alarming is a verdict Josephus delivers twice: It was the defeat of Ananus and his party that doomed the city. The victory of zealotry over equal respect (Greek: isotimia) and tyranny over democracy was not, in Josephuss opinion, inevitable. Nor was it the outcome of unhealthy rancor or an excess of ill feeling. It was not even due to the external pressure of Roman imperialism. It was a question of Jewish politics. While Ananus defended democracy, the idea of a government that works in the interest of all, there was hope. But once the self-interested and reckless politics of the Zealots prevailed, the destruction of Jerusalem could not be prevented.

The historical lesson of the destruction of the Jewish commonwealth, as evidenced by Josephus and the Rabbis, is not about the value of Jewish unity but about its limitations. Whatever the merits of Jewish unity, it should not come at the expense of addressing the real issues that divide our community. Nor should it be given priority over the security and well-being of the Jewish people. This is the thrust of Josephus and the Rabbis warning that ceding power to those in the community who are unconcerned with the political consequences of their theological or ideological commitments can end in catastrophe.

Of course, political unity can be valuable at times. This is particularly true in times of crisis, when Jews from across political and religious divides come together to pursue shared interests or goals, as was the case in response to the Damascus Blood Libel in 1840perhaps the first instance of international Jewish collective actionand the reaction to the plight of Soviet Jewry in the 1960s and 70s, to name two prominent examples. While solidarity may at times be useful as a means for furthering certain shared goals, it is another thing entirely to consider it as an end unto itself. Jewish unity is most necessary when the threat is external to the community, but the appeal to unity when the threat is internalas it was in the case of the Zealotsis not only misguided and irresponsible; it is fraught with danger.

The appeal to Jewish unity is often made by those who would seek to silence dissenting voices within our community. But history teaches us that such efforts are inherently self-defeating, since attempts to impose political conformity upon a community, far from creating consensus and harmony, tend to backfire. Moreover, the enforcers of unity ignore the fact of political and religious pluralism within the Jewish community. Jews are and have always been deeply divided around issues of politics and religion, and not for no reason. Jewish history, and particularly the history we commemorate on Tisha BAv, is the history of competing factions struggling, sometimes violently, to shape the identity and future of the Jewish people. The appeal to Jewish unity, therefore, often entails a nostalgic longing for an imagined past of religious and political homogeneity. But that past is a historical fabrication, one easily employed in the service of ideological ends.

The lesson of Tisha BAv may not point to the value of unity but to its perils. The fast reminds us what happens when the forces that stand against political freedom and equal respect are appeased rather than defeated. When unity trumps sensibility, the consequences may be disastrous.

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Jacob Abolafia is a PhD Candidate in Political Theory at Harvard. Yoav Schaefer studies Jewish Philosophy at Tel Aviv University.

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