Yehuda Lave is an author, journalist, psychologist, rabbi, spiritual
teacher, and coach, with degrees in business, psychology and Jewish Law.
He works with people from all walks of life and helps them in their
search for greater happiness, meaning, business advice on saving money,
and spiritual engagement.
The
Three are Rabbi Yehuda Glick, famous temple mount activist, and
former Israel Mk, and then Robert Weinger, the world's greatest shofar
blower and seller of Shofars, and myself after we had gone to the 12
gates of the Temple Mount in 2020 to blow the shofar to ask G-d to heal
the world from the Pandemic. It was a highlight to my experience in
living in Israel and I put it on my blog each day to remember.
The articles that I include each day are those that I find
interesting, so I feel you will find them interesting as well. I don't
always agree with all the points of each article but found them
interesting or important to share with you, my readers, and friends. It
is cathartic for me to share my thoughts and frustrations with you about
life in general and in Israel. As a Rabbi, I try to teach and share the
Torah of the G-d of Israel as a modern Orthodox Rabbi. I never intend
to offend anyone but sometimes people are offended and I apologize in
advance for any mistakes. The most important psychological principle
I have learned is that once someone's mind is made up, they don't want
to be bothered with the facts, so, like Rabbi Akiva, I drip water (Torah
is compared to water) on their made-up minds and hope that some of what
I have share sinks in. Love Rabbi Yehuda Lave.
Police chief: Slain police who killed Hadera terrorists prevented mass casualties
Members of the Zaka volunteer organization at the scene of the shooting attack in Hadera, March 27, 2022. (Flash90)
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“They planned a much larger
killing spree and planned to murder everyone who crossed their path,”
Police Chief Kobi Shabtai said.
By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News
Police chief Kobi Shabtai credited the off-duty border policemen who
killed two terrorists with preventing a mass casualty event.
Several border police officers were in the vicinity of the bus stop that was the target of terrorist cousins
Ibrahim and Ayman Aghbaria, Israeli-Arabs from Umm Al-Fahm. Two
19-year-old off-duty officers, Corporals Yazan Falah and Shirel Abu
Karat, were shot as they ran towards the gunfire. Critically injured, they died soon after. Twelve victims were wounded in the attack, some seriously.
Another three officers, members of an undercover unit, were eating
nearby and sprinted to the scene. One of them told Channel 12 what
happened.
“Two of my men engaged two terrorists,” he said, with his back
strategically turned to the camera. “I got there a fraction of a second
later and saw a terrorist in front of me with a ceramic vest and three
magazines, holding an M-16 and firing in the direction of the fighters. I
neutralized him.
“At the same time my men were firing at a different angle…. I
realized there was another terrorist hiding behind a car, one of the men
caught some bullets and fell…. I identified the terrorist, shot and
neutralized him.”
Four border policemen were injured in the attack in total. Shabtai
visited them at Hillel Yafeh Hospital after ordering forces to carry out
security sweeps in the region and set up roadblocks, as well as to
bring in extra officers to increase the police presence in city centers,
Channel 12 reported.
You did the maximum that can be expected of
someone in such a situation, which is a matter of seconds,” Shabtai
told one of the injured.
Bemoaning the “heavy price” of losing two fighters, he told another, “The two came with such an amount of ammunition
that if they had not been taken down at that moment, we would have
woken up to a different morning in the number of those murdered. They
planned a much larger killing spree and planned to murder everyone who
crossed their path.”
Israelis Discover How Chemotherpy Can Actually Spread Cancer
In
some patients, cancer breaks out more aggressively after chemo, even in
cases where it successfully shrinks the initial tumor.
The article was chosen as the cover story in Cancer Research.
Prof. Yuval Shaked and doctoral student Jozafina Haj-Shomaly, who led the study, emphasized that existing cancer treatments are highly effective and in many cases save lives.
However, in some patients, the disease breaks out more aggressively
after chemo, even in cases where it successfully shrinks the initial
tumor.
The researchers focused on the development of metastases in lung
tissue following chemotherapy for breast cancer. About 30 percent of
patients treated conventionally for early-stage breast cancer develop
metastases within a few months or years as cancer cells travel via the
lymphatic system to organs such as the lungs, liver and bones.
Shaked’s research group discovered in previous studies that LOX, a
common enzyme that affects tissue configuration, makes lung tissue more
hospitable to cancer cells. Inhibiting the activity of LOX significantly
reduces the ability of cancer cells to attach to lung tissue.
The current study found that in response to chemotherapy, high amounts of LOX are secreted from specific immune system T cells.
“Following the changes that the T cells and the LOX enzyme cause in
this medium, it begins to help the cancer cells grow, survive, move,
divide and cling to each other,” said Shaked.
“Moreover, it can block the entry of normal immune cells and even anti-cancer drugs into the malignant region.”
Although the study was conducted in a breast cancer model in mice
using the chemo drug Paclitixel, the researchers assume their findings
will be relevant to other drugs and cancers.
“We were surprised to find that the mechanisms of action we
discovered, which encourage the development of cancerous metastases, are
activated not only in response to surgeries as previously found, but
also in response to chemotherapy and other drugs that we are currently
investigating,” said Haj-Shomaly.
“Our achievement – the detection of the mechanism that causes a
structural change in health by the immune system – may enable the
development of combined drugs and treatments that prevent this
phenomenon and reduce the chances of developing metastases,” said
Shaked.
The study was supported by the U.S.-Israel Binational Science
Foundation, European Research Council and Israel Science Foundation.
On the coldest day of the year before the fast of Esther (the next day) the Three Musketeers "Storm" (as the Muslims say anyone who goes up to the Temple Mount).
This was our Pre Passover Al Haregel (we are obligated to go to the Temple Mount three times a year on the Hagim) and we showed a friend from Texas his first experience. Coming home the sky was so clear after our hail and light snow that we see the mountains of Jordon from our rooftop. The ides of March 2022
Roman boat that sank in Mediterranean 1,700 years ago gives up its treasures
Finds from fourth-century wreck ‘perfectly preserved’ just 2m below the surface off one of Mallorca’s busiest beaches
One squally day or stormy night about 1,700 years ago, a boat carrying hundreds of amphorae of wine, olives, oil and garum – the fermented fish sauce that so delighted the ancient palate – came to grief during a stopover in Mallorca.
The merchant vessel, probably at anchor in the Bay of Palma while en route from south-west Spain to Italy, was quickly swallowed by the waves and buried in the sands of the shallow seabed.
Until
last month, its miraculously preserved treasures had lain untouched,
despite sitting just 2 metres beneath the bellies of the countless
tourists who swim off one of the busiest beaches in the Balearics.
Now,
however, the boat – known as the Ses Fontanelles wreck – is giving up
its archaeological, historical and gastronomic secrets. A recovery
operation overseen by the island’s governing body, the Consell de
Mallorca, and involving experts from three Spanish universities in the
Balearics, Barcelona and Cádiz, has retrieved about 300 amphorae as well
as other objects that offer priceless insights into the Mediterranean
of the fourth century AD and the crew’s daily lives.
In addition to the clay jars – which still bear their painted inscriptions or tituli picti – archaeologists
have found a leather shoe, a rope shoe, a cooking pot, an oil lamp and
only the fourth Roman carpenter’s drill recovered from the region.
The boat, which is
12 metres long and between 5 and 6 metres wide, emerged three years ago
after a summer storm churned up the waters of the bay. Its appearance
confirmed anecdotal reports from divers dating back to the 1950s, and
prompted the Consell de Mallorca to take action.
After
running an emergency intervention, the consell put together a team of
archaeologists and marine experts to undertake the three-year
Arqueomallornauta project.
“The aim is to
preserve everything there and all the information it contains, and that
couldn’t be done in a single emergency intervention,” says Jaume
Cardell, the consell’s head of archaeology.
“That’s
where the project Arqueomallornauta comes in: it’s about recovering and
preserving both the wreck and its historical cargo. This isn’t just
about Mallorca; in the whole western Mediterranean, there are very few
wrecks with such a singular cargo.”
Although
the team is now looking at how best to recover the hull of the wreck,
which lies just 50 metres off the beach, those who brought up the cargo
in an operation that ran from November 2021 to mid-February are still a
little breathless over what they have found.
None
of the team had expected the sands of the bay to have done such a
spectacular job of sealing the wreck off from oxygen and preserving its
organic materials.
“Things have been so
perfectly preserved that we have found bits of textile, a leather shoe
and an espadrille,” says Dr Miguel Ángel Cau, an archaeologist at the
University of Barcelona.
“The most
surprising thing about the boat is just how well preserved it is – even
the wood of the hull … It’s wood that you can knock – like it’s from
yesterday.”
The team, who established that the
boat set sail from Spain’s Cartagena region by analysing the minerals
in the amphorae’s clay, say it is hard to overstate the significance of
the find.
“It’s important in terms of naval
architecture because there are very few ancient boats that are as well
preserved as this one,” says Dr Darío Bernal-Casasola, an archaeologist
at the University of Cádiz. “There are no complete Roman boats in
Spain.”
What’s more, he adds, the amphorae
represent an improbable subaquatic archaeological hat-trick: “It’s
incredibly difficult – almost impossible – to find whole amphorae that
bear inscriptions, and also still have the remains of their contents.
The state of conservation here is just amazing. And you have got all
this in just 2 metres of water where millions of people have swum.”
For
Enrique García Riaza, a historian at the University of the Balearic
Islands, the wreck highlights the commercial and strategic importance of
the Balearic archipelago during the Roman empire.
“The
islands weren’t cut off – on the contrary, they were a fundamental
staging post on routes from the Iberian peninsula and the Italic
peninsula,” he says. “In Roman times, the cities of the Balearic
archipelago had political elites who were also very well connected to
the main Roman cities of the Mediterranean coast, such as Cartagena and
Tarragona.”
The team has found no trace of the
boat’s crew apart from their belongings, suggesting perhaps they made
it to the shore or were swept away from the wreck by the waves. What
they left behind, however, is intriguing.
Cau
points to the oil lamp, which bears an obviously pagan symbol of the
moon goddess Diana, and to the Christian signs that appear on the seals
of some of the amphorae.
“The crew were
probably pagan, but some of the merchandise they were carrying has
Christian symbols,” he says. “You have to be careful about how you
interpret that – that cargo could have been from an ecclesiastical
authority – but you have that coexistence between the pagan and the
Christian.
“That may tell us a bit about the
daily lives for the crew. They might have said, ‘Look, I’m a sailor and I
believe what I believe, but if you want me to carry a Christian cargo,
I’m OK with that if the money’s good.’”
With the recovery phase complete and the cataloguing under way, thoughts are now turning to putting the entire find on show.
“The
idea is to recover the hull, and we are in touch with both national and
international experts to make sure it’s properly recovered,” says
Cardell.
“The boat needs to be exhibited and
people need to see it. At the end of the day, we do archaeology for
everyone and not just for the scientists.”
A
few weeks after the wreck’s cargo was touched by human hands for the
first time in almost two millennia, the archaeologists remain buoyant.
“This
is one of those finds when you are just laughing all the time because
you can’t believe it,” says Cau. “This is the sort of thing that happens
to you once in an academic lifetime. We will never find anything like
this again and that’s what makes it so special.”