CT Scan Shows Pharaoh Was Circumcised By David Israel and Freedom of Religion Shouldn’t Have Borders’: Knesset Monitoring Discrimination Against Jews on Temple Mount and Do the Appalachian Mountains go to England? and Which ocean is the deepest? and 18 noteworthy Jews who died in 2021 and my Friend Yoseph Hasson just passed in 2022
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.
It is with a heavy heart that I mention the passing of a long time personal friend of mine, Yosef David Hasson. He began his studies with Rabbi Wilhelm there and eventually followed Shalom Pasternak to Tzfat in Israel. In the wheat-growing season, he would travel to Arizona to watch the wheat for Passover harvest. He looked after his daughters as they married and grew in spread-out cities. He was a man of faith that walked the talk and improved his Torah learning throughout his life.
He passed away in his sleep. Baruch dayan meet.
The Three Musketeers at the Kotel
18 noteworthy Jews who died in 2021
Each year brings the loss of Jewish icons who leave behind outsized legacies in fields such as art and culture, government, and philanthropy. Here are some of this year's greats
Clockwise, from top left: Jessica Walter, Ed Asner, Sylvia Weinstock, George Segal, Norton Juster, Joan Micklin Silver and Larry King. (Getty Images/via JTA)
JTA — Every year brings the deaths of Jewish icons who leave behind outsized legacies, from the realms of art and culture, government, business, philanthropy and beyond.
Here are 18 whom we lost in 2021 — none from COVID — presented in alphabetical order.
Few people have exerted as significant an influence on American and Israeli politics as Sheldon Adelson, the billionaire casino magnate who gave lavishly to Republican candidates and Israeli causes.
The founder and CEO of the Las Vegas Sands Corporation and one of the world's richest men, Adelson regularly set records for his donations. At $25 million, he was the largest donor to Donald Trump's successful 2016 presidential bid and the biggest giver in the 2012 American election cycle, at nearly $93 million. He was also a leading supporter of Birthright Israel, the Republican Jewish Coalition, the Zionist Organization of America, the Republican Jewish Coalition and the Israel American Council.
He had previously been a top AIPAC supporter, but cut off support more than a decade ago in favor of more conservative pro-Israel groups. He was also a principal backer of former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He died in January at 87.
Las Vegas Sands Corporation Chief Executive and Republican mega-donor Sheldon Adelson, stands as he is recognized by US President Donald Trump during a Medal of Freedom ceremony in the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC, on November 16, 2018. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
Ed Asner was an established character actor when he signed on to play the gruff TV station boss in "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" in 1970. He would go on to win an Emmy Award for his work on the sitcom, and another for playing the same character on a spinoff, becoming the only actor to win Emmys for playing the same character on two shows. Born to Jewish immigrant parents in Kansas City, Asner never shied from his Jewish roots, touring the country playing a Holocaust survivor in "The Soap Myth," a run interrupted only by the coronavirus pandemic. He died in August at 91.
ADVERTISEMENT Actor Ed Asner arrives during the 82nd Academy Awards in the Hollywood section of Los Angeles, on March 7, 2010. (AP Photo/ Matt Sayles, File)
Sheila Bromberg turned up at the famed Abbey Road studio on a winter's evening in 1967 because the in-demand harpist needed the cash as a single mom living in London. Her first clue that she was about to make history was a man with a Liverpool accent asking her, "What you got on the dots?" Paul McCartney was asking her to play the sheet music to "She's Leaving Home." The gig, earning Bromberg about the equivalent of $190 in today's money, made her the first woman to perform on a Beatles track. She had a stellar career, recording with artists such as Frank Sinatra and the Bee Gees, and she did not want to be famous only for the Beatles milestone — but she eventually grew into it. "It does feel a bit good," she said in 2011. She died in August at 92.
Sheila Bromberg (right) shares a laugh with Ringo Starr on a BBC talk show in May 2011. (YouTube/Screenshot)
Helene Fortunoff became a powerful player in the jewelry industry long before many women had even entered the workplace. She helped turn her husband's housewares business into a major player, which at its height operated six retail stores specializing in high-end giftware, including its flagship location on New York City's Fifth Avenue. She was also a frequent donor to Jewish causes. Fortunoff died in November at 88 in Miami Beach.
Undated image of Helene Fortunoff (left) with Lauren Bacall and Liz Smith at an event in New York City. (Randy Brooke/ WireImage via JTA)
Flory Jagoda
Flory Jagoda's "Ocho Kandelikas," a Ladino Hanukkah song, has become a holiday favorite widely covered by other artists. But it wasn't written until 1983, when Jagoda was 60 years old. The Sarajevo-born singer-songwriter gained wide acclaim for her efforts to preserve Sephardic Jewish culture and Ladino music, winning a prestigious National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts in 2002. She died in January at 97.
"The Phantom Tollbooth," one of the most beloved children's books of all time, was written by a Jewish architect who fell in love with wordplay through Yiddish novels. Norton Juster said that his parents, Jewish immigrants from Romania and Poland, had multiple shelves of thousand-page novels and other tomes translated from Yiddish and Russian. "I just loved the language and the way the words sounded," he said. He died in March at 91.
Norton Juster at home in Massachusetts. (Bill Greene/The Boston Globe via Getty Images via JTA)
Television talk show legend Larry King was nearly as famous for the 50,000 interviews he claimed to have conducted in his career as he was for his romantic history, marrying eight times to seven women. With his trademark suspenders and oversized glasses, King was a gentle presence on the air, known for asking open-ended questions and letting his interviewees respond at length. He also made much of his modest Jewish upbringing in Brooklyn, claiming to have done his entire bar mitzvah in Hebrew and raising money for Jewish charities into his 80s. He died in Los Angeles in January at 87.
Larry King presenting his show on CNN. (CNN screenshot)
Carl Levin was Michigan's longest-serving senator, holding a seat in Congress' upper chamber from 1978 until his retirement in 2015. He was also known as a relentless inquisitor. Hauling Goldman Sachs leaders before a committee on investigations following the carnage of the 2008 financial collapse, Levin repeatedly quoted an internal email in which executives admitted they misled their clients. Levin died in July at 87.
Then-US senator Carl Levin of Michigan attends a news conference at the Capitol in Washington, DC, on December 4, 2014. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)
Karen Lewis
Lewis led the Chicago Teachers Union from 2010 to 2018, during which the group exploded into public awareness as a model for a new breed of public education organizing. Her teachers, and others across the country who followed in her footsteps, fought tooth and nail not just for better pay but also for significant policy changes. A widely-covered seven-day strike in 2012 transformed Lewis into a public figure, and she briefly contemplated running for mayor of Chicago. Lewis felt herself drawn to Judaism in her 20s and became a regular at synagogue after converting. Although she feuded bitterly with Mayor Rahm Emanuel, the two reportedly became friends, in part bonding over their shared religion. She died in February at 67 from brain cancer.
Bernie Madoff, the fraudster whose Ponzi scheme lost billions for investors — many of them major Jewish institutions — died in April while serving a 150-year sentence in a federal prison in North Carolina. The exposure of Madoff's scam during the 2008 financial crisis rippled across the Jewish world. Yeshiva University, Hadassah and prominent Jews like Elie Wiesel and Sandy Koufax were among the thousands of investors who saw their profits wiped out overnight.
Bernard Madoff exits Manhattan federal court in New York, on March 10, 2009. (AP Photo/Louis Lanzano, File)
The influential New Yorker writer Janet Malcolm, hailed as one of the 20th century's pioneers of New Journalism, didn't know she was Jewish until she was called an antisemitic slur in elementary school. Her family had changed its surname from Wiener to Winn and hid its Jewish identity. Besides a 2018 essay in which she delved into this family history, Malcolm — who had married fellow writer Donald Malcolm in the 1950s — did not tackle Jewish topics, and instead often delved into the world of psychoanalysis and the journalism process. Her reputation took a hit after being sued for allegedly fabricating some quotes and distorting others for a series of articles and a book on the former director of the Sigmund Freud Archives, but after years of public scrutiny, a court ruled in her favor in 1994. She died in June at 86.
The New Yorker writer, Janet Malcolm, leaves the Federal Courthouse in San Francisco, California, on June 3, 1993. (AP/George Nikitin)
Director Joan Micklin Silver was most famous for telling two love Jewish stories of New York's Lower East Side, straddling both ends of the 20th century: "Hester Street," almost entirely in Yiddish, was about a marriage of immigrants, and "Crossing Delancey," made and set in the 1980s, was about a Jewish courtship involving a pickle seller. Both films, which her husband Ray helped produce, tackled the difficulties of assimilation. Her Hollywood ambitions were curtailed in part because of the Jewishness of her content, but also because of the challenges of being a female director in a sexist industry. She died in January at 85.
George Segal's long career, stretching from the 1960s to this decade, started with troubled heartthrob roles — many of them explicitly Jewish. He later transitioned into Jewish dad roles; he had played the patriarch on ABC's "The Goldbergs" for eight seasons when he died. Segal heralded a generation of Jewish actors who were unabashed about their Jewishness. He told The New York Times in 1971 that neither his name nor his nose were "unwieldy," so why change them? He died in March, aged 87.
Actor George Segal poses with a replica of his new star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, on February 14, 2017, in Los Angeles. (Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP)
Neal Sher
Neal Sher joined the Justice Department office tracking Nazi war criminals in the late 1970s and found it relied on tips from the public, which were not reliable. So he set about formulating a new system: Check immigration records against Nazi records. His methodology led to the removal of 69 Nazis (so far) who lied about their pasts when they immigrated. His research got former United Nations secretary general Kurt Waldheim permanently uninvited from the United States. Sher never stopped being an advocate — he led the AIPAC pro-Israel lobby for a few years, and pressed for compensation for the beneficiaries of Jews who took out insurance policies before and during the Holocaust. He also lobbied for Purple Hearts for 13 troops killed in a terrorist attack on a Texas military base. He died in October, aged 74.
Former AIPAC executive director Neal Sher speaks on a panel in October 2011. (Screenshot/YouTube)
Stephen Sondheim made his Broadway debut as the lyricist for "West Side Story" in 1957 and went on to redefine the American musical through a series of influential works that included "Into the Woods," "Sweeney Todd," "Follies," "A Little Night Music" and "Sunday in the Park With George." Sondheim avoided traditional Broadway formulas known to immediately draw audiences, instead crafting musicals about subjects that had not received treatments on mainstream stages: loneliness, despair and the artistic temperament. He died in November at 91.
Composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim gestures during a gathering at Tufts University in Medford, MA, on Monday, April 12, 2004. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)
Jessica Walter earned a cult following for her portrayal of the manipulative Bluth family matriarch Lucille Bluth in the beloved TV comedy "Arrested Development." But that role capped a long career in which she specialized in playing predatory women, beginning with "Bye Bye Braverman" in 1968. Another beloved character in recent years was Malory Archer, the mother to a dysfunctional secret agent in the animated sitcom "Archer," to which Walter lent her voice. Walter died in March at the age of 80.
Jessica Walter attends the LA Premiere of 'Arrested Development' Season Five in Los Angeles, on May 17, 2018. (Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP, File)
Weinstock was a grade school teacher living in Long Island until a bout with breast cancer at 50 led her into a career that would dub her the "Queen of Cakes." She became famous for wedding cakes that were stunning handmade confabulations, among them a replica of Masada with the Dead Sea at its base. She paid close attention to detail and became a much sought-after baker to the stars. Her husband Ben, an attorney who was handy with gadgets and who died in 2018, quit his job to build the devices that facilitated her masterpieces. She died in November, aged 91.
Celebrity cake maker Sylvia Weinstock in her New York office. (Carol Chan)
While Shirley Zussman may not be as well-known as Dr. Ruth Westheimer, one of the world's most famous sex therapists, Zussman served as an inspiration to her fellow Jewish New Yorker. After studying with the famed Masters and Johnson sex experts, Zussman and her husband ran the Human Sexuality Program at Long Island Jewish Hillside Medical Center together for a decade, wrote a book about sexuality for couples, worked for several clinics and advised young people about sex into her 90s. She died earlier this month at 107.
Shirley Zussman, August 2014. (Screenshot: YouTube/Time/GetitVids)
Photo Credit: Scan from old book Culturgeschichte by K. Faulmann (1881)
Pharaoh Amenhotep I with his mother Queen Ahmose-Nefertari.
Computed tomography scans (CT) have revealed new information about the pharaoh Amenhotep I, who ruled Egypt from 1526 to 1506 BCE, before the Biblical Exodus. Amenhotep I's mummy was discovered in 1881, but until recently archaeologists have refrained from unwrapping it to preserve its exquisite face mask and bandages.
In an article they co-authored for Frontiers in Medicine (Digital Unwrapping of the Mummy of King Amenhotep I Using CT), Sahar N. Saleem of the Department of Radiology, Kasr Al Ainy Faculty of Medicine, Cairo University, and Zahi Hawass, of Antiquities of Egypt, reported that they hypothesized that non-invasive digital unwrapping using CT would provide insights on the physical appearance, health, cause of death, and mummification style of the mummy of King Amenhotep I.
They discovered, among other things, that all of the Pharaoh's teeth were accounted for; they found no evidence of periodontal disease; no evidence of bone diseases or joint degeneration; and evidence of a circumcision.
"We examined the mummy with CT and generated two- and three-dimensional images for the head mask, bandages, and the virtually unwrapped mummy," the two Egyptian scientists wrote. "CT enabled the visualization of the face of Amenhotep I who died around the age of 35 years. The teeth had minimal attrition. There was no CT evidence of pathological changes or cause of death. The body has been eviscerated via a vertical left flank incision. The heart is seen in the left hemithorax with an overlying amulet. The brain has not been removed."
"The mummy has 30 amulets/jewelry pieces including a beaded metallic (likely gold) girdle," they wrote. "The mummy suffered from multiple postmortem injuries likely inflicted by tomb robbers that have been likely treated by 21st Dynasty embalmers. These included fixing the detached head and neck to the body with a resin-treated linen band; covering a defect in the anterior abdominal wall with a band and placing two amulets beneath; placement of the detached left upper limb beside the body and wrapping it to the body."
"The transversely oriented right forearm is individually wrapped, likely representing the original 18th Dynasty mummification and considered the first known New Kingdom mummy with crossed arms at the chest. The head mask is made of cartonnage and has inlaid stone eyes. The digital unwrapping of the mummy of Amenhotep I using CT sets a unique opportunity to reveal the physical features of the King non-invasively, understand the mummification style early in the 18th Dynasty, and the reburial intervention style by 21st Dynasty embalmers," they wrote, and noted: "This study may make us gain confidence in the goodwill of the reburial project of the Royal mummies by the 21st dynasty priests."
The two scientists concluded that the digital unwrapping of the mummy of Amenhotep I using CT sets a unique opportunity to reveal non-invasively the physical features of the King, understand the mummification style early in the 18th Dynasty, and recognize the reburial intervention done in the 21st Dynasty.
Freedom of Religion Shouldn't Have Borders': Knesset Monitoring Discrimination Against Jews on Temple Mount
Jewish worshippers ascend to the Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem on the eve of the Simchat Torah Jewish Holiday. Jerusalem, Sep 27, 2021.
The Knesset's Public Security Committee will hold a meeting every six months on the number of Jews who are barred from visiting the Temple Mount, Committee Chair Member of Knesset Merav Ben Ari announced on Monday during a debate on the security situation in Jerusalem's Old City.
She also decided to establish a subcommittee that will make recommendations regarding restrictions on Jewish visitors to the Temple Mount.
Jews' visits to the Temple Mount, Judaism's holiest site, are limited in time, space, as well as the number of visitors at any given time. While Jews' rights to worship at the site have improved in recent years, much remains wanting, and the full freedom of worship has yet to be granted by the State of Israel to Jews visiting the Temple Mount.
The meeting, initiated by MKs Amichai Chikli, Simcha Rothman, and Miki Zohar, together with the "Beyadenu – Returning to the Temple Mount" organization which advocates for Jewish rights on the Temple Mount, presented the Committee on Monday with a complex and discriminatory reality for Jews at the holy complex.
Tom Nisani, CEO of Beyadenu, stated during the session that security arrangements around the Temple Mount "are a big lie," and accused the police of "leading a strategy of accommodating terrorism to avoid conflict."
On several occasions, Jews have been banned from the Temple Mount following Muslim agitation, or following fears that a Jewish presence at the site would agitate the Muslims.
MK Nir Orbach said that "freedom of religion shouldn't have borders. The Temple Mount is in Israel and so freedom of religion applies to it. In the same way that discrimination in the freedom of religion is unacceptable, discrimination in security arrangements is also unacceptable. Either everyone is screened, or no one is screened. We need to reboot."
While Muslims enter the holy site freely, Jews are screened by metal detectors, undergo security searches, and are banned from bringing Jewish religious objects to the site.
MK Ben Gvir also addressed the discrimination and said that if the military commander at the Tomb of the Patriarchs would order only Muslims to be screened, "the High Court of Justice would challenge it. What is the security screening for Jews? Looking for Teffilin and Tallit."
"There are people there planning terror attacks and the police are busy searching for Jews who mumble or pray. The minimum is having the same conditions," he demanded.
MK Michal Waldiger criticized the fact that there is no enforcement against Muslims waving placards and those engaged in "wild incitement."
"It's shocking that kids are playing soccer on the Temple Mount. There is gross discrimination here between Jews and Arabs. We need one law for everyone," she stated.
MK Simcha Rothman accused the police of "acting as a contractor for a terrorist organization. Your job is not to maintain the quiet but to uphold the law. The Jews do not break the law. Your solution to keep Jews away is illegitimate. A Jew who ascends the Temple Mount cannot tolerate harassment. The discrimination on the mountain and its recent aggravation must stop."
Jewish Temple Mount activist Shimshon Elboim called to transfer control of the Temple Mount to the Chief Rabbinate or the Ministry of Religious Services. "The government has to change its attitude towards Jews. The more Jews there are on the Mount, the more police and security there will be there," he said.
MK Amir Ohana noted that "there is no place in the world where it is impossible [for a Jew] to pray, except at the holiest place for the Jewish people." He called to "increase prayer hours and allow Jews to exercise their freedom of worship."
Former MK Yehuda Glick, a known Temple Mount activist, recounted how seven years ago he told the Knesset Committee he "was afraid blood would spill."
"Police officers laughed. It was written in official documents that I was the most dangerous man in the Middle East. A week passed and a terrorist almost killed me. Luckily he failed," he said.
Glick was shot three times in the chest by a Muslim terrorist in October 2014. He underwent a long recovery process.
"Years later, still when I ascend the Temple Mount the attitude of the police towards me is as if I am the enemy who comes to visit the mountain," he pointed out.
The Beyadenu Foundation is the largest organization dedicated to raising awareness of the Temple Mount and its heritage. Its mission is to connect Israelis from all walks of life to the Temple Mount and bring about a change in the situation of Jews' rights and fight discrimination at the holy complex.
Badly phrased and geographically confused though it is this is not an entirely stupid question.
Back in the days when Pangea was a continent the mountain range that is currently known as the Appalachians did extend north west through what is now Newfoundland and then on to the island of Britain. The rocks and strata in ranges in northern Ireland and Scotland are geologically the same as those in Appalachia, and the same strata again turn up in the Atlas mountains of North Africa, excellent evidence for continental drift.
This map shows the modern remnants of various parts of what were once the Central Pangaean Mountains.
These mountains had been built up in earlier aeons as the North American, European and African continental plates had collided to form Pangaea. When Pangaea broke up again it was amongst these folded mountains that the rifts slowly appeared.
Which ocean is the deepest?
The deepest part of the ocean in the world is known as the Challenger Deep as located beneath the western Pacific Ocean .
