Every person has moments of suffering and unpleasantness in life. If you master the skill of living in the present, you will keep these moments limited to the actual negative experiences. Both before and after a painful experience, you will focus on what actually is at that moment, freeing you from much unnecessary pain in your life.
Very young children have this skill naturally (we all have it when we were younger), and that is why they enjoy life, unless they are presently in pain.
As we grow older, our ability to use our minds and think about the past and future increases. This ability can be utilized in very beneficial ways, but it can also be used in a detrimental way. We can transform our lives into suffering and torture by keeping in mind all our unpleasant experiences of the past.
Forgetting those experiences is the positive aspect of forgetfulness.
Love Yehuda Lave
In Jerusalem's Shuk, when the shutters close something amazing happens…
It won't matter to the Left who defends the indefensible at any and every opportunity, but Palestinians interviewed on the street openly admit that the reason for the marked rise in child-terrorists is due to propaganda disseminated on their own TV channels.
Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) translated the man-on-the-street interviews, which feature an array of everyday Palestinians talking about the way in which children are exploited on their television programs.
Thankfully, most of those interviewed said they are against children participating in acts of terror, but a few said they only oppose it because it is largely ineffective. Regardless of the individual's stance, however, every interview subject admitted that Palestinian TV broadcasts incite children to commit acts of terror.
The interview moderator concluded his segment with a call to end the "incitement on TV screens... enough spilling the blood of our children."
PMW provides the following transcript and correlating video segment which aired on Fata-run Awdah TV on January 21, 2016:
Fatah-run Awdah TV host: "What is required of children during the process of national liberation?"
Palestinian 1: "First of all, the children are victims... The children are deprived of everything considered children's entertainment. Our children, unfortunately, their entertainment is the weapon...
Palestinian 2: "Our children are required, like the adults, to resist with every means they: with knives, with rocks, with Molotov cocktails, in every way they can resist, they also need to resist..."
Palestinian teacher: "As a teacher, I believe that you need to sow love of knowledge in a child, that is most important. That he should go and fight while still a child - I am totally against that..."
Palestinian 3: "These things are not for children. The children need to learn and live their lives, to go to school, to play..."
Palestinian 4: "I am against children's stabbing operations..."
Palestinian 5: "Stabbing operations by children are negative operations, because they don't bring significant results, they aren't organized. There's nothing positive about it, only negative - that we lose a child..."
Palestinian 6: "As we see and hear - most of the stabbings taking place are very weak, and they do almost nothing to change reality..."
Fatah-run Awdah TV host: "Do you think that the media and incitement on TV influence our children?"
Palestinian 7: "Of course. It confuses the children when they see these things. I prevent my children from watching what is happening on TV, stabbing operations or shootings. I prevent my children from watching. It confuses them, causes them to want to do this..."
Palestinian 8: "What is happening today in the media has a negative influence. It doesn't tell them 'No.' It encourages them to take to the streets..."
Palestinian teacher:"I think that the media plays a large role. Especially our TV channels. Even when the situation has calmed down a little, you see that there are broadcasters among us and known satellite channels that begin to incite. Even if the incitement is indirect, it is incitement. You feel that the child does not know what to do. Unfortunately..."
Fatah-run Awdah TV host: "Enough with this incitement on TV screens, on [Facebook] pages and social media. We must protect our children and must develop a strategy of struggle built on responsibility... enough spilling the blood of our children."
Yes, and how about spilling the blood of innocent Israelis as a result?
This news report highlights the root of the problem within Palestinian society. When television programs, news media, political leaders, activists and school curriculum all work in tandem to indoctrinate an entire populace from the cradle, it becomes next to impossible to dislodge these notions later in life. Thus, generation after generation is spawned not only anti-Semitic to its core, but willing to kill and die for it. How can peace for Israel ever be possible under such circumstances? It's can't.
Alan and Sophia Zeigler
A note from Chabad about Jewish Unity
Dear Friend,
Twenty-four years ago this week, the Rebbe—Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory—delivered what would be his final public address.
The week's Torah portion, Vayakhel, was central to his talk. The word "vayakhel" ("and he gathered") refers to Moses bringing the entire nation together. The Rebbe spoke of the importance of Jewish unity today and at all times. When the Jewish people stick together, no one can harm us. We are collectively strong, and our history has demonstrated time and again that no matter what our enemies scheme, we will come out stronger on the other side. That is the power of the Jewish nation. But we must be there for each other.
This year—as readers of Chabad.org no doubt are aware—is a year of Hakhel, commemorating the once-in-seven-years coming together of every Jew, adult and child, in the Holy Temple in Jerusalem to hear the king read from the Torah. We observe this today by hosting assemblies of Jews wherever we are. The focus is Jewish unity and the enhancement of our Jewish observance. We remind ourselves that at the end of the day we have each other to depend on, and that is the key to our survival.
Praying for the day that we will once again unite in Jerusalem,
Rabbi Eliezer Zalmanov, on behalf of the Chabad.org Editorial Team
13th century Torah scroll Photo Credit: Courtesy Sotheby's
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito filed an unusual dissent Monday when the Court declined to hear the case of a Jewish prisoner refused the right to study Torah with two fellow inmates.
In a hand-written petition to the Court, Israel Ben-Levi had asked the justices to review the decisions of a federal district judge and an affirmation by the U.S. Court of Appeals, according to The Washington Post.
The Supreme Court generally does not explain its decisions to decline hearing a case — thousands are declined each year. There has never before been a written dissent. On Monday alone, 550 cases were declined by the Court, according to The Miami Herald.
But somehow, the case of Ben-Levi v. Brown touched Justice Alito.
"The court's refusal to grant review in this case does not signify approval of the decision below," the judge wrote. "But the court's indifference to this discriminatory infringement of religious liberty is disappointing."
Although there was no quorum of 10 to meet the minimum requirements for a minyan, Ben-Levi contended that a smaller group would be better than nothing.
The justice agreed and said the prison policy treated Jewish groups differently than Christian or Muslim groups. "The courts below should have considered whether the policy imposed a substantial burden on Ben-Levi's ability to exercise his religious beliefs, as he understands them," Alito wrote. "Ben-Levi believes that relaxing the minyan requirement promotes his faith more than sacrificing group Torah study altogether."
Prior to 2004, Ben-Levi was known as Danny Lee Loren, his birth name. At present he is being held in Green Correctional Institution, a minimum-security facility 80 miles east of Raleigh, North Carolina.
Both of the lower courts had upheld the decision by the prison to deny his request in 2012 to hold a "Jewish Bible Study" group at Hoke Correctional Institution in North Carolina, where he was being held at the time.
Ben-Levi wrote to the Supreme Court, "It seems that all other faith groups are allowed to meet, yet the Jewish inmates are discriminated against. I feel the religious rights of the Jewish inmates are being violated on a regular basis."
Prison officials contended the claim was invalid because there was no quorum of 10 Jewish adults to establish a minyan. There was also no outside rabbi to supervise the study group, although the policy has since been revised to include "approved" inmates to lead study groups as well.
"Concerns have been raised in the past of inmates engaging in gang activity under guise of being members of the same religious faith group engaging in religious practices," North Carolina Assistant Attorney-General Kimberly D. Grande told the Supreme Court in a brief.
Jewish law (Halakha) only requires a quorum of 10 men for certain prayer services; it does not require a quorum of 10 in order to study the Torah, and in fact such study is conducted in pairs or small groups in rabbinical institutions.
About the Author:Hana Levi Julian is a Middle East news analyst with a degree in Mass Communication and Journalism from Southern Connecticut State University. A past columnist with The Jewish Press and senior editor at Arutz 7, Ms. Julian has written for Babble.com, Chabad.org and other media outlets, in addition to her years working in broadcast journalism
'If one's picture was snapped for a price in Britain, the person behind the lens was more than likely born a Jew'
How Jews shot their way into Britain's photographic memory
Historian Michael Berkowitz's research exposes the disproportionate Jewish contribution to all things photography in the UK
Berkowitz's ears perked up, for coincidentally, both he and his father had worked in Rochester, New York, for the Eastman Kodak Company.
The elderly relative's claim checked out: It turned out that what Berkowitz had thought was just his grandmother's wishful thinking was actually fact. Some of his ancestor's work is actually in the Royal Collection in the UK, through gifts to the British royal family by contemporary Russian oligarchs, or through earlier European royal family connections.
Professor Michael Berkowitz (Frank Dabba Smith)
The revelation spurred Berkowitz, who had always been interested in the contribution of material culture and visual experience in understanding nationalism, to begin research for an international history of the Jewish engagement with photography.
Berkowitz assumed he would not uncover much about Jews and photography in Britain, his adopted country. However, what was expected to be a few sentences ended up becoming an entire book on how Jews have had a disproportionate influence on the development of all aspects of photography in the UK.
"Jews and Photography in Britain" (University of Texas Press, 2015) focuses on 1850-1950, when photography was one of the most viable avenues for Jews to make a living and contribute to mainstream culture in Britain. Most studio and street portrait photographers were Jews, and others in the community were the prime movers in developing the field of photojournalism. Jews also introduced the concept of photography as fine arts and were involved in the emergence of photography criticism and history as distinct fields.
'Jews and Photography in Britain' by Michael Berkowitz was published in 2015. (University of Texas Press)
"Originally I simply wished to fill gaps and detail the activities of persons and institutions that had escaped scholarly scrutiny. I soon surmised that most of them had not been examined for the perspective of how Jewishness and attitudes toward Jews had informed their perspectives and may have boosted or blocked their careers.
"Beyond this I came to see that our understanding of the history of photography in Britain might be substantially enhanced if greater sensitivity to social and cultural history, which would include consideration of not only class and gender but ethnic difference, were interwoven into the narrative," Berkowitz wrote in the book's introduction.
Jews, some having gained photography skills before immigrating from Central and Eastern Europe, were able to work as photographers simply because it wasn't considered a respectable trade.
"Unlike the the United States, photography was considered weird and shady in Britain and Europe. It was something that involved touching people [to pose them for portraits] and working in the dark [for developing film]. It was frequently associated with pornography and forgery," Berkowitz explained.
One of the difficulties Berkowitz, 56, faced in his research was that there was a greater degree of changed surnames by Jews in Britain than in the US. In addition, many of the Jewish photographers made up fanciful biographies for themselves that bore little connection to their real backgrounds.
"The trail simply went cold on a lot of these people," Berkowitz said.
H. W. Barnett, Barnett's Studio, London. In this imposing building at 1 Hyde Park Corner, Barnett installed a glass roof on part of the penthouse to allow for photography by natural light. Vintage print, early 1900s.
However, "Jews and Photography in Britain" is full of examples of how Jews made a huge impact, and also how negative attitudes toward Jews ended up diminishing what could have been an ultimately larger contribution.
Helmut Gernsheim and Stefan Lorant are cases in point. Gernsheim was a pioneer at collecting and publishing about photography as history and art. However, the British art establishment was not interested in accepting his vast and valuable collection, which ended up being split between institutions in the US and Germany. Lorant, who changed the face of magazine publishing with his spectacular photo editing, was denied British citizenship and moved on to the US.
"Key figures left the British scene. They relocated and did well, so they moved on and didn't harp on it," Berkowitz noted.
The scholarly yet readable "Jews and Photography in Britain" begins with what for the author was the highlight of his work on the book.
In the preface, Berkowitz recounts how at 11:30 a.m. on Tuesday, March 13, 2012, he found himself in the library of Prince Phillip, the Duke of Edinburgh, at Buckingham Palace. He ended up staying for 45 minutes and having an excellent, wide ranging conversation with the duke.
"How and why would a historian who has not been accorded an official 'honour' be invited for an audience at Buckingham Palace? It was a result of chutzpah, on my part, combined with Prince Philip's willingness to speak about someone he fondly remembered, the photographer known as Baron — Baron Sterling Henry Nahum — who had rarely been discussed since his death in 1956," Berkowitz wrote.
The author knew that the royals had had good relationships with quite a few Jewish photographers over the decades, including the famous American photographer Annie Leibovitz, who did a photo shoot with Queen Elizabeth in 2007.
However, Berkowitz discovered that Baron's relationship with the royals went beyond professional cordiality to real friendship. He also learned that the photographer Snowdon (Anthony Armstrong-Jones, first Earl of Snowdon, who was once married to the Queen's sister Princess Margaret), had a partly Jewish background and apprenticed with Baron.
'How and why would a historian who has not been accorded an official "honor" be invited for an audience at Buckingham Palace? It was a result of chutzpah'
Prince Philip confirmed for Berkowitz that he and Baron had been a good friends, and that they had both been members of a group of young men who met once a week above Wheeler's Oyster Bar in Soho in the post-WWII years. They were "a little club to lighten the gloom that surrounded us all," Baron wrote in his autobiography, in which he shared openly that he was Jewish, though not religious.
The two men remained close friends, and Baron regularly visited the palace to play squash with the prince. The relationship ended when Baron died suddenly of a heart attack immediately before he was to have accompanied Prince Philip and Queen Elizabeth as official photographer on their worldwide tour after her accession to the throne.
Right-wing activist Glick returns to Temple Mount
Would-be MK's first visit to holy site since 2014 attempt on his life follows court cancellation of restraining order
A group of Israeli Jews, accompanied by Yehudah Glick, chairman of the Fund for the Temple Mount and Temple Heritage organizations, seen in the Temple Mount courtyard near Al Aqsa Mosque, November 19 2013. (Photo credit: Sliman Khader/FLASH90Last week, a court cleared the right-wing activist of accusations that he had pushed an Arab woman who then broke her arm. The court canceled an order keeping him away from the Mount.
Glick was shot and seriously hurt in October 2014 while leaving an event in Jerusalem where he had given a speech about allowing Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount. The Palestinian gunman approached the rabbi, and told him, "Yehudah, I'm sorry, but the things you said hurt me," before shooting him. The attacker was later killed by police in a shootout.
Jews can currently visit the Temple Mount but are forbidden to pray there, for political and security reasons.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has asserted numerous times in recent months that he does not wish to change this arrangement — the so-called status quo — which has been in place ever since Israeli troops captured Jerusalem's Old City in the 1967 Six Day War.
"Israel will continue to enforce its longstanding policy: Muslims pray on the Temple Mount; non-Muslims visit the Temple Mount," Netanyahu said on October 24, amid street violence which erupted over rumors Israel intended to allow Jewish prayer on the site.
The compound, which housed the two Jewish Temples, is considered the holiest site in Judaism. It is also revered by Muslims, who refer to it as the Haram al-Sharif and believe it is the spot where the prophet Mohammed ascended to heaven.
Glick, who grew up in Brooklyn and immigrated to Israel with his family when he was 8, directs the Temple Mount Heritage Foundation and is next in line to join the Knesset with the Likud party.
A maverick among right-wingers, he advocates partnering with religious Muslims to turn the Temple Mount into a place of prayer for all.
The Hubble Space Telescope spotted a "blue bubble" around a star 30,000 light-years away. (ESA/Hubble & NASA, Acknowledgement: Judy Schmidt)
By Jonna Lorenz | Monday, 29 Feb 2016 03:54 PM
The Hubble Space Telescope's "Blue Bubble" is the latest image to capture the fancy of space gazers.
The blue bubble that appears to encircle a star in the image is a Wolf–Rayet nebula, "an interstellar cloud of dust, hydrogen, helium and other gases,"NASA explained.
Located about 30,000 light-years away, the blue bubble was formed about 20,000 years ago by speedy stellar winds interacting with the outer layers of hydrogen ejected by the Wolf–Rayet star, known as WR 31a in the constellation of Carina.
Wolf–Rayet stars are massive (about 20 times bigger than the sun) and burn hotter and brighter than the sun, The Christian Science Monitor noted. They're also short lived, lasting about 100,000 years, compared with the sun, which has been burning for billions of years. The star will eventually explode into a supernova.
The intense energy of the Wolf–Rayet star helped produce the "blue bubble" nebula, which is expanding at about 136,000 miles per hour as heat and radiation cause the outer layers of the star to be ejected.
The Washington Post's Speaking of Science blogger Rachel Feltman put words to the awe inspired by the image: "The universe is beautiful and big, and there's something pretty calming about that. Just try to keep stressing about your commute with this (image) on your screen."
Twitter users had fun with word play about Hubble's blue bubble.
The Hubble Space Telescope spotted a "blue bubble" around a star 30,000 light-years away. (ESA/Hubble & NASA, Acknowledgement: Judy Schmidt)
