‘Two-Gun Cohen’: The Chinese general who swung the UN vote and COVID-19 can kill even months after recovery – new study The best way to prevent long-COVID is to prevent COVID,” he said. “The best way to prevent COVID is vaccination.” and Should Israeli law be Jewish? - reviewWhere does the push for theocracy in the modern Jewish state come from?By RABBI PROF. MARTIN LOCKSHIN and Trump in the Golon and the Banyas one of two
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.
COVID-19 can kill even months after recovery – new study The best way to prevent long-COVID is to prevent COVID," he said. "The best way to prevent COVID is vaccination."
Most deaths caused by long-term COVID-19 complications are not recorded as COVID-19 deaths, meaning the commonly used death toll is "only the tip of the iceberg."
COVID-19 survivors have an almost 60% increased risk of death up to six months after infection compared with noninfected people, according to a massive study published over the weekend in the peer-reviewed journal Nature. That is the equivalent of about eight extra deaths per 1,000 patients over six months. "When we are accounting for COVID-19 deaths, the actual total of deaths is much higher," Ziyad Al-Aly, director of the Clinical Epidemiology Center at Washington University in St. Louis and the head of Research and Education Service at Veterans Affairs St. Louis Health Care System, told The Jerusalem Post. He was the lead researcher on the study. Most deaths caused by long-term COVID-19 complications are not recorded as COVID-19 deaths, Al-Aly said. As such, "what we are seeing now is only the tip of the iceberg," he added.To reach their conclusion, Al-Aly and his research team leveraged data from the electronic health databases of the US Department of Veterans Affairs. The study involved more than 87,000 COVID-19 patients: 74,435 users of the Veterans Health Administration who survived at least the first 30 days with COVID-19 after diagnosis and were not hospitalized; and close to five million VHA users who did not have COVID-19. In addition, it included 13,654 hospitalized patients with COVID-19 and 13,997 who were hospitalized with the flu. The veterans were mostly men (about 88%), but there were still more than 8,800 women with confirmed cases who were analyzed. All patients survived at least 30 days after hospital admission, and the analysis included six months of follow-up data.
Even those patients who were not hospitalized with severe disease could have health implications months later, the report showed. Ailments could include respiratory conditions, diseases of the nervous system, mental-health diagnoses, metabolic disorders, cardiovascular and gastrointestinal conditions, and poor general well-being."Even people with mild disease – some people who got COVID and seemed fine with just a fever and a cough – months down the road they have a stroke or a blood clot; some manifestation related to COVID," Al-Aly said. "The risk is small, but it is not trivial."The report was concerning, Prof. Cyrille Cohen, head of Bar-Ilan University's immunotherapy laboratory, said, adding that "in this study, we are not talking about severe cases. These are people who were not supposed to die at all." The risk of death and the associated health challenges increased with the severity of the disease and hospitalized patients who required treatment in an intensive-care unit were at the highest risk for health complications and death, the study showed. Amongpatients who were hospitalized with COVID-19 and who survived beyond the first 30 days of illness, there were 29 excess deaths per 1,000 patients over the following six months or a 50% increased risk of death compared with hospitalized flu survivors, the study showed."It is really remarkable that such a virus can produce this huge number of long-term consequences," Al-Aly told the Post.It is unclear if the same percentages would directly translate outside theUS to other countries, such as Israel, since there are differences in the characteristics of every population, he said. Nonetheless, it is a powerful indication of the long-term burden that the disease will cause, he added. For now, the only solution to stop these effects is to avoid contracting COVID-19, Al-Aly said."The best way to prevent long-COVID is to prevent COVID," he said. "The best way to prevent COVID is vaccination."Cohen agreed. When people are considering not vaccinating "because [they think] I am young and not at risk of severe disease or death, I think the issue of long-COVID with the percentages we are seeing now is something that people should take into account."Responding to a Health Ministry report that some Israelis who took the Pfizer vaccine have experienced potentially deadly heart inflammation, Cohen admitted that there is still little data regarding the long-term effects of the vaccines. The interim analysis report, which was reviewed by the Post, showed that during the first three months of Israel's vaccination campaign, some 62 cases of myocarditis or pre-myocarditis were reported, mostly by people under the age of 30. More than 5.3 million Israelis have received at least one dose of the coronavirus vaccine.The study was too preliminary to draw a direct connection between vaccination and the myocarditis cases, Prof. Nadav Davidovitch, director Ben-Gurion University of the Negev's School of Public Health, told the Post, adding that it was "not even clear if these rates were higher compared with previous years."It seems the risk is quite minor, and the risk of getting sick from COVID-19 is much higher than from the vaccine's adverse events," he said.Al-Aly said the important thing is for health systems to prepare for what could be an influx of sick patients, even as countries vaccinate and active COVID-19 cases decline."We need to figure out how to build the healthcare system to deal with this load," he said. The world was "caught unprepared for COVID" and in some cases "dropped the ball on COVID," Al-Aly said. "Let us not drop the ball on long-COVID."
Trump in the Golon and the Banyas one of two
On the 100 Degree day in Jerusalem in Mid April (It always happens in April and May) we take off for the Golon.
We stay overnight at the ORR HALEVNA Chalet near the new Trump City The next we do the Banyas. Always something new in Israel. We got at the end to the Palace of Agrippa Ruins Of The Agrippa Palace In Caesarea Philippi
Caesarea Philippi was an ancient Roman city at the Southwestern corner of Mount Hermon. It is near a spring with awesome water, a grotto, and many shrines that lay nearby in ruins. This is a ruin of a high place that was dedicated to the Greek god, Pan. This archaeological site is, for the most part, uninhabited, and lies sleeping in the Golan Heights.
Latter Caesarea Philippi was called Caesarea Paneaus, dedicated to the god Pan, and again the name mutated during the Hellenistic and Islamic periods to become Banias. Banias is what the archaeological site is known by today.
Banias is a mispronunciation of Philip
During the early Christian err, Paul spoke to those in authority about His walk with the Lord, at this very place. He chose this as a time and place to give testimony as to his walk "after the way."
Should Israeli law be Jewish? - review
Where does the push for theocracy in the modern Jewish state come from?
By RABBI PROF. MARTIN LOCKSHIN
Of all the Israeli Ashkenazi chief rabbis since the institution began a century ago, Rabbi Isaac Halevi Herzog (1888-1959; chief rabbi from 1936 to 1959) seemed to have had the most in common with secular Israeli intellectuals. He had an extensive general education. Before taking the position in Israel, he had served as chief rabbi of Ireland where he was friendly with many gentiles who were close to power. He was not simply a product of a sheltered yeshiva education, but someone who understood and perhaps even identified with some of the intellectual aspirations of non-religious Israeli Jews.
In The Invention of Jewish Theocracy: The Struggle for Legal Authority in Modern Israel, Alexander Kaye, assistant professor of Israel Studies at Brandeis University, paints a fascinating picture of Rabbi Herzog's role in forming the concept of the place of Jewish law in the modern State of Israel.
Shockingly to most of us, Herzog believed that the entire legal system of the State of Israel should be based on Halacha (Jewish Law) – even civil and criminal law, and even when it applied to non-Jews. He claimed that the British and Ottoman laws in effect when the state was created in 1948, which became the law of the Israel in the short term in 1948, until the Knesset passed new laws, were inferior to Jewish law. ,
"These people [the Turks and the British] did not reach the level of civilized people until thousands of years after we stood at Mount Sinai," noted Herzog. "The wisdom of their laws . . . is like a monkey before a human being when compared to the wisdom of our [Jewish laws]… and I am talking to you as someone who is well versed in the laws of Rome and England." (He definitely was an expert in comparative law, unlike any other chief rabbi of Israel before or since.) Israeli democracy should not be "a pastiche, an aping of, and subordinate to, the spirit of democracy of other nations," but should draw from the Torah, "the spring of our life, the source of Israel."
Herzog was so distraught when the Israeli Supreme Court was established – a court that would not be functioning according to Halacha – that he refused to attend the festive opening, declaring it would be more appropriate to hold a public fast day instead.
Even more interesting than the fact that a pious Orthodox rabbi was proud enough of Jewish law that he wanted to see it function as the law of the state is that, as Kaye shows, most of the leading Zionist rabbis in Israel of his time (and even of earlier times, one could argue) disagreed with Herzog.
KAYE DESCRIBES two kinds of systems – legal centralism and legal pluralism. Throughout most (and some would say all) of Jewish history, Jews lived in a system of legal pluralism, governed both by Halacha and by other legal systems. Lay Jewish leaders in the two millennia of Diaspora existence before 1948 had a great deal of administrative control over their communities (whose members, as individuals, were also subject to the rules of Halacha), but they had no jurisdiction over criminal law, which was left to the gentile legal systems of the countries where they lived. Even the Talmudic rabbis taught that Jews in pre-Talmudic times were subject both to the rules of Halacha and to mishpat ha-melekh, the laws of the king, whether the reigning king was Jewish or gentile.
The great medieval rabbi Rashba (Rabbi Solomon ibn Adret; 1235-1310) wrote that a pluralistic law system was best for the Jews.
"If you were to restrict everything to the laws stipulated in the Torah and punish only in accordance to the Torah's penal [code] in cases of assault and the like, the world would be destroyed, because we would require two witnesses" and other Talmudic rules of procedure that make it hard to punish criminals.
Herzog's predecessor, Abraham Isaac Kook (1865-1935), the first chief rabbi, wrote that in modern times, laws passed democratically by Jews had the same binding status as mishpat ha-melekh: "It seems to me that when there is no king, since the king's laws relate to the general state of the nation, the right to legislate should revert to the nation in its entirety," not to rabbis and experts in Halacha.
Other leading Zionist rabbis like Herzog's younger contemporary, Rabbi Shlomo Gorontchik, later Goren (1918-1994, who went on to become chief rabbi from 1972 to 1985), explicitly advocated a pluralistic legal system for the state, consisting of rabbinic courts that functioned according to Halacha alongside secular courts that functioned according to laws passed by the Knesset.
Kaye makes a strong case that Herzog was the exception in his desire for a country that would have just one centralized, halachic, legal system.
Herzog's dream is still popular in religious Zionist circles. He lost the battle to make Halacha the basis of Israeli law. But he seems to have convinced many religious Zionists that a medinat Halacha, a state with a one legal system based on Halacha, was a reasonable aspiration, despite the fact that no model for a state of this nature can be found in Jewish history.
THE INVENTION OF JEWISH THEOCRACY
By Alexander Kaye
Oxford University Press
280 pages; $40
'Two-Gun Cohen': The Chinese general who swung the UN vote
The story of the only Jew, probably the only Westerner, to become a general in the Chinese Army.
By RUTH CORMAN
APRIL 14, 2021
'Two-Gun Cohen' and Chiang Kai-shek, circa 1950
(photo credit: COLLECTION OF VICTOR D.COOPER)
My husband, Charles, was related to the only Jew, probably the only Westerner, to become a general in the Chinese Army known as "Two-Gun Cohen" – who played a historic part in China's abstention and the UN's recognition of a Jewish state in 1947. In 1961 Charles's mother, while staying at the King David Hotel Jerusalem, had to call the house doctor. Dr. Cyril Sherer arrived and, serendipitously, they discovered they were cousins! Cyril, a Londoner, lived many years in New Zealand but was now in Jerusalem. It was he who told the family about their illustrious cousin. Moishe Abraham Mialczyn was born 1887 in Poland. Two years later, his family emigrated to London's East End. His name was changed to Morris Abraham
Cohen. School did not interest him, but he loved street life, markets, and particularly the boxing clubs, where at age nine 'Cockney Cohen' won his first bout. Fortunately, his father never knew about it even after his nose was broken! He also worked for a glazier. Moishe went out at night breaking windows for the glazier to repair the next day. A perfect partnership. At 13, he was arrested for pickpocketing and sent to a reform school. Run-on military lines, they learned carpentry, gardening, and English. After three years he left with no future plans. His father, Yossef, worried, called a family council and decided to send Moishe to Canada to work on a relative's farm. He remained there just long enough to master skills with dice, cards, and guns from Bobby, a local cowhand. These became very useful in later years. He played cards for a living, then moved to selling real estate in Edmonton, beginning a lifelong association with the Chinese community. He felt an affinity between Jews and Chinese – two ancient peoples with strong traditions of hard work, the will to succeed and links to their ancestral homelands. At 19, Moishe was physically powerful and influential beyond his years. One day in a cafe he saw an elderly Chinese man quietly sipping tea.
Suddenly, two Chinese thugs entered and assaulted him. Moishe, fearless and hating injustice, sprang to his defense and threw them out. The gentleman bowed quietly, thanked him, and left. He was Dr. Sun Yat Sen, who would become the first president of the Chinese republic. While attending a Chinese lodge meeting, Moishe was formally introduced to Sun, visiting Canada to raise funds for his revolutionary activities
from the large expatriate Chinese community, mostly railroad workers.
They willingly supported his cause envisaging a better future for themselves and their families. In Canada, they were outcasts, badly treated, poorly paid, and subject to discriminatory laws.
Sun asked Moishe to guard him during his tour, as the Chinese regime had placed a $1 million price on his head. He also requested Moishe's help in purchasing rifles, which were then smuggled into China as "sewing machines." Appointed as a commissioner for oaths, Moishe became increasingly involved in local politics on behalf of the Chinese, elevating their state to a group with political significance. He also consolidated his own position as a successful wheeler-dealer.By 1911, there was a revolution in China when Sun and his followers overthrew the corrupt Qing Dynasty. That same year Moishe visited his family in London, the "prodigal son" returning as a successful businessman. But everything changed in 1914, with the outbreak of World War I. He joined the Canadian army, experiencing the horrors of trench warfare and fierce fighting at the Battle of Ypres in France. After the war, he returned to Edmonton a hero, but the real estate boom was over and he needed a new occupation, at the same time continuing to raise support for Sun.In 1922 Moishe received a request from Sun with help regarding railway construction. He left for China and on arrival Sun asked Moishe to remain as his bodyguard and arms buyer. He happily accepted, moved into Sun's house, and dedicated himself to protecting him. Moishe admired Sun for his quiet dignity and Sun saw Moishe as someone honest, who could be trusted. He also developed a friendship with Soong Ching-ling, wife of Sun, that lasted a lifetime.Wherever Sun went, Moishe, his indispensable aide, was close behind. One attack on Sun's life resulted in a bullet injury to Moishe's arm. Moishe realized he would be much safer shooting with both hands, so he purchased two Smith and Wesson pistols that he always carried with him, (even, as he told Cyril, keeping them under his pillow whilst staying at the Mayfair Hotel, London). Thereafter he became known as "Two-Gun Cohen."Moishe was also active in buying arms on behalf of Sun's government. At one meeting he negotiated a deal entirely in Yiddish with the local warlord who had lived with a Jewish family whilst studying overseas. Sadly Sun died in 1925. Moishe confessed that he cried only twice in his life, once for Dr. Sun, and once for his father. He said that the period spent with Sun was the first time in his life that he felt he had truly found his place. Before dying, Sun gave Moishe a letter stating that China would never do anything to harm the Jews: "I express my sympathy to the Zionist movement – one of the greatest movements," he wrote, offering support "to restore your wonderful and historical nation which has contributed so much to the civilization of the world and which rightly deserves an honorable place in the family of nations."
Morris (Moishe) Cohen. (Wikimedia Commons)Moishe
remained in China as a military adviser to Sun's successor, Chiang Kai Shek, and in 1928 the Chinese parliament appointed Moishe as a full general, carrying a life pension. For relaxation he would spend time at Shanghai's Jewish Club, where there was a sizable Jewish community, mainly comprising Russians who had fled the 1917 Revolution and Iraqi jews seeking their fortunes. He became known for his generosity and the lavish parties that he threw for friends.However, the Far East was by now in turmoil and painful years followed. In 1931, the Japanese invaded Manchuria and later China, culminating in the Rape of Nanking in 1937. Somehow, Chiang Kai Shek retained power.In 1941, the Japanese seized Hong Kong. Moishe placed Madame Sun and her sister Ai-ling on one of the last planes out of the British colony but e stayed, waiting for the inevitable.He
was immediately arrested and taken to the notorious Stanley Internment
camp for two years, being constantly beaten and losing 60 lbs. Moishe
told Cyril that, at this, the lowest point of his life, he often found
himself reciting the Shema – the Jewish prayer he remembered from
childhood.Thanks
to a Red Cross prisoner exchange in 1943, he was evacuated to Canada
where, as a member of the Chinese delegation, he took part in the
founding of the UN. For the next few years he shuttled between Montreal
and China trying to do business deals and keeping up his old contacts.In
1947, Moishe heard that China intended to vote at the UN against the
creation of the Jewish state. He was deeply affected by the struggle for
independence of the Jews in Mandatory Palestine and immediately
contacted his good friend, General Wu Tiechingm the Chinese
representative at the United Nations, producing the letter he had
received from Sun so many years ago. When
all the efforts by Zionist leaders to meet with Wu Tieching failed,
they brought Cohen to San Francisco to urge him to use his connections
to influence Wu. It urns out that Cohen had not only been an advisor to
Wu when the latter had served as the Canton police chief, but he had
also later appointed Wu as a general in the Chinese army.In
a meeting the very next morning, Cohen presented Wu with the 1920
letter he had received from Sun expressing his strong support for the
Zionist cause, and Moishe convinced his old friend, Wu, to abstain in
the Palestine partition vote.As a result, China abstained and
the vote was passed. Israel was born. Moishe tried enlisting in the
Israel army, but was gently told that they had no need for 60-year-old
ex-generals. He was deeply disappointed.He
did, however, help in other ways. One day the phone rang in Cyril's
Jerusalem surgery. It was the deep booming voice of the general, invited
by Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion to spend a week in Israel as his
guest.Why had he
been invited? Cyril guessed it must have been because Palestinian
terrorists were scattering button mines near schools in the North. These
harmless looking discs, manufactured in China, were being picked up by
children, whose hands were blown off. Immediately after Moishe's Israel
trip, he visited his old friend Zhou Enlai (the Chinese prime minister)
in Geneva. He very likely produced Sun's letter again, as suddenly the
mines stopped.By
now Moishe was living with his sister's family in Manchester, acting as a
consultant to the Rolls Royce aircraft company whose products the
Chinese used in their Vickers Viscount airplanes.He
was one of the few Westerners to be allowed to travel to both the
People's Republic of China and Taiwan. He admired the Communists'
achievements for their masses, but felt it was in contradiction to the
highly individualistic Chinese character. The
Chinese government continued to pay his pension and in 1966, the 100th
anniversary of Sun's birth, Moishe was the only westerner on the podium
in Peking, (now Beijing) together with Mao Tse-Tung and Zhou Enlai.Cyril
recalled the huge bear hugs of this emotional, affectionate and
sentimental man. Aged 58, Moishe married Judith Clarke, an attractive
Jewish businesswoman from Montreal. They divorced after 11 years but
remained friends; Judith saying that she felt she had been married to
China rather than to Moishe.In
1977, he died and was buried in a Jewish cemetery in Manchester with a
headstone in English, Hebrew and Chinese, paid for by the Chinese
government – a tribute from the people he served so well. The tomb was
inscribed by Soong Ching-Ling, Sun's widow, then-vice chairman of the
People's Republic of China, Peking. It identified him as "Mah Kun" – as
close as the Chinese could get to Morris Cohen's name, meaning "clenched
fist."Charles
and I visited China some years ago. One day we visited a remote village,
where we were invited into the home of a local farmer. On the wall was a
large photo obviously of someone important. It was Dr. Sun Yat Sen,
still considered by so many in China as the father of the republic.Moishe's
life reads like a film script. Cyril related how many years ago the
family were told that he had been decapitated by the Chinese for some
misdemeanor. They sat shiva – the Jewish mourning period. Two months
later, he unexpectedly turned up in London. No explanations.It
was sometimes said that Moishe never let the truth stand in the way of a
good story, but according to Cyril, who met him several times and on
whose memoir this is based, it all happened.Thank
you Cyril – who died at the age of 97 in 2018 and is sadly missed – for
bringing Moishe into my life. I loved getting to know him. From
poverty and petty crime he rose to become a man of substance. Watching the old newsreels of him, the only Westerner proudly walking in Sun's funeral cortege and again at the 100th anniversary of his birth, you see a man who used his wits, charm and humor to achieve something extraordinary. There is no way he can be forgotten.
