Eastern Jerusalem Arabs Celebrate the Mt. Zion AttackBy David Israel and Israeli study: Chemical heals wounds twice as fast, could be antibiotic alternative and Archaeologists Reveal Oldest Inscription in Jerusalem: A Canaanite Curse and Led by Tel Aviv University researchers, spaceship ‘Gaia’ identifies two new planets
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.
Saturday night's attack on Mount Zion was a signal for celebrations in eastern Jerusalem and on PA Arab social networks. In the Shuafat neighborhoods in eastern Jerusalem, fireworks were set off as a sign of support for the terrorist and identification with him. Last Friday night, Arab rioters shot fireworks at homes in the Beit Orot neighborhood.
Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said, "The brave act of heroism in Jerusalem is a natural response to the arrogance of the occupation soldiers and the extremist settlers who commit daily crimes against our people, our country, and the holy places of Islam and Christianity, as well as the ongoing intrusions in Al-Aqsa. Resistance is the only way."
Security forces executed several arrests in raids In Kfar HaShiloach (Silwan), and neighborhood residents who have security cameras were urged to delete their recordings, so the security forces won't get their hands on them.
Jerusalem Deputy Mayor Aryeh King, who lives in the Ma'ale Zeitim neighborhood, on Sunday morning called on the police to collect all the illegal weapons in eastern Jerusalem. He tweeted that "the fact that the terrorists fired an automatic weapon near the Old City, does not surprise any resident who lives around the Old City." According to King, "Almost every week, sometimes several times a week, we hear gunshots from automatic weapons. The time has come for the police to go house to house, street to street, neighborhood to neighborhood, with sniffer dogs, and clean up all the weapons in eastern Jerusalem."
On Arab social networks, users expressed joy over the attack in Jerusalem, and some of the commenters claimed that this was an act of revenge for the death of Fatah activist Ibrahim Nablisi from Shechem last week.
The Three Musketeers at the Kotel
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.
Led by Tel Aviv University researchers, spaceship 'Gaia' identifies two new planets
[They] were discovered due to the fact that they partially hide their suns every time they complete an orbit and thus cause a cyclical drop in the intensity of the light reaching us from that distant sun," says doctoral student Aviad Panahi.Republish this articleSpread the word.
JNS) A new discovery led by researchers from Tel Aviv University: The spaceship "Gaia" from the European Space Agency (ESA) recently identified two new planets in remote solar systems. Since this is the first time that "Gaia" has successfully located new planets, the planets were given the names "Gaia-1b" and "Gaia-2b."
The research was led by Professor Shay Zucker, head of the Porter School of the Environment and Earth Sciences, and doctoral student Aviad Panahi from the Raymond and Beverly Sackler School of Physics & Astronomy. Conducted in cooperation with the European Space Agency and the research groups of the "Gaia" space telescope, the study was published in the scientific journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.
There are eight planets in the solar system—giant balls that orbit the sun. Less known are the hundreds of thousands of other planets in the galaxy, the Milky Way, which contains untold numbers of solar systems. Planets in remote solar systems were first discovered in 1995 and have been an ongoing subject of astronomers' research ever since in the hopes of using them to learn more about the solar system.
"The planets were discovered due to the fact that they partially hide their suns every time they complete an orbit and thus cause a cyclical drop in the intensity of the light reaching us from that distant sun," said Panahi.
To confirm they were, in fact, planets, he explained that "we performed tracking measurements with the American telescope called the Large Binocular Telescope, located in Arizona. This telescope is equipped with two giant mirrors, each with a diameter of 8.4 meters, making it one of the largest telescopes in the world today. It makes it possible to track small fluctuations in a star's movement, which are caused by the presence of an orbiting planet."
"Gaia" is an ESA spaceship whose main purpose is the three-dimensional mapping of the structure of the galaxy, the Milky Way, with unprecedented accuracy.
To fulfill this mission, it scans the heavens while rotating around an axis, tracking the locations of approximately 2 billion suns in the galaxy with a precision of up to a millionth of a degree. This level of precision is comparable to standing on Earth and identifying a 10-shekel coin on the moon.
While tracking the suns' locations, "Gaia" also measures their brightness, which is an incomparably important feature in observational astronomy since it can teach a lot about the physical characteristics of heavenly bodies. Changes documented in the brightness of the two remote suns were what led to the discovery.
Zucker has extensive experience in discovering planets, ever since his days as a student of senior astronomer Professor Tsevi Mazeh.
"The measurements we made with the telescope in the United States confirmed that these were in fact two giant planets, similar in size to the planet Jupiter in our solar system, and located so close to their suns that they complete an orbit in less than four days, meaning that each Earth year is comparable to 90 years of that planet," he said. "The discovery of the two new planets was made in the wake of precise searches, using methods of artificial intelligence. We also published 40 more candidates detected by 'Gaia.' The astronomical community will now have to try to corroborate their planetary nature, like we did for the first two candidates."
He noted that the data continues to accumulate and that "it is very likely that 'Gaia' will discover many more planets with this method in the future."
Aviad Panahi. Credit: Tel Aviv University.
This discovery marks another milestone in the scientific contribution of the "Gaia" spaceship's mission, which has already been credited with a true revolution in the world of astronomy.
Its ability to discover planets via the partial occultation method, which generally requires continuous monitoring over a long period of time, has been doubted up to now. The research team charged with this mission developed an algorithm specially adapted to Gaia's characteristics and searched for years for these signals in the cumulative databases from the spaceship.
What about the possibility of life on the surface of those remote planets?
As Panahi summed up, "the new planets are very close to their suns, and therefore the temperature on them is extremely high—about 1,000 degrees Celsius—so there is zero chance of life developing there. In the astronomy community, such a planet is called 'Hot Jupiter'—'Jupiter' because of its size, and 'hot' because of its proximity to its sun. Even though there is no real chance of life on the planets we found, I'm convinced that there are countless others that do have life on them, and it's reasonable to assume that in the next few years, we will discover signs of organic molecules in the atmospheres of remote planets."
"Most likely," he added, "we will not get to visit those distant worlds any time soon, but we're just starting the journey, and it's very exciting to be part of the search."
Israeli study: Chemical heals wounds twice as fast, could be antibiotic alternative
Researchers say ointment could become standard medication, but long path ahead; chemical 'jams' communication between bacteria at injury site, making healing easier
Israeli scientists say they have used a natural chemical to make pigs' wounds heal twice as fast as they otherwise would. They hope to be able to develop the substance for human use, and claim it could also become "an antibiotics alternative of the future."
Diindolylmethane (DIM) is found in broccoli, cauliflower, and other vegetables. A Ben Gurion University research team studied its impact on bacteria in lab conditions, and found that it harms their ability to function.
The scientists took pigs, each with several wounds, and treated their wounds with either antibiotics or with a synthetic form of DIM. The wounds treated with antibiotics took 10 days to fully close on average, while the wounds treated with a DIM-based ointment took five days.
Prof. Ariel Kushmaro and his colleagues published their findings in the peer-reviewed journal Pharmaceutics, and are working on developing the chemical into an ointment for animals. They are also exploring whether it has health benefits as a food additive for animals.
"What we saw in our experiment was that wounds healed faster when treated with DIM," Kushmaro told The Times of Israel.
They also saw why.
"Antibiotics kill the layer of bacteria that's on the wound. A layer of new tissue grows, but you also have dead tissue and dead bacteria. With DIM, as bacteria aren't actually killed, there's no layer of dead tissue and no dead bacteria, so closure is faster."
The team's long-term aim is to test DIM on human wounds, and help to launch a new approach in human medicine. Kushmaro said his research is exciting because of the mechanism it illustrates. "This is a game-changer, and a novel concept for antimicrobial treatment," Kushmaro said.
He added that while the approach is totally different from antibiotics, it could become a staple of the fight against bacteria in the future, as antibiotics are today.
DIM interferes with communication between bacteria, akin to signal jammers that interfere with radio or cellphone communication. "Bacteria 'talk' to each other using chemical signals, and by blocking or jamming this communication you're isolating each bacterium so it's alone," Kushmaro said.
"This communication prompts bacteria to express virulent genes, and when they're not doing this they become less virulent and more vulnerable to antibiotics and to the immune system."
Illustrative image: a scientist examining bacteria in a petri dish (SilverV via iStock by Getty Images)
There is growing interest internationally in the potential of inhibiting bacteria by harming communication, and Kushmaro said he is optimistic that his research will make a significant contribution.
Kushmaro and his colleagues, including Dr. Karina Golberg and Prof. Robert Marks, hope to have a product approved for animals within five years. DIM is already used in some cancer treatments, but a brand-new use will take time to develop and receive approval for, so Kushmaro believes it will take more than a decade before any product can be developed for humans.
In the long term, however, he is very optimistic about its potential.
"This idea of jamming the communication between bacteria in some way has more promise than antibiotics," Kushmaro said. "This could be an antibiotics alternative of the future."
Archaeologists Reveal Oldest Inscription in Jerusalem: A Canaanite Curse
Brought to you by the letter representing the discovery of the earliest word, 'the': Somebody among the Jebusites really wanted the governor of Jerusalem to die
Some time in the Late Bronze Age, somebody seems to have had a beef against the governor of Jerusalem. Archaeologists have discovered a buried Canaanite temple that had been carved into the bedrock about 82 feet (25 meters) above Jerusalem's Gihon Spring some 3,700 years ago. Inside it, they found a limestone slab that dates to a few centuries later, about 3,300 years ago.
On that slab was a curse against the governor of the city, sar ha-ir, written in 20 words of proto-Canaanite script (which is basically the same as proto-Sinaitic). The prose is beautifully preserved after all these years on the stone tablet, which measures 10.5 by 7.9 inches (26.7 by 20.8 centimeters).
This, a hex, is the earliest-known inscription ever found in Jerusalem. At least the thing passes for "monumental" in terms of ancient hexes, explains Prof. Gershon Galil, the head of the Institute of Biblical Studies and Ancient History, and Department of Jewish History, at the University of Haifa, who has now deciphered and interpreted it some 12 years after its initial discovery by archaeologist Eli Shukron.
The stone slab has decorated borders, and whoever did this wasn't monkeying around with pathetic voodoo painted with charcoal ink or blood or whatever onto a piece of pottery. In this case, the hatred was literally etched in stone. "Whoever did this really wanted the governor to die," Galil observes.
A sketch of the Jerusalem inscription by Gershon Galil.Credit: Gershon Galil
Who wished the Grim Reaper attend the governor is unknown, but a plausible possibility is political opponents, Galil suggests. That speculation is consistent with the accursed one being defined by office. If it had been his wife or kids, for instance, they might have gone to the trouble to have a limestone carved with the spell, but probably would have mentioned his name.
Also, Shukron and Galil point out, the Bible features a wealth of conflicts between city governors and their subjects.
Another point. The stone slab was clearly deliberately drilled, perforated, featuring 10 holes in a rough circle, but only on one side. The holes don't pass through the slab so couldn't have been used to hang the thing up. Inscriptions usually don't have holes, so these had to have had symbolism, Galil says – a further form of wishing harm on the governor of the city of Jerusalem. The parallel that comes to his mind: needles in a voodoo doll.
The Ebal incident
The temple complex on the mountainside, above which Temple Mount was built above the Gihon Spring in the Middle Bronze Age, was about 3,700 years ago, based on the archaeological finds, according to Galil. (The slab was a bit later, about 3,300 years or the Late Bronze Age.) Chambers were carved into the bedrock and augmented by stone brick walls. The curse slab was found in 2010 repurposed as a stone in the wall that would close up the temple for all time. Which begs a question.
Artist's rendering of the Canaanite temple in Jerusalem, partly carved into bedrock, partly built of stone.Credit: Shalom Kweller
The temple seems to have been in use for about a thousand years, so one might expect to either find a ton of curse slabs, or none, no? Why one? Well, Galil says, evidently the place was cleaned out from time to time, as one does, and this one escaped the broom. And then King Hezekiah destroyed the temple and the slab was bunged into the closing wall.
Shukron adds the topographical aspect: Unlike Megiddo, for instance, where one layer was built on the next creating a tel on the plain, this is a hillside. A slope. You try to build on a building or ruins, and everything will roll down the slope. Ten to one, there were more ancient curses at the bottom of the hill, but they have long since returned to dust or been weathered to nothing.
This one almost went the way of all curses too, Shukron says: The archaeologists did notice it bore some scratches, but nobody realized it was a proto-Canaanite inscription until Gershon Galil laid eyes on it.
Also found in the temple was a horizontal massebah. Most masseboth are called standing stones because they stand tall – ancient cultic sites are littered with them, but some were deliberately laid on their side (but no, they weren't benches, Galil insists). Another site clearly featuring a horizontal massebah is Atar Hapar, or "the bull site," which is interpreted as an open-air cultic site in northern Samaria from the 13th or 12th century B.C.E. It is named for a bull figurine found there.
The chamber hewn out of bedrock, with the massebah, at the Canaanite temple in Jerusalem.Credit: Vladimir Neichin
Back to ancient Jerusalem: who wasn't sitting on the horizontal massebah, not using it as a bench? The faithful were Canaanites – probably the Jebusites, which is the biblical name for the local Canaanites living in Jerusalem. But there are biblical references to other peoples in the city, including the Hittites who had arrived in earlier times from Anatolia. So that isn't case closed, just case likely.
Anyway, the author of that proto-screed was actually following a practice that was or would become widespread around the Mediterranean. To wit: trying to harness supernatural powers against people you hate, in writing.
The horizontal massebah in the Canaanite temple, Jerusalem.Credit: Vladimir Neichin
Reading the text, one is reminded of another text written in proto-Sinaitic (proto-Canaanite) that was found on Mount Ebal and reported in March. In that case, the writing wasn't scratched onto limestone but actually etched onto a lead sheet that was subsequently folded up, and could only be "seen" by tomographic scanning. The Ebal inscription, also deciphered and interpreted by Galil, read:
"Cursed, cursed, cursed – cursed by the God YHW. You will die cursed. Cursed you will surely die. Cursed by YHW – cursed, cursed, cursed."
Hmm. The Ebal inscription is also thought to date to the Late Bronze Age, specifically to the late 13th century B.C.E., Galil says. But note that there, Yahweh had entered the picture. (Its dating is based on metallurgical analysis, among other things.)
The Canaanite curse now reported from Jerusalem predates Judaism insofar as we understand the march of history, and if Galil's interpretation is accurate, no specific deity is invoked – certainly not Yahweh. But the point is: formulaic cursing in the ancient world was evidently a thing. The Bible itself says: "Behold, I set before you this day a blessing and a curse. ... Thou shalt set the blessing upon Mount Gerizim, and the curse upon Mount Ebal" (Deuteronomy 11:26, 29). And, lo, a curse was found right there on Ebal, during wet-sifting in 2019. While controversy continues to rage over the accuracy of the Ebal decipherment, Galil shares that biblical archaeologist Dr. Robert Deutsch noted on the accuracy of the newly revealed Jerusalem inscription: "The letters are very clear and the text is easy to read."
Just to show how prevalent the practice of cursing was, we also note curses against demons in Mesopotamia, and hexes wishing sundry evil on one's enemies that were etched onto lead tablets and tossed down wells in an ancient Greek cemetery in Athens, 2,500 years ago. Rather later, a mere 1,800 years ago, a convert to Judaism named Yaakov died and was interred in a cave at Beit She'arim, with a hex designed to deter grave robbers. And there is so much more. Based on the newly revealed discovery, Galil suggests that the later Israelites learned to hex from the Canaanites.
It bears adding that the custom in ancient Egypt had a tweak: The curses would apparently be painted onto an artifact that could be smashed, such as a clay pot, so the despised one would suffer the same fate. Whether these curses worked or not, we do not know – though if they did, we presumably would know. Although they were probably about as useful as thoughts and prayers, or latter-day attempts to hex the moon or Joe Biden, they could presumably bring temporary emotional relief, much like railing on Reddit.
Hezekiah the cunning
Both the Jerusalem inscription and the Ebal inscription are, as said, in an extremely early form of writing that in these parts is called proto-Canaanite. More or less the same as proto-Sinaitic, it is the earliest-known alphabetic form of writing, and is postulated to have been invented by Canaanite workers in ancient Egypt who couldn't handle the hassle of learning hieroglyphics.
"At first we thought the Ebal inscription might be earlier [than 3,200 years] because the writing was so archaic," Galil explains.
Since the Jerusalem inscription is older, in fact proto-Canaanite would likely have been the appropriate writing form for it, he says. As for the Ebal text being done in archaic writing that had passed, perhaps that was because the author hoped that the "original" form of writing would render the text more potent. Some people still feel the King James Version of the Bible rings more movingly than modern formulations ("Thou shalt not kill…" / "Don't murder people").
Galil suspects the Canaanite temple in Jerusalem, only discovered in 2010, was destroyed by King Hezekiah and no other. He was the man in power in the city when the Assyrians arrived.
The supposed seal of King Hezekiah was discovered in excavation works at the southern end of the Western Wall Plaza.Credit: Uriah Tadmor
The Kingdom of Israel fell and the Kingdom of Judah shook. But Jerusalem weathered the onslaught, some think, because Hezekiah was a toady of the Assyrians. Galil suspects he was more of a mixed bag, obedient to the overlord only when out of other choices. In any case, he believes it was that king who closed it down, had it buried and built a wall over it as part of his general religious reforms.
It's controversial, but Galil believes Hezekiah started to rule in 726 B.C.E. and lasted until 697 B.C.E., a reign of 29 years. His reform was a first stab but would leave marks – for instance at Lachish, Galil points out. At that city is a temple that some archaeologists believe was deliberately desecrated by the marauding early Jews.
Later, a more serious reform would be pursued by King Josiah, who ruled from 640 B.C.E. until 609 B.C.E. – and note in support of his Hezekiah-the-destroyer thesis that when Josiah is credited with destroying the "high places" of the pagans, this temple above the Gihon is not mentioned. Why? Because it didn't exist any more, perchance.
A brief history of the word 'the'
The beast whose death for which the hexer begs was "the city governor": sar ha-ir. In Hebrew, the prefix "ha" means "the." Which begs the question of when the definite article "the" was invented. It did not exist in Akkadian or Ugaritic, Galil contends.
This is not only the earliest inscription ever found in Jerusalem; it's the earliest identified instance of using the indefinite article. It hadn't been noticed in any of the other proto-Canaanite inscriptions which as we mentioned above are extremely ratty. So we don't know when "the" was invented but here it is, in this raving Canaanite curse against the city governor of Jerusalem in the 14th or 13th century B.C.E. It may have developed earlier. Another thing: the vowels. Today, immigrants to Israel learn to read Hebrew "with" and "without" vowels (ktiv maleh versus ktiv haser). Mater lectionis are consonants (such as vaw) that are used to indicate a vowel sound in Hebrew, Arabic and Syriac. Today, a text may either be written with mater lectionis or without them. One or the other. But this curse has some words written with the vaw – specifically, the word "curse" (arur). The rest don't have vowels (ktiv haser).
Which means what? It means that writing is not governed by strict rules like it is today. It also suggests that linguists are wrong to suggest that first came ktiv haser, with no use of consonants like vaw to represent vowels. It hints that scribes at the time would be governed by the practice they were taught in scribe school, whatever that might have been. Ugaritic texts are also inconsistent. And so is the Ebal text, says Galil. In fact, the earliest texts could be written left to right, right to left, or both – they weren't that fussy. Our pedantry for spelling and writing direction is a relatively late development, starting about 3,000 years ago. Which explains why nobody realized what the Jerusalem inscription was, if Galil is right in his interpretation, because it has a logic and order of its own – but not a type we would recognize.
