Shabbat shalom! Incredible weather here in New England, I hope you are all enjoying it. And a tip of the kipah this week to my brother Bill, who hopefully will have a great birthday today!
I was struggling a bit with a topic for this week’s posting. My usual process is to find something in the news worth venting about, and while there has been no shortage of headlines to make me miserable and consider moving to a Scandinavian country, I was feeling reluctant to pile on more blather about the state of the nation. Then I listened to this week’s UnHerd Podcast which was an interview with Gad Saad on why Postmodernism is making us miserable. Saad is a Canadian Professor and “evolutionary psychologist” whose recent book, The Saad Truth about Happiness: 8 Secrets for Leading the Good Life provides some interesting insights on the human condition. During the interview, Saad mentions the concept of “Dunbar’s Number”, a mythical optimal number of meaningful relationships the human brain is capable of managing. That number is 150, which not coincidentally, is the average number of guests invited to weddings and approximately the average number of people in a small town church congregation. Dunbar’s number was brought up in reference to one element of happiness, that being belonging to a community. Robin Dunbar, the British sociologist whose research led to the 150 number, published his theory in the 1990’s, before the advent of social media. Some have challenged the number as being too low now that we have social media, and some researchers have suggested the number might be double what Dunbar thinks. I like Dunbar’s number. It makes sense.
I have recently been considering promoting my Substack blog beyond our current group of 100. Now that I am retired for the 4th time, I was thinking the extra time I now have could be used to promote and build a much broader community of readership. But the Dunbar number has given me pause on that line of thinking, and instead, caused me to appreciate the intimacy of the current group, and for now, putting any thoughts of expansion on hold. But, I would like to get to the magic 150 mark, so please feel free to share this with your friends, family and acquaintances, and as always, hitting the “like” button and responding with your comments is definitely appreciated.
Now, what about the news for the Jews this week? Where are those gems of Jewish journalism carefully curated by yours truly? Without further ajieu, here you go:
- An Anti-ADL campaign is erupting on Twitter and Elon Musk endorsed it – As I have said before, do not buy a Tesla. Musk is a brilliant engineer, but a human moron. More than 89,000 of #BantheADL posts flooded Twitter as part of an ongoing effort by the far right to defame the organization. The campaign against the ADL alleges that the organization is hindering free speech by demanding that social media platforms sanction neo-Nazis and other extremists who promote antisemitism, racism and other bigotry. Responding to a request from the Forward for comment, the ADL said it was “unsurprised yet undeterred that antisemites, white supremacists, conspiracy theorists and other trolls have launched a coordinated attack on our organization. This type of thing is nothing new.”The organization said the onslaught follows “a meeting with the leadership of X, formerly known as Twitter, that clearly upset these hateful groups.”
- Why all the bagel talk at the US Open? Here’s why they use ‘bagels’ to keep score in tennis – The U.S. Open tennis championship is underway in New York, and if you’re paying even casual attention, you can’t help but notice the use of the word “bagel” in descriptions that have nothing to do with lox. “Djokovic grabs a late-night first-set bagel in 23 minutes,” tweeted the U.S. Open’s official account Monday night. The TennisCompanion.org site defines a bagel as “a set where the ending score is 6-0″ and gives this as a sample sentence: “I’m going to serve my opponent a bagel today.” For more, click here.
- 🇮🇱 Terror attacks in Israel: An Israeli man was killed and five others were wounded in a truck-ramming attack at a checkpoint Thursday morning. (Times of Israel) … Four IDF soldiers were wounded while inside the occupied West Bank city of Nablus Wednesday night, after being targeted by a large explosive device detonated by Palestinian fighters. (Times of Israel) … An Israeli man was woundedin a stabbing attack Wednesday night at a light rail station in Jerusalem. The assailant was a 14-year-old Palestinian boy, who was shot and killed by police. (Haaretz)
- 🇸🇦 In a sign that Saudi Arabia is making efforts to establish diplomatic ties with Israel, the kingdom offered to resume funding to the Palestinian Authority,which could be used to crack down on militant groups and violence in the West Bank. (WSJ)
- 🕍 A minyan has been meeting at Touro synagogue, America’s oldest congregation, since the early 1900s. But a ruling by a Rhode Island judge may soon lead to their eviction.(JTA)
- Libyan foreign minister is fired and flees to Turkey after meeting her Israeli counterpart – (JTA) — Libyan Foreign Minister Najla Mangoush has been fired and has fled to Turkey following a meeting last week with Israel’s foreign minister, Eli Cohen. Libya and Israel do not have diplomatic relations, and when he first announced the meeting on Sunday, Cohen hailed it as another breakthrough in Israel’s growing ties with its neighbors. Israel normalized relations with several Arab countries in 2020 under the framework of the Abraham Accords, and is now publicly exploring an agreement with Saudi Arabia.The Israel-Libya meeting, which took place in Rome last week, seemed to fall in the same vein. Mangoush represented the internationally-recognized government of Libya that took shape — alongside a rival government — following the fall of strongman Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. The countries’ chief diplomats had never met, and news of the discussion, which centered on agriculture and protecting Jewish heritage sites in the country, held out the possibility of yet another future accord.- Click here for more.
- 👏 Best headline of the day: “Shabbos goy” of 30 years found to be Jewish. (Arutz Sheva)
That’s all this week! Enjoy the weekend everyone! And hey, as always, remember to be careful out there!
Brad out.
Jew News Review 