Desperate to feed her family, Saleha, a housecleaner here in western Afghanistan, has incurred such an insurmountable debt that the only way she sees out is to hand over her 3-year-old daughter, Najiba, to the man who lent her the money. The debt is $550.
Saleha, a 40-year-old mother of six who goes by one name, earns 70 cents a day cleaning homes in a wealthier neighborhood of Herat. Her much older husband doesn’t have any work. Such is the starkness of deepening poverty in Afghanistan, a humanitarian crisis that is worsening fast after the Taliban seized power on Aug. 15, prompting the U.S. to freeze $9 billion in Afghan central-bank assets and causing a halt in most foreign aid.
A reporter spoke to the lender to who Saleha owes the money. He admits that he made an offer a few weeks ago to cancel her debt if she hands over her daughter to be “married” to one of his sons when she reaches puberty. Until that time, the daughter will do domestic work around the house. In the phone interview, the lender made no bones about the arrangement. “I also don’t have money. They haven’t paid me back,” said Mr. Khalid Ahmad, reached by phone in Badghis. “So there is no option but taking the daughter.”
Let that sink in for a moment. “So there is no option but taking the daughter.” Something that struck me when I was reading this horrifying story was the realization that our failure in Afghanistan didn’t only come with the botched evacuation. (Though that was a massive failure also.) We were never going to “remake” the country into some democratic bastion of freedom because we never really changed the culture of that nation, aside from perhaps among some of the younger women in urban areas. After twenty years of western influence, it took a matter of weeks before the locals (and we’re not even talking about the Taliban here) were back to treating females as literal property. This lender clearly has no qualms about buying that toddler – another human being – and forcing her into a life of servitude until she becomes the closeted sex slave of one of his sons… when she reaches puberty.
In other words, when she’s somewhere between eight and fourteen years old. And that assumes there are enough scraps of food in the home to keep her alive until then.
Read more at the Wall Street Journal
According to additional reports from Syrian and Lebanese outlets, the casualties were Iranian officers. At this stage, no organization has claimed responsibility.
Two explosive devices reportedly went off as the bus was on the Hafez al-Assad bridge, the report said, adding a third device was defused by an army engineering unit.
The attack was the deadliest in Damascus in years, and a rare event since government forces captured suburbs formerly held by insurgents in Syria's decade-long conflict.
Syrian state TV showed footage of the charred bus in central Damascus, saying the blasts occurred while people were heading to work and school.
No one claimed responsibility for the attack, which occurred at a main bus transfer point under a bridge, where vehicles converge and head out to different neighborhoods of the capital.
"It is a cowardly act," Damascus police commander Maj. Gen. Hussein Jumaa told state TV, adding that a police force had cordoned off the area immediately and made sure there were no more bombs. He urged people to inform authorities about any suspicious object they see.
Such attacks in Damascus have been rare in recent years after government forces captured suburbs that were once held by Sunni Islamist insurgents.
The "Hazon Ish" (Rabbi Avraham Yeshaya Karelitz, 1878-1953) is considered to be one of the most influential rabbis of the 20th century. The letters reveal a very personal side to the revered spiritual leader.
In one example relating to Yehuda's decision to join the army and enroll in secular studies, Karelitz responded: "I am rich with love for others, particularly toward you, a young person armed with talents and with an understanding heart. … But when I saw the sudden change in you recently … I had to wait and process my great pain."
Born in what is now Belarus, in 1933 Karelitz moved to what was then British Mandatory Palestine with the help of Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, the first Ashkenazi chief rabbi there and a formative figure in the modern religious Zionist movement.
Countless visitors flocked to Karelitz's humble home in Bnei Brak during the last two decades of his life, from simple devout Jews to the leaders of the secular Zionist movement, including Israeli founding father and first Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, despite the fact that Karelitz was an opponent of Zionism.
A teacher and expert in Jewish law, he left an enduring mark on ultra-Orthodox Jewish thought and culture.
The letters have been donated to the National Library by Yehuda's widow, Hassia, and their children: Rachel Yehuda, Talli Yehuda Rosenbaum and Gil Yehuda.
A free online event celebrating the arrival of the collection will be held on Oct. 17 at 8 p.m. Israel time/1 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, moderated by Rabbi Zvi Yehuda's daughter, Professor Rachel Yehuda, vice chair of psychiatry at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine.
Reprinted from JNS.org.
In 1870, it was purchased by the Alliance Israelite Universelle, a Jewish cultural institution in France. Despite concerns the book would go into private hands, the institute said the move was necessary, citing financial debt.
Written by a scribe by the name of Abraham, the book includes several ancient versions of prayers that have since disappeared from Ashkenazi tradition. Its lavish illustrations and embellishments showcase the community's wealth.
The winning bid reportedly went to an anonymous American buyer.
Asked by Israel Hayom why Israel's National Library did not purchase the ancient text, a spokesperson said, "The National Library regularly examines existing sales in Israel and overseas and weighs each case individually." The spokesperson noted "the price for acquiring the mahzor is very high, and requires the enlistment of the state and donors to assist in such an acquisition."
Will they accomplish anything screaming like a bunch of uncivilized baboons?
The National Library of Israel (NLI) has received and has now opened public access to singularly significant archival materials from "Mr. Shushani" (also known as "Monsieur Chouchani"), a mysterious and brilliant man who served as the personal and perhaps most influential teacher to a number of significant 20th century Jewish cultural and intellectual figures, including Elie Wiesel.
Shushani had an extraordinary photographic memory, and was reportedly able to recall and cite the entire Hebrew Bible, Talmud and many other Jewish texts from memory, while also mastering various fields of mathematics, physics, modern philosophy and different languages. The disheveled figure attracted students who were captivated by his unexpected charisma. Many of them saw him as one of the most influential figures in their intellectual development.
The notebooks are full of thoughts and musings, concrete ideas in the realms of Jewish thought and other fields, memory exercises, mathematical formulas and more. Extremely difficult to decipher, a handful of scholars have been given access to some of the writings in recent years and they will now be open to the general public for the first time. Scholars believe that the notebooks will reveal some potentially groundbreaking ideas and teachings related to Jewish thought and texts.
Shushani zealously guarded his true identity and few details about his personal life are known today, more than fifty years after his death. Born in the Russian Empire at the turn of the twentieth century, throughout his life he traveled as a vagabond around the world: in Europe, Mandatory Palestine and later Israel, the United States, Uruguay and other countries. During his travels he left a tremendous impression on his numerous students.
Though his real name remains a mystery, a number of modern scholars believe it was probably Hillel Perlman. Among his students were Nobel laureate Eli Wiesel; philosopher Emmanuel Levinas; and Prof. Shalom Rosenberg, former chair of Jewish Thought at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, who donated Shushani's materials to NLI.
As a teacher, Shushani provoked unrest in his students, attacked them with difficult questions and sometimes even verbally assaulted them for their lack of understanding. However, he encouraged them to improve and progress, and especially to think in unexpected ways. Legendary spiritual and intellectual figure Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, who knew him in his youth, described Shushani as "one of the most excellent young people... sharp, knowledgeable, complete and multi-minded."
One of Shushani's greatest admirers was the writer Eli Wiesel, who wrote of him: "He had mastered some thirty ancient and modern languages, including Hindi and Hungarian. His French was pure, his English perfect, and his Yiddish harmonized with the accent of whatever person he was speaking with. The Vedas and the Zohar he could recite by heart. A wandering Jew, he felt at home in every culture."
Mr. Shushani died on January 26, 1968 in Uruguay. Prof. Shalom Rosenberg, one of Israel's leading intellectuals, was his student at the time of his death. According to Prof. Rosenberg, "the world is divided into those who knew him, and those who did not."
According to Dr. Yoel Finkelman, curator of the NLI's Haim and Hanna Salomon Judaica Collection, "There is no more suitable place for Mr. Shushani's archive than at the National Library, whose role is to preserve and make available to the public the intellectual and cultural treasures of the Jewish people and the State of Israel. We consider it of paramount importance to bring to the public's attention the story of one of the most mysterious and influential figures in twentieth-century Jewish thought."
