News

Three weeks ago, President Biden suffered one of the most disastrous public relations days of any president in history. Special Counsel Robert Hur released a report explaining why charges for mishandling classified documents would not be brought against the President. The report noted that the 81-year’s memory was “hazy,” “faulty,” “poor,” and had “significant limitations.” The President was also unable to recall when his own son, Beau, tragically passed away. All in all, President Biden will not be charged with a crime because the special counsel did not believe that a jury would find Biden to be in his full mental capacity, and therefore, a conviction would be highly unlikely.

If you watched the Super Bowl on Sunday, congratulations: You were part of history. At 123.4 million people tuning in, Super Bowl LVIII broke the record for the most-watched event in television history, and that would make you a Guinness World Record holder.

Last week, the federal government took their most significant step in the history of the internet towards protecting children on social media. In a public forum, the Senate Judiciary Committee wailed against the CEOs of Meta, TikTok, X, and other social media giants about their unwillingness (at worst) or inability (at best) to do what is in their power to protect children from the terrors of social media.

Being an English Language Arts (ELA) teacher in an Orthodox Jewish all-boys school isn’t exactly the easiest teaching gig in the world. I should know – I did it for two years. The difficulty stems from the idea that the main skill you must impart on your students is critical thinking, a skill the boys tend to hone throughout their Judaic studies curriculum starting in the fifth grade. However, some people were born for such a position.

Last week, Jews everywhere rejoiced in the news that Claudine Gay, the President of Harvard, had been removed from her post. Gay’s troubles began when she could not categorically state that calling for the genocide of Jews in Harvard was against the school’s student code of conduct. While Harvard stood by her, this opened the floodgates for scrutiny, as her detractors went on a crusade to find the over 50 instances of plagiarism in her “scholarly” works. As the number of uncredited sources mounted, Harvard was no longer able to defend their president, and Gay was removed from her post. While her inability to denounce genocide was not the ultimate reason for her departure, it certainly opened the door to it.

Many Jewish communities around the world have a special day to commemorate a great leader of the past. Chabad celebrates the 19^th of Kislev as the day that Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi was freed from imprisonment in Czarist Russia. Satmar chasidim celebrate the 21^st of Kislev as the day that the Satmar Rebbe, Rabbi Joel Teitelbaum, escaped the Holocaust. Both were great Torah scholars and leaders who influenced multiple generations and will continue to do so for generations to come despite no longer being with us.