Monthly Archives: March 2022

by Rabbi Yair Hoffman for 5tjt.com

The correlation of Hamans sons to the Nuremberg Nazis, ys, is eerie. It is also what can be called an emunahbuilder. One could perhaps suggest that it is coincidence, but the combination of all of these coincidences in one area, particularly when they are otherwise unexplained, is perhaps too much of a coincidence.

Why The Extra Words?

Lets look at the listing of the ten sons of Haman as they are being hanged at the end of theMegillah. There are two columnsthe names are to the right side. On the left side is a series of ten of the same wordsves.

Why not just have the connectingvavappear before each of the ten names? Why the ten extra words?

To answer this question, we go to one of theTannaim, either Shimon HaAmasuni or Nechemiah HaAmasuni (a debate in the Talmud). He was a second-generationTannaand perhaps even the person known as Nachum Ish Gamzu according to some sources. The Gemara inPesachim(22b)and inKiddushin(57a)discuss him and his method of exegesis. He looked at every es in the Torah and stated that it comes to include something else. But what? Or who?

The Four Strangely-Sized Letters

Now lets take a deeper look at the letters of the hand-writtenMegillahitself. There are four unexplained irregularities in the orthography of the letters. Three letters are written in a significantly smaller size. One letter is written in a much larger size.

The Smaller Letters.In the listing of the ten sons of Haman(Megillah9:79), there are three letters that are written smaller: thetafof Parshandasa, theshinof Parmashta, and thezayinof Vayzasa. Thegematriavalue of these smaller letters is 707.

The Larger Letter.In that last son of Haman, Vayzasa, thevavis written much larger. Rav Michel Dov Ber Weissmandel,ztl, atzaddikwho saved thousands of people during the Holocaust and who tried to save hundreds of thousands of others, made the following discovery:

If thisvavrepresents the sixth millennium of creation, and the other three smaller letters represent the years, the total is 5707; 5707 corresponds to the year 1946the year that ten Nazis were hanged at the Nuremberg trials.

The Hanging Date

Although the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg delivered its verdicts sentencing the leaders of the Nazi party to death by hanging on October 1, 1946, they were hanged on October 16, the 21st of Tishrei. That date corresponds to the final judgement day of the Hebrew yearthe point of no return, Hoshana Rabbah.

The Bizarre Declaration

Kingsbury Smith of the International News Service, who was chosen by random lot [pur in Hebrew] to represent the American press at the execution of the ten Nazis wrote as follows:

Julius Streicher made his melodramatic appearance at 2:12 a.m. While his manacles were being removed and his bare hands bound, this ugly, dwarfish little man, wearing a threadbare suit and a well-worn bluish shirt buttoned to the neck but without a tie (he was notorious during his days of power for his flashy dress), glanced at the three wooden scaffolds rising menacingly in front of him. Then he glanced around the room, his eyes resting momentarily upon the small group of witnesses. By this time, his hands were tied securely behind his back. Two guards, one on each arm, directed him to Number One gallows on the left of the entrance. He walked steadily the six feet to the first wooden step but his face was twitching He was pushed the last two steps to the mortal spot beneath the hangmans rope. The rope was being held back against a wooden rail by the hangman.

Streicher was swung suddenly to face the witnesses and glared at them. Suddenly he screamed, Purim Feast 1946.

This is very strange. Why would he scream that?

The Request

And the king said to Esther the queen, The Jews have slain and destroyed 500 men in Shushan the capital, and the ten sons of Haman Now whatever your petition, it shall be granted; whatever your request further, it shall be done.

Esther responded, If it is pleasing to the King, let it be granted to the Jews that are in Shushan to do tomorrow also as this day, and let Hamans ten sons be hanged upon the gallows (MegillasEsther9:1214).

Our sages tell us that every place in theMegillahthat it mentions the king, it also refers to Hashem, the King. Esthers request, or prayer, was also directed to Hashem Himself, the Ultimate King.

A Correlation Between The Nazis And The Ten Sons of Haman?

The great Kabbalist SasonbenMordechai Shanduch (17471830), who lived in Iraq, in hisseferDavar BIto, provides a Hebrew root that indicates the specific evil quality inherent in each of the original ten sons of Haman. Based on Rabbi Shanduchs writings, we can perhaps conjecture which each of the sons of Haman comes to include:

1.Parshandasais one who ismafrisha person from the religion (dasa). This possibly refers to Alfred Rosenberg,ys, chief Nazi theoretician and ideologist. In his 1920 book,Immorality in the Talmud, Rosenberg identified Jews and Judaism as evil incarnate. Publicly, Rosenberg attributed what was wrong with Christianity to the influence of Judaism. He initiated many of the anti-Jewish laws. He was also the head of the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories, where he oversaw the establishment and administration of the extermination camps.

2.Dalphonis a person who is adeles, a door topnios raos, bad directions or steps. Possibly this refers to Alfred Jodl,ys, chief of the Operations Staff of the Armed Forces High Command, who signed the Commissar Order of 6 June 1941 (in which Soviet political commissars were to be shot) and the Commando Order of 28 October 1942 (in which Allied commandos, including properly uniformed soldiers as well as combatants wearing civilian clothes were to be executed immediately without trial if captured behind German lines). He also signed the surrender documents of Nazi Germany.

3.Asaftais a gatherer. Ernst Kaltenbrunner,ys,obergruppenfhrer(general) in the SS was the chief of theReichssicherheitshauptamt(Reich Main Security Office). According to former SS-SturmbannfhrerHans Georg Mayer, Kaltenbrunner was present at a December 1940 meeting among Hitler, Goebbels, Himmler, and Heydrich where it was decided to gas all Jews incapable of heavy physical work. Under Kaltenbrunners command, the genocide of Jews picked up pace as the process of extermination was to be expedited and the concentration of the Jews in the Reich itself and the occupied countries were to be liquidated as soon as possible. He oversaw the rapid gathering of Jews in order to exterminate them.

4.Porasaalludes to untoward and unchaste behavior. While overseeing the Dutch, Arthur Seyss-Inquart,ys, an Austrian Nazi politician, worked with Hitler to create the Anschluss. After Germany invaded Poland, he served in the General Government of Poland. He was alsoreichskommissarin Holland. He behaved in a manner that compromised many Dutch women.

5.Adaliarefers to one who lifts himself up with arrogance and haughtinesslikely Joachim Von Ribbentrop,ys, Nazi Germanys foreign minister. In his arrogance, he added the fake title Von to his name. When he was an ambassador to England, virtually everyone commented about his complete arrogance.

6.Aridasais one who scares others like a lion. Possibly this refers to Wilhelm Frick,ys, Reich minister of the Interior of Nazi Germany and then the last governor of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. He used ruthless methods to counter any dissent.

7.Parmashtais one who rips apart (porem) the inner fabric, theshasi(the crisscross of the garment), of the Jewish nation. This could possibly reference Wilhelm Keitel,ys, field marshal and chief of the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, the Supreme Command of the Armed Forces. He issued a series of criminal orders from April 1941. The orders went beyond established codes of conduct for the military and broadly allowed the execution of Jews, civilians, and non-combatants, for any reason. Those carrying out the murders were exempted from court-martial or later being tried for war crimes. The orders were signed by Keitel.

8.Arisaiis one who possesses the venom (aras) of a snake. Perhaps this refers to the venomous nature of Julius Streicher,ys, early member of the Nazi Party and founder and publisher ofDer Strmer, which encouraged the hate toward Jews.

9.Aridaiis one who subjugates people (rodeh). This best references Fritz Sauckel,ys, Gauleiter of Thuringia and the General Plenipotentiary for Labour Deployment from 1942 until the end of the war. He worked directly under Gring through the Four Year Plan Office, directing and controlling labor. In response to increased demands, he met the requirement for manpower with people from the occupied territories. Voluntary numbers were insufficient, and forced recruitment was introduced within a few months. Of the five million foreign workers brought to Germany, around 200,000 came voluntarily, according to Sauckels own testimony at Nuremberg.

10.Vayzasais one who symbolizes the bitter and warped judgment of an olive (zayis). It is likely that this references Hans Frank,ys, Hitlers personal lawyer and Nazi Germanys chief jurist in German-occupied Poland. He served as the warped judge that allowed many Nazi goals to become law.

Perhaps the correlation of the original ten sons of Haman to the modern sons of Hamanthe Naziscould be tweaked bit better, but the ten prominent Ves additions in the left column do indicate that it comes to include specific people.

The author can be reached at[emailprotected].

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Correlating the Nuremberg Nazis and the 10 Sons of Haman - VINnews

In the wake of yet another scandal involving a therapist abusing his clients, it is time to reassert the importance of yichud, the prohibition of unrelated individuals of opposite genders being alone together. This is true not only as a matter of halacha; Jewish law has always required adherence to this principle, even if it has been disgracefully disregarded.

What is further necessary here is a reassertion of the value of yichud, an understanding and clear application of its underlying concepts and messages. The point here is not merely to advocate for practical compliance, as crucial as that is, but also to fully internalize and institutionalize what yichud represents.

To be perfectly clear at the outset, nothing here is meant to imply, chas vshalom, that had the victims of abuse been more careful about yichud, then they would not have been victimized. The duty to ensure that abuse is not even a remote possibility is on the therapist, and certainly not on the therapists vulnerable patient.

At first glance, yichud is a safeguard, a protective measure to prevent forbidden physical relationships from taking place, uninhibited by the presence of uninvolved parties. Safeguards are common in Jewish law, mandated by the Torah and the Talmud (See Pirkei Avot 1:1, and the Gemara in Yevamot 21a). They are a frequent function of rabbinic legislation, and are even present among Torah prohibitions as well.

While many of the laws of yichud are quite complex and detailed and beyond the scope of this brief essay the basic concept is intuitive, and has indeed been independently adopted by those unversed in Torah law, and unconnected to Judaism. In the twentieth century, the evangelical pastor Billy Graham has had a policy of not spending time alone with a woman other than his wife attributed to him, and more recently the practice has been associated with former Vice President Mike Pence.

However, there are opinions that yichud is more than a safeguard, that it constitutes an inherent transgression, separate and apart from the likelihood that it may lead one to further sin. While this may be a minority opinion, it is reflective of a possibility that yichud contains elements that set it apart from other safeguards, even in the area of forbidden relationships.

One distinction of yichud, both in the eyes of halacha and of society, is that it has the power to confer suspicion upon its violators, even if in actuality, no further transgression took place. Jewish law incorporates this fact into the ritual of the Sotah, the possibly adulterous wife, who is only considered sufficiently mistrusted to undergo the process once she has been established to have secluded with an identified man other than her husband.

Further, yichud may be, as implied by the Talmud and accepted by some rabbinic authorities, not only a rabbinically mandated safeguard, but one ordained by the Torah itself. In numerous places in the rabbinic texts, yichud is associated with an unexpected verse, one seemingly unrelated in context. This verse (Devarim 13:7), deals with one who entices another to worship idols, known as a meisit, and the highlighted words are Ki yesitcha achicha ben imecha when your brother, the son of your mothershall entice you secretly

Whether or not this constitutes a genuine source for a Torah prohibition; it is noteworthy that the Talmud refers to it as remez, a hint or allusion. If it is not a direct source, at a minimum it bears some thematic relevance, and it seems reasonable to assume that there is additional significance in associating yichud with the enticer to idolatry. Yichud is, in many ways, fundamentally different than other safeguards against forbidden relationships. Other prohibitions, such as affectionate contact or overly familiar interactions, are problematic because of the temptations they magnify or the slippery slope they represent. Yichud is that and more. At the outset, it establishes a sinister tone, similar to that of the inciter. The door that shuts out observers declares that judgment and the standards of society may be left outside as well.

It is noteworthy that during the times that a married couple is prohibited to each other, there are safeguards imposed upon them that exceed those applied to an unmarried pair. They are, however, permitted to be alone together. Yichud generally does not apply to those whose cohabitation is innocent, even if physical intimacy is prohibited between them. The application of yichud to a relationship is meant to automatically convey that seclusion is inherently inappropriate and transmits a tone of lawlessness.

In the context of a therapeutic relationship, this takes on greater significance. The therapist is there to assist. Certainly, there is a dynamic of inequality, one which may inhibit the client from resisting or even objecting to any inappropriate advance. More egregious, still, is the inversion of the purpose of the relationship. A therapist who locks the door, who secludes with a vulnerable client, is transmitting the message that in the place of facilitating emotional stability, he is creating a context of added vulnerability for the client, conveying a disregard for communal standards, announcing that should the clients trust be broken no one will be able to come to the rescue. Further, to the extent he bears any moral authority, he is instilling a fundamental confusion as to the basic principles of right and wrong, and the rule of religious law. It is a devastating form of moral gaslighting.

In that vein, there is an additional symbolism being conveyed by linking the secluder to the inciter of idolatry. R. Yaakov Tzvi Mecklenberg, in his HaKetav VHaKaballah, notes that there is a specific meaning to the root of the word meisit. It is distinct from the word mefateh, which denotes seducer. The seducer accomplishes his goals by convincing his target of the great pleasure or personal benefit that comes from the transgression. By contrast, the meisit convinces his target that the act is not merely desirable, but that it is ethically correct. It is a nefarious act of moral manipulation. Linking this status to that of the secluder sheds light on the particular damage that can occur when the one closing the door carries any veneer of religious authority or influence.

Of course, the therapist must create a safe space for the client to speak openly and with the necessary guarantee of confidentiality. Nonetheless, there can be no safety of this type in a space that is, at the same time, in any number of ways, horribly unsafe.

While the halachic responsibility in the area of yichud is bilateral, the moral weight is on the therapist, who creates the environment and controls the expectations of what is and isnt acceptable. To hold the client responsible to serve as the voice of propriety in this dependent situation is to add another layer of victimization.

The neglect of yichud in therapeutic or mentorship contexts has always been an unacceptable halachic violation. It is increasingly clear, moreover, that the themes and messages embedded within yichud and its sources are instructive as to what is necessary to create a supportive environment, and, conversely, what destroys one. One who would purport to heal must make unquestionably clear that first, he intends no harm.

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Yichud And Its Messages For Therapists - The Jewish Press - JewishPress.com

Rabbi Dan Fink received a letter from Lt. Gov. Janice McGeachin to join forces to call out anti-Semitism in Idaho, the same day she virtually appeared at AFPAC.

BOISE, Idaho There is another layer to Idaho's Lieutenant Governor appearing at a conference held by known white nationalists and anti-Semites.

Last week, the America First Political Action Conference -- or AFPAC -- played a video message for Lt. Gov. Janice McGeachin.

AFPAC was organized by Nick Fuentes, a known anti-Semite, Holocaust denier and misogynistic, white-nationalist, who has been kicked off various social media platforms for his view. The conference featured several others who share Fuentes' far-right and anti-Semitic sentiments.

When asked about AFPAC this week, McGeachin claimed to not know anything about Nick Fuentes and asked who cares what Fuentes has to say? Well, plenty of people do, like Idahoans who are Jewish.

Ironically, this other layer of the Lt. Gov. choosing to be apart of the conference has been laid bare by Idaho's Jewish community.

Boise Rabbi Dan Fink has been the leader of Beth Israel Congregation since 1994. He has often been the go-to-guy when it comes to Jewish holidays, traditions and unfortunately, anti-Semitism.

Fink's role might explain why Lt. Gov. McGeachin sent him a letter back in January, asking for his help in defining and dealing with anti-Semitism in the Gem State.

"[McGeachin] would welcome, she wrote, the opportunity to assist with any task force developed to fight anti-Semitism in the City of Boise, as well as throughout the state of Idaho," Fink said.

McGeachin included a letter to sent to Idaho Governor Brad Little in October of 2021 and an interview she did with the Intermountain Christian News as evidence of her sincerity. However, Rabbi Fink said the letter was very vague and it did not appear to lay out any sort of plan.

Instead, it said that if there was ever a task force created, McGeachin would like to be part of it.

Rabbi Fink said his first inclination was to respond in anger, as in the nerve the Lieutenant Governor had to invite him to a conference on anti-Semitism, Fink told KTVB Thursday, when McGeachin courts far-right extremists whose ideology is rooted in anti-Semitism.

However, because the Talmud tells us we should judge people with an inclination towards innocence, Rabbi Fink said he took a breath and a couple days to write a brief response and hand-delivered it to the Lt. Gov.'s office on Jan. 25.

In basic terms, Fink's letter said he appreciated the invitation, but there are some things he needed to talk to McGeachin about first. 10 days passed and Fink had not heard back from Idaho's Lt. Gov.

Fink said he then wrote another letter, this one a little more thoughtful, a little more to the point and a little more critical of McGeachin's original invitation, but still with the invitation to have a conversation about his concerns.

Rabbi Fink said this whole postal correspondence came to a hypocritical head last week.

"There were a number of things about it that troubled me," Fink said. "First and foremost, her invitation was a kind of rant against the political left."

In McGeachin's letter, Rabbi Fink said McGeachin defined anti-Semitism as anyone who was critical of Israel. That is not how Rabbi Fink said he sees this playing out.

"You know the anti-Semitism that we're dealing with in this state is overwhelmingly from far-right white nationalist groups," Fink said.

Failing to mention that faction, Rabbi Fink said McGeachin's letter seemed profoundly unbalanced and political, by also claiming Gov. Little failed to condemn anti-Semitism.

"So, it became very clear to me reading her letter that she was really looking to use anti-Semitism as a kind of wedge issue in her political campaign against the governor," Fink said. "So, I wrote all of that in my letter. I sent it off and hear back nothing for a month."

Then, Rabbi Fink received this in the mail -- a longer letter from the Lt. Gov., but one basically asking the same thing again. Fink said it asked if he and McGeachin could join together to define, expose and call out anti-Semitism in Idaho.

"But it was also completely tone deaf to the concerns that I had raised in my letter to her," Fink added.

The letter arrived from McGeachin Feb. 25 -- the same day McGeachin appeared virtually at AFPAC.

"Good evening America First Conference attendees, I'm Janice McGeachin, Lieutenant Governor of the great state of Idaho," McGeachin said to start her AFPAC speech. "I'm sorry I can't be there in person with you."

"You know the contrast between the act of sending a letter to a Rabbi to say 'I want to help you combat antisemitism,' and going to speak to this group, was so incredibly jarring," Fink said. "The dissonance was so extraordinary. I both hurt and at some level, had to laugh because it was surreal."

KTVB's Brian Holmes asked Rabbi Fink what he believed McGeachin's intentions were and what the letter was all about.

"You know there's a teaching in my tradition, which is to say what you do counts a lot more than what you say, you know? To me, her invitation is farcical, because we judge people by what they do in the world and you are the company that you keep," Fink said. "She wasn't coerced to sending a message to that group and it was either unbelievably ignorant to not know who they were, or she knew who they were -- which is what I strongly suspect, because who accepts an invitation to deliver a message to a group without having any idea who they are?

"The word I would use is 'chutzpah,' that you have the chutzpah to reach out to me and say 'help me on anti-Semitism,' while going out and glorying in the presence of anti-Semites is extraordinary. That's how this struck me."

Rabbi Fink said he has not heard from the Lt. Gov. since he received that letter Feb. 25. -- since her appearance at AFPAC.

If McGeachin does reach out, Fink said he would ask her to sit down and have a real conversation about actual anti-Semitism, the kind that explains why on Friday nights and Saturday mornings, when people show up to synagogue -- or on Wednesday evenings for school, why they have hired an armed, off-duty Boise Police officer for security.

Rabbi Fink said they do it because the reality is in the United States of America right now is Jewish institutions have been under attack, with those attacks amplified over the last few years.

He said if McGeachin would listen and truly hear the conversation, she would not think twice about going to a conference where she appears to be courting white nationalists, such as AFPAC.

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Lt. Gov McGeachin asked to be a part of possible anti-Semitism task force prior to AFPAC appearance - KTVB.com

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I once thought that I was a freak, says Rabbi Refael Kruskal, the vice president of the Jewish community in Odessa, a port city in Ukraine. While many others in the country doubted the prospect of a Russian invasion, Kruskalthe son of a Holocaust survivortook his cues not from the headlines but from Jewish history. I had supplies on trucks. I had generators prepared. I said theres gonna be a rush on gas stations, so I had gas prepared for the buses on the way.

He ended up needing every gallon.

Hoping to check in on his journey, I sent Kruskal a message last night, assuming he was asleep and would see it in the morning. Instead, he wrote back immediately. It was 4 a.m., and he was still at work. We spoke by phone this morning.

Kruskal oversees Tikva Odessa, a network of Jewish schools, orphanages, and community-care programs that encompasses some 1,000 people. When Russian bombs began to fall last Thursday night, and one exploded near Tikvas girls home, Kruskal and his team decided it was time to leave. The call was made at 7 a.m. on Friday. By 10:30 a.m., he and his staff were on the road with hundreds of orphans, heading for prearranged shelter beyond the Carpathian Mountains. Others from their community headed for the border and crossed into Moldova.

There were people in the Second World War who didnt believe, and they and their communities were wiped out, he said. We prefer to be cautious and make sure that our communities are safe.

Before the convoy set out, Kruskal posted a brief video from the evacuated central synagogue in Odessa, his voice catching as he asked those watching to pray for them.

Religious Jews like Kruskal and the children in his care normally do not travel or use electricity from sundown on Friday to Saturday night, in observance of the Jewish sabbath. But Jewish law permits the violation of the sabbath for pikuach nefeshthe preservation of human life. And so the community drove through shabbat, stopping at a gas station to make kiddush, the traditional blessing over the wine.

You never expect to be standing in front of hundreds of people in your care in the middle of a cold gas station in Ukraine and making kiddush for them and theyre crying, Kruskal said. It was very overwhelming.

On Twitter on Friday morning, anticipating the difficult sabbath ahead, Kruskal wrote in Hebrew: Tonight, many Jews from Odessa will have to be on the road to evacuate to a more secure place. I ask our brethren in Israel who do not keep Shabbat to keep this Shabbat for us.

It was a difficult journey. Every 70 miles, we stopped to see which roads were being mined by the Ukrainians so the Russian tanks couldnt progress, and which roads were being bombed by the Russians, where it was less safe to go, Kruskal recalled.

It took the first bus 27 hours to arrive at its destination, a campground just beyond the mountains. The final bus arrived after 33 hours. Because the shelter hadnt been sure if the Jewish children were coming, it had already given out 90 of the spots to other refugees. Kruskal procured mattresses for the kids, and he and another staffer slept in the infirmary area for the night.

He has been heartened to see the children adjusting to their surroundings. I was happy when about two hours after I arrivedI was shattered, Id been on the phone the whole timetwo boys came to me and said, Do you think you can ask the owner to open the football pitches? At least, as traumatized as theyve been, theyre saying normal things.

But he has also seen the fear lurking not far beneath the surface. After the first night in the medical wing, Kruskal needed to find a new place to sleep, and was quickly accosted by alarmed children asking why he was leaving. He assured them that he was not. Theres certainly a lot of trauma here, a lot of uncertainty, he said. People dont know whats going on.

Though he almost doesnt show it, the evacuation has also been hard on Kruskal himself, who arrived in Odessa in 1999 at the Jewish communitys invitation. Odessa was once a cradle of Jewish civilizationhome to the third-largest Jewish population in the world, and a hotbed of Jewish political activism and literary life. At its height, the city was half Jewish. But after the pogroms, the Holocaust, and Stalins purges, that percentage dropped to just 6 percent. Kruskal has spent 22 years building it back up. And then, suddenly, he was leaving it behind for an uncertain future.

Vladimir Putin has repeatedly claimed to be denazifying Ukraine, a disingenuous pretext echoed by an online army of apologists. But this exodus of innocents is the true face of his campaign. I walked past one girlher mother is in Kharkiv with her grandmother, and the citys being shelledand shes crying on the side, said Kruskal. Its just unbelievable what one man can do.

Tikva is running an emergency campaign for donors on its website. But even those who need help themselves are trying to help others. Having evacuated the city, Tikva opened its buildings to those in need back in Odessa. This, too, is a lesson from Jewish experience. We have to stay together and look after each other until this is over, Kruskal said. Its very, very important because we know how other people helped us during the Second World War. We have to be the same and do the same to help others. Were not only here to look after ourselves; were here to look out for anyone who needs help.

Despite the chaos and devastation, Kruskal has no intention of giving up. In his emotional farewell video from the Odessa synagogue, he opened with the words recited by religious Jews when they finish a tractate of the Talmud: hadran alach, ve-hadrach alanwe will return to you, and you will be returned to us.

This is a free edition of Deep Shtetl, a newsletter about the intersection of politics, culture, and religion. You can sign up here to get future free editions in your inbox. But to get access to all editions, including exclusive subscriber posts, and to support this work, please subscribe to The Atlantic here.

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What Putin's 'Denazification' of Ukraine Really Looks Like - The Atlantic

A 5,300-year-old skull from Spain has revealed what might be the worlds oldest example of ear surgery. Excavations in Reinoso, northern Spain, unearthed the skull as part of a mass grave of more than a hundred individuals who suffered from a variety of pathologies. The skull had been perforated multiple times, presumably to relieve the pain and pressure of an ear infection, andgiven that the woman lived after the surgical interventionsis, thus, the earliest example of a successful ear surgery.

The skull was found in an ossuary as part of the excavation of a fourth millennium B.C. megalithic monument conducted by the University of Valladolid. The team published their findings in the journal Scientific Reports. The womans skull showed evidence of surgical intervention via trepanation in both of her ears. The procedure was first performed on her right ear before a subsequent procedure on her left was undertaken. Seven cut marks at the edge of the surgical site in the left ear confirm that the holes in her skull were the result of surgical intervention (a mastoidectomy) rather than accidental trauma or deliberate injury. That the bones in her right ear had healed is a sign that she survived the procedure.

Manuel Rojo Guerra, one of the lead researchers on the project, said that it must have been carried out by specialists or individuals with certain anatomical knowledge and accumulated therapeutic experiences. Having eliminated other potential diagnoses, including tumors, the scientific team that studied the skull concluded that she likely suffered from a painful middle ear infection that caused excruciating pain and fevers. Without treatment, fluid buildup behind the eardrum can lead to hearing loss and even a life-threatening inflammation.

The surgery was not for the faint-hearted. The woman, who scientists estimate was 35 to 50 years old, would have had to have been restrained and held in place during the procedure. Its possible, though not provable, that some kind of plant-based sedation was administered in advance. The surgery itself would have been extremely painful and (given the age of the site in which the skull was discovered) would have been performed using a stone implement that was almost certainly made of flint.

Though surgical procedures to relieve pressure and fluid buildup are now common and relatively risk free, they only became widespread in the late 19th century. Prior to that the first documented description of the procedure comes from famous French 16th century physician Ambroise Par. He apparently recommended the treatment to the French king Franois II in 1560, but Franoiss mother Catherine de Medici forbade it. Franois eventually died of an ear infection but that was hardly Pars fault. As a result, the credit for the first successful mastoidectomy went to the French surgeon Jean-Louis Petit. By the 20th century, and even before the advent of widespread antibiotic use, the procedure was common. San Francisco surgeon Francis Sooy reported that until 1940 he regularly saw patients in the morning, before popping across the street to his surgery to drain some ear abscesses in the afternoon.

There are good reasons to think that ear surgery started much earlier. Images of barber surgeons casually operating on the ear date to the early 16th century, but the real pioneer was the Greek-speaking second-century physician Galen of Pergamum. Galen, who recognized the general benefit of draining abscesses, may hint at this procedure in his writings, but there is considerable debate about whether or not he ever performed the surgery himself.

Even without surgery there were numerous ingestible ancient remedies for ear trouble. Galen prescribed honey for ear pain. As seasonal allergies can cause ear discomfort and some claim this can be alleviated by ingesting local honey, its possible (though unlikely) that some patients may actually have benefitted from this treatment. A less appetizing treatment for ear pain, also attributed to Galen, was to boil dung beetles in olive oil and drip the resulting concoction into the affected ear. This treatment is noteworthy given that beetles are known to sometimes invade the earand the rectum, but thats a whole other storywith undesirable results. Close your screen doors at night, people.

Like so much ancient medicine, many of remedies would have been devised and administered in the home by women. As Laura Zucconi notes in her History of Ancient Medicine, the most noted female healer in the Talmud, the stepmother of Rabbi Abaye, reportedly had effective cures for heart problems, fevers, scorpion bites, and ear infections. Whether any of these treatments were effective is a whole other story, while eye surgery (especially cataract surgery) is well documented in antiquity, ear infections are near impossible to treat without antibiotics.

In the case of the 5300-year-old woman survived at least her first procedure, proving that there were some sophisticated and technically adept medical practitioners in fourth millennium B.C. Spain. Whether she consented to treatment is a whole other question to which we will never know the answer. She does seem to have fared at least as well as her burial companions, whose myriad injuries and pathologies have yet to be fully studied.

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This Woman Survived Ear Surgery Using Stone Instruments | The Paradise News - The Paradise News