The Rabbi, Beer-Brewer, and Price Regulator Who Brought 3rd-Century Talmudic Scholarship to Babylonia

Born in Babylonia in the late 2nd century CE, Abba ben Ayvo was one of the earliest amoraim—as the sages whose teachings make up the Gemara, or latter stratum of the Talmud, are known. His contemporaries knew him as Abba Arikha (Abba the Tall), but his influence was so great that the Talmud’s editors most often refer to him simply as Rav (rabbi). As a young man, he studied in the land of Israel before returning to his native country, which in his lifetime began to rival—and would later eclipse—Roman Palestine as the center of rabbinic intellectual activity. Henry Abramson presents a brief synopsis of his remarkable career. (Video, 4 minutes.)

Read more at Orthodox Union

More about: ancient Judaism, Babylonian Jewry, Talmud

Why South Africa Has Led the Legal War against Israel

South Africa filed suit with the International Court of Justice in December accusing Israel of genocide. More recently, it requested that the court order the Jewish state to allow humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip—something which, of course, Israel has been doing since the war began. Indeed, the country’s ruling party, the African National Congress (ANC) has had a long history of support for the Palestinian cause, but Orde Kittrie suggests that the current government, which is plagued by massive corruption, has more sinister motives for its fixation on accusing Israel of imagined crimes:

ANC-led South Africa has . . . repeatedly supported Hamas. In 2015 and 2018, the ANC and Hamas signed memoranda of understanding pledging cooperation against Israel. The Daily Maverick, a South African newspaper that previously won an international award for exposing ANC corruption, has reported claims that Iran “essentially paid the ANC to litigate against Israel in the ICJ.”

The ANC-led government says it is motivated by humanitarian principle. That’s contradicted by its support for Russia, and by [President Cyril] Ramaphosa’s warmly welcoming a visit in January by Mohamed Dagalo, the leader of the Sudanese-Arab Rapid Support Forces (RSF) militia. Ramaphosa’s smiling, hand-holding welcome of Dagalo occurred two months after the RSF’s systematic massacre of hundreds of non-Arab Sudanese refugees in Darfur.

While the ANC has looted its own country and aided America’s enemies, the U.S. is insulating the party from the consequences of its corruption and mismanagement.

In Kittrie’s view, it is “time for Congress and the Biden administration to start helping South Africa’s people hold Ramaphosa accountable.”

Read more at The Hill

More about: International Law, Iran, South Africa