Best remembered today for establishing the seven-year cycle of daily Talmud study known as daf yomi, Rabbi Meir Shapira (1887-1933) also founded the Yeshiva of the Sages Lublin, which, far more than other, older East European centers of learning, resembled a modern educational institution—even located in a large, new building with dormitories and cafeteria. The yeshiva attracted a regular stream of visitors, ranging from scions of ḥasidic rabbinic dynasties to Jesuit seminarians. Thanks to a partially preserved guestbook, Wojciech Tworek has mined some information about them:

The head of the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA)—which provides educational and social services to the descendants of Palestinian refugees—recently predicted disaster if the organization is unable to raise $100 million in the next few months. Ruthie Blum explains why this official’s claim that UNRWA “is indispensable in the lives of Palestinian refugees” is simply false: