Founded in 1877 by Felix Adler, a German-born American Jew and the son of a prominent rabbi, the Society of Ethical Culture preached a quasi-secular ethical humanism that grew out of Adler’s own attempt to universalize Judaism. The elementary school Adler established—originally intended to cater to the children of the working poor—eventually evolved into the Fieldston School, a highly selective Manhattan private school that sends a number of its graduates to the Ivy League every year.

According to the Lebanese government, the explosion in its capital city on Tuesday that left over 100 dead and many more injured or homeless was caused by the accidental detonation of some 2,750 of ammonium nitrate, a fertilizer often used for making bombs. (Less than one-thousandth of that amount was used by Timothy McVeigh to destroy the Oklahoma City federal building in 1995.) Previously, police have discovered Hizballah warehouses in London and Germany storing many tons of the same explosive. Hussein Ibish comments: