The complete special issue: How We Die Now

National Post | News

How We Die Now: “Death renders all equal,” wrote Claudian. How each one of us relates to death, however, is individual, and always changing — as we mature; as we contemplate life, and death, around us; and as society changes. In this special series in the National Post, we present stories and columns looking at the different ways we see, and prepare for, the Great Equalizer.

Robert Fulford: Death, like life, never stops changing

Like life, death never stops changing. Every generation faces new facts about the end of life. Every generation thinks about it in a different way.

Fifty years ago, a Canadian who lived to 100 was a news item and the recipient of a letter from the Queen. Today Canada has about 6,000 centenarians and their number increases by roughly 1,000 a year. A century ago, the death of a child was an expected part of…

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Three Seconds to Shoot Down a Missile and Save Hundreds of Lives

Three Seconds to Shoot Down a Missile and Save Hundreds of Lives

Published on: October 27, 2013

In the face of the constant threat of rockets and missiles, the IDF has been at the forefront of developing and operating air defense systems. What does it take to be an officer in this crucial field?

Imagine what an attack against Israel might look like in the not-too-distant future. In the opening salvo, a missile hits the heart of Tel Aviv, followed by precise rocket strikes on Israel from the Galilee to Eilat. Think this is an impossibility? Think again. Hezbollah alone has thousands of missiles aimed at major Israeli population centers. Their missiles can reach every single part of the country.
2013/10/27/three-seconds-shoot-missile-save-hundreds-lives/#.Um1LR50VSWM.wordpress’>Three Seconds to Shoot Down a Missile and Save Hundreds of Lives.

Family of Egyptian doctor honoured by Israel for saving lives during Holocaust won’t accept award

National Post | News

CAIRO, Egypt — A member of the family of the first Arab honoured by Israel for risking his life to save Jews during the Holocaust says the family isn’t interested in the recognition.

The Egyptian doctor, Mohamed Helmy, was honoured posthumously last month by Israel’s Holocaust memorial for hiding Jews in Berlin during the Nazis’ genocide, but a family member tracked down by The Associated Press this week in Cairo said her relatives wouldn’t accept the award, one of Israel’s most prestigious.

“If any other country offered to honour Helmy, we would have been happy with it,” Mervat Hassan, the wife of Helmy’s great-nephew, told the AP during an interview at her home in Cairo this week.

Mohamed Helmy was an Egyptian doctor who lived in Berlin and hid several Jews during the Holocaust. Last month, he was honoured by Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial as “Righteous Among the Nations”…

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Pope Emails Jewish Leader About Holocaust

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World

Vatican officials have confirmed that Pope Francis recently emailed an American Jewish leader to respond to a sermon he delivered about believing in God after the Holocaust, The Washington Postreports.

Menachem Rosensaft, the son of two Holocaust survivors and a professor specializing in the law of genocide and war crimes trials, emailed his sermon and a personal note to the Vatican expressing his belief that God’s presence gave his parents strength during the Holocaust.

“When you, with humility, are telling us where God was in that moment, I felt within me that you had transcended all possible explanations,” Francis wrote in his email to Rosensaft.

The communication is significant, the Post notes, because of the Catholic Church’s legacy related to the Holocaust – specifically, its inaction while the Nazis killed 6 million Jews and targeted 5 million others.

[The Washington Post]

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Iranian man survives execution by hanging, sent to hospital to recuperate for re-hanging

National Post | News

In accordance with the New York Times licensing agreement, this article has been removed. You can still view it at Nytimes.com.

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Palestinian Corruption — Again

NOBODY

by Shoshana Bryen

If the Palestinian movement believes it lives outside the laws of politics, nature and economics, it may be right.

The PA and Hamas occupy a split territory with two feuding governments — both dictatorships with all the arbitrariness and lack of accountability implied by that; multiple armed services that fight each other and, occasionally, kill Israelis; a school system that teaches children that the IDF ate Mickey Mouse and Jews have no history in the land of the Bible; a civic culture that venerates suicide bombers and the mothers who seem to revel in their children’s bloody demise; and an economy that produces nothing of export value. Yet it operates on the principle that it will be bailed out by European and American political support and international largesse. And that Israel will be blamed for the Palestinian failure to thrive.

Two stories this week, however, may challenge…

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‘The basest act of betrayal imaginable’: Turkey blew cover of Israeli spies in Iran, report says

National Post | News

It’s no secret the relationship between Turkey and Israel is on the rocks, but the revelation the government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan blew the cover of a group of Mossad spies is seen as a betrayal too far.

The incident happened early last year, but has only just been made public.

The 10 Iranians met their Israeli case officers on Turkish soil, The Washington Post reported Thursday.

They wanted to see [the] old Turkey returning back

Ankara knew of the ring of agents operating in Iran because the Mossad apparently ran “part of its Iranian spy network through Turkey, which has relatively easy movement back and forth across its border with Iran.”

Turkish intelligence “conducts aggressive surveillance inside its borders, so it had the resources to monitor Israeli-Iranian covert meetings,” the newspaper said.

Turkey denied the claim. Ahmet Davutoglu, the Turkish foreign minister, called it part of efforts to discredit…

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Autistic Boy Still Missing in New York

New Day

From the loudspeakers of New York police patrol cars and search vehicles, Avonte Oquendo’s mother calls for him.

She urges the 14-year-old autistic boy to walk toward the flashing blue and white lights of the emergency vehicles that have been combing the streets for him.

The recording is part of the New York Police Department’s stepped up search efforts to find Avonte, who was last seen on surveillance video running out of Center Boulevard School in Long Island City on the afternoon of October 4, Keith Brooks, director of operations for CityWide Disaster Services, said Thursday.

“Avonte, this is your mother. You are safe. Walk toward the lights,” the message repeats.

The hope is the teen, who is unable to communicate verbally, will hear the sound of his mother’s voice and approach the emergency vehicles.

SEE FULL STORY

In New York, a city-wide search is underway for a missing…

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A Nation of Our Own

Rivka Liron Bat Cohen's Blog

In the period between 1935 and 1938, Entjudung (removal of Jews from Germany), although not official policy, was a strategy used by the SS to rid the country of it’s Jewish population. Organizations meant to increase emigration to British Mandated Palestine were encouraged by the SS and articles in the Jewish press encouraging Jews to stay in Germany were suppressed. The SS divided Jews into two major categories: assimilationists and Zionists.  The assimilationists encouraged German Jewry to remain in Germany and pursue recognition as Germans while the Zionists urged their communities to get out of the country.  

Those who chose to listen to the Zionists were lucky, because in the coming years, what would be known as the “Final Solution” was to take place. Six million Jews would perish and those who chose to leave would escape the tragedy of what was later to be termed “The Holocaust”.  It…

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Two Florida girls charged with stalking 12-year-old who killed herself after harassment

National Post | News

WINTER HAVEN, Fla. — Two girls were arrested in a Florida bullying case after one of them admitted online over the weekend that she harassed a 12-year-old girl killed herself last month, a sheriff said Tuesday.

Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said they arrested a 14-year-old girl because they were worried she would continue cyberbullying other girls. The girl is accused of bullying 12-year-old Rebecca Sedwick, who climbed at tower at an abandoned concrete plant Sept. 9 and hurled herself to her death.

Judd said arrested the 14-year-old girl after she posted online Saturday that she bullied Rebecca and she didn’t care.

“We decided that we can’t leave her out there. Who else is she going to torment, who else is she going to harass?” Judd said.

Police also arrested a 12-year-old girl who is accused of bullying Rebecca. Both have been charged with felony aggravated stalking.

The sheriff’s office…

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