Nazi-Looted Paintings: Who Owns It?

Article: The German son of a Nazi-era art dealer, who hoarded hundreds of artworks looted from Jews during WWII, has died. What does it mean to loot? (= steal) Give an example. In his will, he left all the art to teh Bern Art Museum. His familial heirs have pledged to immediately return the works to their rightful owners, should they inherit. What does it mean to inherit? The museum has agreed to accept all the works but if their Board of Trustees refuses, they will go to the family heirs. The art is estimated to be worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Ronald Lauder, head of the World Jewish Congress, has told the museum not to accept the art. Why would the museum choose to accept or not to accept it? What do you think is the right thing to do? 

Vote Scheduled for Today on CA Tuition Increase

Article: Today, the CA Board of Regents is voting on whether to increase tuition to California's 10 state universities by 25% over the next 5 years. That is a big hike. What does "tuition" mean? Why do some schools require tuition? Ask your parents if they pay tuition for you to go to school and why? Students have been protesting this idea. Some say it is necessary because of budget cuts; others say it is a formidable increase for students. What do you think? Students say their loans are already too much. What are student loans? Ask your parents if they had to pay student loans. Pretend you are the students or the head of the university system. Discuss why you think tuition should go up or not and why.

Jordanian Citizen Begins Trial in Jordan for Attempting to Hurt Israel

Article: A security court in Jordan (find Jordan on map) started proceedings this week for a trial involving a Jordanian citizen who is suspected of having attempted to sneak into Israel from the Northern Jordanian border to commit a terrorist attack. He was caught by Jordanian border police as hew as trying to cross into Israel. Anas Awamra, 21, has been arrested and in Jordanian jail since August, and has pleaded not guilty. Awamra was charged with (1) performing actions that harm the Jordanian kingdom's relations with a foreign state and (2) for attempting to enter Israel illegally. If convicted, he will be in jail for 3 to 10 years.

Further Questions: 

1. Why do these criminal charges mean? Break them down. 
2. Why does Jordan have these crimes? What purpose are they meant to serve (keep relations good with Israel and help Israel)
3. Why would Jordan want to help Israel and keep relations good? (1994 peace treaty between Jordan and Israel; good for economy; for politics; Jordan has billion dollar oil deal in place with Israel, etc.) What does it mean to be an ally? 
4. You can be an ally as a nation or as a person in school or really anywhere. What is an example of a time when you were an ally or saw someone being an ally? 

Jerusalem Today and Alternate Current Event

Parents: this morning, there was a terrorist attack at a synagogue in Jerusalem (Haf Nof), where four rabbis were murdered while praying and many others wounded. The attack left behind four widows and 24 fatherless children. While PA President Abbas and many others in the Arab world condemned the attack for targeting people at prayer, people in Gaza handed out candies and celebrated the news. It's up to you whether to share any of this with your kids; I'm not sure I will. Here's an alternate article for tonight's current event that is empowering for kids: 

Article: In the tiny Tunisian island of Djerba (kids: find on map) where Jews have lived since the destruction of the First Temple in Jerusalem (three thousand years), a Jewish boy testified that a bearded man and accomplice entered the Jewish neighborhood, approached the boy and told him to get into a waiting taxi. The boy used a child's most powerful weapon (Kids: what is your most powerful weapon?)--his voice. He started shouting for help and refused to get in the taxi. The men fled. This incident is a great example of how kids can be empowered, even in scary situations. You can role play with your kids, telling them to scream, shout and run away at first chance.

Follow up: Chicago Immigration Trial Case

Article; Last week, I posted about the guilty verdict in the Rasmieh Odeh immigration case. A new article has filled in some new information about the case, answering some questions my kids had about the case (and maybe yours did too):

Odeh faces 10 years in prison and is expected to lose her US citizenship. 

Odeh immigrated to the U.S. from Jordan, so if she is deported, it will be to Jordan, not Israel. 

When first arrested on charges, Odeh claimed "mistaken identity;" this means that she said the police had the wrong woman; the terror charges did not relate to her but to someone else. How do you think this later impacted whether the judge/jury felt Rasmieh was an honest person who didn't lie? 

An Israeli NGO, Shurat Hadin, helped the US prosecutors find documents from the IDF, proving that Odeh was the right woman who had spent time in Israeli jail for terrorism. Without this information, do you think Rasmieh still could have been convicted?

Spacecraft lands on a comet, for the first time in history!

Article; Yesterday, in an amazing technological feat, European space scientists successfully landed a small spacecraft on the surface of a speeding comet, for the first time in history. What is a comet? A comet is frozen leftovers from when the solar system was formed, made of ice and rock. Where else have humans landed spacecrafts? Mars and the moon. What do you imagine is the hardest thing about trying to land on a comet? Issues of gravity and how to land on something that is a 2.5 mile wide ball of rock, ice and dust, moving faster than 40,000 miles per hour! One of the purposes of this spacecraft is to find out whether the earth’s oceans are filled with melted comets; some scientists believe that water came to earth on comets slamming into earth carrying water from elsewhere. What could be some problems with the landing? The scientists say the spacecraft is not very securely attached to the comet, as previously hoped. How does the lander get its energy to conduct scientific experiments and send photographs and information back to earth? From solar panels that recharge the batteries. Lastly, the operation is named “Rosetta,” after the Rosetta Stone, used to decipher Egyptian hieroglyphics. Scientists hope this operation will help decipher the solar system.

Click here for a slide show of the comet and landing!

 

Lying to Become a US Citizen--Guilty Verdict for Rasmieh Odeh

Parents, this current event may be a little hard for kids under age 6 to understand. 

Article: A high profile trial of Rasmieh Odeh, 67, has been underway for the last few months and on Monday concluded with a guilty verdict. Federal prosecutors brought Rasmieh to trial for lying on her immigration papers. In 1967, Rasmieh, who was then living in Israel, bombed a crowded supermarket in Jerusalem, killing two people. Then she exploded a bomb at the British Consulate in Jerusalem though no one was injured. She was arrested and convicted in Israel, sentenced to life in prison but released 10 years later as part of a prisoner exchange. She immigrated to the US in 1995 and became a citizen in 2004. On all of her US immigration papers--when she came into the country, when she applied to be a US citizen--she lied when asked the question, "Have you been convicted of a crime?" (Kids: why does the government ask this question? They ask this question because they don't want criminals hiding in America.) Because Rasmieh lied about her arrest, conviction and imprisonment, she was found guilty of immigration fraud this week. (Kids: what do you think will happen to her? She will likely be deported and lose her citizenship.)

Argue as if you are Rasmieh's lawyer and as if you are the prosecutor. (Rasmieh's lawyer says her conviction doesn't matter; she already served her time. She is now an upstanding citizen working in Chicago and she is being targeted only because she is Arab. The prosecutor says she is a terrorist who lied to get into America.) What do you think?

Amazing New Israeli App to Help the Disabled

Article: At the recent WSJ.D Live global technology conference in California, an Israeli start-up won audience favorite. The company, Voiceitt, won for its new translation app, Talkitt, which is expected to be released to the public next year. The app is the brainchild of Israeli Arab Rabea Ziuod, VP of business development, who has a brother and sister with cerebral palsy. As a result of this disease, few people can understand the disabled individuals when they talk; but this doesn't mean they don't understand what is going on around them and that they don't have a lot to say. Through this app, people with disabilities and speech impairment talk and the app "translates" it into understandable speech, using algorithms to learn how that person speaks and understand them. Watch the amazing video of how this app works.

Kids: what do you think of this? What are some of the challenges in creating this type of app? If you had to create an app to help a type of disability, what would it be and how would it work?

Who Gets to Keep Antiquities?

Article: Have you ever gone to a museum and seen "antiquities," or artifacts from other countries? Almost all major Western art museums have exhibits of items taken from other countries during the years of colonization. Now, their is a discussion about whether these items should be returned to the countries from where they were taken/stolen. For instance, the Getty Museum in LA, the MET in NY, the British Museum in London, all have masterpieces from Egypt, Turkey and elsewhere. The British Museum has the famous Parthenon Marble statues and Greece wants them back; they were removed by British Lord Elgin in 1801 and acquired by the museum in 1816. (Kids: have you read any Greek myths? If so, that is what the statutes are of). The Getty has already repatriated (dissect "repatriate"--"re" = again/return; "patria" = fatherland) more than 40 objects, including some of its best ancient Greek and Roman sculptures, after evidence surfaced that they had been stolen by looters. UNESCO thinks all of these types of art should be returned to the current government of the ancient land. Others say that the items could be in danger if returned (think what Islamic militants have done with other national treasures). Kids: what do you think should be done? Argue pros/cons.

Here's a picture of the Parthenon statutes in the British Museum:

 

The World's First "E-Tree"

Article: Kids: what do you think "e-tree" means? Israeli engineers and an Israeli artist have created something that looks like a real tree, but actually is much more. It's canopy, which is made of solar panels that produces energy from the sun, provides shade and a cold water drinking fountain. It also uses its solar power to provide WiFi, a docking station to charger tablets and smartphones, electrical outlets and even fancy looking night lighting. It is meant for parks, schoolyards, hiking trails, museums, residential neighborhoods and campus courtyards. It will operate automatically and with little maintenance, providing solar energy around the clock. It is also radiation free, doesn't pose risk of electrocution and meets safety standards. The company that makes the tree is already in talks with China and France to install them.

Kids: what do you think of it? Here's a picture:

How Israel's Helping to Fight Ebola

Article; Kids: review what is Ebola and where it is impacting the world most. So far the number of people who have been infected is more than 10,000 in 8 countries, and half of them have died from the virus. Israelis are stepping in to help and have received commendation from the UN for their work fighting Ebola. The Israeli company SYS Technologies has invented an inflatable isolation tent and installed them in Guinea and elsewhere. The tents enable countries to isolate patients so others aren't infected--so far the best way to stop the spread of the virus. Kids: how might these tents help? These tents are more available than other structures, they are hermetically sealed, and protect the surroundings by creating an absolute clear and isolated patient environment. It takes about two weeks from order to delivery. They are inflated upon arrival. The company has even created an incubator-like stretcher for the safe transfer of patients into the tents. But there is more -- Israel is also helping African by providing them with an infra-red camera that measures body temperature of passengers at airports quickly so diagnoses can happen quickly.


 Kids: isolation is the key way to fight Ebola as of now because there is no medical cure. What are the pluses and minuses of this (think in terms of the Ebola patient's emotional state)

Heart Disease & Egypt's Demolitions

We know a young man who was hospitalized this weekend with heart failure. The doctor asked him several questions to find out the reasons for his heart failure. Kids, guess which are the reasons for his heart failure (more than one can apply), why it may cause heart failure, and why this is bad:

1. He does drugs (cocaine)
2. He smokes cigarettes
3. He has an iPhone
4. He drinks too much wine and liquor
5. He has a pet dog
6. (Answers: 1, 2, and 4)

Article: This past week, Egypt has decided to crack down on Islamist militants in the Sinai, operating with the help of Hamas in Gaza. (Kids: find on map the Sinai, Gaza and Egypt; recall what else we have learned about Hamas in Gaza.)

Just last week, such terrorists killed 31 Egyptian soldiers in the Sinai. Egypt has already destroyed over a thousands tunnels between Gaza and Sinai, used to smuggle weapons and money to terrorists. Seeing that isn't enough, Egypt has now decided to create a buffer zone between Gaza and Egypt in the Sinai desert by demolishing hundreds of homes along in the border with Gaza, in the town of Rafah. They hope this wills top Gazan terrorists from enabling terrorism in the Sinai and smuggling things to them. Kids: do you think this will work? People are very upset that their homes are being demolished. Why? (Where are they supposed to live now, etc.?)