Category: Science and Health

Recently, a lovely mom and dad came to my clinic. They told me that whenever they feel their daughter might be sad or disappointed about something, they immediately try to distract her from it, whether it’s by buying something she wants or doing something fun.  Now they found out that the girl’s good friend’s mom […]

Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek Medical Center (SZMC) is the first medical center in Israel and Europe and among the first in the world to start valve catheterization to prevent heart failure. As part of an international study in which the hospital’s cardiac catheterization unit headed by Dr. Dani Dvir is taking part, patients with moderately severe […]

Toward the bottom of today’s page, we encounter this mishnah: If one says: “It is incumbent upon me to shave half a nazirite,” and another heard and said: “And I, it is incumbent upon me to shave half a nazirite,” — this one shaves a whole nazirite and that one shaves a whole nazirite. This is […]

It can be hard to turn down a drink. Even without problems related to alcohol dependency, when a friend offers you a glass of wine it can feel awkward to just say no. In fact, a number of organizations that support people committed to sobriety advocate telling a white lie — that you’re currently taking antibiotics, say, […]

A new mishnah on today’s page takes up a another case of an oddly stated nazirite vow: If one said: “This cow said: I am hereby a nazirite if I stand up,” or “This door said: I am hereby a nazirite if I am opened,” — Beit Shammai say he is a nazirite, and Beit Hillel say he […]

We’ve all been there: you’re in your bed, deep asleep and dreaming of sunny skies when suddenly, there’s a sharp pain and you get thrown back into reality. Muscle cramping, particularly leg cramping and contracting in the calf, is very common, and for some reason loves to attack specifically when we’re asleep. On Professor Rafi […]

The World Cancer Research Fund recently published a list of causes responsible for hundreds of thousands of cancer cases worldwide each year. The organization believes that healthy eating, physical activity, maintaining a healthy weight and stopping smoking can prevent about 40% of diagnoses, which is quite a number. The data comes after the publication of […]

Abu Dhabi’s Health Department on Tuesday signed a memorandum of understanding with Maccabi Health Services’ Khan Sagol Maccabi Research and Innovation Center pledging to increase cooperation in healthcare research and technological innovation, the organizations announced. Goals of the memorandum The move comes as part of the Abu Dhabi Health Department’s Healthier Abu Dhabi initiative. The […]

An Arab-Israeli woman going through labor was told to switch rooms in Afula’s Emek Medical Center on Tuesday after a Jewish woman objected to being hospitalized in the same room. The Arab woman, who arrived at the hospital with her husband late on Tuesday night, was told that the room assignment at the hospital was […]

Reading of sacrifices in the Bible, many are mortified to think that ancient Israelites would slaughter animals at the Temple. It seems primitive, bloody — even barbaric. As someone who has not eaten chicken or meat in over thirty years, I nonetheless want to defend the practice.  When we buy meat, most of us do so after […]