Thursday, April 1, 2010

55 Days

"Manasseh was twelve years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem 55 years." So says Kings 2, 21:1. Manasseh was the first Jewish king of the Kingdom of Judah. He had no experience with the united Israelite kingdom, because the King of Assyria had exiled 10 of the Israelite tribes before his reign. One wonders what Manasseh would have thought if he could see a united, democratic Israel today, with Assyrians and Babylonians, Persians and Ancient Egyptians long in the past.

On a less ancient note, an article written in 2004 about disproportionate Jewish achievement tells us that, of the 55 Nobel Prizes awarded in Economics through that year, 21 went to Jews (that's 38 percent!). And, as I recall, Hebrew University professor and religious Zionist Robert Aumann shared the prize the following year with Thomas Schelling for their work in developing the field of game theory.

Israel's Bar Ilan University (BIU) was established 55 years ago in 1955. BIU, in Ramat-Gan, is now Israel's second largest academic institution, with 26,800 students and 1,350 faculty members. The University's stated goal is, "to blend tradition with modern technologies and scholarship, and teach the compelling ethics of Jewish heritage to all... to synthesize the ancient and the modern, the sacred and the material, the spiritual and the scientific." Sounds like a plan to us!

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Omri Casspi, first Israeli NBA basketball player, to be an Honorary Grand Marshall in the 2010 Salute to Israel Parade! Come see him ride up Fifth Avenue - you can't miss him, as he's 6'8" tall! Omri was drafted 23rd overall by the Sacramento Kings in the 2009 NBA Draft. For mde up Fifth Avenue on Parade Day - for more information on Omri, click here.

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