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The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad ‘Deal of the Century’

למה יהודים מופתעים על העברות השטחים שבעסקת המאה של נשיא ארה”ב טראמפ? / Why are Jews so Surprised by the Land Giveaway in President Trump’s Deal of the Century?

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Translation of Jerusalem Vice-Mayor Arieh King’s Facebook post (above):
Yossi Sarid and Shulamit Aloni are somewhere in high spirits, seeing their political opponents implementing their own political platform:
1. Division of Jerusalem.
2. Connecting the Gaza Strip to Judea and Samaria.
3. Freeze Jewish construction.
4. Establishment of a Muslim enemy state on 70% of Judea and Samaria.
5. Giving territories in the western Negev to the new Muslim state.
6. Right of Return (of Arabs to the Land of Israel).

Leading Israeli rabbis:
Arutz 7: ‘Sovereignty has become the new excuse for tearing apart the Holy Land’
Group of over 400 leading Israeli rabbis embarks on campaign to inform the public of shortcomings and dangers of the ‘Deal of the Century.’

Arutz Sheva Staff , 28/05/20

The Rabbinical Congress for Peace, comprised of over 400 leading Israeli rabbis, have completed their appraisal of the current plan to apply sovereignty over Jewish communities in the Land of Israel – proudly presented by Prime Minister Netanyahu as part of the “Deal of the Century.” In response, the Council has decided to embark upon a widespread public campaign to inform the Israeli public of the plan’s shortcomings and dangers.

“We give our ready blessing to any plan that seeks to establish Jewish sovereignty over the Land of Israel, which were promised us in our Holy Torah,” states the Council. “However, as long as the plan is based upon the equation ‘sovereignty over one territory in exchange for renunciation of control over another,’ it no longer matters who lives in that area. The loss is much greater than the profit and the danger outweighs the benefits.”

“The general public is confused by all of the announcements and maps they are presented with, and fail to see that the plan is a replay of the great mistake of Oslo and the disengagement,” said Rabbi Abraham Shmuel Lewin, secretary of the Congress. “In the final analysis, all these compromises and declarations stand in direct opposition to the eternal truth of the Torah, which is also the simplest and most logical to prove – that any concession of full Israeli control of the land, even if only at the ‘declarative level,’ strengthens the will and ability of our enemies to attain further concessions through acts of terrorism and murder, exactly as happened after the Oslo Accords and the disengagement from Gaza.”

“Israel’s enemies care little as to how we define the settlements. From their perspective, Jaffa and Haifa also belong to them,” said Rabbi Abraham Schreiber, rabbi of the Kfar Darom Congregation in the Negev. “But there is one thing that they do care deeply about – that the Israeli government declares certain territories to no longer part be of Greater Israel. This declaration then becomes the Palestinians’ starting point for future negotiations. In their eyes, this is proof that Israel has already surrendered and agreed to a Palestinian state on seventy percent of Judea and Samaria, and that Israeli communities will have to live within it in hopeless enclaves. Why not continue their terrorist activities to attain the rest of their goals?” (cont.)

Esser Agaroth (2¢):
I really hope that every Jew can finally see the writing on the wall. The Jews who idolize Trump, the Jews who believe he’s the best president for Israel, and the Jews who believe that a close alliance (read: dependence) on the U. S. is our best hope, must snap out of it.

Most all U. S. presidents have been bad for Israel in one way or another, but forcing the establishment of yet another Arab terrorist state takes the cake.

There are Jews who are surprised by the land giveaways in the Deal of the Century.

And there are Jews who prefer to remain in denial about it.

Still there are plenty of “right-wing” Jews who actually believe this “deal” to be good for the Jews.

All of the above are delusional.

I will only add that 15 Jewish towns in Yehudah and Shomron (Judea and Samaria) will be isolated within a “Palestinian” state. Without some serious ideological motivation, how many Jews will actually stick around? Will the Israeli government be successful, or even willing, to provide the necessary resources to protect these “enclaves?”

A four year building freeze will be in force on Jews, but not on Arabs. The map of land transfers will be a final border map, whether the Arabs agree or not. (From Haggai Huberman via Women in Green)

Meanwhile, perhaps the U. S. is incurring punishment for ripping the Land of Israel apart. ie. The Riots.

The Land of Israel is simply not ours to chop into pieces and give it away.

And what about the Temple Mount?

To be continued…

אל תחתום על שום מסמך בלשכת הגיוס ללא ייעוץ – נקודה

בס”ד

How to Teach Torah Online with Screencasting – A Great Guide

Everything You Need to Know About Building a Great Screencast Video

APRIL 26, 2020


KAREEM FARAH

 

Early in March, the COVID-19 pandemic led to a domino effect of school closures. Overnight, educators were forced to rethink their instruction as they moved online. Thankfully, most aren’t comfortable simply replacing themselves with cookie-cutter, ready-made content built without the unique needs of their students in mind. They miss their students, and their students miss them, so they are willing to put in the hard work to ensure that their authentic teaching styles remain intact. This should not be a surprise to anyone who understands the art of teaching; technology simply cannot replace teachers.

One of the most effective ways to move instruction online is to build screencast videos. Screencast videos are unique because they are actual recordings of your computer screen or tablet as opposed to a video of an in-person lecture. They are a powerful way to deliver instruction, but they do require a fair amount of time and planning, which I have learned through a lot of trial and error. Building effective screencasts continues to be the barrier that stops educators from making a smooth transition to distance learning, so I have put together the following tips to help guide you through the process.

MY OWN SCREENCAST JOURNEY

As an educator myself, I spent several years developing screencasts and making mistakes along the way. I was fed up with lecturing and was determined to find a better way to tailor my instruction to students’ needs. I knew technology could be a powerful tool to amplify my impact, but I wasn’t willing to replace my lectures with a disembodied voice on a screen who didn’t know my students. So five years ago, I made the commitment to eliminate lectures from my classroom and replace them with instructional videos I created myself. This allowed me to facilitate a blended, self-paced, mastery-based classroom built on the backbone of high quality feedback and differentiated instruction:

Years later, I left the classroom to launch The Modern Classrooms Project, a nonprofit that equips and empowers educators to create blended, self-paced, mastery-based classrooms of their own. Through our in-person trainings and our Modern Classroom Essentials* course, we have supported teachers as they learn how to:

  • Plan and record their own instructional videos
  • Build student-friendly websites for instructional content
  • Design effective self-paced learning experiences for students at all levels

The following tips align with what we teach participants about creating their own instructional videos.

START WITH THE RESEARCH

When launching distance learning and meeting students’ needs, it can be tempting to dive head first into instructional video creation without actually understanding what works. But before you start investing countless hours of time and energy constructing videos, it’s important to understand what the research says about cultivating engagement.

VIDEO LENGTH

The research on how long instructional videos should be is incredibly clear and tells a simple narrative: Keep it short. The ideal length should be under 6 minutes. Between 6 and 9 minutes, engagement drops slightly.

Image from Brame, 2015.

After 9 minutes, engagement drops considerably, and if your video is over 12 minutes, you have a real problem on your hands. It is important to note that the majority of these studies have been conducted on young adults, so for younger students try to keep it 6 minutes or under (Brame, 2015).

These time recommendations can make educators anxious. It can be hard to imagine how to synthesize concepts or skills in such a short span of time. One of the beauties of instructional video creation is it forces you to think about delivering content in a lean way. What is essential? What is not? And where can students discover the content for themselves without you walking them through the process?

A simple way to make videos short is by chunking more frequently. Educators are used to thinking about lessons in 45-, 60-, or 90-minute blocks of time. When you use instructional videos, those constraints disappear. A 10-minute lecture that is designed as part of a 60-minute lesson can be chunked into two 5-minute videos, each of which then becomes part of a 30-minute lesson (Ibrahim et al., 2012).

It also helps to speak quickly and enthusiastically. Teachers are used to speaking slowly and enunciating very clearly, but that is not necessary in a screencast; in fact, it can be quite boring. Instead, speak fast and use conversational language to bring your authentic self into the picture (Guo et al., 2014). Don’t worry that students won’t be able to follow if you speak too quickly; they can always rewind the video and watch sections again. And don’t be afraid to make mistakes—a few of these will make your video sound more genuine.

VIDEO DESIGN

Next, let’s talk about design principles. First off, minimize text (Guo et al., 2014). Nothing is less engaging than an instructional video with a whole bunch of typed up text. It is especially redundant when you simply read the text during the recording. You might as well just send them a document and have them read it over instead. When possible, always accompany what you say with visuals (Brame, 2015).

Second, instructional videos do not need to be pretty; they need to be personal. Your students want to hear from you; otherwise you could just send them existing videos from YouTube. Research has shown that engagement increases when students know their own teacher is behind the screen delivering the instruction (Li et al., 2016).

Lastly, interactivity is engaging. Embedding pop-up questions into your videos provides great checks for understanding. Moreover, accompanying videos with guided notes helps kids stay focused and ensures that the information travels with them to their next task or assignment (Lawson et al., 2006; Vural, 2013; Zhang et al., 2006).

Continue reading…

From Cult of Pedagogy, here.

 

American Unemployment: Scarier Than You Thought

Why the Current Unemployment Is Worse Than the Great Depression

04/24/2020

Listen to the Audio Mises Wire version of this article.

The latest report on new unemployment claims was abysmal, coming in at 4.4 million last week, some 100,000 more than surveyed economists had expected. The continuous claims came in at just under 16 million, an all-time record. Mainstream labor economists estimate that, all things considered, the actual unemployment rate now (which is only officially reported with a lag) is above 20 percent—a rate not seen since the darkest days of the Great Depression. Indeed, all of the job gains since the Great Recession have been wiped out in just a matter of weeks.

What’s worse, even though the official unemployment rate is probably not quite as high as it was in 1933 (when it averaged 24.9 percent), there are reasons to believe that our labor market is currently in even worse shape economically than it was at the lowest depths of the Great Depression. Furthermore, once we take into account insights from Austrian capital theory, we can see why Keynesian hopes for a rapid recovery—and calls for longer lockdowns due to health concerns—are misguided.

Why the Current Unemployment Is Worse Than the Great Depression

In the first place, there is a technical reason that the government’s official unemployment figures for 1933 are misleading: at that time, people who held “make work” jobs funded by government relief efforts were counted as unemployed. (In my opinion, this was the correct judgment.) If instead we use adjusted figures (according to Darby 1976) then annual unemployment during the Depression peaked at 22.5% in 1932. In other words, if we count unemployment in the 1930s the way we count it today, then arguably the “official” rate is already the worst in US history, period.

However, besides this technical issue, there is a much more fundamental difference between unemployment in the early 1930s and today: back then, the people out of work had been laid off. Yet today, the people out of work are in lockdown.

This is an enormous distinction. When the economy crashed following the stock market in 1929, consumers restricted their spending according to their preferences as to what was most expendable. Some businesses went under completely—and these were the businesses that were the least important, according to their customers.

At the same time, plenty of other businesses remained afloat, but they cut back their workforces. Again, businesses laid off the most expendable workers, as judged by the managers/owners.

Intuitively, during the Great Depression and any other standard recession, for that matter, the economic system sheds those jobs that are the least important, in order to gradually reallocate workers into niches that are more appropriate. The deeper the malinvestments have been during the boom phase, the more workers will find themselves in unsustainable outlets when the crash occurs. But given the fact that X percent of the jobs need to disappear, the market economy during a normal downturn sheds them in the most economical areas, causing as little disruption to the flow of goods and services as judged by the consumers.

In complete contrast, today the principal criteria for which 20+ percent of current workers have lost their jobs are (1) they don’t work in an occupation that can be done from home and (2) they aren’t deemed “essential” by government officials. Naturally, these criteria don’t come close to approximating what is the most economical way to shed jobs, from the perspective of consumers.

An Analogy with the Household Budget

In the previous section, I argued that our current labor market disruption was much more economically significant than what was seen even during the depths of the Great Depression. Let me use an analogy to drive home the point.

Suppose your household were forced to restrict its spending by 25 percent. (Indeed, this might not be a mere hypothetical for many unfortunate readers right now.) However, there are two options for achieving this outcome. Under Option #1, the adults in the household get to decide where they will cut their spending, subject to the requirement that they reduce the total by 25 percent.

Under Option #2, an outside government official—in consultation with various experts—forces the household not only to cut spending by 25 percent, but also specifies where the spending cuts will occur.

Which option would be more burdensome? The answer is clearly #2.

Likewise, given that the economy has to endure an unemployment rate above 20 percent, it’s far preferable if consumers and business owners get to effectively pick (through voluntary market actions) which workers are laid off. It is far more devastating to endure our current situation, in which the workers who have lost their jobs have been selected by technological facts (i.e., whether a job can be done remotely) or through the political process.

Continue reading…

From Mises.org, here.