nation / world
Brazilian Jewish School Takes in Hospital Patients Escaping a Fire
A Jewish school in Rio de Janeiro took
in more than 150 patients escaping a
hospital fire, many of them in sick beds,
on June 7, JTA reported.

A fire broke out in the Hospital São
Lucas’ laundry room that produced
thick smoke and required an evacuation.

Employees at the hospital in
Copacabana, one of Rio’s most Jewish Barilan, a Jewish school in Rio de
Janeiro, provided shelter to more than
neighborhoods, wheeled patients to the 150 patients escaping a fire in a nearby
nearby TTH Barilan School and the hospital.
TTH Barilan school via JTA.org
ground floors of apartment buildings.

“Humanity is so complicated that, when you do the right thing, they say you’re
like Superman,” TTH Barilan President Rafael Antaki said. “The hospital’s emer-
gency plan was successful, and so was ours, focused on chesed and love.”
The unprecedented scene of hospital beds lined up in the school’s courtyard
made parents, teachers and employees emotional. Kindergarten classes were
temporarily suspended, but elementary, junior high and high school classes were
not interrupted.

One patient needed to be resuscitated in the courtyard, the O Dia newspaper
reported. head Merav Michaeli said. “But as happy as we are here today, it’s important to
remember those who are not here, because they are being silenced into fear. We
will not allow them!”
The Post reported that drones flew above the crowd as a protective measure.

Polygamous Jerusalem Cult Leader Found Dead in Prison
Polygamous cult leader Daniel Ambash was found dead in his cell at Ayalon
Prison in Ramle on June 10, The Times of Israel reported, citing the Israel Prisons
Service. Paramedics declared Ambash dead after resuscitation efforts failed. The prisons
service said the circumstances of his death would be examined.

Ambash was sentenced to 26 years in prison on 18 charges. Those charges
included sexual offenses, abuse of minors, incarceration and sadistic violence.

Ambash, who was a Bratslav ultra-Orthodox Jew, headed the so-called
“Jerusalem cult.” He had six wives and 14 children, who were kept by Ambash and
his assistants in slavery conditions. JE
— Compiled by Andy Gotlieb
NAZARETH ORTHOPEDICS
Pope Hosts Yad Vashem Director at Vatican, Doesn’t Discuss
Catholic Church’s Holocaust Controversies
Amid controversies concerning the Vatican’s Holocaust-era record, Pope Francis and
the head of Yad Vashem met for a first-of-its-kind talk on June 9, JTA reported.

Yad Vashem Director Dani Dayan met with the pope at his office in the Vatican.

During their 30-minute talk, they spoke about ways to “bolster collaborative
activities” in areas of “Holocaust remembrance, education and documentation,
and to discuss efforts to fight antisemitism and racism worldwide,” Dayan’s office
wrote in a statement.

Dayan thanked the pope for his 2020 decision to open the Vatican’s archives
related to the wartime Pope Pius XII, whose critics say did too little to intervene
on behalf of the 6 million Jews that the Nazis murdered.

But they did not discuss the Holocaust-related controversies, including the
ongoing beatification of Pius XII, that have strained Jewish-Catholic relations for
years, Dayan said. Instead, Dayan focused on areas of consensus and on strength-
ening ties with the Vatican, he said.

Around the corner. Beyond expectations.

For the first time, female authors in Israel published more books of prose and
poetry than their male counterparts, the National Library of Israel said in its 2021
annual “Book Report,” JTA reported.

Of the 7,344 books sent to the library in 2021, 25% are exclusively classified as
prose and poetry. Just over half, 52%, were credited to female authors, giving them
a majority for the first time since the library began collecting statistics.

Among the notable releases by women were “A Penguin Café at the Edge of
the World,” a children’s story by author and poet Nurit Zarchi, recipient of the
2021 Israel Prize for literature, and “Strangers,” a bestselling novel by author Lihi
Lapid, advocate and wife of Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid.

Approximately 92% of books published in Israel in 2021 were in Hebrew, with
4.8% in English, 2.2% in Arabic and a handful in Russian.

More Than 170,000 March in Tel Aviv 2022 Pride Parade
Despite heat warnings, more than 170,000 people dressed in rainbows and glitter par-
ticipated on June 10 in the Tel Aviv Pride Parade 2022, The Jerusalem Post reported.

The parade began near the Sporteque on Rokach Boulevard, leading to a per-
formance area in Ganei Yehoshua within Yarkon Park. The route was different
than in past years.

“For the first time in 20 years, the Pride March route is running through here;
there is nothing more exciting than that,” Transportation Minister and Labor
THMA-937433516-NAZ A First: Female Israeli Authors Outpaced Males in Publishing in 2021
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