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Three years after October 7, the horror of the attacks remains an open wound in Jewish life. The failures that allowed them to happen, and the continuing denial in some quarters of their brutality, remain painfully present.** **The war that followed brought immense suffering and devastation to Palestinian civilians, families, and communities across Gaza. The magnitude of loss is hard to comprehend.
From where I sit in the U.S., I keep thinking about another loss: how much common ground has disappeared. Something more basic than even agreement — the belief that across profound differences, we can still recognize one another’s suffering and inhabit the same reality. Today it is painfully difficult to acknowledge one tragedy without being accused of minimizing another. Even grief has become something we argue over.
Jewish tradition gives us tikkun olam: the obligation to repair the world. I was taught that repair begins within reach. We cannot mend everything that has been broken. We may not be able to mend very much. But each of us can choose some small act that adds rather than subtracts from the humanity around us.
Also in this newsletter: Russia says plague is fake news. Cornell students protest. The largest denaturalization push in modern history. Christa Pike wakes up. CNN’s leadership survives, for now. And how a single-celled alga helped three researchers change science forever.
Dark Day: People across Israel andaround the worldmarkedthe third anniversary of the October 7 attacks. On this day three years ago, Hamas raped, brutalized, and killed about 1,200 people, most of them Jewish civilians, including families in their homes and young people at a music festival. They took another 251 hostage, including children. It was the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust. At 6:29 am today Israelis observed a moment of silence. Victim’s families and protesters held a nationalmoment of reflectionand renewed calls for anindependent inquiryinto the events leading up to the attacks. A large majority of voters in IsraelsayOctober 7 will be a central issue in the country’s upcoming elections. This also marks nearly three years of devastating war in Gaza that has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians, damagedalmost 80%of the Strip’s structures, and displaced most of its population. Palestinian families continue to live with profound loss and uncertainty. Three years later, the day’s losses are still being mourned, its failures debated, and its consequences felt across the region and this nation.What’s SNAFU In Russian: CDC Director Erica Schwartz says the agency ismonitoring travelersarriving from Siberia at JFK airport in New York. (She says about 200 flights come to the U.S. from that region a year.) Schwartz said the threat to the U.S. is “extremely low,” and the infections are “very treatable.” But she seemed to reveal the U.S. is relying partly on media reports to figure out what happened. The WHO says it still needs answers from Russia about the death of a lab worker at Irkutsk Anti-Plague Research Institute who had severe pneumonia of unknown origin. Today Trump told reporters there’sno evidencethe incident is connected to a bioweapons program. Russiamaintainsit found𝕏no plague casesin the region, and iswinding downits emergency response, while accusing the media of spreadingmostly“false information.” We’re mindful Russia has a history of withholding information during public-health emergencies, most notoriously Chernobyl. The U.S. formally requestedmore informationand Trumpsaidhe would call Putin to discuss it “very soon.” Russia says no such call is scheduled.Deep Breath: You may hear rumors of a second lab workerfalling sickwith pneumonia. NeitherReutersnor theNew York Timeshas been able to find any evidence of this. The WHO has𝕏askedRussia to address those reports.
Know Your Amendments: GovernorsGavin NewsomandJ.B. Pritzker, as well asotherDemocratic politicians, called on Trump administration officials to invoke the 25th Amendment after TrumpsaidIran could “take out” Los Angeles or San Diego.Section 4 of the 25th Amendmentallowsthe vice president and a majority of the cabinet to declare a president unfit for duty and make the Vice President acting president. If the president contests that, Congress decides. This process iscontroversialand has never been invoked.
Outrage Grows: Thousands of Cornell students and facultydemonstratedthis week, and a group is holding a seven-hoursit-in(the length of the alleged assault) on campus today, to protest the university’s handling of the alleged gang rape of former student Jane Doe. Cornell’s faculty senate will hold a rare (and largely symbolic)vote of no confidencein the administration’s ability to “address the ongoing crisis of sexual assault” at the university. The administration hired former U.S. Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates toconductan independent review of the university’s handling of sexual assault, including the alleged assaults on Jane Doe.Priorities: The DOJannouncedit is seeking to strip U.S. citizenship from 40 naturalized citizens in what Attorney General Todd Blanchecalledthe “largest denaturalization effort in modern history.” Heclaimedthe individuals, all of whom werefound guiltyof various crimes, concealed their crimes and lied to obtain citizenship. Historically, denaturalization has been rare, averagingaround 11 cases per yearbetween 1990 and 2017, then increasing since the start of Trump’s first term toroughly 120 casesfrom 2017 to late 2025. In the last 100 years regimes that routinely stripped citizens of their citizenship include Nazi Germany, the USSR, and Apartheid South Africa. As the Trump administration ramps updenaturalizations, it is diverting resources and prosecutorsaway fromother cases, like health-care fraud and civil rights enforcement, to hit areported targetof 100-200 cases per month.
Still Alive: Christa Pike regained consciousness and is “speaking limitedly,” her attorneysaid. She’s the first and only known person to survive after lethal injection drugs were administered, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Her lawyers describe her as “angry and confused,” and unable to eat because shecan’t swallowor move her arms, which are severely injured. Her future is uncertain. Former U.S. Attorney Ed Stanton will lead anindependent reviewof the botched execution attempt. He led a review of Tennessee’s execution protocol in 2022 after aprevious incident.Brutal: The Pentagonannouncedit will execute former U.S. Army Major Nidal Hasan by firing squad inDecember. It’s thefirstmilitary execution in over six decades and the first military execution by firing squad since the end of World War 2. Hasan killed 13 and injured 32 in a mass shooting at Fort Hood in 2009, which he later said was revenge for US wars in the Middle East. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth recommended the firing squad and Trump approved it. This marks a stark return to a form of execution the military abandoned generations ago.
Here We Go: The Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery merger is official, creating a new colossus called Skydance and putting some combustible personalities in news and entertainment under one corporate roof. CNN’s Mark Thompson willremainhead of CNN for now, joining CBS News chief Bari Weiss on a “CEO news executive leadership team.” Those meetings will not be boring. Thompsonsaidhe has “confidence” Skydance CEO David Ellison will “fully support” CNN’s news independence. Ellisonsaidhe supports CNN’s lawsuit seeking to restore its White House access and reiterated his promise to keep CNN and CBS “completely editorially independent.” Recentevents atCBS suggest there may be some spirited debate over the definition of “independent.” And then there’s Hollywood. Ellison warnedlayoffs are coming; onereportestimated the merger could kill 4,500 film and TV jobs in LA over the next three years.Get the Shot: New York Gov. Kathy Hochuldeclareda state of emergency over risingmeasles cases. They recently crossed 100, themostin seven years, almost all in rural areas where vaccination rates are lower. The surge hascausedsome torethinktheir resistance to vaccination. Nationwide, there have beenmore measles cases(anddeaths) than in 35 years, due to declining vaccination rates.Prepare Yourself: Tropical Storm Isaias, in the Gulf of Mexico, ispredictedto strengthen into a dangerous hurricane and hit the Gulf Coast asearly asFriday evening.
Lightbulb Moments: The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine wasawardedto a trio of scientists who revolutionized our understanding of the brain. Their discovery started about as far away from the brain as one could get, with a single-celled algae calledChlamydomonas. In the early 1990s, German scientist Peter Hegemannwonderedhow this simple cell could swim toward light. By the early 2000s, Hegemann and fellow German researcher Georg Nagel discovered the trick: a remarkable protein that, when struck by light, opened a channel through which electrically charged particles could pass. They demonstrated that the protein could be added to human cells, too. Enter American scientist and psychiatrist Karl Deisseroth, who wasfrustratedby his inability to help some patients. Perhaps this protein could help him — and the scientific community as a whole — understand why some brains worked differently from others. Deisseroth encoded the gene for the protein in nerve cells in rats and mice. The protein made those cells sensitive to light, like the alga. It also meant Deisseroth could activate (or silence) them with light. This collective discovery “laid the foundation for a new era in neuroscience,” the Nobel Comm…
