Health care for all in Mali: A Jewish Call to Action with Drs. Ari Johnson and Jessica Beckerman

To address the child and maternal mortality crisis in Mali, Dr. Ari Johnson and Dr. Jessica Beckerman co-found Muso, a non-profit advancing child and maternal health which has developed a new, proactive model of universal health care in Mali. Today, Muso provides health care to more than 370,000 people and the communities it serves have achieved rates of child mortality lower than that of any country in Sub-Saharan Africa. Johnson and Beckerman join Moment Senior Editor George Johnson, who also happens to be Ari’s dad, for a conversation about the health care crisis in Africa and how the couples’ Jewish commitments have motivated and energized their inspirational work.

Continue reading

Israel’s Weakened Health Care System Leads to a Near-Total Lockdown

Israel was one of the first countries to respond forcefully to the coronavirus. Many of the steps taken to contain the virus were later adopted by other advanced countries. The regulations are intended to “flatten the curve”—that is, to prevent a spike in the number of cases that could spiral out of control and overwhelm health services, as happened, for example, in Lombardy, Italy.  And on Wednesday, as the Ministry of Health announced that 2,170 people in Israel are sick with COVID-19 and 5 have died from the virus, the country went into an almost total lockdown. The new restrictions, issued by the government and based on emergency regulations, severely curtail freedom of movement. Israelis are now allowed to walk only within 100 meters (less than 110 yards) of their homes. Only two people are allowed in...

Continue reading

This Week's Links

By Michelle Albert Jewish singer Bob Dylan is working on an album of Christmas music. Puns such as "Sleigh Lady Sleigh" and "A Hard Reindeer's A-Gonna Fall" are already making the rounds. (PS: read Moment's article about Bob Dylan here.) A swastika was painted outside Georgia congressman David Scott's door following a particularly heated health care debate. A Dutch journalist claims that the swine flu was created by Jews as a plot to control the world's population. Where is James Bond when you need him? David Mamet, author of The Wicked Son: Anti-Semitism, Self-Hatred and the Jews, is going to write and direct the new film version of The Diary of Anne Frank for Disney. Former Hadassah CFO Sheryl Weinstein claims she had an affair with Bernie Madoff. Expect all the sordid details in her book...

Continue reading