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What an ER doctor and musical trendsetter Miri Ben-Ari, a Jay Z collaborator, have in common
Being a successful musician is a lot like being a trauma room physician. You need to collaborate harmoniously with others, practice a lot and perform expertly in real time.
One might think that performing on some of the world’s largest stages and at high-profile venues like the White House is nothing like working in a tight space in a hospital emergency room. One involves art, the other science; one happens in public, the other behind closed doors; one appears beautiful and clean, the other can be messy and bloody. But the two actually have a lot in common.
Dr. Tal Patalon, the head of Kahn Sagol Maccabi (KSM), the Research and Innovation Center of the Israeli HMO Maccabi Healthcare Services, highlighted this when she hosted Grammy Award-winning violinist, producer and UN Goodwill Ambassador of Music Miri Ben-Ari on her podcast, “A Matter of Life and Death.”
“It is as though I am meditating on the highest frequency when I am in front of a live audience,” Ben-Ari said. “It is like an out-of-body experience.”
Patalon, an active clinician specializing in family and emergency medicine, said, “The same thing happens to me when a patient comes in. Every decision is one of life and death. You have to be in the moment. You have to give your everything to perform at your max.”
Musical trendsetter Ben-Ari has brought the violin to the fore in commercial pop music, collaborating with artists including John Legend, Alicia Keys, Janet Jackson and Jay Z.
The unusual and popular podcast — now in its third season, but the first in English — is an opportunity for Patalon to talk with thought leaders from a wide variety of backgrounds and fields, including medicine, academia, technology and the corporate world, and she brings to listeners unusual conversations that wind their way from the esoteric to the profound. Recent guests on the program have included astrophysicist Avi Loeb, former Mossad chief Yossi Cohen, and psychologist and happiness expert Tal Ben-Shahar.
KSM has unique access to Maccabi’s professional medical data and conducts medical research, helping scientists, tech companies and entrepreneurs through various partnerships; uses a unique cloud-based platform that relies in part on AI technology; operates a bio-bank with over 1 million biological samples that assist companies in genetic sequencing and genetic research; and supports a range of other big data and clinical research projects.
Patalon thinks broadly, seeking inspiration from all corners.
Born in Tel Aviv, violinist Ben-Ari, 44, grew up playing classical music and at one point studied under the legendary Israeli violinist Isaac Stern.
“But something switched for me when I heard a recording of Charlie Parker,” Ben-Ari said. “He wasn’t playing the saxophone; he was talking to it. I wanted to do that with the violin. So I studied jazz in the United States and played with the best.”
Ben-Ari, who remained in the United States and lives in New Jersey, felt she was finally in her zone. “Now I could do me. I could integrate, harmonize and collaborate,” she said.
Miri Ben-Ari, left, was a guest of Dr. Tal Patalon, the head of Kahn Sagol Maccabi (KSM), the Research and Innovation Center of the Israeli HMO Maccabi Healthcare Services, on her podcast “A Matter of Life and Death.” (Courtesy of KSM Research and Innovation Center)
Over the past two years, Ben-Ari has branched out even further by working with African artists such as Nigerian producer Young D and Tanzanian superstar Diamond Platumz, who plays bongo flava — a melange of American hip hop and traditional Tanzanian styles.
“It’s been fascinating working with African artists,” Ben-Ari said. “Africa is so close to Israel, so it was natural for me to go in this direction. The music is different in each country, and in each region of the continent.”
Patalon asked Ben-Ari on her podcast what it has been like to move from classical music training to experimentation with so many genres.
“I actually gave a TED talk about how to take a skill from one place to another,” Ben-Ari said. “You first have to have a firm foundation, then you can let your imagination take over and think outside the box.”
But it’s not easy, she said. “You find your own individual way of expression. It takes a lot of chutzpah, drive, persistence, dedication and bravery to keep continuing when you get a lot of no’s along the way.”
According to Patalon, the process bears some similarities to medicine. Just as Ben-Ari had to have years of classical training behind her to be able to innovate as she does, trauma care doctors need to have their basics intact before trying new approaches, Patalon said. One can only innovate on top of a deep foundation of expertise, experience and competence.
“It’s more than just knowing the basics. You need to be able to do them as an automatic response behavior. I need to know how to resuscitate a patient with my eyes closed and one hand tied behind my back,” she said. “We have to be experts.”
At the end of every podcast episode, Patalon asks her guest whether they think about death and how they would like to be remembered.
Ben-Ari said that the prospect of death doesn’t regularly occupy her: “I am busy with life, and I don’t think about what will happen after I die.”
When Patalon asked Ben-Ari what she would like the epitaph on her gravestone to say, she said she didn’t want an actual place of burial.
“I don’t believe in graves,” Ben Ari said. “I want to be an NFT or something technological like that. I would want there to be one private one just for my child, and a different version for my fans.”
Patalon suggested that she wasn’t surprised that Ben-Ari doesn’t think much about death, noting how common it is for people to fear death because they fear pain and losing relationships with loved ones — and are afraid of the unknown.
In the last episode of her popular podcast, Patalon offers some intriguing insights into the future of medical treatment: how technology will help predict a person’s medical future, how therapies can be tailored to the individual’s level, and the ethical questions that arise from these advances.
Ultimately, Patalon concludes, our well-being will be determined by what we do outside medical establishments: “I hope that we will all learn how to take the time to introspect, to develop relationships that are meaningful, because at the end of the day that’s what really keeps us happy.”
To listen to this episode and others from Season 3, visit ksminnovation.com/podcast.
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The post What an ER doctor and musical trendsetter Miri Ben-Ari, a Jay Z collaborator, have in common appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Police denied Jewish community’s request for more security before Sydney massacre, commission finds
(JTA) — Days before a massacre on a Hanukkah event at Bondi Beach, Sydney, the region’s Jewish security organization asked the police to send officers to Hanukkah events in the city.
The organization, the Community Security Group, had already worked with Chabad of Bondi to create a security plan for the event that included fencing off an area that normally had no barriers.
Now, in the message to police, the group emphasized that Jews in Sydney were facing unusual danger. The threat level, it wrote, was “HIGH. A terrorist attack against the NSW Jewish Community is likely and there is a high level of antisemitic vilification.”
The police responded by saying that they could not devote additional officers to the events but would send patrols by. Three days later, 15 people, including rabbis and a child, were killed when two men opened fire on the event, known as Chanukah by the Sea.
The sequence of events appears in the first report issued by Australia’s Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion, formed in the wake of the massacre amid pressure on the government to do more to keep Australian Jews safe.
The report, issued Thursday, contains 14 recommendations, some of which were obscured from public view for security reasons. They include elevating and strengthening counter-terrorism policing and improving policing of Jewish events.
The top recommendation: “The procedures adopted by NSW Police in respect of Operation Jewish High Holy Days should apply to other high risk Jewish festivals and events, particularly those that have a public facing element.”
The Australian Jewish Association welcomed the report’s release but said it was marred by failing to address the form of antisemitic extremism said to have motivated the Bondi Beach shooters.
“The report’s credibility is undermined by its failure to address the issue of radical Islamist extremism. No serious analysis of the lead-up to the Bondi massacre can ignore this,” it said in a statement. “It’s concerning that the report identifies no urgent legislative changes required. There were serious failings by multiple agencies. If the legislation is adequate, then these failings are inexplicable.”
In particular, the group said, the commission should explore the fact that gun-control laws bar private security from being armed in Sydney, adding, “Whether different security settings could have changed the outcome is a matter that warrants urgent examination.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Police denied Jewish community’s request for more security before Sydney massacre, commission finds appeared first on The Forward.
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Jewish man arrested for allegedly firing pellet gun at left-wing activists in Rome
(JTA) — Italian Jewish leaders are condemning the alleged acts of Jewish man who was arrested this week after police said he fired a pellet gun at participants in a parade marking Italy’s Liberation Day from Nazism and fascism.
Eitan Bondì, 21, was charged with attempted homicide in connection to the shooting of Rossana Gabrieli and Nicola Fasciano, two members of the National Association for Italian Partisans, a group founded by members of the Italian resistance, during the Rome parade.
Neither victim was seriously injured by the attack, according to Italian media.
Bondi’s arrest marks the second instance of confrontations involving Jews during Liberation Day festivities this year. In Milan, pro-Palestinian activists, including members of ANPI, blocked participants honoring the Jewish Brigade, a Jewish military unit that fought the Nazis in Italy during World War II.
Bondi said he was affiliated with the Jewish Brigade. Davide Romano, the director of the Jewish Brigade Museum in Milan, wrote in a post on X that the organization did not know Bondì, and that he felt “horror and condemn in the most resolute manner, and without any justification, anyone who dares to use the name of the Jewish Brigade to carry out acts of violence.”
“The Jewish Brigade fought for freedom and human dignity. Instrumentalizing its name to justify or cover up violent behavior is an outrage to its memory and to all those who sacrificed themselves under that flag,” Romano wrote, adding that the organization reserved the right to “pursue legal action against all those who use the name of the Jewish Brigade to associate it with this shameful act.”
Victor Fadlun, the president of the Jewish Community of Rome, condemned Bondì’s alleged acts in a statement, saying that his detention “fills us with dismay and outrage” and voicing his organization’s “full solidarity and closeness” to the victims.
“The Jewish Community of Rome condemns and dissociates itself unreservedly from any form of anti-democratic violence,” Fadlun said, according to the Italian news agency Ansa. “In such a tense moment … we appeal to political and civil society to avoid any exploitation (of the case) that could fuel hatred and generate new violence.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Jewish man arrested for allegedly firing pellet gun at left-wing activists in Rome appeared first on The Forward.
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British police pledge 25M pounds for Jewish security in wake of London stabbing
(JTA) — British police have allocated 25 million pounds, or about $33 million, in new funding to keep Jewish communities safe, officials announced on Thursday.
The announcement came a day after a stabbing in the Orthodox neighborhood of Golders Green left two men injured and a community reeling. The stabbing has been ruled a terrorist attack.
“There’s no getting away from the fact that this was not a one-off,” Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who visited the neighborhood on Thursday, said during a press conference. “This has been a series of attacks on our Jewish community, particularly in recent weeks, and there is a very deep sense of anxiety, of concern about security, about safety, about identity frankly.”
A new group called Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamiya, or the Islamic Movement of the People of the Right Hand, that has claimed attacks on Jewish targets across Europe said it was responsible for the stabbing. British officials said they were investigating that claim.
They disclosed that the 45-year-old man arrested in the stabbing, who was first subdued by Jewish security forces, was a British national who had come to the country “lawfully” from Somalia as a child.
Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood, who joined Starmer in Golders Green, told the BBC that she was treating the spree of antisemitic incidents as “absolutely an emergency,” though she declined to adopt language used by Starmer’s terrorism advisor that there was a “national security emergency” because of its implications on civil liberties.
Still, she said, she believed that frequent pro-Palestinian protests in London contained “far too many instances” of hate crimes and she spoke of her opposition to antisemitism in terms of her own religious identity.
“When I take the stand that I am taking against antisemitism, I am doing so as a practicing Muslim. It is absolutely in line with my faith,” Mahmood said. She added about British Jews: “This land is their land. It is my land too. We share this land and we must all work together to keep each other safe.”
The incident, which followed arsons at synagogues and of ambulances owned by a Jewish emergency service as well as a deadly attack on a Manchester synagogue last year, has prompted an escalation of fear among British Jews. Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis warned that visibly Jewish people — those wearing symbols of their Jewish identity — were “not always safe” in England.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post British police pledge 25M pounds for Jewish security in wake of London stabbing appeared first on The Forward.