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Abraham Zarem, one of the last surviving Manhattan Project scientists, dies at 106
(JTA) — Abraham Zarem was 28 when he joined the Manhattan Project, the vast U.S. government effort to develop the atom bomb.
Engineers like him gathered in secret laboratories in New Mexico, California, New York City and elsewhere to provide the practical know-how the theorists lacked.
“‘They were geniuses, but didn’t know how to build a f—king thing,’” Zarem recalled, according to his longtime rabbi at Sinai Temple in Los Angeles, David Wolpe.
Zaum, who went on to a distinguished career in technology, business development and leadership management training, died March 8 in Los Angeles. He was 106, and one of the last surviving members of the army of scientists, technicians, bureaucrats and clerks who helped build the weapon that would force Japan’s surrender in World War II and usher in the Atomic Age.
After the war, Zarem joined the staff of the United States Naval Ordnance Test Station at Pasadena, where as head of the electrical section of the physical research division he developed a high-speed camera used to study intense light sources and other phenomena. Popular Mechanics called the Zarem camera — 25,000 times faster than any movie camera then available — a “miracle.”
In 1963, Zarem served as senior vice president of Xerox, leaving in 1970 to launch a consulting business. He returned to Xerox as founder and CEO of its Xerox Development Corporation in 1975. He later served as founder and managing director of Frontier Associates, a technology consultancy.
Born in Chicago on March 7, 1917, Zarem was valedictorian of his undergraduate class at the Armour Institute of Technology (now the Illinois Institute of Technology), and earned his doctorate on the physical properties of the electric spark at the California Institute of Technology. He headed the Stanford University Research Institute in Los Angeles while still in his 30s.
Later he served as distinguished senior advisor for Neuroscience Technology Transfer for the UCLA Brain Research Institute and a member of the Urology Advisory Board of the UCLA Geffen School of Medicine. Additionally, he served as distinguished visiting executive in Science and Technology for Caltech’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
One of Zarem’s companies, Electro-Optical Systems, developed the “world’s first practical ion engine” — an experimental high-energy thruster for spacecraft. It now resides in the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C.
Zarem was also a regular at Temple Sinai, where Wolpe said Zarem mentored him as a young rabbi. Zarem and his wife Esther were generous contributors to the congregation; Wolpe remembered Zarem chanting from the book of Jonah on Yom Kippur when he was 99.
“Abe Zarem was a brilliant, buoyant, passionate, pious and philanthropic person,” Wolpe told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency this week. “He had a central role in some of the key scientific events of human history — the atomic bomb, the moon landing — and yet took an interest in everyone lucky enough to meet him. Abe was truly yachid b’mino — unique in his time. He will be greatly missed.”
Unlike with some of his collaborators on the Manhattan Project, there is no public record of Zarem grappling publicly with the moral implications of the weapon he helped develop. Years after their war work at Caltech, a man who worked under Zarem as a lab assistant said he felt no guilt, because without the detonations at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, he told a local newspaper, “We would have lost 500,000 Americans in the invasion of Japan.”
But Zarem did go on the record in 1952 on a different topic, in advice he shared with a labor and management magazine: “Keep your feet warm, and your head cool. And watch out for the hotheads with cold feet.”
His survivors include his children, Janet, David and Mark.
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The post Abraham Zarem, one of the last surviving Manhattan Project scientists, dies at 106 appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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120th anniversary of the Forverts advice column “Bintel Brief”
מזל־טובֿ! דעם 20סטן יאַנואַר 2026 איז געוואָרן 120 יאָר זינט דער גרינדונג פֿון „אַ בינטל בריוו“ — דער עצות־רובריק פֿונעם פֿאָרווערטס. די רובריק איז פֿאַרלייגט געוואָרן פֿונעם גרינדער און לאַנגיאָריקן שעף־רעדאַקטאָר אַב קאַהאַן אין 1906.
כּדי אָפּצומערקן דעם יום־טובֿ ברענגען מיר אײַך צוויי זאַכן:
• ערשטנס, אַן אַרטיקל וועגן אַ טשיקאַווען בריוו וואָס איז אָנגעקומען אין דער פֿאָרווערטס־רעדאַקציע אין יאַנואַר 1949, פֿון אַ לייענער וועמעס זון האָט חתונה געהאַט מיט אַ קריסטלעכער פֿרוי
• צווייטנס, אַ פֿאָרווערטס־ווידעאָ אויף ייִדיש וועגן דער געשיכטע פֿון „אַ בינטל בריוו“, מיטן געוועזענעם פֿאָרווערטס־רעדאַקטאָר באָריס סאַנדלער און דער פֿאָרווערטס־אַרכיוויסטקע חנה פּאָלאַק.
The post 120th anniversary of the Forverts advice column “Bintel Brief” appeared first on The Forward.
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Report: Khamenei Moved to Underground Bunker in Tehran
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei speaks in a televised message, after the ceasefire between Iran and Israel, in Tehran, Iran, June 26, 2025. Photo: Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS
i24 News – Amid tense expectation of US strike on key assets of the Islamic regime, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was moved into a special underground bunker in Tehran, the Iran International website reported on Saturday.
The report further added that the supreme leader’s third son Masoud Khamenei has taken over day-to-day management of the leader’s office, functioning as the de facto main channel for coordination vis-à-vis the executive branches of the government and the security forces.
The report describes Khamenei’s hideout as a “fortified site with interconnected tunnels.”
On Thursday US President Donald Trump said that a “massive” naval force was heading toward Iran.
“We have a lot of ships going that direction just in case. We have a big flotilla going in that direction. And we’ll see what happens,” Trump told reporters.
“We have an armada. We have a massive fleet heading in that direction, and maybe we won’t have to use it. We’ll see,” Trump added.
The USS Abraham Lincoln, along with three destroyers, was spotted making its way to the Middle East from Asia, according to ship-tracking data.
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Israel, Syria to Finalize US-Brokered Security Deal ‘Soon,’ as ‘Developments Accelerate Noticeably’
Syria’s interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa speaks during a Ministerial formation of the government of the Syrian Arab Republic, in Damascus, Syria, March 29, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Khalil Ashawi
i24 News – Syrian and Israeli officials are expected to meet soon under US mediation, perhaps in Paris, to finalize a security agreement between Damascus and Jerusalem, a source close to Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa told i24NEWS on Saturday.
According to the Syrian source, the talks will also focus on various potential joint strategic and economic projects in the buffer zones between the two countries.
“There is very optimistic talk suggesting the possibility of even opening an Israeli embassy in Damascus before the end of this year, given the significant progress in the prospect of Syria joining the Abraham Accords,” the source said.
The original Syrian plan was limited to a security agreement and the opening of an Israeli liaison office in Damascus without diplomatic status, the source tells me. “But developments are accelerating noticeably under pressure from the United States, and specifically by President Trump, and amid growing Syrian openness.”
If Damascus manages to reach an integration agreement with the Druze in southern Syria, similar to its agreement with the Kurds in the northeast, and Israel commits to respecting Syria’s unity and territorial integrity, then al-Sharaa would be open to elevate the status of the agreement with Israel to more than just a security agreement, to also include diplomatic relations and an Israeli embassy in Damascus.
“The al-Sharaa government believes that a viable compromise to advance a peace process with Israel would include a 25-year lease for the Golan Heights, similar to the one Jordan previously signed with Israel over the border enclaves, turning it into a ‘Garden of Peace” of joint economic ventures,” the source said.
The source close to al-Sharaa also tells me that US President Trump is seeking to bring Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Al-Sharaa together for a peace agreement signing ceremony.
It should be noted that Israel has repeatedly rejected returning any part of the Golan Heights, let alone the entire territory.
On another front, the source stated that Damascus intends to adopt a new local administration system based on expanded administrative decentralization to enhance participation in local communities across all Syrian governorates.
According to the source, this solution would resolve persisting disputes with the Druze, Kurds, Alawites, and other minorities. A new Syrian government is expected to be formed within the next three months, the source added.