ASPECTS OF MUSIC AND JEWISH IDENTITY IN ISRAEL TODAY

One of the prerogatives of our time and place has been a protracted search to integrate Western artistic aspiration within a context of Jewish identification – a quest to find the indwelling spirit within contemporary and traditional compositional ethos and technique, content and form. Shared is an awareness of the tension between tradition and innovation, and the motivation to bring a timeless perspective to the fractured state of contemporary consciousness. This paper focuses on music as an art form and as an experiential educational medium in the renewal of an ingathered people who aspires to understand and walk in the ways of God, but isn't quite sure how this vision and ideal is to be realized as ancient sources of inspiration impose themselves upon against a backdrop of horror and despair.One of the prerogatives of our time and place has been a protracted search to integrate Western artistic aspiration within a context of Jewish identification – a quest to find the indwelling spirit within contemporary and traditional compositional ethos and technique, content and form. Shared is an awareness of the tension between tradition and innovation, and the motivation to bring a timeless perspective to the fractured state of contemporary consciousness. This paper focuses on music as an art form and as an experiential educational medium in the renewal of an ingathered people who aspires to understand and walk in the ways of God, but isn't quite sure how this vision and ideal is to be realized as ancient sources of inspiration impose themselves upon against a backdrop of horror and despair.

An empirical analysis of Diaspora bonds

Abstract. This study is the first to investigate theoretically and empirically the determinants of Diaspora Bonds for eight developing countries (Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Ghana, India, Lebanon, Pakistan, the Philippines, and Sri-Lanka) and one developed country - Israel for the period 1951 and 2008. Empirical results are consistent with the predictions of the theoretical model. The most robust variables are the closeness indicator and the sovereign rating, both on the demand-side. The spread is not significant, suggesting Diaspora Bonds differ from normal investments. Good governance and wars are also important demand-side determinants of Diaspora Bonds. Among the supply-side factors; FDI, ODA, foreign exchange, inflation, external debt and remittances significantly determine the issue of Diaspora Bonds. Most importantly, this study is able to make predictions of the most promising candidate countries in issuing Diaspora Bonds in the future.Keywords. Diaspora Bonds, Supply-side, Demand-side.JEL. F21, F24, F34, F35, G38, H62, H63

Exploring Producers\u27, Staff Members\u27, and Board Members\u27 Cognitive Frame on Decision Making in an Appalachian Organic Farming Venture

Sustainable development assistance organizations (SDAOs) aim to help producers of natural resource products move their goods and services to market. This article explores how the cognitive frames held by producers, staff, and board members in an agricultural SDAO in rural Appalachia influence organizational decision-making. This study explores identity, characterization, value, and membership frames. Data collected through semi-structured interviews with growers, staff, and board members reveal that the frames these stakeholders hold lead to the institutionalization of decision-making processes that allow organizational managers to make quick, consistent, and clear decisions while avoiding conflicts among members who hold competing frames. Simultaneously, these tacitly-supported practices are exclusionary, and they limit creativity and information exchange, as well as reducing transparency. Consequently, the SDAO may face organizational challenges due to limited problem-solving and adaptive management capabilities. Additionally, the prevailing nature of some members’ frames may prevent other participants from changing their views of the SDAO, limiting the firm’s flexibility to experiment with new management and organizational structures and resilience in the face of change

Cellular and Molecular Responses Unique to Major Injury Are Dispensable for Planarian Regeneration

The fundamental requirements for regeneration are poorly understood. Planarians can robustly regenerate all tissues after injury, involving stem cells, positional information, and a set of cellular and molecular responses collectively called the “missing tissue” or “regenerative” response. follistatin, which encodes an extracellular Activin inhibitor, is required for the missing tissue response after head amputation and for subsequent regeneration. We found that follistatin is required for the missing tissue response regardless of the wound context, but causes regeneration failure only after head amputation. This head regeneration failure involves follistatin-mediated regulation of Wnt signaling at wounds and is not a consequence of a diminished missing tissue response. All tested contexts of regeneration, including head regeneration, could occur with a defective missing tissue response, but at a slower pace. Our findings suggest that major cellular and molecular programs induced specifically by large injuries function to accelerate regeneration but are dispensable for regeneration itself. In regenerative organisms, a large array of cellular responses are triggered at major injuries. However, which of these responses are fundamentally required for regeneration to occur remains unknown. Tewari et al. find that hallmark cellular and molecular responses induced uniquely at large injuries are dispensable for planarian regeneration. Keywords: regeneration; wound response; WnT signaling; TGF-β signaling; planarians; follistatinNational Institutes of Health (U.S.) (Grant R01GM080639