Blog/August 2022/Aug 26th

Aug 26th

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I hit a sort of genealogical jackpot this week! A few weeks ago, Jeremy located two people I’d never heard of, who were both related to me in the same way, presumably from my mother’s paternal grandmother. I didn’t think too much about it at the time, aside from doing a perfunctory search for information.

This week I decided to look into it more, so I tracked down a family tree with one of the people on it (both of them were actually on it, they’re siblings). When I started looking at that tree, I noticed that someone with my ggma’s name and two of her children’s names was on it. Bingo!

There still needs to be some independent verification, but I was able to contact a third-cousin from that line, and she said that she had been told they had relatives (my family) in Pittsburgh. So — so far, the DNA evidence and the available trees all match up!

The downside was discovering that not all that part of the family left Ukraine, and it looks like quite a few were killed during the Holocaust. As far as I know, only this one branch of that family, and my ggma, actually left for the New World.

Esther keeps reminding me I need to do similar research for her side of the family. “It’s complicated”, I tell her!

Various and sundry:

• Politics is where ex-IDF chiefs of staff go to fade away. We’ve got a whole new crop signing up to fade away this fall.
• From “Cracked”, of all places, in 2016: How half of America lost its #$@#$ mind. An interesting read, still germane.
• Solana on “debt babies”.
• Dvorak opines on the impeachment of POTUS. Considering the lack of guts perpetually exhibited by the Rs, I don’t see it happening, ever.
• Hyundai engineers make a very dumb cryptography mistake, one which should result in them getting fired and blackballed.
• Dr Hossenfelder on renewable energy storage. What to do when there’s no sun or wind?

The JPost manages to write seemingly serious articles which are based upon nothing. In this particular one, they are surprised that an “Orthodox” man manages to work in hi-tech. News flash, JPost: there are a helluva lot of us! Apparently the “Jerusalem” Post staff didn’t do a walkabout amongst Jerusalem’s hi-tech firms.

We’ve got very hot weather (37C+) for shabbat, and the heat-wave is supposed to last well into next week. I anticipate an “in-shabbat” this week featuring cold drinks.

Our menu this shabbat is simple:
homemade pita, zaʿatar chicken, sumac potatoes, roasted vegetables, various salatim, and chocolate-chip bars.

Until next time,
shabbat shalom and Hodesh Tov!

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