The upcoming festival of Shavuot, which means “weeks,” marks the end of a seven-week period that begins during Passover, and the receiving of the Torah under a cloud of smoke at Mount Sinai. “And all the people saw the thunder and lightning, and the sound of the shofar, and the mountain in smoke; when the…
Smoking is one of those topics that ties rabbis up in knots, and marijuana just clouds the issue even more. And that’s before Jewish dietary laws even come into it. Yes, smoking is now acknowledged to be bad for you, so indulgence ostensibly contravenes the command not to desecrate the body. But it is also…
Former U.S. surgeon general Jesse Steinfeld, who warned of the perils of second-hand smoke and was famously not asked to return for the Nixon administration’s second term after clashing with the tobacco industry, has died at 87, his daughter said. Steinfeld, a former official at the National Cancer Institute who was named surgeon general in…
I smoked my first cigarette in Israel, the land of milk, honey and Marlboro Reds. I was 10 years old and stretching my almost-tween freedom. There was something so effortlessly cool about it all, the way people smoked on the beach in between dips into the crystal-clear, blue water. Or how soldiers at the bus…
Veteran actor Leonard Nimoy, best known as Spock in the 1960s television series “Star Trek” and a string of feature films that followed, said he was “doing OK” after being diagnosed with lung disease and urged fans on Thursday to quit smoking, by tweeting this message to his 810,000 followers: Smokers, please understand. If you…
The number of smokers in Israel is continuing to decline, according to a Health Ministry study. The report, which by law is submitted annually to the Knesset, shows that the proportion of smokers in Israel has declined 14 percent within one year. The report is based on surveys conducted by the Center for Disease Control…
There aren’t many facets of healthcare in which Palestinians are progressing faster than the far better-resourced Israelis. But it turns out that that Palestinians do seem more prepared to kick the tobacco habit. The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics has just reported that among Palestinians, there has been an enormous decrease in smoking over recent…
First it was lox, now it’s … cigarettes? Tobacco sticks are the latest unassuming product to face kashrut questions, after a Dutch study found that pig hemoglobin was being used in some cigarette filters. The issue hasn’t captured the attention of the rabbinic authorities just yet, and it might not now that actor and rabbi-in-disguise…
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