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The cool and colourful Indian spring is nearly over and the hot summer days will be here soon. Still, it is a relief that the long and cold winter nights have finally faded away. Spring-summer is the season for rejuvenation and rebirth – it calls for joyous celebrations and new beginnings. And we, too, are back with our new bouquet of books – diverse in approach, but intensely captivating in their appeal. Although some of these books are penned by best-selling authors, we don’t know yet how these will be received by readers in general. Yet, many of them are truth-tellers, conveying courage, comprehension and a deep sense of social justice that make them interesting reading. 
 <keyword id="2177237" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Spring-reading">Spring reading</keyword> should be all about shedding the old and donning the new, letting go of the past and welcoming the future. So what better to read right now than books that have a brand new way of looking at things – be it an established theory, an old dictum or a traditional social norm? Here is a collection of 6 fantastic books that will help you look beyond the obvious and tune up with the new. Just like the spring, they offer a whole lot of possibilities for you to explore and fall in love with. Bon voyage to a whole new <keyword id="2037894" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="World-of-books">world of books</keyword>! 
 
Image credit: Thinkstock Photos/Getty Images

March Mavericks: 6 Wonderful
Books That Will Tune Up Your Life

<ul class="summary-list"><li>The CEO of the far-right social network Gab wants to build an explicitly Christian AI. </li><li>Andrew Torba accused ChatGPT of being "satanic," and advocated for an AI built "for the glory of God."</li></ul>Andrew Torba, the CEO of the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/what-is-gab-social-media-platform-free-speech-first-amendment-2021-1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">far-right social network Gab</a> says ChatGPT is "satanic" and that Christians need to instead build an AI that glorifies God.Torba wrote an article titled <a href="https://news.gab.com/2023/01/christians-must-enter-the-ai-arms-race/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">"Christians Must Enter the AI Arms Race,"</a> in which he detailed the many ways that Christians should be fighting back against artificial intelligence.The article was published on January 27, and contained the bold, unsubstantiated claim that every AI system — including OpenAI's ChatGPT — is "skewed with a liberal/globalist/talmudic/satanic worldview."OpenAI says ChatGPT is not meant to favor any group or have beliefs of its own, and <a href="https://cdn.openai.com/snapshot-of-chatgpt-model-behavior-guidelines.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">has modeled it</a> to try to avoid "tricky" topics.Nonetheless, OpenAI has said that some biases do exist and said it is working to fix them. Insider asked ChatGPT whether it thinks it is satanic, to which it said no.<div type="image" title="This is a screenshot of Insider reporter Cheryl Teh's conversation with ChatGPT. We ask if ChatGPT is satanic, and it replies that it is not." height="235" width="820" msid="98147481" hostid="261"></div>In his article, Torba asked: "If the enemy is going to use this technology for evil, shouldn't we be on the ground floor building one for good?" (OpenAI says ChatGPT is meant to benefit "all of humanity")."If we don't build and gain ground now, our enemies will dominate this powerful tool and use it for evil," he said, terming AI "a weapon against the minds of the people" built by the "demons in Silicon Valley.""We need to build AI for the glory of God," Torba concluded.Torba also claimed in his article that "no company" other than Gab is positioned to create a Christian AI, citing what he said was the company's advocacy for free speech. Representatives for OpenAI did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment. Insider asked ChatGPT what it thought of Torba's article, and was told it was "misguided." "AI development is a complex and interdisciplinary field that requires expertise in a variety of areas, including computer science, mathematics, and engineering. It is not clear how being a Christian, or adhering to Christian values, would give someone an advantage in developing AI systems," ChatGPT told Insider.ChatGPT also noted that Torba's idea that Christians should enter an arms race "seems antithetical to Christian teachings of peace, love, and nonviolence.""Instead of focusing on building better weapons, it would be more productive to focus on creating AI systems that promote human flourishing, regardless of one's religious beliefs," ChatGPT said.It is worth noting that there is no evidence that Gab has the expertise required to build an AI. Indeed, its technology has at times come into question: it was <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/gab-hack-data-breach-ddosecrets/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">the target of a massive hack</a> back in February 2021, which <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/emmawoollacott/2021/03/02/gab-hack-reveals-passwords-and-private-posts/?sh=4f2a8dab64da" target="_blank" rel="noopener">exposed the personal data and password of former President Donald Trump</a>. Gab admitted that the data breach occurred, but <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2021/3/1/22307013/gab-hack-data-ceo-demon-hackers" target="_blank" rel="noopener">blamed it on "demon hackers."</a>Since its launch in 2016, Gab has also been accused of spreading hate speech by companies like Apple and Microsoft. In 2016, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-pennsylvania-shooting-gab/what-is-gab-the-site-used-by-pittsburgh-synagogue-shooting-suspect-idUSKCN1N10US" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Apple blocked the Gab app</a> over pornographic content and hate speech. In 2017, Gab was also <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/google-app-store-gab-ban-hate-speech-2017-8" target="_blank" rel="noopener">banned on the Google Play Store.</a> And <a href="https://www.geekwire.com/2018/gab-user-deletes-anti-semitic-content-microsoft-azure-threatened-shut-site/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">in 2018</a>, Microsoft threatened to remove Gab from its Azure cloud computing service after <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-gab-azure-cloud-anti-semitism-2018-8">anti-Semitic posts were spread on the platform that called for "vengeance" against Jews</a>.It is unclear if Gab has any serious designs on the mooted project. Torba in his post asked for "an engineer who has experience with AI" to "get in touch" with the company via email, to apply for a position. Torba did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

The CEO of far-right network Gab says AIs like ChatGPT are 'satanic' and floats creating a Christian one to fight back

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Rachael Pass became pregnant in her second year of rabbinical school and chose to have an <keyword id="11901426" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="abortion" source="Orion">abortion</keyword>.</li><li>She described her experience as "deeply <keyword id="12029863" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="jewish" source="Orion">Jewish</keyword>" and filled with religious study and ritual. </li></ul>As questions about <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/telehealth-clinics-still-offer-abortion-pills-access-online-2022-6">healthcare</a> and <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/abortion-bans-may-violate-jewish-womens-first-amendment-rights-2022-5">religious freedom</a> spur protests around the country, Rabbi Rachael Pass says her abortion was a sacred choice — one she is faithfully fighting to help protect for others. In 2017, as a rabbinical student in her second year, <a href="https://www.jta.org/2021/09/03/opinion/my-abortion-was-a-blessing-as-a-rabbi-i-will-fight-for-others-to-be-able-to-make-their-own-sacred-choice">Rabbi Pass</a> accidentally conceived on the second night of Rosh Hashanah. She took a pregnancy test to confirm her suspicions weeks later on Rosh Chodesh Cheshvan, a Jewish holiday that occurs at the beginning of every month in the Hebrew calendar, marked by the new moon."The very first thing that I thought to do after reading the positive pregnancy test was to say the blessing that you say after using the bathroom," Pass told Insider, describing a prayer of gratitude for good health, asher yatzar. "Like, everything about my decision was Jewish."Pass said her religious study and rituals were central to her pregnancy, the decision to terminate, and finally her decision to have an abortion: She prayed. She consulted her own rabbi. She studied the religious texts of the Torah, Mishnah, and Talmud for any reference to abortion.The Torah, also called Jewish Written Law, contains the five books of the Hebrew Bible and is known more commonly to non-Jews as the "Old Testament." The Mishnah is the first major work of Jewish literature and contains oral traditions and commentaries known as the "Oral Torah." The Talmud is the primary source of Jewish religious law and Jewish theology.<h2>Faith and the First Amendment</h2>Jewish law does not hold the belief shared by many abortion opponents that life begins at conception. A <a href="http://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/views-about-abortion/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">2015 Pew Research survey found</a> that 83 percent of American <keyword id="12527309" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="jews" source="Orion">Jews</keyword> believe abortion "should be legal in all/most cases" — more than any other religious group. Even in conservative readings of Jewish texts, the faith largely protects — and in some cases, requires — abortion. As such, many Jewish organizations have argued that extreme abortion bans are <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/abortion-bans-may-violate-jewish-womens-first-amendment-rights-2022-5">violations of their First Amendment rights</a> to practice their <keyword id="11925126" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="religion" source="Orion">religion</keyword> freely. "Bodily autonomy is extraordinarily important and is extraordinarily valued in all walks of Judaism," Pass said. "And so the fact that the Dobbs decision limits access to abortion, it really does affect Jews' First Amendment right to freedom of religion."After much consideration, as she held four misoprostol pills in the corners of her mouth to induce her abortion, she hummed along to a liturgy streamed by Central Synagogue Services, a reform congregation in Manhattan.After her abortion, Pass visited a cleansing Jewish ritual bath, usually visited by observant women seven days after their period, called the mikvah, and ate challah and honey — a symbol of sweeter times ahead. "The challah and honey was sort of the last piece of that ritual. I mean, really, everything about it was Jewish and it was progressive Judaism in some sense," Pass said. "But also, the more I learned and studied, the more I discovered that it was like, my decision was in line with more conservative Judaism as well."Though Pass said Jewish people may face a unique violation of their religious freedom by the overturning of Roe v. Wade, removing choices for reproductive care concerns all people. "My concern for Jews is the same concern that I have for every person with a uterus living in America."Without access to abortion, Pass said, her life would look totally different. She worries about people who have lost choices for reproductive care and those whose physical and mental health will suffer under new laws. <h2>Others have had 'deeply Jewish <keyword id="12021656" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="abortions" source="Orion">abortions</keyword>' as well</h2>Despite being raised in a pro-choice household and feeling both sure of her decision and believing it was the right one for her, Pass said she experienced some feelings of secrecy and shame following her abortion that she traced, in part, to a sense of pressure and internalized "Christian hegemony" from growing up in Kentucky, which is <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/religious-landscape-study/state/kentucky/">76% Christian</a>. It was when she began feeling like she was keeping her abortion a secret, rather than just a private matter, that she decided it was important to begin sharing her story and wrote <a href="https://www.929.org.il/lang/en/page/401/post/69052">an essay about abortion rights</a> for a Jewish publication. As Pass began to share her experience, in sermons and at community events, she said the feelings of shame were replaced by ones of purpose. She had originally been inspired to go to rabbinical school after her own rabbi counseled her in a time of need, and found she was able to pay that support forward while counseling people about abortion and faith as they make their own choices around pregnancy. "My abortion was deeply Jewish and I'm certainly not the only one [who has had one]," Pass said. "I know plenty of other Jews who I talk to, both in my research and in my writing of my articles, and just by people I know, who have had deeply Jewish abortions as well."Since the overturning of Roe v. Wade, she has felt more compelled to organize, fundraise and share her perspective — that abortion can be a blessing and a choice born of great faith — with others. "I think it's really important for people to hear a rabbinic voice who chose to have an abortion," Pass said. "Not because of a horrible medical reason, but because pregnancy wasn't right for me for a lot of other reasons."

Moving from secrecy to sermons, a rabbi says ending her pregnancy was a blessing: 'My abortion was deeply Jewish.'

<ul class="summary-list"><li>A judge denied Trump's request for a six-month delay for his October 2 fraud trial in New York. </li><li>State Attorney General Letitia James sued Trump, his family, and his business in September.</li></ul>Donald Trump on Tuesday lost his longshot bid for a six-month delay to an October 2 fraud trial in which New York Attorney General Letitia James is <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-ny-ag-fraud-trial-judge-warns-lawyers-delay-sanctions-2023-2">seeking to drive the former president, his family, and his business out of her state.</a>State Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron told a courtroom full of attorneys that he will hold firm to his original October 2 trial date for <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-ny-ag-fraud-trial-judge-warns-lawyers-delay-sanctions-2023-2">James' lawsuit, which, if successful, would result in her pulling the company's corporate charter,</a> a move that would bar the former president's Manhattan-based real-estate and golf-resort company from doing business in New York."This case is not that complicated. It's complex, but it's not complicated," the judge said of the lawsuit, which also seeks a $250 million penalty.The suit alleges that Trump repeatedly deceived banks, insurers, and tax authorities by lying about the value of his assets in annual statements of worth called "Statements of Financial Condition." "Essentially, it all boils down to whether the Statements of Financial Condition are true or false," Engoron told the parties in sticking to his trial date."The rest, as Hillel has said, is all commentary," the judge added, referring to a Talmudic story. Engoron also repeated on Tuesday the phrase that he uttered after first setting the firm date, when he warned attorneys for Trump and the lawsuit's 15 co-defendants — including his three eldest children, some of its top executives, and multiple separate corporate entities — <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-asks-for-more-time-ny-letitia-james-fraud-case-2023-3">that the case will go on trial on October 2 "come hell or high water."</a>The judge did budge, however, on the number of witnesses the defense teams can demand sit for sworn pre-trial depositions.Before Tuesday, the state and the defense were both limited to 10 witnesses — and that was 10 total for the combined defense teams.On Tuesday, the judge said the defense can now depose 20 witnesses in total.That number is lower than the 30 the defense requested. But it was higher than 15, the number lawyers for the attorney general's side had said would be fair.The judge declined to move the trial date even though lawyers for Trump said Tuesday that even just a three-week delay would be useful. Lawyers for James had themselves grudgingly conceded they'd agree to an extension of two weeks. "I appreciate that both sides are only asking for a few weeks," the judge said. "But you have six months" until the trial, he said."I don't want to move that trial date, not because I've said that," he said, referring to his "hell or high water" threat, "but because I don't think it's necessary."You can move anything else," he added. "I don't want to move that trial date."In fighting Tuesday for more time and more deposition witnesses, Reid M. Figel, a lawyer for Ivanka Trump, who is one of the named defendants, elaborated on the coming defense.A property's value is "highly subjective," Figel said, and valuations "vary widely" over time, and sometimes suddenly."That's how developers make money," the lawyer said. "They buy low and sell high."But the attorney general alleges a decade-long pattern of fraudulent valuations that go beyond the subjective, one of James' lawyers said."Our complaint shows that there were objective facts that are false," assistant attorney general Kevin Wallace told the judge.Those include Trump allegedly falsely inflating the value of his Trump Tower penthouse in Manhattan by tens of millions of dollars <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ny-ag-trump-falsely-valued-apartment-3-times-real-size-2022-1">by claiming it was three times its actual size</a>. Figel, however, countered that it's not enough to show there were misstatements in the former president's financial statements."They have to be materially false in a way that mattered to the transaction," Figel said.The judge also asked the attorney general's side if there was any way the case could be streamlined."Do you need to sue all 16 of these entities?" the judge said of the defendants. Trimming a few out of the lawsuit "would make it a lot simpler," he added. The attorney general's side promised to consider that possibility. Also at the hearing, attorney Alina Habba, who is representing several of the Trump defendants, said she has been having a difficult time communicating with one in particular, former Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg.The former finance chief still has a month left to go <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-cfo-allen-weisselberg-quickly-snags-coveted-safe-rikers-cell-2023-1">on his five-month sentence</a> for running a decade-long payroll tax-dodge scheme at the company. "It's actually taking me two weeks just to get ahold of him by phone," Habba said. The judge's law clerk, Allison Greenfield, told Habba to send in, for Egoron's approval, a proposed judges' order requiring the Department of Correction to make Weisselberg more accessible to his lawyers. Tuesday's court appearance was delayed a half hour when court officers briefly shut down the building after a bomb threat was called in to 911, state court spokesman Lucian Chalfen said.Engoron's courtroom was not targeted, a court source told Insider.The judge delayed the hearing until the building was reopened, and reporters for several news outlets could get inside. "This case generates significant press," the judge said. "They are the eyes and ears of the public and I firmly believe in transparency."

Trump loses bid to delay October 2 fraud trial where New York attorney general will try to run him out of state

God's Man in Washington

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Hallmark's new <keyword id="4008238" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Hanukkah">Hanukkah</keyword> movie "Love, Lights, Hanukkah!" premieres on December 12 at 8 p.m. EST.</li><li>The film stars Mia Kirshner as Christina, a restaurant owner who discovers she's Jewish through a DNA ancestry test and celebrates Hanukkah with her newfound family.</li><li>It has all the trimmings of a cheesy Hallmark <keyword id="6867532" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="holiday-movie">holiday movie</keyword>, but centers Hanukkah traditions and their symbolism, as well as the Jewish characters who celebrate them.</li></ul>Last year, for the first time, Hallmark included Jewish characters and Hanukkah storylines in two movies: <a href="https://www.insider.com/hallmark-movies-jewish-holiday-date-double-holiday-hanukkah-review-2019-12">"Holiday Date" and "Double Holiday."</a> While both were well-intentioned attempts at inclusion, they ultimately felt more like <keyword id="506544" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Christmas-Movies">Christmas movies</keyword> with poorly written Jewish characters who happened to mention Hanukkah a few times.This year's effort entitled "Love, Lights, Hanukkah!" is different. Is it cheesy? Sure. It's a Hallmark holiday movie, after all. But it also centers Hanukkah traditions and their symbolism, as well as the Jewish characters who celebrate them.<h2>Mia Kirshner stars as Christina, a restaurant owner who discovers her Jewish ancestry and connects with her newfound Jewish family over Hanukkah</h2><div type="image" title="love lights hanukkah" height="500" width="752" msid="79688090" hostid="261"></div>An Italian restaurant owner still reeling from the loss of her adoptive mother and a broken engagement, Christina takes a DNA test to learn more about her background. She finds out she has Eastern European Jewish ancestry and that some close relatives, the Bermans, live nearby. It turns out that they're more closely related than she thought when Ruth Berman reveals she is Christina's biological mother. Both drawn to Ruth and desperate to hold onto the memory of her mother, Christina navigates a new family and a new holiday while honoring the Christmas traditions she was raised with.There's also the matter of David (played by Ben Savage), a restaurant critic who gave Christina's lasagna a less-than-enthusiastic <keyword id="45374" type="CITY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Review">review</keyword> but is a fixture at the Bermans' Hanukkah gatherings as a family friend. You can probably guess how that one ends. Their bland romance is the film's weakest point - the warm, lively Bermans make for a far more compelling storyline.<h2>Aside from a few gratuitous bagels and lox references and bungled Hebrew pronounciations, the Jewish aspects of the film feel authentic</h2><div type="image" title="love lights hanukkah" height="500" width="750" msid="79688091" hostid="261"></div>Interfaith identities can feel particularly complex during the winter holiday season with several distinct, widely celebrated religious holidays in close proximity, but the film treats Hanukkah as more than just a foil to Christmas.The Bermans take the time to educate Christina, and thereby the audience, about the origins of Hanukkah, lighting a menorah, preparing latkes, and playing dreidel. They ask David when he's going to settle down and tell Christina what a cute couple they'd make, an accurate portrayal of a Jewish family if I've ever seen one. And the miraculous nature of the holiday is an overarching theme of the film. In one scene, as Ruth shows Christina her dreidel collection, she gazes lovingly at her long-lost daughter and explains that the letters on each of a dreidel's sides stand for "a great miracle happened there."The way Christina balances Christmas and Hanukkah will also feel familiar to the <a href="https://www.pewforum.org/2016/10/26/one-in-five-u-s-adults-were-raised-in-interfaith-homes/">one in five US adults who have been raised in interfaith homes</a>. She prepares traditional Jewish foods in a Santa apron, hosts the Bermans for Hanukkah with decorative elves lighting the path to her door, and invites them to her restaurant's Christmas dinner to join in her late mother's beloved tradition.<h2>In a standout scene, David and the Bermans take Christina to a public menorah lighting ceremony - it's the kind of magical holiday moment Hallmark is known for</h2><div type="image" title="love lights hanukkah" height="1412" width="2358" msid="79688092" hostid="261"></div>Publicizing the miracle of Hanukkah is an important tradition with origins in the Talmud. Many organizations hold communal menorah lightings in cities around the world, but this ritual is rarely represented in Hanukkah stories onscreen since Christmas symbols are ubiquitous in public spaces.With a crowd of Jews wearing various yarmulke styles, Becky Berman wishing Christina a "chag sameach" with a proper gutteral "ch" sound, and Leslie Odom Jr. and Nicolette Robinson's gorgeous rendition of "Maoz Tzur" playing in the background, it feels like, well, a scene out of a Hallmark movie.Those seeking a purely Hanukkah-focused film with little mention of Christmas won't find that here. But for those open to a movie that places Hanukkah at the center of a story about family, hope, and miracles, "Love, Lights, Hanukkah!" might just be the applesauce to your latke.Watch the trailer for "Love, Lights, Hanukkah!" below:<ul class="read-more-links"><li>Read more:</li><li><a href="https://www.insider.com/white-house-hanukkah-party-history-how-it-began">The White House didn't always celebrate Hanukkah - here's how the tradition began</a></li><li><a href="https://www.insider.com/hanukkah-facts-history-jewish-holiday">10 surprising facts you didn't know about Hanukkah</a></li><li><a href="https://www.insider.com/what-is-hanukkah-2017-12">13 reasons everyone should be sad they don't celebrate Hanukkah</a></li></ul>

Hallmark's 'Love, Lights, Hanukkah!' is the cheesy interfaith holiday movie we've been waiting for

<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image">Genius/screenshot</div></div></div>If you try going to RapGenius.com today, you'll automatically be redirected to Genius.com. 
It's part of an enormous rebrand for the website and the company, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/the-inside-story-of-how-rap-genius-fired-a-cofounder--and-just-raised-40-million-annotated-2014-7#/">which parted ways with cofounder Mahbod Moghadam</a> in May <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/rap-genius-comments-on-elliot-rodger-memoir-2014-5">after he annotated the memoir of UCSB shooter Elliot Rodger</a> with a string of bizarre, insensitive comments. 
To test out its idea, the startup launched several channels, including Rock Genius, News Genius, and Poetry Genius. In addition, Genius made their features embeddable-annotated texts can now be placed on other websites, increasing Rap Genius's reach to people who wouldn't necessarily visit the startup's website.
Today, Genius is for "<a href="http://meta.genius.com/Genius-about-genius-annotated">the crowdsourced annotation of music, news, literature, history, and just about any other text you could imagine</a>," according to its site. Noting that "every text is made more understandable, and interesting, by our shared attention," the site defines its goal as nothing less than creating "the world's greatest public knowledge project."
Ben Horowitz, who invested $15 million early on in Rap Genius's development, calls Genius the digital equivalent of the Talmud, the biblical commentary produced by rabbis. The Talmud is thought to ostensibly have had more influence on modern society than even the Bible, which speaks to the power of annotation.

Rap Genius Is Changing Its Name To Just 'Genius'

Mendy Levy was born in 2003 in Canada to parents who were members of <a href="https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/extradition-of-senior-lev-tahor-leaders-to-us-from-guatemala-approved-683635">Lev Tahor</a>, <a href="https://mishpacha.com/aching-hearts/">an extremist Jewish cult</a> founded in the 1980s. Shunned by members of other Jewish groups and facing a kidnapping scandal, its leader Shlomo Helbrans had moved <keyword id="12484346" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="lev-tahor" source="Orion">Lev Tahor</keyword> to Canada in the 1990s. Helbrans then moved the group to Guatemala in 2014, in the wake of <a href="https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2013/11/27/quebec_judge_orders_children_from_jewish_sect_be_placed_in_foster_care.html">child abuse investigations in Quebec</a>.Levy escaped the group in 2018 and now splits his time between Canada and New York. Shlomo Helbrans drowned in Guatemala in 2017. US authorities arrested his son, Nachman Helbrans, and other Lev Tahor leaders in late 2018 and 2021. They're currently on trial in federal court in New York on <a href="https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/press-release/file/1387911/download">kidnapping and fraud charges</a>, to which they've pleaded not guilty. Lawyers for Helbrans and other leaders didn't respond to Insider's requests for comment.The remainder of Lev Tahor, which numbers an estimated 250 <keyword id="11985997" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="people" source="Orion">people</keyword>, continues to live in Guatemala and has been <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/guatemala-blocks-extremist-ultra-orthodox-sect-heading-to-iran-through-mexico/">unsuccessfully trying to move to Iran</a>.Here, Mendy, now 18, tells Jacob Shamsian about growing up in Lev Tahor and how he decided to leave.Lev Tahor is about total control. You can't do anything without permission. And if they ask you to do something, you have to do it.There was one woman who was allergic to sesame seeds, used in tahina. One evening around Sukkot, in fall 2017, in Guatemala, the rabbi wanted to test her faith and told her to eat it. She told him she could die, but after fighting over it, he kept instructing her to eat it anyway.Two hours later, she died. As she was suffering from the allergic reaction, they didn't let her call an ambulance. They don't allow doctors in Lev Tahor without the rabbi's permission. They told us to trust the rabbi.They didn't want to bury her. They said she would be alive again, she's going to wake up. After four in the morning, they finally buried her. The rabbi said she died because she didn't have faith in him.Is that <keyword id="11925126" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="religion" source="Orion">religion</keyword>? That's horrific. That wouldn't happen in any of the Jewish communities around here - <a href="https://www.jta.org/2021/06/09/ny/in-brooklyns-hipster-williamsburg-neighborhood-hasidic-jews-are-the-real-counterculture">Williamsburg</a>, <a href="https://www.jta.org/2011/06/06/united-states/in-new-york-shtetl-where-arson-attack-occurred-the-rebbes-word-is-law">New Square</a>. That wouldn't happen. It's only Lev Tahor.They don't want people to see the outside world. No one is able to go anywhere without the leader's permission. That's how my father died. He got an infection, and my mother told me and my older brothers to go to the leader and ask if he could get a doctor. The doctor said he had to go to the hospital, but the rabbi said no. My father wasn't eating, he wasn't walking. He got sicker and sicker over a week and a half. And that's how it ended. He died on October 25, 2016.Maybe they wanted to kill him. I don't know why. Maybe they were afraid he was going to leave the community, because my father already said once he was considering leaving. Maybe they just wanted to show you can't.<h2>The rabbis dictated how we spent every hour of the day</h2>It begins when you wake up.You wake up at 5:30 in the morning every day. First thing you do, you come to shul (synagogue). From shul, one of the rabbis takes all the boys together. We go up the river in the mountains every day and go in the cold water. There's snakes in the water as well. We found a lot of snakes. The rabbis stand and watch everyone go into <a href="https://www.chabad.org/theJewishWoman/article_cdo/aid/1541/jewish/The-Mikvah.htm">the mikvah</a> (ritual immersion in the water). Once they finish, they make sure everyone goes back to shul. When we arrive in shul, we sit down and they tell us to think about God. Think about God for half an hour.Now, that's a beautiful thing. But if they're making you think about God in a controlled way, then you don't want to think about God.<div type="image" title="Mendy Levy Lev Tahor" height="3000" width="4000" msid="87569348" hostid="261"></div>Once that's over, everyone has to put on <a href="https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/1918251/jewish/What-Are-Tefillin.htm">tefillin</a>. For three hours, you can't take them off. Shacharis (the morning prayer) is three hours, minimum.After shacharis, one of the rabbis comes into the shul and gives a class. For most of the rest of the day, you're in shul and you have to learn. Shlomo Hebrans, the head rabbi of Lev Tahor, wrote his own books. You have to study them. You have to know it by heart. And if you don't, you get consequences.Every other Jewish book is excluded. It's the chumash (five books of Moses) and their own studies, that's it. No other outside studies. They don't learn Talmud. They don't teach <a href="https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/rabbi-shlomo-yitzchaki-rashi">Rashi</a>. They literally burn every Jewish book that has a symbol of Chabad.<div type="image" title="Lev Tahor children" height="2630" width="3507" msid="87569352" hostid="261"></div>Education is not a question. Nothing, and I mean nothing. We didn't even know what the word "science" meant. We didn't speak a word of English. No reading. If you write "ABC" in Lev Tahor, you get a punishment. We don't know what Trump is. We don't know what Biden is. I barely knew what the Holocaust was at the time. No iPhone, no computers, nothing like that unless you were one of the leaders.It's a cult. No other Jewish community is like this. The rabbi who started Lev Tahor was a genius. He was able to brainwash and control a few hundred people for years, and people would believe him and follow his society. They made us look at the outside world like it was the worst and we're the only ones who are the best. They made us believe Lev Tahor is the only authentic form of <keyword id="12345344" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="judaism" source="Orion">Judaism</keyword> in the world, and that it's better to die than to leave.The rabbi's speech every morning sometimes lasts six or seven hours. I used to not eat breakfast or lunch every day, since the speech could easily last until night.Lev Tahor claims a lot of food isn't kosher. They don't eat fish. They don't eat milk. They don't eat eggs. They don't eat any protein. No mangoes. No grapes. They only eat fruit and vegetables and bread. Bread only if you go to the field and you cut the seeds and you mill them with the machines. You get bread if you're lucky.So you go home, eat breakfast for half an hour, and come back. Then you study for a couple of hours until Mincha (the afternoon prayer) and Maariv (the evening prayer), which are another two hours.After that, you sit down again, you learn some more, and you go home for supper, which is just vegetable soup. Then you come back to shul and you learn until 10, 11 o'clock at night.<h2>Leaders used physical and mental <keyword id="12020915" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="abuse" source="Orion">abuse</keyword> to keep children in line</h2>There are about 15 leaders who are actually controlling the whole community. You're talking about 60 families, around 300 people.I was physically abused, mentally abused. There's the hitting, the beating up. If someone says a lie - even a small child - they would take hot pepper, the powder, and make them swallow it. After getting hit or beaten, you had to kiss the hand of whoever just hit you and thank him.People are not allowed to share love with their parents. There's no connection, physical or mental, with parents. Meaning if a father or a mother would hug a child in Lev Tahor, and the leaders figured it out, they would take away the kids and place them in one of their houses or in a different house.<div type="image" title="lev tahor guatemala" height="1673" width="2230" msid="87569354" hostid="261"></div> <div type="image" title="lev tahor guatemala" height="2342" width="3122" msid="87569357" hostid="261"></div>Why? Because they want everyone to believe, listen, and trust only them. If a leader hits you, they don't want you to go to your mother crying. So they cut off the connection between you and your parents.I told the FBI: "You should know every day that you're not taking action on this case and the community, there are people who want to commit suicide because they can't bear another day of going through the same pain." They wake up and they get hit, they get tortured, and just can't live through another day like that.I had a nervous breakdown not long after we all moved to Guatemala in 2014. My brain just stopped working because of all this pain. I was thinking of committing suicide. I just exploded.I was in the hospital for about half a year. Until then, I didn't understand the things around me were wrong. Most kids wouldn't understand it was wrong.But in the hospital, I started thinking differently. I got a different perspective from everyone else in the cult. It was then I started thinking about how I could leave Lev Tahor.<h2>I plotted my escape when the rabbis told me to marry a 12-year-old girl</h2>When the rabbi gives his talks to the communities, he's making new rules. In order for the whole community to be brainwashed, he has to make sure it sinks in so that a lot of people could say: "I actually agree with this law, I actually agree with this new rule. That's what God wants, right?"So he has to be smart, to fill your brain. He has to talk a lot. If we started doing things one way, he might say "I've looked in and I see it's actually not kosher." That's how he plays with people's brains.<div type="image" title="Lev Tahor children" height="3264" width="4352" msid="87569360" hostid="261"></div>In Guatemala, Lev Tahor was <a href="https://mishpacha.com/aching-hearts/">getting worse and worse</a>. When Shlomo Helbrans died in 2017, his son Nachman took over. He gave even worse speeches. And he made worse rules.The craziest thing was the law where he said everyone has to get married at 12 years old, 13 years old.That was the main reason I said, "enough is enough." I was 15 years old. They wanted to force me to marry a 12-year-old girl, who was also my first cousin. I didn't want to and she didn't want to, so I had to get myself out of there.I told the rabbi I was OK with marriage, but I started planning my escape. In 2018, I went to the Canadian embassy in Guatemala. I had to wait several months for a passport, and they put me in different places in Guatemala. Eventually, on October 14, 2018, I flew to Canada and was taken in by child protective services.<h2>Adjusting to life outside Lev Tahor took a lot of time and therapy</h2>I didn't have a real home for about a year. I was placed with four or five different families. And once, when they didn't have a family for me, I was put in a group home. I was there for four or five months. And then, in January of this year, I was adopted by a Chabad couple in Montreal. Lavi and Bryndel Klein gave me a home.When I came out of Lev Tahor, I had to go for help. I was damaged. I didn't always have the support I needed. I needed to work hard to figure things out.The only people who helped me to be able to survive was the Orthodox community. I could've been in a very bad place once I left Lev Tahor. Life was so different, I had a hard time processing it all. I could have just committed suicide, turned to drugs. If not for the Orthodox community helping me, I wouldn't be here.Now, I feel like I could take on anything. If anything happens, whatever challenges, I wouldn't feel it as much because I'm used to it. I've been through worse.I'm now speaking English, been working on it for two years. In Lev Tahor, we spoke Yiddish and Hebrew and a little bit of Spanish when we got to Guatemala.My life has changed a lot. Lavi and Bryndel have been helping me with education, catching me up in the world, helping me with my future. I didn't know 4+4. They invested a lot of time in school and education and therapy. Teaching me life skills, how the world works.I'm trying different things. I borrowed someone's camera and became inspired to become a photographer. <a href="https://instagram.com/mendy_levy_photography/">I do a lot of family pictures and portraits</a>.The first family I stayed with in Guatemala had a keyboard. I started using it for hours a day. Slowly and slowly, I taught myself how to play. I never got lessons. Now I play at big events. People like my music. I did a wedding recently.<a href="https://instagram.com/mendy.levy">I post about my story a lot on Instagram</a>. People always message me. They tell me, "you changed my life, I've seen your story." People tell me they have questions about God a lot. But once they see my story, they would say like, "What are these questions? Look at Mendy Levy!"People ask me how they can deal with parents, sometimes abusive parents, or deal with bullying, people making fun of them, or not having confidence.<div type="image" title="mendy levy brother" height="1333" width="1778" msid="87569361" hostid="261"></div>I try to inspire them with confidence. If someone was making fun of me, let him do that. I'm sorry he's having a bad day that he has nothing better to do. If that makes him happy, let him be happy with that. But me, I don't let anyone get me stuck, get me down. Unless someone's going to hack my Instagram.I have seven brothers and three sisters. My family is still in Guatemala. It could be that my mother is not alive. I don't know that information. I literally don't know. No one knows any information from inside. It's just so closed. There are no phones. But what I do know is I have one brother out in Israel. He works in a pharmacy. I was able to meet with him for the first time since leaving Lev Tahor in October.People <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/jewish/.premium-who-is-the-jewish-taliban-1.5263269">have called Lev Tahor the "Jewish Taliban."</a> When I was asked about that nickname, I said I didn't know what the Taliban was. Growing up, I didn't know about the war in Afghanistan. 9/11? I heard something about it, but I didn't know exactly what it meant.That was my life. And there are still a lot of things I'm learning every single day.

I fled an extremist Jewish cult in Guatemala when I was 15 years old. I grew up with virtually no education and wasn't allowed to show love to my parents.

<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"></div></div></div>
Jonathan Frankel is not your average startup founder. He doesn't live in Silicon Valley, or even Silicon Alley. He hasn't worked in the technology industry before.
Oh, and he's an ordained rabbi.
Frankel never planned on starting his own company, let alone develop a new device, but he just sort of stumbled into it. After becoming a rabbi, Frankel went to Harvard Law and then worked at Boston Consulting Group and flew around the country working with different clients.
At the time he was living in the suburbs of Philadelphia with his wife and three sons in a three-story house.
"I have three little boys, and I was trying to keep track of them," Frankel told Business Insider. 
He'd hear screaming coming from somewhere and run around the house trying to figure out what was wrong. Or if it was time for dinner, he'd have to scream at the top of his lungs for them to come downstairs.
Frankel decided that it would make his life infinitely easier if he could install an intercom in the house so that he could communicate with his family wherever they were. But when he started googling, he was astonished by the price range.
The traditional intercom systems his parents had used 20 years ago when he was a kid were going for $3,000. And it would require them to wire the whole house and break through walls. It seemed pretty ridiculous.
So he thought to himself, this is the 21st century, there must be some sort of wireless solution at a cheaper price point. But he couldn't find anything.
After dozens of hours of futile searching, Frankel decided to go ahead and create a wireless intercom himself.
<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"></div></div></div>
A year and a half later, he's launching <a href="https://nucleusintercom.com/">Nucleus</a>, a WiFi home intercom that makes it easy to communicate with other people in your house (and it's less expensive, too).
With Nucleus, parents can buy tablet-like devices to hang on the walls around their house. Each device can record video and audio and share the information with the other devices in the house.
"The ability to just tap and see takes out a lot of the running up and down," Frankel said. "It's a lot more calm way to communicate."
You can preorder as many devices as you want at $150 per Nucleus, and Frankel is hoping to ship by the second quarter of 2015.
<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"></div></div></div>
While Frankel studied computer science undergrad, he didn't really have too much technical background, so he brought along Isaac Levy to be Nucleus' CTO. Levy came with tons of background in video technology and put together the working prototype in about a month.
And while Levy is working on all the coding, Frankel is bringing his own flair to the company.
"Talmud and computers and law, they're all very demanding and logical professions," he said. "When we were designing this, working with designers, I told them 'I don't even have the vocabulary to discuss design.' You want to give me a logical puzzle, I'll solve a logical puzzle. I'm not a designer. But I think all those three different careers, they seem very disparate, but they're kind of very connected in terms of the hard logic required."
<h3>You can watch this video to learn more about Nucleus:</h3>
<div><biembeddedobject id="63b4a568-9495-406f-b4a7-e145745fcbe2"></biembeddedobject></div>

This Rabbi Quit His Job To Create A Better Intercom For Keeping An Eye On His Kids

<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image">Rafi Letzter</div></div></div>Does seeing the word "evolution" in a headline make you nervous?It makes me nervous. Climate change may be <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-clinton-climate-change-warming-2016-9">the most politically charged scientific finding</a> of the modern era, but the charged responses to it are nothing compared to people's forceful responses to evolution. Gallup <a href="http://www.gallup.com/poll/190010/concern-global-warming-eight-year-high.aspx?g_source=CATEGORY_CLIMATE_CHANGE&amp;g_medium=topic&amp;g_campaign=tiles">reports</a> that 64% of US adults are worried "a great deal" or "a fair amount" about climate change, but <a href="http://www.gallup.com/poll/21814/evolution-creationism-intelligent-design.aspx">only 50% believe in evolution</a>. That's despite the fact that evolution is the <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/10/2/text_pop/l_102_01.html">foundation of all modern biology</a> - not to mention much of modern medicine - and has been thoroughly investigated for the 157 years since Charles Darwin published "<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Origin-Species-150th-Anniversary/dp/0451529065">The Origin of Species</a>."The hair on the back of my neck stands on end when I get near this debate. One of my parents is a research mathematician; the other works in a biology lab. When I was a kid they made sure to talk about <keyword id="41551" type="ENTERTAINMENT" weightage="100" keywordseo="science">science</keyword> with me, to help me see the elegance of Darwin's eons-long story of life. But we also lived in an Orthodox Jewish community, where schoolteachers laughed off dinosaurs and space travel as fairy tales and made a point of shutting down talk of evolution. It was the first in a series of conflicts that turned me away from that world.But because of where I come from, I know lots of smart, thoughtful people who deeply believe that evolution is a crock. (And more who believe evolution was a God-guided process - along with <a href="http://www.gallup.com/poll/21814/evolution-creationism-intelligent-design.aspx">the majority of Americans who accept the science</a>.) I'm hostile to segments of the anti-religious crowd, <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/119596/appetite-wonder-review-closed-mind-richard-dawkins">including many scientists</a>, who would shame religious people as fools.That's why I was particularly interested in <a href="http://poseidon01.ssrn.com/delivery.php?ID=761026119090108080081064064104084007060032006019028017122096066005121001024127030093026012049028000097038075103095019105126012005055092013072124103007123107108000075056093092007092001065083120022116118067018007115027026077094076089030086081103126&amp;EXT=pdf">this paper</a> by the psychologists Dan Kahan and Keith Stanovich, which re-examines some older data on why people do or do not believe in evolution.First, the backstory. In 2015, the psychologists Will Gervais and Ara Nornzayan asked students to answer these three questions:<ol><li>WIDGET. If it takes 5 machines 5 minutes to make 5 widgets, how long would it take 100 machines to make 100 widgets? ____ minutes</li><li>BATBALL. A bat and a ball cost $1.10 in total. The bat costs $1.00 more than the ball. How much does the ball cost? ____ cents</li><li>LILYPAD. In a lake, there is a patch of lily pads. Every day, the patch doubles in size. If it takes 48 days for the patch to cover the entire lake, how long would it take for the patch to cover half of the lake? ____ days</li></ol>Take a second to think them over.Together, these questions make up the Cognitive Reflection Test (CRT). The idea behind each of them is that they have an intuitive answer, one that seems obviously correct at first glance, that is different from its true answer. Psychologists believe the CRT is a good way to examine how talented a person is at reflecting on and, if necessary, rejecting their intuitive assumptions.The obvious answer to question one is 100 minutes, because it follows the pattern of the question. But the correct answer is five minutes, because the we've already established that each machine takes five minutes to build a widget. For the second question, you want to guess $0.10, but if you do the math the correct answer is $0.05. And for the last question, the intuitive answer is 24 days but the correct answer is 47 days - because the patch had to double in size on the last day.Gervais and Norenzayan found that students who didn't believe in evolution were somewhat more likely to get lower CRT scores, and students who did believe in evolution tended to get higher CRT scores.They argued that this shows people tend to reject evolution due to "bounded rationality." That is, they see that iPhones, cars, and artwork are products of deliberate design, and are unable to escape their intuition that living things must be as well. I'm going to be honest with you for a second about my biases: This kind of paper makes me a little angry. It strikes me as an attempt to marginalize and dismiss the perspectives of religious people for the benefit of Right-Thinking and Clever Academia. I suspect, personally, that a determined person could uncover any number of beliefs and attitudes held by academics that correlate with negative scores on tests of mental proficiency. All of which is to say: I think we should be skeptical of anyone who publishes a study explaining why people who disagree with them are less clever.So I was pleased to see Kahan and Stanovich uncover a deeper story in Gervais and Nornzayan's data.They replicated the original finding that anti-evolutionists tend to score somewhat lower on the CRT. But it turns out that there's a much stronger effect trending in exactly the opposite direction.<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_left"><div><div class="image on-image">Rafi Letzter/Business InsiderA Hasidic child reads from the Book of Lamentations during a prayer service at the Western Wall for the holiday of Tisha B'Av.</div></div></div>It turns out that high CRT scores most strongly predict that people will stick to their cultural beliefs about evolution. So very secular students with high CRT scores were likely to accept evolution, and very religious students with high CRT scores were likely to reject the science. Low CRT scores predict muddier, less culturally coherent views.(When Kahan and Stanovich repeated the study on a national sample of 1,012 people they found the identical result.)They suggest an alternative model of disbelief, which they call "expressive rationality." The theory is that people with highly developed mental tools for turning over and examining ideas are more skilled at explaining to themselves why they shouldn't - or should - accept a verifiable scientific claim.It's a more challenging argument to accept, if you're a person who sees science as our only effective tool for extracting something like objective truth from an uncaring and chaotic universe - and who <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-clinton-climate-change-warming-2016-9">fears the consequences of rejecting it</a>. It's far less comforting than telling yourself Oh, well those people are just dumb. Folks who reject science, like the brilliant, infuriating Talmud scholars in my life, might not simply do so because they lack the brainpower to grasp it. Instead, they seem to arrive at their religious skepticism by their own extreme powers of persuasion - a highly developed ability to convince oneself that, rationally, the thing you believe is right. Oddly enough, that's the very same route that leads many secular people to place their faith in science.What a scary thought. <div class="margin-top"> <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/new-research-hands-evolution-fish-fin-rays-genes-2016-9">Scientists discovered something 'shocking' that could rewrite a key part of human evolution</a></h3> <div> <div> <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="s0MjFzNTE6iJnX1xYTFzTNSH8EKFEp4H" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div> </div> </div> </div>

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