What Is Jewdas? A Group’s Provocative Approach Starts With Its Name

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What Is Jewdas? A Group’s Provocative Approach Starts With Its Name Photo Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of Britain’s Labour Party, at his home in London on Tuesday. His decision to celebrate Passover with the group Jewdas has drawn heavy criticism. Credit Toby Melville/Reuters LONDON — Jeremy Corbyn’s decision to celebrate Passover with Jewdas, a self-described radical leftist Jewish group, has been heavily criticized in Britain, where his opposition Labour Party has been accused of tolerating anti-Semitism.
The group’s very name — a play on Judas, the disciple who betrayed Jesus Christ — is a provocation, one that has angered many of those encountering the group for the first time. Some critics say that Jewdas’s name, and antics, risk stoking age-old myths and hatreds that have led to anti-Semitic violence.
Created in London more than a decade ago, Jewdas is a group of left-wing activists who are at odds with most of Britain’s mainstream Jewish organizations. Its members say they are oppo..

ScienceTake: Hot Springs Lower Stress in Japan’s Popular Bathing Monkeys

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Hot Springs Lower Stress in Japan’s Popular Bathing Monkeys

The snow monkeys of Japan are famous, as monkeys go. This troop of Japanese macaques lives in the north, near Nagano, the mountainous, snowy site of the 1998 Winter Olympics.
Others of their species live even farther north, farther than any other nonhuman primate, so they are able to adapt to winter weather.
But the source of this troop’s fame is an adaptation that only they exhibit: soaking in hot spring bathing pools. Their habitat is full of natural hot springs that . tend to be over 140 degrees Fahrenheit, a temperature that is apparently uncomfortable for the monkeys.
It wasn’t until 1963 that a young female macaque was first observed bathing in a pool built by a hotel, with the water cooled to a temperature comfortable enough for humans and monkeys.

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At first, one or two monkeys joining human visitors were a curiosity , but eventually they bec..