A shot of Christopher Reeve’s Superman costume, on display at a Christie’s auction house in London in 2003. (Ian Walton/Getty Images)

Baltimore ranked most dangerous, Trump named worst president, Superman returns to his Jewish roots

Harm City does it again

USA Today has named Baltimore the most dangerous city in the country. The paper analyzed police crime data in the nation’s 50 biggest cities, which revealed Baltimore had the highest per capita murder rate in the nation with nearly 56 murders per 100,000 people — a record for the city. The rate outpaced New Orleans and Detroit, with a rate of 40 and 39 killings per 100,000 people, respectively. Baltimore’s 342 murders in 2017 was an increase from 318 in 2016. Baltimore — the most populated city in Maryland with more than 615,000 residents — had more homicides last year than Philadelphia, Los Angeles and New York City. Philadelphia, with 1.5 million people, tallied 317 killings; New York, a city of 8.5 million, had 290 murders; and Los Angeles, with 4 million residents, recorded 286 homicides, according to USA Today. The latest murder came Monday night when two masked men walked into a barber shop near Patterson Park and shot two people, one of them fatally. The incident occurred in the 3200 block of Eastern Ave., where police found a 35-year-old man suffering from a gunshot wound. He was taken to an area hospital where he later died.

Read more: Baltimore Named Nation’s Most Dangerous City By USA Today

U.S. Capitol building
The U.S. Capitol building shown on Feb. 9, 2018. (Zach Gibson/Getty Images)

D.C. Jews

Jews in and around the nation’s capital do plenty of Jewish things. Many of them just don’t do those things as members of Jewish institutions. That’s one of the main takeaways from a wide-ranging survey of Washington, D.C.-area Jews published this week by the Jewish Federation of Greater Washington. Much of the metro D.C. Jewish community travels to Israel and follows the news there. Its members may take part in services and observe key Jewish cultural rituals more than the national average. And its young people attend Jewish cultural events. But fewer than average D.C.-area Jews belong to synagogue. And only a fraction say Judaism is a part of their daily life. Conducted by the Steinhardt Social Research Institute and commissioned by the Jewish Federation of Greater Washington, the survey of more than 6,000 took place from May to August of 2017. Aronson’s co-authors are Len Saxe, Matthew Brookner and Matthew Boxer.

Read the 5 biggest takeaways of the study

Trump the worst?

On a scale of 0 to 100 for overall greatness, President Trump scored just over 12, coming in dead last among U.S. commanders-in-chief in an expert rankings survey released on President’s Day, according to Newsweek. The 2018 Presidents and Executive Politics Presidential Greatness Survey, which ranks presidents from best to worst, was based on responses from 170 current and recent members of a section of the American Political Science Association, an organization of social science experts. “Donald J. Trump makes his ranking debut at the bottom of the list,” the survey states. “His average rating is 12.34, which is nearly three points lower than James Buchanan (15.09), who previously occupied the lowest rank.” Buchanan, who was America’s 15th president, oversaw the debate over slavery and saw the Union split apart after his successor, Abraham Lincoln, was elected. The top seven spots were unchanged from 2014, with Lincoln coming in first with an average rating of 95.03, followed by George Washington with an average of 92.59 and Franklin Delano Roosevelt with an average of 89.09. Barack Obama, Trump’s predecessor, ranked eighth—up 10 slots from 2014—with an average rating of 71.13.

Read more: Trump is the Worst President, Expert Ranking Survey Reveals

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at United Nations headquarters in New York, September 2017. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

Netanyahu to meet with Trump in March

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will meet with President Donald Trump next month when he is in Washington to address the American Israel Public Affairs Committee conference. “The President has a tremendous relationship with Prime Minister Netanyahu and looks forward to meeting with him,” a White House official said. AIPAC earlier in the day announced that Netanyahu would speak at its annual March 4-6 policy conference in Washington. Also speaking is Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. The meeting will come after what appeared to be the first serious rift between the Trump and Netanyahu governments. Netanyahu stated earlier this month that the Trump administration was ready to greenlight Israel’s annexation of some settlements, but the Trump administration promptly and forcefully denied the claim. Trump recently said he disapproved of the extent of settlement expansion in the West Bank. The Trump administration has indicated that its proposal to revive Israeli-Palestinian talks will be released soon, although it has not set a date. –JTA

 

Mission successful

Israel said it successfully tested the Arrow-3 advanced missile defense system against long-range missiles. The Arrow-3 Interceptor “was launched and completed its mission,” Israel’s Ministry of Defense said in a statement issued on Monday. The test, which simulated a fully operational scenario, was conducted early Monday at a test site in central Israel and was led by the Israel Aerospace Industries in collaboration with the Israeli Air Force, according to the statement. The flight test was supported by the U.S. Missile Defense Agency, the system co-developers. Arrow-3 interceptors were delivered to the Israeli Air Force in January 2017 for operational use. Two previous tests of the system were cancelled due to technical glitches. Interception tests above large land masses in unpopulated areas in Alaska are scheduled for later in the year, according to Ynet. The Arrow-3 joins Israel’s multi-layered defense array, including: Iron Dome, David’s Sling and the Arrow-2, which also protect Israel against short-range and medium-range attack rockets.—JTA

Superman Returns

DC Comics’ newest writer says that the choices he has made for his new Superman series are “deeply connected to [the character’s] origins.” And those origins are very Jewish. Brian Michael Bendis will start drawing new comic books with the iconic superhero in May. He happens to be a product of a strictly Orthodox Jewish day school in Cleveland. Bendis’ personal background could have implications for the Superman character. From his given name Kal-El to his exodus from his home planet, Superman exudes the Jewish sensibilities of his creators, immigrants Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster (also Clevelanders). “El” is a Hebrew term used to designate God. And just as Moses was nestled in a little basket for his trip down the Nile, Superman’s parents placed him in a rocket ship so he could escape his dying planet of Krypton. Instead of Pharoah’s daughter lifting a crying baby out of a basket, Superman’s adoptive parents opened the rocket to discover a crying baby. The character’s transformation from mild-mannered, glasses-wearing Clark Kent to avenging strongman has also been seen as a sort of Jewish immigrant’s wish fulfillment. The list of Jewish connections goes on. Bendis is perhaps best known from his days at Marvel as the man who killed off Spiderman — or at least his alter-ego, Peter Parker — in order to replace him with a new half-black, half-Hispanic character who gets bitten by a genetically altered spider. He said he was trying to make the comics look more like the real world. Bendis told Forbes that his new Superman “is a reflection of where he came from and the world we live in now.”

Read more: DC Comics’ Newest Writer is Poised to Make Superman Jewish Again

In really important cereal news

Lucky Charms has added rainbow unicorn marshmallows to the mix. General Mills announced Monday morning that, for the first time in a decade, it’s adding a new marshmallow to its sweetest, whole-grain breakfast, according to Today. After shocking cereal fans with news of the hourglass marshmallow’s retirement earlier this month, the unicorn comes as a welcomed new addition. The assortment continues to feature hearts, stars, horseshoes, clovers, blue moons, rainbows and red balloons.

Read more: Holy unicorn! Lucky Charms adds rainbow marshmallow to its roster

J-Word of the Day:
Gatkes (Yiddish)
Meaning: Underwear
Usage: “So that’s how you answer the door, in your gatkes?!”

Go to facebook.com/JMORELiving every Tuesday at 12:30 p.m. to watch Need to Know with Editor-in-Chief Alan Feiler. Join the discussion on the week’s news and current events.

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