Tuesday, February 24, 2026

Icarius/Iakos of Sparta Found In Today's Syria

 Nadene Goldfoot                                                                                                        



    Laconia is a prefecture and region in the southeastern Peloponnese peninsula of Greece, with the city of Sparta serving as its capital. Situated in the Eurotas River valley, ancient Sparta was geographically defined by the Taygetus Mountains to the west and the Parnon range to the east.                                                              

                                                                           


Syrian rebel leader Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, who led the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad, and now goes by his birth name, Ahmed al-Sharaa (or Ahmed al-Shaar).   He began using this name in official communiqués in December 2024 to rebrand himself and bolster his legitimacy as he took control of the country.                         

 Abu Mohammad al-Jolani has worked for years to rebrand himself, but has he truly broken from his extremist past?  Omran says Jolani is still Jolani and hasn't changed;  only his methods have.

The leader of the rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham—Ahmed al-Sharaa, better known by his nom de guerre Abu Mohammad al-Jolani—has worked for years to distance himself from his al-Qaeda roots, but establishing legitimacy in the eyes of the international community will be an uphill battle. There’s also a major question about whether Syria’s instability could cause it to once again become a safe haven for terrorist groups such as the Islamic State to flourish.

                                         Dr. Aaron Zelin

Zelin’s
research focuses on Syrian politics in the aftermath of the fall of the Assad regime; he studied the group that took over the country for a decade and a half prior to Assad's departure. He also explores Sunni jihadi groups in the Levant, North Africa, the Sahel, and Afghanistan as well as the trends of jihadi governance, online mobilization, and foreign fighting. He has conducted field research in Syria, Tunisia, Turkey, Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine, and Israel. Zelin has also testified and served as an expert witness in front of the U.S. House of Representatives and with the Department of Justice in federal judicial terrorism trials.

Dr. Aaron Y. Zelin is the Gloria and Ken Levy Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, where he also directs the Islamic State Worldwide Activity Map project. Zelin is also a Visiting Research Scholar in the Department of Politics at Brandeis University, founder of the widely acclaimed website Jihadology, and a contributing writer for War on the Rock’s Adversarial newsletter. He is author of the book Your Sons Are At Your Service: Tunisia’s Missionaries of Jihad (Columbia University Press), which was nominated for the Neave Memorial Book Prize in 2020. His second book, The Age of Political Jihadism: A Study of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, was published in 2022 by Rowman & Littlefield. Zelin is currently working on a third book tentatively titled Heartland of the Believers: A History of Syrian Jihadism.

Foreign Policy reporter John Haltiwanger spoke with Washington Institute expert Aaron Zelin, who wrote a book on HTS, to find out more about Jolani’s origins, his efforts to rebrand, and what’s potentially in store for Syria now that he’s the country’s de facto ruler.

Foreign Policy: Bashar al-Assad is gone, and HTS has taken over in Syria. Can you talk about the evolution of Jolani and HTS and how we got to this point?  Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) was a Sunni Islamist political organisation and paramilitary group involved in the Syrian civil war.

Zelin: Jolani was originally a foreign fighter in the Iraq War. He went from Syria to Iraq and joined up with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and [his organization] al Qaeda in Iraq. He spent some time in the infamous Camp Bucca prison. And then he became the emir or leader of the Nineveh region in western Iraq for the Islamic State of Iraq, which was essentially the predecessor group to what we now call the Islamic State. 

After the Syrian uprising began, Jolani talked to [Islamic State leader] Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi about a project in Syria. By summer 2011, Jolani went to Syria to build a new organization called Jabhat al-Nusra. It was essentially an official branch of the Islamic State of Iraq... 

  Omran  must feel like Iakos of Sparta in trying to take down a terrorist President. Sparta was the  ancient capital of the Laconia district of the southeastern Peloponnese, southwestern Greece.  Archidamus V, a 3rd-century BCE Eurypontid Spartan king, is a notable example of a leader perceived as weak who was removed by another. After fleeing following his brother Agis IV's murder in 241 BCE, he was recalled by Cleomenes III in 227 BC but was assassinated shortly after his return, with historian Polybius accusing Cleomenes of the murder.   Archidamus V was part of a turbulent era where Spartan leadership was often unstable, frequently involving internal power struggles and assassinations rather than external defeat.

Iakos or Agis I (flourished 11th century bc?) was an early Spartan king, traditionally held to be the son of Eurysthenes (in legend, one of the twins who founded Sparta). Because the Agiad line of kings was named after him, Agis was perhaps a historical figure. The 4th-century-bc Greek historian Ephorus attributes to Agis the capture of the city of Helos in Laconia and the reduction of its people to helot (serf) status.

Eurysthenes was a semi-mythical, 11th-century BCE founder and first king of the Agiad dynasty in Sparta, ruling alongside his twin brother, Procles, to establish Sparta's unique dual-monarchy system. As a Heracleid descendant of Heracles, he led the Dorian conquest of the Peloponnese and was considered the elder twin.
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 Resource:
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When Marathon Runners First Started: An Apropos Purim Story Of This Moment

 Nadene Goldfoot                                

                                                                            

                    Runners from one ancient Greek town to another 

                                    

Setting out from Athens, Phidippides made for Sparta journeying by way of Eleusis, Megara, and Corinth. Greek couriers of his day are believed to have been able to cover over a hundred kilometres a day, but Phidippides is said to have run the 250 kilometres to Sparta in only two days; much of it over uneven and rocky terrain.

Unfortunately, when he reached Sparta, the city was in the middle of a religious festival that forbade mobilization for war during its celebrations. When at last the Spartans set off for Athens several days later, the battle had already been fought.

  • The Legend: The famous tale, popularized centuries after the event, tells of Pheidippides (or sometimes Eukles) running directly from the Marathon battlefield to Athens (about 25-26 miles) to announce the victory, after which he died.

  • The Battle of Marathon (490 BCE) took place on the coastal plain of Marathon in eastern Greece, approximately 40 km (25 miles) northeast of Athens. The site is situated near Marathon Bay, where the Persian fleet landed, and the Athenian army camped. The battlefield features the Athenian burial mound (Soros), located about 4 km south of the modern town of Marathon.

  • The Historical Account: According to the historian Herodotus (writing closer to the time), Pheidippides was actually a professional courier sent before the battle from Athens to Sparta to request aid, covering over 150 miles (240 km) in two days.
  • The Battle (490 BCE): The Greeks, led by Athens and Plataea, defeated the first Persian invasion force led by Darius I. 
  • There were 3 Kings named  Darius of Persia.  Darius I reigned (522-486 BCE) and had inherited the throne of Cyrus.  At the beginning of his reign, he permitted Zerubbabel and the Jews who had returned to Jerusalem to resume reconstruction of the Temple.  
          King Darius I.  Cyrus II was his father as he inherited the throne from him.  He died in 529 BCE as King of Persia.  He had many conquests of which he overran the Babylonian empire, including Judah.  He pursued an enlightened policy towards his subject peoples and in 538, granted permission to the exiles of Judah in Babylon to return to their homeland and rebuild the Temple.  (Ezra 1:1-44;  II Chon.36:22-3).  The Jewish exiles regarded Cyrus as a Divine agent.  
  • Our history tells us that Cyrus II's wife (Queen) was Hadassah, or Queen Esther (Hebrew)  of our Purim Story, found in the Bible (Esther 2:7). We know Esther as being the Queen of King Ahasuerus, and through her intervention with him, and with the aid of her kinsman, Mordecai, succeeded in averting the annihilation of the Persian Jewish community planned by the king's adviser, Haman.  
  •  Right now this story is also acting as a unifying agent between the Iranians of the Revolution and Israel as both love Kings Cyrus and Darius, part of their history as well.
  •   Reading about this Marathon history involving them is so apropos at this moment when we all are sitting and waiting to see what President Trump will do with his fleet off shore;  will he attack as promised or will he listen  to his aides and call it off?  Yesterday he gave Iran's Ayatollah 48 hours to go along with his expectations that also include Israel's as well.   
  • Darius I attacked the Greek city-states primarily to punish Athens and Eretria for supporting the Ionian Revolt (499–493 BC), where they assisted in burning the Persian city of Sardis. Darius also sought to expand his empire into Europe and secure his western frontier by suppressing the mainland Greek states that threatened regional stability.          

             Burton Holmes' photograph titled "1896: Three athletes in training for the marathon at the Olympic Games in Athens". Charilaos Vasilakos in the middle.                 


Charilaos Vasilakos (GreekΧαρίλαος Βασιλάκος, November 1875 – 1 December 1964)[ was a Greek athlete and the first man to win a marathon race. He also won a silver medal for a second place finish in marathon at the 1896 Summer Olympics in AthensAs a young man he studied law at the University of Athens and worked in the Athens court of first instance. He was a member of the Panellinios sports club and a dedicated long-distance runner.
           1896  Spyridon "Spyros" Louis, 1st Olympic marathon winner

When the modern Olympics began in 1896, the initiators and organizers were looking for a great popularizing event, recalling the ancient glory of Greece. The idea of a marathon race came from Michel Bréal, who wanted the event to feature in the first modern Olympic Games in 1896 in Athens. This idea was heavily supported by Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Olympics, as well as by the Greeks. 

The Greeks staged a selection race for the Olympic marathon on 10 March 1896 that was won by Charilaos Vasilakos in 3 hours and 18 minutes (with the future winner of the introductory Olympic Games marathon coming in fifth). 

The winner of the first Olympic Marathon, on 10 April 1896 (a male-only race), was Spyridon „Spyros“ Louis, a Greek water-carrier, in 2 hours 58 minutes and 50 seconds.

Modern Legacy: The marathon race was invented for the 1896 Athens Olympics to commemorate this ancient heroic feat. The distance was standardized to 26.2 miles (42.195 km) in 1908. 

A full marathon is 26.2 miles (
), and a half marathon is exactly half that distance, at 13.1 miles (
). These standard road racing distances are precisely measured, with the marathon distance formalized at the 1908 Olympics.

Modern Marathon                             

The women’s marathon was introduced at the 1984 Summer Olympics (Los Angeles, USA) and was won by Joan Benoit of the United States with a time of 2 hours 24 minutes and 52 seconds.  In 1984, the Olympic marathon finally welcomed women—and 26-year-old Joan Benoit Samuelson from the USA seized the opportunity. Remarkably, just 17 days earlier, she had undergone arthroscopic knee surgery.

Her husband is Scott Samuelson , winner of the 2015 Hiett Prize in the Humanities.

Joan crossed the finish line in 2:24:52—just a minute shy of the world record—and stunned the world. 🥇 This wasn’t just a gold medal; it was the very first Olympic marathon for women, claimed with grit, grace, and guts.

Since the modern games were founded, it has become a tradition for the men’s Olympic marathon to be the last event of the athletics calendar, with a finish inside the Olympic stadium, often within hours of, or even incorporated into, the closing ceremonies. The marathon of the 2004 Summer Olympics revived the traditional route from Marathon to Athens, ending at Panathinaiko Stadium, the venue for the 1896 Summer Olympics.                

                         Height:  5'4",  115 lbs
                       

                                Samuel Kamu Wanjiru 

Samuel Kamau Wanjirū (10 November 1986 – 15 May 2011)died at 24 years old,  was a Kenyan long-distance runner who won the 2008 Beijing Olympics Marathon in an Olympic record time of 2:06:32; becoming the first Kenyan to win the Olympic gold in the marathon. He became the youngest gold medallist in the marathon since 1932.

He set the current (as of 2020) 10,000m World Junior Record in 2005 and set the half marathon world record 3 times. In 2009, he won both the London Marathon and Chicago Marathon, running the fastest marathons ever recorded in the United Kingdom and United States, respectively. He retained his Chicago title in 2010 in a season fraught with injury.

In 2011, he died after a fall from a balcony at his home in Nyahururu following a domestic dispute..

The Olympic men’s record is 2:06:32, set at the 2008 Summer Olympics by Samuel Kamau Wanjiru of Kenya (average speed about 20.01 kilometres per hour or 12.43 miles per hour). The Olympic women’s record is 2:23:07, set at the 2012 Summer Olympics by Tiki Gelana of Ethiopia. The men’s London 2012 Summer Olympic marathon winner was Stephen Kiprotich of Uganda (2:08:01). Per capita, the Kalenjin tribe of Rift Valley Province in Kenya have produced a highly disproportionate share of marathon and track-and-field winners.

Resource:

https://www.google.com/search?q=ancient+story+of+marathon+in+Greece&sca_esv=6be9334bf995a265&sxsrf=ANbL-n5GThARphv0vyL3EvRhRkD0mYqxzQ%3A1771944648312&source=hp&ei=yLqdabjqD4uc0PEPuqTeyA0&iflsig

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Marathon#:~:text=Table_content:%20header:%20%7C%20Battle%20of%20Marathon%20%7C,Marathon:%20Commanders%20and%20leaders%20%7C%20:%20%7C

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Persian_invasion_of_Greece#:~:text=The%20first%20Persian%20invasion%20of,10%2C000%20light%20infantry

Sunday, February 22, 2026

The Life of Moses Before the Exodus





 Nadene Goldfoot                      

                             Moses Found In The Bulrushes

The story of Moses is primarily told in the "Old Testament" or Five Books of Moses, our Torah, starting in Exodus chapter 2 and spanning through Deuteronomy. His life begins with his birth and adoption (Exodus 2:1-10), continues with his calling at the burning bush (Exodus 3), the plagues on Egypt (Exodus 7-12), the Red Sea crossing (Exodus 14), and ends with his death in Deuteronomy. The Ten Commandments were given by God to Moses on Mount Sinai and subsequently delivered to the Israelites, with the primary account found in Exodus 20:1–17. A second, slightly different recitation of the commandments occurs in Deuteronomy 5:4–21.

Jochebed was Moses' mother and his father was Amram, both from the tribe of Levi, who lived as Hebrew slaves in Egypt. Amram was the son of Kohath, and Jochebed was his aunt (father's sister). They were also the parents of Miriam and Aaron.

     Egyptian slaves making bricks

   they were delivering babies, and you see it on the birthstool, if a boy, kill him.  Shifrah and Puah, midwives, disobeyed and their excuse they used was Hebrew women ae unlike he Egyptian  women, for they areexperts;  before the midwife comes to them, they have given birth already.


all newborn boy babies into the river.

by the searching soldiers, and of course transferred that fear into the milkduring nursing.  He cried a lot in-between nursing, no doubt.  

Fearful of the growing Hebrew population, the Egyptian Pharaoh ordered that all male Hebrew infants be drowned in the Nile. 

Jochebed, hid him for three months. She used the waterproofed basket made of wicker smeared with clay and pitch to protect him, then placed Moses in the basket and put it in the Nile River in the bulrushes growing on the side.  

It was traumatic for Jochebed to stop nursing Moses and send him off in the basket as well as being traumatic for Moses. 

 The baby was now in a new environment and smell of the basket, the sun and wind and no mother to sing him to sleep when he cried for her.  From this experience, Moses would develop a stuttering when speaking. Stuttering is caused by a combination of genetic, neurological, and developmental factors rather than just emotional distress. It often stems from inherited, complex genetic factors—making it more likely to run in families—and differences in brain structure/function that affect speech production. Other factors include:

  • Genetics: A high likelihood of inheritance exists, especially if a first-degree relative stutters. Brain Differences: Research shows that people who stutter may have reduced blood flow in the Broca’s area (involved in speech production) and differences in areas that manage speech muscles.

Jochabed kept an eye on the basket.  She saw the maidens of the Pharaoh's daughter all bathing in the river and then pick him up out of the basket and coo over him, giving him to the Princess.  Jochabed sent Mirium to watch over him.  

 He was discovered and adopted by Pharaoh's daughter.  They had seen that he was a Hebrew boy but did not tell the Pharaoh.  Mirium offered to get a Hebrew wet nurse for him.  The Princess agreed so Jochabed took Moses and kept him till he grew up. Then Jochabed returned him to the Princess who named him Moses-meaning:  I drew him from the water. 


  

     Moses as a young man when he accidently killed an overseer, who was beating to death a Hebrew slave,  causing him to run off to Midian.  According to Exodus 2:11-12, Moses killed an Egyptian overseer who was beating a Hebrew slave, marking a turning point in his life. After witnessing the abuse, Moses checked to ensure no one was watching, killed the Egyptian, and hid his body in the sand. The act was prompted by righteous indignation for his people, but it forced him to flee to Midian for 40 years to escape Pharaoh's wrath.   



When Moses was  about 20 working as a shepherd for Jethro, his father in law who was he priest of Midian,  guided the sheep far into the wilderness, and he arrived at the mountain of God, toward Horeb.  An angel appeared to him in a blaze of fire from a bush.  He looked at the burning bush but the bush was not being consumed.  Moses turned away and looked at this great sight wondering why the bush was not burned.

He heard a voice calling him. "Moses, Moses," and he replied, "Here I am!" He was told not to come closer but to take off his shoes because he was standing on holy ground. The voice told him who was speaking:  God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.  Moses hid his face, not wanting to see G-d.

Moses' wife was Zipporah, the daughter of Jethro, a priest of Midian. They had two sons: Gershom and Eliezer. Zipporah is noted for saving Moses by circumcising their son, and she briefly left him to return to her family before later reuniting with him in the desert.

After our people left Egypt, Moses’ sons (Gershom and Eliezer), along with their mother (Zipporah) and grandfather (Jethro), rejoined their father in the desert. This is the last overt mention of Moses’ sons in the Torah.

In fact, when the time came to choose a successor for Moses, our Sages relate that Moses requested one of his sons be appointed. G‑d responded, “Your sons sat and did not occupy themselves with TorahJoshua, who served you, is fitting to serve Israel.”

And while Moses’ physical progeny did not live up to his example, Aaron’s sons—who succeeded their father as priests—did carry on the noble traditions of their father and uncle. G‑d considered Moses’ nephews as his children, for he was the one who taught them Torah. This is reflected in Numbers (3:1), which begins “These are the descendants of Moses and Aaron…” but only lists Aaron’s four sons.

Moses and Aaron where Aaron takes over the talking as Moses does he walking stick trick turning it into a snake.  

Thus G‑d reassured Moses, explaining that even Joshua would need to confer with Aaron’s son, the High Priest, to know G‑d’s will.3Rabbi Menachem Posner

God continued telling Moses that he had seen when happened to the Hebrew people in Egypt and will rescue them and bring them up from that land to a good and spacious land, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Amorite, the Perizzite, the Hivvite and the Jebusite.  I shall dispatch you to  Pharaoh and you shall take My people, the Children of Israel,  out of Egypt.  

Moses argues with G-d in the Pharaoh would not do as Moses asks.  This is a different Pharaoh from the one he grew up with.  Moses was shown that his staff could become a snake and wow the Egyptians.  He also showed him another trick, his hand could become white, and if this didn't work, he could take water from the River that would become blood when on dry land.  What Moses is to do is ask to take the people out of Egypt for 3 days.  Moses pleads with his stuttering speech saying he was heavy of mouth and heavy of speech.  G-d reminded him that he was talking to G0d who created all and knew this and he would be with his mouth and will teach him what to do.  With his staff in his hands, you shall perform the signs.
Aaron spoke for him.  

Moses was to let the Hebrews make camp  before Pi-hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea, before Gaal-zephon, and camp opposite it, by the sea.  Pharoah would think they were imprisoned in the land, with the Wilderness locking them in.  The heart of Pharaoh would be strong and would pursue to Hebrews, and pursue them; one way to see who is G-d.  The king of Egypt was told that the people had fled and he and his servants asked why they had sent away Israel from serving them?  They all wanted their slaves back.  

Egypt pursued them and overtook them, ---all the horses and chariots of Pharaoh, and his horsemen and army---He approached them and the Children of Israel cried out.  Moses said not to fear.  A pillar of cloud moved from in front of them and went behind them.  Moses stretched out his hand over the sea. the Children of Israel came within the sea on dry land;  and the water was a wall for them, we know the rest.  

Moses lived till 120 years old.  

 Giving people Ten Commandments

Resource:
The Tanach, Art Scroll series, The Stone Edition