JEWISH WORLD

JEWISH WORLD • APRIL 1 - 7, 2022 25 headed by an expat Israeli, Dr. Itzhak Kurek. In Israel, Cannabotech gets its plants from Medicann, a leading indoor cannabis farm. Cannabotech’s cancer treatment will not need FDA or CE approval if a state or country already has le- galized cannabis for consumer use. And mushrooms — well, they’re just fungi, a food product with nothing to regulate. How will patients take their cannabis-mushroom mix? Shaked says it will combine pills for the mushrooms “plus an oral-mucosal spray for the cannabis to maximize bioavailability.” I n November 2021, Cannabotech opened a website in the UK to sell a separate product aimed at the wellness market. It combines medical mush- rooms with CBD, the non-psychoac- Reborn Clowns continued from page 15 continued from page 17 I don’t think I would have realized my purpose as a Jew. So, anyone who hasn’t gotten the chance yet should go and see for themselves the beautiful homeland and reap all of its benefits! Joshua Santoro is from Long Is- land and is a first year student at COLLEGE. RootOne, a program of The Jewish Education Proj- ect, is an ambitious new initiative generously seeded by the Marcus Foundation that aims to help bring tens of thousands of Jewish teens from the U.S. to Israel on immer- sive summer teen trips. and could not communicate with anyone. There was an adult with him, who was not a family member. I managed to get his attention, as a clown, and began playing with him in the emergency room, to see what limbs he could move, so that the doctor and the two nurses who were with him could diagnose his injury. We couldn’t convince him to clarify his condition by talking, be- cause he was traumatized, and we, of course, did not speak Nepali. So I had to ‘activate’ him as a clown. I caused him to move without him knowing we were actually conduct- ing a secret medical examination. As soon as it became clear that there was something wrong with one of his shoulders and that his abdomen was hard, he was taken to the X-ray tent. There the doctors found he had an internal abdomi- nal injury. The whole way — from the emergency room to the X-ray tent to the operating room — we stayed with the boy. The operation took a few hours, and the boy was treated at the hos- pital for two days. When he re- covered, he boarded an old Nepali taxi and was gone. He returned to his world, to be another child in a disaster-stricken third-world coun- try. For us, who connected with him, it was a happy and sad occa- sion at the same time. Q: Is it important for you to get feedback from the patients, to get updated on their situation if possible? A: It’s always nice to hear from patients and people I met along the way. It rarely happens in hu- manitarian missions, and that’s OK because there are always more children to make happy. At Ichilov [Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Cen- ter], I am very appreciated, and ex- hausted mothers are grateful when their children laugh a little bit. It creates connections with families, and some of them become my friends. It’s fun. There was a boy from Gaza, who had cancer, who was treated at [Sheba] Tel HaShomer [Medical Center]. He recovered, returned to Gaza, and after a few years became a medical clown himself. He found me on Facebook, and we have been in touch ever since. It’s good to know that medical clowning continues to spread among people. Q: Does the fact that you served in the military in combat engineering help your work at field hospitals? A: Absolutely. For the IDF to win, it must know how to adapt to reality and be flexible. To find mo- tivation, energy and human con- nection in what it does. Laughter, caring and human connection is what holds our soldiers together, despite the differences between them and the difficult and some- times tragic work they do. It’s part of Israel’s mental resilience, that in the existential threat that we are in, we [have] a lot of art, culture, laugh, children and comedy. It is a country that could be full of hatred, trauma and isolation, but the mira- cle is that there is a lot of love here, and caring, friendship, joy and try- ing new things. Karni Eldad is a journalist, col- umnist, and editor at Israel Hayom. Weed continued from page 5 impressive and very promising ac- tivity in laboratory-tested cell cul- tures. Based on these experiments, there is room to start exploring the possibility of integrating the prod- ucts in the treatment of breast can- cer patients as well.” Angel adds that he was encour- aged by the results and that the team “will continue to work to pro- vide a cure for patients.” C annabotech is bullish on the use of mushrooms - not psy- choactive “magic mushrooms” but medical mushrooms long used in Asia to boost the immune system. Shaked was on business in Ne- pal in 2015 when he learned about the power of mushrooms. “A local entrepreneur was collecting mush- rooms from the locals and selling them to the Indian alternative phar- maceutical industry,” Shaked says. “He wanted to examine the effec- tiveness of those mushrooms.” Shaked was intrigued. Back home in Israel, he hooked up with Prof. Solomon Wasser, head of the International Center for Biotechnology and Biodiversity of Fungi at the Institute of Evo- lution at the University of Haifa; and Prof. Fuad Fares, founder and director of the molecular genetics unit at Carmel Medical Center and an associate professor of human biology at the Univer- sity of Haifa. Wasser had already patented 16 complexes of medi- cal mushrooms. Shaked’s own professional background fit the alternative ap- proach that mushrooms presented — he came to Cannabotech after serving as CEO of Perrigo Phar- maceuticals Group, which special- izes in over-the-counter medicines and wellness products. N ot all cancer treatment is the same. That’s why Cannabo- tech is developing a personalization kit, due to be released mid-2022. A patient’s specific case would be analyzed, along with genetic and metabolic tests to determine which of Cannabotech’s 11 formulations will fit the prescribed chemotherapy regimen based on which subtype of cancer a patient has. The personalization kit, to be sold directly to physicians, is being developed in conjunc- tion with Cannformatics, a San Francisco-based cannabis eval- uation firm. The company is tive component of the cannabis plant. CBD is not yet legal in Israel but, in much of the world, it is mar- keted as a complementary health- care solution, finding its way into everything from under-the-tongue tinctures to calming cookies. Cannabotech’s over-the-counter wellness products are sold under the brand “M2CBD” (the “M” is for mushrooms). There are separate cannabis/mushroom formulations for im- proving sleep, reduc- ing stress, boosting immunity, addressing muscle and joint fa- tigue and promoting skin health. Cannabotech says that some six million adults in the UK have already used CBD to “enhance wellness routines for various indications.” Cannabotech has raised $13.4 million and is public on the Tel Aviv Stock Ex- change. Founded in 2019, the com- pany employs 12 people in Israel and another 10 in the UK. Its advi- sory team includes Peretz and An- gel along with Dr. Alex Weisman, a former R&D manager at Perrigo. Did COVID-19 impact the com- pany — for better or for worse? Elchanan says it’s more of the for- mer, as the pandemic increased the public’s interest in anything that can boost the immune system. To address that interest, a new consumer product to help with re- spiratory problems is in develop- ment, Shaked says. Brian Blum has been a journal- ist and high-tech entrepreneur for over 25 years. Cannabotech product containing mushroom extract. These aren’t psychoactive “magic mushrooms” but medical mushrooms long used in Asia to boost the immune system. Dvar continued from page 7 addition to death there is also life eternal; in addition to ritual impuri- ty there is also ritual purity. Hence, the same human life that emerges from the mother’s womb brings in its wake not only the brush with death (tuma) but also the hope of new life (tahara). And whereas the tuma lasts for seven days, the taha- ra goes on for thirty-three! The hu- man being has the power to over- come his physical impediments and imperfections to ennoble and sanctify his animal drives and in- stincts, to perfect human nature and redeem an imperfect world. This was the message which Rabbi Akiva attempted to convey to Turnus Rufus the Wicked. Yes, the world created by the Almighty is beautiful and magnificent, but it is also imperfect and incomplete. God has given the task of completion and redemption to the human being, who has the ability and capacity to circumcise himself, to sublimate his sexual drives, to sanctify so- ciety and to complete the cosmos. Indeed, the works of the human be- ing are greater! And the command of circumcision belongs within the context of impurity and purity. This is also what our sages tried to convey when they taught that cir- cumcision overrides the Sabbath. The Sabbath testifies to God’s cre- ation of the world - impressive but imperfect, awesome but awful, ter- rific but tragic. Circumcision testi- fies to the human being’s challenge to redeem himself and perfect the world. Indeed, circumcision over- rides the Sabbath. Shlomo Riskin is chief rabbi of Efrat, Israel.