NPR News

Hear the word "prophet" and the names Jeremiah, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Jesus or Mohammed may come to mind. While these are figures from the distant past, Rabbi Shmuel Fortman Hapartzi is training a new generation of prophets for a new age.

Fortman runs the Cain and Abel School for Prophets in Tel Aviv. It's named for the sons of Adam and Eve who, in the Bible, were the first human beings born of woman to speak directly to God and therefore, Fortman says, the first prophets.

Rita Betush and Judy Bottomley grew up with a sense that something was missing. As a child, Betush's mother told her she had a sister who'd been put up for adoption. This year, after decades apart, Betush and her long-lost sister, Bottomley, connected by phone, and in February, they'll finally meet.

The Christmas season is a peculiar time for Jewish children, many of whom are drawn to Christmas specials like A Christmas Story. What should Jewish parents do? Guest host John Donvan talks to Slate senior editor Dahlia Lithwick about her Jewish parent's guide to Christmas specials.

Guest host John Donvan reads listener comments from past shows about witnessing tragic events, adoption in the Internet age and how to fill time while you wait.

Transcript

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

Transcript

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

Thousands of Christian pilgrims streamed into Bethlehem Monday night to celebrate the birth of Jesus. It's the major event of the year in that West Bank town. But Israeli archaeologists now say there is strong evidence that Christ was born in a different Bethlehem, a small village in the Galilee.

Throughout the debate over taxes and the "fiscal cliff," there's been a lot of looking backward — to the 1990s. The economic expansion of the 1990s was the longest in recorded American history.

Democrats say the economy thrived under the leadership of President Bill Clinton, including his tax rate increase on high earners. Republicans say government didn't spend as much then and that growth didn't really take off until the GOP took control of Congress in 1995.

So what actually happened in the '90s? What made them tick?

A Unique Boom

Although President Obama supports setting a path to citizenship for many illegal immigrants, his administration deported a record 1.5 million of them in his first term.

In addition, the latest data released by the government in recent days show that an unprecedented 409,849 people were deported for the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30.

The increase from the previous year occurred despite policy changes ordered by Obama to reduce the deportations of otherwise law-abiding illegal immigrants.

To celebrate Christmas, Fresh Air listens back to a concert given by the late singer and actress on Feb. 11, 1997. Clooney spoke then with Terry Gross about her childhood, being on the road as a young performer with her sister, and working with Bing Crosby and Billy Strayhorn.

The days leading up to Christmas are typically bustling in Newtown, Conn. But given the depth of grief in this community since the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School, preparations for the holiday began very late.

Local shopkeepers say Saturday was the first day many people came out for holiday shopping since the tragedy. Tamara Doherty, owner of the Wishing Well — a shop filled with local crafts, Christmas ornaments, pottery and potpourri — says her business is finally picking up.

Amid continued bloodshed in several parts of Syria, international envoy Lakhdar Brahimi held another round of talks with President Bashar Assad in Damascus. But there was no sign of progress toward a peace deal.

Two firefighters died and two others were hospitalized in western New York on Monday. They were shot after responding to a fire in the town of Webster, outside Rochester. Police say the gunman is also dead, and they're not ruling out the possibility that the firefighters were led into a trap.

Transcript

JOHN DONVAN, HOST:

The holiday season is one of the busiest travel times of the year. However, we seldom think about the transit workers — bus drivers, train operators, air traffic controllers and tow truck operators — who help us reach our destinations.

For most of us, riding from floor to floor in an elevator is a completely mundane process. Lee Gray, an associate dean at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, is known as the Elevator Guy. He spends a lot of his time researching the history of elevators and why we behave so oddly in the big metal boxes.