 This program is brought to you by cable franchise V's and generous donations from viewers like you Hello and welcome. I'm Claire Healy and you're watching the Amherst weekly report from Amherst media Today we will be summarizing and discussing the news out of Amherst, Massachusetts from this past week First happy Yom Kippur to those who celebrate this past Monday September 28th was Yom Kippur As with Rosh Hashanah the week prior Yom Kippur was observed by many virtually across the country We spoke with Rabbi Rafa Light Educator at the Orthodox Union's Jewish Learning Initiative on campus at UMass Amherst About how synagogues and worshipers have been able to celebrate these holidays amidst the pandemic. Here's what he said So Rosh Hashanah meaning the the new year The Hebrew words themselves Rosh can also mean not just The head of like the head of the new year in terms of time, but it could actually literally mean Rosh means head So it's like the head of the year meaning it's like the headquarters of the of the rest of the year on the Jewish calendar And Yom Kippur is the day of atonement These together are usually referred to as the high holidays or in Hebrew the Yom Yom Narayim the days of awe So if Rosh Hashanah is the beginning of the year, it's also the head of the body of the human body and We know that you know our brains control the rest of our limbs And so in many ways we believe that Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur the the head of the year Like the mind of the year Is so significant that the the way we think and act and and feel and treat one another During these days, they'll have a very significant effect on the rest of our year for most students they were They either celebrated at home with their immediate family in a small way But I assumed that it was it was really beautiful for a lot of them and also very challenging not to be with friends for a lot of them too And otherwise people Celebrated over zoom or other virtual mediums for doing services on zoom Which you know on the one hand, it's not the same because you're not in person with people and the singing is a little bit off and But on the other hand, you know, you don't have to get as dressed up You can You can take a break and not feel too guilty about it if you want to just like take a walk So there's advantages and disadvantages to this year too the high holidays this year Days of awe this year. They were very down to earth. They were very Relaxed even they weren't as intense as they they are Socially they weren't as intense We had you know the sky above us to To gain inspiration from while we were praying and we were surrounded by nature So that that was a great benefit this year to being forced to be outside In order to experience the services of the holidays feel like the community or the definition of our community has been able to be expanded Because of zoom and because of video conferencing Um now on the one hand, it's expanded and that's amazing On the other hand, it might thin out a little bit more because it's not in person. Um, it's a little right It's a little less tangible But then again, it's allowing us to have a reach for for extending our family All the further regardless of of uh of our proximity or physical proximity Amherst town manager paul bachleman has named a new human resources director and health director Donna ray kennelly will serve as the new humans resources director She previously was working at western new england university as the associate director of human resources and title nine investigator Emma dragon will join the town as health director Dragon is a registered nurse with extensive experience in the public school system and with the federal disaster medical assistance team bachleman when discussing these appointments said quote I am so pleased to add these two professionals to the town's leadership team They will be excellent colleagues to our existing team and will be dedicated to serving the needs of the people of amherst You must amherst astronomers won a three year five million dollar grant from the national science foundation to build a telescope in mexico To do so they worked in collaboration with mexico and the resulting telescope is a large millimeter telescope And the largest telescope of its kind in the world While the telescope is closed due to covet it is operational and will be accessible to us astronomers and institutions We spoke with umas professor peter schlerb who leads the team of astronomers at us amherst working on this project Massachusetts isn't such a great spot to put a millimeter wave antenna, although we we had one here for A long time but the the new site on top of this great mountain So our our current mountain site is 4600 meters or about 15,000 feet So it is it's way up there And that gives us a really great platform To to view the universe Telescope is a great telescope and it's going to do a lot of things well So it can we can study things in the solar system We can study the clouds of gas and dust in our own galaxy that form stars We can because they're relatively close we can study them in great detail and learn about the process that form stars But the telescope really has what I would call a killer app You know usually in astronomy the farther away you look The fainter the objects that you're looking at are It turns out that nature has conspired to make Make a situation where in millimeter wave radio astronomy The objects that we look at Actually become intrinsically brighter the farther that they get away Now why is this important? It's important because if I can reach a particular limit of sensitivity I can detect everything Out to very very very great distances With this telescope I'm not I won't be Limited to just the very brightest things at great distances. I'll be able to see everything down to a particular level And this means that we have an unprecedented opportunity to study the way that objects Um Appear at these different distances now. Why is that interesting? It's interesting because light takes a finite amount of time to Reach us from any particular distance. So as I go farther and farther away from the earth I see objects that are older and older the light because the light that's emitted by those objects that I received today Was emitted farther and farther back in the history of the universe So what I have with my instrument with the telescope is kind of a time machine If I look out to different distances, I can see the universe as it was Uh In the distant past We can see things as they were within the within the first billion years or so of the of the origin Of the universe so the universe is 14 billion years old or something So we're seeing way way way way back next the town council has unanimously approved the percent for art bylaw Allowing the town to commission visual artists for public art installments In the motion on monday september 21st It says that the purpose of the bylaw is to quote promote the enjoyment of the arts by increasing the quantity and quality of public art in amherst The law establishes a funding program for public art Where for any eligible town construction project budgeted at a minimum of one million dollars Point five percent of the capital costs will be allocated to public art Next umas amherstolt's first big covid 19 outbreak after a number of students attending the same gathering contracted the virus 15 students who live off campus tested positive for the virus september 28th In a cluster that now is linked to a total of 28 positive cases These students are now quarantining off campus and the majority are asymptomatic This now brings the total number of positive cases on umas amherst's campuses to 69 since the start of testing in august The town council meeting this upcoming monday october 5th at 6 30 p.m Will include a covid 19 update with a presentation from town manager paul bachelman and acting health director jenn brown We spoke with lin greasmer town council president about her concerns following the outbreak and her thoughts going forward The fact that these numbers became as evident as fast as they did Is because the university was immediately in touch with the town And our health departments are working together and our leadership are working together I think what we need is the community to continue to work with us on this And uh understand that People are very much alert to this. I think for example if I were to ask the town manager right now How have you spent your last um several days? He would say 50 percent of it has probably been on this issue alone And you know, he's got a whole other set of jobs to do besides tracking this So work with us um at the same time Work with the students and understand um That You need to let us know when things are not right in your neighborhoods and you need to let us know When they are right in your neighborhoods Finally the league of women voters of massachusetts has released a 2020 voters guide for the november third election Early in-person voting will be happening from october 17th to october 30th Check your town clerk's office for voting times October 24th will be the last day to register to vote in the november third election And october 28th is the final day to request an application to vote by mail Visit www.vote411.org for more information That's all the news for this week. Thank you for tuning in to the amherst weekly report from amherst media I'm claire healy and we'll see you again at the same time next week