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The official earthquake protection instructions for schools and kindergartens in Israel have recently been updated from the traditional “drop, cover and hold on” approach to the “flee outside to an open space” approach. This paper aims to describe the decision-making process, discuss the dilemmas behind it and suggest new insights for challenging current instructions in other countries.

The authors analyze human behavior patterns during earthquakes in general, and at schools in particular, while taking into consideration the environment (in terms of applying building codes and the level of earthquake risk in various zones), personal characteristics (age, gender and past experience) and earthquake characteristics (intensity and duration).

Five aspects should be taken into consideration when changing current earthquake instructions: the general official earthquake protection instructions, the structure and construction of schools and kindergartens, common behavior during emergencies, warning systems and the need to establish standardized protection instructions and guidelines for every school and kindergarten in the country.

Policymakers in other countries should critique current instructions to maximize citizens’ chances of survival and mitigate possible earthquake hazards, including by improving risk communication with the public.

The paper describes a national decision-making process which questions current official earthquake instructions at schools and kindergartens, based on evidence gained from current construction conditions, human behavior analysis and other countries’ experiences.

Chris Provis (2017) has discussed Aristotle’s Doctrine of the Mean and its counterpart in Confucianism. The Doctrine of the Mean informs an agent that ‘acting as a virtuous person will often be constituted by avoidance of choosing excess or deficiency’ (Provis, 2017, p. 118). Indeed, Provis (2017) argues against any act ‘oriented towards maximisation’ (p. 127). Provis’s (2017) focus is the encounter ‘between European and East Asian ethical traditions’ (p. 116). Our chapter is a response to Provis (2017). We respond to Provis (2017) by exploring a debate amongst Jewish scholars which originated in North Africa. Some of these scholars advocated Aristotle’s Mean. But others advocated forsaking that Mean and pursuing the extreme.

During this month the average librarian is given furiously to think over the estimates, and in this year, perhaps more than any other, will that adverb be applicable. The matter is so important that we do not apologise for dealing with it once more. In March in nearly every town there will be a determined effort by men who call themselves “economists” to reduce the appropriation for public libraries. The war is the most handsome excuse that the opponents of public culture have ever had for their attacks upon the library movement. It is obvious that these attacks will take the direction of an endeavour to reduce the penny rate, where this has not been done already. In the year that has passed retrenchment has been the watchword of all municipal work, and many librarians have either ceased to buy new books or have bought only those of vital importance. This has meant that a certain amount of money usually devoted to books has accumulated. Seeing that legally money which has been raised for library purposes cannot be expended in any other direction, the only way in which the “economists” can work is to propose a reduction of next year's rate by an amount corresponding to the balance. It is an extraordinary thing that after decades of demonstration the average local public man cannot or will not see that money taken from the funds of a public library cannot be restored to it later. The limitation of the penny rate is nearly always forgotten or ignored, and the common phrase of such men: “You must economise now and we will give you more money after the war,” has been heard by most librarians. An endeavour should be made to drive home the fact that retrenchment in books, or in other matters in connexion with libraries, now means so much actual irreparable loss to the libraries. We have dealt several times in these pages with the vexed question of balances. Practice differs so much in different localities that it seems impossible to get any universal ruling in connexion with this matter. Many libraries have been able to invest their balances in some form of war loan ; in others the librarian has been told emphatically that such investment is illegal. We can speak of towns within five miles of each other in one of which money has been invested, and in the other investment is banned in this way. Unfortunately librarians have been rather silent upon this point, and it is difficult to obtain any reliable information as to how many towns have investments. It would strengthen the hands of many librarians if they knew that in so many other municipalities the library funds were so invested.

The compilation of a core collection for Jewish reference sources raises a number of questions which must be confronted and answered. Should a Jewish reference collection be a listing of sources for the study of Judaism primarily as a religion, or primarily as a cultural group? Should the sources be leaning toward Biblical and Rabbinic studies or towards history, art, and music? For the purposes of this bibliography, I have chosen to concentrate on the cultural aspects of Judaism and Jews as a group to be studied. As such I have elected, somewhat arbitrarily, to exclude the primary sources of the study of Judaism as a religion, these sources being a Jewish version of an English translation of the Bible, an English copy of the Talmud, liturgies, and all of the supplementary primary sources which would be necessary. It is hoped, instead, that those items would be found in the religion section of the reference collection. Nevertheless, this core collection will provide the tools for any interested person seeking to include such sources in their Judaic reference collection.