The flag of Cyprus. Photo: Wikimedia Commons. JNS.org – The magnitude 6.6 earthquake that shook Cyprus early on Tuesday morning, and which was felt throughout Israel, again raised the question of the Jewish state’s preparedness for major tremors. This was the second tremor to reverberate across the Mediterranean in three weeks, with the previous one, magnitude 5.7, hitting Crete on Dec. 29. Israel is one of the countries located along the Great Rift Valley — a series of contiguous geographic trenches running approximately 7,000 kilometers (4,300 miles) from the Middle East in the north to Mozambique in the south. The...