Jameel at passport control.

People routinely ask me how someone with the name "Jameel Rashid" can come and go so easily though passport control in Israel. Here's a videoclip to show you that it's not so difficult as people may think. The Hebrew is pretty simple to follow.

The US doesn't allow racial profiling, so its never an issue...they smile and say have a nice day, while they drag off the 80 year old woman next to me.

(And the good news is, my luggage has been found!)

Boom.

Trying to sleep off my jetlag in California, I hear a beeping noise, and SMS messages start to suddenly clog my cellphone waking me from a not so pleasant sleep. Bleary eyed, I fumbled for my glasses and try to read the messages:

"Breaking News"
"Reported Explosion at Netanya Mall"
"MDA Reports of injuries"
"Unconfirmed reports of dead"
"MDA has evacuated over 30 wounded so far"

The picture starts to clear in my head that there's been another terror attack at home.

There's a feeling of total helplessness being so far away in California, and not being able to do anything. Just hearing difficult news. In Israel, I know exactly where the mall is - I've been there before, driven by it before.

Its very different I guess hearing about a terrorist attack in Israel, from so far away. In Israel I would have received within a minute on my MDA beeper that a mass casualty event had been declared. The IDF would have sent out a similar msg, from its standpoint. About a minute after the SMS message comes from an online news service.

If I'm anywhere near there, I drop everything and get there as fast as possible to help. If I'm not there, I call my wife to make sure she was nowhere near the attack.

For those with a strong stomach, go here and here to see lots of pictures from today's attack. Warning - its not for the queasy.

The name of the mall where the attack took place in Netanya is called "Sharon."

Lessons from Yitzchak: Why flying to Chutz La'aretz is bad.

This past shabbat I read in more than 3 different parsha sheets that the reason Yitzchak was not allowed to leave Eretz Yisrael during the famine, was because he was born in Eretz Yisrael, and inherently had more holiness. In fact, Hashem told him to go to Grar of the Plishtim (Gaza) instead of leaving Eretz Yisrael...meaning Gaza is part of EY...but that's not my point at all.

Rather, temporarily leaving Israel, even for good reasons (like smachot, and work) is still a bad idea.

I left Israel on motzei shabbat on a business trip. We landed in JFK...it took 75 minutes for our luggage (business colleague and mine) to arrive. Took another 15 minutes to get the Carnet (document for transporting commercial tax free goods) signed by JFK customs officials. Did I mention it was snowing? Its been in the 70's in Israel the past 2 weeks, and I was caught a bit unprepared for the freezing weather. Transferred out luggage. Took train to terminal 9. RAN like crazy to get ticketed...got stuck in security (after all, with a name like Jameel)...panted my way up the escalator to the gate, and as we ran straight to the gate, the ticket person grinned and yelled at me - "SAFE...you made it" (with 1 minute to spare).

Got on the plane, door closed behind us...and then we were stuck on the plane for 4 hours without takeoff...because of the snow. Leaving 4 hours later, I was frozen. When we arrived in LA, our luggage apparently had other plans.

Just called AA lost luggage computerized interactive voice recognition system...and "my luggage has not yet been located...have a nice day."

I'm starving...and there's no Kosher restaurants here. Be back soon.

UPDATE: Baruch Hashem for Ralph's supermarket...and entenmann's donuts. That should keep me till I find some real food.

Jameel is (temporarily) leaving the Muqata...to Greater Los Angeles

Business Travel is a necessary evil in the world of high-tech. When I made aliya from the US, I had never been west of Chicago or south of Virginia. Starting to work at a high tech company in Israel, I found myself flying all over the USA...and the world. I visited states I had only read about in the encyclopedia. New Mexico for example. At the time, there was no kosher food in Albuquerque, so I called a Kosher Deli I knew from New Jersey and asked if they would deliver sandwiches in dry ice by Fedex. The conversation went like this:

Jameel; Hi, this is Jameel, I'd like to you know if you ship sandwiches?

Deli; Sure, we ship everywhere in the continental United States.

Jameel; Great! I'd like 4 cornbeef sandwiches.

Deli: No problem. Where do you want them shipped?

Jameel; I'm staying at a Residence Inn in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Deli; Um, I'm sorry, we have a problem with that.

Jameel: Why? What's wrong?

Deli; As I told you before, we only ship within the United States.

Jameel: OK...so what's the problem?

Deli: Well, you said you're in Mexico...and that's a different country.

Jameel: I'm sorry, I'm in New Mexico...not Mexico.

Deli: Sir, I don't care if its New Mexico, or Old Mexico, we only ship to the United States, and not out of the country.

Jameel: New Mexico is one of the 50 States.

Deli: No its not. we only ship within the United States.

Jameel: Can I speak to your manager please?

Deli: I am the manager!

Jameel: I'll make you a deal. Call FEDEX. If they are willing to ship to New Mexico as part of the United States, then will you send it.

Deli: OK...I'll do that much for you. You're a real idiot though for wasting my time. Since the customer is always right, I'll call up for you.

I got the food 3 days later.

Bottom Line; I'm going to the Greater Los Angeles area for a week. Limited Speaking Engagements. Contact me for more info.

Friday Night Mayhem at the Muqata

Friday nights are always a problem in my settlement. We have dozens and dozens of teenagers who roam the streets of our neighborhood to socialize, congregate, and just do the "teenage" hang out thing. They are all great kids, and there's nothing inappropriate about their behavior at all...except the noise. With such large groups of kids, its impossible to get any Shabbat sleep till midnight when the kids wander back to their homes. It seems like I was a teenager only yesterday, but when the noise level is so loud that it keeps neighbors awake, we have a problem.

Our neighborhood email list often discusses this issue, with all sorts of creative solutions. The most obvious is for parents to discuss the issue with their kids. One neighbor wanted to set their water sprinklers to automatically start on Friday night, in the direction of the street, to get rid of the noise. Yet another neighbor wanted to walk his ultra scary dogs out to the areas where the noisy kids hang out.

I always empathised with the people who couldn't sleep through the noise, even though I personally can sleep standing up oblivious to any cacophony arond me.

However, a high tech solution has been found to solve our problems! Better than the red-dawn incoming missile warning system. Better than the Arrow anti-scud missile system. Even better than the water sprinklers.

Someone sent me this today by email:

Rowdies buzz off as the Mosquito bites. (The anti teenager solution)

The device, called the Mosquito ("It's small and annoying," Mr Stapleton said), emits a high-frequency pulsing sound that he claims can be heard by most people younger than 20 and almost no one older than 30. The sound is designed to so irritate young people that after several minutes, they cannot stand it and go away.

Read more about this great device here

Kadima! Where should Omri go?

You decide! Ariel Sharon's son Omri Sharon, was such a great Member of Knesset, that he deserves a great game of his own -- and everyone deserves to play.

Just click on the picture above, or click here

*Kadima (Forward) - Sharon's new party.

Gadgets don't always deliver on Israel's security.

The more you Disengage, the more things stay the same...well, the terror does.

After a totally meaningless "treaty" was signed yesterday condemning terrorism, the rockets are back at us, after a 2 week re-arming.

Palestinian Terrorist Qassam missiles attack Israel, once again. After two weeks of calm, Qassam rockets were fired Monday at Israeli targets once again. One rocket landed at an Israeli town close to the southern Gaza border, falling in a field near the fence. The IDF chose not to respond. In addition, a mortar shell landed in an Israeli town north of Gaza, causing light damage to a house. (hat-tip: ynet)

Residents also said the Red Dawn alert system, designed to warn of imminent rocket and mortar attacks, failed to go off.

Israel's leadership is becoming more and more dependent on high tech military gadgets, then on putting the fear of the IDF into its enemies. Instead of really scaring the PA into reigning in the terrorists (fine, there's no chance of that ever happening), Israel signs silly treaties in an attempt to define terrorism...with the Palestinian Authority.

Other high tech gadgets include;

• The "Security" Wall (which even Haaretz had to begrudgingly admit that it doesn't help against car theft)
• The Arrow anti-missile system
• Merkava IV tank armor

When Israel starts defending itself through massive retaliatory force (even though DovBear doesn't approve of collateral damage), instead of relying on gadgets, we'll be in much better shape.

Off Topic: "You've got to find what you love" -- high tech hero

I always had 2 career dreams; high-tech and media communication. Moving to Israel meant I had to sacrifice the media communication dream of movie direction and theatrics in favor of the solid economic decision of working in high tech. The financial responsibility of wanting to start a family outweighed the dream of going to Maaleh, Israel's religious film school. I don't have any regrets, but the dream still lives on -- and that's why I blog.

One of my high tech heroes is Steve Jobs. He spoke this past June at Stanford University's commencement address. Though speeches like this usually find me sooner, Jobs' speech found me later. Find a few minutes today to read it. Enjoy.

I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.

The first story is about connecting the dots.

I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?

It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.

And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.

It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, its likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.

Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

Click here to read more.

Haaretz Darlings injure 7 IDF Border Policemen.

"The newspaper for thinking people" is the proudly branded slogan used by Haaretz. If you think, you read Haaretz, otherwise you must be a rightwing radical. Lets look at some of the Haaretz news stories today.

Over shabbat, Jewish Hevron organizers claim that more than 30,000 Jews spent shabbat in Hevron/Kiriat Arba to commemorate shabbat parashat Chayei Sara. To describe this newsworthy event, Haaretz uses the headline, "Settlers throw stones at Palestinian homes in Hebron." Yet, the very first sentence of the paragraph reads, "Youth from the Jewish enclave in Hebron and Palestinians threw stones at each other on Saturday and caused damage to property. Hebron police held two settler youths for investigation."

The shabbat gathering of 30,000 Jews is mere background information for the Haaretz libel attack. Instead of being the main news story, with reciprocal stone throwing as a backdrop, Haaretz ensures that its "thinking" readership first see the attention capturing headline which immediately implicates the settlers. Only in paragraph 3 is the statement from the Jewish Hevron leadership that the incident was reciprocal stone throwing in response to the Palestinians. Haaretz also ignores any further reporting on Palestinians throwing stones at Jews, or investigating the Jewish Hevron statement.

Nothing beats a great summation, "The left-wing organization Peace Now called for the evacuation of the Jewish settlers from the city, Army Radio reported." Why didn't they report on the Jewish Hevron council's call to build tens of more apartments in Hevron, to meet the huge demand for Jewish housing in Hevron?

Next up: Palestinians: Settlers cut down 200 olive trees near Nablus

Here are a few questions that come to mind:

1. Why does the picture of the Palestinian woman not include the backdrop of 200 cut down trees? A much more impressive and meaningful picture would be a full grove of olive tree trunks. I've heard from many people today that this entire story is in the spirit of Pallywood productions.
2. Why does Haaretz not have any single independent source of this atrocity? A "thinking" person would want to know if there are any other sources to the story. There isn't any corroboration to the story -- not even by the police or IDF! I assume that "thinking" people need to believe every word printed in Haaretz, and from the Palestinians in Salem.
3. Most of the article is dedicated to quotes from social Kibbutz activist, Yoel Marshak. He doesn't have any eyewitness quotes at all. He's basing everything on what he heard (or read in Haaretz, or was told by the Haaretz reporter).

Why is there no mention that this land is disputed between Elon Moreh and Salem? That Palestinians continuously harass the settlers from Elon Moreh, with shootings and rock throwings on a daily basis? (Makes for good background information).

Yet, there is one story that happened yesterday that is blatantly absent from Haaretz. In fact, its missing from almost every single newspaper. The story appears as a "newsflash" on some sites, and briefly mentions that 7 border policemen were wounded and hospitalized yesterday by International Solidarity Movement "activists", Israeli Leftists, and Palestinians who were rioting against the building of the security fence. One of the soldiers is now in serious condition.

During the disengagement, Haaretz had screaming headlines of acid being poured on soldiers by anti-disengagement activists (which was proven to be false). Condemnations were heard left and right and PM Sharon decried the threat to Israel's democracy by the wild weeds of law breaking settler youth. Not one policeman or solider was injured to require hospitalization during the disengagement, (as opposed to quite a few anti-disengagement activists). Yet, the anti-disengagement protestors were vilified by Haaretz as the threat to democracy. When it comes to Haaretz's darlings -- the Leftists, not one word on condemnation at all.

Their hypocritical silence is deafening.