17th of Tammuz Roundup

Interesting thing I learned yesterday:

According to many poskim, Ashkenazim can get a haircut or even get married on the evening of 17th of Tammuz...so despite getting home late yesterday from work, I managed to get a haircut at 10:30 PM at our local barber.

It's the 17th day of Tammuz -- and how did I blog it previously?

Snapshot of day 2 of the Second Lebanon War. July 13, 2006

Jerusalem Besieged, July 20th, 2008

Amazing Scale Model Project of the Second Jewish Temple

Alec Gerrard, a 78 year old from the United Kingdom, spent 3 years researching his 1:100 scale model of the Second Jewish Temple, that took him 33,000 hours to date and measures 20' x 12'. He hand painted every clay brick and tile and sculpted all of the 4,000 half inch, correctly dressed figures to populate his creation. Mr. Garrard began this project in his 40's and does not expect it to be fully completed in his lifetime (more pics here)

The Life Keeper revolutionary heart attack alert patch is probably one of the biggest scams of the century....

The many unanswered questions led Picker, a dentist and childhood friend of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, to hire the legal services of Ronel Fischer's firm, a member of which demanded that SafeSky's lawyer show the memorandum of understanding with MSI.

When SafeSky's lawyer Gabi Hyke, however, refused to show Picker such a document, the CEO announced his immediate resignation. (JPost)

EU retracts statement, declaring settlements responsible for all Palestinian woes.

The European Commission on Thursday backtracked on its unusually harsh criticism of Israeli settlements, declaring that a statement released earlier this week did not reflect the commission's position.

The contentious statement accused Israel's settlement policy of strangling the Palestinian economy and making the Palestinian government more dependent on foreign aid. (HaAretz)

Hypothesis: Why do our religious kids become secular?

Twenty percent of religious youths become secular because they find education system too strict and restricting (YNET)

Mixed Seating at Weddings...could lead to Mixed Dancing?

During a Torah lesson he delivered on Monday, the prominent national religious leader,R' Mordechai Eliyahu spoke at length about the importance of observing chastity codes. He advised soldiers to cover their ears during military ceremonies that include women singing. "It's better to go to jail than to obey the commander and hear a woman sing or play." He stated.

Eliyahu stressed that listening to a woman deliver a speech, if she did so while using hand gestures, was also forbidden: "It's very serious. One should watch out for these things."

Men and women sitting together at weddings was also banned, according to the rabbi, let alone dancing together. "Today at weddings everything is allowed – to dance, to look… a man dances with a woman he doesn't know… men swap women. This is a very serious thing!"

"Rabbis, repent!" urged Eliyahu. "Admit: Say, 'we were wrong. We won't allow mixed dancing, mixed weddings, mixed sitting'." He said that more liberal poskim (rabbis that issue halachic rulings) were favored by women, "Because a woman wants to be looked at. But men don't like them, because men know this is wrong." (YNET)

Palestinian terrorists target Jewish vehicle on Road 60 near Ofra. No injuries.

Kalman Marco, the 60 year old man who was driving near Ofra this morning when his car was shot at, says he was was miraculously saved when he managed to get to work safely. In an interview, the Nili resident said that he was unaware that the car was hit until he got out of the car in Psagot, where he works, and he saw that a bullet had hit the car. (A7)

If you're an Anglo Oleh -- you may not always recognize what your Israeli born children will be typing as their Facebook Status Messages.

Parents around the world have discovered that joining Facebook is an excellent way to keep tabs on their kids.

However, if – like me - you’re the Anglo parent of Israeli teenagers, you’re out of luck.

I should begin by noting that the quality of your Hebrew is irrelevant.

You might be perfectly fluent. You might have been first in your ulpan class. You might spend your days lecturing and communicating in Hebrew. Your accent might be impeccable, and people might sometimes mistake you for a native-born Israeli.

In fact, you might even BE a native-born Israeli.

But none of this matters.

You’re STILL not going to be able to understand your Israeli teenager’s Facebook statuses.

Read it here at Our Shiputzim.

צום קל ומועיל,

ג'מעיל

Wherever I am, my blog turns towards Eretz Yisrael טובה הארץ מאד מאד

Jerusalem Besieged - 17th of Tammuz

Till June 1967, the image of a besieged Jerusalem was not hard to visualize.

Though the Jews had been evicted from the city in 1948, the underlying commemoration of the fast of the 17th of Tammuz dovetailed with a captured and barren Yerushalayim.

Coils of barbed wire, occasional sniper fire, the Mandlebaum Gate, and the words of Yoram Gaon's song "From atop of Har HaTzofim" were the day to day reality.

מעל פסגת הר הצופים
אשתחוה לך אפיים
מעל פסגת הר הצופים
שלום לך ירושלים!
אלפי דורות חלמתי עלייך,
לראות, לזכות, באור פנייך!

ירושלים, ירושלים,
האירי פנייך לבנך!
ירושלים, ירושלים,
מחרבותייך אבנך!

That was only 40 years ago.

In the First Temple Era: The priests stopped offering the daily sacrifice on this day (Taanit 28b) due to the shortage of sheep during the siege and the next year 3184 (586 BCE), the walls of Jerusalem were breached after many months of siege by Nebuchadnezzar and his Babylonian forces. In the Second Temple period, Titus breached the walls of Jerusalem in 3760 (70 CE) which led to the destruction of the Beit HaMikdash. (OU)

On the radio today (IDF Galei Zahal), a Rav was called up on-air to explain about the fast day today and he listed the different calamities that befell Israel on this day. The interviewer scoffed, "So, the 3 weeks is an unlucky time for us? Do you have any other recent calamities to recount?"

The Rabbi replied quietly, the second Lebanon War started on the 17th of Tammuz 2 years ago. That ended the conversation rather quickly.

Flashing back to "modern" Israel, I looked back at my posts from 2 years ago during the 2cnd Lebanon War. My first post of the war started here and you can see the whole month's index here. I should really go back and index all the posts from back then -- just glancing back at them gives me a very eerie feeling, especially with the burials of our soldiers last week.

May the coming 3 weeks be a time of redemption.

Wherever I am, my blog turns towards Eretz Yisrael טובה הארץ מאד מאד