Mazal Tov to the XGH family

Missed this yesterday...(baby boy born to Rabbi & Rebbitzen XGH on Tuesday).

Mazal tov!

Jameel & Co.


Wherever I am, my blog turns towards Eretz Yisrael

Why is Olmert under the OU's Kashrut Supervision?

Arutz-7 has the following story:

(IsraelNN.com) Protesters, including religious Jewish immigrants from North America who were evicted from their homes during the Disengagement and wounded by police brutality at Amona, will protest the Orthodox Union'’s decision to honor Prime Minister Ehud Olmert at their annual convention in Jerusalem.

A protest rally under the banner "Hey OU - Olmert isn't kosher" will take place outside the convention. "I find it hard to comprehend why a Torah organization would want to invite a person who has practically declared war on the National Religious camp in Israel," protester Steve Schwartz wrote to the organization. "“Your organization's actions are a slap in the face to your fellow religious Jews in Israel."”

The protest will take place at 6 p.m. on Wednesday outside Jerusalem'’s Renaissance Hotel during the time Olmert is scheduled to address members of the large Orthodox organization. For information call 052 842-1203

The Orthodox Union is making a big mistake to honor Olmert. While Olmert is the Prime Minister of Israel, I think it's the wrong place and time for the OU to honor him. Olmert's currently under investigation for all sorts of criminal charges, the war this past summer was lost, Sederot is under constant attack, the Gush Katif people still have NO real solutions for housing or jobs, and don't forget his infamous directive for police brutality against teenagers at Amona -- I simply don't understand what the OU has to gain by honoring the man.

It's not like Olmert's now Mister Popularity in Israel. If the OU wants to honor someone who has done positive things for Israelis (like housing Israeli refugees from the North during the summer's war when the government did nothing, for example), maybe they should honor Arkady Gaydamak...I'm sure he would be pleased to give a large donation as well.

Wherever I am, my blog turns towards Eretz Yisrael

Breaking News: Saddam has Escaped!

Wherever I am, my blog turns towards Eretz Yisrael

Photos of Damage

Points Time! (I think this is going to become a regular feature :)

The following pictures were taken in Eretz Yisrael...25 points to anyone who knows when these were taken, and who caused the damage in the pictures?

Jews? Arabs? Wild Elephants?

Bonus points for creative answers as well.








Wherever I am, my blog turns towards Eretz Yisrael

Stuff that made me smile (part 1)

The news in Israel is slightly too depressing for a regular blog posting. Or maybe it's a general feeling of moodiness.

Soooo, I thought I'd fall back in time to recollect some of the activites that made me smile when I was a kid.

Unlike where I live today, I used to have a wonderful, large public library to visit, and I vividly recall the privledge of receiving my first library card. Fridays were library day, and each of us kids would each take out 8-10 books to be read over Shabbat and Sunday...

Some of the books I used to borrow:


I loved the Great Brain books. Not that I was such a great brain, nor did I have such an older brother figure....but I loved those books. Famous stories I remember; First Toilet in Utah, Building a Roller-coaster, going off to the Academy and sneaking chocolate in...and finally, teaching a kid with a missing leg how to run, jump, and play ball like everyone else. Thanks RR for reminding me of those books.


I only saw this book once in fourth grade, and it immediately became one of my favorites. I never read the original Adventures of the Mad Scientist's Club, but the "new" adventures were simply too good to put down. I think I reread this book over 10 times. Lots of the technology there would be put to shame by the contents of my 2 older boys' room, but that book was ahead of it's time.


Before third grade was over, I had read every single Tom Swift book in our school library. I think I was one of the few who actually read them...no one else seemed very interested. What did they know. Now I'm working in high-tech, loving the technology I used to dream about...and they...we'll...they're doctors, lawyers and accountants making 3 times as much as me. Hmmm.


Of course, I did read all the Hardy Boys books, but they got sort of repetative after a while. I think I was crushed to learn that the author Franklin W. Dixon was only a pen-name for the FEMALE writer who also wrote Nancy Drew. Bah.

Batttestar Galactica!

While PsychoToddler may know everything about the new series, (which I'm also a big fan of), I loved the old series -- and memorized more details about that show than I knew mishnayot by heart. As I could only watch one hour of TV a week -- I saved up my time to watch my favorite show...Battlestar Galactica. I owned every single book about the show, the complete comic book series, and I made every single plastic model. Maybe I'll write about the time I cut camp to walk to the mall...and spend the day in the bookstore reading Battlestar books. (No, I didn't go to play video games, or hang out...really!)

I didn't only read books. There were fantastic radio shows on once a week. Usually on Sunday night after 9:00 PM, I'd have to be in my room, with the lights out, and I'd listen to these great radio presentations: The Star Wars audio performances were done so well, that if you closed your eyes and just listened, the experience was at least as good a a 70mm widescreen showing in the theatre.

Another great series was the Jack Flanders radio show series by ZBS media. Classic radio...I think I'm going to try and find those series again.

Fine. So you think I was all geeky and just read books, and fantasized about Science Fiction?

Wrong! I also played in Little League. My real picture is saved at home...this pictures is for display purposes only.


And besides Little League -- on warm summer days, I would bike to the nearby lake and pedal around it without a care or worry in my head. I'd stop under a shady willow tree, and read some of the library books I'd picked up the previous Friday, and relax in the cool shade.



OK. You got me. Even with biking and little league, I was still fascinated by science. The best possible piece of mail I could receive (and I used to love getting junk mail, I signed up for every free piece of mail, catalog and freebie I could find, because what's more fun than getting mail?) was the coveted Edmund Scientific catalog...The coolest stuff that only a budding mad scientist could dream off, was all there.

The magical drinking bird.



The Astroscan telescope whcih I wished I could buy:


Lasers, optics and cool stuff. I wanted it all...but rarely got any of it, and their mechandise remained a distant dream, which I guess was always more fascinating in my imagination than in real life.

Hmmm...feel a bit less wistful than before. Maybe I'll continue this tomorrow.

Want to gain more Muqata points? What stuff from yesteryear made you smile?

Tip: Save those Muqata points...

Wherever I am, my blog turns towards Eretz Yisrael

Jewish Ingenuity?

Just got off the phone with a friend, who called to say it was just announced on Israel Radio that there is a revolutionary new invention, that will save lives of Jewish children in Israel!

In Sederot and the surrounding communities around Gaza that are subject to ongoing Qassam rocket attacks -- a big problem is what to do in the schools, which only have about 50% of the classrooms "secured" so they can take a Qassam hit. The other 50% of the classrooms have no solution for the rockets, so when the warning goes off, all the kids in non-protected classrooms have to run to the protected ones. Not exactly viable in the 14 seconds from the time of the alarm till the rockets land.

HOWEVER, the Jewish mind is not stopped by such problems! It thinks out of the box, and can come up with all sorts of creative ideas to offer security!

Flatten Gaza with Napalm? Nope!

Anti-Missile weapons to shoot the Qassam Rockets? No way!

Star-Trek defensive force-field? Nada.

Someone has invented something even better than the "cones of silence"...the ultimate answer for security of Israeli schoolchildren in Sederot is: The Protective Qassam Schooldesk!

When the warning goes off, each schoolchild quickly gets under their protective desk, and pulls their chair close to them, effectively giving them 360 degrees of protection from Qassam rockets.

Unlike the Cold War's "Duck and Cover" method taught in US schools (and 10 points to any blogger under 40 who knows what I'm talking about), this desk actually has shrapnel-proof sides to keep kids safe.

1950's solution for taking shelter against nuclear attacks.

Unfortunately, this is a band-aid solution and doesn't go anywhere near the root cause.

Typical.

Wherever I am, my blog turns towards Eretz Yisrael

A Funeral in Sederot

It had been a few months since I'd driven though Sederot. I remember the last time; I was driving to a wedding in Ofakim, and driving through Sederot made me wonder what would happen if just then, the "Tzeva Adom" (Color Red) incoming-Qassam-rocket warning system started to blare. I opened my car window, so if I heard it, I would have 15 seconds to park and find shelter.

Yesterday, I returned to Sederot for the funeral of a friend's mother, killed by a Palestinian Qassam rocket.

The Sederot cemetery is small, with black and white tombstones marking the graves; some are flat and simple, some have headstones, and the important or saintly people buried there have structures erected over their tombstones providing shelter from rain and sun (for those who come to visit them?)

There's also an area for for eulogies adjacent to the cemetery, a simple building of 4 pillars and a ceiling --there's only one wall, and it faces the rooms where they prepare bodies for burial. To the West is a hill from where the rockets fly over -- from the Gazan town of Beit Hanoun.

There was a large police presence. Arab MK Muhamad Barake arrived for a photo-op, complete with over 10 Yasam special-ops policemen who surrounded him, suspicious eyes darting in all directions, short M16's pointed outwards, ready to be fired. The undercover agents intercepted someone with a kippa and a beard walking in Barake's direction and hauled him off.

Sederot's mayor, Eli Moyal spoke. He said he didn't know the woman killed, but that her memory would be taught in the schools as part of the legacy of Sederot. He also said that the Palestinians should just leave Sederot alone, and that he wasn't going to call for revenge, just for the IDF to keep Sederot safe. Some MK who I'd never heard of before also spoke, and didn't say anything meaningful either. No one really spoke about the woman killed...who she was...where she was from (a new immigrant)...her family (she leaves behind a husband, a son and a daughter)...and the speakers finished within 15 minutes.

The procession started moving in the direction of the freshly dug, open grave...about a 2 minute walk. Just as the actual burial was about to begin, Eli Moyal called out in a loud voice, "Friends, 5 Qassam rockets have just been launched, everyone please take shelter", motioning towards the covered area where we heard the eulogies. Just as people started to move, an IDF officer announced, "It's OK, they're [the rockets] are headed northwards, to Ashkelon..."

Everyone refocused their attention to the burial, and the booms came. One after the other, we heard the rockets land. I noticed a large tethered white blimp to the south, high in the sky, which is probably one of the methods the IDF uses to identify Qassam launches. It's definitely not Goodyear advertising...

The burial went quickly; the mourning husband fainted but quickly came to. There was a doctor there, so I didn't do anything EMT related...someone called MDA and they showed up with 2 ambulances. They did a quick evaluation of the man, and decided to take him for further treatment.

I put my hand on my friend's shoulder, to let him know I was there. He nodded, and walked off with arm around his sister.

The crowd dissipated and we drove off.

I post this in memory of Faina Sloutsker. Unfortunately, she was hardly spoken about at her funeral. Faina, 57 and her husband Michael immigrated to Israel in 2003 to join their daughter and her husband who made aliyah before them and were already living in Sderot. They have a son, daughter-in-law and grandchild living in Jerusalem.

Today, Herziliya lsraelis, far away from Sederot published obituaries in Haaretz of Gazan Palestinians killed by errant IDF missiles, "out of shame of what Israel is doing."

I'm also ashamed.

All I wrote was this, and not more about Mrs. Sloutsker. May her memory be a blessing.

Baruch Dayan HaEmet.



Wherever I am, my blog turns towards Eretz Yisrael

There WAS a flood!

Actual reproduction of the Ark?

Picture by: NY Times/Dallas Abbott

The Fenambosy chevron, one of four near the tip of Madagascar, is 600 feet high and three miles from the ocean -- was this area flooded?

Anyone reading GodolHador's site (or its spin-off) should have been convinced that there is no scientific proof whatsoever that backs up the biblical flood story.

To fit Judaism to Modern Science, XGH postulated that the Flood (and the creation story in general) is a myth/moshol, and there are enough serious rabbanim to back up the idea that one can still be an Orthodox, Torah observant Jew, and adhere to this opinion.

But...look what appears in the NY Times!

The New York Times writes that according to a group of scientists and researchers, a large meteorite hit the earth 4800 years ago in the Indian ocean and caused a tsunami in India 13 times as big as the one two years ago.

On close inspection, the chevron deposits contain deep ocean microfossils that are fused with a medley of metals typically formed by cosmic impacts. And all of them point in the same direction — toward the middle of the Indian Ocean where a newly discovered crater, 18 miles in diameter, lies 12,500 feet below the surface.

It could have wiped out 25% of the world’s population, the scientists posit.

From the end of the article:

“Dr. Masse analyzed 175 flood myths from around the world, and tried to relate them to known and accurately dated natural events like solar eclipses and volcanic eruptions. Among other evidence, he said, 14 flood myths specifically mention a full solar eclipse, which could have been the one that occurred in May 2807 B.C.

Half the myths talk of a torrential downpour, Dr. Masse said. A third talk of a tsunami. Worldwide they describe hurricane force winds and darkness during the storm. All of these could come from a mega-tsunami.”

“I've long argued that the traditional commentators are falliable, in part, because they didn't have the benefit of archeology, linguistics, comparitive religion, and other academic disciplines.”

Would the same hold for some bloggers and their myth/moshels?

hat-tip; JoeSettler.

Wherever I am, my blog turns towards Eretz Yisrael

Winning Combination: G-d and the IDF

One of the worst problems a Jewish State can have, is to haughtily claim, כוחי ועוצם ידי עשה לי את החיל הזה , "My strength and might have built me this army."

When Israel brags about the IDF and ignores the fact that our might, strength and military success are based on help from G-d -- then we lose wars and our existance is threatened.

Thankfully, the IDF is now making a sound military investment and is installing mezuzot in the Ministry of Defense. And since the money is coming from US military aid to Israel, and the money needs to be spent in the USA -- the mezuzot were purchased from American sofrim (scribes)!

The Defense Ministry recently used USD 30,000 of American military aid money, but didn't buy guns and ammunition for IDF soldiers. Instead the money was used to purchase mezuzahs for the prime minister, defense minister and military generals.

Israel is obligated to use the military aid money that it receives from the United States on American equipment and merchandise. Israel even committed itself to purchase US equipment worth upwards of USD 30,000.

Though hundreds of millions of dollars from this grant given to Israel by the US administration every year are set aside for military purposes, the Defense Ministry finds some unconventional outlets for using the money.

Even though many Torah scribes make a living writing mezuzah scrolls in Israel, the Defense Ministry preferred to use the American aid money to purchase mezuzahs from American Judaica dealers. These mezuzahs will be affixed to the doorways of all the rooms in the Defense Ministry's new building in the Kirya base in Tel Aviv.

Offices of the prime minister, the defense minister, and generals in the General Staff will be in this building.

The Defense Ministry confirmed the news Tuesday evening and explained that budgetary considerations led them to acquire the mezuzahs from the United States given their lower prices.

So...when the American taxpayer helps Israel though military funding, you are strengthening Israel militarily, spiritually, and providing financial support to American sofrei stam which also contributes to the American economy (keeping the money in the US).

What could be better?!

Wherever I am, my blog turns towards Eretz Yisrael