treppenwitz

The scavenger hunt

I've mentioned on several occasions that I absolutely LOVE the Israeli socialized medicine set-up.  It has been good to us and our kids.  It has been good to my parents.  It has been good to pretty much everyone I know.

Oh sure, you can occasionally get a stinker of a doctor or a nurse who is having a bad day (week, year, etc.).  But compared with what we left behind, it is a wonderfully streamlined way of dealing with stuff that pretty much everyone has to go through in life.

There's no stress about pre-existing conditions, changing jobs, COBRA, etc.  Even homeless people (yes we have them here too) are covered!

Socialized medicine is on my mind today because I spent the day in the hospital.  Don't worry, nothing serious... and actually, nothing to do with me.  Our youngest, Yonah, is having his tonsils and adenoids removed tomorrow and today was the pre-surgery scavenger hunt where we got to spend the day running from office to office, meeting with surgeons, anesthesiologists, clerks, nurses, etc.  We even had a meeting with a child-specialist who explained the whole procedure to Yonah using pictures, drawings and an incredibly realistic set of toy operating room figures.

Of course, the day didn't start out as nicely as I would have liked. When we arrived at Hadassah Ein Kerem at 8:00AM (as requested) we were sent to the wrong department by the unhelpful guy sitting at the information booth. The second time I went back to him he seemed not to remember me and happily tried to send me to the same wrong place. I told him what had happened and he said, "Oh yeah, you have to go to ..." sending me to another level of hell where nobody had ever heard of us.

The third time I went back to him I said, "Let's try something different.  Let's pretend you want to help me instead of screwing me."  He got a very disgruntled look and sent me to an entirely wrong building in the hospital complex.  Rather than go back and beat him with a borrowed crutch, I did what I swore I would only do in case of an emergency:  I called in my protexia.

For you non Israelis out there, protexia is knowing someone who is positioned to be able to help you get something - anything - done faster or easier than would normally be possible to the general public. In this case it was calling my friend Noa who is a nurse at the hospital.

Noa quickly came down and brought me to the right place. When it turned out we had been given the wrong form by our town clinic, she gave me her office fax number and told me to have them fax the correct form there.  She got us settled with the first of our many stops, and while we were waiting to be seen, she ran down and got us the first (!) appointment with the anesthesiologist.

Once Noa had sorted us out and gotten us pointed in the right direction she went back to her regularly scheduled work-day. As we were headed for our last quick appointment on the Pediatric Surgery floor, we bumped into Noa in the elevator and thanked her again for getting us back on track.

Sometimes you just can't thank people enough. But I'm sure gonna try!

Anyway, tomorrow is the surgery, so if you want to send good vibes towards a certain 4 year old Israeli boy named Yonah* sometime tomorrow afternoon, feel free.

Expect a full update (with pictures) since I'll be staying over with him in the hospital tomorrow night, and they have WiFi!

*Those wishing to include Yonah in their daily תפילות (Tefilot/prayers) can use the name  יונה זאב בן זלתא/Yonah Ze'ev ben Zlata (ed. note from Zahava - go ahead and laugh! - it's my actual given name).

Photo Friday - Pina Chama Edition

As in past years, we all went to over to the Pina Chama to make a big mangal (BBQ) for all the soldiers who are on duty on Yom Hatzma'ut (Israel Independence Day) and serving in our area.  People from all over the Gush Etzion region donated food and paper goods, and a bunch of us cooked it all up and served it to these young heroes.

First let me give you some long overdue pictures of some of the things your generous donations purchased this past year when the Pina Chama was robbed):

A new water fountain and punch dispenser:

A popcorn machine and hot water urn:

A fridge...

... and freezer.

There is also a 'slushy' machine but since it wasn't big enough to keep up with the huge crowd we normally get on Yom Hatzma'ut, we put it away for safe keeping.

We did the first shift from about 11:00AM until 1:30 or 2:00PM.  The meant getting the grills going for the lunch rush:

Here's me pre-sunstroke  :-)

Other volunteers unpacked salads and sides as they were delivered from around the Gush:

And meals were assembled to be picked up and delivered to soldiers who couldn't leave their positions around the area:

Here's Ariella getting the kitchen ready for the rush:

Even the soldiers manning the position at the nearby intersection (Tzomet HaGush) couldn't leave for lunch so their lunch was brought to them.  Hundreds of meals were delivered to soldiers all over the region.  Here are some soldiers unpacking crates of meals:

Around noon the soldiers started arriving at the Pina Chama

And the  tables inside and out began to fill up

And of course where there are soldiers, there are bound to be officers

Yonah, whose job was loosely defined as 'greeting and saying goodbye to the soldiers', escorted one of the officers to his Jeep and got a photo op for his scrap book

Afterward we all went home and had a mangal of our own with friends from Hashmonaim.  These friends adopted Lulu's sister, Izzy, and they brought her along for the visit.  The two puppies had a great reunion and a good time was had by all.  But those pictures will have to wait for next week.

Shabbat Shalom!

Which Came First - Terrorism or "Occupation"?

[Starting this evening at sundown, Israel will pause to remember her fallen soldiers and tomorrow will be a somber day of ceremonies. Tomorrow night we will begin celebrating the 60 years of national sovereignty that those heroes gave their lives to secure.  But today I want to share something I found while poking around the official Israel Government Website (Ministry of Foreign Affairs) doing research for a professional project Zahava and I are involved with.  What follows is a direct copy and paste... no editorializing on my part.  Ok, I added one set of bold italics for emphasis.  Sue me!  Warning.  Graphic image alert. The link to the source is here. ]

Major Arab Terrorist Attacks against Israelis Prior to the 1967 Six-Day War

Palestinian and Arab spokesmen commonly claim that the recent Palestinian terrorism is the result of the Israeli 'occupation' of the West Bank and Gaza, adding that the violence will cease only when the 'occupation' is ended.

Despite this claim, it should be recalled that the many Palestinian and Arab rejectionist factions (such as the Hamas and the Hizbullah) repeatedly declare that even if Israel would fully withdraw from the territories they will continue their attacks, since they refute Israel's basic right to exist.

More importantly, however, the basic premise of the Palestinian claim - that the 'occupation' causes terrorism - is historically flawed. Arab and Palestinian terrorism against Israel existed prior to the beginning of Israeli control over the West Bank and Gaza as a result of the Six Day War of June 1967, and even prior to the establishment of the State of Israel in May 1948.

For example, Arab terrorism was rampant during wave of anti-Jewish riots in 1920-21 (which was characterized by the brutal murder in Jaffa of the prominent Jewish author Y. Brenner), during the 'Disturbances' of 1929 (which included the massacre of the Jewish community in Hebron), during the Arab Revolt of 1936-39, and in many other recorded incidents of wholesale anti-Jewish Arab violence throughout the pre-state period.

The Palestinian terrorism campaign was stepped-up on the eve of the UN Partition Resolution of November 1947, and led to the joint Arab invasion of 1948-49 which delineated the boundaries of the newly established State of Israel.

Indeed, this deplorable violence can be traced back to the beginning of the renewed Jewish settlement of the Land of Israel over a century ago.

After the War of Independence, Arab terrorism expanded in scope. In 1952, when 'fedayeen' terrorist border incursions reached their height, there were about 3,000 incidents of cross-border violence, extending from the malicious destruction of property to the brutal murder of civilians. This anti-Israeli violence encompassed both frontier settlements and population centers, and was perpetrated, for the most part, against innocent civilians, most of them new immigrants.

In conclusion, the oft-repeated Arab claim that the Israeli 'occupation' is somehow to blame for the Palestinian terrorism is nothing more than an empty retort, repudiated by the facts, and disproved by a century of historical reality.

The following is a partial list [emphasis added] of documented acts of Arab terrorism, all occurring prior to the beginning of the Israeli administration of the West Bank and Gaza in 1967:

Major Arab Terrorist Attacks against Israelis Prior to the 1967 Six-Day War

Jan 1, 1952 - Seven armed terrorists attacked and killed a nineteen year-old girl in her home, in the neighborhood of Beit Yisrael, in Jerusalem.

Apr 14, 1953 - Terrorists tried for the first time to infiltrate Israel by sea, but were unsuccessful. One of the boats was intercepted and the other boat escaped.

June 7, 1953 - A youngster was killed and three others were wounded, in shooting attacks on residential areas in southern Jerusalem.

June 9, 1953 - Terrorists attacked a farming community near Lod, and killed one of the residents. The terrorists threw hand grenades and sprayed gunfire in all directions. On the same night, another group of terrorists attacked a house in the town of Hadera. This occurred a day after Israel and Jordan signed an agreement, with UN mediation, in which Jordan undertook to prevent terrorists from crossing into Israel from Jordanian territory.

JUNE 9, 1953   
   
Policemen inspecting a house blown up by a grenade at Moshav Tirat Yehuda.

June 10, 1953 - Terrorists infiltrating from Jordan destroyed a house in the farming village of Mishmar Ayalon.

June 11, 1953 - Terrorists attacked a young couple in their home in Kfar Hess, and shot them to death.

Sept 2, 1953 - Terrorists infiltrated from Jordan, and reached the neighborhood of Katamon, in the heart of Jerusalem. They threw hand grenades in all directions. Miraculously, no one was hurt.

Mar 17, 1954 - Terrorists ambushed a bus traveling from Eilat to Tel Aviv, and opened fire at short range when the bus reached the area of Maale Akrabim in the northern Negev. In the initial ambush, the terrorists killed the driver and wounded most of the passengers. The terrorists then boarded the bus, and shot each passenger, one by one. Eleven passengers were murdered. Survivors recounted how the murderers spat on the bodies and abused them. The terrorists could clearly be traced back to the Jordanian border, some 20 km from the site of the terrorist attack.

   
Ambushed Egged bus from Eilat to Beer Sheva. 

Five of the bodies inside Egged bus ambushed by terrorists at Ma'ale Akrabim

The body of an Egged bus driver, mudered at Ma'ale Akrabim

Jan 2, 1955 - Terrorists killed two hikers in the Judean Desert.

Mar 24, 1955 - Terrorists threw hand grenades and opened fire on a crowd at a wedding in the farming community of Patish, in the Negev. A young woman was killed, and eighteen people were wounded in the attack.

Apr 7, 1956 - A resident of Ashkelon was killed in her home, when terrorists threw three hand grenades into her house.

Two members of Kibbutz Givat Chaim were killed, when terrorists opened fire on their car, on the road from Plugot Junction to Mishmar Hanegev.

There were further hand grenade and shooting attacks on homes and cars, in areas such as Nitzanim and Ketziot. One person was killed and three others wounded.

Apr 11, 1956 - Terrorists opened fire on a synagogue full of children and teenagers, in the farming community of Shafrir. Three children and a youth worker were killed on the spot, and five were wounded, including three seriously.

Prayer book and skull caps lay in pool of dried blood of school synagogue at Shafrir after attack by fedayeen

Apr 29, 1956 - Egyptians killed Roi Rotenberg, 21 years of age, from Nahal Oz.

Sept 12, 1956 - Terrorists killed three Druze guards at Ein Ofarim, in the Arava region.

Sept 23, 1956 - Terrorists opened fire from a Jordanian position, and killed four archaeologists, and wounded sixteen others, near Kibbutz Ramat Rachel.

Sept 24, 1956 - Terrorists killed a girl in the fields of the farming community of Aminadav, near Jerusalem.

Oct 4, 1956 - Five Israeli workers were killed in Sdom.

Oct 9, 1956 - Two workers were killed in an orchard of the youth village, Neve Hadassah, in the Sharon region.

Nov 8, 1956 - Terrorists opened fire on a train, attacked cars and blew up wells, in the North and Center of Israel. Six Israelis were wounded.

Feb 18, 1957 - Two civilians were killed by terrorist landmines, next to Nir Yitzhak, on the southern border of the Gaza Strip.

Mar 8, 1957 - A shepherd from Kibbutz Beit Govrin was killed by terrorists in a field near the Kibbutz.

Apr 16, 1957 - Terrorists infiltrated from Jordan, and killed two guards at Kibbutz Mesilot.

May 20, 1957 - A terrorist opened fire on a truck in the Arava region, killing a worker.

May 29, 1957 - A tractor driver was killed and two others wounded, when the vehicle struck a landmine, next to Kibbutz Kisufim.

Tractor and wagon were blown up by an Egyptian mine near Kissufim

MAY 29, 1957 

The ruins of the house blown up by fedayeen on the Seiff Estate at Tel Mond.

June 23, 1957 - Israelis were wounded by landmines, close to the Gaza Strip.

Aug 23, 1957 - Two guards of the Israeli Mekorot water company were killed near Kibbutz Beit Govrin.

Dec 21, 1957 - A member of Kibbutz Gadot was killed in the Kibbutz fields.

Feb 11, 1958 - Terrorists killed a resident of Moshav Yanov who was on his way to Kfar Yona, in the Sharon area.

Apr 5, 1958 - Terrorists lying in ambush shot and killed two people near Tel Lachish.

Apr 22, 1958 - Jordanian soldiers shot and killed two fishermen near Aqaba.

May 26, 1958 - Four Israeli police officers were killed in a Jordanian attack on Mt. Scopus, in Jerusalem.

Nov 17, 1958 - Syrian terrorists killed the wife of the British air attache in Israel, who was staying at the guesthouse of the Italian Convent on the Mt. of the Beatitudes.

Dec 3, 1958- A shepherd was killed at Kibbutz Gonen. In the artillery attack that followed, 31 civilians were wounded.

Jan 23, 1959 - A shepherd from Kibbutz Lehavot Habashan was killed.

Feb 1, 1959 - Three civilians were killed by a terrorist landmine near Moshav Zavdiel.

Apr 15, 1959 - A guard was killed at Kibbutz Ramat Rahel.

Apr 27, 1959 - Two hikers were shot at close range and killed near Massada.

Sept 6, 1959 - Bedouin terrorists killed a paratroop reconnaissance officer near Nitzana.

Sept 8, 1959 - Bedouins opened fire on an army bivouac in the Negev, killing an IDF officer, Captain Yair Peled.

Oct 3, 1959 - A shepherd from Kibbutz Heftziba was killed near Kibbutz Yad Hana.

Apr 26, 1960 - Terrorists killed a resident of Ashkelon south of the city.

Apr 12, 1962 - Terrorists fired on an Egged bus on the way to Eilat; one passenger was wounded.

Sept 30, 1962 - Two terrorists attacked an Egged bus on the way to Eilat. No one was wounded.

Jan 1, 1965 - Palestinian terrorists attempted to bomb the National Water Carrier. This was the first attack carried out by the PLO's Fatah faction.

May 31, 1965 - Jordanian Legionnaires fired on the neighborhood of Musrara in Jerusalem, killing two civilians and wounding four.

June 1, 1965 - Terrorists attack a house in Kibbutz Yiftach.

July 5, 1965 - A Fatah cell planted explosives at Mitzpe Massua, near Beit Guvrin; and on the railroad tracks to Jerusalem near Kafr Battir.

Aug 26, 1965 - A waterline was sabotaged at Kibbutz Manara, in the Upper Galilee.

Sept 29, 1965 - A terrorist was killed as he attempted to attack Moshav Amatzia.

Nov 7, 1965 - A Fatah cell that infiltrated from Jordan blew up a house in Moshav Givat Yeshayahu, south of Beit Shemesh. The house was destroyed, but the inhabitants were miraculously unhurt.

David Zalmanovitz and his wife Miriam standing in front of their house at Moshav Givat Yeshayahu damaged by Fatah terrorists from Jordan

Apr 25, 1966 - Explosions placed by terrorists wounded two civilians and damaged three houses in Moshav Beit Yosef, in the Beit Shean Valley.

May 16, 1966 - Two Israelis were killed when their jeep hit a terrorist landmine, north of the Sea of Galilee and south of Almagor. Tracks led into Syria.

July 13, 1966 - Two soldiers and a civilian were killed near Almagor, when their truck struck a terrorist landmine.

July 14, 1966 - Terrorists attacked a house in Kfar Yuval, in the North.

July 19, 1966 - Terrorists infiltrated into Moshav Margaliot on the northern border and planted nine explosive charges.

Oct 27, 1966 - A civilian was wounded by an explosive charge on the railroad tracks to Jerusalem.

[All photos are from the Government Press Office]

Yet another reason to make aliyah

I'm sure I'll catch hell from my lovely wife for airing our (her) dirty laundry in public, but this is too perfect a glimpse inside Israeli culture not to share.

One day late last year I was going through the day's mail when I noticed that Zahava had received her renewal notice for her driver's license.  I tossed it across the dining-room table to her and was somewhat annoyed to see her push it aside as she paged contentedly through the copy of 'Self Magazine' that had just arrived.

I didn't want to make too big a deal of it because experience has taught me that my lovely bride does not respond well to pressure.  So before I went back to my dinner I gently reminded her to take care of renewing her license right away.

The process here for renewing one's license is actually quite civilized and painless: 

You receive a renewal notice in the mail a couple of months before your old license expires.   You take this renewal notice to any post office, and pay the renewal fee.  The post office clerk records the payment... stamps both halves of the renewal notice... sends one half to the Government Licensing Bureau telling them to send you your new license... and returns the other half to you to be used as a temporary license in case your new license doesn't arrive before your old one expires.

Like I said... it's all very civilized.

So you can imagine I was a little concerned when I walked into my wife's studio a week or two later and saw the renewal notice sitting untouched on her desk.

The phrase I think I used was, "You know you need to take care of this, right?"

What my wife probably thinks she heard was, "What the hell is wrong with you?  I told you to take care of this and now here it is weeks later and you are totally going to forget about it and they'll take away your driver's license and throw you in jail!"

Like I said... Zahava doesn't respond well to pressure.  :-)

The end result was that Zahava chased me out of her office with one of her exasperated ' just what kind of an incompetent idiot do you take me for?' looks.

Fast forward six months to last week.  I got a phone call at work from my wife which started out like this:

"Honey, you're going to be so angry with me..."

Anyone who has ever heard those words from a spouse automatically starts checking off items on a mental list:

• House burned down?  Nope, caller ID says she's calling from the home number.
• Car wrecked?  Who cares... if she's talking to me she's OK.
• Missed the deadline for filing tax return?  Nope, I signed the returns weeks ago.

All this and more flashed through my mind in the millisecond before I answered, "What?  What happened???"

There was a long pause before she said, "You know how you were after me to renew my license last October?  Well my license expired at the beginning of January, and I just realized I never renewed it."

I don't know what kind of an explosion she expected, but I couldn't muster even a shred of anger.  Heck, the only reason I'm such a pest about reminding Zahava to deal with this kind of thing right away is that I am at least as absent-minded as she is... probably more-so!

But regardless of how understanding I might be, the State of Israel was quite another matter.  Her license had expired almost four months ago!  I began imagining stiff fines and Zahava having to go into the Licensing Bureau to deal with endless, well, bureaucracy!

Not wanting to make her feel any worse than she probably already felt, I made an excuse to get off the phone and left her alone with the problem.

A short time later the phone rang again and it was Zahava sounding decidedly more up-beat.  Instead of taking a bus into Jerusalem to throw herself on the tender mercies of the Misrad HaRishui, she had done what every good immigrant should do before allowing themselves to become a total frayer (sucker); she called up an Israeli neighbor and asked for advice.

It turns out that the Israeli Government assumes that many (most) people will procrastinate and forget to renew their licenses on time.  So they give a generous grace period (either 6 months or a year... I'm still not sure) during which all you have to do is bring your renewal notice to the post office... pay the regular fee... and POOF!, you walk out with your stamped form/temporary license, no questions asked! 

And like magic, within a few weeks your permanent license arrives in the mail as if you hadn't suffered some kind of mental breakdown that caused a four month delay.

Look, I know I'm often tough on the Israeli bureaucracy here on treppenwitz.  But honestly, how can you stay mad at a government office that assumes you are going to procrastinate and miss every deadline... and makes official allowances for such sloth?!

Think about that the next time you're waiting on line like cattle at the DMV!

With all its faults, I love this country.

If this evil decree is allowed to stand...

This past week I read a news story (another link here) that tripped all of my fuses.  It was about a decision handed down by Israel's High Rabbinic Court that, if allowed to stand, will destroy the lives of thousands of people.

Here's the Cliff Notes version:

Last year a married couple consisting of a man who was Jewish from birth and a woman who had converted to Judaism came before a lower Rabbinic court in Ashdod seeking a divorce.  The court initially granted the 'Get' (religious bill of divorcement), but for some reason took it upon itself to question the woman about her level of observance after the 'Get' had been given.

It turns out that after going through her conversion the woman did not continue to live an Orthodox lifestyle.  So the court issued another decision stating that the 'Get' that had just been granted was not required.  The reason being that since she had not maintained an observant lifestyle, they declared her conversion invalid.  Since a non-Jew does not need a 'Get'; ipso facto this woman did not need one. 

The case was appealed to the Rabbinic High Court in Jerusalem and an unprecedented decision was handed down.  In addition to upholding the Ashdod Rabbinic court's ruling about the woman's conversion being invalidated retroactively (making her children non-Jewish and unable to marry in Israel except to other non-Jews), the high court also INVALIDATED EVERY SINGLE CONVERSION signed by the head of Israel's conversion authority, Rabbi Chaim Druckman since 1999!

This politically-motivated, disgusting decision will mean that literally thousands of Israelis who were converted to Judaism by Rabbi Druckman (after an extensive course of study and verification of sincerity/lifestyle change), along with their children, are no longer Jewish and have been relegated to a legal and religious purgatory in the periphery of Israeli society.

I am a religiously observant Jew from birth who has accepted the yoke of Torah and all of it's commandments upon myself and my family.  But that does not mean I will bow to the Israeli Rabbinate's Vatican-like stranglehold on Jewish life in Israel. 

Therefore I am making the following declaration here and now before as many witnesses who care to read it:

If this evil decree is allowed to stand I will do everything in my power to champion a system of Dati Leumi (Nationalist Religious) courts and institutions to oversee all areas currently under the auspices of the Rabbinic High Court, thus making that court redundant and moot.

Furthermore, if these monsters are still in power when my children are old enough to get married, I will encourage them (my children, not the Rabbis) to go abroad to have a Halachicly kosher wedding rather than be subjected to the disgraceful and condescending humiliation imposed upon all Israelis by the Haredi-controlled Israeli Rabbinate at what should be the happiest moment of their lives.

I swear these things here and now in front of all of you.

Not surprisingly, My Obiter Dicta has a much more scholarly take on the topic, explaining how this is the Anti-Zionist Haredi Rabbinic leaders jumping on an opportunity to censure all 'Zionist Rabbis' and thwart their influence on religious life here in Israel.

On a related topic... as usual, Imshin nails it.

How can there be any common ground?

I have a favor to ask.  Just for a moment let's set aside the ongoing terrorism, rocket attacks and overt incitement being sanctioned, financed and carried out by all official branches of Palestinian leadership... including both Fatah and Hamas. 

I know that's a lot to ask... but those who insist we must find a way to find common ground with the Palestinians point out that it is necessary to talk peace especially in its absence.

So we'll put the daily attempts to dehumanize, maim and kill innocent Israelis aside for a moment.  Not forgotten, mind you... just off to the side where it can't interfere with the topic at hand.

Today's topic - quite appropriately - is the Holocaust. 

Once upon a time the word 'Holocaust' was self-explanatory and carried tremendous weight and meaning.  It was mentioned in hushed tones and was always understood to mean the murder of 6 million Jews by the Nazis during WWII.

Sadly, the lexicon of the holocaust (e.g. Nazi, genocide, massacre, ghetto, storm troopers, etc.), has been co-opted by the people with whom we are told we must make peace at any cost. 

These peace partners gleefully use these holocaust terms as cheap insults to suggest that Israel is perpetrating a campaign of Nazi-like genocide on the Palestinian people... and then without a trace of irony go on to claim that the Nazi genocide never really occurred.

P.A. President Mahmoud Abbas himself wrote his doctoral thesis on Holocaust denial.  It was entitled "The Secret Connection between the Nazis and the Leaders of the Zionist Movement" and is chock full of scholarship such as the following excerpt:

"It seems that the interest of the Zionist movement, however, is to inflate this figure [of Holocaust deaths] so that their gains will be greater. This led them to emphasize this figure [six million] in order to gain the solidarity of international public opinion with Zionism. Many scholars have debated the figure of six million and reached stunning conclusions—fixing the number of Jewish victims at only a few hundred thousand."

His thesis has since been published in book form and widely distributed throughout the Arab world, and not surprisingly has found quite a receptive audience.  He has since claimed that he didn't mean to argue specific numbers for the holocaust, but when the entire thesis is about alleged collusion between the Nazis and their victims and he has never backed way from this, there is more to fault than simple numbers.  And remember... this is the 'moderate' with who Israel is supposed to find some common ground upon which we can both create a home.

Then there is Hamas.

In preparation for Holocaust Remembrance Day which is being observed today in Israel, Hamas commissioned a television program that also claims collusion between the Nazis and the pre-state Jewish leadership.... albeit on an even gastlier scale.

The program claims that David Ben Gurion arranged for the Nazis to murder the weak and handicapped Jews of Europe while allowing only the strong and healthy ones to come to Palestine.  The goal was to remove the burden of these weak co-religionists from the embryonic Jewish State, and at the same time garner helpful sympathy from the world.

This from the Jerusalem Post:

The documentary's narrator [says] Israel's first prime minister David Ben Gurion decided that Jewish "disabled and handicapped are a burden to the state," after which "the Satanic Jews" - the film cuts to a picture of a hassidic Jew - "thought up an evil plot to be rid of the burden of disabled and handicapped" - the film then cuts to piles of emaciated corpses - "in twisted criminal ways."

This program is nothing less than state-sponsored anti-Semitism and incitement, and was broadcast throughout the region. Yet we are supposed to sit at the table with these people and discuss truces?

I ask you, how is it that we are supposed to find common ground with people that not only deny us the right to live... but who ridicule and deny our suffering and death? 

Citations and sources can be found here

Love Bomb

I can't remember the last time I turned off my cell phone.  Seriously... I mean, who turns off their cell phones anymore?  With 'silent' and 'vibrate' settings for meetings and such there's really no need. 

Or so I thought.

I was trying to make a call yesterday when my cell phone suddenly started acting a little hinky... you know, giving me error messages and saying that it didn't recognize the network.  So I figured, what the heck... It's not much different from a computer... I'll just reboot the damned thing.

I turned off the phone, took out the battery, reseated the SIM card and put it all together again before pressing the ON button. 

When it had cycled through the start-up process and played the catchy little Nokia theme song, a brief message flashed on the screen:

I love you soooo much Abba!!!

Love Ariella <3

Apparently, some time during the past year my daughter had surreptitiously changed my phone's programmable 'Welcome Note' to something a bit more personal.  Her message was like a little 'love bomb'... with a delayed fuse... waiting to go off in my heart whenever I would restart my phone.

I think tonight when everyone is asleep, I'll sneak upstairs and plant a little love bomb of my own on Ariella's and Gilad's cell phones.  It may be months before the bombs go off... but considering the warm 'after-shocks' that are still going off in my heart... it's certainly worth the wait.

[Note:  Most cell phones allow you to program a 'Welcome Note' (this is usually found in the 'Settings'/'Phone Settings' menu).  My guess is that this feature was designed so people could program in their names and addresses in case the phone is lost.  But I know from experience that whenever I've found a lost cell phone I simply scroll through the address book for listings such as 'Home' or 'Mom' or 'Dad' in order to contact the owner.  So why not use this little feature to plant a little 'love bomb' in someone's phone.  Trust me... it'll make their week.]

The Sandman sends pictures

Yesterday I posted some of our vacation pics and alluded to the fact that on one of the days we were privileged to tour a Nabatean ruin in the Negev with none other than the Sandman and his family.

Apparently in addition to passing some mean gas (he's an anesthesiologist... what did you think I meant?!) the Sandman is also an accomplished photographer.  Here are some shots he took:

First is a picture of us kicking back while the Belly dancer performs:

Here are Ari and Gili enjoying some fresh squeezed grapefruit juice:

And just to prove that it wasn't only the men who were leering at the belly dancer, here is proof that there were a few appreciative women in the audience:

Apparently, the Sandman is a giver too!  Who knew?  :-)

Ex-President for Sale

[This has made the rounds on the net over the past few weeks but it is so incredibly important and well written that I wanted to share it here]

Ex-President For Sale, by Alan M. Dershowitz

Jimmy Carter is making more money selling integrity than peanuts. I have known Jimmy Carter for more than 30 years. I first met him in the spring of 1976 when, as a relatively unknown candidate for president, he sent me a handwritten letter asking for my help in his campaign on issues of crime and justice.

I had just published an article in The New York Times Magazine on sentencing reform, and he expressed interest in my ideas and asked me to come up with additional ones for his campaign.

Shortly thereafter, my former student Stuart Eisenstadt, brought Carter to Harvard to meet with some faculty members, me among them. I immediately liked Jimmy Carter and saw him as a man of integrity and principle. I signed on to his campaign and worked very hard for his election.

When Newsweek magazine asked his campaign for the names of people on whom Carter relied for advice, my name was among those given out. I continued to work for Carter over the years, most recently I met him in Jerusalem a year ago, and we briefly discussed the Mid-East.

Though I disagreed with some of his points, I continued to believe that the was making them out of a deep commitment to principle and to human rights.

Recent disclosures of Carter's extensive financial connections to Arab oil money, particularly from Saudi Arabia , had deeply shaken my belief in his integrity. When I was first told that he received a monetary reward in the name of Shiekh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahayan, and kept the money, even after Harvard returned money from the same source because of its anti-Semitic history, I simply did not believe it. How could a man of such apparent
integrity enrich himself with dirty money from so dirty a source?

And let there be no mistake about how dirty the Zayed Foundation is. I know because I was involved, in a small way, in helping to persuade Harvard University to return more than $2 million that the financially strapped Divinity School received from this source.

Initially I was reluctant to put pressure on Harvard to turn back money for the Divinity School, but then a student at the Divinity School Rachael Lea Fish -- showed me the facts.

They were staggering. I was amazed that in the 21st century there were still foundations that espoused these views. The Zayed Centre for Coordination and Follow-up - a think-tank funded by the Shiekh and run by his son hosted speakers who called Jews "the enemies of all nations," attributed the assassination of John Kennedy to Israel and the Mossad and the 9/11 attacks to the United States' own military, and stated that the Holocaust was a "fable." (They also hosted a speech by Jimmy Carter.) To its credit, Harvard turned the money back. To his discredit, Carter did not.

Jimmy Carter was, of course, aware of Harvard's decision, since it was highly publicized. Yet he kept the money . Indeed, this is what he said in accepting the funds: "This award has special significance for me because it is named for my personal friend, Sheik Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan." Carter's personal friend, it turns out, was an unredeemable anti-Semite and all-around bigot.

In reading Carter's statements, I was reminded of the bad old Harvard of the 1930s, which continued to honor Nazi academics after the anti-Semitic policies of Hitler's government became clear. Harvard of the 1930s was complicit in evil. I sadly concluded that Jimmy Carter of the 21st century has become complicit in evil. The extent of Carter's financial support from, and even dependence on, dirty money is still not fully known.

What we do know is deeply troubling. Carter and his Center have accepted millions of dollars from suspect sources, beginning with the bail-out of the Carter family peanut business in the late 1970s by BCCI, a now-defunct and virulently anti-Israeli bank indirectly controlled by the Saudi Royal family, and among whose principal investors is Carter's friend, Sheikh Zayed. Agha Hasan Abedi, the founder of the bank, gave Carter "$500,000 to help the former president establish his center...[and] more than $10  million to Mr. Carter's different projects."

Carter gladly accepted the money, though Abedi had called his bank-ostensibly the source of his funding-"the best way to fight the evil influence of the Zionists."

BCC isn't the only source: Saudi King Fahd contributed millions to the Carter Center- "in 1993 alone...$7.6 million" as have other members of the Saudi Royal Family. Carter also received a million dollar pledge from the Saudi-based bin Laden family, as well as a personal $500,000 environmental award named for Sheikh Zayed, and paid for by t he Prime Ministe r of the United Arab Emirates.

It's worth noting that, despite the influx of Saudi money funding the Carter Center, and despite the Saudi Arabian government's myriad human rights abuses, the Carter Center's Human Rights program has no activity whatever in Saudi Arabia. The Saudis have apparently bought his silence for a steep price.

The bought quality of the Center's activities becomes even more clear, however, when reviewing the Center's human rights activities in other countries: essentially no human rights activities in China or in North Korea, or in Iran, Iraq,the Sudan, or Syria, but activity regarding Israel and its alleged abuses, according to the Center's website.

The Carter Center's mission statement claims that "The Center is nonpartisan and acts as a neutral party in dispute resolution activities." How can that be, given that its coffers are full of Arab money, and that its focus is away from significant Arab abuses and on Israel's far less serious ones?

No reasonable person can dispute therefore that Jimmy Carter has been and remains dependent on Arab oil money, particularly from Saudi Arabia .

Does this mean that Carter has necessarily been influenced in his thinking about the Middle East by receipt of such enormous amounts of money? Ask Carter. The entire premise of his criticism of Jewish influence on American foreign policy is that money talks.

It is Carter-not me-who has made the point that if politicians receive money from Jewish sources, then they are not free to decide issues regarding the Middle East for themselves.

It is Carter, not me, who has argued that distinguished reporters cannot honestly report on the Middle East because they are being paid by Jewish money. So, by Carter's own standards, it would be almost economically "suicidal" for Carter "to espouse a balanced position between Israel and Palestine."

By Carter's own standards, therefore, his views on the Middle East must be discounted. It is certainly possible that he now believes them. Money, particularly large amounts of money, has a way of persuading people to a particular position.

It would not surprise me if Carter, having received so much Arab money, is now honestly committed to their cause. But his failure to disclose the extent of his financial dependence on Arab money, and the absence of any self reflection on whether the receipt of this money has unduly influenced his views, is a form of deception bordering on corruption.

I have met cigarette lobbyists, who are supported by the cigarette industry, and who have come to believe honestly that cigarettes are merely a safe form of adult recreation, that cigarettes are not addicting and that the cigarette industry is really trying to persuade children not to smoke. These people are fooling themselves (or fooling us into believing that they are fooling themselves) just as Jimmy Carter is fooling himself (or persuading us to believe that he is fooling himself).

If money determines political and public views -as Carter insists "Jewish money" does -then Carter's views on the Middle East must be deemed to have been influenced by the vast sums of Arab money he has received. If he who pays the piper calls the tune, then Carter's off-key tunes have been called by his Saudi Arabian paymasters. It pains me to say this, but I now believe that there is no person in American public life today who has a lower ratio of real [integrity] to apparent integrity than Jimmy Carter.

The public perception of his integrity is extraordinarily high. His real integrity, it now turns out, is extraordinarily low. He is no better than so many former American politicians who, after leaving public life, sell themselves to the highest bidder and become lobbyists for despicable causes.

That is now Jimmy Carter's sad legacy.

Alan M. Dershowitz is the Felix Frankfurter professor of law at Harvard Law School and author of The Case for Israel.

The obligatory vacation pics

Even though we only took day-trips and goofed off near home during our Passover vacation, the bylaws still make it quite clear that vacation pictures must be shown in front of friends and neighbors. 

Sorry for any inconvenience, but rules are rules. 

Look at the bright side.  You get to see these on the web from the comfort of your own home.  Once upon a time (say, 1965) you would have been a hostage guest in our family's living-room, eating potato chips and bad onion dip, while my father wrestled with a balky slide projector. 

Feeling pretty lucky right about now, yes?:

One of our day trips was a two-and-a-half hour trek through the Judean Desert down into Wadi Kelt (Nahal Prat in Hebrew).  We took the dogs along and everyone sweated buckets.  Much fun was had letting Yonah wander close to the cliffs and watching Zahava's heart stop.  If memory serves, we put my mother through the same treatment at the Grand Canyon.  Good times:

Next up is a picture of Gilad using a cliff as a convenient backdrop:

Ariella had some fun taking arms-length self-portraits... a genre of photograph that is apparently all the rage with the teen glam set:

Down at the bottom of the Wadi there is a nice cool spring-fed stream flowing into a series of pools.  This is an incredibly welcome reward for anyone stupid enough to hike through the desert to get there.  We all got nice and wet... even the dogs.  This is a shot of Zahava and Lulu relaxing, post dip (Note: those are not Zahava's cancer sticks there on the rock.  She does not now, nor has she ever smoked.):

After I got wet I did what I do at the end of every hike; I took a nap.  Lulu liked the idea and joined me:

The next day we took a trip to the ruins of a Nabatean city near Dimona in the Negev Desert where there was a Bedouin festival going on.  [update:  The Sandman, whose lovely family we enjoyed this particular tiyul, points out in the comments that it was a Nabatean festival featuring Bedouins].  For some reason I didn't take very many pictures (or maybe Zahava deleted all the pictures I took of the Belly Dancer), but all I seem to have left is this shot of Yonah playing near one of the stone walls of the ruin:

Last up is another picture of Yonah. 

Here's the deal.  When Gilad was about Yonah's age, he wanted desperately to learn how to catch a baseball.  But he was also desperately afraid of getting hit by the hard ball.  My solution was to buy him some mini-catcher's equipment.  Once he was all decked out I was able to chuck balls at him full speed without him being afraid of getting hit.  And sure enough, he's grown up to be an all-star utility infielder (including catcher, of course) in the Israeli Little League.

So a few weeks ago Gili and I were having a catch and Yonah started pestering me to throw him the ball too.  As soon as I lobbed the ball to him he ducked for cover.  I knew it was time to break out the catcher's gear.  Trust me parents... there is no better (or safer) way to teach your kids to catch a baseball without all the flinching and closing their eyes!

So now that you've gotten the whole explanation... here's a picture of Yonah calling for 'the deuce' from his big brother:

Well that's about it.  The chips are all gone and only a few smudges of onion dip are left in the bowl.  That wasn't so bad, was it?

[maybe if you ask nicely Zahava will send me one of the belly dancer pics to post]

Bonus Pictures (thanks to my lovely wife who 'found' the missing shots of the belly dancer) For those who are interested, she was Israeli... not Arab.  Oh, and one more thing.  In his comment, The Sandman pointed out that she had lovely eyes.  I'll have to take his word for it as I didn't notice at the time: