Pure Racism is Arab Terrorism Against Jews and All Other Forms of Antisemitism

Evyatar Borovsky, 31, was laid to rest Tuesday evening, Arutz 7

 

 

Another innocent Jew was murdered today by an Arab terrorist.  Nu, is the world up in arms against those Arabs?  No, I haven't heard anything.

• I just checked CNN, nada, nothing
• BBC did mention the terror attack but also made a point of mentioning that "nine Palestinians have been killed in various incidents with Israeli forces in the West Bank since the start of this year," and the victim lived in a "settlement." And "settlements are considered illegal under international law..."
• Nothing about the terror attack in The New York Times, but it did have this headline, Israeli Airstrike in Gaza Kills 1 Palestinian, and it also mentioned the Israeli President Shimon Peres met with the new Pope and asked him to help the so called "peace" sic process.

I'm dreading to hear what gifts and promises Peres make to the Pope.  The Vatican has been angling for parts of Mount Zion, which we shouldn't give away. The Vatican already owns/controls too much land here, and there is no reason for the Israeli Government to evict The Diaspora Yeshiva which has been there for over forty years.

I'm also disgusted with the fact that Tsipi Livni has been entrusted with negotiations with our enemies.  Read Ruthie Blum's latest Israel Hayom article about that.

And I don't like the fact that NRP-Bayit Yehudi's Naftali Bennett is promoting a referendum on whatever agreement Tsipi wants to sign. I don't want any negotiations at all.  There's nothing to negotiate.

This morning's terror attack, like all of the Arab terror attacks against Jews, is an act of violent racism, pure and simple. There is no other way to describe it.  Killing a person just because of his religion/nationality is a form of racism for sure, and I honestly don't understand why people ignore that simple fact.  So, all those Leftists aka Liberals should be against Arab terror attacks which target Jews.

The Day Jimmy Carter Saved the Jews from Mike Evans

Posted by Jewishisrael.com

Jewishisrael is no friend of Jimmy Carter. Yet in the aftermath of this month's brouhaha over the incongruous decision by the editors of Cardoza Law School’s Journal of Conflict Resolution to honor the former president, JewishIsrael felt it timely to recount an episode also plagued with absurdity which still has serious repercussions for both Israeli and Diaspora Jewry.

In 1978, President Jimmy Carter, under pressure from the American Jewish community, intervened to save countless numbers of Jewish youth from Christian missionary Mike Evans, who was effectively working to "save" [sic] as many young Jewish souls as possible.

This report is no parody, but it is a terrible paradox, as both Evans and Carter have caused irreparable damage to Am Yisrael, but now find themselves being acclaimed by leading American Jewish and Israeli institutions. How the Jewish community got to this absurd juncture is worth exploration…more

Fiddling on the Roof, While Iran Develops Its Nuclear Arsenal

It has been clear to me for a long time that the United States is just posturing and not a real world power.  It has no do or die principles and its recent military successes were a long time ago or not worth bragging about.

American military success, Dry Bones

Most worrisome is the fact that instead of eliminating the Iranian nuclear industry American officials at best  just mumble about letting Israel, one of the smallest countries in the world, "take care of it" if Israel really feels in danger.  Duh!  Iran is anti-American even more than anti-Israel.  For Americans to rationalize that and lie to themselves that Iran would only use weapons against Israel is totally unrealistic and very dangerous.  In Israel Hayom, David Weinberg wrote of how the Americans are hoping to ignore the dangers of Iran to world peace.

Now, Pickering is back at the head of a panel of former senior U.S. officials and outside experts called "The Iran Project," urging U.S. President Barack Obama to drop sanctions and covert action against Iran, and instead negotiate more intensively with Tehran.

"I fundamentally believe that the balance between sanctions and diplomacy has been misaligned," says Pickering. He and his colleagues (who at the time included Chuck Hagel, now defense secretary) write that the sanctions policy seems to be backfiring and has "contributed to an increase in repression and corruption within Iran." They worry that sanctions "may be sowing the seeds of long-term alienation between the Iranian people and the United States."

In an interview with The New York Times, Pickering also contends that Obama should review the covert program against Iran -- which reportedly has included computer sabotage of its nuclear facilities -- to "stop anything that is peripheral, that is not buying us much time" in slowing Iran's progress.

The United States is back in its pre-World War Two isolationist mode for sure.  The United States had hoped that it wouldn't be "dragged into" war with Hitler.  It tried being accommodating, and there were many prominent Americans who didn't find Hitler problematic.  They certainly didn't mind his anti-Semitism.

Photo: Marc Israel Sellem/The Jerusalem Post

At the Jerusalem Post's NY Conference, Former Mossad Chief Meir Dagan stated that:

“To threaten an immediate attack on Iran is not beneficial to Israel,” Dagan said. “It transferred the Iranian issue from a worldwide issue to an Israeli issue. I would have been happier had [US President Barack] Obama made his announcement that he would not let Iran get nuclear weapons in Riyadh and not in Jerusalem.”

I must admit that I don't agree with much else that Dagan stated.  He's total unrealistic when it comes to the chance of "peace" with Arab terrorists.

When you look at the big picture, it's clear that the Arab terrorism that targets Israelis is also related to the Arab and Islamic terrorism that can be found even in the United States, such as the Boston Marathon bombing.

It's a very dangerous mistake that Israel is accepting foreign advice/instructions/ideology to do everything it can to make peace with the Arab Terrorists.  It is totally impossible to make peace with terrorists.  Consider it against their religion!

The bottom line is that the world is in big trouble!

A Different Way of Looking At Those Forty-Nine 49 Days in Desert and Pesach Sheini

Especially for the past year and a half, since I've been studying במדבר Bamidbar, the Book of Numbers in Matan with Atara Snowbell, I simultaneously see more clearly and have more questions about period immediately after the Biblical Jewish People were freed from slavery to Pharaoh in Egypt.

Their impatience for Moses's return from visiting G-d at Mount Sinai is even  more inexplicable:

We ask rather rhetorically:

"How did we manage in the days before cell phones?"

One thing was that we had to be more patient, trusting and planned things better in advance.  We knew that since there was no way to contact someone on their way,  we just had to wait a bit longer, or more and trust that there was some perfectly legitimate reason for the delay.  That's what makes the sin of the golden calf, the rapid and impatient building of an idol, that golden calf, so inexplicable and bad.  The recently released from slavery to Pharaoh in Egypt Jewish People had decided that Moses must have deserted them, died or whatever when he didn't come at the moment they expected him and demanded from Aaron that they construct a god, that infamous golden calf.

Time should have been more flexible without modern clocks, watches, computers etc.  The only rationale behind the rapid construction of that idol, the golden calf, was that the people had been planning it all along.  It's hard to believe that it could have been planned, gold collected, melted, molded and cooled within hours.  I can't see how it was physically possible.

Rashi explains that the sin of the Golden Calf originated in a misunderstanding. Moses ascended Mount Sinai on the 7^th day of the Jewish month of Sivan with the stated intention of being gone for forty days and returning on the morning of the forty-first day. The people interpreted this statement to include the day of the ascent in the count of the forty days, and therefore expected Moses to return on the morning of the 16^th of Tamuz. Moses actually meant that he would be away a full forty days and nights. The day of his ascent could not be counted as part of the forty days since he left in the morning (in the Jewish calendar the day starts in the evening and part of the day had already passed by the time of his departure), and the day of his projected return was the 17^th of Tamuz, the day on which he duly arrived, right on schedule.
We must approach the misunderstanding that occurred here in Jewish cultural terms to appreciate it fully; the misunderstanding concerned the proper way to interpret spoken words. The interpretation of scriptural words is a rabbinic function par excellence. There is no doubt that the greatest rabbinic authorities of the desert generation, including Aaron himself, were consulted. Many people are aware that rabbinic decisions always reflect the majority consensus. This means that according to the best rabbinic authority available at the time, the correct interpretation of Moses' words was that he would be back on the 16^th. Torah tradition teaches that the best rabbinic authority is the true Torah position. The conclusion: the Jewish people were fully justified to conclude that Moses was late.

It should have taken about a week or so until the idol was constructed and cooled, right?  Are there any sculptors or jewelers reading this?

There's a similar mentality in the Appease aka Peace Now movement and philosophy. There's something inherently sinful in this worship of a non-Jewish concept of "peace" and begging non-Jews for it.  Jewish survival, victories, nationhood etc. are only due to G-d Almighty and not conventional weapons, so called super powers, the United Nations etcetera... The late Professor Benzion Netanyahu's The Founding Fathers of Zionism is worth reading especially to see the different approaches the early Zionist leaders had to the eventual acceptance by the goyim, secular authorities of Jewish Nationhood.  None of them had any spiritual, religious or Jewish concept of the road to a Jewish state. At the official book launch to the republishing of the book a number of years before Netanyahu's death, Moshe Shamir, davka not a Torah observant Jew,  stated that Netanyahu made a serious mistake leaving out the religious Zionist leaders from his book.  Shamir understood that our existence depends on G-d.

Peace and victory for the Jewish Nation and Jewish People also depend on G-d and G-d gives us those things according to our behavior.  I had never before celebrated, in anyway possible Pesach Sheini.  Pesach Sheini is the "second chance Passover."  During Biblical times when there was a Passover sacrifice, those who were ritually unclean during the actual time of Passover could make up the sacrifice a month later.  Considering that we haven't done a proper Passover sacrifice, because there isn't a Holy Temple, it is becoming very popular to do  some sort of Pesach Sheni celebration. 

my Pesach Sheini matzah

Many people now eat matzah on that day, just to identify with our loss of a Temple.  I had been among those who didn't do anything for Pesach Sheini, but my friends who came to Shiloh the day before include a few who do celebrate the day with matzah.  And then on the actual Pesach Sheini day, I heard more news of pressure on the Israeli Government to "try giving Land to the Arabs again for peace," and I just knew that it was a sign to celebrate Pesach Sheini.  So I ate matzah and prayed to G-d with every bite that our government leaders would be gifted by G-d with true Jewish Torah wisdom.  And considering that Israel is a democracy, meaning that we ordinary citizens choose our leaders/government officials, we all must get wisdom from G-d to choose well. 

It was explained to me that Pesach Sheini, the "second chance Passover" is symbolic of the opportunity to correct our mistakes, do teshuva, repent to G-d for our sins. The door to repentance is always open. G-d welcomes us to Torah Life.  And looking back, Lag B'Omer is the day I began my journey.  On Lag B'Omer, 1963, I attended my very, very first NCSY event.  It was a picnic at Bear Mountain State Park, NY.  I had no idea what I was starting and where it would take me.  But here I am in Holy Shiloh, and I have been here for almost thirty-two years, B"H, Praise the Lord!

The FBI and IDF à la Latma and Two Important Articles

Definitely one of Latma's best...

The Tribal Update brings you a revealing interview with the commanding officer in Judea and Samaria and a glimpse into the FBI's investigation into the Boston Marathon bomber.

And another couple of articles that are definitely worth reading:

Caroline Glick's Time to confront Obama in which she explains in detail how bad and dangerous United States policy is when I comes to Iran, Syria and their internal security.  The article  also appears in the Jerusalem Post.

I also highly recommend reading Ruthie Blum's latest article which she wrote  for  Communities at WashingtonTimes.com,   Richard Falk and Radical Islam and also Israel Hayom.

Those Moving Red Lines

Politicians love to claim that they have "red lines," standards that if someone or a country crosses, then, they'll immediately... do whatever they should have done to prevent the horrid, dangerous thing that should happen.

The American Government expended a lot of energy claiming that Israel had just been imagining that Syria used chemical weapons, but now seem to have recognized that a "red line" had been crossed.

I don't understand why all these governments and leaders, politicians etc. wait for the crossing of the dangerous red lines and don't do everything they should to prevent dangerous people from reaching the "red line."  Just call it one of my "dumb questions."  Once these "red lines" have been crossed, there's no real going back.  We're then stuck with a new, horrendously dangerous fait accompli, status quo.

An accomplished fact; an action which is completed before those affected by it are in a position to query or reverse it.

Arlene Kushner wrote a very good article on the situation,  On The Edge.

Yesterday, Israeli Ambassador to the UN Ron Prosor told the Security Council:
"The Iranian nuclear program continues to advance at the speed of an express train," Prosor said. "The international community's efforts to stop them are moving at the pace of the local train, pausing at every stop for some nations to get off and on."

The world is plagued with faux leaders who refuse to take the initiative and prevent disaster.  They keep on hoping that the dangers will just go away in a sort of spontaneous combustion.  And the "leaders" of democratic countries just pray that those dangers will reach their peak after their term of office, so they can blame their unlucky successor. like in the game of "hot potato."

The United States loves to consider its President as "the most powerful man in the world," but at best Obama is offering tiny Israel the "opportunity" to bomb the Iranian reactor.  That makes Barack Hussein Obama and the United States of America the wimpiest country in the world. Their promising not to condemn Israel for doing what they should be doing is not leadership; it's hiding behind mommy's apron.

And no doubt the true enemies of world peace, Iran, Syria and the terrorists making their secret plans are just laughing...

Sorry, But Not All Mothers are The Same

Leftist philosophy and culture are based on a popular fallacy that we're all the same deep down.  Sorry Charley, but that isn't true, not at all.  Not everyone has the same basic values, not even mothers.  Similar to the Japanese World War Two kamikaze pilots who flew their planes and themselves into American targets to destroy and die, Arabs and Muslims value and praise dying if it kills the enemy.  That's what's behind the mentality, philosophy of "suicide bombers," the Arab terrorists who strap themselves with explosives to blow up Israelis and plan on dying in the process.  The families of these terrorists proudly celebrate those acts.  The idea that their son or daughter died killing Jews makes them very happy.

Paula Stern, A Soldier's Mother, wrote about the Boston Marathon Bombers' mother and her eerie reaction to her older son's death and what those two boys did.

The mother of the two brothers is Zubeidat Tsarnaeva. In this interview, she speaks of her sons Tamerlan and Tzhokhar Tsarnaevso to CNN.

“If they are going to kill him. I don’t care. My oldest son has been killed, and I don’t care. I don’t care if my youngest son is going to be killed today. I want the world to hear this. And, I don’t care if I am going to get killed too. Okay? And I will say Allahu Akbar! That's what I'm going to say!“  -- Zubeidat Tsarnaeva 

The surviving brother, all of 19 years old, has said the actions they took were to defend Islam. His words, combined with his mother's words make it clear what the motive was. It is, once again, a message from a culture that cares more for martyrdom than life.

This is the woman, Zubeidat Tsarnaeva, whose children are murderers, terrorists. 

At one appointment, Tsarnaeva “started quoting a conspiracy theory, telling me how she thought 9/11 was purposely created by the American government to make Americans hate Muslims,” Alyssa 23, wrote on her blog of her visits to the apartment. (complete article)

Now, why did the Tsarnaeva family move to the United States?  I think that Americans should be very, very nervous about their immigrant population from certain countries and cultures.  I'm just being very pragmatic.

Listen to her words.



If this is for real, shouldn't she be arrested?

Pilgrimage to Shiloh, Like in Ancient Days

Centuries before Jews trekked to Jerusalem for prayer, Jewish pilgrims came to the Mishkan Tabernacle in Shiloh to pray to G-d on chaggim, holidays and whenever they could.  Yes, the Shiloh where I live is the same Shiloh, which was the spiritual and administrative Capital of the Jewish Nation for almost four hundred years, from the time of Joshua until Shmuel Hanavi, Samuel the Prophet.

We were provided with an
excellent tour guide.

Yesterday,  a group of women came from all over Israel to visit and pray at the ancient site, Shiloh HaKeduma, Tel Shiloh.  They have been in touch with me via social media, mostly facebook, and we have been planning this trip for months.

outside a local store

They traveled from various parts of the country by bus and car for the opportunity to pray where Chana prayed and see the modern Jewish community that has grown on the same site where our ancestors lived and visited.

No doubt that it was due to the holiness of the spot, but everyone managed to find the strength and agility to hike all over Tel Shiloh.

 

The highlight, of course, was the chance to pray and say T'hillim, Psalms to G-d in the very spot most experts, archeologists and Biblical scholars believe the Mishkan had once stood.

Everyone agreed that the visit was spiritually exhilarating, despite all their time traveling.

Joe Bazer's Biblical Flutes

Afterwards, we spent some time in the Visitors Center, where you can buy drinks, snacks, local crafts and souvenirs, including  wine and olive oil from the area.

Pilgrims can't leave hungry, especially Jewish pilgrims to Shiloh.  The last stop of the group was the local dairy restaurant, pizza place, where everyone ordered a delicious meal, and we even skyped with a member of the group who presently lives abroad.  Thank G-d for modern technology.  Of course, the entire group is due to modern technology, internet and social media.  Almost all of us are writers, bloggers and photographers, so there should be more posts in various sites and blogs in the internet about this visit.

For information about Shiloh HaKeduma, Tel Shiloh, contact visit@telshilo.org.il or call 02-994-4019.  They cater to both groups and individual visitors besides running large public events during Jewish Holidays.

Women are invited to join me for Rosh Chodesh Prayers at Shiloh HaKeduma at Tel Shiloh.  The next one will be:

Women's Prayers at Tel Shiloh
Rosh Chodesh Sivan

Friday, May 10, 2013

1 Sivan 5773, 8:30am

Tour of Tel & Dvar Torah, Short Torah Lesson

Please come and invite family, friends and neighbors

תפילת נשים
ראש חודש סיון בתל שילה
יום ו' 10-5 א' סיון תשע"ג 8:30
יהיה דבר תורה קצר וסיור בתל
נא לבוא, לפרסם ולהזמין חברות, משפחה ושכנות

Laughing and Crying

This morning my wife called to my attention two news items. First you laugh and then you feel the sadness and THEN you ponder a little more deeply and realize that G-d truly has the last laugh, and boy does He have a sense of humor.

The first item was that the lights are being symbolically turned off for Earth Day, the ultimate celebration of the politically correct, at the park named after the undead former prime minister Ariel Sharon. It is a restored former garbage dump.

I'm letting you recover from that. Now on to the second item.

Aguda activists in New York cancelled their planned protest against the draft in Israel because of ... security considerations. The first thought after you stop laughing is Jews are safer in Eretz Yisrael because we have an army, but that is what the secular Jew thinks. The religious Zionist Jew will say that it is because there are an increasing number of Jews in Eretz Yisrael who are conscious of the fact that they are doing the mitzvah of defending their fellow Jews as a nation in that army, something you can't do anywhere else in the world. The merit of this mitzvah remains despite those on the political level who hold our soldiers back from doing the fullest of what they could do to defend us, as well as using security forces for non-defense and anti-defense purposes.

Once again credit to my dear wife both for seeing these two items and for being the inspiration for the thought after them.

Who in Israel Really Needs "Open Skies?"

My husband is one of those whose trip abroad this week may not happen.  Israel's new Finance Minister Yair Lapid campaigned to help those he calls "middle class," those making, like his Riki Cohen family, almost five times minimum wage and just over double average wage for a couple. 

Riki Cohen, a widow from Hadera, earns NIS 4,500 ($1,234) a month. She can only dream of earning NIS 20,000 ($5,485) a month, like the fictitious family of 'Mrs. Riki Cohen,' mentioned by Finance Minister Yair Lapid in his controversial Facebook post.
In his post, Lapid also said the 'Cohen family' travels abroad once every two years. "Is he serious? I've never been abroad," the real Riki Cohen told Ynet Tuesday.

Yair Lapid's concept of a "middle-class salary" is upper class, according to the real financial statistics here in Israel, especially considering that Riki Cohen's family can afford to travel abroad every two years.  Lapid doesn't consider that frequent enough and in one of this new government's first big moves is to open Israeli skies to the very competitive airfares.

In response, the Israeli airlines, including El Al are striking.  My husband, not being among the privileged, sophisticated frequent travelers didn't realize that he should have cancelled his El Al ticket and quickly bought one from a different airline. Reports are that the airport will start shutting down tomorrow.  This is not good for Israel.

Considering that another of Lapid's, and no doubt we should remember that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu must certainly approve these moves,  budget changes is cutting child allowances which seriously affects the lower and true middle class families.

Those spending cuts include NIS 4b.-5b. from the civil service, NIS 3b.-4b. from defense, with an equal amount from child allotments and NIS 2b.-4b. from infrastructure spending.
Yet a representative for Lapid would disclose only that the budgetary framework includes new taxes on affluent goods such as luxury apartments and cars.

So, I guess we can conclude from those budget changes that Lapid puts children in the same unnecessary or optional category as luxury cars.  Does he expect Israelis to somehow down-size their families by "deleting" some of their children?

It seems pretty obvious that this is a Marie Antoinette  government whose theme is:

"Let them eat cake."

Those Hidden Cameras, Catching the Boston Marathon Bombers, Almost Like the Book "Act of Treason"

Innocuous, hidden cameras are all around us.  I tell customers who are dressing/trying on clothes or undressing/dressing their kids in a corner of the store where I work that there are people watching and filming them.  It's actually no secret that there are cameras all around.  There's a screen alternating the various camera feeds for all to see at the קופה ראשית Cupah Roshit, "mini-office," customer relations corner in between the entrance and exit of the Sha'ar Binyamin Rami Levy supermarket.  They've recently upgraded to color from blurry black and white, so I asked jokingly to the manager of the shift if I should now start worrying about wearing makeup to work.

Just a couple of days ago when the American security authorities began asking the public who had been taking pictures of the Boston Marathon at the time of the bombing for all pictures, still and moving, so they could try to get a filmed record of what happened and who could have left the bombs, I thought of a book I had recently read, Act of Treason by Vince Flynn.

In Flynn's book, the fact that someone had placed himself behind a pole (or was it a tree?) at the time of the fatal explosion made one of investigators suspicious and ended up being the key to the successful investigation.  That summary of the book doesn't do it justice.  I did enjoy reading it but had to throw it out, since my copy was old and falling apart.  Who would have thought that just a couple of months after I had read the book, it would be so timely?

Most of us are totally oblivious to the fact that in today's world there are security cameras all over.  And even if there aren't security cameras, there are other cameras filming us.  I remember reading that a philanderer was caught cheating when his wife saw him with another woman when they were watching the then popular Woody Allen movie Annie Hall.  Allen had filmed some real life street scenes, without asking each and every person's permission and inadvertently included that man driving around with his lover.

Some food for thought...
Someone is watching us all of the time.  Why are we more afraid of being filmed and spied on by humans than the fact that G-d sees, hears and knows everything we do, all places and all times?  We can't hide from G-d, even though men can't always catch and punish the guilty...

Nu, So The American Terrorists in Boston Aren't Arab, They're Just Muslims

Consider the title of this post food for thought. 

Photo: EPA

And here's something I commented to some articles I found in the internet about the capture of the Boston Marathon Bombers:

I think the Americans should treat those bombers just the way Israel treats Arab terrorists and give them visits, education and a chance to be released when their supporters hold innocent people hostage. And if you think America shouldn't, then maybe Israel should learn from Americans how to punish murderers. 

I added to that a link to my post about the death penalty and the importance of using it against terrorists.

Death Penalty for Murdering-Terrorists! 

Terrorists are more dangerous than "regular" criminals, because they have ideology pushing them, which makes them believe that their criminal acts can be justified.

According to the New York Times, the bombers were known to the FBI after the older one spent six months with his father, but after being investigated, nothing was discovered.

The brothers were born in Kyrgyzstan, an official said, and were of Chechen heritage. Chechnya, a long-disputed Muslim territory in southern Russia, sought independence after the collapse of the Soviet Union and then fought two bloody wars with the authorities in Moscow. Russian assaults on Chechnya were brutal, killing tens of thousands of civilians as terrorist groups from the region staged attacks in central Russia.  

No doubt all of the information they have is now being reassessed.

“We went to Chechnya to visit relatives,” Mr. Tsarnaev said in an interview in Russia.

The trip will come under intense scrutiny to determine whether he met with extremist groups or received training, current and former intelligence and law enforcement officials said. Kevin R. Brock, a former senior F.B.I. and counterterrorism official, said, “It’s a key thread for investigators and the intelligence community to pull on.”

Now to get back to my earlier comment about how to treat terrorists. In America there is talk about treating the surviving bomber differently from the way they would treat a regular criminal/suspect.

The seeds of arguments to come were already apparent, however. Questions arose concerning the arrest and prosecution of the surviving brother, and whether he should be given a Miranda warning and other elements of constitutional rights in criminal cases. Further attention surrounds the government’s early scrutiny of Tamerlan Tsarnaev and whether warning signs may have been missed.

In the hours after the arrest, Senators Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and John McCain of Arizona, both Republicans, issued a statement late Friday calling for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who is a naturalized American citizen, to be treated like a terrorist, not a criminal, with reduced constitutional rights and no right to remain silent as promised in Miranda warnings.

In Israel we give the terrorists too many rights.  We also keep them alive, even when we know that they are killers/murderers. And then they are traded for kidnapped Israelis.  It would make much more sense for us to execute them.  I wonder what the Americans will do with the one they have captured.

Latma's Tribal Udate Examines Obama's Advisor Great Foreign Policy Successes

The Tribal Update brings you Obama's advisor discussing his great foreign policy successes, Jamil and Awad and the suicide bomber strike in Gaza, and MK Zehava Gal On marks the Nakba.

Watch:


Shabbat Shalom

Fellow Jews, How About Relocating to Israel?

The OU is promoting relocating to various Jewish communities in the United States.  Apparently, these fairs they've been running are so successful that the number of communities asking to be promoted is growing.  And some of those communities are in the Greater New York area, which has me very surprised.  I never would have guess that those communities need the extra support from such an event.

Now surprise, I'm sure, but I don't understand how Israel is not considered an option.  Granted the OU is an American Jewish organization that wants to perpetuate itself, but still there are Jewish principles, such as the mitzvah of ישוב הארץ yishuv ha'Aretz, settling the Land of Israel.

My husband and I made aliyah just two months after our wedding in the summer of 1970.  That was decades before the establishment of Nefesh B'Nefesh.  Today's olim have a much easier time than we did, and we consider our aliyah to best decision we ever made, tying with our move to Shiloh.

In 1970, not only weren't there cell phones, or internet, but not every Israeli family had a phone.  Many had to wait a minimum of a year or even seven to get a phone line.  We communicated with family and friends by sending letters, paper letters in envelopes with stamps.  Letters written between countries were frequently on aerogrammes, a one page, very thin and light paper, which we'd fold and seal.  It cost less than an airmail stamp. I have a number of friends whose very first trip to Israel was their aliyah.  Most people could not afford a "pilot trip" and the concept didn't exist then.

We weren't among the very first families in Shiloh.  We moved to Shiloh in time for the school year, the summer of 1981, when the population doubled from thirty plus families to sixty plus families.  Shiloh was the first Jewish community in our area, and we enthusiastically welcomed Eli and Ma'ale Levona.  Davka, last night a picture of the founding ceremony of Ma'ale Levona was posted on our email list as a quiz/challenge asking the veterans here who is in the picture.  I'm the young mother holding that adorable baby.

The establishment ceremony of Ma'ale Levona, spring, 1984, which we from Shiloh attended.

a more up to date picture of Ma'ale Levona

Today there are so many different sorts of places for people to live in Israel, from small communities to large cities.  Israel is now a modern high tech country.  If you're in the market to move, so move here and do yourselves a big favor!

A Cause of Delays on the Jerusalem Lightrail

For those of us who travel in Jerusalem and use public transportation, the lightrail is now something we've totally gotten used to.  Most of us have relearned bus routes which had been changed and amputated when the route followed the train for too much of it. We do our best to keep our little yellow rechargeable Rav Kav ticket with plenty of rides magically tucked inside. We also learned how to quickly and efficiently pay immediately when entering the train before any inspector could stop us.



The train is so popular, there are many times of the day when even at one of the earliest stops in the route in Pisgat Ze'ev there are no empty seats.  And in the center of Jerusalem, on Jaffa Road, the train is frequently as crowded as the NYC Subway at rush hour.

An advantage during rush hour is that it runs on tracks and doesn't get stuck in traffic.  Well, honestly, that isn't so true.  There's a place in the Beit Chanina/Shuafat Arab neighborhood in Jerusalem where I've found myself more than once in a train that can't move at all.

Cars turning onto the road which is parallel to the tracks get stopped by a red light in the distance.  The junction at which they are turning doesn't go red quickly enough.

Last week, when I was on the train and standing in the very front, behind the driver, I heard another passenger saying that we should watch, because the driver is equipped with a camera. 

"Watch, the driver has a camera.  He's going to take a picture of the cars licenses  blocking him. And then those drivers get one thousand (1,000) shekel fines."

And yes, the driver did take out a smartphone, and he took pictures of the cars in front and their license plates.  Hopefully this should keep people from trying to sneak past the light when it's turning red.

Arab Terrorists Attack Eliat; No One is Immune

I've been blogging about that horrid, cruel deadly attack on the Boston Marathon.  Please don't think I consider Israel immune from such things.  Arab terrorists in the Sinai launched rockets at the southern city of Eilat today.

Two rockets were fired at southern Israel's city of Eilat from the Sinai Peninsula this morning (Wednesday, April 17).

We shouldn't think the rockets as harmless, just because there was minimal damage. 

Islamic Militant group in Sinai claims responsibility; one rocket falls at building site, second falls in open area.

Landing site of rocket in Eilat, April 17, 2013. Photo: Spokesperson police southern region

       

 

At least two Grad rockets fired from the Sinai area hit Israel's southernmost city of Eilat on Wednesday morning, causing no injuries but some damage.   
An Islamist militant group in the Sinai Peninsula Magles Shoura al-Mujahadin claimed responsibility for the attack on its website on Wednesday saying it targeted Eilat with two Grad missiles and then withdrew safely. (Jerusalem Post)

The Sinai was once the buffer zone for Israel, when we had control of it, from the end of the 1967 Six Days War until then Prime Minister Menachem Begin decided to give it back to Egypt.  Now, especially considering the chaos in Egypt, there's nobody to keep the peace in the Sinai.  It's just the place for Arab terrorism to fester, because it's mostly empty and has a long coastline.

There are no better defense than land and G-d to be perfectly honest.  Land makes it more difficult for enemies to get close, and G-d makes the missile or bullet fall harmlessly.  And don't forget, we can't count on G-d to always make the enemy miss.

Israel's victories are not due to superior weapons or soldiers.  We have defeated our enemies, even when we had insufficient arms.  And no doubt you can easily list militarily strong and advanced countries that have lost wars.  There's also a matter of soldiers' motivation, and there's also that secret, uncontrollable factor which is very involved in Israel's wars.  That's the Yad Elokim, The Hand of G-d.  We must never take for granted that G-d will always save us.  We must make our efforts, and like with "matching funds" if we give, so will G-d.

How Can You Capture an Enemy When You Don't Know Whom to Look for?

From what I've been reading and hearing on the news, American security, police still haven't a clue as to who, what and why the Boston Marathon was bombed.  Confusion reins.

A runner near Boston's Kenmare Square after yesterday's explosions.(Getty Images/Alex Trautwig)

BOSTON (CBS) – Federal and local investigators are asking the public to come forward with information, photos, or video to help them track down who’s responsible for the deadly explosions at the Boston Marathon finish line.
Officials said they had received 2,000 tips as of noon on Tuesday.
Three people were killed and 176 hurt when two bombs went off Monday afternoon on Boylston Street. 17 of the injured are in critical condition.

That doesn't sound encouraging, not at all.  It's easier to search for a needle in a haystack, because at least then you know you're looking for  a needle.

Officials from Boston to Washington seemed overwhelmed by the task of managing the aftermath of the shocking terror attack at the finish line of the Boston Marathon Monday. Though the White House called the two bombings acts of “terror,” President Barack Obama declined to do so in his remarks to the nation--and the Department of Homeland Security had not issued any terror alerts as of Tuesday morning, as might be expected.Meanwhile, Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick referred to the site of the terror attacks in downtown Boston as a “crime scene,” and could not answer reporters’ questions about whether and how people would be able to commute to the area as usual the following morning.
“We are very much going to depend on you,” he told journalists during a press conference stuffed with politicians and law enforcement officials--but very few answers.

Will Americans begin to fear large public gatherings?



The one thing the police and other security experts know is that the bombs were made by experts who were trained in bomb making to cause the mot physical human damage. A there more of those sorts of bombs stored away waiting to be used in other American locations against more innocent United States citizens?

BOSTON — The explosives that killed three people and injured more than 170 during the Boston Marathon on Monday were most likely rudimentary devices made from ordinary kitchen pressure cookers, except they were rigged to shoot sharp bits of shrapnel into anyone within reach of their blast and maim them severely, law enforcement officials said Tuesday.

Apparently the bombs were made of commonly sold kitchen equipment, so it would be difficult to trace the bomber.

I  see this American style terrorism as very different from what we suffer from here in Israel. Our Arab terrorist and international Leftwing enemies proudly brag about their aims to destroy us.  See PMW

What Was The Point of That Boston Marathon Bombing?

What is there to say besides רפואה שלימה Refuah Shleimah,  Complete Recovery to the injured and May G-d Comfort the mourners?  The United States is a frightening place.

In America, one doesn't quite know who, where and what are dangerous.  What was the point, the aim of that Boston Marathon bombing?  Has anarchy reached the streets and events of the United States of America?  I don't quite see it as the terrorism as I know it living here in Israel when nobody is quite sure who the bombers are and what they want.

At least 3 dead, more than 100 hurt after two bombs explode at Boston Marathon
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/04/15/explosion-reported-near-finish-line-boston-marathon-spokesman-says/#ixzz2QbFO2Dav

The deadly bombing at the Boston Marathon that killed at least three and injured more than 130 is believed to be an act of terrorism, senior White House officials told Fox News.
Two explosions tore through the finish line of the world-famous race just before 3 p.m., going off simultaneously as throngs of onlookers watched runners complete the 26.2-mile trek. The timing of the blasts immediately sparked suspicions of a deliberate act.
“When multiple devices go off, that’s an act of terrorism,” a senior administration official told Fox News, just moments after President Obama delivered a statement to the nation and did not use the word “terror.”
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/04/15/explosion-reported-near-finish-line-boston-marathon-spokesman-says/#ixzz2QbGcKV4u

I've ranted plenty about winning that American security check lottery aka random checking.  Israeli security practices profiling, which judges/analyzes me as what I am, a harmless overweight grandmother.  During my last trip to the states a few months ago, I was "patted down" so frequently, most of the time being told, "just random checking."  Too bad I hadn't bought a lottery ticket; I could have won a million dollars instead, since my name was coming up so often.

I live in Israel.  I'm the survivor of a terror attack.  I was even injured in that attack, though very lightly.  I've lost friends and neighbors to terror attacks, so please don't consider me blind to the dangers.  In all honesty, I think America is a more frightening place.  We here in Israel have some idea who our enemies are.  In the USA, considering the impossibility to predict attacks, shootings, etc. the attacker may be anyone at all, a disgruntled and/or unstable child, teen, employee, neighbor, family member or stranger.  And, yes, there may also be foreign anarchists and terrorists ideologically and culturally related to the same Arab terrorists who want to murder Jews and destroy the State of Israel.

I ask in all sincerity:

How Americans can protect themselves from such dangers?

Honestly, I don't know.

אֱמֶת Emmet, The Only Truth

It's rather ironic that although my written Hebrew is awful, I see, hear and think about Hebrew linguistics a lot.  Most people are rather surprised at my grasp of Hebrew linguistics and the meanings I find in words.

The word אמת  emmet, truth, written without Hebrew vowels, unlike the way I wrote it in this post's title, can mean something which really is the emmet, truth.  That is אמות amute I will die.  The actual Hebrew root for die is מ ו ת which has a "ו" but the "ו" is dropped in some of the conjugations of the verb, such as past tense.

It may sound a bit strange, but the only certainty in life is that we will one day die.

Why is death so on my mind today?  That's because it's Israel's Soldiers and Terror Victims Memorial Day. After two totally mesmerizing moving ceremonies, last night and this morning, all I can do is think of the victims, those dead from Arab terror or war. 

After seeing and hearing and talking to all the parents, spouses, siblings, children, grandchildren, grandparents, nieces, nephews, cousins, friends (did I leave anyone out?) of the dead how can anything other than death be on my mind?

They may not be among the living, but they certainly cast a long shadow on us and our lives.

In the speeches, it was clear that time doesn't heal the pain.  Everyone I spoke to afterwards agreed that each year it gets harder.  The mourning comes in waves.

From the comments on my One of The Very Best Things About Israel  and the comments on facebook about the post, I see that not everyone agrees with me that it's good to combine Independence Day with Memorial Day.  I treasure the fact that I'm taking intense memories of the dead with me to the celebrations.  I don't think it is good to just celebrate our independence.  It's too much like those who think that all you have to do is "write a check" to buy something and don't realize that the check must be covered by money in the bank.

It's important to realize the cost of something, and that includes the State of Israel.  Our country isn't just a money budget.  We've invested many lives in building it.

We are Jews, יהודים Yihudim. In the word יהודי yihudi Jew we can find the להודות lihodote, to thank, and we must thank G-d and all of those who gave their lives for the defense of the State of Israel and the Jewish People.

And tonight we will celebrate the G-d given victory...

חג העצמאות שמח

Chag Ha'Atzmaut Same'ach

Happy Independence Day

Celebrate Israeli Independence Where We Had Our First Capital City, Shiloh!

The State of Israel isn't a new nation, not at all.  We are probably the oldest, because we became a nation over three thousand, yes, 3,000, years ago.  We keep the same religion, the same language and learn our same ancient through modern history and even have an ancient library of books and literature we have been reading and studying over all those millennium. We celebrate not the birth, but the rebirth of our state and country.

Dry Bones

Yes, the modern State of Israel is only sixty-five 65 years old, but there wouldn't be a State of Israel if there hadn't been such a long, continuous connected and well documented Jewish History.

The Bible, Tanach, is both a history and theology book. It explains the very foundation of the Jewish People starting with G-d's creation of the world, separating light from darkness, Genesis Chapter 1 בְּרֵאשִׁית.

א  בְּרֵאשִׁית, בָּרָא אֱלֹהִים, אֵת הַשָּׁמַיִם, וְאֵת הָאָרֶץ.	1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
ב  וְהָאָרֶץ, הָיְתָה תֹהוּ וָבֹהוּ, וְחֹשֶׁךְ, עַל-פְּנֵי תְהוֹם; וְרוּחַ אֱלֹהִים, מְרַחֶפֶת עַל-פְּנֵי הַמָּיִם.	2 Now the earth was unformed and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the spirit of God hovered over the face of the waters.
ג  וַיֹּאמֶר אֱלֹהִים, יְהִי אוֹר; וַיְהִי-אוֹר.	3 And God said: 'Let there be light.' And there was light.
ד  וַיַּרְא אֱלֹהִים אֶת-הָאוֹר, כִּי-טוֹב; וַיַּבְדֵּל אֱלֹהִים, בֵּין הָאוֹר וּבֵין הַחֹשֶׁךְ.	4 And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness.
ה  וַיִּקְרָא אֱלֹהִים לָאוֹר יוֹם, וְלַחֹשֶׁךְ קָרָא לָיְלָה; וַיְהִי-עֶרֶב וַיְהִי-בֹקֶר, יוֹם אֶחָד.  {פ}	5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day.

 The first Jew was Abraham, who heard and acted on G-d's message, Genesis Chapter 12 בְּרֵאשִׁית:

א  וַיֹּאמֶר יְהוָה אֶל-אַבְרָם, לֶךְ-לְךָ מֵאַרְצְךָ וּמִמּוֹלַדְתְּךָ וּמִבֵּית אָבִיךָ, אֶל-הָאָרֶץ, אֲשֶׁר אַרְאֶךָּ.	1 Now the LORD said unto Abram: 'Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto the land that I will show thee.
ב  וְאֶעֶשְׂךָ, לְגוֹי גָּדוֹל, וַאֲבָרֶכְךָ, וַאֲגַדְּלָה שְׁמֶךָ; וֶהְיֵה, בְּרָכָה.	2 And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and be thou a blessing.
ג  וַאֲבָרְכָה, מְבָרְכֶיךָ, וּמְקַלֶּלְךָ, אָאֹר; וְנִבְרְכוּ בְךָ, כֹּל מִשְׁפְּחֹת הָאֲדָמָה.	3 And I will bless them that bless thee, and him that curseth thee will I curse; and in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed.'
ד  וַיֵּלֶךְ אַבְרָם, כַּאֲשֶׁר דִּבֶּר אֵלָיו יְהוָה, וַיֵּלֶךְ אִתּוֹ, לוֹט; וְאַבְרָם, בֶּן-חָמֵשׁ שָׁנִים וְשִׁבְעִים שָׁנָה, בְּצֵאתוֹ, מֵחָרָן.	4 So Abram went, as the LORD had spoken unto him; and Lot went with him; and Abram was seventy and five years old when he departed out of Haran.

And the Bible continues by chronicling the ups and downs of the Jewish People, their difficulties, victories, disasters and triumphs.

One of the greatest events in Jewish History is when Joshua established Shiloh as the Jewish spiritual and administrative capital of the Jewish Nation.  The Mishkan, Tabernacle, mobile house of worship, was rebuilt in Shiloh to withstand hundreds of years of use.  Shiloh remained the capital for three hundred and sixty-nine 369 years.  That's  a very long time.  How many modern countries can document a national history so long?  As my neighbor, the well-known tour guide Era Rapaport has been heard to point out, "the United States has a much shorter history."

Shiloh's Central Mishkan Synagogue, designed according to the Biblical description of the Mishkan, tabernacle.

As you most probably know, I live in Shiloh.  Shiloh was liberated in the 1967 Six Days War.  Just over ten years after that great, miraculous victory, the first Jewish families returned to Shiloh, and since then it has been growing and thriving.  We have hundreds of families, schools, shops, health clinics, public transportation, agriculture, industry and all that one needs to live good Jewish lives.

Shiloh, at the time of Joshua, who led the Jewish People once they entered the Promised Land, did not need to be conquered.  Either the locals had fled before Joshua entered or they welcomed him.  We don't know. But what  we do know about today's Shiloh is that it was totally empty, deserted long before the Six Days War.  It had only attracted the occasional pilgrim, tourist and archeologist.

remains of ruins of a synagogue built on the ruins of a Second Temple time synagogue

 

 

There's now a very well kept up tourist center in Shiloh, Shiloh HaKeduma, at Tel Shiloh.  You can arrange tours and events there by emailing visit@telshilo.org.il or call 02-994-4019.  They have been running a very popular festival for people of all ages every Passover and Succot, plus a massive women's event every summer. Contact Shiloh HaKeduma for more information.

For the past few years, I've been organizing women's prayer at Tel Shiloh on Rosh Chodesh.  Next month is Sivan, Friday, May 10, 2013.  If you'd like more information or would like to be added to my mailing list, please email shilohmuse at gmail dot com with "women's prayers Tel Shiloh" as the subject, thanks.

Women's Prayers at Tel Shiloh
Rosh Chodesh Sivan

Friday, May 10, 2013

1 Sivan 5773, 8:30am

Tour of Tel & Dvar Torah, Short Torah Lesson

Please come and invite family, friends and neighbors

תפילת נשים
ראש חודש סיון בתל שילה
יום ו' 10-5 א' סיון תשע"ג 8:30
יהיה דבר תורה קצר וסיור בתל
נא לבוא, לפרסם ולהזמין חברות, משפחה ושכנות

 

 

One of The Very Best Things About Israel

In Israel, our Independence Day celebrations aren't just partying.  At the same time the stage was being readied for tomorrow night's Independence Day celebrations in our Central Park, the large Mifal Hapayis building was being readied for our Memorial Day for the IDF's Fallen Soldiers and Terror Victims ceremony.

In Israel we understand that independence is a very expensive process in terms of human lives.  Nobody gave us this state. We paid and still pay dearly for our independence.  We must fight wars and we suffer from Arab terrorism.

Never have we fought with another country as an ally.  The world "stands by" and waits to see if we will survive.  We have been victorious in these wars for one reason and one reason only.  G-d wants us to win.  He is our ally and is the only ally we really need.

The State of Israel exists because Jews are willing to fight for it, and G-d helps us because we are willing to fight.  That is why our Independence Day starts after a day of mourning for those who gave their lives for the State of Israel.

יהי זכרם ברוך

Yihi Zichrom Baruch

May Their Memories Be Blessed