9 Days Rather Ironic, Fish Yes, Chicken No

Jewish Life is now in the midst of the "9 Days," a time of national mourning. From the 17th of the Jewish Month of Tammuz, until the 9, or more accurately the 10th, of the month of Av, we mourn the destruction of the Holy Temples and our exile from the Land of Israel.

Restrictions get more intense and end with a 25 hour fast on the 9th of Av. Restrictions during the 9 days include no parties, weddings, new clothes, listening to music, swimming for enjoyment, drinking wine and eating meat or poultry. You can eat fish.

I know that it's not the same all over the world, especially when people follow the Laws of Kashrut. Here in Israel a meat, especially poultry, meal cost less than a fish meal. Fish is very expensive here, whether buying it in the supermarket or a restaurant meal. Good cheeses also cost more. A very satisfying and pleasant meal in my favorite meat restaurant cost less than a similar fish meal in my favorite fish restaurant.

It's so ironic that the less expensive animal protein is forbidden as a sign of mourning, while the more expensive one is permitted. Eating fish is generally a treat, while chicken is an everyday, ordinary bargain menu in our house. So the halacha makes little sense to me.

My guess is that in ancient times the slaughtering of an animal or bird and the ritual preparation of their meat, plus safe storage was rather complex and not frequent. If you lived where you could easily catch fish, that was less complicated.

What do you think?

salmon and vegetables 

Cheap Junk Food and Treif Faux Kosher Meat in Germany, Surprised?

The Israeli media spent some time trying to rev up the public in favor of the "olim liBerlin" socio-economic protest group. Apparently it started more as a joke by Naor Narkis, a yored, an Israeli who left Israel for Europe and posted a picture of a cheap chocolate pudding on his facebook page.

Of course it's pretty dumb to act like these unhealthy snacks are vital to people's diet. And the fact that the Israeli Milky is supposed to be of higher quality than the German pudding Naor Narkis promoted as a bargain worth moving to Berlin for.

According to Narkis, Milky pudding is “just an example of a simple pleasure that became expensive, that too many parents have to think about twice before putting in their shopping cart. (Jerusalem Post)

Do to the extremely unhealthy aspects of these puddings, whether Israeli or German, parents should "think twice" before buying and serving them!

Very few people showed up at the rally, not even Narkis bothered. It was a joke.

Dozens file into Rabin Square October 14 to learn about how to emigrate to Berlin. (photo credit:Lahav Harkov)

But what isn't a joke is the revelation that for years one of the largest kosher butchers in Germany has been lying and cheating their Jewish clients, including a Jewish school and old age home,  selling traif, meaning non-kosher meat.

Two Jewish men in Germany, accused of passing off non-kosher meat as kosher to members of the Frankfurt Jewish community over a period of two years, according to local media.
In all, 40,000 kg. of non-kosher meat was sold to unsuspecting customers for a period of years, according to the Juedische Allgemeine......The butcher shop supplied kosher meat to a Jewish school, a nursing home and numerous private residences both within Frankfurt and other locales.

There's more than a simple localized irony in this.

It's not just a German story. It's a story of Jews living in Israel versus any place else in the world. The aim of the Nazis was for Germany to take over the world and to destroy the Jewish People. As we all know, the Nazis were defeated. Germany was divided into two countries for a few decades. And the State of Israel, the only Jewish State in the world was established in our ancestral Homeland.

Despite the loss of six million Jews to the antisemitic Nazi murder machine, the Jewish People, with the Help of G-d, established a state that has survived many defensive wars in its sixty-six years. As small as we are, there's international focus on everything we do and everything our politicians say. We stand diplomatically alone without any reliable allies.

Life in the diaspora may seem attractive with its cheap pudding, but it all ends up traif, like the fake kosher butcher. The myth of the "easy American life" is easily proven a lie when you add up tuition for Jewish education, outrageously expensive healthcare, Torah observant Jews being forced to use all of their vacation days on Jewish Holidays, no mandated maternity leave and more difficulties.

There's only one place a Jew should live, and that's the Land of Israel. We've been here since soon after our wedding in 1970. Then it was still rather unique for American Jews to make aliyah, move to Israel. Now there's hardly a Jewish family abroad without members or friends here.

Yesterday I was interviewed for Arutz 7's aliyah radio show. I'm not quite sure when it will be broadcast, but it should be this week, because the them of the show is "Bereishit," in the Beginning, new beginnings. I spoke about education, helping your children adjust to new schools and the importance of learning Hebrew.

The OU Chases Another Tail

Too little, too late describes the OU's support of the Jews of Gush Katif. They were proudly neutral before Disengagement, but then decided to fund-raise for the poor refugees, the Jewish DP's forced out of their homes for one reason and one reason only, their Jewish religion. Nu, was that really so surprising before it happened? I'm not the only person who predicted the present situation.

Opposing Disengagement would have meant that the OU valued Jewish settlement of Eretz Yisrael over pc policies.

Now, the OU was embarrassed in the states, because it never really inspected the meat slaughtering houses under its auspices and approval. So now they're trying to flex their muscles and threatening to rescind their hechsher.

Kosher food is more than a myopic look at the knife, count the salt and time the soaking.

My guess is that more multi-tasking women should be hired to supervise kashrut and run the large Jewish organizations. We can't do any worse...