Israel is Too Weak on Traitors!

What's a traitor?

One who betrays one's country, a cause, or a trust, especially one who commits treason (the free dictionary)

Israel is a country under all sorts of attacks in a war for survival. Many countries unabashedly state they want us destroyed. So, you'd think, hope that the state of Israel would be more vigilant about traitors and sedition.

Every once in awhile a politician looking for headlines will initiate something like this:

Coalition head aims to remove B’Tselem head's citizenship

B'Tselem director Hagai El-Ad speaks to the UN Security Council on October 14, 2016 (YouTube screenshot) Times of Israel

"Elad's actions at the Security Council are a blatant violation of the trust citizens must have for their state, so he should go find another country where he could be a citizen."

But nothing much ever happens, certainly nothing that could stop these acts.  It doesn't pay to try them here in Israel, because the courts are Leftist, too..

Thousands in Amona, but Not in the News

Yesterday, on my way to Sha'ar Binyamin, there was an enormous traffic jam by the entrance of Ofra.

Also reports from my daughter, who lives in Ofra, was that the crowd supporting Amona was tremendous!

I tried finding news reports about it, but it seems to have been ignored, even on Arutz 7, at least in English. So, if you find some articles about it, please put the links in the comments here, thanks.

Historic Fact: It's NOT About "The Settlements!"

שנית עמונה לא תיפול
Sheinit Amona Lo Tipol
Amona Won't Fall A Second Time

All those all over the world, here in Israel and abroad, whether informally chatting over tea, coffee or beer or in hallowed halls of parliaments, think tanks or editorial rooms who keep claiming that "it's the settlements" keeping the "Arab-Israeli conflict," sic continuing are simply full of #$%%!!@#@! to put it mildly.

Modern Shiloh neighborhoods as seen from the Biblical location of the city

Arab violence against Jews, whether they were permanent residents -yes, Jews have always lived in the Holy Land- or just visiting pilgrims, has been a regular occurrence here even before the Zionist Movement began in  1870. And that was almost eighty 80 years before the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, which was nineteen 19 years before the 1967 Six Days War and subsequent "settlements," which these pseudo-historians claim is the core of the "conflict."

The 1967 Six Days War was the result of the aggression, the unabashed plans voiced very publicly by Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Jordan to destroy the State of Israel. Israel was forced to fight for its very survival and won. According to International Law and all precedent, any land conquered in such a war becomes the legal property of the victor.  So in June, 1967, when the Arab countries effectively surrendered, Israel should have very simply annexed all of the land, the Golan, Jordan Valley, Judea, Samaria and the Sinai including Gaza effectively erasing the temporary "green line" that had been drawn at the 1949 ceasefire when Arab forces which had attacked the newly established State of Israel decided to take a breather and regroup.

Communities like Shiloh, where I live, are not the cause of any so-called "conflict," and "conflict" is a very poor choice of word for the attempted annihilation/holocaust of the Jewish People that has been going on for millenia. Yes, I believe that the Arab terrorism against us here is related to the Nazi Holocaust against European Jewry and the tacit cooperation of the Western World, and prior to that there was the Spanish Inquisition ad the Crusaders among other evil and immoral efforts to destroy the Jewish People.

Canada, Beware! SECURITY RISK!

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I keep wondering if this isn't a joke, because if the Canadian Trudeau Government didn't bother counting the children in the Syrian families they accepted as refugees, how thorough was the security check they did?

Canada: We didn’t know that refugees had so many children
Canada is having difficulty dealing with the absorption of Syrian refugees and the Minister of Immigration explains that the government didn’t take into account the size of Syrian families in planning to care for them.
Canada has accepted 32 thousand* refugees this year... 

Frightening, isn't it?

All refugees aren't the same, and one should never equate the Jews who fled Nazi Europe or Arab countries with today's Syrian refugees.

Remember that, even at their best, refugees bring to their new countries the cultures of the old country. When masses of immigrants came to Israel from the USSR, which soon after collapsed completely, they knew how to "work the system" getting the best benefits possible and brought their great study habits. They learned Hebrew amazingly quickly and well, even most adults. But they also brought their drinking culture, which didn't exist in Israel before.

Countries accepting Syrian refugees should take into account that they come from a very violent culture and follow a strong Muslim lifestyle. Their aim isn't to integrate and assimilate. Look at all of the problems in France. After a decade, or even less, life will be much more difficult than that in the countries that have welcomed Syrian refugees. Parts of Europe are already suffering.

Good luck to Canada.

Jews, remember that you have a home in Israel!

*apparently the number only refers to the adults, not the true total which would include children

Being Protected by The Succah

All or most of us grew up on the story of the three  pigs, who each built a different kind of house, straw, sticks and bricks. And when the wolf came to attack, only the brick house provided protection. This true story I'm now going to tell goes rather differently. 

Your typical succah, the "booth" we're commanded by Gd to live in for the week of Succot, is more like a house made of straw or sticks.

a neighbor's succah, fabric like a house made of straw (photo by Batya Medad)

the inside of my succah, like a house made of sticks (photo by Batya Medad)

Even though technically, according to Jewish Law, a succah can be made with bricks, as an inner patio or dining-room that has a removable ceiling/roof, the spirit behind the law is that it be more mobile or temporary, like in these photos. And even if you have one of those rooms with a removable roof, it's the schach, some sort of branch, whither actual branches, narrow wooden beams or these bamboo sticks you can see in the photos above which make the room/structure a kosher succah.

I don't know if the Jerusalem Municipality still does it, but when we lived in Bayit Vegan, Jerusalem, 1971-81, the municipality would drop off free schach (freshly pruned tree branches) every year. And every year I'd show up, the only woman fighting a bunch of aggressive men for those leafy branches to top our succah. I'd bring some string, and tie my hard won collection onto the baby carriage and then drag them to our building. And since they were of such value, I'd then drag them up the three flights of stairs and into our apartment to the balcony where we had our succah.

Having grown up on the story/fable of the "three pigs," I never really thought of a succah as a shelter or protected place. Of course, it's supposed to be a spiritual time and structure... 

As the kids grew up, first in Jerusalem and later in Shiloh, we had a family custom. Every Succot during Chol Hamoed, the "intermediate days," we'd go to the Kotel, pray and then eat in the enormous community succah set up there. I'd bring "American style" picnic food, sandwiches with fruit, and was always surprised/amazed by the other people who showed up with pots of delicious smelling meat, chicken, vegetables, rice etc, which they'd set up on the tables as if they were home.

One year, probably over twenty-five years ago, we heard strange noises, like popping or shooting, coming from outside the succah. Most of us just ignored it. We were too busy eating and enjoying the holiday spirit in the succah. Then soldiers came in and told us we had to leave.

"It will be dangerous to stay, since Arabs were attacking Jews at the Kotel." 

The Arabs were throwing large rocks from their perch on Har HaBayit, the Temple Mount, at the Jews praying down below.

IDF soldiers were responding by shooting teargas canisters at the terrorists. In the safe, protected succah, we could only smell the food. But the second we left the succah, we felt the teargas in our eyes and nose. It was horrible. We had to walk a few hundred meters and climb lots of stairs until we got the the Jewish Quarter, which was also affected by the teargas.

We would have felt safer if we had stayed in the straw/stick hut with the leafy roof, which had filtered out the tear gas. Of course we couldn't have stayed there long enough for the air to clear. The ancient stone walls of the Old City kept the tear gas in, which was more dangerous. I don't know how long it took before the air cleared. It certainly took many hours if not days.

Ever since then, I think of the succah as a protection, a shelter. We, the Jewish People, are governed by the rules of Gd, not nature and science.

Chag Sameach

Have a Wonderfully Joyous Holiday 

Is it Finally Time for Israel to Leave the United Nations?

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Israel is always held under a very distorted microscope in the United Nations, condemned  for all sorts of imaginary crimes. No other country is held up to such neurotic psychotic scrutiny. The recent UNESCO outrage about Jerusalem and the Western Wall not having any Jewish connection is just the tip the an iceberg of rampant antisemitism/anti-Zionism.

Honestly, what's the point of staying in and spending all the money on dues and maintaining an office and staff in New York and other places involved in United Nations activities?

What do you think?

Jewish Calendar Proves That This Land is OURS!

We are now about to celebrate the Jewish Holiday of Succot which happens in the fall, late summer. It's a holiday that cannot be celebrated here in the Holy Land in the winter or heat of summer. All of our holidays are connected with seasons of the year and agriculture. The Jewish People are not nomadic by nature, nor theology.

The Jewish Calendar is brilliant. It is lunar--each month begins with the "new moon" and ends as that cycle does. But it's not exclusively lunar, because that, like the muslim calendar, would cause the holidays to travel across the seasonal spectrum. Twelve months of the lunar calendar are a few days shorter than it takes for the earth to travel around the sun. So the Jewish Calendar gets adjusted according to the solar calendar, to guarantee that the holidays will always fall in the correct season. There's a pattern of adding an extra month periodically that was set a very long time ago. Before that, when the vast majority of the Jewish People were in the  Land of Israel, we waited for an announcement that the new moon had been sighted. And when it was still terribly wintery towards the end of Adar, the Sanhedrin would add a second Adar, so Passover would be in the spring and not winter.

In the fourth century, Hillel II established a fixed calendar based on mathematical and astronomical calculations. This calendar, still in use, standardized the length of months and the addition of months over the course of a 19 year cycle, so that the lunar calendar realigns with the solar years. Adar I is added in the 3rd, 6th, 8th, 11th, 14th, 17th and 19th years of the cycle. The current cycle began in Jewish year 5758 (the year that began October 2, 1997). If you are musically inclined, you may find it helpful to remember this pattern of leap years by reference to the major scale: for each whole step there are two regular years and a leap year; for each half-step there is one regular year and a leap year. This is easier to understand when you examine the keyboard illustration below and see how it relates to the leap years above.

In addition, Yom Kippur should not fall adjacent to Shabbat, because this would cause difficulties in coordinating the fast with Shabbat, and Hoshanah Rabbah should not fall on Saturday because it would interfere with the holiday's observances. A day is added to the month of Cheshvan or subtracted from the month of Kislev of the previous year to prevent these things from happening. This process is sometimes referred to as "fixing" Rosh Hashanah. If you are interested in the details of how these calculations are performed, see The Jewish Calendar: A Closer Look. (Judaism 101)

Jews who live abroad do not have the agricultural connections to the Holidays and prayers for rain that we have here. Proof that Islam is not connected to this Land is in its calendar which is strictly twelve months and lunar. Their holidays float around the seasons, rootless, like the nomads they are.

Chag Succot Sameach

Chag Simchatenu

Have a Happy Succot

The Holiday of Our Joy

Taking Bets on When Michelle Obama is Going to Run for President?

CNN

I think we've all seen the pictures of Michelle Obama mouthing her husband's speeches, while he struggles with his teleprompter or little mini-earpiece trying to sound eloquent. And it's no secret that she's the one who had the superior law position...

And now that Hillary needs help, even with all the nasty stuff they've dug up about Trump, it's Michelle Obama who is now her star supporter. 

Now, I'm just "grading" her performance, Michelle's that is, and I see her as super far superior candidate to Hillary, Barack Hussein and Donald Trump. She has much more charisma than them all especially including the two Veeps and the daughters. I haven't read of any real dirt dug up about her. As much as I disagree with almost everything she stands for except for the healthy food, I'd say that she's easier to market than most politicians and obviously more intelligent than her husband POTUS.

My guess is that if Hillary still manages to lose the elections or has to resign for either medical or legal reasons, then Michelle will be forced to run in four years, though she may really want to wait until her younger daughter is in college to begin the primaries stumping. That would mean the 2024 elections. 

I can't see Hillary managing eight years as President of the United States, though proper coddling/cocooning by the party and staff could make it possible. I remember the Jerry and Betty Ford saying that their time in the White House was the most relaxing and easiest of their marriage, until then. He no longer had to commute between home/family and Washington DC. 

Another reason the movers and shaker of the Democratic Party may rush Michelle to run is that they really don't have anyone comparable waiting in the wings. Nobody but Bernie Sanders actually ran against Hillary in the primaries.

So, for those of you who haven't been happy with Barack Hussein Obama's policies and direction for the United States of America and dread the thought of Hillary Clinton taking over, I just wanted to warn you that maybe you ought to start packing your bags and move. It's not going to get much better...

Why Does the USA Support Abbas When, It's Also a Victim of PA Hate?

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Every time United States President Barack Hussein Obama is photographed with PA-Palestinian Authority leader  Mahmoud Abbas, he grins like a five year old on Santa's lap. Obviously, either the news updates POTUS gets don't include the same articles that are read, translated and analyzed by the Palestinian Media Watch team of experts.

PA daily: Israel controls the US which controls the world

It's either ignorance or something much, much worse for the US and so-called "Free World."

What do you think?

Relieved That Shimon Peres in No Longer With The Living

photo I took of Shimon Peres

OK, for all those who kept telling me to wait until after the burial, or after Rosh Hashanah or after Yom Kippur for writing how I really feel about the death of Shimon Peres, here it is:

Yes, I'm relieved that Shimon Peres was taken by Gd before the beginning of the new Jewish Year 5777. Peres's death, stroke etc. is the sort that is totally a decision of Gd Almighty. The doctors did their best to give him a chance to live longer, and Gd gave him time to repent, if that was his desire. And even with a delayed goyishe-style funeral and placing the coffin in public display for the day before, it still left time for Peres to be buried before the end of 5776 and Rosh Hashanah 5777.

photo I took of Shimon Peres

For decades, Shimon Peres had been the world's most popular Israeli. When Yitzchak Rabin was assassinated, he got the accolades, but the Israeli whom the "world" really listened to was Peres. Peres was a master at "old world" charm, while Rabin was too much the Israeli sabra for that. Menachem Begin also had the "charm," but too many people feared his his politics. Remember that the international media, like the Israeli one, is extremely Leftist and elitist, so Shimon Peres talked their talk and walked their walk, while Menachem Begin unabashedly spoke of Jewish Rights and the wrongs done to the Jewish People.

I met both of them, and Begin's "old world" mannerisms, kissing women's hands and warm smile included caring eyes, while Peres's smile, voice and posture were very cold and calculating. I never felt that Peres cared, while I had no doubt that Menachem Begin sincerely felt for people. And just to make it clear, if you don't know, I stopped politically supporting Menachem Begin once he began his Camp David decision to give Egypt the Sinai and destroy the Jewish communities that had been built there.

Let's go back a generation to delve into Shimon Peres's international popularity. The key was his success in convincing then Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin to accept the Oslo Agreement, even though it was an illegal, immoral rogue operation without the support of the Israeli Government. Yes, instead of jailing the perpetrators led by Yossi Beilin who had secretly by their own initiative negotiated the dangerous deal, Shimon Peres got Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin to approve it.

It was via the Oslo Accords that Yasser Arafat was rescued from his exile, set up as Palestinian sic leader, and weapons were given to his so-called police. Basically, the terrorist Arafat was given a "state in the making," which has become the world's largest magnet for money and subsequent corruption, besides officially supporting terror against Israelis.

Ever since Shimon Peres's success in bamboozling Yitzchak Rabin, the world has treated Peres as Israel's most important and powerful politician, regardless of his official titles or lack of any. And when Peres held the officially non-policy position of President of Israel, he took advantage of it and spoke and acted as if he had political and policy powers.

Many of us here in Israel were extremely relieved when his term in office had officially ended. But his influence over the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the media, here and abroad, didn't end when he left office. Nothing stopped Peres from meeting diplomats, press and talking policy. And even now that he's buried, his fans use his name to try to convince Israel of what they want us to do. That's what American President Barack Hussein Obama did when he spoke at Peres's funeral. It doesn't bother any of them that in Israel's democratic process, Peres never succeeded in leading a political party to victory. There is no direct election of Prime Minister here; it was tried once, and when Likud's Binyamin Netanyahu was easily elected, the Leftists got the law repealed.

I hope I'm not overly optimistic when I say that I don't see Peres's popularity here in Israel growing after his death. Peres was popular with the Left, but he left the rest of us cold. Now it's time for him to try to negotiate with Gd about his true legacy. And we in the Land of the Living must do what is best for the Jewish People and not care about what the world thinks. That is the only way to keep our Eternal Light burning, Gd willing. 

Is Yom Kippur Still a Big Draw for Assimilated Jews?

I know there still are Jews who show up to shul on Rosh Hashanah to hear the shofar and then again on Yom Kippur for a quick visit to ask Gd to give them "life," or whatever.

When I was growing up, my father was one of them. Besides a family Bar Mitzvah or something similar, he didn't consider it "going to shul" important to make time for. Many of those "twice a year shul goers," were young. Not only did shuls fill, but they had to rent larger places, erect tents and hire rabbi/cantors to lead services. There were different prices for the "regular cantor" and the "hired" one. And in many communities, they didn't have a regular synagogue, with a rabbi, but they'd hire someone. And lots of capable and not so capable rabbinic students or just anyone willing and able, make good money  for a few days' work.

nefesh

In all honesty, I'm curious, interested in knowing what the situation is today. Do synagogues that are empty most of the year suddenly get Jews anxious to pray?

I'd like to know, so please give reply in comments, thanks.