~*Happy NEW YEAR!!*~
12.31.04 (9:11 am) [edit]
:D To You & Yours! :D
:wink: And a good Shabbos to the rest of us! :wink:
12.31.04 (9:05 am) [edit]
Matthew E. Berger
Special to the Jewish Times
DECEMBER 30, 2004
Washington
Matthew E. Berger
Special to the Jewish Times
DECEMBER 30, 2004
Washington
A Jewish community initiative to bring to justice those who kill Americans overseas has become law. Provisions of a bill spearheaded by the Zionist Organization of America, dubbed the Koby Mandell Act, were incorporated into the omnibus spending bill President Bush signed last week.
The provisions would create an Office of Justice for Victims of Overseas Terrorism within the Justice Department. Justice and State Department officials would form a task force when terrorists kill an American citizen overseas.
Named after a 13-year-old Israeli-American boy who was killed by a Palestinian mob in the West Bank in 2001, the bill has been a ZOA priority.
It originally was designed to place pressure on the U.S. government to find Palestinians who had killed Americans in terrorist attacks against Israel.
But the initiative was not prominent on the lobbying agendas of many other Jewish groups, who complained that the legislation was too narrow and was designed primarily to chastise the State Department for not doing more against Palestinian terrorists, not as an effective counterterrorism measure.
The version of the bill that passed Congress last month did not include many of the findings included in the ZOA version introduced in 2003. That version said "the United States government has not devoted adequate efforts or resources to the apprehension of terrorists who have harmed American citizens overseas, particularly in cases involving terrorists operating from areas administered by the Palestinian Authority."
ZOA's version also would have put the new office in charge of the Rewards for Justice program, which advertises rewards in foreign countries for the capture of terrorists who attack Americans.
The ZOA's president, Morton Klein, long has accused the program, which currently is controlled by the State Department, of ignoring Palestinians who kill Americans.
The omnibus language does say the office should be created "as recommended by the Koby Mandell Act of 2003," suggesting the ZOA language should be considered. It's unclear whether the Rewards for Justice program will be moved to the Justice Department.
But Klein said he's happy with the current legislation, and that his organization had looked at every possible avenue to get the provisions through Congress.
"Our vision is very clear," Klein said. "We are looking forward to this office taking as the central focus of its existence the prosecution of Palestinian Arabs who killed Americans."
Other Jewish leaders said the legislation could have been passed earlier if it had been directed more broadly. Some U.S. Jewish lobbyists who spoke on condition of anonymity said Klein resisted efforts to broaden the legislation and wanted the office to focus solely on victims of Palestinian violence, as opposed to all Americans killed overseas.
The Jewish leaders said they wanted the office to be included as part of legislation that created the Department of Homeland Security in 2002, but met resistance. They noted that under Klein's view of the office, it would not have jurisdiction in the murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, a Jew who was killed by terrorists in Pakistan.
Klein said he would have been open to the possibility of placing the office within the Homeland Security department, but wanted it to alleviate the disparity of Palestinians not being sought for the killing of Americans.
"If the federal government was searching to find and prosecute Palestinian Arabs with the same commitment as they do most other foreign nationals, this legislation would not be needed," he said.
Klein said he is working to ensure that the office, which currently has no appropriation, will be funded. He said he is encouraged that the process will be overseen by the next likely chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), who backed the Koby Mandell Act.
Other Jewish leaders hope the office will serve as an advocate for the families of victims of terrorism, and will coordinate law enforcement initiatives in the United States and other countries.
PETA Violence Fact Sheet
12.29.04 (9:23 am) [edit]
In accordance with my previous post below, I'm citing a few sources to PETA's violence record. I realized I hadn't cited the sources for violence that PETA has either sponsored, condoned, or acheived on its very own. Here is a fact sheet along with some websites for your reference and so you can fully understand that PETA needs to be placed on the US Terrorist Watchlist. Many of these sources come from other animal rights organizations that condemn PETA and it's radical and militant agenda.
* In the December/January 2000 issue of 'Genre', PETA's Dan Mathews was asked to name men of the 20th century he admired. Mathews told the magazine he admired serial killer Andrew Cunanan, "because he got Versace to stop doing fur."
* In 1999, an animal rights terrorist group calling itself the Justice Department sent letters booby-trapped with razor blades to medical researchers and fur farms in the United States and Canada. When asked about the letters, Newkirk said, "I hope it frightens them [the researchers] out of their careers. If experimenters feel afraid now, that's nothing compared with the fear, harm and death they have inflicted on their victims."
* In a new author's note in her book about the Animal Liberation Front, 'Free the Animals', Newkirk writes, "Determined to cause economic injury to the exploiters, ALF members burn down their emptied buildings and smash their vehicles to smithereens. Perhaps, after reading this book, you will find that you cannot blame them."
* In 1994, PETA donated $42,500 to the Rodney Coronado Support Committee. Coronado is an animal rights terrorist who in 1995 pleaded guilty to firebombing a medical research facility at Michigan State University.
* In fact, Newkirk herself has expressed a wish to carry out arson. At a 1997 animal rights convention she said, "I wish we all would get up and go into the labs and take the animals out or burn them down." In 1999 she expanded on that sentiment, telling the 'Chronicle of Higher Education', "I find it small wonder that the laboratories aren't all burning to the ground. If I had more guts, I'd light a match."
1. PETA has stated repeatedly that their goal is "total animal liberation." This means no pets, no meat, no milk, no zoos, no circuses, no fishing, no leather, and no animal testing for lifesaving medicines.
2. PETA has given tens of thousands of dollars to convicted arsonists and other violent criminals.
3. PETA funds the misnamed Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine 3, an animal-rights organization that presents itself as an unbiased source for nutritional information and has links to a violent animal-rights group called SHAC.
4. PETA has used their contributors’ tax-exempt donations to fund the North American Earth Liberation front, an FBI-certified “domestic terrorist” group responsible for fire bombs and death threats.
5. PETA regularly targets kids as early as elementary school with anti-meat and anti-milk propaganda.
6. PETA spends less than one percent of its $13 million budget actually caring for animals.
7. PETA has repeatedly attacked groups like the March of Dimes, the Pediatric AIDS Foundation, and the American Cancer Society, for conducting animal testing to find cures for birth defects and life-threatening diseases.
Some more sources:
http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewCommentary.asp?Page=/Commentary/arch ive/200111/COM20011112b.html" title="http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewCommentary.asp?Page=/Commentary/arch ive/200111/COM20011112b.html" target="_blank"http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewCo...
http://www.animalrights.net/index/channel/JeffKer r" title="http://www.animalrights.net/index/channel/JeffKer r" target="_blank"http://www.animalrights.net/i...
http://www.naiaonline.org/body/ca_arson_terrori st" title="http://www.naiaonline.org/body/ca_arson_terrori st" target="_blank"http://www.naiaonline.org/bod...%288-7-03%29.htm
http://www.fb.org/views/focus/fo2001/fo 1008.html" title="http://www.fb.org/views/focus/fo2001/fo 1008.html" target="_blank"http://www.fb.org/views/focus...
http://www.ampef.org/ResearchOpposition/Re searchOpposition.cfm?ID=521&c=18" title="http://www.ampef.org/ResearchOpposition/Re searchOpposition.cfm?ID=521&c=18" target="_blank"http://www.ampef.org/Research...
I encourage everyone to do their research and write their congressmen and advise them to go after evil organizations such as and especially PETA.
Please sign this petition to =http://www.consumerfreedom.co...revoke PETA's tax-exempt status!
A Terrorist Organization On Your Plate
12.29.04 (7:36 am) [edit]
I woke up this morning and went to my email to retrieve the day's headlines. I get news sent to my email address, you see. One story in particular caught my eye. PETA is once again on the attack. Who are they viciously attacking this time? Why, one of the easiest targets, of course, the Jews!
Let me just make it clear that I already find PETA to be a terrorist organization. They have done several things to earn this ranking, many of which including: destroying meat production buildings, attacking and defacing research labs, handing out buckets of fake blood to school children on school property in order to protest Kentucky Fried Chicken, the list goes on and on. Recently, PETA complained to the Palestinians that their use of donkeys in their suicide bombings is cruel -- to the [i][b]donkeys[/i][/b]! That's right, forget the children who are being made to explode themselves to kill other innocent children, folks, the donkeys are uncomfortable! Excuse me?
These militant extremists won't stop there. Oh, no. Lately they've found nice ways to attack Jewish people, let alone making sure a donkey is treated better. In an ad campaign, PETA has a picture of Holocaust victims in a camp and right next to it they have a picture of caged pigs! "Holocaust on your plate," is the caption. Does anyone else find that as wrong as I do. Apparently the Anti-Defamation League finds it just as disgusting, if not more. Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director and a Holocaust survivor, issued the following statement:
[b][i]The effort by PETA to compare the deliberate systematic murder of millions of Jews to the issue of animal rights is abhorrent. PETA's effort to seek "approval" for their "Holocaust on Your Plate" campaign is outrageous, offensive and takes chutzpah to new heights.
Rather than deepen our revulsion against what the Nazis did to the Jews, the project will undermine the struggle to understand the Holocaust and to find ways to make sure such catastrophes never happen again.
Abusive treatment of animals should be opposed, but cannot and must not be compared to the Holocaust. The uniqueness of human life is the moral underpinning for those who resisted the hatred of Nazis and others ready to commit genocide even today.[/i][/b]
Not only that, I'd like to add that the reason why the Jews were treated and placed in environments similar to that of animal packing plants, was BECAUSE the Nazis felt the Jews were animals! They sought to dehumanize the tortured and sickly people who were exterminated in the millions. PETA only furthers the Nazis beliefs in that the subjects which are MORE important than those over 6 million humans are the animals that should be treated far better, in PETA (and probably also the Nazis') opinion!
This and the donkey issue are not the first instances where PETA has attacked the Jews and decided animals were far more important. Unfortunately, if you go to the ADL's website and do a search on PETA, you get a full page of information and hits relating. If you want to check that out, you can click =http://adl.org/cgi-bin/MsmFin...here or perform the search yourself at =http://www.adl.orgADL.org.
So getting back to the issue of this morning's headline, what was it that got me so angry, yet again, at that disgusting terrorist organization known simply as PETA? =http://news.yahoo.com/news?tm...This story right here. PETA now has the audacity to try and tear away one of the very things that makes us Jewish: our Torah laws, specifically Kashrus!
Read the story. PETA is attacking Kosher slaughter houses, the most humane slaughterhouses in existence by the way, and thus trying the delegitify Jewish law, custom, practice and heritage! It mentions it in the article, but I already was aware, that the Nazis tried to do the same thing. In fact, that was one of the first things they did in order to help themselves in characterizing Jews as barbaric! In my research, I found this link at =http://www.jewfaq.org/peta.ht...Judaism 101 that further lays out this struggle against PETA and gives you some great information (with citations) on Jewish and Federal law.
So with all of the past violence and militance by PETA, why have they not been put on the Terrorist watch list? Why after their attack on the Jews are they still viewed as simply and "animal rights group"? I honestly don't know. These bigoted terrorists need to be brought to justice. This is not to say that all members of PETA are guilty by association. That is really for a court to decide. However, delegates responsible for violent attacks, as well as their new mission against the Jews, needs to be taken into consideration.
And there is nothing wrong with being a vegetarian (aside from the malnutrition that arises from lack of meat consumption). There is something wrong when that infringes on other people's rights to eat meat. The people at PETA can eat as many bean sprouts as their little digestive systems can handle. Vandalizing buildings and injuring people, as well as scarring school children for life on government property is not only immoral it's against the law. And while the law protects anyone under the 1st amendment who wishes to dispatch hate against any group of people, so long as it be in a non violent manner, they've earned a low place in my mind.
Not only that, given PETA's radical and militant past of defacing and destroying facilities, how much longer is it before they physically do something to property or persons in the Jewish community?
12.28.04 (1:38 pm) [edit]
[i][b]By Dina Kraft
TEL AVIV, Dec. 28 (JTA)[/b][/i]
Rapelling down Judean Desert mountain faces, bumping along dirt roads by jeep and tucking notes into the Western Wall in Jerusalem, tourists have returned to Israel for winter vacation in the largest numbers since the Palestinian intifada began more than four years ago.
The perception that Israel is safer than it was a year ago, and renewed hopes for peace in the wake of Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat’s death, are playing their part in luring tourists back, tourism officials and trip organizers said.
“During the intifada you literally begged people to come, and now people are begging you to get on the trip,” said Marlene Post, president of Hadassah International and chairwoman of birthright israel in North America. She currently is in Israel helping oversee three Hadassah missions that have come for winter break.
Across the board, more tourists are coming — Jewish and Christian, students and families, part of an overall surge in tourism in 2004. Some 1.4 million tourists are expected to come to Israel by the end of 2004, a 44 percent increase over last year.
“The increase in tourism this year and the optimistic outlook for 2005 can be attributed to an increasingly positive atmosphere in the region, an improvement in the security situation and the renewal of intensive marketing efforts around the world,” Tourism Ministry spokesman Golan Yossifon said.
Among the visitors were a group of 127 from New York City’s Park Avenue Synagogue, one of the largest synagogue missions to come to Israel since the intifada began.
Throughout the year the synagogue focused its congregation on Israel — revamping its religious school curriculum to put Israel at center stage, hosting festivals of Israeli art and film and hosting lectures.
The climax was climbing on a plane and exploring “the complexities of Israel for eight days,” said Paul Corwin, a synagogue member and lawyer who organized the trip. Their first stop was cheering in the stands at a professional basketball game in Tel Aviv, while their last was a tour of the hall where David Ben-Gurion declared Israel’s independence in 1948.
For Amy A.B. Bressman, chairman of the synagogue’s board, the most moving moment was watching 10 of their Bar Mitzvah-age children help a group of special needs Israeli children hold a Bar Mitzvah ceremony in a Conservative synagogue in Jerusalem.
Cloaked in white tallitot, the 13-year-olds from New York City helped wind leather tefillin straps around the arms of the Israelis and read aloud from the Torah. The Israeli teenagers led the service’s prayers.
Later, members of the Park Avenue Synagogue and the Israeli families hoisted the special needs children into chairs amid a chorus of singing and cheering.
“The faces of those children in those chairs is a memory I will always have,” Bressman said.
The event was part of a Bar/Bat Mitzvah for Special Children Program operated by the Masorti movement, as the Conservative movement is known in Israel.
“We were very moved,” said Orna Schwartz, an Israeli woman whose daughter participated in the ceremony.
Exposing congregants to the ordinary and the extraordinary is what the trip was about, Corwin said.
“You don’t get people to just go to Israel, you get them to engage in Israel,” he said, adding that other synagogues have begun to turn to them for advice on building congregants’ interest in Israel.
Birthright israel, the free trip to the Jewish state for Diaspora youth who have never visited on a peer trip, also saw high numbers, bringing about 8,500 youth to Israel this winter.
The Jewish Agency for Israel saw a dramatic rise in the number of high school and college students that it brings to Israel from around the world. Some 4,600 students from countries as diverse as South Africa, France and Australia came for their December vacation as part of JAFI’s “Israel Experience” program.
JAFI also led programming of trips for some 2,400 of the birthright participants.
Hillel also is seeing the highest number of American college students coming to Israel since the start of the intifada.
“We are at maximum capacity,” said Wayne Firestone, executive director of the Israel on Campus Coalition, an umbrella group for 30 national Jewish organizations founded by Hillel International and the Schusterman Foundation.
He said the easing of the security situation has made it easier for people to come to Israel and also has facilitated travel within Israel.
“Parents seem more comfortable and have made less problems about sending their kids,” he said.
Surveying the Hadassah trips to Israel, which include two family missions and a singles group, Post said she was struck by the increase in both people traveling with their children and in first-time visitors, something not much seen in recent years.
“I think there is this window of opportunity and people see it and are positive about it,” Post said.
During the previous intifada years, the majority of Jews coming to Israel were devoted Zionists.
“Now you have people on the fringes who are not necessarily as identifiable as passionate Zionists but came because they feel safer and see stability in Israel’s government and America’s government,” she said.
For Bill, a New York businessman on the Park Avenue Synagogue tour, coming to Israel for the first time this December was a powerful experience. He and his family had planned to come four years ago, but cancelled after the intifada broke out.
“I’m not a religious Jew,” Bill said, but coming here “cut me deep to my core and made me aware of my Jewish consciousness. If anyone cares anything about their Jewish identity then they should come visit here, because this is like nothing I’ve experienced before. This is the Jewish homeland.”
[i]© JTA.[/i]
[i][b]By Dina Kraft
TEL AVIV, Dec. 28 (JTA)[/b][/i]
Rapelling down Judean Desert mountain faces, bumping along dirt roads by jeep and tucking notes into the Western Wall in Jerusalem, tourists have returned to Israel for winter vacation in the largest numbers since the Palestinian intifada began more than four years ago.
The perception that Israel is safer than it was a year ago, and renewed hopes for peace in the wake of Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat’s death, are playing their part in luring tourists back, tourism officials and trip organizers said.
“During the intifada you literally begged people to come, and now people are begging you to get on the trip,” said Marlene Post, president of Hadassah International and chairwoman of birthright israel in North America. She currently is in Israel helping oversee three Hadassah missions that have come for winter break.
Across the board, more tourists are coming — Jewish and Christian, students and families, part of an overall surge in tourism in 2004. Some 1.4 million tourists are expected to come to Israel by the end of 2004, a 44 percent increase over last year.
“The increase in tourism this year and the optimistic outlook for 2005 can be attributed to an increasingly positive atmosphere in the region, an improvement in the security situation and the renewal of intensive marketing efforts around the world,” Tourism Ministry spokesman Golan Yossifon said.
Among the visitors were a group of 127 from New York City’s Park Avenue Synagogue, one of the largest synagogue missions to come to Israel since the intifada began.
Throughout the year the synagogue focused its congregation on Israel — revamping its religious school curriculum to put Israel at center stage, hosting festivals of Israeli art and film and hosting lectures.
The climax was climbing on a plane and exploring “the complexities of Israel for eight days,” said Paul Corwin, a synagogue member and lawyer who organized the trip. Their first stop was cheering in the stands at a professional basketball game in Tel Aviv, while their last was a tour of the hall where David Ben-Gurion declared Israel’s independence in 1948.
For Amy A.B. Bressman, chairman of the synagogue’s board, the most moving moment was watching 10 of their Bar Mitzvah-age children help a group of special needs Israeli children hold a Bar Mitzvah ceremony in a Conservative synagogue in Jerusalem.
Cloaked in white tallitot, the 13-year-olds from New York City helped wind leather tefillin straps around the arms of the Israelis and read aloud from the Torah. The Israeli teenagers led the service’s prayers.
Later, members of the Park Avenue Synagogue and the Israeli families hoisted the special needs children into chairs amid a chorus of singing and cheering.
“The faces of those children in those chairs is a memory I will always have,” Bressman said.
The event was part of a Bar/Bat Mitzvah for Special Children Program operated by the Masorti movement, as the Conservative movement is known in Israel.
“We were very moved,” said Orna Schwartz, an Israeli woman whose daughter participated in the ceremony.
Exposing congregants to the ordinary and the extraordinary is what the trip was about, Corwin said.
“You don’t get people to just go to Israel, you get them to engage in Israel,” he said, adding that other synagogues have begun to turn to them for advice on building congregants’ interest in Israel.
Birthright israel, the free trip to the Jewish state for Diaspora youth who have never visited on a peer trip, also saw high numbers, bringing about 8,500 youth to Israel this winter.
The Jewish Agency for Israel saw a dramatic rise in the number of high school and college students that it brings to Israel from around the world. Some 4,600 students from countries as diverse as South Africa, France and Australia came for their December vacation as part of JAFI’s “Israel Experience” program.
JAFI also led programming of trips for some 2,400 of the birthright participants.
Hillel also is seeing the highest number of American college students coming to Israel since the start of the intifada.
“We are at maximum capacity,” said Wayne Firestone, executive director of the Israel on Campus Coalition, an umbrella group for 30 national Jewish organizations founded by Hillel International and the Schusterman Foundation.
He said the easing of the security situation has made it easier for people to come to Israel and also has facilitated travel within Israel.
“Parents seem more comfortable and have made less problems about sending their kids,” he said.
Surveying the Hadassah trips to Israel, which include two family missions and a singles group, Post said she was struck by the increase in both people traveling with their children and in first-time visitors, something not much seen in recent years.
“I think there is this window of opportunity and people see it and are positive about it,” Post said.
During the previous intifada years, the majority of Jews coming to Israel were devoted Zionists.
“Now you have people on the fringes who are not necessarily as identifiable as passionate Zionists but came because they feel safer and see stability in Israel’s government and America’s government,” she said.
For Bill, a New York businessman on the Park Avenue Synagogue tour, coming to Israel for the first time this December was a powerful experience. He and his family had planned to come four years ago, but cancelled after the intifada broke out.
“I’m not a religious Jew,” Bill said, but coming here “cut me deep to my core and made me aware of my Jewish consciousness. If anyone cares anything about their Jewish identity then they should come visit here, because this is like nothing I’ve experienced before. This is the Jewish homeland.”
[i]© JTA.[/i]
False Messiahs and Fad Kabbalists
12.28.04 (1:33 pm) [edit]
[b][i]by Rabbi Lazer Brody
Teves,5765,
Ashdod[/b][/i]
Hashem, in His magnificent lovingkindness, gave us a set of laws - the Oral Law and the Written Law - which comprise the "revealed" Torah. These laws are designed to assure the physical and spiritual welfare of the individual and of society as a whole.
The more society and individuals live according to the Torah's laws, the better they thrive; unfortunately, the opposite holds true as well.
Kabbala is the esoteric part of Torah. In a nutshell, Kabbala explains the inner dimensions of Hashem's mitzvahs, and how the fulfillment of these mitzvahs affects the spiritual world. For centuries, Kabbala has served as a spiritual incentive to encourage the complete and joyous fulfillment of Hashem's mitzvahs. For example, when a person realizes how observing the Sabbath illuminates entire spiritual worlds and creates an indescribable sanctification of Hashem's holy name, that person will exercise extra care in guarding the laws of the Sabbath.
Fad Kabbalists take a distorted and perverted look at religious law. They claim that the mitzvahs of the Torah were designed to achieve a spiritual "tikkun", or correction of the upper worlds. They maintain that the actual fulfillment of mitzvas is for simpletons: If a person doesn't know the inner secrets of Torah, they say, then that person must fulfill the mitzvah in order to achieve the "tikkun".
For example, the mitzvah of loving one's fellow man creates a unification of the four holy letters of Hashem's name in all the upper worlds. A fad Kabbalist will tell you, "I don't need to go around loving other people; I'll simply meditate on the oneness of Hashem's name, and I'll achieve the same 'tikkun' in the spiritual realm." Such a fad Kabbalist is dead wrong. If the fad Kabbalist meditates day and night but goes around cheating and insulting others, then he/she causes a destruction of all worlds - material and spiritual. Who needs that kind of meditation?
The mitzvahs of Torah are not only designed to effect a tikkun in the upper worlds; they are designed predominantly for purifying ourselves and the physical world in which we live. History's greatest Kabbalists, from Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai to the great Arizal, Rabbi Eliahu the Vilna Ga'on, Rabbi Israel Baal Shem Tov, and Rabbi Chaim ben Attar to the Ben Ish Chai, were all monumental scholars of Torah and sages of phenomenal piety. True Kabbala goes hand in hand with Torah scholarship and piety. On the contrary, Torah scholarship and piety are prerequisites for true Kabbala.
Therefore, whenever you see a person breaking a law of Torah in the name of Kabbala, that person is an impostor, a spiritual criminal, and certainly not a Kabbalist.
The false messiahs of Jewish history, like the fad Kabbalists, always professed to be on a higher spiritual plane, and therefore claimed to be able to achieve the mystical "tikunim" without the physical act of the mitzvahs.
The 17th Century Polish Rabbi David Halevi, the famed "Taz" (author of the Turei Zahav commentary on Shulchan Aruch and son-in-law of the renowned "Bach", Rabbi Yoel Sirkis), once sent his son-in-law and a pupil to check out Shabtai Tzvi, who was then claiming to be the messiah. The Taz's son-in-law returned home and declared, "The man is an impostor! He is certainly no messiah!" The Taz asked how his son-in-law was so sure. "I found him lying prostrate on his back". A Jew is not allowed to lie bed on his back (see Tractate Nida 14a, Shulchan Aruch Even HaEzer 23:2, 63:1). If Shabtai Tzvi was blatantly breaking the laws of Torah, how could he be the messiah, whose task is to spread Torah observance throughout the world?
Indeed, fad Kabbala leads to the distortion and desecration of Torah. The Torah forbids tattooing of the body and demands personal modesty. Yet, the female prodigy of a famous fad Kabbalist appears semi-unclad on stage, with one of Hashem's holy names tattooed on her arm! It's hard to dream of a bigger farce; it would be funny if it weren't such a tragedy.Genuine Kabbala has a special sweetness, kind of like "spiritual honey". The one problem with honey though, is that it attracts flies. The flies that fly around the spiritual honey are the fad Kabbalists.
Success in spirituality like in any other discipline, requires hard work. If you want to
soar upwards, the only way to get off the ground is by uncompromising dedication to
Torah and its commandments. Don't let anybody sell you fad spirituality, and I certainly wouldn't want you buying a red Kabbala string for $27.00. If you have extra money, buy yourself some new books and increase your knowledge of Torah and Judaism. You'll be investing in the eternal happiness that I wish for you and your loved ones.
ISRAELI AID, UNREPORTED
12.28.04 (1:00 pm) [edit]
When disaster strikes =http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Sea... aidanywhere in the world, Israelis can be counted on to help. So it's no surprise that within hours of the devastating tsunami in the Indian Ocean, the following humanitarian =http://www.haaretzdaily.com/h... missions all departed from the tiny Jewish state:
● The Israeli organization =http://www.latet.org.il/engli...Latet ('To Give') filled a jumbo jet with 18 tons of supplies.
● A medical team headed by four doctors from Jerusalem's Hadassah Hospital arrived in Sri Lanka on Monday night (Dec. 27), carrying medicine and baby food. The doctors specialize in rescue operations, trauma and pediatrics.
● An IDF rescue team is now on its way to Sri Lanka with 80 tons of aid material, including 10,000 blankets, tents, nylon sheeting and water containers, all contributed by the IDF.
● A ZAKA rescue-and-recovery team arrived in the disaster areas Monday night, armed with its specialized equipment for identifying bodies.
● A Health Ministry contingent left for Thailand on Monday night to aid in rescue efforts. The group includes doctors, nurses and four members of the IDF.
● Israel has also offered its assistance to India ― a search-and-rescue team from the Home Front Command, as well as consignments of food and medicine.
Yet, with the exception of =http://www.washtimes.com/upi-...UPI, [b]none of the major news outlets have dedicated an article to this remarkable Israeli humanitarian effort[/b]. This, despite the fact that the IDF sent all Israel-based journalists a =http://www.honestreporting.co...press release Monday evening (Dec. 27), inviting them to the airport to cover the departure of one IDF group.
This is all the more surprising given the fact that the major news agencies have entire teams of reporters in Israel, who submit at least one 'Israel-article' each day.
So what did the Associated Press send out today to its 15,000 subscribing news agencies? A dreary story about the construction of a =http://story.news.yahoo.com/n...new IDF base near Jenin. AP sarcastically remarked in this 'news' story that the base's 'elaborate color scheme and landscaping shows that the army is not planning to pull its forces out of the area anytime soon.'
The lack of media interest in this Israeli humanitarian effort means that [b]Israeli benevolence toward other peoples is not fairly conveyed to the western world[/b]. Perhaps if it were conveyed, observers would come to understand something else ― that Israel's response to Palestinian violence is [b]also[/b] motivated by the highest ethical concern for all human life, and is not (as the media so often portray it) driven by an oppressive, mean-spirited national ethos.
HonestReporting encourages subscribers to write a letter to your local paper, praising the massive Israeli humanitarian mission to South Asia ― which the major media have apparently deemed 'not newsworthy.'
[i]Thank you for your ongoing involvement in the battle against media bias.
HonestReporting[/i]
"Die, Jewish pig!"
12.28.04 (11:36 am) [edit]
Thankfully, hate mail has been rather on the down-low lately here at the Lair. There are always little crazy trolls that pop out from the rock of which they came every once in a while. They never bother me. I know for an absolute fact that these people (if that is what they can call themselves) are merely cowardly little creatures with nothing better to do while locked away in their parents' basement with no friends other than their computer.
I feel sorry for them, if anything else.
They must think that they can strike fear into the hearts of any minority they don't like by simply leaving little "love notes" on other people's websites. Most intelligent life on this planet realizes that's a load of bunk. And I have the right to be rid of whatever garbage I do not wish to have on my blog, just as they have a right to come here and be hateful in the first place.
But I was thinking and I came to a question: What is the proportionate volume of hate mail that different kinds of people with websites receive? In other words, do plain old White folks get the same volume of hate mail that say a Black person or a Jewish person receives in a year? Obviously, sites that claim no ethnicity or religion or creed of the owner probably get little. So a plain old White person, I would think, would get nothing. That is to say that, in the case that the White person was a KKK member or something, then I'm sure they'd get some kind of hate mail from the minorities that they hate in the first place and/or other White people who hate bigotry.
What about Black people who own sites about being black? Asian people who own sites about being Asian? Mexicans? Arabs? I know to some degree what a Jewish person gets obviously because I am one and I have a site that sometimes talks about Judaism and other things related. Let me just tell you, I get a lot but they come in waves.
Then one must consider not just the volume but the content. Sometimes I will get things that are very hateful and detailed on how group x will systematically kill of the Jews on earth and feed them to dogs or something repulsive and stupid like that. Other times, I'll get something like the last hate comment I got "Die, Jewish pig!" and it is pretty benign in comparison to the other detailed and angrier things.
I guess what I'll never understand fully is why people feel a need to do that in the first place. I mean, I'm just sitting here at my computer. My blog just sits here on the net. Nonphysical, nonviolent. This basement dweller feels bored so all they can think of is coming over here and calling me a kike? What about writing poetry or making a blog or website of your own discussing your ideas on things? I don't know. It just seems pathetic.
In any case, I think a study should be conducted on hate mail volumes and content among minorities. Perhaps I'll start gathering some info. . .
Coin -- Operated Boy
12.27.04 (8:00 am) [edit]
I just signed up for a new itunes account. There's a promotion right now that if you sign up and put your paypal account as your mode of payment, itunes gives you 5 free song downloads. Kick tushie! There's been a few songs that have been unable to escape my brain since I heard them for the first time on the radio.
The first one, which shares the title of this blog entry, "Coin -- Operated Boy" by the Dresdin Dolls, is one of the most awesome songs I've heard in a long time. Very organic in it's sound, the song features only two or three instruments (or so it sounds to me): a piano and a drum, as well as the voice of the singer. I highly recommend purchasing that song.
Here are the lyrics to that song:
sitting on the shelf he is just a toy
but i turn him on and he comes to life
automatic joy
that is why i want a coin operated boy
made of plastic and elastic
he is rugged and long-lasting
who could ever ever ask for more
love without complications galore
many shapes and weights to choose from
i will never leave my bedroom
i will never cry at night again
wrap my arms around him and pretend....
coin operated boy
all the other real ones that i destroy
cannot hold a candle to my new boy and i'll
never let him go and i'll never be alone
not with my coin operated boy......
this bridge was written to make you feel smittener
with my sad picture of girl getting bitterer
can you extract me from my plastic fantasy
i didnt think so but im still convinceable
will you persist even after i bet you
a billion dollars that i'll never love you
will you persist even after i kiss you
goodbye for the last time
will you keep on trying to prove it?
i'm dying to lose it...
i want it
i want you
i want a coin operated boy.
and if i had a star to wish on
for my life i cant imagine
any flesh and blood could be his match
i can even take him in the bath
coin operated boy
he may not be real experienced with girls
but i know he feels like a boy should feel
isnt that the point that is why i want a
coin operated boy
with his pretty coin operated voice
saying that he loves me that hes thinking of me
straight and to the point
that is why i want
a coin operated boy.
I also downloaded "Finding out true love is blind" by Louis XIV. That song is so hilarious and freakish. I love how he goes through all of these kinds of girls that he "wants." The part I like the best? "Hey carrot juice! I wanna squeeze you in every way until you bleed!"
"1985" by Bowling for Soup is another one. Yea, it's poppie and that kinda thing usually isn't my style, but I enjoy how they point out some of the differences between that time of excellence, the 80s, and our current F'd up world.
The fourth song I got was "Judy is a Punk" by The Ramones. What can I say about a classic like that other than it's obviously a classic. I've been needing that song for some time.
The final song, "Is that all there is?" by Miss Peggie Lee. I had part of that song downloaded from the days in the long long ago of free Napster. Now, I have the song in it's entirety.
Is that all there is? Yes, for now. When I think of more songs that I need, I'll go back and spend money since I'm out of voucher. Any suggestions on somethings to search for?
An Important Message!
12.24.04 (8:32 am) [edit]
The Hasidic Gentile has asked me to mention that Reb Lazer Brody will be giving guest posts on his site, =http://www.hasidicgentile.org...HasidicGentile.org.
Many of you may remember that Rabbi Brody had a site that he decided to shut down earlier this month. Well, he's not done helping those in need with spiritual guidence yet. :)
Please do check out Hasidic Gentile's site and also =http://www.frum.orgFrum.org for some D'vrei Torah written by the Rabbi as well.
Happy Holidays to all and I hope everyone is well!
A Tehillim Plea!
12.24.04 (8:24 am) [edit]
I got this in an email and I am forwarding it along to all of you . . .
[LINE]
Dear Rabbi Brody and cyberspace yiddin,
Forgive me in advance and my apologies for tagging on to Rabbi Brody's
list
here, and bli neder, I will only do this once. But I am sending out an
urgent plea that you daven for a 10 year old boy who is in my
neighborhood
who underwent emergency brain surgery on Sunday. He is in critical
condition and on life support. Please forward this message to
everyone
that you know.
Please daven for MOSHE BOAZ ben YOCHEVED HENNA--
MAY HE HAVE A SPEEDY AND COMPLETE REFUAH SHLEMA--HASH-M!! WE NEED A
HAPPINESS IN
THIS TIME OF CHANUKKAH, A TIME OF MIRACLES!!!
Tizku l'mitzvos!
Nadine
Christmas Gifts of the Rich and Famous
12.24.04 (8:21 am) [edit]
[i][b]By Jeff Dunetz
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com" title="http://www.JewishWorldReview.com" target="_blank"http://www.JewishWorldReview....[/b][/i]
Have you ever stopped to wonder what type of presents famous people give each other for the Holidays? The other day I got an opportunity to receive this unique insight. Getting comfortable on the evening train, my eyes spotted what looked to be a piece of expensive stationary on the empty seat across from me. Embossed on the top of the page was the name of an unfamiliar company:
Celebrity Shopping Service,
Fulfilling Gift Giving Orders of the Rich And Famous Since 1975.
How cool is that -- a gift service that shops for famous people! (Makes sense though…it must be hard for them to stroll into their local Wal-Mart unnoticed, especially during the Christmas rush.) Beneath the corporate logo was a list of gifts purchased by the shopping service and the intended recipient. It was grouped according to the renowned person who was presenting the gift.
Celebrity Shopping Service had a fascinating group of clients, and they ordered an extraordinarily list of gifts. One of the first names on the list was, Bill O' Reilly Fox Broadcaster and defender of Christmas.
At the top of O'Reilly's list is a set of Christmas CDs performed by Barbara Streisand. He was sending them to the director of the Passion Mel Gibson. Ms Streisand is a particular favorite of Mr. O'Reilly's. He uses her as proof of his theory that "Jewish people enjoy Christmas too." After all he has said. "Ms. Streisand has made Gazillions singing Christmas Songs, and she sings 'em really well" Included with the music is a nice card to Mel which, along with the usual Christmas greetings, suggest to the director that his upcoming movie about the Maccabees include a scene where Judah Maccabee decorates a Christmas tree.
Not many people know that Mel Gibson is a collector of historic William Shakespeare items. Along with the Streisand music, O'Reilly sent Gibson a rare first bound edition of "The Merchant of Venice" (Mel's favorite). On the inside front cover Bill inscribed a paraphrase of the comment he made on his December 3rd radio show. He inscribed, "Tell those Jews to convert or move to Israel"
U.N. Secretary General Koffi Annan is another client of the Celebrity Shopping Service. Annan arraigned for each of his EU friends to receive a pair of flannel "footsie" pajamas, silk-screened with giant red hearts. The center of each heart has a picture of their idol, the late Palestinian leader Yassir Arafat.
Koffi also sent a gift to the PA's Abu Mazen an $18,000 American Express Gift Card. I guess it was supposed to be 1,000 time chai. The card had the nicest note. "Dear Abu, Yassir took billions form the PA treasury and left it to his wife, so please use this to purchase some gifts for you people. Do not worry if I can afford to give you a gift of this size, it is well within my means (I made some extra money in a recent oil deal)"
John Kerry created a plaque out of one of Dan Rather's most famous quotes "Journalism is more addictive than crack cocaine. Your life can get out of balance." He had the shopping service send it to the, soon to retire, CBS Anchor along with a note, "Dear Dan, well… we tried"
The shopping service can do just about anything. For example, the Board of Governors of the BBC hired the service to create and ship a gift to the King of Saudi Arabia…a handcrafted two-mile long quilt. The quilt is to be fastened on the wall built by the kingdom to keep out people from Yemen. It has an Arabic inscription embroidered on it. Translated into English the inscription says. "Not all fences are bad…just those built by Jews to keep out terrorists"
I was so very impressed with the Celebrity Shopping Service and their ability to find unusual gifts, I sent them an e-mail with a request for presents that I would like for them to find before Christmas.
To Mr. Annan and his friends at the UN and the EU, I send a framed section of the UN Charter… the part which talks about the equal treatment of all nations. I would include a card explaining that maybe its time to re-read that charter and start treating Israel fairly.
To the Board of the Governor of the BBC, they are shipping a copy of Edward R. Murrow's biography with the hopes that they study it to learn the basic tenets of journalistic integrity.
I asked them to send Bill O'Reilly something to help him understand that some of those "people of faith" who voted for George Bush wear a yarmulke. Those of us who are Jewish in practice and conservative in politics feel comfortable with public and private expressions of religion. It is OK when someone says Merry Christmas to me when they don't understand it is not my holiday. I don't even mind public displays of the Ten Commandments (as long as they are written in the original Hebrew, or the translation is approved by a rabbi). However, when a teacher puts up a Christmas tree, teaches kids Christmas carols or has someone come into class wearing a Santa Claus costume, they are pushing one religion over another. Forcing my children to celebrate Christmas in school is the majority forcing their religion on the minority.
The Pledge of Allegiance talks about "one nation under G-d." Throughout the 240 years of U.S. history we have fought to ensure that one person's vision of G-d should not be enforced upon another.
[i]Jeff Dunetz is a regular contributor to Jewish World Review. © 2004, Jeff Dunetz.[/i]
POST-OSLO MYTHS
12.24.04 (7:49 am) [edit]
As things move forward, it is self-evident that any successful new process must overcome three obstacles that doomed the Oslo process of 1993-2000:
1) the Palestinian leader's inability to accept a final settlement with Israel,
2) Palestinian promotion of suicide terrorism, and
3) the historical Palestinian/Arab rejection of the legitimacy of the State of Israel.
Yet, as movement toward new talks begins, anti-Israel ideologues in the media have begun chipping away at all three of these established truths ― rewriting history and denying the fundamental challenges facing the region:
1) 'OSLO FAILED BECAUSE OF ISRAEL'
In the Buffalo News, academic Jerome Slater claims that Oslo failed not because of Arafat, but rather because of Israel and Ariel Sharon. Slater writes:
Arafat's real bottom line was not the destruction of Israel... but a genuine two-state compromise settlement... it is a myth that Arafat "never made a counteroffer" and walked away from the bargaining table or that the negotiations broke down when the Palestinian Intifada broke out.
Slater presents himself as more knowledgeable than those who actually conducted the negotiations ― ignoring President Clinton's famous response to Arafat's compliment that Clinton is 'a great man.' Said Clinton: 'I am not a great man. I am a failure, and you have made me one.'
And Slater ignores the testimony of Dennis Ross, who directed the entire negotiating process during those years. In his recent book 'The Missing Peace', Ross recalls the end of the negotiations:
If there had been any hope for an agreement, it was gone now... Arafat was not going to say yes under any circumstances... As he had so often in his career, Arafat was seeking to have it both ways, creating the illusion of being positive by accepting the ideas, but practically rejecting them with his reservations. (p. 13)
Slater's article distorts this all-important aspect of the historical record ― the Palestinian rejection of Israel's far-reaching peace offer of 2000.
Comments to: LetterToEditor@buffnews.com
2) AN 'ISRAELI CULTURE OF MARTYRDOM'
In a Dec. 22 article in The Nation, Baruch Kimmerling brushes aside the Palestinian culture of suicide 'martyrdom' (one factor that killed Oslo), and fabricates in its place a supposed Israeli promotion of death culture. In an article entitled 'Israel's Culture of Martyrdom', Kimmerling claims that
in the case of Israel the connection between nationalism and death is especially visceral... Zionism, the state's ruling ideology, is a triumphal creed shadowed by death... It is deeply ironic that the very same society now claims to be shocked by the 'martyrdom culture' in the occupied territories.
Kimmerling goes on to describe 'European Jews who colonized Palestine,' Israeli leaders 'unburdened of almost any moral restrictions, or even obedience to internal and international laws,' and an 'obsessive commemoration of the Holocaust and of Jewish victimhood... the victory of death over life.'
A similar denial of Palestinian promotion of martyrdom recently appeared in the International Herald Tribune (Dec. 18), where Roger Avenstrup claimed that 'time and again, independently of each other, researchers find no incitement to hatred in the Palestinian textbooks.'
In response, expert Itamar Marcus said those like Avenstrup 'are tragically enabling the Palestinian Authority to avoid necessary changes in its education system.' Marcus gives a number of examples of Palestinian schoolbook lessons that the Koran views the Jews as 'the enemy of God,' that Israel resides on Palestinians' 'stolen homeland,' and of an Islamic religious obligation to destroy the Jewish state.
3) ISRAEL IS AN ILLEGITIMATE, COLONIAL STATE
This week, both the LA Times and The Guardian published an op-ed from David Hirst that challenges the very legitimacy of the state of Israel:
The real trouble is that... the U.S. has never been able to acknowledge the real nature of the problem... is essentially one of decolonization... If the Palestinians were to secure the redress that other colonized peoples have, there would be either no Israel (as there is no Algerie francaise) or there would be a binational state (like South Africa).
Read carefully: Hirst claims that all of Israel is an illegitimate colony.
Hirst ignores the plain historical facts that: 1) Jews have dwelled in the Land of Israel for 4,000 years ― millennia before Islam ever began, and 2) those who immigrated as Zionists did not come to extend colonial European influence.
This type of historical revisionism has undermined every effort of peaceful Arab/Israeli coexistence, including Oslo. As Mahmoud Abbas said just days before the outbreak of violence in 2000:
They [the Jews] claim that 2,000 years ago they had a Temple. I challenge the claim that this is so. (August 25, 2000, Kul Al-Arab, an Israeli Arab newspaper)
The LA Times ostensibly published the Hirst op-ed as a public service, in the interest of open debate. But by promoting such a radical and distorted viewpoint, the Times actually performs a disservice ― obscuring the real issues and distancing the hope of Mideast peace.
Comments to: letters@latimes.com
With the hope for renewed discussions in the air, media promotion of outright falsities from the Oslo era is unwelcome, for it only undermines possible progress.
HonestReporting subscribers are urged to be on the lookout for these and other post-Oslo myths.
Thank you for your ongoing involvement in the battle against media bias.
HonestReporting
12.23.04 (5:43 pm) [edit]
NEW YORK (AFP) - More than 700 victims of violence by militant Islamist groups in Israel filed a lawsuit in US federal court, accusing the Arab Bank of funding a "terrorist campaign of genocide."
The plaintiffs, who came from 10 countries but the vast majority of whom are Israeli citizens, are seeking billions of dollars in compensation from the Jordan-based bank.
"We want a verdict big enough to change their policies," said lead counsel Ron Motley.
The lawsuit accuses the bank of promoting terrorism by paying money to the families of suicide bombers run by the radical Islamist group Hamas.
In a statement issued through its attorney Kevin Walsh, the bank rejected the charges as "entirely false."
The legal action was brought under the Alien Tort Claims Act of 1789, which grants non-US citizens access to the US courts to seek justice for violations of "the law of nations," such as genocide and crimes against humanity.
"They have aided and abetted the recruitment of genocidal murderers," Motley said of Arab Bank, which is the subject of other lawsuits for allegedly funding terrorist activities.
One of the plaintiffs, Iris Almog Schwartz, an Israeli citizen, lost her mother, father, brother and two nephews in a suicide bombing in a Haifa restaurant in October last year.
"The terrorists have declared war on us, ordinary civilians, but today, we are striking back non-violently with the most powerful weapon we have -- the US courts," Schwartz told reporters.
"With this action, we will stop the Arab Bank from supporting Hamas' campaign of genocide against the Israeli people and cripple terrorism," she added.
One of the largest financial institutions in the Middle East, the Arab Bank has more than 400 branches and offices in 25 countries, including a branch in New York City.
"Arab Bank asserts unequivocally, and above all else, that it deplores and condemns terrorism in all its forms, and is saddened by the consequences of it," Walsh said
"The accusations being brought against the bank, as we understand them, are entirely false," he added. "The bank has never and would never support terrorist organizations in any way."
NEW YORK (AFP) - More than 700 victims of violence by militant Islamist groups in Israel filed a lawsuit in US federal court, accusing the Arab Bank of funding a "terrorist campaign of genocide."
The plaintiffs, who came from 10 countries but the vast majority of whom are Israeli citizens, are seeking billions of dollars in compensation from the Jordan-based bank.
"We want a verdict big enough to change their policies," said lead counsel Ron Motley.
The lawsuit accuses the bank of promoting terrorism by paying money to the families of suicide bombers run by the radical Islamist group Hamas.
In a statement issued through its attorney Kevin Walsh, the bank rejected the charges as "entirely false."
The legal action was brought under the Alien Tort Claims Act of 1789, which grants non-US citizens access to the US courts to seek justice for violations of "the law of nations," such as genocide and crimes against humanity.
"They have aided and abetted the recruitment of genocidal murderers," Motley said of Arab Bank, which is the subject of other lawsuits for allegedly funding terrorist activities.
One of the plaintiffs, Iris Almog Schwartz, an Israeli citizen, lost her mother, father, brother and two nephews in a suicide bombing in a Haifa restaurant in October last year.
"The terrorists have declared war on us, ordinary civilians, but today, we are striking back non-violently with the most powerful weapon we have -- the US courts," Schwartz told reporters.
"With this action, we will stop the Arab Bank from supporting Hamas' campaign of genocide against the Israeli people and cripple terrorism," she added.
One of the largest financial institutions in the Middle East, the Arab Bank has more than 400 branches and offices in 25 countries, including a branch in New York City.
"Arab Bank asserts unequivocally, and above all else, that it deplores and condemns terrorism in all its forms, and is saddened by the consequences of it," Walsh said
"The accusations being brought against the bank, as we understand them, are entirely false," he added. "The bank has never and would never support terrorist organizations in any way."
Quizes. Why? Because I don't feel like studying for finals right now!
12.15.04 (5:01 pm) [edit]
Heh. I'm not sure what to make of this one. Basil is one of my favourites, but I didn't know that's how basil feels. LOL
YOU ARE BASIL
What herb are you?
brought to you by Quizilla
For those of you that know me, this one was a no-brainer.
You are 93% Aries |
I hope most of you feel this way. I quite agree with this result. . .
You Are a Pundit Blogger! |
 Your blog is smart, insightful, and always a quality read. Truly appreciated by many, surpassed by only a few. |
Shucks.
You Are From the Moon |
 You can vibe with the steady rhythms of the Moon. You're in touch with your emotions and intuition. You possess a great, unmatched imagination - and an infinite memory. Ultra-sensitive, you feel at home anywhere (or with anyone). A total healer, you light the way in the dark for many. |
Ok, Law & Order is on so I'm going to procrastinate elsewhere now. LOL
A Tribute To France's "Superiority"
12.13.04 (12:05 pm) [edit]
These fun facts about the wonderful French can be found in "DUH! The Stupid History of the Human Race" by Bob Fenster, along with many more atrocities and stupidities created by humanity. Enjoy!
A man in Clermont, France, blew up his house with his washing machine. He told police that he was trying to remove a grease stain from a shirt by pouring a cup of gasoline in the washer. When the machine changed cycles, a spark ignited the gasoline and blew out the first floor of his home, knocking him unconscious. "I feel a bit stupid," the man admitted later.
French physiology professor Pierre Pachet in 1872: "[Louis Pasteur's] theory of germs is a ridiculous fiction."
Marshal Ferdinand Foch, professor of military strategy at France's 'Ecole Superieure de Guerre, in the days before WWI: "Airplanes are interesting toys, but of no military value."
Two Parisians fought a duel with muskets in hot-air balloons in 1808. One man shot the other man's balloon, and his rival died from the plunge.
A Frenchman tried a complex suicide in 1998. Standing on a tall cliff, he tried a noose around his neck, securing the rope to a large rock. He then drank poison and set fire to himself. As he jumped off the cliff, he fired a pistol at his head. The bullet missed him and cut through the rope so he didn't hang himself when he plunged into the sea. And not only did the water extinguish his burning clothes, but the shock of it made him vomit up the poison. He was dragged out of the water by a fisherman and taken to a hospital, where he died of hypothermia.
In 1891 a French engineer designed a daredevil ride specifically for the Eiffel Tower. The ride consisted of a gigantic, bullet-shaped chamber big enough to seat 15 people. The chamber would be hoisted to the top of the Eiffel Tower, then dropped to free fall into a champagne glass-shaped reservoir of water at the bottom of the tower. The effect of the adventure, although it was never built, was described as a thrill. Something may have been lost in the translation from the French.
In medieval France priests and judges maintained that animals could be possessed by Satan. On the gallows in the French countryside, cows and pigs were hung by the neck until dead to release the devil within. Because the meat of convicted stock was sinful, cow corpses were burned, not butchered. Thus, people starved while watching their farm animals slaughtered but not used for food.
When high heels were invented in France in 1590, they were worn by men, who used them to assume a position of power over other men. Men soon found that dominance was difficult to maintain when you were falling down after every other step. So high heels were passed on to women, where they became a symbol of sexual subservience. Upper-class women wore heels to demonstrate that they were too rich to have to move. During the French revolution, women abandoned their heels as elitist. In a counterrevolutionary gesture, ballerinas started dancing on their toes to simulate high heels.
In France in the 1600s the remains of executed murderers were considered good-luck charms. Crowds would gather to pick apart the charred remains of people beheaded and burned, ignoring the obvious fact that these murderers had not been lucky for their victims or, ultimately, for themselves. ([i]I guess it just goes to show you the lengths the French will go in order glorify murderers. - RT[/i])
The plague of the 14th century led to a confounding attempt at disease prevention in France: Flagellants marched from town to town, lashing one another with metal-tipped whips. Their theory was that public atonement for sins would spare them from the Black Death. This method of plague control worked particularly well for the flagellants who died from excessive blood loss due to overenthusiastic whipping.
In the 17th century pointed table knives were declared illegal in France. Why? Cardinal Richelieu was offended by the sight of uncouth diners picking their teeth with their knife points. That's why, in our time, we use knives with rounded ends at table.
Peter the Hermit, a French holy man, led a peasants' crusade at the turn of the 11th century to seek salvation in Jerusalem. Peter may have been mad, but he gathered a huge following because salvation seemed preferable to the miserable, brutally abrupt life of being a French peasant in the Dark Ages. The peasants, who took to ravaging villages along their journey to the sea, never made it to the Holy Land, where they would probably have been slaughtered by Saracens. Instead, they were slaughtered by the armies of France, who didn't like the idea of peasants marching, to their salvation or anywhere else.
When the Minuet was introduced into French society in the 1600s, it was intended to demonstrate the grace of the upper class. French dancing masters refined the Minuet, which had begun as a folk dance, to the degree that books were written about proper performance. One book contained a lengthy chapter devoted to correct manner in which the wrist was to be turned and 60 pages explore the details of the gentleman's bow.
Prior to the French revolution, a man served 50 years in prison for whistling at Queen Mary Antoinette. Perhaps she shouldn't have been so surprised when she found the peasants revolting.
In the 1840s the French government passed a law saying that criminals could not be arrested between the hours of sunset and sunrise.
In 1358, long before anyone conceived of a popular revolution against a corrupt aristocracy, French peasants suddenly had their fill of being used as pike fodder by the lords of the land. Tired of being starved, beaten, raped, and killed, the poor actually got off their skinny buts and did something about it. They revolted. Did they overthrow the aristocracy and start a noble society where everyone was treated as equals, with Christian kindness and respect for the rights of all? Not in the 14th century, they didn't, although they had some trouble getting it right in the 15th, 16th, 17th, 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries too. Meanwhile back in 1358 the French rebels abused and slaughtered the powerful in a fashion that would have made a king proud. They tied up aristocrats and forced them to watch as their wives and daughters were raped, tortured, and killed. Within a month, turn-around day was over. The aristocrats brought in better armed soldiers, and the revolting peasants were put in their place again, at the end of a pike or in the center of a noose. But the powerless had proven their point: Given the chance, you couldn't tell them apart from the powerful.
The worst acts of revolution belong to those suave sophisticates, the French. During the Reign of Terror in 1793-94, the victorious revolutionaries got so carried away with their self-righteous revenge that they slaughtered their countrymen by the thousands for crimes against the people, then for accusations about crimes against the people, then for accusations about crimes against the people, then for the potential to engender accusations. In Nantes the guillotine wasn't able to keep up with the volume of executions ordered by the tribunal. Condemned aristocrats, priests, government officials, and anyone else who ticked off the tribunal were crowded onto ships, which were then capsized in the river. Any of the condemned who tried to escape drowning were pushed under the water with boat hooks. The river became so littered with corpses that the contaminated water spread a fatal disease throughout the city. In their lust for vengeance, the revolutionaries accidentally killed themselves.
In the 13th century thousands of French children believed a shepherd boy who claimed to have seen a vision of Christ. The children followed their young leader on a crusade to liberate the Holy Land. The children were put aboard ships owned by French merchants, promised a free journey to Jerusalem, then sold into slavery instead.
Artists often claim it's their work that matters, the song not the singer. Unfortunately, governments believe that noble lie too. Auguste Rodin, France's great sculptor; was broke, starving, and freezing during the harsh winter of 1917. He asked the French government if he could live in the museum where his sculptures were housed. Government officials turned down the artist's request, and he froze to death in an unheated garret. Rodin had donated many of those sculptures for free to his beloved country.
The French writer Guy de Maupassant liked sex more than writing. He was eventually admitted to a mental institution, where he would lick the floors and refuse to urinate. He died of syphilis at the age of 42.
The French army invented a blast-resistant boot allowing soldiers to walk over mine fields. One problem: the boot was so heavy and hard to walk in that the soldiers would be shot down by snipers long before they were not blown up by mines.
At Crecy in 1346 the French army attacked a much smaller force of English troops, composed primarily of longbow men, who stopped the first wave of French infantry. Before these foot soldiers could find cover, French mounted knights attacked along the same route, blocking their retreat, which also blocked their advance. Instead of clearing the way for the survivors of the first wave, the French knights attacked their own infantry, while the English longbows slaughtered both groups at their leisure.
Geography knows no boundaries when it comes to political foolishness, as French president Charles de Gaulle demonstrated: "China is a big country, inhabited by many Chinese."
WOW. I have to say that I'm quite impressed. :lol: :P
Jonathan Pollard´s Open Letter to the Chief Rabbi of The IDF
12.13.04 (11:37 am) [edit]
(IsraelNN.com) [i]Following is the letter sent by Jonathan Pollard to the Chief Rabbi of the IDF, Brigadier-General Rabbi Yisrael Weiss.[/i]
December 12, 2004 B"H
Dear Rabbi Weiss,
As you know, our tradition teaches that a Jew does not sin unless he is afflicted by temporary insanity, a "ruach shtut".
How else are we to understand why a G-d -fearing Jew like yourself, the Chief Rabbi of the IDF, would declare his support for orders to uproot thousands of Jews from their homes in the Land of Israel?
I refer to your recent comments on IDF Radio supporting the evil disengagement plan and identifying secular military commanders and state officials as the ultimate authority which soldiers must obey.
"Refusal to carry out orders is liable to bring about the collapse of the army and the end of the People of Israel's task," you said. "The army, the state is the authority."
"We can't allow a soldier to do whatever he wants. This will bring a danger that the army will end its function and this nation will end its task," you declared.
With all due respect, Rabbi, it is difficult to imagine that you truly believe that it is the state and the army alone which protect us and ensure our viability as a People! The Jewish People lived for 2000 years without a state and without an army, under the grace of G-d Almighty. It is only because of His loving-kindness and His will expressed as through the Laws of Torah, that we live in the Land today and continue to thrive as a People.
When you visited with me 2 months ago, I told you that HaRav Mordecai Eliyahu, shlita, is my father. You replied joyfully, "We are sons of the same father!
He is my father too!" You said that you consider HaRav Eliyahu to be your superior in Torah, and that before issuing any important Halachic ruling for the army, you first consult with him.
Surely you are aware that HaRav Eliyahu has unequivocally declared that it is forbidden for G-d -fearing soldiers to obey orders to uproot Jews from the Land! HaRav Eliyahu has ruled that it is better for soldiers to sit in prison than to take part in the expulsion of Jews from their homes. Rabbi Weiss, in light of your apparent disregard for the psak Halacha of your own rabbinic superior, how can you expect thousands of soldiers to rely on you?
In my dealings with Jewish leaders over the past 20 years, it is clear to me that often Heaven raises a man up to a position of power and authority not as a reward, but as a test.
It is obvious that in this lifetime, G-d has placed you, of all men, in the unique position of being able to single-handedly defeat the immoral disengagement plan. You, amongst all men, can say "No!" to disengagement, and in so doing, support thousands upon thousands of soldiers to do the same! No other rabbi living in the Land today is in such a powerful position as you are, in regard to this issue.
Just as good government never depends on laws, but upon the moral character of those who govern, so too an army depends not upon specific orders, but upon the personal qualities (midot) of its leaders. The functioning of the army is always subordinate to the will of those who administer it. The most important element of an army is who its leaders are. And Torah is the software that transforms it into a Jewish army. Without our divine software, we are nothing but machines and uniforms.
Rabbi Weiss, it appears that you are now being tested as both soldier and rabbi. You must now choose between your officer's commission and the yoke of Torah; between serving G-d or serving man.
Your choice will set the model for all G-d -fearing soldiers. It will also determine whether your name is revered for all generations as the rabbi who stood up to secular power in defense of the Land; or, G-d forbid, remembered as the rabbi who betrayed Jewish soldiers into defaming Torah and desecrating the Land.
Therefore, I plead with you to retract your statements regarding the disengagement plan! It is imperative that you issue a new ruling in harmony with the psak Halacha of HaRav Mordecai Eliyahu. Retracting now, especially since it is Chanukah, would be a great kiddush HaShem, in the best tradition of Mattityahu HaMaccabee himself.
I implore you to act now in the tradition of Gideon, of Yehoshua Bin Nun, and of Yehuda HaMaccabee! Be a Jewish warrior in defense of the Land! Say "No!" to disengagement!
Kavod HaRav, by retracting your previous position and openly encouraging soldiers not to participate in uprooting Jews from the Land, you will create a powerful model of Tshuva, not only for the soldiers but for all of Israel. You will bring relief to the Nation and honor to the Israel Defense Forces.
As it is written in Tehillim: "Some trust in chariots, some trust in horses; but we rely solely upon Hashem, our G-d!" As upholders of Torah we know that G-d and G-d alone is the ultimate authority for a Jew.
Respectfully,
Jonathan Pollard
More RAIN!
12.08.04 (8:16 am) [edit]
Wooohooo!
Well, it doesn't exactly look like this, but isn't it a neat picture? It's raining and pouring here and it is alright with me! Parking on campus is kinda rediculous though, but that goes with the territory I suppose. Just thought I'd check in on my way to class . . .
12.08.04 (8:02 am) [edit]
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel termed as premature on Tuesday an Egyptian report that it had agreed in principle with the Palestinians on proposals to end their conflict but said it would respond positively if militants ceased attacks.
"There are a few correct elements but it's a little premature to say there's an agreement," a senior official in Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's office said. "We will respond positively if on the other side there will be arrangements for a cease-fire, a cessation of hostilities."
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel termed as premature on Tuesday an Egyptian report that it had agreed in principle with the Palestinians on proposals to end their conflict but said it would respond positively if militants ceased attacks.
"There are a few correct elements but it's a little premature to say there's an agreement," a senior official in Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's office said. "We will respond positively if on the other side there will be arrangements for a cease-fire, a cessation of hostilities."
December 7, 1941
12.07.04 (1:43 pm) [edit]
Today is the anniversery of the Day that shall live on in infamy. Almost Half a century ago, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, triggering the U.S. to finally get involved in the already horendous World War II. We should never forget those who lost their lives that day, those who lost their lives in that war, and those who continue to be lost in the defense of our great country. I salute all of our troops, past and present. I think them, personally and from the bottom of my heart, for keeping me and my family safe from the evil that lurks outside our borders.
If you are interested in learning about what happened on this day in the year 1941, I found some great links to help us all remember.
=http://plasma.nationalgeograp...National Geographic has a site devoted to stories, history, and photos.
Here is the =http://www.arizonamemorial.or...USS Arizona Memorial web site.
=http://www.history.navy.mil/p...This Navy Site shows you the history.
These are my picks. Feel free to google this date on your computer and see what comes up.
Fahrenheit 9-11 vs. The Passion
12.07.04 (11:39 am) [edit]
I was listening to O'Reilly this morning and he was talking about how [i]Fahrenheit 9/11[/i] is getting all of these nominations for the Oscars. Bill was complaining about how [i]The Passion of the Christ[/i] is getting nothing due to the bigoted and hateful left in the media. He took a caller that told him that in the caller's town, which was a liberal town according to this caller, sold out [i]The Passion[/i] at the video store and [i]FH 9/11[/i] was just gathering dust. Bill went on to say that "the folks" don't buy this liberal nonsense and that a culture war was going to get worse because the Christian nation was going to come to odds with the liberal media.
Interesting for whatever it is worth.
So in listening to this program, I got to thinking. First off, I just wanna say I really don't give a hoot about the Oscars. Because [i]Lord of the Rings[/i] swept the Oscars the past couple of years and there were far better movies out there, I already know it's rigged. [i]Lord of the Rings[/i] was a great movie for the cgi it gave us. Plot wise, the book was better. The acting was horrid. The direction was putrid. Am I the only one who thinks we don't need a ten minute close up of Frodo's face as it changed expression from gleeful to, um, somewhat gleeful with his hair blowing in the wind and it's starting to freak me out?
In any case, the Oscars are just a bunked out excuse for spoiled rich actors to get dressed up so that the rest of the country can watch and wish they were a bunch of spoiled rich actors too. Who cares.
And it comes as no surprise to me that [i]FH 9/11[/i] is being nominated for all of these bunghole awards, while [i]The Passion[/i] is not. It's not about which is the better movie. It's about politics. This is just common knowledge.
All that aside, the question started nagging in my brain. The two biggest blockbusters of this year were both very charged films. Everyone was talking about them. They both had a major impact on our country, our society. So the nagging question is, which one was better for the Jews? And when I say better, I mean in the sense of what people think and even do after they see each movie.
Let me help to further clarify what I mean. . .
After seeing [i]The Passion[/i], lots of Jews were afraid that it would justify and provoke pogrom like incidents all over the country, even the world.
After seeing [i]Fahrenheit 9/11[/i], people were afraid also that it would cause some disturbances for Jews, in that, people would somehow conclude that they should not only hate the President but all of the people he has anything to do with. Case in point, Israel. The President supports Israel. Israel is the Jewish State. Who can we, the liberal fart jobs who take Michael Moore seriously, hurt in order to make a point? Gee, I think we better go get some fire-bombs and head down to that synagogue down the street.
After [i]9/11[/i] came out, believe it or not, there were some issues. A synagogue right down the street from where my mother lives was vandalized. Slurs that were spray painted on the outside of the building said, "We'll get you, Bush! And your cronies won't be spared either." I just love the peaceful left, don't you?
After [i]The Passion[/i] came out, a Christian Church put up a sign saying that, "The Passion is the gospel and the Jews are Satan." What ever happened to love thy neighbor?
So the question still nags? Which movie was better, as in less hurtful, to the Jews? Which movie will the media reward more and will it be deserving? Time will tell, I suppose.
In any case, what do you think?
Yasir's will
12.07.04 (9:13 am) [edit]
I, Yasir Arafat, leader of the Palestinian people, being of corrupted mind and runty filthy little body do bequeath the following:
To my wife Suha I leave all the jewelery, purchased with United Nations relief funds, stashed in safe deposit boxes throughout The Grand Caymans, The Channel Islands and the First Syrian Bank of Damascus.
To the Mullahs' in Iran I leave the anthrax, nail-filled vests and detonators stashed away in the basement of my estate on the West Bank.
I want the $880 million in cash hidden away is Swiss bank accounts to be divided equally between Suha and the United Nations Security Council. Both bent over and let me have my way with them though, each, in their own special way. My beloved Suha put up more of a struggle than Kofi, but he has had much more experience in "bending over" for murderous thugs. It was Suha's first time "back there".
To my beloved Palestinain people who I love and have fought for, I leave a large roll of 3 mil contractor's trash bags so you can sweep up some of the refuse and trash you left in front of my mansion.
Suha may retain the luxury flat in Paris.
The Palestinian people who I love and fought for can have what ever the Israelis didn't destroy when the bombed my garage. I think there are some old fatigues and a Coleman stove that needs a new propane tank.
Suha may keep the fleet of Mercedes that she has accumulated over the past 4 years.
My beloved Palestinain people who love and have fought for can have my sincerest best wishes for a prosperous future.
Suha may keep the Van Cleef and Arpels Diamond and Platinum necklace I bought her for our anniversary.
The Palestinain people who I love and fought for can have what ever paper towels and plastic forks are left in the pantry of my mansion in the West Bank.
To the young boys who I slept with while Suha was living in Paris, please give them my collection of Michael Jackson tapes and CDs.
To the Palestinian people who I loved and fought for, I leave them with my last wish, to continue to live in filth and die for no damn good reason, to sacrifice their children and kill as many Israeli infants as possible so that you might advance your cause.
But keep your hands off Suha's Mercedes and jewellery you filthy ignorant swine.
To the crews of the Israeli heliocopters that circled my compound . . . nice shooting fellas. That last rocket attack took out my 60 inch plasma flat screen.
To Suha I leave my French impressionist collection currentlyhanging on the walls of her apartment in Paris.
And, to my beloved Palestinian people who I loved and fought for, I leave you the list of Israeli Day Care centers so you will know where to explode yourselves without having to do a great deal of research.
And please, do something about the open trench latrines in your neighborhood. I don't bath often and you were starting to gross ME out.
We will all eat lamb in paradsie, your beloved, faithful and devoted leader, the wealthy, and quite dead, Yasir Arafat.
Destruction (Continued)
12.06.04 (1:18 pm) [edit]
I'm in the library right now. I was walking in the entrance when I saw another person walk by and reach to grab off of the Chanukah exhibit some more things that had been replaced since last week. This time, it was a different person. It was a scrawny white boy with sunglasses and a closely shaven head. He was about my own height. I wasn't going to let this happen agian. Not right in front of me a second time!
In the middle of the foyae (sp?), I yelled at him so that all could hear.
"Don't steal!"
"What?" was his reply along with a shocked expression on his face.
"Put it back!" I exclaimed.
He hesitated, still not believing that someone was calling him on the bull he was pulling.
"Put it back!" I growled and reminded him. He then did so, putting back what he had started dismantling. He walked past me with this look of disgust; a look of shear anger.
I gave him the same look back.
Other people had stopped what they were doing and watched. After I was sure he had completely left the Library, I continued on my way.
What the hell is happening here? This guy was more like a common petty peice of you know what theif. This has to stop. I'm not sure what to do next.
12.04.04 (4:02 pm) [edit]
[i][b]By SARAH EL DEEB, Associated Press Writer [/b][/i]
CAIRO, Egypt - In the latest sign of improving ties, Egypt and Israel moved closer to resolving a simmering dispute Friday, a day after President Hosni Mubarak called Israel's prime minister the best chance for Mideast peace.
Newspaper front pages in Egypt were dominated Friday by Mubarak's statement that his country was "very" close to a resolution with Israel over the case of six Egyptian students. The students have been held in Israel since August for allegedly crossing the border illegally with the intentions of kidnapping Israeli soldiers.
The arrests of the Egyptian students, and the recent shooting of three Egyptian policemen by Israelis along the border had inflamed public sentiments in Egypt. Israel called the policemen's deaths an accident.
Mubarak's singling Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on Thursday as a possible peace partner was a marked change from his past comments blaming the Israeli for the escalation of violence in the Palestinian territories.
"I think if they (Palestinians) can't achieve progress in the time of the current prime minister, it will be very difficult to make any progress in peace," Mubarak told reporters. The comments were the latest in a string of signs of improving relations in what has been a frigid peace between the two countries that signed a treaty 25 years ago.
In addition, Foreign Minister, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, spoke earlier of "greater flexibility" on the part of Israel on bilateral talks regarding the intended Israeli pullout from Gaza by next year.
Aboul Gheit, who made the comment after his first visit with Sharon and Israeli officials, held out the possibility that Egypt would return its ambassador to Tel Aviv.
"This is a condition and a situation that might develop in the future," he said. "When? It is difficult to be precise. What is important is that the good intentions remain."
Egypt, which in 1979 became the first Arab country to sign a peace treaty with the Jewish state, has not had an ambassador in Israel since 2000 — a sore point with Israelis. Cairo recalled its ambassador after the eruption of the Palestinian uprising.
Most analysts believe that the two countries' efforts at improving relations will depend on the level of Israeli-Palestinian violence in coming months, and whether Palestinian elections go smoothly after the death of Yasser Arafat. Israel has said it sees a chance for peace talks with Palestinians after Arafat's death
Mohammed Bassiouni, former ambassador to Israel, said Egypt recalled him from Tel Aviv because the peace process was frozen and because Israel used "massive force" against the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.
"When these reasons disappear, I am sure there will be an Egyptian ambassador in Israel," Bassiouni told The Associated Press recently.
[i][b]By SARAH EL DEEB, Associated Press Writer [/b][/i]
CAIRO, Egypt - In the latest sign of improving ties, Egypt and Israel moved closer to resolving a simmering dispute Friday, a day after President Hosni Mubarak called Israel's prime minister the best chance for Mideast peace.
Newspaper front pages in Egypt were dominated Friday by Mubarak's statement that his country was "very" close to a resolution with Israel over the case of six Egyptian students. The students have been held in Israel since August for allegedly crossing the border illegally with the intentions of kidnapping Israeli soldiers.
The arrests of the Egyptian students, and the recent shooting of three Egyptian policemen by Israelis along the border had inflamed public sentiments in Egypt. Israel called the policemen's deaths an accident.
Mubarak's singling Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on Thursday as a possible peace partner was a marked change from his past comments blaming the Israeli for the escalation of violence in the Palestinian territories.
"I think if they (Palestinians) can't achieve progress in the time of the current prime minister, it will be very difficult to make any progress in peace," Mubarak told reporters. The comments were the latest in a string of signs of improving relations in what has been a frigid peace between the two countries that signed a treaty 25 years ago.
In addition, Foreign Minister, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, spoke earlier of "greater flexibility" on the part of Israel on bilateral talks regarding the intended Israeli pullout from Gaza by next year.
Aboul Gheit, who made the comment after his first visit with Sharon and Israeli officials, held out the possibility that Egypt would return its ambassador to Tel Aviv.
"This is a condition and a situation that might develop in the future," he said. "When? It is difficult to be precise. What is important is that the good intentions remain."
Egypt, which in 1979 became the first Arab country to sign a peace treaty with the Jewish state, has not had an ambassador in Israel since 2000 — a sore point with Israelis. Cairo recalled its ambassador after the eruption of the Palestinian uprising.
Most analysts believe that the two countries' efforts at improving relations will depend on the level of Israeli-Palestinian violence in coming months, and whether Palestinian elections go smoothly after the death of Yasser Arafat. Israel has said it sees a chance for peace talks with Palestinians after Arafat's death
Mohammed Bassiouni, former ambassador to Israel, said Egypt recalled him from Tel Aviv because the peace process was frozen and because Israel used "massive force" against the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.
"When these reasons disappear, I am sure there will be an Egyptian ambassador in Israel," Bassiouni told The Associated Press recently.
Destruction
12.01.04 (6:34 pm) [edit]
I was in the library today because I had to meet up with a group from one of my classes because we have group a project due. I'm still a little sick so I had my tissues and my thermos with me and I was kinda camping out at a computer while I waited for everyone to show up. I got a call from one of my group members that the meeting was canceled because another member had to move into their new apartment. "Ok, that's fine," I said because I'd rather go home and take a nap.
I stayed a few more moments as I finished up what I was doing on the computer and then I started to leave the library. Near the entrance on the inside, there is an exhibit that just was put up. They have an Xmas tree a Chanukah menorah, a Kwanzaa candle holder, and some Islamic stuff for their holiday after Rhamadhan. My apologies because I can't remember the name of the holiday the exhibit was representing for the Muslims. I didn't quite get to read about it because of what happened next.
In any case, I was reading the little blurbs for the pieces in the exhibit. Another girl was reading them next to me also. All of the exhibits were beautiful and interesting. When I was starting to read the blurb on the Kwanzaa exhibit, a guy walked by in front of me and the other person reading. He stopped in front of the Chanukah exhibit and then proceeded to take things off of the exhibit and then walk out. As he started to walk out I said something to the effect of, "Wow, that's not cool...!" He just kept on walking, as if nothing. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. He had some major nerve to do that in front of people and just walk out like nothing, even when confronted. He didn't flinch nor turn when I yelled after him, just kept on walking and didn't miss a step. Both the girl who was standing next to me and myself were shocked. This guy basically destroyed the exhibit as he walked by and he stole things right in front of everyone!
I went to the Librarian desk to tell the staff what happened and I described the perp. She said in less he's right here, there's nothing they can do. The Librarian desk is right across from the exhibit. Someone could have stopped him, but with the exception of the person standing next to me and myself, no one saw the incident. How convenient.
On a sidenote, I'm mad at myself for not just going after him myself first thing.
I went outside to see if I could find this guy anywhere and apprehend him myself. Not a trace. I had waited too long. If I had not gone to the Librarian and just went after him right then and there, things might have been different.
I asked the environmentalist that was outside the Library. She was asking everyone she saw if they had "a moment for the ocean." I figured since she literally stopped everyone that was leaving and cornered them, she'd have seen the guy. I'm not sure if it was that she saw so many people or if it was because she was a tree-hugger in her own bubble world, but she saw nothing.
I was very upset. Not at her, it's not her fault. I was upset because someone destroyed this exhibit and no one claimed to see it happen. I was mad that I didn't do anything to stop him. He got away with it, scott-free.
I was thinking about all this. I tried to analyze what was making me so angry. For one thing, he destroyed a public exhibit. For another thing, it was a Jewish exhibit. For yet another thing, I feel that if it wasn't a Jewish exhibit in question, they'd be all over him like flies on you know what. If it were the Xmas tree he'd messed with, the same scenario would have probably went down. However, if this were the Kwanzaa exhibit, they would have been on him. If it were the Islamic exhibit, they would have not only been on him, it would have made the papers right after someone chased him down and gotten him. The headlines would have made it out as a hate crime and the press would have be on the scene momentarily.
Would I have been this angry if it was the Muslim or any other exhibit? You betcha! I can't stand it when people mess with anything like this, on principle!
I was looking for the guy all over the campus on my way as I walked to the parking lot and my car. Everyone that resembled him even mildly got a second glance from me. I was so mad, I was gonna get him and smack him with my thermos! I didn't see him at all, of course. He disappeared into thin air.
I was also trying to figure out why someone would do this. He only did it to the Jewish exhibit, but that might be because that's all he had time for in that split second. Maybe he hates all holidays and could only take it out on the Chanukah exhibit at this time.
If that weren't the case and he was simply targeting the Jewish exhibit, why? Is it because he has something against Jews? Was he just a regular hate-monger or was it deeper? He was dark with thick, curly hair. Was he a Muslim or an Arab? The campus is predominantly Arab/Muslim so the chances of him being so is rather good.
No matter what the reason for this heinous act, what does this person really accomplish by being so vile? I'm sure that question has been asked many times, but it never really seems to stop people from doing stuff like this. Be it decimating Jewish grave stones or spray-painting swastikas on synagogues, or destroying a small exhibit in a library that is about Chanukah, it stays the same.
I hope he feels like a big person for doing that. I hope this really makes him feel special. It seems there's nothing else about him that would make him into anything else that's positive.
Above all, I hope it catches up to him and he gets what he deserves.
12.01.04 (12:07 pm) [edit]
[b][i]By Dina Kraft[/i][/b]
JERUSALEM, Nov. 29 (JTA) — North American modern Orthodox Jews say they can explain their connection to Israel in one word: Torah.
“It’s an organic existence. An Orthodox Jew grows up and believes that Eretz Yisrael and the people of Israel are one. The fulfillment of Torah is Eretz Yisrael,” said David Cohen, director of Orthodox Union activities in Israel. “It’s not about connection. It’s who we are.”
It’s this Torah-observant lifestyle, Cohen says, that brings the Orthodox on aliyah in disproportionately large numbers and has led them to visit Israel even during the darkest days of intifada violence and to send their children here to study.
It also accounts for the record numbers of participants at the Orthodox Union convention in Jerusalem last week, organizers said.
More than 800 O.U. members from 25 states and Canada gathered in Jerusalem for the group’s bi-annual convention over the Thanksgiving holiday, and hundreds more were turned away for lack of space. This was the first year the convention was held in Jerusalem, and attendance far surpassed the 500 or so people who typically turn out for O.U. conventions, said convention chairman Stanley Weinstein of Miami Beach.
The Orthodox Union represents mainstream modern Orthodox Judaism in North America.
About 125 synagogues were represented at the conference, including smaller congregations from places like Newfoundland and Texas.
“There are very few Jewish organizations that could bring so many people to Israel at this difficult time when tourism has been so deeply affected by Palestinian terror,” said Harvey Blitz, the O.U.’s outgoing president.
Children in the Orthodox community are raised with an Israel focus from a young age, Blitz said. They’re taught about Israel in school and are encouraged to spend time at Israeli yeshivas after they graduate high school.
So it’s not surprising that a large percentage of immigrants to Israel from North America are from the Orthodox community, he said.
“If Israel is part of your vocabulary and the way you think, then it’s much more natural” to make the decision to move there, Blitz said.
The Orthodox community always has encouraged aliyah, but in recent years efforts have become more organized, he said. He cited the establishment of Nefesh B’Nefesh, a group that aims to help North American Jews make aliyah by removing as many logistical and financial hurdles as possible.
The Israeli government doesn’t track what stream of Judaism an immigrant associates with, but Nefesh B’Nefesh estimates that some 70 percent of North American Jews who have made aliyah through the organization are Orthodox.
Rabbi Joshua Fass, an Orthodox Jew who made aliyah from Boca Raton, Fla., and is a co-founder of Nefesh B’Nefesh, said aliyah is the natural extension of an Orthodox upbringing.
“The exposure that an individual in the modern Orthodox movement gets from schooling, camp, involvement in synagogue, is always with involvement in Israel. It’s not only a connection to a land but a viable place for one’s future,” he said.
Lorraine Hoffmann of Milwaukee, president of the Lake Park Synagogue, spoke of how prayers make the link stronger.
“It’s a daily reminder of the link between the Jews in the Diaspora and the State of Israel. It is what we are all about,” she said.
Many synagogues around the world say a prayer for the Israel Defense Forces, and cards with the prayer on them were displayed at the convention. The cards are sold for one dollar in North America, with proceeds donated to help soldiers.
Yishai Fleisher, who made aliyah from New York last year after graduating law school, passed out pins that said “Aliyah Revolution” at the convention.
A talk-show host for the settler-run Arutz Sheva radio station, which broadcasts on the Internet, Fleisher and his wife live in Beit El in the West Bank.
“As an Orthodox Jew you feel very, very connected to the land,” he said.
Being Orthodox helps smooth over some of the difficulties of living in Israel, Fleisher said.
Fleisher has established Kumah, which he described as a grass-roots organization to encourage North American aliyah. He also encourages those already living in Israel “to keep making aliyah” — that is, to improve the country any way they can, whether it’s helping to clean up the environment or lobbying for road safety.
But the majority of Jews, Orthodox or otherwise, don’t immigrate to Israel. The guilt of not moving to Israel can be acute, O.U. members said, but the connection to Torah ensures an ongoing relationship with the Jewish state.
“If you read the Torah, you have a hard time staying away from Israel,” said Yitz Strauchler, an orthopedic surgeon representing his West Orange, N.J., synagogue at the convention. His visit also gave him the chance to see a son who is studying here for the year.
Isabelle Novack of Los Angeles, an incoming member of the O.U. board, also has a son studying in Israel.
“It’s just very important for them to come and immerse themselves in yeshivas,” she said. “It’s very important for their life as a frum Jew,” she said. “You can live as a Jew here. It’s our country.”
David Landau, an Orthodox Jew who is editor of Israel’s Ha’aretz newspaper, challenged the politics of those at the conference who believe the Gaza Strip and West Bank should belong to Israel. Landau presented several news stories from the week of the convention that he said reflected the toll Israel’s control of those areas has taken on Israeli morality.
One story ran in Ha’aretz on Nov. 25, the day Landau addressed the conference, about a Palestinian man forced to play his violin by soldiers at an Israeli checkpoint. The photograph accompanying the story was seen as eerily reminiscent of Nazis forcing Jews to play musical instruments.
Another story from Yediot Achronot detailed what the newspaper termed the “open secret” of the mutilation of some Palestinians killed by the Israeli army. It also included photographs, the most jarring of which showed a soldier putting a cigarette in the mouth of a recently killed terrorist suspect’s detached head.
“Many of you, like me, have family and friends living as settlers in the territories,” Landau said. “As long as we let the military occupation go on, there is a grave threat to our survival.”
He thanked Orthodox Jews for their generous support of Israel but criticized what he called religious Zionism’s “return to atavistic zealotry which is demographically and morally impossible to achieve.”
The audience appeared somewhat hostile to Landau, clapping loudly when his comments were rebutted by Dore Gold, Israel’s former ambassador to the United Nations.
At the close of the convention, the Orthodox Union passed a resolution expressing reservations about Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s plan to withdraw troops and settlers from Gaza Strip. The resolution did not come out either for or against the plan, but expressed the organization’s empathy with settlers who may be evacuated.
Copywrite JTA. Reproduction of material without written permission is strictly prohibited
[b][i]By Dina Kraft[/i][/b]
JERUSALEM, Nov. 29 (JTA) — North American modern Orthodox Jews say they can explain their connection to Israel in one word: Torah.
“It’s an organic existence. An Orthodox Jew grows up and believes that Eretz Yisrael and the people of Israel are one. The fulfillment of Torah is Eretz Yisrael,” said David Cohen, director of Orthodox Union activities in Israel. “It’s not about connection. It’s who we are.”
It’s this Torah-observant lifestyle, Cohen says, that brings the Orthodox on aliyah in disproportionately large numbers and has led them to visit Israel even during the darkest days of intifada violence and to send their children here to study.
It also accounts for the record numbers of participants at the Orthodox Union convention in Jerusalem last week, organizers said.
More than 800 O.U. members from 25 states and Canada gathered in Jerusalem for the group’s bi-annual convention over the Thanksgiving holiday, and hundreds more were turned away for lack of space. This was the first year the convention was held in Jerusalem, and attendance far surpassed the 500 or so people who typically turn out for O.U. conventions, said convention chairman Stanley Weinstein of Miami Beach.
The Orthodox Union represents mainstream modern Orthodox Judaism in North America.
About 125 synagogues were represented at the conference, including smaller congregations from places like Newfoundland and Texas.
“There are very few Jewish organizations that could bring so many people to Israel at this difficult time when tourism has been so deeply affected by Palestinian terror,” said Harvey Blitz, the O.U.’s outgoing president.
Children in the Orthodox community are raised with an Israel focus from a young age, Blitz said. They’re taught about Israel in school and are encouraged to spend time at Israeli yeshivas after they graduate high school.
So it’s not surprising that a large percentage of immigrants to Israel from North America are from the Orthodox community, he said.
“If Israel is part of your vocabulary and the way you think, then it’s much more natural” to make the decision to move there, Blitz said.
The Orthodox community always has encouraged aliyah, but in recent years efforts have become more organized, he said. He cited the establishment of Nefesh B’Nefesh, a group that aims to help North American Jews make aliyah by removing as many logistical and financial hurdles as possible.
The Israeli government doesn’t track what stream of Judaism an immigrant associates with, but Nefesh B’Nefesh estimates that some 70 percent of North American Jews who have made aliyah through the organization are Orthodox.
Rabbi Joshua Fass, an Orthodox Jew who made aliyah from Boca Raton, Fla., and is a co-founder of Nefesh B’Nefesh, said aliyah is the natural extension of an Orthodox upbringing.
“The exposure that an individual in the modern Orthodox movement gets from schooling, camp, involvement in synagogue, is always with involvement in Israel. It’s not only a connection to a land but a viable place for one’s future,” he said.
Lorraine Hoffmann of Milwaukee, president of the Lake Park Synagogue, spoke of how prayers make the link stronger.
“It’s a daily reminder of the link between the Jews in the Diaspora and the State of Israel. It is what we are all about,” she said.
Many synagogues around the world say a prayer for the Israel Defense Forces, and cards with the prayer on them were displayed at the convention. The cards are sold for one dollar in North America, with proceeds donated to help soldiers.
Yishai Fleisher, who made aliyah from New York last year after graduating law school, passed out pins that said “Aliyah Revolution” at the convention.
A talk-show host for the settler-run Arutz Sheva radio station, which broadcasts on the Internet, Fleisher and his wife live in Beit El in the West Bank.
“As an Orthodox Jew you feel very, very connected to the land,” he said.
Being Orthodox helps smooth over some of the difficulties of living in Israel, Fleisher said.
Fleisher has established Kumah, which he described as a grass-roots organization to encourage North American aliyah. He also encourages those already living in Israel “to keep making aliyah” — that is, to improve the country any way they can, whether it’s helping to clean up the environment or lobbying for road safety.
But the majority of Jews, Orthodox or otherwise, don’t immigrate to Israel. The guilt of not moving to Israel can be acute, O.U. members said, but the connection to Torah ensures an ongoing relationship with the Jewish state.
“If you read the Torah, you have a hard time staying away from Israel,” said Yitz Strauchler, an orthopedic surgeon representing his West Orange, N.J., synagogue at the convention. His visit also gave him the chance to see a son who is studying here for the year.
Isabelle Novack of Los Angeles, an incoming member of the O.U. board, also has a son studying in Israel.
“It’s just very important for them to come and immerse themselves in yeshivas,” she said. “It’s very important for their life as a frum Jew,” she said. “You can live as a Jew here. It’s our country.”
David Landau, an Orthodox Jew who is editor of Israel’s Ha’aretz newspaper, challenged the politics of those at the conference who believe the Gaza Strip and West Bank should belong to Israel. Landau presented several news stories from the week of the convention that he said reflected the toll Israel’s control of those areas has taken on Israeli morality.
One story ran in Ha’aretz on Nov. 25, the day Landau addressed the conference, about a Palestinian man forced to play his violin by soldiers at an Israeli checkpoint. The photograph accompanying the story was seen as eerily reminiscent of Nazis forcing Jews to play musical instruments.
Another story from Yediot Achronot detailed what the newspaper termed the “open secret” of the mutilation of some Palestinians killed by the Israeli army. It also included photographs, the most jarring of which showed a soldier putting a cigarette in the mouth of a recently killed terrorist suspect’s detached head.
“Many of you, like me, have family and friends living as settlers in the territories,” Landau said. “As long as we let the military occupation go on, there is a grave threat to our survival.”
He thanked Orthodox Jews for their generous support of Israel but criticized what he called religious Zionism’s “return to atavistic zealotry which is demographically and morally impossible to achieve.”
The audience appeared somewhat hostile to Landau, clapping loudly when his comments were rebutted by Dore Gold, Israel’s former ambassador to the United Nations.
At the close of the convention, the Orthodox Union passed a resolution expressing reservations about Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s plan to withdraw troops and settlers from Gaza Strip. The resolution did not come out either for or against the plan, but expressed the organization’s empathy with settlers who may be evacuated.
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