B"SD An honest effort to reconcile the trichotomy of our Kol
Korahs, our actual use, and what all this means to our children(and related issues or those which interest our members).
New Guests:
Please peruse first posted article ('Call for Action'(Click on December '04 and go to bottom).
It's the starting point for this blog!
"Palestinians are not stupid, and it insults their intelligence to pretend that when they vote to empower a genocidal organization with a platform straight out of ''Mein Kampf," what they're really after is better healthcare. Islamist extremism isn't needed to fix Palestinian hospitals any more than fascism was needed to make Italian trains run on time in the 1920s. If Palestinians turned out en masse to elect a party that unapologetically stands for hatred and mass murder, it's a safe bet that hatred and mass murder had something to do with the turnout."
Caroline Glick writes a crisp articlehere putting forth the proposition that the Hamas win is a result of "international bluster backed by policy paralysis" by both Israel and the West. I did not necessarily oppose the Sharon Gaza withdrawal. However, at this juncture we find ourselves without Gaza, without stability in Gaza, without Sharon, and without a clear path forward.
While I would love to take Bibi at face value, I too well remember his last go-round as PM, when he spoke loudly and carried no stick.
The point which is always missing in the Likud-niks' speeches as well as Ms Glick's article is the question of whether the people of Israel, and particularly those age groups subject to draft, still have the will to fight.
There. That was hard to write, but if the will is not there we may as well start lining up for visas. Hamas and their ilk are depending on the too easy exhaustion and fatigue of the West and Israelis as their tickets to the next caliphate.
One solitary bright spot about Bibi is that if he can resume his economic wonder working as PM then at least we won't have to ask for additional aid for America on top of the additions to the additional aid from America.
I would have normally left the last post up at the top for a while, but Hamas' win has just disturbed me so much.
Since Arafat's return not one school was built in his territories. Education was limited to hate.
Hence the Catch 22. We got democracy, but 15 years of Arafat sponsored (mis) education has changed the perceived needs and goals of the residents of Gaza and the WB.
I don't think Bush figured on that , and neither would most well meaning people.
Arafat wins the election again in death.
Rabbi Y. Frand quotes R' Yerucham Levovitz on this weeks' Parsha asking why Moshe Rabbeinu had to go through the motions of praying to remove each plague. We all know that each plague is to be removed until the tenth. Why pray for it?
He answers that it's to teach us the efficacy and importance of prayer.
If prayer is the answer to the known, it is probably the only answer to the unknown - the future of Jews in Israel.
"A president who breaks the law is a threat to the very structure of our government," -former VP Gore. Today's New York Sun reports that "President Clinton will be eligible this week to reclaim the law license he gave up as a consequence of the inaccurate responses he gave under oath."
Four Ancestors About 3.5 million of the world's Ashkenazi Jews, the Yiddish-speakers who settled Central Europe in the 12th and 13th centuries and today make up about 80% (?? -Leapa) of the world's total Jewish population, are the descendants of just four women, according to a new DNA analysis by Israeli researchers. There are about 11 million Ashkenazis in the world today, of a total global Jewish population of about 14 million. The four ancestors, who apparently lived in Europe or in the vicinity of Israel at some point within the past 2,000 years, left a DNA signature that shows up in their descendants today.
No wonder those 'Jewish mother' jokes sound so familiar, and Jewish men are overweight!
Hat Tip for the post title thought: Rebbetzin Leapalle
I received the following e-mail as part of a response to my 'Poster Watch IX' post:
"let me ask you a very simple question if all the posters stops one person from using the internet who has no business on the internet because of his or her particular situation of their personal life doesn't this nullify all the mindless aspect of it all"
Ignoring the sentence structure, the writer makes an important point. Do we ignore or do battle with new technology because of the inevitability of some people succombing to temptations that they weren't exposed to before?
The positive answer (advocated by the writer above) would be due to even one neshama being as important as the entire world. A true Jewish hashkafa.
The negative answer is, if we never do anything which would endanger anyone, (a) how do we walk out in the morning, drive a car, etc [physical danger], or (b) how do we take the subway, walk on the street in a non Jewish neighborhood, or converse with different types of people [spiritual danger]?
Obviously we weigh cost and benefit, both physical and spiritual and make our best effort to be safe. How is the 'net different?
I was going to ignore the subject of Sharon's massive stroke (perhaps wrongly), but in my local Satmar 'mik' I was filling someone in on then current Sharon health report and implying that the news wasn't too positive. A fellow from left field pipes up: "Is that bad news or good?"
My opinion: 1. Jews, even sinners, are still Jews as Chazal have taught us. 2. I can conceive that an Israeli PM can and should know something I don't. Therefore, although I am not a firebrand 'Land of Israel' fanatic, I supported Sharon in the time of Sabra and Shattila, and I also supported him this past summer. 3. He definitely saved a lot of Jewish lives, especially in his brilliant maneuver around the Egyptian III Army in 1973. 4. His life has been dedicated to the security of the State of Israel, where more than a few chareidim just happen to live. 5. Therefore I will include 'Ariel ben Vera' in my prayers.
And as to those of you snotty enough to think that all he cares about is the destruction of Judaism - wipe your nose, please, and get out of my mikve!
Privacy is, or should be, a big deal to us Jews. After all, from the Marranos to Stalin, loose lips have sunk many of our ships, at great human cost.
As a population with more than average overseas overseas telephony, the NSA phone data mining probably involved a lot of our heimishe communications.
Now as a non-lawyer (perhaps a wannabe, but my kids have to get married y'know?), I shouldn't going to comment on the legality or illegality of these filters. But as a blogger, I'll do so anyway.
Firstly, the operative word in the Fourth Amendment is unreasonable. A vast majority of legal and public opinion in this country, including former Solicitors General and erudite lawyers, hold that data mining in the context of a war on terror is reasonable. The Fourth Amendment only criminalizes "unreasonable searches".
Secondly, the computer algorithms used in a data mining operation are about as close to a wiretap as somebody reading a rest room sign is to a peeping tom.
And what does it mean to the Jews? Very, very simple. When America's enemies are looking to nuke or bio attack a major American city, and 99% of all Borsalino and shtreimel wearing Americans live within 90 miles of Ground Zero, our privacy should be back-burnered. Our lives and American chareidi Judaism as we know it are both at stake.
This has been confirmed by Israeli intelligence (See Jan 2 Daily Alert). PS: Additional confirmations are here and here. Will this work to reduce American pressure on Israel by confirming the existence of a common enemy, or will it increase pressure if America cuts and runs in Iraq?
