Antigonos' Annals: "Do As I Say, Not Do As I Do", or, There Appears to Be a Credibility Gap Here

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

"Do As I Say, Not Do As I Do", or, There Appears to Be a Credibility Gap Here

Steve Greenberg
Ventura County Star
Jun 25, 2008

It was truly amazing to see Tony Blair, on TV, the other evening, making the point that unless the Palestinians can behave with the maturity and sense of responsibility that normal sovereign states show, they can forget about getting independence. To be honest, we are so used to having excuses made for the Palestinians, this was rather refreshing.

Now, either Islamic Jihad is outside the control of Hamas, in which case Hamas can hardly consider itself "governing" Gaza, or Hamas is using Islamic Jihad to do its dirty work, which means Hamas never intended to observe any truce, while demanding from the international community that Israel do so.

4 comments:

estherar said...: Isn't that exactly what we were saying 10 years ago about Arafat vis-a-vis Hamas?

Plus ca change...; 1:03 AM
pinky said...: Ok...STupid question. But do you know STanley Rotman? He works at Ben-gurion University. He is a friend of my sisters. I know Isreal is a big place but I figured I would ask anyways. ANd while I am at it do you know Marty Neuger? He is my FIL's cousin.; 4:11 PM
Antigonos said...: Sorry, don't know either of them.; 5:33 PM
pinky said...: Didn't expect you did but I could not help but ask.; 1:16 AM

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Milon (Glossary)

OLEH: an immigrant to Israel. The root of the word comes from the verb "to ascend". The plural is "olim". A female is an "olah", and a bunch of female immigrants is "olot".

YORED: an emigrant from Israel. The word means "to descend". Plural is "yordim".

MA'ABARA: pl. "ma'abarot". Tent cities which were built as transit camps in the years immediately following Israel's independence, as nearly two million Holocaust survivors and Jews from Arab countries arrived, often only with the clothes they wore.

MEDURA: pl. "medurot". Campfire.

TZENA: austerity, the name given to the period between Israel's independence and the mid 1950s, when times were very tough.

SHEMITTA: every seventh year, the land in The Land is supposed to lie fallow. Since this would lead to starvation, the ancient Sages developed a whole body of law that permitted cultivation using certain methods and/or the legal fiction that the fields in question were "sold" to a non-Jew for the year. Not all the ultra-Orthodox (virtually none of whom are farmers, and who lived for centuries in non-Jewish communities in the Diaspora where this wasn't a problem) will accept these ways around the commandment, and will only eat either imported produce or produce grown at vast expense in trays of soil raised OFF the ground (therefore not technically being grown "in" the Holy Land. Only a Jew would think of this)

CHAMETZ: literally, "leaven". It means all food which it is prohibited to have "in one's possession" during Passover. Different Jewish ethnic groups interpret this in different ways. Obviously yeast and fermented items are forbidden, but some communities will eat legumes and others will not; some will not eat anything made with matzah or matzah meal which has been in contact with water (gebrochts) like matzah balls. Some communities will eat rice, others will not.

TZITZIT: ritual fringes that males wear, often on the edges of a scapular worn under a shirt, or on the prayer shawl worn in the synagogue. There is a precise way to tie them, so that the knots and twists will add up to 613, the number of the commandments in the Torah.

SHAKSHOUKA: Eggs cooked in a spicy tomato sauce. See http://www.recipezaar.com/148450 for a recipe.

TESHUVA: Penitence.

LITVAK: An very Orthodox Jew from Lithuania. The foremost sage in that community, in the 19th century, was the Vilna Gaon, who excommunicated the hassidim as schismatics because of their mystic belief in their "wonder-working" rabbis. The Hassidim promptly returned the favor. "Litvaks" are noted for their minute, but rationalist, dissection of Jewish texts, and have a distinctive accent in Hebrew. The two communities both wear the black long coats (capotes), have long beards and sidelocks, and are often confused by outsiders as being the same.

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Wednesday, June 25, 2008

"Do As I Say, Not Do As I Do", or, There Appears to Be a Credibility Gap Here

4 comments:

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