Bits and Bobs

Today, I feel glum.

Israel had a major chance to resolve one of the major inequalities in our country, and the government blew it. I refer, of course, to the scandalous situation regarding universal conscription [which is the law] for everyone -- unless you are haredi or Arab. I won't rehash the arguments, especially about the problem of Arabs and security. I have no problem with national service via Sherut Leumi; heavens knows the infrastructure of many Arab communities needs a lot of upgrading; Israeli Arabs could work in their own towns and villages. Since there are a number of mitzvot such as bikur holim that yeshiva boys could perform, while still studying part-time, there's no reason they don't serve, either.

Except, of course, that they are perfectly happy being parasites.  The time is long overdue for that to end, forcibly if necessary. They claim to study Torah, but they obviously don't know what's written in Devarim 20: 5-8, nor do they know that no less a sage than Maimonides decreed that any war in the Land is a milchemet mitzvah and therefore there are no exemptions except those in the Torah.

********

Over on Friar Yid's blog, there has been a spirited discussion of the direction and future for liberal Judaism, as well as his continued search for a form of Judaism he feels comfortable practicing.  There are moments when I wish I was in San Francisco and could sit down, face to face, with FY; other moments when I wish he'd come on a lengthy visit to Israel and I could "mentor" him.  Ah, the Yiddishe Momma in me!

Several things have occurred to me while participating in this debate.  One is just how far non-Orthodox American Judaism is drifting from authentic mainstream [not extreme or haredi] Orthodoxy.  All sorts of newnesses are promoted without reference to the age-old usages and customs.  Up to a point, this is common in the immigrant experience: the first generation feels that those who left the Old Country are primitive, Asiatic, blinkered, whereas they are free to make choices that were denied to their parents -- one of those choices being abandoning practices viewed as isolationist or limiting [such as keeping kosher, or davenning three times a day].  This isn't, incidentally, an American phenomenon -- first generation sabras, especially the Mizrachi ones, have much the same attitude, even if they don't carry it to such extremes as American Jews do.  They aren't about to rewrite halacha; they just don't keep much of it most of the time.  The second generation usually wants some reuniting with their roots, but are often so far removed that they wind up floundering around trying to reconstruct a lifestyle that is very alien to them [Fiddler on the Roof Syndrome].  They usually don't see that those who never abandoned the tradition have developed the means to live successfully in the modern world with it without going to absurd lengths to "revive" antique practices.

Another aspect is the dearth of  Jewish education in young American Jews.  No one can be expected to "connect" with something about which he or she is basically ignorant.  A person doesn't even know the questions to ask, and the resources out there are not very good.  For some reason, a lot of young American Jews reject any connection with the Orthodox [what do they think?  That the Orthodox will kidnap them and force them to become frum?], thereby missing out on basic source materials of Judaism, such as Talmud study, or even learning enough Hebrew to find one's way around a siddur.  If a Reform synagogue [somehow, the word "shul" doesn't seem appropriate for a "Temple"] has an adult education program at all, it often presents normative Judaism as some sort of antique fossil that can be dispensed with in modern life.  My mother once called me to tell me about this wonderful new custom she'd just learned about at her Reform Temple, called "havdalah".  Not one of her classmates ever actually made havdalah; it was studied as if it were some sort of anachronism.  She was amazed that I knew about it; that we actually performed it.  I sort of wish there was a kind of Birthright program that gave free education to American Jewish kids in their teens; the free trips to Israel have been very successful in encouraging both connection to Israel and connection to being Jewish among the participants.

Finally, I am impressed, in a negative sense, with the inconsistency of what passes for Judaism in the US.  FY wants to begin keeping a kosher-style house [he's not actually kashering the kitchen, and I don't know the extent of his knowledge of the laws of kashrut; I suspect it's not very great], but he's married to a non-Jew.  Judging by his description, both he and his wife have adopted a style of dress that "looks Jewish" [not sure what that means], yet I don't know whether he lays tefillin or not, or whether his apartment has properly constituted and installed mezuzot on the doors.  It is almost as if they are adopting a role, rather than becoming.  It is "as if".  But I may be doing FY an injustice -- that's one of the reasons I'd like to meet him.

I know other Jews who have devoted considerable time to inventing new rituals while ignoring existing ones, in the name of political correctness and "modernism".  It baffles me.  I know Jews who have chosen to reject direct, Torah mi-Sinai, commandments or attempt to weasel around them with ingenious explanations that have no basis in traditional Jewish thought, and are then annoyed when traditionalist Jews don't accept them.  The prohibition on male homosexuality is one of these.  Like it or not like it; observe it or don't observe it --it's there in the Torah and it's explicit.  The view, put forward by some homosexuals who want to be able to have their cake and eat it, is that the Torah refers only to acts, so a celibate homosexual is not transgressing a commandment doesn't wash.  And given what the Torah has to say about homosexuality, a "gay" rabbi is more of an absurdity than even a female one.  It would be like a Catholic priest who defines the Trinity as Allah, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, and maintains he isn't in error because "both God the Father and Allah are monotheistic Gods". [Benedict the XVI would love that, I'm sure]

*****

There's been a long gap in postings over the past few months because my life has been at sixes and sevens, not for lack of topics to write about.  The hip replacement, my decision to retire, the consequent entire re-organizing of my life, my granddaughter [who's here most days] and the [finally!] move of the other daughter to her new home near Rosh Pina, has meant that just when I sit down to pen some deep insight, I get called away or the phone rings.  And my memory isn't what it used to be.  Hopefully, this will change and I'll write more -- but I've made this promise before.

Right now, life is reasonably quiet.  It is broiling hot outside; I stay in my air-conditioned bedroom, which is where the computer is [an added incentive to blogging].  Number 1 son will probably visit in September; I'll be taking care of the granddaughter every day for most of August since her childcare goes on vacation. September this year contains all the Jewish holidays, and youngest daughter, with husband and child, will be moving into their new home around the beginning of October.  Husband and I are going on a cruise at the beginning of November, and after that, I will probably have to accompany my granddaughter and her mother to the US since I'm sponsoring the granddaughter for US citizenship and the ceremony absolutely must take place in the US; cannot be done at either the US consulate here in Jerusalem or at the Embassy in Tel Aviv.  So, life is anything but dull, without even going into US Presidential election matters.

All Too True, I Fear

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Steve Greenberg Freelance, Los Angeles Jun 13, 2012 EditorialCartoonists.com

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Mike Smith Las Vegas Sun Jun 3, 2012 EditorialCartoonists.com

Long Time, No Write

Sorry I've been out of circulation for a while [a while? an epoch!] Very busy with grandchild, housewarming for The Curly Haired Monster, my arthritic hip. By way of apology, please enjoy this cartoon, and I promise to begin writing again anon.

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Randy Bish Pittsburgh Tribune-ReviewJun 3, 2012 EditorialCartoonists.com

1937

Every day, in far too many ways, it's looking like the period when Hitler demanded Germany's "rights" in Czechoslovakia, and the West caved in, believing this would satisfy him.

Now it is Iran, and the threat to Israel. But just as Hitler never intended to stop after gobbling up Czechoslovakia, Ahmadinejad and the ayatollahs regard Israel really as a pimple on the backside of the West. Their aim is altogether bigger: dominance of the Islamic world, and then dominance of the West. They are committed to jihad in its truest sense--the conversion of the Infidel to Islam, and the purification of Islam [that is, the Shi'a form of it]. Iran hates Israel, would love to be able to exterminate it, will use it as a hostage -- but you don't need missiles which can reach the US to annihilate Israel. Iran has much larger plans.

In Obama's speech to AIPAC he said all the right things, but we know that so far, his words have never been matched with action. Apparently he feels he cannot move until Iran actually announces that it has the Bomb and begins threatening everyone with it. He also misses the main point. When bragging about all his assistance to Israel [which made me faintly nauseated] he mentioned the Iron Dome system which has prevented rockets from hitting Israeli cities, but he never mentioned what he has done to prevent those rockets from being launched, because the US has done exactly zilch -- or worse than zilch, with the "1967 borders" gaffe -- to make the Palestinians understand that the US will not tolerate unprovoked attacks on an ally. Every time I see Obama these days I think of Chamberlain, and how the British breathed a huge sigh of relief when he returned from Munich. England would have been spared the Blitz if only Chamberlain had said "No, Herr Hitler, you move into Czechoslovakia and we regard ourselves in a state of war with Germany".

Teddy Roosevelt said "Speak softly and carry a big stick". Obama speaks stridently but carries no stick at all. One can only hope that American Jews aren't taken in by this "charm offensive". So far Obama can talk about his friendship with Israel, but his actions betray his words, and unfortunately, just as he "led from behind" in Libya, I think that on some level he wants Israel to do the US's dirty work in Iran --and suffer the inevitable consequences. That would rid him of two problems: Iran and Israel.

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Mike Keefe Denver Post Sep 7, 2011 EditorialCartoonists.com

Pencil Me In

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Nate Beeler Washington Examiner Sep 2, 2011 EditorialCartoonists.com

Not to mention conflicts with the NFL SEASON OPENER!!! Which is guaranteed to be, if not more important, vastly more entertaining than political shenanigans...fortunately, Obama folded. I can see him now, addressing a joint session of Congress with all its members watching the game on the smartphones on their desks...

Ras Burqa, Again

Back in 1978, when I was in Ulpan Etzion, my Hebrew teachers were delirious with joy because of Sadat's visit to Jerusalem, and the peace with Egypt. It was the beginning of the end of hostility against Israel. The other Arab States would follow. I was roundly criticized when I said I thought that any "peace" with Egypt would not survive either a change of government or more than 20-30 years.

It quickly became obvious what peace with Egypt meant. No Egyptians visited Israel. No Egyptian trade agreements with Israel. No Israeli businesses opened branches in Egypt, although Israelis seemed to fall over themselves in the first years trying to do the Exodus in reverse, taking holidays over Passover along the Nile. The official government line continued to be anti-Semitic. There were no invitations for Israeli authors to show their works at Egyptian book fairs, and so on. With the exception of certain tourist sites along the coasts, and the highways, the Sinai became a virtual no-man's land again.

Then, in 1985, there was the Ras Burqa incident, which shocked Israelis. According to Wikipedia,

On October 5, 1985, an Egyptian soldier, Sulayman
Khatir, machine-gunned a group of Israelis, killing three adults
and four young children, on the dunes of Ras Burqa. [1]
The only survivor was 5-year old Tali Griffel, whose mother, Anita, shielded her
with her body.[2]
According to eye witnesses, the Egyptian Central Security
Forces who were nearby refused to help the wounded; furthermore,
they stopped an Israeli doctor and other tourists at gunpoint from administering
any aid to the victims of the shooting, and the wounded Israelis were left to
bleed to death.[3]
Egyptian authorities countered that the Israelis bled to death "because this
crazy soldier refused to let anyone near the area that some of the victims
lay".[4]
The gunman killed one of the Egyptian policeman who tried to arrest him."[5]
Israel protested the Egyptian refusal to allow the victims to be treated by
Israeli doctors or transferred to hospitals in Israel.[6]
Khatir
said the killings were not intentional. He said he could only see a group of
people coming towards him in the dark, refusing his orders to stop.[7]

Seven people were killed in the attack: Anita Griffel, a Canadian-born
sociologist at Hebrew
University of Jerusalem; Hamman Shelach, an Israeli judge, his wife
Ilana and their daughter, Tzlil; Amir Baum, Dina Bari and Ofri Turel. The
Shelachs' oldest son, Oz Shelach, was not with them, and is the only surviving
family member.[8]Hamman
Shelach was the son of Israeli poet Yonatan
Ratosh, founder of the Canaanite movement.

After the shootings, Egyptian authorities claimed that the perpetrator
Sulayman Khatir was mentally ill.[9]
During the initial interrogations, Khatir claimed that he had been unaware of
the identity or nationality of the people he had shot and that they had made no
offense or provocation toward him. The only reason why he had opened fire was
that, as Khatir said, they had trespassed on a prohibited territory.[3]
He was tried by a closed military tribunal and on December 28, 1985 sentenced to
life in prison at hard labor. Ten days later, on January 8, 1986, Khatir was
found dead in his prison hospital room hanging by a strip torn from a sheet of
plastic. The authorities declared his death a suicide.[10]Opposition
parties in Egypt claimed that he had been murdered. [11]

Egyptian opposition politicians hailed Khatir as "hero of Sinai"
for committing the massacre of Israelis.[10]
The glorification of Khatir as a national hero in the Egyptian opposition press
was echoed in other Arab countries, and
mass demonstrations were held in his support. Attempting to justify his actions,
the press did not report that all but one of the victims were women or children,
but instead invented miscellaneous pretexts for the shootings. The press claimed
that the Israeli tourists were spies caught photographing secret military
installations, that they spat upon and tore up an Egyptian flag, that half-naked
Israeli women offended Khatir's Muslim conscience, or
that the tourists attacked him. The pro-governmental press remained silent
regarding the facts of the massacre, leaving the claims unchallenged. Many
Egyptian intellectuals and religious leaders joined in extolling Khatir and his
act. Umar al-Tilimsani, the leader of Muslim
Brotherhood, said that "if every Muslim would do what Sulayman did,
Israel would no longer exist". Farid Abd al-Karim, one of the leaders of the Arab Socialist
Party, called Khatir "the conscience of this nation", whose bullets
"washed away the shame" of the Camp David Peace
Accords between Israel and Egypt. Ahmad Nasir of the Egyptian Bar
Association claimed that history would always honor Khatir as "a living model of
a noble Egyptian who refused to be led astray by the treaties of betrayal and
surrender".[12] [The numbers refer to footnotes documenting sources in the original article]

Today, due to as-yet-undetermined circumstances, two Israeli buses were attacked just outside of Eilat, not in the Sinai but where Israel comes to a "point" at the Red Sea. The country is only a couple of kilometers wide there, tapering toward the port, so it is easy to infiltrate, either from Egypt or Jordan. The current supposition, as I write this, is that the terrorists are Hamasniks from Gaza who crossed into the Sinai via the laxly controlled border with Egypt, rather than Egyptian soldiers or Egyptian terrorists based in the Sinai. But the gas pipeline has been sabotaged 4 times in the past months, since Mubarak's government has been overthrown, and there are definitely voices in Egypt calling for an end to the peace treaty with Israel, just as I predicted 33 years ago.

On this issue, I'd rather not be right, but I think there is little if any room for optimism.

How Absurd! Or, Thank You, Lush

There's an article today in Hudson NY which decries Lush Cosmetics' boycott of Israel. I first discovered Lush when in the UK years ago, and I do indeed like their products [as well as the funny and self-mocking language of their advertisments and descriptions]. Their signature fragrance, Karma, for example, which is claimed to make me smell like an "aging hippie" is absolutely accurate. I may not be a hippie, [well, I was at Woodstock] but I am certainly aging. The shampoo bars are marvelous when traveling, and who can resist a "bath bomb" with a name like "Waving Not Drowning"?

Two separate Israeli entrepreneurs decided to imitate Lush. Neither is as "green" or "organic" as Lush, but both sell much the same range of body and fragrance products. One is called "Sabon shel Paam" ["old fashioned soap"] and the other is Laline. They are very high quality; the stores have lovely decor and do-it-yourself gift package arrangements. I don't have to import bath bombs any more. I can buy soaps by weight, sliced off giant blocks and wheels, etc.

Our shopping malls are thronged with Arab women. Some are indistinguishable from secular Jewish Israelis [until you hear them talk and realize they are speaking Arabic], many wear Western clothes [often quite expensive ones] and the hijab, some are in "classic" dress [floor-length duster-style overcoat and hijab] typical of the region. In Jerusalem, at any rate, they are both Israeli Arabs and Palestinians who have the right papers to enter Israel. They LOVE Laline and Sabon shel Paam. So who, exactly, are Lush "punishing" with their boycott of Israel?

Lush deserves a vote of thanks for creating a new Israeli industry!

(Gadi) Taub and the Taub Center

The only connection between this link to an article by Gadi Taub and this link is that one refers to an article about the origins of Israel's current social protests and the other is by a professor at the Taub Center which makes many valid points about Israel's education system, which is also in a very bad way. Both are worth reading.