May the IDF Be With You
by: Schvach Yid


But not with Britain, that Sceptred Isle of Shakespeare’s imagination, as in:

This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise,
This fortress built by Nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war,
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall
Or as a moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier lands,--
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.
William Shakespeare, "King Richard II", Act 2 scene 1


Ah, England! Are you down and out in Beverly Hills, or anywhere else for that matter?
No matter, just ‘think of England’!

According to Pamela Geller, founder and author of the Atlas Shrugs blog site, the Arab Moslem occupants of Britain are freely expressing their displeasure at Israel’s latest ‘sin’
against their Arab Moslem brethren in Gaza. The poor Brits!

Ha! Remember the British Mandate of Palestine? Shall we recall the muck the British made of their charge?

England has never been very good at international politics. On a global scale, without exaggeration, Britain has made a centuries-long career of screwing up. They’re good at writing literature; in fact, they are superb at it. They’ve been pretty good at composing music, and at theater, as well. Science and Philosophy have been areas of first class accomplishment for the English. In fact, they have probably been superb at most of the humanities and pure sciences (but I’m not crazy about the Anglican Church – sorry).

But not politics. They are utter disasters at politics. The Arab Moslems have landed on
British turf, and they’re there to stay, and they want what they want – period.

So England is calling for an immediate cessation of hostilities ‘over there’, for humanitarian reasons – now that Israel has responded appropriately on its own behalf.

The British know all about humanitarian behaviors. They have had a centuries-long tradition of that. Take the bombing of German civilian populations during the Second World War, and just because the ‘Nazi swine’ bombed the English citizenry incessantly with incendiaries, V-1 ‘buzz bombs’, and the super murderous (for the day) V-2 rockets.

What did Britain have to say about the matter? Hey, America, you do the daylight bombing runs over France and Germany, we Brits will do it in the cover of night.

Brilliant, not to mention humanitarian. And the Jews? The British version of humanitarianism doesn’t bode well for us.

Screw Britain – but gently; it’s important to be humanitarian to those who would do it to you.

A Lesson in Defense Strategy for the Jew Haters
by: Schvach Yid



Well jadies and jents, it appears that the ‘neighborhood bully’ has at long last located his testicles and has finally chosen to do the right thing. Mazel tov! The Jew-haters are aghast and livid (not Livni), encouraging Israel to not ‘overdo’ this most necessary response to Arab Moslem aggression. Maybe Israel won’t ‘overdo’ things. Perhaps Israel won’t emulate America’s disastrous incursion into
French Indochina/Vietnam. Hopefully, this time, Israel will get things right and remove the covers from its binoculars before making tactical field decisions.

Vienna Mike of Arutz Sheva comment fame, where are you?

The time has long past for the Jewish State of Israel to stand up and assert it’s belief that the Land of Israel is Jewish, and that no one may trounce on us on our turf. This belief is supposed to constitute the raison d’être for the founding of the modern Jewish State.


Defense Minister Ehud Barak’s statement that this will not constitute a brief operation is encouraging, but international third party interference has consistently exerted a historical precedence in Israel’s defense efforts, so we’ll see.

So here are some basic rules of national defense, and of life:

When a foreign military force, whether formal military or citizens’ militia, attacks your country’s civilian population, it is the duty of your government to eradicate the foreign belligerents.

One doesn’t respond to one’s foe‘s hostility in order to jockey that foe into a position of having to negotiate, but rather one responds for the purpose of eradicating the foe.

There is no peace possible with a people who don’t want peace.

Take a lesson from US Navy Admiral William‘Bull’ Halsey of WW 2 fame – hit hard, hit fast, hit often.

Kill anyone who attacks, or threatens to attack, your children.

Kill anyone who causes your children to live in fear.

When one is forced to choose between the lives of one’s own children or the lives of the children of those who attempt to kill one’s own children, then what do you think should constitute the appropriate response – 60 years of requests?

A message to Israel’s enemies: don’t start a war unless you are prepared to run the risk of losing.

Knock off the public relations propaganda; the truth of the matter is self-evident!

Hannah Ashwari, wherever you may be, f*ck you!

Tznius, Moslem-Style, Revisited
by: Schvach Yid


I’ve just learned of the existence of Naomi Wolf – the (a?) Jewish feminist. Actually, it has occurred to me that there may not exist a Jewish woman who is not feminist (at least in America), but that’s another matter.

This past August Ms. Wolf wrote about the habit (no pun intended) of religious Moslem women wearing the hijab. Her critique, which was published in The Sydney Morning Herald, can be accessed at:
http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/behind-the-veil-lives-a-thriving-muslim-sexuality/2008/08/29/1219516734637.html

She wrote, in part:

What kind of “Western gaze” are all these Muslim women hiding from in places like Morocco, Jordan, and Egypt? … Muslim women are covered up to protect them from Muslim men. I experienced it myself. I put on a shalwar kameez and a headscarf in Morocco for a trip to the bazaar. Yes, some of the warmth I encountered was probably from the novelty of seeing a Westerner so clothed; but, as I moved about the market - the curve of my breasts covered, the shape of my legs obscured, my long hair not flying about me - I felt a novel sense of calm and serenity. I felt, yes, in certain ways, free.

There’s controversy here, and it’s Moslem vs non-Moslem. You can read some of it at:
http://sheikyermami.com/2008/08/29/naomi-wolf-i-need-a-hijab-to-set-me-free/

Please don’t ask. I don’t know if the blog site owner is Moslem or not. Perhaps it doesn’t matter.

Last evening, around 6:30pm, I cruised around town looking for food. Every place was closed, except for the few - yet increasing in number of - so-called ‘Mediterranean’ eateries. ‘Mediterranean’, in this application, is a euphemism for Arab. (At one of these restaurants, the husband and wife proprietors answered the inquiry of a curious customer by telling him they come from Greece. The two owners then turned to each other and spoke in Arabic; she, by the way, dresses utterly ‘Western’.)

Are you familiar with the old quip that one can tell if a Chinese restaurant is any good by whether or not ‘real’ Chinese people eat there? Well, in my nook of America’s Bible Belt, there are ‘Mediterranean’ restaurants with Moslem clients, and those where traditional Moslem attire is absent. One, of course, can anticipate which is which in advance by simply scanning the scene for a sign that announces halal meat.

Back to the subject at hand. - is it tznius? ‘Down’ here I see lots of women clad in traditional Moslem attire, and I’ve had a wicked thought concerning the matter. I think we’re all informed of the appetite many men have for women donning lingerie. Hijabs and abayes are not lingerie, but still, I never saw the big deal of women’s hair getting a guy started until I learned about the Moslem religious tradition of concealing it. In high school, where a major effort of teachers and administrators is directed at assuring (as far as possible) that the young males aren’t provoked (at least in my day), the hair of the female students flew freely.

But introduce this new (for Westerners) social value, and what develops?

Some people at a Walmart not far from my home were aghast (and made no bones of expressing it) at the site of Moslem female customers dressed in their traditional garb. I had no objection; in fact, I see some potential here for the development of a new American male appreciation of female sexuality.

No, I do not advocate that non-Moslem women wear the garments of religious Moslem women, but rather that a little tznius would be appreciated, as in ‘cover-up a bit more’.

Here’s a link to a list of comments and posts on the subject: http://www.hijab.com/.

A Mohel Named Riper
by: Schvach Yid



It’s like the quip about the hematologist named Dr. Blood, or Dr. Dracula, but in today’s A7 edition there’s a post about a bris performed on the 8-day old son of the Chabad sheliach to the Andean Peruvian city (town?) of Cusco (Cuzco). It’s reported as the first bris ever performed in the Andes Mountains. You can read about it here:
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/129009

Also, thanks to Mottel of the Letters of Thought blog, here is his posting of photos from his trip to Machu Picchu, also located in the Peruvian Andes, where evidently Yiddin sought to bring some kedushah to a place previously used for human sacrifices (I think).
http://mordechai7215.blogspot.com/2008/10/machu-picchu-trip.html

Here are some more of Mottels photos of the Peruvian Andes:
http://mordechai7215.blogspot.com/2008/10/on-end-of-sukkos-moray-and-how-i-became.html
and here:
http://mordechai7215.blogspot.com/2008/10/out-and-about-cuzco-for-lack-of-better.html

Mottel likes the Andes, I guess. The photos are nice - enjoy!

Okay, Read This One
by: Schvach Yid



It’s by Jonathan Mark of The New York Jewish Week at:
http://bestjewishnewsny.com/2008/12/23/times-excellent-coverage-of-the-shoah-1943/

The Top 10 Reasons Israeli Men Piss in Public:
by: Schvach Yid

#10 - ‘I had to go’

#9 - ‘who can find a bathroom in time?’

# 8 -‘the bathroom at home is always occupied’

# 7 - ‘I forgot to pay the key fee’

#6 - ‘Olmert sold my bathroom’

#5 - ‘Shin bet banned me from settling in a home with a toilet

#4 - ‘Israel has just negotiated all water rights to the Palestinian Authority’

#3 - ‘How else do you expect me to celebrate May Day on Rehov Kaplan?’

#2 – ‘I can’t see a thing through these sunglasses so I figured…’

And the #1 reason – ‘Ehhhhhh…’

Happy Chanukah!
by: Schvach Yid



Sarah speaks, not about Chanukah (at least not in this video), but rather about her
apparent first love and passion, Ladino language and music.

Sarah's family hails from Thessaloniki,
formerly known as Salonica, Greece,
(Macedonia) and Greece sorta figures into Chanukah (in a Syrian sort of way).

Since Chanukah is upon us, I want to offer a gift to the readers of my blog site, so here she is, Sarah Aroeste:








For those of you who are fortunate enough to live in New York (my home town – how I miss it), she concertizes regularly there; she also takes her Ladino act to places far and wide. Her concert schedule can be found on her blog site at: http://www.saraharoeste.com/

My thanks to YoYenta for introducing me to the Sarah Aroeste Band
http://www.yoyenta.com/index.php?s=sarah+aroeste&submit=Search



art work by Michoel Muchnik at: http://www.muchnikarts.com/

Angst
by: Schvach Yid

I love that word – German (my family’s native language) incorporated into English
(my native language). In my hands it’s so pretentious, like me – I’m an expert on everything, you know.

The stress and sense of alienation we often (unfortunately) create for our fellow members of the Jewish community is a regrettable habit that stems from this conviction of expertise and superiority that many of us exercise. We attempt to fluff our sense of self esteem at the expense of others.

I’m guilty of this sin of belittling others, and I can’t afford to do it, despite the fact that I do it all too frequently. I can’t afford to do it because I’m just as vulnerable as any one else to the criticisms and chastisements of others, and believe me, I’ve suffered from the mindless slings and arrows of others.

But I’m stubborn, and I persist.

Two blogs have just entered my life, and I’m glad for it. They provide a bit of mussar for our tribe.

The first is This is Babylon, at http://thisisbabylon.net/2008/12/04/racism-in-the-jewish-community-a-perspective/ .

Mr. Babylon has a point, and a problem. His problem appears to be self-inflicted. His schtick hurls back to the local community politics of the mid to late 1960’s and ‘70’s.
He comes across as a guy in search of a fight with a fabricated in-your-face style (that, by the way, is a ‘Torah-ism) that’s hard to miss. The point is, he’s arguing with himself, and
he’s going to ‘peter-out’ without solving any problems. He needs to revamp his archaic style to one that is not out-of-the-group confrontational. Since he’s Jewish, perhaps he should ‘get Jewish’; after all, he made the choice.

His point is that he has a good point. There really is racism in the Jewish community. I’ve seen enough of it, and it never speaks well of us.

Mr. Babylon (I assume this is not his real name) cross linked to another blog site, Notes of a Jewpanese Nomad, at
http://jewpanese.wordpress.com/2008/06/25/the-pressure-to-be-liberal/

Here, there is true angst, not the literary pugilistic assertions of a writer who, I think, takes some delight in making himself an outsider (as I think may be the case with Mr. Babylon), but rather the honest anxiety of a person who feels shunned by her own people.
She doesn’t want respect; she wants the acceptance to which she’s entitled as a Jew.

She calls herself Kaguya, and here’s a bit of her bio:
My two heritages are being Jewish and Japanese. I am lucky in that these two leagacies have few conflicting values; in fact, they compliment each other extremely well. I am also lucky in that I get the two heritages from the “right” parent: My Japaneseness–traditionally a patrlinial heritage–is passed down by my father and my Jewishness–traditionally a matrilinial heritage–is passed down by my mother.

Mr. Babylon, too, is entitled to acceptance, but quite frankly I think he may ask for at least some of the rejection he perceives.

See how expert I am? My brain needs a tune-up.

This is Precisely How I Feel
by: Schvach Yid

Thank you Pameal Geller, founder and owner of the Atlas Shrugs blogsite, for posting this image.

If you have ever walked into a car dealership to ‘talk’,
If you have ever had your car serviced by a car dealership,
If you have ever been dependent on the automobile industry, for anything,
Then you have to loathe them.

So if you hate getting ripped off by those dealers/manufactures,
If you value your bucks, as well as your personal integrity,
Then you have to oppose any taxpayer bailout of the auto industry.

Let them do it themselves,
And let them do it decently and properly.

Do you think those people are capable of even considering honesty as an
alternative lifestyle?

I Love It
by: Schvach Yid

And here’s the link: http://ilanadavita.wordpress.com/2008/12/09/did-anyone-say-sheep/

Bravo Pamela
by: Schvach Yid

That’s Pamela Geller, the founder and writer of the Atlas Shrugs blogsite, found at
http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/ , for highlighting two incisive articles about the
Mumbai massacre, the first written by Mark Steyn, found at http://www.ocregister.com/articles/mumbai-muslims-time-2248410-jews-muslim# ,
and the second by Dennis Prager at
http://www.creators.com/opinion/dennis-prager.html?columnsName=pra


Writes Steyn:
Last week, a Canadian critic reprimanded me for failing to understand that Muslims feel "vulnerable." Au contraire, they project tremendous cultural confidence, as well they might: They're the world's fastest-growing population. A prominent British Muslim announced the other day that, when the United Kingdom becomes a Muslim state, non-Muslims will be required to wear insignia identifying them as infidels. If he's feeling "vulnerable," he's doing a terrific job of covering it up.

I just got ‘laid-off’ from my job - my boss (a tenured full professor), his secretary, and me. On that campus that was my workplace there occurred no small number of hijabs and abayas adorning the scenery. I have a little bit of news for the general Western public. Moslem women dressed in tradition Moslem apparel are adept at keeping their chins off their chests. They have a habit of broadcasting an unabashed message of self-confidence and high self-esteem. Don’t worry, they travel with ease of mind.

Please have an informative read at
http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2008/12/mark-steyn-jews.html

Good Shabbos Everyone
by: Schvach Yid

If the slaughter of perhaps as many as 200 innocents in Mumbai bothers you, as it does me, then please be sure to read Jonathan Mark’s tetralogy of posts on the disaster at the Chabad House in Mumbai, now known to all as the Nariman House. They can be accessed at his NY Jewish Week blogsite Route 17, http://bestjewishnewsny.com/ . This series includes a very well deserved homage to the schluchim and schluchot of Chabad, and to Chabad's chosen mission
relative to the mitzvah of Ahavas Yisroel.

By the way, as a comment to his very appropriate assertion that Israel has no business
releasing Moslem terrorists in recognition of Moslem holidays, Israel’s leadership should
recall that the ‘New’ Testament reports that Caesar released Barabas in like fashion (but no Islam, not for another 6 centuries). The Jewish State of Israel is supposed to be Jewish, not Roman, and besides, we're not invaders who've seized someone else's land.

Please have a restful Shabbos.

Parshat V’yetzei
by: Schvach Yid


You’ve got to view this at: http://g-dcast.com/
It’s hysterical, and in a contemporary sense, oh so true, and not necessarily
for the kids.

True Identity
by: Schvach Yid

Ellen W. Horowitz has just posted an article on the Arutz 7 (Israel National News) web site. It can be accessed here:
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/8403


Forget about the evangelical propaganda. Just read the books by Rev. John Hagee, so beloved by the AIPAC crowd and other Jewish hopefuls. I’ve had my own experiences.

Years ago, on one of my innumerable health care jobs, I happened to pass the hospital pharmacy. There, perched atop a filing cabinet situated next to the entrance, stood a bottle of Kaopectate that bore an absolutely conspicuous (for me) label in Hebrew.

I stopped in my tracks to read it. A pharmacist seated near the door announced in a rather
proud tone that he had picked up the ditty while visiting Israel. He grinned – oh how pleased he seemed with himself. So I very nonchalantly proceeded to recite my free translation of the Hebrew label.

Wham! Quick like a bunny he grabbed the phone on his desk, punched in some numbers, and proceeded to complain about me (I was a very well-known item there, as well as in every workplace of mine down here in America’s Bible Belt). If this fellow had any conceptions of being ‘pro-Jewish’ or ‘pro-Israel’, then he managed to very competently blow his cover. Some supporter of a Jewish Israel! Perhaps the dolt didn’t understand that Israel is the Jewish State, and will remain so, and perhaps he thought that we Jews shouldn’t get around, as in make our homes in his precious Bible Belt. Perhaps he thought we Jews shouldn’t possess a knowledge of our religion’s language. (And yes, my supervisior gave me a mouthpiece about my erudition with 'foreign' languages.)

I hold no hope for a meaningful Jewish-Christian ‘dialogue’; not with the evangelists of America’s Bible Belt, not with the Vatican under the current serving pope, not at all.

And not with Islam.

Some absolutely fundamental changes in the values and teachings of Christianity and Islam will first have to be instituted before we Jews get to live in peace, at the behest of those two other religions, and those changes mean revisions in their respective claims of fundamental revelation, and that, Jadies and Jents, will never happen.

Good luck to us.

Uch!
by: Schvach Yid


I’ve always disliked Country Western music, and here’s a good example of why:



My thanks to Arlene Peck for this.
http://www.arlenepeck.com/

The Bestiality of Islam Continues
by: Schvach Yid

Islam announces itself as ‘the religion of peace’. Cat Stevens aka Yusuf Islam once asserted that Islam is ‘the perfect religion’. My foot (but please, don’t hack it off)!

Chabad being the Jewish community that teaches and extols Ahavas Yisroel, with its emphasis and commitment to menschlichkeit, has yet to express a sentiment of hatred concerning the ongoing slaughter in Mumbai in which Chabad Rabbi and Rebbitzin Gavriel and Rivka Holtzberg, along with 3 others, have lost their lives in the Chabad House in Mumbai, India.

Others say it far better than I can, so here are three links:

http://rutimizrachi.blogspot.com/2008/11/may-we-sing-for-joy-at-your-salvation.html

http://bogieworks.blogs.com/treppenwitz/2008/11/no-raised-eyebr.html#comments

http://www.chabad.org/news/article_cdo/aid/773691/jewish/Mumbai-Jewish-Family-Killed.htm


Zichronam Livracha - may their memories be for a blessing.

Denmark Too
by: Schvach Yid


Talk about bandwagons, Demark has been reported as considering a bill that would ban circumcision in males under 15 years of age.

It sounds as though that Nordic country is vying for a honcho position at the UN.

I’ve never met an adolescent male who has wanted his possession to be so dispossessed.
Besides, the Aybischter never said 15 years of age.

Perhaps Denmark should take a lesson from my father’s observations during his service in the US Army. There, he served as a field hospital medic. Among his comrades were those between the ages of seventeen and their early twenties who fell under the surgeon’s knife, requiring a bit of modification to their cherished possession. Such an item of a late adolescent or early adult male is a bit heftier than that of an eight day old, and as such requires post-ceremonial sutures. In the early hours of each morning them dang stitchures would make their presence known to the patient in a most disagreeable way, often requiring a journey back to the O.R. for some patchwork. Mine was done post-partum (and I mean just), thank G-d.

This new bill is reputed by its sponsors to be a natural outgrowth of Denmark’s ban against female ‘circumcision’. I’ve written this before, so I’ll write this again. Females have nothing to circumcise. If the Danes can discern the difference between a Dane and a danish, then certainly they can differentiate between male and female genitals.

Circumcise means to cut in a circle. Females have no circles. I don’t know what that shape is called, but by the diamond boys on West 47th Street I think it’s called ‘marquis’; I’ve never referred to it as ‘marquis’.

Here’s the link:
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3625859,00.html

Chag Sigd Sameach!
by: Schvach Yid

Today is the 29th of Cheshvan. For us Ashkinasi Yiddin, it’s no biggy, but for the
Jews of Ethiopia and of Ethiopian descent, today is their national religious hoiday, Sigd.

So here are a few links to web sites that explain the significance of this festival:

http://www.pbase.com/yalop/sigd

http://www.jafi.org.il/education/festivls/sigd.html

http://www.ynet.co.il/english/articles/0,7340,L-3562939,00.html

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/116126

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/125100

I haven’t seen anything mentioned on the mainstream on-line Jewish news sites.
Perhaps a commenter or two can explain why.

Addendum: Oops, here's one -
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1227702351737&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

Tali Farkash is Back
by: Schvach Yid


Well, sort of. Here’s the link:
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3628962,00.html

Tali is Satmar, and evidently makes a hobby of questioning (?) some of the practices of the haredim.

The Holocaust, the Jewish Blame Game, and the Sin
of Sinat Chinam

by: Schvach Yid


Tomorrow night marks the seventieth anniversary of Kristallnacht, the night-long rampage by the Nazis against the Jews of Germany and Austria. My father and his family went through this delight of the Jew haters in Bremerhaven; my mother and her family in Vienna. All the prodromal speeches and misdeeds hadn’t sufficed to convince my immediate family members to flee their respective homes. The single act of the night of November 9, 1938, and those of the following day, November 10, 1938, had.

The members of both sides of my family were booted out of their homes on November 10th. My
paternal grandfather was taken into custody and shipped off to the concentration camp in
Sachsenhausen.

Baruch haShem, other family members and friends saw the ‘handwriting on the wall’ years before and had already left Germany and Austria to establish themselves in the United States.
These very same persons did what so many American Jews failed to do for their fellow Jews – they put their personal and business finances on the line by sponsoring affidavits for my family members stranded in Europe, so that they could obtain entry visas to the United States, thus sparing them from certain annihilation.

Some woke up too late but were spared nonetheless;
others never got the message at all and perished.

Seventy years later we Jews are fond of indulging in the blame game. It goes something like this: ‘the Jews of Germany are responsible for the Holocaust’.

I vehemently disagree, both as a Yeke and as a person who usually bothers to think before I speak or write.

This version of the aveira of sinat chinam is nothing new. In the late 1980’s or early 1990’s, a Jewish newspaper ran two articles, each in a separate edition, in which the respective authors stated their cases in support of this accusation, that the Jews of Germany did nothing to stop our genocide.

During this past Yom Kippur, as we congregants milled about for two hours between the end of Mussaf and the start of Mincha, I had the utter displeasure of hearing an Israeli ‘pontificate’ about almost every subject imaginable (actually, he was fishing for the right ‘button’, like a child who pushes every button in an elevator) – two hours worth, non-stop, including his assertion that ‘German Jews are more German than the Germans’. His logic was faulty, to say the least. German Jews could not be more German than the Germans; German Jews are German. The Nazis drew the same distinction as did he, and to top it off, that little Israeli sent his son to the University of Tübingen to attend college. Smart!

I’ve heard it too many times, and irrate doesn’t rate as an adequate description of my reaction, so I’ll state the matter plainly: the Jews of Germany are not responsible for the Holocaust!

Once upon a time I had an acquaintance, my senior by only a few years, who was born in a displaced persons camp in Austria, circa 1946, to Polish concentration camp survivors. He was one of several individuals who pointedly informed me of their subscription to this diatribe against the Jews of Germany. Today, he languishes (I’ve been told) in an assisted living facility, physically limited by the progression of multiple sclerosis.

Forgive me rabbis, far and wide, but in my opinion the Aybischter is certain to punish us for committing the sin of sinat chinam.

It serves no purpose whatsoever, this pastime of blame, not to mention the fact that it is factually wrong. The Jews of Germany were that Austrian madman’s first victims, not his sponsors. Blame is a call to accountability; victims are not accountable for their victimization.

Once upon a time I was invited to lunch on Shabbos following schul. The parents of the young lady of the house were in attendance. My invitation had been ‘arranged’ by one of the rabbis of the schul (Chabad). We sat down at the ‘tisch’, recited brochas, and ‘fressed’.

The time arrived to tell stories. ‘So, what’s your story?’ ‘Where’s your family from?’

I responded, ‘Oh, my father’s from Germany; my mother’s from Austria’.

A storm brewed on the face of the mother. ‘What happened to your parents during the war?’

‘Oh’, I responded, ‘they got out’.

Wham! The mother hostess now had me locked into her sights. A mudslide of accusation ensued in a panicked, machine gun-like cadence.
‘How did they get out?’
‘They must have had Capitol visas’.
‘How did they get the money for that?’
‘They must have been rich’.

As it turned out, both she (who was German) and her husband (who was Polish) had been ‘gathered’ and sent to concentration camps. She was aghast that my parents, grandparents, and other members of my family had managed to ‘get out’. Her husband, who had had a stroke, sat speechless but nonetheless seethed at me.

(One of my Biochemistry professors in graduate school, a concentration camp survivor from Poland, expressed a similar sentiment to me when he demanded to know ‘what business did your parents have getting out when I had to go though that’. He had a Ph.D in Biochemistry, not a doctorate in decency.)

I have to brag, I was cool in my response at that Shabbos meal. I simply stated that my family had had friends and family in the States who were sufficiently concerned and generous to provide the necessary papers required for immigration.

More expressions of indignation followed.

It obviously never occurred to these two to express a positive sentiment, something like ‘thank G-d your family didn’t suffer like we and so many others did’. This sort of kind thought evidently escaped their thinking, nor did they notice my refrain from rebutting with an accusation equal to their animus, something like ‘how did the two of you manage to survive when so many millions of others perished in the camps?’ Accusation is easy, after all, but the Aybischter hears, sees, and knows all, so watch it!

Some things are self-evident jadies and jents, and I do know when to keep my mouth shut (even though I’m freer with a keyboard).

By the way, the mother of my hostess worked as a nurse – you know, that profession of caring and kindness. I know all about nurses and Nursing - I used to work as a nurse.

And so, in response to the Jewish blame game artists, I can only respond with this – shut up you idiots! You’re not so smart after all, and sinat chinam is a sin – it’s in the machzor for Yom Kippur: ‘…v’al chet shechatanu lefanecha b’sinat chinam…’

The anniversary of Kristallnacht is a day of personal mourning for me and my family. My family went through it. They had been betrayed by their countrymen. That night, and all that followed for the next seven years or so, not only defines me, but in a most paradoxical way is responsible for my very existence, for without that era’s Jew hatred my family would have never fled Europe and come to America, my parents presumably would have never met, and I therefore would have never come into existence.

And no, I feel neither guilt nor remorse. No one has paid for my life with his own, and no, the Jews of Germany did not ‘abandon their brethren to the ovens of Auschwitz’ as one self-indulgent and intellectually gifted dolt once wrote (‘gift’, by the way, is the German word for poison).

Whoever coined the notion that ‘we are alone in the world’ got it right.

Knock it off already you banal shit heads!!!

Shavua tov!

Who Said There’re No Jews in Japan?
by: Schvach Yid

Oh yes there are, and you can find some here:
http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2008/09/la-shana-tova.html

It appears Chaim Topol and Toshiro Mifune (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIeb51do6GI) have some real competition. Thanks to Pamela Geller, writer and owner of the Atlas Shrugs blog site.

Actually, I'm a big fan of the 'ingathering of the Jews', and of the work done by organizations like Shavei Israel (http://www.shavei.org/en/Default.aspx). Were it only true.

Here’s a Beaut
by: Schvach Yid

Please, if you’re not already familiar with the Ki Yachol Nuchal blog site, read this blog – it’s
priceless (well, almost): http://rutimizrachi.blogspot.com/2008/09/naaaaaaaaaag.html

My thanks to A Barbaric Yawp – Haveil Havalim #184, ‘A Barbarian Roars Again’.

Shana Tova!!!!
by: Schvach Yid

To all the readers of my blog site, and to everyone else, have a good, sweet year.

And to start things off, here are links to two blogs by A Simple Jew about the late
Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Vitebsk:
http://asimplejew.blogspot.com/2007/07/question-answer-with-chabakuk-elisha.html
http://asimplejew.blogspot.com/2006/04/guest-posting-from-chabakuk-elisha.html

Do You Really Think So?
by: Schvach Yid

Your friend and mine, Tamar Yonah, of Israel National News’ on-line service Arutz 7,
has just blogged about Hurricane Ike and its presumptive etiology to a possible furor by the Aybischter over the foreign policy sins of America’s President Bush toward Israel. You can read it here: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Blogs/Blog.aspx/3#3027

I don’t know. I don’t like to second guess HaShem, even though I’ve probably done it in past blogs. Still, it’s an intriguing prospect; after all, by the Moslems this is the month of
Ramadan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramadan).

A quick survey of the island of Galveston, devastated by the hurricane, will reveal the presence of the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB), a campus on which comprises
a medical school, hospitals, academic research buildings, and the most recently constructed Galveston National Laboratory, one of the Bush administration’s contributions to the global war on terrorism.

Here’s a photo of the Galveston National Lab:

And here is the URL: http://www.utmb.edu/

Note the venting stacks atop the building; all biomedical research facilities have these, and here, for contrast, is a photo of pillars at the Temple of Karnak located in Thebes, along the Nile River in Egypt:

Call me delusional, but I see a similarity.

The Temple of Karnak has survived millennia; I don’t know how well the Galveston National Lab faired this last storm. Oh yeah, hijabs - they’re seen all over the campus.
You’ll just have to take my word for this.

The Presidential Race According to Me
by: Schvach Yid

Of course it’s about me. It’s always about me. Where’s the surprise?

Here’s Schvach’s take on the current presidential electoral race. Obama’s a schmuck.
McCain’s a schmuck. Joe Biden’s a schmuck. So help me, I will never vote for that king of gaffe, and if the TV machers ever again cover Biden yapping about his good old childhood days attending Catholic parochial school, I swear I’ll mail him an embossed
invitation to get crucified.

I sort of apologize to the 2 billion Christians around the world for my overtly bigoted sentiment, but after 1 ½ millennia of Christian Jew hatred, there’s a limit to my sense of guilt.

Okay, you’ve guessed it. Sarah Palin.

Oh, how I would love to turn on the TV, view a presidential news conference, and spontaneously long to have sex with the leader of the country. Face it (no pun intended) jadies and jents, what an ultimately refreshing prospect.

Just consider the past alternatives. And what about the leadership of Israel?
Olmert the babe? Rabin, Begin, Barak (no, not Obama), Sharon (nebich), babes? Golda Meir?

What a refreshing idea. Sarah Palin is a babe with oak leaf clusters. I’ll vote for her.
I’ve never voted Republican in my life, but she’s the exception. Screw politics.

So she’s not Jewish. Neither was Woodrow Wilson. Woodrow Wilson was an ordained
Presbyterian minister and served as president of this here country. Do you think he might
have wanted to convert all Jews to his faith. You betchya!

And Palin? No need to ask, of course she wants us on her religion’s bandwagon.
So did Jimmy Carter, and undoubtedly all the others (except perhaps Nixon – he was Quaker – emes).

I’ll take the babe. After all, what can those clowns do right? I’ll take sex appeal. Only the vice-presidential candidate you say? Vote for the presidential candidate instead you say? Charmin vs the other stuff (hey, I’m not an aficionado of forest products, okay?). I’ll take Princess Charming.

Schvach, you’re irresponsible. Damn tootin’! What do you think those clowns are?
Have you ever seen such self-deprecating job seekers as those guys? Remember the
Primary debates? They looked like reality TV. Junk. Crap. America’s future president?

I’ve looked for plenty of jobs in my time, and I’ve never conducted myself with such an overt lack of self-esteem. ‘Please hire me’. NO! I’m not taking you off the street. Go back to the Senate and stay there.

But I’ll vote for the babe because she’s nice to look at, and because the others offer nothing at all.

Call me irresponsible.

Praise for the Praiseworthy
by: Schvach Yid

Jonathan Mark, the associate editor of the Jewish Week (New York), is an erudite and well crafted writer who, quite frankly, serves as a model for those of us who aspire to write well.
His writing is superlative.

He has just written a blog in which he analyses the success of the shlucot of Chabad Lubavitch, the female emissaries of the Lubavitcher Rebbe to the Jewish communities around the world.

It’s a must read, and you can read it here:
http://blog.thejewishweek.com/post/Sarah_Palin_Shliach.html

If you’re a fan of Chabad as I am, then you’ll love this piece; if not, then there’s hope for you.

Why Don’t You Get a TV Already?
by: Schvach Yid


These challenging words were just delivered to me by my mom. Mothers! My mother owns me
every Sunday. In decades past, my paternal grandparents owned us every Sunday; I was in elementary and junior high schools back then. Now, I’m a grown mensch, and not much has changed.

Back to the TV.

I dumped my TV set into the garbage this past May 1st – May Day. No, I’m not one of those pinko Commies of old; it was simply coincidence. I haven’t gone through a manumission as a result; just a little enhancement of shalom babayit, and this despite the fact that my old (and now deceased) grad school advisor was investigated by the Joe McCarthy Red witch-hunt people back in the 1950’s, and who, as a result, lost his academic position at the University of Vermont (link).

I first cancelled my cable TV subscription in March. I didn’t miss the garbage for a second, and then one fine evening, when I was feeling an enhanced surge of perkiness (despite my shriveled adrenal cortices), I schlepped the thing out of my bayit, down the driveway, and onto the curb for trash collection.

A mechaiya! The incessant dribble and junk – fifty-two bucks and change a month worth – were out of my life. I have yet to miss the thing.

So why don’t I get a TV already? Because life without it is better, that’s why. Because if The Huntley-Brinkley Report was still aired by NBC, I’d probably buy one, but regrettably, CNN has chosen to emulate its emulators, and Huntley and Brinkley have both disappeared from the planet, so all that remains to be watched is programmed crap.

Besides, Jblogs are so much better.

O’ Revolution
by: Schvach Yid


No, not Canada’s independence from Britain, but rather the progenitor of the eastern end of our transcontinental neighbor to the north, France. Bastille Day, my absolute favorite holiday of the calendar (and it ain’t even Jewish!) is nearly upon us, and since today is a celebration America’s day of revolt, and additionally, since I have no patience whatsoever, I’ve decided to jump the gun and do Bastille Day a bit prematurely.

I experienced a great clarifying moment concerning France’s revolt of the common person over
the aristocracy while watching the BBC production (thanks to PBS) of Simon Schama’s Power of Art. You can read a bit of it here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/powerofart/david.shtml (get the pun?)

It was a super production, but unfortunately, I barely remember a word of it.
What I do remember of that series was Schama’s (he’s Jewish, as in ‘Sh’ma Yisroel’) discussion of Jacque-Louis David’s Death of Marat. It's at the top folks.


And here is a bit of what Schama had to say about it:

"If there's ever a picture that would make you want to die for a cause, it is Jacque-Louis David's Death of Marat. That's what makes it so dangerous - hidden away from view for so many years. I'm not sure how I feel about this painting, except deeply conflicted. You can't doubt that it's a solid gold masterpiece, but that's to separate it from the appalling moment of its creation, the French Revolution. This is Jean-Paul Marat, the most paranoid of the Revolution's fanatics, exhaling his very last breath. He's been assassinated in his bath. But for David, Marat isn't a monster, he's a saint. This is martyrdom, David's manifesto of revolutionary virtue."

Martyrdom indeed, as Schama might intone.

When I was a lad, elementary school years, living in New York, the World’s Fair came to town at Flushing Meadow Park – 1965. The Vatican had a pavilion there, and offered as the featured attraction, Michelangelo’s Pieta. Watching the Schama presentation of David’s Death of Marat and hearing his account about martyrdom, my brain zipped back to that childhood experience.

David’s Death of Marat is, of course, an emulation of the Michelangelo sculpture – it’s the Pieta without the mommy; even the respective poses of the two sacrificial lambs is the same, although viewed from different spatial perspectives (and as if to make up for the absence of Michelangelo’s female element, one might suggest that David depicted Marat as a rather feminine figure).

In retrospect, it’s a bit odd that, at the age of twelve, what I found the most intriguing about the Vatican’s exhibit was not the grand sculpture, nor its green lighting, nor the motorized walkway that sped visitors past Michelangelo’s masterpiece, but rather, what I thought at the time, were those funny little dishes protruding from the walls as one entered the exhibit. They were filled with green water.

Of course, they turned out to be dishes of ‘holy water’; the green tinge, I now assume, was imparted by the addition of disinfectant, probably an imposed requirement of New York’s Department of Health. Kids!

Happy Anniversary…

by: Schvach Yid

America! My brother and his family live in New Jersey (‘Joisy’ to those in the know), and since that state figured so prominently in our Revolutionary War, perhaps it’s fitting to commemorate the event with Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze’s painting of our nation’s founding father crossing the Delaware River (with the Red Coats hot on his trail/tail).

What We Have Here, Is Failure To Communicate
by; Schvach Yid


No jadies and jents, this is not a reprise of Cool Hand Luke. Rabbi Levi Brackman, who writes an opinion column for YNetNews.com, and who writes his own blog site, has just written a piece on a recent study conducted by the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute and the Reform Movement, which reports on the egress of Jewish men from most things Jewish, especially synagogue attendance. You can read it at: http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3559850,00.html

Has anyone mentioned that non-Orthodox Jewish men and women have a propensity for not marrying each other, or for matrimony at all?

I think the current trend in non-Orthodox Judaism is best called ‘shooting oneself in the foot’ (actually, in kopf). We Yiddin seem to have become fairly adept at it, me included.

At my local ‘Reform Movement style’ synagogue (no, I’m not a member and I don’t attend; I’ll stick with Chabad), which is a formal member of the United Synagogue of Judaism (in other words, the Conservative Movement), the big deals are significant Jewish religious events such as Sunday morning (never afternoon – who wants to waste a perfectly good Sunday?) bagel sales and ‘men’s prostate health issues’ get-togethers. Some of the ‘guys’ even manage to wile away their local synagogue Shabbat experience by congregating in the parking lot. After all, who wants to hear some dribble about feminism or Darfur? Those topics may make ideal pc social concerns, but they are no substitute for Judaism, to be used as replacements for ‘the religious stuff’ – you know, davening, sermons which are employed as vehicles for Torah shiurim, etc.

R’ Brackman’s article is okay, but he barely goes into the muck and mire of American Judaism’s present day auto-destruct mode. To put it bluntly, we’re wiping ourselves out of existence with political bullshit - and don’t the Jew-haters know it, and love it!

I think we Jews may have taken the bait, swallowed it whole, and now suffer the consequences. Suicide is not painless, not by a long shot, and it’s a violation of halachah.
So much of what the Reform Movement does is a devotion to eschewing and negating the ‘Jewish way’, and it has proven to be utterly self-destructive.

So what’s the news in this new social study of the American Jewish community? Jewish men who go to, or who are coerced into attending, Reform synagogue prefer to opt out. No kidding.
They prefer the swelteringly hot parking lot to the nicely air-conditioned synagogue sanctuary (but not too cool, please, my wife….) where they can behave and feel like men, without the overlord of political oppression dictating that to be labeled a bigot is the worst fate any person can suffer. And of course, as any non-Orthodox Jew knows, traditional Judaism is all about bigotry, right? Just ask the now deceased Joseph Campbell (not Jewish); he absolutely loved the Hebrew Bible.

Judaism is not about equanimity between the genders. When it comes to Judaism and ‘gender concerns’ (don’t you just love pc jargon), men and women are not separate and equal, we’re separate and different. Men this, women that (estrogens are one thing, androgens another). Shul, jadies and jents, is the designated stomping ground of men. Sorry ladies, you aren’t permitted to show up in shul to declare that men’s religious garb is ‘unisex’ and displace us from our religious functions. When that’s done, we guys take a hike, and we have a tendency to stay gone.

So what, one may retort, who needs men anyway? After all, we’re Jewish by virtue of our mothers, and it is she who is charged with the responsibility of providing an [religious] education to her children. The guy’s just a drone. Women can, and frequently have, taken over the major synagogue functions, so who needs the men?

Fine! You’ll find us in the parking lot. When you’re done inside, we’ll drive you home (and on Shabbos to boot!). And please let us know if the thermostat is set too low (actually, if you try wearing a tallis made of wool…).

And if you’re really interested in what guys do when we get together, look here:

This Year, And Forever!
by: Schvach Yid

From Rubicon 3, a truism that shouldn’t quit, and which should never be ignored. No one listens, so why should we accommodate?

And lest we forget about our rightful claims to Jewish turf, no one should forget that the city of Medina was Jewish before Islam's founding father (it's Father's Day, you know) slaughtered us outta there.

Bobby Kennedy on Israel
by: Schvach Yid

Thanks to I*Consult at: http://lennybendavid.com/2008/06/on-bobby-kennedys-40th-yahrzeit.html; chaptem read.

Did you know RFK visited the Yishuv in March 1948, and reported: "The Jews point with pride to the fact that over 500,000 Arabs, in the 12 years between 1932-1944, came into Palestine to take advantage of living conditions existing in no other Arab state...". Of course, RFK made the error of designating 'Palestine' an Arab state.

And the Arabs assert it’s theirs, and that we Yiddin are the intruders.

My Thoughts Exactly!
by: Schvach Yid

My thanks to Gail, the owner and author of Rubicon 3, at: http://northernva.typepad.com/rubicon3/ and, in turn, to Naomi Ragen.

So maybe I was wrong about Jewish bloggers quoting Mr. Zimmerman! Enjoy the video – it’s so true.

I Woke Up on the Roadside, Daydreaming
About the Way Things Really Are

by: Schvach Yid

Famous words by Bob Dylan. What Jewish blogger doesn’t quote Dylan (probably most!)?

Like the opening lyric of Idiot Wind, I too get paranoid, all too often, and then muster enough common sense to wake up and face reality.

So why do I imagine seeing fellow J-bloggers on the road when I commute to work, or when I shop at a local supermarket? If I included a photo of myself on my blog site, perhaps I would imagine running into myself as I move around town.

It’s paranoia vs rationalization. Such angst.

Even a Pigeon Knows
by: Schvach Yid

This morning’s daven was enhanced, just a bit, by a dove. Two doves have decided to nest in the rain gutters of my house, one at each of opposite corners of my house. As I davened by a window that looks over one of the nesting doves, I glanced down to notice that the bird had removed herself from her eggs to stand perched on the edge of the rain gutter, looking upward at the window where I stood with yarmulke, tallis, tefillin, and siddur. Although I’m used to seeing doves nest in this location, I have never seen one off her eggs, and certainly not peering at the window. In fact, when viewed from the driveway, one can only notice the bird’s tail feathers protruding over the edge of the gutter.

So why stand? Perhaps she’s Jewish and wanted to be motzi.

Look What I Got in the Mail
by: Schvach Yid

The folks at Nextbook publish a magazine – news print style – called Nextbook Reader. I’ve been graced with a copy of this literary ditty. One can access this sales vehicle on-line; just search.

Thanks to Leon Wieseltier’s 1998 contribution to the world of Jewish writing, Kaddish (perhaps my favorite book of all time), a ‘new’ word has been re-introduced into Jewish circles – solipsist. Every time I encounter this word I have to run to the dictionary; I’ve never heard it in the course of conversation. A one page article appears in this magazine titled (you guessed it) ‘The Solipsist’. I haven’t read it.

But the real story (as far as I’m concerned) in this edition of the Nextbook Reader comes from that lamenting author of Foreskin’s Lament, Shalom Auslander. Straight from the wooded mountains of Woodstock NY (I should be so lucky; how I lament my continued exile from the northern Catskills of NY – Route 28 beckons), Mr. Auslander bewails his dilemma of going through life carrying an official Tribal membership card, yet arguing against it. Still, he sticks to it like a fly sticks to flypaper, all the while making a lot of annoying noise with his fruitless wing beating, while getting absolutely nowhere. Poor Shalom.

He knows how to write folks. Not that I’m qualified to critique an author’s work, but even I, with nothing to speak on my behalf as an amateur writer, am capable of recognizing his talent.

Here http://www.nextbook.org/cultural/feature.html?id=727 he writes about Avraham avinu. Depicted above Auslander’s article is an artist’s conception of Jewish patriarch #1, represented as a not-yet graying (he’s bearded) mensch clad in traditional Arab garb, complete with a scimitar at his side, his left hand clutching the weapon just below the hilt, his right hand placed over his heart (could this be a sign of angina brought about by a foreknowledge of Auslander’s opinions?). In the background, barely visible in the lower left corner, one can just discern the Greek/Roman columns and entablature (thank Gd I saved my copy of Janson’s History of Art) of a building. Auslander definitely has some hefty unresolved issues!

His essay is titled Civilization and Its Discontented. He should know – he knows how to write, and he’s pissed.

Auslander brags that rather than teaching his son the Chumash, he instead instructs his son about Yossarian, the lead character in Joseph Heller’s Catch 22 – very Jewish. Boy, does Auslander have unresolved issues, or what (I wonder if Yossarian, a Sephardic Jew, knew Ladino)?

Auslander calls for action. We shouldn’t teach our kiddies about the Gd of jealousy and vengeance, Auslander asserts, or to invoke his lexicon, f*ck accountability (yes folks, he even has his version of Avraham avinu, to whom he assigns the moniker ‘Abe’, speak this most famous word of the English language). He even refers to the Aybischter as a you-know-what (not to be repeated by me). This guy really has unresolved issues (the English ‘issue’ sounds like the Hebrew assur which, as we all know, means ‘forbidden’. Mr. Auslander should learn this).

The point is Mr. Auslander has painted himself into a corner. He invokes Avraham avinu as a rebel who rejected what he saw around him (Auslander’s interpretation, not mine), yet the heroic Avraham accepted every commandment given to him by HaShem (and by his wife Sarah imanu), including the mitzvah of circumcision.

Auslander, you big dummy, maybe you should teach your son about Fred Sanford!

Don’t get me wrong, Jadies and Jents, Auslander is no foreigner spitting on the Tribe. I harbor no animus for Mr. Auslander; I just disagree with him.

The real point, however, is that this mag is a sales vehicle for the Nextbook series, of which I am a fan. One book in this series, David Mamet’s The Wicked Son, is another of my favored writings.

Back to Auslander. If he thinks he’s going to get away with going through life with one foot in and the other out, then he has another guess coming. It’s not that he wants to equivocate, but he does. His dilemma is that he is solidly in the Tribe – he just won’t fess up to it.

Those Jews who hate Judaism, who think they’re above and beyond it, who think Judaism has nothing to offer, that it’s wrong, archaic, bigoted, irrelevant, etc, have a strong tendency to leave it. They don’t resort to the Reform Movement for escape and denial. They just leave and never look back. This is not Auslander’s chosen life. Auslander is a kvetch, and he evidently likes it that way – he’s entitled, and he’s obviously making a good living at it. His is the old Immigrant’s Son’s Tale, the sort of character one finds in the fiction of The Jazz Singer and Leon Uris’ Mitla Pass. When one is confused, embarrassed, self-conscious about one’s identity, when one can’t make up one’s mind, then that person is in a wee bit of a quandary.

Poor Shalom Auslander. Identity is not a pursuit - just ask any recovering BuJu.

But take heart guy. There are lots of you out there. You have lots of company for solace and emotional support. What you’ll probably never enjoy is resolution.

A Multiple Personality Disorder
by: Schvach Yid

It’s weird, but true. Accompanying the April 4^th 2008 edition of The New York Jewish Week was an inserted magazine titled Israel at 60. Baruch HaShem the Jewish State of Israel is about to see its 60^th birthday – it should enjoy many, many more, for all time, but the jubilation is mixed, as highlighted by this magazine. On the one hand, great articles were provided that celebrate Jewish ‘diversity’ (uch, that word again) in the Holy Land, in two spreads showing olim hadashim in various locations throughout the Jewish State. These can be accessed at:
http://www.thejewishweek.com/viewArticle/c361_a6844/News/Israel_At_60.html# ,
and http://www.thejewishweek.com/viewArticle/c361_a6843/News/Israel_At_60.html# .

And of course, Jonathan Mark added his literary views on life in current day J’lem at:
http://www.thejewishweek.com/viewArticle/c361_a6848/News/Israel_At_60.html . Yasher koach!

But, like, oh my Gd, enough of the mag deals with doom and gloom – Jewish Israel throwing in the towel. Similar articles have recently appeared on the Arutz Sheva website. These rants of desperation sound almost suicidal. The ‘analysts’ who come up with this stuff must be nuts.

‘Where do we go from here’; ‘nothing has worked’. Such tzuris. Such limited vision. Such absurd career chasing.

If you want my advice, stick with the positive. Yom Ha’azmaut is on the way. Israel certainly has problems, about which I have posted my unqualified opinions in past blogs, but who in Israel, or elsewhere, is about to take my advice?

Israel likes to feign expertise (I can just imaging Dan Gillerman saying the the United State Secretary of State, 'you know Condi, I'm going to explain something to you'), never playing the international game by the established rules, always pretending to know better (like me!). So be it. So they’re in a rut, having painted themselves into a corner. So all their self-proclaimed high-minded political strategies and academic analyses have failed. So the Arab Moslems who hate us and who insist on annihilating us aren’t so dumb after all. What to do?

Don’t worry; be happy! Yom Ha’azmaut is on the way. Who knows, maybe the Israelis will finally wake up to the demands of life in the international sphere and ‘do what they gotta do’.

It’s not as though they’ve been given a choice.

And Now For Something Completely Revealing
by: Schvach Yid

At: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3369102968312745410

and at: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/125728,

And from Atlas Shrugs at http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2008/03/islam-and-the-n.html

The Rightful Place of Sarcasm
by: Schvach Yid

‘Wipe the blue off the flag and talk to Hamas’, Jonathan Mark urges the Israeli leadership in a piece he wrote for the March 14^th edition of The New York Jewish Week, at:
http://www.thejewishweek.com/viewArticle/c40_a4861/News/Israel.html

He, like so many other Jews, is evidently sick and tired of spectating Israel’s ineptitude and impotence at dealing with its foremost problem – Moslem hatred of Jews and Judaism, acted out as maniacal homicide.

No, the ‘pc’ Liberals among you might say? Just consider the machinations of the Arab national leadership in the years leading up to the Second World War to bar Europe’s Jews from immigrating to what at the time constituted the British Mandate of Palestine. That’s Jew hatred!!!

Mark is right in this piece. The Israeli habit of emulating the old British Mandatory Authority’s practice of blowing up the homes of ‘Palestinian Jews’ suspected of activities that countered Britain’s interests in the area, by blowing up the homes of Arab terrorists, achieves nothing for Israel but bad press.

And don’t be concerned with public outrage voiced as accusations of apartheid and Nazism pointed at Israel for its management of the problems foisted the Jewish State by the Moslem Arabs. The Palestinian Arabs are anything but innocent; they’re waging murderous war against the Jews of Israel. By contrast, the Jews of Germany, and of elsewhere in Europe, waged no war against the Christians of Europe in the decades prior to World War Two. No political spiel by Germany’s Jews advocated freeing the land of Germany and replacing German rule with Jewish governance.

No Jew advocated running the Christians out of Europe or ever blew up Christian civilians in a trolley car in Vienna, Austria.

Quite the contrary, Yiddin were busy jumping onto the bandwagon. It’s called assimilation. Wissenschaft des Judentums was the fodder for this mass egress of Jews from the life of frumkeit. We never sought to overthrow or destroy Christian Europe and replace it with a Jewish government. The Jews of Germany were German patriots until they were informed in no uncertain terms their fealty was no longer welcome.

My paternal grandfather served in the German coastal artillery in the First World War; my maternal grandfather simultaneously served as a cavalry officer in Austria. No assertion of a separate nationalism was ever made.

This is in utter contrast to the Arab Palestinian ‘plight’ invented by the Arab Palestinian leadership (remember Yasser Arafat?) and the mass media. They have only one problem, and they’ve foisted it onto Israel – Jew hatred.

Jonathan Mark is right. Ariel Sharon needs to be reinvigorated and made young again so that his former strength on behalf of the Jewish State could now be applied to Israel’s present predicament. So too with the former leadership provided by R’ Meir Kahane. It’s a sad day when one has to invoke fantasy in defense of a country and one’s self interest. Fantasy is no substitute for substance; the current administration in Israel is no substitute for Israel’s former leaders.

Hitler’s aggression was directed at victimizing and annihilating innocent people; people who were otherwise eager and productive participants in the health and welfare of the European countries of their births. The smear of comparing Israel with the Nazis is pure imposture – and it’s vile. It’s right up the Arabs’ alley. It was the Arabs who courted the Nazis and who leveraged the British against us.

In honor of Ariel Sharon’s former self, and to properly memorialize Rabbi Meir Kahane, perhaps Israel should found yet another political party, to be named Zachor!. Perhaps its leadership would do something tangible in defense of the Jewish State of Israel.

Putting On The Bris
by: Schvach Yid

One of my favorite topics is up and running, or at least was, in the March 21^st edition of The New York Jewish Week. Yesiree jadies and jents, it’s the topic of Jewish circumcision, better known to us members of the Tribe as Brit Milah.

George Robinson reviews a new (?) documentary on this subject by film maker Eliyahu Unger-Sargon titled, ‘Cut: Slicing Through the Myth of Circumcision’ (sorry, the review is not listed on The New York Jewish Week web site).

Here is my very personal admission concerning this ‘controversial’ subject. I’m circumcised. I should know – I was there when it happened (and not by coincidence) although I don’t remember a thing about the event (in that case perhaps I shouldn’t know!). It’s not that I have to ask about the matter to be certain of the fact; it’s just that I should, and do, know.

My circumcision was not a religious ritual, but medical. If I recall correctly, back then the New York City Department of Health (I’m a native New Yorker) required circumcisions of all newborn males. Despite this fact, my mother informed her obstetrician that she wanted me circumcised, and according to my mother’s account, she (that’s right, a female obstetrician in 1953) answered ‘well, I’m not a rabbi, but I’ll do it’. Voilà!

Thanks to my mother’s acceptance of this important mitzvah, I’ve spent my life to date with the ability to sit at a Pesach seder with a clear conscience.

Have I ever been self-conscious about my circumcision? Not at all! I surely wouldn’t want my you-know-what to look like some wűrst in the display case at Schaller & Weber.

Personally, I love being circumcised. It’s one of many facts of my life that lets me know in no uncertain terms that I’m a Jew – of the male variety. Sorry jadies, but you can’t have one – you have nothing to circumcise (and the Aybischter never commanded bris milah for females).

This brings my spiel to the point of the matter. George Robinson’s review reveals that Unger-Sargon’s flick serves, at least in part, as an apologetic. The various introspective and social/political issues seem to have been covered (I haven’t seen this documentary), but less we forget, we Jews should all be reminded that we circumcise our infant sons, hopefully on the child’s eighth day post-partum, in compliance with HaShem’s mitzvah to do so, and not for reasons of health promotion, politics, social confrontation, marital isolation, or any other ‘pc’ concern.

It’s a part of Judaism – we do it because Gd has commanded us to do it.

And I thank my parents, as well as HaShem, for my medical, as opposed to religious, bris. A bissele wine for an eight day old is okay, but in the matter of circumcision, Betadine beats the pants off saliva, every time.

Recently there have appeared in print several Schreie about circumcision. The first, as I recall, was a book written by a Moslem author who suffered through a Moslem circumcision at the prescribed age of thirteen years (in emulation of Ishmail in the Chumash).

Now two Yiddin have deemed appropriate to jump onto the bris-bitch bandwagon. The second of these, who’s publication pre-dates the first, is Shalom Auslander with his book ‘Foreskin’s Lament’; I haven’t read this ditty, but here’s a website by and for the author: http://www.shalomauslander.com/book_foreskins_lament.php; there’s even a video on this site.

Here’s the URL to a review of the book, complete with a brief bio:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/10/14/RV2QSB9D0.DTL

Auslander just happens to live in Woodstock, NY, situated just off Route 28 out of Kingston (NYS Thruway exit 19). Woodstock is an old childhood summer haunt of mine; back then, it was the hippie hangout of the Northern Catskills.

What can I say? I’m satisfied.