Finally!
by: Schvach Yid

I’ve advocated this for G-d knows how long, and it’s about time someone (other than me, get it?) has made it sort of official.

The Kingdom of Jordan has no business existing as such. If that land has to exist as Arab
(it was supposed to a part – by far the much larger part - of the Jewish National Homeland), then it should exist as the Palestinian State of Jordan without a ruling monarchy.

The removal of the Hashemite Royal Family from Jordanian rule would not end the Israel-Arab conflict. Islam has no room for Jews or for Judaism, not in the Middle East, and not anywhere else in the world, but it would serve to identify the problem, namely, that Islam is the problem, and that a country that masquerades as the possession of a cutesy over-aged boy king is no justification for the continued slaughter and vilification of Jews, Judaism, and the Jewish State.

Britain must be ejected from the Middle East once and for all, and that means an end to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.

Here’s the link:
http://www.ipetition.com/str-asp-PetitionID_9-end-SignPetition.htm

Horse Baloney of the Same Feather
by: Schvach Yid

I’m no political analyst. I’m not even a journalist (and most recently I think the journalism establishment has devolved into a bunch of crap!), and so once again I’m stymied. The elation over the Mubarak overthrow in Egypt strikes me as rather absurd.

Here’s my take.
Once upon a time there were three guys in Egypt: King Farouk, Muhammad Naguib, and Gamal Abdel Nasser. Naguib and Nasser, together, overthrew King Farouk of Egypt (and of Sudan) in a military coup. From there on, it was ‘kesher’, as the Israelis like to say, because Nasser begat Anwar Sadat, who in turn begat Hosni Mubarak, who has now in turn begotten the newest guy in charge of Egypt. Each of these goodfellows grew up in Egypt’s military academy, each was the protégé of the former (except, perhaps, the new guy), and each was selected by his respective predecessor as the successor to power. In short, Egypt has had an uninterrupted string of four (count ‘em, four) military dictators, each the designated inheritor of that county’s military (and State) thrown since the deposing of the monarchal government in 1952. That’s one year short of 60 years of continuous military rule by military dynastic descent, and the torch has now been passed to the newest crony.

What the hell are those fools celebrating? Nothing in Egypt has changed, except for the name of the guy in charge (it’s Suleiman – Turkish for Solomon). The so-called revolutionaries don’t even have a leader.

Now then, let’s get serious and ‘talk’ a bit about hijabs. Hijabs, that feminine flag of female Moslem devotion, has, and is, making a big splash not only here is the USA and the UK, but just about everywhere else, including some of those countries where the fashion is no fashion at all but instead constitutes old hat. In Tunisia there rages a political battle over the banning of hijabs in public (which is exactly where they are supposed to be worn, except for salat – Moslem prayer – where the garment is to be worn even in private). And so, as a public service, I wish to show an alternative donning of a hijab.

Now then, one last item - we’re traversing from Hijab to Hajj jadies and jents. I think that the next great Moslem revolution will not involve the spread of secular discontent against Arab despotic governmental rule, but instead will take the form of the breaking down of the ‘gates’ of Mecca to permit a no holds barred, entry on demand, to the annual Hajj by any and all Moslems who wish to so partake. This year’s holy event in Mecca, which was touted on some web sites as ‘the experience of a lifetime’, garnered some 2.5 million religious pilgrims. Entry, I believe, was by invitation only, from the King of Saudi Arabia. There currently exist some 1.5 billion Moslems in the world. Just do the arithmetic folks, 1.5 billion divided by 2.5 million yield a cool 600. At a rate of 2.5 million visitors per year, it would take 600 years to accommodate all presently existing Moslems at the Hajj. Pirkei Avot tells us that there was always room for the Jewish pilgrims who journeyed to Jerusalem (for the three pilgrimage festivals), but the immense population of Moslems makes the Hajj a very distant vision. Most will have to settle for Umra (sort of an off-season mini-Hajj). Any brief perusal of internet web sites that deal with the Hajj will reveal that this Moslem religious obligation has gone the way of Disney. ‘We want in’ (to the Hajj) will be the next great Moslem battle cry.

There May be Hope Yet!
by: Schvach Yid

And no less thanks to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Yes indeed, jadies and jents, the web site of the ‘The Kingdom’s’ Ministry of Hajj
(found here: http://www.hajinformation.com/display_news.php?id=2174)
is running two headlines of interest to us, as follows:

‘13Nov2010:- Minister of Hajj receives head of Egyptian Hajj Mission’

‘13Nov2010:- Palestinian pilgrims arrive in Makkah as guests of King’

The Hajj, Islam’s annual pilgrimage to Mecca (interestingly pronounced in Arabic as Makkah – one of two Tanakh Hebrew words for ‘plague’), started this evening and runs through Nov 17th. Once there, male participants are not permitted to wear head coverings for davening in the major shul in Mecca.


On a more pleasant note, here is a video of the concert violinist Midori at Carnegie Hall, in 2009, performing as an encore Heinrich Ernst’s set of variations on ‘The Last Rose of Summer’:




Back in the old days, when I was still a native New Yorker living in my beloved home town, I frequented solo recitals (with piano accompaniment, of course) at Carnegie Hall. Alas, since relocating to this corner of America’s Bible Belt, no such joy bejewels my life, except via the internet. Enjoy!

Brain Melt
by: Schvach Yid

I just started reading The Garden of Peace by Rabbi Shalom Arush (and I'm not even married!), and all I could think of was this – sorry:

If you wish to indulge in my mental mishap, you can access

information about this stupendous work at:

http://www.breslev.co.il/store/books/family_and_relationships/the_garden_of_peace.aspx?id=7269&language=english

I hope all of you are enjoying Peseach cleaning as much as I.

Hijabs for Israel
by: Schvach Yid

Here’s a link to a video displayed on the Random Thoughts blog site about anti-Israel
‘activism’ on college campuses. Please view it.

According to the Israel National Radio web site, Arutz Sheva, next week will bring us the annual on-campus fête of Israel Apartheid Week. I don’t know if the planned ‘Let’s End the Jewish State’ week will materialize, I mean as a world-wide event. Most of us are very well informed of world opinion against the existence of the Jewish State of Israel, not to mention world apathy concerning the murder and maiming of Israeli Jews, not to mention world advocacy concerning the overt bigotry that’s foisted against the Jewish People/State.

In an effort to answer the university-based Jew haters, and to flex a little post-Purim Jewish pride, I encourage all supporters of Israel, Jews and non-Jews alike, to don appropriately-sized Israeli flags as hijabs, in the case of women, and kaffiyahs, in the case of men.

In addition I have a few replies to those Jew-hating, anti-Israel promulgators (aren’t promulgators a species protected by law?). Now then, for a few good in-their faces responses to the on campus Jew-hating, Israel-hating, pro-Palestinian Arab asserters of US Constitutional first amendment rights (their own of course, not ours):

there is only one appropriate response to the Palestinian exercise of violence for the
purpose of segregating Jews (by elimination) from the Arabs in Israel, and it isn’t by
the passage of civil rights legislation;

if the Moslems want ‘Palestine’, tell them to tell it to King Abdullah of Jordan;

jents, walk up to an attractive Jew-hating anti-Israel female protestor (hopefully
Moslem Arab Palestinian), tell her you are Jewish and vehemently pro-Israel, then ask
her to come home with you; be ready to run like hell;

tell them – no, yell at them – that the Koran should be banished as hate literature;

with tact, remind your favorite Jew-hating Arab protestor that the Arabs come from
Arabia, not from Newark, New Jersey, that they and their Islam spread by violence and
murder, and that they have no legitimate claim to any turf outside the Arabian
Peninsula;

shove the Banu Qurasa into their faces – the murder of the Jews of Medina by Islam’s
founding father, Mohammad and his murderous rabble; tell them we want it back;

tell them you visited the Temple Mount in J’lem; in fact, tell them you walked into the
Dome of the Rock Mosque and recited a Shechechiyanu - they’ll just love you for it;

tell them we Jews intend to bring copyright infringement charges against them for
having rewritten Tanakh;

tell them Israel founded and built all five (I think) universities located on ‘The West
Bank’, and if they don’t knock off their anti-Israel crap we’re going to confiscate their
diplomas;

ask them about female circumcision, that is after the two of you stop running following
your request for her to come home with you; tell them we Jews don’t do that to our
women; we Jews love our women;

tell them you’ve started a ‘Hijabs for Israel’ campaign; pass out Israeli flag hijabs and
kaffiyehs; G-d knows what they’ll do with them (I can easily guess), but they’ll get the
message;

tell them they don’t have to worry about J’lem; we want Medina returned to us;

tell them that if they continue with their naughty dormitory behaviors, the whole lot of
them will be whisked off to Saudi Arabia for a little Sharia correctional intervention -
they’ll just love that!

Finally jadies and jents, forget about peace with ‘those people’ – they don’t want to have peace with us; haven’t you ever read the Koran?

Purim sameach

And Now a Bissele Advertising
by: Schvach Yid

I haven’t posted in a long time, and for a good reason – I haven’t had anything to write
(as is obvious from my last several posts), so in an effort to awaken from the blogging dead (Blog Hill?), here is a little bit of advertising.

I stumbled upon the Jewish music group ‘Pharaoh’s Daughter’ somehow, and have been a fan ever since. They sing excerpts from Chumash, as well as Tehillim and Shabbos z'miros to a variety of original melodies taken from the Middle and Far Easts.

Here are a couple of clips – enjoy!


http://www.pharaohsdaughter.com/audio/echoes.mp3

And here is the group’s web site.
http://www.pharaohsdaughter.com/

Also, if you’re into Ladino tunes reworked into a modern jazzy mode, complete with Ladino lyrics, and if you live in the NY metro area, then you’ll be happy to learn that the Sarah Aroeste Band will be all over Manhattan soon – here’s the link:
http://www.saraharoeste.com/performance.htm

The Righteous Tale of Chiune Sugihara
by: Schvach Yid

For the Holocaustphile in you, here’s a story of a Japanese diplomat who did his best (and best is the right word) to help rescue Lithuanian Jews from the oncoming slaughter by the Nazis, in 1940, to be accessed at:
http://www.eagleman.com/sugihara/
and http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0XPQ/is_2000_Feb_28/ai_59817625/

Schvach Rambles
by: Schvach Yid


So what else is new? The diagnosis is in: Bob Dylan suffers from Leonard Cohen Syndrome.

Thanks to Gail at Rubicon 3, I’ve just learned that Robert (the Jew) Zimmerman has
released a CD of homespun (I guess) Christmas carols. I wish these guys in the entertainment field would make up their minds already about their religious convictions. Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Cat Stevens, Madonna (now there’s a good one!), and G-d knows who else among the ‘famousos’.

I don’t get it. I have no problem with my religion, so what do they have with theirs?

Once upon a time the people over at Star Trek came out with another movie, this one with Christopher Lloyd portraying a Clingon or Romulan (no, not Rahm Emanuel) who manages to con Admiral (I think) James T. Kirk into dropping his defenses in a faux peace maneuver, and then blitzing the Starship Enterprise . In the end Kirk pulls a maneuver of his own and cooks Lloyd’s character (have I gotten it right so far?).

Perhaps this scenario of Hollywood fiction should cause the Israelis to wake up. A number of responses, as well as outcomes, present themselves, and so Bibi, choose wisely, not poorly (as the archaic knight cautions Indiana Jones in the third installment of the IJ trilogy).

Here are four distractions which present some of the choices from which Bibi and his countrypersons can choose. Chatz l’chah! Of course, there’s always winning. Perhaps the Israelis should consider that option.

So,What’s a ‘Shiksa’ Already?

by: Schvach Yid

What’s in a word indeed? Whenever I encounter this moniker, in print or verbally - to my face that is - I cringe. It’s not really an up welling of Jewish guilt, but rather the sick-in-the-pit-of-my-stomach anticipation of a clenched fist flying through the air and alighting unto my face with greatest of ease that motivates my avoidance of this time-honored Yiddishism. Afterall, jadies and jents, a female’s clenched fist (or some well executed Bruce Lee-style footwork , for that matter) can do plenty of damage.

The term ‘shiksa’, according to an old article that appeared in Moment Magazine, is derived from the Hebrew work ‘shekkets’, meaning abominable or disgusting. I never use this term, and thank G-d so far at least, no one has ever confronted me with the demand for an explanation concerning this breach in inter-group diplomacy.

I work in a sea of ‘shiksas’, and there’s nothing disgusting about them, at least in my opinion. I do find their tattoos a bit too much to take, but I take solace in the fact that they are the ones tattooed and not I. Oh yeah, their verbiage. ‘It’s a real blessing….’ is a wee bit difficult for me to handle, but after more than two decades of American Southern Bible Belt living, I may be on the road to acclimation (but regrettably, never recovery).

Now then, when I was a lad in college, we student were ‘blessed’ (get it?) with science courses complete with laboratory sections, and in that now dated spirit, I offer an on-line version of ‘Shiksa Lab’, some visual examples of just what the average klafta means when his/her sonny boy brings home the wrong kind of girl to meet the family, and s/he – his parent(s) – let/s loose with that all time Jewish favorite of verbal flatus, ‘shiksa’.

Assisting in this effort is the 2009 edition of the annual Oktoberfest held in Munich, Germany. The photos herein presented are the unwitting donations of the on-line edition of Der Stern magazine.

If I have managed to offend anyone, please forgive me.

So, just what is a 'shiksa' already?

A 'Shiksa' sine quo non,

Home Coming Queen
runner up

Shiksa Homecoming Queen

No, besides, she's promised

to convert

Shiksas without tznius

(modesty)



A beer lover's idea

of shiksas

A shiksa union meeting

Asian Pacific Rim

females are never

shiksas

you haven't

been paying

attention

probably

No, but the blond

behind him is

a Mossad agent

does Oktoberfest

'

'shiksa' doesn't

mean 'bitch'

Chag Succoth Sameach!!!!!

Taking the Bait – Again
by: Schvach Yid

Please forgive me for sounding a bit like Tokyo Rose of World War Two fame, but this
business of Israel going up against Iran’s burgeoning nuclear weapons industry has me a bit concerned.

(photo above: bombed-out Tokyo, 1945)

My psycho-fantasy goes something like this:
Israel takes out Iran’s nuclear weapons manufacturing capability and stock. Iran, however, has an arsenal of a few thousand

missiles, each equipped with conventional warheads,

capable of reaching Israel. Iran uses Israel’s pre-emptive

attack against its nuclear weapons force as its justification for launching a retaliatory strike against Israel with its thousand-fold conventional-grade missiles. In a single day Israel is reduced to rubble.

Sounds stupid? Just remember the Second World War. We all recall the death and utter destruction wreaked by the atomic bomb blasts over Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Do we recall the death and utter destruction wreaked by the saturation bombing campaigns against the cities of Tokyo, Berlin, Dresden, Cologne, Hamburg, London, and Coventry? Have we forgotten just how much havoc can be wrought by conventional weapons?

Ahmadinawhats may not be so stupid. He may have succeeded in jockeying Israel into a no win situation. Just how large is Israel, and just how many conventional bomb blasts would be needed to render Israel functionally dead?

As far as I know (which is not very much, at least concerning this topic), Israel still lacks the capability of intercepting incoming missiles after they have completed their ‘boost phase’. As far as I know, no country has a defense system that can achieve that, and so where does that leave Israel?

Tzom Kippurim indeed.

photo of bombed-out Berlin, May 1945

Attention All Converts and Would
Be Converts To Judaism
by: Schvach Yid

Please catch this on-line radio cast from the Arutz Sheva web site of Israel National News:


http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Radio/News.aspx/1350

Window Shopping Hevron
by: Schvach Yid

There’s a problem (no kidding) when Jews spit three times after mentioning Zionism.

The hat in the hand routine hasn’t worked, and never will. The lady at the Bagelnosher
blog site has posted a doozy, at:
http://bagelnosher.blogspot.com/2009/08/sixth-fatah-conference-finally-ended-on.html
on this very Israeli phenomenon. Well, actually, her post isn’t about Israeli intransigence in their political capitulation to Arab and American demands concerning the current Jewish ‘occupation’ of the Jewish Homeland, but rather a scathing synopsis of the Palestinian Arabs’ continued intransigence toward Zionism.

We all know what happens to anyone who straddles a fence and stays there; evidently, the Israelis don’t, so here is more of Schvach’s ‘wisdom’ concerning Israel’s ‘foreign policy’ in the administration of its own turf. It’s really simple, and goes something like this:

When Obama and his Wurdulaks (verdilaks) tell the Israelis to limit Jewish procreation in Israel, the Israeli government should reply by offering cash incentives to all Jews living in Israel to make more Jewish babies, and I don’t mean tax breaks – I mean cash in hand. Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, and lots of money for each Jewish baby born into a Jewish family in Israel. Racist? Nicht für der Araber? You betchaya.

When Obama and his enemies (like, hey, he said he keeps his enemies closer than his friends) instruct the Israelis to limit/close Jewish settlements in YESHA, the Israeli government should respond by building more Jewish settlements there, and should offer major cash incentives to any and all Jews to settle there. While they’re at it, Israel should build a Jews-only city in YESHA, and name it Medina Ilit, in memory of the Jews of Medina who were slaughtered by the vampire of Islam, Mohammed and his rabble. (On a truly personal note, I consider Hitler – may his name and moustache rot for all time – to have been the reincarnate of Islam’s prophet Mohammad; just compare the Nazi shooting of Jews along the precipice of mass graves to Islam’s celebration of ‘Banu Quraiza’ or ‘Battle of the Ditch’ – they’re revoltingly alike).

Lastly, do not close any checkpoints, and extend ‘the wall’. Piss ‘em off and kiss ‘em off, and if it’s war they want, then please oblige the Arabs in no uncertain terms.

Well, this is how Schvach commemorates the past slaughters of Jews in Hevron – may we never forget, and for more, please access Jonathan Mark’s piece at:
http://bestjewishnewsny.com/2009/08/19/hebron-80-years-after/.

What Treaty?
by: Schvach Yid

Or an international agreement? Call it a ‘joint communiqué’; call it whatever you like.

Hitler and Stalin signed a ‘mutual nonaggression pact’ – big deal.
President Richard Nixon flew to China and agreed to ‘hand over’ Taiwan to the Mainland Chinese government. On his way back to Washington, associates of Nixon aboard Air Force One later reported that Nixon quipped ‘they got Taiwan; all we got were egg rolls’. No sooner were his feet planted back on terra firma than the deal was dumped by the American administration in Washington.

Israel needs to learn, and quickly. There’s not much time, and self-absorbed ‘intellectual’
ruminations will be ruinous. Self-indulgent pedantry will turn out to be suicidal. That street artist who currently occupies the Oval Office of the White House is no chump; he knows exactly what he’s doing. Regrettably, the Israelis never have, and the current offerings by the contributors to Arutz Sheva appear to announce a premature defeat of Israel.

I’ve dealt with the psycho-pressures foisted by the dominators and manipulators in the
American workplace. G-d help the employee who replies by looking the person in the face and saying ‘no’. (And they ‘target’; one can’t run away. Their associates will be waiting for you upon your arrival at your new place of refuge.)

Bibi and Co. need to do just that. They need to forget about the threat of sanctions and the repeal of foreign aid agreements; they need to forget about Oslo, Wye, Road Maps, etc. The Arabs have come up with nothing; they have never conceded a thing, not even recognition of the Jewish State of Israel, and why in the first place should that constitute a concession?

Just what do the Arabs have against the existence of a Jewish State? That’s an easy one – just read the Koran; the answer is all over the thing (you’re right, I don’t ‘respect’ Islam and its Koran – have you ever read the Koran?).

If the Arabs/Moslems, Obama included, don’t want a Jewish State in the Jewish Holy Land, then there’s nothing to talk about. Hasn’t Hosnei Mubarak ever heard of The United Arab Republic? Who the hell does he think he’s kidding?

Jews can’t build in YESHA, but Israel can’t segregate the Black Moslem itinerants who’ve wandered into The Jewish State from Sudan? Very nice. Some President.

Some – or many – complain that we Jews are arrogant. ‘Just who do you think you are?’,
they’ll accuse. ‘Just where do you people come off being so conceited?’, they’ll assert.
Okay, how about this: one third of everyone in the world worships a dead Jew. Have you ever heard of a musical named ‘Jesus Christ, Superstar? Another one quarter of the world’s human population adheres to their own rewrite of the Hebrew Bible. In total that’s something like half of all people in existence who run after us. So who do we think we are? I dunno, perhaps those others should answer their own question. Those very same people stand against the existence of a Jewish State, and not just in the Jewish Holy Land, jadies and jents. They don’t want us – period.

Just what the hell do they have against the existence of a Jewish State? What is their objection to the Jewish homeland in that miniscule geographic fingernail clipping of land that holds no natural resources, no indigenous wealth, its only value is that it’s ours, just as are The Hebrew Bible, the Jewish ‘Savior’ of Christianity, and Islam’s pitiful piece of scriptural plagiarism? It’s called Jew hatred jadies and jents, and we can’t negotiate our way out of that.

Who do we think we are? I work in the academic biomedical research field as a lab technician. I don’t know one doctoral-level researcher who doesn’t want to be awarded a Nobel Prize. I have never met any academic who didn’t want to be awarded a Nobel Prize. The Nobel Prize was created by a Jew – Alfred Nobel. HaShem created us and commanded us, but the non-Jews of the world have made us, and it’s these very same people who dump all over us. They keep running after us, and they want to know who the hell do we think we are.

Israel has to learn that no concession will work, that appeasement doesn't work, and that their current imperative is to not concede to the present American administration. Say NO!

We Jews, who claim to be the smartest people in existence have to stop being so fucking stupid. Nationalism demands balls – big brass ones that clang when one walks. Just look what they have accomplished for the American ‘Negro’.

Eishes Chayil
by: Schvach Yid


My thanks to Aliza Hausman of the Memoires of a Jewminicana blog site for pointing my nose to this video. I enjoy the presentations of Allison Josephs, author and creator of the Jew in the City blog site. No praise of Jewish women is sufficient, so enjoy her vid:



My appreciation of motherhood goes way back to my childhood (of course), so here is a blast from my past, the paradigm of effective mothering, and her little charge who is pretty much what I was about:






Good Shabbos, and please don't forget to sing Eishes Chayil to the Jewish women seated at your Shabbos table.

The Conflicting Demands of Life
by: Schvach Yid

Aliza Hausman, author and founder of the Memoirs of a Jewminicana blog site, found at
http://www.alizahausman.net/, writes about the phenomena of conversion to Judaism, racism, and ‘fittting in’, ie, can a Catholic Latina convert to Judaism find true happiness
as a Catholic Latina convert to Judaism?

It’s okay Aliza, you’re welcome as a member of the tribe – anytime, and besides, Halacha forbids referring to you, or any other convert to Judaism, as a convert because, as you certainly know, once the conversion has been achieved, the individual is no longer a convert but a Jew. I’m glad you’re in our community.

In recent blogs Aliza has tangled with the age old contest between the demands of life (Darwinian evolution) versus the demands of social comportment (Western religion), but no, she hasn’t framed the conflict in these terms, but rather has discussed her paternal lineage, and specifically the conjugation habits of her first and second generational paternal antecedents.

I suppose there exist several well established and known responses by casual observers to this disparity between established Western mores and the advantages provided by ‘nature’ (and after all, nature is G-d’s creation, isn’t it?).

The average everyday run-of-the-mill social worker type of person, undoubtedly socially and politically Liberal, will shed tears and exsanguinate love over the trials and tribulations of ‘those who just don’t know any better’. Garbage! We all know better.

The other sort of socially and politically distracted individual, let’s call this type ‘Conservative’, will call for the public immolation of any and all who dare to ‘debase’ the holy rite of human procreation to the level of sport and entertainment. More garbage!

Lastly, there are the academic Biology-inclined. Genetics calls this phenomenon ‘heterosis’. The animal husbandry crowd – you know, farmers, ranchers, horticulturists (plants, not animals) etc. – call it ‘hybrid vigor’.

The fact is that the more genetic recombination events that take place, ie., the greater number of partners with whom one generates offspring, the better the genetic health of the offspring population. Multiple combinations of parents provides for an increased diversity (I hate that pc term) of the gene pool of a given population of organism. This hold true for humans as well as for any other sexually reproducing species (I know, I know, human, ie., Homo, is a genus, not a species).

But, of course, as we all know, it makes for bad civics, at least in Western societies, and this in the face of the obvious disparity between the requirements stipulated in the Chumash concerning this matter and HaShem’s creation of a sexual reproductive system that benefits from those human behaviors that are forbidden by Halacha (but not in the case of Avraham Avenu, Yaakov Avenu, etc.).



It also makes for lousy religious communal relations. Talk about ostracization!

So, should one be miffed if one learns of such socially ‘condemnable’ behaviors by members of one’s family, or instead should one find a measure of pride in the fact that one’s generation has been genetically strengthened – that the state of health of the population has benefited, that in fact, the ‘nasty’ philanderers have behaved with a great measure of social responsibility, rather than with socially ‘condemnable’ behavior, by improving the state of health of the following generations, despite the obvious social challenges presented to the resulting children (eg., growing up in the absence of a father, the possible lack of adequate financial support for the children, etc.).

Whether it’s Darwin versus established religion, or whether it’s self-flagellation is manna for debate, but it’s okay Aliza, you know ‘better’. Just live your life as a good Jew. Your
devotion to Torah, and to Clal Yisroel and its health through genetic variation (a good Darwinian term), is much appreciated, at least by me. Besides, spice is good for everyone.

A Bissele Moslem Shiur
by: Schvach Yid


If you’re in the mood for a little Moslem shiur, here’s a mini-lecture without
video, in which the speaker explains that Islam’s second holiest city, Medina, was Jewish centuries before the arrival of the founder of Islam.




And if you’re like me and can’t wait until Bastille Day, here’s a little something
to remind us that the French didn’t invent decapitation, they just tried to refine it
a little, and how Islam put it to use against the Jews of Medina.



Lastly, here’s a piece shown on the World Focus website at:
http://worldfocus.org/blog/2009/02/04/immigrants-and-religions-redefine-israeli-society/3914/, courtesy of A Deeper Look blog site, showing just what Moslems have against the Jewish State of Israel.

Found – One Pair of Cojonas
By: Schvach Yid


If you want to read the text of Israel PM Netanyahu’s speech delivered earlier today, it can be accessed at: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/131865, and at:
http://www.forzionssake.net/2009/06/transcript-of-netanyahus-speech.html


Needles to say, the Palestinian Arab leadership will never accept these terms; needless to say, this is exactly what Israel’s PM intended. Lob the ball into their court and let it stay there – end of game, and it’s been nothing but a game by the Arab enemies of Israel.
There is no way for Israel to have peace via negotiations with it’s intransigent enemies., and accordingly, the status quo is probably Israel’s best choice, except for the very much needed acceptance of Israeli ‘settlers’ on the ‘West Bank’ by Israel’s government, and some very real military responses to the continued Arab aggression against the Jewish citizens of Israel.

And from the Atlas Shrugs blog site, this contribution to all the on-line analyses of Bibi’s speech (which can be read at: http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2009/06/netanyahu-the-man-in-the-arena-did-not-disappoint.html):

- To me he was saying that the kind of state the Palestinians want is not on the table and not on the horizon.

- Then I checked out FoxNews. And then the Figaro: “Netanyahu accepts the principle of a Palestinian state.” And finally, the Jerusalem Post. Our friend Aryeh Eldad said it too. Netanyahu crossed the red line. All the conditions he set forth will be forgotten, the only thing that will be remembered is that he agreed on the principle of a Palestinian state.

And what of CNN? ‘Israel accepts a Palestinian State’. But the Arabs will, of course, never accept Netanyahu’s terms - voilà

It’s Midrash to the Rescue
by: Schvach Yid


Once a year, every year, I hear the reading of the Megilla on Purim. I know I should hear it twice, but I’m too lazy to go back to schul for a second reading. For a week or two preceding Purim I read the text of the Book of Ester, as well as portions of Midrash Rabbah Esther.

Regrettably, I must have missed something.

So, enter the author and owner of the Bagelnosher blog site, a woman ensconced in Be’er Sheva whose identity is unknown to me. She has provided me with a modicum of enlightenment with a recent blog, found at:
http://bagelnosher.blogspot.com/2009/06/timely-tale-of-palace-intrigue-and-why.html

It’s a lengthy piece, so get comfortable (according to Tzvi Fishman, author of the ‘From Hollywood to the Holy Land’ blog on Arutz Sheva, there’s a nice Etrog liqueur made in Israel…).

Pro-Israel Jewish bloggers and on-line reporters are hot and heavy in their concerted condemnation of our President’s dealings with Israel and with the Moslem world. I’m perplexed and dumbfounded at the analyses of Prez Obama’s spiel concerning Israel. If he really does have it in for the Jewish State, then, G-d willing, Bibi Netanyahu will muster the koach to say no and ‘do the right thing’. Brass cajones are difficult to come by; Israel certainly used to express them, but alas, that was a long time ago, at least by modern Israeli history standards.

Doing the right thing entails several components. First, the various and sundry elements that comprise the Israeli government will have to discover a new element of mental function. It’s called ‘unity’. They should try it; they’ll like it. It provides the soil for a new sort of experience in Israeli national life. It’s called winning, and by winning I don’t mean a quick military victory followed by an even faster capitulation to an imposed cease fire, which in turn is followed by an almost instantaneous surrender of all that has been gained. Remember, the Jew haters are loathe to see Jews as winners. ‘Who the hell do you people think you are; you’re supposed to lose, remember?’

Actually, no, we don’t remember the bit about some fantasized obligation to lose.

Secondly - and please forgive this criticism jadies and jents - we Jews, and especially Israelis, have to start acting as though we mean what we verbally assert. Once upon a time at least some of us were persistent. Back then, the Jew haters cat-called such Yiddin ‘pushy’, a term I last heard applied to a Jewish saleswoman by a Jew hater at work (she, the Jew hater, was my boss) somewhere between 1995 and ’96.

If we believe the Land of Israel is ours, then we have to conduct ourselves accordingly. That means no negotiation about the so called ‘West Bank; you know, YESHA. There, we build - period. No new ‘Palestinian’ city in the ‘West Bank’. A couple of new Jewish cities, along with a few dozen new Jewish towns would be very nice, and no Jewish ‘settlers’ are to dwell in mobile whatchamahoozits – I think the Israelis call them ‘Caravellas’; in Arab literature, I think they were called ‘Caravanserai’ (just kidding; besides, it’s French, not Arabic). When we Jews are told ‘no’, the best thing we can do for ourselves is to get chutzpadik and do precisely as we wish - and then fight back, in no uncertain terms, to win (but they hate us as winners).

Lastly, no Jewish army in Israel, whether military or law enforcement agency, is to assault or attack Jews. We are not to use the Israeli military to oust Jews from their homes because of some lousy and fraudulent ‘peace negotiation’. Aside from being the wrong thing to do, it looks stupid, and there’s no Nobel Prize awarded for stupidity. We all know how fond we Jews are of Nobel Prizes; after all, we invented them, didn’t we.

Israel has a bad habit of emulating the United States. YESHA in 2009 is not Little Rock Arkansas in 1957. The Palestinian Arab Moslem Jew haters of today have nothing in common with the victimized American ‘Negro’ of half a century ago, and Israelis are not ranting racists. In 1948 we Jews said yes; it was the Arab Moslems who said no, and it was the Arab Moslems, and the Iranian Moslems, who prevailed upon Jew-hating Britain to keep European Jews from fleeing the onslaught of the ‘Nazi swine’ by preventing our immigration to Britain’s Mandate of Palestine. Let’s keep the facts straight folks.

One last item - those shoes in the photo of the Prez. You’d think the ‘guy’ (Michelle’s term for him) could afford a new pair of shoes. At the very least he should get resoled (get it?).

Well, that’s all folks! See what a little midrash shiur can do to an amateur critic?

S A for Olim Hadashim
by: Schvach Yid


I just read a post by Ruti Mizrachi; it can be accessed at: http://rutimizrachi.blogspot.com/2009/05/farewell-to-land-of-free.html

It’s about the essay she submitted in satisfaction of the requirement for making aliyah via the aegis of Nefesh B’Nefesh. I previously posted about Nefesh B’Nefesh in the past, criticizing their small success in attracting new olim.

This organization requires all applicants to submit an essay explaining their decision to make aliya. Well, suppose I applied for aliyah via Nefesh B’Nefesh, but refused to submit an essay. What then?

Suppose I decided to be compliant and submit one. What would I write in the essay?
I want to live in Israel. Why? Because! Because I’m Jewish. Because being Jewish in Israel is normative. Because in Israel, Jewish holidays/holydays are official National holidays. Because in Israel, as a Jew, I wouldn’t be considered a freak. Because there I could daven anywhere I wished and not be harassed or abused (baloney). Because there kashrut is common and relatively easy to keep. Because in Israel, as a Jew, I wouldn’t be considered a source of antagonism to the non-Jews in my workplace.

Suppose I decided to protest the essay requirement. Easy, do aliyah without Nefesh B’Nefesh. Why an essay; am I a convert? Do I need to appeal to a beit din for permission to live in Israel as a citizen? Am I a child in school? Has it occurred to the people who organize and manage Nefesh B’Nefesh that if they stopped dealing with their applicants as school children they might have better results in attracting new olim? ‘Eeeehhhh…., but we only want young people and families with young children’. I hope that’s not the case. Maybe they want letters of recommendation to boot. ‘Are you, a Jew, good enough to make aliyah? We take only the best, you know’.

On the other hand, the essay may be a requirement imposed by the Israeli government. One can’t ‘run’ the Jewish State stating that the Jewish State will practice exclusion in its
immigration and absorption practices as applied to Jews. That’s a wee bit dumb.

I think I'll stay here.

I’m Late, I’m Late, I’m Late for an Important Date
by: Schvach Yid

My apology is extended to Mr. Lewis Carroll for thieving his line, but I missed blogging in time for Yom Yerushalayim. It’s not that I forgot – no way – but I couldn’t get to a computer. So what can I possibly say, ‘Go ask Alice’?

So with my great regret, here is my belated Yom Yerushalayim post. It’s about Naomi Shemer, the composer of Yerushalayim Shel Zahav – Jerusalem of Gold, the almost national anthem of the Jewish State of Israel. She wrote this ditty of a Jewish folk masterpiece on the eve of the Six Day War. As I’ve written before, Shemer was Israel’s Churchill of the Six Day War. She provided the spiritual catalyst that sped Jewish youth into battle to win Jewish repatriation with the Jewish City of Jerusalem; to win Jerusalem back from those who detest us. Our city of gold, the city of King David, perched atop Mt. Zion, our geographic aron kodesh above which hovers the Holy Shechinah.

In tribute to Naomi Shemer, who died in June 2004, I offer these renditions of her masterpiece. The first is performed by a young Shuly Natan who is the singer who gave the first public performance of Jerusalem of Gold just prior to the onset of the June ’67 war; however, shortly before that, the composer was interviewed by David Ben Gurion, during which Shemer auditioned the piece. The interview was audio taped and played on Israeli radio years later, sometime in the mid 1980’s, while I was visiting Israel. This, in fact, might be the first ‘public’ performance of Yerushalayim Shel Zahav.

The second video is of a Russian men’s chorus performing the piece a cappella. For those who may be critical of Russian Jewish immigration to Israel, this rendition may provide food for second thought. They absolutely slay the men’s pilgrims’ chorus from Tannhauser (not Jewish in the extreme), although they do sing ‘Halleluyah’ (very Jewish).

The third is a clip from Shindler’s List (did you know that the original title of Thomas Keneally’s book was Shindler’s Ark?). When I first saw the movie, the Shemer song didn’t just bring tears to my eyes; my tears literally shot out – projectile lacrimation! This was only the second time in my life I’ve wept at a movie; I won’t mention the first flick – it’s too embarrassing (okay, okay, it was the conclusion of The Ghost and Mrs. Muir; what can I say?).

I’m an absolute chauvinist about Judaism and my Jewish identity, and an absolute sucker for Jewish bravura.

Talk about absolute, the absolute best biography I’ve ever read was about Naomi Shemer, written by my number one journalistic writer, Jonathan Mark of The New York Jewish Week. His biography of Shemer was written for that paper’s May 31 1996 edition; regrettably, I can’t find it online and so I can’t post a link, although I saved the article as a clipping.

I first heard Yerushalayim Shel Zahav on the El Al flight from New York to Tel Aviv, on the plane’s overhead, as the plane descended on its final approach. It was perfect propaganda – I loved it, and still do.

Why are we in Jerusalem? Because it’s ours, and has been from the very start, and we don’t owe anyone an explanation concerning the matter.

Here they are: