Showing posts from April, 2005

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Brotherly Love

While Jews abroad celebrate an eighth day of Passover on Saturday night and Sunday, many Jews in Israel - especially those of Moroccan descent - will be celebrating the Mimouna. The Mimouna celebrations will begin with a festive meal Saturday night, with large families gathering together to enjoy singing, traditional foods, and spiritual nourishment for the coming months. The festivities commemorate the hope and belief [Emunah, possibly related to Mimouna, according to some] that just as the Jewish People were redeemed on Passover, so too they will merit the Final Redemption "speedily in our days."Another explanation given for this day is that because of the stringencies against eating chametz on Passover, many people would not eat at each other's homes throughout the weeklong holiday. The Mimouna is therefore a chance to renew ties between families and neighbors, showing that the Jews are united in brotherly love.

Two Quotes

Hans Blix: Then let me look around, so I can ease the UN's collective mind. I'm sorry, but the UN must be firm with you. Let me in, or else. Kim Jong Il: Or else what? Hans Blix: Or else we will be very angry with you... and we will write you a letter, telling you how angry we are. “Any Protestant denomination that would consider the weapon of economic sanctions to be unilaterally and prejudicially used against the State of Israel, or those who would hold the State of Israel to a standard different from any other sovereign state, creates an environment which makes constructive dialogue almost impossible,” mainstream Jewish defense groups and the three main religious streams stated in an April 22 letter to Protestant leaders. The letter is considered the strongest language that Jewish groups have used to date on the issue.

Happy Birthday Mohammed, hope you like dead kids

why even ask, anyone who read the Koran knows he does. "KARACHI: A schoolteacher, Nadeem Ahmed, who was arrested for allegedly killing his wife and four children said on Friday that he sacrificed them to mark the birth anniversary of the Prophet Mohammed. The man was caught hiding in the bathroom of his house in Karachi, where police found the bodies of his family with their throats slashed. Those killed included his 36-year-old wife Shah Jehan and his four children 12-year-old Hasib, 11-year-old Fasih, 8-year-old Hamza and one-year old-Fawad. The wife of the accused was also a teacher at a government school." ...for anyone just joining us, Islam is a religion of peace. A religion of peacefully slashing your wife and children's throats for Allah.

Hasn't Germany done enough to the French?

(BBC) Wednesday, 27 April, 2005, 21:16 GMT 22:16 UK Toads in an area of northern Germany are being killed off by a mysterious disease - they are exploding. "You see the animals crawling on the ground, swelling and then exploding," German conservationist Werner Smolnik told AFP news agency. The bodies of the toads expanded to three and a half times their normal size, he said. "I have never seen such a thing," AFP quotes veterinarian Otto Horst as saying. The site - which has been dubbed "the pond of death" - has been closed to the public.

Hollywood shows Al Queda's POV

Brian Grazer, co-chairman of Imagine Television, which is producing the NBC mini-series - and which has hired The Times as a consultant - said he hoped it (a miniseries about 9/11 dealing with the 9/11 hijackers) would do for Muslims what Wolfgang Petersen's film "Das Boot" did for World War II-era Germans. "Every approach prior to that was, the Germans were horrible," he said. "He humanized them, because they are human. That's what I'm hoping we do, that we don't demonize, that we humanize all the different sides, and so we see the seeds, and we get an understanding from each culture's point of view as to how they got to such a horrible place." Hollywood executives are notorious for saying utterly awfull and demented things but every now and then they take the cake and choke on it too. Brian Grazer who is to cinema what encephalitis is to cattle, was responsible for such abominations as Gus Van Sant's shot by shot remake of Psycho

United Jerusalem Resolution and black Saudi gold

introduced by Senators Brownback, Crappo and Smith and tells some salient facts (1) Jerusalem has been the capital of the Jewish people for 3,000 years. (2) Jerusalem has never been the capital for any other state other than for the Jewish people. (3) Jerusalem is central to Judaism and is cited in the Tanach, the Hebrew Bible, 766 times. (4) Jerusalem is not mentioned by name in the Koran. (5) Every sovereign nation has the right to designate its own capital. (6) Jerusalem is the seat of the Government of Israel, including the President, the parliament, and the Supreme Court. (7) United States law states as a matter of United States policy that Jerusalem should be the undivided capital of Israel. (8) Israel is the only country in which the United States neither maintains an embassy in the city designated as the capital by the host country nor recognizes such city as the capital. of course it has no chance of passing; especially on a day when Bush met with the Saudi Crown Prince and h

Imprisoned 13 year old girls set free

Several girls ranging from 13 in age in Hevron were ordered jailed by Judge Amnon Cohen over Pesach for attempting to rebuild a house in Hevron. Today they were freed after all. To Americans ideas like slavery and freedom can often some abstract and not truly relevant to our lives; but that is an illusion bred by comfort and security. The struggle for freedom, the true freedom of Judaism rather than the Orwellian prison of liberal freedom that divides men into castes and turns them into slaves of a bureacratic state; is ongoing. The thugs of the mistara, who have in the past claimed that 70 year old women and small children attacked them; claimed that the 13 year old girls attacked them. The girls were offered to be released by Judge Amnon Cohen (well renowed for bootlicking arabs and persecuting jews) if they signed an agreement to stay away from a jewish neighborhood that has been repeatedly demolished. They refused and were sentenced to jail. Few of us are prepeared to be jailed in

A Lot of Trash

Bedikat Chametz here sure is a lot of work

Mahmoud Abbas wishes World Jewry a Happy Passover

No it's not a parody, it's an actual news story . While Abbas brings Hamas gunmen into the ranks of the PA police, while rockets and mortars continue being fired on Israel and the PA continues to treat terrorists as heroes and martyrs; expect world jewry gratefull for this greeting to begin slobbering all over this filthy holocaust denying terrorist responsible for plenty of spilled Jewish blood with even more vigor.

Two Truths about Rachel Corrie

I got a comment on the 'Forgotten Rachel's' post yesterday telling me I did not need to demonize Rachel Corrie to defend the victims of terrorism. It is no matter that demonizing Israel, justifying terrorism and the murder of those victims was exactly the business of Rachel Corrie and her organization ISM and is a buisness her parents are carrying on, on her behalf after death. There is however no need to demonize Rachel Corrie, only to speak the truth. And the truth will stand on its own. This photo below is the first truth. It is very different from the photos that those trying to elevate Rachel Corrie to sainthood as a peace activist who only wanted little Arab and Jewish children to play together in one sandbox want you to see. It is a photo of a woman full of hate. A woman who attended Hamas and Fatah rallies. Who burned the Israeli and American flags before watching children at rallies calling for the victory of terrorism; for murder and for more killing. It

Faith and Science: the Trees and the Forest

Inspired by the R. Slifkin case much blogging has been done over Faith and Science often on the extremes. Some distrust all science viewing it as an attack on faith, others distrust faith viewing rational thought as the tool to achieve truth. And truth after all is the end and faith and science are the means to achieve it. Through science we study, observe and hypothesize to understand as much of the world as we can; through faith we accept what is given to us from a higher power as a truth beyond our full comprehension and exploration. Both science and faith contemplate reality but where science contemplates the micro-reality of the physical world as we know it, faith addresses the macro-reality of the physical world as a product of the spirtual one. Science is capable of addressing the physical world to the extent of the limits and abilities of its users but not of the spirtual world of which it is but a product. The spirtual world is the underlying superstructure of G-D and his will

The Forgotten Rachels

L ondon from which as the Holocaust grew and raged in fury decisions were made to close Israel to the Jews, from which came the orders to disarm the Jews living in remote villages surrounded by arabs across Israel to prepare the way for their massacre. London which tore away as much of Israel as it could to give to the arabs, on whose throne a Nazi sympathizer briefly sat has a new play. L ondon, from which Jews were twice expelled. London where Jews were stoned and burned at the coronation of Richard the Lionheart. Shakespeare's London where the story of a Jew held hostage to give a pound of flesh became the story of an evil Jew demanding a pound of flesh. London where Dickens equally repugnant anti-semitic stereotype Fagin roamed the streets in search of gentile boys to corrupt, hosts another anti-semitic play now. Much as the Passion Plays depicted the evil Jews torturing and tormenting Jesus, in the footsteps of the Merchant of Venice and Oliver Twist (which Dickens staged as a

Boycotting Zionism

Some time back there was an article that listed Jewish scientific achievements for anti-semites to avoid, such as the polio vaccine now on the heels of continued attempts coming out of Britain to boycott Israel and Israeli products, Douglas Davis has a list of items and technologies for anti-zionist anti-semites to avoid. "Pay attention, Professor. If you support the proposed academic boycott of Israel — and if you are to remain intellectually honest — prepare for a radical lifestyle change. Firstly, unplug your computer. Good. Now switch off your interactive digital television set. Well done. And now throw away your mobile phone. Excellent. You see, Professor, these machines are not only the engine of the globalised, capitalist world but they also depend on technologies that have been produced by Israeli academics in the Zionist entity. Stop playing with your detached mouse, Professor, and concentrate. I’m afraid you may not use the British Library because it has been computerise

Tides of Holiness, Tides of Life

It was Kiddush Levana tonight again. First we search for the moon in the sky, past the blooming branches of tall trees and the dark sloping roofs of houses. The moon has become hard to find with spring, one pale silver sickle in New York City's starless ink-blue sky among the moving stars of helicopters and planes. The non-religious or non-Jewish neighborhood residents who pass us by must think we're a tribe of moon worshipers as we race back and forth down the street looking for a clear vantage point for the moon. Look, we point up, and they look too trying to understand what it is about a small slice of moon that interests us so. The Jewish people are compared to the moon. As it waxes and wanes, so too we wax and wane. From exile to redemption, closeness to G-D and distance from him; man is more lunar than solar, a cycle of light and darkness rather than a clear bright light. Man reflects light from Hashem rather than creating it. In this Shabbat's Parsha we went o

Bush's Historic Non-Concession

Sharon and Jewish Republicans have been endlessly trumpeting Bush's historic non-concession that Israel can keep some of the 67 territories, particularly those around major population centers. Of course there is nothing historic or any concession about this whatsoever. "We are not the ones to say where other nations should draw lines between them that will assure each the greatest security. It is clear, however, that a return to the situation of June 4, 1967 will not bring peace." President Lyndon Johnson September 10, 1968 "Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338... rest on two principles, Israel may administer the territory until its Arab neighbors make peace; and when peace is made, Israel should withdraw to 'secure and recognized borders', which need not be the same as the Armistice Demarcation Lines of 1949." Lyndon B. Johnson, U.S. President "I have personally followed and supported Israel's heroic struggle for survival since the foundi

The historic juncture of generations

"The study of Torah is not simply a didactic act; involvement in the words of Torah is not simply a technical formal matter concretized via the creation and exchange of ideas. It is a powerful experience involving the closeness of many generations, the joining of spirit to spirit and the connection of soul to soul. Those who transmit the Torah and those who receive it meet one another at the same historic juncture." Rav Soloveitchik

Satmar Simcha Hall Stamford Hill

For the individual who found this blog by searching google for "Satmar Simcha Hall Stamford Hill" I really wish I could help you but frankly I have no idea. Anyone who does though is free to volunteer information.

White House promises to send Hamas $$$$$ if Hamas wins election

WND: In the event that Hamas, a terrorist organization not yet disarmed by the Palestinian Authority, wins a majority in the legislative PA, will the Bush administration still send $350 million U.S. taxpayer dollars to the PA, or not? Presidential Press Secretary Scott McClellan: Les, it's – the one thing that you see when people have elections that are free and fair is that they tend to choose people who are committed to improving their livelihood, not people who are committed to terrorist acts. And I think if you look back at the previous Palestinian elections, the people that were elected, while they might have been members of Hamas, they were business professionals . They were people that ran on talking about improving the quality of life for the Palestinian people and addressing their economic needs and addressing other needs that are important to them – not terrorists. As mind boggling as this statement is, it's hard to determine if it's brought about by faith that &#

ID Thefts grow as jobs get outsourced

"About 570,000 service jobs were outsourced in the last five years. That will grow by another 1.1 million during the next five years, and increase again by 1.6 million from 2010 to 2015. Overall, 3.4 million jobs, and $136 billion in wages, will be lost over 15 years. Accounting, bookkeeping, tax preparation, auditing and payroll services, telemedicine, particularly x-ray reading, billing, transcription, medical transcription, call and e-mail centers, telemarketing, claims processing, document management, digitization of information, including data entry, production of shop drawings for architectural firms and mapping. Anything that can be digitized and done on a computer or by telephone can be done in places like India as easily as it can be done across town from the customer in the U.S. All that work processing medical records, bank accounts, mortgage applications and tax returns that is being subcontracted to foreign-owned companies raises serious questions about security."

JTA Lomdus

SAN FRANCISCO, April 13 (JTA) — Despite the Talmudic injunction that calls upon every Jew to write his own Torah, only a handful of scholars throughout history have attempted the monumental task of translating the entire Chumash, or Five Books of Moses. It's hard to know what to deal with here first? 'Talmudic' injunction or the JTA's belief that every Jew writing his own sefer torah involves an obligation to translate it into english, when in fact translating the Torah was considered unacceptable originally and the translation into greek was considered a cause for mourning.

All Germans benefited from Hitler

Increasingly, rather than taking responsibility for their crimes, Germans have continued to try and pass themselves off as victims of a Nazi dictatorship which is why a new book by German author Goetz Aly has touched off a storm by questioning that mythology. "A well-respected German historian has a radical new theory to explain a nagging question: Why did average Germans so heartily support the Nazis and Third Reich? Hitler, says Goetz Aly, was a " feel good dictator ," a leader who not only made Germans feel important, but also made sure they were well cared-for by the state.To do so, he gave them huge tax breaks and introduced social benefits that even today anchor the society. He also ensured that even in the last days of the war not a single German went hungry. Despite near-constant warfare, never once during his 12 years in power did Hitler raise taxes for working class people. He also -- in great contrast to World War I -- particularly pampered soldiers and the

Bush on Israel

"As part of a final peace settlement, Israel must have secure and recognized borders. These should emerge from negotiations between the parties in accordance with United Nations Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338. As I said last April, new realities on the ground make it unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949 . It is realistic to expect that any final status agreement will be achieved only on the basis of mutually agreed changes that reflect these realities. That's the American view. While the United States will not prejudice the outcome of final status negotiations , those changes on the ground, including existing major Israeli population centers, must be taken into account in any final status negotiations." - George W. Bush To sum up...Sharon has been telling anyone he can find that Bush promised him that withdrawal from Gaza would let Israel keep all the other terr

Prayers for the Czar but not for Jewish Soldiers

Read it All Who stands guard at the Kotel, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, fifty-two weeks a year, if not the Jewish soldier, the messenger of the All-Merciful?Who endangers his own life when Arab bullets fly at Jews praying at Rachel̓s Tomb, if not the soldier of the army of Israel?Who puts his body on the line watching over the cave of Machpela, enabling his Jewish brothers and sisters to pour out their hearts at the graves of their forefathers, if not our brave Jewish warrior? Would you therefore not think, faithful reader, that the Israeli soldiers who put their lives on the line on a daily basis to protect our holy land are deserving of a Misheberach in our synagogues on Shabbos? Tell me, please, is a Jew who is willing to die in defense of our Jewish homeland not worthy of a Misheberach? I ask those of you who feel that to even make such a suggestion is to come perilously close to heresy: is not the blood of a Jewish soldier worth a Misheberach? Yet, hard as the conce

Two Muslim Nyc Girls Planned Suicide Bombings

NEW YORK - Two 16-year-old girls from New York City have been arrested on immigration charges after federal authorities said they planned to become suicide bombers, according to a published report. The teenagers were arrested March 24 and were being held in a detention center in Leesport, Pa., According to the document, the FBI found that the girls posed "an imminent threat to the security of the United States based upon evidence that they plan to be suicide bombers," the Times said. The girls — one from Bangladesh, one from Guinea — were living in the United States illegally, the Times reported. Is this a sign that America is in for the same things Israel has been going through? Up until now we've had domestic teenagers going on killing sprees but it's only a matter of time until the domestic radicalized Islamic and arabic population will do their part too. The difference of course is that the only ones who celebrated the Columbine killers and saw the

Three Quotes from a Man

"Goodness is achieved not in a vacuum, but in the company of other men, attended by love." " There is an immense, painful longing for a broader, more flexible, fuller, more coherent, more comprehensive account of what we human beings are, who we are and what this life is for." " You never have to change anything you got up in the middle of the night to write." Saul Bellow died Tuesday at the age of 89 and somewhere he is writing still.

Professional Journalists vs Amateur Bloggers

Battles and backbiting between bloggers and the mainstream media have increasingly become commonplace, with the most prominent being the collision between conservative bloggers and Dan Rather, that ended with Dan giving up the anchor chair - the Jewish Week's attack on bloggers is only the latest skirmish in a campaign by a threatened mainstream media which in this case takes place in the localized niche of the Jewish media world. And while this shot across the bow may have taken place in the Jewish world but the angle of attack is essentially the same as Jewish Week editor Gary Rosenblatt attacks bloggers for a lack of professionalism. And the same argument is made by him as has been made by all the countless reporters out there; "I wouldn't seek legal or medical advice from an amateur attorney or physician who insisted on remaining nameless," Gary argues. But what is the difference between a professional journalist and an amateur blogger? Yes there's the office

Distinctions of Holiness

Parshat Shmini seems to contain four somewhat disparate elements. First we have the dedication of the Mishkan, the home of G-D and the focal point of the worship of the Jewish People. Then the death of two of Aaron's sons during what should have a joyfull time and then two sets of laws are given, laws of Kashrut and some laws of impurities. One might ask what is the connection between these things. The last pasuk of the parsha gives us a hint, it begins with Lehavdil, to distinguish, bein hatamea ubein hatahor, between the impure and the pure. By placing impure before pure, the emphasis is and priority is placed on dinstinguishing the impure. We might normally think that it would make more sense to place the pure first as more important to distinguish than the impure, yet this is not so. When discussing the laws of Kashrut, animals that have one sign of Kashrut but not both are emphasized as unclean, particularly the pig which has become a byword in Yiddish, a Chazzer Fissl, a pig&

Europeans See Issue As Strictly Medical

'Europeans See Issue As Strictly Medical' the headline on the Washington Post article reads when reffering to the Terry Schiavo case. What does medical mean. One might imagine that this means they see the issue purely in terms of saving and preserving life, following the Hippocratic oath, First Do No Harm; but not at all. To Europeans a medical issue, means that once the Doctor decides a life is expendable that treatment is denied. And a feeding tube includes medical treatment. This is the same understanding of medicine that the Germans had in which medicine does not exist to save lives but to balance the quality of life against its expense, a decision that is in the hands of the doctors. In the Netherlands, where euthanasia has been legal since April 2002, the struggle over whether to remove Schiavo's feeding tube would not have happened because "here it's more accepted that the doctors make those decisions," said Rob Jonquiere, head of the pro-euthanasia gro