"A couple, mid-40's or well preserved 50's, approached me. Nattily dressed, he bareheaded, she sporting a small hat. They stared. I stared back.

"Do you speak English?" he said.

Only if I have to," I replied, silently cursing myself for slipping into wiseguy mode. I promised to try and behave.

"Are you a settler?" he said.

"Yes," I replied, fighting back the impulse to say "No, I'm a daffodil" or "No, I'm a giant roach."

"Are you here for the demonstration?" he said. "Yes," I replied again, biting my lips not to say "No, I'm here for the tsunami" or "No, I'm waiting for a bus to the zoo."

A long pause during which they kept exchanging "meaningful glances." I was getting annoyed.

"Is there something I can do for you?" I asked.

They smiled at each other.

"We have a proposition for you," the lady said.

I was taken aback. It's been years since anyone propositioned me.

"Our congregation" she continued - she didn't identify the congregation and I didn't ask - "feels the reason the PoorPalestians (she said it like one word) behave the way they do is that they don't know how caring we Jews are."

All my alarm bells were going off.

"We feel that any time an incident occurs..."

"You mean a terrorist attack?" I interrupted.

She frowned. He put his hands in his pockets. "...an incident" she continued, "an incident involving loss of life..."

"Jews murdered?" I said. "...a loss of life. Any life. All life is precious. We feel that..."

He interrupted. "Whenever someone is killed, including Poor Palestinians, especially Poor Palestinians, Jews should build a kindergarten or a playground in a Poor Palestinian village or enlarge a Poor Palestinian hospital ... to show them how caring we are." They smiled at each other.

"Let me understand this," I said, trying to keep the incredulity, the fury, out of my voice. "Every time an Arab kills a Jew, the Jews build them a playground?"

They nodded, and smiled.

"The more Jews they kill, the more playgrounds we build?"

They nodded, no longer smiling.

"Aren't you afraid they'll run out of Jews to kill before you run out of money for playgrounds?"

"See?" he said to her, "I told you he wouldn't understand. That type, hopeless..."

It was all I could do to keep from hitting them. But I smiled, and said "I'm sorry. You've misunderstood me. We already have a program like that."

They stared.

"Yes, every time Jews are killed by PoorPalestinians we send over helicopters that drop bags of bagels on them. It's called BAGELS FOR BASTARDS."

... a bit old but an excellent excerpt from an excellent article, read it all here

"Mandela's story has given me a lot of strength, what he has gone through," Michael Jackson said in an interview.

Nelson Mandela who has been imprisoned for terrorism and who has backed terrorists such as Arafat and Barghouti, gone to Libya to endorse terrorist sponsors such as Khadaffi and whose wife was jailed for the murder and torture of a 14 year old boy - is surely a fitting role model for america's most famous pedophile.

"Booksellers say “Mein Kampf,” or “Kavgam” in Turkish, has featured among the top 10 bestsellers in the past two months, to the dismay of the country’s small Jewish community."

This is really no great surprise though. Turkey has an islamist government and its period of secularism is over. The media now blares out deranged incitement against America and Israel and Al Queda has a local base of operations and has carried out an attack on a synagogue there.

For all that Turkey's government is pushing to join the EU, Turkey is now no different than any other muslim country and its further slide will only continue the more of a grip Islam will have on it.

And to anyone who thinks Muslims are odd or ignorant for worshipping Hitler because Hitler was a racist, this is a misleading lie told by those who want to turn the Holocaust into a lesson on bigotry. Hitler was not a racist, he was a racialist and he was an ally of Islam and Muslims. There were two Muslim SS divisions and the Mufti of Jerusalem was his ally who helped push for the implementation of the Holocaust. Muslims today simply mourn that Hitler failed, that Jews survived and plot and scheme to finish his bloody work.

A thorough analysis of the Koran reveals that the US will cease to exist in the year 2007, according to research published by Palestinian scholar Ziad Silwadi.

Big words from a 'scholar' from a country that never existed and still doesn't exist I say.

“The tsunami waves are a minor rehearsal in comparison with what awaits the US in 2007,” the researcher concluded in his study. “The Holy Koran warns against the Omnipotent Allah’s force. A great sin will cause a huge flood in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.”

He does realize the Tsunami and the recent earthquake has been hitting Muslim countries. If they represent the wrath of 'Allah', it would seem Allah is none too happy with Muslims.

“As soon as the Europeans started arriving in the new world discovered by Christopher Columbus in 1492, they declared a war on the so-called Red Indians, the legitimate owners of the land,” he wrote. “Then they began enslaving and humiliating Africans after kidnapping them from their countries and bringing them to America.”

He neglects to remember that the United States got these slaves from Muslim slaveowners and that Muslims were in the slavery buisness long before the Europeans. In fact slavery today only exists among Muslims and the worst human rights crisis is in Sudan where Muslims continue to enslave and massacre its indigenous inhabitants as they have throughout history beginning with Mohammed. More recently Muslims killed over 250,000 of the inhabitants of East Timor and have gone on killing sprees in Kashmir.

“International law penalizes such crimes,” he said. “If these laws were not applied then, they are certainly implemented in heaven. If no one on earth is capable of punishing [the US], Allah was and remains able to do so."

If Allah follows the track record of Muslim attempts at punishing the US, then he'll need a really big suicide bomber's vest to fit his belly.

Google's mission statement is to do not evil, a standard Google has lived up to by fleecing its investors, letting its search engine be manipulated so that the word 'Jew' points to the anti-semitic website Jewwatch and then protesting that it was helpless to intervene while it had no trouble intervening to ban Kazaa Lite on behalf of Sharman Networks, turning Gmail's emails into its own private ad source and now Hamas is advertising with google. Isn't it funny how when an organization needs to advertise that it is setting out not to do evil, that in fact evil is exactly its goal.

Terror organizations are advancing their recruitment and public relations methods: Internet surfers who enter the word “Hamas” in Arabic in the Google search engine, will view, in addition to the search results, an AdWord message that links directly to the website of the organization’s military faction Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades.

The link also appears in a search of several other words, such as the “Gaza,” “Palestine,” “Jihad.”

This indicates that a Hamas source has paid Google, the most popular search engine on the web, for the advertisement.

It was late evening as I was walking home from Shul along a dark deserted street when I began to hear the sounds of hoofbeats. Not footsteps, motorcycles, bicycles, trucks or cars - but the hoofbeats of an approaching horse.

Though the street was empty, I waited for the light to change and then out between two parked cars, a horse came trotting out. It was a police horse with a police officer on its back walking through the street as if it was 1896 all over again. One hoof after another passsed over the asphalt and underneath the streetlights.

Behind him came a black shiny lexus all tricked out, even its fumes breathed money, the driver obviously impatient but not willing to risk honking at a police horse. Instead the lexus did its best to pass the horse on a narrow street.

The horse though refused to step aside and the Lexus did everything but the unthinkable act of running down a police horse. As the moon shone above, the lexus followed the horse between the rows of parked cars waiting impatiently for its chance to cut the horse off.

For a moment I wondered which of them was crazier, the rider and the driver, and then I decided they were both New Yorkers and so it was probably a tie.

Haman came to Ahasverosh with a modest proposal in the swiftian sense.

ח וַיֹּאמֶר הָמָן, לַמֶּלֶךְ אֲחַשְׁוֵרוֹשׁ--יֶשְׁנוֹ עַם-אֶחָד מְפֻזָּר וּמְפֹרָד בֵּין הָעַמִּים, בְּכֹל מְדִינוֹת מַלְכוּתֶךָ; וְדָתֵיהֶם שֹׁנוֹת מִכָּל-עָם, וְאֶת-דָּתֵי הַמֶּלֶךְ אֵינָם עֹשִׂים, וְלַמֶּלֶךְ אֵין-שֹׁוֶה, לְהַנִּיחָם.	8 And Haman said unto king Ahasuerus: 'There is a certain people scattered abroad and dispersed among the peoples in all the provinces of thy kingdom; and their laws are diverse from those of every people; neither keep they the king's laws; therefore it profiteth not the king to suffer them.
ט אִם-עַל-הַמֶּלֶךְ טוֹב, יִכָּתֵב לְאַבְּדָם; וַעֲשֶׂרֶת אֲלָפִים כִּכַּר-כֶּסֶף, אֶשְׁקוֹל עַל-יְדֵי עֹשֵׂי הַמְּלָאכָה, לְהָבִיא, אֶל-גִּנְזֵי הַמֶּלֶךְ.	9 If it please the king, let it be written that they be destroyed; and I will pay ten thousand talents of silver into the hands of those that have the charge of the king's business, to bring it into the king's treasuries.'

Now Michael Schiavo and his lawyers and his advocates and the ACLU come before us with another modest proposal. Terry Schiavo is not really living, she is of no value or use. Give her into our hands and we will dispose of her. Haman makes the same point to Ahasverosh, the Jews are scattered, they are not a true nation and not living in accord with the king's laws; they are not really people and their deaths are meaningless.

The Nazis half a century before held the same view of both Jews and disabled people bridging the gap between the ACLU and Haman, there is a life unworthy of life in Nazi terminology. There are people who do not merit to live.

Haman's criteria for it was simple. Haman was entirely selfish. His view of the world was that it was only worthwhile as long as it served him. When the King summoned him, he could think of no one but himself who merited honor. He related to his wife and friends the extent of his riches, to demonstrate his worth. He needed others to confirm his importance for him to have a sense of pride and worth. When Mordechai refused to grant him that affirmation by bowing before him, Haman decided to wipe out all the Jews rather than Mordechai alone because wiping out one man would demonstrate his pettiness. In Haman's world, things only had value to the extent that they served him and since the Jews did not serve him; out they went.

The modern criteria of the world for life is selfish too. In a consumer society we are encouraged to be selfish. To abandon communal values for personal values, the needs of the many for our own needs and to reject any obligation to sacrifice our own comforts for the comfort of others. It is the society we are becoming increasingly comfortable with. The criteria for life is what benefits us. If a baby is inconvenient, the sensible thing is to abort it. If our aged parents get too inconvenient, we ship them to a home. If our ailing wife becomes too much of a burden, kill her.

Consumerism is all about the freedom to make the choices that are most convenient for you. The remote control can then turn on your tv as well turn off your wife's feeding tube. In such a world self-sacrifice is dangerous. Anything that does not serve us introduces a dangerous and contradictory value system into the equation. One that promotes self-sacrifice over consumerism. One that does not serve us and such a value system must be stamped out and as Terry has become the representative of such a value system, the Hamanic view is that she must die.

Thus two views emerge. One is Haman's view which places a premium on comfort and self-satisfaction uber alles. The other is Esther's view of self-sacrifice, of carrying a burden for others even when it's difficult and painfull to do. These are also two visions of America struggling against each other and finding expression in the Schiavo case.

This is not a struggle between liberals and conservatives or democrats and republicans. It is a struggle between people who believe that life has value even when it seems like a burden and those who believe that inconvenient life should be shifted away.

Charity thus is given to agencies, the poor shifted over to a welfare state, removing the responsibility for caring for the needy from us and delegating it to bureaucats. Human welfare becomes impersonal, love for the sick and the needy becomes alien and distantly removed. In the Hamanic view it is not life that counts but our own needs. The law matters but not morals. Money matters but not righteousness.

The Esther view though is that we are obligated to care for others as G-D cares for us, even though we are not worthy of it. Alone and seemingly abandoned in her palace to her rapist king, Esther nevertheless risks her life to save her people. She does not weigh their sins against them, their participation in the Feast or their obesience to Haman. She does what is right because it is right.

Haman stood for no one but himself, Esther risked her life for an entire people and in the end emerged both politically and morally triumphant.

Which america do we want to be part of?

Tefillin and Acupuncture

A publication in the Journal of Chinese Medicine, 2002 Oct;70:4-6, demonstrates that the arm and head wrappings of the tefillin straps form a potent acupuncture point prescription for mental and spiritual health.

Attallah Quiba, the Palestinian ambassador in Sri Lanka, believes that Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was killed by unnamed Israelis using advanced technology, the Island newspaper said.

Responding to questions at a media conference in Colombo on Friday, Quiba claimed that two Israelis who met Arafat on the day he was taken sick "used a laser device to attack Arafat."

Quiba was quoted as saying the Palestinian Authority immediately informed the Israeli government of the "attempt on Arafat's life." Samples of Arafat's blood were tested in 16 countries and it was revealed that he had been poisoned by high technology, he said.

Frankly I think we should have let our Martian brethren handle this one but really, when reading things like this you have to wonder if the speaker isn't on drugs or simply out of his mind but then you read him quoted seriously in a Malaysian newspaper and realize that they take it seriously too and that much of the Arab and Muslim world believes similar things and you can only come to one plausible conclusion, that the ability to distinguish common sense (rather than any high standard such as absolute truth) from utter raving lunacy is not a particularly common trait in the world.

But lest Jews or Americans become too complacent on the subject, we have no shortage of lunatics in influential positions, we just have enough common sense not to appoint them ambassadors because we know it will look bad.

This popular ideology contends that the religious experience is tranquil and neatly ordered, tender and delicate; it is an enchanted stream for bitter souls and still waters for troubled spirits...this ideology is intrinsically false and deceptive. That religious consciousness in man's experience which is most profound and elevated, which penetrates to the very depths and ascends to the very heights, is not that simple or comfortable. On the contrary, it is exceptionally complex, rigorous and tortuous. Where you find complexity, there you find its greatness. The religious experience, from beginning to end... is a condition of spiritual crisis."

Rav Soloveichik

Richard Schwartz, Professor Emeritus of Mathematics, Professional Nuisance Emeritus and Vegetarian Advocate to the Blogs has responded yet again.

According to Rashi, Rabbi Abraham Ibn Ezra, the Rambam, the Ramban, Rabbi Joseph Albo, and other outstanding Torah commentators, G-d’s initial intention was that people be vegetarians.

Death did not yet exist in the world and thus people could not yet be eating meat. However you are inverting this to suggest that the vegetarian diet was morally superior when it was simply the product of a different world in which it was physically impossible to do otherwise. One might as well claim that nudism was G-D's original intention and is thus morally superior to wearing clothes and should be our practice today.

(Chava and Adam's leather clothing) This may be from animals that died a natural death or it might be clothing from plants.

Were the sacrifices then also mandated by the Torah to be from plants or animals that died naturally? In fact such sacrifices are forbidden. Indeed you may note in what detail last week's parsha went into the process of sacrificing and butchering an animal. Thousands and thousands of animals brought up to be sacrificed, parts of which were considered holy and eaten by the Kohanim. Animal rights activists and vegetarians would be apalled.

According to a midrash, both Moshe and king David were deemed suitable for leadership because of their compassionate treatment of animals.

Certainly true but you're missing the point. Treatment of animals which they cared for with the ultimate aim that they would be disposed of for human use as G-D intended them to. Do you think Moshe and King David simply walked the sheep around and that the sheep never ended up as mutton?

The Torah repeatedly mandates and prescribes the use of animals for food, whether it is through sacrifices or celebration. Quoting Rabbis today who are vegetarians or quotes emphasizing the importance of how we treat animals does not change this simple fact.

The focus of our worship of G-D, for which today prayers are only a substitute, Korbanot Peh (sacrifices of the lips) took place around altars in which animals were butchered and whose priests ate their meat as laid out in minute detail in the Torah.

No one argues that we have an obligation to treat animals well as they are gifts from Hashem given for our use. That last part of the sentence is the one veggies have so much trouble with. We are meant to make use of animals as we live our lives as Hashem intended us to and not to worship animals or be their caretakers.

Nadia Matar's latest article

"Egged buses are currently festooned with huge posters bearing the slogan: "Let the People Decide." My stomach turns when I think about the hundreds of thousands of shekels - and perhaps more - that the Council of Jewish Settlements in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza is wasting on this campaign, instead of channeling the money to preparations for the upcoming struggle this summer - the renovation of empty houses to absorb the thousands of new residents, the purchase of generators, tents, stores of food and water for the tens of thousands of people who will dig in, and the like.

When the spies returned from scouting out the Land, the people had to decide whom to follow. Would they follow the ten spies who told them how beautiful the Land was, but "we cannot go forward against that people, for it is stronger than we," "the country is one that devours its inhabitants" - or would they go with Caleb son of Jephunneh and Joshua son of Nun, who declared: "Let us by all means go up, and we shall gain possession of it, for we shall surely overcome it" (Deuteronomy 13).

Let the people decide? The people did decide. Not only did they want to stone Caleb and Joshua,

Could any modern referendum be clearer than this? All the Children of Israel, the whole community, an overwhelming majority, were against Caleb and Joshua, and for a return to Egypt. What did G-d say to this? Did He accept the results, and say that, since a majority of the people wished to renounce the dream of the Land of Israel, they should return to Egypt! Definitely Not!

If G-d was so harsh with the liberated Israelite slaves when they were still in the wilderness on their way to the Land of Israel, a land that they had never seen - how much more scandalous is it when we, who have already settled and taken possession of this Land, dare to speak about the possibility of handing it over to the enemy?"

"If you ask me who is a Jew, I will answer you: Who ever leads a valorous life is a Jew. In my eyes, a Jew is someone who is willing to be a hero, to always be in the minority, to be ready to fight. Part of what makes a jew special is his living a heroic life... it means someone fighting alone on a dark night as when Jacob was left alone and struggled with a man until dawn (Genesis 33:25) This represents the inner content of the Jew... that Jewish life means leading a life of valor."

Rabbi Yosef Dov Soloveitchik

Stuck on a diet of lettuce and wheat germ which has undoubtedly dulled their intellects and made them go into ravenous fits of drooling at the smell of meat and cheese, vegetarian activists are it again claiming that Judaism encourages the vegetarian diet.

This particular gem comes Richard Schwartz, Retired Emeritus Nuisance. What else could it be but a plot to enforce eating shrubs and mushrooms only.

Many animal activists regard organized religion as an ideological opponent.

Most likely because they want to remove any special status for man in relation to animals and reduce man to merely another beast.

The first misunderstanding is that the biblical teaching that humans are granted dominion over animals gives us a warrant to treat them in whatever way we may wish. Jewish tradition interprets "dominion" as guardianship, or stewardship, not domination:

And what is the VeggieBible interpretation of Kivsuha, conquering or to subdue the earth? A partnership perhaps?

This biblical mandate does not mean that people have the right to wantonly exploit animals, and it certainly does not permit us to breed animals and then treat them as machines designed solely to meet human needs.

The mandate does not mean that we have unlimited power or authority over animals, we are given specific restrictions in that regard beginning at the Noahide level. But those restrictions exist to prevent 'abuse' of animals, not to prevent the use of animals.

Thus the definition of 'Wanton' comes into play. To the vegheads, any use of an animal can be wanton exploitation. If we presume as animal rights activists do that animals have innate rights as humans do, rather than conditions of guardianship which is how Judaism defines it, than any use of an animal not for its own benefit, is exploitation.

This view is reinforced by the fact that immediately after God gave humankind dominion over animals (Genesis 1:26), He prescribed vegetarian foods as the diet best suited to humans (Genesis 1:29).

Possibly is Rabbi Sears had gotten together with Rabbi Roebuck and spent less time on 'Spirituality and Inner Growth' and more time reading Chumash he might have noticed that such a perception is ambiguous at best. Firstly in 28 once again Hashem repeats man's dominion over animals, fish and birds which is then followed by 29 and 30 that mentions the herbage as being available for men and animals. This is not however a dietary limitation.

The language is not a suggested diet and not one for humans. In fact what is being defined is a sphere of authority through the gift of Hashem. First the top of the pyramid begins with man who has authority over all life, secondly are animals who have the right to all plant life. Thus man's similarly has the right to all fish, beasts and fowl as they do to the plant life.

In summation, as the Lord is our shepherd, we are to be shepherds of voiceless creatures. As God is kind and compassionate to us, we must be considerate of the needs and feelings of animals. To this we may add that by showing compassion to animals through a vegetarian diet, we help fulfill the commandment to imitate God's ways.

This is an utterly warped and gross misinterpretation. The Torah repeatedly mandates and prescribes the use of animals for food, whether it is through sacrifices or celebration. And if we are to imitate G-D's ways, then we can look no further than the leather garments made for Adam and Chava. We can look to the kind Chevel who is a shepherd and sacrifices sheep and the cruel Cain who works the earth and is condemned for it. One might as easily draw the conclusion with supporting evidence that the earth was cursed and those who worked it were lowered men, Adam vs the shepherds who would go on to be our leaders, e.g. Yaakov, Moshe, Dovid HaMelech.

Seems as if Google which has a mission statement of not being evil even as their search results for 'Jew' leads to a Neo-Nazi anti-semitic site and their google news service manages to index utterly psychotic sites, now uses the Neo-Nazi site National Vanguard as a News Feed

Congratulations Google, have yourself some beer and weinerschnitzel...oh and you're officially evil

No wonder Agent France Presse is suing Google, even the french don't want anything to do with them.

For the 'Modern' Shuls we are produce to announce the release of Torah Version 1.3 has now been announced on convenient portable form.

This will require some changes in synagogue procedures.

Opening the Aron will now only involve the push of a button and correcting any damaged letters can be done in Microsoft Word.

Hagbah will now involve lifting up the CD-Rom out of the drive and Glilah replacing it in its jewel case.

Now please pass the plate

What do you do when you hold a rally and no one shows up except a few thousand die hard extremists hankering to live under a terrorist palestinian state or rather to make everyone else live under a terrorist state while they get on the next plane for Sweden for their next anti-globalization or Shave the Whales rally.

Make up for what you lack in numbers and lack in purpose with volume.

Still it is the height of absurdity to see signs reading 'Sharon - the people are with you" at a Peace Now rally, if anyone needs a clearer sign of how low Sharon has fallen, that is it.

Police: Man Robs Bank With Pitchfork

KEY WEST, Fla. -- A man used a pitchfork to rob a bank Wednesday, police said. Fred Simunovic, 47, of Key West, was charged with armed robbery after police spotted him at the Key West ferry terminal, trying to sail to Fort Myers.

Police do have one early suspect in the case

A big Yasher Koach to all the visitors and everyone who linked to this page. There'll be sharayim for everyone as soon as I set up the Tisch.

(there is no one like you G-D and there are no deeds like yours)

Yonatan Bassi who heads Sharon's Deportation Authority is going to meet with the OU and promise them in his own twisted words, "that the evacuation of Gush Katif will be accomplished while taking special care to preserve the dignity of the settlers and respect their feelings," because of kicking 8000 people of their homes, dragging them out of their homes, calling them terrorists and the worst threat to israel's security, planting informants among their children and beating them and taking away their children and jailing them if they refuse to leave their homes... comprises Bassi's idea of 'dignity' and 'respect for feelings'

This is a handy example of Bassi's dignified and respectfull approach

CNN Headline: Bush: Hezbollah could enter Lebanon's political mainstream

What Bush actually said:

"We view Hezbollah as a terrorist organization," Bush said at a news conference with Jordan's King Abdullah II after the two met in the Oval Office."I would hope that Hezbollah would prove that they're not, by laying down arms and not threatening peace."

Is the media just making up their own news at this point? The question involved Hezbollah entering the political mainstream, Bush responded by saying Hezbollah is a terrorist organization and remains one. He suggests they disarm but does not promise anything for them in return. At this point the media isn't even bothering to pretend they're reporting the news instead of making it up.

Now if you think it's a mistake by one news outlet, it isn't

AP headline: Bush: Hezbollah Could Join Mainstream

CBC headline:President Bush says Hezbollah could be part of political mainstream in Lebanon

Only the BBC seems to get it right. Now granted in recent days the Bush administration has been supposedly quoted as putting out that message but as we can see it increasingly looks like a message being manufactured by a media sympathetic to terrorists or just trying to sabotage Bush any way they can even by making up the news Dan Rather style.

'Human rights activists', you know those people whose idea of human rights involves endorsing every terrorist group determined to kill their countrymen are screeching in absolute and utter horror because Russia will not be returning the body of a Chechen leader responsible for the massacre at Beslan among others.

Reuters aids and abets the screeching

Russian and foreign media raised questions over the manner of the veteran rebel's death and activists have slammed the decision to bury him in an unmarked grave...the....half-naked corpse has been shown repeatedly on television and critics say Russia's failure to treat him with dignity in defeat threatens to radicalise Chechen rebels further.

Well he staged massacres, blew up hospitals in command a terrorist group who took a school full of children hostage and killed and raped many of them. I think dumping him in an unmarked grave is the kindest thing the russians could have done. Stuffing him full of pig intestines and using him as a pinata would seem much appropriate.

But as usual the left wing which are the 'human rights activists and the media' find nothing too troubling in any of the above but showing him shirtless and dead on television, well good heavens. How can other human beings behave this way! The horror, the humanity!

and of course the usual excuse they come up with is, 'it may radicalize the terrorists' now presumably bombing Grozny into rubble would not radicalize the terrorists (those are terrorists not rebels you know), killing their leader would not radicalize the terrorists but dumping his body in an unmarked grave instead of returning it to their nest where they can build a shrine to him and inspire future generations of little chechenyans to don fur hats and go on killing sprees... that will radicalize the terrorists!

But analysts say the relative moderate's death could open the way for extremists to take full control of separatist forces.

So according to Reuters the guy who has schoolchildren raped and murdered is a moderate. Dare we ask what Reuters considers to be an extremist?

And activists say the decision to invoke Russia's anti-terrorism law and refuse to give his body for burial by relatives, who have already appealed for its return, is a violation of human rights. "We think the refusal to hand back the killed man's body to his relatives for burial is shameful," said a statement by a group of prominent Russian rights activists

No what's shamefull is that a man responsible for more deaths of children since any terrorist since Yasir Arafat is being coddled by the vomitious filth infesting western and now eastern societies that demand human rights for their monsters and none for their victims.

His death was not the result of an accidental clash, but, as the government has confirmed, the result of a well-prepared FSB operation. There is no doubt that the technical capabilities of the special forces would have allowed them to take him alive -- and he could have had a fair trial."

A trial with what possible purpose? To prove he was the leader of the Chechnyan terrorists? He gave interviews boasting of it? To prove the Chechnyan terrorists were responsible for the massacres they took credit for? What possible use would a trial be except publicity for those same terrorists?

"In the first place this is inhuman and immoral ... this is extra sorrow for the relatives because for Chechens burial is very important in the grieving process," said Tatyana Lokshina, who covers Chechnya for the Moscow Helsinki Group, Russia's oldest independent human rights organization.

Yes, the problem is his priority has been to bury others rather than keep himself alive. If he had spent less time engaged in inhuman and immoral terrorism, he would not need to be buried now. If he had cared more for his family he would still be alive today. Our pity should be reserved for the relatives of his victims, not the relatives of the killer who supported his murderous rampages all the way.

And more to the point in our culture, shooting the killers of our children and then treating his body like the garbage it is, is a very important part of the grieving process too and we kindly ask all human rights activists to respect that part of our culture.

See the story here

Day by day it seems our city's history is being carved up to the greediest buyer, now the Plaza Hotel is due to be gutted and its exterior preserved as a landmark while its interior becomes a retail center and condominums. New York deserves better and so does the Plaza. A community that does not protect its landmarks is doomed to become nothing more than a collection of chain stores and shopping malls and franchises. The Plaza is a part of the heart and soul of New York, to destroy it is a crime and to fight to protect it, is a duty. Especially in the aftermath of 9/11, it's important to protect what was left behind.

Go here to help

http://www.friendsoftheplaza.com

after all you know he would eat you if he could, alright ...so I'm setting my standards high but darn it, I'm hungry! Now if only I could find a Kosher lion....

(learn more about International Eat an Animal Day for Peta day here)

Shearith Israel was the only Jewish congregation in New York City from 1654 until 1825. During this entire span of history, all of the Jews of New York belonged to the congregation. Shearith Israel was founded by 23 Jews, mostly of Spanish and Portuguese origin. The earliest Jewish cemetery in the U.S. was recorded in 1656 in New Amsterdam where authorities granted the Shearith Israel Congregation "a little hook of land situated outside of this city for a burial place." Its exact location is now unknown. The Congregation's "second" cemetery, which is today known as the FIRST cemetery because it is the oldest surviving one, was purchased in 1683.

Built in 1683, this is the oldest Jewish cemetery in New York City.





You can see Shearith Israel's current synagogue site here http://www.shearith-israel.org

and learn more about the cemetery here http://www.sephardicstudies.org/csi11.html

This is Shearith Israel's second cemetery, the actual first cemetery of Shearith Israel has been lost so next time you're walking around Manhattan, look closely...

The good ole JP (Jerusalem Post) has an op-ed piece countering Michael Steinhardt's complaints that jews seem to prefer to fund Harvard over jewish charities. This is a rather noticeable phenomenon in which jews seem to prefer to fund anything and everything but actual jewish causes. The op-ed piece though first claims,

We need to stop treating philanthropy as a zero sum game. We're not talking about divvying up a single pie here. The totality of available Jewish philanthropic dollars is staggering. The reality is that there is no scarcity of supply or lack of money.

Alan Greenspan and most economists will be glad to hear that I'm sure being that they were under the false impresison that money was a limited commodity, however various neo-nazis and anti-semites will rejoyce to discover that what they thought was true, really was true all along and jewish money is unlimited.

Philanthropists are not ignoring Jewish causes because they have used up all their money with donations to Harvard. If someone endows a university program for millions of dollars, it's likely that he or she will move on to endow their next project. The challenge for us is to entice these philanthropists with creative, large projects that will attract their interest. They are ignoring specifically Jewish causes because we have not presented visions worthy of $100 million investments.

Essentially then 'selling' a philantropical project becomes a lot like making a movie, find a 'vision' worthy of the investment. Forget about helping people and find a 'creative' project. At some point not only did Hollywood celebrities get into philantrophy but they seem to have defined philantrophy on their own terms in which it is not the helping people part that matters but the vision you bring to the table.

Additionally, we need to begin a dialogue with those Jewish philanthropists who have generously funded higher education and the arts in America, while they have yet to engage formally in Jewish life.

Here's my idea of dialogue with them. Give to Tzeddakah or we'll set the Shmira guys on you!!!!

Rather than bemoan their generosity of spirit; we should celebrate the authentically Jewish impulse that has inspired them to use their capital to effect change and enhance society

I see little to celebrate in jewish millionaires who are prepeared to pay to provide food to hungry africans, hindus and thais and not to their fellow jews. Such a state of affairs is a fundamental failure, both ours and theirs. It is not philantrophy itself that is noble but the purpose and intentions behind it. Giving alone is not meaningfull, giving wisely and well is.

Do we want them to invest in the perpetuation of Judaism for Judaism's sake? To what end?

It's hard to find a clearer demonstration of the failure of jewish education then that the author has not only asked this question but doesn't know the answer. To what end do we perpetuate Judaism? To what end should we be jewish? Some communal leaders at least struggle to answer the question, Why Be Jewish, to others apparently it's a question not even worth answering except in the negative.

Tribalism is not a good sell and besides, increasingly, we are not their tribe. Jews today, and younger Jews especially, see themselves as members of multiple communities. We hope that they count ours as one of them. But to use that as a claim to their financial support often rings hollow to them.

Ah and we want what 'sells' and judaism just doesn't 'sell' neither does even jewish ethnic identity. The jews who began by discarding judaism have gone on to discard ethnicity too. Now they're members of 'multiple communities'. What are these other communities one wonders?

In former days it might mean secular nationalistic allegiances to the country. With the modern secular liberal jew this is unlikely so what's left? What are these other communities that being jewish is competiting with? Progressive? Gay and Lesbian? Jews for Jesus? Macaw Breeders Association of Connecticut? Jews for Progressive Gay and Lesbian Macaw Jesus breeders?

I am a strong supporter of the centrality of Jewish education, but we cannot keep sending messages to the next generation asking them to take seriously the tradition that many of us did not. Yes to greater funding for Jewish education. Far, far greater. But are we promoting it as a means or an end? There have to be current issues to struggle for that reach beyond memory on the one hand or the survival of future generations on the other.

Yes after all improving the next generation and making certain our children do better than us is completely incompatible with the whole principle of education, jewish and otherwise.

What current issues one wonders are there beyond jewish continuity, beyond the jewish people, beyond caring and building the next generation of jewish life?

The objective is not simply to get the gift, but to articulate a mission and reason that attracts new Jewish energy and excitement, the consequences of which will be enriching to American and world Jewry.

So what super-duper mission are we articulatin here? Saving the world from being destroyed by a giant falling tortoise? stopping lex luthor? Ressurecting the dinosaurs? Which of these missions is worthy of that 'newish jewish energy and excitement'?

We know the framework; it's that timeless notion of tikkun olam, the Jewish dictate to repair the world. The challenge is turning that from a bumper sticker into a viable action plan. Can an investment in Judaism lead to a profoundly better world for all of humanity?

Timeless of course meaning a few decades. since liberals tried to warp judaism into support for their progressive politics. And now we can see what it is that will enrich us and attract funding, 'making a better world for humanity'

His solution then to jewish philanthropists donating to non-jewish causes is to have jewish charities focus on non-jewish causes

Sadly though jewish charities have long ago come to this same conclusion, just look at the annual projects of the UJA as american jews continue their lemming-like rush away from judaism and into an embrace of a secular world that as in Germany in 1933 increasingly no longer wants them

Thank you so much for your readership and your support of my work.

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Daniel

My name is Daniel Greenfield. I am a  Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. And my journalistic beat at Front Page Magazine, its blog, The Point, and my own blog, Sultan Knish, is everything from Islamic terrorism in Argentina to leftist politics in America. 

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