Carob?!

Carob?!

If you get the impression that the title of this post has a bit of an outraged tone, you’re correct.

As a rule, I don’t like advertising much. I’m not referring to what I call “straight advertising,” the purpose of which is to let us know that a particular service or product is available. I think that’s fine. What I don’t like is hype, buzz, gonzo—all the sophisticated tricks of the advertising trade meant to persuade us that we cannot live without a certain item or that possessing said item will make us more beautiful, classy or sexy, automatically and effortlessly—all of which is merely a smoothed-over version of what I believe is the true oldest profession: separating people from their hard-earned cash. (Thank you, Mr. McTamaney and my high-school English teachers, for the unit you taught us about advertising techniques. I appreciate those classes to this day.)

This morning the local Yellow Pages held a promotion downtown. The idea is that if you give your name and phone number and answer some easy questions, you will be entered in a lottery whose prize is a kilogram (approximately 2.2 pounds, for my US readers) of solid gold. Usually I’m wary of giving my name to advertisers, but I figure that this is the Yellow Pages; they know where to find me anyway.

So what was it that outraged me so much? Was it the shameless promotion by a firm that puts out a gigantic book of advertisements every year? Could it have been the Gold Card included in every phone book that gets buyers benefits at various local companies? (Great, yet another ploy to get us to spend money we don’t have, says my cynical side; no, it’s a legitimate attempt to pick up business in an economically struggling city, says my charitable side.) Was it the loud Day-Glo yellow on the flyers and the uniforms of the intrepid and energetic young people who were hired, probably at minimum wage, to make the pitches?

It wasn’t any of that. It was the candy bar they handed out together with the information flyer as a further enticement to participating in their lottery—a deal-sweetener, if you will.

It looked like a chocolate bar. It felt like one. Yet when I looked for the name of a familiar candy firm on the label and didn’t find one, my cynical side came to the fore again, claiming that Israel Yellow Pages must have engaged some cheap, unknown candy company to make these bars, which were probably made of the lowest-quality chocolate they could possibly get away with.

I was wrong. It was worse.

I read the ingredients list in the small print on the back of the bar. The word “chocolate” wasn’t written anywhere. Not chocolate? Then what on earth is this? I wondered.

I blinked harder and looked again. And then I saw it.

Carob.

Carob?! These people were handing out carob bars as a promotion?

Now, I have nothing against carob. I have bought and eaten it willingly on occasion. One of the most unusual rice cakes I ever ate was coated with carob. It’s a gorgeous tree, and once I planted and grew carob seedlings in a pot, hoping to put them in the ground later on. (Unfortunately, I didn’t get to do it. They all died.)

Outraged as only a true chocolate addict can be, I looked more closely at the label on the candy bar. Sure enough, Israel Yellow Pages hadn’t violated any truth-in-advertising laws. They simply had not indicated what was inside on the front of the label, leaving that piece of supremely important information for the ingredient list with its teeny-tiny print. I couldn’t help but feel betrayed. Why did they do it? Why didn’t they tell us right off that they were handing us carob and not chocolate? Does Israel Yellow Pages have some secret interest in keeping consumers healthy without their realizing it? (I guess that makes sense. It benefits them to make sure we can consume in robust health for many decades to come.)

All right, fine, Israel Yellow Pages execs. Keep me healthy if you like, but at least be up front about it. The next time you hold a promotion downtown, hand out salads. (I prefer vinaigrette dressing, and hold the tomato.) Or, since winter is in full swing, give out bowls of hot vegetable soup. Hey, there’s an idea; treat me to the cream of broccoli or squash soup at the restaurant down the street and I’ll seriously consider buying whatever you’re selling, provided it’s not on the order of a Bentley.

But carob? Unmarked carob? That’s just plain sneaky. Even for an advertiser.

Cat on a Cold, Wet Roof

Cat on a Cold, Wet Roof

This is a story of a multinational cat rescue attempt. Don’t worry; it ends well: the kitty in distress ended up rescuing herself, and she’s fine.

The office of one of the jobs where I work is located in downtown Jerusalem, and many people of many different nationalities work there. Quite a few of them are cat-lovers, including the security guard, Itzik, who feeds the small group of cats who hang out near the front door. Like the biblical Adam, he has given all of them names. He knows the age and personality of each cat and can tell you how long a particular cat has been part of the group. I arrive for work about an hour before Itzik does and always see the cats waiting for him at the top of the stairs. I usually greet them by saying, “Hi, cats. Don’t worry; Itzik will be here soon.” (As if they didn’t know.)

Last week we had some high drama of the feline kind. Just as I completed my work for the day, I heard the mewing of a cat in distress in the stairwell. It turned out that one of the gang, Lady, a feral, pregnant tabby-and-white cat, had gotten into the building—and into a total panic. Though Lady comes willingly enough to eat the food that Itzik and the other workers bring for her and her friends, she is absolutely terrified of humans and won’t let anyone near her. Once she got into the building, rather than risk contact with a human she ran all the way up the stairs to the top floor, seeking a way out, and ended up on a window ledge four stories above ground level. (Fortunately the building has wide ledges, so there is plenty of room for cats to shelter outside the windows in the unlikely event that they should need to.)

What followed was the most multinational cat rescue attempt I have ever witnessed. “Lady, come here,” the Arab custodian called. “Careful, she may jump if we press her too closely,” an American translator warned. “She’s pregnant,” observed a journalist from the UK, as a Canadian office manager went out to see what he could do to help. Itzik, the Israeli security guard, couldn’t leave his post, but he kept up with all the details and told me the end of the story a few days later.

Lady had stayed on the roof for the better part of three days, mewing in desperate panic while stubbornly resisting all attempts by humans to rescue her. Finally, when Muhammad, the custodian, went back to the roof to try once more to approach her, in an attempt to avoid him she descended the outside of the building floor by floor, using the air conditioners as stepping stones. “She reached the ground safely,” Itzik told me, “and came to eat this morning with the other cats as though nothing had happened. Everyone was so relieved that she was safe.”

This gives me an idea. Maybe, when national leaders sit down to negotiate, there should be at least one cat in the room.

One Must Learn!

One Must Learn!

One of my hobbies is building websites. I have listed a few of mine on the sidebar. But since for me, site building is a hobby and not my profession as yet, I can’t devote the amount of time that I would need to become expert at it. Also, since it is not my profession as yet, I’m not in an environment where people are constantly talking about it and sharing information, so I don’t have as much of an opportunity to keep up with the changes that always seem to be happening in this field.

But I keep trying, and over the years I’ve been in contact with quite a few web designers. Without exaggeration, I’ve found that they are some of the nicest people around. They delight in sharing their layouts, designs and building tips with people they’ve never met, asking only for due credit in return. They’re good to newbies, too. A while ago an incredible young man from Chicago taught me a lot over several weeks. Today I got sweet replies from two very experienced, very high-powered designers about another question I had. One warned me that there were some problems with one of my sites, adding that sorry, he didn’t have time to check them out. That was fine with me, though. I’d rather break my head over my code. It’s tough, it’s frustrating, sometimes it makes me want to sob, “I’ll never get this!” But I always do in the end. It’s the best way to learn.

HTML Tidy is one example of how wonderful these folks are. It’s a service you can use to clean up your code for free. Someone spent (and still spends) hours writing it and put it up for everyone to use. Just like that. (Note to self: include HTML Tidy when counting blessings.)

So thanks to the tips I got from quite a few good people and the work of many others whom I may never meet, I can gladly report that these formerly problematic sites of mine now (mostly) validate. Yay! And when I need to update them again—as I will need to soon, since I recently discovered ways to get them out of cross-browser hell (oops, limbo)—I will go off and learn some more. That’s what it’s about, after all.

Thank you, Eric, Mike, Israel and all the other wonderful people from the various technical sites and e-mail lists who helped me out, today and in the past.

Azzam Azzam: Finally Free

Azzam Azzam: Finally Free

As part of a characteristically lopsided prisoner exchange deal with Egypt, Azzam Azzam is finally free.

In return, Israel released six Egyptian students who had infiltrated Israel for criminal purposes:

The six Egyptians were indicted in the Beersheba District Court in September on charges of infiltrating into Israel, planning to kidnap soldiers and negotiate their return in exchange for Palestinian prisoners, take control of a military tank, and rob a bank.

The six, students from Cairo, ranging in age from 25 to 30, were caught by border policemen three weeks ago near the southern town of Nitzana along the Egyptian-Israeli border equipped with knives and reconnaissance equipment.

The trumped-up charge against Azzam Azzam—that, as the manager of a textile factory in Cairo, he passed on Egyptian state secrets by soaking women’s underwear in invisible ink—was utterly ridiculous. The Egyptian students, on the other hand, actually committed the crimes for which Israel imprisoned them.

That’s just business as usual where Israel is concerned. But at least we can be grateful that an innocent man is at long last on his way home.

The Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs has a section on the arrest and trial of Azzam Azzam.

Savitsky Apologizes

Savitsky Apologizes

OU President Stephen J. Savitsky apologized for his insulting remarks about veteran American immigrants to Israel in an ad in the Jerusalem Post last Thursday.

I haven’t seen his apology, though I’ve heard mixed reviews about it.

I’m reserving judgment until I see it myself.

UPDATE: Here is the text:

I deeply regret the remarks I made concerning past motivations for aliya which were reported in the Friday, November 26 edition of The Jerusalem Post, and I apologize for them. I am sorry that these remarks, which were part of a lengthy discussion on aliya and many other topics, denigrated—albeit unintentionally—those who have made aliya over the years. As newly-elected President of the Orthodox Union, I will continue to acknowledge their courage and idealism, and to use their example to encourage others to follow in their footsteps. Indeed, promoting aliya was a key theme of our Convention in Jerusalem this past weekend.

I request mechila (forgiveness) from all whom I offended, and hope I may look forward to working closely with the entire community of olim to increase and enhance aliya in the future.

As David at Treppenwitz notes, Savitsky didn’t say what it was he meant to say in the first place, but as apologies go this one sounds fine to me.

Good News and Bad News

Good News and Bad News

I was originally going to title this post “All Dressed Up and No Place to Go.” Two brand-new radiator units were just installed in my apartment, and now all the radiators here are new. They look great and I don’t have to be afraid of leaks anymore (I hope). That was the good news.

The bad news was that our building had no heat until this morning.

Our pipes had rusted through, and repairs take time. So we had to wait, including through last week’s cold snap and rainstorms. I have a small heater which helped, but made for a shocking temperature change when I went from one room to another.

But that’s all over now. Thank goodness, our building now has heat. Good news indeed ... but the bad news is that our building fee has gone up by another hundred shekels per month in order to cover the cost of heating fuel.

I guess we’re doing our bit to keep things in balance.

Can We Please Lay Off Dina Already?

Can We Please Lay Off Dina Already?

I’m referring to the biblical Dina, the daughter of Leah and Jacob, who had the misfortune to be abducted and raped by Shekhem, the son of the local chieftain Hamor. Her story was part of last week’s Torah portion, and last Shabbat it made me do something I rarely do: lose my temper.

I was staying with old and dear friends, and it was lunchtime. Another guest and good friend of theirs, a teacher, sought to begin a conversation about Dina, citing the well-known commentary by Rashi on the first few words of her story, which begins “And Dina the daughter of Leah, whom she had borne unto Jacob, went out. ...” Rashi draws a parallel between Dina and her mother Leah, who had “gone out” a few chapters earlier to meet her husband Jacob. Like mother, like daughter, as the saying goes.

Commentators note that Dina is referred to both as Leah’s daughter and as Jacob’s daughter. The traditional take on this is that as Leah’s daughter, Dina was a yatz’anit (a gadabout), who went outside when she should have remained modestly at home. However, later on in the episode, when Dina’s brothers rescue her, she is referred to as Jacob’s daughter, meaning that though her body had been dishonored, her soul was intact and her allegiance was still to her father’s home. Well and good, but the implication is that what happened to her was her own fault. Had she stayed at home as a good girl should, this terrible thing would not have happened to her.

It’s the classic trial of the rape victim rather than the perpetrator. Shekhem? Oh, he wasn’t responsible. He saw a beautiful, holy young woman and couldn’t help himself. It was Dina’s responsibility to keep out of sight, and Jacob’s responsibility to make sure she stayed hidden. A well-known midrash even says that Jacob kept Dina in a special box for this purpose. (I strongly doubt that. Try getting into a box in this climate; with all the air-holes in the world, you wouldn’t last five minutes.)

Oh, did I mention that I lost my temper? Well, now you know why. I’d heard and read all this stuff before and had no desire to hear it again. Knowing that young girls are taught this in school as a matter of course didn’t help me to stay calm, either.

It will not be lost on students of the Torah that the reason Leah went out to meet her husband was specifically sexual—to tell him that he was to spend that night with her in exchange for a bargain she had made with her sister Rachel, who was also her co-wife. Leah’s reason for going out was completely legitimate; Jacob, after all, was her lawful husband and the father of her children.

Still, this unfortunate parallel between the mother and daughter who went out has lasted for generations and is still taken for granted. Leah went outside for a sexual reason; therefore her daughter, in taking after her mother, imbued her own going out with a sexual context whether she meant to or not. (And considering that she went out to visit the women of the land, it is clear that she did not.) In other words, according to this teaching, Dina was responsible on some level for Shekhem’s crime.

What’s the logic here? Do we say that theft victims subconsciously wanted to rid themselves of their possessions or that murder victims had a death wish? Of course not. Likewise the Torah, in exonerating a rape victim of all blame, explicitly compares the crime committed against her to murder :

But if the man comes upon the engaged girl in open country, and the man lies with her by force, only the man who lay with her shall die, but you shall do nothing to the girl. The girl did not incur the death penalty, for this case is like that of a man attacking another and murdering him (JPS translation).

“But you shall do nothing to the girl.” I wish the Torah had added: That includes bad-mouthing her for her misfortune over and over, for more than three thousand years after the fact.

The Torah’s analogy between rape and murder strengthens the assertion that rape is not a crime of uncontrolled sexual desire but rather one of violence. We also know that the reason abusers mistreat others has nothing to do with anything their victims may or may not have done. There is no issue of “deserving” here. Abusers abuse because they can.

In this case, Shekhem was the son of the local ruler, the equivalent of a prince. As such he had privileged status and could do whatever he wanted. In his time and place, women were considered fair game or, at best, were only as safe as their menfolk were powerful, a fact which unfortunately is still true in this very region. Shekhem saw Dina, wanted her and simply took what he wanted, knowing that his high status would protect him from punishment. The fact that his victim’s father was himself a man of rank may have added to the thrill: not only was he taking what he wanted, but he was taking a neighboring chieftain’s daughter to boot! An act that would mean death for any other man was just a youthful prank to him, one that he would certainly get away with. Boys will be boys, after all, and princes princes.

(The obvious modern parallel here is Qusay Hussein, younger son of Saddam, who used to order his guards to snatch young women off the street so he could rape them. He too was the son of a local ruler, and he too knew that he would never be called to account for his crimes against those unfortunate girls.)

What message are we giving to young Jewish women when we teach them that Dina was in any way responsible for the crime committed against her?

Make no mistake; we are doing exactly that. Young Jewish women are taught today that they must dress modestly lest they arouse men. Recently I heard the word “co-responsibility” used in this context; the idea being put forth was that women are “co-responsible” with men to make sure that the latter remain able to control their sexual impulses. Oh, really? Are men such poor, helpless creatures? Do they suffer from some inherent lack of self-control? Mature, sensible, decent people would never countenance such an idea. Impulses are one thing; actions are another.

Look at it this way. If a man is fired from his job because he performed badly or broke the rules, no one would disagree that he alone is responsible for his dismissal. If he has a gambling or drinking problem, we hold him responsible for his debts and behavior. Why are we so willing to diminish his responsibility if he violates another human being?

Here’s another point. Remember what I said about the attack in Beslan? Evil exists, people have free will and they can and do choose to do evil. But so great is our need for some sort of logic in our world that we figure there must be some justification for evil acts. For example, I have heard people say that Cain had a reason, however weak, for killing his brother. After all, you don’t kill someone for nothing. Abel must have done something—however small, however unwittingly—to provoke Cain to murder. Likewise the Jews of Europe must have committed some terrible sin in order to deserve what befell them during the Holocaust, and the United States must have done something bad to deserve the horror of 9/11.

Nonsense. Evil acts happen because people choose to commit them.

Judaism teaches that every person is responsible for his or her own actions. Therefore, when we seek to diminish Shekhem’s responsibility for his attack on Dina, we go against Jewish teaching. We also slander Dina and all victims of rape, and give a pass to Shekhem and all perpetrators. Shekhem chose to commit a crime of his own free will. Dina had the bad luck to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. That is unfortunate, even dangerous, but it is not a crime. Like so very many people throughout history, Dina suffered unjustly.

Shame on us that more than three thousand years later, we still haven’t figured that out. And shame on us that in the year 2004, we still can’t tell a victim from a perpetrator.

Thanks a Lot, Mr. Savitsky

Thanks a Lot, Mr. Savitsky

Stephen J. Savitsky, incoming president of the OU (Orthodox Union), has started his term of office by planting his foot squarely in his mouth. The Jerusalem Post quotes him as saying:

People are starting to go to Israel for the right reasons. Years ago aliya was for people who were running away from something. They weren’t successful. They didn’t have a successful marriage. They were coming because there was a reason. They weren’t role models.

But today I see really successful people. Young people. Doctors, lawyers, business people, finance people, who are giving it up not to come here to starve. Not to schnorr from their parents.

The very next line of the article reads: “Savitsky is a successful businessman.”

Well, bully for you, Mr. Savitsky. I suppose that in your book, only successful businesspeople and wealthy physicians, lawyers and finance people need apply. As for those of us who moved here because we wanted to fulfill the mitzvah of living in our Jewish homeland; who struggle under a tax burden among the highest in the world, working several jobs just to make ends meet; who moved here before Nefesh b’Nefesh was a gleam in anyone’s eye—I guess that as far as you’re concerned, we’re all a bunch of losers with failed lives who can all just crawl back into the woodwork.

You have just bad-mouthed most of my friends and acquaintances, who are some of the most accomplished, hardworking, menschlich people I’ve ever met. (Including one lawyer who has been happily married for nearly three decades and has married off three of his children within the past four years. But he is not rich, so I guess that for you he doesn’t count.) By your ill-considered and narrow-minded statement you have slung mud at—among others—every teacher, musician, artist, writer, editor, translator, store owner, computer technician and technical writer I know, who I dare say work harder than you can imagine for less than you would possibly want to.

Or can it be that the sort of people you described are the only American immigrants to this country that you ever met? If so, then I feel sorry for you—and I can also show you far better places to hang out.

(A personal aside: when I first came here, a friend of mine in the States, a religious man whom people would probably describe as “black-hat,” sent me a quote from a religious source comparing those who move to the Land of Israel to lions because of their courage. Unfortunately, I don’t remember the source of the quote offhand, but it was written a long time ago, when the journey to this country and life here were uncertain and dangerous. At the time that my friend sent me the quote, I thought it was a bit over the top. I didn’t see myself that way at all. Now, after living through more than four years of the terror war and nearly thirteen years of struggle, I can appreciate my friend’s gesture of encouragement far more deeply. So in case you ever see this blog, ZM, I still remember, and thank you.)

But as for you, Mr. Savitsky: how can you dare to claim to represent the Orthodox Jews in this country after you have slandered them so badly? On a more personal level, by your lashon ha-ra you have just made sure that my chances of joining the OU are absolutely nil. If I ever had any question as to whether the OU represents me, the answer is now as clear as can be.

We long-time immigrants to this country need hizuk [encouragement] more than anything, Mr. Savitsky, but apparently you’re too dense to notice that. If you hope to salvage this situation at all, then the best thing you can possibly do is to take responsibility for your statement and issue a clear and honest apology for it without insulting our intelligence by claiming, for example, that you were quoted out of context.

One final note, sir: our Sages praised silence, calling it precious and a fence for wisdom. Too bad you didn’t listen.

(For more takes on Steven J. Savitsky’s unfortunate statement, check out Allison Kaplan Sommer at An Unsealed Room, David at Treppenwitz, Sarah, Alisa, Jeff and Dave. Nathan’s take is a bit different.)

Post for a Rainy Monday Evening

Post for a Rainy Monday Evening

Strengthen the Good: Alan of Strengthen the Good tells us about a new opportunity to do good. Want to help Slovakian teenagers at the C. S. Lewis Bilingual Gymnazium in Bratislava learn English? Send ’em some books. Find out more at Strengthen the Good, or at Meryl’s.

Rain, Rain, Rain: It’s been coming down heavily today—rain, occasional hail, followed by more rain. I had some internal rain this morning, too: the radiator in my bedroom sprang a leak. My landlord has replaced nearly all the radiators here over the past several years as they burst one by one, so in order to avoid any additional nasty surprises we’ve decided to replace not only this one but also the remaining one that hasn’t drenched my floor yet. An ounce of prevention and all that—and now all the radiators in this apartment will be of uniform style. Does wonders for the decor, you know.

The winter rains in Israel also mean that we Israelis resume one of our favorite spectator sports: watching the water level of the Kinneret. (Sometimes that sport can be quite a nail-biter. Really.) Thanks to the wonders of the Internet, now everyone can join in! Although the text is in Hebrew, the diagram and the numbers are clear and accessible, and I wouldn’t miss that rubber ducky for the world.

Our local cold snap has another benefit: getting rid of the locusts that have been plaguing us over the past few days.

The wind is blowing, I’m all bundled up even indoors and snow is forecast for the north. Time to go make some soup.

He’s Dead, Jim

He’s Dead, Jim

Well, that’s it. Yasser Arafat is officially, indubitably, absolutely, merely and most sincerely dead. Finally.

And an ignominious end it was, too, with his estranged wife and cronies haggling over his (stolen) millions as his body remained hooked up to life-support equipment.

Even that was better than he deserved. But he’s gone. Good riddance to very bad rubbish.

For those who take issue with that statement, here is just one thought:

Why did Arafat have to go to Paris for treatment? With all the billions of dollars flowing into the Palestinian Authority from western countries since the days of Oslo, why wasn’t there a top-notch medical center right there in Ramallah? Where did all that money go?

And that’s without mentioning the thousands of murders he and his gang committed and the governments they tried to destabilize. There are plenty of articles about that for those who are interested (or who need a little waking up).

Meryl Yourish has a concise, comprehensive round-up of Arafat’s legacy of terrorism and murder. Honest Reporting has a short video on Arafat’s Dark Legacy.

As far as I am concerned: Arafat is gone, and now there is a little less evil in the world.

It’s Official

It’s Official

It’s official. Bush has won.

Congratulations, Mr. President. And good luck.

Nu, So Who Won?

Nu, So Who Won?

The morning after, and it’s still not clear who won the election. (Rats. I never did enjoy suspense.)

Here’s some information about the electoral college and how it works.

In other, much smaller news: the Leader Minyan’s website has moved to its new server. No more advertisements. Yay.

For the Sake of Accuracy ...

For the Sake of Accuracy ...

Turns out that Mr. Moral Equivalence, who I thought was from France, is not from there after all. My bad; I made an assumption based on his name. But he still equates Israeli self-defense with Palestinian terrorism and, inter alia, asks the following:

Wasn’t everything pretty much settled after Oslo and util [sic] Sharon decided that there was not enough blood in the region anymore?

Oh, so it’s all Sharon’s fault, is it? If you read a bit of history, you’ll find that the Palestinians began the present terror war against us in the fall of 2000 after Ehud Barak offered them everything and Arafat walked away. Sharon wasn’t even in office then. Or is that distinction perhaps a bit too fine for those who delight in blaming Sharon for everything that’s gone wrong, regardless of the facts?

In case you’re referring to Sharon’s visit to the Temple Mount: wrong.

And as for the idea that after Oslo everything was “pretty much settled”: wrong again.

Finally, there’s this gem:

When Palestinian children are shot by the Israelian [sic] army, isn’t it as much terrorism as when Israelian children are killed by Palestinian suicide bombers?

Oh, is that what’s going on? You could have fooled me.

Palestinian gunmen planted mines and fired automatic rifles and homemade anti-tank shells during the intense fighting. In one incident, gunmen surrounded by children and teens set up a grenade launcher in an unpaved alley, waiting for a target.

Now, I wonder: why would those “gunmen” be so careful to surround themselves with children? Could it possibly be that they use children as cover because they know the IDF will do everything in its power to avoid shooting at them? (Unfortunately, accidents do happen. But that is precisely the point: they are accidents, while Palestinian terrorists deliberately target civilians and children.)

On the other hand, it’s a sure bet that the sixteen-year-old terrorist who killed three people and wounded dozens at Tel Aviv’s Carmel Market yesterday was taught that all Jews are the enemy: soldiers, shoppers, babies. No difference, no distinctions. And he himself was undoubtedly taught that the highest and best thing he could possibly do with his life was to end it while killing as many Jews as possible.

And that’s the end of my debate with Mr. Moral Equivalence, folks. I don’t have the time or the energy to teach remedial current events.

In other, sadly related news, filmmaker Theo van Gogh was murdered today for criticizing Islam.

Enough of this. It’s getting too depressing. I think I’ll watch some election coverage and go to bed, and wake up in the morning to find out who our new President is.

Rain, Rain, Welcome Back

Rain, Rain, Welcome Back

As everyone here knows but doesn’t like to admit—particularly when we want to wash our cars or water our lawns—Israel suffers from a perennial water shortage. That’s one of the reasons why rain is such a big deal here. On the day of the first rainfall, Israel Radio broadcasts popular songs that mention rain one after another, for hours on end. Throughout the winter there are continuous reports on the amount of rainfall and the level of the Sea of Galilee, and all year round the radio carries public-service messages about the urgent need to conserve water. Rain is also considered a sign of Divine blessing (and the lack of it the opposite), and in a tradition that goes back to Mishnaic times the rabbis declare a day of fasting and prayer if rainfall is scarce.

I didn’t know any of this years ago, though—for example, a few years out of college, when I was corresponding with an Israeli pen pal who was about my age. During the winter he began every letter with one of the following sentences: “It rained today” or “It didn’t rain today.” Back then, living as I was in upstate New York, where water is hardly an issue and rain is abundant all year round (and perhaps also because my visits to Israel up to that point had all been in the winter), I couldn’t understand why my friend began all his letters with a precipitation report. But once I moved here it became clear enough. One Israeli summer with its relentless heat and sun beating down from skies that hardly see a single cloud from May until October was all the lesson I needed.

Today was the first real rain of the season. There was a dress rehearsal last night, complete with thunder and lightning, but not much rainfall. But as they say in the theater business, a bad dress rehearsal usually means a good performance, and this morning’s show more than made up for the disappointing run last night. At work we noticed the sky getting darker and darker, and finally, wonderful to relate—a real, live, honest-to-goodness downpour.

Israeli weather changes quickly, though. The sun came out and competed with the clouds for a while, and on my way home from work I got caught in a sunshower. But when the heavy cloud-cover and downpour came back for an encore a few hours later, I was safe at home, watching the cascading sheets of rain from the comfort of my living room.

Welcome back, rain. You were missed.

Movin’ On Up

Movin’ On Up

Today was a good day. I moved two of my sites to an advertisement-free server. It took hours, as I figured it would, but it was worth every second.

So if you want to visit the International On-Line Directory of Women’s Tefilla Groups or the site of my own tefilla group, Shirat Sara, you won’t have to deal with advertisements anymore and, best of all, I won’t have to deal with them messing up the display.

A third site will be moved just as soon as one small bug is corrected. I can’t wait.

Another project that I’m involved in is also moving along nicely. I’ll write about that when it’s done, and available.

For now, it’s time for bed. (Even though it’s Friday and many Israelis no longer work on Fridays, I have work tomorrow—at six a.m.)

In Memory of Mindel

In Memory of Mindel

Recently a “moral equivalence” type from France (!) responded to what I said here about choosing evil after the massacre in Beslan and tried to justify it by saying that the Russians had done horrible things in Chechnya. He equated Israel’s acts of self-defense with Palestinian terrorism, saying that their side has homemade weapons while ours has helicopters, that our acts of self-defense are really state terrorism by a country that calls itself a democracy but is really not, and so on and so forth. I thought of how Meryl and Lair handle people who spew this swill and did my best. My only criticism would be that I was probably a bit restrained. Still, it’s so depressing sometimes. There is so much falsehood out there and so many people willing to swallow it whole with their eyes tightly shut. From this side, it feels like bailing an ocean liner with a thimble.

Two nights ago a close friend of mine took me to see a documentary film called “Menuha’s Last Scene.” Made by a young man named Layzie Shapira, this remarkable project is actually a film within a film: a documentary about Menuha, an amazing and gifted Israeli woman originally from Poland who started making films when she was more than seventy years old. Shapira follows Menuha as she makes a film depicting the most tragic scene of her life, which took place in 1935, when she was five years old, several years before Germany invaded Poland. Her father had gone to pre-state Palestine to make a place for his family but was only able to get enough immigration certificates for his wife and two of their three daughters. Her mother, faced with the horrific choice of which daughter to leave behind, left Menuha’s eleven-year-old sister, Mindel, with her grandmother, intending to send for her as soon as she could. Events—including, eventually, World War II—intervened and the family couldn’t get their remaining daughter or the grandmother out of Poland. They were murdered shortly after the German invasion.

Menuha’s film consists of only one scene: the parting at the train station in Warsaw, where Mindel is told that she will have to remain behind with her grandmother. It is a tribute to Mindel and is heartbreaking to watch.

The surrounding documentary focuses on the making of Menuha’s film: the auditions, the production work, the trip to Poland, the actual filming. The actors showed a deep emotional connection to the story, some of them weeping as they auditioned and again as they made the film. (Considering that all the actors are from Israel, it is possible that something similar may have happened in their own families.) During one scene when Menuha discusses filming at a local train station with an official of Israel Railways, I was struck by the irony of using an Israeli train station and locomotive to film the family’s traumatic parting from Mindel at that train station in Warsaw. In another scene at Yad Vashem’s documenting center, Menuha finds a photograph of Mindel which was taken four years after that terrible and final separation and which she had never seen. For the first time, Menuha has evidence that Mindel went on with her life, however briefly, after the train left without her. But her wonder and delight at seeing the photograph mix quickly with the pain and loss that have accompanied her all her life.

My friend, a filmmaker herself, cried throughout. So did I.

And this fellow from France (and who knows how many others like him) says that defending ourselves constitutes terrorism. Chalk up another one who, at best, closes his eyes and swallows all the propaganda offered to him without bothering to check facts or think for himself, and at worst ... see below.

UPDATE: Yedi’ot Aharonot’s daily magazine contains a feature about Menuha’s film. I looked for it on their site but didn’t find it. So far it appears to exist only in print, but I hope that many more people will soon write about this film. Here are items about it in English and in Hebrew.

UPDATE: Standwithus.org has preliminary reports from the Duke conference. Look carefully. For these people, there is no such thing as co-existence. They say that Israel should not exist, that the Jews should not have a state ... in other words, that Mindel and her grandmother should not have been the only ones of that family to die.

Well, at least they’re honest about it. No moral equivalence there.

Strengthen the Good

Strengthen the Good

Alan at Strengthen the Good writes:

How’s this for fighting evil by doing something good: claiming the bodies of abandoned infants ... those left in dumpsters, bathrooms, or by the side of the road ... and giving them names and dignified burials.

That’s what Debi Faris does, and her Garden of Angels effort is the latest charity profiled by Strengthen the Good.

After checking the site, I would add that Ms. Faris has carried her original initiative to even greater heights by getting a law passed that helps prevent such tragedies from happening in the first place.

Kol ha-kavod, Ms. Faris. Well done.

Strengthen the Good

Strengthen the Good

Strengthen the Good has posted about another charitable organization: The Brent Woodall Foundation for Exceptional Children.

This charity was founded by an exceptional woman, Tracy Woodall, whose husband Brent was among those murdered at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.

I’m thinking now of two other charitable organizations that came out of painful, challenging situations. One is Keren Malki, which works to provide home care and equipment for severely handicapped children. Keren Malki is named for Malka Chana Roth, a teenager who was murdered in the bombing of the Sbarro restaurant in Jerusalem on August 9, 2001. The other is Israemploy, which works to combat the current economic crisis here in Israel by helping people find jobs. Founder Chaim runs an active e-group that lists hundreds of jobs per week.

As the Jewish New Year approaches, may we know only good. As the traditional prayer says, “Let the old year and its curses end; let the new year, with its blessings, begin.”

Excuse Me—Where Did You Say You Were From?

Excuse Me—Where Did You Say You Were From?

While looking up the statistics for my various sites this evening, I discovered that Shirat Sara’s website received a visitor recently ... from Saudi Arabia.

Shirat Sara is a women’s prayer group. A Jewish women’s prayer group. That’s already two strikes against us. Three if you count the prayer bit; though some Moslem countries have women imams, I don’t think the KSA is one of them. (Heck, even some of our fellow Jews think we’re radical. We’re not, actually, and we might even fit in a tiny drop in the KSA because some of us wear these long, tasselled veil-type garments when we pray.)

Seriously: Saudi Arabia doesn’t allow the free exercise of any religion but Islam within its borders. Betcha our site will soon find itself banned over there.

Choices

Choices

There’s something really disturbing about us Westerners. We don’t seem to be comfortable with the concept of evil. Whenever we hear about an abused spouse or child, or about dozens of innocent civilians being blown up on buses, or about thousands of people killed in one day on hijacked airplanes and in the buildings at which those airplanes were deliberately aimed, we find excuses for the perpetrators. Abusers were themselves victims of abuse, we say, so they couldn’t help themselves. And terrorists—or “freedom fighters” as they are misnamed by those who make excuses for them—were made so desperate by the oppression they suffered that they had no other choice. Since the perpetrators couldn’t possibly be evil, then surely the victims must have done something to deserve their fate.

Bull.

We always have a choice between good and evil. People who do the kinds of things mentioned above do so because, for whatever reason and for whatever length of time, they have chosen evil. And they are responsible for that choice.

By the standards of those who would justify terrorists and mass murderers, we Jews have the perfect excuse to have invented the explosive belt. We have been persecuted for centuries, enduring stunning hatred, massacres of entire communities over false accusations, laws forbidding us to own land and restricting where we could live, in what trades we could engage, how many of us could receive an education and even how many of us could marry. By the misguided standards of those who excuse terrorism and its perpetrators we have every reason to be angry, and to kill for our anger. Yet, as a people, we never have. Instead we have contributed far more to human civilization than our tiny share of the population. (Just take a look at the list of Jews who have won Nobel Prizes and think how much more we could have accomplished if we hadn’t had to cope with two thousand years’ worth of hatred, incitement, restrictions and murder.)

That’s because early in our history, we learned that no matter what happens to us, we must always take responsibility for our choices. Playing victim is never an option. God gave us an explicit choice between life and good, and death and evil, and told us clearly: Choose life.

But that’s just one example. Every human being makes the choice between good and evil every moment of every day. The scum who took over the school in Beslan, torturing and murdering hundreds of people, including more than one hundred fifty children, made their choice. And in that scene of unrelenting horror one courageous man, Yannis Kanidis, an elderly teacher of Greek extraction, made his.

Read about this extraordinary man here.

May he rest in peace.