In last night's special Knesset session discussing the new tax on disposable paper goods, MK Yisrael Eichler (UTJ) pointed out some statistics regarding this issue.
According to what Eichler said, the official stats say that 9% of the State being Haredim are consuming 27% of the disposables. Eichler pointed out that this means more than 70% of the pollution is being caused by the non-Haredim using disposables.
Yet Eichler, and MK Gafni as well in his speech, went on to say that the tax is directed specifically at the Haredi community.
So, if 73% of the consumption of disposable goods is in the general public, and everyone has to pay the tax on disposable goods, not just Haredim, how exactly is the tax directed specifically at the Haredi community? Yes, Haredim use a lot of disposable goods and will suffer financially from the new tax - but so will everyone else, as the rest of the country uses these disposables as well, even if Haredi are punching above their weight in this realm. This tax hurts everyone, not just Haredim even though they made it personal. You can debate whether it is worthy tax or not, whether the State should be educating or training its citizens in proper behavior via taxes or not, but it is not a tax on Haredim, it is a tax on everyone.
We see this again and again. Haredi MKs telling others MKs or Ministers with whom they have disagreements that they aren't Jewish, or aren't religious, and should take off the kipa from their heads.
After the initial attacks after the formation of the new government have settled down somewhat, last night in a special Knesset session for discussion of the new tax on disposable paper goods MK Yaakov Litzman (UTJ) attacked MK Gilad Kariv (Labor). Litzman said Kariv, a Reform rabbi, is a priest, not a rabbi, and should take off his kipa, he is a goy.
First, humorously, plenty of priests also wear a kipa. Just look at the Pope.
Second, agree or disagree with whoever you want on policy or lifestyle or whatever, but what Litzman said, and what other Haredi MKs have said several times to Bennett and others in the government since it was formed, "take off your kipa" or "you are a goy", shows, I think, exactly why they needed some time away from controlling the religious services of the country, or even their influence on the government. They feel that only they get to decide what Judaism is, how it is defined, and who qualifies to be a member. Disagree with Kariv, disagree with Reform Judaism (as has always been the case), disagree with Bennett, disagree with Matan Kahane, but you dont get to decide who is a Jew, who is a goy and who gets to wear a kipa. The Haredi community, or the Haredi politicians, aren't the owners of Judaism and don't get to decide who can be a member and who cannot.
Congrats to Yeshiva University men’s basketball team for 50 consecutive wins, the longest active winning streak in men’s college basketball. https://t.co/1E6f3dMKLe
— NBA (@NBA) December 27, 2021
Dr. Goldmeier manages an investment firm, a former Research and Teaching Fellow at
Harvard University, and teacher to international university students in Tel
Aviv. He served in the administrations of
US governors and the Surgeon General. Goldmeier a commerce and industry
consultant, writer, and public speaker.
No More Border Mentality
The butterfly teaches us how the world is changing. Their language might
save our planet. We have to appreciate their importance to the human food
chain.
Military security is no longer bound to physical borders or magic marker lines
on maps. Mass migrations, terrorists, satellites, rockets, and drones reveal
the anachronism of borders. Assuredly, there are doctors without borders,
lawyers without borders, libraries without borders. The Internet demolished
intellectual border hegemony.
Do you know who else ignores borders? Butterflies, moths, and honeybees
migrate across man-made borders. These tiny insects know no bounds.
I realized the threat to the world food chain a decade ago. Mass crop
displacement happens when honeybees disappear. Butterflies and moths are under
threat. Food shortages and high food prices undermine national security.
I wrote about the situation in The Jerusalem Post after interviewing
Professor Chancing (Alex) Lu of the Harvard School of Public Health. Folks at
Hebrew University’s Triwaks Bee Research Center (see The Robert H. Smith
Faculty of Agriculture, Food and Environment) are leaders in this field of
research.
Wendy Williams explains it all in a luscious, readable, scientifically
informative book, The Language of Butterflies: How Thieves, Hoarders,
Scientists, And Other Obsessives Unlocked The Secrets Of the World’s Favorite
Insect (Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2021). She laces her love for the
beauty and majesty of butterflies with science. This science journalist “was
never again so deliciously, so exquisitely, so naively shocked” about art and
color until she entered the world of butterfly obsession.
She describes in 200 pages her Lepidoptera epiphany. “An entire universe
opened to me. I learned that the language of butterflies is the language of
color. They speak to each other using that flash and dazzle.”
Science and Sex
These six-legged creatures and a proboscis revolutionized our understanding
of nature.
“Today (they) are helping us in many practical ways, improving our own lives
by providing surprising new models for medical technology.”
My son breathes easier with bio-designed devices because of what we learned
from butterfly scales. Studies of the monarch and painted lady butterflies
teach scientists about maximizing the capillary force of the proboscis to
transport columnar liquids.
The science of sex has seldom been more intimately described: “The proboscis
is where the rubber meets the road. Where insect and flower join together in
joyful partnership. It’s a marriage not just of convenience, but of sustenance.
Flowers, with their alluring scents and sweet nectary, tempt the insects to
come hither. The insects, while obtaining nectar (or “nectaring…) inadvertently
obtain pollen, which they obligingly but unintentionally carry to the next
flower, so that the flower is fertilized by a new set of genes.”
Some butterflies change their colors to avoid being eaten by predators.
Caterpillars eat poisonous plants they can digest to keep their predators at
bay. An Indian butterfly can disguise itself as a dried-up old leaf. When it
opens its wings, “blue colors flash and dazzle in the sunlight, along with wide
stripes of gaudy orange.”
Butterfly-inspired structural designs millions of years old led a NASA scientist
to “discover” the gyroid. Built from lightweight materials, it allows for
almost infinite energy flow. The work of naturalist and artist Maria Sibylla
Merian led to Newton’s prism separating light into a rainbow of colors. “A team
of Australian scientists has already mimicked this butterfly’s gyroid to create
a human-made 3-D structure… for use in computer technology by replacing
soldering boards.”
Williams includes 34 color pictures that illuminate the text. She laces the
book with stories about scions and raconteurs who buy, sell and steal
butterflies. The stories add spice and amusement.
A World Without
Williams warns their populations are precipitously dropping. Loss of their
esthetic value is criminal. “The disappearance of butterflies would be a
planetary disaster.”
Butterflies went extinct in Britain in 1979 and nearly so in Europe. 35
years passed before butterfly friends turned things around. America, once home
to marauding swarms of butterflies, is down in great numbers. Butterfly migrations
are not rote like birds. Butterflies integrate climatic changes into their
behavioral decisions.
Butterflies and moths find refuge around Mount Hermon in Israel. We stuffed
the coast and central parts of the country with forestation, farms, industrial
centers, and housing-office developments. It is unfortunate that with 93% of
the land of Israel in the public domain, only 14 species of butterflies and
moths are under protection.
The Takeaway
Butterflies, moths, and honeybees need substantial wetlands, nectar-filled
fields of flowers, and milkweed to thrive and survive. They have hardy survival
skills in managing predators and climate changes.
It is whimsical that Israelis have any patience for building an
environmental protection agenda with all on the plate. Yet, it makes perfect
sense. Every inch of land is holy, contested, and the fruit of raging battles
between militaries, developers, naturists, and farmers.
Wendy Williams offers a fascinating tale of human-nature interaction set
around one of God’s most beautiful creations. She advocates for them in the
most romantic and captivating language. Who can think of a butterfly and not
smile? I smiled often reading The Language of Butterflies.
.
"את ראש הממשלה היית פוגש ככה כשאתה בסנדלים?" היו שואלים אותנו בתפילה, חרדים עם פרצוף חמוץ.
— אריה יואלי (@aryeyoeli) December 12, 2021
אז הנה.
תודה לך השייח' עבדאללה בן זאיד, שהראית שאפשר. pic.twitter.com/WckMtt7stt
It is not every day you see such honor bestowed upon a Jewish and/or Israeli leader by Arabs/Muslims, let alone Arab heads of state...
And I love the swords...