I saw this news report the other day and was a combination of impressed and amazed by the background.

The report was about a diamond mining company, called Shefa Yamim, being merged with another company. They themselves have unsuccessfully tried to go public in the past.

The background mentioned in the newspaper is that Shefa Yamim was established by a Chabadnik  based completely on the fact that the Lubavitcher Rebbe had said, and they quote "In Haifa there is a sea. People should not be concerned that it is deep - that is the uniqueness of Haifa - that it has a sea and that it has depth and in that depth there are very valuable stones. Hashem did an amazing thing: He hid them there, in the depths underground, deep in the river."

The company, Shefa Yamim, believes the rebbe's words to mean the presence of diamonds in the area of Nahal Kishon, which is actually south-east of Haifa close to Afula.

I am both amazed and impressed by this. Amazed and impressed that they would invest all that money to explore for diamonds and other fancy stones based only on the word of the rebbe. I hope they find it and their emunas chachomim is validated.

Holy Smoke is not the first to offer such a service of converting your dead relatives into a usable item. Before Holy Smoke there was LifeGem. LifeGem converts dead people into diamonds. These companies are providing the ultimate recycling service.

Of course, if you don't want to use your dead relatives, you can buy diamonds and jewelry at great prices at Zoara..

I am not sure what the significance of this is. This guy has this diamond that has a cloud inside that displays the Star of David because of it's shape.



Arutz 7 has the background on the 8.53 carat diamond:

The owner of the diamond wants his name kept away from the public eye, a relative told Israel National News. He said that experts told the owner, "If this is natural, go buy a Mercedes.”

However, realizing the significance of the discovery, the owner wanted it used for Jewish purposes and gave Rabbi Cohen, founder of Hidabroot, exclusive use for revealing it, hoping it will help promote his book “HaTzofen” – the secrets behind the Hebrew language. The diamond "is not for sale" and will remain in a safe.

Rabbi Cohen's book includes a chapter on the Star of David and its significance in Judaism, noting that the six-pointed star represents the six days of Creation before the Sabbath.

The relative of the owner, who moved to Israel in 1948, explained that diamond experts initially insisted that the jewel had to be man-made and that it was virtually impossible that it was a natural creation. However, the relative of the diamond’s owner said that leading gemological groups, including those in Zurich and the United States, verified its authenticity.

He told Israel National News that the story behind the discovery began during the financial crisis two years ago, when the diamond business was faltering. The raw material had been bought from a merchant in a country in South America approximately 10 years ago. During the crisis, when there was little work, the relative found work at a firm and was told to make diamonds from the bag of raw material that had been untouched.

The finished products brought in little money, but there were two stones still unpolished. Rejecting advice to simply sell the remaining raw material, the employer of the polisher was told to work on the last two diamonds.

“I did it carefully, and I saw that in one of them there was a design of the Star of David,” the relative said. “It was not clear in the beginning, but after polishing it again and again, it was clearer than ever."

Again, I have no idea what the significance of finding a diamond with a Star of David inside is...To me this seems like the famous Grilled Jesus Sandwich and the Virgin Mary Oil Spill... Any suggestions?

I saw this story last night on Twitter, and it is crazy stories like these that make Twitter worth it (aside from the great conversation, of course).

The NY Post reported yesterday that 2 people were arrested for their part in a staged diamond heist in 2008.

These two guys, their names sound Indian to me, posed as Hassidic diamond merchants to get into the building. They then went up and staged a heist following a script out of a movie (Snatch) that was about a diamond heist.

It turns out that the whole thing was a sham, the owners had already cleared out the safe, and had hired these guys to stage the heist so they could make an insurance claim.

I left my office today to go to our nearby factory. As I leave the building, I see right across the street a crowd of people with 4 police cars. A lot of activity. I hesitate, not knowing if their was a car accident there, if someone got hurt, a chefetz chashud (suspicious object that night be a bomb) or any one of many other possibilities.

I look around for a minute and decide to keep going. I walk through the crowd. Everyone is talking to each other. It was a crowd of about 20 people standing on a corner outside of the entrance to 3 different (open air)parking lots mingling with policemen. Then I see sitting on the side a woman who looks distraught. She has somebody holding a newspaper over her head to shield her from the light drizzle that had just begun and she was talkign to a policewoman.

As I passed by I looked and did not see her injured, as I still thought maybe a car had hit someone (and I missed the ambulances), and still had no idea what was going on.

I kept going and got to my location. Someone there who came in after me told me that there had been a robbery. The woman I had seen had been attacked and robbed of the merchandise (diamonds) she had been carrying.

There is all sorts of talk of an inside job. Why did the attacker pick her out of the crowd of people? It happened at a time when a lot of people show up for work and there were other people around. Was she randomly selected or did someone tell someone she was leaving the building with merchandise? Was she part of it? The goods were insured, so was an insurance scam involved? Nobody knew details, but lots of rumors are going around.

As I passed by the location again on my way back to the office, things had quieted down and the area had cleared. There was only one policeman left talking to a parking lot attendant about which was the attacker might have gone.

But as I am walking by, I start thinking. What would I have done had I been there 10 minutes earlier? If I walked out just in time to witness the event, what would I have done. The images roll through my mind like a Bruce Willis action film and I picture myself seeing the event unfold, realize what is happening and be aware enough to jump the guy and pound him until he is bloody and can't walk and hand him off to the police.

Then I think I probably would not have registered in my brain what was goign on until it was too late. Even if I had realized in time, I probably would have frozen. Even if not, I probably would have been too slow and stunned to actually even attempt to stop the guy and probably would have gotten hurt in the process of trying...

Ahhhh... our dreams are so much more pleasant. Do all guys imagine the Bruce Willis action movie reaction?