We have all sorts of days to commemorate things, whether national or international days, such as Talk Like a Pirate Day, Eat Ice Cream for Breakfast Day, Hot Dog Day, and many more. Some ignore them, some dont even know about them, some commemorate the ones that are representing issues close to their hearts, some celebrate with the ones they like (who cant get behind eating ice cream for breakfast?)...

Just yesterday Minister of Economics and Trade Naftali Bennet announced that the government will be allocating 500,000,000 NIS for the project of integrating Haredim into the workforce.

Bennet pointed out that 30% of the 1st graders in the Israeli school system are Haredim. Without this process of integration, the economy will eventually collapse. This issue is even more important than the issue of integration into the army (something, by the way, that I have said all along).

Recognizing that there are cultural, social and [lack of] training impediments preventing the smooth integration, Bennet's plan will be three-pronged:
1. a type of absorption center for Haredi employment. A young Haredi looking for work or training will go to one of these centers and receive all the direction he or she needs - training, leads for employment, etc.
2. a significant portion of the budget will be directed towards actual training in all facets necessary, be it English, vocational or whatever.
3. creating a demand among employers for hiring Haredi employees - in order to break the "glass ceiling" and get employers over their fear of hiring Haredim. While not stated, I assume an example of this would be tax breaks for employers hiring Haredim or other such benefits.

It sounds like a great project for the government to be spending money on, significant money, and something like this can really make a difference and solve problems.

But then I saw the comments about this made by MK Erel Margalit (Labor). Even though Margalit is part of the Labor party, I have great respect for him as the founder of JVP and in general a hi-tech entrepreneur. While not knowing too much about his belief in economic policy, I don't imagine him being one with socialist-leaning policies in the tune of the standard representative of the Labor party.

MK Margalit commented that the Haredim are not an economic burden, but an economic resource and their integration into the workforce should be a national priority, and it is great that Bennet is focusing on such a project.

Margalit says - let's look at the numbers of such a plan:
* 500,000,000 NIS over 5 years is being allocated for this project.
* that 100,000,000 per year
* for 100,000 Haredim
* meaning, the investment per Haredi citizen is 1000 NIS per year
* that comes to 83 NIS per month

As Erel Margalit puts it, the government investment in this project, when the numbers are drilled down, is 3 portions of falafel, with soda, per person each month.

a plate?

While the direction is great, with this being a national priority, significant budgets should be poured into it. To have a significant affect on the issue and make real change on the Israeli economy and on Israeli society, the State should be pouring 7 billion shekels, along with the business sector, into this project!

Margalit even says this would even bring 2.5 billion shekels back into the State coffers in the next 5 years, and another 3.5 billion every year after that, and that is without calculating into the equation the savings on welfare and the other stresses on the economy we currently deal with on this issue).

3 falafels with soda? While a lot of business can be done over a lunch meeting, I believe Margalit is correct that it is going to take more than a few falafels to deal with this seriously.

This is amazing! Who involved in the corporate rat race has not dreamed of doing something similar?

Globes has the story of a senior manager in the Hi-Tech industry who gave it all up and opened up a falafel stand.

That's all. Good for Mr. Yaskovitz. Much hatzlacha to him. His success in selling falafel, which hopefully will come, will be encouraging and could spur many people to give up the jobs they hold despite not being happy (not everyone, but those who do) and follow their dreams..

After an event in Acco celebrating settlement in the Galil, PM Netanyahu decided he was hungry and stoped at a falafel shop to grab something to eat, along with Minister Silvan Shalom. Netanyahu ordered his falafel with a lot of charif (but he rejected the tehina), and after an enjoyable meal he paid for both his and Shalom's.

This could have been staged, or maybe he just was really hungry for a quick bite. President Obama famously has dropped into hamburger joints, despite he and Michelle regularly talking about eating healthy. Some say these are staged photo-ops to give the appearance of being amami, just one of the people. Either way, now I am in the mood for falafel!

is this not a hole in the wall?

There is a little falafel shop in RBS B that always makes me laugh. The place is a "hole in the wall", literally. It's a little shop, with no seating, and it is pretty decrepit. They make me laugh because they advertise with signs on buses calling themselves the best falafel in the country.

I don't know how to rate that, and even someone who does know how to make such comparisons would have to eat at an awful lot of falafel stands around the country to be able to make such a definitive statement. But that is marketing. They have to sell themselves, and if they won't be self-aggrandizing in selling themselves, nobody else will be. it always just strikes up a funny image in my head that this little hole in the wall in RBS B could possibly be the best falafel in the country. I don't deny it, as the falafel is good, I just find the definitiveness of the statement to be striking, especially coming from such an unexpected place.

now I am hungry for a falafel

It turns out they might not be so far off from the truth. The Walla news food page has reviewed this little falafel shop and gives it rave reviews. the piece is written by someone who claims to be a taxi driver and regularly writes food reviews about "street food". He came to Bet Shemesh to try this falafel, as Bar Shalom advertises their falafel as consisting of 17 spices, which is unusual for falafel. he explains that the hechsher they use for certification does not allow coriander (cuzbara) to be used, so Bar Shalom had to discover a combination of 17 spices to work around the lack of coriander and still produce a tasty falafel ball.

The taxi driver does not mention it, but I will point out that Bar Shalom makes a note in his advertisements that they fry the falafel balls in fresh oil, as they change the oil every day. I don't know how common that is, but if they waste advertising space to mention it, perhaps it is uncommon and has what to do with the taste as well.

Bet Shemesh, it seems, has what to be proud of, even coming out of RBS B. I don't know if it is actually the best falafel in the country, but it has received a great review at a national level.



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Falafel Day



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Here is a cute story, originating in TMZ and then in The Bleacher Report.

A Yona Rechnitz, a frum guy originally from LA, won a freak bet on the the Super Bowl. The prop bet was to the tune of $1000 and he bet that the Giants would be the first team to score in the game, and the score would come via a safety. Odds were 50 to 1.

Sure enough, the first score of the game was a safety by the Giants when Brady was called for intentional grounding when he threw the ball away while in the end zone.

And Rechnitz won $50,000.

Rechnitz plans to give all his winnings to charity. He said he will give $5000 each to the charities of choice of Tom Brady and of each of the Giants defensive linemen that made the safety happen.

Rechnitz also wants to invite Tom Brady out to dinner. Sure enough, instead of a juicy steak, Rechnitz is inviting him out for an all expenses paid falafel dinner. Splurging for a $5 dinner (I figure $5 probably includes the drink) is a real nice rub...

Good for him!

The Middle-Eastern food industry has gotten highly competitive in recent years in the Middle East.

Israel and Lebanon having been trading the world record for the largest plate of chumus in recent years. Last year Israel took the record for the world's largest falafel ball. 3 years ago a team from Qatar baked the world's largest pita bread.

It is almost like the battlefield of the wars that have been too common has been adjusted to the battlefield of bragging rights.

take a bite out of that falafel ball!

Well, now, we have a foreign invader. Someone in California at the Santa Clarita Valley Jewish Food and Cultural Festival has claimed the world's largest falafel ball. He surpassed the previous record, held by an Israeli, by more than double, with the falafel ball weighing in at 52.8 pounds.

According to The Daily News Los Angeles:

What's as big as a beach ball, as heavy as three bowling balls, could feed a multitude and harkens back to biblical times?


Try the world's biggest falafel ball, rolled out for the record books Sunday at the Santa Clarita Valley Jewish Food and Cultural Festival.


"We have a winner!," said Dawn Walker, chef of Dawnsdinners.com, after weighing in the crusty colossus of 52.8 pounds. "We have the worlds' biggest. It's unbelievable."


The 12.5-inch-high falafel, a spicy Middle Eastern snack made from ground chickpeas and fava beans, was certified at 5 p.m. for submission to the Guinness Book of World Records.


"It measured 3-feet, 10-inches round.


Call it chick pea destiny. Organizers of the intimate Jewish festival in Santa Clarita had hoped to beat the official Guinness World Record falafel of 24 pounds.


Only the falafel, prepared by an Israeli chef in New York last May, looked more like a garbanzo hockey puck.


"Our goal was to have a beautiful falafel that was traditional," said festival volunteer Marlene Bernstein.


Meaning it must be round. Succulent. And mouth-watering enough to compel a hunt for a blanket-size pita.


More than 2,000 revelers who had flocked to the Jewish festival for Israeli dancing, a kugel cook-off and a run on Jewish food trucks had salivated for falafel greatness.


Robert Ingram had waited since noon hoping for a falafel crumb.


"It should have not too much crunch. The pita should be nice and toasty, not overdone. Tahini sauce. And it should all come together in one nice 50-pound falafel," said Ingram, 64, of Valencia, "constructed of pure enjoyment."


For Dawn Walker and her husband Dan, it meant borrowing a portable barbecue. Getting some falafel mix, courtesy of Authentic Foods and Tarazi. And experimenting with a custom stainless steel mold.


As the wind whipped through the festival grounds at College of the Canyons, two falafel lumps spent 8 hours in the oven vying for the record headline.


At 3:21 p.m., the first ball emerged during a blast of klezmer music, and weighed in at a frightening 22.9 - whoops, kilograms - or 50.4 pounds, a would-be record breaker.


The second emerged a couple pounds heftier at 3:30 p.m.


"Wow. I feel like David Caradine of `Kung Fu,' said Dan Walker, hoping not to drop the 145-degree winner.


Many marveled at its garbanzo girth. And the musty aroma of its souffle-like caramel-colored crust.


"It looks like a falafel. It smells like one. Of course, it'll taste like one," said Ric Royce, Dawn's dad, of Oxnard, who once supplied venerable dinner houses such as Trader Vic's. "It'll be the biggest - and the best - ever.


"In my wildest dreams, I never imagined her to be the falafel maven."


There was only one problem: because of health regulations, no one would be allowed a taste of the chick-pea chariot. Instead, they could only dream.


"I think it's fabulous," said Sandi Hershenson, chair of the festival hosted by Chabad of SCV, Temple Beth Ami and Congregation Beth Shalom. "We are celebrating the joys of Jewish culture."


"You're in the history books," added Leah Pollack, 39, of Valencia. "You know what's monumental? Jews in Santa Clarita. And we put on the world's biggest falafel ball."


Not everyone, however, was impressed with its culinary charm


"That's disgusting," said Sandi's daughter, Emma Hershenson, 11, of Stevenson Ranch. "I hate falafel. I mean I hate falafel. But I do think this is monumental event."


For the Walkers, the question was what to do with their monumental feat.


"We're going to frame it," said Dawn Walker, known for her luscious brisket and matzoh ball soup, as well as for catering to special diets. "Put it in a Lucite box. Shellac it. Put it in my living room.


"We'll be smelling falafel forever."

Now someone has to put him together with the guy from Qatar with the pita bread and the guy from lebanon with the plate of chumus, and we have a world record portion of falafel!

This music video is just too great to not post!




(Hattip: @ahoova)