Woohooooo!! jrants.com is back online!! Hopefully its problems have been solved for good...

Last night I was in a taxi going home from work at 2:30 in the morning. The taxi driver was a talkative one, and while I would have liked to sleep, he preferred to chat.

He told me how he had lived in the US for three years. Over the course of the conversation, he gave me his reasons for moving (back) to Israel. He gave me a reason that one could really break down into two or possibly three separate reasons, but maybe they all come from the same one point, so they kind of blur together.

Here is what Moishe the taxi driver thought about living in the US versus living in Israel.

Moishe the taxi driver told me he worked in the US. He said that while entrepreneurs can do well, employees work very hard for very little return. He said, in the US if someone comes 15 minutes late to a meeting or a scheduled call, he will be out on the street. It is unacceptable, and there are tons of people looking for work. Your position will be filled in a matter of a few hours and life will go on as if you never existed.

In Israel, he says, if you come 15 minutes late to work, your boss offers you coffee, chats for a few minutes and life moves on. You don't get fired for it. It is more easy-going. It is not as easy to find replacement employees in Israel (one has to find someone campatible which might not be easy, train them, etc..), Moishe claimed, so things are more easy-going. And here the entrepreneurs are not much better off than the employees, so everyone has an equal chance.

That is Moishe the taxi drivers reason to prefer living in Israel.

Mottel has posted jpix #9 at Letters of Thought...

Shas is often criticized for their undemocratic system of determining party policy and representation. It is all dependant on one man, Rav Ovadia Yosef. He decides who will be Shas representatives in Knesset, how high or low on the party list, and how they vote on the various issues.

Today is no exception to that criticism.

I have my own problems with Shas, including their voting record and their lack of loyalty to any specific issue other than staying in a government coalition with nice jobs. They, generally, do not take leadership on any issues. They usually do not even present their own positions and/or vote based on what they really think.

For example, in the current campaign for the elections of President of Israel which will take place next week, Shas has come out as a major force. I am not sure why. Their 12 votes are just as important, no more and no less, than any other 12 votes. But that is not the point. They are being declared as the ones who will sway the elections one way or the other.

OK. That's fine by me. So Shas is the current king maker. Let them either state which candidate they prefer and be over with it, or keep it secret and not say anything.

Yet, what does Shas do? They have to go over the lists and see how everybody else is voting. Their problem and concern is that they do not want to vote with the losing position. It does not matter if the expected winner is someone they want to vote for or not. They have to go over the lists of MKs and who they promised to vote for. After Shas decides who is going to win, they will decide who to vote for.

In other words, it does not matter who they really think should be president. What matters is that they come out having voted for the winner.

But that is besides the point. The criticism leveled at Shas is that they are undemocratic in their process. One person decides what happens in every aspect of the party.

I do not know why this criticism is leveled at Shas. Many of the other parties work in similar fashions. The Kadima party, for example, was established by one person (Ariel Sharon). A bunch of politicians joined him for various reasons. Ariel Sharon, and he alone, decided who would be placed where on the Kadima list. He alone decided the issues and the Kadima position on the various issues. Even now, a year and a half later, Kadima still has no method of selecting positions and representation other than by the person leading it at the time, or with the consultation of the top 5 or so people in Kadima.

And I never heard any criticism on the undemocratic system within Kadima.

In other words, it is ok for a corrupt politician to decide on his own who will lead things and what their positions will be and that is pure democracy. But when a Rabbi does it, it is undemocratic.

Another example is the Pensioners Party. They did not have primaries to decide their standings in the party. It was decided all by Rafi Eitan.

Do the Arab parties have primaries? Not last I heard. Do any of the small parties that crop up every election season have primaries to decide their systems? Mostly not.

Yet the only one deserving of criticism seems to be the haredi parties, and Shas and Rav Yosef more so.

Honestly, if I was trusting an undemocratic system, I would prefer to trust Rav Ovadia Yosef (even if I did not like with some of his decisions or methods) than corrupt politicians to decide things undemocratically.

Jack has a post up that, if you are a blogger, you might be interested in reading and participating in via the comments.

Go check it out and answer Jack's question....

Remember the last time DM Amir Peretz went out with his generals into the field and forgot to remove the lens cap from his binoculars? Well, it looks like he is smart enough to avoid repeating the same mistake twice.... This time he just avoided the binoculars completely...

Here is the funniest thing I read today - and I quote:

(IsraelNN.com) Palestinian Authority (PA) officials have announced that PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas has called off a meeting with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, which was scheduled for Thursday in Jericho. They explained that the meeting cannot be held while Israel continues to engage in counter-terrorist activities.

(bold type was added by me for emphasis)

As long as we engage in COUNTER-TERRORISM they cannot meet with us!! What a joke! We are willing to meet with them while they engage in terrorism, but as long as we counter it and fight the terrorism, it is a no-go.

Last night I heard on the radio on the TV news program (isn't that amazing how you can hear the TV news program on the radio??!!) an interesting piece of news.

They reported that Amir Peretz is being investigated for allegations that he bought votes in the recent Labor Party primaries using government money. I did not hear the whole report, but what I did hear was about how he promised money to the northern communities for "pikud ha'oref" - wartime preparation (Home Front) - for preparing bomb shelters and the like, if they would vote for him. Somehow the city of Tzfat was involved. It seems the jurisdiction for Pikud Ha'Oref up north is in the Tzfat region.

The mayor of Tzfat pushed people to vote and openly supported Amir Peretz. I do not recall the numbers, but Peretz received like triple the amount of votes in Tzfat than the other candidates.

Peretz, of course, denies it. He says he would love to give them money, but can't. He has to fix up the bomb shelters anyway, he said, so why would he promise that as an incentive to vote for him. Etc.

I do not know if he did it or did not do it. I want to know something else. I want to know why I have not heard anything since that initial report. Has the story been suppressed? Where is the reporting? I can't find any mention of this on Ha'aretz or Ynet or any other news source I have looked at.

Is this another example of the media pushing a specific agenda? Just yesterday Arutz 7 reported from the Haifa Radio Conference that IBA (Israel Broadcasting Authority) broadcasters admitted to having slanted the news reporting in order to push their personal agendas.

It seems a number of them had children serving in the IDF in Lebanon, at the time, and they wanted their children to be safe and out of Lebanon. So they slanted the news reporting to push an agenda so their kids would be home safe.

That is not even a national agenda of peace with Palestinians or whatever that they usually push. That was a personal agenda of some broadcasters. And they were proud of it (not admitting to it with an apology, but bragging about how they set the agenda!).

That is unbiased and objective news reporting?

A big story like possible corruption by the Defense Minister in internal party politics, using government for vote buying, and it is not mentioned in the major news sources? Is this another example of the same - some agenda being pushed? Does Amir Peretz now have some quasi-Etrog status?

Israluv tagged me with the following message:

Today I received an email from Dudy Stark of Nefesh B'Nefesh:

This coming Shabbat, the Torah portion , Shelach, that recalls the sin of the spies, is read. These were the 12 men that Moshe sent to scout out the Land of Israel before entering. When they returned, their reports were distorted and negative and caused a 40 year delay before the Children of Israel could enter.

Today despite the challenges that come with living in Israel, we are witness to all that is good and special about living here and it is in our ability to tell our family, friends and neighbors abroad what those things are.

Nefesh B'Nefesh is initiating a simple project this week called "12 to 12". We are asking every Oleh to compose a list of 12 great things you appreciate and love about living in Israel and email your message to 12 (or more) friends abroad.

If you send this out to your friends, please CC 12to12@nbn.org.il when you send it out.

Please send out your letter before Friday June 8.

You can see Israluv's list of 12 things she loves about Israel at the above link.

I do not know how long one qualifies to be called an Oleh Chadash, but I have been here 17 years and do not consider myself an oleh chadash any longer. However, the letter just wants to hear from Olim, not necessarily chadashim, so I still qualify for this project.

I have been tagged over time for various meme's and generally have not participated (with the occassional exception). This is one I will participate in, due to the promotion of aliya therein and the expression of ahavat eretz yisrael, which is something that sometimes people need to be reminded about. After all, we spend a lot of time kvetching about Israel, so this is a good opportunity to say some nice things.

So, here goes with my list of 12 things I love about Israel:

1. Being part of Jewish history, instead of watching from the sidelines
2. Being able to go to places like Kever Yosef, Kever Yehoshua, Kever Rachel, Har Habayit - central places in Judaism.
3. Knowing that every step I take is one that hundreds and thousands of years of Jews wished they could do so, but could not, and now we can.
4. Israeli politics. something is always happening. Never a dull day.
   
5. Everybody cares, despite the appearance of a gruff attitude. Walk down the street and everyone offers their opinions (try walking down the street with a baby not wearing a hat - see what happens).
   
6. Israeli food (e.g. Burekas, Shwarma, falafel, hummus, tehina, etc..)
   
7. Having access to amazing Talmidei Chachamim and Rabbonim, many of them posing as your average baal habayis.
8. Softball (sure you have it in the US too, but Softball in Israel? the best!)
9. cultural diversity
10. beautiful countryside
11. Hebrew
12. "Acharon acharon Chaviv" - Yerushalayim. We daven all the time pining for Yerushalayim. We say and sing , "Next year in Jerusalem." In Israel, we have Jerusalem (albeit, not yet the rebuilt Jerusalem with the Temple). Cherish it, as Rabbi Frand would say (I do not remember about what he said it, but I hear him saying it in my mind from one of his tapes).

I am not going to tag anybody, but feel free to pick this up and make your own list....

I was reading an interesting article last night. The article was about a historical Judeo-Christian theological debate between a group of Rabbis and a Priest.

I had just started the article while relaxing on the couch.

I woke up this morning and found the rabbit eating half my article. It seems I fell asleep while reading the article. I must have dropped the magazine right on or next to the rabbit cage, which is next to the couch. The pages of the article I was reading must have edged into the cage and the rabbit grabbed them and ripped them apart and was gnawing on them when I woke up.

I never knew "My dog ate my homework" could be a real excuse!!!

Doesn't anybody in this country work for a living?

The IDF, on instructions from the government, has approved of a Homesh rally.

Homesh, if you do not recall, was a settlement in the Northern Shomron that was evacuated by the Olmert government.

I think it is great that the government allows these rallies, and great that there are people willing to rally.

But doesn't anybody work for a living? How do people find the time to take off from work every time someone decides he wants to make a rally in the middle of the day in the middle of the work week?
The number of rallies I would have loved to participate in but could not due to work obligations is numerous. How do other people do it? Is it only students? Aren't they in school? Do people just take vacation days all the time?

Sderot has been beleaguered with Kassam rockets. They have devastated the morale of the residents of Sderot, and the local businesses have supposedly been worse for the wear. According to the news media, people are emptying out of Sderot in droves. It sounds like it is practically a ghost town. For those staying, aside from the difficult financial situation they are in, the depression is great and the morale is low.



So, off we go to Sderot. We were a small group. A couple of guys who planned on joining had gotten stuck at work and could not make it. Another couple had conflicts of scheduling. Another couple were concerned about the safety of making such a trip. So we were a group of 6 people who went.

It was a pleasant 45 minute drive through the countryside. As we approach Sderot I get directions from my contact how to get to the yeshiva. As we drive through Sderot we notice that it is not the ghost town it is made out to be in the media. There are people walking around, cars on the road, we do not see a line of cars exiting the city, some restaurants and businesses are open, etc. Let's not forget, Sderot is a small city. It has a population of about 24,000 or so. Bet Shemesh is about 4 times as large and businesses also close fairly early in Bet Shemesh, so we were not surprised to see stores closed at 8:30 in the evening.

We find the yeshiva and walk around a bit. The campus is beautiful and promises to be even more so when it will be completed. We meet up with my contact and he takes us to a classroom in which we can study the daf for the next hour or so, after which he had arranged a person to meet with us to describe daily life in Sderot and answer any questions.

He shows us the remnants of a Kassam rocket that had fallen in the area. This specific rocket had fallen in August 2006 next to a kindergarten.

BTW, it is heavier than it looks. It is made of heavy steel and even just that remnant of a Kassam must have weighed about 15 kilo or so...

He leaves us to our gemaras and we learn the daf. I then find out where a nearby shul is in which we would be able to catch a minyan for maariv. It seems the directions given to us were not very good, because we never found that specific shul and the one we found was already closed with no more minyanim for the night. We walked around a bit and found the Magen David Adom station of Sderot. It is right near the yeshiva we were visiting. We saw a number of religious medics inside cleaning up. They offered t complete the minyan for us and we davened inside their station. Afterwards, we continued walking a bit. Right across from the MDA station is the Kadima Party headquarters of Sderot.
You can see the sign has been the victim of a rock attack. Or maybe a Kassam rocket hit it, right in the middle of the word "Kadima"... The building was all closed and locked up with metal gates. It looked kind of unused. I asked somebody if the building is ever n use and he told me it is not, it is always locked up. Kadima opened that branch a few months ago to great fanfare, but it seems it was all just PR because nobody ever actually uses it.

We make our way back to the yeshiva, we learn a little more and then our guest speaker arrives. He sits with us and tells us about life in Sderot. He tells us some stories about how Kassam rockets fell within 20 feet of him and his children. he tells us of a neighbor who was seriously injured by a direct hit from a Kassam. He describes how their daily lives have become complicated by the situation. Schools have not met in 3 weeks. People are afraid to congregate at the bus stops, so they leave earlier than the rush hour times, or they get rides.

He did say that this week it started getting better. We noticed that it did not look like the ghost town it is described as being, and he said until recently it pretty much was, but people have no started coming back and have to get on with their lives. Businesses are trying to open again, people are out and about. He described how many hundreds and thousands of people have been coming from all over the country. Some volunteer to help out with things, some just come to make people happy. They are very appreciative of all the visitors who come.

On our way out of Sderot we stopped at a local grill joint to buy some drinks and snacks for the road (it is already 11:00 pm and everything is pretty much closed..). We chatted with the proprietors. They are older Morrocan Jews. The owner told me that he came to Israel and Sderot 55 years ago, and 56 years ago is when Sderot was established. He has seen ti grow from a small tent village into a sprawling city of nearly 25,000 residents.

He described some of the city and what it is like with so many people having left. He also confirmed that many are starting to come back now. I asked him what he thought about leaving and why he did not. He said we have staying power and we cannot give in to them and let the, chase us out. he was completely against leaving. he pointed to what was I guess his partner, or maybe just a friend hanging out there with him and said his kids had left for a couple of weeks, but he would not go. He insisted on staying.

After that, off we were back to Bet Shemesh.

We have a set of infra-red transmitters between two different sites. There was a problem with the units not being in synch, so I called the technician for the units. They sent two guys out to realign and resynch the units.

When synching the units, they had to set it at the optimum strength for transmission. They were setting the units at a strength of 770. I chuckled and asked why 770? Is that a specific number from the manufacturer or just something you set as a measure? I said that I did not remember them originally setting it specifically to 770...

The technician did not know the answer. He said that is what they always set it to.

I wonder if the person who chose 770 as the optimum number to set it to chose that because of its significance in Chabad....

Even Lou Pinella's major fit yesterday does not match this guy's....

Bear is first, buffalo is now second....

My brother is a volunteer soldier, some might say "mercenary" in the Israeli army. He began his training not too long ago and he has now completed the first level of basic training. This evening was scheduled to be his "swearing in" ceremony.

We got the invitation from the army last week. My brother has the status of a "lone soldier" because his family (read: parents) is in the United States. So, we are his reps to the army, and we get the invites that normally go to parents.

The invitation said what time to come and where it would be. What was really cool was that it said for people who cannot make it, the ceremony would be broadcast live and in full video/audio at the Kotel Kam (if you go there now, you can go to Today at the kotel and select events and see a fe pictures from the ceremony).

The ceremony would take place at the Kotel. The Kotel, being the last remnant from the Temples, is host to many of these ceremonies. It, I think, is meant to give these young men and women a taste and a feel of there being part of history and part of a Jewish state and that is what they will be spending there next few years defending.

We get to the Old City of Jerusalem. We are running late because traffic is so bad. So many people are flooding the Old City to get to the event, that what is normally a 5 minute drive through the Old City and then a few minutes to look for parking, took about 45 minutes. I dropped my family off at the entrance to the kotel and then went to park. I had to drive all the way back to the other side of the Old City and park outside of Jaffa Gate. Everything else was full.

I ran in to the Old city and decided to take the shortcut through the Arab shuk to save a few minutes of detouring through the Jewish Quarter. I made it down to the Kotel pretty quickly and found the place jam-packed.

The ceremony is just getting ready to start. I found my family and then found my brother among all the soldiers. We said hi, he told me where he thought I should stand for the best view, relative to where his unit would be standing in formation. It was pretty packed everywhere and only the first row of people really had a decent view.

We found a spot and settled in. Our spot was right behind the Army Glee Club! This army choir was pretty good! All the songs they song were Jewish/religious themed songs (see below for a couple of examples). The best part was when the electricity blew just as they were starting a song. All of the sudden - no lights, no microphones, no music (at least no electric keyboard), and whatever else they had going. It took a moment as everyone was caught off gaurd, but the Glee Club composed themselves pretty quickly and got going with a song and a saxophone to save the day until a they got the electricity up a few minutes later...

They went through a few formations, some generals and other army commanders spoke. I could not really hear much because the speakers were in front of us facing away and the sound was dulled and a lot of people were making noise, but I picked up snippets from the speeches. One commander was blessing them that they should be strongafter quoting from the Book of Joshua the section where power was transferred to Joshua after Moshe's death and the people confirmed their support for him and blessed him with strength. Another commander spoke of the significance of being at the spot with the remnants of the Temple...

Then the swearung in took place. The unit commanders would call out (in Hebrew), "Do you swear?" and the unit would scream out in unison "We swear, We swear, We Swear!!!". They went through all the units. Then each individual stepped forward to his commander and picked up a gun (M16) and a Tanakh, held them together to his chest, saluted and stepped back.

After some more songs and Hatikvah, the ceremony was over. Some soldiers tossed their kumtahs (berets) in the air and people mingled.