------------------------------------------------------
Reach thousands of readers with your ad by advertising on Life in Israel
------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------------------------------
Reach thousands of readers with your ad by advertising on Life in Israel
------------------------------------------------------

Let us close the week with these encouraging words from Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger about the results of the US elections.

The Chief Rabbi said that "while it seems to us that not changing the leader in America would be, God forbid, bad for us, that is not so true. We need to look at the world through the eyes of faith.... everything God does is for the good... I heard Rav Elyashiv vall America the "malchus of chessed - the kingdom of kindness. We know the hearts of kings and ministers are in the hands of God. It is not so clear cut who is good for the Jews and who is not.... I hope that now that these elections are over [Obama] will have more courage to release Jonathan Pollard. I have more than hope that he will quickly be released during this term."
(source: Srugim)

1. Rain Delay

2. Top 10 signs your son is in the army

3. Dear President Obama

4. The decline and fall of the American empire

5. The official website of the new Na Nach political party running for Knesset - not much there yet, but it's a start..

6. The real October Surprise

7. The real winner of the 2012 election: Nate Silver

8. women, havdalah, wine, beer and body hair

9. Be a man!

10. The lost opportunity of the NY Marathon

11. The chessed of Satmar and the American people

12. Why a strong Obama supporter hesitated before voting

There was an interesting ad placed in the Hamodia newspaper (Hebrew) today:


and if that is too hard to read, here is a close-up of just the specific ad:

The ad is of a person requesting forgiveness for something he had done 40 years ago. He says that 40 years ago he caused grievous shame to a shliach tzibbur when the fellow refused to begin the repetition of the Shmoneh Esrei and he refused. At that point, the writer stepped up to the amud and took over the repetition. The chazzan was shamed and left. The writer is asking that the victim from 40 years prior forgive him, and that he do so verbally.

I imagine that if he still remembered this specific incident 40 years later, it must have gnawed at him all this time. Probably every time he davened for the amud, as well as every year before the High Holidays and he was thinking what he must repent for, and probably plenty of other incidents that might have cropped up and reminded him of that old one in the back of his memory...and it drove him crazy. I wonder if the victim, the apologee, remembers it as much as the apologer and has it burned in his memory as such a significant incident - not that it matters.

How else can one try to beg forgiveness from someone whom he doesn't know where to find besides for placing an ad in a popular frum newspaper and hope he sees it? Perhaps he should have at least made it a slightly larger ad, maybe a full-page ad, so it would at least be more noticeable..

Olmert: Time running out for peace deal

  -- YnetNews

I have lost count. Please, someone, remind me how many times this has been said in the past 15 years, since Oslo...


------------------------------------------------------
Reach thousands of readers with your ad by advertising on Life in Israel
------------------------------------------------------

If you are wondering why I am announcing a Yisrael Beytenu event, despite my not being connected to that party, the reasons are (in no particular order):

1. it looks like an interesting parlor meeting
2. a friend is hosting it
3. I think it will be particularly interesting o hear Yair Shamir, son of former PM Yitzchak Shamir

------------------------------------------------------
Reach thousands of readers with your ad by advertising on Life in Israel
------------------------------------------------------

While the concept is interesting and cool, I dont think they could have made the video any more dull....




------------------------------------------------------
Reach thousands of readers with your ad by advertising on Life in Israel
------------------------------------------------------

Two important meetings PM Netanyahu has had in the past couple of days...

Prime Minister Netanyahu Congratulates President Obama and Ambassador Shapiro



PM Netanyahu Meets with Tony Blair


------------------------------------------------------
Reach thousands of readers with your ad by advertising on Life in Israel
------------------------------------------------------

When I was a kid I watched The Cosby Show religiously. I don't remember this episode, though it was from before I was born... enjoy!




(Tip of the hat to Jewish Humor Central)

------------------------------------------------------
Reach thousands of readers with your ad by advertising on Life in Israel
------------------------------------------------------

These Buba Myses guys are just SO entertaining!




------------------------------------------------------
Reach thousands of readers with your ad by advertising on Life in Israel
------------------------------------------------------

There had been some discussion a while back about passing a new law to allow the Chief Rabbis to serve more than one term. That discussion fell off the table, as always, due to politics (the same way it was initially put on the table). However, with the elections called for earlier than originally scheduled, a different variation of that law became necessary.

With elections pushed up, the term of the current Chief Rabbis was going to conclude a very short time after the elections. That would make it very difficult to select new candidates and elect them properly, as from the time the new Knesset would convene and appoint representatives to the committee responsible for electing the Chief Rabbis, there would not be enough time to do this properly.

So, this week, due to the "urgency" of the matter, MK David Rotem (Yisrael Beiteinu) convened the committee in a special session to pass the proposal, so that it could go to a special session of the Knesset on the same day (because the Knesset is officially not working right now due to having been dismissed for  elections). The proposal passed unanimously in the committee, and then passed its final readings in the Knesset. This happened despite some criticism as to how the meeting of the committee had been called improperly.
(sources: Kikar and Haaretz)

So, Chief Rabbis Amar and Metzger will hold on to their positions for an extra 3 months. Let's hope this opportunity is seized and used well.




------------------------------------------------------
Reach thousands of readers with your ad by advertising on Life in Israel
------------------------------------------------------

Here is something you probably did not know about political parties and their letters to be used on the ballots. The letters are selected carefully by the party to either have symbolic meaning, or some direct association with the party.

Some examples (in no particular order):

• שס is the ticket letters for SHAS
• ג is the ticket letters for UTJ
• אמת is the ticket letters for Labor
• מחל is the ticket letters for Likud
• זך is the ticket letters for Pensioners 
• ב is the ticket letters for Bayit Yehudi (Mafdal)
• מרץ is the ticket letters for Meretz
• ט is the ticket letters for Ichud Leumi
• ל is the ticket letters for Yisrael Beiteinu

some of these combinations are letters that make one think of the party name, like Shas, Meretz, etc. Others are acronyms for multiple parties that merged together or other words that remind one of the party, and others have other types of meanings.

A strange law, one that I find strange at least, is that only one party can own and use any given letter from the alphabet on their election slip. If a different party wants to use a letter, not even a combination but even just one letter out of a combination, they have to get permission to do so from the party that owns it. For example, if a new party would want to use the letter א on its ticket somehow, they'd have to get permission form the Labor party. To use ב they would have to get permission from the Mafdal people. etc.

It is very strange, to me at least, that a party owns the letter - not just the combination. I get that Shas owns the combination שס, but it doesn't make sense that they own each individual letter. Especially with all the new parties registering to run in each election, pretty much all the letters have been taken already and are owned. So, a new party wanting to register a new election slip will almost definitely have to ask permission from a different party, or even from more than one, to have access to the chosen letters.

Usually such requests are granted, unless there is a direct conflict. The conflict could be two parties that are in direct contrast to each other, fighting over the same voters, so one wouldn't want to help the other. Or it might be names or combinations of letters on slips that are considered too similar and easily confused. Or for any other reason such as the head of the party is in a bad mood or whatever.

A good example of this is the new Yesh Atid party trying to come up with appropriate letters for its ballot slip. they wanted to go for יש which would be appropriate as its the first of the two words of their name. Makes it easy to identify in the ballot box. Unfortunately for them, the ש is already owned by Shas. This party led by Yair Lapid has been in direct conflict with Shas. When Lapid made the request of Eli Yishai to use the letter ש on the Yesh Atid ballot, Yishai was understandably not forthcoming. After being attacked regularly by Lapid, Yishai was not about to help Lapid by allowing him use of one of Shas's letters... it took two weeks to respond, but Shas said no. Now Yesh Atid has to come up with a different set of letters. (source: NRG)


------------------------------------------------------
Reach thousands of readers with your ad by advertising on Life in Israel
------------------------------------------------------

Election fever didn't peak last night, and head downward. Here in Israel last night was just the beginning of election fever.

A little while back I found a news item about a group of Breslavers, of the Nach Nach faction, that had supposedly decided to start a new political party to run for Knesset. As exciting as that sounded, as much as having such a group in the Knesset would make the daily political life and news feeds so much more interesting, I could not find any more information about it. Maybe it was just a rumor, or a crazy idea someone spoke about too much so it got reported.

It turns out that they have now officially registered there new party. the Nach Nachs will be running for Knesset!

According to this report on Kipa, the group of Breslavers officially registered their party this week under the name "Kulanu Chaveirim - Na Nach" - "We are all friends - Na Nach".

As Breslavers they don't believe in "yi'ush", or giving up hope, so even though they are aware that their chances of passing the minimum threshold are slim, they believe they can do it, or that miracles can happen.

According to the report, they filed their party with an apolitical platform. they aren't interested in the peace process or anything like that. "All" they want to deal with is issues of faith, happiness, and peace and achdut among Israelis. That's it. That's all they want to do.

If I was inclined to change my opinion and look for a different party to vote for, this is one I would consider. Just for the novelty. Just to see what the Knesset would look like with a couple of these guys in it. And even to see what they think they can do from the Knesset to try to increase faith and increase peace and unity among Israelis. If they market themselves successfully, they could turn themselves into the surprise of the elections. They could turn themselves into the "protest vote" - they are wildly popular dancing in the streets with blasting music, on top of panel vans, and the like. They could channel that and attract a lot of people who are fed up with the old, classic, politicians..

I guess these mekubalim who held a special secret prayer service for the successful election of Mitt Romney didn't do such a good job... or maybe Mitt Romney just was so problematic himself that even the mekubalim couldn't help him!!


------------------------------------------------------
Reach thousands of readers with your ad by advertising on Life in Israel
------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------------------------------
Reach thousands of readers with your ad by advertising on Life in Israel
------------------------------------------------------