The news is reporting that a group of ids visiting the Hula Nature Reserve contracted the Bird Flu from touching an infected Crane.

I remember as a child, one of our favorite candies - not favorite as in the one that tasted the best, but "favorite" as in the one that was probably the most exciting to get - was the chewing gum that was made to look like cigarettes. The better ones had a nice powder on it and you could blow out the powder (probably powdered sugar) as if it was smoke.

INN is reporting that such candy and gum made to look like cigarettes are now banned from being sold in Israel. Even though there is nothing dangerous about them per se, they subconsciously encourage children to admire cigarettes and to consider them exciting and desirable. The goal for this change as part of the Restriction of Marketing of Tobacco products law is to prevent smoking and addiction among young people.

According to the article:

Individuals violating the law will be fined NIS 75,300 ($21,071), while corporations will be fined NIS 150,600 ($42,142).

We live in different times, but this is a good thing. There is no need to encourage kids to mimic smoking and train them to think it is fun and good to smoke.

An amazing thing about Israel (I just discovered and experienced) - a teenage kid can work as an usher at the Kotel, standing by the Kotel all day long helping people get to where they need to be, just like a teenage kid can work in a warehouse, flipping burgers, walking dogs, delivering flyers or whatever.

Another bad accident in Bet Shemesh had a car hitting a 4 year old child last night and sending him to the hospital in moderate condition.

There have been a number of tragedies recently in Bet Shemesh, some of them fatal, many involving children.

Some are calling it a curse, or an ayyin hara, on the city. Some are saying the city is being punished for "bad behavior" on whatever issue is close to the person saying so. Anytime anything bad happens to anyone or any place should be a cause for people to look inwards and see where they can improve, and the families and communities should surely be doing so.

I don't know from mystical stuff, so I am going to leave the issue of curses and blame aside for the mystics and kabbalists to deal with. What I can look at is the roads, the driving, the walking...

Bet Shemesh is a city that has had a tremendous population growth. The roads are not particularly safe - many have potholes, are poorly designed or placed traffic circles, crosswalks that are faded or lacking (we just learned that the city recently "cancelled" all the crosswalks in the shopping center of RBS), faded lines, curbs that jut out too far into the street, poor visibility in many places with views blocked by overgrown brush and weeds, and more. Drivers, as in many places, are distracted by their phones or other distractions, drivers are driving too fast, not giving the right of way, not letting pedestrians cross. Buses are speeding through the streets, while bus drivers are distracted with passengers, with passengers paying and with other distractions. Pedestrians jump into the street whenever they feel like it. Pedestrians are often not paying attention to traffic, cross before ensuring a nearby driver saw them, crossing nowhere near the crosswalks,are distracted by their phones and other things.

Just the other day, on Friday, I was driving down a main road and a family went into the street to cross in the middle of the block, nowhere near a crosswalk. The parents were towing a couple of little kids by the hand, while pushing a stroller and each parent holding a number of bags and cases. They were crossing in the middle because it was opposite a bus stop they were rushing to as they wanted to make the bus in time to go for Shabbos wherever they were going. One of the kids got loose and ran into the middle of the street. I was driving patiently and saw the scene and stopped my car with them in front of me. The father eventually collected the kid, barely even saying a word about it. Had I been distracted or driving too fast, I would have run over that kid, and maybe the father too. Fault isn't the issue. Fault doesn't bring the smashed kid back. The parents should be crossing carefully by the crosswalk, the city should repair the fencing in the road that was dismantled by pedestrians who want to cross in the middle, drivers should be paying attention and driving carefully, the kids should be taught road safety and not jump into the streets, parents should be careful that they have control of their kids in the streets.

Bet Shemesh is a big city with over 100,000 residents. Accidents happen everywhere, and in big cities they happen more just by the nature of there being more people and more drivers, and often the infrastructure has been neglected, if it was even up to par in the first place.

Be careful out there. The city will or will not do it's part in improving the roads and improving road safety. We can only do our part. Pay attention on the roads, whether you are a pedestrian or a driver.

If you ever wondered why they bother putting hechshers on things like laundry detergent....

they must know that kids can do really stupid things, like the current Tide Challenge phase that has kids biting into, and ingesting the contents of, Tide laundry pods...

Kids out there - don't do this!

The city of Elad has decided, upon instructions from the local rabbonim, to fight against the phenomena of "naar nosher" - kids on the streets, dropouts, troublemakers, etc. (I am not sure what the accurate English word is for naar nosher).

To do so they wrote and approved a new municipal bylaw that will force all stores to close at 9PM nightly (with a few exceptions, such as supermarkets (midnight) and bookstores (10:30PM).

The inspectors promise to enforce this new bylaw, especially among the stores that will be shown to be causing trouble and creating a disturbing environment to the surroundings.

[Many or some] Residents are upset saying this will force them to leave the city to buy what they need, even if just to go get cigarettes and will create a situation that people are going to Rosh Haayin or other towns and the kids will be going to towns with a less religious (or even secular) atmosphere instead of remaining within Elad.
source: Ch10

It is a shame that they think the way to deal with bored kids is to push them into someone else's backyard. I am sure there is not all that much to do in Elad, but the kids at least have their local places they can hang out together and talk, eat or whatever. Taking away their ability to hang out in Elad is not going to solve the problem but will push the kids to hang out elsewhere in more welcoming environments. The attitude of let it be someone else's problem, better in someone else's backyard, is unfortunate and not helpful.

As we get closer and closer to Lag bOmer, we are going to be hearing more and more complaints and grumbling about the kids (usually) who are collecting wood for the bonfires. The complaints are generally about the kids "stealing" wood - whether from construction sites or from people's property or from other kids who collected wood.

(note: I put the word "stealing" in quotation marks not because it is not really theft, in many of the cases, as it very well might be... but because they usually aren't intentionally stealing, while technically they sometimes (or oftentimes) are.)

So, while some of the wood is just taken from private property or whatnot, some of it is kids taking wood from other kids. Those situations lead to disputes - who had the wood first? did the first kids keep it in a safe place showing "ownership" or did they leave it out in public and possibly "hefker"? etc.

Every year you'll see groups of kids arguing over piles of wood.

I read something really cool yesterday going on in the community of Psagot to resolve such disputes, while also being an educational tool.

It seems that in Psagot the rav of the yishuv, Rav Yosef Veitzen (sp?), has established a special beis din to resolve the disputes among kids over wood. The local kids hae accepted the new beis din as the arbitor of their disputes and agreed to follow any decisions rendered.

The article (offline) described some of the cases already adjudicated:
 in one case, 4th grade boys and 4th grade girls were arguing about some wood. The boys took the wood from the girls pile, and they admitted to that, but they claimed that the wood was originally theirs. The boys representatives argued that:
a. the girls did not protest when the boys took the wood, ostensibly admitting it belonged to the boys
b. this wood was not in or near the girls pile of wood, but was in another place.
c. the wood was not kept in the marked area, meaning it was not under the official designation as being prepared for the girls bonfire.

The girls representative admitted to the above but claimed that the girl shlepping the wood had hurt her hand and put the wood down in a different place, with the intention to move it later to the official pile.

The rav, after weighing the issues, reportedly decided that he would go with the kids to the disputed wood, and if the girls could positively identify the wood as being theirs, he would award it to them. The girls were unable to decisively identify any of the wood, except for one large branch. The rav awarded that one branch to the girls.

The story was not over there.

The girls returned later that day to the rav claiming that the boys had again taken the wood, that one piece, from them.

The rav threatened that he takes it very seriously that the psak is not being respected, and if the wood would not be returned within a certain time frame, he would consider fining the boys.

What a great idea! educational, peaceful, and effective.

,
  

Yesterday the Knesset committee for the rights of children approved unanimously the law proposal by MK Orly Levi-Abuksis (Likud Beyteynu) to prevent forgetting children in cars. The law proposal will now move to the Knesset for voting.

The law proposed by Levi-Abuksis is that when a child does not show up to his or her daycare or school facility, the caregiver (metapelet) or teacher must call the parents to inform them that the child is not there.

Obviously, the idea is that if the parent had forgotten the child in the car, at that point he or she will be reminded of it and will run to the car and save the child, hopefully before it is too late.

I don't know if this will help much. It seems like so many ways it can go wrong - the teacher won't call quickly enough, the teacher will find it to be a pain and a bother to call right away considering he or she has a full class to get settled and then to have to start calling a parent or a few parents to find out where their kids are, the teacher won't be able to reach the parents by telephone, etc...

If it even saves one kid it is worth it, but it seems like there might be better solutions out there that will be more efficient and more effective. Maybe this will be more effective as an additional method alongside other methods such as sensors or other ways of reminding the parent to check the backseat of the car.

In Hebrew we have a term called "Atimut HaLev", which means insensitivity, or perhaps some sort of emotional numbness and a level of emotionlessness.

Bechadrei has the story of two young girls in Bnei Braq who decided to make a camp for the summer vacation. To advertise their camp they made signs and hung them up on sign-boards in the streets around their part of town.

Sure enough, city inspectors noticed the signs and called the telephone number in the advertisement. they did not want to send their daughters to the camp, but to punish the kids for hanging signs without a license. the inspectors told the mother that they had so far found 5 signs for this camp, and the cumulative fine is, so far, 5000 NIS.

If this was the sign of an adult advertising his or her "pirate" business, selling socks out of the house, selling esrog and lulav sets, or teaching an extracurricular activity class or advertising oneself as a driver or whatever, I would be ok with that. The adults running off-the-books businesses know to either be careful or be caught. They should realize advertising costs money and publicizing one's business like that exposes one to being noticed (the point of advertising).

Kids, however, don't know that. They see a board of signs, so they put their sign up. How should they know that they have to pay to put it up? I think they should even be commended for putting the signs on the board rather than tacking them to trees and bus-stops, as many other people do. Give the kids a break. They found a way to turn a long and boring summer into something productive. Maybe give the kids a warning to remove them and explain that next time advertising costs money. Even with speeding tickets the police will at times make an exception and give the offending driver a first-time warning.

Or maybe, this was a great example of offline "black-hat" SEO. "Black-hat" both because of it being in Bnei Braq and because of the negative style. One method of black-hat SEO is creating negative links to your competitor, so his website will get punished for those offending links. The mother, or the girls, should have responded to the inspectors that maybe their competitors had put up the signs with their phone numbers so they would get in trouble..

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This past Friday night there was serious vandalism in RBS. A couple of shuls were vandalized, with the kugels and the drinks prepared for the kiddush in the morning spilled and spread all over the shul while in another shul the food was destroyed by pouring salt in it while somewhere else in bet Shemesh kids attacked a fellow. This was in addition to general disturbances by kids in different parts of the neighborhood, and city, making noise on the streets into the wee hours of the night.

Ladaat is reporting that local councilman and deputy mayor Shmuel Greenberg has reported the incidents to the police and called upon the local police chief to deal with the perpetrators with a heavy hand. They seem to be confident that the perpetrators of the vandalism were kids, teens at risk.

I don't know what the solution is or why the kids did such a thing, if it was the kids at all, but they definitely need help. The local organizations that deal with these types of kids need to get some control over the situation, they need to be funded so they can do the work that needs to be done to help the kids that need help. And whoever gets so violent to attack people and vandalize public property need to be dealt with by the law in addition to getting whatever psychological help they need to heal.

My 5 year old son pulled out our world map and asked me to show him where Eretz Yisrael is.

I showed him where it is, and he asked, surprised, "KaZeh pitsky?" - meaning, "So Tiny?"

I said yes, Eretz Yisrael is very small.

He then asked, so how come we have such a big house that takes up so much space from the country?

It's all a matter of perspective...

There is a debate going on in Jerusalem right now, as the city begins preparing for the upcoming Jerusalem marathon in March.

Marathons are very disruptive to a city's regular ebb and flow. they wreak havoc on traffic, as roads need to be closed for about 8 hours, businesses along the route are affected, schools and public transportation, and more. There are benefits as well, such as cultural promotion, sport, bringing money to the city as people come from all over the country and even from places around the world and spend time and money around the city, etc.

The debate is whether to take advantage of the disruption that is going to definitely happen, or to ignore it and let life continue as regularly as possible.

Sometimes a city can plan the marathon route easily enough with as minimal disturbance as possible. The route can sometimes be contained to one side of a city, or to one area, along the outskirts. With Jerusalem, the scheduled route cuts across through major parts of the city. It is sure to be a major disturbance in a city already clogged up.

Due to the disruptions, the question is what to do with some schools that sit along the marathon route. Should lessons continue usual and just deal with the disruptions, and kids who cannot get to school because of blocked roads, or should school be canceled and let the kids get an education experience by participating in various ways such as by manning water stations?

Mayor of Jerusalem Nir Barkat is in favor of canceling school for that day, for the schools affected, and having the kids man the water stations. It can be a great experience for them. The director of the parents association disagrees and says the kids should go to school. It is a time of preparation for the bagruyot, the kids need to be in school, and it is municipal employees that should be used for helping out with the marathon rather than kids.

What do you think? Should the kids be used, since their schooling will be disturbed anyway, or should they try to study as best they can even under difficult conditions?

My softball team got slaughtered last night by the Dimona Black Hebrews. Slaughtered like the korban pesach, I might add.

The Black Hebrews are one of the best teams in Israel, perhaps the best though that is debatable.

So this morning why kids were asking about the game and laughing about how badly they beat us.

So my 8 year old son suggested I leave my team and join the Dimona team so I could learn to play better. And I should paint my face black so they would take me on the team...

Overheard from a 6 year old trying to manipulate a 2 year old to share treats from gan with her. This comes after repeated attempts in which the 2 year old refused to share...

6 year old: We'll play a game. You'll be the mommy, I will cry and you'll give me some. Ok?

2 year old: Ok.

1. she easily manipulated the 2 year old into thinking it was a game.
2. It only lasted one time, as the 2 year old quickly realized that even though it is a game she is giving away her treats.
3. The 6 year old revealed her tactics in manipulating her parents (i.e. us). She takes it as a given that this is how it works. This is her normal process.
   

I brought my 3 year old son to shul with me yesterday afternoon when I went to daven mincha. I don't take him often because he is a bit noisy (even his whisper voice is very loud), though I keep thinking that next time he won't be so every now and then I try again.

So we start mincha and I am saying shmoneh esrei. At some point I closed my eyes to concentrate. A moment later he asked me, in a very loud whisper voice, why I am sleeping. I started to laugh. Then he asked me again, and he even closed his eyes and said "why are you sleeping like this?"

I couldn't keep a straight face anymore and had to finish up and step out...

One of mine was just arrested for being a terrorist.

Ever since Yaakov Teitel was arrested I had this nagging feeling that I knew him. The name was familiar to me, but even before I saw his name in the news. As soon as I saw his picture, which I saw before I saw his name, I said to myself - I think that is Jack Teitel.

Mind you, I haven't seen Jack Teitel in maybe 25 or more years, and even when I was friends and classmates with him it was only for a couple of years (his family moved around a lot), so I couldn't be sure it was him when his face and name came up in the news.

When the info was first released, it was very sketchy, and very little background on him was mentioned. So, I saw the picture, and said to myself I think that is Jack Teitel.

Then I saw the name Yaakov Teitel. Still can't be sure, because no background of where he was from and all that, other than that he made aliyah from Florida. In the meantime I started asking people, old classmates along with people here, if they knew any details on this guy and if he had lived in Chicago for a few years as a kid. Nobody knew, and the papers still had little info on him.

I told people I wasn't sure, but I remembered they moved around a lot because Teitel's father had been in the US Navy, or maybe the Army though I was pretty sure Navy.

Then I see some articles start referring to Yaakov as Jack, and now more info has been published that his father was a dentist in the US Navy.

I still have not seen any article say he lived in Chicago at some point, but maybe because they moved around a lot that was not a very significant period to mention, or maybe they don't even know about it if he was only there for a couple of years.

Then a classmate of mine writes to me and also mentions that as soon as he saw the picture he was 99% sure it was him.

So, while I cannot yet be 100% sure (I am still waiting for a couple people to get back to me about some questions), I am 99.9% sure that Yaakov Teitel the Terrorist is my former classmate and friend.

And if you are the Shabak reading this, no need to bring me in for interrogation - it was a long time ago and I don't remember anything about him. Just that he existed and we were friendly. Though I also seem to remember that he was taking karate classes. I don't know why some info sticks in your head and other, more important info, doesn't...

My 5-yr old daughter said yesterday that she "wants to learn from the new neighbor how to build houses (we have a neighbor renting office space in the machsanim who is an engineer). Then, when I grow up, I can be an Araviah, because the aravim build our land and I want to build our land also."

I went to a wedding the other night. My wife couldn't go, so I was going it alone. My 5 year old saw me in my suit, and asked me where I was going, or if it is shabbos.

I told her I am going to a chasuna. She asked, "also mommy?"

I said, no just me.

So she inquired further, "this chasuna is only for daddies, not mommies?"...