1. Treppenwitz got together with some other bloggers, and witnessed a strange sight...

2. Danny Brothers is finishing the first 7 months of army service and having his masa kumta. Wish him well for the next stage...

3. A Mother in Israel has an interview with a former kannoi - Part 1 and Part 2.

4. Michel's Thoughts has the story of how Oprah helped someone say kaddish for his father..

5. 404 has a new pashkevil spotted in Bnei Brak - Internet causes cancer...

6. DoubleTapper has some info on Israeli counter-terrorism units..

We went through an organized procedure, with a lot of consideration. The model for opening the parking lots is the same model used for hospitals and hotels in Jerusalem - opening them requiring no payment and being operated by a shabbos goy.
This brings a real solution to a real problem, that is the security and safety around the parking issue in downtown Jerusalem during the weekends. Therefore we went through an organized procedure with consideration, via discussion with the haredi representatives in the city council, and we came to a solution that should not have caused any turmoil.

I do not understand what the protests are about, but that is their right [to protest].

---------Mayor of Jerusalem, Nir Barkat

Gary from Kosher Casuals told me the following "Only in Israel" story during our Friday morning tortuous run up a a mountain the other day..

Gary went to pick up a Torah scroll being returned to his shul after it was lent out for a person in mourning to use for the week of shiva.

As he was walking to the car, carrying the Torah, there was a garbage truck about 100 meters away, picking up the garbage.

One of the sanitation engineers saw the Torah being transported. He put down the refuse container and ran over to kiss the Torah. He also let the car with the Torah pass and go first before the garbage truck.

1. Free Thought on Dissenters, DoubleThinkers, and Charedi society. I found it a bit complicated to follow (i.e. I actually had to pay attention to what I was reading!), but his point is very good.

2. Israeli Uncensored News talks about the Israeli Land Administration reforms bill, and the fight over it.

3. Zionism and the State of Israel has the scoop on the first Orthodox Rabbinical ordination in Germany in 70 years...

4. Chaviva looks at similarities between 3:16 and 613...

5. Something Different lists her top ten peeves of things she hates at weddings...

I am curious, if Barak Obama is saying truthfully, as he just said, that he is pushing for no country in the world to hold nuclear weapons, is he volunteering for the United States to set the example and be the first to rid themselves of nuclear weapons, or is he insisting that every other country do so first?

Who will be the first to get rid of the weapons and who will be the last?

MK Hanin Zoabi gave an interview a couple months ago that was publicized, and she then tried to backtrack from it. In the interview she discussed her support for Iranian nuclear weapons and her anti-Israel stances.

Zoabi backtracked claiming the interviewer, Shmuel Sokol, had deceived her, had taken her words out of context, had misquoted her, had told her he would not publish anything without first confirming with her, etc.

Now Zoabi has given another interview - this time to the Australian media site GreenLeft Online - self-described as Australia's Leading Radical Newspaper. In her interview she does not only show compassion and empathy, which might be understandable, for the plight of the Palestinians, but she describes their activities as participating in the resistance against Israeli occupation, she also says:

"If, as citizens, we boycott the parliament, this would mean that we also boycott the struggle because when we entered the Knesset we do not enter to promote relations with Israel, but instead to struggle against Israel.”

She openly admits that as an Israeli Arab she is not just sympathetic to the plight of her Palestinian brothers (or cousins), but she sees herself and the rest of the Israeli Arabs as being part of the Palestinian struggle. She admits openly that she is working for the downfall of Israel.

Despite this, Zoabi remains positive about the contribution the Palestinian community inside Israel, numbering at 1.2 million, can make to the wider struggle for Palestinian freedom.

She said: “By raising and preserving our national identity, we are contributing to the Palestinian struggle. If the Palestinian refugees struggle for their rights, they are on the side of all Palestinians and when we also struggle for our rights and stand up for our people, this assists the struggle.

“We participated in demonstrations during the war on Gaza. About 200,000 Palestinians out of 1.2 million marched — one sixth of the Palestinian population. It means that in every house in Palestine there was one person who demonstrated.

“Not standing still as citizens inside Israel is our contribution to the Palestinian struggle in the Occupied Territories [of the West Bank and Gaza Strip].”

I still find it amazing that we, Israel, allow her and others like her to sit and serve in Knesset.

(HatTip: S. Sokol)

1. CosmicX compares the emergency drill in Israel to memories of previous drills in the US. A Mother in Israel had trouble getting to her shelter. And Maralynn prepared by buying lots of kitty litter...

2. Dry Bones on Bibi and Pollard.

3. Rabbi Fink talks about using athletes as role models, specifically referencing the way King James reacted after the Cavs recent elimination..

4. The Wolf discusses a recent Chabad Ask the Rabbi answer about killing Arabs and morality.

Askanim in the haredi community, and in other communities as well but with less influence, try to influence the way we live our lives - whether individually to a certain extent (think kosher cell phones, where you can shop, internet access, etc.) or whether on a communal level (think signs about tzniyus, trying to make stores or buses "mehadrin", community events regulated by them, etc.).

There is a famous criticism of professors in the secular world that they often do not live what they preach. I have heard, and am sure many others have as well, stories in shmuezim, about the ethics professor who does not live according to the ethical standards he teaches and admits so publicly saying what he teaches has nothing to do with how he lives.

That form of hypocricy is one I have always heard to be rejected by us. The morals and ethics we teach are morals and ethics we have to live by and we demand of oruselves and of our leaders who teach them.

Those askanim who try to direct our communities - take a look at what happened in Bnei Brak last night, as reported by Yisrael HaYom (article below). The police raided a gambling joint. In the heart of Bnei brak. Arrests were made. Nobody is named in the article, but it says they are known askanim, aides and people in the municipality of Bnei brak, and others well connected.

So we have askanim acting holier than thou telling us the need for kosher cell phones, kosher buses, kosher whatever, and then (not specifically the same people, but the same genre of people) they are caught gambling. Actually it is not so bad. The gambling joint ran in a mehadrin format - no women were allowed!

1. Frozen Politics, Eh has an interesting comparison regarding the bulldozing of homes..

2. Michal Bas Avraham has a new solution to Israel's internal problems...

3. Lion of Zion has some advice how to shop for appropriate yeshivas for your kids..

4. Yossi Karp on Hairdressers and Taxi Drivers...

5. A Simple Jew with an unusual recollection. Considering the incident that happened in Israel the other day, it might just have worked!

6. Jameel reminds us of an earlier time - from before the word "settlement" was a dirty word. When the Left celebrated the Settlement Holiday..

I am ready for nuclear war. Are you?

If this was a National Emergency Drill that is actually expected to prepare us for anything, I am a monkeys uncle. I guess what it is good for is to see if the bomb shelters are ready and can hold the numbers of people they are meant to, emergency lighting, blocked stairwells, etc. But to prepare the people? this must not have been the point.

In my office building, of something like 40 floors, they gave us ample warning. So much warning, that by the time the siren went off, most people were already downstairs. They did not want to go down the stairs, so they went early by elevator. Or they just hung out in the stairwell and did not go all the way down.

I, on the other hand, figured if I am doing it, I might as well do it right. So I planned to go down all 22 flights to the bottom.

Sure enough, right before the siren went off, I was told I am an "Achrayee Delet" - I am responsible for one of the emergency doors, making sure people get out, and marking down whoever goes out through my door. That means I am one of the last out of my office. That also means in case of actual nuclear war, I am toast. Oh well, at least everyone else got out!

I did my duty, making sure the last few remaining people got out, and then ran down 22 flights of stairs in about 3.5 minutes. It took a bit longer than expected because of people congregating in the stairwell at different parts. Also emergency lights were out in certain sections, and that caused a logjam, as people had to go slow in the pitch black stairwell in those sections.

After hanging around underground for about 20 minutes or so, we got the all-clear and went back up. We had to climb about 4 flights to get to ground level, and then took the elevators up. I considered running up the 22 flights, but then decided I did not want to risk a heart attack. So I took the elevator.

I have heard that plenty of places did not even hear the siren... the following was posted to the local email list:

If you did NOT hear the siren at 11:00 AM today, you are instructed to telephone the Home Front Command by dialing: 1207.

This is posted on the Home Front Command Web site at: http://www.oref.org.il/14-en/PAKAR.aspx

The debate about what bracha to make on Pringles is probably about as old as Pringles themselves are.
Pringles are very similar to real potato chips, but in actuality are not made from potatoes, but from processed potato flour mixed with other ingredients. Hence the debate about what bracha to make.

A quick search for sources on the Internet leads to the following opinions:

• Ha'Adama is the appropriate bracha according to: Rav Belsky quoting Rav Moshe Feinstein, Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach and Rav Elyashiv. As well, according to this article from the YU website quoting Rav Abadi who references Rav Aharon Kotler...
• She'HaKol is the appropriate bracha according to: Ohr Sameyach in the name of Rav Meier Bransdorfer. The Brachot website quotes Rav Bodner as saying it is a shehakol, but accepts that some opinions claim ha'adama..HalachaNet from Shema Yisrael also paskens She'Hakol..

Clearly, both sides of the debate have strong halachic backing.

The British Supreme Court has now come out with a psak, deciding on an appeal by the VAT authorities from an earlier court ruling in favor of Procter and Gamble declaring it a snack and not a potato chip, base don the use of potato flour and not potatoes, along with the content level and mixtures. The ramification for them is what level of taxes they have to pay.

The Supreme Court overruled the earlier decision and decided that Pringles are in fact potato chips, despite the content issue.

Britain’s Supreme Court of Judicature has answered a question that has long puzzled late-night dorm-room snackers: What, exactly, is a Pringle? With citations ranging from Baroness Hale of Richmond to Oliver Wendell Holmes, Lord Justice Robin Jacob concluded that, legally, it is a potato chip.
[...]
The Supreme Court of Judicature had little patience with Procter & Gamble’s lawyerly attempts to break out of the potato chip category. The company argued that to be “made of potato” Pringles would have to be all potato, or nearly so. If so, Lord Justice Jacob noted, “a marmalade made using both oranges and grapefruit would be made of neither — a nonsense conclusion.”
[...]
In other words, sometimes you just have to call them as you see them.

Conservatives like to insist that their judges are strict constructionists, giving the Constitution and statutes their precise meaning and no more, while judges like Ms. Sotomayor are activists. But there is no magic right way to interpret terms like “free speech” or “due process” — or potato chip. Nor is either ideological camp wholly strict or wholly activist. Liberal judges tend to be expansive about things like equal protection, while conservatives read more into ones like “the right to bear arms.”

In the end, as Lord Justice Jacob noted, a judge can only look at the relevant factors and draw an overall impression. His common-sense approach was a rebuke not only to Procter & Gamble, but to everyone out there who insists that the only way to read laws correctly is to read them strictly.

I wonder if the British Supreme Court ruling would have any affect on how poskim look at the chip and if from either side of the great Pringles debate a posek would change his opinion because of it...

1. Jameel left The Muqata for a few hours and spent an evening at an "illegal outpost" - Ramat Gilad.

2. Yaak has a cool story about a guy bit by a dog...

3. The Way on the Pope and holocaust deniers.

4. Mike in Midwood has the frum guide to eating chulent.. If you live in NY, this should come in handy...

5. Mrs. S reveals the real reason for the nationwide emergency drill that will take place tomorrow...

Rav Don Segal has issued a reminder of the urgency with which people should be careful to check their mezuzahs regularly - twice every seven years, as mandated by halacha.

When asked why he is mentioning this now, Rav Segal responded that it is in light of the recent tragic, horrific really, car accident in which 5 people were killed returning from Meron on Lag B'Omer.

Rav Segal had gone to be menachem aveil in the homes of the mourning, and he noticed there were no mezuzahs on the doorposts in the house he went into. He asked why, and they told him they had sent them out to be checked, in light of the accident. It turned out they were all no good.

Rav Segal said that while we don't know the ays of God, people should be careful to get their mezuzahs checked.
(source:kikarshabbat)

A friend told me of an interesting situation he was just witness to, and it reminded me of a similar story that happened to a friend of mine many years ago.

This friend told me about a relative of his who just got married. He is from Israel, but his bride is from abroad, and the wedding was abroad. They were there over the recent Shavuos holiday.

This situation meant the husband was keeping one day of yom tov, and the wife keeping two days of yom tov. Normally, when a man and woman get married, the wife starts keeping her husband's customs, at least for the most part. This is not regulated by custom, even though the reason we still keep two days of yom tov in the diaspora is because of custom, rather it is regulated by a persons status - in this case the husband is a ben eretz yisrael - an Israeli - and the wife was still a bas chutz la'aretz - from abroad.

This meant that while he had to make kiddush for shabbos, she needed kiddush for holiday. He had to daven for shabbos and hear Torah reading for shabbos, and the local shuls were davening holiday davening (he told me the chosson was told by the rabbi to stay home and not go to shul - how come I never get psak like that??!!). etc.

This reminded me of a similar situation a friend of mine had been in many years ago. He had been in Israel a number of years and was already keeping 1 day yom tov as an Israeli. His kallah was from abroad. They were going to be moving to Israel right after the wedding, but were spending the upcoming holiday of Pesach in the US right after the wedding.

This presented him with the excat same situation - he would be keeping one day, and his wife would be keeping two days. I remember he asked one of the more prominent rabbis in his town what to do and if she should keep one or two days. The answer given was that she cannot switch her status from an American to an Israeli while in the United States. Only once in Israel can that status be changed. So she had to keep two days, and he had to keep one day of yom tov.

An interesting halchic twist.