Eyal Golan is an Israeli singer. I never heard of him before until I saw this clip of him singing "Anachnu Ma'aminim bnei Ma'aminim" (from MBD)... His website and his wiki page each have a picture, and he does not look like the same person, but it is him...

A Guest Post by Lemaan Achai

We are all aware that the Kinneret, following years of drought in Israel, has
now hit "the red line".

However, you are probably not aware that, due to the economic downturn
and the weak dollar, Lema'an Achai's donations are *very* low.
And that, due to rising prices of basics (eg food, fuel, rent..) in
Israel, many more families have turned to Lema'an Achai in need of
help.

So much so that Lema'an Achai has also hit "the red line".

Crying Wolf: Lema'an Achai does not 'stage' emergency appeals. We are
'crying wolf' because there is a 'wolf'. Since establishing Lema'an
Achai, over eight years ago, I have not seen such a dire situation.
The need is increasing daily, while donations to help are slumping.

In our case this means cutting families' food coupons (=No Food),
utilities bills assistance (=No Electricity & Water) and other primary
aid (=Debt Collectors & Evictions) - while also cutting back on
Lema'an Achai's unique 'SmartChesed' services (to professionally solve
severe financial & other crises, and ultimately get these families
*out* of poverty).

We are cutting back on anything non-critical. So there'll be no
beautiful Lema'an Achai calendars this year.
And, sadly, we're closing down the Gush Katif Relief Fund and are
winding-down our experimental 'Old Bet Shemesh' Office.

My friends, I now have a check in front of me.

It's for 70,000 NIS ($20,000). It's to pay for food stamps. For
September. To tide over some Two Hundred needy families till Rosh Hashana.

I am not going to sign this check, if there's not the money to cover the bill.

Lema'an Achai are no longer able to help all of these local families
with relief today, nor a better future tomorrow.

How You Can Help: Of course you plan to donate generously to Lema'an
Achai for Rosh Hashana, Be"H....

But we now *also* need you to give generously this summer - in fact, right now.

And we also need your ongoing support - beyond the three times a year
that over two thousand people donate so generously to Lema'an Achai.
Please consider a standing-order, or regular credit card payment, so
that we can ride out this economic downturn, and be better resourced
for any future challenges.
Whether they be Economic Recession, Wars, Refugees, or the Hundreds
of family level crises which we address and resolve every day...

How to Donate: see www.lemaanachai.org/donate.asp

You can also help us by sending this email to your family and close
friends (ONLY!) - adding your personal testimony and recommendation
of Lema'an Achai's remarkable work and rock-solid integrity.
--
Tizku Lemitzvot,
David & Avrohom

A reader sent me the following letter. It had been distributed on Thursday evening I guess.


A couple of comments:

1. Could they not find a single English speaking person in all of Bet Shemesh who would have been willing to translate the letter from the original Hebrew so as not to mangle it like this? It is hardly understandable! Heck - I would have been willing to do it for them just to avoid this product!
2. Note how overall it is a fairly polite letter - until the threat at the end that we warn you to not make us resort to non-polite methods!
3. Note that the solution for them is always by insisting other people change their living habits, and not they change theirs. You have to put up curtains, and not them. You have to be careful to not harm their lifestyle, but they have no problem harming your lifestyle. etc.
   

Tzipiyah is hosting Haveil Havalim 181....

On Thursday night I was goign through the freezer taking a roast out to defrost to cook for Shabbos. My 4-year old daughter was there with me. She relates the open freezer door to igloos and ice cream, so when she saw I was not taking out either igloos or ice cream she asked me what I was doing.

I told her I am taking out meat for Shabbos. So she asked, "This is cow and sheep? for shabbos? You are taking out cow and sheep for shabbos?"

So I said yes.,. but just cow.

So after a moment she said, "Next time dont shecht a cow and sheep."

I asked why not? what will we eat for shabbos?

She responded, "We will make our own food!"

They seem to be matching each others moves pretty equally...

Obama is inexperienced, so McCain picked someone even more inexperienced.
Obama is attractive (handsome in guy language), so McCain picked an attractive VP candidate.
Obama has great oratory skills, Palin showed off some of her oratry skills last night.
Obama has played the youth card, Palin knocks that out as well.
Obama chimes for change and outsiders, Palin one ups him on that as well.

Palin was spotted with the Israeli flag on her curtains and in her lapel (nobody seems to know why she had them there). How the heck is Obama going to counter that one?

Here is the answer. It seems that Michelle Obama's cousin is a Jew. He converted in 1985, an orthodox conversion. Not only is he a Jew, but he is a Rabbi. Not only is he a Rabbi (Rabbi Capers Funnye), but he is rabbi of the largest Black and Ethiopian synagogue in America.

The ball is now in McCain's court. How is he going to top that one???

The following is not a very good video of Rabbi Funnye, but it is a video nonetheless....

As you might already know, this November 11 is elections for mayor here in Bet Shemesh.

The current mayor has been in power for 15 years, and I think we would all agree its time for change. The time has come for clean neighborhoods, responsible and caring government and thoughtful city planning. I am personally supporting Shalom Lerner for mayor of Bet Shemesh.

Shalom is the current Deputy Mayor and is a resident of the Sheinfeld neighborhood. A talmid of Ner Yisroel in Baltimore, Shalom has lived in Bet Shemesh for over 18 years and has been involved in community affairs for almost as long. Shalom has been very helpful in many of our local shuls efforts to acquire land for their shuls.

This Motzei Shabbat, Shalom will be officially announcing his candidacy at a public event in Bet Shemesh. We need as many people as possible to attend the event, so that everyone will see that Shalom is a serious candidate with broad backing from ALL the communities in Bet Shemesh.

The event is called for 8:45 PM on Motzei Shabbat, at Ron-Tal, the large hall on top of Bank Leumi in the center of town (next to the Misrad HaPnim).

If you care about Bet Shemesh and want to show that we in the Ramah (or whichever part of BS you will be coming from) need representation, then please take 30 minutes to attend the event
and show your support. Every person counts!!

In the Yated Ne'eman there was a letter to the editor the other day that amused me. They distribute a free copy of the Hebrew paper once a week in my neighborhood, and someone showed me the letter. I do not have it in front of me, so I will only describe it from memory rather than actually quote it.

The letter writer wrote in complaining that he had been in a shlachthois recently (he did not say why he was there) watching a shechita of a top hechsher, and he noticed the shochet had a cellphone that was not a "kosher phone" (it was not a phone that had been authorized by the rabbinic committee for cellphones). He says he was shocked that someone shechting and providing kosher meat can be trusted when he himself carries a treif phone.

he goes on and writes that he then saw the bodeq also carrying a non-kosher phone, as well as some other people in the line doing various jobs (I don't remember which ones) who also had non-kosher phones.

He goes on to describe the shock that people who are not careful with kallah k'ba'chamura (easy laws just as much as stringent laws) and how can they be trusted to shecht and provide kosher food for us. He calls for the public to demand from the administrators of the hechsherim have to demand that all their shochtim and employees must use only kosher phones.

I wonder why, once he was there already and so shocked enough to write (anonymously of course) a letter to the editor about it, he did not go over to the shochet, or any of the other employees he saw with the regular phones, and ask him about it? Why did he not ask the mashgiach?

Perhaps they belong to a community that does not listen to those specific askanim and therefore felt no need to switch over? Perhaps they had a specific need for regular phones, such as sms or even email and they received hetterim from their rabbonim to use them?

And no matter how serious you consider the requirement to switch to a kosher phone, to call it a mitzvah "kallah k'ba'chamura"? To equate it with actual mitzvos and call such a shochet suspect and not trustworthy of feeding us kosher food?

I must say the Letters to the Editor in the Yated are always entertaining...

A number of people have asked me how I come up with material for the blog. I must say that there are times where I have to really look for something I consider interesting enough to be blog-worthy. I try to avoid the standard news stuff, and sometimes I really have to work hard to find good material.
Then there are other times were things just fall into my lap. Like today. I went to the makolet in the morning to buy some bread and milk, and sure enough there were pashkevils thrown all over the street. I had just passed by there a short while before and the streets were still clean, so I guess it was divinely ordained for me to decide to go to the makolet (actually my wife asked me to, but maybe God put it in her head to ask) just so I would see the pashkevil.

I scanned it in and present it to you here. I don't know how they come up with this stuff. But I do want to know how I will be able to get a copy of the movie they say he is producing....


I might add that this guy seems to upset a number of people who keep finding ways to attack him and make crazy accusations...

Are Jewish children less sacred than non-Jewish children?

Rabbi Horowitz hits another out of the ballpark...

McCain: I know how to capture Bin Laden, and I'll do it.

------------Reuters

If you know how to do it, and claim to be able to, why have you not told President Bush your little secret at any point in time over the past 7 years?

I just downloaded and installed the new browser put out by Google, Google Chrome.

While I have not had the opportunity to really check it out yet. I already like it, the little I have so far used it. Some of the websites that I had trouble with in Firefox seem to work just fine in Chrome. And it is lite like Firefox and not as bulky as IE.

So far so good.

At the beginning of August, I wrote about a frum "therapist" (in quotes because he is not certified as a therapist but took a course with a frum organization) who was caught for sexual molestation. At the time I got some of the details wrong, and was waiting for developments before posting on it again. Since then I have heard some developments, and wanted to point out something.

The police were not brought in on that case. They ran a private investigation, very similar to the way the molestation case in a school in RBS was handled.

The difference is the follow-up. The case of the molestation in RBS was handled by bringing in the private investigator (which in hindsight many are saying was a bad move), yet when the investigator hit a brick wall and could no longer continue, the rabbonim gave those involved the ok to contact the police.
In the case of the "therapist", the police were never brought in - the rabbonim said we cannot hurt his parnassah (a direct quote someone, with firsthand knowledge of the case, quoted to me) and therefore they allowed him to continue working in the field, although they required certain changes to his practice to ensure it not happen again.

But on to some developments in the molestation case of RBS.

As mentioned, the case has been passed on to the proper authorities; the police and the city welfare department. An investigation was opened, and that allowed the children and families the opportunity to get the help and therapy they required.

What is shocking is a development that just occurred this week. As we all know, school finally started this week. This fellow, the teacher who allegedly molested 1st grade children under his tutelage, was not meant to be teaching in a school. The police however cannot, at this point, stop him from being given a job in another school. They can only do so once he has been formally charged (i.e. they feel they have enough evidence to indict). This teacher has been given a teaching job in another school in the neighborhood!

The school knows about the investigation and accusations against him. Why they would hire him, I have no idea. What can they possibly gain by having him as a teacher, no matter how good of a teacher he might be, that would offset the risk of him being found guilty and ruining their name? What could possibly offset the risk of him molesting children in their school? I cannot understand why they would be willing to take the risk of hiring him, despite the threat he brings to the school.

While he might be keeping a low profile now, and will be sure not to do anything that will raise any suspicion, eventually something will happen and he will hurt more children. He is an alleged sexual offender under investigation and he should not be teaching children (or anybody perhaps) until the investigation is completed and he is cleared. The safety of the children should come first, especially considering the strength of the allegations.

A separate, but connected, note:
A program called "Safe Kids" was recently launched and is backed by Lemaan Achai. This program is a general resource for any concerned parents or children in the Ramat Bet Shemesh neighborhood.

I have no problem believing that a strange segulah was used in the search and retrieval of the body of that guy who drowned in Los Angeles (NOTE: it is a strange segulah, and one that many people are screaming against, because it is one most of us have never heard of before). Segulahs exist, they can be used, kabbalistic things can be done. Just because we are not familiar with many of them does not mean they do not exist.

YW News reported on the segulah, and some of the commenters there claim to have been there and say that they know about it firsthand. Rabbi Adlerstein, in his article on the search and his participation, does not mention anything about the segulah, but maybe he had reasons to leave it out of his discussion.

My only question is that if this segulah really exists, and works, why have the rabbonim not offered to use it in the search for the missing 4.5 year old girl in Israel. The grandfather admitted to having killed her, and they have been searching for her body for over two weeks now. They have, to date, found no trace of her body.

Are there no rabbonim or mekubalim great enough in Israel to perform such a segulah? Are there none of equal greatness to the ten rabbis located in Los Angeles and therefore it will not work here?

What's the deal?

Wow! I got the honor of a mention in this article! Even though I was not zoche for a link, just the mention is an honor!

Hattip: DoubleTapper

NRG has an interesting weekly feature in their section on Judaism that I [almost] always enjoy. They call it "Shlifot im ..." (quick responses with...) each time selecting a different politician, rabbi, celebrity to speak with.

They ask all sorts of questions and the interviewee responds with short and quick responses. This week the Shlifot feature interview MK Avraham Ravitz, the elder member of the Degel HaTorah faction of UTJ.

The whole interview is interesting, and enlightening, as they almost always are.

Ravitz said one thing during the interview I would like to comment on. When asked about women in the Knesset his response was, "They come with an agenda, and they get trapped by that agenda. Therefore that impedes upon their ability to think independently for themselves."

I find that statement ironic considering the party he represents. He, and his party members, too, comes to the Knesset with an agenda. His agenda, too, limits his freedom of thought. As well, that freedom is not afforded him, as all decisions and policies are set by other people (the Rabbinic heads of Degel), and while he presents them with his thoughts and version of the facts, at the end of the day, his actions are decided upon by other people and by agendas that need to be followed.

So it is ironic for Ravitz to criticize women who are in the Knesset that they come with agendas that they cannot break free from. Not all women come with these agendas, at least no more than any other Member of Knesset, and the politicians representing the Haredi parties come with their own agendas that they have always failed to break free from.