Thank you, Aish NY

I had been a member of a local shul for three years until it went extremely progressive. The shul was within walking distance from my home; in fact, it was a very treasured walkable distance, which made attendance a delight, even though some erev shabbat discussions on whether God existed or how as a congregation we could promote homosexual unions in Judaism, were not so. The liberal congregation was more intent on how we could increase our rapport with local Muslims than they were committed to acknowledging the legitimacy of the sovereign nation of Israel, or helping victims of Muslim terror. Clearly, I wanted more out of my shul. I wanted a rabbi who believed in HaShem and who would masterfully transfer his faith to his congregation, I wanted to belong to a congregation whose members believed in HaShem, and most of all, I wanted tradition, not reformation. So I abandoned my little shul and my dream of being a member of a congregation in this little corner of town. It hurt.

Then two years ago I discovered www.nomembershiprequired.com, a site dedicated to identifying High Holiday services in over 50 cities nationwide, where if you are not a member, it's not a problem. I entered my geography and - bingo - I discovered an Aish shul, and for the past three High Holidays, I have been able to participate in services in an Orthodox shul, where the men sit apart from the women, and where I have been able to be a member of a faithful Orthodox community. The only problem is that I can't walk there for weekly services. I'll figure something out.

With this post, I wish to declare my deepest appreciation to the Rabbis at Aish NY for their dedicated leadership to their congregation, for their moving and pious attention to each word in the Machzor, and for their inspired discussions on HaShem, atonement, forgiveness, rebirth, mercy, and Jerusalem. May HaShem Bless each of you and your families with good health, prosperity and joy in the New Year.

Live Webcast: Jewish Television Network Kol Nidre Service

Join Jewish Television Network and Wilshire Boulevard Temple for a LIVE webcast of Kol Nidre service.

September 21, 2007 at 4:45 pm Pacific Time / 7:45 pm Eastern

http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid533363107/bctid331187323

or

http://www.jewishtvnetwork.com/?bcpid=533363107&bctid=331187323

...asking G-d for forgiveness...

Excerpted from Aish.com:

On Yom Kippur the opportunity to re-experience God's love for us is greater than it is at any other time. What that means is that God makes it possible to break down the most resilient barrier that we can erect separating us from our Father -- the barrier of sin.

The word "sin" has a terrible reputation. It is associated with paralyzing guilt that reduces our souls to dust. In fact, there are three words in Hebrew that describe "sin" which is really a failure of honest self-expression:

One is chet, which literally means missing the mark.

The second is avon, which means desire.

The third is pesha, which means rebellion.

When we take responsibility for our actions and for the direction that our lives have taken, (even when our decisions were colored by other people or external factors), we can begin to move forward. As long as we deny where we stand today, we will find that we are still there tomorrow.

There is one major obstacle to self-change. The past cannot be re-lived. The patterns that we have allowed ourselves to develop are extremely difficult to break.

How many times do we find ourselves trapped by the insidious, invisible automatic pilot. What frees us from the burden of self-imposed rigidity is God Himself. He is willing to reverse the laws of cause and effect in order to liberate us from ourselves. The one condition that is required is that we take responsibility for our choices, and regret the damage that we have done.

The classical confession is the means that we use to do this. It is said five times on Yom Kippur during each of the silent standing prayers, the "Amidah". Rather than ending our silent devotion by beseeching God to grant us peace, we add the confession before concluding.

By studying this confession, we can do the inner work to maximize the power of the day. Let us look at it carefully.

THE CONFESSION

ASHAMNU: We have become desolate.

We commit ourselves to recognizing that our failures are self-destructive.

BAGADNU: We have betrayed our potential, our families, God Himself.

We can question who we have been in our multifaceted role as a human being and as a Jew? Who have we betrayed? Is it not ultimately ourselves as well as others?

GAZALNU: We have stolen.

This includes not only financial theft, but theft of time, and misleading others into thinking that we are more accomplished than we actually are. This sin is especially damaging in that it reflects the fact that we have rejected the role in life that God has given us.

DEBARNU DOFI: We have spoken with "two mouths" -- we have been hypocritical.

We can confront our fear of rejection, and the dishonesty that we use to "cover ourselves." Who are we afraid of? Why? Should we not be more willing to tackle the reality that confronts us?

HEYVINU: We have made things crooked.

This includes all forms of dishonest rationalizations. Our hunger for decency sometimes is satiable through false justifications. We must remember that even a murderer invariably justifies himself at the time he commits the crime. We must rise above the false self-pity that at times lets us slip into situational ethics.

VIHIRSHANU: And we have made others wicked.

We have forced others into destructive responses. An example of this is a parent who slaps the face of an older child, almost forcing him into loss of verbal (and possibly even physical) self-control.

ZADNU: We have sinned intentionally.

The classical example is lying, in which case there is always full awareness of the factuality of the sin. How could we learn to bring God back into our consciousness when we are blinded by stress and fear?

CHAMASNU: We have been violent.

This includes all forms of taking the law in one's own hands. Almost everyone has fallen into the trap of letting the ends justify the means.

TAFALNU SHEKER: We have become desensitized to dishonesty.

Dishonesty feels "normal" to us. When we live in a time and place where lying is "normal," we can endeavor to envision our spiritual heroes in our shoes.

YATZNU RA: We have given bad advice.

This often is the result of being ashamed to admit ignorance. One of the most beautiful aspects of taking counsel from the Torah sages is their refreshing ability to use the words "I don't know." Committing ourselves to re-introduce this phrase can be life-changing.

KIZAVNU: We have disappointed God, ourselves and others by not living up to our promises.

We tell people that we can be counted upon, when we really mean that we can be counted upon if things work out. When they don't, it is important to ask one's self: Why is it that in situations where integrity and convenience can't coexist, it is always integrity that must be sacrificed?

LATZNU: We have been contemptuous.

We have diminished the importance of people and values that deserve respect. We all know at least one person who makes himself/herself "big" by devaluing others. If that person is ourselves, then we must question the direction that our need for self-esteem takes us.

MARADNU: We have rebelled.

We, in our bottomless insecurity, have found ourselves negatively proving ourselves endlessly both to God and to our fellow man. How many times this year could our lives been spiritually improved, if we didn't have to "teach" anyone a lesson?

NIATZNU: We have enraged people.

We have purposely pushed other people's buttons. We have caused God's anger to be awakened by our self-destructive behavior. We've let our desire for human connection lead us to destructive interactions.

SARARNU: We have turned aside.

We have confronted truth and looked the other way. We have chosen ease over morality.

AVINU: We fallen victim to our impulses.

Would our lives be improved if we learned to not only ask ourselves the question "what" but the question "when"? The desire for instant gratification has financial, physical and emotional implications.

PESHANU: We have broken standards of behavior that we know to be right and then justified this because of our egotism.

Have we not found ourselves justifying bad decisions with lie after lie? Have we not moved forward because to do so would mean tacitly admitting that our present level is not "perfect" enough to gratify our bottomless egos?

TZARARNU: We afflicted others.

Even in situations where harsh words are demanded, whenever we go beyond what is called for, we are accountable for the pain suffered by every unnecessary word. While we may be just letting off steam, our victims may believe every word that we say. The result can be a tragic diminishment of their self-esteem.

KISHINU OREF: We have been stiff-necked.

We have been stubborn and unwilling to redefine ourselves. No matter how wrong we are, we insist that we are right.

RISHANU: We have been wicked.

This includes all forms of physical aggression or financial injustice (such as refusal to repay a loan). When Moses saw his fellow Jew striking another Jew, he called him "rasha." He never used this phrase in any other context.

SHICHATNU: We have been immoral.

This includes all forms of dehumanizing "hunting" members of the opposite sex, or the equally dehumanizing choice of becoming "prey." Do we question why we select a specific image to be the one that we use to let the world know who we are?

TAINU: We have erred.

This, of course, is not a reference to sins that we have done because we weren't aware of better options. This refers to the choice to remain ignorant out of fear or laziness that inevitably leads to making further mistakes. This is a good time to make a solid, defined resolution to learn more. Let it replace the vague realization that time is slipping by.

TIATANU: We have misled others.

We have spread our ignorant assumptions and thereby victimized others.

The purpose of studying this list is not to wallow in guilt. It is to bring us to the point where we can honestly come before God and say, "This is who I was. Help me be who I want to be. Help me find my truest self."

His help is guaranteed. He is our Father, not only our King.

I wish all of my Jewish readers an easy fast and a meaningful Yom Kippur. I unconditionaly forgive anyone who may have wronged me during this year, and I ask forgiveness for anyone I may have wronged as well.

May we all be sealed in the Book of Life and have a year of peace, prosperity, good health, and happiness.

The month of Elul

"I have set before you life and death . . Therefore, choose life, that both you and your seed may live." -Deuteronomy 30:8

Oh, do I want to live, yes, more than anything, I want to know life and a life full of love and prayer and obedience to HaShem. I suppose you can say that I live an emotional life, not always predicated by my intellect, but a life in which I respond to things with a feeling more often than with an intellectual response. In some cases, being emotional has saved my life, because I felt danger and I reacted. In other cases, it made me happy, because I fell in love and married a wonderful guy. But probably the majority of the time, I feel sadness, because I still grieve for my father, I miss my dog, my aging mother is lonely and sad and I can't do anything to prevent it, I have had to abandon my trust in others, I have no relationship with my brother, I mourn the loss of being able to demonstrate my pride in being an American because the "Hate America" crowd is too powerful in this country, I miss my youth, I miss the old days with my family, I regret that I have not yet been to Israel to make aliyah, and the list goes on and on.

One feeling that I have that has just begun to stir my heart is the fact that Yom Kippur is coming; this is the month of Elul. I just feel it, I feel something and it is unusal for me to even think about it weeks before it has arrived. This never happened to me before. My spirit is being moved. I hope it means that HaShem is finding merit in me. Why else would the spark in me be so noticeable now? The smell in the afternoon air a few days ago and the way the cool wind blew, and the shadow of the sun as it was beginning its descent into the evening sky reminded me that Yom Kippur is coming and that we are at the beginning of the month of repentance. Indeed, Rosh Chodesh Elul begins at sundown on Monday, August 13, 2007. The month of Elul is a month of preparation for the month of Tishre and the Days of Awe, Rosh HaShannah and Yom Kippur. During this entire month we sound the Shofar every morning after our prayers to help prepare us to repent and purify ourselves for a good New Year. The most important time of the Jewish year is often the most awesome and inspiring as well as the most misunderstood. Here's all the basics you need to know.

Haveil Havalim #95 - Thanksgiving Edition

"Hinei ma tov uma na'im shevet achim gam yachad."

"Behold, how good and how pleasant it is to be united like brothers and sisters in one family and one community." --- Psalm 133:1

Folks, I am pleased to host this edition of Haveil Havalim, the weekly round up of posts from all over the JBlogosphere. There were lots of great submissions to choose from this week, resulting in a profound reflection of thought, opinion, rant, observation, religion, and talent. The JBlogosphere is a great community and I'm proud to part of it.

Ok, let's get started. For starters, what in the world is the J-Blogosphere? (As if you didn't already know. ) But, if you didn't already know, click here for more information.

One of the earliest HH submissions that I received was from Bagelblogger, who I only recently discovered. Bagel Blogger's funny Mr Bagel, a cartoon character, is the site's mascot spokesperson. After doing many single frame cartoons, Mr Bagel breaks out and does his first cartoon strip. You might notice Bagelblogger's new masthead too. Bagel has his fourth caption contest running, and pointed out, that despite what the Palestinians would have the world believe, Palestinian women are becoming more and more active in waging Jihad against the Israeli State. And their language? Their convoluted propganda talkspeak? Read about it here.

AbbaGav writes about how he met his wife Sharon, in a post inspired by West Bank Mama, who according to AbbaGav, was inspired by Treppenwitz.

If Ariel Sharon were to awake from his coma, what would he say about the State of Israel? Rafi translates from a Hebrew post and gives us some insight. He also writes about restarting his shechita learning, and about Arkadi Gaydamak, an Israeli billionaire.

Bacon Eating Atheist Jew admits it; he was going to watch the OJ interview and would have turned the channel during the commercials, but since Murdoch has cancelled the tv program, none of us can watch. Thank goodness.

Ahhh, Banagor. One of my favorite bloggers, although he is neither Jewish nor Israeli, Banagor came out of a one month hiatus from blogging to write one of the most absolutely brilliant posts I've ever read, ever. Read Banagor's brilliant Exasperation he has - and that I also share - with the Democrats and the Muslim world.

Anne, at Boker Tov, Boulder, posts an excerpt from the speech that Abba Eban gave at the Commonwealth Club in California on November 14, 1970. Anne writes that although the excerpt is no more than a blip in the "long and unending dialogue between the Jewish people and the rest of mankind," she hopes it will strengthen us nonetheless. We need all the strengthening we can get.

Olah Chadasha points out the mythology that Palestinians don't use or get used as human shields at Greetings From The French Hill. OC is also at a crossroad in a career decision. I wish him peace of mind.

Cosmic X points out how truly unrepresentative of the Jewish people are the self-elected representatives of the Jewish people, in a dissection of this article by Dr. Muli Peleg.

Sarah enjoys taking photos and presents Leaf Glow posted at her site ~ Sarah's View ~.

Another blog that I had not heard of before, is Shifting the Paradigm, written by anonym00kie, who from the get-go, blogged that G-d believes in us more than we have so far learnt to believe in ourselves. Sometimes, despair makes us forget that.

Omri excels at puncturing mere rhetoric when he hears it, and this time, harpoons Reuters propaganda mouthpiece Nidal al-Mughrabi and raises the AP Bias Alert Level: Obvious (Grandma Suicide Bomber Edition).

Avromi, of daf notes, writes about the new ruling issued by the Tzitz Eliezer on smoking on Yom Tov.

Yid With Lid asks if Olmert is losing control of his govt? Um, yes, he is, Yid, and that's a good thing because another government, a better one, must replace it. Maybe Israel's citizenship is waking up. I also worry that Israel's government is losing its focus on HaShem. Yid also demonstrates that France still manifests its Vichy disposition. As you might already know, Vichy France was established after France surrendered to Germany on June 22, 1940, and took its name from the government's administrative centre in Vichy, southeast of Paris. While officially neutral in the war, Vichy actively collaborated with the Nazis, including their racial policies. Sometimes it seems that Israel's UN ambassador Dan Gillerman is the only one in the government who owns a backbone.

Batya makes great points in I've been saying that. Batya asks "why do signs in Yad Veshem say that the Jews "perished" in Nazi Germany? They ignore the "m" word. Instead of hammering away with the true fact that man murdered man, the picture is of a natural disaster, like everyone perished in the flood except Noah and his family." Excellent points, Batya.

Soccer Dad opens our eyes on how some people foolishly idolized James Baker, including Carla Anne Robbins, an editorial observer for the New York Slimez Times.

Akiva at Mystical Paths writes about an eerie manifestation of the Rebbe at 770, and links to a video that a visiting chosid filmed with his cell phone on Thursday. Watch closely at seconds 9-12...Video in 770.

ZionistYoungster writes that regardless that there are moderate Muslims, they are no more relevant to our situation than were Germans who saw Nazism as nothing more but a movement to heal German society internally.

Yoni Tidi writes how the security fence has been breached around Jerusalem. Wake up, Olmert, wake the heck up.

Avi at Tel Chai Nation warns about a subliminal message in a crossword puzzle that a Spanish teacher at Smithfield-Selma Senior High School handed out that some students and parents said teaches hate against Israel and America.

Solomonia issues a "1930's in color" alert, warning us of yet another anti-Amerian animated film on Iranian TV.

The most submissions to HH #95 that I received were from Israel Matzav, also known as Carl In Jerusalem. In one post, Israel Matzav spears the detestable Louise Arbour, who earlier this week refused to meet with the families of kidnapped IDF soldiers Gilad Shalit, Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser, deciding that Israel is 'more to blame' than Hezbullah for human rights violations during the war in Lebanon. Carl also submitted an article about Palestinian Human Shields he found on American Thinker. And in another, Israel Matzav describes the twisted thought process behind Islamic Jihad leader Ramadan Shalah's statement that Israel's 'security fence' is a significant obstacle to the 'Palestinian resistance.' Shyeah, according to that line of thinking, I suppose killing Jews is no obstacle to getting approval from Allah. And in yet another post, Harvard Professor and lawyer Alan Dershowitz did what needed to be done to Dhimmi Carter's new book in a New York Sun review yesterday: Israel Matzav tells us he tore it to shreds for being the one-sided piece of garbage that it is. And in a flying pig moment, Israel Matzav tells us Human Rights Watch has come out against the use of 'Palestinian' civilians as human shields for their terrorist leaders.

Elisson writes movingly about a Bar Mitzvah boy who lost his beloved mother to cancer two months later.

Jewish Blogmeister tells us about the escalation of a discussion regarding modesty of women's clothing within the Haredi Yeshiva world.

And guess what? Israel Perspectives is back and writes that true Jewish multi-culturalism begins at home, with the Jewish People in the Land of Israel.

WestBankMama celebrates her one year blogiversary with her own roundup of "only in Israel" stories. Happy Blogiversary!

I wish the leaders of Israel would have some clarity and resolve like Patrick. Patrick dilineates for us the failure of Olmert's government in Israeli Ghost Towns.

Daniel Pipes questions the future of Kadima, an incoherent party now headed by an incoherent coalition, which Pipes believes, will ultimately fade into oblivion.

The South African blog, It's Almost Supernatural, continues its expose on Ronnie Kasrils, a minister in the South African government, who has been on record for his vile accusation that Israel behaves like nazis.

Maryland Conservatarian righteously goes after the filthy Scott Wilson piece in the Washington Post which claims that Israeli settlements are built on palestinian property. So, who really owns palestinian land?

Meryl Yourish responds to Dean Esmay.

Freedom's Cost, also a site new to me, reminds us again that the BBC has managed to perfect George Orwell’s Newspeak in a way the author of Brave New World, never thought possible.

Topics from 192 countries writes about Thanksgiving in Israel.

Elder of Ziyon shows us smiling "peace activists" happily talking with people who want to see the terror groups continue to kill Jews with impunity.

And Yehuda Berlinger, of Jerusalem Games, who normally tries to avoid politics, has created a terrifically creative board game and is willing to offer $1000 to anyone who can win.

The Israeli Tikkun Blog revisits, with great sadness, the 2006 Election Day Vote and Sderot.

The very poignant Jack's Shack writes about growing up with his brother and being fortunate to come from a long line of stubborn that you really don't want to be on the wrong side of.

Batya asks why the OU is honoring Olmert. Jameel wants to know also. I also wondered why American Magen David honored Hillary Clinton, who kissed the (blech, ugh, eeek, yuck) cheek of Suha Arafat after she accused Israel of poisoning palestinian water.

Muse writes about remembering the fallen who gave their lives for Israel during the Yom Kippur war and teaches us about King Solomon--In what order did he write his books?

Heichal HaNegina writes about the 44th yahrzeit of HaRav HaGaon Aharon Kotler (1892-1962), Rosh Yeshiva of Beis Medrash Gavoha, in Lakewood, New Jersey, and the "father" of the American yeshivos and kollelim and about the 160th yahrzeit of Rebbe Tzvi Hirsch ben R. Yehuda Leib HaKohen of Riminov, known by all as Reb Hersh M’shareis [the Attendant].

Bookworm applauds John Bolton — defending truth, justice and the American way.

HouseOfJoy tells us about sponsoring ChayyeiSarah, whose dream is to bring the UYO seminar to Israel.

CozyCorner discusses moderate Muslim politics on Israel.

Elie exposes another quick pshat [idea] on this week's parshah of Toldos.

Modern Uberdox addresses his concerns about the Agudah coming down on blogs in a letter - and publishes the thoughtful reply.

AidelMaidel is crushed. Falling in love can be heartbreaking, but how long should one wait for their soulmate?

Why set a side a special day for Thanksgiving? Irina reccommends that we always count our blessings and be thankful for the good things in our lives.

To view life simply and to acknowledge HaShem, that is A Simple Jew's goal, and here he reawakens us to the beauty of clouds.

Letters of Thought, on the other hand, is down in the lumps.

Palestinians continue to violate the human rights of Israeli Jews. Palestinians have fired more than 1,000 rockets from Gaza into the Israeli city of Sderot so far this year; and more than 1,300 rockets since August 2005 (when the last Jew left Gaza); and more than 3,500 since 2000 (when the Palestinians began a new war after being offered a state). Rick Richman tells us that every one of the rockets was intended to kill civilians.

Ever hear of the Darwin Awards? Jameel tells us about two excellent candidates.

Jewish Blogmeister interviews Life-of-Rubin who also authors The Jewish Connection as well as the most recently created "The Shtus Blog".

The Atheist Jew writes about his experience with irrational Muslims on a Yahoo forum board.

Dry Bones Blog draws a cartoon on airport security.

JudeoPundit noted an essay from Mark Levine blaming Israel for the Gemayel assassination. The essay has now appeared in the Huffington Post. At first and for quite a while, the comment thread is a festival of uninterrupted approval.

Kesher Talk notes that some kind of vandalism or riot hit the Chabad headquarters in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, earlier this week, but it's hard to figure out who was doing what from this article, which comes with loads of photos. It sounds like some kind of internicine brawl based on theological matters.

Whats wrong with Olmert's govermnent? Daled Amos confirms our worst fears because the answer is: everything. Plus a sad reminder that the dysfunctional "Peace Now," the internationally funded foreign agent in Israel has made its latest move on behalf of its paymasters to disrupt and discredit Israel.

Minor Fast Days writes about Finland's Jewish community which gathered Sunday to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Helsinki synagogue.

Nice Jewish people should vote for Mitt Romney and Nice Jewish Boy tells us why.

Ocean Guy quotes Benjamin Netanyahu who compares Iran to Nazi Germany in 1938. And Tigerhawk goes a step further to compare Czechoslovakia to Israel as the object of a hostile regime's desires. Both comparisons should be taken to heart.

Oxmyx at OyVayBlog posts yet another example of Israel-bashing in the media.

In spite of the world turning against Jews and especially, Israel, Rishon Rishon links to Israeli/Lebanese peace/war songs for some hope.

Dag had the privilege of meeting the exalted one, Ezzie.

Ben-Yehudah notes that Festivus falls on Shabbath Hanukkah this year.

As for me, I have noticed that some of the JBlogs that I linked to for HH #95 do not have Smooth Stone in their blogrolls. Maybe this superb roundup will change their minds.

Well, folks, that about wraps up this edition of Haveil Havalim. I hope you all enjoyed it. And thank you, Soccer Dad, for the opportunity.

G-d Bless Israel. G-d Bless America. Amen.

Technorati Tags: Blog carnivals, haveil havalim, Israel, Judaism

Kristillnact, 1938

Folks, everyone knows about Munich, September 1938. What happened? Britain and France generously donated a big slice of Czechoslovakia to Hitler, in exchange for "peace with honor," "peace in our time".

What followed? Kristillnacht - in November of 1938. What caused Kristillnact besides the irrational hatred of Jews?

Appeasement.

Appeasement doesn't merely fail to prevent catastrophe, it provokes catastrophe.

King David made the city of Jerusalem his capital. Mohammed had never been to Jerusalem.

In the Jewish Bible, Jerusalem has many names: Salem (Shalem), Moriah, Jebuse (Yevuse), Jerusalem (Yerushalayim), and Zion (Tziyon). The most common term for the city, Yerushalayim, is mentioned 349 times in the Jewish Bible, while Tziyon is mentioned an additional 108 times.

The earliest mention of the site is Genesis 4:18, when Abraham interacts with Malchizedek, King of Shalem. According to Jewish tradition the story of the Binding of Isaac (Genesis 22:1-19) also takes place in the "land of Moriah" on the site of the present-day Temple Mount. Abraham chooses the site specifically because he sensed how God's presence is strongly connected to this site.

When Jews pray three times a day, they always turn toward Jerusalem. Jerusalem is mentioned numerous times in Jewish daily prayers and in the "Grace After Meals." Jews close the Passover Seder with the words "Next Year in Jerusalem." These same words are invoked to conclude the holiest day of the Jewish year, Yom Kippur. The Jewish national day of mourning, Tisha B'Av, commemorates the destruction of the First and Second Temples. During a Jewish wedding ceremony, the groom breaks a glass as a sign of mourning to commemorate the destruction of the two Temples which stood on Mount Moriah. The breaking of the glass is accompanied by the recitation of part of Psalm 137. Some religious Jews often keep a small section of one wall in their house unplastered and unpainted, as a sign of mourning for the destruction of the Temple.

For most of Islam's 1,400-year period, despite its status as the third holiest Islamic city, Jerusalem remained a backwater, run-down town under Islamic control. Exceptions were during both the Umayyid period (7th to mid-8th century) and the Mamluk period (mid-13th to early-16th century), when major Islamic building projects were carried out in the city.

It is worth noting that the inaugural PLO Covenant of 1964 does not mention Jerusalem. Only after the city fell back to Jewish control did the updated PLO Covenant of 1968 mention Jerusalem by name.

For all of these reasons, I refuse to bow down to the mythology of Islam and its canard that Jerusalem is holy to Muslims.

May G-d Forgive the Israeli government for giving Holy Jewish Land away to Muslim apostates, May G-d Forgive Muslims and their appeasers for participating in the spirit of Jihad and forcing the rest of the world to endure the trumped-up concoction of superstitions and deceit which is Islam and May G-d Forgive the world for investing in the pretense that Islam is more than terrorism, rioting, the death of free speech and artistic expression, homophobia, Jew-hatred, female genital mutilation, limb amputation, gang rape, stoning to death for victims of gang rape, hanging underage girls from cranes in public parks, and for killing, killing and killing innocent Jewish babies, women and men.

"If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth; if I do not set Jerusalem above my highest Joy." -- Psalm 137.

In Israeli Ambassador Chaim Herzog's response To 'Zionism Is Racism' Resolution to the General Assembly of the United Nations on November 10, 1975, he said this about Kristillnacht:

"This was the night in 1938 when Hitler's Nazi storm-troopers launched a coordinated attack on the Jewish community in Germany, burned the synagogues in all its cities and made bonfires in the streets of the Holy Books and the Scrolls of the Holy Law and Bible. It was the night when Jewish homes were attacked and heads of families taken away, many of them never to return. It was the night when the windows of all Jewish businesses and stores were smashed, covering the streets in the cities of Germany with a film of broken glass which dissolved into the millions of crystals which gave that night its name. It was the night which led eventually to the crematoria and the gas chambers, Auschwitz, Birkenau, Dachau, Buchenwald, Theresienstadt and others. It was the night which led to the most terrifying holocaust in the history of man."

One organization called "Synagogue Memorial," is dedicated to memorializing all the houses of prayer that were destroyed on the infamous Kristallnacht, November 9-10, 1938 in Germany.

The official German position on the nights of rioting and murder, which were orchestrated by Goebbels, was that they were spontaneous outbursts. Goebbels reported "that such demonstrations are not to be prepared or organized by the party, but so far as they originate spontaneously, they are not to be discouraged either." (Conot, Robert E. Justice At Nuremberg. NY: Harper & Row, 1983:165)

Three days later, on November 12, Hermann Goering called a meeting of the top Nazi leadership to assess the damage done during the night and place responsibility for it. Present at the meeting were Goering, Goebbels, Reinhard Heydrich, Walter Funk and other ranking Nazi officials. The intent of this meeting was to make the Jews responsible for Kristallnacht and to use the events of the preceding days as a rationale for promulgating a series of antisemitic laws which would, in effect, remove Jews from the German economy.

An interpretive transcript of this meeting is provided by Robert Conot, Justice at Nuremberg, New York: Harper and Row, 1983:164-172):

Goering announced, 'Gentlemen! Today's meeting is of a decisive nature,'announced. 'I have received a letter written on the Fuehrer's orders requesting that the Jewish question be now, once and for all, oordinated and solved one way or another.'

'Since the problem is mainly an economic one, it is from the economic angle it shall have to be tackled. Because, gentlemen, I have had enough of these demonstrations! They don't harm the Jew but me, who is the final authority for coordinating the German economy. `If today a Jewish shop is destroyed, if goods are thrown into the street, the insurance companies will pay for the damages; and, furthermore, consumer goods belonging to the people are destroyed. If in the future, demonstrations which are necessary occur, then, I pray, that they be directed so as not to hurt us.

'Because it's insane to clean out and burn a Jewish warehouse, then have a German insurance company make good the loss. And the goods which I need desperately, whole bales of clothing and whatnot, are being burned. And I miss them everywhere. I may as well burn the raw materials before they arrive.

'I should not want to leave any doubt, gentlemen, as to the aim of today's meeting. We have not come together merely to talk again, but to make decisions, and I implore competent agencies to take all measures for the elimination of the Jew from the German economy, and to submit them to me.'

It was decided at the meeting that, since Jews were to blame for these events, they be held legally and financially responsible for the damages incurred by the pogrom. Accordingly, a "fine of 1 billion marks was levied and 6 million marks paid by insurance companies for broken windows was to be given to the state coffers. (Snyder, Louis L. Encyclopedia of the Third Reich, New York: Paragon House, 1989:201).

The night ushered in a new phase in the antisemetic activities of the Nazi state, leading to the deportation and the extermination of most of the Jewish people living in Germany.

This night began the horror of the Holocaust. And I still cry writing about it, 68 years later.

Why, despite everything, Jewish-Americans keep voting for Democrats

Folks, this Election Day, November 7, 2006, vote Republican, not Democrat. Here's why, in an article from Joel Engel dated 2004:

For nearly 60 years, since the birth of Israel, American Jews have faced accusations that they care more about the well-being of their ancient homeland than of their home. Well, barring some unforeseen circumstance, the canard of dual loyalty should be retired forever on November 2, 2004. On that Tuesday, Election Day, up to 80 percent of American Jews will pull the lever for John Kerry, thereby proving that they not only do not care about Israel's well-being, but that they don't mind making common cause with people who wish them ill. Or worse.

The evidence is overwhelming that acceptable anti-Semitism has moved from right to left on the political continuum, and that its philosophical home now resides in the Democratic party, which has become less the party of liberals than of leftists. Even before Al Sharpton stood as a presidential candidate last year, Democratic politicians genuflecting for black votes--Al Gore, Bill Bradley, and Hillary Clinton, for example--often trekked up to Harlem to kiss his ring. And yet, this was a man who in previous years had either led or instigated two anti-Jewish demonstrations, one in Crown Heights and one in Harlem, which together resulted in the deaths of eight people. Does that matter to Democrats and John Kerry? Apparently not. Sharpton was rewarded with a choice slot at the Democratic National Convention, something that is impossible to imagine being given to the likes of former Republican David Duke, whose incitements have frankly born far less blood than Sharpton's.

Put aside his disgraceful role in the Tawana Brawley hoax. The fact that Democratic candidate Sharpton never had to answer questions during primary season from either the press or the other contenders about his anti-Semitic statements (to wit: "diamond merchants" whose hands bear "the blood of innocent babies") should tell Jewish Democrats something important about their party. It should tell them that anti-Semites have found safety in numbers.

Partial proof of that was on display in a VIP box at the Democratic national convention, where two other prominent guests were seated shoulder to shoulder: Jimmy Carter and Michael Moore. Considering their on-the-record statements, it's not terribly difficult to imagine them leaning close during breaks to compare notes on Jewish conspiracies and the world's locus of evil, Israel.
Carter's antipathy toward the Jewish state is well-documented, as is his affection for Arab dictators, especially Yasser Arafat. This is a man who endorsed the results of the sham 1996 "election" that transformed Arafat from self-appointed "chairman" to "president" of the Palestinian Authority, while he continues to suggest that President Bush stole Florida and therefore the 2000 election. (Remember, too, that Carter recently ratified anti-American Hugo Chavez's election in Venezuela under dubious circumstances.) Last year's Nobel Peace laureate once confided to historian/biographer Douglas Brinkley how eager he'd been to meet Arafat (another laureate!) for the first time--and why he felt such an affinity for the terrorist leader. He believes that Arafat truly wants peace and that Ariel Sharon truly does not. He considers it self-evident that the whole of the West Bank and Gaza belong to the Palestinians, a bias evinced by his insertion of "the" before the word "territories" in his written discussion of United Nations Resolution 242, though "the" had been specifically and deliberately excluded from the resolution's wording in order to demonstrate that all permanent borders are to be negotiated in good faith. No wonder his Carter Center receives substantial funding from Saudi Arabia.

Meanwhile, at a speech in Liverpool early this year, Moore informed his adoring audience who the world's real villains are: "It's all part of the same ball of wax, right? The oil companies, Israel, Halliburton." That statement sheds light on why he tried to prevent Fahrenheit 9/11 from being shown in Israel, and is congruent with both his speech denouncing the Israeli "occupation" at a 1990 Washington, D.C. demonstration, and his refusal that same year to attend a screening of his film Roger and Me in Jerusalem unless and until Israel met his demand to withdraw from "Arab lands." Moore has also suggested that we could solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by giving the Palestinians $4 billion worth of advanced weapons. Most egregious, though, was his dedication in the book Dude, Where's My Country? to Rachel Corrie, the pro-Palestinian activist who was killed while impeding a bulldozer sent to find and destroy tunnels used by the Palestinians for weapons smuggling. (Corrie was once photographed burning an American flag at a West Bank demonstration.)

You might think that the Democratic party, which receives 70-80 percent of the Jewish vote and a ridiculous amount of political cash, would have meted out at least verbal spanks to Moore and Carter for their anti-Israel animus. But both men, like Sharpton, remain among the adored--unlike, by contrast, the late Pennsylvania Governor Bob Casey, a liberal who was banned from the 1992 and 1996 national conventions because of his stance against abortion. Which leads inexorably to the conclusion that Moore and Carter accurately reflect their party's mainstream.

GIVEN THAT, it's no mystery how the far left has been able to hijack college campuses that used to be seedbeds of civil rights activism--much of it famously led and organized by liberal Jews. Now, under the politically correct cover of Palestinian rights, Jews find themselves lumped in with religious Christians as acceptable objects of revulsion, leaving squishy-left Steinbergs and Goldbergs to wonder what's happening as antiwar, anti-Bush demonstrations rapidly morph into anti-Israel, anti-Jew hatefests. San Francisco State, Duke, Berkeley, and Columbia (whose growing anti-Semitism in the classroom is now the subject of a short film) are only a few of the many schools where Jews have glimpsed the mob mentality of Kristallnacht.

Even individually, college-age anti-Semites feel comfortable enough these days to note publicly, as Duke senior Philip Kurian did recently, that those pesky over-achieving Jews are something of a problem. Inspired by Duke's hosting of the radical Islamist, pro-terror group International Solidarity Movement (to which Rachel Corrie belonged), Kurian unashamedly referenced "the powerful Jewish establishment" and "exorbitant Jewish privilege in the United States" before reaching the crux of his letter to Duke's newspaper the Chronicle: "It is well known that Jews constitute the most privileged 'minority' group in this country. Among the top 10 universities, Jews enjoy shocking overrepresentation."

Note the ironic quotation marks around the word minority, though Jews add up to barely 2 percent of the country's population (one-fifth of 1 percent of the world's); and the word overrepresentation as opposed to "disproportionate representation," whose use would have at least acknowledged Jews' work ethic and devotion to achievement. And then there was "shocking."

But instead of widespread outrage, condemnation, newspaper confiscations, demonstrations about hurt feelings, suspension, expulsion, and even prosecution, which are generally what follow when similar bile is directed at protected "minorities" on campus, Kurian's sentiments earned him nothing more than opprobrium from bloggers generally hailing from the right--Gentile bloggers, mostly. Liberal Jews themselves said little, much as the National Organization for Women fell silent during the Clinton era when the president was proved to be a serial groper; that "D" after his name inoculated him against charges that were similar to--if not more serious than--those that brought the wrath of feminists down on poor Senator Bob Packwood, who had the misfortune of playing serial tonsil hockey with an "R" after his name.

THEREIN LIES the explanation for why American Jews refuse obstinately to accept that the Democratic party's train, which they've ridden since FDR (whose reputation among Jews was less earned than awarded), is now carrying them toward some perilous destination. Sadly, by the time they realize that Harry Truman and Scoop Jackson have given up their conductor seats to Michael Moore and International Solidarity, it'll be too late to get off.

American Jews' allegiance to Democrats is nothing less than a religion. And conversion is considered a sacrilege.

If you ask even the most secular Jew, one who stays home to watch baseball on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, to convert to Christianity--say, in order to marry a shiksa--he'll likely recoil. It's a visceral thing, hatched in the belly eons ago.

So, too, is the notion of pulling the lever for dirty anti-Semite, racist Republicans. That's the catechism. No matter that Republicans booted out David Duke and Patrick Buchanan--or that both of them would find plenty of fellow travelers in today's Democratic party. Catechism states that only Democrats can be authentic liberals.

WHICH IS WHY, once upon a time, it would've given Jews (and all Democrats) pause to hear support for their candidate uttered by the likes of Arafat, Kim Jong Il, and Mahathir Mohamad, the former Malaysian prime minister who endeared himself to billions last year when he opined that "Jews run the world by proxy." Today, such observations are irrelevant to the more important goal of turning George W. Bush out of office. Typical is the email response of a Jewish friend to whom I'd forwarded a Charles Krauthammer column predicting that Kerry will sell out Israel: "Which leaves us . . . Ralph Nader? What folly!!!!" Same with a Jewish woman whose only reaction to every argument on the same subject is to quote chapter and verse from the New York Times editorial page--the bible of liberal Jews.

In their worldview, words are more important than outcomes, especially when those words are uttered by Democrats. Thus, Bill Clinton's can't-we-all-just-get-along peacemaking that relied on the exaltation of Arafat is far preferable to George W. Bush's support for the terror-reducing fence and insistence on new Palestinian leadership--though the former caused the deaths of a thousand innocent Israelis, and the latter has saved innocents on both sides and brought closer the possibility of Palestinians giving up terrorism entirely--which will, of course, bring peace. Instead, Jews circulate angry emails about the lack of Jews in the president's cabinet, as if Clinton's Jewish Agriculture secretary somehow canceled out the shame of Yasser Arafat's permanent White House parking space.

To borrow longshoreman-philosopher Eric Hoffer's phrase, Jewish Democrats are "true believers"--every bit as unquestioning of their faith as evangelicals are. (A year after the Six-Day War, Hoffer had a premonition: "As it goes with Israel," he said, "so will it go with all of us. Should Israel perish, the holocaust will be upon us.") And yet they fear evangelicals' unshakeable support for Israel on the grounds that it's biblically based, which is the equivalent of refusing to accept your dog back from the guy who found him after he admits doing it only for the reward. "I fear this presidency," claimed a Jewish man I know, "more than I fear any Arab, Muslim, or al Qaeda terrorist." (This was the same man who emailed me his outrage at there being no Jews in Bush's cabinet.)

Why won't Jews who plan to vote for John Kerry take the senator at his word, and consider the ramifications, when he says that he wants to refract his foreign policy through the prism of the United Nations and the European Union? Nearly one third of the United Nations is comprised of Islamic states, which helps to account for why Israel has been targeted by a relentless barrage of condemnatory resolutions--as well as the disgraceful ruling in the International Court of Justice against the anti-terror fence.

As for Europe, birthplace of anti-Semitism, the European Union publicly wrings its hands over dead Palestinian terrorists but not dead Jewish children and mothers, insisting that there will be peace when Israel withdraws from all so-called Palestinian lands; and if that pullback to the "Auschwitz borders" should someday result in Israeli Jews being driven into the sea, then good riddance. In the unvarnished words of Daniel Bernard, French ambassador to Great Britain, Israel is "a shitty little country" inhabited by "those people" who are putting the world "in danger of World War III."

"F*** the Jews," Republican James Baker snapped during Bush 41's reign more than a decade ago. "They didn't vote for us anyway."

Right he was. And if only 20 percent of them vote for Bush 43, American Jews won't need James Baker--they'll have done it to themselves.

For a supposedly smart people, we can be awfully stupid.

Joel Engel is an author and journalist in Southern California.

Crown Heights outrage

Sorry I am so late with this story, folks:
---------------
A 16-year-old Hasidic boy walking home from a Brooklyn synagogue on Yom Kippur was jumped by a group of teens who called him a "f-----g Jew," witnesses and his family charged. Mendel Chesney was heading home about 10 p.m. Sunday when he was attacked by as many eight young men on Carroll St. in Crown Heights, witnesses and police said.

"At first, I thought they might be playing around, so we walked over to where the crowd was. That's when I see the talaisim [prayer shawls] and know it's a Jewish person and hear someone say, 'You f-----g Jew,'" said Michael Gitchel, who lives nearby.

Police confirmed Mendel was beaten, but NYPD officials said investigators have determined the attack was a robbery - not a bias crime. Upset that the NYPD has not classified the attack as a hate crime, about 700 people rallied Wednesday outside the Chabad-Lubavitch World Headquarters on Eastern Parkway.

Neighbors broke up the melee and chased the attackers into the arms of two cops on patrol from Brooklyn's 71st Precinct. Mendel suffered a broken nose and a gash on the back of his head.

Cops arrested three of the alleged attackers and have been looking for as many as five others. Charges were pending against the suspects yesterday. Their names were not available.

Lesson from Yom Kippur by Levi Cahzen

The Talmud teaches us that the First Temple stood for 410 years. During that time, only 18 High Priests served in that position, averaging a 25-year term for each High Priest. The Second Temple stood for 420 years, and yet more than 300 High Priests served in that position. Moreover, we find that the first few High Priests of the Second Temple served for many years, such as Shimon HaTzadik (Simon the Righteous) who served for 40 years, and Yochanan served for 80 years. So in the last 279 years that the Second Temple stood - some 300 High Priests served in that position. None of them lived past a year in office.

R'Yochanan said: Why did the High Priests die before they surpassed a year in office? Because they bought the High Priesthood for money. Moreover, some who served as High Priests in the Temple were not even priests, but bribed the right people to get the job.

One can understand that in the first years that the High Priests died in office, people wrote off their deaths as a natural occurrence. This one had high cholesterol, that one has a stroke; one had a bad heart and so on. But sooner or later, you would think that somewhere down the line they would pick up on the idea that this was a dead-end job -literally. Ten years go by, ten high priests die, you would think some one gets the picture...

Twenty years go by, then thirty, forty, fifty - and fifty High Priests fall by the wayside. Still, they all kept running for the job. Generations pass, hundreds of High Priests are dead, all within months of taking over the High Priesthood, still there is a waiting list of people who want the job - what is their problem?

The answer lies in what our Rabbis taught us, that man is close to himself. He does not believe that he is wicked, and so it is very difficult for him to change his bad traits and deeds. When one thinks of himself as being the good guy, then teshuva - returning to Hashem - will be very hard to obtain. Sure, all of the High Priests saw that their predecessors all passed on within a year of taking office, but each one said to himself: Not me - by me it's going to be different because I'm a good guy, I'm righteous.

No one took to heart that he was not the right guy for the job. To understand, one needs just to take a look at all the Olmerts and Peretzs of this world who continue to run for power, but still hold onto the folly and falsehoods, just as the ones before them, even though their predecessors have been destroyed one way or another. For each one cries out: I will be the one to succeed.

Not everyone is made to be the High Priest - but if you are going for the job, you had better be the right man for it. So, too, in leadership not everyone is made for the job, as Harry S. Truman told us: "If you can't stand the heat, then get out of the kitchen". But if you're going for the top spot, act and behave like a real Jew is supposed to.

Now is the time for us to check our deeds, to see which ones to hold on to and which ones to let go. It is a time to take a good, hard look at who we really are, to better ourselves as people. And as a nation - to let go of the foreign gods among us and their falsehoods. Now, while the books are still open.

VoiceOfJudea.com

Palestinians doing what they do best: 2 Qassam rockets fired at Sderot on Yom Kippur

Palestinians fired a Qassam rocket Monday afternoon from northern Gaza towards the southern town of Sderot. The rocket fell outside of town, Thank G-d, not causing any damage or casualties. Earlier Monday, another rocket was fired and landed in an open field.

Poll: Overwhelming majority of Israeli Jews observe various religious commandments

Interesting poll results from Dr. Aaron Lerner, Director IMRA (Independent Media Review & Analysis)

Telephone poll of a representative sample of adult Israeli Jews carried out by Mutagim for Makor Rishon and Gesher and published in Makor Rishon on 22 September, 2006

31.8% Don't turn on electrical equipment on the Sabbath
62.6% Say Kiddush on the Sabbath
89.1% Read the Haggadah at a Passover Seder
70.8% Fast on Yom Kippur [78.6% of women and 62.8% of men]
61.8% Observe Kashrut at some level
65.5% Give charity on Purim

email: imra@netvision.net.il

website: http://www.imra.org.il

Repentence, Prelude to Redemption

From Gary Rosenberg, Project Shofar:

The month of Elul is a month of preparation for the month of Tishre and the Days of Awe, Rosh HaShannah and Yom Kippur. During this entire month we sound the Shofar every morning after our prayers to help prepare us to repent and purify ourselves for a good New Year.

It is also the month of my birth. This year will be the eighteenth year that I have been sounding the Shofar on Rosh HaShannah at the Cave of Machpelah in Hebron. Clearly Project Shofar is my calling.

The sound of the Shofar reminds us that there is a Creator who shapes and controls our destiny. In spite of our alleged “democracy” and brilliant politicians who think that they can make peace by denying Jewish obligations, events consistently prove that no power on Earth can alter Divine destiny. The ram’s horn is an ancient instrument with a simple, plaintive, yet powerful cry. It connects us to the revelation on Mount Sinai when G-d bestowed upon the Jewish People the obligation to accept His Divine Commands and to become a living example to all the nations of the world of His existence and His Divinity.

The Jewish People did not create a new homeland in Israel. Biblical destiny created a yearning deep in the souls of Jews who had long abandoned the ways of their fathers, to return to their ancient homeland, and to their Jewish roots. Herzl was far removed from traditional Judaism, yet it was a tiny spark of Judaism hidden deep within his soul that caused him to devote his life to seeking to rebuild the Jewish State. So removed was he from Jewish tradition that he was even willing to build his Jewish state in Uganda! But authentic Jewish destiny cannot be shaped by non-Jewish ideas. And we can see clearly so many examples of how Jewish destiny proceeded in spite of efforts by foolish Jewish leaders to go a different way.

The most recent example can be seen with our present Prime Minister. He built his government on the concept of what he called “realignment”.

There was no amount of pressure that could move him from going ahead with his plan to unilaterally expel Jews from their homes in Judea and Samaria. This was his peace plan and nothing would interfere with it. Even during the war in Lebanon he went as far as to suggest that this war would only pave the way for his realignment plan. Yet today, the Jerusalem Post reports, “Prime Minister Ehud Olmert reportedly told the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Monday that the realignment plan agenda "is no longer relevant."

Clearly this is not what Olmert planned. His government is presently being challenged for having bungled the recent war effort and calls for his resignation are growing. The state comptroller has called for a criminal investigation of Olmert for alleged misdeeds when he was a minister in the Sharon government. Justice Minister, Chaim Ramon, had to step down from his post as a result of accusations of sexual misconduct. And Defense Minister, Amir Peretz, has defied Olmert by calling for a state run investigation of the war in Lebanon. Olmert is afraid that a state run investigation can result in charges leveled against him which can cost him his job. And Peretz is afraid that an “in-house” investigation might whitewash the Prime Minister and pin all the blame on him.

The house of cards called “he alignment plan” is already falling, as are those who supported it.

So as we sound the Shofar each morning let us be reminded tha our G-d is really in control. Let us examine our deeds and make ourselves worthy of the redemption that is coming in spite of our leaders.
.......................................................

WebSite: http://www.projectshofar.org

Project Shofar is dedicated to spreading these truths wherever it is possible to do so. It is sounding the alarm, to Jew and Gentile alike, to open our eyes to the G-dly process that is presently underway, and work to support it. We dare not stand idly on the sidelines.

If you want to support the concepts espoused by the Voice from Hebron, and the physical work of Project Shofar, you can send a tax deductible contribution to:

Project Shofar, Inc.
P.O. Box 181191
Casselberry, FL 32718

Gary makes regular speaking tours to the states and strives to reach out to all who express an interest in the ongoing process of Zionist Redemption, Jew and Gentile alike. An observant Jew, Gary will not enter into a church sanctuary, but will be happy to address groups in a social hall or other secular location.

Islamic Jihad planning terror campaign for Muslim, Jewish holidays

By Aaron Klein
September 12, 2006

Israeli security officials say there are very serious indications the Islamic Jihad terror group is planning a string of anti-Israeli attacks, including suicide bombings, throughout the Muslim holiday month of Ramadan.

Ramadan this year begins Sept. 23 and coincides with the almost month-long series of Jewish holidays, including Rosh Hashana (Sept. 23); Yom Kippur (Oct. 2) and Sukkot (Oct. 7-14).

Khaled al-Batch, an Islamic Jihad operative in the northern Samaria terror stronghold of Jenin, confirmed to the Galil Report his terror group's intentions.

"We will turn the Israelis lives into a living hell," al-Batch said.

He declined to give any specifics.

Israeli security officials say Islamic Jihad has been directed by Iran to carry out suicide bombings, shootings and other attacks to cause a deterioration in the security situation in Israel and to distract international attention from Tehran's nuclear agenda.

Security analysts say Islamic Jihad is seeking to take advantage of Hamas' current political situation. Hamas is bogged down by the Israeli ground and air siege in Gaza, ongoing since June, and the arrest of many of the group's top leaders. Hamas is in serious negotiations with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party regarding the establishment of a national unity government that will in some form need to tacitly recognize Israel or agree to some sort of negotiations. An Islamic Jihad terror campaign now will position the group as the foremost Palestinian Islamist organization.

The Galil Report has learned from terror sources that top leaders of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades in Jenin and the Balata refugee camp in Nablus are coordinating stages of the Ramadan terror campaign with Islamic Jihad.

Israeli officials are taking the information seriously. The past three weeks Israeli security forces have arrested or killed five Islamic Jihad leaders in Jenin, including three Israel says were senior planners of the terror campaign. Security forces also have been cracking down on the Al Aqsa Brigades, killing four of its members the past 15 days.

Israeli security forces are expected to continue their crackdown of Islamic Jihad and Al Aqsa leaders in the coming days.

The Arab Oil Embargo of 1973-74

This post was moved to SmoothStoneBlog

An open letter to the world

Dear World, I understand that you are upset by us, here in Israel.

Indeed, it appears that you are quite upset, even angry. (Outraged?)

Indeed, every few years you seem to become upset by us. Today, it is the "brutal repression of the Palestinians"; yesterday it was Lebanon; before that it was the bombing of the nuclear reactor in Baghdad and the Yom Kippur War and the Sinai campaign. It appears that Jews who triumph and who, therefore, live, upset you most extraordinarily.

Of course, dear world, long before there was an Israel, we - the Jewish people - upset you.

We upset a German people who elected Hitler and upset an Austrian people who cheered his entry into Vienna and we upset a whole slew of Slavic nations - Poles, Slovaks, Lithuanians, Ukrainians, Russians, Hungarians and Romanians. And we go back a long, long way in the history of world upset.

We upset the Cossacks of Chmielnicki who massacred tens of thousands of us in 1648-49; we upset the Crusaders who, on their way to liberate the Holy Land, were so upset at Jews that they slaughtered untold numbers of us.

For centuries, we upset a Roman Catholic Church that did its best to define our relationship through inquisitions, and we upset the arch-enemy of the church, Martin Luther, who, in his call to burn the synagogues and the Jews within them, showed an admirable Christian ecumenical spirit.

And it is because we became so upset over upsetting you, dear world, that we decided to leave you - in a manner of speaking - and establish a Jewish state. The reasoning was that living in close contact with you, as resident-strangers in the various countries that
comprise you, we upset you, irritate you and disturb you. What better notion, then, than to leave you (and thus love you)- and have you love us and so, we decided to come home - home to the same land we were driven out 1,900 years earlier by a Roman world that, apparently, we also upset.

Alas, dear world, it appears that you are hard to please.

Having left you and your pogroms and inquisitions and crusades and holocausts, having taken our leave of the general world to live alone in our own little state, we continue to upset you. You are upset that we repress the poor Palestinians. You are deeply angered over the
fact that we do not give up the lands of 1967, which are clearly the obstacle to peace in the Middle East.

Moscow is upset and Washington is upset. The "radical" Arabs are upset and the gentle Egyptian moderates are upset.

In 1920 and 1921 and 1929, there were no territories of 1967 to impede peace between Jews and Arabs. Indeed, there was no Jewish State to upset anybody. Nevertheless, the same oppressed and repressed Palestinians slaughtered tens of Jews in Jerusalem, Jaffa, Safed and Hebron. .Indeed, 67 Jews were slaughtered one day in Hebron in 1929.

Dear world, why did the Arabs - the Palestinians - massacre 67 Jews in one day in 1929? Could it have been their anger over Israeli aggression in 1967? And why were 510 Jewish men, women and children slaughtered in Arab riots between 1936-39? Was it because Arabs were upset over 1967?

And when you, dear world, proposed a UN Partition Plan in 1947 that would have created a "Palestinian State" alongside a tiny Israel and the Arabs cried "no" and went to war and killed 6,000 Jews - was that "upset" caused by the aggression of 1967? And, by the way, dear world, why did we not hear your cry of "upset" then?

The poor Palestinians who today kill Jews with explosives and firebombs and stones are part of the same people who, when they had all the territories they now demand be given to them for their state - attempted to drive the Jewish state into the sea. The same twisted
faces, the same hate, the same cry of "itbach-al-yahud" (Massacre the Jew!) that we hear and see today, were seen and heard then. The same people, the same dream - destroy Israel. What they failed to do yesterday, they dream of today, but we should not "repress" them.

Dear world, you stood by during the holocaust and you stood by in 1948 as seven states launched a war that the Arab League proudly compared to the Mongol massacres.

You stood by in 1967 as Nasser, wildly cheered by wild mobs in every Arab capital in the world, vowed to drive the Jews into the sea. And you would stand by tomorrow if Israel were facing extinction.

And since we know that the Arabs-Palestinians dream daily of that extinction, we will do everything possible to remain alive in our own land. If that bothers you, dear world, well, think of how many times in the past you bothered us.

In any event, dear world, if you are bothered by us, here is one Jew in Israel who could not care less and, frankly doesn't give a damn....

Written by Rabbi Meir Kahane z'l

May G-d forgive us all

The most dreaded news I could imagine, my worst nightmare, has come true: Ehud Olmert's Kadima party revealed yesterday it would divide Jerusalem and allow a Palestinian state to be established in parts of Israel's "eternal capital."

"The Old City, Mount Scopus, the Mount of Olives, the City of David, Sheikh Jarra will remain in our hands, but [regarding] Kafr Akeb, Abu-Ram, Shuafat, Hizma, Abu-Zaim, Abu-Tur, Abu Dis, in the future, when the Palestinian state is established, they will become its capital," said Otniel Schneller, a Kadima member who represented the party at a debate yesterday on dividing Jerusalem.

There is no ethical or religious basis behind sharing Jerusalem.

This grievous announcement is the final aim of the Muslims and their appeasers to islamize Jerusalem which in turn, undermines the legitimacy of Judiaism and Christianity, both which observe Jerusalem to be a holy city.

The mythical holiness of Jerusalem to Muslims always was and still is no more than a politically motivated holiness. The Muslim claim to Jerusalem is FALSE!

Mohammed could never have had the Al Aqsa mosque in mind when he compiled the Koran, since it did not exist for another three generations after his death. At the time of Mohammed, who died in 632 AD, Jerusalem was a Christian city within the Byzantine Empire. Jerusalem was captured by Khalif Omar only in 638 AD, six years after Mohammed's death. Throughout all this time there were only churches in Jerusalem, and a church stood on the Temple Mount, called the Church of Saint Mary of Justinian, built in the Byzantine architectural style.

In or around 711 AD, or about 80 years after Mohammed died, Abd El-Wahd - who ruled from 705-715 AD - reconstructed the Christian- Byzantine Church of St. Mary and converted it into a mosque. He left the structure as it was and added a dome on top of the building to make it look like a mosque. He then
named it El-Aksa, so it would sound like the one mentioned in the Koran.

Have you ever asked why Muslims turn their back on Jerusalem in prayer? Because Jerusalem does not hold any sanctity for Muslims.

More recently, Jerusalem first was divided into eastern and western sections when Jordan invaded and occupied Jerusalem and the Old City in 1947, expelling all Jewish inhabitants. Israel built its capital in the western part of the city, while the eastern quarters remained under Jordanian control until Israel captured it, along with the Old City, in 1967 after Jordan's King Hussein ignored Israeli pleas for his country to stay out of the Six Day War.

During the 19 years of Arab sovereignty, the ancient Jewish Quarter of the Old City was ravaged, 58 synagogues – some centuries old – were destroyed and slum dwellings were built abutting the Western Wall.

Jews were not allowed to visit their holy places and Israeli Christians were subjected to many restrictions, with only limited numbers allowed to visit the Old City and Bethlehem at Christmas and Easter.

Folks, everyone knows about Munich, September 1938: Britain and France generously donate a big slice of Czechoslovakia to Hitler, in exchange for "peace with honor," "peace in our time". What followed? Kristillnacht, in November, 1938.

Appeasement doesn't merely fail to prevent catastrophe, it provokes catastrophe.

King David made the city of Jerusalem his capital. Mohammed had never been to Jerusalem.

In the Jewish Bible, Jerusalem has many names: Salem (Shalem), Moriah, Jebuse (Yevuse), Jerusalem (Yerushalayim), and Zion (Tziyon). The most common term for the city, Yerushalayim, is mentioned 349 times in the Jewish Bible, while Tziyon is mentioned an additional 108 times.

The earliest mention of the site is Genesis 4:18, when Abraham interacts with Malchizedek, King of Shalem. According to Jewish tradition the story of the Binding of Isaac (Genesis 22:1-19) also takes place in the "land of Moriah" on the site of the present-day Temple Mount. Abraham chooses the site specifically because he sensed how God's presence is strongly connected to this site.

When Jews pray three times a day, they always turn toward Jerusalem. Jerusalem is mentioned numerous times in Jewish daily prayers and in the "Grace After Meals." Jews close the Passover Seder with the words "Next Year in Jerusalem." These same words are invoked to conclude the holiest day of the Jewish year, Yom Kippur. The Jewish national day of mourning, Tisha B'Av, commemorates the destruction of the First and Second Temples. During a Jewish wedding ceremony, the groom breaks a glass as a sign of mourning to commemorate the destruction of the two Temples which stood on Mount Moriah. The breaking of the glass is accompanied by the recitation of part of Psalm 137. Some religious Jews often keep a small section of one wall in their house unplastered and unpainted, as a sign of mourning for the destruction of the Temple.

For most of Islam's 1,400-year period, despite its status as the third holiest Islamic city, Jerusalem remained a backwater, run-down town under Islamic control. Exceptions were during both the Umayyid period (7th to mid-8th century) and the Mamluk period (mid-13th to early-16th century), when major Islamic building projects were carried out in the city.

It is worth noting that the inaugural PLO Covenant of 1964 does not mention Jerusalem. Only after the city fell back to Jewish control did the updated PLO Covenant of 1968 mention Jerusalem by name.

For all of these reasons, I refuse to bow down to the mythology of Islam and its canard that Jerusalem is holy to Muslims.

May G-d Forgive the Israeli government for their pronouncement, and Muslims and their appeasers for participating in the spirit of Jihad and forcint the rest of the world to endure the trumped-up concoction of superstitions and deceit which is Islam and for investing in the pretense that Islam is more than terrorism, rioting, the death of free speech and artistic expression, homophobia, Jew-hatred, female genital mutilation, limb amputation, gang rape, stoning to death for victims of gang rape, hanging underage girls from cranes in public parks, and for killing, killing and killing innocent Jewish babies, women and men.

"If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth; if I do not set Jerusalem above my highest Joy." -- Psalm 137.

I'm being compared to Pat Robertson

Folks, I am being compared to Pat Roberston on some websites because of what I wrote in my post, The expulsion of Jews from Hebron and Sharon's health. Are they related? Here's my reply, with thanks to Rabbi Levi I. Brackman:

For those of us who believe in G-d the question is: how could He have done this to Sharon, or to Dick Clark or to FDR (all stroke victims)? (For those who do not believe in G-d, this type of event just reinforces their skepticism.)

Asking "why" is not only acceptable but it is part of Jewish tradition. So, by asking, "why?", we allow ourselves to be comforted by the answer G-d never gives us. When someone is the recipient of good luck, one asks, "What did I do to deserve this?" However, not having a good answer to this question does not usually trigger a crisis of faith.

When something bad happens however, one needs to know why and ask, "Why did this happen to me? What did I do to deserve this?" Knowing that there is a satisfactory reason for why we suffer - a reason that is beyond us at this moment but nonetheless known by a power greater than ourselves, is a source of comfort. At least we know that we do not suffer and die in vain.

Ok, enough theology.

Let me propose this layman's question: how is it that Jews and Christians are able to believe that angels appeared, frightening the arabs, causing them to flee and abandon their tanks during the Yom Kippur war, but these same Jews and Christians are unwilling to believe that equally Divine Intervention is just as possible now when the same lands given to the Jews in the Torah and during this war are now being given away to Israel's enemies?

Regarding my earlier post, Sharon is incapable of making any decisions and as of this writing, 11 Jewish families are STILL living in Hebron. They have not been expelled or deported. I am no prophet and I do not claim to be. They might still be deported. But there was Divine Intervention and Jews are still living in Hebron as of this writing.

Comparisons of me to Pat Robertson, I suppose meant as an insult, does not preclude the distinct possibility that in this particular instance, Pat Roberson and like-minded Jews like me, may have been right on as borne out via G-d's own promises to His people in the Torah: Genesis 12:3, Genesis 27:29, Numbers 24:9 and Joel 3:2.

So, folks, go on with your finger-pointing but you better argue with G-d, not me. I'm a follower and a believer. Where the rest of my critics stand, is between themselves and HaShem, Our Lord and King.

NY Times: Hispanics in Southwest US, learn they're Jews

Folks, this is a fascinating article. Reprinted in full from The NY Times:

When she was growing up in a small town in southern Colorado, an area where her ancestors settled centuries ago when it was on the fringes of the northern frontier of New Spain, Bernadette Gonzalez always thought some of the stories about her family were unusual, if not bizarre.

Her grandmother, for instance, refused to travel on Saturday and would use a specific porcelain basin to drain blood out of meat before she cooked it. In one tale that particularly puzzled Ms. Gonzalez, 52, her grandfather called for a Jewish doctor to circumcise him while he was on his death bed in a hospital in Trinidad, Colo.

Only after Ms. Gonzalez moved to Houston to work as a lawyer and began discussing these tales with a Jewish colleague, she said, did "the pieces of the puzzle" start falling into place.

Ms. Gonzalez started researching her family history and concluded that her ancestors were Marranos, or Sephardic Jews, who had fled the Inquisition in Spain and in Mexico more than four centuries ago. Though raised in the Roman Catholic faith, Ms. Gonzalez felt a need to reconnect to her Jewish roots, so she converted to Judaism three years ago.

"I feel like I came home," said Ms. Gonzalez, who now often uses the first name Batya. "The fingerprints of my past were all around me, but I didn't know what they meant."

It is difficult to know precisely how many Hispanics are converting or adopting Jewish religious practices, but accounts of such embraces of Judaism are growing more common in parts of the Southwest. In Clear Lake, a suburb south of Houston, Rabbi Stuart Federow has overseen half a dozen conversions of Hispanics in recent years. In El Paso, Rabbi Stephen Leon said he had converted almost 40 Hispanic families since moving to Texas from New Jersey 19 years ago.

These conversions are the latest chapter in the story of the crypto-Jews, or hidden Jews, of the southwestern United States and northern Mexico, who are thought to be descended from the Sephardic Jews who began fleeing Spain more than 500 years ago. The story is being bolstered by recent historical research and advances in DNA testing that are said to reveal a prominent role played by crypto-Jews and their descendants in Spain's colonization of the Southwest.

For more than two decades, anecdotal evidence collected by researchers in New Mexico, Colorado and Texas suggested that some nominally Catholic families of Iberian descent had stealthily maintained Jewish customs throughout the centuries, including lighting candles on Friday evening, avoiding pork and having the Star of David inscribed on gravestones.

The whispers of hidden rituals coming from thoroughly Catholic communities were at times met with skepticism. One explanation for these seemingly Jewish customs was that evangelical Protestant sects active in the Southwest about a century ago had used Jewish imagery and Hebrew writing in their proselytizing, and that these symbols had become ingrained in isolated Hispanic communities.

Skepticism aside, some rabbis view assistance to or conversions of crypto-Jews as a responsibility. "The American Jewish community provided support in bringing Soviet, Albanian or Syrian Jews to the United States, and helping them in their transition," said Rabbi Leon of Congregation B'nai Zion, a Conservative congregation in El Paso.
"I don't see how the crypto-Jews are any different."

Modern science may now be shedding new light on the history of the crypto-Jews after molecular anthropologists recently developed a DNA test of the male or Y chromosome that can indicate an ancestral connection to the Cohanim, a priestly class of Jews that traces its origin back more than 3,000 years to Aaron, the older brother of Moses.

Family Tree DNA, a Houston company that offers a Cohanim test to its male clients, gets about one inquiry a day from Hispanics interested in exploring the possibility of Jewish ancestry, said Bennett Greenspan, its founder and chief executive. Mr. Greenspan said about one in 10 of the Hispanic men tested by his company showed Semitic ancestry strongly suggesting a Jewish background. (Another divergent possibility is that the test might suggest North African Muslim ancestry.)

"The results have just blown me over, reminding me of something out of Kaifeng," Mr. Greenspan said, referring to the Chinese city of Kaifeng, where a small Jewish community persisted for about 1,000 years until the mid-19th century when it was almost completely assimilated. "Lots of Hispanic people tell me they're interested in something Jewish and they can't explain it. Well, this helps explain it."

Not everyone who discovers Jewish ancestry, either through genealogical research or DNA testing, has decided to convert to Judaism, but some Hispanics who have found links still feel drawn to incorporate Jewish customs into their life. For instance, the Rev. William Sanchez, 52, a Catholic priest in Albuquerque, spent years researching his family's past in New Mexico before a DNA test three years ago showed that he almost certainly had the Jewish Cohanim marker.

Since then, Father Sanchez has sought to educate his parishioners on the connections between Catholicism and Judaism, and has helped oversee the Nuevo Mexico Project, which tries to identify Sephardic ancestry among Hispanics from New Mexico. He has encouraged more than 100 of his parishioners to take DNA tests.

Father Sanchez has also introduced some Jewish customs at St. Edwins Church in Albuquerque, where he serves; he blew the shofar, or ram's horn, this month during the Yom Kippur holiday. At another parish where he used to work in rural northeastern New Mexico, in the village of Villanueva, he would hold an annual Passover supper.

"I have a pluralistic, not an antagonistic, view of our religions," Father Sanchez said.

Still, others feel they have to make a clean break upon exploring their Jewish roots. John García, a lawyer in El Paso whose family moved to the United States two generations ago from northern Mexico, said he had heard stories since he was a boy that his family had a Sephardic Jewish past.

He formally converted to Judaism in 2001 and last year had a bar mitzvah in El Paso, at the age of 53, together with five other crypto-Jews. These days Mr. García, a lawyer in the public defender's office in El Paso, never works on the Sabbath and is an active member of Temple Mount Sinai, a Reform congregation in El Paso.

"I've had to go beyond my comfort level in something I would call a reversion rather than a conversion," Mr. García said. "There were an intervening 400 years when my family had become Catholic, but something about Judaism, I don't know exactly what it was, was kept alive."

Under the ramadan Moon

Folks, think about the following, excerpted from Under the Ramadan Moon:

President Bush hosted another dinner this year for Muslim leaders at the White House for the traditional meal that marks the end of a daily Ramadan fast.

Hosting Islamic leaders at the White House has become an annual event, one which began in 2001 after Islamic terrorists slammed three aircraft loaded with innocent Americans in the World Trade Center and Pentagon building and crashed a fourth filled with passengers into a field in Pennsylvania.

I always thought that an odd tradition to start, given the circumstances. Sort of like hosting an annual Shinto celebration in Washington, starting right after Pearl Harbor.

Folks, clearly, we are leading towards a national disaster in our foreign and domestic policy.

Jews observe the period called the Days of Redemption for 10 days, beginning with Rosh Hashanah and culminating with Yom Kippur.

Muslims had to top that and create a holiday that didn't last for 10 days, but lasted for 30, but that's irrelevant.

What is relevant, is where the heck are all those 'separation of church and state' guys?

The Yom Kippur War

This post was moved to SmoothStoneBlog