Postcard from Israel – Hatzav

Posted on: September 16th, 2012

Drimia Maritima, or the Sea Squill, is known in Hebrew as Hatzav (from the word Hatzeva; quarrying, hewing or tunnelling) probably due to the ability of its long roots to penetrate cracks in rocks, and even widen them, in order to reach water or damp ground. In Israel, this tall, impressive plant – which flowers right [...]

Why We Blow Shofar

Posted on: September 16th, 2012

Here’s a lovely image of two kids blowing shofars on the eve of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year celebration, at the Saint Paul Jewish Community Center, circa 1990. We blow shofar 100 times, give or take, on each day of the two-day holiday of Rosh Hashanah, which is a two-day holiday not only in [...]

A Sweet New Year

Posted on: September 14th, 2012

At the Ramat Gan Safari, near Tel Aviv, the animals were treated to sweet fruits and honey in celebration of the approaching of Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish new year). I went looking online for an answer to a troubling question: is honey good for bears? I mean, those beasts are heavy enough as it is, [...]

All You Need Is Breslov

Posted on: September 13th, 2012

A planeload of frum guys made its way on Wednesday to Uman, in the Ukraine, for the Rosh Hashanah festivities, despite some unexpected delays (wildcat strike) at Ben Gurion airport. As most everyone visiting these pages knows, Uman is the burial place of Reb Nachman of Breslov. Reb Nachman, the great grandson of the Baal [...]

Tagged and Released

Posted on: September 12th, 2012

A vulture is spreading its wings as it is released back into the wild in the southern Negev Desert near Kibbutz Sde Boker earlier this week. The Israeli nature and park authority recently trapped 96 vultures and released them after the birds had undergone examination and each received a ring and number. According to Birding [...]

Women Behaving Badly

Posted on: September 11th, 2012

Here is a WOW member wearing talit and tefillin blowing a shofar during prayer outside a police station in Jerusalem’s Old City where police detained four other WOWs at the Wailing Wall this summer. WOW stands for “Women of the Wall.” Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu of Arutz 7 reported on the August 19 incident: Police arrested [...]

1

Housekeeping for God

Posted on: September 10th, 2012

The Wailing Wall’s Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz and his crew on Sunday removed thousands of handwritten notes placed in the crevices of the ancient Wall, just a stone’s throw down from God’s Mountain (which, in the recent and less recent past has been the site of real stones being thrown, in one direction—you guessed it, the one [...]

Selichot

Posted on: September 9th, 2012

Jewish men at Selichot services at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem. Why do we call these days and these rituals “Selichot” – Pardons and Forgiveness, when we keep on announcing and confessing our sins? Asks my friend H. from Tzfat. Why don’t we call them Confessions? Because we assume that God has pleasure in forgiving [...]

Reservoir as Metaphor for Revelation

Posted on: September 7th, 2012

Israeli archaeologist Eli Shukron is seen going down a ladder at the excavation site of a water reservoir dating back to the First Temple period, which has been discovered in Jerusalem. The water system was discovered during an excavation of a Second Temple period sewage system that ran below Jerusalem’s main drag back in the [...]

Nahal Recruits Swear Allegiance

Posted on: September 6th, 2012

New recruits were sworn into the Nahal Brigade at the Western Wall in Jerusalem a week ago. Nahal is an acronym for Noar Halutzi Lohem, or Fighting Pioneer Youth. It was established in the early 1950s as a force that combined military service and establishment of new agricultural settlements along Israel’s borders. Many of those [...]

The Ravages of Justice

Posted on: September 5th, 2012

Here are the refugees from Migron in their relocation camp, in Givat Hayekev. They are cleaning up their new homes, also known as “caravillas” (combination caravan and villa. A caravilla is composed of several prefabricated sections that are joined on a foundation. They vary in size from about 650 to 1,000 square feet. The biggest [...]

LOL: NFL Fighting Brain Injuries

Posted on: September 4th, 2012

I recently received this press release from the Department of Defense: Army, NFL Team Up to Fight Traumatic Brain Injury OK, the headline itself is a dead giveaway. The two worst perpetrators of brain injuries in the world are teaming up to fight them? Seriously? Why don’t you, instead, like – stop causing them? Read [...]

Cutest Time Bomb You Ever Saw

Posted on: September 3rd, 2012

First, obviously, this has to be in the top 10 sweetest back-to-school or first-day-of-school images in the history of schools. These boys are lined up on a sidewalk in the ultra-Orthodox, super-Orthodox, mega-Orthodox neighborhood of Meah Sheaim, in Jerusalem, where even God has to show papers before they let Him in. This year, as the [...]

You Know You’re Israeli…

Posted on: September 2nd, 2012

You Know You’re Israeli if you spend the last evening before government forces remove you from your legally purchased land by decree of an autistic high court… playing soccer. These young residents of Migron spent their last Saturday at home kicking the ball around. The High Court of Justice (what a humorous title that is, [...]

Postcard from Mount Tabor

Posted on: September 2nd, 2012

Mount Tabor, standing 575 meters above sea level at the eastern end of the Jezreel Valley, is the site of the battle fought by Deborah and Barak against the Canaanite king Sisera, according to the Bible. Now it is the site of two monestaries, with three Bedouin villages nestled at its base.

Clint Doing the RNC (with Video)

Posted on: August 31st, 2012

Lynne Lechter is on the board of the Republican Jewish Coalition’s National Women’s Committee.  She is at the Republican National Convention as a guest of the RJC.  She is one of our good friend Lori Lowenthal Marcus’s sources on what Jewish Republicans have been up to in muggy Tampa. She’s been telling Lori this and [...]

In Broad Daylight

Posted on: August 30th, 2012

This is a picture of a Palestinian youth throwing rocks at an Israeli military vehicle as it entered the Arab city of Ramallah on Wednesday, August 29, 2012. This youth and hundreds, even thousands like him, have been greeting Israeli cars and individuals this way every day of every month of every year since the [...]

Romney, Ryan, Rule

Posted on: August 29th, 2012

Following a hard couple of years of campaigning—debating a man who makes pizza, a man who wants to cut off aid to Israel and a woman who receives her instructions directly from the Almighty—and after treading the dark, frozen fields of Iowa and the dark, frozen woods of New Hampshire, and after eating more roadside [...]

Group Picture with a Congressman

Posted on: August 28th, 2012

Here’s Congressman Allen West with the folks of the Republican Jewish Coalition. Reminder: the Republican Convention is on in earnest as of today, having escaped the ravages of Hurricane Isaac which is on its way to New Orleans (Please, God, not again…). Allen Bernard West (formerly battalion commander of the 2d Battalion 20th Field Artillery, [...]

Moshe Holtzberg’s First Day of School

Posted on: August 27th, 2012

On Monday morning, like many thousands of other Israeli kids, little Moshe Holtzberg, resident of the town of Migdal Haemek, about halfway between Haifa and Tiberias, went to school for the first time. It was a happy ending and a happy beginning. Little Moshe’s parents, Rabbi Gavriel Noach Holtzberg and his wife, Rivka, who was [...]