Bad Rabbis

Posted on: January 20th, 2013

Joy Powers from San Francisco created and shot this sign, for the “Bad Rabbis” Purim Follies 2011 sketch. Now you know as much as I do. I want to know more! Ms. Powers? Are you out there? Can we learn more about the sketch? I’m curious and, frankly, a little afraid…  

God Bless You, Mr. Finkelstein

Posted on: January 18th, 2013

You may have asked yourself, who was the genius who, several months ago, told Bibi Netanyahu he could bolster his political power and even increase it (to as much as 50 Knesset seats), if he ran on one ticket with Avigdor Liberman’s Russian based, secularist party Israel Beitenu. It was the guy in the picture [...]

Taping Up the Elephant

Posted on: January 17th, 2013

The zookeeper in this picture is taking care of an elephant’s leg injury at the Ramat Gan Safari. It’s a scary assignment, if you ask me. We have two cats, and when we need to clip their nails, it takes two of us to hold down each cat, preferably using kitchen mitts – and even [...]

Strumming in Hebron

Posted on: January 16th, 2013

On Tuesday, this man was standing on the steps leading to the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron, playing his guitar and singing his heart out. No one threw a Molotov cocktail at him. No one let out a gunshot. No one demonstrated. No one even cursed or spat or made a face. Photographer Nati [...]

Vote ‘P’ for Pirates

Posted on: January 15th, 2013

Ohad Shem Tov (L) and Noam Kuzar at the headquarters of the Israeli “Pirate party,” one of 34 lists competing in the upcoming Israeli national elections. The Swedish Piratpartiet, founded on 1 January 2006, was the first pirate party. The party’s name was derived from Piratbyrån, an organization opposed to intellectual property. In other words, [...]

A Flock of Camels

Posted on: January 14th, 2013

How do you call a bunch of camels walking in the desert together? Their not a train of camels, because they’re on their own, at least in the picture. They’re not a herd of camels – don’t look like there’s enough of them for a herd. Maybe a flock of camels. “Camel” is derived from [...]

Don’t land on Me

Posted on: January 13th, 2013

A ground crew member from Electronic Attack Squadron (132) signals to an EA-18G Growler as it returns from a flight during heavy snows at Naval Air Facility Misawa, a city in eastern Aomori Prefecture in the Tōhoku region of Japan. There’s something the IAF doesn’t need to prepare for, unless they’re planning to land somewhere [...]

Outdoor Meeting

Posted on: January 11th, 2013

One of these two is frozen inside, incapable of sincere empathy – the other is a snowman. Stay warm…

Haredi Snow Man

Posted on: January 10th, 2013

The Haredi boys in the picture have built a snowman in front of the Kotel in Jerusalem. He doesn’t have eyes of coal and a carrot for a nose, but he certainly wears a nice, yeshivish hat. Isn’t there a prohibition on putting a tzelem-idol in the Temple? I hope it’s not a new Chassidic [...]

Intensive Training

Posted on: January 9th, 2013

That’s the title for this image, of a U.S. Army gun crew fire illumination rounds at Forward Operating Base Hadrian. Intensive Training, indeed. The 1st Section Bravo Battery 1-9 Field Artillery from Fort Stewart Ga., have been conducting intensive training and fire missions to support operations in Uruzgan province, Afghanistan. The gunners, based out of [...]

The Secret for Happiness

Posted on: January 8th, 2013

I know, you guys in the Tri-State Area probably eat pictures like this one for breakfast – a tree that was felled by a storm and destroyed someone’s car. But for us here, in Israel, this is a big deal. It doesn’t take a whole lot to flood us – we’re a very small country. [...]

Use your Surge Protectors!

Posted on: January 7th, 2013

A lightning is a massive electrostatic discharge caused by unbalanced electric charge in the atmosphere, either inside clouds, cloud to cloud or cloud to ground, accompanied by the loud sound of thunder. The computer of a friend of mine who lives in Jerusalem was once fried by a lightning storm and it took him about [...]

Safari Website Hacked

Posted on: January 4th, 2013

A Turkish hacker whose Facebook page identifies him as Hulusi Semih Karaca has hacked the website of the Ramat Gan Safari. A Jewish Press reporter who went to the Safari website in search of material on the passing, last year, of the 17-year old giraffe Dubla, found the hacked page instead. Shortly after entering the [...]

Rebbes on Horseback

Posted on: January 3rd, 2013

Thousands of Chasidim attend the wedding of the great-grandson of the Sanzer Rebbe in Netanya, January 02, 2012. The Sanz Chasidic dynasty was founded by Rabbi Chaim Halberstam (1793–1876) who served as the Rabbi of Nowy Sącz (Sanz, or Tsanz inYiddish). Reb Chayim was known as a man in whose pocket a penny never got [...]

Four Beers!

Posted on: January 2nd, 2013

This is former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, a man who made the highest office in the land the most profitable in history, who squeaked by several convictions of embezzlement and dishonor, frankly, because of an inept prosecution and a lineup of witnesses who were easily as shady as the PM’s actions. Former Prime Minister Ehud [...]

Sylvester

Posted on: January 1st, 2013

For some reason, in Israel they named the secular-sounding New Year’s Eve after the Catholic St. Sylvester. According to legend, Pope Sylvester I healed the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great from leprosy and then baptized him. Two valuable things on New Year’s Eve… The tradition is German, I think. Every year, on Sylvester night, Berlin [...]

Clashing with Bubbies

Posted on: December 31st, 2012

Sometimes propaganda is so outlandish, it crumbles under its own weight. A case in point: these three elderly ladies walking away from the Shabbaton that was so crazily disrupted by violent, cursing, nasty security forces, hell bent on sanctifying the tenets of the 2-state (“final”) solution at the Oz Etzion outpost this weekend. The following [...]

Rakeffet

Posted on: December 30th, 2012

The Rakeffet (cyclamen) flowers include 23 species of perennials growing from tubers, native to Europe and the Mediterranean Basin east to Iran, with one species in Somalia. Of all the species I saw on cyclamen.org, the one most common in Israel is the one I like the most. It looks frail and intangible, vulnerable, withdrawn. [...]

The Suffering of St. Zuabi

Posted on: December 28th, 2012

On Thursday, Israel’s High Court reviewed the appeal by Arab MK Hanin Zoabi (National Democratic Assembly) of the Knesset Elections Committee’s decision to disqualify her candidacy. Zoabi, a vociferous anti Israeli MK, has made many enemies (many more enemies?) in 2010, when she sailed on board the Mavi Marmara, part of the flotilla that attempted [...]

Another Day, Another Life Down

Posted on: December 27th, 2012

The fellow on the right is Rafi Peled was born in Kibbutz HaZore’a on July 2, 1944. In 1967 he left the IDF with the rank of Major after having fought as part of the paratrooper corps in the battles over Gaza in the Six Day War. He joined the police force and after years [...]