Zahava Is Not the Enemy

Posted on: December 20th, 2012

This is Zehava Gal-On, leader of the left-wing Meretz party, speaking to students at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, on Tuesday, December 18, 2012. Meretz is a relatively small party, with three MKs in the current Knesset, which could—according to some polls—increase its size to five MKs. Back in the early 1990s, when it had [...]

The Homes that Shocked the World

Posted on: December 19th, 2012

A general view of Ramat Shlomo, on December 18 2012, when it was decided that 1,500 new homes will be built. The world, including the U.S. and the E.U. is shocked, because Israel is daring to build homes east of the armistice line of 1949. Israel suggests that the 1949 line was erased in 1967, [...]

Children and a Dog

Posted on: December 18th, 2012

I watched that terrifying video showing a 12-year-old Syrian child beheading two Army officers. And maybe the most terrifying part about it was that I clicked to the clip while unwrapping a piece of sugar free gum (an ex-smoker, I chew a lot at work). Then I was watching the boy bringing a sword down [...]

Children

Posted on: December 17th, 2012

Here’s a bunch of children heading home at the end of a day of work at the Orot Azion school in Efrat. They look a little tired, but otherwise well and healthy. I just wanted to celebrate the normalcy of this picture. Thank God for normal.

Bringing a Fiddle to a Menorah Lighting

Posted on: December 16th, 2012

On the sixth day of the 8-day festival, photographer Nati Shohat took this image of the Dor family in the Jewish village of Bat Ayin in Judea and Samaria. For some reason her decided to include a fiddler in the picture. One of the Dor kids probably said, You know, I play the violin, and [...]

US Ambassador at Dizengoff Circle

Posted on: December 14th, 2012

I suppose we’re no longer surprised by these announcements, that Dan Shapiro, U.S. ambassador to Israel, lit Chanukah candles at Dizengoff Circle, produced and delivered by Chabad Lubavitch, Tel Aviv. I suppose if tomorrow we’d see an item in the news that the Queen of England lit Chanukah candles at Trafalgar Square, courtesy of Chabad [...]

Grownup Chanukah Stories

Posted on: December 13th, 2012

I went on a random search for similar "balabusta" solutions for the miraculous by really lengthy festival of lights.

That’s Some Sponger

Posted on: December 12th, 2012

Sufganiot… The name supposedly comes from their capacity to absorb whatever amount of cooking oil we push on them (Lispog in Hebrew means to sponge). In our household we called them Ponchikes, and I recall the first time I asked for a ponchike and no one in the room had any idea what I was [...]

Candle 2: Watch, Don’t Use

Posted on: December 10th, 2012

There’s an inherent problem in the rabbinic commandment that we may only watch the Chanukah candles but not use them. It works fine for stopping oneself from re-lighting a Shamash candle whose flame went out with one of the lit candles – everybody knows you’re not supposed to use the Chanukah candle for that, you [...]

Publicize that Miracle!

Posted on: December 9th, 2012

The first night of Chanukah, in the neighborhood of Nachlaot in the center of Jerusalem, December 8, 2012. The idea of the Chanukah candles is to announce the miracle, make it as public as possible, kind of the visual equivalent of screaming it from the rooftops: We were stuck with only one little jug of [...]

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Menorah Made Up of Menorahs

Posted on: December 7th, 2012

Not exactly. What you see here is the Israeli Packer Steel Industries plant in Kiryat Malachi (yes, where the Arab missile hit an apartment a couple weeks ago), which produce steel Chanukah Menorahs for the IDF. Last year, the company forged thirteen steel menorahs. They each weigh a little over 400 pounds and stand about [...]

Biggest Recycled Jelly Doughnut

Posted on: December 6th, 2012

A students at the Aseh Chayil School, in the town of Efrat, presents the oversize Sufgania he and his fellow students prepared from recycled materials. For once, I’m stumped.

On Politics and Circumcision

Posted on: December 5th, 2012

Late Tuesday night, December 4, 2012, Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman, also iron fisted boss of Yisrael Beiteinu, announced his slate for the January 22 elections, a slate he’ll be cohabitating with PM Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud. It’s going to be a “ritchratch” (zipper) list, with Likud 1 coming first, followed by Yisrael Beiteinu 1 in second, [...]

ScratchGroup: Terror in school

Posted on: December 4th, 2012

ScratchGroup (“Srutonim”) writes: This animation vid was created in response to the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Our view is simply that Israel has the right to defend itself. I liked their South Park style approach to political punditry. Enjoy. Visit their Facebook page (Hebrew).

Why Chanukah Gelt?

Posted on: December 3rd, 2012

Yisrael Rice of Chabad.org explains that the origin of Chanukah gelt (money) is in the fact that the word Chanukah, which means to inaugurate—as in inaugurating the defiled Temple after the Hellenistic Jews were chased out of it—stems from the same root as the word for Chinuch, education. “Appropriately, during Chanukah it is customary to [...]

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Famous Last Words

Posted on: December 2nd, 2012

President Barack Obama and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney are pictured in the Oval Office, Nov. 29, 2012. What does one say on such an occasion? “Would you care for some dog?” “Yes, it was actually Kenya. Now I’ll have to kill you.” “Wanna’ see some amazing Area 51 photos?” “Why don’t you buy yourself [...]

Hamshushalayim 2012 Theme: ‘Humor’

Posted on: November 30th, 2012

Hamshushalayim is the central cultural festival of the winter season in Israel that attracts tens of thousands of visitors each year and offers a unique combination of hundreds of quality cultural events coupled with tourist and culinary attractions, all concentrated into four fun packed weekends during December. Thanks to a sweeping collaboration of Jerusalem’s cultural [...]

Kaf-Tet B’November

Posted on: November 29th, 2012

On November 29, 1947 the United Nations voted in a plan for the partition of the British Mandate territory of Palestine. The plan came to be called the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine or United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181.

It’s Stupid Destruction Day!

Posted on: November 28th, 2012

You’re looking at the demolition of five buildings in the Ulpana neighborhood of the Jewish town of Beit-El, north of Jerusalem, November 27, 2012. The High Court has decided that the multi-family dwellings built by Jews were on a privately owned Palestinian land, and so they had to be demolished, in the name of justice, [...]

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Gimme Five

Posted on: November 27th, 2012

This is U.S. Air Force Senior Airman Sarah Baker with a group of children during a security halt in Qalat City, Afghanistan. Baker is assigned to the Provincial Reconstruction Team Zabul’s security force and is deployed from Malmstrom Air Force Base, Montana. It is a staged picture, obviously, directed by the photographer, or, worse, by [...]

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