Schvach - פני דל

2011-12-30T17:12:00.006-06:00

Happy New Year
by: Schvach Yid

And I don’t mean ‘Shanah Tova'

Okay (or not) I haven’t blogged in ages, and for good reason – I haven’t had a thing to say, write, or to put it more bluntly, I haven’t had a thing on my mind. Also, my computer is kaput, as in half dead, so it’s a pain to use, but I’ve come across a few items
that I have to share, so here they are.

First off, I hope everyone in the J-bloggersphere had a superb Chanukah, and to celebrate our minor festival of light and oil, here is a pic sent by an old friend to my mother:

I searched for an Indian restaurant, but to no avail, so I ‘ate Chinese’.

Secondly, Thanks to the American Bedu blog, my current studies in Islamic traditions and culture have continued. Here are two items from her: a pic she posted on her blog site:

And here is the URL: http://americanbedu.com/

And , have you heard of The Learning Channel’s reality show ‘All American Muslims’? Since I don’t have a TV, I haven’t seen an episode; however, I have viewed some of the trailers displayed on the TLC website. Drech (like all reality shows I’ve seen). Lowes, the building supply company that retails to the general public produced a commercial intended to be shown on 'All American Muslims'; they very smartly pulled that disaster before it aired. They very unsmartly chose to post the video on You Tube – schmucks!
Here’s the URL(not on my blog site I won’t):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQhls5PEmeQ&feature=player_embedded

Well, that’s all folks! Humor is as humor does.

2011-07-31T16:42:00.006-05:00

It’s That Time of Year – Again
by: Schvach Yid

Tonight begins the Hebrew month of Av, the Moslem month of Ramadan, and we Yiddin began Sefer Devarim (Deuteronomy) this past Shabbos during Mincha.

Whenever someone burdens me with the question of how we Jews, as the Chosen People, have had such a tormented history, I simply tell the curious antagonist to read Deuteronomy. The answer is there, in its entirety.

Israel National News (Arutz Sheva) reports that the Moslem month of Ramadan will be a time of increased violence against Jews, ie, terrorist attacks in Israel. There's nothing new in that news. I don’t know if daylight fasting for 29 consecutive days will stir the frustrations of Moslems, who perhaps might express those frustrations with their holiest of their annual observances by assaulting us Jews who are in mourning over the calamities of Jewish history, but in preparation for this possibility, here’s the line up for the coming lunar month:

2011-05-14T14:15:00.007-05:00

AARP as History

by: Schvach Yid

No joke intended, but the day I received an invitation, by mail, to join AARP stands as
one of the more emotionally depressing days of my life. It was just a few weeks prior to my 50th birthday, and I thought reaching the age of fifty was , well, nakbah, to borrow a term from Arabic.

Later this month Bob Dylan will turn 70 years of age. I can’t imagine. Of all the cruelties dished out by life, perhaps the passage of time – and aging – are the worst (excluding, of course, the naches derived from watching one’s kids grow up).

So here’s to Robert Zimmerman’s success in sticking it out for seventy years, and I mean successfully. Happy Birthday Bob.

2011-05-08T11:42:00.002-05:00

Our Two Days of National Remembrance
by: Schvach Yid

Rosh Hashanah is one thing; Yom HaZicharon and Yom HaAzma'ut are another. As a nation, we Jews come together on the latter two days. The dead are gone; we remember their heroic sacrifices and continue in their place. Faulty politics aside, the Jewish State of Israel is just that – THE Jewish State. Those ‘others’ who love Mecca, and still others who love their respective countries, should have no difficulty understanding Jewish national identity and should resolve to develop the ability to accept it.

Here is a video, courtesy of the Dixie Yid blog site: (http://dixieyid.blogspot.com/2011/04/yerushalayim-shel-zahav-jewish-rock.html).
Chassidische rock – I love it!

And this contribution from the al tishali oti blog at: http://altishalioti.blogspot.com/

2011-04-24T16:51:00.000-05:00

Come On Down
by: Schvach Yid

First (perhaps not) it was Billy Graham (is he still alive?), then it was Burt Lancaster – well, it was Burt Lancaster in a movie impersonating (I assume) Billy Graham, and now,
Live From Frankfurt Germany (actually, it’s a video), it’s the Moslems doin’ the same thing – in German (was sonst?).

And here is a video courtesy of Pamela Geller of the Atlas Shrugs blog site, at:
http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2011/04/the-voice-of-reason.html

It’s a mixed message. The ‘heroine’ castigates Hitler, then implores Germans to stand up to defend their country (‘Germany, rise up’ – we’ve heard that one in the past, from the ‘castigate’ himself).

You know, some things really never change at all.

2011-04-24T15:53:00.001-05:00

Well, I Think it’s Funny
by: Schvach Yid

From Chaptzem Blog, at:
http://chaptzem.blogspot.com/2011/04/rabbi-attacked-by-african-killer-bees.html

Monday, April 04, 2011
Rabbi attacked by African killer bees in Zimbabwe
A rabbi handing out matzah and wine for Passover to Jews in Zimbabwe was attacked by a swarm of African killer bees.Moshe Silberhaft, the spiritual leader and executive director of the African Jewish Congress known as "The Traveling Rabbi," was making a pre-Passover visit to the 190 Jews left in the beleaguered capital of Harare when he was attacked by the bees while walking from the Ashkenazi synagogue to the Sephardi synagogue on the Shabbat of April 2.

One rule I was taught long ago, was that either a Jew is Ashkenasic or Sephardic. This has import, I assume, not so much in one’s everyday life as a Jew, but certainly in the minhag one follows for Pesach, and that one doesn’t get to choose which. I don’t know the halachot concerning this matter, but I do wish the injured rabbi a rafuah shlemah.

Have a good Yontif.

2011-03-20T16:12:00.000-05:00

Phyllis Chesler Speaks
by: Schvach Yid

Phyllis Chesler has become a regular contributor to Arutz Sheva, (and has been for the past few years). In this clip, she speaks about ‘The New Anti-Semitism’, which is also the title of one of her books, published in 2003.

Her web site is found at: http://www.phyllis-chesler.com

PHYLLIS CHESLER: The New Antisemitism from Advocates for Civil Liberties on Vimeo.

2011-02-27T17:11:00.002-06:00

Finally!
by: Schvach Yid

I’ve advocated this for G-d knows how long, and it’s about time someone (other than me, get it?) has made it sort of official.

The Kingdom of Jordan has no business existing as such. If that land has to exist as Arab
(it was supposed to a part – by far the much larger part - of the Jewish National Homeland), then it should exist as the Palestinian State of Jordan without a ruling monarchy.

The removal of the Hashemite Royal Family from Jordanian rule would not end the Israel-Arab conflict. Islam has no room for Jews or for Judaism, not in the Middle East, and not anywhere else in the world, but it would serve to identify the problem, namely, that Islam is the problem, and that a country that masquerades as the possession of a cutesy over-aged boy king is no justification for the continued slaughter and vilification of Jews, Judaism, and the Jewish State.

Britain must be ejected from the Middle East once and for all, and that means an end to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.

Here’s the link:
http://www.ipetition.com/str-asp-PetitionID_9-end-SignPetition.htm

2011-02-13T11:07:00.003-06:00

Horse Baloney of the Same Feather
by: Schvach Yid

I’m no political analyst. I’m not even a journalist (and most recently I think the journalism establishment has devolved into a bunch of crap!), and so once again I’m stymied. The elation over the Mubarak overthrow in Egypt strikes me as rather absurd.

Here’s my take.
Once upon a time there were three guys in Egypt: King Farouk, Muhammad Naguib, and Gamal Abdel Nasser. Naguib and Nasser, together, overthrew King Farouk of Egypt (and of Sudan) in a military coup. From there on, it was ‘kesher’, as the Israelis like to say, because Nasser begat Anwar Sadat, who in turn begat Hosni Mubarak, who has now in turn begotten the newest guy in charge of Egypt. Each of these goodfellows grew up in Egypt’s military academy, each was the protégé of the former (except, perhaps, the new guy), and each was selected by his respective predecessor as the successor to power. In short, Egypt has had an uninterrupted string of four (count ‘em, four) military dictators, each the designated inheritor of that county’s military (and State) thrown since the deposing of the monarchal government in 1952. That’s one year short of 60 years of continuous military rule by military dynastic descent, and the torch has now been passed to the newest crony.

What the hell are those fools celebrating? Nothing in Egypt has changed, except for the name of the guy in charge (it’s Suleiman – Turkish for Solomon). The so-called revolutionaries don’t even have a leader.

Now then, let’s get serious and ‘talk’ a bit about hijabs. Hijabs, that feminine flag of female Moslem devotion, has, and is, making a big splash not only here is the USA and the UK, but just about everywhere else, including some of those countries where the fashion is no fashion at all but instead constitutes old hat. In Tunisia there rages a political battle over the banning of hijabs in public (which is exactly where they are supposed to be worn, except for salat – Moslem prayer – where the garment is to be worn even in private). And so, as a public service, I wish to show an alternative donning of a hijab.

Now then, one last item - we’re traversing from Hijab to Hajj jadies and jents. I think that the next great Moslem revolution will not involve the spread of secular discontent against Arab despotic governmental rule, but instead will take the form of the breaking down of the ‘gates’ of Mecca to permit a no holds barred, entry on demand, to the annual Hajj by any and all Moslems who wish to so partake. This year’s holy event in Mecca, which was touted on some web sites as ‘the experience of a lifetime’, garnered some 2.5 million religious pilgrims. Entry, I believe, was by invitation only, from the King of Saudi Arabia. There currently exist some 1.5 billion Moslems in the world. Just do the arithmetic folks, 1.5 billion divided by 2.5 million yield a cool 600. At a rate of 2.5 million visitors per year, it would take 600 years to accommodate all presently existing Moslems at the Hajj. Pirkei Avot tells us that there was always room for the Jewish pilgrims who journeyed to Jerusalem (for the three pilgrimage festivals), but the immense population of Moslems makes the Hajj a very distant vision. Most will have to settle for Umra (sort of an off-season mini-Hajj). Any brief perusal of internet web sites that deal with the Hajj will reveal that this Moslem religious obligation has gone the way of Disney. ‘We want in’ (to the Hajj) will be the next great Moslem battle cry.

2010-11-13T15:14:00.002-06:00

There May be Hope Yet!
by: Schvach Yid

And no less thanks to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Yes indeed, jadies and jents, the web site of the ‘The Kingdom’s’ Ministry of Hajj
(found here: http://www.hajinformation.com/display_news.php?id=2174)
is running two headlines of interest to us, as follows:

‘13Nov2010:- Minister of Hajj receives head of Egyptian Hajj Mission’

‘13Nov2010:- Palestinian pilgrims arrive in Makkah as guests of King’

The Hajj, Islam’s annual pilgrimage to Mecca (interestingly pronounced in Arabic as Makkah – one of two Tanakh Hebrew words for ‘plague’), started this evening and runs through Nov 17th. Once there, male participants are not permitted to wear head coverings for davening in the major shul in Mecca.

On a more pleasant note, here is a video of the concert violinist Midori at Carnegie Hall, in 2009, performing as an encore Heinrich Ernst’s set of variations on ‘The Last Rose of Summer’:

Back in the old days, when I was still a native New Yorker living in my beloved home town, I frequented solo recitals (with piano accompaniment, of course) at Carnegie Hall. Alas, since relocating to this corner of America’s Bible Belt, no such joy bejewels my life, except via the internet. Enjoy!

2010-03-21T13:59:00.003-05:00

Brain Melt
by: Schvach Yid

I just started reading The Garden of Peace by Rabbi Shalom Arush (and I'm not even married!), and all I could think of was this – sorry:

If you wish to indulge in my mental mishap, you can access

information about this stupendous work at:

http://www.breslev.co.il/store/books/family_and_relationships/the_garden_of_peace.aspx?id=7269&language=english

I hope all of you are enjoying Peseach cleaning as much as I.

2010-02-27T18:35:00.001-06:00

Hijabs for Israel
by: Schvach Yid

Here’s a link to a video displayed on the Random Thoughts blog site about anti-Israel
‘activism’ on college campuses. Please view it.

According to the Israel National Radio web site, Arutz Sheva, next week will bring us the annual on-campus fête of Israel Apartheid Week. I don’t know if the planned ‘Let’s End the Jewish State’ week will materialize, I mean as a world-wide event. Most of us are very well informed of world opinion against the existence of the Jewish State of Israel, not to mention world apathy concerning the murder and maiming of Israeli Jews, not to mention world advocacy concerning the overt bigotry that’s foisted against the Jewish People/State.

In an effort to answer the university-based Jew haters, and to flex a little post-Purim Jewish pride, I encourage all supporters of Israel, Jews and non-Jews alike, to don appropriately-sized Israeli flags as hijabs, in the case of women, and kaffiyahs, in the case of men.

In addition I have a few replies to those Jew-hating, anti-Israel promulgators (aren’t promulgators a species protected by law?). Now then, for a few good in-their faces responses to the on campus Jew-hating, Israel-hating, pro-Palestinian Arab asserters of US Constitutional first amendment rights (their own of course, not ours):

there is only one appropriate response to the Palestinian exercise of violence for the
purpose of segregating Jews (by elimination) from the Arabs in Israel, and it isn’t by
the passage of civil rights legislation;

if the Moslems want ‘Palestine’, tell them to tell it to King Abdullah of Jordan;

jents, walk up to an attractive Jew-hating anti-Israel female protestor (hopefully
Moslem Arab Palestinian), tell her you are Jewish and vehemently pro-Israel, then ask
her to come home with you; be ready to run like hell;

tell them – no, yell at them – that the Koran should be banished as hate literature;

with tact, remind your favorite Jew-hating Arab protestor that the Arabs come from
Arabia, not from Newark, New Jersey, that they and their Islam spread by violence and
murder, and that they have no legitimate claim to any turf outside the Arabian
Peninsula;

shove the Banu Qurasa into their faces – the murder of the Jews of Medina by Islam’s
founding father, Mohammad and his murderous rabble; tell them we want it back;

tell them you visited the Temple Mount in J’lem; in fact, tell them you walked into the
Dome of the Rock Mosque and recited a Shechechiyanu - they’ll just love you for it;

tell them we Jews intend to bring copyright infringement charges against them for
having rewritten Tanakh;

tell them Israel founded and built all five (I think) universities located on ‘The West
Bank’, and if they don’t knock off their anti-Israel crap we’re going to confiscate their
diplomas;

ask them about female circumcision, that is after the two of you stop running following
your request for her to come home with you; tell them we Jews don’t do that to our
women; we Jews love our women;

tell them you’ve started a ‘Hijabs for Israel’ campaign; pass out Israeli flag hijabs and
kaffiyehs; G-d knows what they’ll do with them (I can easily guess), but they’ll get the
message;

tell them they don’t have to worry about J’lem; we want Medina returned to us;

tell them that if they continue with their naughty dormitory behaviors, the whole lot of
them will be whisked off to Saudi Arabia for a little Sharia correctional intervention -
they’ll just love that!

Finally jadies and jents, forget about peace with ‘those people’ – they don’t want to have peace with us; haven’t you ever read the Koran?

Purim sameach

2010-02-21T12:06:00.002-06:00

And Now a Bissele Advertising
by: Schvach Yid

I haven’t posted in a long time, and for a good reason – I haven’t had anything to write
(as is obvious from my last several posts), so in an effort to awaken from the blogging dead (Blog Hill?), here is a little bit of advertising.

I stumbled upon the Jewish music group ‘Pharaoh’s Daughter’ somehow, and have been a fan ever since. They sing excerpts from Chumash, as well as Tehillim and Shabbos z'miros to a variety of original melodies taken from the Middle and Far Easts.

Here are a couple of clips – enjoy!
width="350">

http://www.pharaohsdaughter.com/audio/echoes.mp3

And here is the group’s web site.
http://www.pharaohsdaughter.com/

Also, if you’re into Ladino tunes reworked into a modern jazzy mode, complete with Ladino lyrics, and if you live in the NY metro area, then you’ll be happy to learn that the Sarah Aroeste Band will be all over Manhattan soon – here’s the link:
http://www.saraharoeste.com/performance.htm

2009-11-29T13:04:00.000-06:00

The Righteous Tale of Chiune Sugihara
by: Schvach Yid

For the Holocaustphile in you, here’s a story of a Japanese diplomat who did his best (and best is the right word) to help rescue Lithuanian Jews from the oncoming slaughter by the Nazis, in 1940, to be accessed at:
http://www.eagleman.com/sugihara/
and http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0XPQ/is_2000_Feb_28/ai_59817625/

2009-10-17T15:44:00.000-05:00

Schvach Rambles
by: Schvach Yid

So what else is new? The diagnosis is in: Bob Dylan suffers from Leonard Cohen Syndrome.

Thanks to Gail at Rubicon 3, I’ve just learned that Robert (the Jew) Zimmerman has
released a CD of homespun (I guess) Christmas carols. I wish these guys in the entertainment field would make up their minds already about their religious convictions. Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Cat Stevens, Madonna (now there’s a good one!), and G-d knows who else among the ‘famousos’.

I don’t get it. I have no problem with my religion, so what do they have with theirs?

Once upon a time the people over at Star Trek came out with another movie, this one with Christopher Lloyd portraying a Clingon or Romulan (no, not Rahm Emanuel) who manages to con Admiral (I think) James T. Kirk into dropping his defenses in a faux peace maneuver, and then blitzing the Starship Enterprise . In the end Kirk pulls a maneuver of his own and cooks Lloyd’s character (have I gotten it right so far?).

Perhaps this scenario of Hollywood fiction should cause the Israelis to wake up. A number of responses, as well as outcomes, present themselves, and so Bibi, choose wisely, not poorly (as the archaic knight cautions Indiana Jones in the third installment of the IJ trilogy).

Here are four distractions which present some of the choices from which Bibi and his countrypersons can choose. Chatz l’chah! Of course, there’s always winning. Perhaps the Israelis should consider that option.

2009-10-04T15:19:00.021-05:00

So,What’s a ‘Shiksa’ Already?

by: Schvach Yid

What’s in a word indeed? Whenever I encounter this moniker, in print or verbally - to my face that is - I cringe. It’s not really an up welling of Jewish guilt, but rather the sick-in-the-pit-of-my-stomach anticipation of a clenched fist flying through the air and alighting unto my face with greatest of ease that motivates my avoidance of this time-honored Yiddishism. Afterall, jadies and jents, a female’s clenched fist (or some well executed Bruce Lee-style footwork , for that matter) can do plenty of damage.

The term ‘shiksa’, according to an old article that appeared in Moment Magazine, is derived from the Hebrew work ‘shekkets’, meaning abominable or disgusting. I never use this term, and thank G-d so far at least, no one has ever confronted me with the demand for an explanation concerning this breach in inter-group diplomacy.

I work in a sea of ‘shiksas’, and there’s nothing disgusting about them, at least in my opinion. I do find their tattoos a bit too much to take, but I take solace in the fact that they are the ones tattooed and not I. Oh yeah, their verbiage. ‘It’s a real blessing….’ is a wee bit difficult for me to handle, but after more than two decades of American Southern Bible Belt living, I may be on the road to acclimation (but regrettably, never recovery).

Now then, when I was a lad in college, we student were ‘blessed’ (get it?) with science courses complete with laboratory sections, and in that now dated spirit, I offer an on-line version of ‘Shiksa Lab’, some visual examples of just what the average klafta means when his/her sonny boy brings home the wrong kind of girl to meet the family, and s/he – his parent(s) – let/s loose with that all time Jewish favorite of verbal flatus, ‘shiksa’.

Assisting in this effort is the 2009 edition of the annual Oktoberfest held in Munich, Germany. The photos herein presented are the unwitting donations of the on-line edition of Der Stern magazine.

If I have managed to offend anyone, please forgive me.

So, just what is a 'shiksa' already?

A 'Shiksa' sine quo non,

Home Coming Queen
runner up

Shiksa Homecoming Queen

No, besides, she's promised

to convert

Shiksas without tznius

(modesty)

A beer lover's idea

of shiksas

A shiksa union meeting

Asian Pacific Rim

females are never

shiksas

you haven't

been paying

attention

probably

No, but the blond

behind him is

a Mossad agent

does Oktoberfest

'shiksa' doesn't

mean 'bitch'

Chag Succoth Sameach!!!!!

2009-09-27T14:54:00.008-05:00

Taking the Bait – Again
by: Schvach Yid

Please forgive me for sounding a bit like Tokyo Rose of World War Two fame, but this
business of Israel going up against Iran’s burgeoning nuclear weapons industry has me a bit concerned.

(photo above: bombed-out Tokyo, 1945)

My psycho-fantasy goes something like this:
Israel takes out Iran’s nuclear weapons manufacturing capability and stock. Iran, however, has an arsenal of a few thousand

missiles, each equipped with conventional warheads,

capable of reaching Israel. Iran uses Israel’s pre-emptive

attack against its nuclear weapons force as its justification for launching a retaliatory strike against Israel with its thousand-fold conventional-grade missiles. In a single day Israel is reduced to rubble.

Sounds stupid? Just remember the Second World War. We all recall the death and utter destruction wreaked by the atomic bomb blasts over Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Do we recall the death and utter destruction wreaked by the saturation bombing campaigns against the cities of Tokyo, Berlin, Dresden, Cologne, Hamburg, London, and Coventry? Have we forgotten just how much havoc can be wrought by conventional weapons?

Ahmadinawhats may not be so stupid. He may have succeeded in jockeying Israel into a no win situation. Just how large is Israel, and just how many conventional bomb blasts would be needed to render Israel functionally dead?

As far as I know (which is not very much, at least concerning this topic), Israel still lacks the capability of intercepting incoming missiles after they have completed their ‘boost phase’. As far as I know, no country has a defense system that can achieve that, and so where does that leave Israel?

Tzom Kippurim indeed.

photo of bombed-out Berlin, May 1945

2009-08-30T13:59:00.001-05:00

Attention All Converts and Would
Be Converts To Judaism
by: Schvach Yid

Please catch this on-line radio cast from the Arutz Sheva web site of Israel National News:

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Radio/News.aspx/1350

2009-08-23T14:05:00.001-05:00

Window Shopping Hevron
by: Schvach Yid

There’s a problem (no kidding) when Jews spit three times after mentioning Zionism.

The hat in the hand routine hasn’t worked, and never will. The lady at the Bagelnosher
blog site has posted a doozy, at:
http://bagelnosher.blogspot.com/2009/08/sixth-fatah-conference-finally-ended-on.html
on this very Israeli phenomenon. Well, actually, her post isn’t about Israeli intransigence in their political capitulation to Arab and American demands concerning the current Jewish ‘occupation’ of the Jewish Homeland, but rather a scathing synopsis of the Palestinian Arabs’ continued intransigence toward Zionism.

We all know what happens to anyone who straddles a fence and stays there; evidently, the Israelis don’t, so here is more of Schvach’s ‘wisdom’ concerning Israel’s ‘foreign policy’ in the administration of its own turf. It’s really simple, and goes something like this:

When Obama and his Wurdulaks (verdilaks) tell the Israelis to limit Jewish procreation in Israel, the Israeli government should reply by offering cash incentives to all Jews living in Israel to make more Jewish babies, and I don’t mean tax breaks – I mean cash in hand. Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, and lots of money for each Jewish baby born into a Jewish family in Israel. Racist? Nicht für der Araber? You betchaya.

When Obama and his enemies (like, hey, he said he keeps his enemies closer than his friends) instruct the Israelis to limit/close Jewish settlements in YESHA, the Israeli government should respond by building more Jewish settlements there, and should offer major cash incentives to any and all Jews to settle there. While they’re at it, Israel should build a Jews-only city in YESHA, and name it Medina Ilit, in memory of the Jews of Medina who were slaughtered by the vampire of Islam, Mohammed and his rabble. (On a truly personal note, I consider Hitler – may his name and moustache rot for all time – to have been the reincarnate of Islam’s prophet Mohammad; just compare the Nazi shooting of Jews along the precipice of mass graves to Islam’s celebration of ‘Banu Quraiza’ or ‘Battle of the Ditch’ – they’re revoltingly alike).

Lastly, do not close any checkpoints, and extend ‘the wall’. Piss ‘em off and kiss ‘em off, and if it’s war they want, then please oblige the Arabs in no uncertain terms.

Well, this is how Schvach commemorates the past slaughters of Jews in Hevron – may we never forget, and for more, please access Jonathan Mark’s piece at:
http://bestjewishnewsny.com/2009/08/19/hebron-80-years-after/.

2009-08-16T11:21:00.003-05:00

What Treaty?
by: Schvach Yid

Or an international agreement? Call it a ‘joint communiqué’; call it whatever you like.

Hitler and Stalin signed a ‘mutual nonaggression pact’ – big deal.
President Richard Nixon flew to China and agreed to ‘hand over’ Taiwan to the Mainland Chinese government. On his way back to Washington, associates of Nixon aboard Air Force One later reported that Nixon quipped ‘they got Taiwan; all we got were egg rolls’. No sooner were his feet planted back on terra firma than the deal was dumped by the American administration in Washington.

Israel needs to learn, and quickly. There’s not much time, and self-absorbed ‘intellectual’
ruminations will be ruinous. Self-indulgent pedantry will turn out to be suicidal. That street artist who currently occupies the Oval Office of the White House is no chump; he knows exactly what he’s doing. Regrettably, the Israelis never have, and the current offerings by the contributors to Arutz Sheva appear to announce a premature defeat of Israel.

I’ve dealt with the psycho-pressures foisted by the dominators and manipulators in the
American workplace. G-d help the employee who replies by looking the person in the face and saying ‘no’. (And they ‘target’; one can’t run away. Their associates will be waiting for you upon your arrival at your new place of refuge.)

Bibi and Co. need to do just that. They need to forget about the threat of sanctions and the repeal of foreign aid agreements; they need to forget about Oslo, Wye, Road Maps, etc. The Arabs have come up with nothing; they have never conceded a thing, not even recognition of the Jewish State of Israel, and why in the first place should that constitute a concession?

Just what do the Arabs have against the existence of a Jewish State? That’s an easy one – just read the Koran; the answer is all over the thing (you’re right, I don’t ‘respect’ Islam and its Koran – have you ever read the Koran?).

If the Arabs/Moslems, Obama included, don’t want a Jewish State in the Jewish Holy Land, then there’s nothing to talk about. Hasn’t Hosnei Mubarak ever heard of The United Arab Republic? Who the hell does he think he’s kidding?

Jews can’t build in YESHA, but Israel can’t segregate the Black Moslem itinerants who’ve wandered into The Jewish State from Sudan? Very nice. Some President.

Some – or many – complain that we Jews are arrogant. ‘Just who do you think you are?’,
they’ll accuse. ‘Just where do you people come off being so conceited?’, they’ll assert.
Okay, how about this: one third of everyone in the world worships a dead Jew. Have you ever heard of a musical named ‘Jesus Christ, Superstar? Another one quarter of the world’s human population adheres to their own rewrite of the Hebrew Bible. In total that’s something like half of all people in existence who run after us. So who do we think we are? I dunno, perhaps those others should answer their own question. Those very same people stand against the existence of a Jewish State, and not just in the Jewish Holy Land, jadies and jents. They don’t want us – period.

Just what the hell do they have against the existence of a Jewish State? What is their objection to the Jewish homeland in that miniscule geographic fingernail clipping of land that holds no natural resources, no indigenous wealth, its only value is that it’s ours, just as are The Hebrew Bible, the Jewish ‘Savior’ of Christianity, and Islam’s pitiful piece of scriptural plagiarism? It’s called Jew hatred jadies and jents, and we can’t negotiate our way out of that.

Who do we think we are? I work in the academic biomedical research field as a lab technician. I don’t know one doctoral-level researcher who doesn’t want to be awarded a Nobel Prize. I have never met any academic who didn’t want to be awarded a Nobel Prize. The Nobel Prize was created by a Jew – Alfred Nobel. HaShem created us and commanded us, but the non-Jews of the world have made us, and it’s these very same people who dump all over us. They keep running after us, and they want to know who the hell do we think we are.

Israel has to learn that no concession will work, that appeasement doesn't work, and that their current imperative is to not concede to the present American administration. Say NO!

We Jews, who claim to be the smartest people in existence have to stop being so fucking stupid. Nationalism demands balls – big brass ones that clang when one walks. Just look what they have accomplished for the American ‘Negro’.

2009-07-17T18:31:00.002-05:00

Eishes Chayil
by: Schvach Yid

My thanks to Aliza Hausman of the Memoires of a Jewminicana blog site for pointing my nose to this video. I enjoy the presentations of Allison Josephs, author and creator of the Jew in the City blog site. No praise of Jewish women is sufficient, so enjoy her vid:

My appreciation of motherhood goes way back to my childhood (of course), so here is a blast from my past, the paradigm of effective mothering, and her little charge who is pretty much what I was about:

Good Shabbos, and please don't forget to sing Eishes Chayil to the Jewish women seated at your Shabbos table.

2009-07-12T13:31:00.005-05:00

The Conflicting Demands of Life
by: Schvach Yid

Aliza Hausman, author and founder of the Memoirs of a Jewminicana blog site, found at
http://www.alizahausman.net/, writes about the phenomena of conversion to Judaism, racism, and ‘fittting in’, ie, can a Catholic Latina convert to Judaism find true happiness
as a Catholic Latina convert to Judaism?

It’s okay Aliza, you’re welcome as a member of the tribe – anytime, and besides, Halacha forbids referring to you, or any other convert to Judaism, as a convert because, as you certainly know, once the conversion has been achieved, the individual is no longer a convert but a Jew. I’m glad you’re in our community.

In recent blogs Aliza has tangled with the age old contest between the demands of life (Darwinian evolution) versus the demands of social comportment (Western religion), but no, she hasn’t framed the conflict in these terms, but rather has discussed her paternal lineage, and specifically the conjugation habits of her first and second generational paternal antecedents.

I suppose there exist several well established and known responses by casual observers to this disparity between established Western mores and the advantages provided by ‘nature’ (and after all, nature is G-d’s creation, isn’t it?).

The average everyday run-of-the-mill social worker type of person, undoubtedly socially and politically Liberal, will shed tears and exsanguinate love over the trials and tribulations of ‘those who just don’t know any better’. Garbage! We all know better.

The other sort of socially and politically distracted individual, let’s call this type ‘Conservative’, will call for the public immolation of any and all who dare to ‘debase’ the holy rite of human procreation to the level of sport and entertainment. More garbage!

Lastly, there are the academic Biology-inclined. Genetics calls this phenomenon ‘heterosis’. The animal husbandry crowd – you know, farmers, ranchers, horticulturists (plants, not animals) etc. – call it ‘hybrid vigor’.

The fact is that the more genetic recombination events that take place, ie., the greater number of partners with whom one generates offspring, the better the genetic health of the offspring population. Multiple combinations of parents provides for an increased diversity (I hate that pc term) of the gene pool of a given population of organism. This hold true for humans as well as for any other sexually reproducing species (I know, I know, human, ie., Homo, is a genus, not a species).

But, of course, as we all know, it makes for bad civics, at least in Western societies, and this in the face of the obvious disparity between the requirements stipulated in the Chumash concerning this matter and HaShem’s creation of a sexual reproductive system that benefits from those human behaviors that are forbidden by Halacha (but not in the case of Avraham Avenu, Yaakov Avenu, etc.).

It also makes for lousy religious communal relations. Talk about ostracization!

So, should one be miffed if one learns of such socially ‘condemnable’ behaviors by members of one’s family, or instead should one find a measure of pride in the fact that one’s generation has been genetically strengthened – that the state of health of the population has benefited, that in fact, the ‘nasty’ philanderers have behaved with a great measure of social responsibility, rather than with socially ‘condemnable’ behavior, by improving the state of health of the following generations, despite the obvious social challenges presented to the resulting children (eg., growing up in the absence of a father, the possible lack of adequate financial support for the children, etc.).

Whether it’s Darwin versus established religion, or whether it’s self-flagellation is manna for debate, but it’s okay Aliza, you know ‘better’. Just live your life as a good Jew. Your
devotion to Torah, and to Clal Yisroel and its health through genetic variation (a good Darwinian term), is much appreciated, at least by me. Besides, spice is good for everyone.

2009-06-28T09:53:00.001-05:00

A Bissele Moslem Shiur
by: Schvach Yid

If you’re in the mood for a little Moslem shiur, here’s a mini-lecture without
video, in which the speaker explains that Islam’s second holiest city, Medina, was Jewish centuries before the arrival of the founder of Islam.

And if you’re like me and can’t wait until Bastille Day, here’s a little something
to remind us that the French didn’t invent decapitation, they just tried to refine it
a little, and how Islam put it to use against the Jews of Medina.

Lastly, here’s a piece shown on the World Focus website at:
http://worldfocus.org/blog/2009/02/04/immigrants-and-religions-redefine-israeli-society/3914/, courtesy of A Deeper Look blog site, showing just what Moslems have against the Jewish State of Israel.

2009-06-14T16:17:00.001-05:00

Found – One Pair of Cojonas
By: Schvach Yid

If you want to read the text of Israel PM Netanyahu’s speech delivered earlier today, it can be accessed at: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/131865, and at:
http://www.forzionssake.net/2009/06/transcript-of-netanyahus-speech.html

Needles to say, the Palestinian Arab leadership will never accept these terms; needless to say, this is exactly what Israel’s PM intended. Lob the ball into their court and let it stay there – end of game, and it’s been nothing but a game by the Arab enemies of Israel.
There is no way for Israel to have peace via negotiations with it’s intransigent enemies., and accordingly, the status quo is probably Israel’s best choice, except for the very much needed acceptance of Israeli ‘settlers’ on the ‘West Bank’ by Israel’s government, and some very real military responses to the continued Arab aggression against the Jewish citizens of Israel.

And from the Atlas Shrugs blog site, this contribution to all the on-line analyses of Bibi’s speech (which can be read at: http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2009/06/netanyahu-the-man-in-the-arena-did-not-disappoint.html):

- To me he was saying that the kind of state the Palestinians want is not on the table and not on the horizon.

- Then I checked out FoxNews. And then the Figaro: “Netanyahu accepts the principle of a Palestinian state.” And finally, the Jerusalem Post. Our friend Aryeh Eldad said it too. Netanyahu crossed the red line. All the conditions he set forth will be forgotten, the only thing that will be remembered is that he agreed on the principle of a Palestinian state.

And what of CNN? ‘Israel accepts a Palestinian State’. But the Arabs will, of course, never accept Netanyahu’s terms - voilà

2009-06-14T10:27:00.001-05:00

It’s Midrash to the Rescue
by: Schvach Yid

Once a year, every year, I hear the reading of the Megilla on Purim. I know I should hear it twice, but I’m too lazy to go back to schul for a second reading. For a week or two preceding Purim I read the text of the Book of Ester, as well as portions of Midrash Rabbah Esther.

Regrettably, I must have missed something.

So, enter the author and owner of the Bagelnosher blog site, a woman ensconced in Be’er Sheva whose identity is unknown to me. She has provided me with a modicum of enlightenment with a recent blog, found at:
http://bagelnosher.blogspot.com/2009/06/timely-tale-of-palace-intrigue-and-why.html

It’s a lengthy piece, so get comfortable (according to Tzvi Fishman, author of the ‘From Hollywood to the Holy Land’ blog on Arutz Sheva, there’s a nice Etrog liqueur made in Israel…).

Pro-Israel Jewish bloggers and on-line reporters are hot and heavy in their concerted condemnation of our President’s dealings with Israel and with the Moslem world. I’m perplexed and dumbfounded at the analyses of Prez Obama’s spiel concerning Israel. If he really does have it in for the Jewish State, then, G-d willing, Bibi Netanyahu will muster the koach to say no and ‘do the right thing’. Brass cajones are difficult to come by; Israel certainly used to express them, but alas, that was a long time ago, at least by modern Israeli history standards.

Doing the right thing entails several components. First, the various and sundry elements that comprise the Israeli government will have to discover a new element of mental function. It’s called ‘unity’. They should try it; they’ll like it. It provides the soil for a new sort of experience in Israeli national life. It’s called winning, and by winning I don’t mean a quick military victory followed by an even faster capitulation to an imposed cease fire, which in turn is followed by an almost instantaneous surrender of all that has been gained. Remember, the Jew haters are loathe to see Jews as winners. ‘Who the hell do you people think you are; you’re supposed to lose, remember?’

Actually, no, we don’t remember the bit about some fantasized obligation to lose.

Secondly - and please forgive this criticism jadies and jents - we Jews, and especially Israelis, have to start acting as though we mean what we verbally assert. Once upon a time at least some of us were persistent. Back then, the Jew haters cat-called such Yiddin ‘pushy’, a term I last heard applied to a Jewish saleswoman by a Jew hater at work (she, the Jew hater, was my boss) somewhere between 1995 and ’96.

If we believe the Land of Israel is ours, then we have to conduct ourselves accordingly. That means no negotiation about the so called ‘West Bank; you know, YESHA. There, we build - period. No new ‘Palestinian’ city in the ‘West Bank’. A couple of new Jewish cities, along with a few dozen new Jewish towns would be very nice, and no Jewish ‘settlers’ are to dwell in mobile whatchamahoozits – I think the Israelis call them ‘Caravellas’; in Arab literature, I think they were called ‘Caravanserai’ (just kidding; besides, it’s French, not Arabic). When we Jews are told ‘no’, the best thing we can do for ourselves is to get chutzpadik and do precisely as we wish - and then fight back, in no uncertain terms, to win (but they hate us as winners).

Lastly, no Jewish army in Israel, whether military or law enforcement agency, is to assault or attack Jews. We are not to use the Israeli military to oust Jews from their homes because of some lousy and fraudulent ‘peace negotiation’. Aside from being the wrong thing to do, it looks stupid, and there’s no Nobel Prize awarded for stupidity. We all know how fond we Jews are of Nobel Prizes; after all, we invented them, didn’t we.

Israel has a bad habit of emulating the United States. YESHA in 2009 is not Little Rock Arkansas in 1957. The Palestinian Arab Moslem Jew haters of today have nothing in common with the victimized American ‘Negro’ of half a century ago, and Israelis are not ranting racists. In 1948 we Jews said yes; it was the Arab Moslems who said no, and it was the Arab Moslems, and the Iranian Moslems, who prevailed upon Jew-hating Britain to keep European Jews from fleeing the onslaught of the ‘Nazi swine’ by preventing our immigration to Britain’s Mandate of Palestine. Let’s keep the facts straight folks.

One last item - those shoes in the photo of the Prez. You’d think the ‘guy’ (Michelle’s term for him) could afford a new pair of shoes. At the very least he should get resoled (get it?).

Well, that’s all folks! See what a little midrash shiur can do to an amateur critic?

2009-05-24T12:30:00.001-05:00

S A for Olim Hadashim
by: Schvach Yid

I just read a post by Ruti Mizrachi; it can be accessed at: http://rutimizrachi.blogspot.com/2009/05/farewell-to-land-of-free.html

It’s about the essay she submitted in satisfaction of the requirement for making aliyah via the aegis of Nefesh B’Nefesh. I previously posted about Nefesh B’Nefesh in the past, criticizing their small success in attracting new olim.

This organization requires all applicants to submit an essay explaining their decision to make aliya. Well, suppose I applied for aliyah via Nefesh B’Nefesh, but refused to submit an essay. What then?

Suppose I decided to be compliant and submit one. What would I write in the essay?
I want to live in Israel. Why? Because! Because I’m Jewish. Because being Jewish in Israel is normative. Because in Israel, Jewish holidays/holydays are official National holidays. Because in Israel, as a Jew, I wouldn’t be considered a freak. Because there I could daven anywhere I wished and not be harassed or abused (baloney). Because there kashrut is common and relatively easy to keep. Because in Israel, as a Jew, I wouldn’t be considered a source of antagonism to the non-Jews in my workplace.

Suppose I decided to protest the essay requirement. Easy, do aliyah without Nefesh B’Nefesh. Why an essay; am I a convert? Do I need to appeal to a beit din for permission to live in Israel as a citizen? Am I a child in school? Has it occurred to the people who organize and manage Nefesh B’Nefesh that if they stopped dealing with their applicants as school children they might have better results in attracting new olim? ‘Eeeehhhh…., but we only want young people and families with young children’. I hope that’s not the case. Maybe they want letters of recommendation to boot. ‘Are you, a Jew, good enough to make aliyah? We take only the best, you know’.

On the other hand, the essay may be a requirement imposed by the Israeli government. One can’t ‘run’ the Jewish State stating that the Jewish State will practice exclusion in its
immigration and absorption practices as applied to Jews. That’s a wee bit dumb.

I think I'll stay here.

2009-05-24T09:50:00.002-05:00

I’m Late, I’m Late, I’m Late for an Important Date
by: Schvach Yid

My apology is extended to Mr. Lewis Carroll for thieving his line, but I missed blogging in time for Yom Yerushalayim. It’s not that I forgot – no way – but I couldn’t get to a computer. So what can I possibly say, ‘Go ask Alice’?

So with my great regret, here is my belated Yom Yerushalayim post. It’s about Naomi Shemer, the composer of Yerushalayim Shel Zahav – Jerusalem of Gold, the almost national anthem of the Jewish State of Israel. She wrote this ditty of a Jewish folk masterpiece on the eve of the Six Day War. As I’ve written before, Shemer was Israel’s Churchill of the Six Day War. She provided the spiritual catalyst that sped Jewish youth into battle to win Jewish repatriation with the Jewish City of Jerusalem; to win Jerusalem back from those who detest us. Our city of gold, the city of King David, perched atop Mt. Zion, our geographic aron kodesh above which hovers the Holy Shechinah.

In tribute to Naomi Shemer, who died in June 2004, I offer these renditions of her masterpiece. The first is performed by a young Shuly Natan who is the singer who gave the first public performance of Jerusalem of Gold just prior to the onset of the June ’67 war; however, shortly before that, the composer was interviewed by David Ben Gurion, during which Shemer auditioned the piece. The interview was audio taped and played on Israeli radio years later, sometime in the mid 1980’s, while I was visiting Israel. This, in fact, might be the first ‘public’ performance of Yerushalayim Shel Zahav.

The second video is of a Russian men’s chorus performing the piece a cappella. For those who may be critical of Russian Jewish immigration to Israel, this rendition may provide food for second thought. They absolutely slay the men’s pilgrims’ chorus from Tannhauser (not Jewish in the extreme), although they do sing ‘Halleluyah’ (very Jewish).

The third is a clip from Shindler’s List (did you know that the original title of Thomas Keneally’s book was Shindler’s Ark?). When I first saw the movie, the Shemer song didn’t just bring tears to my eyes; my tears literally shot out – projectile lacrimation! This was only the second time in my life I’ve wept at a movie; I won’t mention the first flick – it’s too embarrassing (okay, okay, it was the conclusion of The Ghost and Mrs. Muir; what can I say?).

I’m an absolute chauvinist about Judaism and my Jewish identity, and an absolute sucker for Jewish bravura.

Talk about absolute, the absolute best biography I’ve ever read was about Naomi Shemer, written by my number one journalistic writer, Jonathan Mark of The New York Jewish Week. His biography of Shemer was written for that paper’s May 31 1996 edition; regrettably, I can’t find it online and so I can’t post a link, although I saved the article as a clipping.

I first heard Yerushalayim Shel Zahav on the El Al flight from New York to Tel Aviv, on the plane’s overhead, as the plane descended on its final approach. It was perfect propaganda – I loved it, and still do.

Why are we in Jerusalem? Because it’s ours, and has been from the very start, and we don’t owe anyone an explanation concerning the matter.

Here they are:

2009-05-19T16:03:00.003-05:00

My Old Man Died
by: Schvach Yid

Today, the 25th day of the Hebrew month of Iyar, the 40th day of the counting of the Omer, shortly after 1pm, ‘our time’. Baruch Dayan HaEmet. He was 87 years old.

He became comatose and bedridden two weeks ago, and then died, all following a stroke he suffered 4 and a half years ago.

He was not religious, but identified intensely as a Jew, a German Jew, who had been dealt a lousy blow by his lousy, non-Jewish, countrymen. He went through Kristallnacht,
the night of November 9th, 1938; thank G-d, the Nazi thugs were unable to break down the front door of the family home, but the next day he witnessed his non-Jewish countrymen march his father off to the concentration camp in Sachsenhausen. Baruch HaShem, his parents had family and friends in the United States who had emigrated from Germany only a few years earlier, who cared enough to provide the necessary affidavits which in turn provided for the required immigration visas to the United States. His father, and everyone else, were permitted to leave.

His American citizenship came with a price. He was drafted in the US Army and was subsequently sworn as a citizen only after completing basic training. No free lunch.

As a child he missed his own bar mitzvah, thanks to a bout of Scarlet Fever, so he learned the haftorah to another parshah and did his family proud.

I know I shouldn’t blog now, but I have to, so here is his ‘obit’. In tribute to my Dad, I offer a photo of him during his Army service on Guadalcanal during the Second World War.

May he have the merit to be counted among the souls of Israel.

2009-05-17T13:45:00.002-05:00

The Continuing Saga of the Wisdom of Vienna Mike
by: Schvach Yid

According to ‘Vienna Mike’, a frequent pointedly opinioned commenter to Reb Tzvi Fishman’s blog From Hollywood to the Holy Land which appears on the Israel National News web site Arutz Sheva, the Obama administration has recently passed through Congress a bill that provides 20+ million dollars for the emigration of Hamas /Palestinian refugees of the Gazan War from Gaza for settlement in the United States.

I hope it’s true. I don’t care what sort of ‘security risk’ those people pose for the United States. I don’t give a damn how socially disruptive those people may be for Americans.
I much prefer to see those people over here than over there.

Why? Because no one in the United States will put up with Moslem Arab terrorism in the United States. The UN will never object to American law enforcement agencies ‘going after’ law-breaking Moslem terrorists. By contrast, Israel is told to put up with them. The Jews of Israel are obligated to accept the murderous tirades and recidivist Jew hatred foisted by those people. And if they’re over here, then they’re not over there – in Israel.
A Mechaiya!

I have a satisfying remedy for coping with those new, soon to be, immigrants to America.
Settle the whole bunch ‘down here’ where I live, in this sun-drenched and humidity-plagued corner of America’s Bible Belt. One of the numerous local churches has recently erected a cross – you know, of the crucifixion variety. It’s a mere 150 feet tall. It glistens white in the American South’s sunshine. It manages to ‘cast a giant shadow’ (sorry Mickey Marcus). I walk out of my local supermarket, and there it is. I drive out of my bank’s parking lot, and there it is. I drive home from my dentist’s office, and there it is. My new neighbors will love it – I am sure.

So why not? Pack ‘em up, the poor devils. Send them over – please. There’s lots of empty land ‘down here’ – lebensraum for those Hamas-loving, Jew-hating, Palestinians. Let them live under the boot for a change, in the land of ‘infidel’ proselytizers, in the land of pick-up trucks and Second Amendment rights.

I hope it’s true.

2009-04-26T17:40:00.000-05:00

Yom HaShoah
by: Schvach Yid

I’ve just been treated to a déja vu, courtesy of Isaac Steven Herschkopf and The New York Jewish Week, at: http://www.thejewishweek.com/viewArticle/c36_a15468/News/New_York.html.

My maternal grandparents had cousins and friends who lived in Washington Heights, located in the northern section of Manhattan. All were Holocaust refugees; a few were survivors. The celebrated chochum (chochamah?) of sex, Dr. Ruth Westheimer (http://www.germanheritage.com/biographies/mtoz/westheimer.html) herself a survivor of the Holocaust, continues to reside in the neighborhood.

The refugees/survivors of Hitler’s homicidal tirade really did accept their lives as they were, tattooed numbers, memories, and all. They were as much heroes as victims. Have a read.

2009-04-18T21:14:00.001-05:00

Shavua Tov, Y’all!
by: Schvach Yid

Here’s what I do like about Britain:

And here is a little love letter to Iran and its hero Ahmedwhat’shisname:

2009-04-17T09:49:00.001-05:00

The History of ‘British Palestine’ Revisited
by: Schvach Yid

Thanks to Victor Sharpe, who has posted an article on Arutz Sheva titled
Forced to Concede a Birthright?, which can be found at:
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/8713, where he provides a link to yet another of his synopses on the history of Britain’s maneuverings concerning Jewish
aspirations over the former British Mandate of Palestine, at:
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/03/the_two_state_solution_is_87_y.html.

Britain. Lovely. I think I’ve written enough about my opinions concerning Britain and its long-standing contempt for us Jews. Say no more – go and read.

I hope you all had a ‘yoffie’ great Pesach; I did (I didn’t run into one British governmental official during the entire chag, nor should I have - they’re rather rare down here in America’s Bible Belt).

2009-04-14T12:54:00.001-05:00

A Rebuttal from a Blogger
by: Schvach Yid

Rickismom has taken exception to an article (and I assume at least one blog posting) about a recent trip undertaken by a group of Amish to the Lubavitchers at 770, in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. You can read it at:
http://beneaththewings.blogspot.com/2009/04/amish-and-orthodox-2-worlds.html

‘Both groups tend to be either looked down upon, or treated as a joke, without the outside viewer taking the time to look beyond their preconceived assumptions.And, as a final note, I add that this last statement is also true as regards the world of the intellectually challenged, and the disabled.’

Ouch!!!!! And I thought humor was a sign of high intelligence. I think I’d better clean up my act. Do you think any Amish have read it; after all, it is online?

The matter of where to ‘draw the line’ evidently applies to both religious groups (as well as to me). The practical applications of Halacha range far and wide. There exists a considerable fund of rabbinical rulings on, for example, Muktzah – those items and activities forbidden on Shabbos. At what point has one succeeded in ridding one’s home, and especially kitchen, of chametz? I don’t cover my kitchen sink with aluminum foil, nor do I wrap my kitchen’s walls with plastic. Have I violated the laws of Pesach by these omissions? My line is drawn in fairly shallow waters.

The Amish, I assume, stay away from computers, and so I assume not even one of the Amish has read the Ynetnews.com article, nor my blog, nor that of Rickismom. Chabad is computer-intensive, but I doubt that many Lubavitchers will have an interest in my blogs.

So my humored curiosity continues. Do the Amish have a concept similar to Muktzah?
If they don’t use phones, or computers, then how do they know about Chabad Lubavitch, and how did they find the location of Lubavitch World Headquarters in Brooklyn? How did they travel there, etc.?

I don’t think a person has to be ‘intellectually challenged’ to scratch his noggin.

Oh yeah, Chag Pesach Sameach.

2009-04-01T14:16:00.002-05:00

Here it is Folks
by: Schvach Yid

Ynetnews.com has a news post that’s sort of amusing: Amish Tour Haredi Brooklyn Neighborhood. Actually, in this country, they’re called frum, not hareidi, and the community, to be specific, is Lubavitch - nu, who else does Jewish outreach as well?.

This, of course, was not a campaign of Jewish outreach, but rather (I guess) an attempt at good inter-community relations.

I wonder how the Amish traveled from Lancaster PA. to Brooklyn, NY. It’s a long horse and buggy ride. I don’t think they fly. Buses? Back home, it’s definitely horse and buggies.

Every so often my brother visits the Amish on their home turf in Pennsylvania. He drives, and he’s not Lubavitch.

You can read about it here: http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3695558,00.html

2009-03-24T13:14:00.001-05:00

This You Call a Profession?
by: Schvach Yid

‘Every person is nervous when he starts a new job’. He knew the year (Moslem calendar) he started ‘work’ as an executioner, but not his age at the time. Let it never be said there’s no comedy in cruelty - ‘Three, four, five, six, there’s nothing to it’. It sort of gives a ring to the Koranic phrase ‘Allah, the merciful, the compassionate’.

Thanks to Ziva for the link; here’s the URL:
http://americanbedu.com/2009/03/18/saudi-arabia-who-is-abdullah-al-bishi/

2009-03-24T12:44:00.002-05:00

Schadenfreude
by: Schvach Yid

I grew up in a German-speaking home; my father is German, my mother is from Vienna.
Thank G-d they managed to escape.

During my youth here in America the adults of my family conversed in German. I managed to learn only a few German words and expressions at the dinner table, as examples, ja, nein, shut up (oops, that’s English).

Today, I learned a new German word, a misanthropism – Schadenfreude. It means to take pleasure from another person’s misery. It’s not a very nice sentiment.

I have Si Frumkin to thank for this language lesson; you can read about it at:
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/5707.

Mr. Frumkin has more on Arutz Sheva at: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/8664.

Schadenfreude is what the Jew haters derive from the misery they hurl upon us. They laugh with gusto. We slink. The Jewish State of Israel capitulates.

Have you ever heard anyone at the UN refer to Israel as ‘The Jewish State of Israel’? Have you ever heard Israel’s representatives at the UN introduced, as speakers, as the representatives of The Jewish State of Israel? The Islamic Republic of Iran I’ve heard, but never The Jewish State of Israel. Am I wrong?

Like everything else, Schadenfreude can be turned around. When the Moslem Jew haters yell ‘you need a big oven’ at us, it’s just as easy for us to derive satisfaction by replying in kind. Another German ditty, Schweinerei (pig wash) will do nicely.

I know, I know, shouting contests are juvenile and pointless, except that it might provide some Schadenfreude for us at the expense of them. ‘It doesn’t pay’, one might assert. Well, it might – just remember the ditty, ‘make ‘em pay’.

It’s trite, silly. Well, maybe, but The Jewish State of Israel can use the same lesson. Forget the criticisms, just make the bastards pay. The name of the country is The Jewish State of Israel. Its flag has tallis stripes and a Magen David for a reason, and those will stay, just as the flag of South Korea, the country of UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, displays the Yin Yang symbol. I’ve never heard any objections to the name, flag, language, official state religion, or national anthem of any member nation of the UN, except you know who.

I must thank Si Frumkin for introducing me to this most telling and appropriate word, Schadenfreude, a virtual synonym for Jew hatred, because that’s all Jew hatred is about – it makes no other sense.

2009-03-19T12:07:00.002-05:00

The Evangelists of Chelm
by: Schvach Yid

By now it’s widely known among those who surf the ‘Jewish internet’ (sorry) that various book sellers now offer for sale, and in preparation for Passover, a ‘Passover Family Pack’. Well…, that’s its title. The Amazon.com web page for this ditty describes it as Passover Family Pack: Everything You Need to Enjoy a Passover Seder Dinner (Boxed Set: 2 Haggadahs, Preparation Guide, Music & Blessings Cassette, Seder Plate, Kiddush Cup, and Passover Curriculum) (Paperback).

That’s right jadies and jents, a ‘Passover curriculum’. And Rashi thought he had a commentary on the Pesach Haggadah (it used to be available from Kehot, and it was immense). Perhaps it’s a curriculum fit for the Tierra Del Fuego Community College, but undoubtedly, no Jewish home should be with one.

My local Bible Belt Barnes and Noble bookstore has a skinny book stack labeled ‘Judaism’; it’s preceded by a book stack labeled ‘Religious Fiction’, and followed by a stack that displays books on Hinduism and Buddhism. The Borders Bookstore across the road has its Judaism book offerings sandwiched between a book stack labeled ‘Atheism’ and one on Islam. Nice!

Each of these bookstores has several aisles ‘devoted’ to Christian literature, arranged under several different headings. There is, after all, a considerable customer demand for such literature in the geographic location where I reside, but my fellow local Yiddin don’t appear to spend much cash on Jewish-oriented literature in these stores, so in one sense we’re asking for this short shrift (but not for the rudeness appended to it).

But what gets my goad is the appearance of books on Christianity, and books about Christian-oriented Jewish subjects, that are found interspersed among the books about ‘legitimate’ Jewish topics. The message is clear. It’s called proselytizing; after all, ‘they’ think Judaism is next to religious fiction and atheism.

Oh yeah, a nearby church has recently erected a 150 foot-tall cross (thank G-d there's no body
displayed on it). It's white; at night it's illuminated with floodlamps, and it's surrounded by a
pedestrian path garnished with water fountains. It's situated next to an interstate highway.
It's tough to miss. I prefer to daven to HaShem - in private.

Perhaps this very public monument has been established as a reply to the recent influx of hijab-wearing Moslem women (the Moslem men seem to travel incognito) who now populate the local stores.

I'm dizzy; I think I'll take a nap now. Bye.

2009-03-10T14:52:00.001-05:00

Back to Darwin
by: Schvach Yid

It’s an argument that just won’t die – Darwin vs G-d. It really ain’t so, but theology types like to believe this is the case, and so they proceed.

A most recent attempt at this old physic has been offered by Rabbi Avi Shafran, in an article posted on the on-line version of Israel National News, Arutz 7. It can be accessed at http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/8633.

Old, dull, enough already.

I’m one of those freaks who has actually read Darwin’s On the Origin of Species (by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life) – twice, once in high school (but not for high school), and a second time just a few years ago.

Back in college I learned a valuable lesson from my college professors, a lesson that has been bolstered by graduate school and my experiences in working as a lab technician for university faculty members. It goes something like this: stick to your subject of expertise.

So, if you’re a rabbi, stick with rabbinics. No Ph.D. biologist or physician has ever strayed into the subject of theological evolution (not the evolution of theology) in my experience (except for one paper by the late and great evolutionary geneticist Theodosius Dobzhansky), and so I suggest that rabbis stay clear of Biology.

The account of creation given in the Chumash is brief, to say the least; rabbinical speculation notwithstanding, torah is not about Biology, it’s all about HaShem, and aside from ascribing Biology to HaShem, nothing else about the subject is given.

Darwin, the naturalist, invokes G-d as ‘the Creator’, and ascribes all of life’s ‘wondrous productions’ to the Aybischter. Nowhere, in my non-theologically trained opinion, can one ascribe atheism to his writing. Darwin’s point is simple and straightforward: what we humans do in our gardens, and on our farms and ranches, HaShem does with all life on earth (Remember Jacob under the service of Laban, his mother’s cousin. Do you recall how Jacob manipulated the breeding of sheep?). This is the entire message of his first chapter. The remainder of On the Origin of Species serves as an abstract for an intended much lengthier work which he never produced, and which provides a brief introduction to his collection of data, intended to argue in favor of a theory first propounded by Alfred Russell Wallace, a Darwin contemporary and colleague.

Darwin terms this magnum opus of his ‘an abstract’, and as ‘one long argument’, and for good reason. There is no proof, nor does he claim any, throughout the entire length of the work. It’s an idea backed up by lots of field observation.

If you’re into the philosophy of ‘Darwinian evolution’, and I’m not, you can read Ernst Mayer’s One Long Argument. While you’re at it, one can access, on line, Theodosius Dobzhansky’s Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution.
As for Rabbi Shafran’s various other assertions, such as Modern Physics’ displacement of classical Newtonian mechanics, just ponder the validity of that notion the next time you cross a bridge, sit in a chair, observe water fall, or observe a Katyusha rocket headed your way. Modern Physics has added to our understanding of the way the universe is put together – information that I have never found in Tanakh – rather than having negated classical mechanics.

Science and theology answer different questions. Science strives to tell us how, when, and where about the various natural events we observe and experience. It even provides a small modicum of an ability to predict, as a consequence of which we can design structures and machines that do the things they are intended to achieve (bridges, computers, jet fighters), not to mention chemistry and medicine. Theology answers the last great question – why. As an undergraduate and graduate school Biology major I was taught that science never even considers to answer the question of why, nor does it claim to. That simply is not science’s turf.

Chag Purim Sameach!

2009-03-05T12:02:00.000-06:00

Upcoming Event
by: Schvach Yid

Every Jew knows (hah!) that Purim is next week, so I won’t say anything more about it,
except this: conversion to Judaism is one of my favored topics – I’m a big fan of it, although I oppose proselytizing.

So,? So this: near the conclusion of the Book of Esther, we are told that many Persians joined the Jewish People (close of chapter 8).

No wonder my maternal grandparent’s apartment was covered in Persian rugs (ta da dum).

But here’s something else. On the morning of erev Pesach we are to recite a once in a 28 year cycle blessing, Birkat Hachamah . You can read about it at:
http://forum.kahane.org/index.php?topic=3532.0 and at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birkat_HaHammah.

2009-03-03T12:11:00.004-06:00

Davening at the Coattails
by: Schvach Yid

America’s new president has been in office less than two months, a period of time too
brief to allow any development of opinion concerning his public service.

But why worry (What! Me worry?)? All the pre-election speculation about his competence to hold office was for naught; after all, when have we ever had a competent
president?

The Obama wave is disturbing, however. Hype is hype, and emunah is another thing altogether, and when the two are merged…

I’m not a political person, my concerns about the safety and longevity of the Jewish State of Israel aside. I know nothing about politics, public administration, bureaucracy, foreign relations, etc. These matters have never held an interest for me. But the goings on in the American workplace disturbs me greatly, and I’m not referring to the economy.

The federal government after all, at least in one sense, is a workplace.

Perhaps I’ve just signed my death warrant at the hands of the Blogger Gestapo; if not, then the following interview may accomplish just that.

And so, jadies and jents, I offer you the very first, and one time only, interview with Schvach, conducted by Schvach, and may HaShem have rachmonas on us all.

Interviewer: Well Schvach, with all the enthusiasm spawned by the recent election of President Obama, what’s your view of this historic event?

Schvach: I just gave it.

I: The 1983 movie Trading Places starring Eddie Murphy has been invoked by some as a sort of battle cry for the very up and coming, and successful Black middle class in America. What’s your take?

S: Trading places? Perhaps in the forthcoming meeting between Pres. Obama and Britian’s Prime Minister Brown, but that’s about all.

I: Don’t be so cute Schvach! And don’t be so brazen with your answers, lest you receive an unwelcome knock on your door in the middle of the night. Do you have any kind words for the First Lady, Michelle Obama?

S: Well, I don’t know (is that sufficiently contrite?). At a televised meeting with school children she referred to her hubby as ‘this guy’. After having had virtual non-stop indoctrination that such informal expressions of speech are unacceptable, I was surprised to hear her use one with her husband, the new president, especially before a group of school kids. I was glad he didn’t respond by hopping up and down in his chair shouting ‘I am a Black maaannnnn’.

I: What do you think of Michelle?

S: I don’t. But I am curious about the possibility of the First Lady conducting a televised tour of the White House, much as did Jackie Kennedy when she was First Lady.

I: How so?

S: I’d like to see how she redecorates the place. So far, Mr. and Mrs. Prez have trashed a bust of Winston Churchill. But they just moved in so let’s see how things progress. Perhaps they’ll get rid of the bowling alley too; I can’t imagine what will be selected as a replacement.

I: Surely you must have some other views on the First Lady.

S: No, not really; however, I take no small quantity of amusement considering the monikers that some rappers may have already applied to her.

I: Oh shut up!

S: Okay, but it’s your interview.

I: Can’t you muster any respect at all?

S: Respect? Baloney! I’ve been laid off. I have the freedom to hang myself if I choose, so bug off with respect.

I: How about your view of America’s prospect for our first female president. What about Hilary Clinton sometime in the future?

S: Forget Hilary. I’ll vote for Gwen Iffel. She’s smart, and she has lots of personality.

I: There, you see, you are capable of at least a modicum of diplomacy after all.

S: No shit! See here, diplomacy is the profession of dishonesty, and so, honest as I am, it’s a rare moment when anything diplomatic works its way out of my mouth.

I: What about Nancy Pelosi, the current Speaker of the House of Representatives?

S: Nope! I love her décolletage, but did you see her jump up and give the President a premature standing ovation when he addressed a joint meeting of Congress? She’s too eager; she looked had. Perhaps she should be renamed Marionette.

I: What is your opinion of the persistent accusation by some that President Obama was not born in the United States and is therefore constitutionally unqualified to serve as president?

S: Uhhh, well, I suppose given the speculation over a more vigorous (a JFK term) effort to pass through Congress a bill to provide reparations for Black Americans, it might be wise to have a counterweight to perch over the President’s head. What do you think?

I: You’re a schmuck! What’s your opinion about the economy?

S: I’m unemployed – f*ck off!

I: If you could give the President and First Lady a welcoming gift – a house warming gift – for their new move into the White House, what would you choose?

S: A four to eight year supply of Beehive Brand toilet paper.

I: That’s just like you, you juvenile jerk, and you just missed a great opportunity by not saying WASP Nest Brand toilet paper. It would be (bee) a mutual thing.

S: Oh yeah, Mr. Sophisticate?

I: Earlier in this interview you said America has yet to have a competent president. How so?

S: Dwight Eisenhower was president when I was born. Republican that I’m not, I feel safe in stating that he may have been the only competent president to serve during the course of my life to date.

I: Eisenhower; how’s that?

S: He proposed and initiated the building of the Interstate Highway system, albeit for military purposes. It’s useful for the general public, you know. But easily, the president I most favor is Richard Nixon, nolo contendre.

I: That was Agnew. You really are a schmuck. Why Nixon.

S: Are you kidding? Nixon was humor exhibit number one among Chief Executives. The guy (it’s okay, Michelle…) provided a laugh a minute. He was hysterical. Too bad Spiro was his V.P. It should have been Mohammud Ali; he was at least as entertaining, if not more so. And how things would have gotten done with Vice President Mo dropping by the Oval Office. Howard Cosell could have been the White House Press Secretary, and Woody Allen could have run the U.S. Public Health Service and directed the U.S. Marital Relations Board. Just think, the Waif of Jerusalem could have been named Director of the National Parks Service. Agnew was a humorless insult artist. More better Mo Ali as Nixon’s V.P.

I: Anything else?

S: Yes. You know all about the American workplace? The domination, coercion routines that go on, and the White House – in fact all of government – is undoubtedly the same, just a collection of American workplaces, so it’s easy to imagine the baloney buffet that will be served in the current White House. Remember, regardless of who ascends to the number one position in Washington, he/she didn’t get there by being a nice guy. They’re conniving, manipulating mamzerim, the whole pack.

I: Are there any specific events concerning the new president that you anticipate or to which you look forward?

S: Yes, I’d like to see the Chabad Lubavitch delegation show up at the White House to collect their annual Proclamation from the President. Wouldn’t it be nice (Beach Boys tune) if Al Sharpton were there as a doorman to let them in? I can just picture the scene.
Two Marines open the door, and there stands Al Sharpton to greet the Lubavitchers, clad in a combo three piece suit and doorman’s uniform, complete with cap, and a sticky name label on his chest that reads: Hello, my name is Mud. What a victory lap for Obama!

I: What? You’ve got to be kidding. Look, I’m trying to conduct a serious interview here, and all you can do is crack these insipid jokes? Why don’t you get yourself to Walmart already and buy yourself a brain?

S: Okay, okay, I’ll behave.

I: Fine, I’ll give you one last shot. I’m sorry Schvach, but I think you have that wrong. The door men at the White House are military; some may be Secret Service.

S: Well, perhaps in the case of the new President, they’ll be Fruit of Islam.

I: Are you nuts? Leave Farrakhan out of this, will you? You go from bad to worse.

S: No! I can’t wait for Spike Lee to make a movie about all this. The Obamafication of Washington. And why not? We had the Vietnamization of the Vietnam War; now we’re
having the Iraqi-ization of the Iraq war, so why not the Obamafication of Washington?

I: Because Obama isn’t waging war on Washington; he’s the President you dope! We’re not at war with our own president.

S: Who said we are? I’m saying that Spike makes great films.

I: Yeah. Perhaps we can get back to Mrs. Obama. Do you have anything to add?

S: Michelle? Boring, boring, boring. Didn’t she, as an undergraduate, write a thesis on the topic of Black women at an Ivy League University?

I: You should only live so long as to see the inside of an Ivy League University.

S: What a narcissist, and how unimaginative. Why not do a dissertation on an imagined shoe shopping spree with Imelda Marcos? That surely would have been worth some academic credit with some Political Science department, somewhere.

I: Shoe shopping spree?

S: Don’t complain, I could have said celiac sprue.

I: Huh? If you keep this up I’m going to get Julian Bond after you. Do you remember how he handled Gene Hackman in an interview years ago?

S: Don’t you mean James Bond?

I: You doltaholic, get a brain already! No, it wasn’t James Bond, it was Popeye Doyle of ‘The French Connection’ fame.

S: Wasn’t Hackman a Marine?

I: So?

S: So, have you ever seen the Marine Corps flick Boys in Company C, with Stan Shaw, without Gene Hackman? Shaw’s role became a bit of Black civil rights heroics and served as the paradigm, I think, of much of what goes on in the American workplace today.

I: That again? Is that bad?

S: That depends on what you mean by the word ‘is’. Okay, I’ll cut it out. That depends on what you like about work. One man’s heroics is another man’s harassment. How do you feel about the American workplace?

I: Hey, I’m asking the questions around here.

S: What’s the matter, don’t you like playing trading places games? Really, how do you feel at work? Harassed? Coerced? Subjugated? Do you like going to work?

I: No way! If I answer that one I’ll never work again.

S: You too?

I: To conclude, how would you sum up your general philosophy of the state of the world, life, etc?

S: Life stinks, then one dies.

I: Is that the best you can do?

S: Alright, but just for you: Buy low, sell high.

I: Laid off my ass. You're fired!

2009-03-01T10:54:00.001-06:00

Gallows Humor from Mr. Mark
by: SchvachYid

That’s Jonathon Mark, author of the Route 17 blog of The New York Jewish Week,

Jerry meets Yehuda on a kibbutz. Working alongside each other, Jerry notices Yehuda’s numbers — 7416, memorable because they were the last four digits of Jerry’s social security number. Years later, Jerry is a tour guide for Americans in Israel. He meets a particularly difficult client who breaks down and explains his sorry life, “everyone was killed except for me.” He rolls up his sleeve — 7417. The American whispers, “number 7416 is very much alive and I know where he can be found.”

I didn’t say it’s funny, just humor.

2009-02-05T12:03:00.002-06:00

Fun and Games at Someone Else’s Corral
by: SchvachYid

Have you ever seen a duck beat up a dog? I have. I know a couple with a large house. They have a large backyard to match. The house and backyard sit along a canal. The canal is infested with ducks - large, ugly ducks. Sorry, I know ducks have a very positive image, but these ducks are from hunger, and I think they know it. They look like a hybrid between a more conventional species of duck and a turkey. Imagine a duck with the face of a turkey. Ugly! And big; much larger than an everyday, run of the mill duck.

The ducks help themselves to everyone’s property. They’re all over the place. One of the couple’s dogs, a breed that’s a cross between a Chihuahua and a Papillion, took exception to the intrusion of one of the ducks into ‘his’ backyard, and decided to matters into his own muzzle.

Gavalt! The duck grabbed the canine with its bill and proceeded to beat the pooch with its wings. The pooch was just a pup. Dummy. The dog yelped and screamed. What a scene - it could have been of Mohammed Ali attending a Shalom Zachor.

Once the duck had had enough, it let the dog go, jumped into the water (I’m glad it didn’t take the pooch with him), and proceeded to very nonchalantly clean itself free of doggy contaminant. What a champ. Yech!

The large backyard that sits along a canal has a pier that leads to a boat gazebo. The couple had a young visitor who likes to fish, so I fished with him. He caught a catfish (not kosher). The catfish managed to just about swallow the lure. There we were, the three of us, the kid and me attempting to free the lure from the fish’s mouth - and an alligator. Wonderful!

An alligator had decided to establish its territory in the canal off the couple’s house. Large ducks evidently serve as a gustatory attraction, even if it is for members of a ‘lower’ evolutionary caste.

The reptile decided that lunchtime was in order and, evidently tired of feathers, chose instead to inform us of his appetite. It swam under the pier immediately beneath our feet.
We saw it coming, and not too slowly, nostrils and eyes peeping just above the waterline.
Fun!

Have you ever stood 5 or 6 inches above a patrolling alligator with its intended meal in your hands? Dogs and alligators invoke different protocols for begging for food. Perhaps we were its intended meal. I tend to function under the conviction that I was not born to serve as a reptile’s shachita.

I immediately recalled my penchant for panic, cut the fishing line, and tossed the gasping catfish into the water, besides which catfish are not fun fish to handle. It's good to be rid of a catfish. Catfish have very large, and effective, spines located along their dosal and pectoral fins. Bye bye catfish. Bye bye alligator.

I appreciate the fact that alligators are not adept climbers.

2009-02-01T13:57:00.004-06:00

Jewish Bigotry and Jewish Pain
by: Schvach Yid

One of my favored peeves is Jewish bigotry; you know, the sort of stupid things some (or many) of us say or do to insult members of other groups. Face it, there're a lot of jackasses in the Jewish community.

Here I go: once upon a time I was acquainted with a Jewish female medical student. One fine day she passed a Chinese-American classmate (I was there) and let loose with her impromptu impersonation of Chinese people.

Here’s another: once upon a time I was sitting in the break room at work. Two graduate students were present. One was Jewish – red hair, blue eyes, body builder’s bod; the other was/looked (what I like to label) ‘Pacific Rim Asian’ – no offense intended. The Jewish student sidled up to the other student and let loose with a comment about ‘Chinese people’ and ‘chop sticks’. The recipient of this remark very slyly returned the rude remark with a grin and intoned, ‘I wouldn’t know, I’m American and my parents are Korean’.

There’s a reason G-d created the word 'schmuck’!

Same work place, different student. She’s Jewish. Whenever we bumped into each other at lunch and sat together, the conversation would invariably turn to Jewish matters. One day she announced, “Judaism, who needs that ‘shit’”. Some months later she approached me in the same break room and, with a giant grin on her face, informed me that she had converted to Catholicism, ‘And I love it’.

Okay. Why bother to bring up the subject? Because her parents were Jewish, and divorced. She moaned about the divorce frequently. She was fifteen years old when the ‘fit hit the shan’. Had her folks been devout Catholics, they might not have divorced, out of religious conviction, and, so she probably reasoned, she would have been spared what she considered to be the tragedy of her life.

I’ve bumped into her on rare occasions since. Nothing seems to have changed; certainly, she doesn’t seem any happier.

Jadies and Jents, have you taken a good look at the JBlogosphere? Have you read any of the personal profiles, as in ‘About Me – View my complete profile’? Have you read any Jewish blogs in which the writers scream in pain? Often these offerings are disguised as bravura, especially the ones who post about dating. The singles in their thirties and forties, the single parents who dare the reader to see the humor in a humorless life, the amateur literary pugilists who waste their adult lives chasing their tails, searching for the right solution to a clueless existence. The answer, they convince themselves, is career.

Horse baloney! The career doesn’t help. They’re groping at perfection when perfection is indefinable. Competition? You won? Mazel tov! Now what? You’re still miserable. Well, at least you don’t have to hang you head in shame in synagogue over your occupation, but over the absence of a family…?

What’s the answer? Who knows? It’s not buying a new pair of shoes - that fix fixes nothing.

I think, perhaps, the Aybischter created the coccyx as a tease. We have a backside that hides a very truncated tail – like dogs with docked tails. Doberman Pinchers are the clueless recipients of docked tails, received at the hands of their breeders. That breed of dog can be vicious, usually (I think) when they are deliberately trained to be.

Happiness doesn’t come from training. It comes, in part, from acceptance – of the mutual variety. The assertive competitive schtick has its limitations, but regrettably, in our society, I think most of us have been indoctrinated in little else. Just try to find someone to like you.

And so my fellow Yiddin, I wish us much luck, and remember, according to the Chinese calendar that New Year will bring in the Year of the Ox. Let’s not make it the year of the boor.

2009-01-29T11:44:00.001-06:00

Madeline Kahn, Wo Bist Du?
by: Schvach Yid

I have more than just a few things in common with my dearly loved and departed
maternal grandmother, aka ‘Oma’, primary among which is/was our shared admiration
of Marlene Dietrich (and I'm not even into blondes!). So without any further ado, here
she is (no, not my Oma):

And for your continued entertainment pleasure, here is the late, great Kahn (no, not the just late, great Ricardo Montalban– he was great too!) with her impersonation of Marlene Dietrich – don’t you just love it?

2009-01-27T13:11:00.000-06:00

Nameless, Faceless
By: Schvach Yid

It’s the name of a blog site, author unknown and unseen. She just posted a bit about her personal schtick with her daddy to be accessed at:
http://shesnamelessfaceless.blogspot.com/2009/01/its-happening-again.html#comment-form

It has rung oh-so-true with me, so here’s my comment:

So what's the problem you're currently facing; some dilemma is irking you? Do you anticipate having your face kung fu'd? Have you discovered 'daddy' in another, and are you drawn to recruiting him/her into your life, certain that you'll live to regret it?

Our problem is that we love our abusers. We will do anything to defend them. We nurture them by giving them all the fodder they want, all the rope they need to hang us. It’s called fear. G-d forbid he should do anything else to us, and let’s not provoke the monster by complaining, so just fluff the freak.

Back in the old days, on my first job as a nurse, I provided care for a ‘kidney patient’.
Her husband was a brutish bully of a man – a vending machine-sized factory worker with a quick temper and the physical strength to back it up. One fine day he arrived on the nursing unit to visit his wife with the older of his two daughters. He wouldn’t let her out of his sight.

As daddy and daughter left at the end of their visit, he slipped his arm around his daughter’s waist; she, as if answering, rubbed her hip against him. Bang! Father and daughter my foot, they looked like a guy and his date. Daddy was f*cking his daughter!

I kept my big mouth shut; my co-nurses were gossiping idiots who hated my guts. They would have gone straight to the guy, and he, no doubt, would have decimated me.

Perhaps half a year later a lengthy article appeared in The Sunday New York Times Magazine, reporting that the daughter had recruited a high school classmate to kill her father, and kill him he did, with a single round from a .22 rifle. The beef – he had helped himself to her on a regular basis, and had ‘moved on’ to her 8 year old (I think) sister.

The psycho-chozer.

Unlike you, I loathe my father. He’s now non compos mentis, having suffered a stroke, two closed head injuries, and advancing senility – and I can’t manage to muster one grain
of rachmonis for him. He never put me through a glass door, never slammed me against anything, but the sound of his voice horrified me, not to mention the emotional effect of hearing the sound of loose change and keys jangling in his pants pocket as he approached from a distance. As kids, when we came home in a good mood with smiles on our faces, my father was expert at wiping the smiles off our faces and instantaneously hurling us into an emotional depression within seconds of discovering our glee.

He never straightened out; he could never accept us as adults. His abused continued to include my bother’s children. Thank G-d they live 1,500 miles away and only saw my father once or twice a year.

Face it. With a healthy brain he was a first class son-of-a bitch. Not that he didn’t have problems of his own (he grew up as a Jew in Germany under the ascendancy of the Nazis, not to mention his SOB family). Still, the responsibilities of parenthood….

So, whoever you are, please take stock. The world is filled with injured people - you, me, her, him, them. Thank G-d you’re bright – very bright – and sensitive. Be assured, the pain will never go away.

2009-01-18T14:45:00.006-06:00

Gesundheit!
by: Schvach Yid

Here’s a bit from Bizarro (he certainly is), accessible at http://www.bizarro.com/
courtesy of The Houston Chronicle, at
http://www.chron.com/apps/comics/showComick.mpl?date=20090116&name=Bizarro

2009-01-16T15:00:00.001-06:00

If You’d Like to Boycott Israel, Here’s How
by: Schvach Yid

Thank You Chavi Edwards, of the Just Call Me Chavi blog site, for this tip, at:
http://www.kvetchingeditor.com/

Good Shabbos!

2009-01-13T14:50:00.001-06:00

Oh Tovia
by: Schvach Yid

That’s Rabbi Tovia Singer of Israel National News Radio, whose radio show is accessible at: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Radio/Author.aspx/1199

I’m sorry to disagree with the radio comments you made today, but Israel can’t carpet bomb Gaza because Israel does not have heavy bombers. The task can't be done with jet fighters.

Israel needs heavy strategic bombers. The U.S. trashed many of its B-52 fleet in the late 1980’s or early 1990’s following the fall of the Soviet Union. Regrettably, Israel did not/could not acquire any of them.

By the way, I know nothing of the strategy or tactics of staging a B-52 strike, but I can easily imagine that these bombers launched from Israel wouldn’t achieve the necessary altitude until perhaps reaching Turkey, and the distances in and immediately surrounding Israel are so small, I hate to think of the potential for deadly errors and collateral damage should heavy bombers be employed near Israel’s borders.

2009-01-08T12:38:00.003-06:00

Cut the Crap Already!
by: Schvach Yid

Here’s Gaza:
Those jerks are complaining about Israeli attacks on refugee camps in Gaza.
Gaza has been ‘free’ of Israel for 2 (?) years, and there are Palestinian refugee
camps there. Huh?

The Hamas leadership is stipulating conditions for a cease fire with Israel in Gaza.
The Hamas leadership is lodged in Beirut, Lebanon. Supposedly, the poor Gazans
are in a state of ‘distress’ over Israel’s ‘aggression’ in Gaza. Have you ever been in distress?
Did you stipulate conditions for the relief of your distress?

Who in the world are they kidding? Everyone, that’s who, and that’s only because most everyone in the world either hates Jews and Israel, or else believes that Israel/Jews are obligated to lose. How many non-Jews do you know who can stand to accept Jews, as a group, as winners? The theologies of Judaism’s two religious spawns assert against it.

I almost enjoyed the presentations of the speakers at the U.N.’s emergency (?) meeting two days ago. Mahmoud Abbas was wonderful – like an outbreak of the plague. What did he demand? Was it ‘to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your G-d’? No! He demanded ‘a united Palestine with Al Kuds Al-Sherif as its capital’.

The Palestinians have spoken, over and over again, at the U.N., in their charter, and in their actions against Israel. This is the way they want it. Case closed.

Please read Arlene Peck, at: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/8493

2009-01-04T17:56:00.001-06:00

The Filth of the Palestinian ‘Cause’
by: Schvach Yid

Ynetnews.com has a piece (certainly not peace) about a Palestinian Holocaust Museum.
Thank G-d it’s only an on-line, ‘virtual’ entity. But the message is clear, right down to its impersonation of the layout of the U.S. Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C.

The Arabs were full participants in the Nazi Holocaust of the Jews of Europe. The ‘Palestinian Holocaust Museum’ is the right title, just the wrong accusation. It should in fact display the sins of the Arabs perpetrated against the Jews, beginning with the ‘Arab Conquest’ of the 7th Century C.E., and extending right up to the present moment.

You will recall that Medina and Mecca (properly pronounced Mak’ah, with the accent on the second syllable) are not only the names of the two ‘holy cities’ of Islam, but are also Hebrew words. I don’t know if they have literal meanings in Arabic, or if our Moslem ‘cousins’ merely use these two Hebrew words as proper nouns.

Needless to say, these two Jewish settlements were purged of their Jews in a manner not unlike that employed by the Nazis in Europe during the mid-20th Century C.E., a campaign greatly facilitated by the Arab closure of British Palestine to Jews who attempted to flee for their lives.

And they think we’re the propaganda artists.

2009-01-04T12:52:00.006-06:00

I Can’t Believe It
by: SchvachYid

Well sadly, in fact, I can. Love us as much as I do, I’m wholly convinced that we Yiddin are cowards. Sorry Jadies and Jents, but over the past 1 ½ millennia we’ve been conditioned into a state of fear. We whore ourselves.

David Bogner, founder and writer of the highly respected Treppenwitz blog site has posted a bit about the assertion of Jew-haters that Jewish blood – as in blood transfusions - is undesirable.

So what? Anyone who thinks Jewish blood is unfit for transfusion can geh am drerd – please! No matter. His next item is more provokingly disturbing. Here it is:

The truth is, just as Israel has had to come to terms with a Red Diamond as its medical symbol abroad (since the International Red Cross made it clear that the Red Star of David is offensive to too much of the world)…

Is Israel to abandoned the red magen David as it’s logo for emergency aide in response to the demands of the global Jew-haters? Is Israel nuts? Haven’t the Israelis heard of self-respect? I don’t know how old this information is; I don’t care. The fact that this applies 'abroad' is irrelevant.

Screw international recognition and acceptance. If Israel has implemented this self destructive act, then the writing is on the wall – in Greek, Latin, Arabic, Cyrillic, anything other than Hebrew.

What of Israel’s flag? What of Hebrew writing? What response will we offer when we’re confronted with the demand to abandon the Hebrew alphabet? Evidently folks, it’s not far off, and the current serving jerks in Israel’s leadership will be eager to comply.

You can catch Treppenwitz’ blog here: http://bogieworks.blogs.com/treppenwitz/2008/12/filthy-jewish-blood.html

Once upon a time there existed an expression of speech which the Israeli leadership has evidently forgotten; it's 'f*ck 'em'!

We need a brain at the helm. We need some cojones.

2009-01-01T12:26:00.002-06:00

‘You Need A Big Oven!’
by: Schvach Yid

That’s what she said. After viewing this video I needed a large emesis basin.

The beauty of Islam? ‘Once people really learn of the beauty of Islam they will have no other choice but to accept it because they will realize it’s part of their nature’. Really?

Did you catch the vulgar language? No accents. Are these people really Palestinian Moslem Arabs? Their dreck speaks for itself.

By the way, Mecca, as in the capital of Islam, which is properly pronounced Ma’kah (with the accent on the second syllable) is one of two Biblical Hebrew words for plague – no small wonder (it’s also in the Pesach Haggadah).

My thanks to Gail of the Rubicon 3 blog site for this info.
http://northernva.typepad.com/rubicon3/2008/12/in-fort-lauderdale-here-in-the-us.html

Here it is:

Oh yeah, Happy New Year.

2008-12-28T16:49:00.001-06:00

May the IDF Be With You
by: Schvach Yid

But not with Britain, that Sceptred Isle of Shakespeare’s imagination, as in:

This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise,
This fortress built by Nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war,
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall
Or as a moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier lands,--
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.
William Shakespeare, "King Richard II", Act 2 scene 1

Ah, England! Are you down and out in Beverly Hills, or anywhere else for that matter?
No matter, just ‘think of England’!

According to Pamela Geller, founder and author of the Atlas Shrugs blog site, the Arab Moslem occupants of Britain are freely expressing their displeasure at Israel’s latest ‘sin’
against their Arab Moslem brethren in Gaza. The poor Brits!

Ha! Remember the British Mandate of Palestine? Shall we recall the muck the British made of their charge?

England has never been very good at international politics. On a global scale, without exaggeration, Britain has made a centuries-long career of screwing up. They’re good at writing literature; in fact, they are superb at it. They’ve been pretty good at composing music, and at theater, as well. Science and Philosophy have been areas of first class accomplishment for the English. In fact, they have probably been superb at most of the humanities and pure sciences (but I’m not crazy about the Anglican Church – sorry).

But not politics. They are utter disasters at politics. The Arab Moslems have landed on
British turf, and they’re there to stay, and they want what they want – period.

So England is calling for an immediate cessation of hostilities ‘over there’, for humanitarian reasons – now that Israel has responded appropriately on its own behalf.

The British know all about humanitarian behaviors. They have had a centuries-long tradition of that. Take the bombing of German civilian populations during the Second World War, and just because the ‘Nazi swine’ bombed the English citizenry incessantly with incendiaries, V-1 ‘buzz bombs’, and the super murderous (for the day) V-2 rockets.

What did Britain have to say about the matter? Hey, America, you do the daylight bombing runs over France and Germany, we Brits will do it in the cover of night.

Brilliant, not to mention humanitarian. And the Jews? The British version of humanitarianism doesn’t bode well for us.

Screw Britain – but gently; it’s important to be humanitarian to those who would do it to you.

2008-12-28T12:15:00.002-06:00

A Lesson in Defense Strategy for the Jew Haters
by: Schvach Yid

Well jadies and jents, it appears that the ‘neighborhood bully’ has at long last located his testicles and has finally chosen to do the right thing. Mazel tov! The Jew-haters are aghast and livid (not Livni), encouraging Israel to not ‘overdo’ this most necessary response to Arab Moslem aggression. Maybe Israel won’t ‘overdo’ things. Perhaps Israel won’t emulate America’s disastrous incursion into
French Indochina/Vietnam. Hopefully, this time, Israel will get things right and remove the covers from its binoculars before making tactical field decisions.

Vienna Mike of Arutz Sheva comment fame, where are you?

The time has long past for the Jewish State of Israel to stand up and assert it’s belief that the Land of Israel is Jewish, and that no one may trounce on us on our turf. This belief is supposed to constitute the raison d’être for the founding of the modern Jewish State.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak’s statement that this will not constitute a brief operation is encouraging, but international third party interference has consistently exerted a historical precedence in Israel’s defense efforts, so we’ll see.

So here are some basic rules of national defense, and of life:

When a foreign military force, whether formal military or citizens’ militia, attacks your country’s civilian population, it is the duty of your government to eradicate the foreign belligerents.

One doesn’t respond to one’s foe‘s hostility in order to jockey that foe into a position of having to negotiate, but rather one responds for the purpose of eradicating the foe.

There is no peace possible with a people who don’t want peace.

Take a lesson from US Navy Admiral William‘Bull’ Halsey of WW 2 fame – hit hard, hit fast, hit often.

Kill anyone who attacks, or threatens to attack, your children.

Kill anyone who causes your children to live in fear.

When one is forced to choose between the lives of one’s own children or the lives of the children of those who attempt to kill one’s own children, then what do you think should constitute the appropriate response – 60 years of requests?

A message to Israel’s enemies: don’t start a war unless you are prepared to run the risk of losing.

Knock off the public relations propaganda; the truth of the matter is self-evident!

Hannah Ashwari, wherever you may be, f*ck you!

2008-12-25T17:37:00.002-06:00

Tznius, Moslem-Style, Revisited
by: Schvach Yid

I’ve just learned of the existence of Naomi Wolf – the (a?) Jewish feminist. Actually, it has occurred to me that there may not exist a Jewish woman who is not feminist (at least in America), but that’s another matter.

This past August Ms. Wolf wrote about the habit (no pun intended) of religious Moslem women wearing the hijab. Her critique, which was published in The Sydney Morning Herald, can be accessed at:
http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/behind-the-veil-lives-a-thriving-muslim-sexuality/2008/08/29/1219516734637.html

She wrote, in part:

What kind of “Western gaze” are all these Muslim women hiding from in places like Morocco, Jordan, and Egypt? … Muslim women are covered up to protect them from Muslim men. I experienced it myself. I put on a shalwar kameez and a headscarf in Morocco for a trip to the bazaar. Yes, some of the warmth I encountered was probably from the novelty of seeing a Westerner so clothed; but, as I moved about the market - the curve of my breasts covered, the shape of my legs obscured, my long hair not flying about me - I felt a novel sense of calm and serenity. I felt, yes, in certain ways, free.

There’s controversy here, and it’s Moslem vs non-Moslem. You can read some of it at:
http://sheikyermami.com/2008/08/29/naomi-wolf-i-need-a-hijab-to-set-me-free/

Please don’t ask. I don’t know if the blog site owner is Moslem or not. Perhaps it doesn’t matter.

Last evening, around 6:30pm, I cruised around town looking for food. Every place was closed, except for the few - yet increasing in number of - so-called ‘Mediterranean’ eateries. ‘Mediterranean’, in this application, is a euphemism for Arab. (At one of these restaurants, the husband and wife proprietors answered the inquiry of a curious customer by telling him they come from Greece. The two owners then turned to each other and spoke in Arabic; she, by the way, dresses utterly ‘Western’.)

Are you familiar with the old quip that one can tell if a Chinese restaurant is any good by whether or not ‘real’ Chinese people eat there? Well, in my nook of America’s Bible Belt, there are ‘Mediterranean’ restaurants with Moslem clients, and those where traditional Moslem attire is absent. One, of course, can anticipate which is which in advance by simply scanning the scene for a sign that announces halal meat.

Back to the subject at hand. - is it tznius? ‘Down’ here I see lots of women clad in traditional Moslem attire, and I’ve had a wicked thought concerning the matter. I think we’re all informed of the appetite many men have for women donning lingerie. Hijabs and abayes are not lingerie, but still, I never saw the big deal of women’s hair getting a guy started until I learned about the Moslem religious tradition of concealing it. In high school, where a major effort of teachers and administrators is directed at assuring (as far as possible) that the young males aren’t provoked (at least in my day), the hair of the female students flew freely.

But introduce this new (for Westerners) social value, and what develops?

Some people at a Walmart not far from my home were aghast (and made no bones of expressing it) at the site of Moslem female customers dressed in their traditional garb. I had no objection; in fact, I see some potential here for the development of a new American male appreciation of female sexuality.

No, I do not advocate that non-Moslem women wear the garments of religious Moslem women, but rather that a little tznius would be appreciated, as in ‘cover-up a bit more’.

Here’s a link to a list of comments and posts on the subject: http://www.hijab.com/.

2008-12-25T11:28:00.000-06:00

A Mohel Named Riper
by: Schvach Yid

It’s like the quip about the hematologist named Dr. Blood, or Dr. Dracula, but in today’s A7 edition there’s a post about a bris performed on the 8-day old son of the Chabad sheliach to the Andean Peruvian city (town?) of Cusco (Cuzco). It’s reported as the first bris ever performed in the Andes Mountains. You can read about it here:
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/129009

Also, thanks to Mottel of the Letters of Thought blog, here is his posting of photos from his trip to Machu Picchu, also located in the Peruvian Andes, where evidently Yiddin sought to bring some kedushah to a place previously used for human sacrifices (I think).
http://mordechai7215.blogspot.com/2008/10/machu-picchu-trip.html

Here are some more of Mottels photos of the Peruvian Andes:
http://mordechai7215.blogspot.com/2008/10/on-end-of-sukkos-moray-and-how-i-became.html
and here:
http://mordechai7215.blogspot.com/2008/10/out-and-about-cuzco-for-lack-of-better.html

Mottel likes the Andes, I guess. The photos are nice - enjoy!

2008-12-24T07:35:00.001-06:00

Okay, Read This One
by: Schvach Yid

It’s by Jonathan Mark of The New York Jewish Week at:
http://bestjewishnewsny.com/2008/12/23/times-excellent-coverage-of-the-shoah-1943/

2008-12-22T15:48:00.001-06:00

The Top 10 Reasons Israeli Men Piss in Public:
by: Schvach Yid

#10 - ‘I had to go’

#9 - ‘who can find a bathroom in time?’

# 8 -‘the bathroom at home is always occupied’

# 7 - ‘I forgot to pay the key fee’

#6 - ‘Olmert sold my bathroom’

#5 - ‘Shin bet banned me from settling in a home with a toilet

#4 - ‘Israel has just negotiated all water rights to the Palestinian Authority’

#3 - ‘How else do you expect me to celebrate May Day on Rehov Kaplan?’

#2 – ‘I can’t see a thing through these sunglasses so I figured…’

And the #1 reason – ‘Ehhhhhh…’

2008-12-21T12:13:00.009-06:00

Happy Chanukah!
by: Schvach Yid

Sarah speaks, not about Chanukah (at least not in this video), but rather about her
apparent first love and passion, Ladino language and music.

Sarah's family hails from Thessaloniki,
formerly known as Salonica, Greece,
(Macedonia) and Greece sorta figures into Chanukah (in a Syrian sort of way).

Since Chanukah is upon us, I want to offer a gift to the readers of my blog site, so here she is, Sarah Aroeste:

For those of you who are fortunate enough to live in New York (my home town – how I miss it), she concertizes regularly there; she also takes her Ladino act to places far and wide. Her concert schedule can be found on her blog site at: http://www.saraharoeste.com/

My thanks to YoYenta for introducing me to the Sarah Aroeste Band
http://www.yoyenta.com/index.php?s=sarah+aroeste&submit=Search

art work by Michoel Muchnik at: http://www.muchnikarts.com/

2008-12-14T16:23:00.001-06:00

Angst
by: Schvach Yid

I love that word – German (my family’s native language) incorporated into English
(my native language). In my hands it’s so pretentious, like me – I’m an expert on everything, you know.

The stress and sense of alienation we often (unfortunately) create for our fellow members of the Jewish community is a regrettable habit that stems from this conviction of expertise and superiority that many of us exercise. We attempt to fluff our sense of self esteem at the expense of others.

I’m guilty of this sin of belittling others, and I can’t afford to do it, despite the fact that I do it all too frequently. I can’t afford to do it because I’m just as vulnerable as any one else to the criticisms and chastisements of others, and believe me, I’ve suffered from the mindless slings and arrows of others.

But I’m stubborn, and I persist.

Two blogs have just entered my life, and I’m glad for it. They provide a bit of mussar for our tribe.

The first is This is Babylon, at http://thisisbabylon.net/2008/12/04/racism-in-the-jewish-community-a-perspective/ .

Mr. Babylon has a point, and a problem. His problem appears to be self-inflicted. His schtick hurls back to the local community politics of the mid to late 1960’s and ‘70’s.
He comes across as a guy in search of a fight with a fabricated in-your-face style (that, by the way, is a ‘Torah-ism) that’s hard to miss. The point is, he’s arguing with himself, and
he’s going to ‘peter-out’ without solving any problems. He needs to revamp his archaic style to one that is not out-of-the-group confrontational. Since he’s Jewish, perhaps he should ‘get Jewish’; after all, he made the choice.

His point is that he has a good point. There really is racism in the Jewish community. I’ve seen enough of it, and it never speaks well of us.

Mr. Babylon (I assume this is not his real name) cross linked to another blog site, Notes of a Jewpanese Nomad, at
http://jewpanese.wordpress.com/2008/06/25/the-pressure-to-be-liberal/

Here, there is true angst, not the literary pugilistic assertions of a writer who, I think, takes some delight in making himself an outsider (as I think may be the case with Mr. Babylon), but rather the honest anxiety of a person who feels shunned by her own people.
She doesn’t want respect; she wants the acceptance to which she’s entitled as a Jew.

She calls herself Kaguya, and here’s a bit of her bio:
My two heritages are being Jewish and Japanese. I am lucky in that these two leagacies have few conflicting values; in fact, they compliment each other extremely well. I am also lucky in that I get the two heritages from the “right” parent: My Japaneseness–traditionally a patrlinial heritage–is passed down by my father and my Jewishness–traditionally a matrilinial heritage–is passed down by my mother.

Mr. Babylon, too, is entitled to acceptance, but quite frankly I think he may ask for at least some of the rejection he perceives.

See how expert I am? My brain needs a tune-up.

2008-12-12T13:15:00.003-06:00

This is Precisely How I Feel
by: Schvach Yid

Thank you Pameal Geller, founder and owner of the Atlas Shrugs blogsite, for posting this image.

If you have ever walked into a car dealership to ‘talk’,
If you have ever had your car serviced by a car dealership,
If you have ever been dependent on the automobile industry, for anything,
Then you have to loathe them.

So if you hate getting ripped off by those dealers/manufactures,
If you value your bucks, as well as your personal integrity,
Then you have to oppose any taxpayer bailout of the auto industry.

Let them do it themselves,
And let them do it decently and properly.

Do you think those people are capable of even considering honesty as an
alternative lifestyle?

2008-12-09T13:41:00.000-06:00

I Love It
by: Schvach Yid

And here’s the link: http://ilanadavita.wordpress.com/2008/12/09/did-anyone-say-sheep/

2008-12-07T14:23:00.001-06:00

Bravo Pamela
by: Schvach Yid

That’s Pamela Geller, the founder and writer of the Atlas Shrugs blogsite, found at
http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/ , for highlighting two incisive articles about the
Mumbai massacre, the first written by Mark Steyn, found at http://www.ocregister.com/articles/mumbai-muslims-time-2248410-jews-muslim# ,
and the second by Dennis Prager at
http://www.creators.com/opinion/dennis-prager.html?columnsName=pra

Writes Steyn:
Last week, a Canadian critic reprimanded me for failing to understand that Muslims feel "vulnerable." Au contraire, they project tremendous cultural confidence, as well they might: They're the world's fastest-growing population. A prominent British Muslim announced the other day that, when the United Kingdom becomes a Muslim state, non-Muslims will be required to wear insignia identifying them as infidels. If he's feeling "vulnerable," he's doing a terrific job of covering it up.

I just got ‘laid-off’ from my job - my boss (a tenured full professor), his secretary, and me. On that campus that was my workplace there occurred no small number of hijabs and abayas adorning the scenery. I have a little bit of news for the general Western public. Moslem women dressed in tradition Moslem apparel are adept at keeping their chins off their chests. They have a habit of broadcasting an unabashed message of self-confidence and high self-esteem. Don’t worry, they travel with ease of mind.

Please have an informative read at
http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2008/12/mark-steyn-jews.html

2008-12-05T13:33:00.003-06:00

Good Shabbos Everyone
by: Schvach Yid

If the slaughter of perhaps as many as 200 innocents in Mumbai bothers you, as it does me, then please be sure to read Jonathan Mark’s tetralogy of posts on the disaster at the Chabad House in Mumbai, now known to all as the Nariman House. They can be accessed at his NY Jewish Week blogsite Route 17, http://bestjewishnewsny.com/ . This series includes a very well deserved homage to the schluchim and schluchot of Chabad, and to Chabad's chosen mission
relative to the mitzvah of Ahavas Yisroel.

By the way, as a comment to his very appropriate assertion that Israel has no business
releasing Moslem terrorists in recognition of Moslem holidays, Israel’s leadership should
recall that the ‘New’ Testament reports that Caesar released Barabas in like fashion (but no Islam, not for another 6 centuries). The Jewish State of Israel is supposed to be Jewish, not Roman, and besides, we're not invaders who've seized someone else's land.

Please have a restful Shabbos.

2008-12-04T15:57:00.001-06:00

Parshat V’yetzei
by: Schvach Yid

You’ve got to view this at: http://g-dcast.com/
It’s hysterical, and in a contemporary sense, oh so true, and not necessarily
for the kids.

2008-11-30T15:29:00.002-06:00

True Identity
by: Schvach Yid

Ellen W. Horowitz has just posted an article on the Arutz 7 (Israel National News) web site. It can be accessed here:
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/8403

Forget about the evangelical propaganda. Just read the books by Rev. John Hagee, so beloved by the AIPAC crowd and other Jewish hopefuls. I’ve had my own experiences.

Years ago, on one of my innumerable health care jobs, I happened to pass the hospital pharmacy. There, perched atop a filing cabinet situated next to the entrance, stood a bottle of Kaopectate that bore an absolutely conspicuous (for me) label in Hebrew.

I stopped in my tracks to read it. A pharmacist seated near the door announced in a rather
proud tone that he had picked up the ditty while visiting Israel. He grinned – oh how pleased he seemed with himself. So I very nonchalantly proceeded to recite my free translation of the Hebrew label.

Wham! Quick like a bunny he grabbed the phone on his desk, punched in some numbers, and proceeded to complain about me (I was a very well-known item there, as well as in every workplace of mine down here in America’s Bible Belt). If this fellow had any conceptions of being ‘pro-Jewish’ or ‘pro-Israel’, then he managed to very competently blow his cover. Some supporter of a Jewish Israel! Perhaps the dolt didn’t understand that Israel is the Jewish State, and will remain so, and perhaps he thought that we Jews shouldn’t get around, as in make our homes in his precious Bible Belt. Perhaps he thought we Jews shouldn’t possess a knowledge of our religion’s language. (And yes, my supervisior gave me a mouthpiece about my erudition with 'foreign' languages.)

I hold no hope for a meaningful Jewish-Christian ‘dialogue’; not with the evangelists of America’s Bible Belt, not with the Vatican under the current serving pope, not at all.

And not with Islam.

Some absolutely fundamental changes in the values and teachings of Christianity and Islam will first have to be instituted before we Jews get to live in peace, at the behest of those two other religions, and those changes mean revisions in their respective claims of fundamental revelation, and that, Jadies and Jents, will never happen.

Good luck to us.

2008-11-30T11:32:00.000-06:00

Uch!
by: Schvach Yid

I’ve always disliked Country Western music, and here’s a good example of why:

My thanks to Arlene Peck for this.
http://www.arlenepeck.com/

2008-11-28T12:45:00.003-06:00

The Bestiality of Islam Continues
by: Schvach Yid

Islam announces itself as ‘the religion of peace’. Cat Stevens aka Yusuf Islam once asserted that Islam is ‘the perfect religion’. My foot (but please, don’t hack it off)!

Chabad being the Jewish community that teaches and extols Ahavas Yisroel, with its emphasis and commitment to menschlichkeit, has yet to express a sentiment of hatred concerning the ongoing slaughter in Mumbai in which Chabad Rabbi and Rebbitzin Gavriel and Rivka Holtzberg, along with 3 others, have lost their lives in the Chabad House in Mumbai, India.

Others say it far better than I can, so here are three links:

http://rutimizrachi.blogspot.com/2008/11/may-we-sing-for-joy-at-your-salvation.html

http://bogieworks.blogs.com/treppenwitz/2008/11/no-raised-eyebr.html#comments

http://www.chabad.org/news/article_cdo/aid/773691/jewish/Mumbai-Jewish-Family-Killed.htm

Zichronam Livracha - may their memories be for a blessing.

2008-11-27T13:11:00.001-06:00

Denmark Too
by: Schvach Yid

Talk about bandwagons, Demark has been reported as considering a bill that would ban circumcision in males under 15 years of age.

It sounds as though that Nordic country is vying for a honcho position at the UN.

I’ve never met an adolescent male who has wanted his possession to be so dispossessed.
Besides, the Aybischter never said 15 years of age.

Perhaps Denmark should take a lesson from my father’s observations during his service in the US Army. There, he served as a field hospital medic. Among his comrades were those between the ages of seventeen and their early twenties who fell under the surgeon’s knife, requiring a bit of modification to their cherished possession. Such an item of a late adolescent or early adult male is a bit heftier than that of an eight day old, and as such requires post-ceremonial sutures. In the early hours of each morning them dang stitchures would make their presence known to the patient in a most disagreeable way, often requiring a journey back to the O.R. for some patchwork. Mine was done post-partum (and I mean just), thank G-d.

This new bill is reputed by its sponsors to be a natural outgrowth of Denmark’s ban against female ‘circumcision’. I’ve written this before, so I’ll write this again. Females have nothing to circumcise. If the Danes can discern the difference between a Dane and a danish, then certainly they can differentiate between male and female genitals.

Circumcise means to cut in a circle. Females have no circles. I don’t know what that shape is called, but by the diamond boys on West 47th Street I think it’s called ‘marquis’; I’ve never referred to it as ‘marquis’.

Here’s the link:
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3625859,00.html

2008-11-27T11:09:00.007-06:00

Chag Sigd Sameach!
by: Schvach Yid

Today is the 29th of Cheshvan. For us Ashkinasi Yiddin, it’s no biggy, but for the
Jews of Ethiopia and of Ethiopian descent, today is their national religious hoiday, Sigd.

So here are a few links to web sites that explain the significance of this festival:

http://www.pbase.com/yalop/sigd

http://www.jafi.org.il/education/festivls/sigd.html

http://www.ynet.co.il/english/articles/0,7340,L-3562939,00.html

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/116126

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/125100

I haven’t seen anything mentioned on the mainstream on-line Jewish news sites.
Perhaps a commenter or two can explain why.

Addendum: Oops, here's one -
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1227702351737&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

2008-11-27T11:07:00.000-06:00

Tali Farkash is Back
by: Schvach Yid

Well, sort of. Here’s the link:
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3628962,00.html

Tali is Satmar, and evidently makes a hobby of questioning (?) some of the practices of the haredim.

2008-11-08T18:55:00.002-06:00

The Holocaust, the Jewish Blame Game, and the Sin
of Sinat Chinam

by: Schvach Yid

Tomorrow night marks the seventieth anniversary of Kristallnacht, the night-long rampage by the Nazis against the Jews of Germany and Austria. My father and his family went through this delight of the Jew haters in Bremerhaven; my mother and her family in Vienna. All the prodromal speeches and misdeeds hadn’t sufficed to convince my immediate family members to flee their respective homes. The single act of the night of November 9, 1938, and those of the following day, November 10, 1938, had.

The members of both sides of my family were booted out of their homes on November 10th. My
paternal grandfather was taken into custody and shipped off to the concentration camp in
Sachsenhausen.

Baruch haShem, other family members and friends saw the ‘handwriting on the wall’ years before and had already left Germany and Austria to establish themselves in the United States.
These very same persons did what so many American Jews failed to do for their fellow Jews – they put their personal and business finances on the line by sponsoring affidavits for my family members stranded in Europe, so that they could obtain entry visas to the United States, thus sparing them from certain annihilation.

Some woke up too late but were spared nonetheless;
others never got the message at all and perished.

Seventy years later we Jews are fond of indulging in the blame game. It goes something like this: ‘the Jews of Germany are responsible for the Holocaust’.

I vehemently disagree, both as a Yeke and as a person who usually bothers to think before I speak or write.

This version of the aveira of sinat chinam is nothing new. In the late 1980’s or early 1990’s, a Jewish newspaper ran two articles, each in a separate edition, in which the respective authors stated their cases in support of this accusation, that the Jews of Germany did nothing to stop our genocide.

During this past Yom Kippur, as we congregants milled about for two hours between the end of Mussaf and the start of Mincha, I had the utter displeasure of hearing an Israeli ‘pontificate’ about almost every subject imaginable (actually, he was fishing for the right ‘button’, like a child who pushes every button in an elevator) – two hours worth, non-stop, including his assertion that ‘German Jews are more German than the Germans’. His logic was faulty, to say the least. German Jews could not be more German than the Germans; German Jews are German. The Nazis drew the same distinction as did he, and to top it off, that little Israeli sent his son to the University of Tübingen to attend college. Smart!

I’ve heard it too many times, and irrate doesn’t rate as an adequate description of my reaction, so I’ll state the matter plainly: the Jews of Germany are not responsible for the Holocaust!

Once upon a time I had an acquaintance, my senior by only a few years, who was born in a displaced persons camp in Austria, circa 1946, to Polish concentration camp survivors. He was one of several individuals who pointedly informed me of their subscription to this diatribe against the Jews of Germany. Today, he languishes (I’ve been told) in an assisted living facility, physically limited by the progression of multiple sclerosis.

Forgive me rabbis, far and wide, but in my opinion the Aybischter is certain to punish us for committing the sin of sinat chinam.

It serves no purpose whatsoever, this pastime of blame, not to mention the fact that it is factually wrong. The Jews of Germany were that Austrian madman’s first victims, not his sponsors. Blame is a call to accountability; victims are not accountable for their victimization.

Once upon a time I was invited to lunch on Shabbos following schul. The parents of the young lady of the house were in attendance. My invitation had been ‘arranged’ by one of the rabbis of the schul (Chabad). We sat down at the ‘tisch’, recited brochas, and ‘fressed’.

The time arrived to tell stories. ‘So, what’s your story?’ ‘Where’s your family from?’

I responded, ‘Oh, my father’s from Germany; my mother’s from Austria’.

A storm brewed on the face of the mother. ‘What happened to your parents during the war?’

‘Oh’, I responded, ‘they got out’.

Wham! The mother hostess now had me locked into her sights. A mudslide of accusation ensued in a panicked, machine gun-like cadence.
‘How did they get out?’
‘They must have had Capitol visas’.
‘How did they get the money for that?’
‘They must have been rich’.

As it turned out, both she (who was German) and her husband (who was Polish) had been ‘gathered’ and sent to concentration camps. She was aghast that my parents, grandparents, and other members of my family had managed to ‘get out’. Her husband, who had had a stroke, sat speechless but nonetheless seethed at me.

(One of my Biochemistry professors in graduate school, a concentration camp survivor from Poland, expressed a similar sentiment to me when he demanded to know ‘what business did your parents have getting out when I had to go though that’. He had a Ph.D in Biochemistry, not a doctorate in decency.)

I have to brag, I was cool in my response at that Shabbos meal. I simply stated that my family had had friends and family in the States who were sufficiently concerned and generous to provide the necessary papers required for immigration.

More expressions of indignation followed.

It obviously never occurred to these two to express a positive sentiment, something like ‘thank G-d your family didn’t suffer like we and so many others did’. This sort of kind thought evidently escaped their thinking, nor did they notice my refrain from rebutting with an accusation equal to their animus, something like ‘how did the two of you manage to survive when so many millions of others perished in the camps?’ Accusation is easy, after all, but the Aybischter hears, sees, and knows all, so watch it!

Some things are self-evident jadies and jents, and I do know when to keep my mouth shut (even though I’m freer with a keyboard).

By the way, the mother of my hostess worked as a nurse – you know, that profession of caring and kindness. I know all about nurses and Nursing - I used to work as a nurse.

And so, in response to the Jewish blame game artists, I can only respond with this – shut up you idiots! You’re not so smart after all, and sinat chinam is a sin – it’s in the machzor for Yom Kippur: ‘…v’al chet shechatanu lefanecha b’sinat chinam…’

The anniversary of Kristallnacht is a day of personal mourning for me and my family. My family went through it. They had been betrayed by their countrymen. That night, and all that followed for the next seven years or so, not only defines me, but in a most paradoxical way is responsible for my very existence, for without that era’s Jew hatred my family would have never fled Europe and come to America, my parents presumably would have never met, and I therefore would have never come into existence.

And no, I feel neither guilt nor remorse. No one has paid for my life with his own, and no, the Jews of Germany did not ‘abandon their brethren to the ovens of Auschwitz’ as one self-indulgent and intellectually gifted dolt once wrote (‘gift’, by the way, is the German word for poison).

Whoever coined the notion that ‘we are alone in the world’ got it right.

Knock it off already you banal shit heads!!!

Shavua tov!

2008-09-29T12:58:00.004-05:00

Who Said There’re No Jews in Japan?
by: Schvach Yid

Oh yes there are, and you can find some here:
http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2008/09/la-shana-tova.html

It appears Chaim Topol and Toshiro Mifune (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIeb51do6GI) have some real competition. Thanks to Pamela Geller, writer and owner of the Atlas Shrugs blog site.

Actually, I'm a big fan of the 'ingathering of the Jews', and of the work done by organizations like Shavei Israel (http://www.shavei.org/en/Default.aspx). Were it only true.

2008-09-28T16:35:00.000-05:00

Here’s a Beaut
by: Schvach Yid

Please, if you’re not already familiar with the Ki Yachol Nuchal blog site, read this blog – it’s
priceless (well, almost): http://rutimizrachi.blogspot.com/2008/09/naaaaaaaaaag.html

My thanks to A Barbaric Yawp – Haveil Havalim #184, ‘A Barbarian Roars Again’.

2008-09-28T15:21:00.002-05:00

Shana Tova!!!!
by: Schvach Yid

To all the readers of my blog site, and to everyone else, have a good, sweet year.

And to start things off, here are links to two blogs by A Simple Jew about the late
Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Vitebsk:
http://asimplejew.blogspot.com/2007/07/question-answer-with-chabakuk-elisha.html
http://asimplejew.blogspot.com/2006/04/guest-posting-from-chabakuk-elisha.html

2008-09-19T14:05:00.005-05:00

Do You Really Think So?
by: Schvach Yid

Your friend and mine, Tamar Yonah, of Israel National News’ on-line service Arutz 7,
has just blogged about Hurricane Ike and its presumptive etiology to a possible furor by the Aybischter over the foreign policy sins of America’s President Bush toward Israel. You can read it here: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Blogs/Blog.aspx/3#3027

I don’t know. I don’t like to second guess HaShem, even though I’ve probably done it in past blogs. Still, it’s an intriguing prospect; after all, by the Moslems this is the month of
Ramadan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramadan).

A quick survey of the island of Galveston, devastated by the hurricane, will reveal the presence of the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB), a campus on which comprises
a medical school, hospitals, academic research buildings, and the most recently constructed Galveston National Laboratory, one of the Bush administration’s contributions to the global war on terrorism.

Here’s a photo of the Galveston National Lab:

And here is the URL: http://www.utmb.edu/

Note the venting stacks atop the building; all biomedical research facilities have these, and here, for contrast, is a photo of pillars at the Temple of Karnak located in Thebes, along the Nile River in Egypt:

Call me delusional, but I see a similarity.

The Temple of Karnak has survived millennia; I don’t know how well the Galveston National Lab faired this last storm. Oh yeah, hijabs - they’re seen all over the campus.
You’ll just have to take my word for this.

2008-09-15T22:32:00.002-05:00

The Presidential Race According to Me
by: Schvach Yid

Of course it’s about me. It’s always about me. Where’s the surprise?

Here’s Schvach’s take on the current presidential electoral race. Obama’s a schmuck.
McCain’s a schmuck. Joe Biden’s a schmuck. So help me, I will never vote for that king of gaffe, and if the TV machers ever again cover Biden yapping about his good old childhood days attending Catholic parochial school, I swear I’ll mail him an embossed
invitation to get crucified.

I sort of apologize to the 2 billion Christians around the world for my overtly bigoted sentiment, but after 1 ½ millennia of Christian Jew hatred, there’s a limit to my sense of guilt.

Okay, you’ve guessed it. Sarah Palin.

Oh, how I would love to turn on the TV, view a presidential news conference, and spontaneously long to have sex with the leader of the country. Face it (no pun intended) jadies and jents, what an ultimately refreshing prospect.

Just consider the past alternatives. And what about the leadership of Israel?
Olmert the babe? Rabin, Begin, Barak (no, not Obama), Sharon (nebich), babes? Golda Meir?

What a refreshing idea. Sarah Palin is a babe with oak leaf clusters. I’ll vote for her.
I’ve never voted Republican in my life, but she’s the exception. Screw politics.

So she’s not Jewish. Neither was Woodrow Wilson. Woodrow Wilson was an ordained
Presbyterian minister and served as president of this here country. Do you think he might
have wanted to convert all Jews to his faith. You betchya!

And Palin? No need to ask, of course she wants us on her religion’s bandwagon.
So did Jimmy Carter, and undoubtedly all the others (except perhaps Nixon – he was Quaker – emes).

I’ll take the babe. After all, what can those clowns do right? I’ll take sex appeal. Only the vice-presidential candidate you say? Vote for the presidential candidate instead you say? Charmin vs the other stuff (hey, I’m not an aficionado of forest products, okay?). I’ll take Princess Charming.

Schvach, you’re irresponsible. Damn tootin’! What do you think those clowns are?
Have you ever seen such self-deprecating job seekers as those guys? Remember the
Primary debates? They looked like reality TV. Junk. Crap. America’s future president?

I’ve looked for plenty of jobs in my time, and I’ve never conducted myself with such an overt lack of self-esteem. ‘Please hire me’. NO! I’m not taking you off the street. Go back to the Senate and stay there.

But I’ll vote for the babe because she’s nice to look at, and because the others offer nothing at all.

Call me irresponsible.

2008-09-11T19:35:00.007-05:00

Praise for the Praiseworthy
by: Schvach Yid

Jonathan Mark, the associate editor of the Jewish Week (New York), is an erudite and well crafted writer who, quite frankly, serves as a model for those of us who aspire to write well.
His writing is superlative.

He has just written a blog in which he analyses the success of the shlucot of Chabad Lubavitch, the female emissaries of the Lubavitcher Rebbe to the Jewish communities around the world.

It’s a must read, and you can read it here:
http://blog.thejewishweek.com/post/Sarah_Palin_Shliach.html

If you’re a fan of Chabad as I am, then you’ll love this piece; if not, then there’s hope for you.

2008-09-07T14:03:00.002-05:00

Why Don’t You Get a TV Already?
by: Schvach Yid

These challenging words were just delivered to me by my mom. Mothers! My mother owns me
every Sunday. In decades past, my paternal grandparents owned us every Sunday; I was in elementary and junior high schools back then. Now, I’m a grown mensch, and not much has changed.

Back to the TV.

I dumped my TV set into the garbage this past May 1st – May Day. No, I’m not one of those pinko Commies of old; it was simply coincidence. I haven’t gone through a manumission as a result; just a little enhancement of shalom babayit, and this despite the fact that my old (and now deceased) grad school advisor was investigated by the Joe McCarthy Red witch-hunt people back in the 1950’s, and who, as a result, lost his academic position at the University of Vermont (link).

I first cancelled my cable TV subscription in March. I didn’t miss the garbage for a second, and then one fine evening, when I was feeling an enhanced surge of perkiness (despite my shriveled adrenal cortices), I schlepped the thing out of my bayit, down the driveway, and onto the curb for trash collection.

A mechaiya! The incessant dribble and junk – fifty-two bucks and change a month worth – were out of my life. I have yet to miss the thing.

So why don’t I get a TV already? Because life without it is better, that’s why. Because if The Huntley-Brinkley Report was still aired by NBC, I’d probably buy one, but regrettably, CNN has chosen to emulate its emulators, and Huntley and Brinkley have both disappeared from the planet, so all that remains to be watched is programmed crap.

Besides, Jblogs are so much better.

2008-07-04T15:59:00.002-05:00

O’ Revolution
by: Schvach Yid

No, not Canada’s independence from Britain, but rather the progenitor of the eastern end of our transcontinental neighbor to the north, France. Bastille Day, my absolute favorite holiday of the calendar (and it ain’t even Jewish!) is nearly upon us, and since today is a celebration America’s day of revolt, and additionally, since I have no patience whatsoever, I’ve decided to jump the gun and do Bastille Day a bit prematurely.

I experienced a great clarifying moment concerning France’s revolt of the common person over
the aristocracy while watching the BBC production (thanks to PBS) of Simon Schama’s Power of Art. You can read a bit of it here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/powerofart/david.shtml (get the pun?)

It was a super production, but unfortunately, I barely remember a word of it.
What I do remember of that series was Schama’s (he’s Jewish, as in ‘Sh’ma Yisroel’) discussion of Jacque-Louis David’s Death of Marat. It's at the top folks.

And here is a bit of what Schama had to say about it:

"If there's ever a picture that would make you want to die for a cause, it is Jacque-Louis David's Death of Marat. That's what makes it so dangerous - hidden away from view for so many years. I'm not sure how I feel about this painting, except deeply conflicted. You can't doubt that it's a solid gold masterpiece, but that's to separate it from the appalling moment of its creation, the French Revolution. This is Jean-Paul Marat, the most paranoid of the Revolution's fanatics, exhaling his very last breath. He's been assassinated in his bath. But for David, Marat isn't a monster, he's a saint. This is martyrdom, David's manifesto of revolutionary virtue."

Martyrdom indeed, as Schama might intone.

When I was a lad, elementary school years, living in New York, the World’s Fair came to town at Flushing Meadow Park – 1965. The Vatican had a pavilion there, and offered as the featured attraction, Michelangelo’s Pieta. Watching the Schama presentation of David’s Death of Marat and hearing his account about martyrdom, my brain zipped back to that childhood experience.

David’s Death of Marat is, of course, an emulation of the Michelangelo sculpture – it’s the Pieta without the mommy; even the respective poses of the two sacrificial lambs is the same, although viewed from different spatial perspectives (and as if to make up for the absence of Michelangelo’s female element, one might suggest that David depicted Marat as a rather feminine figure).

In retrospect, it’s a bit odd that, at the age of twelve, what I found the most intriguing about the Vatican’s exhibit was not the grand sculpture, nor its green lighting, nor the motorized walkway that sped visitors past Michelangelo’s masterpiece, but rather, what I thought at the time, were those funny little dishes protruding from the walls as one entered the exhibit. They were filled with green water.

Of course, they turned out to be dishes of ‘holy water’; the green tinge, I now assume, was imparted by the addition of disinfectant, probably an imposed requirement of New York’s Department of Health. Kids!

2008-07-04T13:09:00.001-05:00

Happy Anniversary…

by: Schvach Yid

America! My brother and his family live in New Jersey (‘Joisy’ to those in the know), and since that state figured so prominently in our Revolutionary War, perhaps it’s fitting to commemorate the event with Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze’s painting of our nation’s founding father crossing the Delaware River (with the Red Coats hot on his trail/tail).

2008-06-29T17:27:00.000-05:00

What We Have Here, Is Failure To Communicate
by; Schvach Yid

No jadies and jents, this is not a reprise of Cool Hand Luke. Rabbi Levi Brackman, who writes an opinion column for YNetNews.com, and who writes his own blog site, has just written a piece on a recent study conducted by the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute and the Reform Movement, which reports on the egress of Jewish men from most things Jewish, especially synagogue attendance. You can read it at: http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3559850,00.html

Has anyone mentioned that non-Orthodox Jewish men and women have a propensity for not marrying each other, or for matrimony at all?

I think the current trend in non-Orthodox Judaism is best called ‘shooting oneself in the foot’ (actually, in kopf). We Yiddin seem to have become fairly adept at it, me included.

At my local ‘Reform Movement style’ synagogue (no, I’m not a member and I don’t attend; I’ll stick with Chabad), which is a formal member of the United Synagogue of Judaism (in other words, the Conservative Movement), the big deals are significant Jewish religious events such as Sunday morning (never afternoon – who wants to waste a perfectly good Sunday?) bagel sales and ‘men’s prostate health issues’ get-togethers. Some of the ‘guys’ even manage to wile away their local synagogue Shabbat experience by congregating in the parking lot. After all, who wants to hear some dribble about feminism or Darfur? Those topics may make ideal pc social concerns, but they are no substitute for Judaism, to be used as replacements for ‘the religious stuff’ – you know, davening, sermons which are employed as vehicles for Torah shiurim, etc.

R’ Brackman’s article is okay, but he barely goes into the muck and mire of American Judaism’s present day auto-destruct mode. To put it bluntly, we’re wiping ourselves out of existence with political bullshit - and don’t the Jew-haters know it, and love it!

I think we Jews may have taken the bait, swallowed it whole, and now suffer the consequences. Suicide is not painless, not by a long shot, and it’s a violation of halachah.
So much of what the Reform Movement does is a devotion to eschewing and negating the ‘Jewish way’, and it has proven to be utterly self-destructive.

So what’s the news in this new social study of the American Jewish community? Jewish men who go to, or who are coerced into attending, Reform synagogue prefer to opt out. No kidding.
They prefer the swelteringly hot parking lot to the nicely air-conditioned synagogue sanctuary (but not too cool, please, my wife….) where they can behave and feel like men, without the overlord of political oppression dictating that to be labeled a bigot is the worst fate any person can suffer. And of course, as any non-Orthodox Jew knows, traditional Judaism is all about bigotry, right? Just ask the now deceased Joseph Campbell (not Jewish); he absolutely loved the Hebrew Bible.

Judaism is not about equanimity between the genders. When it comes to Judaism and ‘gender concerns’ (don’t you just love pc jargon), men and women are not separate and equal, we’re separate and different. Men this, women that (estrogens are one thing, androgens another). Shul, jadies and jents, is the designated stomping ground of men. Sorry ladies, you aren’t permitted to show up in shul to declare that men’s religious garb is ‘unisex’ and displace us from our religious functions. When that’s done, we guys take a hike, and we have a tendency to stay gone.

So what, one may retort, who needs men anyway? After all, we’re Jewish by virtue of our mothers, and it is she who is charged with the responsibility of providing an [religious] education to her children. The guy’s just a drone. Women can, and frequently have, taken over the major synagogue functions, so who needs the men?

Fine! You’ll find us in the parking lot. When you’re done inside, we’ll drive you home (and on Shabbos to boot!). And please let us know if the thermostat is set too low (actually, if you try wearing a tallis made of wool…).

And if you’re really interested in what guys do when we get together, look here:

2008-06-15T13:35:00.000-05:00

This Year, And Forever!
by: Schvach Yid

From Rubicon 3, a truism that shouldn’t quit, and which should never be ignored. No one listens, so why should we accommodate?

And lest we forget about our rightful claims to Jewish turf, no one should forget that the city of Medina was Jewish before Islam's founding father (it's Father's Day, you know) slaughtered us outta there.

2008-06-08T13:50:00.000-05:00

Bobby Kennedy on Israel
by: Schvach Yid

Thanks to I*Consult at: http://lennybendavid.com/2008/06/on-bobby-kennedys-40th-yahrzeit.html; chaptem read.

Did you know RFK visited the Yishuv in March 1948, and reported: "The Jews point with pride to the fact that over 500,000 Arabs, in the 12 years between 1932-1944, came into Palestine to take advantage of living conditions existing in no other Arab state...". Of course, RFK made the error of designating 'Palestine' an Arab state.

And the Arabs assert it’s theirs, and that we Yiddin are the intruders.

2008-05-26T17:08:00.000-05:00

My Thoughts Exactly!
by: Schvach Yid

My thanks to Gail, the owner and author of Rubicon 3, at: http://northernva.typepad.com/rubicon3/ and, in turn, to Naomi Ragen.

So maybe I was wrong about Jewish bloggers quoting Mr. Zimmerman! Enjoy the video – it’s so true.

2008-05-11T16:12:00.000-05:00

I Woke Up on the Roadside, Daydreaming
About the Way Things Really Are

by: Schvach Yid

Famous words by Bob Dylan. What Jewish blogger doesn’t quote Dylan (probably most!)?

Like the opening lyric of Idiot Wind, I too get paranoid, all too often, and then muster enough common sense to wake up and face reality.

So why do I imagine seeing fellow J-bloggers on the road when I commute to work, or when I shop at a local supermarket? If I included a photo of myself on my blog site, perhaps I would imagine running into myself as I move around town.

It’s paranoia vs rationalization. Such angst.

2008-05-11T15:04:00.001-05:00

Even a Pigeon Knows
by: Schvach Yid

This morning’s daven was enhanced, just a bit, by a dove. Two doves have decided to nest in the rain gutters of my house, one at each of opposite corners of my house. As I davened by a window that looks over one of the nesting doves, I glanced down to notice that the bird had removed herself from her eggs to stand perched on the edge of the rain gutter, looking upward at the window where I stood with yarmulke, tallis, tefillin, and siddur. Although I’m used to seeing doves nest in this location, I have never seen one off her eggs, and certainly not peering at the window. In fact, when viewed from the driveway, one can only notice the bird’s tail feathers protruding over the edge of the gutter.

So why stand? Perhaps she’s Jewish and wanted to be motzi.

2008-05-04T12:41:00.000-05:00

Look What I Got in the Mail
by: Schvach Yid

The folks at Nextbook publish a magazine – news print style – called Nextbook Reader. I’ve been graced with a copy of this literary ditty. One can access this sales vehicle on-line; just search.

Thanks to Leon Wieseltier’s 1998 contribution to the world of Jewish writing, Kaddish (perhaps my favorite book of all time), a ‘new’ word has been re-introduced into Jewish circles – solipsist. Every time I encounter this word I have to run to the dictionary; I’ve never heard it in the course of conversation. A one page article appears in this magazine titled (you guessed it) ‘The Solipsist’. I haven’t read it.

But the real story (as far as I’m concerned) in this edition of the Nextbook Reader comes from that lamenting author of Foreskin’s Lament, Shalom Auslander. Straight from the wooded mountains of Woodstock NY (I should be so lucky; how I lament my continued exile from the northern Catskills of NY – Route 28 beckons), Mr. Auslander bewails his dilemma of going through life carrying an official Tribal membership card, yet arguing against it. Still, he sticks to it like a fly sticks to flypaper, all the while making a lot of annoying noise with his fruitless wing beating, while getting absolutely nowhere. Poor Shalom.

He knows how to write folks. Not that I’m qualified to critique an author’s work, but even I, with nothing to speak on my behalf as an amateur writer, am capable of recognizing his talent.

Here http://www.nextbook.org/cultural/feature.html?id=727 he writes about Avraham avinu. Depicted above Auslander’s article is an artist’s conception of Jewish patriarch #1, represented as a not-yet graying (he’s bearded) mensch clad in traditional Arab garb, complete with a scimitar at his side, his left hand clutching the weapon just below the hilt, his right hand placed over his heart (could this be a sign of angina brought about by a foreknowledge of Auslander’s opinions?). In the background, barely visible in the lower left corner, one can just discern the Greek/Roman columns and entablature (thank Gd I saved my copy of Janson’s History of Art) of a building. Auslander definitely has some hefty unresolved issues!

His essay is titled Civilization and Its Discontented. He should know – he knows how to write, and he’s pissed.

Auslander brags that rather than teaching his son the Chumash, he instead instructs his son about Yossarian, the lead character in Joseph Heller’s Catch 22 – very Jewish. Boy, does Auslander have unresolved issues, or what (I wonder if Yossarian, a Sephardic Jew, knew Ladino)?

Auslander calls for action. We shouldn’t teach our kiddies about the Gd of jealousy and vengeance, Auslander asserts, or to invoke his lexicon, f*ck accountability (yes folks, he even has his version of Avraham avinu, to whom he assigns the moniker ‘Abe’, speak this most famous word of the English language). He even refers to the Aybischter as a you-know-what (not to be repeated by me). This guy really has unresolved issues (the English ‘issue’ sounds like the Hebrew assur which, as we all know, means ‘forbidden’. Mr. Auslander should learn this).

The point is Mr. Auslander has painted himself into a corner. He invokes Avraham avinu as a rebel who rejected what he saw around him (Auslander’s interpretation, not mine), yet the heroic Avraham accepted every commandment given to him by HaShem (and by his wife Sarah imanu), including the mitzvah of circumcision.

Auslander, you big dummy, maybe you should teach your son about Fred Sanford!

Don’t get me wrong, Jadies and Jents, Auslander is no foreigner spitting on the Tribe. I harbor no animus for Mr. Auslander; I just disagree with him.

The real point, however, is that this mag is a sales vehicle for the Nextbook series, of which I am a fan. One book in this series, David Mamet’s The Wicked Son, is another of my favored writings.

Back to Auslander. If he thinks he’s going to get away with going through life with one foot in and the other out, then he has another guess coming. It’s not that he wants to equivocate, but he does. His dilemma is that he is solidly in the Tribe – he just won’t fess up to it.

Those Jews who hate Judaism, who think they’re above and beyond it, who think Judaism has nothing to offer, that it’s wrong, archaic, bigoted, irrelevant, etc, have a strong tendency to leave it. They don’t resort to the Reform Movement for escape and denial. They just leave and never look back. This is not Auslander’s chosen life. Auslander is a kvetch, and he evidently likes it that way – he’s entitled, and he’s obviously making a good living at it. His is the old Immigrant’s Son’s Tale, the sort of character one finds in the fiction of The Jazz Singer and Leon Uris’ Mitla Pass. When one is confused, embarrassed, self-conscious about one’s identity, when one can’t make up one’s mind, then that person is in a wee bit of a quandary.

Poor Shalom Auslander. Identity is not a pursuit - just ask any recovering BuJu.

But take heart guy. There are lots of you out there. You have lots of company for solace and emotional support. What you’ll probably never enjoy is resolution.

2008-04-13T15:39:00.000-05:00

A Multiple Personality Disorder
by: Schvach Yid

It’s weird, but true. Accompanying the April 4^th 2008 edition of The New York Jewish Week was an inserted magazine titled Israel at 60. Baruch HaShem the Jewish State of Israel is about to see its 60^th birthday – it should enjoy many, many more, for all time, but the jubilation is mixed, as highlighted by this magazine. On the one hand, great articles were provided that celebrate Jewish ‘diversity’ (uch, that word again) in the Holy Land, in two spreads showing olim hadashim in various locations throughout the Jewish State. These can be accessed at:
http://www.thejewishweek.com/viewArticle/c361_a6844/News/Israel_At_60.html# ,
and http://www.thejewishweek.com/viewArticle/c361_a6843/News/Israel_At_60.html# .

And of course, Jonathan Mark added his literary views on life in current day J’lem at:
http://www.thejewishweek.com/viewArticle/c361_a6848/News/Israel_At_60.html . Yasher koach!

But, like, oh my Gd, enough of the mag deals with doom and gloom – Jewish Israel throwing in the towel. Similar articles have recently appeared on the Arutz Sheva website. These rants of desperation sound almost suicidal. The ‘analysts’ who come up with this stuff must be nuts.

‘Where do we go from here’; ‘nothing has worked’. Such tzuris. Such limited vision. Such absurd career chasing.

If you want my advice, stick with the positive. Yom Ha’azmaut is on the way. Israel certainly has problems, about which I have posted my unqualified opinions in past blogs, but who in Israel, or elsewhere, is about to take my advice?

Israel likes to feign expertise (I can just imaging Dan Gillerman saying the the United State Secretary of State, 'you know Condi, I'm going to explain something to you'), never playing the international game by the established rules, always pretending to know better (like me!). So be it. So they’re in a rut, having painted themselves into a corner. So all their self-proclaimed high-minded political strategies and academic analyses have failed. So the Arab Moslems who hate us and who insist on annihilating us aren’t so dumb after all. What to do?

Don’t worry; be happy! Yom Ha’azmaut is on the way. Who knows, maybe the Israelis will finally wake up to the demands of life in the international sphere and ‘do what they gotta do’.

It’s not as though they’ve been given a choice.

2008-03-30T14:32:00.000-05:00

And Now For Something Completely Revealing
by: Schvach Yid

At: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3369102968312745410

and at: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/125728,

And from Atlas Shrugs at http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2008/03/islam-and-the-n.html

2008-03-30T14:16:00.000-05:00

The Rightful Place of Sarcasm
by: Schvach Yid

‘Wipe the blue off the flag and talk to Hamas’, Jonathan Mark urges the Israeli leadership in a piece he wrote for the March 14^th edition of The New York Jewish Week, at:
http://www.thejewishweek.com/viewArticle/c40_a4861/News/Israel.html

He, like so many other Jews, is evidently sick and tired of spectating Israel’s ineptitude and impotence at dealing with its foremost problem – Moslem hatred of Jews and Judaism, acted out as maniacal homicide.

No, the ‘pc’ Liberals among you might say? Just consider the machinations of the Arab national leadership in the years leading up to the Second World War to bar Europe’s Jews from immigrating to what at the time constituted the British Mandate of Palestine. That’s Jew hatred!!!

Mark is right in this piece. The Israeli habit of emulating the old British Mandatory Authority’s practice of blowing up the homes of ‘Palestinian Jews’ suspected of activities that countered Britain’s interests in the area, by blowing up the homes of Arab terrorists, achieves nothing for Israel but bad press.

And don’t be concerned with public outrage voiced as accusations of apartheid and Nazism pointed at Israel for its management of the problems foisted the Jewish State by the Moslem Arabs. The Palestinian Arabs are anything but innocent; they’re waging murderous war against the Jews of Israel. By contrast, the Jews of Germany, and of elsewhere in Europe, waged no war against the Christians of Europe in the decades prior to World War Two. No political spiel by Germany’s Jews advocated freeing the land of Germany and replacing German rule with Jewish governance.

No Jew advocated running the Christians out of Europe or ever blew up Christian civilians in a trolley car in Vienna, Austria.

Quite the contrary, Yiddin were busy jumping onto the bandwagon. It’s called assimilation. Wissenschaft des Judentums was the fodder for this mass egress of Jews from the life of frumkeit. We never sought to overthrow or destroy Christian Europe and replace it with a Jewish government. The Jews of Germany were German patriots until they were informed in no uncertain terms their fealty was no longer welcome.

My paternal grandfather served in the German coastal artillery in the First World War; my maternal grandfather simultaneously served as a cavalry officer in Austria. No assertion of a separate nationalism was ever made.

This is in utter contrast to the Arab Palestinian ‘plight’ invented by the Arab Palestinian leadership (remember Yasser Arafat?) and the mass media. They have only one problem, and they’ve foisted it onto Israel – Jew hatred.

Jonathan Mark is right. Ariel Sharon needs to be reinvigorated and made young again so that his former strength on behalf of the Jewish State could now be applied to Israel’s present predicament. So too with the former leadership provided by R’ Meir Kahane. It’s a sad day when one has to invoke fantasy in defense of a country and one’s self interest. Fantasy is no substitute for substance; the current administration in Israel is no substitute for Israel’s former leaders.

Hitler’s aggression was directed at victimizing and annihilating innocent people; people who were otherwise eager and productive participants in the health and welfare of the European countries of their births. The smear of comparing Israel with the Nazis is pure imposture – and it’s vile. It’s right up the Arabs’ alley. It was the Arabs who courted the Nazis and who leveraged the British against us.

In honor of Ariel Sharon’s former self, and to properly memorialize Rabbi Meir Kahane, perhaps Israel should found yet another political party, to be named Zachor!. Perhaps its leadership would do something tangible in defense of the Jewish State of Israel.

2008-03-30T13:18:00.000-05:00

Putting On The Bris
by: Schvach Yid

One of my favorite topics is up and running, or at least was, in the March 21^st edition of The New York Jewish Week. Yesiree jadies and jents, it’s the topic of Jewish circumcision, better known to us members of the Tribe as Brit Milah.

George Robinson reviews a new (?) documentary on this subject by film maker Eliyahu Unger-Sargon titled, ‘Cut: Slicing Through the Myth of Circumcision’ (sorry, the review is not listed on The New York Jewish Week web site).

Here is my very personal admission concerning this ‘controversial’ subject. I’m circumcised. I should know – I was there when it happened (and not by coincidence) although I don’t remember a thing about the event (in that case perhaps I shouldn’t know!). It’s not that I have to ask about the matter to be certain of the fact; it’s just that I should, and do, know.

My circumcision was not a religious ritual, but medical. If I recall correctly, back then the New York City Department of Health (I’m a native New Yorker) required circumcisions of all newborn males. Despite this fact, my mother informed her obstetrician that she wanted me circumcised, and according to my mother’s account, she (that’s right, a female obstetrician in 1953) answered ‘well, I’m not a rabbi, but I’ll do it’. Voilà!

Thanks to my mother’s acceptance of this important mitzvah, I’ve spent my life to date with the ability to sit at a Pesach seder with a clear conscience.

Have I ever been self-conscious about my circumcision? Not at all! I surely wouldn’t want my you-know-what to look like some wűrst in the display case at Schaller & Weber.

Personally, I love being circumcised. It’s one of many facts of my life that lets me know in no uncertain terms that I’m a Jew – of the male variety. Sorry jadies, but you can’t have one – you have nothing to circumcise (and the Aybischter never commanded bris milah for females).

This brings my spiel to the point of the matter. George Robinson’s review reveals that Unger-Sargon’s flick serves, at least in part, as an apologetic. The various introspective and social/political issues seem to have been covered (I haven’t seen this documentary), but less we forget, we Jews should all be reminded that we circumcise our infant sons, hopefully on the child’s eighth day post-partum, in compliance with HaShem’s mitzvah to do so, and not for reasons of health promotion, politics, social confrontation, marital isolation, or any other ‘pc’ concern.

It’s a part of Judaism – we do it because Gd has commanded us to do it.

And I thank my parents, as well as HaShem, for my medical, as opposed to religious, bris. A bissele wine for an eight day old is okay, but in the matter of circumcision, Betadine beats the pants off saliva, every time.

Recently there have appeared in print several Schreie about circumcision. The first, as I recall, was a book written by a Moslem author who suffered through a Moslem circumcision at the prescribed age of thirteen years (in emulation of Ishmail in the Chumash).

Now two Yiddin have deemed appropriate to jump onto the bris-bitch bandwagon. The second of these, who’s publication pre-dates the first, is Shalom Auslander with his book ‘Foreskin’s Lament’; I haven’t read this ditty, but here’s a website by and for the author: http://www.shalomauslander.com/book_foreskins_lament.php; there’s even a video on this site.

Here’s the URL to a review of the book, complete with a brief bio:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/10/14/RV2QSB9D0.DTL

Auslander just happens to live in Woodstock, NY, situated just off Route 28 out of Kingston (NYS Thruway exit 19). Woodstock is an old childhood summer haunt of mine; back then, it was the hippie hangout of the Northern Catskills.

What can I say? I’m satisfied.

2008-03-23T15:55:00.000-05:00

The World of ‘Jews By Choice’ According to Schvach
by: Schvach Yid

I’ve recently taken up the habit of reading blogs by self-labelled ‘Jews by Choice’. I enjoy their accounts of discovery and self-fulfillment realized through the aegis of religious conversion to Judaism, which they relate through their writings.

First, I want to extend a hearty mazel tov to them all. Secondly, I wish to invite each and every one of them to stop sweating over their decisions to convert to Judaism. Lastly, I encourage these Jews to once and for all accept themselves as Jews. Evidently, some of them don’t; I do!

We Jews come in a great variety of sizes, shapes, complexions, nationalities, races, etc. You get the point. Some of us have succeeded in tracing our Jewish genealogies back many generations. A Simple Jew has posted one such account at http://asimplejew.blogspot.com/2008/01/guest-posting-by-rabbi-shlomo-slatkin.html; it’s a beautiful story told by Rabbi Shlomo Slatkin.

If you’re like me, then the account of one’s Jewish roots can only be traced for four generations or so, yet we are taught by our rabbis that we are Jews by virtue of our matrilineal descent from Sarah. The Kabbalistic account deals with ‘misplaced’ neshamot and their rediscovery. Frankly, I have no idea if my family’s Jewish identity extends back to Sarah, but my ‘Jewishness’ has never been called into question. It could be that my claim as a so-called ‘Jew by birth’ is an unintentional fraud – how can I knowledgably and accurately account for my maternal lineage from a Jewish Biblical origin?

Despite this very real possibility, I have never questioned my Jewish identity; I’m a Jew – the genuine article, and so too I accept converts to Judaism, without proviso.

For the purpose of highlighting our varied forms (I hate using the term ‘diverse’ – it’s become so politically charged, clichéd, and trite), here are some bits from YouTube. Again, the message is clear.

2008-03-16T11:30:00.000-05:00

Some Birthday
by: Schvach Yid

Today is my father’s birthday. He’s 86 years old, and I mean old. He doesn’t know it’s his birthday; in fact, he no longer seems to know anything. Four years ago he suffered a stroke, superimposed on an already evident yet incomplete senility. Then, perhaps a year following his stroke, his caretaker, in a moment of unintended(?) negligence, allowed him to fall, crashing his noggin against the concrete patio. Back he went into the hospital, and upon discharge, was little more than a vegetable.

So my father has suffered three cerebral insults. There’s not much left to him. He sits in a wheelchair clad in a diaper, fully dressed and fully nonfunctional.

My mother feeds him, dessert included. Just put some food in front of his mouth and down it goes. He has a hemiparesis, so he regularly chokes on his food, but so far he’s managed to avoid aspirating the stuff.

The brain department was never my father’s strong point. Oh what the hell, he was always a dumb ass. I know I shouldn’t say such things about one of my parents, but it’s true. He grew up as the pee-on of his family, eclipsed by his older-by-one-year brother, who didn’t amount to a hill of beans but was nevertheless his mommy’s favorite, so my father paid. Regrettably, this family collusion followed him into, and has remained throughout, my father’s adulthood. He never learned how to manage the situation. Learning wasn’t one of his talents.

I shouldn’t eulogize my father – he’s still alive. His birthday is not the occasion for his obituary. This is no time to recite Kaddish, but his brain is dead, or mostly so, so perhaps a Kaddish for my father might be appropriate. He can no longer think, ergo, he isn’t, but thinking was never one of his talents, so just what’s the loss?

He was never a nice guy. He was never a bad person. He was always angry, and always vulgar, specializing in dishing out ridicule and belittlement. I was always ‘you schmuck’, ‘the biggest schmuck in the family’, a ‘schmuck mit zwei Ohren’ (a penis with two ears). My mother was ‘that f*cking woman’. There were lots of insults. Can you say primitive? He no longer can.

Okay, okay, life hit him in the face with a shit pie. He grew up in Germany under the rise of the Nazis. He was marched to the front of one of his classes, as a child, and used as an object lesson on the physical characteristics of a member of a genetically inferior race - after all, he’s Jewish, so link that experience to his family’s lack of savvy in raising their children, and voilá.

When things got too hot in his home town of Bremerhaven his parents sent him off to Berlin to attend a vocational school for carpentry run by Beitar and the Jewish Agency. The goal was to train Jewish German youth for export to British Palestine. During one of their classes the Brown Shirts strolled in and trashed the place, then set it on fire. What a joyous childhood experience.

Off they went to America – by the hairs on their chiny-chin chins. No English. Ah, New York; no school. My father found work with a furrier, pushing ‘Jewish airplanes’ (racks of fur coats) from one building to the next. That’s the way to go through adolescence.

The he was drafted. The Army and the Pacific; Guadalcanal and Guam, as a medic. Well, at least the Army made him an American citizen, but not before he successfully completed basic training – citizenship was conditional. Decades ago I got a peek at the letters he wrote to his parents from the Pacific – in German. I asked him why in German. Simple – at that point he still couldn’t manage much English. His lousy brother, and their lousy cousin, neither of whom was ever nice to my father and who both would gang up and insult him in the presence of the rest of the family – I was there – both got to stay in the US for their Army service.

Isn’t life grand? Well, at least he got out of Germany and away from the Nazis. Good thing we won the war, eh?

So today is Dad’s birthday. Happy birthday Dad, and with whatever remains of your brain, why don’t you tell life to go f*ck itself!

2008-03-09T18:05:00.000-05:00

The Deception of Christian Zionism
by: Schvach Yid

It’s nothing new. President Bush is presumed to be something of a Gospels totter, yet his support for Israel has been lax, to say the very least.

Take ‘the West Bank’, properly termed Judea/Samaria – YESHA. The Moslems refuse to share this Jewish turf with Jews, so too for the Temple Mount. According to the Western (read Christian) world, if the Moslems want Jewish turf, it’s theirs, and we Jews have nothing to say about it.

Of course, the whole argument is couched behind platitudes about human rights (for the Palestinian Arabs, not for Jews), the need for understanding and accommodation (on behalf of Palestinian Arabs, not Jews), the obligation of the ‘well off’ to condescend to and provide for the less fortunate – you know, the standard politically Liberal line for the benefit of Palestinian Arabs at the expense of Jews, as though Israeli Jews are wealthy and Middle East Arab Moslems are poor, and lastly, that great icon of secular Western Jewish existence, education. We are well educated compared to the Palestinian Moslem Arabs, therefore we pay.

At the heart of this conflict over Jewish sovereignty in the Jewish homeland is the conflict that under rides Western religious existence, namely, the assertion that each one of the three Western religions trumps the other two – the ‘true faith’ assertion.

Never mind the fact that Western religions numbers 2 and 3 are both knockoff attempts at emulating and surpassing Judaism. This, of course, will never be admitted by adherents to either of those two other faiths.

No, the admission of a Jewish right to sovereignty in the Holy Land by Christianity would of course negate Christianity’s claim of legitimacy, even if that Christian support of a Jewish State were made to counter the Moslem claim. Islam’s acknowledgement of an inherent Jewish right to the land would likewise serve as an admission by Islam of its own illegitimacy.

The claims of religious efficacy rest entirely on the claim of Gd’s revelation. Each of the three Western religions invokes its scripture in support of this. The Jewish claim to the Land of Israel is based on HaShem’s revelation to us, given in Torah. Acknowledge that, and the rest follows, because Gd’s word is Gd’s word.

The Christian Zionists are well informed about this. So too are the Moslems. The British ‘promise’ of a Homeland for the Jews in the old Mandate of Palestine, and beyond, was, and continues to be, slowly and gradually eroded to virtually nothing. Britain was a Christian nation; its leaders were Christian and understood very well the need to negate the claims of Judaism as a requisite of their own claims of religious legitimacy. So too for the dynamic duo of Bush and Rice. So too will it be for their successors.

The eagerness, or alternatively the complacency, of Israel’s leadership to fall in line with the demands in support of the religious claims of Christianity and Islam serves only to negate Torah. In an apparent paradox, the century-old scam of disguising religion as politics by the Christian world has been met by Israel’s refusal to recognize the identity of the beast. There is no peace on the horizon for Israel, at least not until the Israeli populace finds its brain and uses it.

2008-03-09T13:34:00.000-05:00

I Didn’t Know He’s Jewish, Either
by: Schvach Yid

That’s Bernard Lewis jadies and jents, the famed and very oratory British chochom on the subject of Islam, now an elder gentleman and Professor Emeritus of Princeton University.

I first heard him – a real treat, and I mean it – on an edition of C-SPAN’s Book TV years ago, and I’ve been a fan of his ever since.

I, being a self-professed chochom of sorts, suspected that Prof. Lewis might be Jewish, but I didn’t know. Now, thanks to Ruthie Blum of the on-line edition of The Jerusalem Post, I do. Mazel tov Schvach! Here’s the link: http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1204546415778&pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull

In the C-SPAN interview, the interviewer innocently asked Prof. Lewis which translation of the Koran he uses as his source material. He gave bit of a start and answered, ‘the original Koranic Arabic, of course’ (he didn't add 'you dummy', but it was implied).

On the flip side is our very own Yiddishe mama of meteorology and weather reporting, Stephanie Abrams, of The Weather Channel (if you think I’m a Jewish chauvinist, how right you are!). Recently I’ve taken to watching The Weather Channel, and Ms. Abrams appears to have ramped up her entertainment gig a bit, complete with views of her trousseau and décolletage.

Surely, someone can cue her into derech hatznius, but I’m proud of her anyway.

During one report, she blurted ‘oy vey!’ – emes. Such nachas I get from her, and I don’t even know her; I wonder if The Weather Channel management put words on her afterward. I am sure.

2008-03-08T19:04:00.000-06:00

The Bestiality of Islam
by: Schvach Yid

Thanks to the obsession the various cable news channels have with the current presidential primary race, I didn’t learn about the latest tragedy in J’lem until today, since regrettably I don’t have a computer of my own. I hope they’ll revert to reporting the news, rather than pursuing their habit of turning the current bid for the presidency into a knockoff sports event. Until then, I think I’ll cancel my TV cable subscription.

According to the ‘Protocols of Political Correctness’, there are Moslems, and then there are ‘Islamists’. ‘Islamists’ are supposed to be the extremist minority within the world’s general Moslem population. Baloney! ‘Islamist’ are nothing other than the military wing of the world’s general Moslem population, and like all military forces, they constitute a small percentage of the total population of their society. They don’t have formal uniforms, you may counter? They

don’t indulge in ritual pomp and ceremony, you may protest? Schmonses; they constitute a citizens’ militia, but unlike the Minutemen of the American Revolution (in whose honor a class of America’s ICBM’s are named) the ‘Moslem Citizens’ Militia’ commit murder in the ‘cause’ of Jew-hatred.

This past week, eight Jewish kinder – yeshiva bochurim all, were murdered in cold blood as sacrifices in Islam’s hatred against Jews, Judaism, and the Jewish homeland. These eight Jewish youngsters were all made of ‘The Right Stuff’ – proud Jewish youths who loved their people, Torah, and Israel.

And to what end was this atrocity committed? The arabist throwbacks to T. E. Lawrence’s day might inveigh Arab nationalism. The UN, in its long established convoluted way, would assert ‘humanitarianism and world peace’. The current administration in the US would figure out something – anything – supportive of ‘Palestinian rights’, and Olmert and his crew?

Who can successfully decipher the ways of Olmert and the Israeli Left? I don’t know if that bunch really means what they do in their endless pursuit of capitulation, or if their backs are truly against the wall. Olmert, after all, is not only the Prime Minister, but also a prime assassination target. I imagine that not too much is needed to position a Palestinian Arab assassin to do the dirty deed.

What is clear is that the proud days of Israeli chutzpah, at least in terms of national defense, are over, replaced by luxury high rise condominiums in J’lem and the expulsion of Jews from Judea/Samaria. Ah, the legacy of the Olmert administration. ‘World peace’ might as well be ‘whirled peas’.

By comparison to this past week's tragedy, 'only' seven people were murdered in the Saint Valentine’s Day massacre of 1929:
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Valentine's_Day_Massacre). The ‘Moslem Citizens’ Militia’ has been out-doing Al Capone for a very long time – just count the Jewish corpses.

And here, courtesy of A Simple Jew is a lesson to be learned from Gemara, at:
http://asimplejew.blogspot.com/2008/03/sderot-tel-aviv-lesson-from-gemara.html

photo credits: top-Arutz Sheva; bottom-Wikipedia

2008-03-02T12:45:00.000-06:00

A Great Find Has Been Found

by: Schvach Yid

At the Atlas Shrugs blog site at: http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2008/02/jerusalem-is-je.html

According to Pamela Geller, author and founder of the Atlas Shrugs blog site, this past Thursday Israeli archeologists announced the unearthing of a 10 centuries-old artifact that proves the Hebrew biblical claim over ancient Jerusalem.

An ancient seal bearing an archaic Hebrew inscription dating back to the 8th century BCE has been uncovered in an archeological excavation in Jerusalem's City of David, the Israel Antiquities Authority announced Thursday.

Geller then provides a list of responses to offer any individual who might take issue with our rightful Jewish claims over Jerusalem.

Perhaps to counter our assertion, the Waqf of Jerusalem would like to provide some archeological evidence that Islam’s prophet ascended to heaven from the Temple Mount.

2008-02-24T15:05:00.000-06:00

Haveil Havalim #155

is up and running at http://wwwjackbenimble.blogspot.com/thanks to Jack of the Random Thoughts blog site (formerly known as Jack Be Nimble, Jack’s Shack, Talk To Jack Now); Jack has been very busy and has done an exemplary job of organizing and running this Jewish blog carnival. Jack gets help - others do host Haveil Havalim (Hebrew for ‘Vanity of Vanities’ of Kohelet/Ecclesiastes fame), but Jack is primary. So chaptzem read!

2008-02-24T14:17:00.000-06:00

What’s in a Name?
by: Schvach Yid

Catholic Israel? Huh? I’ve searched for the paper in which this bit of Conservative Movement philosophy was first introduced and espoused in 1896(?) by one of the founding machers of the Conservative Movement, Solomon Schechter, but alas, my effort has been fruitless, except for a brief (I assume) excerpt found in Marshall Sklare’s An American Religious Movement, Conservative Judaism (1985, University Press of America, Inc.). So if anyone who reads this can provide me with a link to the on-line text, thanks in advance.

The concept of Catholic Israel has subsequently been re-defined by Robert Gordis, but here’s the bit from Schechter, via Sklare:
It is not the mere revealed Bible that is of first importance to the Jew, but the Bible as it repeats itself in history, in other words, as it is interpreted by Tradition…Since then the interpretation of Scripture or the Secondary Meaning is mainly a product of changing historical influences, it follows that the center of authority is actually removed from the Bible and placed in some living body, which, by reason of its being in touch with the ideal aspirations and the religious needs of the age, is best able to determine the nature of the Secondary Meaning. This living body, however, is not represented by any section of the nation, or any corporate priesthood…but by the collective conscience of Catholic Israel as embodied in the Universal Synagogue

Schechter continues: Another consequence of this conception of Tradition is that it is neither Scripture nor primitive Judaism, but general custom which forms the real rule of practice…Liberty was always given to the great teachers of every generation to make modifications and innovations in harmony with the spirit of existing institutions…The norm as well as the sanction of Judaism is the practice actually in vogue. Its consecration is the consecration of general use – or, in other words, of Catholic Israel.

Voguish Judaism? Do as you please Judaism? What’s catholic about that? Remember, the etymology of catholic derives from the Greek katholikos, meaning universal or general, but those who conceived this contentious title had to have had something else in mind, I assume, especially given that the founding raison d’être of the Conservative Movement was in response to another free-minded version of Judaism, Reform Judaism, while simultaneously striving to remain distinct from Jewish Orthodoxy. It comes across as an attempt at niche cutting.

I have to assume that this piece of nouveau Jewish philosophy was an in-your-face challenge to the Roman Catholic Church, but what on earth for? And so I continue to shrug my shoulders at the Conservative Movement. I still think it’s a bad idea in search of a very elusive justification. It’s not that the Movement needs one, but its leadership evidently thinks one is required.

The recruitment of the term ‘catholic’ is probably more a function of the ‘philosopher’s’ opinion of the Roman Catholic Church and his attempt to analogize the masses of Jews with the mass of followers of the Roman Catholic Church, not to mention an attempt at emulation. This, too, is my biased assumption.

Judaism is Judaism, and those who attempt innovations to the ‘original’ are bound to screw up. That’s another of my highly biased opinions. Here’s another one: I think philosophy makes a poor profession.

Let’s not forget that the Conservative Movement, like the Reform Movement, was invented by immigrants who undoubtedly wanted to fit into their new home (my parents and grandparents, all immigrants, certainly did), not to mention their descendants, some of whom found/find the sights and sounds of traditional Judaism to only serve as sources of embarrassment.

In an opinion piece published in the January 4^th edition of The New York Jewish Week (I have to write about this paper; after all, I subscribe to it), Rabbi Barry Gelman has espoused his own bit of philosophy – that the Orthodox community, in light of its successes in recruiting Jews back into the Orthodox fold, can “reshape the way it is perceived if it becomes more engaged and relevant by broadening its conversation”. He wants Modern Orthodoxy to speak to all Jews “by speaking out on the major cultural and ethical issues of the day”; you know, Darfur, global warming, immigration.

Sound familiar? It’s the Conservative Movement all over again; Conservative Judaism, The Sequel. By extension, the MOs should go ‘catholic’ according to Gelman (no, he doesn't use that term). In other words, he wants to emulate the emulators. Isn’t he informed about the demographics of the Conservative and Reform Movements, and he want to hop onto their sinking ship?

I think he’s right about leniency verses stringency in the everyday adherence to Halacha, but different shows attract different audiences. I doubt that those who eschew Jewish religious observance will go MO if these changes are implemented, while the current MOs will likely find other Orthodox ‘venues’ to join if Rabbi Gelman’s suggestions are adopted.

Worst of all, organizational fealty is raising its ugly head in this construct of a new Orthodox Judaism, and this really recapitulates the error of the Conservative Movement. It is organizational allegiance which, I think, most overtly identifies the Roman Catholic Church. I believe Schechter’s use of the term ‘catholic’ was employed to stress the intended organizational nature of the Conservative Movement that, like the Roman Catholic Church, would demand fealty from its members. I hope the MOs don’t follow this same path.