Do Israelis really live longer?

According to this Jerusalem Post article they do. Israeli men live on average to almost 80, while Israeli women live to an average of more than 83, they ecstatically announce.

One thing that I aways wonder about when such statistics are compared with world statistics, is whether the phenomenon of "Aliyah" (immigration to Israel in comparitively large numbers compared with other countries) doesn't skew the figures in Israel's favour?

You see Israel has a relatively high percentage of immigrants who move to the country in middle - or even old - age. Obviously people who die young or are too sick to move don't come - so doesn't that skew the figures?

I posted a message to this effect on the JP site, but it was not "chosen for publication". Seems a sensible enough observation to me. Am I missing something here? Bertrand's Box Paradox? Comments anyone?

"Israel is a rogue state"

"This house believes that Israel is a rogue state" was the motion in a debate at the hallowed Cambridge Union on 21 October, that has become famous for all the wrong reasons.

The debate was supposed to consist of three speakers for and three against the motion. That is, before it was cleverly hijacked in the best English debating tradition.

Lauren Booth - the high-profile step-sister-in-law of Tony Blair, who famously converted to Islam and described the Gaza Strip as "the largest concentration camp in the world today" - proposed the motion. So far so good. The trouble started with the third speaker for the motion, a 19-year-old Canadian student called Gabriel Latner.

As Latner rose to make his speech in favour of the motion, he turned to Booth (his supposed colleague) and surprised her by saying "I'm going to nail you to the f*cking wall up there" - and then proceeded to do just that, with a brilliant speech that turned the motion on its head.

Apparently, up until he started speaking, no-one had realised that he intended to speak FOR Israel.

"I will not be arguing that Israel is ‘bad’... I will only be arguing that Israel is ‘rogue’."

The content of his speech deserves to be read in full, and you can do that by clicking here. Basically, he began by examining the definition of the word "rogue" in the sense of "anomolous" and "other", and then pointed out several ways in which Israel is indeed these things - to its credit.

For example, Israel's treatment of the Darfur refugees is unusual - therefore rogueish - compared with that of other countries:

The IDF sends out soldiers and medics to patrol the Egyptian border. They are sent looking for refugees attempting to cross into Israel. Not to send them back into Egypt, but to save them from dehydration, heat exhaustion, and Egyptian bullets. Compare that to the US’s reaction to illegal immigration across their border with Mexico...

"Consider for a moment," he said, pointing to Ran Guidor, a representative of the Israeli Ambassador, and one of the three speakers opposing the motion:

The Israeli government has signed off to allow one of their senior diplomatic representatives to participate in a debate on their very legitimacy. That’s remarkable. Do you think for a minute, that any other country would do the same?

If the Yale University Debating Society were to have a debate where the motion was ‘This house believes Britain is a racist, totalitarian state that has done irrevocable harm to the peoples of the world’, that Britain would allow any of its officials to participate? No. Would China participate in a debate about the status of Taiwan? Never. And there is no chance in hell that an American government official would ever be permitted to argue in a debate concerning its treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.

But Israel has sent Mr Ran Gidor to argue tonight against [a 'journalist' come reality TV star, and myself,] a 19 year old law student who is entirely unqualified to speak on the issue at hand.

Incredibly (given the anti-Israel climate in British academia generally), the motion (in its Boothian sense) was defeated; but had it passed that might have been an even greater victory for Latner, with nobody being quite sure in what sense it had been passed!

...and then unfortunately, there was the business of that rather unsavoury comment to be dealt with - not quite cricket, eh, what? "But surely," I hear you objecting, "What is an F-word between adults in 2010?"

Well, amazing as it may seem, Booth complained (I'm sure it was not sour grapes but genuine indignation at the F word) and Latner was duly expelled from the Cambridge Union for life [!!!] for swearing at a lady (and declining to apologise).

But apart from that unfortunate lapse in clear thinking, I say "Jolly good show Latner - eh, what?"

Iranian athlete's career ended for standing on same podium as Israeli

What an amazing and ironic sight: the Israeli flag flanked by Germany and Iran at the World Masters Weightlifting Championship in Poland last month. Even more amazing and ironic was the sight of the three athletes together on the podium.

The Iranian silver-medalist declined the proffered hand of the Israeli gold with a dismissive wave, and wore "unnofficial" dress to lessen the perceived insult to his country's infamous pride. Even the announcer helped him by refraining from announcing the gold medalist's country - making Israel the *only* country not to be mentioned! But it was not enough for Iran.

It must be said to his credit that he remained respectfully standing for the Israeli national anthem - although his head hung conspicuously and he fled the podium immediately it was over.
Given the culture of pride and hate he comes from, it must've been a gruelling experience. And apparently it has cost him his career.

Sad. See the video for yourself here:

‘Sinner’ singer given 39 lashes by rabbis [not]

‘Sinner’ singer given 39 lashes by rabbis was the sensational headline that appeared in a Jerusalem Post article three days ago, along with the following report:

A singer who performed in front of a “mixed audience” of men and women was lashed 39 times to make him “repent,” after a ruling by a self-described rabbinic court on Wednesday.

Yechiel [the singer], who said, “I accept upon myself the lashing for my sins,” was ordered to stand by a wooden poll with his head facing north (“from whence the evil inclination comes”), his hands tied with a azure-colored rope (“a symbol of mercy”), and served his “sentence.”

Anyone cognisant of Jewish law even to a small extent would realise immediately that the facts have been distorted, but this did not deter an international newspaper from publishing such misleading information to the non-religious and non-Jewish world.

The story was gleefully picked up in a Ynet News article today, and this time the existence of a video clip of the flogging was mentioned - though without providing a link so that readers could see and judge for themselves.

Well I think you should see the clip. Here it is:



The actual "flogging" occurs at 5:26 and you can see it reflected in the glass of the rabbi's bookcase. Don't worry, this is not BSM and you can certainly watch it with your kids.

What's happening here is that a singer who performed to a mixed audience became a possibly over-zealous "ba'al teshuva", repented his actions, and asked these rabbis for some sort of penance.

The penance is symbolic, and the theatrical - but totally painless - flogging is a well known custom in several Jewish communities - both Ashkenazi and Sephardi. In fact where I live, in southern Israel, this kind of "symbolic flogging" with this kind of strap is routinely performed before immersion in the mikva on the Eve of Yom Kippur, by members of the local Moroccan and Tunisian communities. People actually queue up for it.

You are free to dislike the custom, and you are certainly free to disagree with the rabbis' decision to record and broadcast the proceedings (I think it was insane), but you cannot deny the fact that this "flogging" was not in any way comparable to the floggings and stonings carried out in parts of the Muslim world to which it is deliberately being compared.

Now you can rest assured that the journalists who wrote both articles saw the video and were well aware of the facts. Yet both articles deliberately give the reader the impression that a "real" flogging took place - and you need only read the semi-hysterical, knee-jerk readers' comments on both pages to see that their end was achieved.

My question is: How did two Israeli newspapers of international standing get away with such flagrantly false and misleading reportage?

Get ready for a (Meteor) Shower!!

According to NASA, stargazers may this Thursday night (12 August 2010) see one of the most spectacular views of a meteor shower in recent memory.

The Perseids meteor shower is due to peak late Thursday night, and since the new moon will have set, there's hope of seeing lots of "shooting stars".

It's called the "Perseids" because they appear to stream in from the direction of the constellation of Perseus but in fact they can appear in any part of the sky, coming from that direction. The shower could produce a meteor or more per minute at its peak, some of them producing ragged 'smoke' trails which linger a while.

If you can, get to a place out of town with less street lighting (urban street lights brighten the sky and dim those shooting stars).

Look towards the North East for the best chance of seeing them (but they can appear in any part of the sky). If you happen to know the straggly constellation Perseus then that's the one to look for. It's near the 'W' shaped constellation Cassiopeia. Or if you happen to know where the Andromeda galaxy is it's in that general area as well. If all you can manage is the Plough then it's a wee bit beneath the handle.

In Israel the ideal place to go is the crater at Mitzpe Ramon, but hopefully this shower will yield shooting stars bright enough to be seen in urban areas too.

Biblical manna today?

The New York Times says Biblical manna is being rediscovered by modern gastronomes.

"...as miraculous as its biblical apparition may seem, manna is real and some chefs have been cooking with it. The dozens of varieties of what are called mannas have two things in common. They are sweet and, as in the Bible, they appear as if delivered by providence, without cultivation.

"Most of this manna is either dried plant sap extruded from tiny holes chewed out by almost invisible bugs, or a honeydew excreted by bugs that eat the sap. Rarer are the mannas not from sap, including Trehala manna, the sweet-tasting cocoon of the Larinus maculates beetle from Turkey; and manna-lichen (Lecanora esculenta), which occasionally dries up and blows around to form semisweet clouds out of which manna settles into drifts from western Greece to the central Asian steppe.

"Mannas form best in extremely dry climates — like the Middle East’s — where sap oozes at night and dries up in the morning. The favored theory on what the Israelites called manna is the sap of a tamarisk tree."

The idea is not as revolutionary as it first sounds. Rabbi Yosef Hayim of Baghdad mentions a type of food named manna (the blessing for which he says is "shehakol" since it does not grow on a tree or from the ground) in his famous work "Ben Ish Hai" (Year One, Matot, para 3). However, he does not comment of how - if at all - it may be connected with the biblical food.

Israeli judge unfamiliar with word "shmooze"

The article the heading links to is about Olmert and the case in question is newsworthy enough in itself. There just seemed to me to be something chilling about this secular, shaven-headed Israeli judge saying the following words:

Turning to Korb, he added, “Tell me one fact that she knows. I have learned one thing from her testimony, the word ‘schmooze.’”

Could his honour really have been so isolated from the Jewish hoi-poloi his entire life as to have never heard the word "schmooze" before?

Christian Aid made bogus Israel sex abuse claim

From the Jewish Chronicle



Christian Aid has apologised “unreservedly” for falsely claiming that Israeli settlers had sexually abused Palestinian children in Hebron.

The allegations came after Miranda Pinch, a social worker from Winchester, had travelled to the West Bank town in January to “monitor human rights abuses” as part of an accompaniment programme part-funded by the charity. The 59-year-old returned from the trip and reported to Christian Aid that a Palestinian headmistress had made allegations of verbal abuse. [So we're talking of second-hand allegations of verbal abuse.]

But when promoting Ms Pinch’s trip, Christian Aid said the headmistress had alleged that “some of the children had been sexually abused on their way home” by Israeli settlers.

Asked how the charity had come to make such an extreme and false claim, Ms Pinch said the organisation had apparently “lost their notes” and that she had clearly explained that she was talking only of verbal abuse.

Professor Gerald Steinberg, president of NGO Monitor, attacked Christian Aid, saying the claims were part of a trend of demonising Israel.

“This is not an isolated incident but part of a series of events. Christian Aid has allowed itself to be used as a channel for some very crude anti-Israel propaganda.

“When it happens more than once then there is something more fundamental that Christian Aid needs to sort out. Almost any claim is now believed or promoted by NGOs without anybody checking the details.

“It’s in the culture at Christian Aid and they need an intense house-cleaning to end it. It’s an escalating and worrying situation.”

In a statement, Christian Aid admitted it should have described the alleged incidents as having involved “verbal sexual harassment”.

“We unreservedly apologise for misreporting an interview with Miranda Pinch, an English social worker who travelled to the West Bank with ecumenical accompaniers whom we support.

“Verbal sexual harassment is clearly different from sexual abuse and we apologise for the inaccurate representation of what Ms Pinch said.”

In the late seventies my father's advertising agency (proudly named Cohen and Company), was hired by Christian Aid, and the memory of that period has pleasant associations for us. My Dad came up with some great double-entendre slogans for their African campaign, like "The real share issue" (very topical at the time), "More power to their... elbow", and "Flour power".

It's sad to see them politicized.

Queen sports Star of David brooch

In the well choreographed world in which Her Majesty lives and works, wearing a brooch that looks conspicuously like a Star of David (or a Jude patch in diamonds) when welcoming her new Prime Minister, cannot be inadvertent. What might it mean?

I've always been curious about her attitude to Israel. Though speculation is rife about why she's never visited, I'm inclined to think that's more due to the Foreign Office. I believe that in her own English way she's a friend both of the Jews and of Israel, and that her warmth when she awarded Israel's president Shimon Peres recently, was palpable and genuine.

Could the brooch be a subtle warning to Cameron to keep Clegg's hands off Israel?

Unlikely I suppose, but isn't it odd?

Triple crown meets Shmuley's "triple two"

In Shmuley Boteach's laters JP article he describes meeting the pope and in a few well-chosen sound bytes suggesting they collaborate on "Turning Friday Night into Family Night with two hours of uninterrupted time that parents give their kids, inviting two guests, and discussing two important subjects." Of course it's an oversimplification, but what a good place to start!

The interesting image is from the courtyard of the Hotel de Sully in Paris, though I have no idea where they got it from, or how old it might be. I Photoshopped two partial images together to get this complete view.

Cause for concern

Lately, when surfing certain English-language Israeli sites (um, the Jerusalem Post to be precise), I've been getting more and adverts for red strings, kiddush cups with the names of holy rivers engraved on their insides, amulets of various shapes, and the above one (details and link edited out, of course) guaranteeing blessings from above if only I will buy a letter in a sefer torah. I used to laugh at this sort of thing, but I'm now getting more and more concerned by it, as hocus-pocus Judaism seems to have hijacked the more common-sense (Protestant?) version to which I subscribe.

I'm not sure which possibility worries me more:

• That the people doing this are cynically exploiting the gullibility of others in order to earn a buck, or
• That they actually believe in these things themselves

but what concerns me most is that ordinary religious Jews - not to mention rabbinical authorities - seem to be taking this sustained assault on our intelligence lying down.

Remember Perek Shira which suddenly materialized out of nowhere a few years back and has already run into scores of editions? It's a mystery to me why the poetry of the book of Psalms, good enough for 2,000 years, should suddenly in our times be superceded by something so prosaic. I can't help wondering if it was all just a ploy to create new sales (after all, we already have a copy of the book of Psalms, don't we?, and writing something original - whether on the Psalms or on anything else - is much harder than simply reprinting an old text).

Then there's the classified ad offering the "service" of someone praying for you for 40 consecutive days at the Western Wall - as if the prayers of the sufferer for himself are no longer as important as what happens to his charity dollar.

A few months ago it was "suddenly discovered" that a certain 12 minutes on the ninth day of the ninth month of the ninth year were auspicious for prayer. (Actually the source book from which this was gleaned was refering to the ninth year in the Jubilee cycle - something we do not have nowadays anyway.) We were invited to send in our requests, and assured that a veritable cabal of rabbis would pray for us at the graves of the holy during those precious moments. "Forget praying for yourself" - seems to be the message - "your prayers are worthless. Just get the right rabbi on your side, praying for you in the right place at the right time". Isn't that a cop out?

And then there's Rabbi David Batzri and his dybuks.

The rabbi entered the realm of "exorcism as entertainment" in 1999 with the now famous woman from Dimona who spoke with a man's voice. You can see that performance, in ten episodes, here. The woman has since claimed that she faked it.

Now, ten years later, Rabbi Batzri has found another dybuk. He tried to exorcise it over Skype (!!!) - video-ed of course - and then brought the unfortunate young man from Brazil to Israel. The street outside Batzri's yeshiva was thronging with crowds of thousands as he attempted the impossible - and failed. Even the son of the famous Rabbi Moshe Sternbuch, the Av Bet Din of the Eida Chareidis, gave it credence by his presence - allegedly to put a cherem on the dybuk, on behalf of the Batatz, to stop it harming anyone.

Although Vos Is Neias reports that:

Rabbi Moshe Sternbuch... has publicly stated the case of the dybbuk supposedly possessing the body of a Brazilian avreich in Jerusalem is merely a psychiatric problem requiring medical attention.

and that when asked why his (middle-aged) son attended he said:

He just went to watch... to enjoy it. What can I do about it?

Still, it's a shame he waited until after the unsuccessful exorcism before making this announcement.

Whatever the explanations, I don't think all this helps the cause of Torah Judaism.

Technology to amaze...

A tip of the hat to Mirabilis for this amazing link, to a clip which gives us an idea how little most of us grasp the implications of digital technology.

I particularly like the "Harry Potter"-type newspaper at 7:39 in the first clip.

2009 exits with a bang

Here in Netivot, Israel, 2009 exited with a bang as our neighbours down the road randomly fired two Grad rockets at our small city (of some 27,000 inhabitants), at around 10pm. Many people here were kindof waiting for some sort of New Year's greeting from that direction, as it's exactly a year since their last big spree. Thankfully, no-one was hurt.

A couple of hours later - at midnight - there was a less threatening kind of explosion, as the sky was lit by fireworks celebrating the entrance of a new year. But I know the firework display was limited because of the unnerving effect the sound has on many people here.

Obviously the cartoon below is a statement of Israel's dilemma not a serious suggestion for the solution.

To the perpetrators of the rocket attack on innocent civilians, and their ilk - and to the hundreds of hate-infested demonstrators who could think of no better way to celebrate the end of 2009 than by gathering at the Erez border checkpoint chanting "Katyushas on Ma'alot, Kassams on Sderot!" - what better New Year wish can I give you than all you wish me?

For the rest of us, may 2010 be a year of peace and fulfilment.