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.

The fresh face of a panty-bomber

So now it's official. You can blow a hole in a plane with a six inch sachet of PETN powder concealed in your Y-fronts. If you thought airport security was already as inconvenient as it could get, think again.

Then take a second look at that fresh, innocent face. Who would believe it of him? We live in the days of the beautiful murderer.

Beautiful murderers

We live in the days
Of the beautiful murderer
See his face
Looking at you from the front pages
Of newspapers
The bloom of his mother’s tenderness
Not yet left the hair of his head
Or his cheeks, lips and eyes –
God has given him
The allure of his sex
But inside that head
Sits his own wild god
Who teaches him to kill
At even a small provocation –
And so this beautiful murderer
Whips out his blade of steel
And breaks our hearts

From Chosen People and other poems by David Haskell Cohen

To free or not to free?

Cardboard cut-outs of captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit stand outside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office in Jerusalem December 21, 2009, during a protest calling for Shalit's release.

Our hearts say "pay the terrible price and free an innocent Jew"; our minds - and the Talmud - warn us that capitulating to evil tends to strengthen it.

What - oh what - is the right thing to do?

Impossible not to be impressed...

(Tony Gentile/AFP)

...by this beautiful image of Pope Benedict XVI addressing his cardinals in the Clementine Hall of the Vatican. There's no denying the fact that the Roman Catholic Church does things in style.

The Pope condemned the Holocaust as being inspired by "the hatred of a blind ideology", a mere two days after declaring the controversial wartime Pope Pius XII "venerable", in preparation for his beatification and eventual sainthood.

Evidently His Holiness, not unlike the like the rest of us in other ways and on various levels, is grappling with the subjectivity of the political human condition, where one has to try to please everyone, and the democratic human condition, where almost anything becomes acceptable if only you look at it from the right angle.

The Times has a good summary of the problem here.

Queen boards passenger train incognito

Apparently it's a regular occurrence. She simply made her way down Platform 11 and boarded the 10.45 from King’s Cross, getting off at King’s Lynn, where she changed trains for Norfolk. And the whole time she was accompanied by just a single security officer. Amazingly, this has been her chosen mode of Christmas travel to Norfolk for a few years now, though this was the first year that the press were allowed to record the event.

Isn't it positively thrilling?

Though as for "incognito", who in Britain apart from HRH wears headscarves tied down over their ears any more, except perhaps a couple of dowager duchesses and a woman Knightsbridge?

Titus' Arch Re-enacted?

In this saddening footage from Moldova, Orthodox Christians are seen solemnly chanting as they remove and desecrate a Jewish menorah, in a scene that is eerily reminiscent of the famous scene of the sacking of Jerusalem on Titus' Arch.

British Foreign Office vetos Royal Israel visit

An eminent British historian - Andrew Roberts - has assailed his country's policy towards Israel, questioning why Queen Elizabeth II has visited a host of despotic regimes but has never made an official visit to the Holy Land. Speaking at the Anglo-Israel Association dinner in central London last week, Roberts suggested that the Foreign Office had a de facto ban on royal visits to Israel.

"The true reason of course, is that the FO [Foreign Office] has a ban on official royal visits to Israel, which is even more powerful for its being unwritten and unacknowledged," he said. "As an act of delegitimization of Israel, this effective boycott is quite as serious as other similar acts, such as the academic boycott, and is the direct fault of the FO Arabists."

"It is... no coincidence that although the Queen has made over 250 official overseas visits to 129 different countries during her reign, neither she nor one single member of the British royal family has ever been to Israel on an official visit."

Although it might be true that many other countries have not had an official visit, Roberts said, the FO has somehow managed to find the time over the years to send the queen on state visits to Libya, Iran, Sudan, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Jordan and Turkey. So it can't have been that she wasn't in the area.

Catholic-Jewish crisis over

In a letter to the German Episcopate, released Thursday, Pope Benedict admitted his error in the case of Holocaust-denying Bishop Richard Williamson, whose excommunication from the Catholic Church was lifted last December. He stated clearly that a "mishap" had taken place due to the insufficient study of information taken from the Internet.

After a meeting with the pope, Haifa Chief Rabbi She'ar-Yashuv Cohen, who headed a delegation there last week stated: "This was not just another meeting. This was a special experience, a turning point, the end of a crisis. We could not have expected a warmer reception."

A positive result, it would seem, of the end of papal infallibility.

Classical music in Israel

My friend Lloyd Masel noticed that despite the wealth of classical music in Israel, accessability of information - especially for English speakers - is severely limited. I myself have often been frustrated to hear about a performance I would have loved to attend only when it was too late to order tickets, or upon reading a review the day after! The essential difference between us is that Lloyd did something about it!

Lloyd started the Living in Harmony website, which lists performances of classical music in Israel months in advance, allowing you to see the date coming and book it in your calendar.

See the full Ha'aretz write-up here.

Listen to a radio interview with Lloyd here.

In praise of latkes

Potato latkes are for me intrinsic to Hanukkah, yet here in Israel does one see latkes? No! Just doughnuts, doughnuts, doughnuts.

This is just a small example of the stylization and standardization of Jewish observance that Israel has engendered in so many areas. The delicious, savoury, once-loved latke has been ousted in favour of the far less healthy doughnut, that apparently appeals more to the notoriously sweet Israeli tooth. (Did you know that the Coca-Cola Company make a sweeter Coke in Israel?)

"Why has this been allowed to happen?", asks Barry Newman in his Jerusalem Post article, here.

Could it have originated, as he suggests, in a bolshevik conspiracy to keep women out of their kitchens and in the fields - dependent on bakeries (and the workers) for their household treats?

A sobering thought.

For whom the bell tolls...

The family of an 84-year-old Orthodox Jew who is on life support says his condition has improved substantially after hospital doctors unsuccessfully tried to pull the plug on him over two months ago on the basis that there was no hope for recovery.

Miriam Geller says that her father, Sam Golubchuck - who is unwittingly at the center of a precedent-setting court case - is now "being weaned off life-support," and "is awake and holding our hands."

I first saw the story a month ago in a Jerusalem Post article. Today in an article in Haaretz we learn that, though he may not be out of the woods yet, he has further recovered:

Golubchuck is alive today only because his family was successful in getting an emergency ex parte injunction (without notifying the hospital) from Justice Perry Schulman that prevented the doctors from removing him from life support, a move that would have violated the family's wishes and religious beliefs.

May the Almighty grant him a complete recovery.

"No man is an island, entire of itself;
every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less,
as well as if a promontory were,
as well as if a manor of thy friend's
or of thine own were:
any man's death diminishes me,
because I am involved in mankind,
and therefore never send to know
for whom the bells tolls;
it tolls for thee."

John Donne

Jewish breakdancing

This could only be a Chabad simcha. Wish I could have been there!

Haaretz editor begs for Israel to be raped

On the eve of the Bush-Rice visit to Israel the editor-in-chief of Haaretz has admitted to telling US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that Israel "wants to be raped" into a settlement.

The totally inappropiate remark was made at a dinner at the home of US Ambassador Richard Jones, where Rice met with an assemblage of Israels famous, self-appointed "elites." According to The Jewish Week, Ha'aretz's David Landau implored Rice to intervene, asserting that the Israeli government wanted 'to be raped.' He later added that the opportunity to tell her this was for him a 'wet dream come true'.

Unfortunately, as Caroline Glick has observed in The Jerusalem Post, the rape of Israel is in fact happening, egged on by the likes of Landau and the current corrupt leadership of the state of Israel. (An interesting blog comment can be seen here.)

With his totally inappropriate and unacceptable metaphor, Landau essentially admitted that the majority of citizens in Israel will never agree to concessions and withdrawals of the kind he fantasizes about. He is therefore desperate for the United States to impose them by force.

In other words, he is not saying "rape me", but rather "rape them".

Latke flavoured soda?

Once again the Americans have it. Jones Soda of Seattle are making the following specialty flavours in honour of Hanukkah: Latke soda, Applesauce soda, Jelly Doughnut soda and Chocolate Coins soda. ("You bet they're kosher!")

And if that makes you feel a little queasy, the parallel Christmas pack includes Ham soda and - wait for it - Christmas Tree flavour soda. Now I wonder what that would taste like?

As Jones point out, they have even thought of the slightly mixed-up "Christmukah" folks since the entire Christmas pack - including the Ham soda - is kosher.

Merry Hanukkah!

Chinese Organ Harvesting

Chinese TV airs Elyashiv's opposition to organ harvesting (JP)

A Chinese-language international TV station recently broadcast a news item on Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv's adamant prohibition of Jews deriving any benefit from Chinese organ harvesting, even in life-threatening situations, the Jerusalem Post reports.



Rabbi Elyashiv, one of the most respected halachic authorities alive, ruled recently that it is forbidden to use organs harvested from members of the Falun Gong, a spiritual movement that is being persecuted by the Chinese Communist regime.

"It is a desecration of God's name to use organs taken from political prisoners. Even in life-threatening cases it is forbidden to receive treatment, especially the chosen people, the Jewish people, who are commanded 'do not murder.' They must not travel to China to get an organ transplant."

The broadcasting of this unequivocal Jewish ruling on organ trafficking constitutes a great Kiddush Hashem.

No Pork Bangers for England's Soccer Stars

A typical wholesome English breakfast of fried bangers, eggs, bacon, tomatoes and baked beans on toast. [Not for me thanks, it's not kosher, but it does look delicious! ]

In a slightly tongue-in-cheek article entitled "England's soccer stars swallow hotel's pork ban" the Jerusalem Post revealed that when the English Football Association booked 80 rooms at the five-star Dan Accadia Hotel in Herzilya for the upcoming Euro 2008 qualifying match between Israel and England, it accepted without a murmer the hotel's dietary restrictions, which ban the cooking of pork - or milk and meat together - in the hotel's kosher kitchens.

There was perhaps something of a quid pro quo here, since the FA had itself sent a 13-page list of requirements to the hotel that are "standard practice" for the English national soccer team on tour. (The FA official who spoke to Post would not discuss details of their requirements, but said they include removing mini-bars and restricting room service to all rooms reserved for the team.)

"The dietary restrictions will not cause any problem for the team," said an FA official. "We are satisfied that we will have an enjoyable time in Israel, and we are looking forward to our visit."

However, it appears that the Israel Football Association (IFA), is not happy with the arrangement (though what it has to do with them I fail to see). According to a source at the IFA, the local soccer federation - which has used various Dan Hotels to house players and officials for many years - has decided it will no longer do business with Dan Hotels because of this issue!

It would seem that while our English visitors can accept and respect Jewish customs, our own brethren here in Israel feel obligated to bash what is sacred to their own religion. Would the IFA demand pork - or alcohol - in a muslim country I wonder? Shame.