Laser-etched Spock matzah (Klingon heksher)

Mideast mayhem giving you an appetite? Go snack on this.

"For the laser geeks out there, 100 power / 60% speed (on a 35W CO2 laser)."

And, for all you "covenentally-challenged" readers out there, here's another load for your storehouse of useless knowledge (Jews already know this, genetically):

In his autobiography I Am Not Spock, Nimoy wrote that he based it on the Priestly Blessing performed by Jewish Kohanim with both hands, thumb to thumb in this same position, representing the Hebrew letter Shin (ש), which has three upward strokes similar to the position of the thumb and fingers in the salute. The letter Shin here stands for Shaddai, meaning "Almighty (God)", and has a special significance in Judaism. Nimoy wrote that when he was a child, his grandfather took him to an Orthodox synagogue. There he saw the blessing performed, and was very impressed by it.

"The accompanying spoken blessing, Live long and prosper... is similar to the Hebrew greeting, "Shalom aleichem" (peace be upon you) and its reply, "Aleichem shalom" (upon you be peace)."

Iran & the Winds of War

Joshua Muravchik, in a powerfully written Wall Street Journal op-ed, believes that "Iran is making a mistake that may lead the Middle East into a broader conflict."

"Consider the pell-mell events of recent weeks. Iran imprisons four Americans on absurd charges only weeks after seizing 15 British sailors on the high seas. Iran's Revolutionary Guard is caught delivering weapons to the Taliban and explosives to Iraqi terrorists. A car bomb in Lebanon is used to assassinate parliament member Walid Eido, killing nine others and wounding 11 more.

"At the same time, Fatah al-Islam, a shady group linked to Syria, launches an attack on the Lebanese army from within a Palestinian refugee area, beheading several soldiers. Tehran trumpets further progress on nuclear enrichment as President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad repeats his call for annihilating Israel, crowing that "the countdown to the destruction of this regime has begun." Hamas seizes control militarily in Gaza. Katyusha rockets are launched from Lebanon into northern Israel for the first time since the end of last summer's Israel-Hezbollah war."

"The apparent meaning of all of this pointless provocation and bullying is that the axis of radicals--Iran, Syria, Hamas and Hezbollah--is feeling its oats. In part its aim is to intimidate the rest of us, in part it is merely enjoying flexing its muscles. It believes that its side has defeated America in Iraq, and Israel in Gaza and Lebanon. Mr. Ahmadinejad recently claimed that the West has already begun to "surrender," and he gloated that " final victory . . . is near." It is this bravado that bodes war."

Important reading.

Israeli - Palestinian prisoner swap: video debate

Worth watching:

Society

Naomi Hazan, former Knesset member and Professor of Political Science and a well known human rights advocate and Frimet Roth, whose daughter Malki was murdered in the suicide bomb attack in Jerusalem's Sbarro cafe in August 2001, discuss the rights and wrongs of the just-decided move by the Israel government.

IDF soldiers Gilad Schalit, Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev were abducted by terrorists one year ago. Eight Israeli soldiers are kidnapped or missing in action.

More posts on this issue here and here.

Israeli medical marvel: bloodstream-sized robot

Incredible:

"Israeli scientists have actually created the imaginary technology depicted by the 1966 science fiction movie Fantastic Voyage, in which a submarine is reduced to microscopic size, injected into the bloodstream and able to travel through the body to provide medical treatment.

"A tiny 'submarine' robot has been designed by Dr. Nir Schwalb of the Judea and Samaria College in Ariel and Oded Solomon of the mechanical engineering department of the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology.

They say it has the unique ability to 'crawl' through tubes with the width of human veins and arteries, even going against the flow of blood at the speed in which it passes through blood vessels."

Also guess it's goin' on the British boycott list, huh? Maybe they should use the micro-robot to clear out the crap in their brains.

Go astonish yer'self with more Israeli medical advances here.

Fatah prisoner release: signing a death warrant? (editorial cartoon)

From Haaretz:

"[Prime Minister Ehud] Olmert announced the plan on Monday at the close of a four-way summit with Abbas, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Jordan's King Abdullah II, saying that Israel would only release prisoners not held for deaths of its citizens.

"As a gesture of goodwill toward the Palestinians, I will bring before the Israeli cabinet at its next meeting a proposal to free 250 Fatah prisoners who do not have blood on their hands, after they sign a commitment not to return to violence," Olmert said."

---

"This is a wrong, harmful message that will not strengthen the Palestinian Authority. It will only weaken it," Likud Chairman Binyamin Netanyahu said Tuesday in response to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's decision to release Palestinian prisoners.

"[Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, also known as] Abu Mazen will be hurt by such a decision," continued Netanyahu. "Giving them guns and releasing their prisoners is a big mistake."

More on Bibi & Co. here.

Hamas: IDF captive being held in bomb-rigged room in Gaza

From Haaretz:

"Channel 2 television reported Sunday that an Israel Defense Forces soldier captured a year ago was being held in the southern Gaza Strip in an underground room inside a booby-trapped building.

"The television report said [Gilad] Shalit was being cared for by two captors with whom he had formed a "cordial" relationship and he was being treated fairly.

"Shalit's living quarters were described as a two-room underground store with enough supplies to last two weeks, accessible down a ladder through a 15-meter deep shaft which the report said was lined with explosives."

There are at present eight Israeli soldiers kidnapped or missing in action:

Almost a year has passed since the unprovoked abduction of Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser on the Israeli side of the Lebanese border, an action that precipitated widespread confrontation between Israel and the Lebanon-based Hizbullah terrorist organization. To date no word has been heard from the two captive soldiers, and neither their families nor the government of Israel have any knowledge of their whereabouts or their current state of health.

Two weeks prior to their abduction, on June 25, another soldier, Gilad Shalit, was abducted as well, this time on the Israeli side of the border with Gaza. His family, too, anxiously awaits news from him. Especially grave is the fact that these unprovoked abductions were carried out on sovereign Israeli territory.

Read the following brief bios of the three. For their sakes, and for ours.

And do absolutely not forget Zvi Feldman, Yehuda Katz, Guy Hever, Zachary Baumel and Ron Arad.

Oh, and speaking of Palestinians holding hostages, of course there's this, a video showing BBC reporter Alan Johnston, held by Palestinian militants, begging for mercy while bound in what appears to be a suicide bomber's vest.

Israeli aid to Gaza: by the numbers (Thursday update)

The IDF just released stats on food, medicine and other aid Israel's trying to pass over to Palestinians through the Erez crossing point with the Gaza Strip. That is, while Hamas' shooters aren't firing at them - or into the backs of terrified Palestinians fleeing into Israel...

(Thursday update) IDF SPOKESPERSON ANNOUNCEMENT:

• Over 400 tons of food products were transferred via the Kerem Shalom crossing: 130 tons flour, 49 tons rice, 49 tons sugar, 5 tons tea, 8 tons milk powder, 33 tons crushed lentils, 19.7 tons lentils, 30 tons margarine, 18.5 tons barley, 34 tons macaroni, 20 tons beans, 15 tons humus and 2 tons soup.
• 7 tons of disinfectants were also transferred through the crossing.
• 160,000 liters of diesel fuel, 40,000 liters of gasoline and 40 tons of gas were transferred via the Nahal Oz fuel terminal.
• 8 injured Palestinians were transferred from Gaza hospitals to Israeli hospitals for medical treatment.
• Overnight, Palestinians at the Erez crossing interested in crossing over to Egypt were assisted to do so.
• Approximately 100 Palestinians with dual citizenships crossed into Israel through the Erez crossing.
• 2 Red Cross surgeons passed into the Gaza Strip through Erez in order to assist hospitals in the region.

C'mon, go on and guess how appreciative Palestinians responded to the humanitarian gesture...

Three people were lightly wounded and at least seven others reported in shock after a barrage of five Kassam rockets hit the western Negev on Wednesday evening, bringing the day's total rocket hits to eight.

More about previous Israeli attempts to aid Gazan Palestinians is here, in a report I prepared almost exactly one year ago about the Karni crossing point (including an exclusive podcast on the scene with Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev).

Cargo waiting to cross from Israel into Gaza at
the Karni crossing point, June, 2006.
Ongoing Palestinian terror attacks against troops
and civilian personnel forced the facility's closure.
(Photo: Dave Bender)

More on the current situation in Gaza, as of Wednesday night is here.

Batter up! Israel swings into 1st-ever pro baseball season (UPDATED)

"Holy Land hardball: it only took 5,767 years"

From Ynet News:

The Israel Baseball League is to double the seating capacity of the Yarkon Field on Sunday night to accommodate the expected 2,000 spectators for the league's Opening Night.

“Ticket requests have been awesome,” said IBL’s business operations director Bob Ruxin in a press release. “Israeli communities, youth teams and companies are organizing group outings, droves of North Americans have scheduled visit to Israel to coincide with the Opener, and we even have a fan coming in from India just to catch the first game,” Ruxin continued.

ESPN notes that Israel has drafted legend Sandy Koufax:

Forty-one years after he retired from baseball, Hall of Fame pitcher Sandy Koufax was the final player chosen in the draft to stock the six teams for the inaugural season of the Israel Baseball League.
Koufax, 71, was picked by the Modi'in Miracle in the draft conducted by former major league general manager Dan Duquette, who heads baseball operations for the league.

Former US ambassador to Israel, Daniel Kurtzer, the future commissioner of the country’s first baseball league agrees, saying that “Israel is ready for a third major sport”. More Israel B-ball stats and background here.

...and this just in: proof positive that baseball is clearly referred to numerous times in the Bible (Hey - it even starts off, "In the Big Inning").

Israel Baseball League

WNET New York will air the inaugural game, on Sunday, July 1st.

And closer to home -- umm, depending where you're standing -- American Jewish Life editor Benyamin Cohen just sent me this:

To say Eric Holtz is a baseball fanatic is like saying Michaelangelo could paint. That's why the 41-year-old father of three id leaving his successful clothing manufacturing business in upstate New York this summer to join the first-ever Israeli baseball league and live out his lifelong dream on a baseball diamond in the Holy Land.

Growing contentions that Assad was behind Katyusha attack

Katyusha strike: truck-mounted,
multiple-launch at Israel

From Infolive.tv:

Kuwait's Al Syasah newspaper says Syrian President Bashar Assad is linked to Sunday's Katyusha rocket strike on northern Israel. The report, however, did not detail the reputed extent of the Syrian leader's involvement.

The newspaper on Monday said that Assad was angry over the Arab League's stand on Syria's involvement in Lebanon.

From Ynet News:

Farid Ghadri, a Syrian exile, and head of a Syrian opposition party which calls for the end of the Assad regime, told Ynetnews that Syrian President Basher Assad was responsible for the rocket attacks. Ghadri, head of the Reform Party of Syria, is based in Washington DC, and has just completed a week-long visit to Israel, where he addressed the Knesset, and toured the Golan Heights.

More photos from last summer's war against Hizbullah are here.

Possible cancer cure? Israeli zapper kills brain cancer cells

Hey, remember that UK doctors' plan to boycott Israeli colleagues and medical advances? Hmm. Well, feel free to boycott this, yutzes:

An Israeli-developed treatment that specifically targets rapidly growing cancer cells with electrical fields shows great promise in treating patients with brain cancer.

The Novo-TTF (Tumor-Treating Fields) device, invented by Technion Professor emeritus Yoram Palti, uses electrical fields to disrupt tumor growth by interfering with cell division of cancerous cells, causing them to stop proliferating and die off instead of dividing and growing. Healthy brain cells rarely divide and have different electrical properties than cancerous brain cells. This allows the device to target cancer cells without affecting the healthy cells.

"This is a new general modality for treating cancer. In a way it's similar to radiation, it's physical in the same sense, but the major difference is that there are no side effects..."

"This trial showed a big change, and on the basis of these results, the FDA has approved going on to bigger trials. So far, at least in the lab, all types of tumors have been sensitive to the treatment, so we're hopeful that it can treat all forms of cancer," he added.

That's right. A possible miraculous, dramatic cure for certain types of brain cancer - and maybe others. But hey, it's from those awful Israelis, so, like, fagedaboudit, right? More on this developing technology here.

Oh, and while we're at it, talking about them 'orrid Joos? Take a look at this news report video of an Israeli army officer and little Palestinian girl in a Jerusalem health care facility. Stick around for her parents' comments:

Katyusha salvo slams into Israel (video)

Just shook the dust off this map from last summer.
It'll do for the moment, since it's the same ole' same ole...

"Six Katyusha rockets were fired at Israel on Sunday afternoon, landing in Kiryat Shmona and elsewhere in the North, causing damage to property but no casualties.

"One of the rockets hit a car in the industrial zone located in the northern part of the town, and a second rocket landed in a residential area in the southern part of the town. One rocket hit a UNIFIL position in southern Lebanon and the location of another three have yet to be found.

"It is the first rocket attack on Israel since the end of last summer's Second Lebanon War when over 1000 rockets were fired at the town and over 4000 at Israel's northern border."

More here.

Update: Since we're talking about Lebanon and war, there's this:

In less than one month, Israel will mark the one-year anniversary of the Second Lebanon War. The Ministerial Committee for Symbols and Ceremonies decided Sunday to hold an official ceremony to mark the occasion.

According to the resolution, a ceremony will be held annually on the 16th of the Hebrew month of Tamuz (around July). The Defense Ministry will be resposible for organizing the ceremony, along with Yad Labanim, an organization that commemorates Israel's fallen soldiers.

More here.

Krazy Kaption Kontest! 'Please place all weapons on the x-ray conveyor...'

Captions, anyone?

A Hamas militant poses inside an X-ray machine, at the passport processing area of the Rafah Border Crossing, in the southern Gaza Strip, June 15, 2007.
(AP Photo/Hatem Omar, MaanImages)

Sara Yocheved Rigler: From the ashram to Jerusalem

Sara Yocheved Rigler
Click here or on image to see more photos
(Photos: Dave Bender).

Click on the audio player below to hear an excerpt of her address to the congregation at Ariel Synagogue, Atlanta on Sunday, June 10th.

powered by ODEO

(Please be patient: the audio stream may not begin immediately. You can also listen here, if the player above isn't working.) Drop me a note if you'd like to hear more segments of Rigler's talk.

More on Rigler's spiritual trek from a decade at a Buddhist ashram to a devout Jewish outlook and observance in Jerusalem is here. Her latest book, Holy Woman: The Road to Greatness of Rebbitzen Chaya Sara Kramer, is available here.

Gaza falls to Hamas: a wake-up call from hell

And here's some food for thought:

"Wonder what Iraq would look like if we left tomorrow? Take a look at Gaza today. Then imagine a situation a thousand times worse."

(...) "And there's humor in Hell: The Islamist madmen behind Hamas call Fatah fighters "the American Jew Army." We've come a long way, boychick, when fellow Arabs anoint the late Yasser Arafat's thugs as tools of the Great Satan and the Lesser Satan."

Still unconvinced? Then watch this report from Israel's Channel 10 television:

What to do? Well, there are calls for a multinational force. In the snarky question of one poster at a popular blog, "...does that mean the US Marines and the IDF?"

Hopefully, whoever it won't be as useless and neutered as the one along the Lebanese border with Israel (hey -- thanks a million for that gesture, guys).

And speaking of useless and neutered, a "senior state official," (wink, nudge) says Israel won't intervene in the clashes.

Meanwhile, in the West Bank,

Fatah gunmen and Palestinian Authority policemen on Thursday launched a wide-scale crackdown on Hamas figures and institutions in the West Bank. More than 30 Hamas officials and supporters were rounded up in Bethlehem, Ramallah, Nablus, Jenin and Tulkarm.

But, no worries!:

Defense Minister Amir Peretz told a weekly meeting of security officials that Israel would not allow the ongoing violence between rival Palestinian factions Fatah and Hamas in the Gaza Strip to spread into attacks on southern Israel, meeting participants said.

There now. Don't you feel safer already?

Israel's security?

"Eagle-eye," Peretz has
"Got it covered!"

The 1967 War 40 Years On: Causes & Consequences (battle videos)

This is a very well prepared, comprehensive site coving the events before, during and apre' la guerre in Israel and the vicinity in June, 1967.

Bookmark this one; it's worth a long, considered look, as the reverberations of that conflict continue to wrack the area 40-years later...

High points:

• Timeline
• Players
• Long-term effects
  
  
  Aish has a good fact sheet, as well:

Why are we talking today about the West Bank and the "Palestinian question"? How did Israel get into this situation where it is reviled as an "occupier" and accused of a refusal to trade "land for peace"?

Prior to June 1967, Israel did not "occupy" any Arab land and did not seek to expand its territory. Israelis were not talking about populating Judea and Samaria or establishing "Greater Israel."

Similarly, Palestinians were not calling for the establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank, which was controlled by Jordan, or in the Gaza Strip, which was ruled by Egypt.

And here, is an 11-part (!) series, in English, released by the Israeli government soon after the war. Extensive, and what I take to be exclusive footage shows the course of the battles. The rest of the segments are here.

From the poster:
On Monday June 5, 1967, 14 Arab countries came thundering down on Israel. Their armies far exceeded hers. Their Russian-backed weapons resources were vast. Yet in six dramatic days, the little country not only won a decisive victory, but also changed the map of the Middle East. This was the Six Day War.

Shocking video expose' captures IDF's warmongering battle chant

Lyrics: "Peace will yet descend upon us, one and all... (repeat)"

Shot on the steps between floors at Jerusalem's Central Bus Station. Having used the station and those stairs innumerable times, I can tell you that such a scene isn't an unusual occurrence. 'Specially when you have to ask them to move their backpacks aside so you can pass with yours.

In the words of Mererhetoric:

You can easily see the same kind of scene playing out in Saudi Arabia or Iran. The heaviness of depression and the lack of morale - the growing despondency of Israelis that the LA Times keeps telling us about - that comes through in the movie.

Oh - and the love of war. The whole joyfully singing about peace thing really brings that out, don't you think? It's always like this - there seems to be little difference between the Israeli approach to life and the seething of their genocidal enemies. Except for the vast and total difference between the two.

In a similar vein, here are two report with Israeli troops I prepared during a visit along the border with Lebanon during last summer's war against Hizbullah:

Deaf, mute, wheelchair-bound Israeli child killed in Kassam strike. World media? (crickets)

An appalling report of a rocket strike last week that killed a 13-year-old Israeli:

In the town of Sderot, a bus transporting four special-needs children suffered a near-direct-hit from one of dozens of rockets fired into Israel by Pal-Arab terrorists. Shrapnel from the resulting explosion penetrated the vehicle and wounded all the children. One child, thirteen year-old wheelchair-bound Chai Shalom, who had cerebral palsy, was deaf and mute, and had congenital heart problems, suffered injuries from the bombing serious enough to require hospitalization. Sadly, little Chai Shalom (Chai means "life" in Hebrew, and shalom is the Hebrew word for "peace") died of his injuries in Beer Sheva's Soroka Hospital.
And since balance is all the rage in the foreign media, here's another report from a different vantage point.

Tom Gross reports that a child with congenital heart complications - this one a newborn Gazan baby - was rushed to Israel on Sunday while Qassams whizzed overhead.

An Israeli ambulance took the eight-day-old Pal-Arab infant from Gaza to the Sheba Medical Center in Tel Aviv's suburbs.

As Tom writes: "Unreported by the international media, Israeli ambulances transfer patients from the Gaza Strip to Israeli hospitals on an almost daily basis. According to Dr Dudi Mishali, head of the Department of Pediatric & Congenital Cardiothoracic Surgery at the hospital next to Tel Aviv, an average of three Palestinian babies with heart defects come to his department alone every week."
Mishali said "We have daily communications by phone and fax with doctors in Gaza. There is no heart surgeon in the Strip, so they transfer all of these children, and there are many, to be operated on here." The expenses are largely paid for by the hospital.

[Meanwhile] Dozens of British doctors are calling for the Israeli Medical Association to be expelled from the World Medical Association.

More here. The bloggers are the parents of Malki Chana Roth, a young Israeli girl killed in a Palestinian suicide bombing at a downtown Jerusalem pizza parlor in August of 2001. "The family of Malki's murderer were awarded a cash prize of US$20,000 for his great deed."

Of course, you read all about this in the international feeding frenzy of the Israeli retaliatory airstrikes against the scum that fired the rockets. Right?

More Sderot coverage here.

In a related story, here's what a slice of daily life for one veteran American immigrant in Sderot:

Mechi Fendel may seem like an ordinary mother with an ordinary life. When she picks up her cell phone, she's going to her four-year-old son's day care to collect him, and her voice sounds typically hectic for a mother juggling daily responsibilities and seven rambunctious children.
But when you consider that the day care facility is inside a bomb shelter, and that Sderot, the southern Israeli city Fendel lives in has been bombarded by hundreds of Kassam rockets in the last week - 22 over the weekend alone - then the uniqueness of her life becomes apparent.

More on Fendel here.

Netanyahu on British boycotts: the slapdown

And in a similar vein, here's Ben-Dror Yemini at Haaretz:

How is it that, once again, the Jews - excuse me, citizens of the
Jewish collective - are again deserving of boycotts even though they did not perpetrate any crime against humanity then, seventy or eighty years ago, or now, if we compare what other countries have done, including Britain, to what Israel is doing to the Palestinians. Why? Why are we witnessing an astounding, recurrent and disturbing historical phenomenon of a different law for Jews - a unique and racist law - than for all others?

Read it all.

Spielberg Film Archives adds 400 films, about Israel, Jews

The Steven Spielberg Jewish Film Archive at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem has completed a major upgrade and expansion of its “virtual cinema” project.

The Archive has launched a new, contemporary and user-friendly portal, now containing over 400 films from its collection.

Get the Cokes, popcorn and go take a look.

Multiculturalism: the 'Star Wars Cantina' model doesn't work

From reputed former hard-Left author David Solway’s recently released book, The Big Lie: on Terror, Antisemitism, and Identity:

It is a grave error to conceive of a nation as a sort of gigantic Noah’s Ark in which every creature without exception is welcomed and given sanctuary, even those engaged in boring holes in the timber, throwing their bunkmates overboard, and blowing up the wheelhouse.

This is the multicultural model currently in vogue and in the long run it doesn’t work. Admission must be strict and those who may pose a significant threat, whether individually or communally, must be carefully screened and, if necessary, refused their boarding cards.

A viable society does not resemble the interplanetary tavern in Star Wars serving all the weird and wonderful but also rowdy and uncontrollable denizens hailing from every quadrant of the known universe.

Read it all.

Hooters, Howard Stern & Israel

Hooters Girls

Colleague Brian Blum offers his take on two recent post-Zionist westernization trends:

Last month the Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot carried a small item that the U.S. restaurant chain Hooters plans to open its first branch in Israel this summer. That was followed by a piece indicating that a Tel Aviv radio station is in negotiations to bring the Howard Stern Show to the Israeli airwaves.

Now, regular readers know that I am not one of those who pine away for the "good old days" in Israel when all the women were strong and the men were good looking (apologies to Garrison Keillor). I like the comforts of modernity and in general the ever-shrinking gap between Israel and North America, both in terms of distance and culture, is a good thing. But this may be going too far.

Read the rest here