'Ani Yehudi - I Am a Jew' (music video)

'Flying While Jewish' vs 'Flying While Arab': Poll

I'm just wondering what you readers think here about the imbroglio on US Airways Flight 3709:

On Thursday, a flight attendant on a US Air flight from New York to Louisville mistook the religious prayer article as a bomb after the Jewish passenger, Caleb Leibowitz, 17, had taken them out to pray, according to reports. Tefillin consist of two black boxes, each connected to leather straps.

The passengers and crew were taken off the plane in Philadelphia. Fire trucks and police met the plane on the runway.

Leibowitz was questioned and released. No one was arrested in the incident.

Seems to me that what's interesting in the story of the Orthodox Jewish kid being hassled on the flight for strapping up in his seat is the worldwide Jewish reaction in the news, online, in blogs, etc to the whole story: somewhat embarrassed amusement, internal backbiting, justifications and explanations, etc. followed by... ho-hum, and maybe a stern lecture from a rabbinic pulpit about "not making a 'shonda' in front of the goyim."

But nothing beyond that, except maybe some understandably ruffled feathers, if that, among the other passengers forced to switch flights towards their destinations...

Whereas in the Arab world (as per the "Sheiks On A Plane" aka the "Flying Imams" event): the usual response would be law/warfare, sometimes including riots, torched embassies, screaming denunciations, enraged fatwas, indignant press conferences and vitriolic talking heads on news programs.

That says something. What do you think that "something" is, I'd like to know. Drop a comment below, if you please.

Mumbai: Repaying Carnage with Kedusha

A moving tribute and call to action from R' Tzvi Freeman of Chabad:

"We're all in pain. We're all stunned. But you are asking questions you know you cannot answer. Why? How will that help anyone? What we need now is strength and courage. What we need now is to regather our forces and to rebuild.

"We knew beforehand that we are at war with an enemy. We knew that the world needs to be healed, that it oozes with a venomous darkness, and that darkness will not sit passively as we steal away its dominion. We knew that the more we fight this darkness, the harder it will fight back. We didn't fool ourselves. We decided we will fight and we will win. That is why Gavriel and Rivky went where they went. They went not as tourists, but as fearless soldiers.

Once you are at war, you don't stop to ponder all over again—can we win? Is this worth it? Maybe they're worse than we thought? That's deadly. If you would rather stay home and enjoy comfort while the rest of the world sits out in the cold, you should have decided that a long time ago. Now you are out there on the field of battle, you have already awakened the bear from its den, now there is no turning back.

They are darkness. We are light. They storm the shores with death in their eyes. We come to teach compassion and acts of beauty. They carry assault rifles and grenades. We carry candles for Friday night, a Torah of wisdom, joy and beauty.

Are we to surrender before them? Are we to stop and cry and ask, "maybe we're fighting the wrong battle"?

This Saturday night, a young couple is leaving Israel to take the place of the Gavriel and Rivky. We, all of us, will help them. The Chabad House of Mumbai had five stories. We will build a ten-story Chabad House in Mumbai, with greater light, with greater joy, with even more voices singing the Shabbat songs and children kissing the Torah scroll. We will build with a vengeance. We will fill the world with light and wisdom and the spirit of darkness in men's hearts shall forever perish. They come with their guns and their might, with a god of destruction and terror, but we come in the name of the Eternal, the source of all life and healing. They and all memory of them will vanish from the face of the earth and our lamp will burn forever.

May the Almighty G‑d hear the cry of their blood from the earth and put an end to all sorrow. May it be very soon, sooner than we can imagine.

Amen.

San Diego blazes, Sodom, & the Jewish Question...

A fascinating, moving post from a San Diego resident, via Aish:

We live in La Jolla, which means "The Jewel." Our community is little more than a stone's throw from one of the prettiest pieces of coastline in the entire county and boasts the best weather too. We have a lovely shul with over 280 families, a spa-like mikvah, and an eruv on the way. This past Shabbat, as we do every week, we enjoyed our shul kiddush al fresco, socializing around the towering Torrey Pine tree that defines our shul's courtyard. We could not have predicted that such a short time later, our blue skies would turn toxic, the crisp ocean breezes replaced with menacing winds and our Torrey Pine and its courtyard laden with ash.

Thankfully, our normally idyllic coastal enclave seems to be out the path of the fire -- at least for now. But as the communities immediately to the North and to the East of us were steadily evacuated, my husband and I were increasingly concerned: What if we were next? What if a call comes in the middle of the night asking us -- telling us -- to leave?

Read the rest, and try to decide for yourself what you really care about.

Simchat Torah: 'Gonna' tanz da' night away'

Simchat Torah: joyous "Hakafot Shnyiot" dancing at Jerusalem's Liberty Bell park. (Dave Bender)

A sweet meditation from Chabad:

"Once a year, Jews around the world gather in their synagogues and joyously celebrate, dance and sing. The holiday is a celebration of the Torah -- as is indicated by its name, Simchat Torah. The timing of this holiday is often questioned: why celebrate our connection to the Torah more than four months after the date when it was given: Shavuot? Wouldn't it be more appropriate to do the hakafot [dancing with Torah scrolls - ed.] on the day when we actually received the Torah?

"The answer given is that our celebration on Shavuot is somewhat muted because the First Tablets were eventually destroyed. Simchat Torah, however, is a celebration of the Second Tablets, which Moses brought down from Heaven when G‑d granted forgiveness for the sin of the Golden Calf on Yom Kippur.

"Simchat Torah is the culmination of the three-part Biblical holiday season. With each holiday, the joy steadily increases. After Passover and Shavuot we have Sukkot, a holiday dubbed "the Season of our Joy" -- and then we are treated to the unbridled joy of Simchat Torah which eclipses even the joy of Sukkot. And the reason for this great joy? We are celebrating our 'second chance.'"

Read the rest.

Virginia Tech slayings: A fitting Jewish response

In a response to the appalling Virginia Tech slayings, Chabad on Campus has set up the Hearts to Hokies campaign:

A National Week of Goodness and Kindness

Join the "Hearts to Hokies" campaign to spread the light of goodness and kindness in the world. Add an extra good deed, whatever it may be, in memory of the victims.

The deeds will be collected from campuses and communities across the nation and presented to the Virginia Tech community, as a tangible expression of our love and concern and our dedication to making the world a better place.

Go there now, sign in and do this.

Here is the condolence page for Liviu Librescu, the 75-year old Romanian-Israeli Holocaust survivor who was slain in a true act of Kiddush Hashem - sanctifying God's Name - as he heroically defended his students from the killer.

More on Librescu here.

'Kike Like Me'

Are you a Jew? Don’t ask Jamie Kastner. The question annoys the
Canadian documentary-maker. He gets asked it a lot.

So Kastner shot “Kike Like Me,” a road movie bowing at Toronto’s Hot
Docs documentary festival on April 24. In the film, Kastner answers a hypothetical “yes” when asked whether he’s Jewish, followed by an equally terse “Why do you want to know?” to gauge how friend and
foe reacts.

Read the rest in the (go figure...) New Scotsman.

(H-T: Jewschool)

After Passover: Counting the Homer

An oldie but a goodie with deeper
meaning behind the D'oh!...

Printable Homer Calendar 5767 / 2007

Lisa: [tired] Here you go, Bart. It's a longshot, but that's all I can do without learning ancient Hebrew.
Bart: [stares at her]
Lisa: Bart! I am not going to learn ancient Hebrew!
Bart: But you already know pig Latin, how much different can it be?

(Note how Jews worldwide, en masse, went on a murderous rampage after cartoon slurs against their religion...)
---
In December 2003, Fox broadcast a new Simpsons episode with a mostly Jewish theme, titled "Today, I Am A Clown." Besides seeing Krusty's Bar Mitzvah (with Mr. T helping: "I pity the shul that won't let Krusty in now"), we learned that Springfield has a Jewish Walk of Fame, that Krusty's full name is Herschel Pinkus Yerucham Krustofski, and that Lisa has a Jewish imaginary friend ("Her name is Rachel Cohen. And she just got into Brandeis.").

Read a review here. You can hear some soundclips from the episode here and see some images here and here.

AIPAC LIVE/PRERECORDED COVERAGE

Go here to watch:

http://www.jerusalemonline.com/specials.asp

Israeli Yemenite martial arts grandmaster goes viral

Abir Grandmaster Yehoshua Sopher

One of the most commented-on video clips I've posted lately (and that hasn't turned into a virulent anti-Israel/Jewish slimefest - as seen here - and that was after I culled the pond scum) is of a Yemenite martial arts style taught in Israel called Abir. From a fascinating Wiki entry:

Abir אַבִּיר‎ was the name of the fighting technique of Israelite warriors. Today, Grandmaster Yehoshua Sofer teaches his family tradition of the Abir Warror Arts.^[1] There are two schools for Abir, one in Jerusalem and the second in Tel Aviv. Prior to founding the Abir Warrior Arts schools, Grandmaster Sofer was best known in the martial arts world as a master of Kuk Sool Won, a Korean martial art.

Just watch the high-speed hack-attack below:

The original video is posted here, and the new "official" Abir site is here (and still somewhat buggy, so give the Flash intro a minute to load to reach the splash page).