RoshHashanaShabbat: four nights, seven festive meals

As the Jewish world enter the Rosh Hashana eat-a-thon:

...and don't forget "grazing" the cookie table, and the herring and shnapps at the after-services-Kiddush...

Shana Tova!

Stickin' with a sweet New Year - updated (video)

Best comment on this one?

"Why Is It When Kids Do This Kinda Of Stuff Its Funny And Cute But When I Do It Everybody Says "What The Hells Wrong With You? Your 35 And This Isnt Your House!"

True, true...

And colleague, and damn-but-I-wish-I-wrote-as-good-as-her, pal Judy Lash-Balint has a great feaure on the "Signs of Rosh Hashana in Jerusalem: "

Anyone venturing into the shuk or even a local supermarket this week
could be forgiven for thinking that a famine was imminent. Shoppers
laden with huge nylon bags of every kind of produce, fish, meat and
bread, may be seen staggering under the weight of their purchases,
secure in the knowledge that they have sufficient provisions for three
days when stores are closed.

Certain foods are traditional to eat on Rosh Hashana, and the markets
are full of the most beautiful pomegranates; succulent dates and crisp
apples. All the produce is local—pomegranate trees grow everywhere,
even in private gardens; dates are from the Jordan Valley and apples
from the Golan.

Read it all, "for verily, it is a good and spacious Land."

Shana Tova, a good and sweet year to all.

Eyewitness to 9/11 in Jerusalem's Old City

Following are a number JPost Radio reports I prepared from Jerusalem's Old City immediately after the terror attacks against the US on 9/11/01:

Me, hoofing it with crash helmet, mike and gear down the darkened alleyways of the "souk." This shot was lit by camera flash. It was much darker, with sounds and footsteps echoing off the cobblestones. (Mati Milstein)


Talking with American tourists (Oklahoma and Arkansas) along the Via Dolorosa. After hearing the news of the attacks, they hurried back to their hospice, en route to a flight back stateside. (Mati Milstein)

I interviewed Muslim and Christian Palestinians, American Christian tourists, and Jewish seminary students from New York.

We made our way north to south, from the Damascus Gate in the Muslim Quarter, through the Christian Quarter to the Jewish Quarter, near the Western Wall Plaza and Temple Mount area in the Old City. We exited the Old City at Zion Gate, near the Armenian Quarter.


Speaking with a Palestinian shopkeeper at an Internet cafe'. The interviewee is unconnected to the following clips. (Mati Milstein)

• Palestinian Muslim shopkeeper: Damascus Gate. BTW - that incredulity you might hear in my voice, as I'm talking with this guy? It's real.
  
  
• Second Palestinian Muslim shopkeeper, further down the alleyways, towards the heart of the Old City:
  
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• Two American tourists hurrying for safety at a Catholic convent where they were staying:
  
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• Talking with a group of four yeshiva seminary students. They are in a pizza parlor in the Jewish Quarter, watching a television showing images of the smoking WTC towers:
  
  powered by ODEO
  

Who you callin' a 'racist?'

Two Darfuri refugees at the menorah near
the Israeli Knesset parliament, Jerusalem.

September 6, 2007 - It has become fashionable to throw charges of "apartheid" at Israel, regardless of how little that word may actually apply. The political sloganeering needs to be balanced by a consideration of reality.

Israeli Interior Minister Meir Sheetrit has announced plans to grant Israeli citizenship to several hundred refugees from Darfur. He stated that "Just as prime minister Menachem Begin acted to grant citizenship to refugees from Vietnam, the same ought to be done today."

According to UN estimates, over 200,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million made refugees since 2003 when the fighting in Darfur began. As David Frankfurter observes in his report, a country the size of Israel cannot be expected to grant asylum to 2.5 million. But Israel is doing its part. The Muslim communities of the world are not doing theirs.

Look at how Egypt responds to the Darfur crisis. One day last August four Sudanese refugees were trying to cross the Egyptian border into Israel (yes, these Muslims seeking shelter felt their chances were better in Israel). As they ran towards the border fence Egyptian soldiers fired on them, killing two and wounding a third. As the fourth refugee ran to the fence an Israeli soldier reached out a hand to help him cross. It was too late. Two Egyptian soldiers began pulling at the man's legs.

"It was literally like we were playing 'tug of war' with this man," said the Israeli soldier. "They were aiming loaded weapons straight at us, I was afraid they were going to shoot us." He was forced to release his grip. The Egyptians carried the man off several yards, then beat him and the wounded refugee with stones and clubs until they died.

"What happened there yesterday was a lynch," said the Israeli soldier. "These are not men, they're animals. They killed him without even using firearms. We just heard screams of pain and the sounds of beatings. Then the screams stopped."

Read it all.

Related: Deconstructing Apartheid:

The historical context of the Jewish-Arab conflict in the Middle East is fundamentally different from that between the whites' Afrikaner ideology of apartheid and the blacks in South Africa. The latter was a system of discrimination and inequality based upon racial criteria; a system of domination by a minority over a majority and refusal to negotiate a bilaterally agreed solution.

Previous Darfur-related posts here.

Heads-up: Syria 'retains right to respond' to Israeli overflight (updated)

Update:

Syrian Information Minister Mohsen Bilal:

"Syria retains the right to determine the quality, type, and nature of our response to the Israeli attack," he told Al-Jazeera television. "The Syrian leadership is seriously considering its response."

From Haaretz:

The Syrian army said Thursday that its air defenses fired on an Israel Air Force warplane that entered Syria airspace and "dropped ammunition," the country's official news agency reported.

The Israel Defense Forces had no immediate comment, saying it would look into the report.

"We have no knowledge of anything like this. We will get back to you," an IDF spokeswoman said by telephone from Tel Aviv.

Syrian air defenses fired at the incoming plane, which crossed into Syria after midnight local time, the agency said.

Migh-ty laconic reply there, spokeswoman, considering the tensions over the last few months... umm, or perhaps not.

Ynet News backgrounder here.

More Syria posts here.

Israel sending trees to reforest ancient Olympus

From AFP:

Israel to Send 10,000 Trees to Reforest Ancient Olympia in Greece

The Greek Olympic Committee said Wednesday it had accepted an offer from Israel for experts and 10,000 trees to help repair damage caused by fires on Olympia, the birthplace of the ancient Olympic Games.

Considering political, not to mention religious and historic (ya' know... Hanukkah, etc) Israel-Greek relations, this is interesting news.

The most recent backstory is here.

The MUCH earlier one is here.

'Back-to-school' daze in Israel (video coverage)

Much of the Kassam rocket fire emanates from
the largely agricultural Beit Hanun area
within the Gaza Strip to the left, and is
commonly aimed at Sderot (to the right)
and other nearby Israeli civilian areas.

This was what the second day of school in the Israeli town of Sderot, a few miles from the Gaza Strip was like:

Video courtesy of the Sderot Media Center.

Islamic Jihad took responsibility for the 7-to-9 rocket salvo, calling it, "a present for the start of the new school year."

EdmontonSun.com:

SDEROT, Israel — A Palestinian rocket landed in a courtyard next to a crowded day care centre in this southern Israeli town on Monday, sending panicked mothers scrambling to rush their screaming toddlers to safety.

The Jerusalem Post:

The Sderot Parents Association decided they would not take their children to schools and day care centers beginning Tuesday, until the government changed its policy regarding ongoing Kassam rocket attacks on the western Negev town, The Jerusalem Post learned Monday.

Parents also decided to erect a protest tent outside the prime minister's office starting Wednesday, where they said they would remain until the government found alternative sites for studies to take place.

YnetNews:

Israel's reaction to Qassam rocket fire on the Negev region has already taken a heavy toll on Palestinians, and it will take an even heavier toll on them in the future, according to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

"My daughter called me terrified and hysteric," one mother says, "our children are studying under fire"

Following Monday’s Qassam rocket attacks on Sderot, Olmert said, "We will not put up with this attack. The IDF has been instructed to destroy all launchers and target anyone involved in the attacks. Rocket barrages have once again been launched on Sderot. They threatened the wellbeing of kindergarten children in this rocket-battered town, which has been exposed to the terror groups' brutality for over five years."

More Sderot coverage is here.

Hey - we got mail! 'juden raus u filthy crook nosed scum'

Well well well...

Look what crawled out from under the rock, about my posting from over a year ago of a Lebanese tv satire mocking Hizbullah (this has been one of the biggest pus-drawing postings on my YouTube page, actually).

The really lowest of the pond scum have been deleted (no offense to microbes and fungi, of course) while other, slightly higher-functioning vermin have been allowed to post - just so you, dear readers, will understand what's out there:

endthy w Hide Marked as spam

New Comment
burn shitrael, piss on u filthy kikes
juden raus u filthy crook nosed scum

Next up on the hit parade:

death4israel Show HideMarked as spam

Whatever they do, how many civilians they bomb,⁠ how many innocent babies they kill, whoever they ally with, those FUCKING JEWS won't stay alive where they have invaded. Jews are DAMNED by GOD and they will be "HOMELESS" forever!! I wish All JEWS DIE and BURN IN HELL!

And for our sewer dining "desert," allow me to present just a mere soupçon, of the rest of the deletions:

psysword Show Hide

time to get out and give palestinians back their land.
free palestine.
palestine to become juden frei. raus!!!!


So, youse blogger utes - what kinda' scum-mail are you getting? So, g'wan kids - hit the comments and leave a few responses of your own (be nice! I delete on sight)...

Madonna, hosts to descend upon Tzfat for New Year

No, not that one, silly...

Nope, not her either...

As the Hebrew saying goes,
"Can the Messiah be far behind?"

From Israel National News:

The singer, sometimes referred to as "The Material Girl" (after a song by the same name), will arrive in the city with her husband, English writer-director Guy Ritchie, and their three children, prior to the start of the holiday. They will be accompanied by several friends, including acting couple Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher, as well as top designer Donna Karan. Also arriving with Madonna will be some 3,000 students of the Los Angeles-based Kabalah Center.

This is where they're going. Holy, mystical, sedate, tranquil, picturesque, poor, tiny Tzfat, nestled in the soft, wooded hills of the upper Galilee.

God help them...

UPDATE: Soccer Dad brings the hysterical (and geez', but do I live for good parody) with this take on Madonna's wistful look back on her coming observance:

In her younger days she rose to fame by wearing her underwear prominently on stage; nowadays she stays modestly covered in an ankle length slit skirt and low cut but long sleeved blouse. Rebbetzin Esther Ritchie used to be known as Madonna.

In the 80's she was an extremely popular singer breaking taboos right and left. Now she works, supporting her husband Rabbi Akiva Ritchie as he learns in a Kollel in Bnei Brak.

It might be difficult but as Rebbetzin Ritchie puts it, "Boruch Hashem with the royalties from the sale of my book 'Sex' and my somewhat scaled back touring schedule we're able to make ends meet."

Israeli Hip-hop: Mi Yom Leyom (Video)

Seriously great Israeli R&B-tinged hip-hop. Douse the lights, turn up the speakers and dig it:

Subliminal & The Shadow

H-T: Merehetoric