New full-length film about Sderot - watch the trailer here (updated)

From 12 Tribes Films' e-burst:

"The world today is mostly focused on criticizing Israel for it's attack on the terrorist forces in Gaza. Instead of criticizing Israel, the world should be asking what took Israel so long to respond to the 8 years of rocket attacks on its civilian population! Now is the time for us to show as much support and understanding for Israel as possible.

"This Sunday, January 4th, join thousands of people worldwide in watching QASSAM, the powerful movie about people in Sderot, and share in their experiences over the past 8 years!

Click here to see the trailer for Qassam."

Update - Avi sez':
Get yer' virtual movie tickets here:
http://israelwecare.weebly.com

Israeli Army YouTube, Blog pages

Go check 'em out:

• http://www.youtube.com/user/idfnadesk
• http://idfspokesperson.com/

Gaza: The real reasons Israel - finally - retaliated (Update 4)

High resolution map of the Gaza area. Click on the image for a close-up view. (University of Texas)

Read this, and then feel free to come back and talk to me about the "disproportionate" Israel response to over 10,000 rockets, mortars and terror incursions that have gone largely under and just plain unreported by the international press for, oh, 'bout the last 7-8 years.

I'm here. Listening. Waiting. I dare you. Really.

Update: Click here for a clear, in-depth audio interview with a British resident of Sderot on the current situation.

Meanwhile: A Twitter Kassam feed.


(Courtesy SderotMedia.com)

Above is a amalgam of video clips showing how Sderot residents (and thousands of other Israelis in rocket range of the Gaza Strip) have been living for the past 7 years.

The interviewer is asking the child about the "fun day" activities in Sderot, when they are interrupted by the town loudspeaker announcing "Color Red," the alert for an incoming rocket attack.

Residents have 15 seconds to reach shelter, before the missile slams down. About the same amount of time it took you to read this far.

The rest that follows should be clear enough.
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Caption: we're not the State's sitting ducks." Young Sderot residents don red and black armbands in a protest against ongoing Hamas-led Kassam rocket attacks from Gaza against their southern Israeli town in 2006. (File photo: Dave Bender)

Resident of an Israeli farm bordering Gaza looking at a hole blasted in a wall of her house by a Kassam rocket, that killed her son's girlfriend in 2004. (Photo: Dave Bender)


View from the other side of the wall of the shattered room. (Photo: Dave Bender)

Here's what local residents throughout the south of Israel are reading this evening:

Dec 27^th, 2008

Israeli Communities within Range of Rocket Fire – Emergency Instructions for Civilian Population

The firing of rockets at Israeli communities surrounding the Gaza Strip is expected to continue over the next few days, and may expand to additional area. Therefore, residents are requested to follow directions for preparing a protected room and act in accordance with the instructions at the sound of an alarm, an explosion, or a "Color Red" alert.

Residents of villages adjacent to the security fence are asked to remain within shelters tomorrow, in close proximity to protected areas, and are requested not to assemble in groups.

All schools and commercial centers will remain closed, with the exception of vital services, such as medical centers, grocery stores and public transit will operate on a limited schedule.

Residents in the rest of the villages within range of up to ten km of the Gaza security fence are directed to ensure that they are no more than fifteen seconds from a protected area. Public gatherings in this perimeter are forbidden.

Residents of towns in the range of ten to twenty kilometers from Gaza , must be able to enter sheltered areas within thirty seconds. This area includes the cities of Ahkelon, Netivot and the surrounding towns. In these towns, gatherings of up to 100 people are allowed to be held only under reinforced ceilings. Commercial activity will only be allowed to take place in reinforced buildings.

Residents of towns in the range of twenty to thirty kilometers from Gaza , must be able to enter sheltered areas within forty-five seconds, and gatherings of up to 500 people are allowed to be held only under reinforced ceilings.. This area includes the cities of Ashdod , Kiryat Gat, Kiryat Mal'achi, Ofakim, Rahat, and the surrounding towns. Educational activity will take place in reinforced buildings only. Commercial activity will only be allowed to take place in reinforced buildings.

A number of important issues for the population:

• The Home Front command has advised the local authorities to open the public shelters. Entrance to the shelters is advised only if they are reachable within the aforementioned time frames.
• Gatherings near rocket attack sites should be avoided. Unidentified objects and rockets should not be approached. In such instances the police should be notified.
• Adhering to these guidelines and entering sheltered rooms - saves lives.
• Additional information can be obtained via the Home Front Command's hot line 1207 and website: www.oref.org.il.

Just sayin'.

Update:

Listening to the Israeli radio stations through the night there (Saturday night here), I hear, over and over, Israeli songs that are always played when there's a genuine "warlike" situation nationally.

Mostly local hits from the 1960's and 70's, along with a smattering of Europop faves. Nothing "nationalistic," or militaristic mind you, just an accent on songs - many of them pretty odes to a simpler day, that have pretty much served as the soundtrack of Israeli society through war and national crisis. Like American's talking about the "good ole' days" of television around the "national campfire."

Ok - slight update: Army radio (one of Israel's most trusted, iconoclastic and non-propagandaish news outlooks, btw), is playing James Brown's "It's A Man's World." Go figgur.'

No massive message here - feel free to add your own, though.

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.

Kristallnacht: Then and Now

(Click on the image to read the headlines)

Two items from Aish for The 70th commemoration of Kristallnacht:

This November Jewish communities throughout the world will again gather to recall Kristallnacht -- and will unwittingly allow themselves, in some measure, to verbally embrace the very heresy that abetted the Holocaust.

Kristallnacht is German for "the night of crystal." And 70 years after the horrible events of 1938 should have given us by now sufficient perspective to expose the lie of a horrible WMD -- Word of Mass Deception -- that epitomizes the key to the most powerful methodology for murder perfected by the Nazis.

How, after all, were the Nazis able to commit their crimes under the veneer of civilized respectability? Upon analysis, the answer is obvious. They glorified the principle of murder by euphemism.

Read the rest.
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If you were a Jew in Europe in 1941, and you actually knew that Hitler was developing the means to carry out his threat to exterminate the Jews, what would you do? Dismiss the danger as overstated? Try to arouse the nations of the world to stop him? Or take upon yourself to employ every means possible -- both physically and spiritually -- to avert the catastrophe?

A must read.

Yitzhak Peretz of Mahane Yehuda (original photography)

Yitzhak Peretz of Mahane Yehuda 1 (Dave Bender)

Yitzhak Peretz is a devout Moroccan Jew who immigrated to Israel in the 1980's. He owns a small tailor shop across the street from Jerusalem's Mahane Yehuda open-air market. I stopped in one day, looking to repair my backpack.

Peretz's pride and "old-world" manner, innate respect for his lifelong profession, and his clientele impressed me as I waited for him to finish the repair.


Yitzhak Peretz of Mahane Yehuda 2 (Dave Bender)

I was rapt, watching his hands and eyes as he worked on his ancient sewing machine. He said he'd brought it with him from Morocco to Israel.


Yitzhak Peretz of Mahane Yehuda 3 (Dave Bender)

As I waited for him to complete the work on my pack, another customer came in. Peretz proudly displayed his completed repairs on a handbag she'd brought in earlier.

Caption Contest: 'American Change in Jerusalem' (original photography)

"American Change in Jerusalem" (Dave Bender)

Any connection to the presidential elections is strictly coincidental...

This is one of my favorite shots.

The elderly man is waiting for a city bus on a freezing, drizzly Friday morning in downtown Jerusalem. The red neon sign behind him is blinking on and off. He's holding fresh flowers and even fresher baked challah bread, to honor the oncoming Sabbath, coming in that evening st sunset.

Looking back on the photo several years after shooting it, for me, he's come to symbolize patience, serenity and calm hope in the face of inclement weather, the vicissitudes of time, and the roaring pace of modern life epitomized by the loud "CHANGE" AMERICAN CHANGE."

I "grabbed" the scene with my first DSLR, a Fuji S5000, soon after purchasing from a shop in town. I shot it from across the street, with the camera mounted on a small tripod, and pressed against a wall to steady it.

Comments are welcome.

Tel Aviv Surfer Sunset (original photograph)

s
A lovely, "end-of-the-surfing day" composition taken during the summer by Pria Bender, my budding daughter photographer. The apple sure don't fall far from the tree...

Hit Israeli tv show: 'Dos'i dating do's and don't's' in Jerusalem

Fellow blogger and Jerusalemite, Brian Blum, comes up with an excellent look at a new Israeli tv program detailing social interactions among the young, knitted kipa crowd; from the "just hanging out together," to the "tefillin date," set.

In his take on the series Srugim (knitted kipas/yarmulkes), he says: " Imagine Melrose Place…with yarmulkes."

Having been a part of that scene at several periods over the years, and judging by the clips I viewed on their site -- it looks like a winner:

"A new TV show that debuted earlier this month on the Israeli satellite company YES is the talk of the town across certain sectors of southern Jerusalem. "Srugim" (in English: "knitted kippas") is an extraordinarily accurate depiction of the religious singles scene in Jerusalem.

"Set in our own neighborhood (Katamon and the German Colony in particular), the show chronicles the trials and tribulations of trying to find one's place in the grueling "swamp" that represents the modern Orthodox world in Jerusalem.

"Though the show is about Israel singles, Anglos in the city will easily recognize their own lives, between coffee dates at local cafes, shul hopping and the ubiquitous plastic bags containing quiches, humus and drinks that singles carry around on Shabbat as they head to a group meal with other like minded young people.

"Srugim is peppered with location shots of local hangouts. And the dumpy apartments with their tiny kitchens will be uncomfortably familiar to anyone who's ever been single in Jerusalem."

It must be a bit deja vu'ish living in the small neighborhood where it's filmed: Observant immigrants and many, many other Israeli singles that I know from the 'hood could very easily wander into a shot and be mistaken for the actors.

Worth a watch, even without the English since it's in Hebrew.

Great post, Brian.

Jerusalem: God's Own WiFi Hotspot

Just so you should know: where to get the best WiFi Internet signal when visiting Jerusalem:

http://www.jerusalemite.net/modules/article_files/get_attached_file.php?article=501&file=8

If only Mark Twain knew...