Tikkun Olam

(nablopomo day 30--the last!!) I want to end this Nablopomo for the month of June with a clever little video from No Laughing Matter , illustrating the effectiveness and unity of the United Nations, who are definitely united and effective on one thing, and one thing only: bashing Israel. Maybe things will improve in the month of July.

(nablopomo day 29) I was in a rush to get my post and pictures in yesterday, so I didn't pontificate on the significance of the name "Naomi." I remember, when my first Israeli grandson was born to my younger son, Nathaniel Blumenstein, I waxed eloquent ( or rather, my son did--I just copied and pasted his stuff!) on the meaning and significance of his name, Gavriel (which is translated as "Gabriel" in English) on my post back in November '08 after his birth, here . As is Gavriel, Naomi, too, is a special name.  It is Hebrew, originating in the TaNaCH in the book of Ruth.  Naomi was the mother-in-law of Ruth.  It means "my delight," coming from the Hebrew word, no'am , which is "pleasantness" or "delightfulness." The shoresh , or root, is " na-em ," which is 'pleasant' or 'lovely.'  The infinitive, " li-n'om , " means "to be pleasant." Hebrew grammar has seven different ...

(nablopomo day 28) Finally I have some photos to post of my new little grandaughter, Naomi.  I actually mentioned her name in my response to a comment on yesterday's post, not having realized that I never disclosed her name in that post! So, her name is Naomi, and here she is! D. H. says they're not high-resolution.  I say they are higher than high!  Or maybe that's me: I am higher than high!

 (nablopomo day 27) I was on pins and needles all Thursday and Friday, knowing that my daughter-in-law's due date had passed (June 24th), and not having  heard a word. Then, around 12:30 p.m. on Shabbat, the phone rang.  I jumped up and ran to look at the caller I.D. As you might already know from reading this blog (-you do read this blog, don't you?!), we are Jewish and observant, and consequently do not use the phone on Shabbat, the Jewish Sabbath. So basically, all I could do with the phone was... look at it!.  I saw that it was a call from Israel, so I rapidly slid down the bannister (well, not exactly, but it sure felt like it) to the main level in our townhome, where the kitchen is and our phone recording machine, and hopped from one leg to the other waiting for the message (bet you didn't know I could hop, either). Sure enough, it was my older son, Mr. Arnold Mayergi , sounding excited and exhausted at the same time--don't they always go together, th...

(nablopomo for day 26, a tad late. so what.) Haveil Havalim, the Jewish Blog Carnival, is up and running at this place .  Read it. That's an order. (But take it in a nice way. Please.)

 (nablopomo day 25, anniversary of the abduction of Gilad Shalit...) Anyone who says Hamas are "freedom fighters" is ignorant, or delusional.  Hamas is a terrorist organization, fighting dirty in violation of international laws for one reason, and one reason only: to annihilate Israel. That is why they went across the border of Gaza, on June 25th, 2006, and attacked an IDF post in Israeli territory . And this was after Israel had evacuated Gaza (which just goes to show you what a BIG mistake that was).  Hamas, in the raid, kidnapped then 19-year old Gilad Shalit.   As written above, the summer before, in 2005,  Israel had removed approximately 9,000 Israelis from towns which they had built from scratch on what used to be sand dunes, in order to return Gaza to the Arabs- a gesture of good-will if I ever saw one - in a show of peace. But there was, and still is no partner for peace on the Arab side. Hamas does not want peace.  It wants the elimi...

(nablopomo day 24) Saw this on Shirat Devorah .  Is the  BP/Deepwater Horizon Gulf oil spill just another man-made disaster, or is it the Hand of G-d? Food for thought. . .

(nablopomo day 24) An article on Israel National News discusses a recent demographic study in Israel of the last 15 years which indicates a dramatic rise in Jewish births and a parallel drop in Arab births.  The interesting thing is that the rise in birth rate is among secular Jewish women, while the birth rate among religious women remains consistently high. Dr. Adam Reuter, writing on Arutz-7’s Hebrew site, presents a set of statistics showing that the dire predictions of an Arab demographic takeover of Israel that have become “common knowledge” are actually not true. It includes eye-opening statistics, a few enumerated here, such as: 1) The fertility gap between Arab and Jewish women, which used to be 6 births in 1969, has dropped to .7 in 2009. 2) The proportion of Jewish births in Israel has grown from 69% of total births in 1995, to 75% in 2008 3) A generation ago, secular Jewish women gave birth to 2.1 children.  Their daughters are giving birth to 2.6 ch...

(nablopomo day 23) Was reminded about a topic close to my heart by Batya .  That topic is... nail polish! I would be pretty upset if someone dissed me because of my nail polish.  Actually, a funny thing happened at my last job: I was sitting next to a 30-year old, and I think I caught what she had.  I am now a total lover of BLUE nail polish.  Wonder what would happen if the Iranian morality court saw these digits: Red is for...wimps (and old ladies).  I now love BLUE.  And I think it's contagious. . .

(nablopomo day 22) I previously posted on President Obama's statement uttered in his speech in Cairo, that Muslims played a role in "America's story."  What I posted was An American citizen's response " to Obama's statement by Mr. Morris Sadek , supposedly refuting it point by point.  The refutation sounded plausible on the surface, and I did no research on it whatsoever. I Should've. Because the refutations themselves were done without research, and they were false (hat tip, my previous commenter, Friar Yid ).  I am here to set the record straight. Turns out In this case, Obama was right: Muslims did play a part in the discovering and building of America.  Even before the slave trade, there were accounts in pre-Columbus times of Muslims arriving in the 'New World', and in the 1500s, Africans were forcibly brought to this country and sold as slaves in Spanish Florida.  There are estimates indicating that 10-20% of the blacks brought as sl...

 (nablopomo day 21) Saw this on a chat board.  How true.  Read it all the way through.  Is it possible that the president of the United States actually said this?! Barack OBAMA, during his Cairo speech,  said:   "I know, too, that Islam has always been a part of  America 's story." AN AMERICAN CITIZEN'S RESPONSE:  Dear Mr. Obama:   Were those Muslims that were in America when the Pilgrims first landed?  Funny, I thought they were Native American Indians. Were those Muslims that celebrated the first Thanksgiving  Day?  Sorry again, those were Pilgrims and Native American Indians. Can you show me one Muslim's signature on the   United States Constitution? Declaration of Independence ? Bill of Rights? Didn't think so.!!!!  Did Muslims fight for this country's freedom from England ?  No. Did Muslims fight during the Civil War to free the slave...

(nablopomo day 21) This is going to be a short post, as there's no need for verbosity with this beautiful video.  It brings documentation which shows that Jerusalem historically belonged to the Jews, that the Jews have yearned for it from their places of dispersion in the diaspora for thousands of years, and that it belongs to the Jews, period.  Jerusalem will not be divided.

 (nablopomo day 21) I posted yesterday on our indecision in where to go for an outing to honor my D. H. as a father, on Father's Day, the great American Hallmark holiday.  It was a tug of war between driving to the mountains for an al ha-eish --I mean, BBQ--or taking a hike. So my D. H. basically told me to 'take a hike.' Just kidding.  He actually came up with a plan (called "plan B"), which would be a compromise, and the two of us would get a little of what each wanted (The compromise, by the way, was my idea...). So we went to one of the nice big parks in our city, which has a lake with a path around it, almost one mile long.  There was a free concert scheduled for the early evening, at the bandstand right on the lake.  We arrived early enough for us to 'take a hike' around the lake, and then whipped out our camping chairs and blanket, sat down and listened to a wonderful blues and jazz concert with singer Hazel Miller . Then after the two hour...

Great job by Frume Sarah in hosting and posting the latest Jewish Blog Carnival Haveil Havalim, number 272 (so they say), on her blog, here . For the past two or three weeks I've been several days late in linking it.  Guess what?  It's only. . . 12:08 a.m., so I'm only late by eight minutes!!! Read, and enjoy! ( hey, does this post count for nablopomo day 21?!)

(nablopomo day 20) We're going to do something for Father's Day.  It's just the two of us (we spoke to our older son in Israel, who is, G-d willing, days away from being a father).  Yesterday we spoke to our younger son, and wished him a happy father's day. I don't know what we will do.  D. H. and I have different ideas about what's "fun."  I want to go hiking--a mild one, such as a walk, walk, walk around a certain park in town which has a lake. Or hike a mountain trail... He wants to drive, drive, drive to the mountains, and have a BBQ with STEAKS. I wouldn't mind that, if we walk first, you know--help work off the steaks we're gonna have.Wonder if we can come to a compromise.  Meanwhile, the day is passing. . . Meahwhile, happy Father's Day to all you fathers out there!   *Copyright alert: No infringement of any text or graphic copyright is ever intended on this blog. If you own the copyright to any original image ...

(for nablopomo day 19) So last night I was exhausted, but in a good way.  We had a lovely Shabbat with guests for lunch, with their little kids and a practically newborn baby (2 months old, but very wise looking)--something I miss in my every day life. Want to hear the menu? I knew you did!  We had just finished a meal of baked salmon with lemon juice (courtesy of our friends and neighbors), yummy cold gazpacho soup (courtesy of D. H.), lamb stew a la Shalom Park , chicken shnitzel, rice salad, corn salad, green vegie salad, pickled cucumber salad (my D. H.'s favorite recipe), and fresh fruit, strawberries and pineapple, on a bed of. . . pineapple--plus watermelon for dessert. After lunch we sat outside in front of our town home, stuffed to the gills,  on our lawn chairs.  Three and a half families (only the kids were here from the "half" family) sitting and talking and drinking water (I considered making lemonade, but the thought of overdosing with sugar kind ...

(nablopomo day 18) If anything, this LatmaTV video (hat tip, Batya ) is better and more cutting than their previous one about the Turkish-terrorist-flotilla called "We Con the World."  YouTube removed that one upon the pretext that it was a case of copyright infringement.  This is untrue.  Read the true background about this on Caroline Glick's blog ,  and see why YouTube (owned by Google, by the way) committed its cowardly act.  Perhaps we should hit Google where it hurts: in the pocketbook, if this keeps up.  I wonder how many pro-Israel, anti-terrorist videos YouTube would remove then? It is so odd that Jews, great at public relations and marketing in the private sector, haven't been able to 'market' the truth about itself being right and good, and Islam's being wrong and evil.  With these videos, maybe, just maybe--the world will begin to 'see the light.' Underneath the latest parody, I am re-embedding "We Con the World," in ...

(nablopomo day 17) Since when does a 'humanitarian peace activist' yell out to a Jew "go back to Auschwitz?"  See this telling clip of what actually ensued before, during and after the Israelis boarded the Mavi Marmara.  Thanks to Arlene Kushner for the link.

(nablopomo day 17) Congressman Mike Pence, speaking at the House with regard to recognizing the Turkish massacre of the Armenians , has the courage to speak up about the flotilla incident and question Obama's attitude.  Whose side is president Obama on? The wrong side, which will bring the world instability and war, not  justice and peace.  President Obama is no friend to Israel.  And sadly, no friend to a strong and moral America.

I linked the Haveil Havalim--the Jewish Blog Carnival--late, which was bad enough.  But I totally didn't link the KCC, Kosher Cooking Carnival, which runs every month.  Mea culpa.  Here it is, number fifty-five, in honor of Rosh Hodesh Tammuz--at Me'ander .  Read it, cook it, eat it all up, and don't leave anything on your plate!

(nablopomo day 16) I hate to say "As If," but now the Israeli government's investigative commission on the 2005 Gush Katif disengagement has just been revealed, and lo--wonder of wonders--it concludes that the evacuation of approximately 9,000 people from the Gush Katif communities in Gaza was a total governmental failure . The state’s official investigative committee regarding the country’s treatment of the Gush Katif expellees has been issued, giving failing grades to the government. Gush Katif residents say they hope the report will lead to change, The so-called "disengagement," which was really a total evacuation and expulsion of citizens of Israel from territory that was captured in a defensive war which was completely built up by these citizens from merely sand dunes to thriving towns, with a thriving economy and successful, closely-knit communities.  I will NOT use the term "settlers," because the truth is that the entire country of Israe...

(nablopomo day 15) Haveil Havalim, the latest edition #271, is up and running at Ima's blog , right here.  Again, forgot to link it on Sunday, even though yours truly is in it! Oh well.  Posting this Tuesday is not too late. . .I hope.

(nablopomo day 15) An interesting cultural Israeli mix.  Have to put this stuff, each song in its entirety, on my MP3.  I love just hearing the Ivrit* , and the beat (I'm a poet!).  And in my opinion, good Israeli RAP music is much better than American rap--and this from someone who dislikes rap intensely.

(nablopomo day 15) Pat Condell says it like it is.  I don't agree with him on everything he says (he is an atheist), but good for him on this one: say NO to political correctness, and to mosques at ground zero.

(nablopomo day 14) The United Nations is sliding into a giant sinkhole,  much like the one in Guatemala recently. Only the U.N. Watch spoke up against Syria's hateful speech repeating the horrible lies of the traditional antisemitic blood libels.  Watch this, and then the speech which was banned by the U. N. Council and ordered "taken out of the records." This is the so-called 'humanitarian' body which 'unites' all the world for peace? The United Nations has actually become an organization of Israel-bashers and promoters of--by ignoring them--"torture, persecution, and violence against women":  In other words, the United Nations is a sick joke, and basically useless. Pay attention to the U. N. response to this speech.

(nablopomo day 14) My blogger friend's friend's cousin actually made this video at U.C.L.A.  It shows how little the average college student knows about Israel's impact on the United States, and on their everyday lives.  Watch this, learn, and please support Israel.

 (nablopomo day 13) Jimmy Dean passed away today (remember him?).  He was 81.  His hot dogs weren't kosher, but I remember this song well.  He was definitely a self-made man.  May he rest in peace.

(nablopomo day 13) I love books.  I come from a family of book lovers, avid readers, writers and scholars.  My parents, ( zichronam li-vrakhah *) were intellectuals, my mother got her degree in biology, and was talented in the arts, drawing and music.  My father was a Torah and Hebrew teacher and scholar, as well as a Hebrew poet and writer.  He published a book of poetry and many articles in HaDoar, Bitzaron, Ma'ariv and other Hebrew literary magazines and newspapers, as well as translated Shakespeare's Measure for Measure into Hebrew. Me, I'm just an avid reader and writer of run-on sentences.  And I just discovered something called Library Thing !  I recently embedded its widget right here on my blog (scroll down the sidebar).  I remember the days when I kept long lists of books I was reading, had read, and wanted to read.  I kept having to transfer these lists from personal planner to personal planner (in the days of, yes--personal plann...

(nablopomo day 12)   Gotta post because I signed up for this.  Really.  So I'm posting. Had a pleasant, restful Shabbat.  Went to good friends for the seudah sheniyah .  The food and company were lovely. I held the baby and spoke to him in Ivrit.  We had a lovely conversation (he's two months old).  We talked about Jewish history.  We talked about the reasons for G-d's tzimtzum in this world. We talked about...Boy Scouts.  We sang z'mirot.  I sang z'mirot with their toddler on my lap, she, bouncing away.  It was great. Then, whilst clearing the table for dessert, my friend, Reb Y., accidentally tipped over the cholent in its heavy glass bowl off the refrigerator shelf, it fell into the fridge door and knocked the bottom shelf out with all the jars and bottles and yogurts which were on it onto the floor.  Meanwhile, the cholent, potatoes, vegetables, meat, etc. exploded onto the bottom of the fridge, under the fridge an...

  (nablopomo day 11) I want one!   (My son was a great drummer, once.) ( Drumbrella .)

(nablopomo day 11) Michael Savage has the guts to say what most people don't.  Did anyone suggest that Helen Thomas go back to Lebanon??

(nablopomo day 11)   The lyrics are all the words needed for this one (hat tip RonMossad ).

 (nablopomo day 11) Unlike the world viewing reality with a film over its eyes, the truth about Israel's extreme importance to the United States is spelled out--in bright light--point by point, by Caroline Glick in her article, The Plain Truth About Israel .  Glick correctly assesses these times as those of Israel-hatred, which is really Jew-hatred in a flimsy disguise.  Read the entire article at its source.  Enlighten yourself.  Do not be afraid.  In the end, truth, and right, will prevail. In other times, Hearst Newspapers White House Correspondent Helen Thomas's demand that the Jews "get the hell out of Palestine," and go back to Poland, Germany and America would have been front page news in every newspaper in the US the day after the story broke.  In other times, had the dean of the White House Correspondents Association expressed such hatred for the Jews, the White House would have immediately removed her accreditation rather than wait...

(nablopomo day 11) I have said time and time again on this blog, that we cannot take at face value what an Arab says. He will say one thing to his people, and another to the world. The Arab mentality is not llke the Western mentality.  There is not the same honesty and integrity, or the "I gave you my world." Because their world view is different than ours, and allows duplicity for their purposes. Watch this, and learn.