Tikkun Olam

I am an Orthodox Jew, and I am opposed to public buses being gender-segregated, either in Israel or here in the States.  Note, I said public buses.  The Haredi (Ultra-Orthodox) community, in my opinion, can hire private buses wherever they be, be it Bnei Brak in Israel or Borough Park in New York, and enforce their own rules however they like.  But not on public buses with city franchises. Apparently, this had been going on for quite a while on a route from Borough Park to Williamsburg , with officials looking the other way. Not anymore: Faced with the choice of losing its franchise with the city or allowing women riders to sit where they please, a Brooklyn bus line that is authorized and monitored by New York’s Department of Transportation says it won’t engage in gender segregation. But it appears that in the company’s nearly four decades plying the streets between Borough Park and Williamsburg, government officials may have long known about the company’s impr...

As we know--or more correctly, as some of us know and the rest of us should know--it is politically incorrect to say anything positive about Israel or defend Israel in almost anything it does, such as it's holding onto those "disputed territories" won fair and square in a defensive war, or keeping up a naval blockade against anyone who might try shipping weapons and materials to terrorists bent on Israel's destruction, or its treatment of the Arabs (so-called "Palestinians") who are either Israeli citizens, or in the aforementioned Judea and Samaria, treatment which is called by many who have no concept of the meaning of the word, "apartheid." So it is really refreshing (and a bit shocking--hard for me to believe he actually said this in public) to hear Glenn Beck fully support Israel, and not mince words at it, either: I want to leave you with his strong words this erev Shabbat.  Food for thought (enjoy your Shabbat se'udah ). Shabbat ...

Still sick, but I wanted to post some pics of our sukkah, so here they are.  This is facing the East wall, where we have hung our "bahd" (material) from the sukkah we had when we lived in Israel, thirty years ago.  It was one entire wall of our small sukkah in Gilo then, and the colors were much brighter.  Now, it doesn't reach the other side of our wall, and the colors are faded away.  But I still love it and it brings back memories... The wall to the left has pics of some of the "Gedolim," Harav Kook, the Rebbe, Rambam.  The " Misnagdim " are on that wall too, but near the photographer (yours truly) so they're not visible in this pic.  Actually, one of them is: the Rambam (he was no Chassid). The middle photo is our kids' wall, with stuff they made when they were teeny tiny babes.  I'm a packrat.  I save everything.  When I die, they'll have to dig down under all this stuff to find me.  Our sukkah "window" was actual...

Especially for my non-Jewish friends and bloggers, here is a video on the significance of the holiday of Sukkot for everyone (yes, everyone )--couldn't explain it better myself.  "Feast" your eyes on this video, and enjoy!

My son called me today (it was 11:38 p.m. for him--very late) while he was cooking for the chag, or holiday, of Sukkot (Tabernacles, for all my non-Jewish readers) which begins tomorrow night. He was having a "high" in preparation for the chag.  He had finished putting up his Sukkah (the temporary booth we erect in which to have all our meals, and even sleep in during this 7 day holiday), and was now cooking (his wife was working the night shift) up a storm, expecting to have to stay up and awake until 3:00 a.m.  I hope he didn't have to... One of the recipes he was making was Turkey Tzimmes, his Rebbetzin's recipe.  It sounded so good, that I wanted to change our menu which we already had set up, to make it.  But no can do, because, as I said, everything has been decided upon, ingredients bought, and we are sharing the cooking with another family who will be with us for the 3-day Yom Tov, for every meal, until they leave on the middle intermediate days for New J...

...I'm afraid so.  A physically easy and spiritually meaningful fast to all. *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 or document used for the creation of the graphics or information on this site, please contact the blog administrator with all pertinent info so that proper credit can be given. If you wish to have it removed from the site, just say the word; it shall be, ASAP.

Do the "Palestinians" want peace? Maybe.  Ok, let's say "sure." But not with a Jewish State.  'Cause there isn't anything like that.  Nor are there a "Jewish People."  There never has been. There's only something called "Israel."  And they don't want peace with it , either. Dennis Prager did a 'test' with a peace activist, to prove this (entire article here .).  I don't know whether she understood it... The Palestinians Want Peace -- Just Not With a Jewish State About five years ago, I was invited by the Hoover Institution to lecture at Stanford University over the course of a week. Coincidentally, Israel's Independence Day fell during that week, so I was invited to speak at the celebration held by pro-Israel students. In my talk, I noted that the crux of the problem in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict was that most Palestinians wanted Israel to cease to exist. After my talk, a woman walked over t...

When you think about it, we Jews have wonderful holidays, celebrating goodness, giving thanks to G-d for...everything.  And at this time of year, we Jews are supposed, during our High Holidays,  to do much introspection on our moral selves, our character, and our lives.  We are supposed to make serious efforts to change for the better.  Well, have we? Have we consciously worked on it? Did you become a better person than you were last year? Have I? Dennis Prager has a very interesting take on why most of us have trouble doing that .  He has come up with 13 reasons - stumbling blocks, if you will - preventing us from become morally and ethically better human beings.  The one that surprised me was Number One: we don't really want to be good people.  Read the first four reasons below.  Then click on the link, and read the rest.  As someone said in a song (see previous post), it ain't gonna be so easy . 1. Most people don't particularly w...

Is G-d telling us to follow a certain path, the right path? To sing His song? To come with Him?  Very moving rendition by Moshe Hendel reminiscent of Paul Simon's folk-rock (seen by yours truly first on My Shtub .)  What does it mean? It's not gonna be that easy...

Have you ever seen a video such as this Israeli one: hoping and praying for a good, peaceful year--coming from the Arab sector? If you have, please send me the link.  'Cause I haven't.  Ever. Gmar Chatimah Tovah*. *Gmar Chatimah Tovah: May you be sealed (in the book of life) for a good year.