Tikkun Olam

Just ended an uplifting get-together with new friends at a pizza restaurant in Shiloh.  The incredibility of this is that is was totally and completely--virtual.  I had never met these women before in person, only on Facebook in a special group, where I introduced myself and chatted almost on a daily basis for several weeks now.  We are like-minded ladies (with some differences of opinion, making it a bit more interesting) who mainly live in Israel, with a couple or so living in the U.S. and Canada. Many of you know my ingrained love for Eretz Yisrael, even though I am not living there now nor have been for over thirty years.  Just speaking with these women, nine hours ahead of me, reading their comments over morning coffee--theirs at my midnight, and mine, at their afternoons--made me feel as if I was there, visiting and shmoozing with them, discussing philosophical questions or points in Judaism, venting about family problems, sharing s'machot (happy occasions) w...

Did you know that in Hebrew, Holocaust Remembrance Day is called "Day of Remembrance of the Holocaust and the Heroism?"  In transliteration it is: Yom Zikaron HaShoah ve-HaGevurah. We Jews are the only people who have constantly , in every generation through the centuries been vilified, persecuted, murdered, and victims of genocide--and for whom the world has done very little to nothing--basically looked the other way.  The United States did not allow Jewish refugees desperately trying to escape Nazified Europe on rickety ships to enter the country. Britain didn't allow Jews who tried to escape their future murderers by entering the ancient land of their people, then still called Palestine (an insulting name given it by the Romans after their conquest of Judea).  These aforementioned refugees were sent back into hell and returned to be murdered. That is why we have a State of Israel.  Because Nazism and anti-Semitism aren't dead, and they aren't even dormant: ...