Tikkun Olam

I wrote about Israel's rescue efforts in Haiti here , but Arlene Kushner expands upon it in her post " With Great Pride " (scroll down to her January 17th post). As Arlene mentions, this might be a 'first' for the Haitians, to see Israeli Jews helping people in need, not because they are "Jewish" and in need, but because they are. . . human beings, and because their G-d-- my G-d--to whom we pray, commands us to do so. ( Remember, folks, to compare and contrast. . . ). Go view a video of the Israeli rescue team at work here . This is the best kind of PR Israel can do to market itself in the Third World (and perhaps in the First World, as well): showing how the Jewish Nation is supposed to live, and what a Jew is supposed to be. Did I mention before that I am proud to be a Jew? Oh. Well, I'm saying it again.

Israel's Magen David Adom is taking part in the international rescue mission and helping the IDF send a 220-man paramedics team to help the Haitians recover from the devastating 7.0 on-the-richter-scale-earthquake which hit and all but destroyed Port-au-Prince, its capital and killing an expected tens-of-thousands. The team includes dogs from the Israeli Oketz Dog Unit who are trained to find people buried under rubble. We have a philosophy that "saving one life is like saving the world." I am proud to be a Jew.

There are still plenty of topics and subjects to write about, politically and culturally speaking, but I think I am experiencing TMI - 'too much information.' Have you ever had that problem? I've just spent the last several hours reading the Opinion and Op-Ed pages in the Wall Street Journal as well as different articles on the web (what they used to call 'surfing the 'net), and there are so many which interest me, that I can't make a decision as to what to write about! Let me give you an example or two. I couldn't decide whether to write about 1) Jews and Israel sending aid to the stricken Island of Haiti after the 7.0 earthquake which devastated it yesterday; does the world have a clue how much that little country of Israel--herself besieged and surrounded by enemies--does in sending disaster relief all over the world? Read about it also here . Or: 2) Jewish woman flees to freedom with her four children from Gaza; does anyone have any idea what kind of...