Tikkun Olam

The title expression is that of a book by Thomas Wolfe , and is commonly used to mean that a person cannot go back to his childhood home and expect it to be the same, expect himself to relive his (or her) experiences and feelings; that time passes, and our childhood is gone forever . I had just read an article in the Wall Street Journal about returning to one's childhood home, and I had never even thought to Google - sorry - to search for the apartment building where I grew up by using Google Maps until I read the article. So I did. Parts of the neighborhood are the same, but I didn't recognize the shops, nor the playground where I used to play as a little girl. When I was little, all playground equipment was made of metal: the swings, see-saws, monkey bars--which I loved to climb to the top, scaring my mother half to death--and the slides, which I used to call "sliding ponds." To this day, I don't know why (but then again, I also called pony-tails 'horse...

Go to Shiloh Musings or Me-ander to see the latest Chodesh Adar Tov edition of the weekly Jewish Blog Carnival, Haveil Havalim ("vanity of vanities"). And, since Adar ushers in the month of Purim and happiness, tarbu b'simcha while you're reading it! משנכנס אדר מרבין בשמחה!!!

Many non-Jews are converting to Judaism these days, as are Jews who are returning to their religious roots. I wrote about Yisrael Campbell (the former), here . An example of the latter is found in Moran Sabbah , who found her Judaism after beginning on a rock-star career (hat-tip Shoshana Z.) As seen on Chabad.org , she writes: I had a vision. I was a fifteen-year-old holding an old Spanish acoustic guitar, as I strummed the chords. I closed my eyes and imagined myself performing on a grand stage. The crowd was cheering for me, as photographers snapped my pictures. I opened my eyes. "I'm going to be a rock star!" I knew this was my life's mission, and so, at the age of fifteen I embarked on my journey, never looking back. What is interesting is that she continued her career after becoming frum ,* albeit adjusting it to performing for women only. This way, she developed her G-d given talent and channeled it to conform with Torah values. *frum: religious (Jewishly)

A man named Marcus Henderson Wilder who walked 600 miles through Spain at age 69, is apparently publishing a book on "Israel and Palestine." He asked honest questions about the region and its history, which he researched. Answers to some of these questions, called " Israel and Palestine Chapter One ", are on his website. I don't know what, if any, connection he has or has had with Israel, but he 'discovered' facts which the world at large does not recognize, in its vilification of and blame on Israel for the situation of the Arabs vis-a-vis the Jewish State. Seems that many more should read this when his book is published in April. Here is an excerpt: Naked Data© The 1844 census of Jerusalem found 7120 Jews...5760 Muslims...3390 Christians. In 1869, Mark Twain wrote of the emptiness of the land, of traveling all day without seeing a human being on the roads or in the countryside. Mark Twain wrote of Arab sloth and filth and flies. In the 1880s, Am...

In addition to my three-dimensional family in my physical "real-life" world, I am grateful to find that I also almost have a "virtual family," my cyberspace blogosphere family. My postings on my illness have brought out the good and kind in many people. I am thankful for all the well-wishes and blessings for refu'ah shelemeh (a complete recovery) and expressions of empathy from wonderful bloggers, who I am sure are also wonderful three-dimensional-people in "real-life." Someday I hope to meet them, if not bloggers in the States (America's a big country), at least some of those bloggers living in Israel--when we make our 'second Aliyah'. . .eventually. . .

I've written before about the U.S. being afraid to name its enemy, the enemy of the Free West: radical Islam, and none other. To reiterate, if we continue to do this, we will lose this war (G-d forbid). Here's how LatmaTV (thank you Caroline Glick ) views the American response to the Islamic Jihadist terrorist massacre at Ft. Hood. America, take note, and act accordingly.

In Judaism, we have a tradition of discussion and pilpul - where we question, analyze and answer - from Talmudic study to public debate. It is the civilized, intelligent way of learning for the purpose of arriving at the truth: discuss, challenge and refute. Unfortunately, that is not the culture of the people who disrupted Michael Oren's talk at UC at Irvine (hat tip Atlas Shrugs ). These "students" - I am assuming that they are students, and it is not certain if they are members of the Muslim Student Union - raucously interrupted his speech 10 times before walking out (escorted by campus security) in protest. By doing so, they accomplished nothing except preventing the Israeli Ambassador from speaking freely about U.S./Israel relations. You'd think they would have first allowed him to speak and then asked questions? Of course not; that's too civilized (and might expose their false accusations and arguments). Better to shout him down to prove your point (wh...

The new Haveil Havalim, the weekly Jewish Blog Carnival, this week's number 255 "Post-Groundhog Day Edition" - is up at Simply Jews . Go have a good read (so will I, over coffee and pain killers).

I just finished reading various posts, some discussing Muslim attacks on Jewish students at York University , and politically correct jokes about Israel and the "peace process " (hat tip Rafi ), to comments (on YouTube videos of Israel's excellent rescue efforts) deriding Israel for helping the Haitians with "money from America," and it's occured to me that we seem to be in the very, very early stages of the culture which led to the Shoah. That is the culture where it is universally ok to blame Israel (definition: the Jews) for everything, and to use that blame as an excuse to incite to violence against Jews. One can see this 'acceptance' of such behavior in the Defense Dept. report on the Ft. Hood massacre . If people continue to be afraid to name the enemy, or when they don't protest against violent Islamic culture because of a fear of antagonizing Muslims, our free society's future is doomed. Being sick, I think I wrote a rather disjoin...

You know, with all our troubles, unemployment, illness, etc.--I still feel blessed, because I have family . Connecting with my children today by computer voip call and cellphone, helped me feel as if I have people I love rallying around me. I have to admit, that I'm not a nice person when I'm sick. In fact, I become an honorary member of the criminally insane - contrast that with my D.H., who when sick is mamash a stoic (-may Hashem keep him healthy, amen ken yehi ratzon). He doesn't complain, he just tries to ride it out, quietly, and rest as much as possible. Me? I fly into a rage (if not a mini-depression); actually, I think illness brings out the histrionic in me. I become a melodramatic stage actress, in a really bad off-off Broadway play. Just ask my D. H., and he'll (secretly...or maybe not...) agree. At any rate, talking to my Rambo, who is on vacation while her sister (who just came back last summer from four years in Israel, so they were pretty close) ...