Tikkun Olam

By now everyone knows: the three kidnapped boys,two aged 16 and one age 19, were found, murdered.  They were murdered because they were Jews. Does that remind you of anything? Remember the Holocaust? Remember the murders of the Jewish teacher and his children in France? How about the murders and suicide bombers of Jews in Israel. Here's a random sampling:  Sbarro Pizza and the Moment Cafe in Jerusalem, baby Shalhevet Pass murdered, shot in the head. A few of many. I haven't even mentioned the suicide bus bombings. The Cafe Hillel bombing memorial video is below. (Warning: graphic content.). Yes, Hamas is no different than ISIS : The murder of three teenagers should make the new Palestinian government a pariah, Israel's Intelligence Minister argues A senior Israeli government official likened Hamas to the brutal fighters sowing chaos in Iraq on Monday and said there can be no dealing with a Palestinian government that includes the group, just hours afte...

The United Nations, an antisemitic farce of an organization, is definitely united, in ignoring human rights violations by so-called Palestinians and instead, vociferously blaming Israel for--you name it: disproportionate force, apartheid, arresting Palestinians - whatever they can, while minimizing or ignoring the kidnapping of three Israeli teenagers.  Watch and listen at 2:00 when it is said that the boys might have 'gone on holiday.' A plague on all their houses. But I want to end on a positive note, and that is, two suspects in the kidnapping have been named and their photos circulated . May they be caught quickly and dealt with severely, and may the three kidnapped boys be found safe and sound, and returned to their families. Shabbat shalom, and Chodesh Tammuz tov.                                  ...

In my previous post I alerted you, my readers, to an incident that happened which could have impacted the Baby K'tan company severely, but thanks to intelligent people, has had a positive effect instead, by bringing thousands of people to its website, viewing the company information and its products, and writing wonderful praises of its quality products and outstanding customer service. The incident, a lie about the company being "racist" was spread through social media, specifically Twitter, apparently  by people with brains of only 140 character thoughts. I stated in my last post that the allegation smacked of paranoia and  projection by the self-conscious who read meanings into a photo, meanings which aren't there, very reminiscent of the Salem Witch Trials of the late 1600s (thank G-d nobody's been hanged.). In fact, it is so similar in its means and speed of communication band-wagon-jumping that I must quote from Wikipedia : The episode is one of the nat...

Why is it that when we see something written on some site on the World Wide Web, we have a tendency to take it as true (or as a Christian might say, as "gospel")? In truth, what can happen--and often does--is that a huge lie is perpetrated and spread over the internet.  And once it's 'out there,' it's very hard to counter it or take it back. This is what happened two days ago to my daughter's company, Baby K'tan , whose main product is baby-wearing carriers. Someone didn't like a photo on one of the Baby Ktan boxes, judged it as depicting "single Black mothers" as opposed to 'married White mothers' and attacked the company as "racist." That extremely false allegation was tweeted and re-tweeted with photos thousands of times. The company was inundated with negative and  hate phone calls and hundreds of negative emails. It was an onslaught of hatred; but really, it was an onslaught of utter stupidity and lack of fact-che...

  s Whenever I picked up our Wall Street Journal and saw an op-ed piece by Fouad Ajami, I read it first-- because I knew that he would have the most realistic, tell-it-like-it-is-insightful take on whatever was happening in the Middle East.  He was spot-on in his assessment of the so-called Arab Spring, Arab culture and the Arab mentality.  It was all the more incredible because Mr. Ajami was a Shiite Arab, born in Lebanon, whose family originated in Iran and emigrated to Lebanon in the 1850s, who changed his entire way of thinking about the Middle East conflict between the Arabs and Israel when reality hit him in the face--and he recognized it, and was not afraid to state it outright. From TheWall Street Journal : "I was formed by an amorphous Arab nationalist sensibility," he wrote in his 1998 masterpiece, "The Dream Palace of the Arabs." He came to the U.S. for college and graduate school, became a U.S. citizen, and first made hi...

When the three Israeli boys, Gil'Ad Shaar, Eyal Yifrach and Naftali Fraenkel were kidnapped, everyone went into a frenzy. They (we all) needed to "do something." This is very normal.  Most of us, far removed from the situation--even those in Israel who are not connected by family or close friends to the victims--felt helpless in the face of this atrocity.  So I can understand the call to prayer or to say Tehillim.  For people who don't have any other option, it's better than sitting and doing nothing.  I, for one, called my congressperson, in addition to saying Tehillim.  I wrote about it in a blog post and sent it out to everybody. But do I really believe that saying Tehillim or praying specific tefillot from a siddur will bring them back? Doubtful. There have been "studies" - not controlled, double-blind scientific ones however - which seem to indicate that mass prayer often helps to alleviate a situation, such as helping to heal someone. We say ...

I wish I had a pool like this . I'll even settle for a piano pool.  Let me modify that: I wish I had a pool.                                                           Actually, first I'd need a house .

I am happy to hear that Senator Ted Cruz, R-Texas, has come out up front and in addition to condemning the heinous kidnapping of the three Israeli (including one with dual American/Israeli citizenship) and calling it an atrocity against the United States as well as Israel,  he is strongly urging President Obama to direct the State Department to cut all funding to the new unity/terrorist government of the Palestinians. "This act of terrorism should also alert the Obama Administration to the fact that working with, recognizing, and/or funding any 'unity' government that includes those that seek the destruction of the Jewish State is naive and foolish. Such legitimization of the enemies of Israel and the United States only invites more violence.  As Prime Minister Netanyahu pointed out, ‘You remember that Israel warned the international community about the dangers of endorsing the Fatah-Hamas unity pact. The dangers of that pact now should be abundantly clear to al...

This is the first post I am writing since May, as there are many stresses - medical and otherwise which I will not elaborate here - in my life these days. But I could not refrain from writing a little background information first--before I go into the subject of this post-- about the three kidnapped Israeli youngsters, the incident which happened this past Thursday night as they were waiting to hitch a ride home from Yeshiva at a traffic circle in Gush Etzion. Here is a perfect example, in this cowardly kidnapping of unarmed 16 and 19 year old students, of the value system, culture and mindset of our enemies who wish us to disappear from the face of the Earth--yes, not only from the Middle East, but the Jewish people seem to be a thorn in their side; with the rise in Antisemitism world-wide, it's apparent that we're a thorn in the entire world's side. There was one report on NPR that I could find about the kidnapping, here . The tenor is slightly negative towards...