Tikkun Olam

This is my first post back on Tikkun Olam since April 23rd, 2015. It does not feel real. Why is it that we never think we will ever have a JOLT in our lives that will change the entire life course we have been traveling? We continue on, day by day, complacent, even in the face of serious illness--believing that what we are living is the only reality; that it is immutable, that it is PHYSICAL: you can touch it, feel it, and it will continue to be there for you tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow... But it isn't. And it won't.  Because the unthinkable can, and does, happen, in time. To everybody. As it happened to me, almost a year ago, on August 10, 2015, when my DH - Dear Husband, of 46 years, died. I am living in an Alternate Universe. Because the universe in which I was living all my life until now, is gone. I still want to slap myself in the face and wake myself up. It's a dream. A terrible nightmare.  It's a horror movie with a frightening ending, but I will...

An update to Waze which might nip kidnappings in the bud, a possible cure for Alzheimer's, and water management methods California surely can use - just to mention three, on the occasion of Israel's 67th Independence Day celebrations: Lighting the (Independence Day) Torch of the Future of the World. (What a country; what a people!) Dr. Marta Weinstock-Rosin who invented the memory-improving drug Exelon speaks up about a possible future without Alzheimer's. A short excerpt about Dr. Weinstock-Rosin, below.  In many ways, Exelon, and its inventor, paved new paths in Israeli medicine, and Israeli society. Weinstock-Rosin, who is Orthodox, was born in Vienna and fled with her family to Britain in 1939, narrowly escaping from the Nazis. She came to Israel with her family in 1969, and became a professor at Hebrew University in 1981. In 1983, she became head of the Pharmacology department at the Hebrew University (now part of the Institute for Drug Research) in the Fa...

I haven't blogged since January 2015, I believe it was. There was a time when I would blog before or during every chag (which means holiday, for my non-Hebrew speaking friends), but a difficult year health and other-wise (more on these, possibly at a later date and blog post) and lack of patience to research subjects which interested me precluded blogging. But it's erev chag sheni (the eve of the last days of Yom Tov, the holy days of Pesach/Passover) and I revisited my Previous Pesach Posts (note the alliteration; she said wryly) to see what I had written over the years, and decided -- the lazy woman's exit strategy -- to repost the links here, so you can peruse them all over again; that is, if you actually even read them to begin with... A few points come to mind: -Pesach cleaning and switching over? Hard?! Understatement of the year. Now, in 2015, with my mobility issues (osteoarthritis, fibromyalgia, decrepiting-as-we-speak knee cartilege), nearly impossible without...

I need add nothing to this video. Pat Condell slaps that religion in the face all by himself.

Israel is developing a new concept in cars: an electric car based on a hybrid lithium-ion and aluminum-air battery system. It's being developed and tested by Israel's start-up company, Phinergy , which stated that the car has a 1,100 mile range far outpacing the Tesla's 300 mile range between charges. But don't tell the BDS people. They might just drop their membership... (Oh, and by the way, what have the Arab nations produced to help mankind lately...?)

I vowed (well, I promised, bli neder) not to post of terrible events happening throughout the world, but there have been many, many terrorist attacks, against people in Western countries, and specifically, the Jews. Even since the horrific execution-style murders of the Charlie Hebdo editorial staff and the four Jews in the Hyper Cacher kosher market in Paris by radical Islamist terrorists and stabbing attacks on a #40 bus in Tel Aviv, by a Palestinian Arab illegally living in Israel. The so-called "moderate" Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah continues to support terrorism and has even portrayed Israel's Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu as Hitler .As recently as November, 2014, Fatah has stated that our bullets will continue to be aimed at your chests and heads.   Abba's Fatah continues to praise and glorify terrorists who murder civilians as 'heroes.' And finally, the Palestinian Authority has NO intention of 'making peace' with Israel. On the contrary, its f...

I'm returning to blogging--albeit sporadically--after a hiatus (since July) due to family issues which are taking all my attention and draining my energy. It's largely for this reason that I wish to blog about the good in this world. Thus I start with positive thoughts of, and appreciation for, the special nature of the Jewish People and the State of Israel. For, at the risk of sounding arrogant, which I am not-I would venture to say, more in awe of- the State of Israel and the Jewish people collectively, who are different and special. What do I mean by that? I mean highly civilized, humanitarian and inventive with creations which benefit all mankind. Not in any particular order, let me count (just a few of) the ways... (1) Israel has developed a computer algorithm to retard aging .  Yes, you might say that Israel is in the forefront of finding the fountain of youth .  Most of us have heard or read that the older one gets, the less one should eat; we know that our meta...

No need for more words. We strive to overcome, we build, we create, we live :  This is who we are: ...and this is who our partners for peace are:

So many blog posts have been written about this Gaza operation, Protective Edge, the response to the incessant rockets raining over the heads of Israeli civilians that I didn't add another one.  I listen to NPR reports which are all slanted against Israel, decrying the "disproportionate" number of Gazans killed versus the much smaller number (thank G-d) of Israelis killed.  The world is railing against Israel for killing "innocent" civilians.  But in fact, they are not "innocent civilians": by an overwhelming majority in a democratic election they voted in the bloody Jew-hating terrorist group Hamas into government. Those who do not leave, after being warned by telephone calls ( telephone calls! ) from Israel and leaflets dropped from planes to flee or be in the line of fire, are no different than Hamas. They've made their choice, and chose their sides. And yet, everyone posted about this. I didn't. There was no need for me to.  Until no...

You've probably been reading dozens of stories and articles about the ongoing Israeli offensive (finally!) into Gaza to stop the rockets raining over the heads of their countrymen, women and children. Perhaps you've read other bloggers live-blogging the war (like The Muqata . Find him on Facebook). Here's something you may not have seen. An incredibly astute preschool teacher wrote a song to help children cope with constant "tzeva adom" sirens* (literally, "color red," translated into "code red"). By singing, using their bodies and hand motions, the children create for themselves a plan of action, execution of that action, and then when it's over, release. Here it is below. *The Code Red early warning radar system was initially called "Shachar Adom," which means "Red Dawn." The name was changed in 2006 when it was discovered that kids named "Shachar" were having "emotional distress.

This positive piece about our president's "support for Israel" was written by Haim Saban and published in the New York Times before Mr. Obama was elected for his second term. Here is a video from the Israel Video Network showing the opposite. There may be some truths to both of them...but I'm leaning towards the video.

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...