|
11 Shevat 5768, 1/18/2008
MAZAL TOV!!
Yes, Mazal Tov to ëì òí éùøàì All Am Yisrael, the People of Israel! 
It's 30 years since Jewish Life returned to the Holy City of Shiloh! 
What a modern day miracle! Before King David declared Jerusalem the Capital of the Jewish Nation, Shiloh served that purpose for 369 years. 
Thirty years ago, in the middle of the winter, the Jewish month of Shvat, seven young families and a few yeshiva students renewed Jewish Life where Chana prayed for a son to serve G-d. We are now a few hundred families from all over the world. We share a dream. 
Today Shiloh has a hesder yeshiva, elementary schools (to the 8th grade,) 
a library, medical and dental clinics, stores, a cemetery... everything one needs. Why don't you join us? .
|
 
|
7 Shevat 5768, 1/14/2008
We Shouldn't Be Surprised
I'll never forget how my students, terribly embarrassed, told me how they were beaten and that they saw their rabbis grabbed by the police and thrown out of the windows, head-first.
It really galls the Leftist Israeli establishment, politicians, academics, media, judicial, etc. that their youth has dreams of making money and leaving the country. Jealously is the prime mover, motivation in all of their anti-democratic and totalitarian actions.
A few years ago, they began to notice that the elite units in the army and the young officers were primarily from "national religious" backgrounds. At first they didn't care, because it was obvious that a disproportionate amount of soldiers killed in Lebanon were from religious families, meaning that their sons were safer. But then they heard their sons and grandsons calling front-line soldiers "fri'erim," suckers, and they were presented with expensive bills from psychiatrists for army deferments. It began to look like an epidemic, rather than a rare, embarrassing occurrence.
 If Dosh was to draw your typical Israeli "new Jew" farmer today, there would be a beard on his face and tzitziot flying out from under his shirt.
A hundred years ago and fifty years ago all of the "great modern Jewish thinkers" predicted, without any doubt whatsoever, that Jewish ritual, strict observance of Jewish Law, was outdated and would end. The truth is the opposite. Most of their descendants, if they have any, aren't Jews, and Torah-observant communities all over the world are growing.
People like me may be "locked out" of the mainstream media, but blogging has given me the opportunity to run my own "news magazine." That's what I think of my blogs. They are the modern, high tech samizdat.
If the Israeli Government goes after me for my opinions, then I'll take it as a vote of confidence that I'm saying the truth.
|
|
4 Shevat 5768, 1/11/2008
Why Let It Happen Again?
The OU fundraises for the victims of Disengagement, the exilees, but it did nothing with its massive membership to prevent Disengagement. Every time I see their ad my blood boils. They did nothing! Instead of asking their rabbis and synagogues to protest Disengagement, they preached helping Darfur. Immediately after Disengagement, Olmert announced even more drastic destruction of Jewish Life in our Holy Land, and that was predictable, too. WHERE IS THE OUTRAGE? WHERE ARE THE PROTESTS? WHERE ARE YOU--OU? Are you planning a new department for your fundraising, if G-d forbid Olmert and your President Bush have their way? I don't want to be an object of your pity! I don't want my home to be destroyed! I don't want to be exiled! I don't want to be murdered by the terrorists the world is funding! It's not about Jerusalem!
Don't think that by protesting the division of Jerusalem you're doing your job! Jerusalem can't stand alone! G-d helped us liberate Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria as a package deal. Oxygen doesn't go to the heart without lungs. Yes, "their grief is our grief," but not the way you mean it. Their grief is that they were abandoned by their brothers, our brothers. Don't abandon us, like you abandoned them!
|
|
1 Shevat 5768, 1/8/2008
Our Problem Doesn't Begin With Bush
Articles like, Bush clueless about Palestinian street - Palestinian Public Opinion Poll No. (26) - 56.9% support armed action, are really irrelevant. Our problems come from within the Jewish People and Israel's Government and media, the "movers and shakers." They're moving us in the wrong direction and shaking us so that our brains are turning to mush. A few of us are somehow immune to their attempts at mind control. What makes us different? I honestly don't know. But I've always been an "odd one out." I'm not good at following the latest styles. Recently, I've wondered if I could ever be hypnotised, since whenever I'm at one of those "sessions" which end with:  "Close your eyes, and imagine that you're on the beach. The sun is warm, and the..." While everyone else is relaxing and going into a very pleasant "place," I find my eyes wide open and my body going into a hyper-anxious mode. Omert's spell just doesn't work on me.
|
|
29 Tevet 5768, 1/7/2008
U. S. President Bush Supports Dictator
Ehud Olmert and his government are breaking Israeli Law by offering sovereign Israel territory, including its Capital City, Jerusalem, to Arab terrorists who publically state that their aim is to destroy the State of Israel. 
U. S. President Bush is interfering in internal Israeli affairs by refusing to meet with opposition leader, Netanyahu. Bush's visit will severely inconvenience Israeli citizens, when many roads will be closed to vehicles and pedestrians, implying that Israel is unsafe. No one is planning on killing him. Our problem is Olmert and Peres and their followers. Bush isn't welcome at all! Why should we welcome him, when his goal is to establish an Arab terror state in the heart of the Land of Israel? Olmert's approval rating is barely in double digits. He is the least popular Prime Minister Israel has ever had. If Bush was smart, he'd stay away. A smart politician wouldn't want to be tainted by someone like Olmert, who is accused of so many corruption charges, you'd think he was papa doc. Bush, be smart and stay home.
|
|
The Eye of the Storm
by Batya Medad
A Unique Perspective
by Batya Medad of Shiloh
Batya Medad made aliya to Israel in 1970 and is in Shiloh since 1981; she is a veteran jblogger. She's also an English Teacher, wife, mother, grandmother, photographer and HolyLand hitchhiker, always seeing things from her own very unique perspective. For more of Batya's writings and photos, check out: Shiloh Musings And: me-ander |
