Panic!!!

Wow! Did I start to panic this morning.

While showering, I suddenly noticed that my grandmother's earring wasn't in my ear.

I have three holes for earrings. Two in one ear, and one in the other. My daughters had the third one done as a birthday present for me almost ten years ago. I love the lack of symmetry, and it's great for single partnerless earrings. For the past few months, I've had that maternal grandmother's earring in the extra hole, and I just add a matching pair in the other two holes, or sometimes two different ones depending on my mood.

In the shower, when I discovered that the earring wasn't hanging from my ear, I was in no condition to run and look for it. I checked what I could in the bathroom and then calmed myself down. It's not a limb, an eye or anything dangerous to my health. It's not like I discovered someone close to me was dead or dying. Either I'd find it, or I wouldn't.

I originally had my ears pierced when I was almost sixteen, after close to ten years of begging my mother for permission. A couple of weeks later, we were visiting my Aunt Sadie, and she presented me with two pairs of earrings, which had belonged to my grandmother. Why to me? To this day, I don't know. I'm not the oldest granddaughter, and two were born after my grandmother's death when I was almost three.  They are named after her. But for some reason my aunt, who had never married nor had any children of her own, decided that I should get the earrings. I wasn't yet religious, but I was very involved in Jewish youth activities, being at that time a regional officer in NCSY, but I don't know how aware the family was of my status. I quickly put them on. I've worn them a lot over the decades, like in this picture.

Being pretty sure I hadn't taken the earrings off the night before, I remembered that I had once found an earring, from my other grandmother, in bed. It had somehow opened up and fallen off when I was sleeping.

Just yesterday after work, when I was finally in Shiloh, almost home, I was talking to a friend who had gotten the same ride, but she needed to go one direction and me the opposite.  Then a neighbor who lives right near by stopped his car to ask if I wanted to get in a go home. I did and told him that I was glad that they have a new car, big enough for the whole family to sit safely. Those of us who have lived in Shiloh a long time are still, and will always be, traumatized by the terrible car accident of the Deutsch Family. The father, HaRav Shlomo, and half of their children were killed in a terrible accident. The entire family of eight had been squeezed into a tiny car.

So how could I obsess over an earring, even my grandmother's earring? I'm sure that she would have been the first to tell me that health is most important.

I didn't rush into my room to check to see if it was in my jewelry box or on the sheet someplace. But yes, that's where it was. Easy to spot, right there on the sheet. I guess my grandmother wanted to remind me of what's really iwhat to value.

Chag Orim Sameach
Have a Wonderful, Light-Filled, and Very Healthy Chanukah

Loves me, Loves me not, Loves me, Loves me... why not?

I think everyone sort of shed a tear for dear Tsippi, kvetching to the world that none of the Arabs would even politely shake her hand at Annapolis. 

Tsippi just wants love, and she believes in taking chances.

Loves me, loves me not, loves me, loves me not. 

What does Israel have to do to win the world's love?

Get more petals to give away?

Sorry Tsippi.  I don't think all the petals in the world will help.

Fiddling While Rome Burns?

My neighbors and I in Mateh Binyamin, the Benjamin Regional Council, north of Jerusalem, have been busy with both regional and local elections.  Yes, at the same time as Olmert has been conspiring in Annapolis to destroy us we've been campaigning and voting for our town councilmen/women, mayors, governor and "parliament" representatives.

Have we been fiddling, while we should be raising the roof in protests?

The regional elections were rather heated.  Adi Mintz, of Moetzet YESHA, who had been quoted that "under certain conditions he'd give the Arabs 40%, was defeated by Avi Ro'eh S'gan Assistant Head of the Regional Council.

photo by Yona Zoref, Shiloh

For many, Adi Mintz's Moetzet YESHA connection was the deciding factor in a difficult election.

photo by Yona Zoref, Shiloh

Judaism is the only religion which combines Kodesh and Chol, the Holy and the Profane.  That's why we must do both, continue with our local issues and protest against the government. 

We must fight, as loyal dissidents, all the evil the Israeli Government is involved with, and at the same time, we must develop and expand the Jewish Communities in all of the Land of Israel, for the sake of our children, our future!

Photo I took at the elections here; two ballots are in his hand, since we allow power of attorney for spouse.

Jerusalem Can't Stand Alone

I was in Jerusalem today.  No, I didn't go to the Jerusalem Demonstration, and I'll explain why later.

I was looking for justice, and to get to the Supreme Court, I passed through a tunnel, part of a road named for Yitzchak Rabin, of all people.  Rabin's second reign as Prime Minister was a dark time, darker than the tunnel.

He was the Oslo Prime Minister, and his aim was very similar to Olmert's.  He planned on destroying Jewish Shiloh, among other Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria and planned on making me and my neighbors homeless.  He also tempted Syria by mentioning that he'd be willing to "talk" about the Golan.  Don't you remember those "The People are With the Golan" banners?  During his reign there was also police brutality against protestors.

At that time most of our politicians fought like the lions in the tunnel for Jerusalem.  It was unheard of to turn back the clock and divide it like the 19 nightmarish years before the Six Days War.  Now our politicians have other priorities and patriotism and loyalty to our precious Historic Homeland aren't on the "must do" list.

I didn't find any justice, but I did see some kids handing out some pale, goldish ribbons, sort of like the color of Jerusalem stone.  They didn't offer me any, but they tried to give their ribbons to cars stopped at red lights.

Their ribbons weren't gold and their campaign is also faulty.

Read: It's Not Enough to Rally For Jerusalem

There are some demonstrations planned to "protect" Jerusalem from Olmert's willingness to sign parts of it away to the Arabs in Annapolis.

I don't support those demonstrations.

It's not because I want to give away Jerusalem. G-d forbid! I want those horrid walls destroyed and the city to be totally united. If Arabs can live in French Hill and Pisgat Zeev, then Jews should live in Beit Chanina or whatever Arab neighborhood they wish.

Those demonstrations are dangerous.

They're dangerous, because they indicate that they've given up on Judea and Samaria. They're not fighting for the preservation of our Historic Biblical Homeland. They've written us off without a fight. They accept the Arab and American demands of a juden rein Judea and Samaria. They're accepting that hundreds of thousands of Jews will be exiled and homeless.

Do they honestly believe that Jerusalem will survive surrounded by another Arab State, one conceived through murder and terrorism?

Do they honestly believe that the State of Israel will survive with such borders?

This isn't 1948, when the entire area was poverty-stricken and weapons were primitive. Only 19 years later, in 1967, the surrounding Arab countries threatened us with extinction. They bragged that they would drive us into the sea. The UN Peace-Keeping Forces fled.

The world waited and watched, expecting an Arab victory. None of them helped us.

Jews all over the world prayed.

Instead of being wiped off the face of the earth and buried at sea, Israel, tiny, weak, poor Israel was victorious. Finally we found ourselves with defensible borders. Finally we found ourselves in possession of our Biblical cities, Hebron, Beit El, Shechem, Shiloh and the Western Wall in the Old City of Jerusalem. Baruch Hashem!

The world was in awe. They recognized the great miracle.

But how did Israel react?

"We don't need it."
"Let's use it to bargain with the Arabs for peace."

In 1967 we had peace. The Arabs accepted our victory. Just the left-wing Israelis in power didn't. The media and the intellectuals weren't interested in our Biblical Homeland. The new Jew, they had invented, worshipped the legends of the kibbutz, not the Biblical History which took place in historic Judea and Samaria.

They succeeded in turning our victory and peace into a terror-filled nightmare.

The Arabs wont give us peace no matter what "gifts" they're bribed with. They'll just demand more.

The world will never fully recognize us a legitimate country with Jerusalem as our capital. But they'll add annexes to their Holocaust Museums to memorialize the State of Israel that self-mutilated, proving that Jews are cursed to wander.

G-d forbid it should all end like that.

We have to fight for all of our Land, not just Jerusalem. We must never give up!

The Pathetic Worship of FDR

With the hindsight of history and the physical distance between Israel and the United States, I see things from a very different perspective.

American Jews for generations now have been worshipping FDR and been more loyal to the Democratic Party than to Torah and Mitzvot. Bill Moyers little speech is so typical.

FDR became US President during the Depression. Just like "whatever goes up must come down," after a financial depression there will be an improvement in the financial situation. Ups and downs are normal fluctuations, especially when the down is followed by a war which jump-starts industry making lots of people rich and providing jobs for all willing to work.

FDR was president during WWII, when the United States was the leader of the Allies who defeated the Nazis. Considering that the US was never really in direct danger, being protected by geography, the US only joined the fight when it felt it had no choice. At the end of the war, the anti-Jewish Holocaust was revealed.

Defeating the Nazis to save Jews was never part of the war plan. The US would never endanger its soldiers for some Jews, but American Jews adopted the fantasy that the US went into Europe to save Jews from Nazi murder.

This fallacy is worshipped more than G-d Almighty. How pathetic and maybe it explains some of the Israeli public's acceptance of corrupt politicians and dangerous policies. Ordinary people don't look at the "fine print."

Shabbat Shalom