The recent controversy over Christian Missionary Passover Haggadot, being sold as genuine traditional Jewish ones in large American chain stores isn't the only example of Christian Missionary material masquerading as Jewish. Mina Fenton, formerly of the Jerusalem City Council, sent me this youtube of the traditional Passover song, "Dayenu."
Not everything that appears to be Jewish really is.

At first it seems genuinely Jewish, but by the end you'll see that it is Christian Missionary doctrine propaganda. It's not the Pesach song we sing at the table. Theirs has a very different message. And please remember that singing in Hebrew doesn't guarantee that it's Jewish.

Christian Missionary groups all over the world, including Israel, are adopting Jewish symbols, even wearing kippot and tzitzit, promoting Passover seders etc. It's no longer just enough to check the "culinary kashrut." Now you have to see who the publisher and eiditor are, where exactly everything comes from. That adds another slant to the concept of "shmura matzah."

Beware and report all misleading advertising. Not everything that appears to be Jewish really is. I debated whether posting this video, but in the end I am, just to show you how slick and professional the Christian Missionaries are. At least this group labeled their song Christian. I'm very upset and disappointed to say that I wasted well over a half an hour trying to find a traditional Jewish Dayenu on youtube and wejew. It's easier to find Christian versions. I couldn't find anything as professional. So, I'll end with the rousing Dayenu from the Seder at Kibbutz Naan. Those who know Hebrew will notice that it's not 100% traditional either. At least it's Israeli.

 

*Thanks to YR. The video is still on The Jerusalem Post. It can also be found on WEJEW.  I suggest that you watch/listen. Here it is:

Until a few hours ago, there was a ten minute youtube video of a much younger Binyamin (Bibi) Netanyahu aka Ben Nitay explaining very clearly and eloquently why there was no justification for a "Palestinian" State.
I hope that the video hasn't gone with the wind....

Was anybody wiser than me and saved it in their own computer? I didn't think of it. If so, please send me the link. Thanks

It was from thirty years ago. I think that's when Bibi was strongly influenced by the late David Bar Ilan. David Bar Ilan was an amazing person. He first became famous as a concert pianist.

The multi-talented Israeli David Bar-Ilan, who has died aged 73 after a heart attack, was a brilliant concert pianist, an influential journalist and spinmaster supreme for his country's controversial former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Known for his sharp intellect, deft prose and combative defence of conservative views, he was lead writer on the English-language Jerusalem Post from 1990, edited the paper from 1992 to 1996, and returned as an occasional columnist in 1999.

I remember speaking to him just before he took a very important job working for then Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu.

...Netanyahu, having defeated Labour's Shimon Peres in the May 1996 elections, made Bar-Ilan his chief of information and policy planning - a testing assignment given western apprehensions about the ruling Likud party's policies. More than a mere spokesman, Bar-Ilan became Netanyahu's eminence grise, writing, for example, his boss's first speech to the US Congress, which reviled the "tyrannies" of the Middle East.

I was pretty suspicious of Bibi, even then. I davka had a talk with David right before he began working with Bibi in 1996. I remember the day well, because that was just a couple of hours after I was run over by an Arab terrorist.

Friends of mine were working in an office in the Jerusalem Post Building. One picked me up from Terem, the First Aid center where I had gone to be X-Rayed. I hobbled into David's office, interrupting a phone call and demanded that someone interview me, or he should let me type out my story on a computer. David Bar Ilan suggested that I get comfortable on his office couch and then sent in a reporter for an interview. I wrote my op-ed from home, and he used my story as the basis for an editorial attacking the police for trying to prove the terror attack an accident.

After the interview, when my friend was ready to drive us home, I thanked him and asked him if he really thought that Bibi would do the right things as Prime Minister. Bar Ilan said that if Bibi didn't, he'd leave the job. That was easier said than done.

And now for another cliche`, I hope that the video hasn't gone with the wind....

There are only a couple of hours left before Shabbat. I do take your comments seriously, and therefore I'm posting two very different posts for your viewing pleasure. Of course, I hope that you like them both, but if you only like one, Dayenu!

Rich In History

The Israeli building code has rules unlike any place else.

In many locations there are requirements to check for ancient artifacts, ruins and buildings before building something new. It sometimes happens that a building permit is cancelled, or plans must be drastically changed, because an ancient Biblical-time ruin is found where the new building was planned.

Traveling up in Northern Israel, Emek Yizrael, the Carmel etc was amazing. On the superficial side, we saw modern agriculture, but the entire location is so rich in Biblical History, that I'd have to study for years to remember all that Shuli Mishkin told us on our Matan tour.

Look at the rainbow and the gorgeous green fields, the hills and list to her:

Chutzpah From the New York Times and Ghetto Mentality From Israel

Yes, I know, it's not the first time, and it won't be the last, at least not until the State of Israel is led by leaders who aren't enslaved by the ghetto mentality. Yes, in the Haggadah which we'll be reading in less than two weeks, it says that we were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt. The New York Times and other foreign busybodies, politicians, philosophers and the media keep preaching to us how we're supposed to "make peace." Honestly, "peace" isn't some simple one-bowl cake. Peace isn't up to Israel either. When have the Arab terrorists even offered us "peace?" If they wanted peace, we'd have peace, because you can't buy peace. It's not a diamond ring. All this "advice" should be ignored. It's like those telling an abused woman that things would improve, her husband would be kinder if only she'd lose weight or have her hair style changed. If that doesn't work, they say she can always initiate kinkier sex.

The worst thing is that Israeli politicians, even those perceived by many as "Right wing" don't have the confidence, the moral and emotional strength to tell the truth. We are not the aggressors. We are the victims. We are an ancient people with a long history and unbroken connection to our Holy Land.

Davka, ironically, one of the very best Jewish History lectures I've ever heard on the subject was by Binyamin Bibi Netanyahu last summer at the International Jewish Bloggers Convention. He has the facts. The question is why does he think that he has to repress it? I don't have the patience to do a psychological profile on him. I did it with Begin and Sharon, who also defied their supporters and went against their own common sense and historical knowledge to try to please the world, rather than do what's truly best for Israel.

How many times will G-d be willing to rescue us from the snares and traps we've gone into for no good reason?

Shabbat Shalom u'Mevorach

May You Have A Peaceful And Blessed Sabbath

I'm sorry that all you loyal readers and "commentors" think I'm too negative.  I don't mean to be, but I can't tell lies.  Sorry.  Things just aren't all that hunky dory in the Holy Land.

Did you want me to say that it's good that the NRP made a deal with Bibi?  How could I say that, when I don't think so, especially when Ehud Barak will continue as Defense Minister, and he's celebrating that by destroying Jewish Homes and a synagogue.  Yes, technically, Olmert's still Prime Minister.  Ole Olmert has given the term "lame duck" new meaning.  Sorry, but I can't find anything good to say about it.

And that Nazi-like picture by Oliphant, what nice Pollanna words can I say about it?

Recently I posted on Shiloh Musings some pictures I took of Jerusalem.  Unfortunately, they're of the construction site.  Olmert's lightrail system.

But, I do have some gorgeous pictures.  I took them this week up north.  I recommend that you take a look and you'll see what a great artist G-d is.  I'll just leave you with that thought.

Chodesh Tov and Shabbat Shalom!

Yes, we'll be home for Pesach, Baruch Hashem, Thank G-d!
Some families have been doing it for so long that the parents have never prepared the food for a seder and don't know what to buy nor how to cook it.

We're not joining the exodus from our homes. We don't pack up our belongings, like Bnai Yisrael. We don't spend the most family-oriented Holiday of the Jewish Calendar in a hotel.

Preparing for the Passover Holiday isn't always easy and pleasant, but it's a spiritual and kinesthetic process. The air swarms with dust, rather than the Biblical plague of locusts. And after breathing in too many cleaning chemicals, bleach and detergent, there's the delicious smell of food cooking. Every family has its traditional favorites, for which we eagerly await.

Going away to a hotel just doesn't compare. Jewish and Israeli publications are full of ads from all sorts of hotels, all over the world, tempting families to pay for someone else to do the cooking and cleaning. Yes, even if the family home is cleaned and checked for chametz before leaving, it's not the same as cleaning to be there for the Holiday. Jewish organizations invite, for a price, its members to spend the Holiday together.

Some families have been doing it for so long that the parents have never prepared the food for a seder and don't know what to buy nor how to cook it.

I admit to never have enjoyed the required pre-Pesach cleaning, but it all becomes worth it when we sit together and eat our home-made food, all Kosher For Passover.