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

Great News!!

Haven't you heard?

The international public protests were successful!

Here's proof that the world has a heart.  The campaign to save Anne Frank's tree, the one she saw from the window of her hideout, is a success!

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It reminds me of the hysteria of the idealistic Left in Israel after they discovered that some of the Jews, who had been forcibly evicted from their homes in Gush Katif and Northern Shomron, due to the Left-supported Disengagement, had "cruelly and irresponsibly abandoned their pet dogs."  Of course those very same "humanists" didn't think it cruel that the government had evicted, exiled those same innocent Jews from their homes, destroyed their businesses, farms, trees and gardens.  Minor details, like the dog owners' being homeless, most temporarily housed in small no animals allowed hotel rooms didn't excuse them.

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• There were beautiful trees and gardens in the communities Olmert/Sharon and the cheering world destroyed in the name of Disengagement. 
• There were excellent schools in the communities  that Olmert/Sharon and the cheering world destroyed in the name of Disengagement.
• There were successful businesses in the communities Olmert/Sharon and the cheering world destroyed in the name of Disengagement. 

Where were the international protests?

And now, Israeli politicians and media and the world's moral standard bearers are going blithely ahead with their plans to exile, G-d forbid! more innocent Jews, well over 100,000, from their homes totally disengaged from the dangers they will be putting the entire State of Israel.

photo by me, Batya Medad, taken in Shiloh

Instead of defending and strengthening our State of Israel, they are at the forefront of the international movement to establish an Arab terror state in our historic Homeland, in the heartland, an easy rocket-launch away from all Israeli cities.

Why doesn't anyone care?  The world protested about the possible destruction of a diseased tree in Holland, once admired by an "imprisoned" Jew.  Why doesn't anyone care about preserving our country?  An Arab terror state which unabashedly proclaims its aim to destroy the Jewish State is bad news for the entire world.  Why doesn't anyone care?  Where are the protests?

Why does that tree mean more to people than all the vibrant Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria?  Why do people ignore the dangers to the State of Israel?

photo by me, Batya Medad, taken in Shiloh

Why do people prefer to donate to Holocaust Memorials than the needs of live Jews?  Why did they unite for Anne Frank's tree rather than to protest the uprooting of mine?

While we've been trying to figure out how to save Jerusalem and our precious country, Jerusalem has been seeing a lot of construction, and I'm not talking about reasonably priced homes for all those Israelis who want to buy.

Jerusalem is being walled in.

I took these pictures walking around Pisgat Zeev-East, a lovely looking Northern Jerusalem neighborhood.  That is it was lovely until I noticed the encroaching wall, and then I felt claustrophobic, like I was in a ghetto.

I hadn't realized that Pisgat Zeev was walled in like that.  I knew that the Hizme "crossing" to Mateh Binyamin, the Benjamin Regional Council was next to Pisgat Zeev, but I didn't know that the entire neighborhood is surrounded.

Then I saw that dangerous wall, snaking its way up to French Hill, mutilating our city.

Arabs walk around every where.  They're buying apartments in French Hill, Neve Yaakov and also Pisgat Zeev.  But we Jews are restricted to where we go and live.  The Olmert Government has declared a building freeze in Judea and Samaria for Jews only!

Isn't that discrimination?  Racial and religious discrimination?

The Berlin Wall was taken down.  When will the Jerusalem wall and that entire, ugly, useless wall cutting through our Holy Land be destroyed?  It prevents peace.  It restricts Jews.  It limits our access and security. 

Certain people are getting very rich building it; that's for sure.

My mother, may she live and be well till 120, is experienced in sitting shiva, the week-long Jewish mourning.  Not too many family minhagim, customs have been passed along in our family, but there's one I'm familiar with.  During shiva, "we don't serve."

One of the aspects of mourning is not to have to deal with the mundane. People who come to pay condolence calls should help, bring food and serve the mourner, not expect to be fed.  The Eidot Mizrach, North African Jews have the custom of having fruit and cake out for the visitors to make a bracha, a blessing on before eating, so blessing will be heard in the house of the mourner. This is simple fare, generally arranged by non-mourning family members and neighbors. 

It's customary that family and friends of the mourners arrange their food needs and more.  Here in Shiloh, when an entire family is in mourning, neighbors take turns helping in the homes, answering the phones, preparing and serving food to the mourners and doing laundry if there are young children.

That's why I was so shocked when I heard two similar stories which happened in Jewish communities in the states.  One friend went back when his last surviving parent was dying.  He stayed for the shiva, in his parents' home where he had grown up.  The first morning after the funeral, a minyon of men from the neighborhood arrived and dovened.  He felt comforted until someone asked:

"Where's the herring?"

"The herring?"

"Yes, you can't expect a mourning minyon without providing a breakfast.  You know.  Herring, bagels, cream cheese, lox.  If you don't promise food, we won't be back."

That wasn't anything he had ever heard of in his Israeli community.  But not knowing what else to do, he got the number of a caterer and ordered breakfasts until the shiva was over.  He was in no state of mind to argue, and he no longer knew enough people there to try to organize another minyon.

I thought that was a shocker, but then another friend told me that she had called her cousin who was sitting shiva for a parent, since there was no way she could travel to the states.  Her cousin said that she couldn't talk.  She was much too busy.  My friend asked her if there were lots of visitors.

"No, I have to cook.  The Lebovitch minyon that comes to doven with my brother demands  a proper meat dinner every night.  There aren't many frum Jews here, and that's the only way to have a minyon.  So I'm busy cooking.  If we don't serve them, they won't come."

These are neither urban legends nor rumours.  I'm certain that there are Jewish communities which care for their mourners without asking anything in return, including daily minyanim for prayers, but unfortunately not every place is as blessed.

For many people, November 29, 1947 is an important, wonderful day.  It's the day the United Nations voted its permission for Jewish state.  It's celebrated in the media; the roll call is played and played again.

 I think it should be a day of mourning.  That's not because I'm against a Jewish State.  It's because the Zionist leaders went to the nations of the world for permission.

The United Nations was only a few months old at the time.

The Jewish People have a history of thousands of years.

The United States was less than two hundred years old.

We Jews had kings before there was a single nation in Europe.

Today's Judaism is the same religion worshipped thousands of years ago, long before Jesus and Mohammed.

Every year, as I listen to and read the Megilat (Scroll of) Esther four times on our double Purim, I'm thrilled anew to hear the instructions written all those thousands of years ago on how to commemorate the miracle.  That is how we celebrate Purim today.

We are descended from Avraham Avinu, Our Forefather Abraham.  Thousands of years ago, Samuel the Prophet, of Shiloh, annointed our first kings, Saul and David.  David established Jerusalem as our Capital City.  His son Solomon built the Holy Temple on Mount Moriah, The Temple Mount.

We don't need anyone's permission to live here in our Historical Homeland.  We don't need anyone's approval to rebuild our nation.

In recent decades our greatest military victories, 1948 and 1967, were the ones when we acted alone, without expecting any help, without asking any other country for advice.

As Dorothy in the "Wizard of Oz" discovered, the power is within.  We have that power.  G-d gave it to us.  We just have to activate it.  Remember that the Hebrew word, "oze" is strength.

Shabbat Shalom U'Mevorach!