Some Links Before Shabbat

15 Elul 5769

Just before shopping for Shabbat:

"Surely, the introducer must have had me tested and evaluated..."

Badatz Shmadatz - Hevron Wines are not approved

Shiloh Looking Up

Porn in the Pocket

Don’t let the facts get in the way

אחרי מות - קדושים אמור

I was never a fan of Dudu Topaz. I am certainly against one taking his own life as this is a grave sin. However, "even the empty ones among them are full of mitzvot like a pomegranate". Amazing!

Moshe Plesser, The Amazing Private M.

Once upon a time we couldn't publish his name. Now he has been honored by the army:

IDF Northern Commander Gadi Eisenkot presented an award Wednesday to Moshe Plesser, an off-duty Golani soldier who stopped a terrorist attack in Jerusalem in 2008. Plesser, a resident of Kiryat Moshe, risked his own life to shoot the rampaging attacker, who used a bulldozer to kill three people near the downtown area.

Eisenkot said at the ceremony: "What was special about Sergeant Plesser's deeds was that this was a soldier who was just beginning his military path, who chanced upon a [terror] event when he was on leave, showed initiative and resourcefulness and kept his cool, strove for contact with the target and thus saved human lives. In his deeds, Sgt. Plesser offered a personal example of how IDF soldiers are expected to act.”

Plesser was riding his bicycle through Jerusalem's streets when he saw the attack unfolding. He got off the bicycle and raced towards the bulldozer as the terrorist attempted to continue his attack while still unarmed. Once he reached the bulldozer, he grabbed a gun from a nearby guard and fired on the terrorist, killing him.

An IDF committee found that Plesser's act was noteworthy, and that he had demonstrated initiative and bravery.

After the attack, Plesser credited his yeshiva education, his IDF experience, and his brother-in-law David Shapira with giving him the courage and the ability to stop the attack. Shapira had similarly risked his life to stop a terrorist attack one month earlier, shooting an Arab gunman at the Mercaz HaRav yeshiva as police hesitated to intervene.

Plesser had to fight to gain the IDF experience he noted as crucial to stopping the attack. For years, he was unable to enlist in a combat unit due to his history as a protester against the 2005 Expulsion from Gaza.

Plesser was accused of disturbing police in connection with an incident in which he photographed fellow anti-Disengagement activists as they blocked a road. Plesser, then 17, was beaten by officers during the demonstration. Despite his record, he eventually succeeded in enlisting and was accepted to an elite unit, in which he was serving at the time of the attack.

100 Years Since the Passing of the "Ben Ish Chai"

Learn about this great rabbi.

Check Your Tzitzis!

As if we haven't had enough of cheap, low quality imports from China:

Jewish media are warning consumers that "treif" or non-kosher tzitzit, made in China, have been flooding the Israeli market. The non-kosher tzitzit sell for only NIS 10, making them considerably cheaper than the regular retail price.

Tzitzit are ritual fringes worn on the four corners of a garment and are intended to remind a Jew of G-d and the commandments. For tzitzit to be kosher they must be tied by Jews. Many tzitzit today come with kosher certificates.

Lightning Strikes Cosmic X

A funny thing happened to me, or should I say to my blog, yesterday. Yahoo News linked to this post (who knows why?) and the result was much more traffic than I usually get in one day: over 1000 page views.



There are over twenty comments there as of this time. Those leaving comments included a knuckle-dragging Nazi ("you people deserved what hitler gave you in ww2"), the typically misinformed consumer of the MSM ("decades of Palestinian suffering, malnutrition, and bullying by Israel"), the banal ("Anti-Semitic? How is supporting Palestinian people against oppressing anti-Semitic? Arab people like Jews are Semitic people"), someone who is distressed that I am not a lunatic (I find it distressing that there is an actual blog that thinks there should be no two-state solution"), a guy that creates God in his own image ("Lunacy is thinking that god promised land to JEWS.. This would make god a racist"), a thief that wants to steal the land of Israel from the Jews and give it to Arabs ("Lunacy is stealing arab land"), and some supporters as well.

I particularly liked what this guy wrote:

In keeping with "fighting on the 'net is akin to Special Olympics - even if you win you are still "challenged"...

Here also wrote:

Solution? I don't have one. Neither does O'Bama. But blaming the Jews, who have suffered enough for 2000 years, ain't going nowhere except for the folks on her who spell phonetically.

Thanks to everybody that left a comment, including the knuckle-dragging Nazi. It's important that the world see your true colors.

Quiet has returned to this corner of the blogosphere since the link disappeared from Yahoo News. I wonder: can lightning strike twice in the same place?

Ha'aretz Reaches a New Low

Just when you thought that they couldn't sink any lower. Check out http://brit.haaretz.com/:



They even have a "pledge" which is total lunacy:

Dear President Obama,

Please know that I share your sense of urgency to bring peace to the Middle East.

Therefore, I pledge:

* to back your committed and persistent leadership in support of a negotiated two-state solution

* to work within my communities to build the political will that will enable you to take decisive and bold steps -- and to urge Congress to support you in this endeavor

* to make it known that an American President who dedicates himself to establishing a durable Israeli-Palestinian peace acts in the best interests of Israelis, Palestinians, the United States and our allies

* to support you in staying the course through difficult times and to celebrate your successes

In Hebrew, the words for wind and for spirit are one and the same -- ruach. As you work for peace, I promise that the ruach of the American Jewish people and our friends in the pro-Israel community will be at your back.

It's a shame to see that these people are supporting someone who openly speaks falsehood and has adopted the Arab narrative with regards to the Middle East. It's funny to see how agenda driven Ha'aretz has become.

זכות הצדקה

Seen on Ido the Prophet Street near Meah Shearim(Click on the pic for an enlargement):

Israelis Smell a Rat and His Name is Obama

8 Elul 5769

Jpost reports:

The number of Israelis who see US President Barack Obama's policies as pro-Israel has fallen to four percent, according to a Smith Research poll taken this week on behalf of The Jerusalem Post.

Fifty-one percent of Jewish Israelis consider Obama's administration more pro-Palestinian than pro-Israel, according to the survey, while 35% consider it neutral and 10% declined to express an opinion. The poll of 500 people representing a statistical model of the Jewish Israeli population had a margin of error of 4.5%.

A much-cited Post poll published on June 19 that put the first figure at 6% had been cited by top officials in both the White House and the Prime Minister's Office as the catalyst for recent American efforts to improve the American-Israeli relationship. But the new poll proves that those efforts have not improved Obama's reputation among Israelis.

Who are those four percent?

A Heimische Pic

8 Elul 5769

Yet another pic from Me'ah She'arim:



And now some posts to read while your wife cooks the cholent:

Guest Posting By Chabakuk Elisha - Yichus

In Defense of the Cheating Husband

Enough blah, blah, blah, blah, blah....

The Ghosts of Chappaquiddick

Shabbat Shalom!

Jews are not Zionists and Zionists are not Jews

Of course this is nonsense! I saw this in Meah Shearim:

I wish that I knew Yiddish

I do know a bit, and sometimes I can understand what people are saying. Yitz learned Yiddish and he tells us how he learned it here.

Shoemaker in Meah Shearim

3 Elul 5769

Chodesh Tov!

1 Elul 5769





Here's a link to some posts on Elul: [click]

Poll: Only 12 percent of Israelis believe Obama supports Israel

The radical left wing newspaper Ha'aretz reports:

Only 12 percent of Israelis believe U.S. President Barack Obama's policies are supportive of Israel, according to a poll released on Thursday.

The poll was conducted jointly by the Ramallah-based Palestinian Center for Police and Survey Research and the Harry S. Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. It was conducted between August 9 and 15.

I wonder who those 12% are.

Dusk in the Galilee

Tu Be'Av

A graphic from emlking:

Cosmic X in the New York Times

I still get a kick when the New York Times links to my humble blog, even if the link was created in a random computerized fashion:

HH #228

Frum Satire has it!

Crazy Graffiti

Translation: One who thinks that he is not crazy is super crazy.

For the record, I don't agree with the guy. I am also against graffiti.