There is just too much going on for me to keep up!

You may have noticed that I haven't posted for over a week now. This is not because of a lack of things to post about. In fact it is just the opposite! The problem is that I have been much more busy than usual with my work over the last week and probably will continue to be so until Pesach.

I just couldn't let the whole week go by without addressing some of the issues that have come up this week so here it goes.

The Pope is visiting Jerusalem
...and the new mayor Nir Barkat is crossing his legs to keep from peeing himself from excitement. He is going to have the Kotel plaza scrubbed and polished to a shine. He is repaving all of the broken roads leading to the Kotel and the Mount of Olives where the Pope will hold mass. He is also having all beggars removed from the areas where His Evilness will visit.

This is the way that Israelis do things. They don't keep Jerusalem beautiful all year round for the sake of its residents, for the sake of tourism or just for God's sake. But when this scumbag wants to visit, instead of banning him as they should, they go and clean up the city in his honor.

Oops. Iran has enough Uranium for a nuke.
Jews need to get it through their head. Much, if not most of the world hates us! It is a historical fact. There is not a country on Earth where Jews have been and have not been persecuted at one time or another. What more need I say.

We need to stop relying on America as our great savior. They are standing by for years now watching Iran develop a nuke and doing nothing. If we want to have a country and survive we need to make it clear to the whole world that whoever messes with us will be sorry. Israel, one of the smallest nations on the face of the Earth also happens to have one of the strongest militaries on Earth. We need to let people like Ahmedinejad know that we have nuclear weapons and have no problem using them against any nation who's leaders even hint at attacking Israel.

We neeed to project an image of being hyper-sensitive to talk of killing Jews. I propose war against Iran immediately. And not one of these 'we are at war against the government of Iran not the people' kind of wars. There is no place for that. If the people of Iran don't like what their government is doing, let them rise up and stop it as they did only a few decades ago.

All of those Jew haters out there need to know that we don't care if you love us, but if you even look at us the wrong way it is you who will be wiped off the map.

Bibi just wants to be loved

Right after the elections, I wrote about the coalition that I expect Bibi to form. Shortly after that, I wrote that I was very afraid that he was going to go with a 'unity government'.

It is yet to be seen if my prediction was correct (let's all pray that it wasn't). But the events of the last week have proved beyond a doubt that my assessment of the situation was right on. Bibi is scared to death of a right wing government. There is nothing that he fears more, than being held accountable to carry out the right wing rhetoric that he preached during the campaign. He just won't stop kissing up to Tzippy Livni, trying to get her to join a 'unity government'.

The question that nobody asks is, "why?" What on Earth is good about a unity government? The whole point of democracy is that the people determine the path that their nation should take. Sometimes it leans to the left and sometimes to right. In this case the people of Israel elected 65 right wing Knesset members 28 centrists (Kadima) and only 27 leftists (of which 8 are Arab). The clear will of the people is a move to the Right! Yet Bibi, do to his own personal emotional issues, wants a unity government and that seems normal to people.

This essentially means that the people don't have the right to elect a Right-wing government. When companies do this we call it a cartel. When politicians do it we call it "Unity"!

There is so much more that I would like to write about, but I will have to leave it here and get back to work. Please stick with me for the next few weeks while I take care of business here. In the mean time, please remember to interact with the ads on the site if you see one that interests you. That will help my justify the time I am stealing from work.

It's nice to see I'm not the only one who knows that the Catholic Church is evil.

To me it seems obvious that the Catholic Church is an evil institution. I have made this opinion of mine clear in several of my posts. It seems utterly clear to me that our people should not pursue ties with the worldwide mafia that is the Vatican.

Although I am sure that some of my fellow Jewish fanatics would agree with me on this point, I rarely find it expressed in the opinion columns of 'main stream' newspapers and websites. In fact it seems to me that here in Israel the same leftists in the media who are so quick to attack the Jewish religion and religious Jews, are the very first people to advocate for stronger ties with the Vatican. This is something that never ceases to baffle me. I would not say that the world of religious Judaism is free of problems, but, I haven't yet heard of any Chassidic Rebbes ordering their followers to burn people at the stake.

So I was happy to see this article over at YnetNews.com (poorly written as it may be):

A needless relationship
Why do Jews need ties with Vatican when Popes do nothing to curb anti-Semitism?
Noah Klieger

“How wonderful,” it took the Pope “only” a month of hesitation before he declared that one should not be denying the Holocaust, while ruling that British Bishop Richard Williamson should not be reinstated by the Catholic Church. This religious cleric, who belongs to the fanatic Society of St. Pius X, made a name for himself as a serial Holocaust denier and a declared anti-Semite.

Even though the bishop repeated his claim that there were no gas chambers in Auschwitz in the days before he was pardoned by the Pope, after 20 years of excommunication, Benedict XVI saw no reason to annul the pardon. Only the protests led by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and the Jewish communities of course, “convinced” the Pope to retract. “Bishop Williamson…will have to take his distance, in an absolutely unequivocal and public fashion, from his position on the Shoah,” the Vatican said, as if this can erase Williamson’s words and actions.

Please allow me to go back to 1979 and recount my trip with then-Jewish Agency Chairman and World Zionist Organization President Aryeh Dolchin. We travelled to Vienna and Rome, and Dolchin had a meeting scheduled with Pope John Paul II. However, Dolchin called off the meeting after the Pope’s representatives informed him that he will only be received for a few minutes, between one official meeting and another while being led into the palace via a side entrance.

“I represent the Jewish people and my status is no lower than that of the head of the Catholic Church,” he told the Pope’s representatives.

And why am I mentioning the late Dolchin at this time? Because I never understood why we, the Jews, need a relationship with the Pope and his Church. After all, we never benefited in any way from these ties.

Anti-Semitism never ceased
Let’s examine the dry facts: Did Pius XII, the Pope who reigned during Hitler’s rule in Germany and Europe, ever speak out against the extermination of the Jews? Certainly not. He saw nothing, knew nothing, and said nothing. And what did the various Popes who succeeded him do? Did they order all priests to stop their incitement against the Jewish people? Did they forbid various religious clerics, such as Polish Cardinal Jozef Glemp, to spread anti-Semitism? No.

Indeed, about 30 years ago, the Vatican issued a statement absolving Jews from Jesus’ crucifixion – almost 2,000 years after the fact – yet did any Church loyalist conduct himself in line with this declaration? We also had a Pope who made a historic first visit to a synagogue. What a brave step!

The anti-Semitism created, led, and disseminated by Christianity ever since it was established never ceased, and these days it again raises its head. So why do we need ties with the Pope? In any case, God’s representatives on earth, according to the Catholic Church, did nothing and will do nothing significant in order to curb anti-Semitism.

I don't know the author or his views. It seems to me that that article doesn't go far enough in its condemnation of the Catholic Church but it is still refreshing to see someone who is against pandering to the Pope get published at Ynet. It is a step in the right direction.

Just as I feared

Yesterday I posted about how happy I was that I ended up ignoring my own advice and voting Ichud Leumi.

My point was that the numbers worked out in such a way that Bibi would be forced to choose between a right wing coalition or a left wing coalition. If he chooses the right wing, then I am glad that I voted Ichud Leumi because they will keep him honest. If he chooses the left, then I am even more glad that I didn't give my vote to Bibi.

One of my fellow right-wing-fire-breathing-settler bloggers posted twice yesterday regarding the situation. He seemed very convinced that Bibi would choose the right wing option. He even proposed a potential list of ministry portfolios.

I commented on his post, saying that he is getting ahead of himself. It is yet to be seen if Bibi will choose the option of a right wing coalition. He may very well choose a deal with the left. I told him that his portfolio list looked more like a right wing dream team than a realistic prediction.

Unfortunately, I think I may have been correct. Take a look at this article from the Jerusalem Post:

Consensus forming on Likud-led unity gov't with Kadima

This is exactly what I was afraid would happen. Like Moshe Feiglin always says, "In Israel, when you vote for the left, you get left, and when you vote for the right you get more left."

I have a very good friend who is older and wiser than me. I respect his opinion very much. A couple of days before the election, I asked him who he is voting for, he told me that he is not voting. He told me that after many years of experience in this country, he has come to realize that it makes absolutely no difference who you vote for in this country, you always get the agenda of the left wing. Therefore he decided that he doesn't want any part in the process and will be spending his day-off on election day praying and studying Torah. At least that has a chance of helping.

His words hit me very hard. Ultimately, I felt that to not vote at all is still wrong. But I decided to abandon my thoughts of voting Likud for strategic reasons and give my vote to the only party that I at least know I can trust.

I sure am glad now that I didn't vote Likud. My guess is that we are going to see Bibi form the worst kind of government possible. He will use his name as a right-winger to lend strength and authority to the positions and policies of the left. And this is at a time when we have Obama in the White House pushing Israel harder than ever to seal a suicide pact with the Arab world. I never would have forgiven myself if I had lent my vote to that.

I hope that I am wrong, but a rarely am.

In the end, as my friend said, we only have God Himself to rely on.

A very useful election link

Here is a link that is very useful for anyone who wants to understand more about the election results here in Israel.

Politico Detailed Election Results

This site allows you to see election results city by city.  Some of the results are fascinating.

Bibi was right to be afraid.

(First and foremost,  I know all of you are wondering who I voted for in the end.  When it came down to the moment of truth, I couldn't bring myself to vote Likud.  Both my wife and I voted Ichud Leumi.)

The results are pretty much in.  For those of you who don't read Hebrew:

Likud 27

Kadima 28

Labor 13

Israel Beiteinu 15

Shas 15

Meretz 3

United Torah Judaism 5 

Ichud Leumi 4

Jewish Home 3

Ram Tal (Arab) 4

Chadash (Arab) 4

Of course these results are still not entirely final.  There is still about 0.3% of the vote that has not been counted.  This is mostly from Army bases and hospitals.  Those votes have to be counted very carefully to make sure that those people didn't vote once at their regular polling place and then again at the mobile polling place.  Once these results come in, they could be enough to shift any one of the parties at most 1 seat in either direction.

What does all of this mean?  Here's my take.

What it really boils down to is this.  Who is the real Bibi Netanyahu?  

If he is only interested in power, keeping his seat as long as possible, and looking good in the eyes of the world (especially the USA), he will work out some kind of power sharing situation with Kadima, Labor etc.

If he is truly a nationalist who wants to retain all of the Land of Israel without compromise, he will form a right wing/religious coalition.  If he does this, he will have a very stable 65 seats.  

Bibi holds the keys here.  It is next to impossible for Tzippy Livni to form a coalition if Likud refuses to join.  

This makes me very happy that I voted Ichud Leumi in the end and not Likud.  You see, we now have the perfect test scenario to know who is the real Bibi.  If Likud had a clear majority, Bibi would have been able to give in to his bad habit of turning left after he gets elected.  Now he will have to make his intentions clear from the outset.  If he chooses a Right/Religious coalition, then we will know that he meant everything that he said during the campaign.  More importantly, he will have the smaller, more right wing parties like Ichud Leumi, there to hold him to his word.

 

If Bibi chooses to make some kind of deal with the left, it will mean that he never intended to be strong and hold on to our land.  In that case, I will be even more happy that I didn't vote Likud!

When all is said and done. I think that this is the very best result that us right-wing-extremists could have hoped for.  At least there is a descent chance that we are going to get a government made up of parties who's sole thing in common is a desire (albeit to varying degrees) to not give away land to the Arabs.

When all is said and done, Bibi was right to be afraid.  His worst nightmare has come true.  He is not going to be left to do what he feels like.  Whichever path he chooses, he will have a strong babysitter sitting over his head making sure that he sticks to it.   

Let's hope he makes the right choice.

Likud or Ichud Leumi part II

On Friday, I posted about my dilemma over whether to vote for Likud or Ichud Leumi.

Now that I have had a little more time to think about it and after having read a post over at Muqata, I am thinking that the best thing to do may be to hedge my bets. I think I am going to vote Likud and ask my wife to vote Ichud Leumi. Of course it would be very insensitive of me as a husband to do the reverse and ask my wife to do the dirty work of voting Likud. So if you see a couple at the polls and the husband is holding his nose on the way in, you will know it is us.

I hope that she will agree to go along with my scheme. She keeps threatening to vote for Shas in order to get a bigger baby bonus now that we are going to be a family of 8 soon. But I don't think she is really serious.

Thank you all for making this blog worth writing!

I am a very busy person. I am the single bread winner for a family of 7. I generally work about 12 hours a day. That is why I started this blog.

Let me explain a little more. Like everybody else, I talk to different people throughout the day. I see customers at work. I see friends at Shul etc. etc. We talk about what all men talk about. That is mostly politics, religion, and sports. (I have no interest in sports so I stay out of those conversations.) I find that time and again, I hear generally smart people spewing the most idiotic drivel. Now if I was really smart, I would just ignore it and get to work so that I could end my day a bit earlier. The problem is that I have a very hard time listening to people say things that don't make sense without setting them straight.

I find that sometimes in the course of one week I have the same conversation with 3 or 4 people. When someone has twisted ideas, you sometimes have to recalibrate their whole way of thinking in order to set them straight on a single issue. This can take a lot of time.

That's why I started this blog. I had a hypothesis. I thought that maybe instead of having these discussions over and over again, I would post my ideas on a blog. My hope was that knowing that I was sharing the truth as I see it with hundreds of people would make it easier for me to hold my tounge in my personal interactions. This would free up a lot of time out of my week.

It has been a little over a month now since I started and I am here to report that my project is going very well. I am much more calm. I have more time to get my work done. And best of all, I rest easy knowing that I am getting out my ideas to many more people by shutting up and typing.

For all of this, I have you, my readers to thank. I check the stats on this blog regularly to boost my ego. If I would see that there were only 3 or 4 people reading, I would probably have to go back to my old method of converting them one at a time. But over the few weeks that I have been doing this, I have seen more and more people visiting, commenting, adding JudeaNow! to their feed readers and voting for me over at JBlog Central. In fact, thanks to you guys, I have had many of my posts be voted to number one for that day or week!

So if you like what I've been putting out so far, please keep visiting and keep voting. The more gratification my ego gets, the more frequently I will be motivated to post.

Oh yeah, if you are wondering what the picture has to do with this post, the answer is nothing, I just like it and thought I would give back a little by sharing it with you.

The best news I have heard in months

This story from the Jerusalem Post is the best news I have heard in months:

Arab Israelis Consider Elections Boycott

(IsraelNN.com) As the popularity of Yisrael Beiteinu (Israel Our Home) grows and debate rages on the degree of loyalty Arab citizens harbor for Israel, many of Israel's Arabs are considering avoiding the elections altogether. Many political debates between Arab parties now include a representative who argues that Arabs should not vote at all.
Mohammed Kanaaneh, one such representative, was quoted in Haaretz as arguing that voting in Israeli elections constitutes recognition of “the Zionist entity” built on what he claimed is rightfully Arab land.


By voting Arab parties into Knesset, voters allow Israel to project an image of equality and democracy, Kanaaneh argued. In reality, he said, the Arab MKs do not have significant influence.

Arab MKs argue that their presence in Knesset is necessary in order to support diplomatic agreements with the Palestinian Authority and Arab nations, and to fight discrimination.

Some Arab MKs have argued that many Arab Israelis who previously boycotted elections will vote this year in protest of the Cast Lead operation in Gaza, which ended last month. Other Arab voices claim the Gaza war will have the opposite effect -- alienating Arab voters and causing them to boycott the polls.

Recent polls predict unusually low voter turnout in the Arab sector, where turnout was already lagging behind the rest of the country, and some show the Balad and Ra'am Ta'al parties failing to enter Knesset.

If this prediction holds true, and if right-leaning voters do not carry out a boycott of their own, the Knesset next could become a relatively nationalistic one.

I really hope that they carry through with it. It is the next best thing to my proposal of taking voting rights away from all non-Jews.

Likud or Ichud Leumi?

Elections here in Israel are coming up on Tuesday. I thought that I was sure who I was going to vote for but the latest polls are making me think again...

There is no doubt that Ichud Leumi is the party that is closest to my political views. But, I was planning to vote Likud for very specific strategic reasons. In general, I am a supporter of Moshe Feiglin. Feiglin published a recommendation list before the primaries. It contained candidates who have a record of apposing the disengagement from Gaza or who are known to be very right wing. A lot of his people got on the list. The interesting thing is that most of them are either in the top 20 of the list or they are between numbers 30-40. The important point to note is that none of them are between numbers 25-30 on the list. (See the Likud list here)

As of a few days ago, all of the poles were showing the Likud hovering around 30 seats in the elections. This would have meant that every extra vote for the Likud would be a vote for the 'Feiglin people' in numbers 30-40. The polls were also showing Ichud Leumi with only 3 seats, which put my vote in danger of being wasted. This is due to the rule that a party who falls short of the 3 seat minimum doesn't get into Knesset and their votes are discarded.

Based on that, I was planning to vote Likud. My reasoning was that I would rather put my people inside the ruling party, where they would have more leverage. This would also be giving more clout to Moshe Feiglin in future elections. Whereas by voting Ichud Leumi, I could be throwing my vote in the trash! And even if they did make it in my the skin of their teeth, they would be sitting in the opposition, not doing much good.

But today's numbers show a very different picture. It seems that in the latest poll, Likud gets 26 seats. That would mean that if right wing voters vote for the Likud, we would just be putting in numbers 27, 28, 29 who are not people from Moshe Feiglin's list and not people that I want in the Knesset.

Ichud Leumi gets 6 seats in today's poll. That means that if I vote Ichud Leumi I don't have to worry about throwing my vote in the garbage. It also means that they have a significant bloc of seats that Bibi may need to form a coalition with his now smaller party of 26. It also means that I wouldn't have to plug my nose during the voting process.

As of this moment, I am leaning toward Ichud Leumi. What do you think?

The benevolent Vatican, what would we do without them?

It has taken most of the day to let my stomach settle before I could write this post. I think I am ready now.

Why do some Jews have such a deep rooted need to pander to the Gentiles? It seems that the more bent on destroying us a given nation or religion is, the more such Jews feel honored to bend over forward to appease them. If said nation/religion has a well established history of killing and torturing Jews, it is an even bigger Mitzvah in their eyes.

This seems to be the case with Lenny Ben-David. In an OpEd for JPost.com (also posted on his blog) from this morning, he is very excited about the news that the Vatican will be publishing a catalog of its stolen Hebrew manuscripts.

He first mentions the fact that over the centuries the Vatican systematically banned and burned hundreds of thousands of Jewish books (and often their owners with them as you can see in the illustration above) and stole many others for their archives so that their priest could study them in and effort to refute them. He then rules that by cataloging 800 of the stolen manuscripts, the Vatican has taken "a big step to atone for this cultural crime."

What?!!

Like I wrote a few days ago, I don't understand why we have anything to do with the Vatican. These are evil people who have tortured and massacred Jews for centuries. I don't know if there is anything that they can do to make up for it. But I am a reasonable person and if the Vatican would, say, pay annual reparations to the State of Israel... something in the high hundreds of millions or low billions range, and then turn over all of the Jewish artifacts and manuscripts that they have in their vaults to the Israel Museum, I might be inclined to think that they were sincere in their regret for their past actions. But this kind of insulting gesture should be met with a spit in the face!

Do you really want to be sick to your stomach? Take a look at this quote from Mordechay Lewy, ambassador to the Vatican:

...the manuscripts -- dating from the ninth century to the present day -- document "the history of the relationship of the Vatican and the Jewish community" as well as highlight the importance of the written word for "preserving and passing on knowledge from generation to generation, guaranteeing the continuity of the tradition and the survival of Jewish identity."

Jews like these need to grow a pair! Stop pandering to the Pope, the Germans, the UN, and the terrorists, get a gun, move to Judea and have a bunch of kids. That is what the Jewish people needs if it is going to survive.

Shlomo Carlebach, sexual predator.

I have been meaning to post about this for some time.  A recent post over at Treppenwitz got me thinking about the subject again.  He posted the following question from one of his visitors:

Treppenwitz:

I'm looking for a boisterous knit-kipa Carlebach-style minyan. My first choice would be to find one in Jerusalem but would be happy to find one somewhere else in Israel.

I live outside Netanya, but I would like to be able to pack up the family on occasion and take them to a more energetic, Carlebach-style minyan for Kabbalat Shabbat.

(Jerusalem is the first choice since it is a nice place to periodically go to spend a weekend but we could do this elsewhere as well.)

The closest place I have found is a shul in the Katomon neighborhood called Yakar (their "upstairs" minyan). It was certainly nice but not worth being the centerpiece of a weekend trip.

I'm sure that lots of strangers who read your blog turn to you for advice on issues that may not be of much interest to you. I'm sorry to be adding to that load and imposing on your time, but, if you know of a "boisterous knit-kipa Carlebach-style" minyan, I would greatly appreciate learning of it.

-A fan-

You see, here in Judea, it is almost impossible to find a synagogue where they don't incoperate Shlomo Carlebach songs into the prayers.  This drives me crazy because there is really quite a bit of evidence to suggest that the man was a sexual preditor.  A simple Google search for "Shlomo Carlebach" will lead you to many stories regarding this.  In case you are too lazy to look it up yourself here are a few links to start you out.  

1

2

3

This is besides several first hand stories that I have heard over the years from women who have been made to feel very uncomfortable when Shlomo singled them out of a crowd and kissed them and huged them (usually for to long or in a sexual way). Over the years when I have pointed this out to people, suggesting that perhaps they should think twice before singing his songs at their Shabbat table or telling stories about the 'Holy Reb Shlomo', I have gotten very negative responses.   Nobody seems to want to face the issue.  Lately, I have pretty much stopped bringing it up at all because I see that I get nowhere.

But today when I saw the post from David Bogner at Treppenwitz (a blog that I generally think is great), I couldn't help but leave a comment.  It went something like, "Don't bother trying to find a Carlebach minyan, he was a sex offender anyway."   I then linked to one of the many sites that discusses this issue.  

I was very surprised that David Bogner emailed me back to tell me that he had deleted my comment:

I have unpublished your comment.  Whether or not what you say is true (and I've seen no 'PROOF' of such a claim) he was responsible for bringing many people back to observant Judaism.  I am not about to allow my site to become a forum for destroying any of the good things he may have done in his lifetime simply because you want to draw attention to things that he was alleged to have done that were bad. I hope you can understand my rationale.
David

I wrote him back the following:

Most all sexual predators do "good things", that is how they build enough trust to be able to do what they do. It is a shame that so many people are willing to incorporate songs written by such an evil man into their worship of God.

J

I would also add that I know at least a half dozen people who came back to observant Judaism via Jews for Jesus or the Kabbalah Center.  That does not make those movements legitimate Judaism.  

Furthermore, the people who are observant as a result of Shlomo Carlebach have moved beyond him and his scene. Those who haven't, are hardly to be called 'Observant' because they are into things like mixed dancing, mingling of the sexes, smoking weed, free love, etc. etc. Hardly the what most consider 'Observant'.

I look forward to the day when good people like David Bogner will realize that Shlomo Carlebach is treif and doesn't belong in our shuls.

BTW if you want a davening that is Shlomo free, the only shuls that I have found so far that are usually entirely free of Shlomo songs are Chabad.