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.

UN raising $613 million dollars for Gaza...

I just saw this headline from the Jerusalem Post:

UN trying to raise $613m. in Gaza aid.

It is a good thing that I am not the type for kooky spiritual analysis. If I was, I would say that this is a sign from God that this whole Gaza hassle is a result of our laxness as a nation in the keeping of the 613 commandments of the Torah.

But since I am not such a type, I will stick to my usual political stuff.