Eli's Aliyah Blog

Hakhel or the Story of Two Torahs

2008-10-16T22:04:00.005+02:00

I haven't posted in almost 2 years. I was sure that my blog got deleted, but to my great surprise it was still there today when I felt a great need to post again.

I went to the Kotel today with my family for a commemoration of the mitzva of Hakhel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hakhel). The Torah commands that every 7 years on Succot after the year of Shmitta all Jews, men women and children, should gather at the Bet Hamikdash for a public Torah reading, done by the king, of the book of Devarim. Even though the mitzva doesn't apply today since we don't have the Temple, it has been revived in a symbolic fashion.

So today was the big day. There were thousands of people at the Kotel. It was so packed that I couldn't even walk through the plaza and had to turn around and go back to the steos of Rabbi Yehuda HaLevi just so that we could stand in place. The ceremony was suposed to start at 3pm. After waiting for over an hour for it to start I started to give up. I understand that everything runs on Jewish time, but when thousands of people are waiting you would think it should start at least almost on time. The delay was caused by the fact that the Chief Rabbis, both Ashkenzi and Sefardi, current and previous, who were supposed to come and read the Torah, didn't show up. Well finally by 4:15pm they started to show up one by one. We watched their cars escorted by police drive up to the Kotel plaza gates and then they would walk into the crowd to make tot he Kotel itself.

I thought to myself what kind of chutzpah is this to show up so late to such a massive, public, and rare event. And not just one of them, all of them? Unbelievable!

At about 4:30pm they still didn't start, so we decide to keep going up the hill back into the old city, since we couldn't see anything anyway except for a wall of people. As we got to the Churva Shul Square (that's where the big arch used to be) the ceremony started. There was a large screen setup in front of Churva Shul with loudspeaker that broadcasted the whole thing. I was actually glad that we went there, because this way it was like we got front row seats.

The first person to read was one of the Sephardi Rabbis, I couldn’t tell exactly who it was. He read from a Sephardi Sefer Torah in its wooden case that stands upright by itself. He got up to Shema and then he was switched by one of the Ashkenazi Rabbis, who I believe was Rav Meir Lau. As the Ashkenazi Rabbi got up to read a thought went through my mind: “Are they going to switch the Torah for him to an Ashkenazi Torah?” I thought that would be so contrary to what the mitzvah of Hakhel is all about that they would never dare do that. But low and behold they closed the Sephardi Torah, put it away, took out an Ashkenazi Torah and then he continued on reading.

I was really upset at that moment. I couldn’t believe it. Two Torahs? The mitzvah that out of all unifies the Jewish people by bringing them all, young and old, to one place to read out of The One Book – and they take out Two Torahs? And for what? To emphasize one of the largest rifts in the Jewish People – Sephardim and Ashkenazim? Once in seven years we couldn’t be as one nation and read from one Sefer Torah?

Soon after that, with great disappointment, we left the Old City and started making our way back to the car.

I am at home, hours went by since we were at the Hakhel reading, but I still can’t get over it. Two Torahs?

There is a prohibition in the Torah of Lo Tisgodedu, that the Jewish people should not divide themselves in a way that it would appear that there are two Torahs. Rashi (Succah 44a) emphasizes this point regarding shaking the Lulav on the first day of Succot that falls out on Shabbat, that even in Eretz Yosrael it’s not taken so that the Jews would not divide themselves between Jews in Israel and Jews outside, so that it doesn’t appear like there are two Torahs.

How ironic is it that on Succot we would do something that shows our division when Chazal established on the same Succot regarding the Lulav that we shouldn’t divide ourselves. And not only that, but we literally showed everyone that we have two Torahs - a Sephardi one and an Ashkenazi one.

**********************************************

Here is a picture of what the Kotel looked like today.

What have I been up to?

2006-11-12T21:13:00.000+02:00

I am really behind posting again. So let me tell you why.

First of all we finally moved into our new apartment. It took about 3 weeks to complete all repairs and changes, but we are in. I love this place. We got 4 bedrooms, 2 porches, a huge living room / dining room area, and a mamad (sealed room). And it’s all mine. I constantly have this urge to drill something so I can continue upgrading. My piece of Eretz Yisrael is here.

Also, I got into reptiles lately. We have 3 Mediterranean Chameleons, 2 adults and a baby. My friend picked up the baby in a tree in his yard. He was probably around 2 weeks old and had some kind of a defect on his head, which wouldn’t change color and remained black. I doubt he would have made it in the wild, but he is doing great in his little cage. We also got a frog, European Green Toad, 2 Leopard Geckos, and last but not least and Roughtail Rock Agama, better know in Hebrew as Hardon (חרדון מצוי). The geckos live in my office, the frog in the kids’ room, and everyone else on the porch. I am also trying to breed some crickets so the food supply will remain steady and free.

Finally, I got into graduate school in Technion for Electrical Engineering. Besides the regular graduate classes they are making me take 4 additional undergraduate courses due to the fact that my bachelor’s is in Mechanical Engineering. So I end up going to school in Haifa now twice a week for half day.

Life is very crazy. I love it.

Rebuilding The Broken - Part 2, or "I told you so!"

2006-11-12T20:42:00.001+02:00

During the war I posted about how Hizzbolah pledged to rebuild the Lebanese houses that were detsroyed during the war, but our government wasn't rushing to rebuild our broken homes. See my original post here.

Well, guess what? I was right.

This is from today's JPost.

"The Hizbullah abused us for a month; but the property tax has been abusing us for three months already," said Eitan Davidi, head of the northern communities' forum. "The Israeli government has disconnected from us and is giving us the cold shoulder, and therefore we decided on these severe measures." Davidi added that the ministers were always saying how they were supporting the North, but instead of offering their "strength," they should bring money.

Davidi pointed out that the Hizbullah had already financed rebuilding the majority of the destroyed towns in southern Lebanon, but Israel had made no progress.

Read the rest of the article...

After Yom Kippur Thoughts

2006-10-02T21:47:00.000+02:00

I have been behind on posting. The last few weeks have been really insane and I will post about them a bit later.

It's just a few hours after Yom Kippur now. This was probably the most exciting Yom Kippur of my life for 2 reasons.

1) I saw a gemora in Kerisus 7a that says that you get forgiven on Yom Kippur regardless if you do Teshuva or not. So all that fear of not doing good enough teshuva on Yom Kippur that was put into me in Yeshiva turned out to be a big lie, as usual.

2) I turned on the TV (more on that later) about 2 hours after Yom Tov was over (which happened at 6 pm) and all Israeli channels were off and a posting said something like this: "Gemar Ksiva veChasima Tova. The programming will resume after Yom Kippur at 8:30 pm." It really made my day. I really hope that one day such a posting will appear on every Shabbos and all other Yamim Tovim. We are getting there, slow, but steady.

They Never Lose, We Never Win

2006-08-28T12:30:00.000+03:00

I found this article by Rabbi Berel Wein about the latest war with Lebanon very enlightening.

We got a new pet

2006-08-20T22:49:00.000+03:00

We got a new pet - a gecko. He ran into a our bed room in the middle of the night. My wife saw him running on the ceiling right above the bed and started screaming on the top of her lungs. It was really funny.

He was running on the ceiling.

And then I got a mop and got him to run down the wall.

And then he ended up inside a cup.

This is a Mediterranean House Gecko. In Hebrew he is called Shmamit HaBatim - שממית הבתים

We didn't name him yet. I still have to get a terrarium for him, because I don't think he is very happy in his plastic container.

Welcome New Olim!

2006-08-17T12:18:00.000+03:00

The largest number of new olim from the US, UK and Canada in one day, landed yeterday in Israel. Welcome to all new olim!!!

I am glad see that my worries about Olmert saying something stupid didn't come true. He welcomed the new olim yesterday at the airport. Luckily he didn't say anything dumb. But he didn't get a standing ovation either.

Soon afterward, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert addressed the crowd, which gave him a muted welcome. He noted the difficult experience the country has recently been through, but said, "One thing that really strengthens this country is aliya."

He told the audience of teary immigrants, boisterous children and squealing pets, "When more than 500 Jews on this day come to the State of Israel, what they say to the world is, 'We are afraid of no one, because we trust the State of Israel, we believe in the future of Israel and we will build the State of Israel with all the Jewish people.'"

Rebuilding the broken

2006-08-16T16:29:00.000+03:00

Hizzbolah announced that they will pay for destroyed homes in Lebanon. What I thought was interesting that they didn't just promise to pay for it, but they actually specified exactly what they will do.

A Hizbullah official said that people whose homes were totally destroyed will get money for one year of rent as well as for new furniture. Those whose homes were damaged will either fix it themselves and then collect money, or Hizbullah will send workers to do the job.

I don't know if these are just empty promises or they really mean it, but from what I have heard about HIzzbolah, if they say it, they mean it. I know they are doing it for PR and to restablish their image in Lebanon, and not out of the goodness of their heart, but still.

Is our government going to pay for people's broken homes, pay their rent, or send workers? Or how about at least reimburse them for what they spent in order to flee the rockets? Probably not.

The View

2006-08-15T18:36:00.000+03:00

As I was reading the article about how our Chief of Staff, Dan Halutz, sold all of his stock shares right after the soldiers abduction (I guess in anticipation of a war and the market crashing), and his probable resignation over the disaster in Lebanon, I remembered the poem by a famous Russian-Jewish (apostate) author, Alexander Galich, which was shown to me for the first time by my late grandfather a"h.

The original Russian commentary and text appears on this site. I have pasted it below, as well. Excuse my crude English translation.

Alexander Galich – The View

In Serebryaniy Bor (a small town near Moscow), near the entrance to the Rest Home (Boarding House) of the Central Theater, there is a wooden pillar that is sticking out of the ground. On it there are painted on division lines with numbers, from one to seven. On top of the pole there is a pulley wheel through which passes a steel cable. From one side of the pole the cable goes into the ground and from the other there is hanging a heavy weight.

The guard of the house explained to me:

This is Alexander Arkadyevich is a shit-meter. The cable is connected to the outhouse pit. As the level of the crap in the pit goes up, the weight goes down. While it’s on two or three, it’s ok. But when it reaches five or six, that means it’s a problem, need to call the scoopers.

I thought that this creation of the Russian masters wasn’t only useful, but also very educational. Therefore I dedicated to it the following philosophical piece, which I humbly named:

The View

It was murky and grey
And the forest stood still
Just the shit-meter’s weight
Slightly swayed on the hill.
Not all is in vain in this world
Although it’s not worth a spit
As long as we have weights
And you see the level of shit.

А.Галич - Пейзаж

В Серебряном Боре, у въезда в Дом отдыха
артистов Большого театра,стоит,врытый в землю,
неуклюже-отесанный, деревянный столб. Малярной
кистью, небрежно и грубо, на столбе нанесены
деления с цифрами -- от единицы до семерки. К
верху столба прилажено колесико, через которое
пропущена довольно толстая проволока. С одной
стороны столба проволока уходит в землю, а с
другой -- к ней подвешена тяжелая гиря.
Сторож Дома отдыха объяснил мне:
-- А это, Александр Аркадьевич, говномер...
Проволока, она, стало быть, подведена к яме
ассенизационной! Уровень,значит, повышается --
гиря понижается... Пока она на двойке-тройке
качается -- ничего...
А как до пятерки-шестерки дойдет -- тогда
беда,тогда, значит, надо из города золотариков
вызывать...
Мне показалось это творение русского
умельца не только полезным, но и весьма
поучительным. И я посвятил ему философский
этюд, который назвал эпически-скромно:

ПЕЙЗАЖ

Все было пасмурно и серо,
И лес стоял, как неживой,
И только гиря говномера
Слегка качала головой.
Не все напрасно в этом мире,
(Хотя и грош ему цена !),
Покуда существуют гири
И виден уровень говна !

What's wrong with this picture?

2006-08-15T16:04:00.000+03:00

This just showed up on Haaretz's front page. Look at the picture and look at the headline underneath it. See anything wrong with it? Why is that soldier engulfed in a ton of flames while crossing the Lebanese border back into Israel?

An IDF soldier atop an armored personnel carrier crossing back into Israel from southern Lebanon on Tuesday. (Nir Kafri)

Even the Lebanese wanted us to win

2006-08-15T15:56:00.000+03:00

Even the Lebanese wanted us to beat Hizbolah. How sad? We failed everyone, even the enemy.

Lebanon's Defense Minister Elias Murr said the Lebanese army would send 15,000 troops to the north of the Litani River around the end of the week, ready to enter the southern border area.

But he said the army would not be disarming Hezbollah, who have controlled the area for six years. "The army is not going to the south to strip Hezbollah of weapons and do the work Israel did not," he told LBC Television.

What's he gonna say?

2006-08-14T16:41:00.000+03:00

Exactly a year ago when we made aliyah, Olmert was the one to speak in front of mainly right-wing religious crowd. He made some dumb comments about the disengagement which almost caused a riot in the terminal. And now, after a practically failed war, when no one likes him, he is planning to address the same type of a crowd, except much bigger, again? He just doesn't learn. I just hope he doesn't tell them how "we won", and "if they just would have showed up earlier we would not have had this war at all", or some other stupidity.

And now we are maraudering?

2006-08-14T15:27:00.000+03:00

This is insane. IDF general says that if IDF soldiers in Lebanon don't have enough food or water they can break into Lebanese stores and steal it. Read on.

Are they out of their minds? Do they realize what the world will say? Besides, the greatest army in the Middle East can't provide their soldiers stationed only a few miles away from the border with food and water??? What??? How low did we sink? We have stooped to become marauders like all the other plundering loser armies of the world.

What ever the outcome of this war is, but our government and IDF command has got to go. I know I voted for them just a few months ago, but this is crossing all the lines.

Update:
Jameel posted that it's ok to do this according to Geneva convention.
Well at least we are legally ok. But since when does the world care about what we do is legal? I sitll think this is not something IDF should trumpet, especially to the media.

Why do Christians love hell so much?

2006-08-14T15:19:00.000+03:00

I always thought that Christians don't really like the idea of hell, but they don't have a choice because that's what they are always preached. However that turned out to be not true. Read about the preacher who decided to preach that hell is not a real place and lost all of his followers.

What have we achieved?

2006-08-13T19:34:00.000+03:00

As we are getting closer the so called cease-fire dead line I have been thinking about the status of what we have achieved in this war. So far we have not defeated Hezbollah, as today they pounded us with over 200 rockets, we have not brought our soldiers back, and we lost over 100 soldiers and even more civilians and over $1 billion. Close to a million people either left their homes or spent the last month in shelters.

So what is it all worth it? I don't know. I just feel like rambling at this point, because I got really upset today when over 24 soldiers have been killed in one day.

Our government has definitely screwed up big time and even if Olmert resigns or gets outvoted I don't see anyone else who is much better to take his place.

I kind of feel like Yirmiyah right now, depressed and frustrated.
אֲנִי הַגֶּבֶר רָאָה עֳנִי - איכה ג:א
I am the man who has seen affliction (Eicha 3:1)

Ahmadinejad launches personal blog

2006-08-13T19:06:00.000+03:00

This was the latest headline on Haaretz:
"Iranian president Ahmadinejad launches personal blog (Reuters)"

Oh boy, I can't wait to read this one. Still can't find the link though.

Updated: 08/14/06
Jameel posted the link to the blog: www.ahmadinejad.ir

But be aware, some links on the blog upload viruses to your PC if it recognizes (by the IP) that you're from Israel. What a low life. He is trying to get us even through his blog.

The blog is in 4 languages. It looks like there is a whole team staffing it. I wonder who is actually writing it, Ahmadinejad or one of his writers, or more like a bunch of his writers? What a bunch of #&%*.

A profile of a normal Muslim family

2006-08-07T22:41:00.000+03:00

This was a first one for me. Read this profile of a normal Muslim Israeli family. I love the father's statement: "I am happy that I am not religious". I guess religion is the problem here. If only Nasrallah would watch more MTV and drink more beer everything might have been ok.

A Letter from Zippori

2006-08-07T21:23:00.000+03:00

This is an email I received today from an American Oleh who runs a Bed and Breakfast in the Galilee, in Moshav Zippori.

Dear friends,

Thanks to everyone who has written and expressed support and worried about us. We are fine! I'm sorry that I'm answering you back in a mass mail, but I figure this is the best way to let everyone know what is going on.
I came back yesterday after more than 2 weeks in reserve duty all over the north. I serve a spokesman to the foreign press, and was kept quite busy fighting off TV, radio and print journalists from all over the world. I've been taking journalists for many years on tours of the border with Hezbollah and I'm on record telling them all that when the war starts, the Hezb is going to rain thousands of missles all over the north and there isn't anything that we will be able to do to stop them. Still, no one failed to ask if we weren't surprised when it happened. We have been practicing a policy of restraint for years, hoping that the longer we put off the conflict, we might get lucky and history would catch up with the Hezbollah and they would disappear back down the hole they crawled out of. Unfortunately the Iranians never rose up to overthrow the facist towelheads that have been oppressing the Persian people since 1977. And the Lebanese, despite having an excellent chance fall in their laps, never took the opportunity to take their country back for themselves and instead chose to make a deal with Nassrullah.. The war was probably inevitable for a while now and it's outcome is also unavoidable.
Sorry to be pessimistic. I don't think it makes a difference whether we pound the shit out of Beirut or not, I hope we do because it will give Nasrullah something to fix when he starts running the place and something for the Iranians to piss money away on instead of new weapons. The loser of the whole mess is Lebanon and there isn't a people who deserve it more, they were stupid enough to dismantle their militias, which would have been their only defense against this bully. We had to go in there last time to throw out the PLO because they were too busy lying on the beach, and this time, why bother? Let the best and the brightest emigrate to South America and let the Iranians turn what's left into some kind of Shiite slum on the Mediteranean.
I'm sure we'll have no problem coming up with a mutual deterence pack with Hezbullah, we were never their real target to begin with and once Nassrullah is sitting in the palace in Ba'abda, he'll have bigger global jihad fish to fry.
The big question for us is what the Syrians will do. By the time anyone is reading this, we might be at war with Syria, it's that close. It all depends on what goes in that vast empty space between Bashar Assad's ears. Syria has no argument with Israel, the Golan Heights is bullshit, any Syrian leader prefers the IDF sitting up there instead of some ambitious Syrian General controlling a Division or two. For over 30 years we've been watching the back of the Father and the son, and it serves their strategic purposes that we stay there. No one in the Syrian govt gives a shit about "sacred Syrian soil" All they want is to perpetuate the regime and keep their heads attached to their necks. If they think that that it's a clever strategic decision getting their army destroyed for the sake of their buddy Nassrullah, wait till they see how it feels when the Iranians eat them for lunch.
Anyway, these are just some of what I feel like saying whenever I get asked "What do you think will happen next? I dunno, and I wouldn't express these thoughts in uniform, and I never went to the school where they taught strategic analysis. I can't even take credit for being a simple soldier. I saw plenty of real soldiers the last few weeks and they're big brave young guys who have a life in front of them that they plan to live. The Hezbollah takes the same type of kids and teaches them that dying is the best thing they could do for Allah and the kids swallow it whole. The truth be told, in Moslem shitholes like Lebanon and Iran, they wont have much of a life anyway.
I spent most of my days on the front line and got shelled regularly, twice it was close enough to knock me off my feet. And I learned a true thing they said in London during the V-1 bombings: If you heard it, that means that it missed, if you didn't hear it, then what difference does it make?
The B&B is pretty empty, it's not that we're close enought to get shelled (though at least 4 katyushas fell in this area) but no one is in the mood to go on vacation, we lost all our summer business and don't know how long it will be before things get better. But, thank God, we are all fine. The kids see it all as a big adventure and we watch the news every night and the boys have put up bumper stickers on their doors "WE WILL WIN" and "WE ARE STRONG' and I think we are. And with the experience that comes from getting this far, If we take it a day at a time, this too will pass, and things will return to be not much different from the way they were before, except of course, for the poor families of both soldiers and civilians who had the bad luck to be at the wrong place at the wrong time, and soldiers who put themselves in between us and the bad guys.
Please remain in touch everybody, don't believe everything you read in the papers and have a good summer.

[Name Removed]
Moshav Zippori
www.zipori.com

Shaving on Motzaei Tisha B’Av

2006-08-03T20:15:00.000+03:00

Over 3 weeks my beard grows really huge and it drives me absolutely crazy. So I wanted to mention that it is permitted to shave your beard right after the 9th of Av at night even though regular hair cutting and eating meat and drinking wine is prohibited until after chatzos of the following day.

The Chida in Machzikei Bracha (OH 458:4) write as follows: “In a city where the custom is to eat meat on the nigh of the 10th of Av and a particular person has the custom not to, as long as he did not accept this custom (i.e. to wait until the following day) as a neder and it happened to him that his period of mourning (for a family member) was over during the 9 days (i.e. he could not cut his hair before the week of 9th of Av). Since the custom in these cities to shave beards with either a chemical or scissors these people have great pain not to be able to shave, and therefore it seems to me that they would be permitted to shave their beards right after the 9th of Av at night, since it’s only a custm and the main halacha permits it anyway. Etc…”

The Shaarey Teshuva (OH 458:2) makes the same point as the Chida, and he adds from the Hagahos Maimoniyos that shaving would permitted even if the person has the custom not to eat meat until after chatzos on the following day, because one has nothing to do with the other.

So this implies since our practice is to shave all the time and it really bothers us when we can’t do it for a long time it would seem from this Chid and the Shaarei Teshuva that we can shave right after Tisha B’Av even though we don’t cut out regular hair and eat meat until the following day.

Al Eleh Ani Bochiya

2006-08-02T20:58:00.000+03:00

I am sick and tired of reading about the Lebanese displaced. Every single media outlet reports how many hundreds of thousands of Lebanese have been displaced from their homes. But what about the Israeli displaced? How come no one reports about them? There are over 350,000 Israelis who have been displaced from their homes. By us in Bet Shemesh there are hundreds of families sleeping in local schools and community centers who can't work and don't hav enough money and clothes. How come no one reports about them?

I got really annoyed after seeing this cute map that MSNBC has posted showing locations of the Lebanese displayed. And look who provided the map, the Lebanese government and the UN. The only article that I have seen talking about Israeli displaced was this one in NY Times. Seriously, what’s wrong with the world?

It’s the night of Tisha B’Av and “about these I cry”.

Buy Rock of Galilee T-Shirts

2006-07-30T15:33:00.000+03:00

Support Galilee refugees and buy the Rock of Galilee T-Shirts.

Sappers in RBS or how I visited Beit Jamal

2006-07-30T14:56:00.000+03:00

This past Friday, while I was out with the kids checking out Beit Jamal, my wife got to witness the sappers diffuse a potential bomb on a bus right in front of our house. Apparently someone left a suspicious package that looked like a bomb on a local bus. They stoppped the bus right in front of our porch, took out the package, hung it up on a really long string that was stretched across trees to the opposite side of the street, and then shook it until the contents came out. The sappers in full bullet proof gear stood on the other side of the street ready for this thing to explode. Of course, it was just a bag full of junk, so in the end nothing happened, Thank G-d. But my wife got pretty traumatized.

As for Beit Jamal, it's a very interesting place to visit. It's a Catholic monastery and on its premises there is The First Meteorological Station and supposably is the grave of Raban Gamliel I (which I still couldn't find) which is located somewhere near or under the church. According to the Christian tradition Raban Gamliel was Paul's teacher and actually converted to Christianity at the end of his life. Interesting story, although sounds like a bunch of bologna. I was told, periodically local Breslov hassidim come to daven at the grave.

They also have a huge number of really old Olive trees growing all around the grounds. I got to talk to the Abbot who himself is an Italian from Venice. He got all excited when I spoke to him a few lines in my rusty Italian and he got to talk back to me and I actually understood.

You can see the old Byzantian mosaics from the 5th century mounted on the wall of the church and their wine and olive presses. They even offered some grape juice to the kids, but I had to decline. I think this was my first ever real encounter with Stam Yeynam right out of the vat.

Will have to go back there to find Raban Gamliel.

Aloe Tree

2006-07-20T23:43:00.000+03:00

Today I drove around surrounding moshavs with my son. On road 3835, between Kibbutz Tzorah and Deir Rafat Monastery (at the end of the road by the entrance into the monastery) we saw this beatiful Aloe tree. I didn't even know that Aloe can grow into a tree especially such a huge one.

It's nice to get away from thinking about this crazy war that surrounds out, even if it's just for a moment.

Pictures speak a thousand words

2006-07-17T13:39:00.000+03:00

An IDF soldier praying next to an artillery unit as it fires into southern Lebanon from near Kiryat Shmona on Monday. (Reuters)

Missing Seeing the Soldiers with Big Guns

2006-07-16T22:35:00.000+03:00

Today my wife and I went shopping. Suddenly, she said to me. "Do you notice anything weird? There are no soldiers around."
It's funny how most visitors to Israel for the 1st time feel nervous when they see soldiers walking around (during their time off) with their huge guns over their sholders. But now I realize that time to worry is when none of them are around, because all of them have been called up to the front.
So next time you see a soldier in Israel, feel good about it, because it's the time of peace.

Feeling More Edgy

2006-07-16T12:33:00.000+03:00

I just talked to my cousin's in Haifa. They said they hear the rockets fly and explode but because they are on the southern side ofHaifa their building doesn't shake. It seems that Hezbollah are using more powerful missiles now than Katyushas so they cause more damage.
We are pretty far south, but you never know. I guess if something would actually fly to Tel Aviv, we would be next in line.
For those who want to read what it's like to be on the front line of this, read Rock of Galilee Blog.

Feeling Edgy

2006-07-13T18:26:00.000+03:00

As Hizbollah bombing Northern cities in Israel and IDF retaliating I am beginning to feel edgy. In Bet Shemesh it’s peaceful since we are too far away from the Lebanese border, but I am still feeling weird. It’s my first time in Israel during what looks like a real war.

Last night and this morning army planes were buzzing over our heads flying from southern bases to the North. Today I decided to call my great-uncle who is in his 80s and lives in the Qerayot near Haifa already for over 30 years. Here is what our conversation was like.

Me: How are you?
Him: Great to hear from you. How is your family in the US?
Me: Great. And you?
Him: Fine
Me: See any missiles out of your window?
Him: No. Do you?
Me: No. (smiling) Only hear planes flying above my head.
Him: Me too.
Me: Do you have a bunker to go too?
Him: No, I don’t have a bunker. I am staying in my living room.
Me: Sealed room?
Him: No.
Me: So what will you do if they bomb your town?
Him: Nothing. Continue sitting in my living room. What do you think it’s the first time this happened?
Me: Well, it’s the first for me.
Him: Ahhhhhh. OK. So how is your family in the US?

You get the idea.

And then I bumped into my Hareidi neighbors. I said to the wife, “Do you know they bombed Tzfat?” With a really surprised look on her face she called her husband and told him that. He replied: “Damn Zionists. They deserve it. What else do they expect?” I was standing there with my mouth open. This is someone who served in the IDF himself a while ago before he became a baal teshuva. I just said “You’re sick, you need help!” and closed my door.

PM Olmert tells off the Brits

2006-07-11T22:26:00.000+03:00

Read the transcript of a press conference where Olmert told off (below in RED) the Brits when they asked him about blowing up the Electric Power Station in Gaza. Right on. You tell them.

Matt Matski: Matt Matski of Finland. On entering southern Gaza, Israel air force was bombing a power station which was the power station in Gaza which in turn risked to create problems with the water supply, sanitation, health, their health risks and so on. Was this action okayed beforehand by on the political level and if so, what purpose did it serve in attaining those goals that you were talking about and what consequences do you think that this will have in making Gaza more dependent on Israel in the future for their electricity supply and so on?

PM Olmert: I want to remind you that Gaza is entirely dependent on Israel for the supply of water and electricity and that we continue to supply Gaza water and electricity. I am not aware that any of the very friendly nations to the Palestinians offered the Palestinians to supply them with this basic commodities which are essential for the quality of life of the people in Gaza or in the West Bank. Israel is the only country which is doing it, at a very fair cost. And the reason we are doing it is because we care for the population and we don’t want to punish the population in either Gaza or the West Bank. The measures that were taken in this military operation were taken for the sole purpose, or purposes which I have outlined to you before. One is to make the possible release of Corporal Shalit a reality and the other is to try and stop the Kassam missile shooting at Israeli civilians. The measures including the damage to the power stations was part of an effort to have a more effective control on the crossings and on the movements because we were afraid that the Israeli corporal will be smuggled out of Gaza and that once he will not be in this controlled area, he might be lost entirely. And some of the measures that were taken, were taken for that purpose. All was approved by the political leadership. Not only this operation, every operation is approved by the political leadership. We are not military experts. Of course we get the advice from the military on what do they need to do in order to achieve the goals that the government set for them, but it is always, it needs, it requires the approval of the political leadership without which the army doesn’t act.

Daniel Seaman: On the right, Simon, please.

Simon Wilson: Simon Wilson from BBC News. Mr. Prime Minister, two points, just to pick up from my colleague and if you’ll permit me to put it in a slightly different fashion, but perhaps a bit more directly. The bombing of the power station…

PM Olmert: Do you think that the question before was indirect?

Simon Wilson: Allow me to put a direct BBC question.

PM Olmert: I see.

Simon Wilson: The bombing of the power station and other measures such as the use of sonic booms to disrupt the lives of Palestinians in Gaza have led to charges that Israel is or may be guilty of war crimes in this operation. I’d like to ask you how you respond to that and secondly, I would like to ask you a personal question which is how are you coping with this crisis without your mentor, Ariel Sharon?

PM Olmert: As for the first question, tell me do you think your country would have supplied electricity for a state which is shooting at Great Britain one thousand missiles? In return for the generosity of shooting at you a thousand missiles, you would have supplied them with electricity and if you cut the supply about one third – it’s not that there is no supply of electricity by Israel. There is still most of the, all of the electricity of Gaza is supplied by Israel and 70% of the population still have supply of electricity. All is provided by Israel, in spite of the shooting. There was in the past sometimes a flexible definition of war crimes, particularly by some biased unprincipled and unfair people, so I’m not responsible for the definition of these actions outside of their context, but every person with a reasonable moral principle would have first to answer the question what do you say to people that are continuously threatened by the shooting of missiles, what do they have to do in order to defend their own lives and the lives of their children?

Watch Israeli TV Online

2006-07-11T21:53:00.000+03:00

This is a great web site with Israeli News in English for free:
http://www.infolive.tv/

Do you know what you are eating?

2006-07-05T21:35:00.000+03:00

I picked up a candy at lunch at work and noticed the following ingredients.

What does ??? supposed to mean? Of course, the Hebrew ingredients are complete. I guess the translator quit before finishing the list. And "May be contains"? May be it's good for you, may be it's not, who knows? But either way, very Israeli.

Zhirinovsky discovers his Jewish father's grave in Israel ...

2006-07-02T15:13:00.000+03:00

One of the biggest Russian antisemites, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, discovers his Jewish father's grave in Holon, Israel. And The One That Sits in Heaven Laughs. .(יושב בשמים ישחק (תהלים ב:ד How ironic?
Read the story: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/732918.html

But it gets better. Now he wants to sue Germany for killing his Jewish family during the Holocaust and Israel for not being able to save his father's life when he got into a bus accident which killed him in 1983.
http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/view.php?StoryID=20060627-114025-7079r

We closed on an apartment

2006-06-15T23:44:00.000+03:00

Today we signed a contract on an apartment. So far I gave away lots of cash in return for a piece of paper. We are supposed to move in in September. I almost own a piece of Eretz Yisrael.

Asking Rabbis and The Value of Semicha

2006-06-14T01:38:00.000+03:00

I have had a few really bad experiences in the past few months with asking Rabbis halachic questions. The answers varied from “You know how to learn, go look it up yourself” to insensitive to wrong to plainly being ignored. A lot of people around here insist on asking Rabbis shailos regardless of whether they know the answer themselves or not. It’s almost like they need an approval for everything they do, because they are too chicken to assume responsibility for their own actions.

So when I finally saw RYGB’s article, The Value of Semicha, (p. 149-154) published on this subject it made me feel better. It turns out I am not the only one who thinks that not everything needs to be asked and you can solve shailos yourself without having the “Rabbi”title.

And yes, this exactly why I am not becoming a Rabbi. The title itself is worthless and it represents nothing.

I fell into the Jordan River

2006-06-14T01:05:00.000+03:00

I went hiking with a friend in the Golan and while we were water rafting on the Jordan I got wacked by a tree in a really rough part and fell into the river. Now I know how Naaman got rid of his tzaras.

Not So Kosher Cell Phones

2006-05-16T20:49:00.000+03:00

The latest hype among chareidim are kosher cell phones. Every cell phone provider in Israel offers them starting this year. Basically you get a defeatured phone with a defeatured service, with a mehadrin hashgacha label printed on the phone (not kidding), and a separate phone number to indicate so. You can read all about them here: http://chareidi.shemayisrael.com/TZR66acellphn.htm

If you ask me, I really don’t care for this whole nonsense, except here is the problem. The kosher phones have different prefixes after the area code to signify that they are kosher, so everyone knows which service you subscribe to. Even if your regular service doesn’t have any of the content that the kosher phones prevent you’re in trouble.

So now people are getting harassed constantly if they don’t have a kosher phone. There are signs sprouting up around religious neighborhood. People get calls from the “moral religious squad” that they better switch or else. Chareidi newspapers will not print your ad if you don’t have a kosher phone, and I am sure soon (if not now) you will need to sign a paper when you sign up your kid to a chareidi school that you only use kosher phones.

All these phones have accomplished is that more Jews hate and abuse more Jews than before, nothing more.

Here is a prime example.

I was driving home with my Sofer Stam teacher, a prominent sofer in the area. He gets a phone call on his cell phone while we are in the car from some stranger who starts screaming at him about how dare he teaches safrus and doesn’t have a kosher phone. He basically politely told that he is not his mother to tell him what to do, he doesn’t understand his hashkafos and this guy doesn’t have to come and learn from him, wished him a nice day and hung up. Then he told me he gets these phone calls almost daily and even SMS messages (which cannot be sent from a kosher phone) about how he is violating the psak of the Gedolim and has no business teaching safrus. It’s terrible, but that’s kosher phones for you.

Sinas chinam is alive and kicking, and it even has a kosher label now. The Gedolim said it’s ok.

Funny Kosher Labels

2006-05-16T20:36:00.000+03:00

Mehadrin hashgachos have always been notorious for strange chumras and certifying anything as kosher, even if it’s poisonous, such as laundry detergents and floor cleaners.

But these showed up around Pesach:

Butter Kosher for Pesach AND for Erev Pesach. I guess there is no Chametz AND Matza in this butter. (Click on the picture to see it clearly)

Glatt Alfalfa. Those grassy strings are real smooth.

Glatt Cheese. Don’t want those bumps and holes on the cheese. We want smooth cheese.

Stay tuned for Cholov Yisrael Chicken. Coming to the store near you.

Chareidim dressing like Muslims

2006-05-16T20:22:00.000+03:00

I have been saying for a long time that this will happen one day. And that day was this year’s Erev Pesach. I walked into the local Mehadrin supermarket which was packed with people and see this woman standing in line to the cash register. At first I thought to myself, "That’s weird. What’s a religious Muslim woman doing in a supermarket in Ramat Bet Shemesh?" And then I realized that this is a chasidishe lady dressed in a Muslim garb. She was standing with her kid with long peyos looking like a regular chasidishe kid. But she was wearing something that looked like a hajab with her whole head covered and only her face exposed.

I don't really understand how someone can decide that dressing tzniyus is the same as dressing like a Muslim. But here it is.

I took this picture from my (obviously not kosher, but more on that later) cell phone at night on the street as they left the store.

Stocking up on Chometz

2006-05-16T16:46:00.001+03:00

Most of us try to get rid of Chometz before Pesach, but some people have a different view of things. A couple of days before Pesach I was shopping in a large supermarket in a not very religious area. There was a Russian couple shopping who stuffed their cart with about 20 loaves of bread. I guess they had to stock up on it for Pesach for themselves and all their friends since none of the stores sell it then. Unless that was for their seder and they were planning on having lots of guests.

The bread of my affliction

2006-05-16T16:46:00.000+03:00

I was glad to find out that machine Shmura Matza in Israel is much cheaper than it is in the US, only about $4 per kg ($2 per lb). Even the Hand Shmura is around $20 per kg ($10 per lb). And if you’re willing to wait to buy it until Erev Pesach then the price drops very significantly. All of this is of course if you go to a supermarket.

However, after talking to some of our friends I found out that instead of buying it from a supermarket, that buy it from Matza dealers and pay double or even triple from what the store price is. Someone told me they paid $40 per kg ($20 per lb) for their matza. When I asked, why, they told me because it tastes better. Or at least that’s what the dealer tells them.

I don’t know about them, but for such a price I am willing to eat the store sold matza which to me tastes just fine. Although they probably like to feel the pain of Mitzrayim while eating it, so they have to remember the piles of money which they spent on the matza just a few days before the seder. And then when they raise and say “This is the bread of affliction…” they really mean it.

Natan Slifkin's new book is out, and I got the first one

2006-04-10T22:27:00.000+03:00

I just ran over to Slifkin's house, who lives a couple of blocks away from me and bought his new book, Man and Beast. I got the first copy. We chated a bit about seforim, cheirem and life in general, and he autographed my new book. If you still don't know who I am talking about, it's the Zoo Rabbi. Great guy. Visit his site where you can read about all of his books, the cheirem, and other cool stuff at http://www.zootorah.com/. And if you're in the neighborhood look him up and defintely drop by. You don't get to meet people like him all over the place. Plus you can check out his really cool fish tank. You defintely won't see many like that one around people's homes. Oh, well, and if you are into seforim, it's defintely the right address.

The Red Alert

2006-04-10T03:02:00.000+03:00

Soon after September 11, 2001 we moved to Brooklyn, NY. The city was a mess due to all kinds of security implementations. Most bridges between Brooklyn and Manhattan were closed to traffic, and police would make everyone go on the one open bridge. When I drove to work to New Jersey, there were Bradley Fighting Vehicles standing on the side of the road with soldiers in full gear ready to shoot. At who? I am not sure. But they were ready. There were 24 hour patrols of the NYC skies by F-15 fighter jets and you would see a bunch of them fly by every day. On the news they would announce that the alert ahs been raised today due to “chatter”. This was the Red Alert.

I thought to myself, this must be some kind of a joke. What would the National Guard in BFVs do if there was a terrorist attack? Blow off a building? What would an F-15 do? Would the terrorists come to the only bridge that was open to traffic and say hi to the police? How was all of this making us safer and more secure? I don’t know. It did look good though in the press.

And then we moved to Israel where they also apparently have Red Alert. And here is what it is.

On March 21, 2006 I went to my work in Jerusalem as usual - late. I left home at about 10:30 am. When I got to Mevaseret Tzion I noticed that all traffic on Highway 1 (Main Tel Aviv – Jerusalem Highway) has stopped. A few cars were trying to get off the highway and turn off into the Mevaseret exit. At first I thought there was a bad car accident, but then I saw about 10 police cars zooming down the highway in the opposite direction away from Jerusalem. A few ambulances followed.

I thought to myself, that’s weird. They are going the wrong way. I turned on the radio. They were saying that in Jerusalem there was a terrorist on the run who infiltrated Israel and they were trying to catch him. All entrances and exists to Jerusalem were closed by the army. The security alert was raised to Red, the highest.

I figured there is no point in going work anymore and I may as well turn around and go home. The opposite lanes looked empty. By now I was sitting about 50 meters past the Mevaseret exit. I switched over 3 lanes in between standing cars, got to the shoulder and waved to a bunch of cars to start turning around and go back to the exit. People started popping out of their cars and asking what’s happening. I told them there is a terrorist on the run and they should turn on the radio. A bunch of cars turned around and went into the exit. Once I got into the exit it took about 2 minutes to go through the light and back into the opposite direction. But just when I got to the ramp all cars stopped. I got out and what do I see? A police van parked across the ramp and is blocking everyone’s way. The police officer is not in uniform and it’s definitely not the traffic police. Someone came over to him to ask what’s going on, but all he said was that they can’t pass here.

Back on the radio they said that all major highways in central Israel have been closed to traffic and the police are chasing the terrorist. I was stuck in Mevaseret. I figured may be I should go to the mall to eat lunch, but that was a really dumb idea while there is a terrorist on the loose. I decided to just sit in the car and wait. In about 20 minutes the police van moved and a few brave souls decided to go onto the completely empty highway, including me. I got to about 200 meters away from my exit back to Bet Shemesh, when suddenly traffic stopped again. An army helicopter was hovering a bit further down the road.

On the radio they were already announcing that the terrorist was caught near the Latrun Junction (I should have known where it is by now, but I didn’t.) on Highway 1. They announced that the police knew the car make, the color, and the license plate of the van as soon as it infiltrated and chased it down until it stopped. Talk about intelligence.

Then they were interviewing the soldier who made the main arrest. He described how they stopped the van and stood about 100 meters away from it and how he told all the Palestinians inside the van through a loud speaker to stick their hands out the windows and throw the car keys in the middle of the highway in front of them. Then each one of them was told to completely undress down to their underwear and they had to walk out of the van like that and lay on the ground where they were tied up. The bomb was left inside the van in a back pack where it was later detonated by the sappers.

I realized that those police cars speeding in the opposite direction near Mevaseret was the car chase after the terrorist.

I was stuck again right next to the Paz gas station that’s located in front of the exit. I figured instead of waiting in traffic, I’ll drive into the station and use it as short cut to get to my exit. But once I went into the station I realized that it doesn’t connect to the exit and instead puts me back on the highway under the bridge of the exit ramp. At the end of the ramp from the gas station which is about a kilometer long I got stuck again the same jam. I parked my car on the side and decided to walk back to the station to get food. People were piled out of their cars all over the place. Some were talking, a bunch were taking their kids into the woods to pee, someone was saying Tehilim.

It took me 15 minutes to walk back in scorching heat to the gas station. Once I got there the place was packed. Everyone was buying sandwiches and all kinds of other food. Some people were already camping around, eating. It was probably their best business day in a long time.

In another 20 minutes I was back in my car which was still surrounded by the same cars, chumping away on my chips and soda. No one moved at all. In another 10 minutes the traffic started to move. Once I pulled back onto the highway I saw the sign – Latrun 500 meters. I never realized that the Latrun junction was the next exit after Bet Shemesh and the reason we were all sitting there because we were waiting for the sappers to blow up the bomb.

By the time I got to Latrun to go back to Bet Shemesh, all the action was over and everyone was gone. Around 3 pm I was back home.

You can read the more official description with pictures of the incident here:
http://web.israelinsider.com/Articles/Politics/8075.htm
and here:
http://web.israelinsider.com/Articles/Security/8077.htm

After this whole adventure I finally realized what Red Alert really is as it should be. Quiet and effective without tanks and planes freaking everyone out and doing nothing. The intelligence is amazing. And they don’t tell on the news that they are raising alerts because they hear “chatter”.

My grandmother passed away

2006-04-10T02:12:00.000+03:00

I spent 4 weeks in the US visiting my grandmother, Riva Kipovskaya, who was very sick already for a while. On March 16, two days after Purim, my grandmother passed away. She was 85.

When we were leaving the states for Israel, back in August, she said to me, my wife and my kids, “I just wish I would get to see you all once again one last time.” And she did. The day we came to visit her she was still conscious, and even though she had a stroke a month before that and couldn’t talk very legibly, she recognized all of us and talked a little to the kids. The next day I visited her again, but something happened. She wasn’t really talking any more and didn’t seem to respond much. As time went on she deteriorated and eventually had to be placed on life support. She stayed on it for a week, but being tough as she was, despite all doctors’ predictions she got off and lived for another week on her own. She passed away really quietly in her bed in the nursing home without being hooked up to any machines.

As much as I was prepared before that she is passing it didn’t help at all. It came as a huge shock. I guess there is something inside of us that believes that everything will be ok no matter what, and it keeps us going.

Because her funeral was on a Friday afternoon there were no speeches and almost no prayers. That made me even more upset. But now I can tell the story that I wanted to tell then if I could.

It’s a story that my grandmother told me that happened to her during WWII when she just became a doctor.

She graduated medical school on a sped up program in Leningrad in 1942, in the middle of the blockade and was evacuated out of the city to a small town near by called Budogosh where she was the regional doctor. One day she gets a call from some emergency office that in some village really far away there is a woman who is giving birth and she is bleeding to death and that she is the closest doctor around. She said that she has no way of getting there, but the dispatcher was said that they have a small army fighter plane that will be dispatched to get her and bring her there. When the plane arrived it was a tiny open plane with 2 seats in a row. The front seat was for the pilot and back seat was for the gunner. The pilot told her to get into the gunner’s seat. As they flew, the plane shook like crazy and she became really sick. She vomited all over the side of the plane. The plane landed in the middle of some field. My grandmother didn’t see any village. The pilot said that the village is 10 km (6 miles) away from where they are, but there is no open field there to land and so he had to land here. He kind of showed her where to go through the woods and so she did, for 10 km.

When she got to the village they were already waiting for her. They brought her into a tiny filthy wooden house and there, lying on a bed, was a woman who was screaming her head off. She wasn’t so much in pain, but she was so scared that she was bleeding and was going to die that she was completely freaking out. My grandmother realized that the reason she is bleeding is because there is a piece of the placenta stuck in her womb and never came out. She asked for soap to wash her hands. Everyone around laughed. It’s the middle of the war and they didn’t have any soap anywhere. What about alcohol or vodka? Of course they have that. That’s what they drink all day. So my grandmother washed her hands with vodka, stuck her hand up to her elbow inside her womb and pulled out the placenta. The bleeding stopped.

I don’t know how she got back to where she came from. She said that she thought the woman would for sure die from infection since the house that she was in was filthy and my grandmother’s hands weren’t really properly disinfected. And yet, a couple of months later she gets a phone call from that village that the woman and the baby are fine and that she saved their lives. Talk about tough people, the doctors and the patients.

I told this story to a bunch of doctors and nurses in the ICU while my grandmother was on life support so that they should know what it was like to be a doctor in Russia in the middle of WWII. And when they tell me that there is no point to keep her on life support, because she will die right away anyway, I told them that during her life time she literally saved thousands of lives and all that they want to do is to speed up the road to the cemetery. As I said already, they were wrong. She got off life support and lived without it for another week. When she died she just stopped breathing in her sleep without any agony.

My grandparents were married for 58 years and 28 of them, spent raising me. Just like my grandfather’s, all her wishes came true. She got to see all of us one last time.

Is driving in Israel really that more dangerous than in the US?

2006-04-10T01:24:00.000+03:00

As soon as we mentioned to our friends that we were making aliyah most people mentioned that driving in Israel is very crazy and dangerous. People would say “Israeli drivers are just crazy.” I never really believed it, especially after my first visit to Israel in 2003 where my very first experience was renting the car straight out of the airport and driving to a hotel in Haifa across half of Israel, at night, during which I realized that Israeli roads and signs are really well marked, nice, and visible. So I started to wonder is driving in Israel really that crazy? So far that I lived in Israel for 7 months and drove literally to every part of the country, I have to say that overall driving in Israel is the same as driving anywhere in the US. In comparison to driving in New York City Israeli driving here is really really nice. Except for in the center of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv most people don’t honk and yield to pedestrians just like in most parts of the US. Most people drive around the speed limit and observe the signs. Every once in a while you will meet a crazy nut who is cutting everyone off and speeding, but that happens everywhere. The roads themselves are much better than most of American and Western European roads (in my humble opinion, having driven across half of Europe and half of America).

So it made me wonder why do people, both new olim and natives, keep saying that Israeli drivers are crazy and how dangerous it is to drive in Israel. However no one that I have ever spoken to even knew what the statistics were. So I decided to do some math for myself.

The Israeli Car Accident statistics can be obtained from the National Road Safety Authority at this web site: http://pasimlev.mot.gov.il/RoadSafety/English/Statistics.htm

The US statistics can be obtained here: http://www.bts.gov/publications/ ...

All of the data is from 2004. Also, to be generally fair, I am comparing all of Israel to all of the US, even though Israel is really small and most of its population is concentrated in large cities, so it’s probably more accurate to compare it to a place in the US with a similar density, such as the NY/NJ area. But be that as it may I discovered that once again we were told a bunch of twisted information.

Here is what I found.

In 2004, in Israel:
1) There were 2.04 million registered motor vehicles
2) 428 fatal crashes
3) 480 fatalities
4) Estimated number of lives saved by the use of safety belts: 30
5) Population of Israel was 6,869,500

In 2004, in the US:
1) There were 243.24 million registered motor vehicles
2) 38,253 fatal crashes
3) 42,643 fatalities
4) Estimated number of lives saved by the use of safety belts: 15,434
5) Population of the US was 294,941,471

In order to compare the statistics I analyzed a few important ratios:

Vehicles / Population:
Israel: 0.296964845
US: 0.824705997

There are 2.77 times more cars in the US than in Israel relative to the population.

Fatal Crashes / Vehicles:
Israel: 0.000209804
US: 0.000157264

There were 1.334 times more Fatal Crashes in Israel than in the US relative to the number of vehicles on the road.

Fatalities / Vehicles:
Israel: 0.000235294
US: 0.000175312

There were 1.342 times more Fatalities in Israel than in the US relative to the number of vehicles on the road.

Vehicles / Fatality:
Israel: 4250
US: 5704

There are 25% more vehicles in the US that drive around without causing fatalities.

Estimated Safety Belts Saves / Fatalities:
Israel: 0.0625
US: 0.361935136

Strangely enough, only 6.25% of the fatalities in Israel could have been saved by the use of seat belts, where as over 30% of fatalities could have been saved in the US. This statistic is really strange. Either a lot more Americans don’t use seat belts or the way they estimate this number is really different and therefore it’s not a direct comparison.

Fatalities / Population:
Israel: 6.98741E-05
US: 0.000144581

There were 2.069 times more fatalities in the US than in Israel relative to the total population.

Another way of saying that is that overall you are twice as likely to be killed in a traffic related accident in the US than in Israel. Now you may say that more Americans have cars than Israelis, which is true (see ratio #1), however that doesn’t mean anything since many of the fatalities were pedestrians, bus riders (of which there are a lot more in Israel), bike riders, etc… And then keep in mind the population density issue that I mentioned in the beginning which makes this type of a comparison not totally fair. And finally the fact that there are less accidents in America per unit of cars completely makes no difference to your chance of being killed by one. What it does show that a lot less drivers of vehicles in the US create accidents, because there are 2.77 times more vehicles there and yet there are 25% less Vehicles per Fatality. But like I said that doesn’t affect your chances much. It is a sign to the Israeli driver that overall they create more fatal accidents than Americans do.

I think it’s worthwhile to compare the Israeli statistics to the NYC/NJ Area, but I am just too lazy to do it. May be someone who is that interested can post a comment here with their data for that area.

However, in general, I think that I made my point clear. Statistically, it’s not any more dangerous to drive or be driven over in Israel than in America. It’s roughly the same, if not safer in Israel (since so many people don’t drive). So feel free to come and drive.

The Robbery

2006-02-01T16:32:00.000+02:00

I am writing about this kind of late. It’s been already 3 months after this happened, but although most things have settled down the trauma is still lingering and will remain so for a while.

On October 17, the first night of Succos, we went out at about 6 pm to go eat dinner by our friends’ house who live on a neighboring street. We came back home at about 9 pm or so. As I open the front door it feels like that something is blocking it. I pushed hard and the following picture was in front me. There was a huge pile of garbage piled in front of the door consisting of kids’ toys, books, papers, and various stuff. The first thought that came to my mind was, “I don’t remember leaving the house like this before we left, and didn’t we clean up for Yom Tov?” All of the drawers are flung open. The porch door is left wide open. I realized that we have been robbed.

I ran around the apartment to see what’s gone. My backpack with my laptop, my wife’s purse, my car keys, my grandfather’s laptop (yes, the one that passed away), my wife’s laptop, my wallet, cell phones, etc… Basically all of the good stuff. Together with the stuff were all of our IDs, driver licenses, passports, credit cards.

I frantically started running around the building banging on all of the neighbor’s doors to see if anyone would help (I wasn’t sure what that was, but felt like I needed it). Finally, someone opened. I thought they were Israeli and when I opened my mouth to try to say something in Hebrew, I just froze and couldn’t remember a word. Luckily they turned out to be Americans and spoke English (which I still remembered oddly enough). I told them that were robbed and we should probably contact the police. They came with me across the street to a building where a police officer lives. He didn’t really want to ruin his Yom Tov, so he told us to go to a Rav (nothing here happens without a Rav, including the police) and ask if we can get a goy (yeah, try to find that around) to call the police. The Rav hesitated for a while, but then finally gave in. (He changed his attitude on his next day regarding his hesitation when he found out a bit later that his neighbors in his building were robbed as well that same night and it really could have been him. How quickly we change when trouble strikes really close.) I ran up the street and saw a few people standing talking. I asked them if they know anyone who has a non-Jewish maid working for them. Oddly enough there was someone on the same block. I ran to their house and they let me borrow their maid to dial that phone after which I ended up talking into the phone myself.

The police came shortly after armed to their teeth (machine guns and the whole shebang). They started snooping around the house looking for how the robbers got in (we live on the 4th floor from the front side where they entered). Our succah was moved, the light above was carefully unscrewed, and to the rail of the porch was tied a plastic water house that was taken from the garden of the neighbors below (who weren’t there). The robbers repelled against a 3 meter (about 10 feet) flat wall using this hose. We didn’t have bars on our windows and porch door wasn’t locked, so after that they just walked right in. The police wanted to check the apartment below from whom the hose was taken, and since I had a key they thought it would be easy. When we came to their door it was locked from the inside. The police started snooping around the building and saw that the bar on their bedroom window which faced the garden was ripped off the wall and cracked in half, using a car jack. Then the window pane was taken out and the rest is easy. The scene inside was the same as in our apartment, except that there was a half drunk soda bottle sitting open in the middle of their kitchen and the refrigerator was left open. Apparently these guys got thirsty in the middle and decided to leave their mark.

After the police left I realized that since they have every ID of mine, bank cards and all of the credit cards they can get a pile of money or at least buy something really big. I ran back to the house with the maid (yes, it’s midnight by now), and asked them if she can call the credit card companies to void all cards, at least the Israeli ones. After that was done I decided to go home. But who can sleep. We all went to sleep to our neighbors that night. My older son was really freaked out because the thieves took his school backpack to carry a bunch of the loot.

Since we only have one day of Yom Tov, and my car keys were stolen as soon as Yom Tov was over I called the leasing company to tow away my car before they come back and take too. When they came they didn’t have a spear key so they smashed the window to get in. I am glad it’s a company car and not mine. Then the locksmith showed up to change the keys. The next morning the police should up to take finger prints. Did they find any? Of course not. Only glove prints. No one really knows who did it, but everyone assumed it was the Bedouins who sit in the hills across and watch with binoculars who does what in every house and know exactly who is home and who is not. And they were real professionals. Everyone was eating in their succahs, but no one heard a thing.

The next morning I went to the police station to get a protocol made. The police assured me that I can drive with the protocol without a driver’s license and it will be ok. Now that would never work in the US, but here the police are almost your cousin so it’s all cool. I thought to myself that now that I am ID-less I will for sure get pulled over, and so it was destined to happen. But will get to that in a minute.

We spent the next 3 months increasing security. Alarm system, bars, a walk in safe (we took or sealed room and put a safe lock in it, so now it’s a walk-in safe) and even a dog. I ordered a dog from the Ukraine hoping that he would be hypo-allergenic because it’s a pure bred poodle. I spent a month sending the money, arranging with poddle club, talking to the owner, preparing, buying dog stuff, etc… But in the end G-d sits and laughs upstairs (although in my case he already fell off the chair long ago and is having chronic cramps from constant laughter). As soon as the puppy arrived my 3 year old started having massive allergic reactions and asthma attacks. The puppy had to go within 2 days and luckily I was able to sell him right away through the poodle club.

My younger son got so traumatized from all of this that for the past 4 months he has basically one game. He pretends to be a puppy that is constantly killing robbers.

I spent the following month recovering our IDs. It’s fun enough when one ID is stolen, but what happens when all of them get stolen and you have no way of proving who you are. Plus every agency has their rules. To get the Israeli Teudat Zehut you need a passport. And to get a passport you need some picture ID. The Israeli security will not let you into the embassy without a US passport, unless you scream and beg. And so on with everything. I even had trouble paying the Arnona (property tax), because they wanted my Teudat Zehut instead of which I only had the Teudat Oleh (Yes, I had to go to court to swear that it was really stolen, even though the administrator of the local Misrad HaKlita knows me personally) and the letter from the police. Don’t they want their money?

On the way back from the US embassy I got pulled over by police. There were already a bunch of cars pulled over in the same spot. They asked me for the driver’s license. I said I have one, but it was stolen and here is the letter from the police. I showed them my US passport and started telling them how I am a dumb American who is lost, which is why I have a GPS in my car (they were interested in that) and all my stuff was stolen and I have no idea why they pulled me over. They took my passport and then told me to get out of the car. (Yes, if that happens in the US you’re doomed.) The Israeli prison was already flashing before my eyes. I knew that I was going to be placed in a cell next to Marwan Barghouti who was going to make himself a praying mat out of my peyos. But low and behold the policeman asked me for my cell phone number and then told me I was good to go. I asked what I did wrong. He said I crossed the solid white line as I was exiting and even in America that’s not allowed. I started arguing (it’s a natural reaction here in Israel) that I was lost and only realized that I was about to go on the wrong road in the last second which is why I switched too late. He said to me, “Don’t worry, I am not giving you a ticket. We take everyone’s cell phone number if we pull them over for any reason, it’s the protocol. We don’t do anything with it.” And so I was on my way. Still shocked, because if this would have happened in the US I for sure would have been ticketed and may be even arrested for arguing with a cop and driving without a license. It’s good when every policeman is your cousin.

Replacing the other documents was not a big deal. Once I figured out the sequence of what I needed it was easy and fast. The DMV in the US even mailed us new driver licenses and State Department mailed new Social Security cards. My car was fixed and rekeyed for free and I even got a temporary replacement delivered to my door. So now we are all IDed again and official. My identity is restored and Marwan Barghouti is still sitting by himself.

The shock remnants are still there and when I walk into the house after being away, I still check if any of the drawers are opened. False alarms go off every once in a while and the security company comes over to check how it is going. Every blue moon (yes, we have those here too) the neighbors complain that our alarm wakes them up at night to which I reply, “That’s nice.” And my grandfather's writings on his laptop and his watch that he gave me when I was a kid are gone forever. But be that as it may I am still here in the Holy Land trying to find out from G-d why everything has to always be so funny.

Funny kid's quotes

2006-01-28T22:59:00.000+02:00

My 4 year old asked me yesterday. "Abba, what bracha do you make on seeing a dinosaur?"

I started taking a sofer course (I need to fix my Sefer Torah), from Rabbi Eliezer Adam. Excellent teacher. See his web site here: http://www.soferstam.org/.

And so I was sitting practicing writing the letters. My 6 year old comes over to me and says, "Abba, nice Reish." I said, "That's supposed to be a Vav." He said, "No, no. Let me show you how to write a Vav". So he takes a piece of paper and writes a Reish and next to it a Vav. He says, "You see, the Reish has a long stick and the Vav has a short stick."
Yes, I need to work on my sticks some more.

On TV Tax, or how I bought Sarit Hadad's new CD

2006-01-08T22:20:00.000+02:00

A few days ago I received a bill for the TV tax. Here in Israel if you own a TV, whether you watch it or not, you have to pay a tax that goes to support public channels. I guess that’s one of those things that Israel decided to copy from Europe.

I tried calling the tax people to tell them that I don’t own a TV, but they conveniently don’t pick up the phone. Instead there is a really long recording in many languages that tells you how to pay it automatically over the phone and what will happen to you if you don’t pay (i.e. how the government will take away everything you own and put you in prison, yada yada yada), but nothing about those who don’t own a TV.

So after a few days of futile calls I decided to pay them a visit. I walk into the TV tax office in Jerusalem and it’s this small room with 3 clerks sitting there and no customers. I walk over to one of the clerks and tell him that I got a bill for the TV tax but I don’t own a TV and therefore they should mark in their computer that I don’t need to pay. He takes the bill from me and asks me, “Can you read?”. “Yes”. “What does this say?” I say, “It says that you only have to pay if you own a TV. But how do you know that I don’t own a TV? Don’t you need to mark it down?” He says, “If you buy a TV you have to tell us, and the store from which you buy it from has to tell us as well, by law.” And then he takes the bill, rips it into a gazillion pieces and throws it into the garbage can under his desk. My jaw drops. He says to me, “Don’t worry about it. Bye.”

Well at least Rehov Shamai has lots of nice music stores, so to justify the 15 shekels that I paid for parking, I walked into one of them and bought me Sarit Hadad’s new CD.

And that was my visit to the TV tax office.

Appreciating Sharon

2006-01-08T21:23:00.000+02:00

Today as I was driving to work I was listening to the news on the radio, on Galei Tzahal. They were talking about that many people from all over Israel came to Jerusalem to Hadassah hospital to visit sick Prime Minister Sharon. And even though no one was actually allowed to go to the ICU to visit him, people came anyway.

Out of the crowd, the correspondent picked one woman for a live interview who was particularly interesting. She was one of the people who were evicted from Gaza and recently moved to another settlement inside Israel to a new house. When they asked her why she came to visit Sharon she responded as follows. By the way, everything I am writing here was said by her directly without any commentary from the correspondent.

Before the disengagement took place she was extremely angry at Sharon and the government for evicting her out of her home. But a few months ago she moved into her new home in the settlement of Nitzan, near Ashkelon, where many of Gush Katif residents were relocated to. After she moved in, she realized that her life has been drastically improved. There were no more daily terrorist threats and attacks, her children were really happy in the new place, her house was really nice (apparently nicer than the old one in Gush Katif), and her life seemed to be a lot more peaceful. So she came to visit Sharon, to say thank you to him personally for removing her out of Gaza and putting her into such a nice place.

After listening to this I suddenly felt really proud to be an Israeli. It’s not often that we get to hear such things, especially when those who protest always make themselves heard even if they are the minority, but those who are happy keep it to themselves. It made my day.

I wish that Hashem would grant a Refuah Shleima to Ariel Sharon and that his dream of peace and security in Israel would one day become a reality, and hopefully I will get to see it.

My grandfather passed away

2005-12-28T16:45:00.000+02:00

On September 25, my best friend in the whole world, my grandfather, Peter Tsypkin, passed away, at almost 87 years old. I was already flying to the US, because of the rapid cancer progression (he was only sick for 2 weeks), but I didn't make it just by a few hours. My world has been kind of empty since then.

Who thought I would get to use my one time exit letter from the Misrad HaPnim that they give you when you get your Teudat Zehut, especially for something like this. Luckily the border control didn't even flinch at it.

During my grandfather's last night he woke up, tried to sit on his bed (although he already couldn't move, because the cancer got to his spine) and said "... going to my people". Those were his last words. Then he fell asleep and slept straight until he passed away at 3 pm with my mother and grandmother at his side, exactly as he always wanted, in his own bed. When I heard this, it hit me that these were the last words of Yakov Avinu. And as Chazal said, he didn't really die ...

Rav Yehuda Henkin's seforim

2005-12-28T16:29:00.000+02:00

I have been running around seforim stores to find Rav Yehuda Henkin's Teshuvos - Benei Banim. Nothing. Finally I decided to call him and pay him a visit (he lives in Yerushalaim in Kiryat Moshe). He sold me the 4 volumes of the Teshuvos and even the 2 volume set of his Grandfather's Kesavim, which is also impossible to find. The seforim are amazing. I finished the first 2 volumes during the first evening I sat to read them. His ideas and psakim are so refreshing (especially after lots of recent nonsense going on in the Charedi world) that I got really excited. There is an awesome peirush on Chumash in the end of the 2nd volume. I finally saw a realistic pshat of why Avraham decided to tell the Egyptians that Sarah is his sister. The collected quotes from his grandfather, Rav Yosef Henkin (in the middle of the 2nd volume) is another master piece. Haven't seen anything like it since Rav Baruch Epstein's Mekor Baruch. Definitely not Artscroll material, if you know what I mean.

If you're in town, this is the one man worth to meet in person and definitely get the seforim. It made my week.

Appliances

2005-12-08T13:59:00.000+02:00

The next week I spent running around buying new appliances and getting the apartment ready, which despite many promises from the Israeli landlord (who lives in another city) that it will be ready, fixed and clean, was not even looked at. I have to say the previous tenant warned me about this landlord, but I was so tired of searching for something from the US by email and there were only 2 weeks left until the move, that I decided to take the risk anyway. I went to a local chain appliances store, Lior, to buy my appliances. There was a really nice Russian sales guy who told me lots of stories about his adventures in the army and explained the Israeli appliances situation.

He told me that I am not allowed to hook up the gas stove myself and I have to call the gas company to do it, because that's the law. So being a good citizen once the stove arrived that's what I did. I called about 5 gas companies who all told me that they do not service our building, until I finally I got to the one that does. They said that they don't have time to hook up stoves, it costs a ton of money and they won't do it. Now what? I go to ACE and look for a gas oven hook up kit (like the ones in the US) - no such thing. Finally, all frustrated and hungry (5 days after delivery still no oven) I bump into someone I know and ask him where do you buy a hook up kit for a gas oven? He says, "What kit? All you need is a rubber hose and 2 metal clamps." So he walks with me into a little local hardware store and shows me the clamps (the kind that in America you put on water pipes) and tells me to ask the sales clerk for a Tzinor Gaz - gas pipe. The sales guy bends down and pulls out a huge roll of rubber tubing and asks how long of a piece do I need. Cuts me off a piece and there is my "kit".

I tell this whole story to the Russian guy from Lior. He says that if the gas company finds out that I did it myself I will get fined. So I call up the Gas company (now that I know which one) and tell that I already installed the oven myself and they need to send a technician to check the hook up. No problem, that they can do right away. So the guy shows up, looks at it, says that everything is fine (despite the fact that the pipe is 2 meters long and supposed to be as short as possible according to the oven manual), give me a receipt and leaves. There is the Gas Safety Law at your finest.

The washing machine was not as exciting, but all of the knobs were labeled only in German (it was a Bosch). The instruction manual was in what language? Yes, you guessed it, Turkish. No English, not even Hebrew. But I downloaded a manual from the US Bosch web site fir a similar model and it turned out to be close enough. By the way, if you think that these machines are self explanatory, that's may be for a local. But to an American who is used to US machines they are nothing like it.

The food processor I got here was much better and cheaper than our US Cuisinart. And it take with a separate blender built-into it.

The only appliance that I brought from the US, a portable Maytag dishwasher, arrived broken in our lift. So I had to get a new one here also. But otherwise we got set with appliances.

In my opinion, everything that we bought here is a just as good or even better than US appliances. Although most of them are a bit smaller they work great. Our Bosch washing machine cleans clothes better than the US Whirlpool and it doesn't rip clothes because it loads from the side. The only down side is to it, is that it takes 2 hours to run instead of the 45 minutes on the US one, but no big deal. The Bosch dishwasher leaves dishes perfectly clean and dry, much better than the Maytag we had in the US.

Arrival

2005-12-08T12:39:00.000+02:00

We arrived in Israel on the Nefesh B'Nefesh flight on August 18, 2005. The flight was great. Once in the airport we had to listen to some speeches at 5 in the morning. I wasn't sure why Ehud Olmert was invited as a guest speaker during the week of disengagement from Gaza to a corwd who was mostly made up of religious people, many of whom weren't so fond of Olmert and the Disengagement. Be that as it may, he made some really dumb comments like "If all of you would have come earlier may be we would not be leaving Gaza today", which did got some people really hiped up. People were jumping from their seats, screaming, and I really thought the whole thing might turn ugly. But luckily he stopped speaking and the crowd settled down.

When we took our sherut from the airport to our hotel in Jerusalem (courtesy of Intel) the driver decided to take a short cut and give us a tour of the West Bank. I was never there before, so at first I thought that the fence on both sides of the road was just a fence. Only later I realized that it was a portion of the security fence to prevent the Palestinians to throw rocks at the drivers. We arrived at the Crowne Plaza Jerusalem safe and sound.

The next day many people who were relocated from Gaza arrived in Jerusalem hotels and protestor demonstrations against the Disengagement began right down the street. I had to go to work to get my company car (yey Intel!). I show up at the car office and everything is ready except that the manager does not like the fact that I have my American driver's license and not an Israeli one. I explain to him that by law I have 3 months to get an Israeli one and that I am allowed to drive. They give me the car and I leave. The next day I get a phone call from the car office saying that I have to go the DMV and get an Israeli driver's license or they will have to take the car back. Obviously, all of this is impossible, because I have to wait for at least a week until my information with my Teudat Zehut and Teudat Oleh gets passed into their computer system and then I need to schedule a driving lesson and a test. So I tell the clerk (there is that word again) who calls me on the phone that he needs to explain to his boss that he has no idea what he is talking about. I call NbN, my manager in the US, and complain, beg, cry, but no one can really do anything about this. This story repeated for 2 days. Finally I walk into the car office and start screaming at the car manager that he is full of it and there is no way for me to get an Israeli Driver license right now and that I am not giving him the car back no matter what he says. And suddenly he says, "OK, when ever you get your Israeli license just bring us a copy". And that's it. It's like he wanted me to come and yell at him so he could feel better about his power trip.

It all depends on the clerk

2005-12-08T11:55:00.000+02:00

The bureaucracy started with us showing up at the Jewish Agency in Maryland for our interview. My wife's and kids' paperwork was not questioned. But once they found out that I was born in Russia and not in the US the attitude changed. Suddenly the letter from a Rabbi that said that we were Jewish was not good enough and I was handed a special form which was about 30 pages thick to fill out about all of my ancestry, living relatives, deceased relatives and more. I hoped that the form would be the end, but then they asked for some fun stuff. They wanted me to send them my original Russian birth certificate on which it was written that my parents are Jewish, plus my mother's birth certificate, and my parents' marriage and divorce certificates as well. Now where was I supposed to get those, when none of these documents have been in use for years and I don't have them. Besides you can tell who I am from a mile away, with my garb and my peculiar nose. Do they care? Of course not. No papers, no aliyah.

So I go home and call up my mother to ask her if she still has my birth certificate. I did not tell her what it was for, since she wasn't fond, to put it mildly, of the whole idea. Luckily she had it and she mailed it to me without questions. A few days later I asked for the other stuff and here I got a big NO. I guess she thought she could change my mind by not giving me the papers.

I call up my grandparents and ask them if they have any of this stuff. My grandfather happened to have a copy of my mother's birth certificate, which I sent in. The Jewish Agency was not satisfied. I pleaded and pleaded explaining that I can't get my mother's marriage certificate and they have everything they need, but no way. They would not even go to the Misrad HaPnim without it to submit our file.

Then I call up my father in Russia and ask him to fax me the divorce certificate. He said that he did not have the original from the Soviet Union, and he has to go get a new one from the records. He faxed it to me within a few days and I forwarded it on. Done, you think? Of course not. The Jewish Agency says, "but it does not say on it that your parents are Jewish". Of course it doesn't, Russia is not communist anymore and they don't write this type of stuff on official documents. Apparently, some clerk in Israel who was handling my file really liked the communists back in Mother Russia and wanted their stamp of approval for my Aliyah.

But the best part was this. Out of paranoia that they won't let me make Aliyah I made the local Jewish Agency rep ask the Israeli office what will happen if they decline my application. They said, "No problem. You can still make Aliyah - as a husband of a Jewish woman." This reminded me how once upon a time there already was someone who was accused of not being Jewish due to his grandmother's paper work and some how he ended up being the husband of a Jewish woman whose son built the Beis HaMikdash. Of course, he had red hair so it must have been his Irish looks that made people skeptical. (For those confused, I am referring to King David. :-)) But me? With my peculiar nose?

I got furious. 2 months went by since our interview at the Jewish Agency. I started calling up different Rabbis, officials, but everyone just kept sending me somewhere else. Finally, a Russian Jewish Agency worker in New York sent a nasty gram to some high up manager in Sochnut in Israel to tell the clerk who was handling our file to buzz off. And suddenly we were approved. Seemingly the Misrad HaPnim did not care much for any of this stuff, since I was a US citizen and not a Russian citizen, and was quite apparent that I am not trying to fake my Jewishness in order to get out of Russia.

How it all began

2005-12-08T11:27:00.000+02:00

My wife and I wanted to make aliyah since we got married, but finances were always an obstacle. I don't mean to live richly, just to pay for the move. Debt and tuition were killing us.

To get the process itself rolling G-d had to intervene. In November 2003 I had my first trip to Israel on business with Intel (for whom I worked in the US). It was my first time here. In the same week that I was here, my boss' boss, who is not Jewish, happened to be here as well on an unrelated matter. After spending a few days here he comes over to me in the hall way and asks: "Do you feel here at home?" I said, "Of course, I do". He said, "Want to move?". And so Intel arranged the relocation. It took them about a year to schedule it, but if not for them I doubt it would happen any time soon. We were coming employed and not just employed, really well employed. In addition Nefesh B'Nefesh helped with the bureacracy and here we are.

The Navi (Yirmiyah 3:14) says:
.שׁוּבוּ בָנִים שׁוֹבָבִים נְאֻם-יְהוָה, כִּי אָנֹכִי בָּעַלְתִּי בָכֶם; וְלָקַחְתִּי אֶתְכֶם אֶחָד מֵעִיר, וּשְׁנַיִם מִמִּשְׁפָּחָה, וְהֵבֵאתִי אֶתְכֶם, צִיּוֹן
"... I will take you one from a city and two from a family, and bring you to Zion."

So if I could not pick myself up, G-d had to pick me up by the scruff of my neck and move me. But I didn't know yet that His services were not free ...

About the blog

2005-12-08T11:16:00.000+02:00

We decided to start our Aliyah blog to share our adventures. We moved to Israel on August 17, 2005, and it's been busy. Although nothing happened to us that could not have happened somewhere else, we feel like G-d has been paying lots of attention to us here, lots more than before. Will have to begin at the begining ...