Bikin' in the USA

Recently I pulled my bike out, fixed it up, and started to use it...heavily. I pretty much stopped using my car when ever I get a chance, and when I have to go to areas in the neighborhood I'll pull the bike out.
Now I admit I'm not as hardcore as some bike riders out there (the car keys will get pulled out when it starts to rain), but part of it may just be that I need to build my strength up again and feel more comfortable traversing city streets in my renewable energy source.
I have 3 main areas of interest outside of Torah & Judaism stuff, and one of them happens to be the environment/nature. Going back as far a I can remember my idea of a good time was going on a hike and getting lost in the woods.
Of course now I'm older and and don't have as much free time as I used to, so these trips have become less and less (although I'm hoping that they start picking up again after I get to Israel)

So today I decided to bike up one of the country roads that start in our area.

I say "country" road because for the most part it is. There is a small stretch of it that runs through the Greenspring area of Baltimore, but the majority of it is winding country road (for those of you in Baltimore the road is Greenspring).

Anyways, I biked about 15 miles up Greenspring. The terrain is pretty hilly, with good long stretches where you're straining your muscles biking up and finally getting to the top for a short sprint down the hill before you have to start climbing again.

The landscape goes back and forth from woods to corn fields to small rural areas.

At one point in the trip I stopped to take a few pictures. It was hard to imagine that I was only 6 miles from my house and everything that's been bothering me for the past few days seemed so far away.

I also thought that it was kind of sad that the average person who lives in the Greenspring (the area) had no idea that Greenspring (the road) led to some incredibly serene places. It really gave me a chance to at least see part of rural America before I left it.

I passed by a few farm houses and I imagined what it would be like to live there, out in this quite are, away from city noise a hustle, your profession enabling you to work out side in quite beautiful areas...

I have just over a month to go and I have a confession to make...I'm going to miss America.
Yes I really am.
Because even though this country is not home, it is still an incredible country with incredible people, and I have to give it to them for being great supporters of Israel.

Speaking of Israel, I have to throw in this last story that happened on my trip. You see Greenspring Road crosses over the Beltway (I-695) and that's usually how for the people of my neck of the woods (suburbs) have ever traveled on it. Once you get past the beltway you hit a really good stretch of woods, followed by corn fields, followed by some more woods.
It was in these woods I ran into a guy who's car had broken down on the Beltway and he was in search of a gas station. Needless to say he was going in the wrong direction for that. So I told him to turn around and head back in the following direction.
On my way back I ran into him again. I had been thinking that if I ran into him on the way back and he still needed help I would bike home and then come back with the car to pick him up.
We got to chatting at a stop light and I made my offer, but he insisted that all he wanted to do was call the tow truck and a cab.
Thank G-d I was blessed with an absolutely gorgeous day, nice an sunny in the mid 80's with no humidity, so as strangers with noting in common we shared something we had in common...the weather.
So as I do, I mentioned that net month I'm going to be biking in some much hotter climates. The conversation went like this:
Him: "Yeah were are you headed?"
Me: "Israel."
Him: "Oh, are you going to be doing some Missionary work there?"

I of course was wearing a helmet and had my Tzitit tucked in my back pocket, so there was no obvious sign that I was Jewish.

Me: "No I'm moving there, I'm an Orthodox Jew, do you need some water?"

He looked at me with shock and nodded, so I gave him my extra water bottle and a huge smile. I asked if he needed any more help and he said he was OK, we wished each other well and I went to bike down a very nice hill.

I'll admit I'm not sure exactly what happened there, but I think (hope) he was thinking more positively about Jews after that experience.

So all in all a very nice enjoyable bike trip.

Apple and Israel

I've been doing a lot of research of Apple in Israel (in case I happened to discover an issue with the computer that had to be fixed) and decided that I would share what I've found out in case anyone else is in my situation.

Israel does have an Apple distribution center called iDigital and it's located in Tel Aviv. You can buy, from what I can tell, all Apple products from Mac to iPod. Can't buy the iPhone yet because it's not supported in Israel but you can get pretty much everything else.
Now this is only a distribution center, and not an official Apple technician shop. After speaking with the Apple technician on the phone I learned that I can not get my Mac (or iPod) fixed at this place under the current Apple warranty that I have. I'll check it out when I get there and see if they offer their own type of service for stuff they sell, because it doesn't make sense that they would sell Apple products and then sell the Apple warranty that doesn't offer support in Israel.
UPDATE 8/15/09: I had to get some work done on the computer at iDigital in Tel Aviv so here' the deal: They will honor an Apple warranty on an Apple product purchased outside of Israel, but there is a minimum of 21 business days before they are able to do any work on the product because they need some kind approval from Apple.

One of the resons that there isn't an Apple store in Israel probably has to do with OS X and iPod softwares's lack of Hebrew support. It's interesting that Apple doesn't support Hebrew, especially considering that Apple has started using Intel chips in all of their Macs and all Intel chips these days are made in the Intel R&D headquarters in Haifa.

The closest Apple stores to Israel (that I'm aware of) is in Turkey and Italy. So it might be worth it to just take a vacation for a few days and fly there to get the computer fixed (the flights are relatively cheap).

There is someone who is connected to the Yeshiva that I'm going to who has a Mac, so I'm going to ask him if he's ever had a problem with it and needed to get it serviced. He has a Mac Pro, the "tower," so it's not like he can just put it in a bag and fly to the states to get it fixed. If something happens to my Macbook Pro (laptop), it will relatively easy to get it fixed, albeit there will be issues that I'll have to coordinate, like finding someone who's going to the States who would be willing to take it and either take it an Apple store themselves.

There are some independent computer workers that will fix a Mac for you, but they won't do it on the Apple warranty, something that ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY when buying a Mac or any computer. I spent about $250 for the protection plan and I'm covered for any issues I have for 3 years after I bought it. I learned that if I had the issue that I had without the protection plan it would have cost me $1200, enough to buy a new machine.

So if anyone has any question of Apple in Israel I'll be happy to answer the questions if I am able. I still feel that you can't go wrong with getting an Apple product, especially if you live in a country where you can get full service/coverage on your product (hmmm, I wonder what it would take to open an official Apple store in Israel...would there be any money in it?)

Obama...

I;m actually going to go off topic from my normal rantings about things related to Israel.
It was announced that (unofficially) Barack Obama will be the Democratic Candidate in the Presidential Election.
Regardless of his politics, some of which I agree with, some I don't, just like McCain, I have to say that I am proud that a black man is running for president. Regardless of the individual candidate, I feel that America has finally reached a point where the numbers would even support a black president says a lot about how the country has changed.
I've recently become very interested in early American history, and looking back at the founding of the country and going all the way to the 1950's, America has been about freedom.
Who's freedom is another question.
Going back to the time when Black People were taken from Africa against their will to come to America to work as slaves, the American ideals have in reality only been fully available to the ruling elite and the wealthy.
The Black community has unfortunately never really graduated from this slave mentality, and this has been helped along by other people's animosity towards them.
Now however, there are enough people in America who have moved past those stereotypes enough so that they are willing to vote for a black candidate, and I have to so that I'm very proud.
This is not an endorsement of Obama in any way, this is just a post on the fact that America has moved past the negative stereotypes that have plauged it since its founding.
Now of course the question is, are people just going to replace their animosity towards Blacks to another group. Say...Jews.
But that's a topic for another post.

America's Memorial Day vs. Israel's Yom HaZikaron

I've only spent one Yom Hazikaron in Israel, and it was one of the most moving experiences of my life. The yeshiva took us all to Har Herzl, hoping to give us a taste of what the day was like in Israel, knowing full well that for some of us, it would be the first, last, and only time they would be in Israel on Yom Hazikaron.
One of the famous parts of the day is the Siren, the one that goes of at night as well as the one that goes on in the morning. The entire country just stops for 2 minutes, as a tribute to all of the people who dies in Israel's wars as well as all the victims of terror attacks.
Albeit there are two groups who do not stand at attention during those two minutes. One of those groups, not surprisingly, are the Arabs.
The other group are certain (not all) chareidim/yeshivish people, who during those two minutes make sure that they are learning Torah.
Some people may knock those Jews for doing this, but I think that there's nothing better that someone could be doing than learning Torah to honor the 20+ thousand Jews who have been killed/murdered since the founding of the State.
Israel's Yom Hazikaron is a day in which the entire country feels the pain of those lost souls, and mourn them.

On the flip side you have America's Memorial Day, which is a somber day only to those families who have lost loved ones in America's wars.
Vietnam, Iraq, Kuwait, , the Revolutionary War, all of the soldiers who died in these wars are forever lost in the lives of their families.

But that's only those families.

For the rest of America, Memorial Day is a day where everyone is off of school/work. People go hiking, light fireworks, and make barbecues. The average person may not even give a second thought that hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people gave their lives in order for them to be a free person in a free country.

It's actually kinda sad about how ungrateful some people are, about this fact. We've become so obsessed with ourselves we don't even think about the things that others have done for us that we're even aware of.

So here we are on Memorial day, let's give 2 minutes to think about all of those people who have died to make this great country (hey, America may have issues, and I'm moving to Israel, but America still is a great country). We owe them that.

I'm going to go prepare the barbecue now.

Checkpoints

There is unfortunately, a large number of people who have to travel through security checkpoints every single day, whether their have to get to a business meeting, go on a school trip, or just to see family.

They are herded like sheep through a narrow walkway where, after a tremendously long wait, they finally reach the end and it is their turn.

The security guard looks them over and then starts to pat them, as if they are some kind of criminals carrying weapons. All these people go through complete and utter humiliation when the security guard "randomly" selects them to do a strip search, when it is obvious that he doesn't care at all about catching terrorists. He's just bored and wanted to humiliate the people passing through.

They are then pulled out of line, where everyone is watching them, as they are searched form head to foot while the guard says that they have to make sure that they are not a terrorist.

Babies, grandmothers, and handicapped, with their added baggage and inability to fend for themselves are routinely pulled over and searched like everyone else.

Sounds horrible doesn't it?

What if I told you hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions of people have to endure this kind of humiliation everyday?

Is this an accurate portrayal of how Israel treats Palestinians who travel through checkpoints?

I wouldn't know.

I was writing about about airport security checkpoints.

Milestone

Well it took me 1 year, 1 month and 28 days to reach the milestone of 1,000 visits to my blog. Go ahead and pass it along if you like it (or don't like) I welcome all viewpoints and opinion.

Funny Bush Videos

I had to do it eventually. Ever since Bush has decided that he's G-d and has the right to give land that doesn't belong to him to the enemies of the Jews, I had to, at some point, make some fun of him.
So here you go, so hilarious Bush videos:

The Ethnic Cleansing of "Palestine"

Note: the following story and analysis is purely satirical (although there's probably some truth to it)

I was in the library last week and noticed that there was a stand of book's about Israel in honor of Israel's 60th birthday.

I wandered over and started to browse through them, noticing various books, some I've read and some I haven't. Books like O' Jerusalem, Dershowitz books, and others.

Then one book caught my eye.

Located on a stand about Israel (a stand supposedly to show Israel in a POSITIVE light) was the book "The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine."

I have not read the book, I probably will not read the book, but even without reading that book, I can tell you that the book is full of lies.

You want to see ethnic cleansing, look at Darfur. You want to see ethnic cleansing, look at the Nazi's. Israel's relationship with it's Arab neighbors is not ethnic cleansing

Now I'm going to make a rather interesting statement: even though the premise of that book is false, that Israel is ethnically cleansing Palestinians, the creation of a Palestinian state will cause the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians (Pretty strong claim right? Watch this).

According to the Arabs they are considered to have "Palestinian nationality" in that they have the right to property in the state of Israel (more commonly know is the Right of Return or Death to Israel or "We the Arabs unabashedly declare that we hate all Jews and want you dead") , whether they be first generation, 2nd generation, 3rd...it doesn't matter. If they had a ancestor that, at one point in time, owned land there, all of his descendant's have a right to that land. (Whether they even owned the land to begin with is for another post)

Here's an example of how their claims are taken directly from a page in Jewish history and twisted to meet their false agenda.

Hitler determined a Jew by a person had at least one Jewish grandparent. If you're grandfather married a Christian and your family have only married Christians since, you are still considered a Jew.

My (as in like me, the author of this blog) grandfather came to Israel (AKA, British mandated "Palestine") from Russia in the mid-30's. On his passport (wasn't really a passport, it was more like an ID card), under nationality, was stamped "Palestinian."

Ah, here's where it gets interesting, these Arabs want to claim that they are an indigenous nation, that have lived here for millennia (just like the Jews have), yet how could a Jew have the same nationality as they do AKA "Palestinian"? The only way for this to make sense is for people who lived under the British Mandate, who were issued identification cards to be given that nationality.

Now the local Arab population did not like the name "Palestinian" at all. That word was associated with all this nasty things, like the PALESTINE Post (later to be renamed the Jerusalem Post), the PALESTINIAN Airways (later to be renamed El Al), and worst of all PALESTINIAN (later to be renamed "Israeli" or another eternal name Jew/Yid/Yihudi/Bnei Yisrael).

Yes, they didn't like that name at all, in fact if you would call and Arab a "palestinian" he would shout at you for calling him a Jew.

Anyways, to get back to the ethnic cleansing. There was no ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, because the Palestinians were the Jews. But to follow the logic of the Arabs, I would be a 3rd generation Palestinian because my grandfather was given the nationality of "Palestinian" because he happened to live in the Land of Israel during the time the British were labeling people who lived there that name.

But wait! My grandfather left Israel shortly after it became a state, do I still have that lofty status as a"Palestinian?"

According to them I do. Remember, they view anyone who had, at one in history, owned property in the Land of Israel, or even just lived there, as the rightful owners for the rest of time to their ancestors. They also, even if they left, maintain the status of "Palestinians." (You can find people who claim to be 2nd or 3rd generation "Palestinian" who live in America)

So anyways according to that I am a Palestinian.

I am also an Israeli.

Therefore if there is ever (chas v'shalom) the creation of a Palestinian state in Judea & Samaria (or let's say even if they decide to make their state somewhere else, a ploy that we know is only so they can destroy Israel) I should be able to have duel citizenship to both places, correct? I should have a Israeli passport like I do now, or I should have a Palestine passport.

Right?

WRONG!

Because I would not be allowed to have a Palestinian citizenship purely because of the fact that I AM A JEW! I would not be allowed to even visit their state because the Palestinian state would be Juden Rein! No Jews! None!

But let's say that I was living in community in Judea & Samaria (something that is very likely to happen) I would be ethnically cleansed by ISRAEL with the support of the UNITED STATES, from my home there. Israel is not the one doing the ethnic cleansing because they want to drive the Arabs out of Israel, the ethnic cleansing is going on purely for the Arabs! Its' the ARABS WHO ARE ETHNICALLY CLEANSING THE ORIGINAL PALESTINIANS, THE JEWS!

So anyways, I will probably never read the book "The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine" because it will most likely a work of fiction that doesn't examine the history correctly. As Rabbi Ken Spiro put it, "The creation of Palestinian history, is one of the most successful historical fabrications in the history of the world."

But don't worry, in another 5, 10, 50, 100 years eventually the threat of the "Palestinians" will disappear, and I can guarantee you, the Jews will still be here.

Oh, and on one last note:

ALL JEWS IN THE WORLD COME HOME AND MAKE ALIYAH!!

Busted Google!

(FOR THOSE OF YOU ON FACEBOOK READING THIS YOU HAVE TO CLICK TO SEE THE ORIGINAL POST IN ORDER TO SEE THE PICTURES)

I was looking at Israel on Google Earth and found something very interesting:


If you can take a real close look..


It says "Every Human has Rights."

the obvious implication is that the United States and United Nations don't give Jews rights.

Right?

I think more likely someone was pissed that Israel is about to celebrate it's 60th birthday and he wanted to make a hint that Israel is "oppressive" to its neighbors.

Well, as I've written about on this blog many times, there is a huge difference between IDF soldiers protecting children in preschool vs Arab terrorists who send those children out to kill themselves.

Israel is B"H here to stay, the trick is for us as Jews, to unite. Once we've done that we won't have to worry about sovereignty, terrorism or our neighbors.

Happy 60th Israel!


UPDATED: I realized that I could click on those two icons. One of them was in downtown Jerusalem, the other was in Beit Lechem. I found something interesting on the Beit Lechem one, they had profiled a guy named Abdelfattah Abusrour who was teaching Arab children theater in the hope the it would bring peace.
I have to commend the guy for his attempt, but unless Arab society on a whole has takes on a similar view there will never be a peace.

This leads to another question, what kind of peace are we talking about. Everyone likes to say "Peace" all the time, it's kind of just turned into a slogan without anyone thinking what it rally means.

We have "Peace" with Egypt, this peace has caused us to lose the Sinai, our own oil source, half opf our then territory and the very minor issue of LETTING TERRORISTS BRING WEAPONS INTO GAZA without Israel being able to do a thing from stopping them fire thousands of rockets into Sderot.

So what will a peace look like? An Israel without Yesha? How would that produce different results than Egypt? Egypt may have signed a piece of paper, but they are still preaching the most horrific anti-semitic messages, some of which rival Nazi propaganda.

So this leads to back to Abdelfattah Abusrour, is he imagining a day where Israel will give Yesha to the Arabs and that there will be no hostility towards the smaller Israel? That's going to be hard to do especially when the state sponsored television is preaching the same message that Egypt is.

The other icon lead to the same organization this time to a woman named Nurit Peled-Elhanan, who had a child killed by an Arab terrorist. She then somehow decided that her child was killed because Israel is "occupying" their land.

This is unfortunately the conclusion one will come to if they don't dig for the facts, some of which pertain to who really has the right to this land, and who actually bought it?

I can't go into detail on this right now because I don't have all of the sources in front of me, but pardon this claim, Jews were the ones who own more land in Yesha then any Arab does. They BOUGHT it from them back in the 1800's.

Add that to the fact that the Torah also goes into detail about Israel belonging to the Jews, and it's quite surprising that there is anyone claiming that the Arabs own this land. We bought it TWICE.

But now back to Google.

Google does not have a good relationship with Israel. They insist on calling Yesha "Palestine" they show parts of Yerushalayim as "Palestine."
But still, they should take a backseat on an issue like this. It's one thing to mark fabricated borders (hey anyone can make a mistake) but to put something in blaming Israel of "occupying" and not having anything about to say about, say, Sderot (I checked, by Sderot it just says "Sderot" nothing about falling rockets.

And I used to like Google as a tech company