And they say that they're not Anti Semites

Harry Potter is a Zionist plot to "disrupt the minds of young children."

Duh.

The Great Contributions Ehud Olmert has done for the State of Israel

Watch and find out!

Pssst . . . I have a secret

I HAVE AN ALIYAH DATE!!!!!
Details to follow. . .

This makes me sick

Please go to this page and look at the absolutely disgusting thing that is about to take place in Germany. 100 years ago the Jews of Berlin proclaimed that "Berlin is the new Jerusalem." More recently they have been actively DE-moting aliyah.

Now they've come up with a new thing to embarrass the Jewish people. They are spending over eight million dollars to create a replica of the Kotel in Berlin. Eight million that obviously could be used for more productive things, but it is their money. But that's not the worst part.

On Wedensday Rabbi Yehuda Teichtal told AP that the goal of creating this replica was "a symbolic part of making Berlin a central hub of Jewish life again."

Rabbi Teichtal is the grandson of HaRav Yissachar Shlomo Teichtal, author of Eim Habanim Smeicha, a sefer that talks about the importance of Aliyah to Berlin, whoops, I mean Israel. And here is his grandson who is trying to make Germany the "central hub of Jewish life again."

It's sick. Germany, like everyother place the Jews have ever been comfortable has of course done one of the worst crimes to the Jewish people in recent memory. Uh. . . does the Holocaust come to mind? And here are the Jews of Germany, who haven't got it yet. I understand if you want to live in Chutz L'Aretz, I understand if the tivah to make a good living is too strong, or if you don't have enough Bitachon to make the move. But don't replace Israel.

And of all things this announcment comes a day after Tisha B'Av, which is a time to mourn the loss of the Beit Hamikdash, and for some reason, watch movies about the Holocaust.

Hopefully the Jews of Germany will come to their senses, and won't have to wait for another Holocaust to happen before Mashiach comes.

Harry Potter and the Death of Shabbat

If any one hasn't seen it yet, it has been all over the news that "oh those darn religious Jews are at it again, preaching the stupid thing we like to call the Bible, and forcing it's insane laws on everyone else."
I am of course referring to Eli Yishai's warning to Jewish bookstore owners in Israel that they should not open their stores on Shabbos to sell the final Harry Potter book.

My thoughts are like this. I think that's its really sad. Not that they're desecrating Shabbos, but that they have to get their hands on the book as fast as possible, waiting a few more hours will not kill anybody.

We had the postman deliver our copy today (in fact we had two mail delivers, one of them by a mailperson only delivering Harry Potter books) and I politely asked her to put the books in out vestable as we don't open our mail on the Shabbat.

She said that she had had mixed reactions from different homes she dropped the books of at. At some houses the books were grabbed out of her hands and ripped open before she could turn around and leave. Other's, like we did, asked her to set t aside and that they would get it later. And the really interesting one, they asked her to open it for them.

I'm hoping that none of the "let's read it right now" people, were Jews.

I understand the Harry Potter mania, and I fell it is well placed. Why is everyone so crazy about Harry?

Because he's just a regular guy like you and me.

He has no special powers (I mean nothing special compared to what everyone around him can do).

He goes through the same growing pains that everyone has experienced.

And the best one, he WEARS GLASSES!

He's a guy we can relate to.

But, could we wait for a few more hours? I personally am not planning on starting the new book until after Tisha B'Av. These are dangerous times, particularly the next few days, I don't think I should be wrapped up in some fantasy world.

I also wish that people would learn Tanach with as much energy and enthusiasm as they read Harry Potter.

Don't worry there's plenty of time for sleep. . .AFTER YOU DIE

I saw a sign that reminded me of a message one of my Rabbeim used to tell us. RIDE HARD:You can rest when you die!
This is similar to my Rabbi's quote, "There's plenty of time to sleep, after your dead."

Simple message here, you only have one life to live, how are you going to live it? Are you going to spend your short time on this world pleasure seeking or are you going to make a difference? You only get ONE life, how do you want the world to remember your usage of it.

This is a message that pertains to everyone, Jews, Christians, atheists. A question that's asked by everyone on their deathbeds is "did I make a difference."

Make a difference!

Get out of bed earlier, spend more time for things that are really important! Who is wealthy? someone who is completely satisfied with what they have (Avot 4:1).

In all honesty, the only thing that you have control over are your relationships and your spirituality. Material wealth is completely in the hand of G-d. If you want to work through the weekend that's fine, but the extra $200 you will make will just not come from somewhere else. You have a set amount of money you are going to make every year and it's completely in the hands of G-d how you're going to get it.

So spend more time doing what really matters. No one says "he made a lot of money" at someone's eulogy. They talk about what kind of person you were, what difference you made.

I'm not saying not to work, obviously we have to do it to make a living. But don't neglect what's really important.

MAKE A DIFFERENCE!!!

A Touching Moment. . .with someone from Puerto Rico

Someone sent this to me. . .

Thought you would appreciate this experience I had with one of the movers yesterday.

Yesterday our lift came and went. During the six and half hours the five member crew were here, we all became quite friendly. They were originally from Puerto Rico, some not that long off the boat. The crew member that had been with Strand the longest (15 years) told me that he was moving back to Puerto Rico in a month. I wished him the best of luck. He told me that he was not born there but he went to school there and to him it felt like home. He said that he doesn't care if they bomb him there at least he will die in a place where he feels is his home. I told him why I else would I be moving to Israel?

Later, when they were almost ready to leave I wished him good luck in his move again. He said to me,"Do you remember the movie where the man could not leave the airport (The Terminal with Tom Hanks) because his country was at war and they offered him asylum in NY if he would just step out of the airport? They kept asking him why he would want to go back to his country when bombs were flying out of the sky and his country was being destroyed. He told them that that was his home and no matter what, he wanted to go home." The crew member then told me that is how he felt about Puerto Rico. I told him I understood completely.

Who would believe that I could ever have something in common with a 33 year old Puerto Rican man? I hate to say it, but I had more in common with that man at that moment than I do with many of my fellow Jews. We were actually on the same wavelength when it came to what is important. We understood each other.

This encounter made me realize that no matter where you live, it is not home unless you feel it in your soul.

There is no place like home and that is where I am going.

OK, now I think he's REALLY gone insane!

I am now thoroughly convinced that George Bush is an idiot. Some of the idiotic statements he made in a speech yesterday:

"Israel should be confident that the United States will never abandon its commitment to the security of Israel as a Jewish state and a homeland for the Jewish people."

"The establishment of a Palestinian State."

It is impossible for these two statements to co-exist. The day a Palestinian state is created is the day that Israel loses its security and will lose its state. The should be quite obvious to anyone with half a brain in their head. Follow history, just in the past 7 years.

Example #1: Israel pulls out of Lebanon. Six years later Hezbullah fires 4000 rockets into Israel. Hezbullah are Palesinian Arabs

Example #2: Israel pulls out of Gaza. As soon as Arabs move in they start firing rockets into Israel. Gaza is made up of Palestinian Arabs

Example #3: Oslo. Israel puts 90% of the West Bank into Arab controlled hands. This leads to an easy border for Arabs to get into the rest of Israel and they proceed to kill Jews, by shooting at them or through suicide bombings. West Bank is full of Palestinian Arabs.

So what is George Bush's "brilliant" idea to have Israel and the "Palestinian people" finally get peace?

Give them all of the West Bank!

The worst part is that this is a man Olmert looks up to. "Yes Mr. President, I'll do anything you ask. West Bank? No problem? All of Israel? Sure. My first born son who's never served in the army and doesn't even live in the country that I govern? Please.

Bush is repeating all of the things that Oslo tried to bring. Oslo DIDN'T WORK! Get your super large Texan face out of your tush and listen to the logic! Israel will never be safe if the existence of a Palestinian state is created out of the land of Israel.

Why don't you ask your good buddies in Saudi Arabia to give them a state? They have lots of open room that they're not using.
The Arab-Israel conflict is not about land. It's about the destruction of Israel. The "Palestinian people" were created to pressure Israel to slowly give away, piece by peace, its entire country.

I am a Zionist-I am a Jew

I'm going to transcribe a great video I found on Yideoz

I am a Zionist

I belong to a people who brought the Bible to the world. transmitting the Torah, the Ten Commandments, and the idea of One G-d from generation to generation.

I am part of an ancient nation that reclaimed its homeland two thousand years after being expelled from it, rising up like a phoenix from the ashes and impotence of the Holocaust.

I am a citizen of a country that has gathered in her scattered people, taking refugees from one hundred nations, rescuing the persecuted and the impoverished, welcoming idealists and adventurers and restless wanderers who chose to join her, like me.

I am defended by the IDF, the finest small fighting force in the world, a citizens army with high moral standards and purity of arms second to no other nation.

I am grateful to merit Jerusalem as my capitol, the place to which our people have always turned, the city that our soldiers reunited and redeemed from desecration after our enemies destroyed her synagogues and sacred sites, using her shrines as garbage dumps and the tombstones of our ancestors to line their sewers.

I am grateful to walk the streets in a land where a Jew can wear a skullcap or a star of David or a black robe without fearing ridicule or persecution or even looks askance.

I speak and understand Hebrew the sacred tongue of Holy Writ, a "dead language" revived by our people so that our nation would have common basis for communication. I am proud that every child can read the Torah in its original form.

I raise my children in schools where the victories and tragedies of our people are remembered, where the holidays celebrate our G-d and our traditions.

I participate in the only democracy in a region of the world where freedom of expression and human rights are otherwise absent.

I live in a land where I can speak of our nations flaws, our social failings, our fallible leaders - and there are many, many of each - without fear of being censored, imprisoned or executed.

I am proud that our country is hated by some of the most cruel, backward, repressive, terror-supporting dictatorships in the world.

I am proud that the mostly vapid governments of Europe, Africa, and Asia, along with the UN in which their majorities rules, have nothing better to do than condemn us.

I am proud that our strongest ally is the greatest nation in the world and proud that its people and elected representatives stand by us and prevent us from isolation and condemnation by lesser nations with weaker moral fiber.

I am proud of our entrepreneurial accomplishments, our research, our technologies, our innovative products.

I am proud of our artists, our musicians, our authors, our athletes, and our pilots. I'm proud of our national airline, and its legendary security checks, and I'm proud that by now they let me pass with a few perfunctory questions.

I am proud of my fellow citizens, who have shown such grace and courage under fire, refusing to allow their love of life and their passion for freedom to be sapped by death-seeking, freedom-hating terrorists.

I am proud of our compassionate leftist and our patriotic rightists.

I am proud of our un-bending ultra-Orthodox and our ultra-rational secularists.

I am proud of our pioneering settlers and our peace-seeking activists.

I am proud that we are a stiff-necked people.

I belong to a people who dwell alone, yet shine a light unto the world. We may not always be right, but we're never as wrong as our enemies claim. And even when we are wrong we are a nation that seeks to make things right.

Our people hold the birthright to the land in which we live, inscribed in the Bible, proven by archaeological excavations, and verified by the investment of agricultural, industrial, and financial investments we have made, sealed by our sweat and by our blood, by our tears of sorrow and of joy, to develop and defend our country.

We stretch out our hand in peace to our Arab neighbors, in full knowledge that they rejected the UN Partition of 1947, invaded our fledging state in 1948, tried to strangle us in 1967, surprised us on Yom Kippur in 1973.

We pray for just settlement with the Arabs in Israel, even though from the inception of the PLO in 1964, before the conquest of the Six Day War, their leadership has been dedicated to liberating "Palestine" which means eliminating Israel.

We have endured from the Arabs unceasing terror attacks ever since, and despite all political agreements and diplomatic initiatives, we see that the Arabs continue to incite their people to despise us and to aspire to destroying us. We have offered to share our land with our neighbors, but we will not give land to be used to drive us into the sea.

Even if hundreds of millions of people hate us, even if some nations pray that we do not exist, even if some of our enemies won't rest until they kill us and many in the rest of the world don't give a damn, I couldn't be prouder. We have come home, and this is it.

I am an Israeli, a citizen of the one and only Jewish homeland. I thank G-d that I was born in a time when I could fulfill the dream of 2000 years to return to Zion.

I am a Zionist, a believer and supporter and defender of our reborn nation.

And you who read these words with compassion, and understanding and identification - whether you are Jewish or not, Israeli or not You are a Zionist too.

Learn your *** ***** HISTORY!!

ch.I'm well aware that I make people here in America uncomfortable. I like to, as Rav Meir Kahana says, "Ask uncomfortable questions to comfortable Jews."
So I'm becoming a Jewish history obsessor, regarding the post I did last week, I've really started to wonder why no one learns history. The beginning of Judges makes it very clear that you have to know where you came from, that's the only way to know where you're going. Why is the first bracha in Shemone Esrei about our Patriarchs? Should the next one be first as it talks about the strength of G-d? I sat down with someone over Shabbos and we went through every single Bracha and asked ourselves if we, and other people around us really cared about what we were saying. History, G-d, Eretz Yisrael, how often are these things on our minds? Well I can say personally that E"Y is (and I'm not joking) always on my mind. In fact some people have told me to get some other interests (maybe because I'm making them uncomfortable).
I was talking with one of my Rebbeim back in February about my seder in Tanach. I asked him how it was possible to learn Tanach, and not want to make Aliyah.
He gave me his unique, crooked smile and told me that's probably the reason why most American Jews don't learn Tanach.
I was thinking about that this past week when I was reading an article in the Mishpacha, an interview with Rav Berel Wein. In the interview they asked him why Frum Jews didn't learn Jewish history, and particularly Tanach.
He said that it's very simple, these topics have been taken over by secularists, and since secularists have taken it over, the Frum community decided to ignore it. This allowed these very important subjects to be hijacked and distorted.
Case in point, the secular Zionists say that the Jews started coming to Israel in large numbers in the 1800's. The Hamodia has been doing stories now for the past few months, documenting large numbers of Frum Jews who were coming to Israel in large numbers from Europe, for the last 900 years. But because Frum Jews don't spend a good amount of time learning history, everyone, including the enemies of Israel, are using this as a proof that we have no claim to our land.
Learn your history! If you need a quick overview of the last 3000 years Rav Ken Spiro has a great series of articles on Aish, what they call a 'crash course,' and it gives a very good overview. I've been doing my shul newsletter for the past 7 months and I went a little overboard in my whole "Promote Israel" campaign. Putting lots of pictures of E"Y in the newsletter, and articles about Aliyah, and why Israel is so great. Anyways I pissed a lot of people off, so I scaled back and decided to go with the more subliminal way, and I've been publishing these articles for the past few weeks.
The biggest mistake we can make is to not think that we are allowed to be proud of being Jews. Spending so much time in the Exile has obviously taken its toll on us, but it's time to stand proud and understand who we are. Once you know who you are, you will get a great strength of your purpose and mission on this little world.