A Hike Through the Hills

Earlier in the summer, I took a hike through the hills West of Jerusalem and took a few photos. The Jerusalem forest stretches from Beit Shemesh to Jerusalem, and is dotted with small settlements, established in the 1950s, as well as small streams and springs.

Swimming in a small spring.

We passed a small scorpion scurrying across the road.

In the foregound to the right is the Hadassah Hospital of Ein Kerem. In the distance is the town of Mevasseret Tzion.

All of the small villages in the area; Bar Giora, Kastel, and the like, were originally agricultural. Eventually, as Jerusalem was built out, the settlements became modest villages, and housing prices soared ever upward. Still, the villages are dotted with chicken coops and small agricultural projects, from the old days.

Foreground: Jerusalem forest. Midground: Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital. Background: Har Nof, Jerusalem's eastern outskirts.

It's Sukkot on the Streets

I woke up this morning with not much to do. Actually, that's not true, there's plenty for me to do. But nothing of great urgency, and I don't want to spend the Sukkot festival sitting here at home. So I headed out.

You know it's Sukkot when the steak house builds a sukkah. And when the guy at the bus stop is carrying a lulav and etrog.

I headed downtown by bus (first time in months) since it's virtually impossible to find parking there, walked down Yaffo street. The bridge is finally complete, even though it will be years until the light rail, for which it is designed, is up and running on it.


I headed down to the Ichlu Reim soup kitchen. Volunteering there has been one of those things I've been meaning to do seemingly forever, but never got around to.

Of course, it's not really soup they're serving, but more hamburgers. And it's not in a kitchen, it's in a sukkah this time of hear, so really it's a burger sukkah, not a soup kitchen.

The Ichlu Reim Burger Sukkah

I spent several hours setting up chairs, washing dishes, hauling steam trays of food out to the sukkah, and generally making myself useful.

Yours truly with the chef

It was an interesting crowd that came by. Mostly impoverished Russians and religious. Even a few americans. The other guys working there told me that many of the English-speaking visitors are actually quite well-off, but they have no friends or family in Israel and come by just to have someone to talk to. Still, it was a very Israeli crowd, at least culturally, and the kvetching and demands never seemed to stop. Makes me grateful I'm relatively young, functionally bilingual, and have a profession. I don't know what I'd do if I were in their worn shoes.

Across the street, the Gush Katif Museum has recently opened, so I went over to check it out. The museum is designed to memorialize the destruction of the Gush Katif settlements in the Gaza region, destroyed by the Ariel Sharon government back in the summer of 2005.

The museum entrance

The museum is relatively small (it's a converted 3-bedroom apartment.) But it pack a punch, with paintings by local artists, photos from the "disengagement" (the name given to the operation to destroy the settlements,) and video footage of the event.

Photo of the protest during which protesters linked hands to form a continuous human chain from the Western Wall in Jerusalem to the Gush Katif settlements in Gaza.

A map of the region (Gush Katif settlements indicated in black)

Guided tours of th museum were provided by "expellees," those who had lived in the settlements at the time of their destruction. Unfortunately, the museum was so crowded that I couldn't get into any of the videos or see most of the exhibits. Maybe I'll come back once the holidays are over.

Packed video screening rooms showing raw footage of the evacuations.

Still, it was a sad thing to see.

'Twas the day before Yom Kippur

Before Yom Kippur, I headed out to Nahal Pratt (see posts 1, 2, 3, and 4.) It's just outside of Pisgat Ze'ev, but feels like it's hours from civilization.



There's a wadi, a sort of gorge cut into the rock by seasonal flash floods. The gorge is cut so deep it penetrates the Jerusalem mountain aquifer, which bursts out of the rock and feeds into the Pratt River (stream, really.)


These natural springs for mayim chayim (living water,) a halachic (Jewish legal) term for a natural spring which flows all year long. The Jordanians, when they controlled the area, made small concrete swimming ponds.

There is a minhag (tradition) in the Shulchan Aruch, the code of Jewish Law, that one should go to mikvah (purification immersion) on the day before Yom Kippur, the day of Atonement.

So I picked up Adam from his new home, smuggled him away from his new wife for a few minutes of serious dunking!

Yours truly and Adam at Nahal Pratt.

When we got to the pool, we, and about ten other men who had come down from Jerusalem for the same purpose, were being watched by a female life guard. This is a problem as mikveh immersion has to be done in the buff. Eventually we made a deal. Everybody jumped in in their underwear. Then we told the lifeguardess to turn the other way as we all stripped and dipped. Mission accomplished.

Background: a cave in the cliffside. Foreground: ruins of an ancient monestary

Religious soldiers heading down the steps to Tovel (dunk themselves)

And now, I'm off to Modiin for the festival of Sukkot. Chag sameach!

Big 30

The year 30 started very strangely, in the form of a dream. It was straight out of the movie "Aliens." If you've seen it, there are these giant bugs with acid for blood that body-snatch a group of space marines one by one to cocoon them in order to lay eggs in their chests. Except it wasn't a nightmare. You see, I wasn't fleeing the aliens, I was one of them, and was having a grand 'ol time abducting and cocooning space marines. Unfortunately, one of the marines shot me, and I was sprawled out on the floor mortally wounded, when suddenly the dream transferred. I was no longer a mortally wounded alien, I was a mortally wounded Hamlet on the floor of Elsinore Castle in the final scene of Shakespeare's play, giving my confession to Horatio. Except it wasn't Horatio I was talking to, it was the ghosts of Obiwan Kenobi and Yoda from Star Wars. And wasn't really a confession, more a series of one-liners from classic Monty Python skits. "I'm not dead yet." Then I woke up. Spent the rest of the day working and watching the stock market crash some more.

Typically, for birthdays, I'm not a big party type of person. I'd rather just hang out, receive congratulatory phone calls that my heart continued pumping blood for another year, and maybe have a piece of cake with cousins. But 30 is big, like when your car hits 100,000 and the odometer rolls over. So I decided to organize something sufficiently modest but still momentous. I'm not much of an event planner, having learned in college as a committee chair for Hillel that it's usually much more of a burden than it's worth. A big bowling bash seemed to fit the bill, so I sent out emails two weeks in advance. Plenty of people told me they would be there. I had about fifteen confirmed and fifteen maybes, so I figured on twenty people. I even went to the alley a day before and tried to negotiate a group deal.

Twenty four hours before B-day, I sent out an email and a series of SMSes to remind people. Then the calls started coming in.

"Hey, I'm sorry, but I have to work that night..."

"Ephraim! Happy birthday! Look, I'm sorry but I just vomited and..."

"You know, I'd love to be there, but my family is.."

Each explanation was plausible on its own, but somehow, In rapid succession, everyone who had pledged to be there cancelled over the course of a few hours. And I mean every single last one of them. It was really amazing, like some sort of divinely orchestrated inverse miracle. I went out to the bowling alley and waited to see if any stragglers from the "maybe" column who hadn't responded, but nobody showed.

What a ridiculously lousy way to start your 30's! Was this some sort of bad omen? I looked at my watch: 6:30 PM. Let's see, that would be 8:30 AM in California. I was born at 8:39AM. I'm still 29! It wasn't my 30's getting in their first punch, it was my 20's getting in their last knocks! As I was walking out the door, I bumped into Baruch, one of the maybe's whom I had texted the night before, walking in. "Where are you going? Where is everybody!?" he asked.

"We're it budd!"

Then the phone rang. It was Gali.

"Where the [expletive deleted] is the [expletive deleted]-ing bowling alley?"

To make a long story short, I got my worst score ever, not much higher than my age, and Baruch was a pro bowler, so that we agreed that the contest would be between Baruch's score and Gali and my combined scores. Gali and I still lost by 40 points, but I didn't care. For quite a while, I've really been dreading leaving the 20's but now I'm glad to be out of there. The 30's promise to be far more rewarding.

Reentry

Landing in Israel is like falling off a fast-moving truck.  The bounce of the tires on the runway snaps you to attention before you start to fade again.  Followed by the long wait in passport control, your aching legs and groaning joints slowly shuffling forward in line for inspection.  You eventually slog past the crowds and slip out the door, only to be slapped by wave of humidity.  You are confronted by drivers of shared taxis, each of them screaming orders at their zombie passengers.  After forty five minutes of being passed off from one driver to the next, waiting in line, being told to board the taxi, then being told to get out, take off your bags, and get in that taxi over there, you're finally on your way. It's only two more hours to get back to your front door, a thirty minute drive in normal circumstances.

 

I always seem to land in August, in the middle of a dust storm.  The radio blares about Hizbullah and missiles and oh man I'm just too wasted to start translating Hebrew right now.  Looking out the window at the anonymous rows of red-roofed clone homes, I'm too tired to be a Zionist, too worn out for religious fervor, and while my guard is down the same thought always seems to percolate up in my mind.  "What am I doing here?"  I mean, I grew up as a smoothly assimilated suburban American Jewish kid with a good education and substantial earning potential.  I own the passport with the eagle which millions of people in this world would gladly kill me to get a hold of, some of them living right here.  What course of fate took me into this handkerchief-sized country with a giant target painted on it?  And did I mention the dust?

 

Of course, I know a part of the answer to that:  Because I'm a chosen person, and this is the holy land!  Because I've never felt more at home anywhere.  Really, because Israel is interesting, and boredom is my greatest fear.  After a week or so, having readjusted from jetlag and getting back into the swing of things, the dust settles and Israel no longer feels like a foreign country, and I'm walking down Jaffa street asking, "How is it possible that any Jew could live anywhere else but here?" 

 

But this time, for some reason, I've already been back for a month, but I'm still as disoriented as if I've just landed.  Maybe it's that the girl I was dating dumped me on arrival; the startup company I was working on, which felt so close, seems to have missed its wave with the banking collapse; and my workload is slowing to a trickle as the American economy implodes.  Whatever the reason, I seem to have lost some fire.  I go to yeshivah and I wish I were somewhere else.  I go home and wish I were out and about.  I go to the mall and can't think of what to do with myself.  I'm neither here nor there.

 

I remember during my time in Be'er Sheva back in 2000, it always struck me how many of the family-guy American olim had a burned out look ringing their eyes.  I asked one American-born professor why he is in Israel.  "Inertia."  I davened hard to never end up like them; an inertial post-idealist skeleton, chained to Israel by the bonds of family but dreaming of being somewhere else, like the exhilic Jew in the shtetl of a century ago working himself to the bone silently dreaming of Eretz Israel.

 

Israel, in its current form at least, has a way of slowly grinding dreams to dust.  I could complain about the government and Israel's ruling class, with its Star-of-David-clad flag but spite and revulsion for Judaism itself, the machismo culture where driving to the supermarket becomes a gladiatorial blood sport, or the general volume level in the grocery store itself.  But really, I knew about those problems before I came, and they didn't bother me.  After all, the saying goes, "If there was another Jewish country, I'd move there in a second." 

 

I still love Israel.  Torah, Am, and Eretz (Torah, nation, and land.)  But I think I have a more holistic perspective on aliyah.  When I first made aliyah, I felt pulled by an overwhelming force, that every Jew in the universe just had to live in Eretz Israel right this second, and if he didn't feel the pull, well, something was wrong with him.  But on my recent trip to America, I saw plenty of Jews, even highly knowledgeable and observant ones, in chutz l'aretz (outside of Israel) who have made quite successful lives for themselves dancing between the raindrops of gentile culture, so much so that they don't even feel the foreignness of their surroundings.  There's a lot of me which is very American too, instinctive emotions and reactions which couldn't be extracted without killing the patient.  It was a relief to step into a bank in San Francisco where everyone stands in a straight line and speaks perfect English. 

 

At this point that I feel that there is not an overwhelming force pulling me in one direction, but a balance of forces holding me in equilibrium.  Family pulls me to America, faith holds me here.  Parnassah (income) pulls me to America, friends hold me here.    The easy English and easy-going culture of America pull me there, the deep-rooted Hebrew language and Jewish culture hold me here.  I'm certainly not throwing in the aliyah towel, not by a long shot.  Overall, the balance of forces has me firmly footed in Israel right now.  But now, when someone tells me he can't see making aliyah because his family is unwilling, or he can't handle the culture, I understand. 

 

Meanwhile, I will be in my twenties for the next five hours and twenty three minutes.  The decade rolls over and I hit thirty at midnight.  I'm tired of sitting in English-only classes, then coming home to my English-only American telejob, and watching the American news over the Internet before bed.   It's getting boring already, and it's time for a new direction.  So I've started circulating out my resume and seeking local employment.  I even had an interview this morning, which I managed to do mostly in Hebrew (though some technical terms are still a bit tough.)  Time to pop life's bubble and see what's out there.

 

G'mar chatima tova, wishing a new year of success for everyone!

 

Back in the Holy Land

Hi Folks,

Sorry for the long delay in blogging. I've been all over the world and not exactly in writing mode. I actually have much about which to write and plenty of pictures to show, but hiatus has been so warm and comfortable that I'm not sure about coming out of it.

Actually, my issues started a bit before my trip. Last July I had bumped up to the high-level Gemarah (Talmud) shiur. Now, when I started at Yeshivah, I was taking two classes per day, an hour per day of Chumash (Torah) and a second hour of either Neviim (Prophets) or Halachah (Jewish law.) totalling two hours daily, four days a week. A year or so ago, I bumped up to the beginning level Gemarah (Talmud) class. As the U.S. recession deepened and the workflow slowed to a trickle, I was spending more and more time in Gemarah (maybe three hours per day) until I was bumped up to the advanced Gemarah class. Now all of the sudden I was at four hours per day. Meanwhile, the startup company I've been working with has been consuming more and more of my time and interest. And, of course, I had to prepare for my visit to the U.S. in August. There simply weren't enough hours in the day. Every day, I would not finish all of the day's tasks and push maybe an hour or two forward to the next day. Then I would fall another hour short, and another, and another. Finally, one Shabbat, I was trying to get to sleep, and it just wouldn't come. 2AM, 3AM, 4AM, the hours ticked by. I was getting very upset and nervous. Finally, at 5 AM, I decided that something had to change. I decided to drop out yeshivah and drop the blog completely, until I could reorganize. Fell right asleep after that decision.

A couple of weeks later, I was able to finally get my head above water, and at about the same time, I started getting phone calls from concerned rabbis wondering what had happened to me. I decided to try easing back into the learning life, but still had a hard time.

Finally, this semester, I went back in, but I decided to seriously limit my commitment. I am now learning only two and a half hours per day. I also dropped back to the beginner's class. It's probably at my level most of the time, sometimes a bit below, but overall I'm happy there. If I need to miss a day here or there, it's not like I walk in the next day and haven't a clue what's going on. So, the learning suffers a bit, but my overall quality of life is greatly enhanced.

And now, I'd like to do something similar with the blogging. I won't be posting every day as I was once upon a time, but I'd like to resume posting a few times a week, as the mood strikes me. Hopefully this will enhance the quality of my posts as well. So I'll see you in the blogosphere!

And the Most In Demand Profession Is...

I'm not necesarrily back from hiatus. In fact, right now I'm back in good 'ol Walnut Creek, as I scour the surface of the United States gathering investors for Hillpoint Energy, which is going great, and meeting with engineering professionals to learn as possible about current trends in the wind energy field before heading back to Israel to get going on our project.

Earlier I had posted statistics showing that mechanical engineering, which happens to be my specialty, is the profession with the highest job satisfaction rate of any profession. And now, we see that the most in-demand profession with the highest starting salary is...

1. Mechanical Engineering ($57,821)
Mechanical engineers are curious about how things operate. Professionals in this broad discipline research, design, develop, and test tools, machines, and mechanical devices. Along with a knack for science and math, engineers need strong oral and written communication skills.
While most entry-level mechanical engineering positions require a bachelor's degree, continuing education is critical -- protecting engineers from potential layoffs or cutbacks.
Job outlook: As more engineers retire, and many professionals transfer to managerial positions, job opportunities are good.

(See the original report here.)

Perhaps this will convince the company we're starting to hire me. :)

On Hiatus

OK, so I haven't been able to post recently.  When you're trying to start a company, and travel across the world, and keep dating, the blogging thing gets pushed off the list.  So I'm officially going into hiatus.  I hope to return soon, since all sorts of intersting and crazy things are happening in the holy land, but I just can't for now.  Hope you'll understand and we'll meet on the other side.  Wherever that ends up being!

Checking into the Blog

I think this is the longest I've gone without blogging. Let's just say things seem to be taking off. You see, a couple of months ago, my workflow from my tele-job in the U.S. started slowing down, so I started browsing the local job listings and answering job offer emails that breeze by on the Nefesh B'Nefesh email list. One of them mentioned that they were looking for someone with experience in wind power. I answered that I have zero experience in wind power, but I'm a mechanical engineer and I can learn things pretty fast, and shot off my resume. I was invited over and it took me a few minutes to realize that I was not exactly being offered a job.

Bentzi, the engineer with entrepereneurial experience who wrote the email, told me vaguely about this idea he had for a device which would generate electricity from wind at high altitudes. We had thought we would move at a modest pace over the next couple of months until we had an entire plan together to start fundraising, but over the last week things have really taken off. And of course, these investors are always demanding further technical clarifications, much of which falls on my shoulders to produce.

Anyway, whoever is interested, our company is: http://www.hillpointenergy.com/ . Anyone who is interested in investing, please contact me and I'll forward an email with a PowerPoint presentation attached.

You're Probably Wondering Where I've Been

Well, going crazy is one answer. I've been trying to plan this trip to the U.S. for August, then trying to figure out what to do employment wise. As the American economy continues to choke and sputter, I've got pretty much nothing coming in these days. I looked around here in Jerusalem, and let's just say that there are plenty of options for me to pursue. I've actually been turning down offers and interviews for the time being, because I'm working on this project which may turn into a startup company. It's exciting, but we (the team I'm working with and I) are also under a lot of pressure to produce a report to start fundraising in the next couple of weeks. It means I'm incredibly busy. On the one hand, it's exhilarating to be a part of something new like this, and investing my time in something that might really pan out. On the other hand, working like crazy for non-monetary compensation can be a bit nerve wracking when you are sinking financially.

Between the startup thing, and planning my trip to the U.S., never mind the misery of the dating life, I've been falling deeper and deeper into a stressed-out zombie state. Still an inspired zombie, but a zombie none the less. It culminated about a week and a half ago, when I was lying in my bed wide awake until about 4 AM, every now and then getting really upset and punching the wall (fortunately they're made out of concrete here.)

Yeshivah started out as a one-hour per day commitment. Pretty soon I was in for two or so. Then, I started the beginning Gemara (Talmud) class and it bumped up to three. After that, I moved up to the advanced level, and was suddenly in for four hours a day. Meanwhile, I started falling further and further behind with the rest of my life. Hence the stress-out.

I finally decided something had to give. So I've had to cut back on the blogging, and I decided to take some time off from Yeshivah. After a week, I was slowly getting my head above water. Yesterday morning, one of the Rabbis called and said he noticed I hadn't been around in class for a week. Then another one called asking if everything is okay. I was really touched. Today, I finally made it back in after a week and a half of absence, and everyone was genuinely glad to see me. I talked it over with some of the rabbis, and we figured out how I can cut back on my shiur (class) time a bit, and cut back on chevruta (study partner learning) and still make it into shiur. It should cut back my learning to about 2-3 hours per day instead of the 4-5 I've been doing recently. Of course, the level of my learning is not at the level the 4-5 hour commitment would be, but hey, at least I'm still in the game, even if I'm not as high-scoring. So, we're going to see if I can handle it this way, and go from there. Unfortunately my blogging may also be cut back for a bit, but I'll still post and keep everyone abreast of the situation here. Feels good to be back on some sort of track though.

Sami Kuntar

As I write, Israel is officially losing the Second Lebanon War. Everyone remembers that the war began with the kidnapping of two soldiers from Israel’s northern border, but there seems to be a blind spot in the national memory as to what came next. Forgotten is the liberating knowledge that, at last, Israel was not caving in to the demands of kidnappers and releasing thousands of Arab terrorists for a couple of Israelis. Rather than the standard Israeli response of retreat and negotiation, as was the case during Hezbollah’s kidnapping of three soldiers in 2000, this time the response would be military. "This time it's different," they told us. After one month, realizing the futility of eliminating Hezbollah, Israel took the cease fire option. And now, two years later, we’re back to the prisoner exchange game.

Captive soldiers Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev

I've been reading the book, "Live from Jordan," a collection of travel stories by an assimilated American Jew living and studying in the Arab world. What struck me the most about the book was one small paragraph, in which, listening to the news coming out of "Palestine," one of his roommates launched into an enraged tirade. He reserved his deepest animosity not for the casualties his side was experiencing, but for the lopsided prisoner exchanges. Arab society is what anthropologists refer to as a "Shame Culture," in which one's estimation of self worth is not based on obedience to an inner sense of right and wrong, but on demonstrating domination and in exchange receiving honor from one's fellows. When Israel trades thousands of Arab prisoners in exchange for one or two Israelis, it sends the humiliating message that a thousand of them is worth less to us than one of ours.

But this trade is different. Now, the bodies of the two kidnapped soldiers are to be exchanged for one living terrorist, Sami Kuntar. Kuntar himself is another one of these general-issue psychopaths which our neighbors seem to vomit up on us with great regularity. Back in 1979, he and his comrades beached their boat in Nahariya, invaded the nearest beach house, and took a father, Danni, and his four year old daughter, Einat, to the beach at gunpoint. The mother heard the commotion and hid in the closet with her baby daughter Yael, covering her mouth to prevent her from crying. Meanwhile, Kuntar smashed Einat’s head into the rocks in front of her father, and then fatally shot Danni. The mother then came out of hiding to discover that in her panic she had accidentally smothered baby Yael.

And now Israel releases this animal on humanity again, and in exchange for the bodies of two kidnapped soldiers. And that's what this is really about. Israel’s release of Kuntar is the ultimate manifestation of Multiculturalism, the belief that the values of one’s own society are no better or worse than those of any other. While Kuntar was being given three square meals a day, Red Cross treatment, and even conjugal visits, the leaders of Hezbollah have been releasing snippets of information, neither confirming nor denying whether the kidnapped soldiers were alive. It was just enough information to extract pleasure from torturing the soldiers’ families, which brought honor upon Hezbollah in the Arab world by proving their dominance over the Jews.

Goldwasser and Regev repatriated to Israel

Although his savage actions made him a hero in the Arab world, Kuntar is being paraded through the streets of Lebanon not for their sake but for ours. This is a celebration of Israel’s surrender to multiculturalist nihilism, and Hezbollah wishes to express its dominance over Israel by proclaiming the fact.

Hezbollah prepares for the party of the century

After all, if Israel is willing to exchange Arab psychopaths in exchange for the bodies of soldiers who protect the rest of us from those same psychopaths, this sends the message that we don’t think our values are any better or worse than theirs. That Israel is trading a living Kuntar, along with three of his comrades, for the dead bodies of two soldiers, means that Israel places no premium on keeping soldiers alive, that we place as little value on our lives as they do on theirs. The days of live prisoners being repatriated, as after the Yom Kippur War, are now over. It is unlikely any Israeli soldier taken captive will ever return home alive.

Kuntar (second from left) and his buddies are prepared for release.

Just as their grandparents disposed of Judaism in favor of Zionism, so too this generation of Israelis have disposed of Zionism in favor of... nothing. “Post-Zionism,” the Israeli ethos of the day, defines itself in its very name not as a set of beliefs but merely the absence of Zionist beliefs. Israel is a great country, with a strong and energetic people built on an ancient and beautifully restored land, but this country also exhibits serious moral deficiencies. Not only the immorality of Israel’s abolition of the death penalty, which would have made this travesty impossible, but the equation of soldiers and terrorists, of war and murder, is dragging Israel closer and closer to the barbarism beyond its borders. How I yearn for the day that Israel’s ruling elite abandons its post-ethical worldview and returns to Judaism.

Celebrations in Lebanon: Kuntar takes his place with Saddam, Arafat, and Che, in the pantheon of the faces of atrocity

Wedding of Yosef Bali

Hi Folks, sorry for the delay in blogging over the last week, but I've been insanely busy getting my voyage to the Old Country, which begins in three weeks, all planned out and squared away. I've also got some potential employment news, and, well, let's just say it's been busy.

Anyway, I was at Shai Diamond's wedding talking to Yosef Bali, when I realized that I had photographed his wedding a few months ago and never posted the photos! Anyway, better late than never:

The chuppah (wedding canopy) wasn't the usual tallit suspended on poles, but it was this 3-D silk hut sort of thing. We saw the ceremony through the veil.
The guys got into the singing.
And they're married. It was a rowdy crowd.
Yosef gets a ride.
Performing arts: the ladder balance.

The man had a chin of steel.
Chatan (groom) and kallah (bride) sitting together.


Daniel and Yosef. Daniel himself just got engaged as well, so more photos are coming soon!

Yours truly in the blue.

The Machon Meir gang
Yosef and Efrat.

Ad meah v'esrim! (Until 120!)

Wedding of Shai and Emunah Diamond

Our madrich (guide,) our diamond in the rough, Shai Diamond, was married tonight! I had the pleasure of participating in his simcha.

The guys, ready for action.

The wedding was held in a reception hall on the Tayellet, where I go jogging every day. It has a beautiful view of Har Habayit, the Temple Mount.

Children playing around the chuppah

Shai is escorted to meet his kallah (bride)

Emunah

Now we bring him to the Chuppah

Waiting for the kallah

Yours truly
Sunset over Mount Zion
And they're married!


As the sun set I got some nice shots of Jerusalem at night.

Har Habayit.
East Jerusalem

At every wedding, we sing Od Yishamah, "may there soon be heard in the cities of Judea and in the streets of Jerusalem the voice of joy and gladness, the voice of bride and groom, the jubilant voice of feasting and singing. . ." first said by a lamenting prophet Yishaiyahu (Isaiah) as he looked over the ruins of Jerusalem, then a destroyed city, prophesying the dream of return.

Isn't it great to be able to live the prophecy, so sing these words in the cities of Judea, and the streets of Jerusalem? To know it's all for real? How could Jews live anywhere else?

A Bad Day in Israel

Got home today and checked the news to hear that, in downtown Jaffa street, there was an attack, and there were casualties. Apparently, our unoriginal neighbors, who copied classical European anti-Semitism and called it their own, and who invented Palestinian Nationalism as a twisted imitation of Zionism, do have one creative spark. Then never tire of finding innovative ways to kill Jews. In this case, the suspect in question was a construction worker on the Jerusalem Light Rail. While pushing dirt around with his bulldozer, he apparently got the idea to start running over the parked cars, overturning busses, and generally rampaging through the streets. Apparently, he had been shot several times by police personnel in the area, but kept up his killing frenzy until he was finally put down by an off-duty soldier who climbed onto the bulldozer and shot the perpetrator three times in the head. The soldier who put an end to the rampage happens to be the brother-in-law of the soldier who killed the terrorist in the Merkaz Harav Massacre.

What's interesting about both of these attacks is that they were inside-the-wall jobs. The massive barrier being built by Israel also happens to encompass East Jerusalem, which became entirely Arab after 1948. In 1982, Israel annexed East Jerusalem and offered the residents the ability to become citizens. From 1967 until 2004, very few took up this offer for fear of being branded as "collaborators" with the Zionist entity. However, with the failure of the Second Intifadah to destroy Israel, the collapse of the Palestinian Authority into a hellhole of armed gangs, the emigration of Jerusalem's educated Arab intellectuals, and the deaths of terrorist mastermind Yasser Arafat and Jerusalemite Arab leader Faisal Husseini (grandson of Haj Amin Al Husseini,) there has been a shift in attitude. Today, most Jerusalem Arabs, at least publicly, don't find inspiration from the rapidly dying concept of Palestinian Nationalism. That, coupled with the building of the wall, and the subsequent threat of an end to medical care, law enforcement, and the myriad of other services provided free of charge by the Israeli taxpayer has led to a spike in citizenship applications by those now living beyond the wall. There's a desperate race to gain citizenship in the Zionist Entity.

But as today's attack shows, committed by an East Jerusalemite with citizenship just like the Merkaz Harav Massacre killer, the old hatred is still there, still seething. I haven't heard any reports about the driver, but I'm willing to bet that he was an affable fellow, probably relatively friendly, who showed no signs of his murderous designs, and probably didn't think of it until a split second before going berserk.

This is an example of a known phenomenon, the spontaneous terrorist. I remember during the Intifada, an interview was played with an Israeli factory manager in Atarot, North Jerusalem, who had narrowly survived an attack. He had gathered his workers together during a break and announced that the employee of the month was Mohammad, who commuted daily from Ramallah. He awarded his worker a new cell phone, a cash gift, and some other rewards. A few minutes later, once everyone had returned to work, the factory was rocked by the sound a massive explosion. The factory manager went outside to find his car, and what was left of Mohammad's body, blown to pieces. Apparently, after receiving his award, Mohammad had walked right outside and continued with his plan, to plant a bomb under his bosses seat, when it accidentally detonated.

And that's not the only example. There are cases where families employed a gardener for decades, and went to each others family weddings, and then were one day found killed. "It's like someone who brings home a bear cub," one Israeli explained to me. "He looks so cute out there in the woods, so you take him home, feed him, and raise him. And then one day, when he's a little bit bigger, he wakes up and remembers he's a bear."

This sort of spontaneous switch from functional member of society to murderous sociopath is, of course, the exception, not the rule. But it's not so exceptional that it's shocking. It’s another component of the wildness of the mind which characterizes our neighbors. This wildness is something I think we will never truly grasp, and from which the only sensible protection is to put as much distance between ourselves and the Arabs as possible while we wait over the generations for their culture to evolve into a genuine civilization.