I just read Rav Aharon Lichtenstein’s review of The Eye of the Storm by Rav Aharon Feldman, which appeared in the most recent Jewish Action (always a good read, this time particularly stellar). Following on the heels of the reprint of Stephen Savitsky’s call to achdut within the greater Orthodox community that appeared in Mishpacha following their cover story about Rav Schachter, Rav Lichtenstein responds to Rav Feldman’s attacks against Zionism and Feminism in a most impressive fashion: while eruditely pointing out some weak points and inconsistencies in Rav Feldman’s polemics, Rav Lichtenstein begins and ends on a note of reconciliation, attesting to his hope that all Torah-committed Jews can somehow learn to live and accept one another. He begins by recalling how Rav Feldman (several years his senior) befriended him and took him sledding when they were classmates as youngsters in the 1940′s in the Talmudical Academy of Baltimore. He ends with the following:

Finally, if I may, I close as I opened– on a personal note. Dear Reb Aharon: That pair of juvenile prattling sledders is now well past seventy-five. Each has, besiyata diShmaya, in successive contexts, respectively, learned much Torah and has been blessed with the ability and the circumstances to enable reaching out and personally transmitting to others that which we have been endowed. It stands to reason and is, presumably, mandated by joint mission, that our worlds meet and attain mutual fruition. As we both painfully know, however, this occurs all too rarely.

Must the walls that separate our communities and our institutions soar quite so high, the interposing moat plunge quite so deep? Shall we never sled again?

Simply beautiful, both in delivery and content.

(I would be remiss if I did not mention my second favorite sentence from the review: “Can any halachist familiar with the historical tergiversations of bein hashmashot, pregnant with practical relevance, accept this apodictic generalization at face value? An overall directive, assuredly. But sweepingly comprehensive, hardly.” Now if only I can find a way to use tergiversation and apodictic in some conversation…)

Last Purim we received for Mishloach Manot a bottle of liquor that was not quite to our taste. It sat in the closet for the entire year. So when Purim came around this year, we thought that it would be the perfect thing to regift to someone else – after all, someone might like it, and we were not going to drink it.

So we put in in with one of the Mishloach Manot that we were delivering (we tried to pick people who we thought might like it). Brought it to their door (in the pouring rain). The husband answered the door. Took the mishloach manot from us, and then felt like he had to give us one back in return.

When he came back, he gave us a pre-packed Mishloach Manot (which were almost certainly brought by someone else and regifted to us) as well as the very same bottle of liquor that we just gave to him.

We are pretty sure that he entered his kitchen, put our Mishloach Manot + liquor down, went to a different table, picked out something that was just brought to him and went to bring it back to us. On the way out of the kitchen, he then passed the bottle of liquor that we brought him, and thought that it would be nice to give it as well, all the while not remembering that we had just given it to him (I don’t think that he did it on purpose).

We were both pretty shocked when he handed it back to us, but managed to keep a straight face and not say anything about it. So now the bottle of liquor is back in the closet, in wait of next Purim when hopefully we will be able to give it away without receiving it immediately back in return.

There is a good article by Danny Ayalon in the Wall Street Journal called “Israel’s Right in the ‘Disputed’ Territories“:

The recent statements by the European Union’s new foreign relations chief Catherine Ashton criticizing Israel have once again brought international attention to Jerusalem and the settlements. However, little appears to be truly understood about Israel’s rights to what are generally called the “occupied territories” but what really are “disputed territories.”

That’s because the land now known as the West Bank cannot be considered “occupied” in the legal sense of the word as it had not attained recognized sovereignty before Israel’s conquest. Contrary to some beliefs there has never been a Palestinian state, and no other nation has ever established Jerusalem as its capital despite it being under Islamic control for hundreds of years

It lays out very clearly the history of the West Bank, and why the term “Occupied Territories” is inaccurate. Good reference material for a discussion on the matter (since most people just accept the fact that this term is correctly applied – the more something is repeated, the more credence it is given).

Today when they went to the makolet, Adina gave Moshe and Chananya a half shekel each to spend on a treat. Moshe (4.5 years old) is starting to understand the concept of money. Chananya (2.5 years old) doesn’t really get it at all yet, other than knowing of its existence. So upon being handed a half shekel coin, Chananya says “Ima, open it please”.

(If you don’t get the joke – which Chananya meant in all seriousness – then please recall the holiday that just ended, and the small chocolate coins that kids receive and eat in abundance during said holiday).

View Israel on Google Maps. Then look at the embedded version of the same page below.

View Larger Map

(Here is a screenshot in case the embedded version doesn’t work).

Something missing? If you don’t see it, try zooming in on the map, and comparing Israel with Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon or even Syria. Looks like Nike and Google have something in common (most probably because Nike uses the Google Maps API to get their maps).

Now, if you go to the Google Maps site, you can see roads in Israel (and get directions, etc – all of the regular Maps functions). So why would they disable it for the embedded/API version? My best guess (though it is hard to understand those who think this way): Google doesn’t want to risk “offending” users in countries that hate Israel by having any details of Israel show up on embedded maps that said users would use on their own websites. So they just removed all details of Israel from the embedded version. Problem solved. The Zionist Entity is now gone. Or something like that. (If you want to find an alternative map site in Israel, try Mapa).

See Jonathan’s comment below and this thread on the Google forums for more info. Looks like it is a content licensing issue.

Just saw this article on Arutz 7:

The 6,493 households which made aliyah through NbN between 2002 and 2008 have yielded a whopping 989 million shekels, with the cost of absorbing them standing at only NIS 528 million, leaving the immigrants’ contribution at NIS 461 million so far.Visiting friends and family of NbN olim have also given their boost to the economy by supporting the national tourism industry to the tune of NIS 347 million.  Adding this to the tally, NbN olim are accountable for a total GNP contribution of NIS 808 million (over $212 million). Considering the passage of another year and the continued employment and success of North American olim, that number could be higher than NIS 1 billion (almost $262.5 million)

Wow. Go us. I had always suspected that olim (especially from North America, but also including the growing numbers from Britain and other countries) were making significant financial contributions to Israel – it is nice to see it quantified like this. And I don’t know if this survey took into account people like myself, who earn salaries from US companies and spend 100% of it in Israel (so we end up pumping tens of thousands of dollars directly into the Israeli economy every year). Expect these numbers to only go up as a proportion of Israel’s GNP as the years go by and God willing the numbers of olim grow higher and higher.

Posted via web from yaakov’s posterous

Dan Senor and Saul Singer report on how the Israeli economy has been thriving while the rest of the world has gone in the gutter:

In the article, they give most credit towards the IDF enlistment requirement for Israeli teenagers at the end of high school. Instead of going off to college, most Israelis go into the army where they are forced to grow up quickly Harvard, Yale and Princeton are made equivalent to the elite units in the IDF.

They do make some good points, though I think that there are some other factors that come into play here:

• Due to the pressure of living in Israel, most Israeli kids are already more mature than their diaspora counter-parts at the end of high school
• The society here is encouraging of the macho, risk-taking personality traits that startups demand
• Secular Israelis tend to idolize all things American and Western. Early technology adoption coupled with the above factors naturally lead to more innovation.
• One can't underplay the contributions of those who have made aliyah (immigration) in the past decade from the US, Europe and other English speaking countries. This includes many new tech leaders in Israeli society.

(I do find it ironic that reading this article in Israel, I cannot view the Hulu video that was included, since it is restricted to those in the US. Despite handicaps like this, somehow we still manage to be successful).

Posted via email from Yaakov’s posterous