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, [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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:

For all the press coverage of the Middle East, there is one side of Israel that gets scant attention: the country’s economy has the highest concentration of innovation and entrepreneurialism in [...]

I haven’t been so good with posting this year – Thank God, life has been busy and happy. Perhaps the coming year will bring some change.

In the meantime, feel free to check out a new Torah-related blog that I have started: Shteig Shtark. And have a healthy and successful new year.

I was just in the embassy in Tel Aviv today to register our new daughter, Gila (it is much nicer there than in Jerusalem, by the way). As instructed, I copied down the city and country of her birth onto the Report of Birth Abroad form. Since she was born in Shaarei Tzedek hospital, this [...]

Read this article by Caroline Glick in the Jerusalem Post – Israel’s Arab Cheerleaders (here is an excerpt):
As the Arabs line up behind Israel, the Obama administration is operating under the delusion that the Iranians will be convinced to give up their nuclear program if Israel destroys its communities in Judea and Samaria.
According to reports [...]

See this recent post on Hirhurim which asks the question: Is Hinduism Avodah Zarah, which raises questions about whether Hinduism is to be considered a full-fledged form of idolatry (it seems to involve many gods, and idols) or not (a deeper examination of Hindu theology reveals that they may believe in one overall God, and [...]

Check out this article in the NY Times (Batteries Not Included) about Project Better Place, an Israeli company that is seeking to introduce battery-powered cars into the mainstream market in Israel. Their innovation is that they will introduce kiosks all over the country (Israel, Denmark and Hawaii are the pilot markets) that will feature automated [...]