The NY Times currently has a story up on the front page of its website with the following headline: 4 Divers Killed Near Gaza by Israeli Navy Judging from the headline, I would guess that since the Israeli Navy has not had its fill of violence after it killed nine humanitarian activists from the Freedom [...]

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 [...]

An online acquaintance recently posted a link on Facebook to an article Myths And Facts On U.S.-Israel Diplomatic Row. In it, the anonymous author seeks to state for the record what the myths and facts are regarding the recent diplomatic tension between Israel and the US. I responded that I think that it is laughable [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]