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.

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.

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.

Bank haPoalim has also been pretty good sending official communications to me electronically. When I first opened the account, I would tend to receive a few envelopes per month, none of which I actually needed, all of which wasted money, paper and resources (this is pretty common). However, a couple of years ago, haPoalim started a service whereby I could opt to receive all bank communications through the bank website. They even gave me a 50 NIS gift card for signing up (good move on their part, since they saved more than that amount in postage alone over the first half year).

Nothing has changed with this setup until today – I logged onto my account (as I do at least 3-4 times per week) and saw a piece of incoming bank correspondence that told me the following (rough translation):

You use our Doar-Net service to receive bank correspondence electronically through the web site, in place of receiving it through snail mail. However, this service can only be provided if you sign onto your account at least once every 90 days. It you do not sign on to your account again before May 2, 2009, the Doar-Net service will be canceled, and you will begin to receive bank correspondence through the post office. So please sign in again before that date.

Well, it is strange that the letter implies that I have not signed on to my online account since February 2 (90 days before the threatened cancellation), as I have signed many times since then. However, the really strange thing is that they are sending me a letter telling me that I need to sign on to my account, using a service that I can only access after I have signed into my account. If I really hadn’t been on my account since Feb 2, and wasn’t going to sign in until after May 2, there would be no way for me to know that this would affect anything. And once I do sign on to my account then message itself becomes irrelevant. Quite puzzling.

Yay! While this will still leave Israel tax rates higher than US rates, it makes up most of the difference, and in some cases will have a lower tax rate in Israel than in the US (more at the lower levels – Israel has a more progressive tax than the US does). Combine this with the proposed new tax benefits for olim and there goes at one more common excuse not to make aliyah.

(Note: US rates above based on an 3.35 exchange rate, and assume that you are filing in the US as a single person, since in Israel the income from each spouse is taxed at a different rate, based on that spouse’s tax bracket).

One other maintenance note: you may have noticed the pictures that are now appearing in the sidebar, to the right of this text. The picture that appears here is the most recent photo posted on my photoblog Israel Photos (RSS). This is a site that I started last November. There are now nearly 40 pictures there, all showing some different aspect of life in Israel. I try to get 2-3 pictures up per week, showing people, nature, places or other random things. Check out the mosaic page to see thumbnails of what’s online. If you lsee something that you like, please subscribe, write an email or comment, or send over a link.

I think that I am being discovered so easily is because my post on Yad Binyamin is now showing up as the #1 result in Google and Yahoo when searching for “Yad Binyamin” (#30 on Microsoft’s search – they don’t seem to care so much for blogs, which I guess is inline with their overall search rankings). (Yad Binyamin now joins Kochav Yaakov, Neve Daniel, Karnei Shomron and Chashmonaim as places in Israel where I have a link show up on the first page of results merely because I wrote something about them).

So…just out of curiosity, how many people reading this live in Yad Binyamin and know who I am?

In going with the general theme of this post, check this out: