I was about to go to sleep for the night when I decided to click on Google Reader and visit Robin’s blog. What? Mary has a new meme? I must check this out! It’s called Window Views. This is my first entry.
Two points to anyone who can tell me the name of the street in Jerusalem where this photo was taken. Five points if you can name the building (I can’t do either, but I’m guessing both are important- busy street, U.S. related building).
I just tweeted my first #Torah tweet:
Want to see all the recent #Torah tweets? Go to http://search.twitter.com/ and type in #Torah. Enjoy! (and it’s even easier to access if you use TweetDeck and dedicate a search column to #Torah).
Want to read more about #Torah? Read Rabbi Shai’s post on the JPS site.
If you want to learn more about Judaism via Twitter, the best Twitterer to follow is JewishTweets. You will not be disappointed! If you look at all the folks following or being followed by JewishTweets, you can find many other Jewish twits I mean Tweeps.
It’s cold here in New Jersey, so I thought you would enjoy a trip in time back to last June when my family visited Rosh HaNikra in northern Israel.
It’s a fun place for a family to visit, but beware, there are rumors of a ghost bride.
And then we headed south, down the Mediterranean coast. You can see my daughter’s pink hat peering southward.
For more watery posts, visit Watery Wednesday.
Esser Agaroth hosted the #203 edition of Haveil Havalim, the weekly blog carnival of the Jewish blogosphere. In addition to Tu B’Shvat, the holiday of the trees, this coming week means elections in Israel. Israel has many different parties; governments are formed by coalitions (want to learn more about the Israeli Political System? Take Prof. Yaacov Yadgar’s free, online course on the Israeli Political System). You can learn more about how bloggers vote by reading this week’s HH edition. I found Cosmic X’s post: Are Most Israeli Bloggers Leftists? interesting: the leftists are writing in Hebrew, the right wingers in English?
Please calm me down, as I am hosting next week’s Haveil Havalim. This won’t be too hard, will it, Jack? Will I be clever, witty enough for this prestigious task? Stay tuned.
On the fifteen day of Shevat, there is a Jewish holiday called Tu B’Shevat. This year Tu B’Shevat falls on Monday, February 9th.
The celebration often involves eating special fruits, especially figs, dates, almonds and carob. As a little girl growing up in New England, I often thought it strange that we celebrated a day for trees in what felt like the middle of a snowy winter to me. But the day is about the agricultural cycle in Israel. It started because the rabbis needed a day to begin counting certain laws such as Orlah, the three years one must wait for planting a fruit tree before enjoying the harvest.
The photo at left, which you can click to enlarge, shows some trees in Jerusalem in front of the Montefiore Windmill. The blue sign says “Heinrich Heine” (Road). Heine was a German poet. I chose the photo for this post because of the variety of trees in the photo. Also, because the photo reminds me of the story I told about my eighty-year-old friend identifying trees in Jerusalem.
In celebration of the upcoming holiday, I decided to post a few of my favorite tree photos.
I follow a lot of Israeli blogs (Anglo Israelis, they write in English). I wanted to share a few recent posts. The above photo is from Shiloh Musings; Batya has invited Sara Layah Shomron who lives in the south of Israel to write about her experiences. She used to live in Gush Katif, which is in Gaza, but since the expulsion from Gaza (which was supposed to bring peace), she and her family have lived in Nitzan. As they have no bomb shelter, these large sewer pipes have been set up as makeshift bomb shelters. Sara Layah writes: “The scenic and calm view [on the sewer pipe] was beautifully painted by our neighborhood youth.” She describes being interviewed on the phone by a reporter in Orange County, California and needed to relay: “I hastened to say, “I’m not being rude; rather, have 30 seconds to run to the sewer pipe.” Read more of Sarah Layah’s post.
• • •
ALN often writes about art therapy, working in a hospital, interactions with her kids and “keeping the balance”. On one recent post she talked about the effects of the war:
Shoilem Aleichem (via Joseph Stein’s screenplay) put it best in our favorite classic, Fiddler on the Roof:
Townsperson: Why should I break my head about the outside world? Let the outside world break its own head….
Tevye: He is right…
Perchik: Nonsense. You can’t close your eyes to what’s happening in the world.
Tevye: He’s right.
Rabbi’s pupil: He’s right, and he’s right. They can’t both be right!
Tevye: (Pause). You know, you are also right.
Read her whole post. Then you can read this one, Keep Sane, Keep Creative (lots of great kid art photos!).
• • •
Baila is reminding us of Gilad Shilat, the soldier who was captured by Hamas.
• • •
Finally, from the Jerusalem Post, a young law student from Sderot asks the UN:
Are human rights for some, but not for others?
I come from Sderot, the city in Israel that for eight years has been terrorized, by 10,000 rockets fired against us from Gaza.
As a law student, I learned – and I believe – that all human beings have the right to peace and security.
But when I see today’s resolution, I ask: Why is the United Nations ignoring my suffering? When the terrorists committed these 10,000 violations of international human rights and humanitarian law, why was the UN silent?
Are human rights for some, but not others?
The constant assault on Sderot has destroyed our ability to lead a normal life. The warning before each attack gives us only 15 seconds to run for shelter. Fifteen seconds that will decide, life or death.
Mr. President, who will protect our right to life? My family does not have a bomb shelter, so we run to the most protected room, which is the shower.
If you want more information about the war in Gaza, the best place to start is the Muqata. Then visit Jack for some more links.
I woke up yesterday morning with the news that Katyusha rockets had hit Northern Israel. It seems like the rockets landed in Nahariya, a bustling little town with a pretty waterfront that is south of Rosh HaNikra. One rocket hit a retirement home. We visited Naharia last June: my kids ate pizza, and I bought a salad across the street (my husband probably wasn’t hungry). Why am I talking about food? Isn’t that easier to talk about than war, self-defense, media bias, Islamic fanaticism?
Photo memes:
Sky Watch in New Brunswick
Ruby Tuesday Contrasts
Today’s Flowers in Winter
On Israel:
Focused On Israel
Mothers of Soldiers
Baila, who lives in Modi’in, Israel, wrote on my Focused On Israel post:
It will only be a relief if the job is done, Leora. If Hamas continues to throw rockets at our cities, Israel must continue to respond.
A Sweet Angel Song
The song is one that is in this week’s parsha of Vayechi. There is a chapter in Ancient Secrets by Rabbi Levi Meier, z”l, called the “Art of Dying.” It is about Yaakov on his death bed, and what we can learn about dying from Yaakov. However, I couldn’t bear to write about dying. But I did want to mention that chapter.
Oh, What A Wonderful Friendly World We Live In (Just Kidding)
(not the real title of the post, but close)
Ilana-Davita learns from Yaakov: “children are different and that [Yaakov] can’t have the same expectations from all of them.”
And I’ll leave with a link to Jack.
Today a blog called Real Israel (the blog is new to me, just learned about this last week via Twitter) posted:
I thank her for including my post on Art in Israel (often pics speak louder than words for me).
I just read on the Jerusalem Post that the Israelis are expected to wrap up the operations in Gaza in about a week or so. That will be a relief for many.
You may click on the photo to enlarge it.
A photo I took this summer while on our trip in Israel. But the photo needs some explanation.
Unlike in the U.S. where we have friendly Canada to the north and Mexico in the south, Israel is surrounded by unfriendly neighbors. The Jordanian border on the east is the quietest, and some Israelis have even been traveling there. But what you see here is a Hizbullah flag (circled in purple), very close to an Israeli guard station (circled in orange). Just two years ago the North was the scene of an ugly war. My friend who lives in Ma’alot lived in a bomb shelter for a while, but then she and the younger members of her family went down to Beit Shemesh in the center of the country for the remainder of the war.
Now the war is in the South… Hamas, which was elected by the people of Gaza, has chosen to spend the millions it receives in aid to stock weapons and attack southern Israel. While Hizbullah was created by Iran, Hamas now receives much of its weaponry and funding from Iran.
This isn’t supposed to be a political blog, so I won’t be telling who to vote for in the next election. But as I can’t seem to concentrate on what I was thinking of writing about (I thought about writing about how to get my daughter to pick her jacket up from the floor, see what a contrast?).
So I leave you with some links:
And then one more pic, so you can enjoy the lush greenery outside the winery:
If you are a religious Jewish girl finishing high school and ready to spend a year in Israel, there is now a great option available to you. I got an email from my cousin who lives in Mitzpe Netofa about a new program called Midreshet Netofa.
Just so the rest of us can at least talk about our envy, here are some highlights of this program:
And the people in Mitpeh Netofa are really nice; I’ve been there three times.
Any of this sound good to you? Play with this: if you could spend a year in this setting, what parts of this program would you most enjoy?