By the Dea Sea

Yesterday I was at the Dead Sea. (Don't think I go every day. The trip takes 2 hours and I work 6 days a week. I haven't been there in 7 years.) There was a kid there, around the age of 10, who was wailing apparently because the skin on his back was burning him. I didn't know if he had a cut or a burn, but my Hebrew was too poor to discuss this with him. None of the Israelis were helping him at all. I motioned that he should go under the outdoor shower. There were only 2 of them in the entire narrow walled up men's section that we were in, but the people using them wouldn't relinquish them. After a while, another man came over to help. I could tell that he wasn't Israeli because he didn't have that look of murder in his eyes that so many Israeli men have. So I said to this man in English, "It's frustrating that I can't talk to these people." He said, "It's the same with me." I said, "How long have you been living here?" He said, "You call this living?" He went on to complain about all the aggressiveness on the road, at the stores, "the lack of decency," he said. But I got it out of him that he's been here 20 years. Still can't speak Hebrew.

I saw him later outside on the bench. Another man joined us, a South African/Canadian. He asked if the kiosk (food stand) was open because he was thirsty there by the Dead Sea where the temperature read 45 degrees C. But it was closed and there was no place to get water.

He started telling me how he doesn't get along with Israeli culture and would like to return to Canada but has family here.

The three of us sat there, stewing in regret for coming to this crazy place. Somehow the Dead Sea seemed a fitting setting for the mood. 

Why would you leave America?

You imagine that when you come to Israel that the Israelis are going to be impressed with your big sacrifice, that they are going to embrace you as a long lost brother who has come to join them in the building the Jewish society. That's how Modern Orthodox rabbis, who when it comes to Israel live in fantasy land, portray it.

What really happens is that the Israelis look at you like you're crazy. Why would you come to a war torn strife-filled country where everyone struggles to earn a living? Why wouldn't you stay in history's most affluent and safest country, where people are polite, where the government respects religious choice, where there's no draft? Are you crazy?

Yeah, you are crazy to come here. And the Israelis have nothing to do with you. I moved into an apartment building where there was one neighbor on my floor. Two apartments. They never spoke to us, never invited us into their home. They knew we were olim, fresh off the plane. Nothing. No help. Didn't lend us a tomato. They would have get togethers with friends and family and never invite us. The noise would resound through the wall. Nobody in the apartment building ever invited us to anything. The only apartment I ever entered was the vaad habayis, the building manager, to pay my rent. Oh, by the way, the vaad habayis used to dry her laundry in the stairway, women's underwear and all. That should give you a sense of what the Dati Leumi are like over here.

Recently, I had a rare conversation with an Israeli. He was a Duchinsky chosid so he was nicer (the Chassidim here in general are more approachable, but they speak no English), and we managed a two minute exchange in broken Hebrew (mine) and broken English (his). That's what I get here, every six months a two minute exchange with another human. Anyway,  he told me how there's no future in Israel, that he wants to move to America. 

I thought of the Aliyah salesman who told me a few years ago, the future is in Israel. I have heard this a few times from people. "The plug has been pulled out on America," said the son-in-law of a fairly famous rabbi to me 40 years ago. Of course, since then American Orthodox Jewry has grown so much in every way, schools, books, communities, wealth, wedding halls. It is incredible how much American Jewry has grown. Meanwhile, Israel is on the verge of collapse. I really do hope this man regrets his foolish prediction. This was a long bearded man in a black suit by the way. He had no clue how much Zionism had affected his mind and caused him to give bad advice, which is a sin. 

The Brisker Rav said, “Two things are certain: 1) Zionism is idolatry, and 2) every Jew living in Eretz Yisroel stumbles in Zionism.” (Uvdos Vehanhagos Leveis Brisk, v. 4 p. 197)

Seems to me that the ones who move here stumble the most. Israelis know that this place is nuts. The ones who move here were crazy to begin with, but by the time this place is through with them, there's no sanity left. They just keep telling themselves, "I live in Israel. I'm so lucky." Meanwhile, their kids are off the derech, and their own religious level plummets. But they live in Israel. Who needs Torah?

But who is the craziest of all, well at least the most shameful of all? It's American rabbis who pressure their congregants to move to Israel. Find me somebody more shameful in the Orthodox world than the American aliyah salesman who lives in America. He knows nothing about this lunatic asylum. He sits in his big house and fantasizes, and sells you his fantasies. And you fall for them. And the Israeli looks at you in amazement, actually it's more like disgust. Why would you leave America?

When the Brisker Rav came to Eretz Yisroel [in 1941] they asked him if he planned to go back or to stay. He replied, “Do I plan to go back?? I plan to run away!!” (from Israel)

After the Brisker Rav came to Eretz Yisroel someone remarked to him, “The Rav is certainly happy now that he merited to fulfill the mitzvah of living in Eretz Yisroel.” He replied, “If not for the great destruction that the Germans, yimach shmam, have brought on the Jews of Europe, I would have stayed there until the coming of Moshiach. I had no specific desire to come to Eretz Yisroel. Only need and desperation brought me here.”

So let's get straight about this, America is not Germany. We have to get passed the Holocaust trauma. Every place on the planet is not about to become Nazi Germany. Why not say that Israel could  become like the 2nd Temple period just before the Churban? The Romans came and slaughtered 1 million Jews? You mention this every time you bentch, it's in the fourth bracha.

The American Congress just passed a resolution against anti-Semitism. Three Presidents of powerful Ivy league colleges were forced to resign because they weren't seen as doing enough to protect Jews on campus from mild quantities of hostility that have arisen due to criticism of Israeli bombing of Gaza. America is a very safe country for Jews and has been that way during all the 40 years since I was told that the plug has been pulled out on America. So why would you want to come to Israel, which we are told daily, hourly is under existential threat? Why wouldn't you want to live in the country that has by far the most powerful military in the world and is protected by two oceans?  It's because you are crazy and the Israelis know it.

Forget about reading and talking to people

You hear about these Anglo-communities and you expect Teaneck or Far Rockaway in Israel. Now, wouldn't that mean that the shuls have books in English. Well they don't have that here, even in Anglo shuls where shiurim and announcements are in English. That's even in so-called Anglo communities. Here's what you see on the bookshelves.

So unless you can open a book in Hebrew and translate, your Shabbos days will not be very interesting. 

This Anglo community thing is a myth. In both of the shuls shown above, I donated books in English, but they were removed from the shelves and don't appear anywhere in the building. 

I'm not even sure how to explain this. Why wouldn't an Anglo synagogue want English books? Obviously, gadolim don't disapprove of Torah books in English. Note the many haskamas on the Artscroll Gemara and many other books in English and other languages. I theorize that the guys who run the synagogues want to keep up with/be like the Israeli shuls where there is no English. If you walk into a non-Anglo shul you will not find even one book in English, not even a siddur. Nothing. And since everything in Israel is competitive, the Anglo shuls want to be like the Israeli. That's my guess. 

Just know, living in Israel requires that you speak and read Hebrew very well. An aliyah salesman, ie. an American oleh who believed everyone must live in Israel (he only retired there), told me that everyone in Israel speaks English. I have no idea how he could muster such a falsehood and live with himself. Most Israelis that I encounter do not speak English. This includes the staff at customer service lines. 80% of the time, when I ask if a person speaks English, the answer is no. And 18% of the remaining 20% is a struggle. This is not Switzerland. [Incredibly, this man lived in a city where less than 5% speak any English.]

Websites have translations in Russian, not English. Now and again you find a portion of the site in English but usually not. It's getting a little better in that regard, but not so much. When I got here 10 years ago, there was no English on the sites. 

Same with government service phone lines. Press 1 for Hebrew. Press 2 for Russian. On Charedi lines its Yiddish and Hebrew. They are not in English. Government documents are in Hebrew. Bank statements are in Hebrew. You get these letters and go into a panic because you have no idea what they are saying. This includes letters from the municipality in so-called Anglo communities!

Do you know Hebrew? Don't think it's easy to learn. It's a very different language from English. It's a Mideastern language. English is Germanic with vocabulary from French. Just because you can read the Mishnah Berurah doesn't mean you can function on the streets and in the offices of Israel. 

Ulpan is not some magical language acquisition program. Because they have their own word for the language program you imagine that it's magical, brilliant. Ulpan is just a language class where the teacher doesn't speak English. That doesn't help you. It just traumatizes you, like most things in Israel.

And they don't teach you how to read business letters in Ulpan. Rather, you get Zionist poetry.

If you come in the summer, there will be no Ulpan. And that's in cities that have it. Many do not. It's not like in New York where there are English as a second language classes going on all the time. When they have it there will be one offering. It matches your schedule or it doesn't.

And what about the teacher? The teacher will be an Israeli who is impatient, hot-tempered, and Zionistic. Israeli values, if you can call their attitude values, will come through.

Example: I had a teacher who explained all anomalies in the language as being 'cacha.' That means, just because, for no reason. I researched this and explained to her that there are linguistic reasons. Usually the anomaly makes the word easier to say. For example, Tehillim 119 says אַשְׁרֵ֥י תְמִֽימֵי־דָ֑רֶךְ. Why doesn't it say derech? It's easier to pronounce a patach after a tzeiri  than a segol (three dots) possibly because the tzeiri and segol are more similiar. It's easier to say t'mimei darech than t'mimei derech. The difference is subtle but it's there. It's easier to say Ruach than Rucha. It goes better on the tongue. More examples: ההרים - he-ha-RIM - the mountains rather than ha-ha-rim. החתול - he-cha-TOOL - the cat, החדשים - he-cho-da-SHIM - the months. It's easier to say. But then there's החכמה - hachoch-MA - the wisdom, because the o sound is a small kamatz, not a hataf-kamatz. It's easier to say. To this teacher it's all cacha.

This idea of everything being cacha is a kind of apikorsis. I think that Yad v'Shem, the Holocaust museum, should be renamed the cacha museum. To them the Holocaust just happened. One day the Germans just started to hate us. That's what you see in the guided displays, that's how the museum is set up. You walk along a path where history starts in 1933. No reason. Nothing to do with us sinning for a 100 years. Nothing to do with a small but powerful portion of the non-religious Jews in Germany running the dirty theaters, anti-religious press, and abortion clinics. The Holocaust was cacha. Just like the Hebrew language. Cacha. So we need a state and a big army to fight the cacha. No need for teshuva.

Even after I gave my argument about linguistics, this Ulpan teacher of 30 years stayed with her explanation. I didn't try to explain to Yad v'Shem that they should try a different approach, one that references the tochachas in the Chumash. 

Don't think Nefesh b'Nefesh will help you with Hebrew. Nefesh b'Nefesh will not help you with anything. They disappear once you get here. They advertise that they have tutors. That will amount to a few 20 minute meetings on Zoom with a teenage girl. Nefesh b'Nefesh and their mischaracterizations of everything, especially themselves, is a whole topic in itself. 

If you are coming above the age of 40, you will not be able to learn spoken Hebrew and written business Hebrew. You will not be able to help your kids with their homework, and their respect for you will suffer. You will not be able to speak to their teachers.

Yesterday I was at the Dead Sea. (Don't think I go every day. The trip takes 2 hours and I work 6 days a week. I haven't been there in 7 years.) There was a kid there, around the age of 10, who was wailing apparently because the skin on his back was burning him. I didn't know if he had a cut or a burn, but my Hebrew was too poor to discuss this with him. None of Israelis were helping him at all. I motioned that he should go under the outdoor shower. There were only 2 of them in the entire narrow walled up men's section that we were in, but the people using them wouldn't relinquish them. After a while, another man came over to help. I could tell that he wasn't Israeli because he didn't have that look of hostility that so many Israeli men have. So I said to this man in English, "It's frustrating that I can't talk to these people." He said, "It's the same with me." I said, "How long have you been living here?" He said, "You call this living?" He went on to complain about all the aggressiveness on the road, at the stores, "the lack of decency," he said. But I got it out of him that he's been here 20 years. Still can't speak Hebrew. Middle-aged people struggle with new languages. The result: You can't even help children.

When you walk down the street you will shudder if anybody asks you for directions because you won't understand what they are saying. You won't understand when the lady at the checkout counter tries to get you to buy 3 soups instead of 1 because there's a deal on 3. Your heart will race. Maybe you'll figure out the word soup after a few years. Even if you memorize the word, you still will not be able to understand people. Israelis don't enunciate their words. They talk rapidly in a mumble. 

It gets very lonely when you cannot talk to people, can't understand what's being said on the radio that's playing on the bus or in the taxi you are riding in, when you can't understand the newspaper that's sitting on the floor, can't understand the news program that's playing on the TV in the grocery store. I imagine that the experience is a bit like what a person with hearing impairment goes through, the isolation, not being able to connect to people. 

If you have teenage children, they will suffer in school because contrary to Zionist myth, children don't learn to understand by Chanuka and speak by Purim. They sit in school all day, bored. There are kids who go off the derech from this.

Not only that but Charedi schools at least in my city, don't participate in the city Ulpan. So all they get is 1/2 hour, twice a week, with a teacher who isn't trained to teach languages. He's just the rebbe that may know some English. This is entirely inadequate.

And if you send your kids to modern schools, ie. Dati Leumi, expect them to have boyfriends and girlfriends by the time they are teenagers. Expect the girls to dress immodestly and for the boys to join the army and have their religious level collapse.

You can't move to China if you don't speak Chinese. And you can't move to Israel if you don't speak Hebrew. There's 1,000 other reasons that Americans (North and South) and Europeans shouldn't move here, but the challenges with Hebrew are enough. 

The Land? Really?

 The  Zionists that I know toss around the phrase yishuv haaretz a lot but very few ever speak about the land. They talk about the army mostly. They love that army. Unless you live in on a moshav, you aren't likely to even see much of the land. And if you dare venture out there, it can be dangerous.

So if you are coming here for the land, you might want to think twice about that. The land is lovely, but it isn't so safe these days.

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/394660

Kim Jong Un

 

Stay where you are

Stay where you are

Remember when they told you -- over and over -- that the government of Israel cares so much for every Jewish life that they'll trade 1,000 terrorists for 1 soldier or even the corpse of one soldier?

Then came October 7 and it's aftermath. 337 soldiers killed. That's more than all of the hostages of which the IDF has managed to rescue 7. They killed 3 by gunfire and probably more than 100 via bombing. There are thousands of wounded and by wounded we mean seriously maimed for life. Then there are the dozens, scores - we don't really know - that the air force killed when it shot at the cars heading back into Gaza.

Why are we in Gaza? To get revenge? Was the manhood of the war cabinet offended? Is it to destroy Hamas once and for all? You think that's going to happen? I'll bet you Hamas comes back stronger than ever. When the boys of Gaza look around at the destruction that Israel has wrought on their mothers, brothers, mosques, and society in general. Oh my gosh.

There's no eliminating Hamas. You have to build and fence and watch it. Now and again they'll send one of their pathetic missiles over. You respond with a targeted strike. We have been doing that for decades. It works as long as you are not too arrogant to disregard warnings. But what is an Israeli official if not arrogant?

From 2001 - 2014, 33 people died from Gazan rockets. That's far less than car accidents and smoking. It's also far less than the number of soldiers who have been killed since October 7. That's out of 18,928 rocket and mortar attacks in those years. When I hear a siren, and I have only heard a few in 10 years here, I laugh. The rockets are pretty lame.

As for the people living on the border, it's traumatic to hear the sirens frequently. But do they really have to live there? There's lots of open land in the center of the country, in the Galil. Why are they living in S'derot or on the Lebanese border? Why?

I have been amazed by how little has been said about the casualties. People look at it as the price somebody else has to pay. The consolation to these poor soldiers is that we now refer to them as heroes. I'll bet that each one of them would gladly take his life back and go without the hero designation.

What I have observed is that the average Israeli doesn't care at all about the deaths to soldiers. And of course they care about the deaths to Arabs even less than that. Actually, they kind of enjoy it. That's how sick this society has become. You want to live here?

No, the Israeli government doesn't care about every Jewish life. I can't say what it was like here 50 years ago, but Zionism has managed to eliminate every trace of Judaism in Jews that embrace Zionism. At first, they were like roses that were cut from the vine. They looked like flowers for a while. Now, Israel is just Sparta, a nation of war. Not a nice place to live. Stay where you are.

ruined by the army

I live around many nationalists, including right wing YU people who like fools moved to Israel. Their kids, particularly after the army, are unrecognizable. I have been to 8 shivas in my town for soldiers killed in Gaza. You look around the room and try to figure out if their siblings and friends are religious at all! You look at their clothes, what little they wear, you listen to their conversation. They don't seem religious. But the father has a kippah srugah on this head. The mother covers most of her head. The kids are so far from that. They were ruined by the army and by life in Israel in general. 

I would say this is not the exception but the norm. Right wing YU people are pumped daily with myths about religion in Israel and expect their kids to become more religious than they, but the opposite happens. It's quite alarming. 

Good for the kids?

Generally, it's not good for the kids to move to Israel.  There's all kinds of reasons for this.

1) The draft. It's a rough ordeal. Israel kids are made out of brillo so it's not as horrible for them. For a more sensitive and gentile American kid it's very rough.

2) Bullying. There's lots of it.

3) Lack of respect for you. You will not learn to speak Hebrew and they'll be embarrassed by you. You also won't be able to help them with homework.

4) Decline in derech eretz. In America, derech eretz is valued. Here it's almost laughed at.

5) Militant Judaism. People practice religion here as if they are in some kind of war. They are competitive. They are exclusionary. They drive the boys to madness with 12 hour learning days. They drive the girls crazy too with endless testing and severe school environments that are not conducive to learning.

6) Boredom. There's not much to do here. There are parks with equipment for little kids. Not much for teenagers. You won't see beautiful parks with lakes. There's little in the way of recreation. There are few concerts, few restaurants. 

7) Few life choices. The boys have yeshiva or the army, and now it could be they don't even have that choice.

One aliyah salesman told me that the future is in Israel. It's not. An Israeli man told me recently he wants to go to America because there's no future in Israel. I think he's right. The Israelis know better. They look at you in amazement that you moved here. Why would you leave the USA? It's the Anglos that are naive. 

chesed

 

childhood training

 

This is interesting and you'll know why. 

narcissists are killers

 

It's a death cult. They want to kill everything. 

affirmations

 

Today's headlines

Israeli society is all pain. War, terrorism, militarism, strife, police actions. You call this a Jewish state? This is Judaism? Anybody who pressures others to move to this hellhole is deranged and that's the nicest thing I can say about such a person.

An affirmation for dating

 

I never force anyone to choose me. If you think you can find something better elsewhere then go ahead. I’m not holding you back. Life’s too short to hang on to someone who is not sure they want to stay. I believe in freedom, in the truth of feelings. If you must stay, let it be your heart tells you this is where you belong. Not because I asked you too. I want to be a choice. Not a default option. I deserve someone who sees my value, who understands what I bring to their life. I don’t want someone who stays with me out of fear of loneliness or out of habit. I want someone who stays for who I am, not who you want me to be. The door is always open. You are free to leave at any time.

Have You Lost Yourself?

Proof: if you are feeling that you are not yourself – then who are you and who is doing the estrangement? The narcissist’s introject.

Introjecting the entraining narcissist generates a schizoid state (emptiness) which mimics the narcissist’s.

Schizoid state as adaptation to narcissistic abuse. Split negative internal objects become identified with the Self and the victim defends against these negative thoughts by dissociating the Self altogether. 

Yet, if the narcissist’s introject is in charge, takes over – why the estrangement? Owing to encounters with repressed former self.

Approach-avoidance repetition compulsion with an objectified, mythologized, idealized self (relic of narcissist’s idealization and nostalgia).

Alienating self-consciousness and introspection.

 

That's a fact

Just met an older British man on the bus. Since my weak Hebrew prevents me from meeting people in Israel, I couldn't resist. I could tell that he was Anglo because he didn't step all over me to get to his seat, because his clothes were neat and his small beard trim, and because he was wearing a cap. Israelis don't wear caps.

How long have I been here, he just had to know. Zionists always ask you that and smile happily at your answer. Whatever I say, my mind then adds "unfortunately." I don't say it, but I think it. I don't want to bum people out.

As for him, he'll never live anywhere else he said. The world is falling apart.

I told him that Israel is falling apart too. But he didn't seem to know about that. It's almost as if he had built his entire mind around the Aliyah sales pitch that Israel is wonderful. Should I have reminded him that the economy is in a shambles, that the government is the most unstable in the world? Should I have reminded him that 1,200 Jews were murdered on Oct. 7, some of them by the IDF? Should I have reminded him that 350 soldiers have been killed since then and thousands maimed for life? I didn't want to get into a fight. 

But when he mentioned that anti-Semitism has taken over America, I reminded him that Jews are murdered in Israel every week, just two days ago in fact, along with a soldier yesterday (by 'friendly' fire). In America, maybe somebody gets yelled at from time to time, not that there's any yelling in Israel (ahem). Not only that but the US Congress passed a proclamation against anti-Semitism. Presidents of three elite universities were forced to resign when they were characterized as having not done enough to protect Jews on campus. That doesn't happen in an anti-Semitic country.

None of this moved the man. He shook his head no about the terrorism. But he's wrong. It's a fact. Just read the newspaper. He wasn't interest in all of that fact stuff. Who needs facts?

Talking to this man I got the sense that the entire meaning of his life was that he lives in Israel. All is good now.

Really? Do you study enough Torah, do enough chesed, guard your eyes and tongue? Do you think about Hashem? What I find with "Religious" Zionists is that none of that matters as long as you live in Israel. It is as if they are saying, "I am a tzadick because I live in Israel."

Uh, I think we have been down this road before. Tisha b'Av just passed. They all lived in Eretz Yisroel under a Jewish government. Evidentially, that's not enough. And that's a fact. It's in the Gemara.

set times

Granted, a “career in Torah” might not be for everybody; not everyone is on that level or can even aspire to reach it. Still, when you do study Torah, you can attain it, even if you do so once in the morning and once in the evening. Because when you do study, you can ensure nothing else exists in your world besides Torah. We see numerous examples of this in human nature: when someone decisively resolves that for a particular minute, fifteen minutes, or an hour, he’s completely dedicated to a specific thing – whatever it may be – he can indeed succeed. It’s entirely possible, and you need not be anyone special to achieve it.

But this raises the question: How can it be considered a “career in Torah” when you know, that just before you sat down to study and immediately afterwards you’ll be in a completely different state of mind? This is explained by the Alter Rebbe in Tanya that a union with G-d exists eternally above. When you engage in Torah and its commandments, although there was a time before you put on tefillin, for example, which is symbolic of all of Torah, and a time when you will remove them, and no longer wear them, nevertheless the “union” with God you created through them is eternal, an everlasting union.

There’s nothing miraculous to it; in fact, it’s quite self-evident. If time and space were both created for the purpose of fulfilling Torah and its precepts this is proof that Torah and its precepts exist on a higher plane than time and space. So, when you fulfill a commandment even though it was performed within a specific timeframe and not earlier or later – as stipulated by Torah – its effect is not subject to these limitations, given that the commandments are higher than time and space, which were only created for their sake, they are higher than the limitations of time and space.

The lesson from all of this is clear: everyone has their set times for Torah study, which they will surely make their best effort to increase. But practically speaking, your Torah study should reflect a “career in Torah.” 

Lubavitcher Rebbe

a respectful civilized conversation

 

Remember these? Been a while huh?

forty for understanding

 “At forty for understanding, at fifty to [give] counsel." Avos 5:21

So how does a 29 year old baal teshuvah, six years out of Trinity College have a right to start his own yeshiva, design it in a way that's unlike every other yeshiva for baalei teshuvah, be the main disseminator of hashkafa, stick it in on a barren field with no other shuls or yeshivas around, fail to have a library, fail to have any guest speakers, not take the bochurim to meet any other rabbis, and ban the few other rabbis on staff (the ones who are able to teach Gemara unlike him) from talking to students?

And the answer is, he doesn't. 

America is not safe for Jews? Really?

America is not safe for Jews? Really? The presidents of Harvard, UPenn, and Columbia were all forced to resign for not handling well the recent Israel-Gaza-Hamas protests in a way that was pleasing to Jews who are obsessed with anti-Semitism. These are powerful people. 

And today the president of Columbia.

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/394652

The President of MIT is still standing but she's Jewish. 

America is not anti-Semitic. 

Even France isn't.

 America is like Germany in the 30s, really? Even France isn't.

Nobody was suspending anybody for anti-Semitic remarks in the 1930s. 

control of your life

The fastest way to take control of your life is to stop controlling everyone around you. You have no idea how time and energy and attention you are wasting trying to control other people. You have no idea how much energy you are burning through thinking about, worrying about, obsessing about what other people are doing, what they’re not doing, what they’re feeling, all which you have zero control over.[1]

 Mel Robbins, Youtube shorts, mIenms0ifuo and 57xRRIzY-3o. She calls this the “Let Them” theory.

---

[1] Youtube shorts, mIenms0ifuo.

Israel ranks low in international giving

 Israel ranks low in international giving - Los Angeles Times (latimes.com)

On an individual basis, Israelis are also less likely to send donations abroad compared with citizens of most European countries and the U.S., according to a study by Hebrew University’s Center for the Study of Philanthropy in Israel. Over the last decade, 0.1% of individual charitable funds raised in Israel went to international relief, compared with 48% in Belgium, 13% in Italy and 5% in the U.S.

In an interview Wednesday in Jerusalem, Hillel Schmid, head of the center, told The Times that Israelis can and should give more if they want to be accepted as global citizens.

Q: Why don’t Israelis give more internationally?

A: Israelis in general are not so generous in giving, internationally and even inside Israel. People are suspicious about giving money. There’s an anti-philanthropist feeling. Even though Israel was built by philanthropists, today surveys show that Israelis think philanthropies are self-interested, political and wasteful.

And though Israelis see themselves as part of the larger world, they see themselves as beneficiaries, not contributors. Israelis are a little bit selfish in this way. We’ve been educated through the years to expect that money will be imported from the Jewry in the rest of the world, like New York and Los Angeles.

Q: Is it surprising that Israelis don’t give more considering the emphasis on charity in Judaism and Israel’s roots as a socialist state?

A: There’s a proverb, “The poor come first.” It means you should take care of your own people first before giving money to others and running overseas. It would be strange for an Israeli to send money to Africa when they feel there are still so many projects here.

Q: So do Israelis give a lot of money domestically?

A: No. Individual philanthropy inside Israel — for things like social programs, education, art, culture — is less than 0.7% of the GDP. In the U.S., it’s about 2.5%. Though Israel is not socialist anymore, people still think it’s the role of the government to provide these things, not philanthropy. They feel, “We pay taxes. We serve in the army. Why should we give more?”

Total philanthropy in Israel is $5.5 billion a year, but much of that money originates from (foreign sources). We are the biggest importer of philanthropy money in the world. Ten years ago, 72% of Israel’s philanthropy came from overseas. Today it’s about 62%.

Q: Is the problem that Israelis simply can’t afford it?

A: No. For several years the government has been declaring almost every day how strong the economy is. But the wealth of Israel is not reflected in the giving. They can afford to give much more. There was a recent report that there are 500 multimillionaires in Israel and several billionaires. Look at people like [American billionaires Bill] Gates and [Warren] Buffett and others who are giving their assets to generous foundations. You don’t find an Israeli who is giving away his capital like that to help a hospital in South Africa.

Q: Yet internationally, the Israeli government was more much aggressive about giving in past decades. When it was still a developing nation itself in the 1950s and 1960s, Israel’s track record for providing technical assistance and sending doctors or agriculture experts to Africa rivaled larger developed nations. What changed?

A: First, we don’t have political relations anymore with most of the countries in Africa.

Q: True. And it was their decision to take part in the Arab boycott, so you can’t blame Israel for that.

A: Right. But back then, aid was seen as a government interest. Not anymore. The government today has no policy about philanthropy. But I think it should because Israel is not in good shape in terms of legitimacy, the Palestinian territories and all this stuff. You’ve seen the polls that rank Israel fourth as the most-hated country after Iran, Pakistan and North Korea. Philanthropy abroad is not only for ideological and humanitarian reasons, but there is some self-interest as well.

Q: Does that really work? Israel showered Africa with assistance in the hopes that it could forge diplomatic relationships, yet those countries still boycotted Israel.

A: I think it does. We are isolated in the world. We can actually legitimize the state of Israel as a part of the world family by giving more to support other people. But we need to develop a culture of giving. Education should start in elementary school. The Israeli rate for volunteerism is not very high, except in wars and disasters. And the government needs to do more to encourage philanthropy, such as providing better tax benefits.

Q: Is there any sense of national shame that Israel ranks so low in this area?

A: We don’t want to be last in terms of poverty or education, or to rank lower than Turkey or Greece in those areas. But I don’t think if you ask someone on the street, that they would say it bothers them that we don’t give more.

edmund.sanders@latimes.com

How is it not apikorsis?

 The latest article in Mizrachi magazine, which is found sadly sometimes in a shul I visit, featured an article about Moshe Amiel, and it gave a piece of 'Torah' from him. It concerned Yaakov crossing the river to retrieve some vessels he had left behind. Most commentators praise Yaakov for his yiras shemayim, that he appreciated everything Hashem gave him and didn't waste anything. Amiel criticizes Yaakov for worrying about the little things (the vessels) and not the big ones. This was caused by his 'golus mentality.' The suggestion is that the big thing is yishuv haaretz.

This is a classic example of how zionists don't pursue yiras shemayim. It has been replaced by zionism. How they don't respect their elders, don't respect the accomplishments of 2000 years in golus. Reminds me of the hippies. Pretty sick stuff. Now did Moshe Amiel really say this? I'm relying on the editor of Mizrachi magazine so who knows? 

Jewish state my foot

 

Tel Aviv Municipality forbids holding gender-separate prayers in public areas | Israel National News - Arutz Sheva

Jessica Kirson on the Jewish personality sometimes

 Why I HATE performing for OLD JEWISH people in Florida — Jessica Kirson (full special part 2/7) (youtube.com)

Touch them all now

 I saw a sign in a dining room in a hotel in America. It said to use a new plate if taking seconds. The idea I suppose is that one might touch the serving spoon to one's dirty plate and move germs to the serving spoon.

And then there's Israel. Here's what every Israeli does at the bakery when selecting bread. He touches every bread on the shelf with his bare fingers. They all look about the same. I can't figure out what he is look for. I don't know if it's an urge to get the very best - which is what he deserves of course, or if he's making sure the store isn't ripping him off - can't be a frier now, but he checks every one with his dirty hands. At the grocery store, he picks up and inspects every apple. This is all after COVID. These are some of the same people that might howl at you in rage if you sneezed or if you weren't wearing a mask. All that is over now and we are back to poor hygiene.

If you are used to using a clean plate for seconds in Ohio and move to Israel when your pear has been touched by 42 people -- and I'm not even getting into what goes on at the Pizza store -- it can be hard to deal with. 

it’s an insane asylum

 You asked for a brief verdict. I have been in Israel for 10 years and here’s the verdict: it’s an insane asylum. Israelis are used to it, but for Jews from anywhere else, it’s usually a mistake to move here. Sure, you have rabid Zionists who rave about the place, but that’s because they are rabid. These are not people who live in reality. They live from simplistic ideologies that are baked in arrogance and atheism. 

This applies even to the so-called Religious Zionists. The term is a misnomer because there’s no such thing. As soon as you become a Zionist you cease to be religious, if not theoretically than practically because the state and its military and society displace Hashem. Spend five minutes around an RZ, and pay attention, and you’ll see it. Hashem is not in his vocabulary. Rather, the focus is on the Knesset, the Prime Minister, the army, the enemies which is anybody who doesn’t worship the mistake of Israel, and various parts of the society, all of which are wildly overrated. Israel has a second-rate military (as we saw on Oct. 7) whose best feature is military jets that it connived from America. Even the bombs come from America. The economy is third rate. The start-up nation thing is just part of the propaganda. Only a tiny little sector is like that. There’s little culture and recreation. Even the handful of history museums are barely there. There’s some construction, but the architecture is like Soviet planned housing. All the goshmiyus that Zionists get excited about is lame. 

And what about the democracy? What democracy? You realize that Iran and Russia also hold elections. Here you vote for a party that elects members of the legislature who elect the Prime Minister. Due to voting thresholds, it’s nearly impossible to start a truly new party (not just the same party with a new name) with new faces in it. The same people rule the country decade after decade. And the High Court, which is self-appointed, rules them. Israel has a fourth-rate democracy if you can call it a democracy at all. 

There’s no humor. Chilonim  generally are angry, impatient, and arrogant. Have I mentioned arrogance yet? Sometimes, you meet a nice person, usually a Sephardi, but it’s noticeable when it happens. 

So that brings us to religion. Humility is a primary feature of Judaism, and you won’t find it in Israel except in a few Haredi enclaves. But the general society wants to destroy them with the draft, may Hashem protect us. I have seen a few people move here and manage to barricade themselves in those communities, but I have seen many more fail to do that. As holy as some of them are, it’s still a very different culture than you are used to. The locals know how to survive in the asylum. They are very tough and know all kinds of tricks for handling Israelis. You will spend the rest of your life catching up and conditioning yourself to operate on the sly.

And what about your kids? Middle-age or elderly Anglos come to Anglo communities and talk about how much they love Israel. But they don’t live in Israel. They live off of money from chutz and hang around their own kind, speaking English. But their children and grandchildren must integrate into the schools where they get shouted at on a daily basis as they sit in trailers and deal with relentless bullying and crazy ideas. Most of these parents have no clue what their kids are going through. The parents live in a dream like nearly all olim – a term a use reluctantly because the experience is more of a yeridah.

I have gained insight into Modern Orthodoxy here, at least the Zionistic form of it that dominates. I see it now as a kind of early Christianity. The early Christians kept mitzvos but wanted a god in tangible form. For the Zionistic MO’s, that’s what Israel provides. It’s a deity that you can photograph and hang on your wall. It is seen as infallible. They literally have faith in it, and they can’t handle any criticism of it because it’s their god. People who grow up Modern Orthodox essentially grow up as Christians, and few are able to emerge from it. Some see themselves as having become Yeshivish, but inside they still worship the state. They come to Israel and try to coax others to come using manipulations of halacha.

On that subject, there is no chiyuv to live in Israel. According to the posek HaDor Rav Moshe Feinstein, it’s an optional mitzvah. You should not reduce your observance of chiyuvim for an optional mitzvah. And most people lose more mitzvos than they gain by moving to Israel. They study less Torah because they work six days a week. They have far less money for tzedukah. Their tiny apartments limit hachnachas orchim. All the miserable encounters reduce Ahavas Yisroel, sometimes significantly. Their middos plummet. They lose the ability to think objectively. But worst of all, they get drawn into Zionistic idol worship. 

You want to accuse me of slandering the land? I haven’t talked about the land at all. The land is fine. Very nice. You want to accuse me of being like the spies? Hashem commanded the Jews of the Midbar to enter Eretz Yisroel. He didn’t command us. This entire religion is built around what Hashem commands and what He does not. So there’s a world of difference between us and them. 

Beyond that, they were not coming to mingle with the Canaanites. They were coming to displace them. The only question was could they succeed militarily, and for that task they should have trusted Hashem because He promised them success. But people who come to Israel today aren’t coming to chase the Israelis from the land. Rather, they will live under Israeli rule. And Hashem didn’t make any promises that they’d succeed. Generally, we should run from bad environments as even the best people are vulnerable. 

The Netziv says that while Avraham’s ability to prophesize was actually more advanced than that of Sarah, his ruach hakodesh was not as strong because he was affected by his involvement with the people of his city during his kiruv work. So Avraham, who was the pinnacle of a person who overcame his environment, was affected by his environment.  

How about us? We have to examine all the factors before making big moves for our families. Don’t allow aliyah salesmen, who are some of the most despicable people I have ever known, trick you into silence with their manipulation of the Torah. Moving to Israel isn’t this wonderful action if only you can find a way to earn a living. It may be a terrible action even if you can find a way. Research. Weigh out all the factors. Don’t believe a word that Nefesh b’Nefesh tells you because they are pack of liars as are most rabid Zionists. They are idol worshippers, and the idol that they worship is really themselves, but I’ll have to explain how that works on another day. 

 

I read the news today oh boy

Today's news from Israel. Every article is about war and violence. Yet "Religious" Zionist delusional lunatics insist that all Jews should move to Israel because Chutz isn't safe. 

Find me on the entire planet earth a person as crazy as a "Religious"  Zionist. The ones who push aliyah are putting peoples' lives in jeopardy. It's evil. 

This just in

 Medals in non-combat sports. Baruch Hashem, except that they probably trained or competed on Shabbos.

Not figure skating

You wouldn't expect Israel to win a metal for an art form like figure skating or even swimming. It has to be a violent sport, because Israel is a violent country as its founders rebelled against the Almighty and took the land by force. 

Can you earn a living there?

In the Modern Orthodox world they always promote moving to Israel. In the Yeshiva world they say, can you earn a living there? But there's a 100 other issues they can raise. Can you deal with Israelis? There's lots of bullying, shouting, and even violence. Can your kids deal with them? If any of them are sensitive, the answer is no. Do you speak Hebrew? If you are 40 or older you will not be able to learn it. Will everyone in your family be able to squeeze into a tiny Israeli apartment? You'd be amazed how many fights start with people who are cramped in small rooms. Can they all adjust to not having a car? Can you deal with the constant threat of terrorism? Are you tearing your wife, husband, or kids from key relatives or friends? And even if every answer is no problem, then still don't go because of the draft. The army ruins everyone. No yeshivish person should ever move to Israel. 

It's a Jew doing that aveirah

 Look a car on Ocean Parkway on Shabbos. Must be an Italian. Look a car on Yirmiyahu Street on Shabbos. 90% chance it's a Jew. Look a car in Elad or Beit Shemesh or Tel Aviv or Beer Sheva on Shabbos. It's a Jew. He's driving on Shabbos in the Holy Land. Here's what the mind says, "Oh I guess Shabbos isn't such a big deal." That's what happens to you in Israel. Your respect for mitzvos decreases.

Look an untznius woman in New York. Probably a goy. Look an untznius woman in Tel Aviv. It's a Jew. Your respect for tznius goes down and your tiva goes up because a goy is a different species to which you already have a mental block but a Jewish woman is one of your own. 

And if this doesn't happen to you, will it happen to your son or daughter? Chances are pretty good. No wonder so many children of olim go down in their religious level. You want to take that chance because some rabid Zionist rabbi pressuring you to move to Israel with some tall tales about the Ramban who himself didn't move here until the last 2 years of his life?

No comparison

 See this, goes on all the time here. This doesn't happen in Chutz, it happens here, every week, twice a week. Anyone who says Chutz isn't safe because somebody makes a comment about Jews occasionally isn't looking at the facts. Israel is way less safe. There's no comparison.

Another medal for Israel. Can you guess the category?

Paris Olympics 2024, another Israeli won a medal, can you guess what category? Judoka, a martial art. And this time the winner was a woman. Again, not gymnastics, not track and field, but a violent activity. That's what happens when you take the land by force, the entire country becomes Spartan warriors. 

 

Leave

 When you are in that first terrible in Israel, where you realize that it isn't a high tech society, that you are not home now with family but around rude and unhelpful people for the most part, when you struggle with the language, when find out that your apartment is tiny and moldy, and so many other issues, you get told that this is just the first year. The first year is hard. So you stay and get intertwined with the society at least through your kids. But time goes by and it continues to be hard because Israel has a garbage society. It's never going to get better and you should have left after six months. All those flaming Zionists who told you that you should never even consider leaving are selfish, non-religious people who really don't care that it's very difficult to survive as a religious person in Israel. They don't care about that. They just want to have an army of their own and similar nonsense. Message to those in the first year. Leave!

The Two Religions in the State of Israel

"All predatory systems of power seek to mask their ultimate aims. As they become more repressive, they become more deceptive. They silence dissidents and bombard the airwaves with lies. Those who effectively resist have to peel back the layers of deceit to understand the intentions of the elites." Chris Hedges

In the middle of the last century an assortment of pseudo-intellectuals in the form of the idle rich, the beatniks, and the hippies imported Eastern religions into the Western world. They didn't bring in these religions in their entirety, rather they plucked out the philosophy and left behind the idolatry that would not have been palatable to Western Judeo-Christian audiences.

The idolatry is the main part, the philosophies being thin and quickly consumed. Nevertheless, the Eastern religion importers, in the spirit of Hollywood producers, did their best to make the philosophies seem as substantive and glamorous as possible, sometimes getting rich in the process. In so doing they conned millions of people into Eastern religious practice, starting with the philosophy, moving on to mantras consisting of the names of false gods, and ending in many cases with special rooms for idol worship in nice American and British suburban homes. Many Jews were duped.

One sees the central workings of Eastern religions with a simple trip to the Orient. The idols are everywhere. I made such a visit - on a business trip - expecting to find Zen literature book stores but finding instead idols and more idols and more idols. The main tourist attraction in many famous Asian cities is the huge statue of the god. The beautiful buildings seem to be built by the British, the idols were local. My trip occurred a decade ago but I still haven't quite recovered from the gush, the avalanche of idolatry.

Similarly, Modern Orthodox 'rabbis' imported Israeli Zionism into the West. As the beatniks sanitized Hinduism, the Zionism importers packaged up their alien religion into a pseudo Torah with pseudo idealism. I reflect on the numerous shiurim I attended at Yeshiva University and Modern Orthodox synagogues in Teaneck and Manhattan where the lecturer and attendees happily engaged in tidy investigations into such matters as whether one can say Hallel on Yom Hatzmut or whether we have found the historic techeles dye.  Equipped with source sheets and vague references to an actual contemporary rabbinical figure or two, we pretended to consider such matters as whether redemption need come all at once or if it were unfolding before our eyes. Few of us seem to really weigh out the question as if it were difficult. The general assumption sat decidedly in the camp of the latter perspective. But it all seemed reasonable, and thoughtful, and intellectual and idealistic. It was packaged up to be like any other Torah study. It seemed sincere and not far from what we were used to.

I came to Israel expecting heightened discussion along the same lines but found myself recalling my trip to the Orient. In Israel, few if any in the Zionist camp are analyzing Gemaras and Rambans to get to the truth about snail shells, nobody other than American Zionist rabbis teaching American students in their one year abroad. Rather, they were busy hailing the IDF, the Israel Defense Forces, and determining where they should flex their muscles next. Hallel and blue strings were a given, not even a question. So was land conquest. It's all a question of what they can get away with. And the Gemara in Kesubos about the Three Oaths doesn't exist for them. Rather, they were preparing celebrations for Yom HaAtzmut and Yom Yerushalayim. And what was special about those days, those were days marking military victories. At the 'Chardal' - 'Charedi' national religious - day school near my house - the one where the boys carry cell phones - Yom Yerushalayim is getting a special set of festivities tomorrow and the boys will wear white shirts. No matter that Shavuous is also taking place this week. There's no special day for or even focus on that, but Yom Yerushalayim is front and center. So much for the 'Charedi' in Chardal.

And what about Yom HaZicharon, the day a principal in that same school described to the boys as being as holy as Yom Kippur? A ceremony was staged  by some unknown organizer outside my apartment this year and centered around a video of footage of tanks in the desert. Israelis are very taken by footage of tanks in the desert. Interviews with solders talked about military strategies and battles. We saw little about individual solders, their lives, their family losses. They weren't people, they were little disposable pieces of the IDF, dying for the cause of IDF victory.

And then there was the obligatory ceremony by the Kosel, the merging of the IDF and Judaism. This reminded me of incident from years ago where a neighbor in New York invited me and my roommates over for an apartment warming festivity. It turns out that she was an adherent of Jews for J. And so we walked into the apartment to see on her wall a huge mural - seemed almost like wallpaper - with an image of the Xtian god superimposed over the Kosel. In near horror, my eyes darted around the room to see men and women with yarmulkas on their heads, tzittizis hanging from their wastes, and crucifixes from their necks. It was the craziest, most confusing sight. The IDF ceremony at the Kosel reminded me of this. I was thinking, David the King was not allowed to build the Temple because he had, out of necessity and command of God, engaged in war. And here was this secular army which has engaged in endless questionable violence which turns boys into thugs and girls into zonas having a staged solemn ceremony at the wall of the Temple build by David's son.

So the military is staging ceremonies at the Kosel. I have seen them at the Kenesset too, sitting in the viewing balcony. They are on the buses and train platforms, smoking cigarettes. They fill the restaurants. The military is everywhere and everything in Israel. Solders are everywhere as the government enforces mandatory global conscription. Seeing young men with Jewish faces slinging rifles over their enlarged biceps is a strange site and seeing young women with Jewish faces slinging rifles over green fatigues is an even stranger one.

Seeing the dead, killer looks in their eyes is the strangest sight of all. I sit with solders for hours a day on the train. They show none of the joy of youth and the glow of innocence as they appear to have no innocence. The military beats it out of them and turns them into what seems like pure arrogance. They sit all over the steps that lead to the train platform, they block the aisles, they put their feet on the seats. They seem markedly different from the American solders I saw in the USA as the latter seem to be trying to live up to a code of conduct. The Israeli solders seem to be trained to not have any code at all, other than loyalty to the commanders and relishing in their own power. The IDF has turned a generation of Jewish youth into Esav.

Numerous Israelis have confessed to me how much they suffered in the military. While the Zionist rabbi salesman paint a picture of a professional high-tech force that nurtures its charges with self-discipline, the military is in fact an institution of abuse. One young man told me that he was changed forever for the worse by his three years in the military. He said that he lost his joy for life. I know of another that has had a sleep disorder ever since his time in the military. This wasn't from combat as he didn't see any. It was from the treatment of his commanders. Another told me that life in the military is pure hell. Another told me that he contemplated suicide about a dozen times.

Evidentially, he wasn't the only one as suicide is the highest cause of death in the IDF. Haaretz reported that in 2011, 21 solders committed suicide, "more than the number of soldiers who died as a result of disease, traffic accidents, operational activity or other calamities." Regarding 2010, Haaretz reported:

In 2010, more soldiers committed suicide than those who died due to other circumstances, including traffic accidents and disease. According to the army’s statistics, 28 soldiers took their lives in 2010, 14 soldiers died in traffic accidents and 10 from disease.

11 people died in 2010 from acts of terrorism. This means that the sick culture at the IDF took more than twice as many lives as the so-called enemies of Israel. Who is the real enemy I ask?

And just as a side note, 357 died in road accidents in 2015. (Source: Israelnationalnews.com), yet Israelis who claim to care so much about Jewish lives continue to drive like maniacs. The rate has risen in each of the last three years.

I expected to come here and hear debate about the military because part of the packaging of Zionism for Westerners is the portrayal of Israel as a vibrant democracy full of open debate. Perhaps it once was, but I see little evidence of that now. There's some debate as to whether solders can be held accountable for shooting disarmed terrorists but next to none about the two-state solution, the draft, torture, the military budget and the country's alarming dedication of resources to its military machine. The newspapers seem to spend about half their ink ranting about world antisemitism and the other half on whether we should care about world opinion from the horrible antisemites that mysteriously litter the world. I say mysteriously because how do people who don't believe in God or Torah believe in the concept of antisemitism? What would cause it? Nevertheless, that's the explanation for every aspect of the world's condemnation of the antics of the Israel military.

Even the debate about shooting terrorists doesn't focus much on the morality of it but how it looks to the world. Most don't care how it looks in any sense of morality or general approval but fear somewhat that upsetting the entire planet might have negative affects on the economy. There's something distinctly narcissistic about the whole discussion. There's next to no questioning of the military in any existential or moral sense.

There's little questioning in private conversation either. Another myth of the Zionism salesmen is that Israel is a land of open debate that never affects relationships. This is completely false, particularly if you question the military. Now, you are a traitor. We never talk to you again. Ever. A guy at work stopped talking to me because I questioned the Shin Beit's torture of Jewish youth in the territories. We were supposed to trust this agency and its goons and their secret, magical ways of sniffing out guilt. The Israeli public ascribes supernatural abilities to the security agencies. They worship them.

Some claim that the Jewish part of Israel consists of religious Jews and non-religious Jews but really they are all religious. And there are two religious - Torah Judaism and militarism. Chiloni society is preoccupied, obsessed with the military. They worship it. It is nothing short of a god. And as with any idol worship there are two dynamics: terror of nature and worship of a worldly god that is just a little more powerful but no more moral.

This deal with the devil is justified by endless propaganda about the Palestinians. They are all killers you see. Now this is just an assertion. It's not backed up by any fact. Let's look at some facts. There are 4.4 million Palestinians in Israel. (Source: Haaretz, Jan 1, 2013, "Palestinians to Outnumber Jewish Population by 2020, Says PA Report") From 2011 to 2015, Israel endured an average of 50 terrorist attempts a year, most of them closer to random acts of violence than organized activity. (Source: Johnston Archive) The math comes out to .001%. The facts don't support the assertion that they are all killers and we must be completely mobilized at all times to stop them. So where else are our enemies? Jordan, Egypt? We haven't had a war with them in 40 years.

So why does Israel continue to drain its energies, money, and youth on the military? It is habit? Maybe to some extent but I think much more than that it's a religion, a false god, maybe the most toxic in the history of klal Yisroel. The military for Israelis operates as a kind of mesorah. It's as if they have taken a Jew's natural instinct for mesorah and applied it here. They cling to it with the stubbornness that a Jew is supposed to direct towards the Torah mesorah. It's like the naaseh, we will do, of naaseh v'nishmah. The v'nishmah consists of lies and propaganda that would give the Soviets a run for their money.

The propaganda is relentless. The Israeli government organizes it and pays for it. They put it in the papers, they operate websites, they put it in the school curriculum, and they swarm foreign governments, particularly the USA, with lobbyists. They say always, you must trust us, we live in reality, you fantasy. Yet, they misinform and rarely use facts. I watched a debate recently between an aide to General Sharon and a critic of Israeli policy. The aide in that smug manner of nearly everyone in his camp constantly reminded us how he lives in reality and the rest of us don't. Yet, I noticed that he never cited facts. He kept referring to his grandfather who came to Israel with his bible in one hand and his gun in the other. His talk was nearly all romantic, romantic about violence, strangely, yet he, we are to believe, is the one who lives in reality. He was a goon. He was stupid but he didn't know it. He thought he was brilliant. After all, he is Jewish. Aren't we all brilliant whether we work at it or not? That's the attitude around here. We are Jewish so we are brilliant and moral. It's automatic and can't be questioned. Pay no attention to the facts behind the curtain.

I could talk for hours about the facts I have uncovered, facts that refute our glamorous image of ourselves as having the world's most humane army, with a wondrous democracy, in a first-world country with equal rights for all citizens. Meanwhile, Arab citizens in Israel constitute 20% of the population and live on 7% of the land. Each Arab citizen receives 1/5 the government services received by each Jewish citizen. In the territories, the non-citizen Arabs get 20% of the water even though they constitute 80% of the population. Those are facts. And we wonder why the Palestinians are angry with us.

And then there are the myths like Barak offered Arafat everything he wanted but Arafat refused only because really he just wants to kill us. The fact is that the offer at Camp David II was for 73% of the West Bank, a figure that would rise gradually to 92%. The land was a patchwork of discontinuous cantons that's almost comical when one views the drawing. The Israeli foreign minister Shlomo Ben Ami says that the offer was unreasonable. That's the Israeli foreign minister, not the UN, not Norman Finkelstein. The Taba talks were thrown together in a hurry before the upcoming Israeli elections and there the offer was reasonable and the Palestinians were close to accepting it, as they had the Clinton parameters, but Israel paused the talks because of its elections, and then Sharon, who won, canceled them entirely. It was we, the Israelis, who walked away. My source for this, in addition to numerous documents and witnesses, is the Israeli foreign minister, who is, by the way, a reasonable, decent man and not a goon at all.

Israel has produced other reasonable decent men but many of the are forced to leave the country. I refer to Miko Peled who is the son of an Israeli general and grandson of a signer of the declaration of Independence. I refer to the academics Zev Meoz, Ilan Pape, and Avi Shlaim. They are Israeli born and raised but dare to criticize the government. None of them live in Israel anymore. Life was made too difficult for them there.

What about the goons. We outsiders who come to Israel all wonder about the source of the Israeli personality, the brash, arrogant, domineering, argumentative, impatience. The common explanation is that their sufferings are the cause. Yet, my grandmother suffered in Eastern Europe, suffered much more than Israelis have ever suffered and she was a sweet as can be.

So I propose a different theory which is that idol worship of the military is the cause. We become like the god we worship. If one worships the God of kindness and compassion, self-discipline and law, holiness and transcendence of the physical, then that person will become sweet. If one worships the god of war, he will become like the aide to General Sharon and many others around here - brash, lacking in empathy, impatient, bull-headed, and prone to violence.

I hear many in the Modern Orthodox "Religious" Zionist camp defend the Mistake of Israel on the grounds that it prevents assimilation. It may prevent intermarriage to some extent but with all the fake conversions they staged and half-Jewish gentiles they took in, we can't brag so much about this anymore. Either way, it does not prevent either assimilation or mamzerus. And is marriage between two Jews who are acting like the worst gentiles not a kind of intermarriage? The whole secular part of the country is one big intermarriage with the gentile world. At this point the bad behavior is so ingrained, one wonders if Moshiach can pull them out of it.

Judaism has never been about the numbers. There were other good men in Avraham's day but we hear little about them. Hashem wants only the best and so history became the history of Avraham and his family. There were 12 tribes in Israel, descendants of the sons of Yaakov, but 10 of them were chased away and lost forever because they didn't measure up. 24,000 students of Rabbi Akiva, scholars that would blow any of us out of the water, were killed in a plague because they didn't measure up. Prevention of intermarriage is not reason enough for a society of sin, theft, and murder. Far better people were wiped out or chased off the land. The Modern Orthodox Zionists don't understand any of this because quite frankly they are not people of Torah and they don't want you to be people of Torah either. They want you to worship their god, the god of war.

They don't tell you all that when they are working over your brain back in the Five Towns. But Israelis kind of know it. An Israeli man complained to me today about the harshness of the typical Israeli personality. I suggested he move to Haifa where people are reputed to be a little nicer. He said this wasn't possible because of all the pollution there. Some recent studies have shown that the pollution is so bad that babies are being born with smaller heads. I noted how odd it was we'd find such an intense pollution problem in a society that claims to be advanced and progressive and first-world. He said to me, nobody here in Israel believes that about Israel, about it's being progressive and civilized.

It's like the Indians in India. One who was living in America used to tell me about all the idols he worshiped. He was quite open about it. No shame in it for him. It's no secret out there in the real India, as opposed to the fake India of Berkeley and Greenwich Village. It's Westerners who don't know the truth about India or Israel and the idol worship that dominate their societies.