Posts
Click here to safely unsubscribe now from "Life in Israel" or change subscription settings
"Israelated - English Israel blogs" - 29 new articles
New style for Orthodox Jewish women: The Sarah Palin wig :: Israel MatzavRead this article on the community site No, this isn't an April fools joke. Georgies of Boro Park - one of the largest manufacturers of wigs in the United States, has been marketing Sarah Palin wigs to Orthodox Jewish women. And they're quite a hit (Hat Tip: NY Nana). "We've sold about 50 'Sarah P' wigs in the past five weeks," said Schlomo Klein, vice president of Georgie in Borough Park.For 30 years, his store has catered to • Email to a friend • Related • Just Rambling :: Mystical PathsRead this article on the community site by Reb Akiva at Mystical Paths I'm standing on my patio, laptop balanced on the ledge, on a cool Israeli night. Looking to my right, I see the lights of Jerusalem peeking out between the hills in the distance. To my left I see the lights of Tel Aviv, as the cool breeze wafts over me. The rains of blessing have already come! It drizzed a bit on Rosh Hashana, and rained a bit late night during Chol HaMoed Succot. But a true watering rain of blessing came late night on Shabbat, after all where home from synagogue on Parshat Berashit. Our rav mentioned the seforim of kabbalah call this a massive blessing, when the rains start to fall on Parshat Berashit, more so when they fall during the night, and at their highest level when they fall after everyone is already home! Of course, with the rains of blessing having arrived one puts away the sandals and runs to the shoe store to buy the children new closed shoes for the fall/winter. It was raining again this morning as I headed to work - first workday rain of the new year, 5769. Like in New York during the first snow, everyone just seems to forget how to drive as the weather changes - the commute was a nightmare. (But, as a friend from New Jersey said to me, as 25% of my co-workers from my former US employer were just laid off, they'd happily take a bad commute with a steady paycheck!) Is Hashem sending us signs that we're not even noticing? The rains of blessing start to fall on the first day, a dirty bomb from Iran is stopped by pirates, the Haman of Iran has suddenly fallen ill, and the Kadima left-wing give up everything coalition in Israel has failed (seemingly). My dear Jewish friends in the US, I attended a new employee orientation today (ok, it's a number of months I've been working there, but they only do it twice a year). I sat at a table with 30 fellow new-employees, and the recruiting department welcomed us and said, "please, don't forget to bring in your friend's resumes - we need people!" Earlier in the day I watched a number of my Linked-In friends and contacts in the US change their status from employed to available. For the moment, Israel's economy is holding steady (B"H, B"H, B"H) - you may want to give that some thought as the US situation deteriorates. A final note: There was some unpleasant events in the West Bank today, exactly the type we would point out and comment upon in the past. However, the bloggers here have been taken to task for past commentary - one in a moderate way and one in an extremely severe way. Sharing our opinions in these areas is not worth it. • Email to a friend • Related • HH #188 :: Cosmic XRead this article on the community site Great job! Here! • Email to a friend • Related • Dear Prime Minister or Prime Minister To Be :: Mystical PathsRead this article on the community site The words of the Lubavitcher Rebbe... ...and if they want peace, they need to know they are the baalei baatim (owners) of these territories of the Land of Israel that, G-d forbid, they want to give away which are currently in Jewish hands in a miraculous manner, they (the words of the Torah) say to every Jew that he does not have any right to touch his children and his grandchildren's inheritance. Remember this words - as the opposite is true as well. The "steps for peace", the roadmap, the agreements, the trust building measures, have only brought the opposite. It doesn't make sense, b'derech teva (by the natural order). It does if you read the Torah. • Email to a friend • Related • Meltdown 101: Why the market has circuit breakers :: DocstalkRead this article on the community site MADLEN READ As nest eggs shrink, some may wonder why the market doesn't just shut down and let investors cool off. On Friday, it did just that, albeit very briefly - "circuit breaker" rules halted selling during pre-market trading when the contracts known as stock futures sank below a certain point. What are these circuit breakers, and why do we have them? What would it take to get them to shut down normal stock trading? Here's a list of questions and answers about how U.S. exchanges use circuit breakers to restrain wild market freefalls. Q: What's a circuit breaker? A: A circuit breaker is a rule set by a stock market that causes trading to automatically stop - at least temporarily - based on a dramatic shift in the value of the market. Q: When were circuit breakers started, and why? A: The New York Stock Exchange established circuit breakers in 1988 after the big stock market plunge in October 1987, and amended them in 1998. Circuit breakers force traders to take a breather, stop selling and refocus on economic and corporate news instead of an alarming market nosedive. Q: The Dow Jones industrial average has shed about 40 percent of its value since its peak last October - why haven't circuit breakers kicked in? A: It's all about how much stocks fall in a single day. Circuit breakers aren't in place to prevent people from losing money; they're aimed at keeping the market from succumbing to huge, snowballing, panic-driven sell-offs. Q: How far do stocks have to drop in a day for trading to stop? A: If the Dow Jones industrial average falls 1,100 points - equivalent to about a 10 percent drop from the Dow's level at the beginning of the quarter - before 2 p.m., the market shuts down for an hour. If it falls by that amount between 2 p.m. and 2:30 p.m., the halt lasts 30 minutes. But if stocks drop 1,100 points after 2:30 p.m., trading continues. If the Dow falls 2,200 points - about 20 percent - before 1 p.m., the market closes for two hours. If such a decline occurs between 1 p.m. and 2 p.m., there is a one-hour pause. If stocks tumble 2,200 points after 2 p.m., the market closes for the day. If the Dow sinks by 3,350 points - or about 30 percent from its level at the start of the quarter - the market closes for the day, no matter what time it is. Q: What about in pre-market trading? A: In pre-market trading, also known as overnight trading, traders buy and sell contracts called stock futures - basically, they're placing bets on what stocks will be worth during the upcoming trading day. Futures are controlled by the circuit breakers, or "price limits," of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. This exchange instituted its price limits along with the NYSE in 1988, and amended them in 1998, too. If futures for the Dow, Nasdaq, or Standard & Poor's 500 index fall 5 percent in pre-market trading, the sale of those futures is paused unless a trader comes in and buys, lifting the futures back above the threshold. The last time this happened - before Friday - was May 2001. Back then, the maximum allowed limit for gains or losses in futures trading was 2.5 percent - but because traders kept hitting that limit, the Chicago Merc raised it to 5 percent. The newer limit was hit Friday. In pre-market trading, all three major futures indexes fell by the maximum allowable amount, automatically freezing selling. Trading was essentially halted until the market's open, because no one came in to buy. Q: When have circuit breakers been tripped during regular trading hours? A: The only time was in 1997. Circuit breakers shut down the market after an economic crisis in Asia set off a wave of heavy selling. Q: Are steep upward movements controlled? A: Only in overnight trading, when regular markets are closed and it's hard to get out of a short sale - a bet that a stock will fall. Recently, on Sept. 19, the S&P futures hit their limit up after rising 5 percent in pre-market trading. But once the market opens, there are no restrictions on upward movements. If investors want to send the Dow soaring 3,000 points in a single day, it would be just as welcome to the NYSE as it would be to the average American with a 401(k). • Email to a friend • Related • Hamas Demands Notorious Killers :: DocstalkRead this article on the community site
Fatkhi Abu-Sheikh sent a suicide bomber to the Park Hotel in Netanya, where he carried out the notorious "Passover massacre" in which 30 Jews were murdered and 140 wounded, 20 of them seriously. He was given 29 life sentences, of which he has served six and a half years. Abbas el-Said was the head of Hamas in Tulkarem. He initiated and planned the Park Hotel bombing and a bombing at the Sharon Mall in Netanya. He was sentenced to 35 lifetimes plus 50 years in prison, and has served six and a half years of his sentence. Mohammed Arman planned three fatal attacks. He planned the attack on the Moment Cafe in Jerusalem that killed 11 young Israelis and wounded 54 others, the attack on Hebrew University that killed four Israelis and five foreign nationals and wounded 85 and the attack on a Rishon LeTzion pool hall that murdered 15 and left more than 50 wounded. He was sentenced to 35 lifetimes in prison and has served six years of his sentence. Atiya Mohammed Warda sent three suicide bombers to attack Israelis. He sent two of the bombers to the Number 18 bus line in Jerusalem, one in February of 1996 and the other in March of the same year. The first attack killed 26 and wounded 48; the second attack killed 11 Israelis and eight foreign citizens, and wounded seven others. In addition, Warda sent a bomber to a hitchhiking post in Ashkelon, where he murdered one young woman and wounded dozens of others. Warda was given 48 life sentences and has been in prison for six years. Hamas has refused to reduce its demands during more than two years of negotiations for Shalit's freedom. Negotiations have stopped and started repeatedly. Israeli diplomats recently accused the Egyptian team mediating the negotiations of failing to pressure Hamas into reducing its demands. A ministerial committee suggested in 2007 that Israel change the definition of "blood on their hands" to include only those who personally murdered Israelis. The change would allow terrorists such as those above to be excluded from the category of "bloody-handed" terrorists and therefore to be released in prisoner exchanges. The change in definition faced opposition from several senior military and intelligence officials. Despite opposition, Israel's negotiating teams have agreed to release a number of terrorists who were directly involved in fatal attacks. The offer was not good enough for Hamas, which insists that over 1,000 prisoners be released. Professor Yisrael Aumann, a Nobel prize-winning expert in game theory, issued a highly emotional appeal last week calling on the government not to give in to Hamas' demands. Releasing more than 1,000 terrorists, including those responsible for dozens of murders, would be both immoral according to Jewish law and ineffective according to game theory, Aumann said. He criticized Defense Minister Ehud Barak and others for giving in to terrorists' demands in the past and thus making the negotiation for Shalit's release far more difficult. • Email to a friend • Related • Shocka: Most UN employees rooting for Obama :: Israel MatzavRead this article on the community site I'm sure you'll all be shocked - just shocked - to hear that most UN employees are rooting for Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Hussein Obama to become the next President of the United States (Hat Tip: Hot Air). Obama supporters hail from Russia, Canada, France, Britain, Germany, the Netherlands, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Indonesia and elsewhere. One American employee here seemed • Email to a friend • Related • Is America really going to do this? :: DocstalkRead this article on the community site Melanie Phillips The impact of the financial crisis on the American presidential election has somewhat obscured the most important reason why the prospect of an Obama presidency is giving so many people nightmares. This is the fear that, if he wins, US defences will be emasculated at a time of unprecedented international peril and the enemies of America and the free world will seize their opportunity to destroy the west. Personally, I don't give any credence to the 'support' for one candidate over the other that has been expressed by the enemies of civilisation (Iran and Hamas 'support' Obama, while an al Qaeda blogger 'supports' McCain). Their agenda is simply to sow confusion and promote American recriminations and disarray. Nor do I set much store by many of the remarks made by either candidate during the latter stages of this election campaign, since under this kind of pressure both will now say pretty much anything to win it. The New York Times has run a useful analysis of the candidates' foreign policy campaign statements which shows how Obama has carefully tacked to the 'hard power' agenda while McCain has in turn nodded towards 'soft power'. No, the only way to assess their position is to look at each man in the round, at what his general attitude is towards war and self-defence, aggression and appeasement, the values of the west and those of its enemies and – perhaps most crucially of all – the nature of the advisers and associates to whom he is listening. As I have said before, I do not trust McCain; I think his judgment is erratic and impetuous, and sometimes wrong. But on the big picture, he gets it. He will defend America and the free world whereas Obama will undermine them and aid their enemies. Here's why. McCain believes in protecting and defending America as it is. Obama tells the world he is ashamed of America and wants to change it into something else. McCain stands for American exceptionalism, the belief that American values are superior to tyrannies. Obama stands for the expiation of America's original sin in oppressing black people, the third world and the poor. Obama thinks world conflicts are basically the west's fault, and so it must right the injustices it has inflicted. That's why he believes in 'soft power' — diplomacy, aid, rectifying 'grievances' (thus legitimising them, encouraging terror and promoting injustice) and resolving conflict by talking. As a result, he will take an axe to America's defences at the very time when they need to be built up. He has said he will 'cut investments in unproven missile defense systems'; he will 'not weaponize space'; he will 'slow our development of future combat systems'; and he will also 'not develop nuclear weapons,' pledging to seek 'deep cuts' in America's arsenal, thus unilaterally disabling its nuclear deterrent as Russia and China engage in massive military buildups. McCain understands that an Islamic war of conquest is being waged on a number of diverse fronts which all have to be seen in relation to each other. For Obama, however, the real source of evil in the world is America. The evil represented by Iran and the Islamic jihadists is apparently all America's fault. 'A lot of evil's been perpetuated based on the claim that we were fighting evil,' he said. Last May, he dismissed Iran as a tiny place which posed no threat to the US -- before reversing himself the very next day when he said Iran was a great threat which had to be defeated. He has also said that Hezbollah and Hamas have 'legitimate grievances'. Really? And what might they be? Their grievances are a) the existence of Israel b) its support by America c) the absence of salafist Islam in the world. Does Obama think these 'grievances' are legitimate? To solve world conflict, Obama places his faith in the UN club of terror and tyranny, which is currently fuelling the murderous global demonisation of Israel for having the temerity to defend itself and is even now preparing for a rerun of its own anti-Jew hate-fest of Durban 2, which preceded 9/11 by a matter of days. McCain understands that Israel is the victim rather than the victimiser in the Middle East, that it is surrounded by genocidal enemies whose undiminished intention is to destroy it as a Jewish state, and that is both the first line of defence against the Islamist attack on the free world and its most immediate and important target. Obama dismisses the threat from Islamism, shows zero grasp of the strategic threat to the region and the world from the encirclement of Israel by Iran, displays a similar failure to grasp the strategic importance of Iraq, thinks Israel is instead the source of Arab and Muslim aggression against the west, believes that a Palestinian state would promote world peace and considers that Israel – particularly through the 'settlements' – is the principal obstacle to that happy outcome. Accordingly, Obama has said he wants Israel to return to its 1967 borders – actually the strategically indefensible 1948 cease-fire line, known accordingly as the 'Auschwitz borders'. Obama would thus speak to Iran's genocidal mullahs without preconditions on his side (the same mullahs have now laid down their own preconditions for America: pull all US troops out of the Middle East, and abandon support for 'Zionist' Israel) but has said he would have problems dealing with an Israeli government headed by a member of Israel's Likud Party. In similar vein, it is notable that Obama opposed the congressional resolution labelling the Iranian Revolutionary Guards a terrorist organization, which passed the Senate by a wide margin with support from both parties. And had he had his way, there would have been no 'surge' in Iraq and America would instead have run up the white flag, with the incalculable bloodbath and strengthening of the jihad that would have followed. Obama assumes that Islamic terrorism is driven by despair, poverty, inflammatory US policy and the American presence on Muslim soil in the Persian Gulf. Thus he adopts the agenda of the Islamists themselves. This is not surprising since many of his connections suggest that that the man who may be elected President of a country upon which the Islamists have declared war is himself firmly in the Islamists' camp. Daniel Pipes lists Obama's extensive connections to Islamists in general and the Nation of Islam in particular, and concludes with this astounding observation: Obama's multiple links to anti-Americans and subversives mean he would fail the standard security clearance process for Federal employees. Islamic aggression represents America's strategic enemy; Obama's many insalubrious connections raise grave doubts about his fitness to serve as America's commander-in-chief. The hatred that these Islamist connections entertain towards Israel is reflected amongst Obama's own advisers. With one notable exception in Dennis Ross, whose late arrival in Camp Obama suggests a cosmetic exercise designed to allay alarm among Israel supporters, his advisers are overwhelmingly not only hostile to Israel but perpetrate the loathesome canard that Jews have too much power over American policy. The former Carter adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, for example, not only denounced Israel's war against Hezbollah thus: I think what the Israelis are doing today [2006] for example in Lebanon is in effect– maybe not in intent – the killing of hostages but also supports Mearsheimer and Walt's notorious smear that the Jews have subverted America's foreign policy in the interests of Israel. Merrill McPeak, vice chairman of Obama's campaign and his chief military adviser, has similarly blamed problems in the Middle East on the influence of people who live in New York City and Miami (guess who) whom no 'politician wants to run against' and who he says exercise undue influence on America's foreign affairs. Most revolting of all is Samantha Power, a very close adviser whom Obama fired for calling Hillary a 'monster' but who says she still expects to be in Obama's administration. Not only has Power has advocated the ending of all aid to Israel and redirecting it to the Palestinians, but she has spoken about the need to land a 'mammoth force' of US troops in Israel to protect the Palestinians from Israeli attempts at genocide (sic) -- and has complained that criticism of Barack Obama all too often came down to what was 'good for the Jews'. There are, alas, many in the west for whom all this is music to their ears. Whether through wickedness, ideology, stupidity or derangement, they firmly believe that the ultimate source of conflict in the world derives at root from America and Israel, whose societies, culture and values they want to see emasculated or destroyed altogether. They are drooling at the prospect that an Obama presidency will bring that about. The rest of us can't sleep at night. • Email to a friend • Related • LA Times has video of Obama attending Jew-bashing event :: Israel MatzavRead this article on the community site The Los Angeles Times has video of Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Hussein Obama attending a farewell party for PLO terrorist Rashid Khalidi, which can best be described as a Jew-bashing event. It's an event I've written about before. (The picture at top left is of Obama sitting next to PLO Council member Edward Said. Khalidi now holds the Edward Said chair at Columbia). But the • Email to a friend • Related • It's Not the Occupation, Stupid! :: IsraellycoolRead this article on the community site  At Islam Online, Hisham Al-Masry (not his real name) speaks of his encounter with an Israeli girl in Denmark.
Sounds promising. That is until the Egyptian man drops the pretense of the conflict being about the so-called occupation and lets the Israeli woman know how he really feels.
Now that's a conversation killer. It's also further proof that the so-called "occupation" is not the root cause of this conflict. The Muslims see themselves as obliged to fight the Jews, wherever we are. Spread the Word: Pravda: "Displacement of Earth's magnetic poles may turn planet into giant Hiroshima" :: JudeopunditRead this article on the community site I thought you might want to be the first to know: The planet's magnetic poles are being displaced. Scientists say that mankind may eventually find itself defenseless against the cosmic radiation, and the Earth will turn into the giant Hiroshima. The chief scientist of the Central Military Institute for Ground Troops, Candidate of Technical Sciences, Yevgeni Shalamberidze, that that the geographic poles of the planet remain on their previous positions, whereas the magnetic poles have already drifted away 200 kilometers each. This phenomenon affects the processes of global scale. "The planet relieves its excessive energy into space through crust fractures. When those breakouts close, the negative energy is left on the planet. It is not ruled out that the growing number of catastrophes that rocked the world during the recent years is based on the displacement of the magnetic poles," the scientist said. [...] The displacement of poles can result in the disappearance of the atmosphere, which in its turn will cool the planet to 273 degrees below zero Centigrade. The biosphere of the planet will virtually be killed in this case; only those located close to the Earth's axis will survive the disaster.[...] While there's still time, check out the latest Haveil Havalim and Carnival of the Insanities. • Email to a friend • Related • Rain in Zfat :: Lilo's SWI BlogsRead this article on the community site
Today we were in Zfat. It is the highest city in Israel (2608 feet above sea level), nestled in the Upper Galilee mountains, peering down on the Sea of Galilee, and lying about 15 km south of the Lebanese border. Almost all of Tzfat is built in a circular fashion on a hilltop. The old part of town consists of narrow twisted streets revealing artists' galleries, medieval synagogues, private homes and small guest houses. I saw an Artists Colony, where a lot of painters, sculptors, pencil artists live and work. There were a lot of architectural monuments, picture galleries and the Printing Press Museum. But wherever we went, it was either uphill or downhill.On the end of the festival of Sukkot, Israelis begin mentioning in their daily prayers that G-d is the One who "makes the wind blow and the rain descend." - These prayers must have been heard, because today it was even thundering and rain fell. We got wet sitting on a covered bench, waiting for the bus. Israel relies very much upon winter rain in the mountains in the north, as there is little rain elsewhere in the country. The scattered thunderstorms in the north are the first heavy rains of the season and have not come too soon for the dry country, which has suffered four straight years of below-average precipitation. The extended drought has left the country's water resources seriously depleted. Most of the Galilee consists of rocky terrain, at heights of between 500 and 700 meters. The rain that falls in the mountains by Zfat, runs downhill toward Lake Kinneret (Sea of Galilee.) The Kinneret has dropped a whopping 5.41 meters (18 feet) and is 1.24 meters under the "red line," which serves as warning that lower levels will endanger the quality of water and the ability to continue pumping. Because of this the underground aquifer system is in danger of salinization. Long-term forecasts for the winter are mixed. European models indicate that Israel will suffer a lack of rain for a fifth year, but American weather models suggest a wetter-than-usual winter. - That tells me that scientists today have no clue what the weather is going to do.We live in interesting times. Soon we have an American election, and now we will also have an election in Israel. From Israel with love - LiloFederman Family Home Destroyed By The IDF |
[Message clipped]
