Small world, or at least city

On Friday we went to have brunch with a friend of my wife's from "the old country" who's visiting. Said friend was a classmate of mine in law school, but I don't think had any idea I had made aliyah, married her friend, or would be at the brunch.

There were about six or seven other friends of hers there as well. As the meal progressed, we realized we knew all of them- separately. Because ten people live in this whole country. (And we know six of them.)

As we often must, to get there, we had to stroll through the "closed zone" around the Prime Minister's residence, next door to us.

The small blonde border policewoman standing guard at one of the entrances caught our eye. She went to her chair, drank some water, and then picked up a small book, sat down and started reading. "She's *davening*," I observed to Efrat. "I love this country."

The Beginning of the End, 2600 Years Ago

A year and a half before the summer of 586 BCE was the winter of 588/587 BCE. Precisely 2600 years later, taking into account that there was no year zero, is the winter of 2013/2014. In other words, it's a century marker for Asarah b'Tevet.

I wonder if it was as snowy back then. The snow, of course, being one reason I didn't post this on time. :-)

It's kind of weird: In the run-up to the release of the latest jobs report, there were articles saying things like, "Waiting to see how much the shutdown affected the job market." Now, we all know that the effect should be diddly-squat. But clearly, the apologists were laying the groundwork for excusing yet another bad report.

And the report was released, and lo and behold, it wasn't so bad. (This is the new normal. We expect bad and are delighted at less-than-bad.) Admission of guilt from the MSM? Of course not! "Economy dodged bullet" or some such nonsense became the theme instead.

Touching History

I've written about this before, but more happened this year, or at least I learned more, so here is the story I posted to Facebook. A bit of credit due to the "anonymous" commenter on the original post, as will be seen:

In 1898, Mrs. Imam Sassoon of Bombay commissioned a Sefer Torah, to be written in Baghdad on deerskin and enclosed in an ornate silver case. It eventually made its way to the Old City of Jerusalem and Yeshivat Porat Yosef.

In 1948, the Old City was taken by the Jordanians and the yeshiva was destroyed. This Sefer Torah caught the eye of a soldier, however, and it was spared, winding up in the palace of King Abdullah (great-grandfather of the current king of the same name).

The next year, Golda Meir was in the palace for secret talks along with another Foreign Ministry representative, Eliyahu Sassoon, and they were shown the Torah by the king. They convinced the king that it wasn't right to hold a Sefer Torah hostage (see Shmuel Aleph, Chapter Five  ) and he let them take it back with them. (Only then did Sassoon realize that it had been commissioned by his own great-grandmother.) It was donated to the Beit Knesset of then-Chief Rabbi Herzog, and ended up in the Judaica museum of Heichal Shlomo, then the seat of the Chief Rabbinate, where it remains until today.

The Beit Knesset in which I daven every morning (and layn) is in Heichal Shlomo, and once a year that Sefer Torah is taken downstairs and read from our Bimah. I've been waiting for the day since I first saw it happen over a year ago, and sure enough, they brought it down today. Some people from the museum brought in the Torah and joined us for tefilla, the security guard (who I knew was a real shutterbug) took pictures, and a curator gave a short talk before I read from the Torah.

It's funny: You approach something with that sort of history, at first, with a sense of awe, not even wanting to get too close. By the time you've spent five minutes with it, it's like an old friend, and you're handling it (always respectfully, of course) like the Sifrei Torah with which you're much more familiar. But the awe remains as you look at it, read the pesukim ("Hashem Yilachem Lachem" is one on the case itself, for some reason, prophetically enough) and dedications engraved on it, and think of its story.

I said I waited for the Torah's re-appearance this year. Forgive me for anthropomorphizing, but I get the feeling the Sefer Torah itself waits for this day all year as well. I'm honored we shared in the simcha.

שלשלת הדורות

The aron hakodesh (and matching bimah) in my beit knesset are originally from Padua; they were built for the Sephardi Beit Knesset there in the early 1700's and brought to Israel along with many other Italian aronot (and, sometimes, complete batei knesset) in the 1950's. (The Padua community wrote a beautiful letter to accompany it; scroll down to see it and click to enlarge.)

It's an extremely impressive work of art in and of itself- the Ramchal, who was rav in Padua when it went up, was inspired to write a whole book and poem on it when he saw it. (That first painting is by Yitzhak Holtz, an artist and one of our mitpallelim, a Levi who regularly washes my hands.) It's held up very well over the years and remains magnificient; the whole shul, in fact, including its more modern elements- not to mention its wonderful members- is very nice indeed, and regularly awes visitors who've just stopped in for Mincha.

In any event, the aron has an elaborate fence, wrought iron with gold leaf, around the duchan. And every now and then, as I turn around to begin my bracha, my tallit catches on that fence. (Mostly Shabbat, for some reason- maybe because my Shabbat tallit is newer and has more puffy fringes, or maybe because the tekhelet strings on that one are quite long. Or maybe because I'm the Shaliach Tzibur almost every weekday. :-) Or, most likely, because there are many more kohanim on Shabbat, so I'm closer to the railing.)

It can be a bit annoying, especially when I'm trying to raise my hands to deliver the bracha and physically can't because my tallit is literally holding me down. And annoyed I was for the first few times, until a nice thought came to me: I bet the kohanim back in the mid-1700's had the same problem. I like connecting to previous generations that way.

By the way, check out that tekhelet link. I'm supposed to be the YU liason, whatever that means, but I'll enjoy it whatever my role.

Yamim Noraim, in more ways than one

I love reading between the lines of articles, I said to the spouse this morning as we strolled down the street together:

Anita Bürgler, a 43-year-old Swiss kite-surfing fanatic, chose this resort town on the Strait of Gibraltar to spend her first-ever Spanish holiday. She heard it has some of the strongest winds in Europe.

In Tarifa, she found the wind-swept coastline that she expected. It might have been just a bit crowded for her taste. The shore is, she said last week, "just very busy, with too many other surfers to really enjoy myself."

So she and her 45-year-old partner, Urs Baur, who also had never vacationed in Spain, spent much of their two-week holiday enjoying other activities that included whale watching, hiking and a day trip to the picturesque town of Ronda.

And so Europe dies. (I won't spell it out.) There are some who say God is taking revenge. For now, I just find it interesting and a bit scary.

Some observations from Rosh Hashana:

-The beit knesset put up their white parochet for the season. After birkat kohanim, I noticed it was dedicated in honor of a bar mitzvah boy...in 1972. Wow- he's 54 years old now.

-Putting two "missable" lines (Zachrenu and Mi Kamocha) before the required one (HaMelekh) may not have been deliberate, but it's a stroke of genius nonetheless- it helps you remember the last. Of course, I know that I'll mess up continually for a week, only to start doing it automatically next Sunday. Thirty days? Ha!

(I must add that putting HaMelech HaMishpat halfway through is also smart- that way you might realize you missed the previous change before you finish the whole thing.)

Elul

Interesting calculation I made: The general custom is to sound the shofar one hundred times on each day of Rosh Hashana, except for Shabbat. (OK, our shul blows it a few more times, but let's talk generally.) In addition, we blow it on two other occasions, in both cases four times: Every weekday morning of Elul, starting yesterday, and at the end of Yom Kippur.

Now, Elul has 29 days. We don't blow the shofar on the last day, leaving 28. In any 28-day period, there will be four Shabbatot, so we blow it on 24 days in Elul. (The last day of Elul can never be Shabbat, so all four Shabbatot will be in the 28-day blowing period.) Add Yom Kippur for the 25th day, multiply by four, and you get...another hundred, exactly. Interesting.

Stay tuned for...oh, I don't know: My calculation of how many times, exactly, we hit our chests on Yom Kippur. :-)

July 31!

Wow! Less than ten minutes left in the month and I haven't posted! Well, it's been a busy time. The big birthday was today- multiple of 19, Hebrew/English nearly aligned- and my parents reminded me it's been 25 years since my bar mitzvah. (I actually was having fond thoughts of my bar mitzvah rebbe this week. Hopefully I can post more about him soon.) It's been a great week- layning on Shabbat, a karaoke party Sunday, a wedding Monday, a show Tuesday, and finally, today, after many great Facebook wishes and phone calls, a birthday buddy's party. (I discovered yet another one today- I have at least three, not counting Harry Potter and his creator.) All shared with my most excellent spouse, which only makes it all the better.

That's all for now, and let's all have a great year!

"since he was Scottish (and at least slightly crazy)"

A day late, I'm watching Reagan's famous D-Day speech. That reminds me that I've been long delinquent in posting these two obituaries for the late Bill Millin. I especially recommend the very end of the first link.

Here are two clips portraying him in The Longest Day. (Yes, that's Sean Connery.) The title of this post is from the article on Cracked.

One thing I'll say about the Jerusalem light rail- it's keeping fresh my old skill, gained in the NYC subway, of being able to stand on a moving train without holding on.

A few nights back I was on a bus instead, coming back from a fascinating trip to Tel Aviv. (See Facebook for details.) A lanky American-accented soldier was showing his papers to the driver to get his free (really paid for by the IDF) ride- maybe he was too fresh a recruit to have the ID- and the driver was a bit skeptical. Finally, the soldier say down behind him. The charedi-ish man next to him- also American- began offering to pay. "I don't want you to get in trouble." "I won't, really. I can pay if I have to, trust me." They went back and forth a bit, the soldier thanking the other man before he got off. Nice.

The Sky Is Falling!

You have to love the second item here. (Item number 4 as listed.) Science is beginning to catch up to how, whoa, the planet has not warmed in twenty years. But not to worry! Not only do they have a handy-dandy explanation for it that still manages to blame us poor humans (never mind that print has been going out for only five or ten years or so), they're able to spin it into yet another pending disaster! I guess just as everything was due to "global warming" (and, of course, our fault), so too global cooling is our fault (actually, I see it's already on that list), and it's going to be a doozy.

Don't these people ever get tired? No, I guess not.

HaMakom

We live across the street from Restobar, formerly Cafe Moment, which eleven years ago today was the site of a suicide bombing which killed eleven and injured 54. Walking past it tonight, we saw a memorial underway: The parents of the victims made a special frame for eleven candles bearing their childrens' pictures. The waiters were all standing alongside; being bareheaded, some were covering their heads with their hands, others with improvised "kippot" made out of napkins.

Hanoch Teller once wrote a story in which a character explains that the phrase "HaMakom Yinachem Etchem" can be read as follows: In the midst of tragedy, sometimes, it's "HaMakom"- this place, the Land of Israel, with all its special qualities- that comforts you.

How'm I doin'?

I remember seeing Ed Koch in person only once. (I imagine I saw him a bunch more times than that, especially in the Israel Parade, but I don't recall them.) I was walking down Fifth Avenue- this was years after he left office- and he was coming out of one the high-end men's shops. A couple of construction worker types were standing on sidewalk and saw him. "Ayyyyy! Ed Koch!" one yelled in thick New Yawkese. He smiled and waved at them. No, he didn't ask them how he was doing, as far as I know, because that would have been too perfect.

"Ehhh...The Vatican think's he's cuckoo. I think he's cuckoo."

"I have the body of a Greek god."

James and Joel, who had a show on the same radio station as him, used to play the above quotes of his, among others, as bumpers. No, they don't have to make sense to be funny.

Gonzo: "Mr. Mayor! Mr. Mayor, I'm looking for a frog who can sing and dance!"

"If he can balance the budget, I'll hire him!"

And a worthy sentiment: "The people have rejected me and they must be punished." And punished we were.

I can't say he was that great a mayor- certainly not as good as Rudy, of course- but he had personality. And that, as we know, goes a long way. My father remembers him as the East Side's congressman. (My father taught at Ramaz.) And his military record should be pointed out. The rest...well, on balance, pretty good, for a Democrat. I shall refrain from quoting R' Kahane.

Oh, and the bridge naming? A lot more deserved than RFK, I'll tell you that.

Two Funny Points

Two funny points, just like the title tells us:

A famous painting is up for sale. The webpage describing it ends with this tantalizing note:

"The past few years it has resided in a religious museum [The Living Torah Museum in Brooklyn- NL, via the first link above], but doctrinal differences have insisted that the painting be deaccessioned."

That last word must be a specialized auction house word meaning "sell," but I'd love to know what "doctrinal differences" even means.

Machsom Watch is a typical leftist agitator group who tries to act against the "occupation." Every now and then there's an ad in the paper advertising one of their tours, which I guess are designed to turn their participants against the "occupation" as well. You can see an internet version here.

The kicker line for me always comes toward the end:

"All zones and roads are under the control of the IDF."

Well, yeah, the Palestinians are a bunch of murderous thugs who you wouldn't trust with anything, much less your life, and we need the IDF to defend us. But let's protest the IDF and try to hand more land over to the Arabs, eh?

CMOH

My great-aunt Edith, of blessed memory, was quite the woman. Among many other accomplishments, not the least of which was being the powerful matriarch of an incredible family, she was one of the "Rosie the Riveters" during World War II, working in a bullet factory. Decades later, into her eighties, she would still roll up her sleeves and show the forearm muscles she'd developed back then. (I remember my mother arranging to have her recognized as "citizen of the year" or something similar by her home community in Cleveland, hearth of the clan.)

Tante Itka, as we called her, was Russian-born, salty as any Yiddish grandmother. She once boasted to us- without exaggerating a bit- that "The Malach HaMoves was my shadchan," that is, the Angel of Death was her matchmaker. (She was introduced to her first husband at a cemetery- I think they were attending separate funerals, she of a Christian Science cousin who'd died young. You can't make these things up.) We were eating when she told us this, and she began to laugh so hard that some food went down the wrong tube. Nothing serious; she coughed and cleared it up, and immediately began laughing again. "See?" she said, "I mention the Malach HaMoves and here he comes to get me!"

OK, one more story (of many I can tell) before I get to my point: She visited Russia for the first time since she'd left in the early 1920's when one of my cousins (her granddaughter) was volunteering for Jews there with YUSSR. She got off the plane, opened her mouth, and Russian, a language she hadn't spoken a word of for about seventy years, began rolling fluently off her tongue. A YU publication quoted my cousin describing how they still had outhouses where she was. It then went on to quote Itka: "Well, at least you had a seat on the toilet."

Why this flood of memories? Well, today brings news that Daniel Inouye has passed away. As is known, he lost an arm fighting in World War II. Once, my mother accompanied my great-aunt to the airport; they were in the lounge waiting for her flight and Senator Inouye was seated nearby. Itka leaned over to my mother and in a stage whisper asked, "How does he make his tie?" Ah, bless her memory.

As to Senator Inouye himself, only three words need be said- three words, or a symbol thereof, which will almost certainly appear on his tombstone: "Medal of Honor."

My old friend Sussman once told me a story of a man who interviewed for a job and didn't get it. (This may have been in the 1950's.) After he left, the man who conducted the interview was asked why he didn't give him the job. "I can't take seriously any man who would wear a lapel pin," he answered. The other man looked at him as if he was nuts. "That was a Medal of Honor pin!" he exclaimed. The interviewer bolted out of his chair, ran out of the office, caught up to the interviewee, apologized profusely, and offered him the job.

That's the proper reaction to any Medal of Honor winner, and to Senator Inouye's death. R.I.P.

On a completely different point, is it too much to ask that anyone who pontificates on the question of gun rights at least learn the correct meaning (or lack thereof) of words like "automatic," "semiautomatic," and "assault weapon?" Please?

Inherit the Earth

I spent yesterday afternoon and evening, and the wee hours of this morning (I got home after 1:00 AM), driving around the Judean Hills, delivering and monitoring polls for a primary election. Exhausting but interesting and instructional, not to mention that I wasn't doing it for Olam HaBa. At least one freaky and slightly disturbing fact was learned: Arabs and Jews can argue over the (vast, I've come to learn) West Bank all they want, but at the end of the day, when the silly humans are asleep, the real masters of the land come out: Felis Catus, in some feral version, I suppose. I mean, you're driving down a pitch-black, deserted road somewhere outside Hebron when suddenly a small furry thing that in a very different context would look cute on your sofa dashes across the road. Where do they come from? How do they survive? How do I resist the temptation to feed the cute kitten mewling in our garden?

So they won't feel left out, let me point out that wild dogs, donkeys (both pulling carts and carrying old Arabs), sheep, and camels were all spotted. The ones you really have to watch out for are the wild boar, but I didn't see any.

This morning I spotted a cool sign outside a branch of Steimatsky's, the book chain. (The original store, in fact, on Jaffa Road.) Translated, it read "There are people who simply feel compelled to read every sentence they see." I didn't get it at first (my psychologist better half informs me that this true from a psychological point of view, which is logical), until I realized that I was, indeed, reading it, despite the fact that it made no sense. Ha!

As to the other election, well, I see that I said this four years ago. Not sure I'd be as optimistic anymore, not that I was much back then. Instead, it's time to quote Herman Wouk again, once again on his grandfather:

What my grandfather would think if he knew that the awesome Guide for the Perplexed was available in a paper-bound English translation for less than two dollars, and that American college boys skimmed it in a weekend and wrote confident twenty-paged theses on it, I cannot imagine. My grandfather always retained the impression that America, at least the Jewish part he knew, was more or less mad.

Make that more. Much more. And especially Jews, but everyone else too.

I am left with Ben Hecht, writing of Malchiel Greenwald, probably standing just around that same Steimatsky's, just under fifty-nine years ago:

As is his daily habit, Malchiel has had a satisfactory conference with God in his synagogue. Whatever else you can say about Israel, it is a satisfactory thing to be able to stand in practically the same place in which your forefathers stood twenty-five hundred years ago and offer God unchanged hallelujahs.

Amen, Ben. That was me, this morning. (And, of course, you can say plenty of other good things about Israel as well.) I will admit that the One and teh gays [tm, sic, sick, whatever] were among the things that got me out of the US, but Israel pulled for much better reasons.

Herman Wouk on Simchat Torah

"...A powerful jubilation irradiates the synagogue. The time comes when the rabbi is himself drawn into the rejoicing and solemnly dances with a Holy Scroll in his arms. My grandfather, patriarchal and reserved all year long, was still performing this dance in his nineties, a few shuffling, tottering steps, his face alight with pleasure as he clasped the Torah in his old arms."

No Violin This Time

A few (apparently, a very few) secular types protested yesterday against Israel's moving the clock back last night. Of course, the US and other countries have being steadily extending Summer Time, so that Israel has now done so about a month and a half before then.

Being in sync with other Western nations (kind of an odd thing to assert, considering that Israel is in the same time zone as none of them) seems to be a major point for the protestors, to which I respond, so what? If the rest of the world is going to be ridiculous, must Israel follow along? Mostly unmentioned, of course, is how inconvenient the late change is to those who daven every morning. Call me parochial, but yes, I think Israel should care about such things.

Of course, that's another sore point for the protestors: The fact that Yom Kippur figures into these calculations. Well, again, tough. Israel is a Jewish state. There are lots of compromises on all sides; this (and even allowing for Pesach, as is currently not the case) seems like a trifle compared to others. (And yes, I know it's still 25 hours. But the early end has at least a psychological effect.)

But really, I have one irony to comment on: If I had to bet, I'd say that most if not all of these protestors are the usual suspect leftist "Occupy Rothschild" types, the types that are just fine with government intervention. Well, they've got their government intervention, in the form of regulating time itself. Now they can have it, as the man (Kingsley Amis?) said to the woman on the bus. (Of course, being good leftists, they think that government is the one perfect thing and are thus quite frustrated without really knowing why. You put your very time in the hands of an imperfect institution, you see what happens.)

I, as a mostly-good libertarian, think the whole thing is nonsense and should be abolished. So I can complain as much as I want, except I don't have cause to here specifically. Smiles for me, no violins at all for them. (Little-known fact: Timezones, as opposed to daylight time, were a private initiative. They weren't needed before the telegraph and railroad were invented; the train companies needed them and instituted them.)

One more thing: When the Pope removed ten days from the calendar in 1582, lots of ignorant peasants were upset, as they actually believed he'd taken ten days off their lives. (The accountants were upset for more rational reasons.) Newsflash: He didn't, and he government isn't taking an hour of your sunlight- especially when, as here, they are restoring "normal" time.

Marc Shapiro, mentioned in the early days of this blog, just sent me a book. He's the best!

Well, the conference of the Non-Aligned Movement is coming up. It's being held in Iran, and it's going to be a hoot. First, the whole idea of the NAM is a Cold War relic, a pro-Soviet farce, if I may be so bold. Naturally, the UN Secretary General will be attending, a happy guest of the mullahs and Ol' Squinty. Finally, Doctor-of-Holocaust-Denial Abbas is all upset, as the Hamas Prime Minister has been invited to attend on behalf of the fictional state of "Palestine," which, natch, is a long-standing member of the NAM. Abbas would like you to know, echoing the hackneyed official UN phrase from many decades back, that "the PLO [remember them?] is the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people." (Oh, we rightists used to hate that line. Now that the alternative is Hamas...)

Well, technically, he's correct, as I assume that in usual international bureaucratic fashion, the UN has never actually repealed or amended that resolution. But Abbas seems to have forgotten that he's not only the head of Fatah and the PLO, but of the Palestinian Authority and the aforementioned "state." (This is forgivable, as the actual differences between any of these, at least on the West Bank, are minimal to nonexistent.) I imagine they thought they were being clever (or at least doing what was required) when they had themselves admitted to all these international organizations as a state and not an organization. Now that he has no real legitimate authority, Abbas has decided to time travel back to 1964. That sound? The world's smallest violin.

My cousin Zev Eleff has a very good piece up at Jewish Action. One line, though, struck my eye: After describing Abraham Karp's research for his famous article about New York's attempt to have a chief rabbi, Zev writes that the papers Karp used subsequently disappeared.

This fed into a silly idea I once had: It seemed to me that every single mention of the chief rabbi debacle in any scholarly article referenced Karp's piece, and only Karp's piece. It led to my wondering whether it was possible that Karp made the whole thing up. Impossible, I know: There has to be other evidence out there. I know, on a logical basis, that I have to be wrong and, as I said, the idea is silly. But that almost throwaway comment in the Eleff article doesn't make it any easier to concede to the logic. :-)