Yom Yerushalayim

Many years ago, I saw a book called "So Sorry We Won!", סליחה שניצחנו in the original Hebrew. It was published right after the Six-Day War and contained columns by Ephraim Kishon and cartoons by Dosh from that period. I remember one of the latter in particular, probably done right after the war: A very old man, with a long white beard, is sitting with a little boy on his knee. Spread out on his lap, the floor, the walls, are books and maps depicting the war, arrows showing how the Israeli forces swept here and there. And the little boy is saying, "Oh, come on, Grandpa! It couldn't have happened that way!" The grandfather, probably a veteran of the war, has a small smile on his face.

And here we are, the veterans of that war grandfathers or greater. I thought of that cartoon at the small "kibbud" we had after the shacharit chagigit this morning. One elderly mitpallel started talking about the miracles we experienced, leading our gabbai to reminisce about what it was like as a soldier in the weeks leading up to the war. Wow. It did happen that way, didn't it?

Et, tu, Abigail?

Abigail Thernstrom writes, regarding the Constitution:

Might the Three-Fifths Clause have been a wee bit of a defect?

This is a common meme among the race-hustlers. And, of course, it is quite simply wrong. The Three-Fifths Clause was meant to increase the rights of slaves and perhaps even help bring about the end of slavery (something that the document hints at elsewhere as well), not decrease them or declare them less than human, as is claimed. Not perfect, of course, but hardly what Thernstrom should be pointing to in order to make her point. (Come to think, I can't really think of something she can point to.) That a scholar of race relations can so glibly state this is troubling.

Remember the Commerce Clause?

Article I, Section 8, Clause 3 of the United States Constitution reads: [The Congress shall have power] "To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian tribes". The original intent was clear, even if it isn't to the Left portion of the political spectrum, which neither knows what the Constitution is nor cares much about what it was intended to accomplish: The Constitution was written so as to create a stronger Union between the States; one fear was that states would set up trade barriers, tariffs, and so on at the borders to protect their own industry. Thus, Congress was given the exclusive power to do so, so that there would be complete free trade between the states. (I suppose the power was reserved to Congress for the rare instances in which regulations would have to be made, e.g. the blockade of the South during the Civil War, although I imagine most examples aren't all that drastic.)

The problem is, that clause has been much abused in pursuit of the increase in Federal power in the last hundred years or so, to the point that it has been completely removed from its original context. Namely, it has been read to give a positive power to Congress, such that Congress is said to have the power to regulate anything relating (however marginally) to commerce between states, a definition that, it has been seen, takes in pretty much all activity by anyone anywhere.

Well, this morning, thinking of how various cities have been talking of boycotting Arizona due to that state's eminently reasonable new immigration law, I got to wondering: Isn't this exactly what the Commerce Clause was designed to outlaw? Don't states have no power in this matter, and aren't they forbidden from discriminating against trade with other areas? I doubt Congress will rise to the occasion, but it seems to me like it would make a beaut of a Constitutional lawsuit. Just my two cents, from thousands of miles away.

"NY car bomb suspect cooperates, but motive mystery"

That's the AP headline. Lord save us all. (And from the likes of "Probably someone angry at the health care bill" Mike Bloomberg.)

"In sooth, then, faithful friend, this was a rug of value..."

Magnificent.

Kind of ironic that a Bill Ayers speech is monitored for bombs, eh?

Last night I visited Mosad Harav Kook, the famed research institution and publishing house, for their annual sale. It runs until next week, and I highly recommend it. A huge selection of great books, almost all from them, of course, at huge discounts. I managed to restrain myself and limited myself to what I came for. (OK, maybe just a bit more. But that was it.) There was a big and very diverse crowd browsing and buying.

In the lobby was someone selling the Bar Ilan Responsa Project, now on "disk on key." I think if you bought enough at the sale you got a discount. He had some monitors set up to demonstrate and greeted everyone coming in with an "Erev Tov" ("Good evening"), a flyer, and, presumably, a sales pitch if you stuck around. On my way out, he was still at it. A man in a black hat and suit came in:

Salesman: "Erev to..."

Customer, cutting him off and hurrying on: "Ain li mechashev." ("I don't own a computer.")

He was so abrupt I just had to laugh out loud, although a few seconds later I realized that, the Haredi world being what it is, he might well have been telling the truth. Still, it made me smile. And I got a few good books out of it too, which is never a bad thing.

Just like UN vehicles in these parts have "UN" written on them in large letters, so too reporters (no matter what their actual medium) have "TV" written on their cars in big letters. I was always a little offended by that- the obvious implication is "We're on your side, don't throw stones at us!"- and also a bit amused- Arabs don't use the Latin alphabet, but the whole world knows from the letters "TV." But today I saw something really funny- a couple of media SUVs with the letters "HD" added before "TV." Ha!

So, heading home down a semi-alley tonight, I see a few kids arguing/discussing something. As I approach, one goes "Ah!" and turns to me. I was a bit wary, but no need. Translating from the Hebrew:

He: "What blessing do we make on bananas?"

Me: "The fruit of the earth." (The usual blessing for vegetables, not fruit, which gets the "fruit of the tree" blessing.)

He, turning to the girl as if I've just settled it: "Aha!"

She: "But...it grows on a tree!"

I tried explaining that strictly speaking a banana doesn't grow on a tree (look it up), and walked on. And promptly cracked up. What a country.

Shloshim Yom...

What an enjoyable Purim that was! On to the next chag, Nefesh b'Nefesh asked for reflections on the Chagim to be published in the Young Israel's Magazine. Here's my contribution:

I have a short anecdote from Erev Pesach of last year. I hadn't yet made Aliyah but was well along in the preparations, and was in Israel for the Chag.

Erev Pesach last year was extra special, as it happened to fall, of course, on the same day as the once-in-every-twenty-eight-years Birkat HaChamah. After Shacharit at a Beit Knesset in Katamon, where I was staying, we went outside and actually had to walk a couple of blocks to see the sun rising. Then I walked to the Old City and went up to the Har HaBayit (having properly prepared early that morning) along with thousands of other people. The leader of our group said Birkat HaChamah and explained why the Har HaBayit is a particularly significant place to do so, as the Mishna in Sukkah describes how they used to stand there and recite the formula "Our fathers stood in this place and worshiped the sun, but we turn with our eyes to God."

I then walked back to Katamon. In one of the parks I passed on the way, there were perhaps a dozen small fires going (in the barbecue pits) with people standing around them burning their chametz. As I walked by, a car pulled up and a young family got out- father holding the hand of a boy of about three or four, mother holding a baby girl. They were clearly not religious (in the sense we usually think of the term)- no kippot, etc.- but the little boy had a small bag in his hand with the chametz they'd collected the night before. As they crossed the street to the park to join in one of the fires, the father began asking the boy, in Hebrew, what they were doing; the boy answered about the requirement to eliminate chametz for Pesach as the father explained further.

After seeing a scene like that, it would have been hard for Pesach itself to have lived up to the day before. But, of course, it did. Chagim in Israel can be like that. I'm very much looking forward to my first Pesach as an Oleh.

The things you learn...

I've been reading the Megillah for who knows how long, including three times this Purim alone. And only on the third time, today, did I notice something interesting: Shushan Purim is treated as the norm, and "regular" Purim is something "all those other people do." Maybe it's because the book was written in Shushan, and I'm probably noticing it because this is the first time I'm celebrating Shushan Purim, but there you are.

A Megillah Comes Home

I've previously written about the Megillah I read from- see the end of the post here. It wasn't until yesterday, though, and an email from my mother, that I got the full story. My parents sent it over to Israel so I could read for a few people this Purim, and after I sent them a note telling them that I'd gotten it, here's the message I got back:

Happy to hear that the megillah arrived safely. Dad and I figured out that it may be close to 100 years old. Don't ask me how my cousin Henoch Lieder, of Kiryat Hashmal outside of Haifa, got his hands on it. He made aliyah to Israel, I believe after the war, but was caught and imprisoned in Cyprus for a while. He was married to Yachne Bashe who was my mother's first cousin. He's the one in the Betar picture, if you remember. Maybe as a young man he studied in Yeshivat Mir but when the family arrived in Israel they were not religious and if I'm not mistaken, when my Tante Eshke visited Israel, he gave her the megillah. She gave it to Dad when we were in Cleveland in 1973. Hopefully this will be the megillah's final home. I think I wrote a whole megillah...

Isn't that nice? Happy Purim, one and all!

Leeks

Caught a bit of a cooking (cookery, for the Brits) show. Set in what seems to be a kitchen on an organic farm someplace out in the hills, raining. The host has a serious thing for leeks, at least in this episode. Makes leek chicken soup, then announces that he's going to do challot with leeks. He and the guy who runs the farm start kneading the dough.

Again, translating from the Hebrew:

Farmer: "Ah, challot. My mother is a da'atiyah [religious] and makes challot every Friday. I love challot."

Host: "Really? I didn't know you were raised religious."

Farmer: "I'm still a ma'amin [believer]. Just without a kipah."

Host and farmer then go off for a while in a discussion of religion, how religious each is despite not having the visible signs, how much they appreciate the religion and traditions...and then, after a few minutes, the host seems to suddenly remember he's on a cooking show:

Host: "Well, in any event, we're doing the leeks now..."

A nice little moment. The challot looked yummy, by the way. They should have smell-o-visions for those shows, and I see an Israeli company is developing one for cellphones, as it happens.

Ahh, cabbies

OK, here's another one to match the one below:

So I'm sitting at the bus stop, minding my own business (the eventual destination was Tel Aviv, for a very nice evening), learning from a Gemara, in fact, when a cab pulls up in front of me. At first I think the guy wants my business, but then I realize he's asking me something. Something about...Yehuda HaNasi?

Now, let me explain: Yehuda HaNasi (Judah the Prince) was a third-century rabbi. The Greek Colony, the next neighborhood over from where we were, is full of streets named for rabbis from that period, and I assumed (my headphones had been in) that he was asking me where "Yehuda HaNasi"- that is, Yehuda HaNasi Street- is. Logical, right? Translating from the Hebrew:

Me: Um, I'm not sure...somewhere down that way...

Cabbie: Sorry! You don't speak Hebrew?

Me (boldly): Yes, but I'm just not sure where it is...

Cabbie: No, no! Who was Yehuda HaNasi?

Me: Ah, who! He was a rabbi, a Tanna. Lived in the year...

Cabbie: I just told someone he arranged the Mishna! Was I right?

Me: Certainly! He was the one! Live in the year two hundred...

Cabbie: Two thousand? [The words sound vaguely similar in Hebrew.]

Me: No, two hundred.

Cabbie: Ah, of course! But he arranged the Mishna...are you sure?

Me: Definitely!

Cabbie: Thanks!

And he drives off, and the bus comes. Nice, eh?

Incidentally: My synagogue changes their various cloths- the ark curtain, the reading table cover- fairly frequently. Today (whoops, yesterday) I noticed that the cover they had on was dedicated to those people from the city of Brody who were killed in the Holocaust. And I thought- my father's family was from there; most of them were killed in the Holocaust. Good to see them remembered in Jerusalem.

"When I live in Jerusalem, I am living another's dream."

I saw that quote in a poetry book recently, and frequently have cause to think of it, even when experiencing seemingly unrelated events, like passing by a local Hasmonean-era tomb on Chanukkah, or hearing a reference to "Canaan" in Joseph Erev Shabbat Vayeshev. (A lovely minhag of my roommate.)

I was on my way to the opening panel of the Jerusalem Conference last night, riding in a taxi with a somewhat talkative cabbie. (Note, although it's becoming something of a- still lovely!- cliche in these sorts of stories, that there was no kippa on his head. This is all translated from the Hebrew, by the way.) I usually don't take cabs, but the hotel where the conference is at is a bit out of the way and I was slightly pressed for time.

So I'm sitting in the back, listening to the Daf on my Ipod, and we're heading up Straus Street, when the driver asks me if I want to go straight or turn right on Neviim and take a more roundabout route. He explains that the straight route will take much longer- lots of traffic. The Haredim are out in force, rioting and burning trash in Kikar Shabbat over some nonsense. (We smelled it on the way back. Lovely.) So we turn right as he (and, I'll admit, I) carry on about the Haredim and their crazy and destructive habits, as he blasts the police for being ineffective along the way. "Nu, it's getting warm," he says. "They need something to do." "Let them work during the day, they won't have as much energy at night," I opine. "Where do you live?" he asks.

"Katamon."

"Try adding a room to your porch in Katamon! The municipality will be on you in a second and stop you and fine you! Here in Geulah? Nothing!"

He then went on about how he thinks bottle recycling is nonsense, and would only put his bottles in the bin if he knew the money was going to tzedakah. "But the city keeps it all! See this bottle?" He holds up his soda. (Only liter bottles have redemption value in Israel, due to- believe it or not- Haredi pressure. Don't ask.) "I throw it in the regular trash- I don't need the money. Let someone who needs it collect it and get the 25 agorot." This then leads to a discussion about tzedaka. Amidst another blast at Haredim ("Rosh Chodesh Adar today- Marbim b'Simcha! They're practicing for Bi'ur Chametz already, and it's a month and a half off!"), he suddenly shifts gears. "Ahh, lots of tzedaka is given in Geulah- millions of dollars collected. I always give- you know what kimcha d'pischa is?"

A bit shocked to hear him use the phrase, it takes me a second to acknowledge that I do.

"You have to give! How can I enjoy my meal, my seder, when I know that other people don't have food? You have to give kimcha d'pischa..."

The conversation ends with talk of Gilad Shalit. "They want us to let people go- let them go! Then we can kill them right after we release them, when it's OK! Give me a gun and send me to Shechem, I'll do it myself!"

He drops me off at the hotel, telling me to send regards to the Mayor. Alas, I didn't get that chance, but the session was very nice indeed, with Mayor Nir Barkat (whoo-hoo!), Minister Benny Begin (looking more like his father all the time), journalist Nadav Shragai, Natan Sharansky (I always feel in awe when I see him), R' Aryeh Stern (two Katamonites in a row!), and Gavriel Barkai, the archaeologist, who gave an impassioned talk calling for Jewish rights on the Har HaBayit, from a mostly secular perspective. Interesting there too...my sister and brother in law were there- we sat together, which was very nice as well- and I got a ride home with a neighbor I see in shul every morning- turns out I was in ulpan with his wife. Don't think I'll make any of the rest of the conference, but Kol HaKavod to them, and most of all to my cabbie.

Cold and wet in Jerusalem, Barukh Hashem. Just down the block from me is parked a car- a BMW!-with Vanuatu plates. (Scroll down for a location map.) Aside from the obvious question of how the car got here (never mind what it's doing here), now I'm worried how they're taking the weather.

Am I the only person who sees the irony in this story?

My Strange and Charmed Life

(A physics reference; never matter.)

So I'm entering the Ben-Tzvi Institute last night for what proved to be a very enjoyable experience. The guard, as is usual, asks me if I'm carrying weapons. (I'm always amused/bemused by that question. They must be asking for some other reason, right?) My companion and I laugh, and go, "As a matter of fact..." I turn around and show him the three plastic swords sticking out of my bag. We all nearly collapse laughing.

Why am I carrying plastic swords in my bag? Come to Beit Shmuel, end of December, and you'll know.

Boy Wonder

Let me just make it clear up front that I think the whole "peace process" is a crock, and, even more, hope it fails miserably- precisely because I believe that its failure is a necessary step toward achieving true peace, the most important thing.

That said, you have to savor the irony of Obama, the man who supposedly understood the world so well he'd save not only the US' international reputation but the world itself, really putting his foot into it, on both sides, and thus perhaps (hopefully?) ruining the very process he claimed only he could save.

On the Palestinian side: I think a serious case can be made that the Arabs are ever more emboldened by the fact that it seems that the current US administration will see no wrong in them, thus leading to their attempted unilateral moves that may well (again, hopefully) lead to Israel taking some steps of its own.

On the Israeli side: Let's not be stuck on stupid: I think it's pretty obvious that when the US says it doesn't want building in a place, it means it hopes that place will one day be Judenrein. Leaving aside that there are hundreds of thousands of Jews in the West Bank and tens of thousands in the Golan Heights (and considering what a bang-up job has been done on- whoops, for- the few thousand Gaza expelees), when Obama's representative starts talking about Gilo in the same language, Israelis are gonna put two and two together and start drawing the line, and at a lot more than Gilo and Jerusalem.

So much for The One stopping the rise of the oceans.

Reasons I love being here, part...

"White Russian."

[OK, OK, but if my purchases are going to be influenced by movies, that's a good one. Besides, up on stage at the Canaan music bar, Jordan Zell is playing an original song named "Russian Girl."]

The waitress looks at me quizzically. I repeat the order, point to "Black Russian" on the menu. A light goes on.

"Ah! Ani Eshol." [I'll ask.]

She talks to the kippah-clad bartender, comes back a few seconds later.

"Zeh b'chalav- anachnu b'sari." [There's milk in that- we're a meat establishment.]

I order a Black Russian instead, as a small chorus of angels inside my head (and I, to my neighbors) sing the praises of the Land of Israel.

I've ordered White Russians in bars before. This is the first time that's happened.

Oh, did I mention the shelves behind the bar that the bottles are on are in the shape of a giant Magen David? Perfect.

Toto, I don't think we're in Queens anymore...

The following is on the front page of today's Yediot Acharanot, the largest circulation paper in Israel. I have not translated; the line appears in English. (The speaker is the unrepentant murderer of an entire family- parents, grandparents, toddler and infant.) The asterisks are mine, because this is a family blog. Apparently, however, that isn't a consideration for Israeli newstands, and the word is printed in full:

"I'm a nasty m*****f*****, I killed them all"

I'm going to have to go through some cultural adjustment, that's for sure.