Called Tu B’shvat, the 15th of Shevat, it marks the time of year in Israel when sap begins to flow, giving new life to the trees. Awareness of our dependence on the environment, as represented by Tu Bishvat and other Jewish laws, is an underlying theme in Jewish law and customs all the way to ancient time.

This year, Tu B’shvat, also called by the Mishna the New Year for the trees, falls on Tuesday night, Feb. 7.

In the 16th century, the kabbalist Rabbi Yitzchak Luria of Tzfat and his disciples created a new ritual called the Tu B’shvat Seder, based on the Passover Seder. The Tu B’shvat Seder created an order of eating fruits with specific properties, and many that are indigenous to Israel. (Download a PDF of the Seder below.)

Each fruit eaten during the ceremony corresponds a kabbalistic spiritual level: Asiah, the world of action; Yetzirah, the world of formation; Briah, the world of creation; and Atzilut, the world of emanation and Godliness.

Kabbalist’s believe that eating 12 specific fruits and drinking four cups of wine in a specific order while reciting the appropriate blessings would bring human beings, and the world, closer to spiritual perfection.

The Talmud discuses the importance of Tu B’shvat holiday to the redemption of the world:

Rabbi Abba taught: There is no more revealed redemption — no greater indication of the impending redemption — than that which the verse (Ezekiel 36:8) states: “And you, mountains of Israel, you shall give forth your branches and you shall bear your fruit for my people Israel, for they shall soon come.

The medieval commentary Rashi explains: When the Land of Israel will give fruit bountifully, this is an indication of the impending redemption, and there is no greater indication than this.

Tu B’svhat is considered an important day to learn and spread the inner dimension of Torah, wherein is found, according to the Seder, “the greatest sweetness and pleasure of Torah.” The fact that the full moon coincides with Tu Bishvat reflects “the fullness and joy of Tu Bishvat.”

One can also draw a lesson on spiritual and personal growth from Tu B’shvat. Just as a tree is constantly growing so must we. A tree produces fruit and so must we. On Tu Bishvat we must renew personal growth, just as the trees on Tu Bishvat begin to draw moisture from the earth.

I have compiled a comprehensive and easy-to-use Seder for a kabbalistic interpretation and celebration of the holiday, download the Kabbalist Feast-TuBshvat Seder 2012 Edition. Feel free to copy and reproduce.

Of course not! This photo is obviously fake! For starters, the IDF does not issue AK-47s to it’s soldiers. Secondly, no elephant serving for the IDF has ever reached the rank of Sergeant Major. It’s unbelievable how low enemies of Israel will stoop in order to cast aspersions on our beloved institutions. Even after being confronted with the obvious fakeness of this photo, many critics charge that it doesn’t change the fact that Palestinians have been harmed by the IDF. Perhaps, but how many were harmed by IDF Elephants? Sigh.

Masterful photoshop hat tip to this guy. I think.

It is rare enough that a filmmaker has their film accepted by the Sundance Film Festival. It is even more rare for the filmmaker to have his thoughts published as an Op-Ed during the festival in The New York Times. And rarer still to be awarded a Grand Prize. But Israeli film director Ra’anan Alexandrowicz achieved all three.

Alexandrowicz, director of the crowd pleasing James Journey to Jerusalem, and The Inner Tour, returned to Sundance with his documentary, The Law In These Parts. It received the World Cinema Grand Prize in Documentary Film on Saturday evening in Park City, Utah.

The Law In These Parts

The Law In These Parts, said Alexandrowicz, “is not about the people who broke the law, but about those entrusted with the law.” The film, which received the prize for Best Documentary at the 2011 Jerusalem International Film Festival, is a film about what the director sees as a moral quandary in Israel, a country founded on democratic principles, that must administer justice in the occupied territories for Palestinians. Divided into five chapters, the film is filled with candid moments that elicit discomfort as it considers the repercussions of the complex legal frameworks created in the territories following the June 1967 War. The film asks whether administering the law leads to “justice.” Alexandrowicz includes interviews with the men who created the military laws that administer the occupation, including Alexander Ramati, Dov Shefi, and Justices Amnon Strashnov and Meir Shamgar. The film implicates the viewers and all residents of western democracies and asked them how long democratic values can endure when laws are administered to occupy others.

The film began in mid 2004, when the director received a phone call from the family of a boy who had just turned 16 who was in “The Inner Tour,” an earlier documentary in which Palestinians take a tour of Israel and the towns they left. The teenager had been removed from his home in the middle of the night by masked Israeli soldiers and charged with throwing stones at a military Jeep. He as held a maximum security prison, and the director was asked by his family to join them for his court hearing. Alexandrowicz said, “It was enlightening. I had never been in a military court and for the first time in my life, I was in an Israeli military court room, and I was witnessing the mechanism with which my country, my society, purports to administer justice to Palestinian residents of the occupied territories. This event changed my understanding of the situation in which I live.”

Emad Burnat and Guy Davidi at Sundance 2012

Another Israeli film, “5 Broken Cameras,” a co-production directed by Emad Burnat, received Sundance’s World Cinema Documentary Directing Award. Co-Written by Guy Davidi and co-directed with Burnat, it is a co-production of Palestinian, Israeli and French funds. A resident of the village of Bil’in, the documentary follows Burnat, a farmer, as he and his family struggle non-violently against the erection of Israel’s separation wall. Why the title? It refers to the five cameras that were broken, or actually destroyed, by Israeli soldiers and authorities during the making of the film. Burnat purchased his first digital camera in 2005 to film the birth of his fourth son, Gibreel. As each camera is destroyed, young Gibreel’s innocence is also slowly ruined. Davidi and Burnat’s earlier film, Interrupted Streams, premiered in 2010 at the Jerusalem International Film Festival.

Thursday JAN. 26th 8pm
Nessah Educational & Cultural Center
142 South Rexford Drive, Beverly Hills, CA
(310) 273-2400 ‎

8PM $15 at the door

What do readers of GayCities.com consider the number one gay city in the world? Would it be New York? Rio? San Francisco? Portland? Paris? No! Would you believe it’s Tel Aviv? Well, probably yes because you already read the title, but still… Tel Aviv garnered a whopping 43% of the vote in a recent survey co-sponsored by American Airlines, while second place New York City got a mere 14%. Third place Toronto got 7% and 4th place Sao Paolo got 6%.

GayCities described Tel Aviv as ‘the gay capital of the Middle East is exotic with a Mediterranean c’est la vie attitude’… Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai hailed his ‘free city’ and said he is proud of the survey results… He wrote on his Facebook page: ‘Victory in this competition further highlights the fact that Tel Aviv is a city that respects all people equally, and allows all people to live according to their values and desires… ‘This is a free city in which everyone can feel proud, and be proud of who they are.’

Now I know that by bringing up this news, some might accuse me of “pinkwashing” – a term currently in vogue among the “Israel Can Do No Right” brigade. They claim that Israel makes cynical use of the generally horrible treatment gays receive in the region in order to excuse, justify (pinkwash) or ignore the “occupation.” But to them I ask simply, is it really pinkwashing if it’s simply a recitation of the facts? Tel Aviv is great for the gays. Really great apparently. Get over it.

Gilad Shalit has been back home for a while and the Israeli press has been pretty chill about giving him his space. The Paparazzi have left him alone and everyone has acted honorably in allowing him to reintegrate at his own pace outside the glaring lights of the media. Now we have seen Gilad’s first tentative steps into normal life – he has opened a Facebook account:

The Shalit family reported that several days after returning to his home in Mitzpe Hila, Gilad began to catch up with technological innovations and learn about the immense popularity gained by the social network during his years in Hamas captivity… At this stage, other Facebook users cannot add his as a friend, send him messages or write on his wall. In addition, he has yet to install the social network’s latest addition – the Timeline, which tells a person’s life story through photos, friendships and personal milestones… Shalit currently has only few people on his friends’ list, including his sister and close friends. He appears to have a sense of humor, as he has joined a group calling for his release. The group, which has more than 300,000 members, is naturally no longer active… Shalit also recommended a link to a video titled, “The best basketball shot of 2011,” from American college basketball.

We’re also pretty sure that despite being new to Facebook, Gilad already hates the Timeline feature. For obvious reasons. And while I am on the subject, I know you’ve been through a lot, but… No. I do not want to join your Mafia family. Sorry.

One of the most notorious newspapers ever published in America was The Spotlight, founded in 1975 by white supremacist Willis Carto. For many years the country’s premier hate rag, it peaked at 330,000 subscribers in the early ’80s. Alongside support for South African apartheid and exposes of the Bilderberg group, the paper was a regular purveyor of Holocaust denial, with stories like “Jewish Groups Can’t Defend Position on ’6 Million’ Debate” and “Anne Frank Fable Losing Credibility; Establishment Continues to Push ‘Diary’ as ‘True Story.’”

The Spotlight, which thankfully ceased publication in 2001, wasn’t just concerned with falsifying history. When not questioning the existence of the gas chambers, it focused on the “Jewish lobby.” And its writers had two terms for describing U.S. Jews and their activism on behalf of the Jewish state: “dual loyalists” who were for “Israel first.”

When Zaid Jilani was recently informed that his use of the latter term had anti-Semitic implications, he professed ignorance. Jilani, a blogger at the Center for American Progress (CAP ), claimed to be “unaware of all the connotations it carried.” That a young blogger at a prominent liberal think tank would see nothing wrong with such language is understandable. It’s an indication of just how deep the rhetoric of the far right has seeped into the discourse of the mainstream left.

Jilani is one of several individuals who have come under fire for their commentary regarding Israel and Jews. The controversy started in early December, when Politico detailed how two “core institutions” of the Democratic Party – CAP, a farm team for the Obama administration, and Media Matters for America, a self-described “progressive research and information center” – “are challenging a bipartisan consensus on Israel.”

Rather than addressing the substantive criticism raised, CAP tried desperately to change the subject, turning its guns on those airing concerns, particularly Josh Block, a lifelong Democrat and former American Israel Public Affairs Committee spokesman whose criticism of the groups was quoted in Politico. The episode approached the status of Washington “scandal” when liberal website Salon published a dossier Block had disseminated documenting a series of blog posts, articles, and Twitter messages in which CAP and Media Matters employees batted around rhetoric and accusations as if “it’s now just natural to talk about Jewish money in politics, about treasonous politicians.”

To judge from Block’s collection, the worst perpetrator is Media Matters’ “senior foreign policy fellow” M.J. Rosenberg, whose “analysis” largely amounts to name-calling. Newsweek reporter Eli Lake is an “agent of influence.” Playwright David Mamet is an “Israel first Likudnik.” Indeed, any U.S. Jew to his right (including Democratic congressmen ) is an “Israel-firster.” When one journalist complained about Rosenberg’s calling her a “dual loyalist,” he responded by saying, “I say DUAL which is generous.” No wonder he best expresses himself in the Twitter medium of 140 characters.

Block took considerable professional risk in challenging these two influential liberal organizations. The Truman National Security Project, a once-promising initiative to promote a hawkish sensibility in the Democratic Party that has since become little more than another greasy pole for young D.C. opportunists, expelled Block from its fellowship program.

In the Forward, Sarah Wildman attacked Block, writing that “When we debase the term [anti-Semite] by using it as a rhetorical conceit against those with whom we disagree on policy matters, we have sullied our own promises to our grandparents.” But it is those who use the term “Israel-firster” who are debasing the debate by accusing anyone who disagrees with them of treasonous impulses. Wildman also argued that the offensive comments had been “taken out of context” – as if there were ever a context, other than that of, say, Jonathan Pollard, in which it would be appropriate to label an American Jew an “Israel-firster” or “dual loyalist.”

Ultimately, however, Block was vindicated. While CAP publicly denied that its employees were trafficking in anti-Semitism, an e-mail from the organization’s vice president, obtained by The Jerusalem Post, deemed “Israel-firster,” to be “terrible, anti-Semitic language.”

The left is constantly complaining that the debate about Israel is restricted, that one can’t criticize Israel without “risking” his career. Reality is in fact the opposite. Figures ranging from University of Chicago professor John Mearsheimer to journalists Peter Beinart and Andrew Sullivan have all seen their careers blossom as a result of their harsh and unrelenting criticism of Israel. Indeed, obsessively attacking Israel is a bona-fide way to resuscitate one’s career, not destroy it. As a measure, consider the fact that employees at mainstream liberal institutions feel comfortable using the sort of language popularized by white supremacists and Holocaust-deniers.

It isn’t just figures on the medium and lower rungs of think tanks using such foul rhetoric: “Israel-firster” and “Likudnik” are favorites of Time’s Joe Klein, as well as Salon’s Glenn Greenwald, one of America’s most popular liberal bloggers, who refers to “the many Israel-firsters in the U.S. Congress.”

Since the 1950s, liberals have routinely accused conservatives of “McCarthyism.” Now the tables have turned, and it is leftists questioning the loyalties of American Jews. Judging what’s in a country’s “interest” is highly subjective; it is the very reason why there exists such passionate and necessary debate about the purpose and tactics of American foreign policy. So-called “progressives” should stop mimicking the far right and engage in that debate without questioning the allegiance of their fellow Americans.

James Kirchick is a fellow of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and a contributing editor for The New Republic.

Of course it is equally probable that a bunch of fearless real spies on motorcycles carried out the attack.

The ethical question about targeted assassination aside – the Iranians are hell-bent on getting a bomb. These scientists are critical leaders in the regime’s efforts.

TEHRAN — A scientist linked to Iran’s nuclear program was killed in his car by a bomb-wielding assailant on Wednesday, a bold rush-hour attack that experts say points to a further escalation in a covert campaign targeting the country’s atomic officials and institutions.

The precision hit in a northern Tehran neighborhood killed the 32-year-old chemical engineer employed at Iran’s main uranium-enrichment facility and brought to four the number of Iranian scientists killed by bombs in the past two years. No one asserted responsibility for the bombing, which prompted a swirl of accusations and denials as well as renewed concerns about worsening tensions between Iran and the West.

And this one occurred on the yarhtziet of another scientist:

The killing bore strong resemblance to two 2010 attacks on nuclear scientists and came on the same day as a ceremony for the second anniversary of the killing of another professor, Massoud Ali Mohammadi, in an explosion.

Let the greatest Rabbis in the Jewish world go to Bet Shemesh. Let each walk a little second grader to school. Let their rebbetzins hold a girl’s hand and say, “Come my dear, don’t be afraid, I will walk you to school.” Let them, our Gedolim, our Torah giants, look in the face of the Chasidim yelling “Nazi” at little girls and Jewish policemen and tell them to be silent.

Judaism is not monolithic. But in response to violence extremism we must be united and show that this is not accepted – whether it is the vandalism and burning of mosques or the terrorizing of women.

Read more here…

No, he’s not an exception. The quality of life of a Palestinian prisoner, even a murderer, is something out of the movies. Perhaps what makes the situation even more absurd is that they know they will not serve out their sentence because they’ll be freed in the next prisoner exchange.

And those of you who are wondering, Israel has only used capital punishment once within its justice system, so no, that won’t prevent these ridiculous outcomes.

Ilan Sa’adon, who was murdered by this man, Muhammad Sheratehah, is the one on the left.

I met Shira several years ago here in Israel through some mutual friends and we’ve worked together on a few projects. She’s an incredible actress, ridiculously funny, and I’m often blown away by some of the things that come out of her mouth.  She grew up in a pretty religious family, and you wouldn’t know it by looking at or even talking to her unless it’s about the laws of (insert Ashkenazi accent dialect here) Shabbos or lashon harah, or something called “kriyas shemah al hamitah”.  I’m impressed with the commitment to pray immediately before falling asleep.  Wait, so does that come before or after in-bed Facebook-stalking?

Anyway, I recently had a conversation with her about what it was (and continues to be) like having grown up in such a “strict” family and community and to be living such a different lifestyle now as an adult. I can’t tell her story, but what I can say is that there’s probably no comparison to the relatively small degree of tension I experienced just considering asking a non-Jewish girl to a high school dance.  I thought the trailer was pretty interesting and I’m looking forward to seeing the film.  Whether or not you can relate to the stories on a personal level, the movie looks pretty intriguing.

You can say what you will about Richard Silverstein, author of the grotesquely misnamed Tikun Olam Blog, but one thing is beyond denial: Richard Silverstein is a grossly unreliable source of information. Silverstein has recently achieved a small measure of notoriety thanks to his willingness to publish names and information that are under a publication ban in Israel. Fed information by Israeli sources, he has managed to bring to light stories that would not have otherwise been immediately published. Such instances are the only times that Silverstein receives any mainstream visibility, and like a $5 crack whore, he has become addicted to the rush. So addicted that he is willing to throw all caution to the wind in the hopes of scoring yet another “scoop” or “exclusive.”

This week revealed the inner workings of Silverstein’s typically shoddy “journalistic” methodology, as well as his amoral nastiness. It all begins with a clumsy attempt at a prank by one of Silverstein’s many detractors, the formerly anonymous “Aussie Dave” over at Israellycool. One of Dave’s posts contained a screen cap of Silverstein’s Facebook page. Over in the corner one could read the name “David Loeb” and a photo of said Loeb. Silverstein was contacted with the wonderful news that his nemesis, Aussie Dave may have inadvertently revealed his heretofore secret identity! In the past, Silverstein has asked his twitter followers to help him reveal Aussie Dave’s identity. Given the news that said identity had finally been revealed, Silverstein exclaimed to his source “Bless you. I’m forever indebted.” So excited was Silverstein at the prospect of revealing Dave’s identity, he totally neglected to use common sense or to even do the most basic research. David Loeb’s Facebook profile had only one friend. “Loeb’s” alleged address in Beit Shemesh doesn’t exist. Silverstein had never corresponded with his source “Yossi Nachas” before. But no matter. Silverstein ran with it, posted the false information and became the laughing stock of the blogosphere when Aussie Dave revealed his subterfuge.

Dave also revealed others who had been taken in – namely Jillian C. York, Director for International Freedom of Expression at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an organization otherwise dedicated to protecting free speech online and protecting the rights of bloggers to remain anonymous. I don’t know how her attitude jibes with her employer’s statement that “the free exchange of ideas on the Internet is driven in large part by the ability of Internet users to communicate anonymously…” but whatever… I am looking forward to any clarification from the EFF on this matter and the embarrassing statements of one of its directors. Also taken in was Max Blumenthal who really, really should have known better. Read about it all in Richard Silverstein Exposed and Exposing Richard Silverstein: The Day After.

Once again, allow me to reiterate, this is important because it demonstrates Silverstein’s shoddy methodology. He will believe practically anything that casts Israel in a negative light. For instance, and this is but one example, he declared that famed Jewish philosopher Martin Bubber lived in a house owned by Edward Said’s family, abandoned after they left Jerusalem in 1948. The picture painted was of a vengeful and spiteful Buber. The source? Jewish Palestine National Council member and convert to Islam Uri Davis. Just a little research would have shown this story to be bunk, but Silverstein ran it anyway and only retracted it and admitted his error three days later after repeated comments demonstrating that his information was completely fabricated. There was also the amazing story of the booby trapped Israeli drone purposely crashed in Lebanon and then used to explode a Hizbollah arms cache, or the stories citing the Mossad’s involvement, along with the MEK, in any number of explosions in Iran, all of these attributed to a retired Israeli politician and military officer, who remarkably still had access to top secret operational information.

It’s clear that anyone that lends credence to any of Silverstein’s stories is doing so at great risk to their credibility and reputation. There’s no need to even discuss his nonsensical political opinions, his lack of knowledge regarding life in Israel, his general ineptitude, his hypocrisy, deception and moral decrepitude, except to mention these in passing. The only other thing of note is that after being made a laughingstock, Silverstein seems to have gone nuts. With the help of his supporters, he did eventually find out who Aussie Dave really is and then wasted no time in revealing this information. Granted it wasn’t really hard to do – domain whois information is archived and it seems when israellycool.com was first registered, Dave did not do so anonymously. All you need to get to the archives is a credit card and five minutes. Brilliant journalistic research which Silverstein uses to justify schnorring laughably low amounts of money from his idiot supporters.

So I need to reiterate Dave’s question, written in a post in response to his unveiling: “I’d also be curious to hear what Jillian York, director for the Electronic Frontier Foundation (an organization dedicated to protecting free speech online and protecting the rights of bloggers to remain anonymous) and Silverstein supporter, has to say about this.” Is there some kind of ideological litmus test one has to pass in order to enjoy the support of the EFF?

In conclusion, I think it’s important to have a diversity of credible voices, especially when discussing an issue as complex and fraught with emotion as the Israel-Palestine conflict. If you want to visit a web site with a more critical perspective on Israel, please don’t waste your time at Richard Silverstein’s pathetic blog. Might I suggest you visit the 972Mag instead. There you will find stories written by actual journalists who actually have real knowledge of Israel. I don’t agree with their editorial stance but they are professionals who care about their reputations and their site is mostly free of the sort of vitriol that one typically finds on Tikun Olam. Now they seem to have banned [one of our writers] from posting there but their “censorship” is nothing close to what one finds on Silverstein’s blog where nary a critical opinion is voiced that doesn’t conclude with a threat to ban as well as a nasty insult or two. Silverstein also does not see fit to link to them so that’s as good a seal of approval as one can ask for – one wonders if this is a result of jealousy/envy (many commenters have moved on from Silverstein’s blog to 972) or anger that they didn’t invite the laughably self styled eminence grise of the Jewish “progressive” blog world to join them or that Larry Derfner, who tried to co-author a blog with Silverstein before finding out how insufferable he is, writes for them – but you get my point. Richard Silverstein is a joke.

Shavuah Tov Aussie Dave, send my best to your wife and kids.

UPDATE: Richard Silverstein is also a liar and a hypocrite!
Yeah. I know. Shocking right? Check out this comment thread on richardsilverstein.com:

Richard Silverstein says:
December 31, 2011 at 5:08 PM
No actually there is no picture of David Lange’s children on this site. In fact I cropped them from his photo because I didn’t want to invade their privacy. It was Lange in actuality who displayed the uncropped picture of himself and his children. So I presume you’ll take yr righteous indignation & spew it on him for displaying his own children online.
And while you’re at it you can add David Abitbol who displayed a picture of my children at his blog. When you’ve expended all that indignation in the proper places would you report back here on what you did & how they responded to you?
And as for making you sick. Sorry for yr indigestion, but imagine how sick I must feel when I have to read misdirected poison like yours.

Now watch what happens when he is confronted with the falseness of his accusation against me:

Steve says:
January 1, 2012 at 12:50 AM
I remember that incident. The photo Abitbol used had your children completely cropped out. You did to Lange exactly what Abitbol did to you. Or, did you completely forget that fact? All the photo had was a little green football bouncing off your head. Does that help refresh your memory?

Richard Silverstein says:
January 1, 2012 at 1:14 AM
Perhaps you missed the photo another blogging pal of Lange and Abitbol featuring my son & myself claiming our cookie making was preparing terror bombs for Israel. Did you miss that one?

Steve says:
January 1, 2012 at 1:25 AM
So, are you admitting that what you did to Lange is exactly what Abitbol did to you, namely use a picture of you and your children, with your children cropped out?

Richard Silverstein says:
January 1, 2012 at 1:37 AM
No, it’s not the same. Abitbol used my picture with the logo of Little Green Footballs, a green football bouncing off my head. I have never doctored any pictures I displayed of either of them to gloat or insult them.

Steve says:
January 1, 2012 at 1:29 AM
Sorry, I hit submit too early.
As a follow up to my first question, why is it OK for you to do that to Lange but not OK for Abitbol to do that to you?
As for the cookie making photo, didn’t you admit that Abitbol had nothing to do with it and that it did not appear on his site?

Richard Silverstein says:
January 1, 2012 at 1:38 AM
We’re done with this line of questioning. MOve on to another subject or you’ll be moved on yourself.

Confronted with the lie, and his own patent hypocrisy, Silverstein simply threatens to ban the commenter. Par for the course for Richard Silverstein!

Once on the Web site, I read his latest post condemning Haredim for dressing their children up as Jewish concentration camp inmates in a recent protest. In that post Silverstein reveals his patent ignorance by conflating Haredim with Dati Leumi (National Religious) Jews with Kahanists. In his understanding, these three very different streams of Orthodox Judaism are one and the same. Anyone that knows even the smallest bit about the Israeli religious map knows that such an assertion is ridiculous and does not at all reflect reality. But what can one expect from a person driven by malice who hasn’t been to Israel in over a decade? One can expect ignorance and venom and Silverstein delivers in spades!

According to Nasser, the very first demand of the Brotherhood leader was for the hijab to return to Egypt, “for every woman walking in the street to wear a headscarf.”

The audience erupted in laughter at this, then, ludicrous demand; one person hollered “Let him wear it!” eliciting more laughter and applause.

Nasser continued by saying he told the Brotherhood leader that if they enforced the hijab, people would say Egypt had returned to the dark ages (to more laughter), adding that Egyptians should uphold such matters in the privacy of their own homes.

…

Half a century later and none of this is a laughing matter: the hijab, if not the full burqa, is commonplace in Egypt, even as the Muslim Brotherhood—who for decades were banned and imprisoned for trying to return Egypt to an Islamic dark age—are now poised to govern the nation, all under U.S. tutelage.

…

In other words, Sadat’s great mistake—which cost him his life—is that he conferred a degree of legitimacy on the Muslim Brotherhood, thereby allowing them to worm their way into Egyptian society.

Such is the way of time: left unchecked, what was once ludicrous to suggest—for instance, the Brotherhood’s 1953 request “for every woman walking in the street to wear a headscarf”—slowly and gradually becomes part of the culture.

Back in 1948 when Ben Gurion agreed to have the ultra-Orthodox evade military service and the Israeli government gave up control over aspects of civil law to the Rabbinate with its full governmental authority behind this religious body’s rulings, the Orthodox population, modern and ultra, was relatively small. It has since grown enormously and the powers and decisions made back in the late 1940s under entirely different circumstances continue to play out in entirely unintended ways.

That the Orthodox Jewish community has taken advantage of the rights availed to it should surprise no one, it is the nature of politics and communities to seek to maximize their opportunities. However, for too long, these groups have sought to influence the lives of Israelis and Jews who are not affiliated with stringent observance of Jewish law.

What these groups could not do through the Rabbinate to all Israelis and Jews, they did within their own communities with relative impunity. What we’re seeing today, which is increasing demands for people around them as well as within their own Orthodox communities to have women commit to rules that are discriminatory and affect their place in society, is the result of decades in which the Israeli government has turned a blind eye to obvious developments within those communities, including primarily the growing stringency in observance of certain Jewish laws. To remind everybody, it was only a couple of years ago that Israel’s ultra-Orthodox leadership appointed itself as the ultimate group able to decide on a person’s Jewishness by declaring veto power over conversion made not just by Conservative and Reform rabbis, but even by Orthodox, and ultra-Orthodox rabbis, outside of Israel and even inside Israel.

The government did nothing.

It is time to make sure that this slow but definite encroachment on the rights and freedoms of women and those men who are not Orthodox inside Israel is put to a complete halt. Religion has no place in the government and protecting the freedom of religion is not the same as harming the freedom of others who do not subscribe to religious observance and its multiple interpretations.

If you’re a woman living in Israel, take every opportunity you have to take a stand against activities that may harm your freedoms. And run for office or encourage other women and men who understand the danger here to run for office. Then get them elected into the Knesset. This is critical and it has to be started now to have an effect on the next election.

However, based on what the Republicans have done over the past several months, it seems almost certain that Obama will win re-election. There will simply be far too many American who are going to vote against the Republicans just for the principle of showing them.

The Republicans right now are giving Romney, their best bet because he’s a stable moderate with a strong track record in business and politics, the cold shoulder. He simply can’t get the hard-core party members who take the primaries seriously to support him in large numbers. This suggests that he won’t be strongly supported if he receives the nomination. Theoretically, he could be Obama’s most serious challenger, but it looks like the Republicans keep looking for alternatives. A tepid party behind a nominee guarantees a loss in the election. McCain is an example of this.

The Republicans are warming up to Gingrich, but he’s a loose cannon who talks openly of using force against the judiciary if it doesn’t rule according to his views. I doubt he could win the nomination, but if he becomes the candidate, Obama will crush him by playing up his inconsistencies, his infidelities, and his rabid views. He’ll simply scare America into rejecting him.

Right now it looks as if none of the other candidates can pull themselves out of the pack, although Ron Paul may pull an upset. Ron Paul could be dangerous for Obama but I think he’s got enough baggage that Obama will defeat him. I also just don’t see him getting the nomination in the first place. Who is left? Right now, nobody. Perry, Bachman and Santorum are too far to the right or just too stupid, Huntsman is running for VP, not P, and Palin isn’t even bothering.

But that isn’t what’s going to make Obama a second term Prez. What’s going to do it is that the Republicans are bad for the USA.

The Republicans seem so obsessed with destroying Obama’s presidency, much like they tried with Clinton, that they’ve forgotten that their job is to represent their districts and their voters, not only their benefactors. This is why in July they brought the US economy unnecessarily to a halt and damaged the American credit rating over the debt ceiling debate. There was no reason to go there and even if there was, this had to be one of the worst times ever to try. The economy, in shambles, was finally beginning to pick up steam, and over an ideological fight, these jokers put the USA on a cliff and actually pushed it over. Yes, they pulled everyone back at the last minute, but the recklessness of the move made the economy move backward for several months and damaged many businesses which were beginning to see some light.

The Republicans repeated their stupidity this week by refusing to come to a deal that would have extended critical middle class tax breaks, critical medicare and medicaid subsidies and critical unemployment benefits. First they fought this by decrying the Democratic attempt to pay for the extension by taxing the well under-taxed wealthiest of the wealthiest Americans. Forget the 1%, this tax might have hit the 0.1% of Americans. Yet there they were, the Republicans, ready to protect that sliver of the population which doesn’t need protecting or tax relief. Then, the Dems relented on the tax break for the wealthiest but demanded the breaks be maintained, at least for the next two months. The Republicans refused.

According to one NPR report, a Republican congressman was quoted as saying this was a game of high stakes poker. It’s very nice that he can play poker with people’s livelihoods – people who are desperate – and it’s nice that he can play poker with the economy which benefits from the small amount of money these tax breaks and benefits provide. However, he and the rest of the Republicans in Congress can rest quietly knowing that today they sealed their fate as a party in 2012.

They have opened the door wide for the Democrats not only to win back many seats in Congress, but almost certainly the presidency. After all, Obama has been playing it for months that he’s trying to create jobs and the Republicans have been helping him show that they’re the party of obstruction. And they won’t be able to make the claim that they did it because they are fiscally responsible. Any party that does what they did in July and again this past week is not just the enemy of the US economy, but the enemy of every family and every person who is not wealthy – and even some of those folks have been harmed.

Oh, and by the way, unless Europe has a meltdown, the US economy will show growth and some recovery this year which will be reflected in Obama’s voter response in November.

The Jewish community should take heed. This is going to be a Democratic second term and possibly also a very strong showing in the Houses. It is unwise to attack this administration so fervently that if they are re-elected they feel as if they can ignore Jewish support and supporters.

Oh, and the Israeli government should take note. A second-term Obama will feel quite free to let loose on Israel in a way that we all suspect he would have already if it weren’t for his concern about Jewish voters and supporters leaving him in 2012. A second-term President has nothing to lose in his last couple of years and just as Bush thought he could cram everything related to the Arab-Israeli attempts at peace into his last 18 months in office, Obama is likely to experiment with his views. And he’s not an admirer of Israel.

In 1985, then dissident and future Czech president Vaclav Havel, who died Sunday at the age of 75, wrote an essay entitled “Anatomy of Reticence.”

It was read at a convention of European anti-nuclear weapons activists in Amsterdam to which Havel was invited but, being under the strict observation of the Czechoslovak communist secret police, was unable to attend.

At the time, the nuclear “freeze” movement, which called upon the Western democracies to unilaterally disarm and opposed the deployment of American missiles on the continent, was at its height.

In words that surely must have pricked those who sent him an invitation, Havel sought to correct the “wholly erroneous impression that the only dangerous weapons are those surrounded by encampments of demonstrators.”

The point could not have been lost on the anti-nuclear campaigners, who were of course free to protest the policies of their governments and those of the United States. They could denounce “Ronnie Raygun” to their hearts’ content.

They could march outside meetings of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and call for its dissolution. Yet Havel and his friends on the other side of the Iron Curtain were prohibited from doing so; there were no Czech or Polish or Romanian “peace camps” outside Soviet military installations.

Yet for pointing out the elementary moral differences between the free West and the Soviet-dominated East, Havel and his fellow dissidents were suspected of representing a “fifth column of Western establishments east of the Yalta line” by Western progressives.

If there’s one epigram among Havel’s voluminous work that encapsulates his life it was the admonition to “live within the truth.” Havel chose a life of public opposition to an evil regime, abandoning the relative comfort that comes with conformity.

He could have become an apparatchik, but he chose not to. He could have sought asylum during his first visit to the United States, just months before the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia of August 1968, but he returned home. He could have joined the communist writers’ union, but he wrote essays in favor of democracy and was thus banned from publishing his work.

At any point during his dissident career, he could have renounced his beliefs and lived a life of quiet conventionalism, or accepted the authorities’ offer of emigration. But he chose to live within the truth, and was imprisoned multiple times for his heresies.

As president of free Czechoslovakia and then, following the 1993 “Velvet Divorce,” the Czech Republic, Havel remained a dissident, of sorts, within his own country. He apologized to the Sudetan Germans, millions of whom were forcibly expelled (and thousands of whom were killed) following World War II.

Havel’s move was widely unpopular, and the 70-year-old issue remains a taboo topic in the Czech Republic to this day. He condemned racism against the Roma, or Gypsies, a long-excluded minority whom most Czechs wished would rather just disappear, stating that their treatment was a “litmus test” of democracy.

His support for the Iraq War was an act of dissidence in liberal-left European circles. In 2009, along with several other Central and Eastern European notables, he signed an open letter to President Barack Obama, expressing concern that the “reset” policy with Russia indicated that “the United States and the major European powers might embrace the Medvedev plan for a ‘Concert of Powers’ to replace the continent’s existing, value-based security structure.”

Havel’s life work was a living refutation of foreign policy “realists,” who argue that nations have interests devoid of moral considerations. Whether it was détente in the 1970′s or those who today argue for “accommodation” with a nuclear Iran, Havel warned against “the old European disease,” which is “the tendency to make compromises with evil, to close one’s eyes to dictatorship, to practice a politics of appeasement.”

Last year, I interviewed the author Christopher Hitchens, (who, in what has been an awful week for those who value the power of the written word, died three days before Havel), and asked him for his views on the former Czech president. What was most remarkable about the man, Hitchens told me, was that he did not fit the image of a revolutionary. “By putting on plays, by writing poems, by publishing essays, by making jokes, by demonstrating thevalue of the written word and a life lived in truth and by nothing else; no car bombs, no bullying, no fanaticism,” he said, Havel “brought the Ogre to a halt and let the air completely out of the bag.”

Havel, Hitchens told me, “was able to ridicule a whole edifice of totalitarianism” simply “by folding his arms and putting a smile, a knowing smile, on his face.” Havel continued to fight totalitarianism and indecency of all sorts after leaving office and until his dying day. He was an outspoken supporter of democrats wherever they suffered, from Belarus, the last dictatorship in Europe, to Zimbabwe. While many of his European left-wing comrades chose to ignore the plight of communist Cuba, he spoke openly and frequently against Castro’s tyranny. Last year he co-founded the Friends of Israel Initiative, a consortium of leading statesman committed “to combat(ing) the de-ligitimization of the State of Israel at home, abroad and inside the institutions of the international community.” His last public statement, issued just a week ago, was a condemnation of the Putin regime in Russia, a “specific combination,” he said, “of old stereotypes and a new business-mafia environment.” That Havel never won a Nobel Peace Prize – however dubious an honor it’s become considering its conferral to a terrorist (Yasser Arafat), a fraud (Rigoberta Menchu), and an undeserving novice (Barack Obama) – is an absolute scandal.

Havel’s last play, “Leaving,” portrayed, with characteristic self-deprecation, the existential angst of a president on his way out the door. Vaclav Havelmay have left us. But the ideas he championed never will.

[Levanon] slammed the conduct of the government and its leaders, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak, “who are toughening their stance, and as a result, prompting extremists to do inconceivable things. There is no reason to threaten to evacuate outpost, while a solution can be reached anywhere.

“This is violence and this is violence,” he added. “There is violence against Jews on the part of those young extremists who run wild, and there is the violence of the Israeli government against peaceful and quiet settlers.”

What has the Israeli government done that is “violent?” Well, first and foremost it sends soldiers to protect the settlers. Second, it subsidizes the settlements in all kinds of ways. Third, it takes an enormous amount of international heat because of the settlements. Fourth, it often defends settlement activities in the courts. Fifth, it enables settlement growth through its own legal channels. Sixth, it postpones and postpones the dismantling of outposts that are illegal and against its own planning regulations – even when it really pisses off the American government and the Europeans. Seventh, it handles settlers with velvet gloves when some of them commit crimes. Eighth, very often it turns a blind eye to settler trespasses of the law or just of normal, moral behavior. Ninth, it funnels resources that could be used inside the Green Line to settlements that are outside territory that Israel has offered to keep in peace deals with the Palestinians. Tenth, it keeps many of the rabbis who are the leaders of the settlement movement in jobs on which they live.

It’s true, though. Every once in a while the Israeli government talks really, really tough about dismantling illegal outposts. Sometimes it even does dismantle one or two, even if infrequently. This is what Levanon is calling violence and this is the offense which he uses to explain settler violence.

Who are these hooligans? Bands of mostly young men, extremist modern Orthodox in the Israel kipa sruga mode, who are taking the movement from the center of Israeli discourse to the fringes of lunacy and potential civil war. They are sometimes related, and often neighbors of, many soldiers in the IDF’s combat units. Many believe that some of those soldier do indeed put their ideology ahead of their commitment to Israel’s IDF and Israel’s government. Make no mistake, I believe and I think most believe that if such soldiers exist, they are a small minority, but it is a critical issue about which the the IDF has expressed concern, as have many commentators, including some who aren’t on the left.

To their credit, a number of prominent rabbis spoke out and without Levanon-style equivocation against the behavior of these criminals.

The chief rabbi called on the law authorities to “use a firm hand against the rioters.” According to Metzger, “Damaging IDF property is a horrible defamation of God. Nothing justifies such a violent act, especially when it is directed at the IDF and its soldiers, who sacrifice their lives to protect the people of this country.”

and

Military Chief Rabbi Brigadier-General Rafi Peretz denounced what he defined as “crimes of revenge of any kind.” …[He] added that price tag activities were forbidden by Halacha and that he expected Religious Zionism rabbis to strongly denounce them.

What should the Israeli government do?

It’s in a tough place. It can’t remove its soldiers who protect settlements without endangering the lives of Israeli civilians in those settlements and also enabling the hooligans from attacking Palestinians or committing acts against Palestinian property with intent to incite. The government can’t easily cut funds or financial support either since the infrastructure that has been built is already part of the government’s debt. It may also find it hard to stop supporting growth in the very settlements that it has spent years telling the US government deserve “natural growth.”

So what should it do? It should come down with the full force of the law against these hooligans and even apply some tactics that have been used against Palestinian terrorists. For example, when it’s discovered who injured the brigade commander and his associate, they should be sent to prison for a long time. Then the IDF should destroy their homes and the homes of their leaders. If they’re young and living with parents, destroy the parents’ homes. Block their bank accounts. Living with parents? Block the parents’ bank accounts.

And arrest them without fear or concern; arrest them whenever they even begin to think of protesting. Monitor them as if they are terrorists so that any plans they hatch are doomed. Find their leaders and make examples of them while restricting their ability to communicate with their gangs.

But careful. Nobody should be killed or seriously injured while the government enforces its laws and rules. That would spark a civil war. Do to them what they do to everybody: keep it on low ebb sufficiently that nobody bothers you too much, but make sure you do it often enough and seriously enough that it will make the hooligans strongly reconsider the wisdom of taking their criminal, dangerous, immoral path.

They’re scum.

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This is former Member of Knesset Azmi Bishara denying there is or ever was a Palestinian people. He is referring, by the way, to the same historical information to which Gingrich was referring. In this video, Bishara is openly denying the existence of a Palestinian people, claiming that they are Arabs and part of the larger Arab Umma. He refers to the fact (often cited on Jewlicious) that prior to 1948, the territory known as Palestine was part of the British Mandate and before that it was a sub-province of the Ottoman province, Syria.

Note also that he is no friend of Israel. He fled the country after serious allegations arose that he helped Hizbullah against Israel.

It’s that time of the year, where perhaps inspired by Santa’s List, lists of all kinds are being prepared. Tablet has their 100 Greatest Jewish Films, and I am confident that every other major Jewish publication will have similar lists soon, like the 100 Most Influential Jewish Twitters, or the 50 Coolest Jews or whatever link bait unimaginative editors can come up with. Me? I was looking through Ad Week and they had a couple of interesting lists to offer – The 10 Best Commercials of 2011 as well as the 30 Freakiest Ads of 2011. These lists made for some interesting viewing but I didn’t see anything that really inspired me. Thus I had to go back to this past summer for the one ad that kind of cracked me up a little. Sure the content was a bit provocative – lipstick lesbians always are – but that wasn’t it. Here watch this Italian ad for Renault:

Pretty clever right? Publicis Milan had this to say about the ad “We wanted to create an advert that was original, enjoyable and at the same time not vulgar.” Bingo on all fronts. Except for that “original” part. Turns out the Renault Ad is very similar to an Israeli ad for Castro, produced in 2006:

Ha ha. When informed of the alleged plagiarism, a spokesman for the Interpublic Group, the Israeli firm behind the Castro ad said “They do say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. The close similarities in the two campaigns is obvious, and our work was broadcast back in 2006. However, in this instance, we have chosen to be flattered!”

I am stunned that an international ad firm would produce such an abject rip off, and even more stunned that an Israeli reacted to this offense with magnanimity and good cheer. It must have been Arak day at the office. That or the estrogen in the water kicking in. Who knows. But those were my fave ads of the year, because after all, drama or no drama, who doesn’t love lipstick lesbians?

Speaking of which, this post was not sponsored by the Women’s Gathering in Jerusalem on the 14th of December at the Mikveh.