Category Archives: Israel

The god obsessed

Posted on April 14, 2011 | Comments Off on The god obsessed

It’s fashionable nowadays, particularly in the entertainment and news industries, to deride religious fundamentalists as mad. I have always had a certain affection for the god obsessed, having been down that road myself. Like the fellow in the center of this picture at the tomb of the Rambam in Tiberias, Israel, on the Kinneret, or Sea of Galilee.

In full Orthodox regalia, he was seated beside the tomb praying when we walked up to get a better look at the final resting place of the famous 12th century sage, Maimonides.

The fellow looked up and said in Hebrew that he was directly in touch with the soul of Maimonides. My secular Israeli friend backed up and urged me not to photograph the tomb at close range. The fellow, he said, was surely crazy and who knew what might happen. I didn’t see any weapon so I didn’t worry about it.

One of the shrine’s caretakers came over and, tapping his temple with a forefinger to indicate madness, said the cops had been called to come escort the fellow away. The cops, however, were close by but taking no action. Probably, like me, they saw no more than a man obsessed by god.

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Posted in Israel, Scribbles

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Haredi Judaism

Posted on April 13, 2011 | Comments Off on Haredi Judaism

The “black hats”, as I have been calling them for years, or the ultra orthodox Haredim, in their uniform black suits and vests with special wide-brimmed hats. The design of the hats and position on the head depend on the particular rabbi to whom the black hat is a disciple. A few of them live in our neighborhood in Austin.

Never saw so many in one place before as on the 10 to 12-hour flights to and from Israel. Going over from Newark, NJ, they and their families made up about a third of the passengers. Coming back they were an easy majority. But, then, according to Wikipedia, there are 1.3 million of them, one of the world’s fastest-growing religious sects. They weren’t very friendly to us ordinary folks on the plane, however, considering themselves, as they do, the only true Jews and the rest of us little better than pagans.

Some secular Israelis resent them for being on government welfare, considering they make up about 12 percent of the population. Seculars call the men names like “penguins” (for their black suits with white shirts), because they deny the legitimacy of Israel and refuse to serve in the IDF. Although with their uniformly large families, none are getting rich on the dole. I imagine many of the ones on the planes were part of the new trend among Haredim “…especially in Israel, [of] flourishing in upper-management business and the diamond industry.” How else to pay the minimum per person thousand dollar round-trip plane fares?

Some of the wives were memorably beautiful, in their long sleeves, skirts and heavy stockings. The men spent most of the flights studying one volume or another of the Talmud in Hebrew. Which is a daily demand of their discipleship. Which also explains the dole. On the flight back to the States, however, their many toddlers were an ice-breaker. Everyone got to smile watching the little guys tottering up and down the aisles, noses running, grinning to beat the band.

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Posted in Israel, Scribbles

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Making Botz

Posted on April 12, 2011 | Comments Off on Making Botz

Mr. Goon, my erstwhile ( though sometimes bossy) host and guide in Israel assured me that cafe botz, or mud coffee, is a favorite Israeli form of Turkish coffee. It’s handy if you don’t have a coffee maker. You do need to grind the beans, however.

Then you put a teaspoonful of ground coffee (any kind will do) into a small glass or cup, and gently pour in boiling water. Stir the top of the liquid and let the grounds settle. Sip. I suppose you could put sugar and milk in it, too, but why spoil good coffee?

Tasted great in Israel. Alas, my first home try laced my tongue with coffee grounds. Maybe they need to be finer ground so they sink faster? Mrs. Charm suggested a spot of cold water to help them sink. Didn’t work.

Then Mrs. C., the intelligent member of this three-ring circus, went out and bought Turkish coffee and had it ground especially fine. Almost to powder. Bingo. Just don’t try to reheat your glass or cup in the microwave. It stirs up the grounds something awful.

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The easy way to Masada

Posted on April 11, 2011 | Comments Off on The easy way to Masada

Cable cars ascend (left) and descend from Israel’s Masada National Park, a 2,000 year old Jewish fortress rising 1,350 feet above the nearby Dead Sea.

The ride is swift and easy, versus the long, laborious and occasionally frightening “snake path” to the top which some IDF infantry units are required to take in training. And Tom Ringwald, an old Army buddy, took to get down years ago, after riding the car up there.

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Totin’ an auto rifle in the grocery

Posted on April 10, 2011 | Comments Off on Totin’ an auto rifle in the grocery

One of the curious features of Israeli life is the way her young conscript soldiers carry their loaded M-4s, M-16s, and other automatic weapons everywhere they go. In uniform and out. It’s required.

You see them in the grocery, the mall, the bus stop, the street, heck, even in the elevator. Snoop and I were riding an elevator in a mall near his home in Rehovot when it stopped to let on two young black men, apparently Ethiopian Jews. Both were in uniform, and both were fully armed.

If you didn’t know better (or you were a Hamas groupie) you might call it an example of Israel’s menace. In fact it’s to help these warriors become intimately familiar with their weapons and to be ready in case the Arabs attack without warning. As they have before, and Hamas still does.

Instead of having to find an armory, they can go directly to their unit’s assembly point announced on Army radio. Like in 1973 when, on the last day of Yom Kippur, the Syrians threw more than a thousand Russian battle tanks into the Golan Heights. The IDF outposts held them, at great cost to themselves, as the reserves and conscripts raced to help.

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Posted in Israel, The War, Troops

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The Gaza War

Posted on April 9, 2011 | Comments Off on The Gaza War

Hamas wanted it. Now they’ve got it. And, now, of course, they’re whining for a ceasefire, and their buddies in the European Union and the United Nations are condemning Israel for a “disproportionate response.” As if “you-kill-two-of-mine and I’ll-kill-two-of-yours” is the way real wars are fought.

Like Treppenwitz I find it increasingly hard to sympathize with the average Gaza Palestinian who allows Hamas to fire its mortars, rockets and, now, an anti-tank missile at an Israeli school bus without so much as a street protest. Have they learned nothing from the people of Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Syria? Or are they just on Hamas’s side? Their willing partners in war crimes.

I am concerned for the young man with a critical head injury caused by the Hamas anti-tank missile, and the young conscript warriors of the IDF who must risk their lives fighting the barbaric arabs to defend Israelis. In the words of the song and the prayer: O Hashem, protect our men in arms. As they defend our land, shield them from harm. Hu yivarech et chayalei tzava hagana li Yisroel, Hu Yivarech.

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Why not to worry about Egypt

Posted on April 9, 2011 | Comments Off on Why not to worry about Egypt

Ignore the usual prattling of the ignorant legacy media, particularly their trumpeting of El Baradei’s threat to attack Israel, ’cause he ain’t likely to win election in Egypt, says Sandmonkey.

“The people don’t want someone who is … as unable to communicate with them as Baradei. Chances are, Egypt’s real next president will appear sometimes by late August/ early September, after [he has] been kicked and burned and faced a trial by fire unlike Egypt has ever seen.”

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Posted in Blogosphere, Israel, The War

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