Via Sassy Wire I found this reference to recent Barbara Kay post in the National Post. I am short on time but I hope to have a much longer response either this evening or tomorrow morning. Until then, let me just remind readers Barbara Kay has a has a history of axe grinding with the religious among Jews.. I suppose they don’t meet her litmus test for authentically Jewish.
I suppose it was just a matter of time before someone published this.
Although, I think I will wait for the Mearsheimer & Walt review before I read it.
h/t My Right World.
Give up? These countries are all tied for 8th place in the happy citizen index. Arutz Sheva.
Israelis are among the happiest people in the world, according to a new Gallup Poll published this week by Forbes magazine. Israel was tied with three other countries for eighth place, placing far ahead of the United States and Britain.
(…)Following the four Scandinavian countries of Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden atop the list, the next three rankings were shared by Holland, Costa Rica and New Zealand, with only a percentage point putting them ahead of the four-way tie among Israel, Canada, Switzerland and Australia. All four of the latter tallied a 62 percent report of people whose lives are thriving. The United States, where only 57 percent of the population are happy, was in 14th place, tied with Australia. The United Kingdom was in 17th pace, with a score of only 54 percent.
Despite Finland’s high ranking, it has one of the highest suicide rates in the world, and Denmark’s alcohol consumption is among the ten highest in the world. On the other hand, Israel has one of the lowest suicide rates, as well as a high fertility rate, another indication that Israelis are happy.
So its nice to know during my opt-out year I will be replacing one happy place with another happy place. Speaking of learning Hebrew, if you ever needed a daily exercise in humiliation, learning Hebrew is a sure fire way to go. And I haven’t even gotten to the point where I have misused the slang yet!
I have to admit I just don’t care about the census and feel its just another governmental intrusion into my private affairs. What language I chose to speak at home, how many people live in my home, their employment status/educational level, military status or the faith we practise (or not) is just not any of the federal government’s business. Neither is my ancestry or ethnic origins. All the feds need to know is my immigration status and the fact I pay my taxes when due. End of story.
I could blog about Canadian politics or the meltdown of the Obama-nation to our south. It just that it all blows for me right now as each side polarizes into absurdity and I find it just engages me less and less. North American politics has become so sporty – like a football game where everyone chooses sides and roots for their home team regardless of any other consideration. Ideas, integrity and principles are thrown aside for the sake of pragmatism in the quest to score the winning goal. Perhaps, it has always been like this and I have been wearing my rose-coloured glasses far too long.
So instead I want to mark a personal milestone. I’m a reader, my daughter is a reader, and my oldest son is a reader. We might even be called a family of readers except my youngest son rarely reads. It’s not that he can’t read, he just finds it boring beyond belief which quite frankly an attitude that completely baffles me is. I’ve tried just about every kind of book to engage him with to no avail…until two days ago when
I caught him reading for pleasure. And it was all purely by accident. I bought an English translation of a book by Israeli writer Etgar Keret called, ‘The Bus Driver who thought he was God & Other stories’. I am not a fan of short stories and avoid them much like one does to avoid swine flu. An acquaintance begged me to give him a chance and suggested I needed to read him to get a better grasp on Israeli pop culture.
I finally found one of his books at a used bookstore I regularly patronize. Let me say this, it wasn’t cheap even for a ‘used’ book. I bought it, brought it home, and read it in one sitting while I laughed and alternately squirmed under Keret’s prose. I knew my older son would appreciate how far Keret is willing to go to expose the thoughts of ordinary people doing often bizarre or irrations things for the most absurd reasons. Actually, reading Keret is kind of like sitting in G-d’s confessional booth. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to discover Keret has already written a story about G-d’s confessional booth.
Montana liked it and left it lying around the bathroom which is where Isaiah Sender found it. It was Isaiah Sender’s turn to clean the bathroom and he only gave it a quick read because he mistakenly thought it was a Captain Underpants novella he missed reading as child owing to the graphics on the cover. Or at least that’s his excuse when I found him reading it instead of cleaning. Apparently, the first story sucked him in and he’s stayed with it until it’s done. Now he wants more. Baruch HaShem, but did he have to pick an author whose books seem only to be published here at upscale prices? Anyhow, between Keret’s stories I thought I might try sneaking in a little Vonnegut.
In a priest bites dog kind of way. CBC News:
A Roman Catholic priest in Connecticut was charged Tuesday with stealing $1.3 million US in church money over seven years to use for male escorts, expensive clothing, and luxury hotels and restaurants.
A Catholic priest who actually pays for sex with adult male escorts rather than diddling the altar boys. Positively remarkable and almost reformed…
It’s Canada Day, and even though I liked Dominion Day a great deal more; I still love living in this country. Like a number of Canadians I have had some choices about where I wanted to live and I still chose Canada. I love living in a place where there are four seasons and I do love living in a country where I can look out my big bay living windows of my 19th century flat and see literally the faces of the entire world walk on by.
I like living in a country where water, food, and relatively clean air are in abundance. I love living in a place wherein the ‘authorities’ get shifty with a citizens charter rights – most sane people get absolutely tanked with outraged. This is a good thing. I love the fact our holidays are for the most part sacred and rarely are we allowed to legally pick and chose which day we will celebrate them on. This has given me a mid-week break with enough time to sew two dresses, see a movie with my daughter and lose myself in Patrick O’Brian’s world – all before I have to go back to work tomorrow.
If I had one wish for my country (other than lower taxes) it would be this; peace, order and good government was the order of the day no matter which group of stiffs is running the government.
But don’t expect most people to take notice or even blog about it. The Israeli Sephardic party Shas recently joined the World Zionist Organization and is shaking the foundations. Arutz Sheva:
Tuesday will mark the commencement of the 36th World Zionist Congress in Jerusalem, the first such congress that will see the Shas faction as a formal member of the Zionist movement. After years of being labeled a “non-Zionist” party, Shas – which represents a largely hareidi-religious Sephardic constituency – stunned many this year by officially defining itself as Zionist and requesting to join the World Zionist Organization, founded by Herzl in 1897 as the midwife to the future Jewish state.
Despite fiery criticism from Ashkenazi hareidi factions and skepticism from other movements within the WZO, Shas is entering the congress with a focused determination and heavy legislative agenda. It has already placed a proposal on the congress’ agenda that would change the language of the WZO’s formal doctrinal document, the “Jerusalem Program.” Instead of seeking a Jewish state “marked by mutual respect for the multi-faceted Jewish people,” the Shas proposal would see the Zionist movement supporting a state committed to “love of the Jewish people,” and in place of “an exemplary society… rooted in the vision of the prophets,” that society would be based on “the Torah of Israel.”
This proposal has been taken as a direct challenge to the non-Orthodox Diaspora Jewish movements, which together with their allies from Israel’s Knesset, make up over 40 percent of the delegates to the Congress.
Another less controversial Shas proposal:
MK Ze’ev told Israel National News on Monday that his proposal calls upon the WZO to “impose upon the Presidium of the Zionist General Council and the Zionist Executive to coordinate with the relevant bodies and the Knesset Caucus for Israel and Global Ethics the task of combating the delegitimization campaign currently being waged against the right of Jews to execute their rights as the indigenous people of the Land of Israel in accordance with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People and the U.N. resolutions on the Culture of Peace.”
This right, according to Ze’ev, counters the false claim that Jews are “occupiers” in their homeland. “In accordance with international law,” Ze’ev said, “the Jewish people have the right to live in all parts of their indigenous homeland and to maintain and develop their religious and cultural identity as indigenous to the land. Our efforts will be implemented within Jewish communities in Israel and in the Diaspora, in the national and global media, in the academic arena and in the diplomatic arenas.”
The Shas proposal already enjoys broad support from a number of organizations, including World Likud, the Zionist Organization of America, L’Herut Tzion, the Zionist Freedom Alliance, Justice Now!, Kumah and the American Israeli Action Coalition. The initiative’s supporters argue that the resolution is not only geared towards improving Jewish education and Israel advocacy initiatives, but also has far reaching legal ramifications. The United Nations currently recognizes as indigenous any nation that declares itself as such, and according to section 10 of the UN General Assembly’s 2007 Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People, “indigenous peoples shall not be forcibly removed from their lands or territories. No relocation shall take place without the free, prior and informed consent of the indigenous peoples concerned and after agreement on just and fair compensation and, where possible, with the option of return.”
I remain a skeptic that the UN will actually formally recognize the Jews as an indigenous people to the Israeli state and would bet the UN will change their own by-laws in order to circumvent this move but good on Shas for declaring themselves committed Zionists and taking up the fight.
I think I should start a category devoted strictly to why one should never strictly rely on the NY Times for news and information.
JERUSALEM — An Israeli police officer was shot dead in the West Bank on Monday and two more were wounded in the first fatal shooting attack on Israeli security personnel in the area in more than a year. The West Bank has seen only sporadic violence in recent months, but tensions have risen in the region following Israel’s deadly raid on a flotilla bound for Gaza two weeks ago. The attack was on a police vehicle driving in the Hebron area of the southern West Bank, according to a police spokesman, Micky Rosenfeld. Three officers were wounded, and one, Yehoshua Sofer, 39, died in the hospital. No group had claimed responsibility by Monday evening, and no suspect had been arrested.
In February, an Israeli soldier was stabbed to death by a Palestinian police officer in the northern West Bank, and in March of that year two Israeli policemen were killed by gunmen who opened fire on their car in the Jordan Valley area of the West Bank. Last December, an Israeli resident of a West Bank settlement was shot to death on a road near his home, and last month a Palestinian youth who had been throwing stones at Israeli cars passing his West Bank village was shot dead, when an Israeli settler whose car was hit opened fire. The Israeli military, which maintains overall control in the West Bank, has been easing movement for Palestinians in line with improving security and a readiness to help the local economy grow. Roadblocks have been removed as newly trained Palestinian security forces loyal to the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, began to assume a more active role. Noting an easing of restrictions, the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem stated in its annual report, released Monday, that there were 44 staffed checkpoints inside the West Bank in February, compared with 64 in 2008.
What the NY Times fails to tell its readers is that 1 Israeli police officer was murdered and three others were injured. and not in the line of duty where police officers might be expected to encounter potential violent suspect(s ), but when the vehicle they were traveling in came under sniper fire on Route 60 where a checkpoint was only recently dismantled. Why was there checkpoint established at that particular junction? If you ask Palestinians its to make their lives harder but if you ask the Israelis it was because this site was often used to launch attacks in the past…so who are you going to believe?
In other news, you won’t find in the NY Times, a kassam was launched into Israel from the Gaza Strip today.
