Rabbi Joshua Hammerman TBE Shabbat-O-Gram

Here at Beth El, we are all saddened that, as of this posting on Friday afternoon, Frank Rosner, congregational patriarch and trustee-for-life, lies in grave condition at Stamford Hospital at the age of 95. We know that everything is in God’s hands, and we pray for his soul and for his family. Please note that should the situation change between now and the beginning of Shabbat, I will notify the congregation immediately by e-mail. If anything were to happen on Shabbat, I will send out an e-mail immediately following Shabbat on Saturday night, letting the congregation know of the arrangements that have been made. Eileen and Joyce are very grateful for the outpouring of support that they have received.

Rabbi Joshua Hammerman

April 11&18, 2008 –Nisan 6&13 5768

Special Double Issue for the Festival

Rabbi Joshua Hammerman, Temple Beth El, Stamford, Connecticut

Special Occasion? Sponsor a Shabbat Bulletin, (sent every Friday morning via e-mail),

the Shabbat Announcements (Distributed each Shabbat at the Temple)

& the Shabbat-O-Gram. Sponsor all three publications for only $72

All sponsors will be acknowledged at the beginning of each of these announcements

and also listed in our Bi-monthly Bulletin. Call Mindy in the office at 322-6901

Send your friends and relatives the gift of Jewish awareness -- a Shabbat-O-Gram each week, by signing them up at www.tbe.org. To be removed from this mailing list, sent e-mail request to office@tbe.org. If you have signed up and are not receiving our e-mails, check your spam filter to make sure that TBE is not being “spammed out.”

Prior Shabbat-O-Grams are archived at http://www.tbe.org/sog/index.php.

A full collection of past articles, sermons and essays can now be found at my new blog at http://joshuahammerman.blogspot.com/

For online sale of Hametz, go to http://www.koach.org/hametzsaleform.htm

Or, to do it through my auspices: » Sale of Hametz Form (must be received by April 18)

Also, see our website’s Passover information section:

» A Guide for the Perplexed
» When Pesach Falls on a Saturday Night

Contents of the Shabbat O Gram:

(Click to scroll down)

Just the Facts

The (Occasionally) Ranting Rabbi

Mitzvah/Tzedakkah Opportunities

Ask the Rabbi

Spiritual Journey on the Web

The Beth El Bar/Bat Mitzvah Commentary

Masechet Cyberspace (NEW)

Required Reading and Action Items (links to key articles on Israel and Jewish life)

Joke for the Week

I had the pleasure of escorting several of our Kulanu teens to the Jewish Home in Fairfield last week, as part my “Write On” journalism class. The teens interviewed the residents about Israel, on the eve of Israel’s 60^th birthday. Above are photos of TBE teens interviewing the residents, including Rebecca Poser with Nora Link, Josh Fox with Sadie Kruger, and Jackie Schechter with Carol Engleman.

(Thanks to Shelley Berman of the Jewish Home for the photos)

Over 450 people took part in our Purim festivities.

Click here for photos of our Purim Celebration

Quote for the Week

“In the world-to-come, a person will be asked to give account

for that which, being excellent to eat she gazed at and did not eat.”

-Jerusalem Talmud, Kiddushin 4:12

JUST THE FACTS

Candle lighting: 7:12 pm on Friday, April 11, 2008. For Havdalah times, other Jewish calendar information, and to download a Jewish calendar to your PDA, click on http://www.hebcal.com/. To see the festivals of other faiths as well, go to http://www.interfaithcalendar.org/. The United Synagogue has updated its candlelighting information. To learn more, click here.

MAZAL TOV… to Julie Piskin, parents Michele and Scott and siblings Jason and Todd, as Julie becomes Bat Mitzvah this Shabbat morning. Also to Scott Allen and Rae-ann Kirshnar on their ufruf this Shabbat, as well as their upcoming wedding.

THE FULL SERVICE SCHEDULE NOW APPEARS ON THE SEPARATE TBE ANNOUNCEMENTS E-MAIL

Friday Night Shabbat Services:

6:30 – Main Service – in the chapel

(Next week is another Nefesh service!)

NO Tot Shabbat this week

Shabbat morning:

9:30 AM: Main Service

10:30 AM: Tot Shabbat Morning with Nurit

ON PASSOVER – on days 1,2 7 and 8, Nurit will be here for her Tot services each morning at 10:30 (with ice cream!), as well as on Friday night for Tot Shabbat, on the 18^th and 25^th

THIS THURSDAY – FOLLOWING MINYAN – SIYUM FOR THE FIRST BORN

Morning Minyan: 7:30 Weekdays, 9:30 Sundays

PLEASE COME TO MINYAN!

TO ENSURE A “GUARANTEED MINYAN” FOR THE DAY OF YOUR YAHRZEIT – GO TO THE ROSNER MINYAN MAKER AT WWW.TBE.ORG AND THEN NOTIFY OUR OFFICE.

Now you can become more comfortable with the prayers of our morning service by heading to…

http://www.tbe.org/site/sog/minyanmastery.htm

NOW THERE’S ONE MORE REASON TO COME TO MINYAN…

We’ve just received copies of a new and comprehensive commentary on our siddur, “Or Hadash” – This joint project of The United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism and the Rabbinical Assembly, authored by Rabbi Reuven Hammer, features material from classical and contemporary sources, explanations of the history, structure and meaning of prayers and more. The page numbers match our regular weekday siddur, but the in-depth commentaries will bring a whole new dimension to your experience of prayer, opening new doors to understanding the service.

Torah Reading For Shabbat Morning

Parashat Mezorah

With a Midrashic focus on the Laws of Gossip (Lashon Ha-ra)

Torah Portion Leviticus 14:1 - 15:33

1: 14:1-5
2: 14:6-9
3: 14:10-12
4: 14:13-15
5: 14:16-20
6: 14:21-25
7: 14:26-32
maf: 14:30-32

Haftarah: II Kings 7:3 - 7:20

Weekly Torah Commentaries, compiled by www.myjewishlearning.com

Click here for a summary of Metzora.

Text Studies

Recipe For Purity by Hannah Graham

Provided by Hillel’s Joseph Meyerhoff Center for Jewish Learning, which creates educational resources for Jewish organizations on college campuses.

Sensitivity To Speech by Rabbi Jordan D. Cohen

Provided by KOLEL--The Adult Centre for Liberal Jewish Learning, which is affiliated with Canada's Reform movement.

The Cursed House by Rabbi Fred Reiner

Provided by the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, the central body of Reform Judaism in North America.

Commentaries

Natural Healing by Ramona Rubin

Provided by Canfei Nesharim, providing Torah wisdom about the importance of protecting our environment.

Water for Life by Carol Towarnicky

Provided by American Jewish World Service, pursuing global justice through grassroots change.

Leper as "Other" by Lydia Bloom

Provided by American Jewish World Service, pursuing global justice through grassroots change.

Making Room for the Leper by Rabbi Kerry Olitzky

Provided by the Jewish Outreach Institute, an organization dedicated to creating a more open and welcoming Judaism.

Reaching Out To The Isolated by Dvora Weisberg

Provided by CLAL: The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership, a multi-denominational think tank and resource center.

Is It Blasphemous To Heal People? by Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson

Provided by the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies, which ordains Conservative rabbis at the University of Judaism.

The Subtleties Of One Letter by Rabbi Avraham Fischer

Provided by the Orthodox Union, the central coordinating agency for North American Orthodox congregations.

Modern Untouchables: Our Sins Of Exclusion by Rabbi Justin David

Provided by SocialAction.com, an on-line Jewish magazine dedicated to pursuing justice, building community, and repairing the world.

COMING ATTRACTIONS at TBE…

see our Shabbat Announcements and www.tbe.org for more details

Temple Beth El’s

Second Night

Community Seder

Sunday, April 20 at 7:00 PM

A Traditional, Kosher Seder Meal featuring Entertainment and Activities for All Ages!

» Click here for the flier

» Click here to sign-up online

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MAY 9-10 SYNAPLEX:

“Israel @ 60: The Jew Re-imagined”

Featuring Scholar in Residence

Reuven Kimelman

Friday night: “Israel @ 60: The New Jew”

Shabbat morning: “Israel @ 60: Jews, Christians and the Love of God”

Shabbat afternoon: “Israel @60: Jews, Moslems and the Struggle for Jerusalem”

And highlighted by the preview performance of

“Becoming Israel”

Ultra-Orthodox passengers riot aboard El Al plane over screening of film

_{By Zohar Blumenkrantz,
Haaretz Correspondent}

Ultra-Orthodox passengers on an El Al flight to Kiev caused a serious commotion Sunday morning after, according to their testimony, a movie was screened on board the plane.

The Haredi men, en route to Uman, Ukraine to visit the gravesite of Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav, said that the airline had promised not to show a film during the flight.

When the screens began to unfold in preparation for the screening, the ultra-Orthodox men began going wild. "It was a pretty frightening sight," a passenger on the plane described the events. According to witnesses, the men began shouting and physically trying to prevent the movie screens from unfolding.

This is not the first time that El Al is faced with problems with ultra-Orthodox people on board flights to religious sites. In 2002, a flight crew had to prevent an ultra-Orthodox passenger, flying from Israel to Britain, from wrapping himself in plastic bags. The pilot was forced to return to Ben Gurion International airport in order to remove the passenger from the plane. The passenger, a Cohen, wrapped himself in plastic bags for fear that the plane's route would pass through the air above the Holon cemetery and he would consequently become impure.

Rabbi Yosef Shalom Eliashiv, the leader of the Lithuanian Haredi community in Israel, published a halakhic ruling in the past stipulating that Cohens mustn't fly in this plane because they are prohibited from flying over a cemetery. Later, Rabbi Eliashiv found a solution to this issue, ruling that wrapping oneself in thick plastic bags while the plane crossed over the cemetery is permissible.

FIFTEEN WAYS YOU KNOW PESACH IS COMING TO JERUSALEM
by Judy Lash Balint

1. No alarm clock needed here-instead we have the clanging of the garbage trucks as they roll through the neighborhood every morning during the 2 weeks before Pesah to accomodate all the refuse from the furious Cleaning going on in every household. The day before the seder they make their rounds at least twice during the day.

2. Street scenes change every day according to what's halachically necessary:
For the week before the holiday, yeshiva students wielding blow torches and tending huge vats of boiling water are stationed every few blocks and in the courtyard of every mikveh. The lines to toyvel(dunk) cutlery, kiddush cups and the like, start to grow every day, and, at the last minute, blow torches are at the ready to cleanse oven racks and stove
tops of every last gram of hametz.

3. The day before the seder, the yeshiva students are replaced by families using empty lots to burn the remainders of their hametz gleaned from the previous night's meticulous search. Street corner flower vendors do great business too.

4. Most flower shops stay open all night for the two days before Pesah, working feverishly to complete the orders for delivery to grace Seder tables.

5. Meah Shearim and Geula merchants generally run out of heavy plastic early in the week before Pesah. In a panic, I make an early morning run to the Mahaneh Yehuda market to successfully snap up a few meters of the handy material.

6. No holiday here is complete without a strike or two. Last year, the doctors came to agreement to end their month long walkout just hours before the start of Pesah and gas suppliers at Ben Gurion airport decided to use the opportunity to cause havoc to the plans of 200,000 Israelis who travel abroad for the holiday. A wildcat strike caused delays in arrivals and departures at the airport too.

7. Good luck if you haven't scheduled an appointment for a pre-Pesah/Omer haircut. You can't get in the door at most barber and beauty shops.

8. Mailboxes are full of Pesah appeals from the myriad of organizations helping the poor celebrate Pesah. Newspapers are replete with articles about selfless Israelis who volunteer by the hundreds in the weeks before the holiday to collect, package and distribute Pesah supplies to the needy.

9. The biggest food challenge to those of us ashkenazic, non-kitniyot (legume) eaters is finding cookies etc. made without kitniyot. But most years, many restaurants in the city stayed open offering special Pesah menus-most without kitniyot, to accommodate the largely Ashkenazic tourist population that used to be their bread and butter (matzo & butter?) This year, with the dearth of tourists, we may end up spending most meals at home.

10. Since most of the country is on vacation for the entire week of Pesah, all kinds of entertainment and trips are on offer, despite the jihad being waged against us. Ads appear for everything from the annual Carlebach festival to a "Tour de Pesah" bicycle extravaganza at the Bloomfield Science Museum. There's Jewish Film Week at the Jerusalem Cinematheque and Tel Aviv weighs in with Drag Festival 2001.

11. Pesah with its theme of freedom and exodus always evokes news stories about recent olim. Last year's focus was the Jewish community of Cuba. Hundreds of Cuban Jews and their non-Jewish relatives arrived in Israel during the year to fill up absorption centers in Ashkelon and Beersheva.

12. This just in: According to Israel's Brandman Research Institute study, 43 million people hours will be spent nationwide in Israel's cleaning preparations for Passover this year. How does that break down? Of those cleaning hours, 29 million are done by women and 11 million by men. Persons paid to clean do the remaining 3 million hours at a cost of NIS 64 million ($15.6 million).

13. On erev Pesah, dozens of members of various movements intent on preserving our connection to the Temple, re-enact the ritual Pesah sacrifice on Jerusalem's Givat Hananya. The hill is located in the neighborhood of Abu Tor and is named for the High Priest Hananya of the Second Temple period. Participants emphasize that their slaughter and roasting of a young goat is a preface to making the sacrifice, since they are wary of creating the impression that they are renewing the sacrificial act outside the
Temple Mount.

14. Israel's two chief rabbis sell the nation's hametz to an Arab resident of Abu Ghosh. Estimated worth: 150 million shekel.

15. In the Galut (Diaspora), Pesah is observed...in Israel it's celebrated.

Beth El Cares:

Inreach and Outreach

Blood Drive

Give the Gift of Life! Get involved in a short term mitzvah project that will save lives.

Who benefits from these blood donations? People who are born prematurely, people with auto-immune and other blood disorders,

people involved in accidents…

Many people, including temple members,

have received blood transfusions including some people who need regular blood transfusions.

On Sunday, May 18th between 8:45 am and 1 pm we need 125 healthy adults who are at least 17 years old,

weigh at least 110 pounds and have not given blood since the beginning of March.

Contact Alison Wolff at 203-968-6361 to schedule your donation time or to volunteer to help.

Religious School Mitzvah Projects

THANK YOU to the 7^th grade class, and their donor parents, which collected Passover food items for Jewish soldiers serving in the US military. The class members also made beautiful holiday cards that were included in the packages. Thanks to Eran and Mara for their assistance with this project!

Passover Food Drives

Thanks to everyone who contributed to our two recent Passover food drives. The first food drive, was similar to the 7^th grade class project, where congregants donated boxes containing Passover food items and Haggadot for Jewish soldiers serving in the US military. Special thanks to Beth Boyer for handling the customs forms and mailing. The second food drive was for local residents in need of some Passover staples. Special thanks to Liz Finkelstein for handling the collection and distribution of these packages.

Daffodil Days

Thank you to Ronni Ginsberg for organizing a Daffodil Days sale at Temple Beth El. Proceeds from the sale of daffodils benefited the American Cancer Society.

Volunteer at The Jewish Home for the Elderly

The Jewish Home (in Fairfield) is starting a new program called “Monthly Mitzvah Day” and is asking for groups like ours to select one day per month for members to volunteer at the Home. Please contact me if you’d like to organize this endeavor.

Cathy Satz 968-9191 (csscounsel@yahoo.com)

Chair, Beth El Cares

BETH EL (REALLY) CARES

We are currently embarking on some new initiatives for inreach, including groups of people who will do visitations at nursing homes and hospital, rides to temple events, providing baby sitters for congregants, as well as those sustaining and growing our daily minyan, along with other inreach initiatives. If you are interested in participating in any of these endeavors, please contact me at rabbi@tbe.org

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IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO HELP WITH OUR ANNUAL 2^ND NIGHT TBE SEDER,

CONTACT DARICE BAILER AT daricerb@aol.com. OUR SEDER COMMITTEE IS ALREAY HARD AT WORK!

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Mitzvah Suggestion for the Week

STAND UP FOR ISRAEL!

Join Rabbi Hammerman at the AIPAC Policy Conference, June 2-4

For more information, go to www.aipac.org

Bar/Bat Mitzvah Projects:

HELP THE ANIMAL SHELTER

BRING NEW DOG OR CAT TOYS

ALSO BRING IN NEW OR OLD TOWELS OR BLANKETS

THIS IS FOR JULIE PISKIN’S

BAT MITZVAH PROJECT

I love baseball and many other sports, like basketball, lacrosse, football and soccer. For my mitzvah project, I would like to gather new or used sports equipment to donate to organizations in Stamford, such as the Boys and Girls Club, to use in their children’s afterschool and summer recreation programs. As spring training comes to an end and you buy new equipment to start your regular season, please see if you have any old equipment that you can donate such as-balls, bats, mitts, shin guards, cleats, etc. A donation bin will be set up outside the Temple office.

Thank you.

Adam Satz

THIS WEEK WE DO SOME ROLE REVERSAL:

I HAVE A QUESTION FOR YOU :

How do you explain the Ten Plagues (especially the last one) to Children?

Let me know at rabbi@tbe.org –

I’ll discuss this with parents during services and at my Story Hour at Borders on the 24^th at 10:00 AM

(ALSO, SOMETHING RELEVANT FOR NEXT WEEKEND…)

What is YaK N’HaZ?

No, it has nothing to do with sharing a chuckle on the bima with the cantor; but it has lots to do with the beginning of this year’s first Seder. As we see often in our prayer books and in the Haggadah (check out the Ten Plagues), the rabbis loved utilizing acrostics and mnemonics, or whatever you want to call them, as memory-aids. Since Judaism has always looked for God “in the details,” and since the Seder means “order,” ways had to be devised to assist people in memorizing the correct order of detailed procedures.

When the first night of Passover this year is a Saturday night (a rare occurrence, which happened just 11 times in the 20th century), there are a number of blessings to be recited right off the bat:

1) The Kiddush over wine (boray pri ha-gafen)

2) The additional blessing over the festival (recited typically as part of the Kiddush)

3) The Havdalah prayer, ending Shabbat, including the blessings over the fire of the Havdalah candle and the Havdalah blessing itself.

4) The Shehechianu blessing, always recited at the beginning of festivals and to mark other special occasions.

After much discussion, the Talmud opts for the exact order detailed above. It’s interesting to note how the lines are somewhat blurred between the ending of Shabbat and the beginning of Passover. So we have 1) wine (Yayin), 2) Kiddush, 3) candle (Ner), 4) Havdalah, and 5) the seasonal blessing (Z’man). Put it all together and you have YaK N’HaZ.

Now here is where it goes from simply interesting to downright fascinating. The Haggadah, more than any other document, reflects both the amazing continuity and equally remarkable diversity of Jewish expression over the ages. There are over 4,000 known versions, including a number of illuminated manuscripts from the middle ages that depict YaK N’Haz in an intriguing manner. In the 1560 Mantua Haggadah (found in the Israel Museum), the Prague Haggadah (1526), and the Rylands Spanish Haggadah (mid 14^th century), among others, YaK N’HaZ is depicted in illustrations showing a hunter with a hound chasing a rabbit.

Come again?

This, ladies and gentlemen, is a pictorial mnemonic, an instant reminder to our European ancestors as to what the verbal mnemonic was all about. Why? Because the German phrase “Jag den Haz” closely resembles YaK N’HaZ, and “Jag den Haz” means “hunt the hare.”

So when our kids start clamoring to watch the Rugrats Passover special or to sing one of those crazy newfangled Seder songs like “Haggadah Wash That Man Right Out of My Hair,” think of those hunted hares in medieval Germany. And recall that the word Haggadah means “telling,” and the essence of the Seder, is that the ancient story be retold in ways that will resonate for this generation. Your Seder will not be exactly the same as your grandparents’, or as your neighbor’s down the street. But it will be representative of this generation – yet tied intimately to ancient traditions and an equally ancient story.

So if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to go share some “Yucks with the Haz” up on the bima.

Click below for the answer to that eternal question…

What does my dog have to do with the laws of Passover? (And who's inspecting the toilet paper?)

and for the classic Passover Web Journey:

Call Me Ashke-Sephard - The Jewish Mutt

Passover Links

To brush up on your Four Questions http://www.koltor.com/menu%20from%20scratch/melody.htm

Passover: Guided Learning from MyJewishLearning.com

Guided Learning presents the content for this section by level of depth, and offers you a specific order by which to read through the articles at each level. You can go directly to one of the four levels by clicking below, or take a quiz that will suggest the appropriate level for you based on your results. Or, you can opt to start at the Primer and work your way through all four levels of Guided Learning one by one. Quiz on Passover Level I: Primer Level II: Topical Overviews Level III: Deeper Explorations Level IV: Analysis & Interpretation

Looking for a haggadah for your seder? We've got you covered. Tamar Fox at Jewcy has five helpful hints, my favorite being "Mix and Match." One of the best seders I've ever been to had more than 30 haggadot laid out on the d... [Read more]

For a host of other Pesach links:

www.kosher4passover.com.

And from JewishFreeware.org

5768 NEW - COMPLETE TRADITIONAL HAGGADAH WITHOUT SONGBOOK - in DAVKAWRITER6

This is the newest complete Traditional Haggadah with its Hebrew, English and Transliterated texts presented sequentially, not onto separate pages. It is presented in Davkawriter Platinum 6 and when opened in that program you can edit it for your personal needs. Download the largest Seder Song Book on the Internet in Davka and also edit it to fit your family Haggadah.

NEW FOR 5768 /2008 COMPLETE TRADITIONAL HAGGADAH (Paginated) With Complete Traditional Hebrew Songs and English Parody Songs: PDF

This is the entire Traditional Passover Seder Haggadah in Hebrew, English and Transliteration - in a PDF format. Each portion of this Seder text and Song appears individually on separate pages for easy downloading and printing. Then one can physically choose what to include or delete - a form of editing for those who don't have Davka 6 Platinum in which this Haggadah was composed.

5768 NEW SEDER SONG BOOK - in DAVKAWRITER 6

This is the largest collection of "fun" songs, more than 100 of them, to enhance your Seder. It is published in Davkawriter6. Download this collection into Davkawriter6, and you can edit it to fit your Seder and Haggadah.

NEW FOR 5768 PASSOVER SEDER PARODY SONGBOOK: PDF

This is the "definitive" update of the annual song parodies to enrich your Seder - in a PDF format for downloading. It is "paginated" meaning that each song is separated from the others, although sequentially numbered and the pages are numbered, offering you the opportunity to select both your favorite songs and to place them within the Seder as you wish. This is now the largest collection of song parodies available anywhere!

NEW FOR 5768 PASSOVER SONG BOOK Hebrew - English Parody Songs - Sequential: PDF

This is the complete, updated 2008 collection of both Seder Song Parodies and Hebrew Songs in a PDF format. This collection is in "sequence," each song following the other and not separated into a new page for each song. This collection has not been edited for content and includes parodies based on melodies from all music in our culture. Note that there is an "edited" version of the Song Book for families that don't wish to have an song parodies based on holiday music of our neighbors.

NEW FOR 5768 PASSOVER SONG BOOK Hebrew and English Parody Songs - Edited: PDF

This edition of the Seder Song Book collection contains both Hebrew Seder Songs and English Parody Songs in a "sequential" fashion and in a PDF format. "Sequential" means that the songs continue, one after the other, rather than separated on to different pages. Please NOTE: this edition is special. In an effort to be sensitive to the feelings of some, we have eliminated from this collection any song parodies that refer to any melodies from the religious holidays of our neighbors.

5768 NEW - SEDER SUPPLEMENTARY READINGS: PDF

This is the newest 5768 collection of readings, comments and additions to make your Seder more meaningful and interesting. This material is also appropriate for Divrei Torah and Homiletics.

5768 NEW SEDER SUPPLEMENTARY READINGS - IN DAVKAWRITER 6

This is the newest collection of readings to add meaning to your preparation for the Seder or for inclusion in your Seder. They are also sparks for a D'var Torah for Passover.

NEW FOR 5768 MODEL SEDER without Traditional Hebrew Songs or English Parody Songs: PDF

This is a Model Seder with the Traditional texts sequenced into a booklet in a PDF format. No Hebrew Songs or English Seder Song Parodies are included - they can be downloaded separately and selected from the various choices in Song Books.

5767 / 2007 UPDATED GUIDE FOR SEDER and SUPPLEMENTARY READINGS: PDF

This is an updated Guide to Preparing For and Leading the Seder in addition to an enhanced collection of readings, games, questions and discussion topics to enhance your Seder.

NEW 5767 / 2007 HAROSET WORKSHOP EXPERIENCE: PDF

Haroset - no matter how you spell it is one of the very special treats for the Seder. Yet it is a very important part of the ritual - whether maror is dipped in it alone or the Hillel "sandwich." The ingredients have varied from the time of the Talmud and from country to country. Download as a PDF. For home or for schools. Read, eat and enjoy.

5767 / 2007 JEWISH FAMILY HEIRLOOM HAGGADAH: PDF

Every family has their own unique needs, interests and wants for their Passover Seder. Download this English PDF for Suggestions and Helpful Hints to create and tailor a Haggadah to make it maximally appropriate to your family. No more cut-and-paste with paper, xeroxes with funny lines and white-out, pictures that aren’t quite legible. If you wish to edit your Haggadah to insert digital photographs, add selected readings or delete certain section, download the Davka6Platinum edition into Davka6Platinum Hebrew-English program. In short, you can publish your own Pesah Haggadah for your Seder, and you can do so easily using desk-top publishing. In creating your own family Haggadah, you are also creating your own Family Heirloom, a treasury of memories for many years and generations to come. You use edition or you can “update” it as the family grows.

5767 BASIC PASSOVER HAGGADAH: PDF

This very basic and brief Haggadah is intended for the most elementary Seder, perhaps for the less experienced leader or the family with young children. Download the PDF and print as needed. It does NOT have all the songs in the 5767 Seder Songbook, and I would encourage you to download the Seder Songbook and print it separately for your selective use.

The Beth El Bar/Bat Mitzvah Commentary

Josh Olin on Parashat Tazria

Shabbat Shalom!

I feel great right now! In fact, I feel like I’m top of the world, 45 feet in the air.

Of course, that’s where I spend lots of time anyway. That’s because the climbing wall at my camp is 45 feet tall. During the summer, I climb that wall several times a day. I’ve climbed that wall a number of different ways, on all five sides, with different degrees of difficulty. There’s even a place, on a different wall, where you can climb upside down. And yes, I can do it blindfolded!

If you couldn’t guess by now, I love to climb. When you are in mid air, trying to reach for a hold, there’s an incredible combination of feelings: fear of hitting the wall combined with the excitement of grasping the hold and eventually overcoming the challenge. There are times when the next hold is so high up that you literally have to jump from the lower one in order to reach it, while dangling in the air.

I may not have been the best climber in camp, but my team just annihilated everyone!

It’s really not that hard to learn how to climb. But you take a step by step approach. First, you have to learn the basic holds…..No…the FIRST thing you have to learn is to not be afraid to look down! J

Now…the next thing is to get comfortable in the harness, and feel that you are safe in it.

Once you’ve mastered the basics, you can do all kinds of routes on all kinds of walls. For me there is no greater feeling than to get to the top, especially in competition. No greater feeling, except for being on top of Mount Sinai, the bima, this morning, as a bar mitzvah. Last fall on Yom Kippur, when my dad read the haftarah, I got to sit with the Torah even higher up, on the raised bima that we use on the High Holidays – and I mean the HIGH Holidays!

The special Torah reading for Shabbat Ha-Hodesh reminds us about the complicated preparations that need to be done for Passover. In a way, the rituals of Passover are just like scaling that climbing wall. You have to know the basics before going on to the next hold. So when I was younger, I first learned the four questions, Dayenu and how to find the afikoman. At my family’s Seder, we have an interesting custom where we let the younger children come in with the afikoman even when the older ones helped to find it. Now that I am considered one of the older ones, I understand how important it is for me to help teach the younger kids the basics.

I do something similar in Hebrew School, where I completed the CD program last year, so now I am not only able to lead prayers but I am helping out kids in younger grades.

Similarly, my mitzvah project is at the “Y,” where I am working with special needs children, helping them to learn social skills.

Now that I am bar mitzvah, I’ll be able to climb even higher. I’ve learned how to read Torah, a skill my dad mastered many years ago. Well, at least he thought he did! I did have to teach him one or two of the tropes for today. Now he can read at any time, and I’ve begun to master that skill as well.

The more comfortable I feel doing these things, the better it gets and the higher I can climb.

Masechet Cyberspace

This new, interactive feature of the Shabbat-O-Gram explores the new ethical frontier that is the Internet. As I’ve explored recently in articles, sermons and a panel discussion, cyberculture presents a long list new challenges to our timeless values of privacy and sacred communication. What I would like to do here is to begin to compile a new Talmudic tractate of sorts (the Talmudic word for tractate, masechet, is also the word for “web”), a guide to how one should behave online – Jewishly. This guide will remain a work in progress because new situations are constantly arising. So please send me your questions, ethical dilemmas or suggestions, and I’ll display them here.

One question that constantly arises is, when is it appropriate to forward a third party e-mail without the permission of the original sender?

There are several different ways that forwarded e-mail can cross into the territory of Lashon ha-ra (evil speech / gossip). It’s obvious that negative gossip would be problematic, as would tale bearing (passing along comments that the speaker did not intend others to hear) but even when the forwarded item is complimentary, this constitutes what is called Avak Lashon ha-ra (literally, the “dust” of evil speech).

The Jewish Ethicist weighs in on this topic – take a look at it and let me know what you think…

Is it unethical to send a "bcc" of an e-mail? I'm worried that this could be deceptive.

A. While the ethics and etiquette of e-mail are still evolving, the basic principles of thoughtful behavior are always applicable.

For the e-mail uninitiated, "bcc" stands for "blind carbon copy." Once upon a time, copies of correspondence were made by putting two or three sheets of paper in the typewriter with a sheet or two of carbon paper sandwiched in between. Usually the original stated "cc to" indicating that carbon copies were being sent to other individuals; occasionally a "blind" carbon copy was made and the recipient was not informed. Today our e-mail programs do the same thing by sending a copy of an electronic letter to the "bcc" recipient without the knowledge of the original recipient.

There are many reasons we might want to keep the additional recipient hidden, some of them good and others not so good.

A not-so-good reason for this is when you conceal the other recipient because you know the addressee would not want the message known. The message you send generally reveals some private information about the recipient and the nature of your relationship, and if recipients want this information kept private their wishes should be respected. If you feel you have a very good reason to disclose the information, then at the very least the recipients should be informed that the content is known, by making the copy a "cc" instead of a "bcc".

The problem is far worse when the message you send contains a copy of the letter you originally received -- the usual case in the world of e-mail. Letters you receive should generally be kept in the strictest confidence, and Jewish law protects them in a variety of ways. Revealing the content of a letter may be considered a form of gossip; in addition, the ancient decree of Rabbenu Gershom prohibits reading someone else's mail without their permission. (This should remind us that forwarding e-mails can also be problematic.)

However, there are some valid reasons to take advantage of the bcc feature. One good reason to keep someone hidden is to protect his own privacy. Using the "cc" line not only reveals that the letter was sent to others, it also discloses their identity as well as their e-mail address. This can be ethically problematic, as demonstrated by the following true story:

Not long ago there was a very unfortunate incident in which an individual who ran a small-scale meeting service (shadchan) wanted to send a message to all of her clients. She wrote a message and put each one on the "cc" list. Being a neophyte in the new-fangled world of e-mail, she probably didn't realize that this would disclose the identities of her customers. Many felt significant embarrassment at having it widely known that they were using this person's services. Using the bcc would have saved his customers from this discomfort and the business from suffering significant ill will.

In other cases, people don't mind having their identities revealed but they don't want to go the extra step and have their e-mail addresses publicized, since this can lead to unwanted mail, which may be annoying, offensive, or even threatening.

Another possibility is that the "cc" is being sent to an innocuous individual, but the recipient doesn't know that the recipient of the copy is trustworthy. Sending an ordinary "cc" may cause the recipient unnecessary worry that confidence has been breached. For example, on some sites queries sent to the Jewish Ethicist are first received by the host site, which then forwards them to me. When I reply to the questioner, I often send a copy of my answer to the representative of the host site. (This is a courtesy because these representatives are often extremely curious to know how I will respond.) This doesn't breach any confidence, because that person has already seen the letter. But if the letter had a cc, the recipient would be understandably concerned, because he or she probably doesn't know that the other recipient is already in the loop. So I generally use a bcc for these replies.

In these three cases, it is definitely appropriate to use a "bcc" rather than a "cc". But we may still encounter the problem mentioned above: the recipient may be misled into thinking the communication is private. There are two solutions to this problem:

1. Mention in the body of the letter that a copy is being sent to another individual. Perhaps in the future I will add to my replies the line, "I'm sending a copy of this reply to the editor of the host website."

2. Avoid shortcuts. Instead of sending the exact copy of the letter with a bcc, prepare a sanitized copy that eliminates any problematic details, and send it as a separate e-mail to someone who needs to know about the correspondence but doesn't need to know the identity of the correspondent.

There are many reasons that your recipient might not want details of your correspondence to be known. Perhaps the personal details revealed by your letter are unflattering; perhaps they are confidential. Even positive information can have negative consequences if it is too widely known. The book of Proverbs tells us, "When someone blesses his friend in a loud voice early in the morning, it is considered like a curse" (Proverbs 27:14).

Therefore, careful thought is needed before routinely forwarding e-mail or sending copies. At the very least the recipient should be informed about the disclosure, except in the cases we mentioned where the message isn't really private or when this disclosure could cause unjustified worry. Even in these cases we can often find better solutions than the bcc, which should be used sparingly.

I await your reactions! BTW, unless you indicate otherwise, I’ll assume that it is OK to reprint your response in a future Shabbat-O-Gram, with attribution.

Download an mp3 file of the recent Jewish Week panel, in which I participated,

“Is the Internet Good for the Jews?” here or at

http://www.thejewishweek.com/podcast.html

and see video highlights by clicking here

------------------

For Some GOOD NEWS check

http://www.israel21c.net/ - THE BEST ISRAELI NEWS PORTAL!

New: "Israel 60" Website (Conference of Presidents)
Resources for celebrating Israel's 60th anniversary.

Ethiopia to Broadway, via Jerusalem
	04/10/08 - Yossi Vasser and his family left their Ethiopian village when he was 10 and walked 700 km across the harsh Sudanese desert to reach Israel. Now he's telling that story in an award-winning play that goes on show in the US and Canada. More...

Tel Aviv's "quacky" duck movement arrives at City Hall
	04/08/08 - Next week a huge inflatable yellow duck goes up on the roof of Tel Aviv's City Hall to celebrate the city's centenary. Sounds bizarre? It's meant to be. More...

Israel Company Brings 'Community' to Your Web Browser
	04/09/08 - It used to be the most annoying nuisance on the Web, but with the help of Israeli company Conduit, the toolbar has now become a must-have item. More...

Poll: U.S. Christians Support Israel - Etgar Lefkovits (Jerusalem Post)
84% of Protestants (including 89% of evangelicals), as well as 76% of Catholics, said they had a "moral and biblical obligation to love and support Israel and pray for the peace of Jerusalem," according to a survey released Thursday.
While evangelical Christians are the strongest supporters of the Jewish state, strong pro-Israel convictions cut across all key Christian denominations, according to the poll carried out on behalf of the Washington-based Joshua Fund.
Half of the American Christians surveyed opposed Israel dividing Jerusalem with the Palestinians in a peace agreement, 33% were unsure and 17% thought it should be divided.
49% of American Christians said they were interested in visiting Israel.

Israel Leads the World in Computers per Capita - Yaron Hoffman (TheMarker/Ha'aretz)
Israel is ranked number one in the world in computers per capita, with seven computers for every 100 people, according to the World Economic Forum's yearly report released Thursday.

Israel Celebrates Booming Tourism (Opodo-UK)
The Israeli Tourist Office said 380,760 people visited Israel in January and February, an increase of more than 50% over the corresponding period in 2007.

Cancer Patient in California Meets Marrow Donor from Israel - Courtney Perkes (Orange County [Cal.] Register)
A year and a half ago, Yosef Eliezrie, 21, of Yorba Linda, Cal., was saved from leukemia after he underwent a bone marrow transplant from an anonymous donor at Children's Hospital of Orange County.
This week Eliezrie met his bone marrow donor from Israel, Moshe Price, 24, and found, "Not only are we a perfect physical match, we're somewhat of a spiritual match." Both are Orthodox Jews and study the Torah as full-time students.

now for the rest

Prime source: Daily Alert of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs

FROM THE REUT INSTITUTE:

Israel's Attempt to Ratify a Shelf Agreement: The Two State Solution's Swan Song? Chairman of the Palestinian Authority, Abu Mazen, said that any peace agreement with Israel will be ratified by a referendum. Currently, there seems to be no 'ripeness' to ratify a Shelf Agreement. Therefore, any attempt at ratification may prematurely bring Israel and the Palestinians to a 'moment of decision' regarding the principle of the 'Two State Solution'.
Although Israel has little influence over the Palestinian ratification process, it needs to consolidate a strategy for dealing with the possible failure of the political process.
Continue reading...

Hamas Continues to Set Israel-Palestinian Agenda - Noah Pollak
Wednesday's infiltration of terrorists from Gaza into Israel is another reminder that Hamas and its regional patrons continue to drive events, not the other way around. Not only will the peace process be overwhelmed by war in Gaza, but so will the political saliency of Mahmoud Abbas. Abbas today is a walking anachronism. If there is real progress in the peace process, Hamas and Iran will unleash violence and the ensuing battle will force Abbas to suspend negotiations; if Israel tries to negotiate with Hamas, Abbas' credibility will be fatally undermined; if he negotiates with Hamas, he will face abandonment from the U.S. and Israel; if a prisoner exchange for [captured IDF soldier] Gilad Shalit is accomplished, he will be shown among the Palestinians to be even weaker opposite Hamas than he already looks. (Commentary)

The Club of Tyranny's Falked Tongue - Melanie Phillips
The UN has appointed a man to investigate Israel's behavior who is incapable of telling the difference between genocide and the attempt to defend a people from becoming its victims. Professor Richard Falk, the UN Human Rights Council special rapporteur on the Palestinian territories, has compared Israel's behavior in Gaza to the Nazis, and tells the BBC he is unrepentant about this comparison. The UN now stands for the abandonment of free societies, the demonization of their defenders and the extinction of truth and justice, and the endorsement, justification and incitement of terror, tyranny and hatred. (Spectator-UK)

Understanding Middle East Terror: Islam or Tribalism? - Stanley Kurtz
McGill anthropology professor Philip Carl Salzman's new book, Culture and Conflict in the Middle East, is the most penetrating, reliable, systematic, and theoretically sophisticated effort yet made to understand the Islamist challenge the U.S. is facing in cultural terms. The U.S. finds itself locked in a struggle with fierce jihadi warriors shaped by the pervasively tribal culture of the Islamic Near East. Whether hidden in the mountain sanctuaries of Waziristan or in the fastness of the Iraqi desert, the heart of the jihadi rebellion is tribal. Yet tribalism has been vastly overshadowed by Islam in our attempts to understand the jihadist challenge.
Traditionally existing outside the police powers of the state, Middle Eastern tribes keep order through a comple x balance of power between ever fusing and segmenting ancestral groups. Universal male militarization, surprise attacks on apparent innocents based on a principle of collective guilt, and the careful group monitoring and control of personal behavior are just a few implications of a system that accounts for many aspects of Middle Eastern society without requiring any explanatory recourse to Islam.
Decades before 9/11, the rise of terrorism as a tactic in the Palestinian struggle against Israel suggested continuities between the endemic violence of traditional tribal life and the present. The most disturbing lesson of all is that, in the absence of fundamental cultural change, the feud between the Muslim world and the West is unlikely ever to end. (Weekly Standard)

The Trouble with Talking to Hamas - Lee Smith (Power Line)

Next week Jimmy Carter is headed to Damascus to speak with Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal.
Meshaal is not a Hamas "hardliner" ostensibly at odds with more "moderate" Hamas figures; rather he is the man who calls the shots. This is why chief of Egyptian military intelligence Omar Suleiman dealt primarily with Meshaal during the Gaza breakout in February, and not Ismail Haniyeh. In Damascus, Meshaal gets his marching orders from Tehran, which means that the former American president, during whose tenure the U.S. lost a pillar of its Persian Gulf security strategy to the Khomeinist revolution, will effectively be talking to a representative of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
One of the goals of the Iranian revolution is to overthrow the established order by routing the U.S. and driving it from the region. In the Persian Gulf, Iran is bullying Washington's Sunni allies and, as Gen. Petraeus' Senate testimony made plain, waging open war against the U.S. in Iraq. In the Eastern Mediterranean it is fighting U.S. allies in Lebanon and Israel and threatening Egypt.
Egypt's alliance with the U.S. is the fruit of the 1978 Camp David accords, and the peace treaty between Israel and Egypt is the one foreign policy achievement the Carter White House can point to with pride. The Iranian project is to put an end to all that, and this is what lay behind Hamas' breakout in Gaza, to force Cairo eventually into a situation that would lead to it breaking the treaty with Israel. Unfortunately, it is difficult not to conclude that Jimmy Carter is unaware that the man he will be sitting down with is plotting to turn his legacy into dust.

Spy Photos Reveal Secret Launch Site for Iran's Long-Range Missiles - Michael Evans
The secret site where Iran is suspected of developing long-range ballistic missiles capable of reaching targets in Europe has been uncovered by new satellite photographs. The imagery has pinpointed the facility, about 230 km. southeast of Tehran, from where the Iranians launched their Kavoshgar 1 "research rocket" on Feb. 4. Analysis of the photographs taken by the Digital Globe QuickBird satellite four days after the launch indicates to experts that it is the same site where Iran is developing a ballistic missile with a range of 4,000 miles (6,000 km.).
Avital Johanan, the editor of Jane's Proliferation, said analysis of the Iranian site indicated that Tehran may be about five years away from developing a 4,000-mile ballistic missile. (Times-UK)

Carter Urged to Shun Hamas
The State Department said Thursday it had advised former president Jimmy Carter against meeting Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal in Syria next week, saying the idea goes against U.S. policy of isolating the militant group. Carter discussed his upcoming trip with the State Department's point person on Israeli-Palestinian issues, David Welch. "We counseled against it," said department spokesman Sean McCormack. (Reuters/Washington Post)
See also Israeli Leaders to Snub Carter over Hamas Visit - Joshua Mitnick
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, and opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu turned down requests for meetings with Jimmy Carter in Israel next week during a tour of the Middle East. "Israeli officials have expressed outrage at the possibility that he'll meet Meshaal....He's the leader of a terrorist organization," said an Israeli official. (Washington Times)

Russia Seeking to Include Hamas in Moscow Middle East Parley - Benny Avni
A senior Russian diplomat said Wednesday that Moscow is seeking to invite Palestinian Arabs who have been excluded from the American-led negotiations - a reference to Hamas - to a Middle East summit in Moscow "in the near future." The inclusion of Hamas, which America considers a terrorist group, is likely to raise further opposition to the Moscow summit in Washington and Jerusalem. (New York Sun)

Egypt Beefs Up Gaza Border Force
Egypt has sent 1,200 extra security personnel to the border area with Gaza, after a senior member of Hamas threatened on Tuesday to repeat a breach of the border with Egypt. Trucks carrying goods to the border have been stopped at the Suez Canal, an official said. (BBC)

British Court Faults Government for Halting BAE-Saudi Corruption Investigation - Julia Werdigier and Alan Cowell
The High Court in Britain on Thursday ruled that officials investigating accusations of corruption in a multibillion-dollar arms deal involving Saudi Arabia and BAE Systems, Britain's biggest weapons maker, acted unlawfully when they dropped the inquiry under pressure from British and Saudi authorities. The ruling renewed pressure on the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) to reopen the investigation into the relationship between BAE and the ruling royal family in Saudi Arabia.
The SFO announced in December 2006 that it was halting the inquiry after Prime Minister Tony Blair said the investigation would threaten thousands of British jobs and affect diplomatic and intelligence ties with Saudi Arabia. Two judges ruled that the government and the SFO had "failed to recognize the rule of law" when bowing to pressure by Saudi officials. Since the inquiry was abandoned, BAE has won a $8.7 billion order from Saudi Arabia for 72 Eurofighter Typhoon warplanes. (New York Times)

Two Palestinians Arrested for Plot to Poison Israeli Restaurant Diners - Yuval Azoulay
Ahmed Abu-Riyal and Mustafa Salum, both 21, from Nablus, who were staying in Israel illegally, were arrested last month for planning to poison diners at Ramat Gan's Grill Express, where they were employed, according to details revealed Thursday. The pair admitted being recruited by an Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade cell that received funding and instructions from Hizbullah. The flavorless, odorless poison was supposed to take effect about four hours after ingestion, during which the pair planned to kill as many Israeli diners as possible. Terror organizations have tried a number of times in the past to recruit Palestinian cooks and waiters to poison food at Israeli restaurants. Defense sources said the terror cell that sent them is still operating in Nablus. (Ha'aretz)

Hamas Explosives Cache Found in West Bank - Yuval Azoulay
Israeli security forces on Thursday arrested two Hamas militants in the West Bank town of Kalkilya after uncovering a weapons cache. The forces found barrels containing 100 kg. of gun powder and 100 kg. of fertilizer to be used for preparing explosives, as well as electrical switches and wires. (Ha'aretz)

Don't Expect Response to Gaza Attack Ahead of Upcoming Holidays, Bush's Visit - Alex Fishman
Israel will "swallow" Wednesday's terror attack at Nahal Oz. This is not the right time for harsh responses. The holidays are approaching: Passover, Independence Day, the 60th anniversary celebrations. The American president is on his way to Israel with presents for our birthday and expects in exchange that Israel will present him with something that resembles a document of understandings with the Palestinians. A large-scale military operation in Gaza may ruin Bush's visit, so we will restrain ourselves yet again. The militant bodies in Gaza realize that in the coming month Israel will have one hand tied behind its back, so their attempts to carry out "high quality" attacks will persist. (Ynet News)

Lessons of the Nahal Oz Fuel Depot Attack - Amos Harel and Avi Issacharoff
The murder at the fuel depot at Nahal Oz on Wednesday shows that Israel is having a hard time establishing a sufficiently effective deterrent against the terror organizations operating from Gaza. Even if Hamas is not currently firing rockets at Israel itself, it is continuing to clash with the Israel Defense Forces along the Gaza border and is not lifting a finger to rein in the smaller Palestinian factions firing rockets and sending operatives into Israel. There has barely been a single day of quiet on the Gaza border in the last two years.
In the past, there was an attempt to maintain a buffer zone of about a kilometer west of the fence, where Palestinians were not allowed to enter, but this does not happen today. This is partly because the IDF has reduced its offensive operations in the security zone west of the fence. When its activities were more intensive, the number of incidents along the fence decreased. Without creating depth on the Palestinian side of the border, it is hard to thwart terror attacks. (Ha'aretz)
See also below Observations: Winning Counterinsurgency War: The Israeli Experience - Maj.-Gen. (res.) Yaakov Amidror (ICA/JCPA)

Palestinian Gunmen Shoot at Israeli Bus in West Bank
Palestinian gunmen fired at an Israeli bus south of Nablus on Thursday, causing damage. Palestinians also hurled three Molotov cocktails at an Israeli vehicle southeast of the town. (Jerusalem Post)

Deterring Iran from Attacking a U.S. Ally - Charles Krauthammer
The latest round of UN Security Council sanctions, which took a year to achieve, is comically weak. It represents the end of the sanctions road. The president's efforts to stop Iran's nuclear program were irreparably undermined by November's National Intelligence Estimate, whose "moderate confidence" that Iran has not restarted nuclear weaponization has promoted the illusion that Iran has given up the pursuit of nuclear weapons. Uranium enrichment, the most difficult step, proceeds apace, as does the development of nuclear-capable ballistic missiles. The president is going to hand over to his successor an Iran on the verge of going nuclear. This will deeply destabilize the Middle East and threaten the moderate Arabs with Iranian hegemony.
As there will be no disarming of Iran by preemption or by sanctions, we shall have to rely on deterrence to prevent the mullahs, some of whom are apocalyptic and messianic, from using nuclear weapons. During the Cold War, when we were dealing with rational actors, we were successful in preventing an attack not only on the U.S. but also on America's allies. We did it by extending the American nuclear umbrella - i.e., declaring that any attack on our allies would be considered an attack on the U.S. We should do the same to keep nuclear peace in the Middle East.
An implacable neighboring power has openly declared genocidal intentions against Israel - in clear violation of the UN Charter - and is defying the international community by pursuing the means to carry out that intent. For those who believe that America stands for something in the world, there can be no more pressing cause than preventing the nuclear annihilation of an allied democracy, the last refuge and hope of an ancient people openly threatene d with the final Final Solution. (Washington Post)

Basra "Uprising" Was Iranian Operation - Amir Taheri
Iran's state-run media have confirmed that last month's fighting in Basra, Iraq, was no spontaneous "uprising." Rather, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) tried to seize control of Iraq's second-largest city using local Shiite militias. Tehran spent vast sums persuading local Iraqi security personnel to switch sides or to remain neutral. The Revolutionary Guard's Quds (Jerusalem) unit, which is in charge of "exporting the Islamic Revolution," used units known as Special Groups, consisting of individuals recruited from among the estimated 1.8 million Iraqi refugees who spent more than two decades in Iran during Saddam Hussein's reign and returned to Iraq shortly after his fall.
After more than a week of fighting, the Iran-backed side lost more than 600 men, with more than 1,000 injured. The Iraqi government's new Iraqi Security Force lost 88 dead and 122 wounded. (New York Post)

Iran Persecuting Its Arab Minority - Daniel Brett
Iran's Ahwazi Arabs are the most deprived and persecuted ethnic group in the Middle East. This week, Iran cut off the supply of drinking water to Arab villages along the left bank of the Shatt al-Arab waterway. This follows forced relocation, land confiscation, cultural repression, state terrorism, mass executions and economic disadvantage, even though their land is one of the most oil-rich regions in the world. (Jerusalem Post)

Searching for a New Bond with Israel - Gary Rosenblatt
There is growing media discussion of how long Israel can last in a hostile environment. Many young Jews today grew up knowing of Israel mostly from the headlines. When these young people see Israel on the defensive on so many fronts, do they want to stand up and be counted among the targeted? For those of us in the diaspora who want to ensure Israel's survival, the first point we should make is that the fate of the Jews of the world is linked to those of our brothers and sisters in Israel. They are on the frontlines, true, but those who would destroy them would come after us next because the issue here is not just land but religion, identity and ideology.
For militant Muslims, jihad is to be waged against the Jews, not just the Zionists, and against Western culture, especially the U.S. We American Jews must come to realize that our support for Israel stems not just from compassion and connection, but self-preservation. (New York Jewish Week)

Five Hours at Tel Aviv Airport - Nicolien den Boer
It's 4 a.m. at Tel Aviv Airport and this is the third time I've been questioned so far. My passport has stamps from various Arab countries: Dubai, Yemen and archenemy Syria. Finally I get my passport back and am allowed to enter. I save my complaint for the government press office in Jerusalem, where I go to pick up my press card the next day. "Security measures," is the explanation I get from the press officer, a tired looking woman by the name of Pnina Aizenman. "What do you think it's like for us, waking up each morning and never knowing what the day will bring?" she says, clearly referring to Palestinian suicide attacks on Israeli civilians.
While Pnina's busy getting my press card ready, I take a look at the photos of children and a newspaper article on the wall behind me. The article is about a woman who lost her mother and her five-year-old child in a Palestinian suicide bombing. The name of the woman is Pnina Aizenman. I get the shivers. "That's you," I stammer. "Yes. Do you understand now what I mean by security measures?" she replies. I suddenly feel ashamed that I've just been complaining about being kept waiting for five hours when this woman's life has been totally wrecked by a bomb. (Radio Netherlands)

Solar Balloons to Power Remote Areas? - Ari Rabinovitch
Giant solar energy balloons floating high in the air may be a cheap way to provide electricity to areas lacking the land and infrastructure needed for traditional power systems, researchers in Israel say. Designed by a team from the Technion Institute of Technology, helium-filled balloons, covered with thin solar panels, hover as high as a few hundred meters in the air, and are connected via a wire cable to an inverter, which converts the electricity into a form households can use. Initial research showed a balloon with a three meter diameter could provide about one kilowatt of energy, the same as 25 square meters of traditional solar panels. While 25 square meters of traditional solar panels may cost $10,000, the target cost of the balloon is less than $4,000, with most of the savings coming from the minimal structural support needed. (Reuters)

Gene Bank Preserves Israel's Flora Against Extinction - Ehud Zion Waldoks
The Israel Gene Bank for Agricultural Crops (IGB) in Beit Dagan has been safeguarding Israel's flora for future generations and for research purposes against the encroaching dangers of modernization, industrialization, and climate change. Preserved for their genetic usefulness as foodstuffs or medicine, the flora are stored in a room that looks and feels like a very cold library. They represent many of the 2,700 species of plants that call Israel home. (Jerusalem Post)

Winning Counterinsurgency War: The Israeli Experience - Maj.-Gen. (res.) Yaakov Amidror (Institute for Contemporary Affairs-Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs) (pdf)

Contrary to popular belief, conventional armies can indeed defeat terrorist insurgencies. This study will detail the six basic conditions which, if met, enable an army to fight and win the war against terrorism, among which are control of the ground where the insurgency is being waged, acquiring relevant intelligence for operations against the terrorists themselves, and isolating the insurgency from cross-border reinforcement with manpower or material.
It also examines the factors that can help drive a wedge between the local population and the insurgent forces seeking its support.
The principles of war are also analyzed in terms of their applicability to asymmetric warfare to show how they still serve as a vital guide for armies in vanquishing terror.
Finally, the study warns that if the U.S., Israel, or their Western allies incorrectly conclude that they have no real military option against terrorist insurgencies - out of a fear that these conflicts inevitably result in an unwinnable quagmire - then the war on terrorism will be lost even before it is fully waged.

ISRAEL: Myths and Facts

MYTH

“Mahmoud Abbas has rooted out the corruption in the Palestinian Authority .”

FACT

In his June 2002 speech outlining a vision for Middle East peace, President George W. Bush said, “Today, the Palestinian people live in economic stagnation, made worse by official corruption. A Palestinian state will require a vibrant economy, where honest enterprise is encouraged by honest government....If Palestinians embrace democracy, confront corruption and firmly reject terror, they can count on American support for the creation of a provisional state of Palestine.”

Despite failing on all counts, the United States has supported the Palestinians, but their failure to meet Bush’s expectations explains their current predicament.

The Palestinian Authority’s record on rejecting terror is clear. The Palestinians have done no such thing and continue to support and encourage violence against Israel. That has been well documented. Less attention has been paid, however, to the PA’s failure to confront corruption.

Less than a year after Bush’s speech, the IMF documented how Yasser Arafat diverted $900 million to his own account. The revelation helped explain why the Palestinian people saw little improvement in their lives despite international contributions to the PA of more than $6 billion.

While the international community was focused on the peace process, Palestinians were more concerned with how their lives were being affected by the widespread corruption in the PA, and Fatah in particular. Their anger finally became apparent to everyone when elections were held in 2006 and Hamas won control of the legislature. Since then, however, Fatah’s leader, the PA president, Mahmoud Abbas, has done little to promote honest government. In fact, the situation appears to have grown worse, with a series of scandals emerging in 2008 that are again provoking public outrage.

The former Prime Minister, Ahmed Qurei (Abu Alaa), who heads the Palestinian negotiating team with Israel, is accused by the PA ambassador to Romania of depositing $3 million of PLO funds into his personal bank account. An older accusation that has also resurfaced is that Qurei and his sons own a cement factory that supplies concrete used for the construction of Israel’s security barrier as well as Jewish settlements.²⁰⁵

Qurei is no stranger to controversy. After Bush raised the issue of PA corruption in his 2002 speech, Qurei suddenly vacated the villa he built for $1.5 million in Jericho. A sign on the door was posted that said the villa had become a welfare institution for the relatives of Palestinians killed in terror attacks.²⁰⁶

In addition, one of Abbas’ advisers, the former speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council, Rouhi Fattouh, was caught by Israeli customs officials using his Israeli-issued VIP pass to smuggle thousands of cellular phones from Jordan into the West Bank. Fattouh was forced to resign.²⁰⁷

Other Fatah officials are also believed to be involved in smuggling. Officials in the Ministry of Health, for example, are suspected of working with doctors and pharmacists to smuggle expired medicine into the West Bank. Some of these medications are believed responsible for the death of Palestinian patients.

Another crony of Yasser Arafat, Khaled Salam, is being investigated after PA officials learned he planned to invest $600 million in a tourist project in Jordan. The former “financial adviser” to Arafat is also known to have close ties with Abbas and some of his aides.

The latest scandals create serious problems for Israel as well as American peace efforts. The disaffection with Abbas threatens to further strengthen Hamas at a time when Israelis are increasingly concerned that Abbas may lose control of the West Bank as he did the Gaza Strip. This would reduce the prospects for peace and increase the probability of war. The ongoing corruption also undermines confidence in the Palestinians’ ability to create a viable governing authority.

President Bush had the correct formula for peace in 2002. The Palestinians have now had nearly six years to fulfill his vision and their inability or unwillingness to do so is the principal reason they have not achieved their goal of statehood and the conflict with Israel has continued.

Notes

²⁰⁵Khaled Abu Toameh, “Palestinian Affairs: Abbas's latest headaches,” Jerusalem Post, (March 27, 2008).
²⁰⁶Jewish Telegraphic Agency, (June 11, 2002).
²⁰⁷The Associated Press, “Palestinian Resigns Over Smuggling,” Washington Post, (April 7, 2008).

This article can be found at http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/myths2/exclusives.html#a92

See also Mitchell Bard's blog: http://blogs.britannica.com/blog/main/author/mbard

Source: Myths & Facts Online -- A Guide to the Arab-Israeli Conflict by Mitchell G. Bard.

To order a copy of the paperback edition of Myths and Facts, click HERE. Myths & Facts is also available in Spanish, German, French, Russian, Portuguese, Swedish, and Hebrew.

Joke for the Week

Technology Meets the Yeshiva

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWOIKzT0LkI&feature=email

The Hebrew citation is “from my students I learn most of all.”

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