Israel

Tue, 13 Jan 2009

“Rabbi Abba would kiss the stones of Acco, as it says in the Book of Psalms, ‘For Your servants hold the stones of the Land of Israel dear.’”
[Babylonian Talmud, Kesubos 112]

With boundless gratitude to G-d, I am happy to say that my wife and son arrived safely in Israel about four hours ago. The primary purpose: to have Aliza and Yosef Dov spend time with her parents and our family matriarch, her grandmother. I’m thrilled that they can do that as they bask in the holiness of the Land.

So many wonderful things are with us day-in-and-day-out. In 5769, an arrival in Israel is about as awe-inspiring as an arrival in Hoboken. How sad it is to be numb!

I feel blessed—truly blessed—to live in an era in which my wife and son can hop on a comfortable plane and kiss the ground in Jerusalem hours later. How many millions of Jews over 20 centuries could only dream and long and yearn for that? How many of the lucky ones had to use caravans and boats to get there—if they survived the trip?

On how many thousands of days did tearful Jews petition thrice, “And gather us together, G-d, from the four corners of the earth”?

In the 1930’s, my paternal grandparents initiated plans to move to the Land in an attempt to escape Poland’s anti-Semitism. The accursed White Paper of the British made that impossible. What they would have given then to have what is now ours merely for the asking!

I was born before the miracles of the 6-Day War, but my only memory is of access to the Western Wall. We can scarcely relate to the tears shed by the soldiers—and world Jewry—when it was liberated. I feel blessed that my wife and son will soon touch its holy stones.

May G-d speedily bless our Land with peace.
May G-d speedily remove from us our tragic, unwanted need to eliminate other people’s loved ones in order to save our own.

Eliyahu W. Ferrell
17 Teves 5769

Posted with the author's permission.

Jewess

Jewess: "that’s what she did, traveling around the world, talking to Jewish audiences and world leaders, begging them to do anything they could to put pressure on Hezbollah to release her son and the other missing Israeli soldiers.
Well, now her fight is over. The remains of Goldwasser and fellow captive soldier Eldad Regev were returned to Israel last week as part of a prisoner swap with Hezbollah that’s been making headlines for weeks.
I have heard family members of missing soldiers speak before and I recall them always saying something along the lines of, ‘We just want to know whether he is alive or dead. Not knowing is worse than knowing he is dead.” But Miki Goldwasser never said that. She seemed convinced that if she fought hard enough, she would see her son alive once again. We now know that he was killed in the initial attack over two years ago. In hindsight, this makes her efforts all the more tragic.
And yet, was the fight worth any less than if she had gotten her son back alive? Of course not."


by Rebecca Honig Friedman

and also posted on:
The Israeli Prisoner Swap and the Hadassah Convention, The Lilith Blog

Vote Now!

Vote Now!: "Let's daven for refuah shelema for the wounded chayalim, among them:
Li'el Hoshea ben Miriam – critical head injuries
Wahal Mijan – critical, metal shards in his brain, has had 3 operations and doctors are battling to save his life
Ben ben Netiva – critical head injuries, 1 hand amputated and doctors are battling to save his other hand
Neriya ben Rivka – very serious head injury
Noam ben Alisa - one leg amputated; doctors fighting to save the other
Yosef Chaim ben Ziva – very seriously injured on the entire left side of his body- regained consciousness
Dvir ben Leah - seriously injured in his legs
Raphael ben Nina– very seriously injured
Elishama Shalom ben Rivka Leah
Oren ben Chaya – seriously injured shoulder & hand – has had one finger amputated
Ronen Chai ben Leah – seriously injured
Ron ben Havatzelet – seriously injured with shrapnel over all of his body
Eitan ben Sarah – very serious leg injury
Gal ben Hedva – seriously injured with shrapnel to his jaw & mouth"

Vote Now Support Our Brothers and Sister in Israel

Major Conflict

Major Conflict: "As long as real estate values kept rising, it didn't matter what these chimerical investments were worth. What mattered to Wall Street was the ability to collect enormous fees from real people, in real dollars, for trading unicorns and dragons.

After the bursting of the Internet and housing bubbles, I think we're done with bubbles for a while. Obama's first challenge -- and it may take much of his first term -- is to get the economy back into a pattern of tangible, sustainable growth. He will be able to thank Madoff for giving us the simplest possible explanation of what we knew all along but chose to ignore: that there's still no such thing as a free lunch."