Have you thought about having your non-Jewish boss over to your sukkah? What could go wrong? Enjoy the FirstOneThrough comedy sketch:
Other FirstOneThrough comedy shorts on Sukkot:
Sukkot in the Office: https://firstonethrough.wordpress.com/2014/10/02/anyone-working-in-october/
Occupy Sukkahs- end the 2nd day of Yom Tov: https://firstonethrough.wordpress.com/2014/10/05/occupy-sukkahs-end-the-2nd-day-of-yom-tov/
Sukkot package deliveries: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDCkTqiWMfQ
Does anyone miss the old horsehair for wrapping etrogim? Someone is bringing back a few tons of the stuff from Israel. Enjoy the FirstOneThrough comedy sketch.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDCkTqiWMfQ
Other FirstOneThrough comedy shorts on Sukkot:
Sukkot in the Office: https://firstonethrough.wordpress.com/2014/10/02/anyone-working-in-october/
Occupy Sukkahs- end the 2nd day of Yom Tov: https://firstonethrough.wordpress.com/2014/10/05/occupy-sukkahs-end-the-2nd-day-of-yom-tov/
Diaspora Jews have been forced to celebrate a second day of yontif for thousands of years. The frustration has been magnified as society moves to an “always-on” environment. Try to explain to your boss how you hate taking off for extra holidays.
Enjoy the comedy sketch by FirstOneThrough below:
Other FirstOneThrough comedy shorts on Sukkot:
Sukkot in the Office: https://firstonethrough.wordpress.com/2014/10/02/anyone-working-in-october/
Sukkot package deliveries: https://firstonethrough.wordpress.com/2014/10/06/sukkot-package-deliveries/
The Jewish holiday season is here. Jews who celebrate the holidays outside of Israel will have two days of synagogue in a row – for back-to-back weeks! The stress over missed work days will undoubtedly result in one’s mind wandering about work while fasting on Yom Kippur. They really should add another al chet just for that.
Enjoy the FirstOneThrough animated comedy short “Sukkot in the Office” on explaining to one’s boss about missing a month of work – for holidays no one has ever heard of!
Other FirstOneThrough comedy shorts on Sukkot:
Occupy Sukkahs- End the 2nd day of Yom Tov:
US President Obama again made his opinion clear that he supports Acting-President of the Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas’ calls for creating a Jew-free country.
President Obama told visiting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in October 2014, that the US is against both Jews building new homes and against Jews moving into existing homes in areas that Abbas wants to keep Jew-free.
The Obama administration comments were in response to two events: planned construction of 2600 new homes in Givat Hamatos and six Jewish families moving into homes they purchased in the predominantly Arab neighborhood of Silwan. Both neighborhoods are in the eastern part of Jerusalem.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest said “The US condemns the recent occupation of residential buildings in the neighborhood of Silwan by people whose agenda provokes tensions.” Note this Obama condemnation was not about building a new town in a remote region of the West Bank; this was about Jews buying and moving into existing houses in Jerusalem. The reason? Because it makes the Arabs angry.
Abbas has been on record that he doesn’t want any Jewish presence in a future Palestinian country. He wants Israel to keep Jews out of potential Palestinian land now so he won’t have to evict them or pay them compensation to leave later (similar to the compensation he expects Israel to pay to Arabs who left property in 1948). In July 2013, Abbas said “In a final resolution, we would not see the presence of a single Israeli — civilian or soldier — on our lands.”
Blatantly anti-Semitic statements from Palestinian leadership which call for banning Jews from the region is not new. In the Arab riots of 1936-9, Arabs effectively convinced the British to limit Jewish immigration to only 75,000 over the 1940-5 years, at the end of which time, Jews would be banned from moving to the country altogether. The Arabs and British took this action during the Holocaust in Europe, aiding in the murder of thousands of innocents who could have found refuge in their homeland, which the League of Nations had mandated 17 years earlier to be “national home for the Jewish people”. While the Jews were being killed in Europe, hundreds of thousands of Arabs from around the Middle East moved into Palestine.
Liberals could perhaps try to forgive Obama’s ignorance regarding Jews in the region – maybe he doesn’t know that:
Beyond a willful ignorance of the long and deep history of the Jews in all of Jerusalem, how could the first African-American president of the United States advocate creating Jew-free zones, knowing first-hand about racism? Would Obama stand for a housing policy that barred blacks from living in Washington, DC?
How can the US support the Arabs’ racist suggestion that would bar Jews from living in Jerusalem?
Sources:
Obama criticizing Netanyahu on new Jerusalem homes: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-10-02/obama-netanyahu-talks-clouded-as-u-s-slams-settlements.html
http://www.timesofisrael.com/us-israel-ties-in-crisis-over-east-jerusalem-building-plans/
Obama criticizing Jews living in Silwan: http://www.timesofisrael.com/us-israel-ties-in-crisis-over-east-jerusalem-building-plans/
Abbas on Jew-free Palestine: http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2013/07/30/abbas-arabs-in-israel-no-jews-in-palestine-peace-process/
1922 League of Nations Mandate: http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/palmanda.asp
1939 White Paper: http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/brwh1939.asp
Yeminite Jews in Silwan: http://www.meforum.org/3281/silwan
Related First One Through articles:
800,000 Arabs moving to Palestine during the British Mandate:
The anthem of Israel is Jerusalem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wulmUGVG3jA
Short history of Palestinians+Jordanians controlling Jerusalem
On the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashana, Jews have a tradition of eating fruit (usually an apple) dipped in honey. People eat the tasty combination and pray for a sweet new year. The meaning of the apple-and-honey combination extends deeper into the physical land of Israel and human behavior.
The Bible uses the expression “a land flowing with milk and honey” for the first time in Exodus 3:8, when God tells Moses at the burning bush that he will bring the Jews to a “good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey”. The biblical commentator Ramban (Nachmanides b.1194-d.1270) said that the phrase has nothing to do with milk or honey. “Milk and honey” refers to the nectar of the fruit, and a land “flowing with milk and honey” is an expression used for a particularly fertile land that could produce abundant and juicy fruit.
The saying is used several times in the bible, each time meant to convey the richness of the land of Israel. In some cases, the phrase is paired with a threat or caveat. In Exodus 33:3-4, God uses the expression after the sin of the Golden Calf:
“Go up to the land flowing with milk and honey. But I will not go with you,
because you are a stiff-necked people and I might destroy you on the way.
When the people heard these distressing words, they began to mourn.”
Years later, when the spies returned from scouting the land as the people of Israel prepared to enter it, the spies paired the richness of the land with a warning in Numbers 15:27-28:
“it is also flowing with milk and honey and here is its fruit,
however, the people who dwell in the land are fierce.”
The promised land is identified as rich and fertile, but there are obstacles to getting it. God warns the Jews that their own behavior could keep them from reaching the land. Conversely, the spies described how other people may try to keep them out of the land. God’s words of warning direct the people to improve themselves or risk never reaching Israel; the spies caution that enemies will fight them for the land. God tells people to look inward; the spies, outward.
As Jews around the world welcome in the new year, they consider more than just the sweetness of the foods they eat. The honey dripping from the apple is a reflection of the fertility of the land of Israel. To continue to merit that promised land, Jews must consider and always improve upon their own behavior. Internalizing the blessings of Israel and the necessity to behave properly will fortify the people to defeat its enemies.
Let the New Year of 5775 be a year full of blessing for the land and people of Israel.
The New York Times gave a warm and strong endorsement for Islamophobia this weekend. It’s opinion pages wrote strongly about the importance of free speech and the logic of exploring the hatred that many people feel towards all Muslims around the world, whether due to the 9/11 terror attacks or the beheadings of innocents today.
The New York Times editorial said it was “entirely correct” for people to express why they want to kill Muslims. It added that people “should not yield to critics” who want to use political correctness to suppress their anger.
The Times is on record – again – defending those who want to broadcast their rationale for killing any follower of Islam. Free speech “gives voice to all sides” including racists.
The paper remains standing “properly firm in defending… the principle of artistic freedom in a world rife with political pressures.” A surprising wake-up from a paper that people often view as erring more towards political correctness than towards the right of free speech.
In case you don’t believe the quotes and sentiments of the current NY Times editorial board, the links to the two editorials are below. The one (small) item worth noting, is that the paper actually wrote about killing Jews, not Muslims. But in balancing free speech and political correctness, I have made an assumption that the Times isn’t going to limit free speech just to anti-Semites. Was that a bad assumption?
Sources:
NY Times editorial September 20 “The Met Opera Stands Firm”: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/20/opinion/the-death-of-klinghoffer-must-go-on.html
NY Times editorial June 19: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/20/opinion/the-metropolitan-operas-backward-move.html
FirstOneThrough on Klinghoffer Opera: https://firstonethrough.wordpress.com/2014/06/23/eyal-gilad-naftali-klinghoffer-the-new-blood-libel/
The streets of Europe are once again filled with mobs yelling to expel the Jews. Mankind has not advanced far over the last 1000 years.
For 1000 years Jews were persecuted and evicted from their homes as a vulnerable minority in countries throughout Europe, Asia and Africa. The justifications for the expulsions ranged from: Jews serving as scapegoats for mysterious deaths; a convenient method of cancelling debts and stealing property; and a distorted view of Christianity and Islam requiring that Jews suffer for believing in an unpopular religion.
Ironically, now that Jews have a country of their own, they are the ones evicting Jews in the hopes of appeasing their neighbors.
[Fill in your country], and stand with Israel
People around the world have been upset about the fighting in Israel and have reacted in a variety of ways.
While the global media has often repeated that the Operation Protective Edge has been fought during the Muslim holiday of Ramadan, they have neglected to discuss that the timing is also the Jewish period of mourning – the Three Weeks – that culminates on August 5th with the 9th of Av.
The Three Weeks is a period when many tragedies happened to the Jewish people throughout history. The common belief is that the various tragedies – especially the destruction of the Temples in Jerusalem – happened because Jews did not treat each other with respect nor did they care for each other.
In 2014, the tremendous support within Israel for the Israeli government, and the global Jewish communities’ constructive responses to the attacks from Gaza may lead one to believe that these three weeks may lead to the building of the Third Temple.
Source:
http://jpupdates.com/2014/07/30/survey-israelis-overwhelmingly-support-idf-gaza-attack/
Over July 24-6, 2014, a chapter of religious pluralism ended in the city of Mosul, Iraq and its sister city across the Tigris, the ancient city of Ninveh. The Islamic militants of ISIS forced out all of the Christians, and blew up the Tombs of Seth (son of Adam and Eve) and of the Prophet Jonah.
Jonah
Jonah was the last prophet considered holy to each of the monotheistic religions. His story was unusual in several respects which enabled him to capture the imagination and dreams of Christians, Muslims and Jews.
Thousands of years ago, Judaism was the only monotheistic religion. The people in the Middle East practiced a variety of religions and worshiped many gods. The non-Jews were not particularly interested in the Hebrew Bible, and the Bible – seemingly – did not address them. The prophets in the Old Testament almost universally addressed the Jews: the children of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
That held true until Jonah. Jonah was given an unusual task by God: leave the land of Israel and go to a far away land because the people there did not behave properly:
“Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and proclaim against it;
for their wickedness is come up before Me.”
The story of what comes next is famous. Jonah fled from God and boarded a ship that was tossed in a storm. The sailors reluctantly threw Jonah overboard to appease his angry God whereupon Jonah was swallowed by a big fish. After three days, the fish vomited him onto land to fulfill his task of admonishing the people of Ninveh. The people of Ninveh – including the king- took Jonah’s words to heart, repented, and all was forgiven.
The story of Jonah has many messages. The Jewish rabbis consider them so important that the only time the story is read in synagogue is on the holiest day of the year, Yom Kippur. The lessons of Jonah include that:
For Christians, the story of Jonah is not just about prayer and repentance, but about rebirth. They consider the story of Jonah’s reemergence from the great fish after three days as a precursor to the resurrection of Jesus.
For Muslims, Jonah was the only one of the twelve minor prophets mentioned in the Koran. Mohammed was said to recognize the holiness of Jonah and referred to Ninveh as “the city of Jonah”.
Three monotheistic religions embraced the mission of a man who (perhaps reluctantly) tried to help other people change their ways, while not trying to make them change their religion.
Religions in Modern Iraq
When Iraq became an independent state in 1932, roughly 120,000 Jews lived in the country comfortably. However, when the UN voted to partition Palestine in 1947, the Iraqi government and people turned on the Jews. Pogroms and public hangings became celebrated events. Operation Ezra & Nechemia from 1949 to 1951 got most of the Jews out of the country, with the balance leaving over the 1960s and 1970s. Almost no Jews remain today.
The Christian community in Iraq extends back roughly 1600 years, before the founding of Islam. As recently as 2003, the number of Christians in the country numbered about 1.5 million. However, the numbers declined rapidly during the US-Iraq war. In 2014, ISIS took over much of the country and actively pushed to remove Christians. In Mosul, the Christian community was given a choice that had historically been put before Jews in various countries over the past 1000 years: convert; pay a huge tax; or be killed. There may only be 100,000 Christians left in the country by the end of 2014.
ISIS belongs to the Salafi movement of Islam which is against the worship of the dead, and therefore opposes the use of tombs as shrines. They have destroyed many tombs of Muslim leaders, in addition to those that are important to Jews and Christians. They razed the tomb of Seth, the fifth person created in the Bible (not as famous as his siblings Cain and Abel) for the same reason. They are also slaying fellow Muslims who practice differently by the thousands.
Religions- God and Practice
During the time of Jonah, most people believed in many Gods. When Jonah addressed the sailors on the ship and the king of Ninveh, they readily accepted the words of the Jewish God – not exclusively- but alongside the other Gods they worshiped. Their openness to various Gods let them listen and pray openly together. Such receptiveness to a new God was not universal as demonstrated by the Greeks and Romans who defiled the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem centuries later.
As new monotheistic religions emerged – first Christianity and then Islam – that openness was further challenged. As each religion accepted a single God, the uniqueness of each religion became based on either: 1) unique Gods; or 2) the same God, but with a different set of practices. If the Gods were different, then only one religion could be correct. If the religions had the same God, then distinction between them was based on the method of worship and priorities.
Religious scholars debate whether the monotheistic religions all believe in the same God, just with different names and observances. In practice, the religions have battled each with the fervor of unique Gods for centuries: Muslim invasions; Christian Crusades; enforced Inquisitions. Religious wars scar most of mankind’s history.
For Muslims, it has been intra-religious battles that have been the bloodiest. Since 1948, 90% of all deaths in wars involving Muslim countries have been at the hands of other Muslim countries. In 2014, ISIS killed many more Muslims than other religious groups, and Syrian President Assad killed many more Muslims than people of other faiths. The peculiarities of practice position the battle lines.
The Demise of the Shared
July 2014 yielded a sad watershed moment. The Tomb of Jonah, whom Jews, Christians and Muslims all revered as a religious leader, was demolished. The Tomb of Seth, for whom Bible believers consider a common forbear, was destroyed. In a single week, religious fanatics dismantled physical and metaphysical symbols that united the three monotheistic faiths. If the religions shared a common God, they had a common prophet. If they had different Gods, they still had the same forbears. The tombs were not just shrines to the ancients; they were opportunities for Jews, Christians and Muslims to meet and re-establish their common bonds today. No longer.
Thousands of years ago, a Jew left his homeland to help non-Jews. He did not seek to convert or change their methods of worship, just to pass along a message from God to end evil behavior. He became a celebrated hero to billions of people of different faiths and different practices. As recently as 70 years ago, Jews, Christians and a variety of Muslims (including Sunni and Shiites) prayed together at the tomb of this common hero. But the advance of bigotry consumed them: first they got rid of the Jews, then the Christians. Now they are ridding fellow Muslims. God’s message through Jonah of reaching out to “others” has been replaced by man’s effort to destroy the “others”. Perhaps that was the original wickedness of Ninveh 2600 years ago.
Part of the magic of the story of Jonah was that there were no casualties: Jonah; the city of Ninveh and all of its inhabitants; the sailors; and even the fish, all escaped harm.
In today’s dark reality, we may marvel more at that part of the legend and forget what we all have lost.
Sources:
http://www.mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt1701.htm
http://www.newsweek.com/isis-destroys-shiite-mosques-and-shrines-iraq-257683
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/anti-semitism/iraqijews.html
http://nypost.com/2014/07/27/iraqs-abandoned-christians/
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/isis-militants-destroy-tomb-jonah-mosul-1458469
First One Through 