A view from Ben Yehuda. this is pretty cool...

Check this out:

Simple but powerful.

As posted by Hillary Lewin, this is a first Yartzeit video of the Holtzbergs who were victims of Islamist terorrism in Mumbai. Music by Warren Zevon

Click HERE

On Operation Cast Lead

GENEVA, October 16, 2009 -- Today's emergency UN Human Rights Council debate on the Goldstone Report predictably saw a line-up of the world's worst abusers condemn democratic Israel for human rights violations. In a heated lynch mob atmosphere, Kuwait slammed Israel for “intentional killing, intentional destruction of civilian objects, intentional scorched-earth policy,” saying Israel “embodied the Agatha Christie novel, 'Escaped with Murder'.” Pakistan said the “horrors of Israeli occupation continue to haunt the international community’s conscience.” The Arab League said, “We must condemn Israel and force Israel to accept international legitimacy." Ahmadinejad’s Iran said “the atrocities committed against Palestinians during the aggressions on Gaza should be taken seriously” and followed up by the international community “to put an end to absolute impunity and defiance of the law.”

What the world's assembled representatives did not expect, however, was the speech that followed (see text below), organized by UN Watch. We invited as our speaker a man who repeatedly put his life on the line to defend the democratic world from the murderous Saddam Hussein, Al Qaeda, and the Taleban. The moment he began his first sentence, the room fell silent. Judge Goldstone, author of the distorted report that prompted today's one-sided condemnation of Israel but not Hamas, had refused to hear Col. Kemp's testimony during his "fact-finding" hearings. But UN Watch made sure today that this hero's voice would be heard -- at the U.N., and around the world

Thank you, Mr. President.

I am the former commander of the British forces in Afghanistan. I served with NATO and the United Nations; commanded troops in Northern Ireland, Bosnia and Macedonia; and participated in the Gulf War. I spent considerable time in Iraq since the 2003 invasion, and worked on international terrorism for the UK Government’s Joint Intelligence Committee.

Mr. President, based on my knowledge and experience, I can say this: During Operation Cast Lead, the Israeli Defence Forces did more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone than any other army in the history of warfare.

Israel did so while facing an enemy that deliberately positioned its military capability behind the human shield of the civilian population.

Hamas, like Hizballah, are expert at driving the media agenda. Both will always have people ready to give interviews condemning Israeli forces for war crimes. They are adept at staging and distorting incidents.

The IDF faces a challenge that we British do not have to face to the same extent. It is the automatic, Pavlovian presumption by many in the international media, and international human rights groups, that the IDF are in the wrong, that they are abusing human rights.

The truth is that the IDF took extraordinary measures to give Gaza civilians notice of targeted areas, dropping over 2 million leaflets, and making over 100,000 phone calls. Many missions that could have taken out Hamas military capability were aborted to prevent civilian casualties. During the conflict, the IDF allowed huge amounts of humanitarian aid into Gaza. To deliver aid virtually into your enemy's hands is, to the military tactician, normally quite unthinkable. But the IDF took on those risks.

Despite all of this, of course innocent civilians were killed. War is chaos and full of mistakes. There have been mistakes by the British, American and other forces in Afghanistan and in Iraq, many of which can be put down to human error. But mistakes are not war crimes.

More than anything, the civilian casualties were a consequence of Hamas’ way of fighting. Hamas deliberately tried to sacrifice their own civilians.

Mr. President, Israel had no choice apart from defending its people, to stop Hamas from attacking them with rockets.

And I say this again: the IDF did more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone than any other army in the history of warfare.

Thank you, Mr. President.

UN Watch Oral Statement
Delivered by Colonel Richard Kemp
UN Human Rights Council
12th Special Session, 16 October 2009
Debate on Goldstone Report

Science Fair Projects

Let me just ask for the record what everyone is already thinking: Will there be minorities in heaven? I encourage you to check this out, a little hit and mis,s but some of them are incredibly funny: 35 Amazing Science Fair Projects

On Scotch...

Check this out...

In the October issue of Men's Health, they had a one page article entitled, "The Best of Life, 17 Things you must never water down" and this month in the letters section someone wrote in stating the following:

"So, you think Julian Lennon ordering Whiskey and Coke would have embarrassed his father? Here's an 18th thing you should never water down:research! Coke or Scotch and Whiskey is a very popular drink in Britain. What's more, scotch and coke was one of the Beatles' favorite drinks!"

to which Men's Health responded:

"Okay, maybe it didn't embarrass his dad, but it embarrassed us. We still say, whiskey is best served neat."

amen to that! On that note, I think I will have a little Balvenie DoubleWood, Sherry Cask and all...

Congrats Foreman

Yuri Foreman, the Rabbi in training who was born in Belarus and emigrated to Israel at age 11, then to Brooklyn at 19 defeated Daniel Santos by decision last Saturday night (ahem, motzei Shabbos. "I'm very proud to do this for Israel, and for Brooklyn, and to show that Jews can fight," Foreman said. Check it out here

The decade in 7 minutes...

This is absolutely incredible. I would say it is a couple months early considering we do not know what the next two months will hold but nevertheless, this will blow your socks off.

2 great hits from Gothamist

While scrolling through the daily grind on Gothamist I found two great videos. First, this is either some guy off his rocker on shrooms or something like it, or aliens fro the friendly skies have come for a visit, you decide: Aliens?

and second, this is just not something you see every day. After the commercial success of the Super Mario Bros. franchise died down, it seems that Bowser had to resort to driving a cab in Staten Island. There is just no love for cab drivers

A Must See

Michael Fulop sent this to me, and it is a must watch. At the 92nd Street Y Alan Dershowitz and Dennis Prager discuss support, or lack of support for Israel in this country. Is it just conservatives, is that a good thing, etc. It is not that long, you can listen to it in the background, I assure you. But either way, it is a very must watch in order to get a better idea of the state of affairs beneath the radar.
PART 1:


PART 2:

Awesome

Often times I have lists of Rabbis to call for my job and in doing so, I get pretty bored while the phone rings and rings and...often times I find myself reading or searching for the most random things. Today I googled 'awesome' and I would like to share the following image and video, both of which can only be described as awesome:

AND...

enough said...

Buy this and check this

Often times when we(as the in the world) think about Israel, we think about two things: Religion and Politics. But we often neglect the dynamic impact Israel has had on the business world. (h/t Josh Richton) In his new book, Dan Senor, the co-author of 'Start-up Nation: The Story of Israel's Economic Miracle" describes Israel as a Leader of Business Innovation. I encourage you to check out CNBC's interview with him, it is brief but very effective.


Also, I encourage you to check out ISRAEL21C which is a website dedicated to Israel's contributions to the world-and there are many. They cover Israel's innovations in technology, advancement in the Health and Medical fields, Social Justice and so on. If you go through it, you really will be surprised.

Music of the Day...AAR

Continuing the feel good theme for the day, I suggest you check out the All American Reject's Move Along It is a great song to do just about anything to...and hey, I heard it playing during NFL credits yesterday.

When you need a pick me up

Sometimes the strangest places hold the biggest laugh. Thank you Benjy Nadler for posting Christopher Walken doing his impression of Lady Gaga's Poker Face.

The stimulus that works and the stimulus that doesn't

This morning, I saw this article about positive effects the stimulus money is having: hot meals for seniors. Something just feels good inside when you discover that some of your tax money is going to feeding senior citizens instead of adding to the billions in government waste. One of the things I do like about the Democratic party is that they are usually the ones to spend more money on social-economical programs such as this. The billions in bailout and TARP money that went to all the financial institutions feels a lot more republican. I think both are important, but let's be honest, using money for old people is the 'feel-good' kind of government spending and fixing our financial institutions feels a lot more cold, and removed. Of course, regarding the latter, the Obama admin totally missed the boat on how to fix the economy. Turns out you can't throw billions of dollars at a problem with no regulations and expect it is blossom into a booming economy. As Josh Gottleib said at a Shabbos meal one time, 'If they had given all the money to the banks and said, 'Here is the money-now go use it! Lend it out to the American people, let them buy homes and fix their credit and get their mortgages adjusted into something can afford." then we would be in much better shape." But instead, the banks took the money and put it into their savings (or holdings, etc.) and are just sitting on it. And of course, the government, who are leaders in arrogance can not and would not go back to the financial institutions with egg on their face and say, 'Oops, we messed up, we failed to stimulate the economy. Can you please give us our money back, or, rather we demand that you lend it all out." To which they will receive an emphatic: "NO."

Family Goy

Season 8 episode 2 of Family Guy is brilliant and I strongly encourage you to check it out. Lois discovers she is actually Jewish and the entire episode is one big Jewish joke, and for the most part absolutely hilarious. Watch out for Brian's perfect pronunciation and accuracy of the bracha on candles for yom tov.

Also, the Bears finally crawled out of their slump. Their conquered the Brown (not exactly a difficult feat) with a 30-6 win. After the Minnesota-Green Bay game today, Green Bay will likely be tied with the Bears and hopefully between a big win and being tied for second in the division, the Bears will get back on track. They have the talent and the coaching, all they need to do is put it together; that and for Jay Cutler to stop throwing interceptions.