RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://www.jewishideasdaily.com/content/module/2012/5/25/main-feature/1/shavuot-the-stopping-point/e

SUCH A SAD HISTORY….SO MANY HOLIDAYS….BUT WE ARE STILL HERE…..HAPPY SHAVUOT (PRONOUNCED SHVUES IN THE BRONX OF YORE) TO ALL…..RSK

There is always something going on in the Jewish festival calendar. From the fast of the 10th of Tevet (January 5th this year) through Hanukkah (which ends on December 16th) right around to the next fast of the 10th of Tevet on December 23rd, it’s hard to go more than four or five weeks in a row without finding some special day to be observed.
But it wasn’t always so. The Jewish holidays described explicitly in the Torah are not scattered through the year, but occur in just two distinct periods. The key to understanding this is found in the rabbinic name of the festival that begins on Saturday night. We call it Shavuot—in English, it’s the Feast of Weeks or Pentecost—but in rabbinic literature it goes by the name Atzeret.

Colloquially one might translate this name as “stopping.” Rashi, the 11th-century French commentator, in his note to Leviticus 23:36, explains it as meaning “detention.” God, as it were, says to the Israelites, “I have detained you with me,” like (says Rashi) a king who invites his children to feast with him for a certain number of days. When the time comes for them to leave, he says, “Children, please. Stay with me for one more day. I hate to see you go.” But the straightforward explanation is a bit more complicated, and it has to do with the fact that the major festivals are related to one another.

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/300864/what-iran-s-rulers-want-clifford-d-may ONE MAY SUBSTITUTE THE WORDS EGYPT, LIBYA, SYRIA, SAUDI ARABIA, YEMEN AND ALL THE ARAB/MOSLEM COUNTRIES FOR IRAN…..   IT’S THE DRIVING FAITH FOR JIHAD….RSK It’s no longer possible to pretend we don’t know the intentions of Iran’s rulers. They are telling us — candidly, clearly, and repeatedly. Most recently last Sunday: Addressing a gathering […]

http://sarahhonig.com/2012/05/25/another-tack-contextualizing-ned/

“And this is what gravely gullible Ned and fellow overly idealistic Jewish fanatics of the last vestiges of the lost Marxist cause (by whichever name it parades) refuse to acknowledge. They, who lure their own sub-set of useful idiots, are foremost themselves useful idiots in the service of the mufti’s latter-day disciples (by whichever name they parade).Nobody knows better than the volatile incited Arab masses how to collectively fly off the handle in an orchestrated display of premeditated pseudo-righteous indignation. And my cousin falls for their lament of the fact that we at all live.”

Not all left-wing foreign troublemakers were barred from this country during the recent “flytilla.” Many agents provocateurs recurrently trickle in, among them rabidly anti-Israel activists in the International Solidarity Movement (with the Palestinians). Yet others enter boldly via the wide-open gates of the Law of Return because they are Jews. My cousin, whom I’ll here call Ned, is one of them. His story is of broad interest because he’s not alone.

Ned recently arrived from the US under immigrant status, though he himself probably has no clue how long he’ll stay. He isn’t employed anywhere and has no visible means of support. Someone is footing his bills. But someone always has because, to the best of my knowledge, Ned has never held any job long-term and never forged any career. There must be an organizational benefactor but I can’t say for sure.

Ned and his brother are both products of American Hashomer Hatza’ir inculcation and both remain radically tied to that pro-forma Zionist-Marxist youth movement (even though both are now thirty-something). They seem unable to outgrow the evidently addictive juvenile connection.

Both brothers lived in American communes and both thrive on political activism. There’s almost no radical cause which they hadn’t passionately espoused, even that of the Mavi Marmara. For years they paid sporadic visits to Arab communities in and outside our Green Line and they waxed positively ecstatic over last year’s camp-in at Tel Aviv’s Rothschild Boulevard.

It wasn’t long afterwards that the Occupy Movement began springing up, initially on Wall Street, from whence it spread to other urban centers. The brothers were there, very confrontationally there.

Are they or their ilk the invisible link between our 2011 summertime protests and what later sprang up elsewhere? Who knows? Maybe.

Then Ned, whose Hebrew is rudimentary, announced that he’s “making aliya.” This meant a shared pad in Tel Aviv’s hip Florentin Quarter, frequent trips to Jenin, participation in almost every trendy demonstration or flashpoint of contention.

Ned protested Kadima’s joining the coalition, hotly supported the Hamas prisoners’ hunger strike, equally hotly opposed JNF tree-planting near Beduin communities, decried a projected eviction of Arabs in Silwan and celebrated its foiling, marched in Tel Aviv on May Day, protested on behalf of illegal African infiltrators, demanded the unconditional razing of disputed apartment houses on Givat Ha’ulpana, protested Jewish residence in Jerusalem’s Beit Hanina, agitated against “racist and thieving settlers,” partook in the latest attempts to revive the social protests, and much, much, much more. The list is long.

That seemingly is all that Ned does in Israel. He’s an aging professional youth movement stalwart who has made it his mission to enlighten us benighted natives and change our evil ways.

“Like Bob Simon, most Western journalists prefer to see only one side of the story. All they want is to find stories that shed a negative light on Israel.”

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3078/cbs-christians-israel

A few weeks ago, veteran CBS News correspondent Bob Simon reported on the plight of Christians of the Holy Land who have been leaving the region for many years.In large part, Simon blamed the Christian exodus on Israel.But had Simon visited the Christian village of Taybeh in the West Bank, he would have heard “the other side to the story.”

This is a village whose population is 100% Christian. It is surrounded by a number of Muslim villages, some of which are extremely hostile.

The number of Christians living in Taybeh is estimated at less than 2,000. Residents say that another 15,000 Taybeh villagers live in the US, Canada and Europe, as well as South America.

Over the past few years, the Christian residents of Taybeh have been living in constant fear of being attacked by their Muslim neighbors.

Such attacks, residents say, are not uncommon. They are more worried about intimidation and violence by Muslims than by Israel’s security barrier or a checkpoint. And the reason why many of them are leaving is because they no longer feel safe in a village that is surrounded by thousands of hostile Muslims who relate to Christians as infidels and traitors.

http://www.nationalreview.com/blogs/print/300849

Dziga Vertov, one of the world’s first and finest documentarians, defined the goal of documentary film as showing “life as it is.” Ami Horowitz’s U.N. Me accomplishes this and more — it is a detailed exposé of the failures of the United Nations. This film could have sunk into a dreary, depressing recital of the various horrors perpetrated under the U.N.’s watch (Darfur, Rwandan genocide, etc.), but Ami Horowitz skillfully weaves a narrative that strikes a careful balance between humor and information.

Horowitz is not your typical documentary filmmaker, and his regular, unpretentious charm sets the tone of his film. He began his life as a banker, until one night he had an epiphany. He was drifting off to sleep while watching Michael Moore’s Bowling for Columbine when he suddenly realized that this was the medium for him. The result was U.N. Me.

But what is U.N. Me? According to Horowitz, it’s “a love letter” to the United Nations, albeit a love letter with “constructive criticism.” But if U.N. Me is a love letter, then it’s the letter you write to a significant other threatening a break-up. You want the relationship to work, but there have to be some major changes. The movie recounts several of the major failings of the United Nations over its history: the sexual abuses and massacres committed by U.N. peacekeepers, the failure to stop Iran’s nuclear-weapons program, the U.N.’s inability to curb terrorism, the Oil-for-Food program, the genocides in Rwanda and Darfur, and the United Nation’s failure to support human rights across the world. Not exactly the most uplifting material. But U.N. Me is more than a recitation of the United Nation’s misdeeds; instead, it delves deeper into how the culture and the structure of the U.N. led to such debacles.

Islam’s Cultural Revolution URL to article: http://frontpagemag.com/2012/05/24/islams-cultural-revolution/ Mao’s Cultural Revolution was one of the darkest chapters of the 20th Century: communist zealots, known as “the Red Guards,” attached revolutionary messages to Buddhist statues; seventeen professors from the Shanghai Music Conservatory committed suicide; intellectuals were harassed in public trials during which they had to confess their […]

Anders Behring Breivik and Norway’s Illness URL to article: http://frontpagemag.com/2012/05/24/anders-behring-breivik-and-norways-illness/ The trial of Norwegian mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik is, in the words of a perceptive Norwegian reporter-blogger, a “media circus.” The killer is being allowed to spout his extremist views on a wide variety of subjects, and although he murdered 77 people with no […]

http://frontpagemag.com/2012/05/24/world-powers-resume-%e2%80%9ctalks%e2%80%9d-charade-with-iran/

The Iranian regime with which the P5+1 countries launched their second round of nuclear talks on Wednesday in Baghdad is not the real Iranian regime. That is to say, the Western, Russian, and Chinese diplomats will—at best—be negotiating with a fantasy-projection of the Iranian regime, and Tehran’s negotiators will be all too compliant in playing the part assigned to them.

At worst, the P5+1 diplomats will actually be aware of the true nature of the Iranian regime, but will act out the script of “negotiating constructively” with it so as to further certain ancillary goals—like lowering oil prices, boosting political fortunes, and above all, forestalling a possible Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

This constructive, reasonable Iran, ready to strike a deal and essentially having the same aims as the P5+1 countries except for a few bridgeable areas of disagreement, cannot be the same Iran that just this week called for the “full annihilation of Israel,” that has taken a steady toll of American lives in Iraq, that bragged earlier this month of its navy’s ability to threaten New York City, that has been responsible for an ongoing string of terrorist atrocities for over three decades, and that continues to intimidate its Persian Gulf neighbors with subversion and very real threats of conquest.

There is, indeed, a situation in which a regime like Iran’s would sue for reasonable terms and real compromise—if it were truly on the ropes. But, while the sanctions are taking an economic toll, not even the most determined optimists claim that Tehran is anywhere near teetering. Not while its nuclear program continues at full speed, and while, as Israeli analyst Lt.-Col. (ret.) Michael Segall notes, it has been continuing a policy of strategic “buildup, defiance, and power projection” in the face of all Western blandishments.

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/the-media-is-guilty-of-racial-profiling?f=must_reads

The media reporting on the Trayvon Martin killing is guilty of felony racial profiling.

It thought it had all the juicy ingredients for a long term titillating story about an angry, white, gun toting, wannabe cop who profiled and stalked an innocent black teenager before killing him simply because of his race.

Due to Zimmerman having a European surname, living in the South, carrying a handgun, speaking without any dialect, and appearing Caucasian, the New York Times naturally profiled George Zimmerman as a bigoted right wing Conservative-Republican NRA life member nut job.

After learning that his mother was from South America, the newspaper of record, the New York Times, identified him as a “White-Hispanic.” I never heard that term applied to former Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico, whose mother was Hispanic. Richardson was always regarded as the Hispanic member of Bill Clinton’s diversified cabinet.

It turns out that Zimmerman is a registered Democrat.

George Zimmerman’s genes are an eclectic blend of at least three different races. The shameless mainstream media purposely downplayed the fact that Zimmerman’s grandfather was black. But because he has a German family name and has Caucasian facial features, he was immediately profiled and portrayed as a stalking racist killer who preys on poor defenseless black children.

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/sticks-and-stones

Sticks and stones may break my bones, goes the adage, but names will never hurt me.

The new adage, tailored for our age, goes:

Sticks and stones may break my bones, and names, insults, derogatory remarks, denigrations, defamations, “hate” crimes, “bias intimidations,” rude or indecent gestures, mockery, satire in textual print or imagery, disrespect, lifestyle harassment, bullying, and other verbal, visual, and non-violent actions, attempts at passive victimization and gross insensitivities that tend or are calculated to hurt, depress, humiliate, or shame me, and otherwise offend my self-esteem and rightful dignity, compromise my privacy, and diminish my standing in the eyes of my fellow creatures – may be grounds for civil and/or criminal suits.

Sticks and stones may be used in the commission of an actual felony, as well as guns, knives, one’s fists, or any other physical object. But an evolving complement of new chargeable felonies, often appended to legitimate ones, is growing, and if not challenged, will reach a “critical mass” in law that will stifle all realms of speech. These new “felonies” are “hate crimes.” A new subset of them is “bias intimidation.”

In “The Peril of ‘Hate Crimes'” I noted:

.[T]he why of a crime is increasingly treated as though it were a weapon, such as a gun, a knife, or a club. In standard criminal cases, however, it has never been the instrument of crime that was on trial, but the defendant and his actions.

Proponents of hate crime have attempted to find a compromise between objectivity in criminal law and the notion that a felon should also be punished for what caused him to commit the crime. But no such compromise is feasible if objective law is to be preserved and justice served. The irrational element – that is, making thought, however irrational or ugly it may be, a crime – has suborned the rational. No compromise between good and evil is lasting or practical. Evil will always come out the victor.

It did not take long for the corrupting notion of hate crimes to degenerate into thought crime. This is what happens when reason is declared irrelevant or is abandoned or diluted by the irrational.

It used to be that a criminal was sentenced for his crime, and if the crime was committed from some form of prejudice, the court’s and jury’s afterthought was usually: And, by the way, your motives are contemptible and despicable.