Happy Birthday to me!

With gratitude to Hashem I am celebrating my thirtieth birthday. Even better, I am celebrating it in Eretz Yisrael. I am grateful that at 30, I have just about everything that I would have wished for myself (you know, give or take a few pounds.) I have an amazing husband who both inspires me and makes me laugh. I have three wonderful children. One a brilliant philospher (aged 6), one a budding artistic protégé (aged 5) and of course my precocious princessa (aged 2). And let’s not forget Hero, the gentle giant. For all of the complaining that I have done about my pooch, I am grateful for one thing: With a decade of a multitude of changes behind me, it is nice to know that some things never change. If you put a piece of bread on a low lying surface, Hero WILL eat it. He WILL get gas. It WILL smell. Aside from that, you can always count on him to give a warm welcome, long after your presence is taken for granted by other family members living in your home. HOME. That’s another thing that I am grateful for. While I could not have predicted the Australia and Miami layovers, I always strove to be living in Israel. When I left Israel after a year and half of post-high school study, my prayer at the kotel consisted of three words only. Three words that I repeated over and over again. “Hashiveinu Hashem V’nashuva. “ “ Bring us back, Hashem, and we will return.” I was thinking about my desire to live in Israel, and acknowledging that it would be difficult to achieve the dream. I knew that I too would be settled one day chutz la’aretz and getting up to go to Eretz Yisrael would be like getting out of a warm bed on a cold winter morning. I prayed to Hashem for that gentle push, to have a hand in bringng me back, so that I could do the rest. Boy, did He come through. And here I am. Dreams fulfilled and dreaming still. May my dreams and yours continue to build a brighter tomorrow for us and for all of humanity.

My prayer for the next decade:
May it be Your will Hashem, that you bless me with knowledge, strength and love. Knowledge to know what it is that I am meant to do, the strength to do it, and the love to see all things through. May our will be one and the same as I fulfill myself by serving humanity. Please bless me with the wisdom to raise my children in Your ways. May my home be filled with blessings, peace and light. Please let that light make the world a little less dark, a little more bright. May we all merit to see our nation truly free and our world truly at peace, living the ultimate dream, speedily in our days. Amen!

One more thing – please bring all of my family and friends (and their family and friends) to also live in Eretz Yisrael. In peace and with joy. With wealth and health. And then we will have one HUGE party that will never end….

Proud to be Israeli

Rothchilds in the news

This is Israel to me,' says a settler from Miami

By SHEERA FRENKEL
McClatchy Newspapers

EFRAT, West Bank -- Efrat, 10 miles outside Jerusalem, has become known for its Anglo-Saxon population.

Nearly 30 percent of the town lies on Palestinian land that was confiscated from the nearby Arab village of al-Khader, according to a survey completed by Peace Now. New York Rabbi Shlomo Riskin and Israeli Moshe Moskovics jointly founded it with money donated by Florida businessman Irving Moskowitz.

Oded Reviv, the mayor of Efrat, said that all of the 24 families he knows of that have moved to the settlement this past year are Anglo-Saxon. The city's tree-lined streets boast New York-style pizza, and the identical, angular red-roofed homes easily could be mistaken for American suburbia. The high demand for homes in Efrat has driven up prices, with a modest family-sized residence costing hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Moshe and Yonit Rothschild moved to Efrat from Miami four months ago with their two children. They consider themselves part of the "moderate and mainstream" settlement movement.

They said that their decision to live in a settlement had nothing to do with the Green Line, the internationally recognized border that between Israel and a future Palestinian state.

"If you gave me a map, I couldn't draw the green line for you. ... It wasn't a matter of living over the Green Line. This is Israel to me," said Moshe Rothschild, 42.

He said that he and his wife weren't happy about the Obama administration's opposition to new settlements, which he thinks is a "huge mistake."

"I'm not less American than anyone else, and we are entitled to disagree with our president like anyone else is. I think there is a lot of misunderstanding of what the settlements are. When you use the word 'settlement' in the States, they think of fanatics."

When the subject of a final agreement between Israel and the Palestinians is raised, the Rothschilds aren't sure whether they'd be willing to relocate inside the Green Line.

Moshe said he'd "probably be willing to make that concession" if there were a guarantee of peace.

Yonit, 29, is less sure.

(Frenkel is a McClatchy Newspapers special correspondent.)

Chutzpah

If I didn’t know better, I would think the Arab Member of Kenneset, Jamal Zehalke was Ali G in disguise. What follows is a rather amusing excerpt from an interview that broadcasted on the Erev Chadash program hosted by veteran broadcaster Dan Margalit and his younger co-host Ronen Bergman (as published on Arutz Sheva). We are a strange people, allowing people like this to be a part of our government.


Bergman: “Why don’t you protest against Egypt? If they would open their blockade of Gaza in Rafiach, there would be no humanitarian crisis there!”
Zehalke: “I support the Egyptian opposition’s protest against their government” [evoking sarcastic laughter by the interviewer … ]We want to stop the suffering in Gaza, one must be totally obtuse in order not to see this.”
Margalit: "Not quite; Hamas has fired 8,000 rockets…"
Zehalke: “There were 1,400 dead Arabs and 400 children [in Cast].”
Margalit: “Because Hamas fired rockets…”
Zehalke: “Ehud Barak listens to classical music and kills children!”
Margalit: “Yes, we’ve heard that, we’ve heard that. What chutzpah (gall, nerve -- ed.) it takes to talk that way.”
Zehalke: “No, the chutzpah is the killing. Don’t say it is nerve.”
Margalit: “It is chutzpah.”
Zehalke (yelling): “Don’t you say chutzpah!”
Margalit: “I’ll say what I want, I don’t live in your type of country, I live in a democracy.”
Zehalke (yelling): “You talk as if you’re in the marketplace!”
Margalit: “I talk that way? You say that Barak is a murderer! You are chatzuf [cheeky, rude, disrespectful, from the same root as the Hebrew word chutzpa!]”
Zehalke (yelling): “Don’t call me chatzuf!”
Margalit: “You’re chatzuf!”
Zehalke: “Don’t call me chatzuf!”
Margalit: “You’re chatzuf!”
Zehalke: “Oh yeah? You’re a zero!”
Margalit: “Oh? OK, now you’ve convinced me.”
Zehalke: “You’re a zero! You’re a mouthpiece for all the prime ministers, and you’re a court reporter! You’re a court reporter!”
Margalit: “Yes, OK, Zehalke, you’re right, now get out of here. You don’t care about all the Kassams, now get out of here.”
After another round or two of mutual insults, when it appeared that Zehalke had finally left, Margalit had trouble calming down, and said, “You saw that chatzuf? He says that Barak is a child murderer!”
Zehalke’s voice is heard from offstage: “Don’t say chatzuf!”
Margalit: “Get out of here already!”
Zehalke: “Don’t say chatzuf! Don’t say get out of here already!”
Margalit: “Can you let me work, please?” (The next interviewee had already arrived)
Zehalke [still yelling from offstage: “This is Sheikh Munis here!” (referring to a former Arab village on the ruins of which northern Tel Aviv -- including the television studio -- was built)
Margalit [banging on the table]: “Aaah, now we see what you really want! Now it’s clear! You want to conquer this from us too! Now we see the truth!”
Zehalke: “No, we want to live together! I was born here, you are an immigrant!”
Margalit:”Oh, I’m an immigrant?” (Margalit was born in Tel Aviv in 1938)