I had an interesting conversation about the Whisky Boycott on Shabbos with a Rav who lives in my local area. (He incidentally enjoys a large Glen Fiddich on occasions).
He made some good points I felt. I had expressed my view that I wasn’t convinced that the distilleries should be boycotted just because they were situated within authourity of anti-Semitic councils, especially being that many of them were doing so much to obtain kashrus certificates and some even had commercial interests with Israel (buying Israeli kosher wine casks), thus implying that they were not pursuing anti-Semitic or Anti-Israel policies themselves. Perhaps we would actually lose any friends we might have in Scotland by boycotting their whisky.
He counted this by asking me how I proposed to make the councils change their policies without hitting them where it hurts the most, that is, in the pocket. He asked me if Scotland produced anything else of significance besides whisky that we could boycott. If the distilleries begin to feel the loss of sales then they will put pressure on the councils to reverse their immoral policies. However, he went on to say that he didn’t see any point in boycotting Single Malts as they were too expensive for most drinkers which meant that the market was too small to make any noticeable impact. (I’m not sure he is correct here). He suggested that the boycott be on all blended Scotch whisky and not exclusively on whiskies in the council’s area but to all Scottish blended whisky. (From my experience, most Israelis, for reasons that escape me, buy Chivers Regal). This he said would express in the strongest terms, our view on the Scottish boycott of Israel.
Scotch Blends
I then made a rather flippant comment to the effect that I might well subscribe to his suggestion being that I could still be able to enjoy my Single Malts. I immediately angered an elderly gentleman who said that I sounded like those American Jews in the 1930s who refused to join the German boycott due to their love of German products. He told me that had the German boycott been effective then this would have probably changed the whole course of history.
A lot has been said and written about a threatened whisky boycott by the Jewish world due to the Anti-Zionist policies of the Scottish Nationalist Socialist West Dunbartonshire council and in particular, the anti-Semitic comments of one communist racist council member, Jim Bollan.
I noticed that the call to boycott has been taken up by The Reform and Conservative Masorti movements Kiddush clubs. Considering the Reform and Conservative’s poor record of support for Israel in the past, it does leave me slightly puzzled.
The Conservative/Masorti as well as the Reform movements are involved in many left wing pro-Palestinian organisations such as the grotesquely named “Rabbis For Human Rights” organisation. This organisation in particular thinks it’s the “Jewish way” to demand the dismantling of Army checkpoints and the security fences which have saved numerous Jewish lives. Their misplaced and corrupted sense of morality gives aid to Israel’s enemies.
The boycott idea seems to have originated from the pro Zionist blog Muqata. I am very uncomfortable about this boycott for a number of reasons.
Before I begin I feel it’s only fair to say that I’m not objective in this issue as I love Scotland, having visited there many times and am crazy about Single Malt Whisky so confess a bias from the start.
I wrote to the Muqata blog today and am waiting for an answer to my question as to why the blog’s owner selected these whisky companies for a boycott. Muqata kindly published my comment here:
As I explained in my comment post on the blog, the headquarters of Morrison Bowmore are in Glasgow city centre and Bowmore distillery is on the Isle of Islay. The same company however does own a distillery in West Dunbartonshire called Auchintoshan. I'll give them that one.
By the way, until a few years ago, Morrison Bowmore's Computer department head was an Orthodox Jew who had served in the IDF! The company is very much involved in kosher whisky production and possible batches of kosher wine casks in cooperation with Israeli vineyards. Any Whisky company that works directly with Israeli companies (such as Bruichladdich of Islay) should certainly not be on the boycott. (Personally speaking, I'd recommend not drinking Bowmore anyway as its pretty awful stuff. However Glen Garioch and Auchintoshan are quite good).
The Glenlivet distillery is in the Speyside region and is owned by Chivas Brothers whose headquarters are in Paisley which is in the council area of Renfrewshire which is south of West Dunbartonshire. Why the boycott on them?
The third company on the list is Loch Lomond. Loch Lomond's headquarters and distillery are in Alexandria which is within the Strathclyde Regional Council. So why boycott them?
I do think though, that with enough pressure on Morrison Bowmore, they might be willing to make a public statement condemning their own council’s policy. It would certainly endear them to the many whisky drinkers within Am Yisrael and probably increase their sales.
What would Purim be like without a Chumantashen with a glass of Auchintoshan?
The Telegraph Online published an article this morning about the Arab riots on what the Arabs call Nakba Day (Day of catastrophe).
The article’s headline made it quite clear where the reporter’s bias lies:
"Israel attacks Palestinian border protests"
"Israel was accused of shooting dead at least 13 Palestinian refugees trying to breach its frontiers from Syria, Lebanon and Gaza on Sunday, after a Facebook campaign to storm the borders."
Syria and Lebanon (under the control of Iran) ordered young men and teenagers to break through Israel’s national border fence and throw rocks and Molotov cocktails at Israeli soldiers.
To side track for a moment. I was amused at some of the comments I heard about Aish’s Yom Ha’atzmaut video song. Some people amazingly thought that it was a cameraman going round the Midrachov in the centre of Yerushalayim randomly filming passers by in a spontaneous manner. I explained to them that in fact the brilliance of the video was that it had been so well staged and choreographed so that the cameraman could make the video in one take.
However, it isn’t just the Israelis who possess these filming skills. Before the Nakba event, the Arab government organisers informed the International Press exactly what was going to happen,(staged just like a film set with timing and position plans), so that the cameramen could obtain the best shots and video footage of these “spontaneous demonstrations of rage”.
The Telegraph’s Jerusalem based reporter is one Adrian Blomfield. Despite his Jewish sounding name his articles are consistentlyhostile towards Israel
There is no attempt at balanced reporting and the Telegraph editorial seems to be quite happy with this. In fact I’d say that his reporting crosses a red line into anti-Israel propaganda.
Here is Adrian talking about how Britain’s reporting of the Arab/Israeli conflict is less biased (he means more pro-Arab) because “in Britain they aren’t under the thumb of the powerful American Israel Lobby”. Funny how he completely ignores the much larger Arab Lobby and in particular, Saudi influence in Britain and Europe.
His article in today's Telegraph clearly asserts that peaceful (so called) "Palestinian refugees" crossed the border to demonstrate in Israel and were met by lethal fire from Israel, killing at least 13.
He writes:
"But a Druze witnesses said the protesters were peaceful.
"The people came in a peaceful way, they had no weapons," said Taiseer Maray, who runs a medical charity that treated the wounded. "In a peaceful way they stated that they had waited for 60 years and wanted to go back to their homes. But the Israelis shot directly at the people, even though they posed no threat."
The problem is that Taiseer Maray is no objective bystander as Adrian wants to make out. He is in fact head of an organisation to return the Golan to Syrian rule. He is featured on Chamas and Fatach sites as an activist. However, for some reason, Adrian forgot to mention this.
Rather than correctly describing him as head of a militant Anti-Israel movement, Adrian describes him as head of a “medical charity”. Now isn’t that nice? What could be more believable than a human rights medical charity? That is, unless it’s an Israeli organisation, in which case it will be accused of only treating the sick in order to steal their organs and sell them to the highest bidder. This Organ Trafficking accusation (blood libel) was made by amongst others, the “honourable” Baroness Jenny Tonge, who has a seat in the House of Lords.
Some ITN footage showing the "peaceful" demonstrations:
One more thing. You wouldn't know it from reading Adrian's article but there was a terrorist attack in Tel Aviv to mark this special day in the Arab (and British reporter's) calandar.
The Jerusalem Post reports today that
"Hundreds of people participated in the funeral of Aviv Morag, 29, who was killed Sunday in the truck rampage in Tel Aviv.
He was brought to rest at the Casesaria Cemetery.
A young truck driver from the Arab town of Kafr Kasim caused terrifying destruction in south Tel Aviv after ramming his truck into several vehicles on Rehov Bar-Lev, in what police suspect to be a “lonewolf terror attack” that killed Morag and injured 17 others"
Witnesses told reporters that he screamed "ala achbah" during his rampage through the street.
A few people have commented to me that my blogs are too varied and that I should create separate blogs for each type of post. I thought about it and decided to create a new blog called “Reb Mordechai Reviews”.
I’ve exported all my review posts from here, be they about wine, HIFI or computers and imported them into my new blog. I’ve also added a new blog post about some great "must haves" Android apps.
Here's a lovely video for Yom Ha'atzmaut from Aish.com:
Beautifully directed video and a really catchy song. However I do have one question.
Why did they decide to have such generic lyrics? It's a song about freedom which has no reference whatsoever to Israel or the Jewish people.
Answers on a postcard (or my comments box below).
*** UPDATE ****
Excuse my ignorance. I had no idea that this song was the official FIFA Football World Cup 2010 (held in South Africa) anthem which Aish borrowed and used in their video.
