Latma uses Holocaust Survivor humour

I've looked through all the comments below this Latma video and through all the talkbacks on Caroline Glick's blog where she features this video and can find no one who thinks that the first sketch was unacceptable. I however do. I think it crosses a red line and wrote to Caroline Glick and told her so. My talkback was not published.

I think that Caroline Glick and the Latma team are doing a fantastic job battling the left wing and anti-Zionist liberal media and have always enjoyed their biting humour. However this sketch where they employ Holocaust survivor humour to complain about cramped conditions on flights to London is quite simply sick.

Doesn't anyone else think so? From the total lack of complaints on the YouTube page, it seems I am in the minority.

While The West sleeps

Chizbollah, Chamas aka, The Muslim Brotherhood are gradually sweeping across the Middle East. Lebanon has been ruled by Chizbollah for some time now. The Egyptian people have just voted in The Muslim Brotherhood. Syria will fall to the Islamic Empire any day now. Gaza is already in the repressive hands of Chamas and we see in the news today that there are riots in the Palestinian Controlled areas of Machmud Abass screaming for out and out war with Israel and the end to the P.A.’s corrupt regime. It looks as if Chamas will be ruling over Ramallah very soon. The Western and liberal Israeli media call this a “grass roots” demonstration.  A cry from the people!

Looking at the pro-Palestinian left-wing sites, (mostly run by guys with lovely Jewish surnames), there is a very obvious sharp change of policy against Abass. He is now not just in Israel’s pocket but is in fact an agent of Israel! He is working for the IDF and is part of the Israeli occupation. If the Palestinians ever want human rights, they tell us, they must be ruled by Chamas, ie, The Muslim Brotherhood.

How can you say “Chamas” and ”human rights” in the same breath and still keep a straight face? The liberal press manage it without any difficulty.

Is the P.A. and Abass corrupt? Absolutely yes!  They are corrupt because the United States and the West allow them to be so. They shower the regime with money and then sit back with closed eyes and crossed arms. The Western governments proclaim that they cannot interfere into the internal policies of these regimes. They cannot insist on accountability for their own donations, for freedom of speech, free press and for democracy. Then, the West looks on and through misty eyes, wonders why the Muslim Brotherhood is sweeping through the Middle East.

Please, don't wake me, no, don't shake me
Leave me where I am, I'm only sleeping.

Please, don't spoil my day, I'm miles away
And after all I'm only sleeping.

Keeping an eye on the world going by my window
Taking my time.

(“I’m Only Sleeping”, The Beatles, Revolver, 1966)

But time is running out for the West. The Muslim Brotherhood has a strong foothold into Europe now and is given free rein in America to brainwash the next generation in all its universities. This is exactly what has been happening in the universities in Europe for the past 30 years. I know, I was there!

Meanwhile, the West is investing even more in ways to preserve the environment and of course, blaming the Jews and Israel for all the world’s ills.

At least there will be clean water for the future rulers of the West to wash their feet with before they go off to the mosque for morning prayers.

A sweet little poem and my reply

A few weeks ago I received an email from a "Dati Leumi" friend of mine containing a sweet little poem which I'm sure he thought was very amusing. I did not!

Here is the original poem and below is my reply.

The Fanat in the Hat and Other Stories

Eli D. Clark

(with apologies to Dr. Seuss)

THE FANAT IN THE HAT

I sat there with Sally.
We sat on the bus.
We sat there together.
No one made a fuss.

Then who came aboard?
The Fanat in the Hat!
And he said to us,
“How can you sit like that?

“You know it is wrong
To sit next to each other.”
I said, “She’s my sister,
And I am her brother.”

He pointed at Sally,
“Go back there to sit.
If you stay in front,
I think I will spit.

“I do not want to see you

Go out or come in.
Your elbows are showing
And making men sin.”

“I paid for my seat

Just like you,” Sally cried.
“I can sit where I want!
It’s for me to decide!"

“Where do you think you are?

This is not Tel Aviv.”
The Fanat in the Hat said,
“Sit in back or you leave.”

“Now do as I say,

You loose woman, you.”
Then out from behind
Came Thug One and Thug Two.

They had beards, they had hats,

And they wore black and white.
Their fingers were curled
Into fists that were tight.

They were big, they were mean,

And they blocked our way.
They did not look like men
Who learn Torah all day.

They screamed at poor Sally.

“Prutzoh!” they shouted.
“We will take care of you.”
And we did not doubt it.

We looked up to heaven.

We looked left and right.
Should we try to run
Or stand up and fight?

We needed a plan,

A way to escape,
Before those two Thugs
Squashed us both like a grape.

Then Thug One and Thug Two

Shouted, “Oy! Help us please!”
The Fanat in the Hat
Just fell to his knees.

What made them shake

And what made them yelp?
What made those bullies
Cry out for help?

We looked and we saw

A giant black cat,
Walking erect
In a red and white hat.

The Cat in the Hat

Looked the Thugs in the eye.
“These things need to stop.
And I’ll tell you why.

“Scaring young women

Is not a good game.
Worse, it is causing
A Hillul Ha-Shem.

“Here is a new game

To play,” said the cat.
“The game is called boxing.
Are you good at that?”

The Thugs said, “We box.

When we finish with you,
You will lie on your back
For a week or for two.”

The cat pulled a box out

And opened the top.
We heard a big voom
That made everything stop.

The Fanat in the Hat

And the Thugs in their beards
Were sucked into the box.
They all disappeared.

The cat closed the lid

And sealed it with glue.
“Goodbye,” said the cat,
“And good riddance to you.”

...And here is my reply...

They gathered outside Bnai Brak and Meah Shaarim,

From out of every corner,

The mob could be seen,

From Chelonim, Datai Leumi and everyone in between.

“Get rid of the Dossim, get rid of them all”!

“They are parasites on society”, came the loud call.

All the cameras were there, recording the scene,

Was it Berlin 1933? It could well have been.
“Go back to Poland and Russia, go to hell!
Stop using our blood for matzos,
And throwing our babies down the well”.

Voom! the last ship left, the last plane flew,

 Filled only with Chareidi refugees, (as well as the crew).

Gone were the men in black hats, their wives and children too.
The crowds screamed hysterically “Good riddance to you!”

Then the sky turned red as the missiles came down,
Tel Aviv went first, then every town.
For who was left davaning for Am Yisrael?
The yeshivos fell silent with no one around…
As the last Kollel, Beis Midrash closed its door,
The State of Israel was no more.

(C) Author of blog Reb Mordechai Writes

You can't escape it. Not anywhere.

As anyone who is raising teenage sons would know, you have to find things of common interest in order to try and persuade them that you weren’t born on another planet. (I was however born in another country which may as well be the same thing as far as they are concerned).

My boys, despite claiming that they are 100% culturally Israeli, nevertheless are fanatic supporters of Arsenal (pronounced “Arsnol”) Football Club, following the game results you could say, almost religiously. My eldest son even submitted his English Bagrut project on the subject of the English FA, dedicating a whole page to his beloved Arsenal and their historic rivalry with the other “Jewish” football team up the road, Tottenham (pronounced “Totnum”) Hotspurs, better known by their nickname, “Spurs”.

In order to keep up to date and have some kind of opinion on the latest Arsenal related matter whenever my sons are home from yeshiva, I am a regular reader of Arseblog, one of the most popular Arsenal FC blogs.

It amuses me that just as a religious Jew might write a particular Avoda Zara (idol worship) by missing out some letters and replacing them with asterisks, so Arseblog refers to their arch rivals at Tottenham as “Sp*rs”. Anyone thinking of going to the site should be warned that it contains the usual football fan related swearwords.

I found this blog rather refreshing and a change from my usual Internet haunts and enjoyed a bit of escapism, following the insignificant discussions over which player was best and how much money the manager ought to spend to keep Van Persie.



From left to right: Benayoun, Walcott and Van Persie



Only once in the past have I made a contribution by adding to a discussion about one of Israel’s best players who was on loan to Arsenal for the season, Yossi Benayoun. They were wondering about the level of his English. In fact, Yossi probably has a better grasp of the language than many contributors to the blog. One guy said matter-of-factly that his mother tongue was of course Yiddish. Obviously I could not resist putting them straight and pointing out that Benayoun comes from a Sefardi family and was hardly likely to know more than a few words in Yiddish. I explained to them that his mother tongue was in fact Hebrew which is the national language of Israel. They were most amused!

Then, last week, I was forced to submit another post.  My escapism fantasy world was shattered as I read an article where the author commented that the subject he was writing about was similar to the fact that the Palestinian and Israeli sides were just as bad as each other. I would have let his comment go had it not been for posters who taking their cue from the article, waded in with Anti-Israel comments. One of them I could not ignore:

http://arseblog.com/2012/06/joy-divisions/

https://portal.arseblog.com/arses/index/8381/1339676851

To which I replied (yes I called myself Shlomo):

It just goes to show. You can’t escape it can you.

It's been two days since I posted this comment. So far, no one has replied. Let's hope it stays that way.

HonestReporting.com Are we missing the point?

http://honestreporting.com/der-sturmer-in-the-uk-2/

I pop by the website of HonestReporting.com every now and again to check out the latest article on media bias. A few years ago I would have considered this essential reading but today I question if article after article of outrage at Israel hatred and Jew hatred is simply missing the point.

There is no doubt that there are many anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic reporters and journalists in the British press. They are not on the fringes of British media or given a forum simply for counter opinion sake. They are mainstream writers in mainstream media outlets.

There can be no doubt by any objective criteria that The Guardian as well as other British media outlets have crossed the line between legitimate criticism of Israel and Jew hatred (and I don’t mean a small incursion over the line but a full blown invasion).

One has to ask oneself, why have the so called politically and racially sensitive media watchdogs been either silent or totally dismissive of complaints of Anti-Semitism and allowed these hate publications to continue with impunity?

Why don’t other mainstream media outlets openly condemn these articles and treat them with the disgust they deserve? Silence in the face of hatred amounts to complicity in the crime.

I believe Honest Reporting is doing a fine job in exposing these hate articles but haven’t we got to the stage where there are simply too many of them? In fact, it is rare to find a balanced, let alone pro-Israel article in the British press today and when there is one then the writer is considered at the fringes of acceptable opinion.

At the heart of this issue is the inescapable conclusion that it is not simply one or two British media outlets which express these opinions but indeed the majority. This is a nation which views these hate filled articles as perfectly acceptable and sees nothing wrong with it. In fact, many in Britain would say that it is their moral obligation to spread Israel and Jew hatred wherever possible.

There have always been Jew haters but Britain today is a country which allows them to flourish in mainstream media. One can only conclude that Britain is a morally corrupt and evil society.

Please, someone, anyone, convince me that I am wrong or at least cast doubt on my conclusions.

Jewish Telegraph's answer to Anti-Semitism? Stop being Jewish!

I have not blogged for some time as I have been busy with other projects but an editorial in this week’s Jewish Telegraph prompted me to publish this blog post as a way of letting off steam.

Many Israeli kids look at the Jews of Germany in 1933 and wonder why they did not leave en-mass, even when normal Jewish life became impossible.

Well, If they would read this editorial in the Jewish Telegraph from March 2012 then they'd understand how this came about.

I have put the most upsetting sentence in BOLD.

http://www.jewishtelegraph.com/opinion.html

No knee-jerk reaction

E-MAIL: editor@jewishtelegraph.com

Were we to succumb to near-paranoia every time there is a tragedy of this type, we are playing straight into the hands of those who seek to destabilise our lives. As a community, in this country, we are well-protected both within and without. Members of the Community Security Trust provide a reassuring presence at major events and in some communities can be seen on the streets with police and community support officers in sensitive areas, particularly during yomim tovim and on Shabbat. And our schools are secure.

If we take sensible precautions by not gathering in public, visible locations — and that includes dispersing speedily after synagogue services and simchas — we do not encourage problems.

The tragic events in Toulouse serve to prove though that there are still those who see Jews as legitimate targets for all manner of grievances, although the gunman in this case had already taken what he saw as misguided revenge against members of the French military. There will always be those whose delusions persuade them to carry out atrocities as in the case of Mumbai, Columbine and other attacks on schools, but there is no suggestion that as a result, we as a community, are under any greater threat than previously. Vigilance though is always the key word."

Does the editor realise the significance of what he has written? His self-denial of the current situation is astonishing. I noticed that the BBC News site last week made a point of writing about how many French Jews are planning or have stepped up their plans to come to Israel? There was even a video about it on the BBC site which was quickly taken down after a few hours. Predictably, the video was replaced by another that sent out exactly the opposite message. Someone saved the old video and posted it on Youtube. Today when I went to put the link on this blog post I found that Youtube had shut down the user’s account.

Rav Yizachar Frand teaches that when he was a child he could not understand why so many of the old men in his shul had the same story. They all came from Germany shortly after their shops had been attacked and destroyed in Kristallnacht. Later he realised that only those who's stores had been destroyed were the Jews who had woken up and left in time!



Secret school in Kovno Ghetto



So what next? The Jewish Telegraph will advise British Jewry to only buy their kosher products through delivery service in unmarked vans so as not to draw attention to themselves? Jewish schools must be situated in cellars, out of site? Mezuzot should be removed from the outside of the doorframe and placed inside so that the homes will not be able to be identified as Jewish homes?

What the Telegraph is suggesting as a response to the rise of Anti-Semitism in Europe is to cease being identified as Jewish. Most secular Jews will conclude that it’s far simpler to stop identifying as Jews all together!



Seder Night in Jerusalem

Meanwhile, last Friday night in Israel, I got annoyed with my eldest son because he kept us all waiting 20 minutes to say kiddush as he was chatting with his friends outside the shul. In less than two weeks time, European Jewry will be sitting down to the Seder on the night of Pesach and singing the words "Next Year in Yerushalayim"! This year, Be'ezrat Hashem, they will listen to their own words!

YNET and the Female Reporter on Bus

YNET doesn't allow facts to get in the way of a good story especially when it comes to their favourite sport, that is Chareidi bashing!

This morning there was an article in YNET entitled:

"I won’t sit at the back of the bus

Ynet special: Tanya Rosenblit recounts clash of civilizations she experienced on Israeli bus; ‘until yesterday, I was sure that I live in a free country,’ she says "

Clash of civilisations? The writer without subtlety uses the same language that we would associate with Islamists who commit mass murder and force their women to cover their bodies in black tents. From the off, you know where this is going.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4163399,00.html

YNET descibes Tanya Rosenblit "as a student" who innocently happened to board an Egged bus that runs through a Chareidi neighbourhood and sat behind the bus driver in order to ask directions. She was sitting there, quietly minding her own business, when a spontaneous crowd of men speaking in Yiddish formed around the bus…

“…I was a little scared at that point. Nobody bothered to turn to me and ask me to do what seemed so logical to them – for me to move to the back. They made do with pointing at me, calling me names, and expressing outrage over Egged’s failure to safeguard their rights. I must admit I still don’t understand what these rights are.”

In her article, Tanya asks why these men don’t obey the Talmudic statement of “Derech Eretz Kadma LaTorah (proper behavior comes before the Torah.)”?

The bus driver asked her to move to the rear. She refused. The situation became so tense that the driver called the police. The policeman asked her to move to the back. When she repeatedly refused, the policeman instructed the driver to go, leaving her where she was sitting. Those who wanted to board the bus could, those that didn’t could wait for the next bus.

She finishes her article with:

“We must not allow one pressure group or another to overrun the unique voice of any one of us. Freedom is not a curse word; everyone aspires for it in every society and in any situation. If we give up the stigmas and approach the person who hides behind the words “haredim” or “seculars” we can produce genuine dialogue and possibly minimize the gap between us.”

Any normal person reading this account would feel genuine sympathy for her or even admiration. Some have even called her a “hero”.

I am personally against Egged sex segregated buses

Let me state from the outset that I am personally against Egged, Israel’s public bus company, agreeing to sex segregated buses. If the Chareidi community wish to organise private coaches and arrange with consent of both the men and women to segregated seating then gezinterhait, fine! However the public bus system should not agree to impose such restrictions. If I were traveling on an intercity Egged bus with my wife or daughter then I'd certainly like to sit next to them. There is, as far as I understand, no halachic precedent for such a chumra (stringency).

It could be the case that Egged bus passengers on buses that run through Chareidi neighbourhoods will, on their own volition, organise themselves so that women sit at the back but it should be made clear that, being that this is a public and not a chartered coach, if a female passenger gets on and for whatever reason, wishes to sit at the front of the bus then no one has the right to complain. I would consider it appropriate for someone, who would have to be a woman, to politely and with respect explain what the practice (by common agreement) on these buses is but if the female passenger nevertheless refuses to comply with the request, they should be left alone and not harassed.

While traveling on Egged buses I have experienced a few related but not exact same cases as this one.

The Couple on the Bus

One such incident took place some 15 years ago whilst I was traveling on the bus to the Kosel (The Western Wall plaza) where the vast majority of passengers were religious.

Egged Bus to the Kosel

There was a young American couple, either in their late teens or early twenties on the bus, sitting together and showing open affection to the point where it would have been considered embarrassing to other passengers, even on the top deck of a Double Decker in London.

He was wearing a kippah but both were very scantily dressed in frayed denim shorts and torn t-shirts (which was at that time the current fashion statement).

Upper Deck on a London Bus

I would imagine that had this incident happened on a London bus then passengers would have stared disapprovingly whilst the couple were not looking, quickly turning away when they thought that they were, and giving others knowing looks but would almost certainly have kept quiet. However this is Israel! Within a few minutes some four or five men and women started shouting at them and pointing at them in an aggressive manner, from what I could understand, they were demanding that the couple get off the bus.

The young couple became noticeably distressed at the attention they were receiving and were completely clueless as to what had caused it, not understanding any Hebrew at all. I pushed my way through the crowded bus to their seat and stood over them and proceeded to explain to them what was happening. They actually seemed embarrassed if not a little scared and confused. The girl took a shawl from her bag and wrapped it around herself. I then turned to the crowd and said to them in a firm but friendly voice to “Leave them alone, they are tourists, Jews estranged from Judaism and in any case, they don’t understand what you are saying to them”. To my amazement, the crowd calmed down and many looked away. I had half expected them to start screaming at me but Baruch Hashem, this did not happen.

I got talking to the couple who said that they were on an Israel trip organised by their Reform Temple. I said to them that when they got to the Western Wall, to look out for Outreach guys in the men’s section and women doing the same thing in the women’s section, who could find them, if they wanted,  places for Shabbat so that they could experience a real Jewish old City Shabbat. “Free?” they asked me. I assured them that yes, it was free and added that they should use the opportunity to ask as many questions as they wanted about Judaism and assured them that they’d have a great time.

I don’t know if they found a kiruv worker but I’d like to believe that they did and today are living blissfully in the Rova (the Jewish quarter of the Old city) with 8 kids. Who knows?

Getting back to the YNET article, it is a personal account of events by this woman. However I found another, very different account of the same incident in the Chareidi Internet site bhol.co.il.

http://www.bhol.co.il/article.aspx?id=35652&cat=1&scat=1

Tanya Rosenblit it appears is a freelance reporter, apparently on special assignment for YNET. She boarded a special “LeMahedrin” bus traveling from Ashdod to Yerushalayim, where the arrangement is, by agreement of the overwhelming majority of passengers on those lines, for segregation of the sexes. Men at the front, women at the back. This directly contradicts Tanya’s account in YNET where she writes that it was an ordinary regular Egged bus and she just happened to find herself there.

She entered the bus and sat on the outside of a two passenger seat next to the driver and waited to see what would happen. When passengers passed her by without incident she decided to use some provocation tactics and began to sing in a loud voice and (intentionally leaning out of her seat) nudge male passengers with her elbow as they got on the bus.

Eye witnesses state that both men and women attempted to persuade her gently, in a friendly manner to stop the provocation and move to the rear of the bus with the other women. They said that they attempted to talk to her “Jew to Jew” but to no avail. The woman reporter screamed that if she wasn’t allowed to sit at the front then she’d undress on the bus and then proceeded to play with the buttons of her blouse.

At this, many passengers got off the bus and formed a crowd around it. The bus driver quite rightly called the police who, according to the Chareidi report acted in a polite and fair manner eventually deciding that despite the reporter’s obvious provocation, she had a right to sit where she wanted. Those who wanted to get on the bus did and those who didn’t had to wait for the next bus.

In my opinion, the policeman was the hero in this story who proved that the conclusion reached in the Israeli press is wrong. We are not living in a repressive society here in Israel because the outcome of the story was that the Policeman, despite being told by numerous witnesses of her provocation, did not throw her off the bus but upheld her legal and civil rights. I would say that it proves exactly the opposite of what the Israeli media claims.

If even half the account as related in bhol.co.il is true then it seems that Tanya cynically provoked and exploited this confrontation to create something news worthy and her request for dialog and understanding at the end of her article is purely fallacious by design.

Her article was written intentionally to provoke exactly the opposite reaction from her readers in YNET. Not dialog but hatred. Anyone reading her article will conclude that the Chareidim are primitive, sheep like, evil and stupid at the same time and pose the greatest danger to the State of Israel.

She will go far in her career at YNET.