August 23, 2008
The Terrorist is Still Dead
The Mystical Lights of Efrat
Shabbos in the Judean town of Efrat, Israel is a deeply moving experience. As the sun falls it gently folds itself into the surrounding hills and valleys. The same Judean hills where Jews have lived, worked and fought since Biblical times.
The unearthly light makes a final golden splash.
I look around for the SFX (special effects) crew, but no I am face to face with the hand of HaShem.
With my brother-in-law, I walk to shul. We are just two, and then a few men approach from another street, several more from another. Suddenly we are dozens converging into one road and approaching shul.
It's like that breathtaking scene in producer David O. Selznick's Duel in the Sun, 1946, where director King Vidor exquisitely choreographs over a hundred horseman, at first single and double units riding from all directions, into a seething mass, all galloping steadfastly towards one destination.
In every window I see Shabbos candles, hundreds, no thousands, glittering white, yellow, blue and red. It's an awe inspiring sight for the flames gutter in various rhythms creating a mystical dance of light welcoming Shabbos.
Glock and Daven
I count seven Glocks and two M16's. There is, undoubtedly, more firepower in shul, but these men are not vain, wild west gunslingers. Most sidearms are concealed under shirt tails, or, as in the case of my brother-in-law David—who dresses for Shabbos like he's still back in Monsey—his Glock 17 is hiding under his nicely tailored suit jacket.
It is comforting to daven in a room with armed and well-trained citizen soldiers. We know from experience that in Israel, it is armed citizens who are the first line of defense against the Arab-Muslim terrorists who have been killing Jews since time immemorial.
One of the most irrational and shameful political positions taken by Liberal American Jews is the demand for the abolition of the right to bear arms.
If Jews in Europe owned guns there would be several million dead Nazis and their collaborators—and far fewer dead Jews.
The Last of the Bensonhurst Kids
Meet Larry, my buddy from Bensonhurst. Okay, so it's not Larry. But Larry looks exactly like William Powell in The Thin Man.
Out of the corner of my eye I spot Larry, not his real name.
We're both from Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, a tough neighborhood even by Brooklyn standards. We attended Brooklyn Talmudic Academy together, a tough Yeshiva even by San Quentin standards.
We have been friends forever.
Larry's parents are Holocaust survivors and as Larry often tells me, his father obsessed over the fact that so many Jews were unprepared, mentally and physically, to fight the Nazis.
“He's written thousands of pages about this,” Larry confides.
Thus, it is only fitting and somewhat ironic that several years ago, here in an Efrat supermarket, Larry bravely confronted an Arab Muslim homicide bomber and deleted this piece of human garbage.
After shul, Larry and I embrace. We study each others' faces. Yes, we are older, middle-aged, we have children and grandchildren, but we are still our impish and dopey childhood selves.
“Nobody lives in the old neighborhood anymore,” Larry says.
“Yup, they're all gone.”
The Next Generation
We step outside where men and women gather before going home for the Shabbos meal. Friends make plans to visit each other. David and Elana's son Jeremy, is home for Shabbos, on leave from active duty somewhere quite dangerous in the land of Israel.
Jeremy, Hollywood handsome, but utterly unaware of his good looks, is exhausted, but now he's with his friends, boys and girls, making plans to meet later in the warm embrace of David and Elana's home.
These are all good religious kids, rock solid in their Zionist ideals. This is the next generation who will sweep away, by sheer force of numbers and conviction, the appeasers, the cowards, the multi-culturalists, and the EU financed Peace Now traitors.
Already, over 80% of the officers in the IDF are observant Jews. They will not allow the chimera of a decadent, defeatist post-Zionist mind-set to advance in the land of Israel.
The Killing
Again, Larry and I go over the killing of the terrorist. Details are all important in counter-terrorism.
“The Glock is a good weapon when every millisecond counts,” says Larry. There's no safety, which can take precious time away from shooting. You can keep a round in the chamber, then just draw and fire.”
Larry totes his Glock in a Fobus speed holster.
“What kind of rounds did you use?”
“I keep hollow points in the Glock, but my spare magazine has full metal jackets. The day I killed the terrorist, I put him down with the hollow points. Don't want to use full metal jackets in a crowded supermarket, they'll go right through and kill an innocent bystander.”
“The Efrat supermarket was crowded?”
“Very. Look, the terrorist was here,” Larry demonstrates using his body and mine, “and behind him were several women and children.”
“How close were you to the the terrorist?”
“About fourteen feet.”
I shiver.
Most gunfights, contrary to popular mythology, take place within seven feet. Fourteen feet can seem like a yawning chasm when the adrenalin is pumping, innocent bystanders are all around, and a determined terrorist has his finger on the detonator.
“The full metal slugs would have gone right through him and there's no telling...”
Larry's voice trails off.
My childhood buddy is a sweet man, a devoted husband, father, and grandfather. There is no bravado in Larry. He's fine with killing the terrorist, but it does not define who he is.
Me, I'd write and produce a self-glorifying movie, play hero on talk shows, try and cash in.
It's time to go home. It's time for leave taking.
There is an entire culture and religion bent on eradicating Israel and Jews.
We are so few; we are so vulnerable.
But there are, Baruch HaShem, many Larry's.
Larry and I hug.
I say: “You're my hero.”
Larry chuckles.
The town of Efrat, in Judea, in the holy Land of Israel
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 08:12 PM | Comments (24)
August 21, 2008
Wall to Wall Bloggers: Part I
Snap Fingers—You're So Dead!
Snick!
Someone has snapped a picture of me.
I scan the room. ID the Jewparazzi, snap my fingers and point.
One of my trusty thugs oozes forward, all crackling menace, grabs the camera, rips out the negative, and then smashes the camera underfoot.
Gotta control my image. Gotta keep my face from getting fa-mil-iar to 'da authorities. There's too many lookin' to make me swim with the fishes.
That's exactly what happened at the Nefesh B'Nefesh First International Jewish Bloggers Conference—which is way too much to type; henceforth known as NBNFIJBC.
Actually, that's a scene from The Godfather, 1972, one of the bestest movies—evuh. And the scene was played by the great Richard Conte as mob leader Don Emilio Barzini.
Okay, so I didn't sic my goomba on a fellow blogger, but oh man, that scene just played out in my so-called brain with startling reality when someone—hellooo Yehuda!—snapped my picture.
Which is a problem for yours truly. I have this tendency to view movies as a bit more real than, um, reality.
Karen, Baruch HaShem, keeps me rooted to the earth. Without Karen I'd spin off into the stratosphere, just another lost soul.
There is an architecture to my love and devotion to Karen and it is endless; words and emotions that go on and on, like infinite strings of numbers to the depths of the universe.
Why Wasn't Hamas Invited to the NBN Conference?
There's been a certain amount of carefully orchestrated controversy swirling round the NBNFIJBC.
Backstory: A notorious apologist for Muslim terror whispered to Haaretz—duh—that the conference was made up of right wing religious nuts.
Some Haaretz hack—redundancy, I know—published an article, half of which were lies and the other half not true. To gauge the radical leftist slant of the article, get this: the Haaretz author ID'd Treppenwitz as a resident of “Efrat, in the West Bank.” However, the Haaretz piece nowhere mentions the cities where other bloggers reside.
Subtext: Treppenwitz is an evil settler, therefore nothing he says can be trusted.
A not so clever blood libel.
Haaretz writer will say:
I stand by my piece.
Or:
I'll let my readers decide.
The playbook of intellectual collapse and dishonesty.
There is no such thing as journalistic objectivity. A writer/journalist/whatever stakes out specific ideological territory as soon as he chooses his subject matter. All the rest are details to support the writer's political world-view.
The Haaretz piece does not qualify as journalism. It's a disgrace, a wretched hack job written by a tool of the Israeli left, apologists for Arab terror. The writer should be fired so he can gain employment with Hamas or the PA, pumping out anti-Jewish propaganda, his true calling.
Treppenwitz details the entire gruesome drama here.
Does the Face Mirror the Blog?
As the panelists take their seats at the podium—okay, it's a folding table—the bloggers in the audience crane their necks to finally view the men and women who have been, for so many of us, pixallated words, thoughts and feelings.
It's a subtle, Hitchcockian moment of suspense as we in the audience try and fit the physical to the imagined blogger friend.
Carl of Israel Matzav, photo courtesy Yehuda
I see Carl of the excellent Israel Matzav for the very first time.
A lump rises in my throat for years ago, when our son Ariel Chaim ZT'L was first diagnosed with a brain tumor, Carl was one of the the first people with whom we were in touch. His e-mails were filled with solid advice and genuine compassion. Karen and I have always thought of Carl as a cherished friend.
And now here he sits, just a few feet away, and for a frozen moment I don't really care about blogging, I just want to go over and give this fine man a hug.
Later, I do approach Carl, reach out to shake his hand. But I'm so taken with emotion that I don't even introduce myself. Startled, Carl looks up at the strange fanboy pumping his hand, worried that maybe he's just met a true and scary stalker. But then he sees my Seraphic Secret sticker and returns my enthusiastic greeting.
Memo to Self:
1. Must remember to be more verbal with human beings.
2. This is not, I repeat not, a silent film.
Karen and I will be celebrating Shabbat with family in Efrat, which is in the land of Israel—our land, our home, our yerusha, birthright. We wish all our friends a lovely and peaceful Shabbat.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 08:28 PM | Comments (10)
August 20, 2008
The Moroccan Amen
Cup used for ritual hand washing
FADE IN:
My friend Treppenwitz AKA David Bogner, his lovely and lively wife Zehava, Karen and I are starving.
We don't have time for dinner because we have to get to Jerusalem to attend the First International Jewish Blogger's Conference hosted by Nefesh B'Nefesh and powered by Webads.
We are already running late when we discover that the Tunnel Road is closed due to an accident.
David says: “We're going through one of the Cousin's villages.”
Cousins. That's what we call the Arabs.
The Arab village is spread out over several hundred acres and sparsely populated, save for a cluster of dazzling white luxury villas built on the high ground.
Such multi-story villas almost always belong to terrorists high-up in the food chain of whatever murderous faction they belong to. Terror pays—very nicely. And U.S. tax dollars help support and prop up these killers, as does current Israeli government policy.
Almost an hour late for the conference, we pretty much miss the food. David runs to join a panel while Karen and I manage to find seats in the filled to capacity room.
SMASH CUT:
After the conference, faint with hunger, David and Zehava take us to Sima's, on Agrippas Street in Machane Yehuda. David, with the voice of a true believer, informs us that Sima's has the best spring chicken in Israel.
David is very serious about this restaurant. Apparently there is a competitor down the street and there are those who say that place has the best spring chicken in Israel.
David says it's a bit of a religious war between the two factions.
Me, I'll eat wood chips I'm so hungry.
Before we eat, I mount the stairs to wash my hands.
There is a Moroccan mother—her Hebrew accent is distinctively Moroccan—with a brood of children near the washing station. Mom's eyes are painted in blue eye-shadow and her glue-on lashes are a bit on the goopy side. She wears spray-on jeans and a scoop neck blouse that leaves little to the imagination. Leopard print high-heels round out Mom's wardrobe. Her hair is doing that scary Amy Winehouse thing.
Not exactly a refined Coco Chanel look.
Anyway, Mom is getting her kids to wash their hands with soap and water. Every once in a while she gives one of the frisky pre-teens a light swat, saying “Maher, maher!” Hurry, hurry.
I wait patiently for the kids to clear away so I can ritually wash my hands before eating bread.
But then Mom sees me, and she firmly orders her children to step back.
“Clear away, clear away, the gentleman needs to wash.”
The kids, hands dripping with soap, all step back a few paces and looked at me with round, moist eyes.
Mom motions for me to step forward.
In Hebrew I say: “No problem, let your children finish cleaning their hands.”
“No, no, yours is more important, please, sir.”
Mom uses the formal Hebrew word, “Adoni.”
I wash and Mom carefully tears off a paper towel and reverently hands it to me.
I say the b'racha, the blessing.
And Mom answers “Amen, amen, v'amen.”
Mom makes eye contact with me and gives me the sweetest most lovely smile I have ever seen since, well, since Shirley Temple dazzled American audiences in the depths of the depression.
I exchange a long look with Mom. I can't thank her because between the time you wash and say the b'racha, and the time when you eat the bread, one is not allowed to speak.
To show my gratitude, I give a formal little bow of the head.
I feel like Mr. Darcy in Pride and Prejudice.
Mom bows her head too. Bows her head lower than mine.
And in that moment I no longer see the bright blue eye shadow, the false eyelashes, the saber-like nails lacquered red as a Chinese vase. I no longer see the unfortunate hair and heels.
I feel ashamed of my previous harsh judgment for now I see a truer picture. I gaze upon a fine Jewish woman who loves Torah and Judaism. I see a worthy descendant of the four biblical matriarchs, Sarah, Rivkah, Rachel and Leah.
And a few minutes later, I eat the best meal of my life.
FADE TO BLACK
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 10:47 PM | Comments (18)
August 19, 2008
Nefesh B'nefesh: Scenes from a Flight
Mitzvah at High Altitude
“We’re having a Sheva B’rachos at seat 24, come on over, okay?”
I’m on the Nefesh B’Nefesh flight to Israel and one of the NBN staff members have just invited me and my friend, the great blogger Treppenwitz to help celebrate the sheva b’rachos for a young married couple.
Soul by soul, or one soul at a time, that’s the translation of Nefesh B’Nefesh. And oh my, what an appropriate title. For even here at 30,000 feet NBN make sure to take care of all the needs of the new Olim, immigrants to Israel.
Treppenwitz and I grab our siddurim, make our way down the aisle, and with scores of others, help celebrate. I am always moved at a sheva b’rachos, but here, in the crowded aisle, as children, like frisky puppies, climb over their parent’s laps and adjoining seats, as cameras flash, catching the chosson and kallah luminous with joy, and as the familiar tunes wash over me, I feel a nugget, like a walnut, trapped in my throat for here is the Jewish people at their very best, a faithful community supporting one another in the performance of the eternal mitzvos .
Welcome Home
New immigrants to Israel
I step into the sunlight, I step onto the land of Israel. I blink at the waiting crowd, hundreds of men, women and children. There are banners welcoming the new Olim. There are unarmed soldiers lined up like an honor guard. all waving Israeli flags. A man grabs my hand, “Welcome home,” and he hugs me. I stammer that I’m not an Oleh, I’m a blogger here to write about the experience, but the kind and generous man just smiles patiently and says, “You are a Jew, welcome home.”
Yours truly all choked up
I have no clever comeback. My seemingly inexhaustible supply of snappy dialog has abruptly run dry.
Over the years I have heard numerous stories about the difficulty of immigrating to Israel. Of course, there are the obvious obstacles: leaving home, getting a new job, being absorbed into a new culture. But always the true horror stories were about government bureaucracy: mountains of paperwork, surly bureaucrats, endless lines at an endless parade of government offices whose purpose was never quite clear. Too often, Olim felt like they were being put through some hellish obstacle course, an increasingly complicated maze designed for rats rather than lovers of Zion.
Nefesh B’nefesh does away with faceless and hostile bureaucracy. NBN, it seems to yours truly, is the perfect conservative response to callous big government, an elegant reply to waste and inefficiency.
Founded by Tony Gelbart and Rabbi Yehoshua Fass NBN is a deeply personal and powerful alternative to atrophied government, to programs that had global Aliyah steadily declining over the years.
Welcome home
Everywhere I turn NBN representatives are calmly going out of their way to provide help, answering questions, resolving problems.
Since 2002, NBN has revitalized western Aliyah—immigration to Israel—and brought over 15,000 Olim from the USA, Canada and the UK.
NBN help remove financial, professional, logistical and social obstacles for new Olim.
Dressed to Kill
A few words about fashion and females in uniform.
Somewhere in the state of Israel there is a tailor who is making out like a bandit. I mean this guy is a genius.
No army in the world issues trousers that ride about three inches below the hips—
not unless the State of Israel has hired Versace to design their uniforms, and I really don’t think that’s happened—yet.
But every single female soldier at the welcoming ceremony is wearing fatigues that are precisely cut and I’m telling you, I feel like I’m casting a film and my office is filled with gorgeous Israeli women soldiers looking to score a gig in a movie about, um, gorgeous Israeli soldier girls.
Israeli soldier girls. Great and fashionable army.
Look, I work in Hollywood, I know the image business, I am intimately familiar with the hard work of glamor, and there’s one thing I can tell you about the female of the species: You can put her in a shmatte, but she is going to find away to make it work, she is going to make it fashionable, she is going to make herself, well, feminine and purty. And so, thousands of Israeli girl soldiers, with military precision, take their army issue trousers and have them altered—just so.
Military analysis at it’s most superficial.
Speeches?
I’m thinking, oh my gosh, speeches, after an eleven-hour flight? NBN must be kidding.
Refreshments are laid out on a dozen tables. Everywhere the NBN staff smoothly move about making sure that the children get something to eat, making certain that all the new Olim have rides to their new homes. In short, making sure that everything runs efficiently, that everyone feels welcome.
I sit, exhausted, but strangely elated.
NBN founders Tony Gelbart and Rabbi Fass both speak briefly about NBN’s mission. But they are not here to congratulate each other. Nope, they are here to applaud the new Olim. Their words are all about the hope, the ancient love of the land that binds all Jews.
I turn to Treppenwitz and say: “This just sweeps away all that post-Zionist poison, doesn’t it?”
Treppenwitz says: “If you’re not moved by what’s going on here, then you probably have no heartbeat.”
I place my hand over my heart. It's pounding away like a Ginger Baker solo.
This is Your Land
Treppenwitz nudges me: “Bibi is on his way.”
Secret Service agents are quietly fanning out in the terminal. Oh man, talk about central casting. These guys are tall, toned and chiseled. They are wearing those dopey short sleeved safari jacket—call Michael Kors, puh-lease!— with nice fat bulges under their armpits. Hey, just like in the movies, they cup their ears and whisper into their mikes.
I’ll be it’s something like: “Hey, Yossie, did ya catch the cute soldier girl with the blond dreads?”
I ask Treppenwitz if I can take a picture of the hard guys or whether that bit of fandom will get me shot. These guys actually look, oh, I dunno, like they can do some serious killing and then go out and have a pizza.
Treppenwitz says: “Better not.”
Hence, no pic of the guys with guns.
Bibi Netanyahu enters. The crowd roars.
Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu, Israel's next Prime Minister.
Me: “He’s gonna be the next Prime Minister, right?”
Trepp: “He better be.”
Bibi says: “You all come from great countries. The United States is a great country…”
I’m nodding my head: Well sure, it’s the good ol’ U.S.A.
Bibi continues: “Great Britain is a great country…”
I’m like: Eh, not so great.
Bibi adds: “Canada is a great country.”
I roll my eyeballs: What-ever.
Bibi goes in for the kill: “But this is your country!”
The soldiers come forward, we all rise and sing the Israeli national anthem, The Hatikvah, The Hope.
Singing The Hatikvah
I never saw Babe Ruth hit a home run. Never heard the crowd roar as the ball sailed over the fence, never saw the faces of little kids as the mighty Bambino lumbered round the bases.
But this is what it must have felt like.
My heart is stampeding in my chest and my vision is blurred.
This is my land and I am home.
Look, you know me, I don’t normally kvell—well, unless I’m talking about silent film star Clara Bow—but the conference is going to be a once-in-a-lifetime experience, so drop in.
You don't have to be a blogger to attend by webcam. Just click here and register.
And if you’re lucky you might catch a glimpse of the legendary Karen.
Yup, Karen has landed—on a separate flight.
Don't even ask.
You can view a webcam of the arrival and opening ceremonies here at the NBN website.
More amazing NBN Bloggers:
Jameel of The Muqata
Esther of My Urban Kvetch
And here's the NBN page with all the fine blogs collected in one easy to read spot.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 06:52 PM | Comments (13)
August 18, 2008
Preflight: Quick Cuts
FADE IN:
INT. VIRGIN AMERICA PLANE - NIGHT
“So what do you?”
I'm on my L.A. to N.Y. flight and I've been pecking away at my computer working on a script. There's a young woman sitting next to me, and she's so obviously an actress I feel embarrassed labeling her so quickly. But hey, twenty-five years in Hollywood and you kinda recognize the profile.
I go: “I'm a screenwriter.”
“Yeah, what are your credits? Anything big?”
This is the part I really hate. Everyone—from taxi drivers to your local plumber—feels they have a G-d given right to your credits.
So I have this neat comeback: “You first.”
A real conversation stopper.
She fixes me with her baby blues and decides I'm a hostile screenwriter. I'm not, I just don't want to hear about her journey from Kansas to Hollywood and how haaaard it is breaking in and by the way, is there a part for her in my next film.
Anyway, she jams in her i-Pod buds and grooves away.
I finish the scene, decide it stinks, and delete it.
Pop Ambien.
FADE TO BLACK.
INT. JFK TERMINAL 4 - DAY
I'm wandering around looking for the Nefesh B'Nefesh table. A letter from the ever efficient and good natured Benzi Klugwalt assured me that Nefesh B'Nefesh will have a table set up and—get this—“you can't miss it,” he says.
Benzi does not know yours truly.
I can miss an elephant in a Beis Midrash.
I flip open my phone, punch in some numbers and:
”Hullo...”
Oh boy, he's still asleep.
“Benzi, this is Robert Avrech.”
Silence.
Great, doesn't have a clue as to who I am. Maybe I'm not really invited on this gig. maybe the whole thing was a huge hoax.
“Huh?” Benzi moans.
“Robert Avrech, y'know Seraphic Secret, the blogger.”
“Oh yes, yes.”
“I hope I haven't called too early.”
It's only 6:30 in the morning.
“No, no,” he lies.
And Benzi assures me that the Nefesh B'nefesh crew will be at terminal 4 soon, and I should just sit tight.
Benzi Kluwgant smiles even though I woke him up at 6:30 AM
DISSOLVE:
INT. TERMINAL 4 - DAY — RANDOM RANT
I am appalled at the way people dress to travel.
1. Excuse me men, but wife-beater t-shirts are really low-class. Especially when you have a paunch the size of Sicily.
2. Ladies, I beg of you, please don't display your midriff, not unless you're a size 0, y'know, a nice healthy anorexic.
3. And everybody: what's with the flip flops? Must I look at toes all day long. Besides, what happens if the plane—G-d forbid—crashes and you have to survive on some creepy lost island in the middle of the Pacific. Flip-flops are simply not sturdy footwear when fighting cannibals.
DISSOLVE:
INT. TERMINAL 4 - DAY
Oh joy, a Nefesh B'nefesh official comes wheeling up with boxes all labeled, uh-huh- Nefesh B'Nefesh. Liz Bernstein and I talk, play Jewish Geography, and wouldn't you know it, but she is originally from LA, from my neighborhood.
Liz Bernstein, NBN official extraordinaire
Liz reaches into a box and pulls out one of those convention plastic thingees and hangs it from my neck:
Nefesh B'Nefesh Aliyah 2008
Seraphic Secret
Blogger
I am an official something or other.
And my teachers in Yeshiva of Flatbush always said that I wouldn't amount to anything.
Nefesh B'Nefesh are really organized. I mean, like totally not-Jewish organized. They set up tables, unfurl posters, and line up water bottles. They have lists, lists of lists, and every single NBN person is smiling hugely. These people love what they are doing, making the Aliyah process as smooth and trouble free as possible.
NBN might be a non-profit organization, but it's run like an efficient, but ultra friendly corporation.
I have to fill out some paper-work.
I'll be back.
UPDATE: I'm going to write about Elan Bielsky, 21, who is making aliyah through Nefesh B'Nefesh. Elan is single, from North Woodmere, N.Y. and will be joining the Garin Tzaabar army program. Elan's sister is studying in Israel while his brother Matthew made aliyah with NBN in 2005. The story of Elan's grandfather is being made into a movie starring Danile Craig and Liev Schreiber to be released on December 5th. The movie is called Defiance and is based on the story of the Bielski Brothers who joined together during the Shoah and helped rescue over 1,200 Jews to a nearby forest in Bylerussia. One of the three Bielski brothers, Zus, was Elan's grandfather.
Oh, and I ran into old friends from Brooklyn Rabbi Dovid and Frieda Wadler who are making aliyah. Karen and I were friends with the Wadlers when we lived in a one-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn. The Wadlers are making aliyah with NBN, and are luminous with joy.
Dovid & Frieda Wadler
Okay, there's a line I have to join, which will lead me to another line, which, I hope will lead to a line to the plane.
Reaching for my trusty Ambien.
Goodn night, Gracie.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 07:05 AM | Comments (13)
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