By 1950, the Hollywood studio system was in steep decline. Television was flattening the landscape, and because stars were no longer under contract to the studios, the star system—invented by L.B. Mayer—was all but dead.

It was a bad time for American movies.

The last great film genre was also quickly fading.

Film noir, black or dark films, a post WWII phenomenon, was characterized by dark, urban landscapes where dangerous dames seduced cynical men into crime, betrayal, and death.

Gun Crazy, 1950, is one of the last, great noir movies.

But it doesn't fit neatly into the noir category because much of the story takes place in wide open rural spaces—which, to me, gives the film so much power. We don't expect noir in the mid-west.

John Dall plays Bart Tare, a young man who has always liked guns. He gets into a world of trouble when, as a kid, he breaks into a store to steal a six-shooter. Bart's friends explain to the judge that Bart likes gun, but he would never kill anything. He won't even kill an animal.

File away that last piece of information as the major set-up of the film.

For every movie set-up, you have to provide a payoff.

And the payoff in Gun Crazy is perfect.

No spoilers here, you must watch this film.

After getting out of the army, Bart attends a carnival where he meets sharpshooter, Annie Laurie Starr—“So beautiful, so dangerous...”— played by Welsh born Peggy Cummins—her voice is mesmerizing, like a finely-tuned musical instrument.

Annie and Bart engage in a sharp shooting contest. It's one of the most erotic sequences in movie history for the man and woman—gunslingers in heat—are doing a mating dance as they blast away.

Later, Bart sums up their relationship:

“We go together, Annie. I don't know why. Maybe like guns and ammunition go together.”

Annie and Bart end up on the road, broke, and Annie talks the reluctant Bart into committing a robbery:

"I told you I'm a bad girl, didn't ?"

Soon, Bart and Peggy are on a full throttle crime spree and the cops are closing in on the doomed couple.

The clip I've chosen is, to my mind, the greatest bank heist in movie history.

It's done in one take. Dall and Cummings, dressed in their carnival outfits, improvise dialog as they drive down the highway, enter a town—the scene was shot in Montrose, CA—and cruise to a stop outside the bank. Because the scene is shot in one take, in real time, the suspense is nearly unbearable.

Karen and I wish all our friends and relatives a miraculous Shabbat.

Have a wonderful July 4th weekend and keep in mind that freedom is never free.

And hey, Jewish Democrats have been hit, en masse, with a deadly ailment: Cognitive Dissonance.

Meanwhile, Barack Hussein Obama, has finally chosen sides in Iran. Want to to take a guess where The Dear Leader stands?

Pop Quiz: What's the difference between The Washington Post and a prostitute?
Answer: Nothing.

Recently, France banned the burqa—excellent move—and of course, Al Qaeda has promised revenge.

I'm sure the ACLU would argue that if you ban the burqa the next step is banning yarmulkes.

But honestly, those who wear yarmulkes—Orthodox Jews like yours truly—are not seeking to undermine the West and replace democratic, freedom loving societies with a barbaric 7th Century Islamic theocracy where Jews are eliminated, homosexuals are hanged, public beheadings are frequent, women are stoned to death, and all minority religions are oppressed.

Let's face it, the burqa is part and parcel of the Islamist war against western civilization.

Pop Quiz: To whom do you think the women wearing burqas are married?

The first rule of war is: know your enemy.

Predictably, Barack Hussein Obama chooses to turn this bit of obvious wisdom on its head. Like all leftists, Obama redefines enemies as friends and friends as enemies.

In leftist circles— a group deeply attracted to totalitarian impulses—this is called “nuanced thinking.”

Pat Condell makes you laugh out loud, but as with all great comedy, his observations have the unmistakable ring of truth.

New York has a law, dating from 1845, that allows loitering charges against someone who is "masked or in any manner disguised by unusual or unnatural attire or facial alteration."

Simply put, the masks are a security threat.

Naturally, the KKK claims that the law is unconstitutional.

I am not a lawyer and I have no idea if it's unconstitutional or not.

I'm just an average American citizen with some common sense, and I don't believe that the Constitution is a document that compels national suicide.

Further, it seems to me that masked people—we have no idea if they're male or female, because they're wearing full body shmattes—are an implicit threat to civilized society.

I mean, look, when a masked, uh, thing, walks into a bank, what's the natural reaction?

You shoot them.

It's called self-defense.

Phyllis Chesler explores the issue of banning the burqa in America. She's also taking a poll and I voted, duh, Yes.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

The Arabs have consistently rejected the notion of a Jewish homeland, denied the basic facts of Jewish history, and said, “No, No, No” to every overture for a peaceful settlement that envisions anything less than the destruction of Israel.

let's be clear, the conflict is not geographical but ideological.

Islam violently rejects the notion of a Jewish State.

Here's a short video that traces Arab rejectionism, a polite term for incipient genocide.

But have no fear, Barack Hussein Obama is going to fix everything—by saying “No” to you know who.

But yes, yes, yes, to Muslim states.

Thus, the Netanyahu government will be saying no to Obama's July 4 picnics.

And to think, 78% of American Jews voted for Obama.

Not only is Mr. Hope and Change destroying the American economy with a push towards European type Socialism, but he's ideologically driven against the State of Israel and in the process of detonating relations between America and the Jewish State with the fervor of a true leftist believer.

Shocking, huh?

Who said Jews are smart?

And, hey, congratulations to Minnesota for electing this man to the Senate.

Just goes to show what you can achieve when you change the rules.

Well, as I said about Barack Hussein Obama: bad for America, good for blogging.

Okay, I'm no math genius. Certainly, your faithful screenwriter is not an economist.

But I do have common sense.

I understand that people should spend less than they earn in order to remain solvent and build wealth through a disciplined program of diversified investments.

But I also understand that the federal government can and does function running a moderate deficit.

As always in life, it's a matter of degrees.

Here's a brilliant, hence simple, two-minute explanation of Obamanomics.

Warning: Fasten your seat belts.

H/T Joshua Pundit

Okay, class, how is Barack Hussein Obama, our ideologue-in-chief, going to finance this spending spree?

Waving hand in air furiously: “I know, I know, teacher, green jobs.”

If you believe that fantasy, I have a bridge in Brooklyn I'd like to sell you. Green jobs are, as Howling Wolf explains, a canard.

No, the correct answer is:

Taxes.

Duh.

Obama plans to tax you.

Yes, I'm talking to you.

Obama—a man who has never run a business, handled a payroll, or generated wealth for anyone but himself with two Oprah-designed autobiographies—promised to tax only the wealthy—making 250K a year makes you wealthy,

But that was a bold faced campaign lie.

The middle class, as always, will bear the burden of Obama's crushing taxes. It's not complicated, 5% of the American population cannot support the entire federal budget.

Let's be clear, Obama is not interested in building wealth. His aim is to redistribute wealth.

And even Obama must know—uh, maybe not—that the fed can't keep printing money or we'll end up with Zimbabwe-like inflation, hauling wheelbarrows of cash in order to buy a loaf of bread.

Obama's state planned economy follows a familiar pattern.

We see this form of governance in western European socialist states where taxes are high, unemployment is in the double digits, and national health care is parsimoniously rationed by bean-counting government bureaucrats.

When our son Ariel ZT'L was ill with cancer and we practically lived in Oncology wards, we kept meeting patients from France, England, and Canada.

Why, we inquired, were they receiving medical care in America?

The answer was always the same: they were forced to wait, and wait and wait for critical treatment. They were so ill that they had been shunted aside for “better prospects.” They had to wait months for a simple MRI.

They wanted to live.

Hope and change.

The blood of Iranian dissidents runs in the streets of Tehran, but the Obama administration is still anxious to talk with the mullahs about their nuclear program because, well, the Islamic tyrants are obviously so reasonable.

You see, Barack Hussein Obama does not want to meddle—no soaring rhetoric for those who are begging for it—in Iranian politics because, according to the Obama doctrine, all regimes are sacrosanct and we Americans don't have the moral authority to distinguish between good and evil, democracies and totalitarian states.

Except when it comes to Israel.

Jooz, for Obama, are another matter.

Not only does Obama feel obliged to meddle in Israeli politics, but he actually feels justified in deciding where Jews can and cannot live in the Jewish homeland, and whether they can build an addition to their homes because they have the chutzpah to have children.

Indeed, twenty years mentored by Jew-hating Jeremiah Wright certainly gives weight to Obama's moral authority.

No wonder the brave Persian dissidents are turning to Israel for aid. They, like the mullahs, understand that Obama is a weakling, a reflexive appeaser.

Obama might think he's being pragmatic as he gives legitimacy to the murderous mullahs. He might fool himself into believing that by force of his magical charisma, he'll convince the mullahs to abandon their nuclear ambitions.

But, in fact, Obama is practicing positive reinforcement—for evil.

The mullahs are not Brian Williams, who literally bowed to Obama after a recent interview/love-fest. The mullahs are not the NY Times, the LA Times, Newsweek, or Time magazine, media that are nothing more than an extension of Obama's powerful PR machine.

The mullah are brutal Islamic theocrats—they stone women to death, deny the Holocaust even as they plan another, hang homosexuals, slice off limbs as punishment for various crimes—and they have no intention of stepping back from their tyranny, from their nuclear program, or from their repeated promises to wipe Israel off the face of the earth.

Fortunately, Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israeli public understand the mullahs just perfectly. That's why Bibi was elected, to deal with the Persian nuclear threat, and by extension, Hizbullah's massively growing arsenal of long-range missiles in Lebanon.

Israel also understands that Obama is an enemy of the Jewish state, thus, once again, the Jewish people stand alone against a genocidal enemy.

Sigh.

What else is new?

But here's the good news: at least the geo-political situation is clear.

The Israel Air Force’s F-15 fleet is undergoing an upgrade, with systems that make it better equipped for complex long distance attack scenarios. The systems are being installed in both the F-15 and the F-15I -- a model of the F-15 that was developed by its U.S. manufacturer specifically for the IAF.

According to IDF journal BaMachaneh, the F-15I model is currently being fitted with two new systems — one called “Barad Pelada” (“Steel Hail”), and another named Lightning.

The Barad Pelada advanced weapons system has been operational in the IAF’s F-16s for almost four years, but had to be modified in order to fit the F-15.

Barad Pelada is an advanced Israeli armament that operates like a smart bomb. “The system is unique in that it is able to plan the bombing in an accurate way by identifying the target from above,” a knowledgeable source in the IAF explained. “After the identification, the system carries out guidance to the target and only then is impact made.”

Full story, here.

The Sixth Annual Ariel Avrech Memorial Lecture is up and live.

The title of Rabbi Steven Pruzansky’s lecture is: Conformity in Jewish Life: Virtue, Vice or Affectation?

Is conformity a Torah ideal, and should we encourage it in our children and communities ? Or does conformity restrict our creative impulses, diminish our simchat hachaim—joy of life—and potentially impair our service of Hashem ? Is there a value in pretending to conform externally ? This lecture will explore the Torah's balance between conformity and individuality.

To view the video of the lecture, or just listen to the audio, go to the sidebar, right below Ariel's picture and click the appropriate link.

Also: Hot and Humid Haveil Havalim at Simply Jews.

“Oooo, I just can't wait for my new shoes to arrive,” says Offspring #2.

Karen and I are spending Shabbat in Teaneck. We're about to sit down for our Friday night Shabbat dinner—Karen and Offspring #2 darted about the kitchen as if in a Offenbach opera—when Offspring #2 sighs loudly, yearning for the shoes she ordered less than 24 hours ago, the shoes born for her sister's upcoming wedding.

“They'll probably arrive Monday or Tuesday,” I offer.

Offspring #2 looks all tragic and suffering, like Jennifer Jones in The Song of Bernadette.

“Oh, but I want them now.”

“'ll bet you're more excited about your new shoes than the gown you're having made, right?”

“Definitely.”

My wonderful son-in-law shakes his head as he pours wine into the Kiddush cup: “I just don't get this thing women have for shoes.”

“Until you get women and their passion for footwear, you will never understand women.” I'm a regular Ludwig Wittgenstein.

Offspring #2 gets into details of the Badgley/Mischka shoes: “They're soooo cute and strappy, perfect wedding shoes with tulle on top.”

My son-in-law perks up. “Tool, you mean like a wrench?”

Karen goes: “Tulle is a fabric, like the wedding veil.”

My son-in-law looks disappointed. He really likes the idea of a wrench or a screwdriver as a shoe ornament.

We stand as he chants the Kiddush. I look at Karen, Offspring #2, and Ma'ayan Ariel, all bathed in the glow of Shabbat candles, and I experience happiness. There is no joy like being a husband, a father and a grandfather.

Meanwhile, Ruti E. writes: “At the last minute, the feet got camera shy. But I HAD to share the fulfilled quest. How many other people would care?”

Yes, Ruti, we care.

Our Israeli cyberfriend—check out the great photos on her blog—finally tracked down much desired turquoise flats and gee, what a relief, we're allowed to show them.

From the Irony File: Iranian dissidents are turning to Israel for assistance in opening up lines of communication with the outside world. They are not appealing to Barack Hussein Obama for he is clearly a weakling. It looks like Israel has inherited the mantle of Leader of the Free World. H/T Wolf Howling.

Karen and I wish all our friends and relatives a miracle in Shabbat.

To read my contribution to the Big Hollywood Troopathon, please click here.

This is definitely from the Neville Chamberlain school of international relations.

Prior to the current uprising in the streets of Iran, Barack Hussein Obama sent a letter to the mullahs begging them to, y'know, like us, to really like us.

Naturally, Khamenei ridiculed Obama's groveling note in a public sermon, recognizing Obama's abject tone and shameless display of weakness.

Obama, a man who has zero experience in international affairs, a man whose knowledge of geo-politics is limited to a narrow and, let's face it, radical leftist interpretation of world history—America is bad, Third World People are groovy, Israel/Jews are ruining everything. Thus, Obama is incapable of recognizing the existence of evil, much less confronting it. Obama's default is: apologize, crawl on your knees to dictators, insult your democratic allies, and claim that all cultures are equal.

The mullahs have a somewhat different frame of reference and it was articulated quite clearly by the Ayatollah Khomeini, as reported in Amir Taheri's Holy Terror, 1987.

Islam makes it incumbent on all adult males... to prepare themselves for the conquest of other countries so that the writ of Islam is obeyed in every country of the world. Those who study Islamic Holy War will understand why Islam wants to conquer the whole world... Those who know nothing of Islam pretend that Islam counsels against war. They are witless. Islam says: Kill all the unbelievers just as they would kill you all! Does this mean the Muslims should sit back until they are devoured? Islam says: Kill them, put them to the sword and scatter their armies...Islam says: Whatever good there is exists thanks to the sword and in the shadow of the sword. People cannot be made obedient except with the sword! The sword is the key to Paradise, which can be opened only to the Holy Warriors! There are hundreds of scriptures urging Muslims to value war and fight. Does all that mean that Islam is a religion that prevents men from waging war? I spit upon those foolish souls who make such a claim.

Obama's naivete is not just breathtaking, but a veritable gift to the murderous mullahs of Persia, and to totalitarians everywhere.

Today, Big Hollywood is proud to participate in the 2nd annual Troopathon with content dedicated solely to the military and their families. Make sure to check out Big Hollywood's Troopathon.

Nah.

Barack Hussein Obama would rather sit down and chat with mass murderering mullahs because, y'know, he's just so darned smart and charming that his Jedi force field will convince them to give up their nuclear program, abandon their plans to annihilate Israel, cease oppressing women, renounce the hanging homosexuals, and sing kumbaya.

Security forces wielding clubs and firing weapons beat back demonstrators who flocked to a Tehran square Wednesday to continue protests, with one witness saying security forces beat people like "animals."

At least two sources described wild and violent conditions at a part of Tehran where protesters had planned to demonstrate.

"They were waiting for us," one source said. "They all have guns and riot uniforms. It was like a mouse trap.

"I see many people with broken arms, legs, heads — blood everywhere — pepper gas like war," the source said.

Another witness said hundreds of people were chased by security forces and clubbed about a mile from the square.

Yet another source, a man who spoke to his wife in the area of the square, recounted what she told him in a phone conversation.

He said she saw security forces shooting and beating people and saw blood on people's clothes and in the streets. The woman said security forces had been carrying butcher knives and batons.

Full story here.

But fear not, Barack Hussein Obama is “waiting to see how it plays itself out.”

Odd, I always believed that America leads the world in the cause of freedom.

Guess not.

Hope and Change for Islamic terrorists, but for a people struggling to loosen the shackles of tyranny, tepid rhetoric.

Reprehensible.

More excellent coverage of the Persian repression from my friend Wolf Howling

Let's review:

Barack Hussein Obama's mentor for over 20-years was the Jew-hating Jeremiah Wright. Obama was a faithful member of Wright's, so-called church, where Jew-hater Louis Farrakhan was lionized. Obama was buddy-buddy with American terrorists/trust fund babies Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, members of the murderous Weather Underground, and authors of Prairie Fire, a Communist manifesto dedicated to, among others, Sirhan Sirhan, the man who assassinated Robert F. Kennedy because of RFK's support of Israel. Also BFF with Obama is Rashid Khalidi, a Jew-hating—duh—Palestinian radical.

To paraphrase Claude Rains in Casablanca: “I'm shocked, shocked to find that Barack Hussein Obama is seeking a confrontation with The Jewish State and getting all misty-eyed over the Jew-hating Arab states.”

Item: Obama just reinstated full diplomatic relations with Syria. This is one of the most repressive regimes on the planet, a state that, in partnership with North Korea, secretly tried to build a nuclear facility, a state that sponsors terrorist groups Hamas and Hizbullah, a regime that assassinates its opponents in Lebanon, a thugogracy that just officially recognized the legitimacy of the Iranian elections.

There is no question that Barack Hussein Obama is putting the big freeze on Israel.

As for so-called Arab East Jerusalem, well, it's not.

Jews have lived in East Jerusalem since time immemorial, but the Jewish population was expelled, ethnically cleansed by Muslims beginning with the Arab pogroms of 1920.

Here's a rule you can live by: When Arab Muslims claim a piece of real estate, the first order of business is to expel the Jews. Look at Gaza. Thus there are 22 Arab Muslim countries and they are—except for Morocco's remnant of 2,000 Jews—Judenrein.

Jewish neighborhoods in east Jerusalem are included in the US demand that Israel halt "settlement" construction, including for natural growth, State Department spokesman Ian Kelly told The Jerusalem Post during a press briefing on Monday.

"We're talking about all settlement activity, yes, in the area across the line," he said, referring to neighborhoods in Jerusalem over the Green Line, or pre-1967 armistice line, in response to a question on where America's calls to halt construction in the settlements would be applied.

Full story, here.

Engagement.

It's the magical concept for Barack Hussein Obama. Because, y'know, he can just charm the Jew-hating (shades of Jeremiah Wright) America-hating (Wright again) mullahs; convince the tyrants to give up their nuclear program and their vow to eliminate Israel from the face of the earth.

Meanwhile, as the Basij and the Revolutionary Guard murder people in the streets, break into homes and arrest alleged enemies of the regime, as Iranian citizens are tortured in black hole prisons, Barack Hussein Obama and the geniuses who run the State Dept. have determined that a happy-go-lucky July 4th bash is just the thing to enlighten our Islamo Nazi buddies.

I think this Iranian dissident, who begs Obama to get involved, is going to be a bit disappointed.

But have no fear, the state controlled media in the U.S.—except Fox News, the lone dissenting voice—will assure us that Barack Hussein Obama knows exactly what he's doing because he's the smartest, most handsome, most wise POTUS who ever lived. Evan Thomas of Newsweek definitely nailed it with this bit of orgiastic pagan frenzy: “...he's sort of a God.”

Let's contrast Ronald Regan on Poland with Obama on Iran:

Yup, what could be more appropriate than a show of solidarity between America and a totalitarian Islamic theocracy that guns down its own citizens in the streets.

The United States said Monday its invitations were still standing for Iranian diplomats to attend July 4 celebrations at US embassies despite the crackdown on opposition supporters.

President Barack Obama's administration said earlier this month it would invite Iran to US embassy barbecues for the national holiday for the first time since the two nations severed relations following the 1979 Islamic revolution.

"There's no thought to rescinding the invitations to Iranian diplomats," State Department spokesman Ian Kelly told reporters.

H/T Mere Rhetoric

Wolf Howling comments: “Not just immoral, but obscene.” Read the entire post.

Here's some good news. You know that aktion against Trader Joe's by the Jew-hating thugs? Well, it was a complete and utter failure. Divest This! has the story.
H/T A. Mark David

Question: All the divest-from-Israel creatures who say they are concerned about human rights, human dignity, freedom, etc. where are they now that Iran is exploding?

Answer: No Jooz to blame, so why bother.

The following video is graphic.

A young Iranian woman, Neda Salehi Agha Soltan, 27, was standing with her father and watching the protests in Tehran, when she was shot in the chest by the Basij, the Brownshirts of the current Islamic regime. She is in her death throes. Her father begs her not to be afraid.

There is nothing worse than watching your child die.

Neda's funeral was supposed to be held at Tehran's Niloufar Mosque. But the Iranian regime ordered the funeral service canceled. Other mosques have also been issued directives warning them not to hold a funeral for Neda. Thousands of her fellow students were expected to attend her funeral.

More commentary and horrifying videos here.

I post this because President Barack Hussein Obama's tepid support for those Persians who are desperate to throw off the shackles of tyranny is disgraceful. But it's not surprising. Obama bet the farm on the Jew-hating Mullahs. He groveled and apologized to the current regime, thus backing himself into a corner where pale, canned statements written by State Dept. hacks are, presumably, the, ahem, ethical way to go.

Bookwork Room writes a letter to the Iranian People that says everything Obama seems incapable of articulating.

Hope and change for Gitmo terrorists.

But for freedom fighters in Persia—nothing.

America should stand firmly on the side of freedom. This is basic to the American character.

Contrast the video above with the Al-Durah blood libel, a bloodless and fraudulent video produced by the Palestinians and disseminated by a craven western media. My friend Breath of the Beast, covers this in detail.

But have no fear, the U.N. just added Iran—yup, no joke—to its Human Rights Commission. So the Iranian dissidents who are being shot down in the streets, beaten in their homes, and tortured in prisons can expect lots of support from that august body.

Just returned from The Sixth Annual Ariel Avrech Memorial Lecture, an overwhelming success. Rabbi Pruzansky's views on conformity and non-conformity in Jewish life are unique and thought provoking. We will be posting a video of the event in a week or so and we strongly suggest that you take the time to view it.

I am emotionally drained and need some quiet time to absorb the entire experience.

Thanks to everyone who attended and to those who could not attend but wrote to us with emotional support.

In the meantime, here's the latest edition of Haveil Havalim, edited beautifully by The Real Shliach.

The Sixth Annual Ariel Avrech ZT'L Yahrtzeit Lecture takes place this weekend Sunday June 21, 2009, at 10 AM at the Young Israel of Century City, followed by a brunch.

Young Israel of Century City
9317 West Pico Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90035

We are pleased to announce that we have engaged Rabbi Steven Pruzansky to present this year’s lecture.

Rabbi Pruzansky is the spiritual leader of Congregation Bnai Yeshurun, a synagogue consisting of nearly 600 families located in Teaneck, New Jersey, and one of the most vibrant centers of Orthodox Jewish life today. He has served since August 1994.

Rabbi Pruzansky graduated from Columbia University in 1978 with a B.A. in history, and received a Juris Doctor degree from the Benjamin Cardozo School of Law in 1981. He practiced law for 13 years as a general practitioner and litigator in New York City until assuming his current pulpit. Rabbi Pruzansky studied in yeshivot in Israel and the United States, and was ordained at Yeshiva Bnei Torah of Far Rockaway, New York under the guidance of Rabbi Yisrael Chait, shlit”a.

He recently served as President of the Rabbinical Board of Bergen County, and currently serves as the Treasurer of the Rabbinical Council of America. He is a trustee of the RCA on the Board of the Beth Din of America, as well as a dayyan on the Beth Din itself. He also served as the American co-spokesman for the International Rabbinic Coalition for Israel. Rabbi Pruzansky served on the Board of Directors of the Jerusalem Reclamation Project, and received their Rabbinic Leadership Award at their 1995 Jerusalem Day banquet.

Rabbi Pruzansky is the author of A Prophet for Today: Contemporary Lessons of the Book of Yehoshua, and Judges for our Time: Contemporary Lessons of the Book of Shoftim.

Rabbi Pruzansky recently entered into the blogosphere with a fine blog appropriately titled: Rabbi Pruzansky's Blog.

The title of Rabbi Pruzansky’s lecture is: Conformity in Jewish Life: Virtue, Vice or Affectation?

Is conformity a Torah ideal, and should we encourage it in our children and communities ? Or does conformity restrict our creative impulses, diminish our simchat hachaim—joy of life—and potentially impair our service of Hashem ? Is there a value in pretending to conform externally ? This lecture will explore the Torah's balance between conformity and individuality.

We look forward to seeing all our friends and relatives at the lecture.

Learning Torah was Ariel's greatest joy. There is no better way of honoring Ariel's memory than by participating in this lecture series.

May Ariel's neshama have an aliyah.

You do not have to RSVP to attend. The lecture and brunch are courtesy of the Avrech Family and Friends.

The lecture will be videotaped and posted on Seraphic Secret for the benefit of those who cannot attend in person.

Karen and I wish all our friends and relatives a restful and meaningful Shabbat.

Important Note: Trader Joe's, all across the United States, are due to be raided by Jew-hating rabble who seek to prevent Israeli products from being sold by removing them from shelves.

This is much like the Nazi boycotts of Jewish businesses during the 30's.

So, those of you who can, please head on over to your local Trader Joe's and purchase as many Israeli products as you can. If you're Jewish do this on Friday—today—so as no violate the Sabbath.

Make sure to let Trader Joe's know that you appreciate the fact that they carry Israeli products.

Stand up to the thugs who seek to destroy Israel and the Jewish people. They are just old fashioned Jew-haters hiding behind the fashionable mask of anti-Zionism.

These creatures already struck a supermarket in Paris. Naturally, no one called the police or confronted the jihadists. Roll the tape.

H/T Israel Matzav