Boston Marathon Blasts: Doctor Credits Israelis With Helping Set Up Disaster Team

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Yesterday, Seraphic Secret noted that Israel’s Yom Hazikaron, Day of Remembrance, in which two minutes of silence prevail across the country in memory of those who have fallen in defense of the Jewish state, is, in fact, not just about the past, but the present and the future.

The enemies of Israel are the enemies of the Judaism, and this is a hatred that never sleeps.

We Jews are engaged in an eternal war.

The enemy are Assyrian, Babylonian, Roman; genocidal Communist and Nazi regimes rise and fall only to be replaced by genocidal Muslims.

America was founded by Christians seeking religious liberty. These early Americans so closely identified with the Children of Israel’s flight from Egypt they considered making Hebrew the national language.

It should come as no surprise that our founders inscribed a verse, not from the Christian bible, but from the Torah (Leviticus chapter 25, verse 10) on the Liberty Bell:

“PROCLAIM LIBERTY THROUGHOUT ALL THE LAND UNTO ALL THE INHABITANTS THEREOF.”

Those who hate Israel and Judaism, also hate America and Christianity. The Islamic terror that plagues the land of Israel will also come to these shores with increasing frequency.

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Posted in Boston Marathon Terror Attack, Islam, Islamic Terror, Israel | Tagged , , , | 12 Responses

Memorial Day: Remembering the Future

Life comes to a halt during the two-minute siren on Yom HaZikaron, Israel's Memorial day.

Life comes to a halt during the two-minute siren on Yom Hazikaron, Israel’s Memorial day.

Israel’s Memorial Day comes immediately before Independence Day.

We remember the fallen who have given their lives in the name of national freedom, those who sacrificed their lives for an ancient patch of earth promised by G-d to the children of Israel for eternity.

We have been fighting for this land since time immemorial. Our enemies were powerful and numerous: Amalek, Amon, Hittites, Philistines, an endless supply of genocidal clans.  Our enemies denied our connection to the land and tried to rid Israel of Jews and Judaism.

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Posted in Israel, Yom HaZikaron | Tagged | 11 Responses

Happy Birthday Israel

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Posted in Israel | Tagged | 3 Responses

Twenty Greatest Movies of the 1950s: Vertigo

Jimmy Stewart and Kim Novak in Vertigo, 1958.

Jimmy Stewart and Kim Novak in Vertigo, 1958.

We continue our survey of the twenty greatest movies of the 1950s.

For the Twenty Greatest Movies of the 1940s, click here.

For a listing of the greatest movies of the 20s and 30s click here.

18. Vertigo, 1958

In 1962, Sight & Sound magazine, a British publication, launched a ten-yearly poll to evaluate the top ten films of all time among critics. Every year the top film of all time has been Citizen Kane, 1941.

Which tells you more about the film elites than about Orson Welles’ technically marvelous, if shallow and boring movie.

This year, the Sight & Sound poll came in with a new winner: Vertigo.

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Posted in Alfred Hitchcock, Great Movies, Greatest Movies of the 1950s, Vertigo | Tagged , , , , , | 26 Responses

Jimmy Carter, Jew Hater, To Be Honored By… Yeshiva University

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I am an alumnus of Yeshiva University High School, Brooklyn.

My father, Rabbi Abraham Avrech, worked as an administrator in Yeshiva University for almost his entire adult life.

Offspring #2 and #3 both attended Yeshiva University Stern College for Women.

I have affection and respect for this institution.

But this affection and respect is being sorely tested.

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Posted in Jew-haters, Jimmy Carter | Tagged , , , , | 16 Responses

Margaret Thatcher: Articulating Conservative Principles

Margaret Thatcher

Margaret Thatcher

Margaret Thatcher (1925 – 2013), one of Britain’s most consequential Prime Ministers, passed away yesterday. She took a bankrupt country, a country in the death grip of socialist policies, and restored the basics of free market capitalism, while bravely defying thuggish unions that had turned the streets of Great Britain into garbage dumps.

When looking back at the genius of Margaret Thatcher, Seraphic Secret is struck by her ability to articulate coherent Conservative ideas in a way that anyone can understand.

More than anything, we, American Conservatives, need such articulate political figures.

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Posted in Israel, Jew-haters, Margaret Thatcher | Tagged , , | 13 Responses

Holocaust Memorial Day: Death March to Dachau

Sol Teichman survived the Holocaust and came to America as a penniless immigrant not knowing a word of English. In 1951, Sol was drafted into the Army where he served in Germany and then France.

Sol Teichman survived the Holocaust and came to America as a penniless immigrant not knowing a word of English. In 1951, during the Korean War, Sol was drafted into the United States Army. He served in Germany and then France.

One of my closest friends here in Los Angeles is Mr. Sol Teichman, a prominent citizen, businessman, philanthropist, and a Holocaust survivor.

Born on September 9, 1927, in the Hungarian town of Munkacs, Sol’s family were prominent and prosperous grain, bean and walnut merchants. The family lived in a lovely home in a quiet cul-de-sac and were known in the tight-knit Jewish community for their piety, charity, and close ties to the Belzer and Munkacs Hasidic dynasties.

Of course, the Nazi death grip descended on the Jews of Hungary, and by 1943, the Teichman home and business had been confiscated. The Jews of Munkacs were cruelly herded into a ghetto and then shipped in cattle cars to Auschwitz.

Sol, 17 years old, and his brother Steve, 14, survived the death camp, only to be sent on a death march to Dachau in August 1944.

Here is an excerpt from Sol’s privately printed memoir, The Long Journey Home, in which he describes hell on earth.

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Posted in Holocaust, Holocaust Memorial Day | Tagged , , , | 19 Responses

Twenty Greatest Movies of the 1950s: Touch of Evil

Orson Welles in Touch of Evil, 1958.

Orson Welles in Touch of Evil, 1958.

We continue our survey of the twenty greatest movies of the 1950s.

For the Twenty Greatest Movies of the 1940s, click here.

For a listing of the greatest movies of the 20s and 30s click here.

17. Touch of Evil, 1958

In one of the most effective opening sequences ever filmed, the camera focuses in close-up on a bomb being primed and placed in the trunk of a car. The camera pulls back, cranes up, and follows the car down the seedy strip of a Mexican-American bordertown. Soon, the camera powers down to eye level and picks up a strolling couple, newlyweds Mike and Susan Vargas (Charlton Heston and Janet Leigh). He’s a Mexican drug enforcement official.

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Posted in Great Movies, Greatest Movies of the 1950s, Orson Welles, Touch of Evil | Tagged , , , | 21 Responses

Obama’s Philistine Gun Control

Gun-Control

Obamacare has nothing to do with health.

The redefinition of marriage to include same sex couples (why not polygamy?) has nothing to do with civil or human rights.

And gun control has nothing to do with curbing violence.

These social justice movements—code for Marxism—are methods whereby our civil society is undermined by the radical forces of big government.

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Posted in Gun Control, Israel, Obama Watch, Obamacare, Second Amendment | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 24 Responses

A 21st Century Exodus from Egypt to Israel

Tonight begins the last two day of Passover in which the Jewish people celebrate their liberation from Egyptian slavery.

The IDF recently published an amazing story about Dina Ovadia, an Egyptian Jew, whose narrative is a modern Passover story.

Dina Ovadia

Cpl. Dina Ovadia

This isn’t Cpl. Dina Ovadia’s first Passover in Israel. Slowly, slowly she seems to be moving away from her Egyptian past and becoming further ingrained in her Israeli present. Instead of thinking about her bittersweet childhood in the Egyptian city of Alexandria, Cpl. Ovadia fills her time with her army service and in preparing her home in Rimonim for the Passover holiday. Today it is possible to say that she is far more Dina Ovadia than she is Rolin Abdallah – the name her family gave her as a security measure for a Jew living in an Arab country. But Dina herself grew up totally unaware of her Jewish heritage.

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Posted in Egypt, Israel, Israel Defense Forces, Passover | Tagged , , | 17 Responses

Just Because

Maayan Ariel wishes all our friends and relatives a lovely and inspirational Shabbat.

Maayan Ariel wishes all our friends and relatives a lovely and inspirational Shabbat.

Posted in Family | Tagged , | 8 Responses

Twenty Greatest Movies of the 1950s: The Man Who Knew Too Much

Alfred Hitchcock and Doris Day on location for The Man Who Knew Too Much, 1956.

Alfred Hitchcock and Doris Day on location for The Man Who Knew Too Much, 1956.

We continue our survey of the twenty greatest movies of the 1950s.

For the Twenty Greatest Movies of the 1940s, click here.

For a listing of the greatest movies of the 20s and 30s click here.

16. The Man Who Knew Too Much, 1956

In  François Truffaut’s 1967 ground-breaking interview with Alfred Hitchcock, on Hitch’s remake of his own 1934 production of The Man Who Knew Too Much, Hitchcock stated: “Let’s say the first version is the work of a talented amateur and the second was made by a professional.”

The original version races along at 75 minutes, a breathless pace. The film is completely dominated by Peter Lorre’s performance as the charming but creepy antagonist. In spite of the deadly serious plot, the 1934 version is leavened with lighter, almost comical moments, which, for some viewers, seem at odds with the general tone of the film. The British film stars Leslie Banks and Edna Best, and though they are competent performers, they fail to register onscreen as protagonists with whom an audience can easily identify.

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Posted in Alfred Hitchcock, Great Movies, Greatest Movies of the 1950s | Tagged , , | 14 Responses

Passover 2013: Of Slaves, Slavery, Judenrat, Kapos and America

Lielle Meital wishes all our friends and relatives a happy and kosher Passover.

Lielle Meital wishes all our friends and relatives a happy and kosher Passover.

Tonight begins the holiday of Passover in which Jews celebrate deliverance from Egyptian bondage.

In order to escape the shackles of slavery, the vast machinery of the mighty Egyptian state had to be crushed. Those who wielded absolute power were reduced to nothingness. G-d did this not only to diminish the physical power of a pitiless slave state, but to begin the process of making free the minds of the Israelites.

Slavery is an insidious institution, not only because it shackles the body, but creates a mentality where the slave identifies with his master to such a degree that he becomes complicit in his own bondage. He loves his master and cannot imagine a world absent an overlord.

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Posted in Obama Watch, Obamacare, Passover, Taxes | Tagged , , , , , , | 9 Responses

Passover: Liberty, Then and Now

Maayan Ariel wishes all our friends and relarives a lovely and inspirational Shabbat.

Maayan Ariel wishes all our friends and relatives a lovely, inspirational Shabbat, and a happy and kosher Passover.

Seraphic Secret rises at 5 a.m for a morning walk. The streets are empty save for the chug-chug-chugging of the pick-up trucks delivering newspapers. Sprinklers hiss, and lawns glisten.

The air is lightly perfumed with jacaranda.

I listen to a news round-up and feel—there is no way around this—sad and defeated.

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Posted in Judaism, Judaism & Christianity, Maayan Ariel, Obamacare, Passover, Remembering Ariel | Tagged | 39 Responses

The Centurions: The Prophetic Vision of Jean Lartéguy

centurions

In 1960, The Centurions, a French novel of Indo-China (Vietnam) and the Algerian insurgency, by Jean Lartéguy (b. Jean Pierre Lucien Osty), a highly decorated soldier and journalist, was a blockbuster in France. The book, a brilliant portrait of those who fight a nation’s dirty little wars, and the craven political class who command them, men who have “never heard a shot fired in anger,” fared less well in the United States where a liberal press scorched the novel’s style and content.

The story in brief: Lt. Col. Pierre-Noel Raspéguy must transform a military unit accustomed to fighting a conventional war into one that can handle asymmetrical warfare. First, the communist Vietnamese, referred to as an “army of termites,” and then the fanatic Islamists determined to force the French colonials out of Algeria.

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Posted in Books, Islam, Islamic Terror | Tagged , , , , , , | 13 Responses

Obama’s in Israel, But Keep Your Eye on King Abdullah of Jordan

King Abdullah II of Jordan

King Abdullah II of Jordan

Seraphic Secret is not going to spend a great deal of time of Obama’s visit to Israel.

It is Kabuki theater.

Israel is focused on domestic issues. The so-called Palestinians are a pathologically sick culture steeped in Jew-hatred and victimhood. Most Israelis have correctly given up on this demented society.

In foreign affairs, Iran is the main game in town. The people and the government of the Jewish State understand that Obama will never authorize a military attack on the genocidal-yearning Persians. Israel, as always, will go it alone. Everyone in Israel gets this—excluding crazed leftists, who are, by definition, delusional.

Netanyahu and Obama will pose together, smile, and shake hands. But in truth, they hate each other’s guts. Netanyahu sees Obama as a naive appeaser of radical Islam, a man who helped install the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, a standard leftist whose entire history is bound up with Jew-haters and drooling anti-Zionists. Obama sees Netanyahu through a Marxist prism: a colonial usurper—a haughty Jew.

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Posted in Egypt, Islam, Islamic Terror, Israel, Muslim Brotherhood, Obama Watch | Tagged , , , , , | 4 Responses

Cyprus American Style

obamacare

The Socialist government of Cyprus is planning on stealing money—they call it a tax—from the savings accounts of Cypriot citizens.

People will lose between six percent and nine percent of their savings.

Naturally, the government has closed the banks for fear of a run by depositors. They call it a “banking holiday.”

Notice how the left not only destroys individual liberty and entire economies, but also language.

It can’t happen here, right?

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Posted in Economy, Obama Watch, Obamacare, Taxes | Tagged | 26 Responses

The Best Kosher Wines for Passover

My cousin, Alice Feiring, wine critic and best selling author.

Alice Feiring, wine critic and best selling author.

Passover is almost here. We’re scrubbing Casa Avrech top to bottom, switching dishes and silverware, purchasing tons of kosher for Passover food, and shopping for new clothing.

And many are wondering which wines to buy for the Passover seders in which we are commanded to drink four cups of wine.

Seraphic Secret does not drink wine, nor imbibe liquor — ever. The reason? Drink leads to migraines that can flatten yours truly for days. Hence, I have nothing to say about wine.

However, I am well-connected.

Once again, Seraphic Secret has invited first cousin Alice Feiring, the award-winning author and wine critic to sample and recommend the best Passover wines on the market.

Take it away, Alice. Read More »

Posted in Passover, Wine | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 24 Responses

Twenty Greatest Movies of the 1950s: Invasion of the Body Snatchers

Lobby card for Invasion of the Body Snatchers, 1956.

Lobby card for Invasion of the Body Snatchers, 1956.

We continue our survey of the twenty greatest movies of the 1950s.

For the Twenty Greatest Movies of the 1940s, click here.

For a listing of the greatest movies of the 20s and 30s click here.

15. Invasion of the Body Snatchers, 1956.

This film has no CGI. No SFX. And no gripping battle scenes in outer space. And yet, absent these current staples of the genre, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, because it focuses relentlessly  on humanity, and what makes us human, remains one of the greatest Sci Fi movies ever made,

Based on a 1954 novel by Jack Finney, Invasion was budgeted at $350,000 and a twenty day shooting schedule. Saddled with such a low budget, veteran producer Walter Wanger hired director Don Siegel. Getting his start in the montage department at Warner Bros.—he cut the opening montage of Casablanca—Siegel was accustomed to making the most of tight budgets.

Wanger and Siegel wanted Dick Powell and Kim Novak for the lead roles, but with so little money available, the relatively unknown Kevin McCarthy and Dana Wynter were cast.

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Posted in Great Movies, Greatest Movies of the 1950s, Hollywood | Tagged , , , , , , , | 21 Responses

The Seraphic Secret Study of Fat Lesbians

fatlesbians

Yesterday, Seraphic Secret reported that the Obama administration is going to spend $1.5 million tax dollars to find out why lesbians are fat.

This is, after all, a burning social issue that demands attention by the federal government.

Because we are concerned, patriotic citizens, Seraphic Secret has conducted its own study of fat lesbians—at no cost to you the American tax payer.

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Posted in Obama Watch, Obamacare | Tagged , , , , , , , | 10 Responses