Another superb video from our friends at Prager University:
It’s been seven decades since the 1948 Arab-Israeli, and yet there are still an estimated 4 million Palestinian refugees…and zero Jewish refugees. With so many nearby Arab allies of the Palestinians, how did this happen? What does it say about Israel? What does it say about its Arab neighbors?
Dumisani Washington, Diversity Outreach Coordinator for Christians United for Israel, explains.
Check out more from Prager University here.
From transportation to energy, and everything in between, should the government invest money in as many promising projects as possible? Or would that actually doom many of those ventures to failure? Burt Folsom, historian and professor at Hillsdale College, answers those questions by drawing on the fascinating history of the race to build America’s railroads and airplanes.
Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor passed many hours arguing furiously about who was more Jewish.
When Mike Todd (b. Avrom Hirsch Goldbogen) was killed in a plane crash, Elizabeth found comfort in Judaism. “I am absolutely Jewish now in my beliefs and feelings,” she said.
At her conversion, Elizabeth Taylor took the Jewish name Elisheva Rachel.
In the compulsively readable Furious Love, Sam Kashner and Nancy Schoenberger report on the frequently drunken arguments in which Richard Burton and Taylor indulged over—get this—their respective Jewishness.
Hasidic mother and daughter enjoy the Liberty Science Center. But is it safe for them to use the restroom?
It’s happening with astonishing speed.
The radical left has moved from the redefinition of marriage to the nullification of gender. If you feel that you are a woman, then justice demands that you and your penis have the right to use the women’s restroom.
Those who disagree are labeled bigots. Giant corporations buckle under pressure from the left for fear of violence and boycotts. A Target in Florida confirmed that men who feel that they are women can use the women’s bathroom.
Pop stars Nick Joans and Demi Lovato have joined a growing list of celebrities who have cancelled concerts in North Carolina over the state’s passage of HB 2, a law governing public restrooms.
As always, the left seeks to demonize and then destroy those who disagree with their increasingly hysterical demands.
A Jew prays at the Western Wall (Photo by Robert J. Avrech)
Those who read this blog on a regular basis know that Yossi Klein Halevi and I went to yeshiva high school together. At the time, Yossi was active in Rabbi Meir Kahane’s Jewish Defense League. Yours truly was sort of terrified of the JDL guys who used to hang out by the lockers and plot who-knows-what. A few years ago Offspring #3 married Yossi’s maternal nephew. No longer scary, Yossi is now an Israeli, a husband and father, and a hugely respected author and journalist. He and I have grown close.
Though Yossi has authored several excellent books, his first effort, “Memoirs of a Jewish Extremist” is my absolute favorite. His evocation of our high school, Brooklyn Talmudic Academy, is astonishingly vivid. And I admire the manner in which he is able to look at his younger self with such bracing honesty. Do yourself a favor and head on over to Yossi’s author’s page.
Yossi’s latest article is about the cultural/historical genocide UNESCO is waging against Judaism and the state of Israel.
To make earth cleaner, greener and safer, which energy sources should humanity rely on? Alex Epstein of the Center for Industrial Progress explains how modern societies have cleaned up our water, air and streets using the very energy sources you may not have expected–oil, coal and natural gas.
Eleanor Parker (1922–2013) was a brilliant actress who performed in comedy as deftly as she played drama. Her voice was film noir husky, and she used it like a musical instrument. Raised a Protestant, she converted to Judaism. “I think we’re all Jews at heart,” she told columnist Kay Gardella. “I wanted to convert for a long time.” Her daughter spent a summer working on a kibbutz, married an Israeli, and settled in Israel permanently. Parker’s best films are: Caged (’50) Detective Story (’51) Scaramouche (’52) Interrupted Melody (’55), and The King and Four Queens (’56).
Daenerys Targaryn, Emilia Clarke, Game of Thrones. “The slave learns to love his shackles.”
Friday night 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.
As Daenerys Targaryn (Emilia Clarke) observes (via screenwriters) in Game of Thrones, “The slave learns to love his shackles.”
The Old-New Synagogue in Prague where the Maharal, Judah Loew ben Bezalel, officiated.
The other day I spent some time with one of my closest friends here in Los Angeles. He is a successful businessman, a father, an Orthodox Jew. Recently, he and his lovely wife took a trip to Prague and Budapest. I asked him if they had a good time. My friend hesitated, smiled, and kind of shook his head as if unsure what the word fun means.
“I’ll tell you, Robert, both cities were beautiful…”
“Lots of cobblestones, right?”
Is it true that 1 in 5 women are raped on America’s college campuses? If so, what does that say about our universities and the people who run them? If not, how did that statistic get into the mainstream? Caroline Kitchens, Senior Research Associate at the American Enterprise Institute, looks at the data and explains the very significant results.
“My God, must I always wear a low-cut dress to be important?”
—Jean Harlow
John Gallagher Jr, and Brie Larson in Short Term 12.
To be young is to be foolish and make mistakes—hopefully none of them fatal. It’s also a time for trying on different guises and carving out a place in the world. Most of all it’s a time of crazy impulses, mad love affairs, and grandiose dreams. To be young is to be the main character of a great and powerful drama titled, My Life.
Hollywood has always been attracted to youth as a subject matter. From the flapper movies of the roaring 20s, to the rock and roll movies of the 50s, to the rebellious cinema of the 60s, Hollywood has defined and redefined what it means to be young.
Recently, I sampled a bunch of movies that are streaming on Netflix. Out of a dozen films I have chosen three—all indie, low-budget productions—that skillfully explore the vagaries of youth with visual verve and sharp psychological insights.
Not too long ago, my wife Karen and I were watching a news program where the phrase “Islamic radicalization” was used by various talking heads as an explanation for mass murder committed by IslamoNazis.
The intellectually lazy pundits made it seem as if some nice middle class boys and girls were cruising the internet and bam! they got all IslamoNazi and then, of course, murdered a bunch of innocent men, women and children.
The corruption of language moves in tandem with the hatred of America/Israel that is the defining characteristic of postmodern liberalism.
Radical Islam nourishes itself with the cultural obsessions of the radical left — the dominant ideology/religion of the secular West.
Seraphic Secret invited our good friend Jake Novak to review George Gilder’s important new book.
Imagine you’re a carpenter who naturally relies on a good hammer to get your work done. But after years of reliable service, that hammer starts to act strangely. Sometimes it pushes the nail into the wood, and sometimes it doesn’t. Come to think of it, now your ruler isn’t measuring things the same way it used to either. Without consistent and safe tools, doing your work has become impossible.
That’s pretty much what’s happening to money in the Western world according to George Gilder’s provocative and insightful new book, The Scandal of Money: Why Wall Street Recovers but the Economy Never Does.
Gilder’s name should be familiar to Seraphic Secret readers because of the starring role he plays in the great Prager University video: “The Israel Test.” (He wrote a book of the same name). And I think this new book reveals a profound reason for Gilder’s pro-Israel beliefs that I will explain later.
“To be good is to be forgotten. I’m going to be so bad I’ll always be remembered.”
—Theda Bara (b. Theodosia Burr Goodman 1885 – 1955)
As law-abiding citizens, Karen and I collected our tax statements, itemized charitable deductions, carefully listed our business expenses, and sent them to our accountant a few weeks ago.
There is a kind of horror that sets in when you are confronted with just how much of your hard-earned income goes to state and federal governments — who spend your money on G-d knows what.
California, once a golden land of limitless opportunity, home to a Republican majority, has turned fanatic Democrat and, of course, shape-shifted into a sink-hole of tax laws that bleeds businesses, enriches corrupt unions, and spends vast sums of public money on absurd projects like the bullet train… which no one is going to use.
Ariel’s high school graduation picture from Yeshiva Gedolah, Los Angeles, June 1998.
You are all invited to The Thirteenth Annual Ariel Avrech ZT’L Memorial Lecture that will take place Sunday, May 22, 2016, at 10 AM, followed by brunch.
For those unable to attend the lecture will be posted here at Seraphic Secret.
Karen and I are delighted to announce that our friend Ben Shapiro will deliver this year’s lecture, “How You Can Save Israel.”
Kay Wilson was left for dead in an orgy of violence in Jerusalem by two Palestinian terrorists who now are receiving £9,000 in ‘blood money’ every year with the help of British aid
Several weeks ago I heard Ms. Wilson on Dennis Prager’s radio show.
I was cruising along Wilshire Boulevard. But as Wilson detailed her ordeal, and described the glee of the IslamoNazi butchers who tortured Ms. Wilson and murdered her friend Kristine Luken, I pulled over and parked.
I was trembling, filled with rage at the evil—Jew-hatred/anti-Zionism—this world not only tolerates but encourages and funds through economic incentives.
Two Palestinian terrorists who repeatedly stabbed a British woman in a brutal attack and killed her friend are now each receiving at least £9,000 in ‘blood money’ every year with the help of UK aid.
Kay Wilson was left for dead in an orgy of violence in Jerusalem in which Kristine Luken, an American, was killed.
The attackers were eventually caught and, after admitting their crimes, were sent to prison.
But Ms Wilson was horrified to learn from news reports that her assailants were being paid a monthly stipend equivalent to £750 each effectively from the Palestinian Authority (PA).
“I never really felt pretty, bright or socially adept.”
—Grace Kelly
The new book
by Robert J. Avrech
Available in All Major Book Stores
Adobe Digital Edition's version is available through the Lulu store!
Ariel Chaim Avrech, ZT'L, May His Righteous Memory be a Blessing.
