My latest letter to the Jerusalem Post in defense of Shabbat and Liberman’s Agriculture Minister Wants More Pig Slaughterhouses By David Israel and This Country Produces More Cherries Than Any Other In The World and Beware: Future Israeli Arab Riots By David Weinberg -and PA Declares Hasmonean-Era Fortress in Samaria a National Archaeological Park

View in browser Yehuda Lave is an author, journalist, psychologist, rabbi, spiritual teacher, and coach, with degrees in business, psychology and Jewish Law. He works with people from all walks of life and helps them in their search for greater happiness, meaning, business advice on saving money, and spiritual engagement. Love Yehuda Lave Join my blog by sending me an email to YehudaLave@gmail.com Not running public transportation on Shabbat is neither a siege nor Sabotage against the Jewish People Last Sunday the 08/28/22 the Jerusalem Post ran editorial promoting the light rail in Tel Aviv running seven days a week (words carefully chosen, so that you wouldn't have to mention the inconvient truth that this means running public transportation on Shabbat). This week on Sunday, 09/04/22, the Jerusalem Post runs a new piece by Uri Keidar graduating from not running public transport on Shabbat from a siege to the level of Sabotage! Sabotage! As if Arabs were blowing up our train tracks. Do I detect a small pattern here? I wrote last week in response to your editorial, so this new "comment" requires a response as well. The Trains in Israel and the buses don't run on Shabbat and holidays, does the fact that a new 42 billion is being spent on the new light rail change any facts? The writer has made up his mind that "in the name of antiquated status quo" that no longer exists, we should run the trains on Shabbat. I and the Jewish people have to disagree just as strongly that the status quo is not antiquated and we have a purpose in not running public transportation on Shabbat. This is neither a siege or sabotage. How can such strong words be accepted based on a basic fact? We don't run public transport on Shabbat to honor the Shabbat, and to allow workers to not break the Shabbat. In some countries where there are no Jewish workers and the trains are automatic, one-day electric trains may be allowed on Shabbat (as opposed to gas vehicles which have different Shabbat restrictions). Until that time comes we have a competing value to running public transport on Shabbat. Contrary to this new editorial (dressed up as Comment and Feature), an immediate decision is not necessary to change the status quo and this is not an act of political cowardice or a lack of vision, or a disconnect with the Israeli public, just because the comment writer says it is. The only Siege or Sabotage underway is against Shabbat by those that don't want to hold it or respect those that do. As I travel around Israel, tourists constantly tell me how amazed they are by the land of Israel and how Shabbat is kept. If we are just like any other country and our Jewish Values are not celebrated, why should these tourists come? There would be a significant cost to this as well. "The lady doth protest too much, methinks" is a line from the play Hamlet by William Shakespeare. " when the writer claims an overwhelming (70% he says without any backup) that the people want a change. We have kept the status quo because a majority of people believe that Israel is the one country in the world where Jewish values are maintained, and Shabbat is one of our main values. "More than Jews have kept Shabbat, Shabbat has kept the Jews."Ahad Ha'am (Asher Ginsberg, poet, philosopher, 1856-1927) As a Rabbi, I try to respect all people's opinions, but using words that disregard the facts and try to incite the Jewish people against each other must be responded to with true facts, not just biased opinions Rabbi Yehuda LaveJerusalem, Israel058-5043210 Liberman's Agriculture Minister Wants More Pig Slaughterhouses By David Israel Photo Credit: Agriculture Ministry A pig's image on Israel's Agriculture Ministry's website. Agriculture Minister Oded Forer from Avigdor Liberman's Israel Beitenu is working on removing the restrictions on the slaughter of pigs in Israel, to allow the establishment of pig slaughterhouses throughout the Jewish State, Reshet Bet radio reported Tuesday morning. Today, there are 120,000 pigs in Israel, raised in 24 pens on pig farms in three locations: I'billin in the north, Mi'ilya in western Galilee, and the research institute next to Kibbutz Lahav, north of Beer Sheva. In the draft amending the current regulations, Forer removes the geographical limitation on raising pigs, making it legal to establish pig slaughterhouses anywhere, conditioned on compliance with the veterinary requirements. "There are no professional reasons nowadays for restricting slaughterhouses to these three localities only," the draft reads, noting that the amendment would increase competition in the industry. This is part of an overall move to allow the establishment of slaughterhouses for cattle and sheep throughout the country. According to the Agriculture Ministry, 183,981 pigs were slaughtered in Israel in 2020. Pork is consumed regularly in Israel by 500,000 to 700,000 of the country's residents, including members of the Christian religion and foreign workers from the far east. Of course, there's also Tiv Ta'am, an Israeli supermarket chain catering to consumers from the former Soviet Union (and Israel Beiteinu's biggest constituency) which is notable for being the country's most prominent purveyor of pork and other products that don't comply with the kashrut laws. Tiv Ta'am is also the only major supermarket chain that remains open on Shabbat and Jewish holidays. Pork can also be purchased in Israel in open stalls on the side of major highways, especially on Shabbat. The Agriculture Ministry argued that the purpose of the proposed amendment is to fight the high cost of living, adding that for the religious aspects of the amendment the Ministry of Religious Services should be consulted. MK Moshe Arbel (Shas) told Reshet Bet that the needs of Israeli Christians are being met under the existing law and that the proposed amendment is nothing more than an election ploy. Arbel also wondered why there's no outcry from the country's humane societies. So, we checked one of the country's most vociferous groups, Animals, which focuses on exposing cruelty in factory farms, promoting legislation to protect animals, and raising public awareness. Among others, we discovered a cute video Animals posted last January, "debunking" the Jewish mystical fear of consuming pork, as opposed to other non-kosher animals, such as horses and camels, which are consumed freely by our Muslim cousins (Why is everybody afraid of… ?). Another pro-animal group, Let the Animals Live (in Hebrew the name is a play on the words Chayot-animals, and Lichiot-to live), runs a fairly frequently updated Facebook page called "A Pig Named Okjah" dedicated to creating acceptance of pigs in Israeli society. They have 4,200 followers. Here they are having some watermelon with Okjah, "the happiest pig in Israel." Banner for Okja's Facebook page Again, an obvious link between promoting pork consumption and hidden anti-Jewish sentiments. I normally don't agree wholeheartedly with Shas MKs, but in this case, I believe Arbel is absolutely right to fear this expansion of pig production and consumption in the Jewish State. It's not about easing the suffering of pigs – they appear to be given decent treatment by the well-supervised farms; it's all about removing yet another aspect of Jewish law from Israeli society, alongside permitting chametz in hospitals, non-kosher food in the IDF, and what we're sold as the reform in the kashrut supervision industry. Taken separately, each one of these can be justified, but seen as part of a growing trend – we have reason to fear it. The Three Musketeers at the Kotel The Three are Rabbi Yehuda Glick, famous temple mount activist, and former Israel Mk, and then Robert Weinger, the world's greatest shofar blower and seller of Shofars, and myself after we had gone to the 12 gates of the Temple Mount in 2020 to blow the shofar to ask G-d to heal the world from the Pandemic. It was a highlight to my experience in living in Israel and I put it on my blog each day to remember. The articles that I include each day are those that I find interesting, so I feel you will find them interesting as well. I don't always agree with all the points of each article but found them interesting or important to share with you, my readers, and friends. It is cathartic for me to share my thoughts and frustrations with you about life in general and in Israel. As a Rabbi, I try to teach and share the Torah of the G-d of Israel as a modern Orthodox Rabbi. I never intend to offend anyone but sometimes people are offended and I apologize in advance for any mistakes. The most important psychological principle I have learned is that once someone's mind is made up, they don't want to be bothered with the facts, so, like Rabbi Akiva, I drip water (Torah is compared to water) on their made-up minds and hope that some of what I have share sinks in. Love Rabbi Yehuda Lave. Beware: Future Israeli Arab Riots By David Weinberg - Significant functional and intelligence deficiencies" contributed to the Israeli police failure to prevent and stop a wave of Israeli Arab riots in May 2021, according to the damning report issued this week by Israel's state watchdog. State Comptroller Matanyahu Englman found that the police and GSS failed to see the unrest coming or adequately grasp breadth of violence, and were haplessly delayed in deploying forces to quell inter-ethnic fighting in mixed Jewish-Arab cities like Lod, Acre, and Jaffa. In some of its most scathing criticism, the report highlights the lack of Arabic-speaking intelligence coordinators in these cities, and the fact that 4,000 calls to the police about Arab violence were not followed up with the dispatch of a police cruiser. Well, duh, all that was painfully obvious to anybody who lived through or followed the riots last year! It is unsurprising to anybody who has followed the skyrocketing trajectory of Arab and Bedouin lawlessness, and the nationalistic radicalization of some Israeli Arabs, over the past two decades. What we really need, much more than a comptroller's report on police fecklessness, is a national plan to root out the sources that are fueling extremism and violence in parts of the Israeli Arab community. Just a reminder: Over 500 violent riots rocked Israel during Operation Guardian of the Walls (the name for Israel's 11-day war with Hamas in Gaza in May 2021), killing three, injuring hundreds and leading to more than 3,000 arrests (including about 200 Israeli Jews). The main streets in mixed Arab-Jewish cities became battlefields. Tires and vehicles were torched, traffic signs and traffic lights were destroyed, stores and even shuls were vandalized, and residents cowered in their homes – unable to travel to work or places of greater safety. About NIS 50 million in damage was caused to civilian property and about NIS 10 million more to police property. It was so bad, and the expectation that more such riots are likely in future conflicts is so realistic, that the IDF has marked Jewish-Arab clashes as a strategic scenario of concern which impacts its battle plans. In other words, aside from the expectation that thousands of rockets, missiles, and drones will be launched at Israeli cities from Lebanon, Gaza, and the Golan Heights in a next war with Hezbollah and/or Hamas, Israel now must worry that major traffic arteries could be impeded in places where Israeli Arabs extremists are out rioting. The IDF must prepare for a situation in which Military Police will have to keep roads open so that combat forces can reach the front; so that Home Front Command and medical forces can reach places where missiles fall; and so that the Israel Police can reach affected cities to prevent the looting of homes of people who will be evacuating. OSTENSIBLY, Israeli Arabs have gradually but inexorably moved to acceptance and even preference of life in the Jewish State of Israel. Recent polls suggest that 71% of Israeli Arabs feel that Israel is a good place to live; 68% prefer to live in Israel than in other countries; and 60% even says they feel Israel to be a home and a homeland. When asked whether they wanted to be transferred to an Arab government in the West Bank (as Avigdor Lieberman proposed in his transfer plan, more than a decade ago), Arabs of the "triangle" in northern Israel prefer by a 10-to-1 ratio to remain Israeli citizens. And 93% of eastern Jerusalem Arabs prefer to live under Israeli governance than that of the Palestinian Authority. (What a surprise!) Indeed, previous Israel governments (both Likud and Yamina-Yesh Atid) governments have invested hundreds of millions of shekels to integrate Arabs into Israel's burgeoning hi-tech and other profitable sectors. Last year's budget allocated NIS 29.5 billion ($9.2 billion) for infrastructure, education, and employment in Arab communities over five years, along with billions more in initiatives to fight crime and increase access to health care. But there are counter-trends that conflict with Israel's welcome efforts. Israeli historian Prof. Efraim Karsh wrote last year that "The Israeli media, the academic and intellectual elite, and most of the political establishment (wrongly) attributed the volcanic eruption in May to the supposed discrimination and marginalization of the Arab minority." "Evoking the age-old Zionist hope that the vast economic gains attending the Jewish national revival would reconcile the Palestinian Arabs to the idea of Jewish statehood, this self-incriminatory diagnosis is not only totally misconceived but the inverse of the truth," according to Karsh. The "establishment" is reluctant to acknowledge the May 2021 riots for what they are and what they portend, Karsh says – a growing rejection among Israeli Arabs of Israel's Jewish nature and a move to systematically subvert state sovereignty and governability. He argues that last year's broadscale violence was driven by Arab gang and Islamist elements and coordinated with Hamas. They purposefully inflamed the masses and rallied otherwise peaceful Israeli Arabs for pogrom-style rioting and lynching. After all, why did last year's riots cease as soon as the Gaza hostilities ended? "If poverty and marginalization were indeed the culprits, why did Arab dissidence increase dramatically with the vast improvement in Arab standard of living in the 1970s and 1980s? Why did it escalate into an open uprising in October 2000— after a decade that saw government allocations to Arab municipalities grow by 550 percent and the number of Arab civil servants nearly treble? And why did it spiral into a far more violent insurrection in May 2021 – after yet another decade of massive government investment in the Arab sector?" A somewhat less alarmist but equally disturbing study on Israeli Arabs was published last year Brig. Gen. (res.) Yossi Kuperwasser for the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. He argues that alongside a desire to benefit from integration economically and sociologically, there is a deep-rooted ideological consciousness among Israeli Arabs that rejects Zionism and the Jewish right to a homeland in Israel. He writes that the hard-core Islamist rejectionists have been making headway in radicalizing Israeli Arabs. In fact, there has been a resurgence of the "Nakba" (disaster) narrative and the demand for an Arab "right of return" in the fullest-imaginable magnitude – among Israeli Arabs. These demands have moved from refugee camp residents and descendants on the margins of Palestinian society into the mainstream, he finds. Indeed, a public opinion survey conducted earlier this year by Habithonistim, a conservative Israeli defense and security forum founded by ex-generals and intelligence officials, found that, as a matter of principle, 75% of Israeli Arabs do not recognize any Jewish "right" to a sovereign state in the Land of Israel. Hostile outside actors like the UN and Amnesty International capitalize on Israeli Arab rioting and Bedouin complaints to "prove" how discriminatory Israel is, warns General Kuperwasser. And the Palestinian Authority leverages Amnesty's "apartheid" charge both to egg-on Israeli Arab radicals and to advance Ramallah's campaign to criminalize Israel in international legal institutions. The bottom line: It is high time to impose more obligations and responsibilities on this country's Arab minority while investing in their advancement too; and to ramp-up intelligence gathering and enforcement capabilities to crush radicals and criminals. Not to punish Israeli Arabs, but to encourage their good citizenship and better integration, and to rule effectively. This will be a painful but long overdue process. And with regard to the Israel Police, well, if the police were to pursue those who block roads with burning tires in the Galilee and Negev, rampage through mixed Moslem-Jewish cities, vandalize public infrastructures and steal weaponry from IDF bases – with anything resembling the toughness and prosecutorial zeal applied to, say, Nir Hefetz (a state witness in the cases against former Prime Minister Netanyahu), then the country would be a lot safer. This Country Produces More Cherries Than Any Other In The World Read More: https://www.tastingtable.com/9... Cherries carted away Adil Celebiyev StokPhoto/Shutterstock By Natasha Bailey/Updated: Aug. 1, 2022 8:38 am EDT Cherries are an absolute treat whether you like them in your Shirley temple, turned into your pies, or settled atop a dollop of whipped cream. The cherry represents sweetness and is a staple in the dessert world. Cherries are easily recognizable for their glossy red skins and long stems. Even though these berries are often paired with some pretty sugary food, the fruit themselves are great for you, containing anti-inflammatory properties and antioxidants which will help to keep your body healthy, according to Healthline. Fresh cherries have a short shelf life and are harvested from April through July, so if you love this fruit, you have to jump on them while they're in season. At the beginning of summer, it seems like the world revolves around cherries, and if you live in the United States it might feel like we grow all the berries in the world due to the tons of fruit crowding grocery stores and farmers' markets. But in reality, the U.S. comes in second place with cherry production. Atlas Big reports that Turkey is the world leader in cherry production followed by the U.S. which only produces about half of what Turkey does. No other country in the world comes close to growing the 664,224 tons of cherries the Turkish produce annually. But this is nothing new. The country is actually the native land of the sweet cherry, according to the International Society for Horticultural Science. A majority of Turkish cherry farmers still harvest their fruit in the traditional manner, using local plant varieties, and letting nature take its course in the groves (no tree training or modern irrigation systems). However, in recent years, more farmers are modernizing and updating their techniques. The most popular cherry currently grown in Turkey is the 0900 Ziraat variety, famous for its maroon and sweet, juicy flesh. Even the name "cherry" is related to Turkey. It is said that the name of the fruit is tied to that of a Turkish town once called Cerasus, further cementing Turkey's historical connections with the fruit (via Northwest Cherry Growers). Read More: https://www.tastingtable.com/9... PA Declares Hasmonean-Era Fortress in Samaria a National Archaeological Park photo Credit: Guardians of Eternity Tel Aroma, Shomron The Palestinian Authority (PA) has commandeered yet another Jewish archeological site in Samaria and has converted it into a "Palestinian National Archaeological Park," the latest is a series of Israeli heritage sites in the area lost to the PA. The PA is continuing to destroy Tel Aroma, a Hasmonean-era fortress in Samaria which it seized in February 2020 and converted it into "a Palestinian tourist site," as part of its campaign to seize Jewish heritage sites and transform them into "Palestinian sites" while systematically demolishing archaeological findings. The PA has now announced it plans to develop it into a "National Archaeological Park." The archaeological site contains historical finds that testify to a Jewish presence since the Biblical period, as well as a Hasmonean-era fortress, and large ancient water reservoirs. Under the cover of a Coronavirus (COVID-19) shutdown, during which Israeli Civil Administration inspectors were kept home, the PA rolled heavy machinery over the remains of the ancient fortress, paving an access road that has destroyed the remains of the 3,000-year-old fortress walls and water cisterns. By doing so, the PA consolidated its takeover of Tel Aroma. The PA also built a mosque on ​​the hill near the archaeological site, while a unique decorated Herodian wall was stolen. The site is located in area B, under the PA's civilian administration, which limits the access of Israelis to visit the place and preserve the findings. Yossi Dagan, head of the Samaria Regional Council, stated Wednesday that "in recent years, we have witnessed a new type of terrorism whose goal is to harm Jewish history in Samaria. The Palestinian Authority is working to destroy any historical evidence that Samaria, along with the entire Land of Israel, belongs to the people of Israel." In recent years, huge PLO flags have been hoisted at several heritage sites, severely damaging the archaeological remains. In November 2020, the PA inaugurated a "Palestinian" tourist complex in the town of Sebastia in Samaria, the historic capital of the biblical Kingdom of Israel. A flagpole with the PLO flag was affixed to the ancient stones, under the auspices of UNESCO and the Belgian government, without any archaeological and scientific supervision. More recently, unknown individuals from the PA again caused damage to the Biblical-era site of Yehoshua ben Nun's Altar on Mount Ebal. Last month, the PA commandeered the Sheikh Sha'ala site, another archaeological site in Samaria, and converted it into a "Palestinian Heritage Site." Dagan called on the government to "act as soon as possible and protect these important places. Just as no other country in the world would allow the history of its people to be damaged, we too must not allow vandals from the Palestinian Authority to damage our history. Tel Aroma is the heritage of the people of Israel and an important part of the history of the Jewish people and we must not stand by when the place is systematically destroyed." Antiquities in Judea and Samaria face a constant danger of destruction. Grave robbers and antiquities thieves from the PA carry out illegal digs and excavations. The phenomenon of antiquity destruction is pervasive and affects all sites that are not under preservation, and a survey of the sites in Judea and Samaria shows that a staggering 95% of the archaeological sites have been robbed, vandalized, or disturbed. Findings presented to the Knesset in January show that 90% of the sites that are destroyed are being destroyed by the PA for development purposes, and 10% are destroyed for robbery purposes. See you tomorrow bli neder We need Moshiach now! Love Yehuda Lave Yehuda Lave, Spirtual Advisor and Counselor Jerusalem, Jerusalem  Israel 972-585043210 YehudaLave@gmail.com You received this email because you signed up on our website or made a purchase from us. Unsubscribe