Memorial Day

I was sitting at the kitchen table studying when the siren went off this morning. The baby was laying on the floor on his blanket playing. As I stood in silence, he rocked back and forth on his back and smiled.  I couldn't help but think about another baby, just a bit younger than him, who will never have that moment, or any moment with is father.

Yanay Wiesman was grocery shopping with his pregnant wife when 2 terrorists attacked, stabbing customers as they shopped. Without a second thought or a weapon, he charged toward the attack, and was killed while trying to prevent others from being attacked.

Memorial Day in Israel is not a day I like, it's not a day of sales in stores and barbecues. It is a day of mourning and tribute. It is a day not simply to honor the dead, but to stand, to stand here free in our homeland. We stand for a moment as a nation, not to model the gentile tradition of a moment of silence, but as a memorial, that we are all one, we are all united. We stand in silence, we channel the memory of the last time we all stood together in silence, at Mount Sinai, כעם אחד בלב אחד, to accept together the Torah.

Today, we stand together in silence, to give tribute as a nation to all those that stood in front of us, stepping forward to protect us, and the generations to come. We stand again for a moment כעם אחד בלב אחד, because that is what our fallen heroes stood for and died for, in their moment of sacrifice, they stood for the entire nation, and all of our future generations. For that, we take a moment to stand together, to remind ourselves that the best way to honor them is to strive to build all of those moments into an unbroken chain. That we become what their moment was, And we take all the time that their sacrifices gave us to build not just a moment, but a lifetime of unity, and realize the ideal of Sinai, to bring the light of truth, Torah, and love to the world.

And Yanay, when one day our sons do meet, as it is inevitable in this small country of our's, I hope it is in the בית המקדש, where your son is bringing his bikurim from his garden, while my son is serving there, I'll make sure he knows to say thanks.

Hear No Evil, See No Evil

Went on a belated anniversary trip with The Wife this week, 3 days and 2 nights at a Spa here in the Holy Land.  It was awesome, chilled by the pool, ate good food, and just spent some nice time catching up with each other after a really hectic year.

The trip was on the whole uneventful, but there was one thing that happened when we cam in which has been sitting with me.

I parked the car and came in to check in, and as is normal in Israel, there was a guard at the door. Before I even had a chance to show him my carry permit, which is required to be shown at the entrance to virtually every building in the country, he stopped me and asked if I had a permit. I answered that of course I do, and showed it to him, but he was still very obviously uncomfortable. I then walked into the reception to check in.  After finishing checking in with the very friendly and helpful front desk staff, I was approached by the security guard's supervisor, who again asked to see my id. I showed it to him, but then he said, "what do you plan on doing with your gun while you are here?" Now this is the first time I have ever had a reaction other than enthusiastic support from a security person about citizens that carry, usually when I show my id as I enter a building the reaction I get can vary from a nod and smile to a comment of "glad to see other people take security and safety seriously," from the guards.  Without even thinking about it I responded that I was hoping they had a safe in the room that I could just leave it in, because I didn't think that it would work well as a flotation device in the pool." He responded seriously, saying that he would be happy if I left it locked up so the other guests would not feel uncomfortable.

I didn't put much stock into it at the time, but as I left, I thought about this again. that reaction is indicative of a bigger issue that many people suffer from. The idea that we can feel safe if we can just cover up enough, close our eyes enough, not listen to what others say or do, then, if we don't know about it, if the issues are not in front of us, they don't exist.  If we don't watch Iran's death to Israel marches, they can be trusted with nuclear technology. That if we don't report on the rock-throwings and fire-bombings on the roads, then there are no injured children, and we have a partner for peace. If nobody sees the gun, then there is no need to protect ourselves.

Unfortunately, this is not how the world really works.  The Iranians are going to develop Nuclear weapons, children are being hurt on well travelled roads by rock attacks every week, and unfortunately, we still need violence to combat our enemies. No matter how we try to hide from it, the world is not a safe enough place yet, and the only way to fix that, is to first see the problem that needs to be fixed.

Living a dream

Aliya is a blessing but not a gift, a gift is something you are given, you don't need to do anything special, it's just something that someone else wanted you to have. A blessing is something that you want, something that you dream of, something that you receive because someone above feels that you may never achieve it on your own, despite your best efforts, but with a little push from on high, your dream can be realized. That is Aliya, the dream of 2000 years, kept alive in your heart, mind, and actions, brought to life, not by you alone but by our father seeing your effort, and your struggle, and saying for some reason only he knows, that a greatness will come from you receiving your dream, and thus his help, because left in your own, no matter your best efforts and intentions it will remain a dream. 

This is why Avraham had to go through 10 tests, he could have just been given the child, the land, and the wealth, but in order for his descendants to be more than just children of men, but to be that which history revolves around, to be the chosen people, the eternal nation, he needed to put forth the effort, and then he was blessed with a future that he could never accomplish without spiritual assistance. 

That is Aliya, going up, with help, because, for reasons we ourselves may never comprehend, there exists a greater purpose for the nation and the world, something or someone that will come from us, and it won't happen through our efforts alone, but without our efforts, and our dreams, it also will never be. 

Even after Avraham arrived here he struggled, just as every oleh does today. He suffered water and shortages that forced him to find work outside the land, he suffered family breakup due to his following what he deemed his righteous path. He had to wander from home to home, struggling for years to find a place he could plant roots. He had cultural differences with his neighbors, suffered through war, and ultimately putting his son's life at risk to follow his dream and his vision. All this, and he didn't even see the true fruits of his labors. The great Jewish commonwealths, the Golden Temples and long lines of people waiting patiently for their turn to off sacrifices of thanksgiving. The great and mighty nation, that was beaten down, only to rise again and again and again, all because a little of his will was planted in each of us, the will that he showed by not giving up on his dream, every time a challenge arose. 

Today we face the same challenges, and because of this will, coupled with the help from above that comes to those that demonstrate it, we too, get to live the dream, and even though we still may need to struggle and suffer, as long as we don't give up on our dreams, one day, our descendants will get to look back at their history and say, thank you, it was worth it. Whether we ourselves get to see the lines for the sacrifices of thanksgiving, the golden temple, and the great Jewish commonwealth living in peace in prosperity or just our generations to come receive that opportunity, we know, that because of our dreams and efforts, tears of sorrow and tears of joy that soak this ground under our feet, our names will live forever, in our righteous children.

Reactions

As we hear the awful, horrible news, I just needed to put my thoughts out there. My neighbors are suffering the worst type of suffering, needing to bury their only son. Any problem I have pales in comparison.

The first issue is that tomorrow I need to explain what happened to my children.  How do you tell a 4 year old that her friend's brother is never coming back? 

Next, to all of you out there who are thinking of vocalizing the thought "look at all the achdut and good deeds that came from this tragedy" that what you are saying is "these poor innocent children had to die, and their parents had to suffer immeasurably because we are all assholes who can't be nice and civil to each other for 5 minutes."

Third, I am hearing celebratory fireworks from the surrounding Arab villages. Can we please not so kindly and subtly escort them out of here once and for all.  Frankly I am sick of people walking on eggshells talking about good Arabs. There may be 2 or 3 of them out there, but I would feel better if those couple of good ones were living somewhere else along with the vast majority who are evil worthless child killing pieces of shit.

While we are on the subject of our neighbors, can we stop using the term "bringing them to justice." There is no justice for child killers. There is no due process for someone who thinks that kidnapping and killing children is a legitimate form of protest. There is only death, preferably in a hail of bullets to the crotch. And the people who raised and educated these assholes should be forced to witness the family home bulldozed from the inside. They are equally guilty, as are the politicians who justify this sick twisted thought process.

Finally I am sad. Sad for the parents, sad for the siblings, sad for the friends, sad for the world that will no longer have these wonderful children around to watch them grow and contribute positively to our world that so desperately needs good people, sad for all the children who will lose their innocence tomorrow when we parents tell them about it, sad for all us parents who now have to go to sleep regretting every time we lost our temper or ignored our children, just as these poor parents will do, sad that we can't protect our children at all times from every bad thing, whether it is horrible, terrible news, or horrible terrible people, sad that these kids last moments on Earth were the worst moments of their lives. I hope that this is as sad as we get, and the parents are given the strength to deal with this horrible, senseless tragedy. 

The Empty Seat

This past Shabbat, like most Shabbatot, we invited another family for lunch. Just like most Shabbatot, the guests came and sat down where my daughter set their places.  Well almost everyone, one seat was empty, the seat of the oldest son who, like every other boy in his class, was spending the meal together.  That is every boy except one, the empty seat, the reason for the empty Shabbat greetings, where every greeting was not "Shabbat Shalom," but "any news?"

This morning, like most mornings, I walked my kids to school, and then went to Shul. Just like most mornings, the same group of people who have the luxury of not needing to leave before 8am to get to work or school showed up, wrapped in talitot and tefillin, ready to begin our day. Well, almost everyone was there, there was one empty seat, a seat occupied by a student on Sunday mornings and vacations, next to his father, was empty.

I sat in Shul this morning, like most mornings, with friends and neighbors, davening quietly, including the father next to the empty chair.  But this morning, instead of being able to go through our normal quiet davening routine, we were all disturbed and interrupted by the silent scream coming from the empty chair, the emptiness that filled the one minyan that is never crowded.

No rant today, That will come after our empty places are reoccupied by by our missing children.

My we see Gilad Michael, son of Bat-galim,
Yaakov Naftali, son of Rachel, and

Ayal, son of Iris T’shura,
returned safely and quickly to their homes and families.

Tag!

I was thinking about how I felt about Ariel Sharon last week.  For many of us, there is still a lot of anger at the man who was a hero and leader to many of us Settlers. We feel the hurt one feels when betrayed by a family member, and while he saved us, he also caused us tremendous pain. Personally, for many years, he was a hero to me. The time I was part of his security detail at a speaking engagement in Chicago was one of my proudest moments and greatest memories. That all changed on August 15th, 2005.  At that moment he became worse than all those that call for the evacuation of Judea and Samaria, all those that dilute the value of the life of a child just because they are raised over the "Green Line," the Pereses and Livnis and all the other Jewish Israeli politicians who would sell us out for meaningless words on a piece of paper and a Nobel Peace prize.  He became the Benedict Arnold of the Settler movement. Yet at the same time, we can't just erase the hero he once was as well. Many may have wished he would know firsthand the feeling of losing his home as well, but nobody would wish on him the fate he suffered. The irony of all the world leaders and leftist politicians sending condolences was not lost on me as I read the news last Sunday morning. There I saw 2 items in the news that seem connected, yet I haven't seen anyone else mention it.

The first item was the assault by the Arabs of Kusra on a group of Jews.
The second item being the death of former General and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

 The Jews that were attacked claim they were hiking from one Yishuv to another, while the Arabs claim that the Jews were on their way to carry out a price tag attack.  A price tag attack is an act of vandalism that has nationalistic motivations.  It is usually directed at local Arabs, or Israeli Civil Administration, to protest the evacuation of outposts and destruction of Jewish property.  According to CNN and Haaretz, these are acts of terror, on par with shooting and firebombing children.  Regardless of your position on these attacks (personally, I think they are stupid and don't help our cause), there are 3 things to keep in mind.

1. Over 90% of the attacks referred to as "Price Tag" are found to be cases of Arabs or leftists trying to frame the Right.
2.Price Tag didn't start after the Disengagement, it has actually been the policy of the Israeli government in the past.
3. The man that created and ran the original Price tag gang was none other than Ariel Sharon.

If Sharon had died 10 years ago, before he could have instituted the mass expulsion of Jews from their homes, far fewer people both in Israel and Worldwide would have mourned his death. While there would have been no mixed feelings from the right, leftists and even most Western leaders would have joined the Arab world in celebrating his death.  Until 2006, Sharon was best know for miraculous battlefield victories,  supporting the settlers to "conquer every hill," and leading Unit 101 during Israel's formative years.

That's right, since the Disengagement, the left has tried to bury one of Sharon's greatest legacies. From 1953-1955, Unit 101, under the command of Sharon carried out several deadly cross-border raids on both military and civilian targets in response to terror attacks on Israel.  The goal was to make the price of attacking Israelis so high that the Arabs could not afford to continue.  The Unit was so effective, that it was later merged with the Paratroopers, and many of their tactics are still taught to Israeli infantry and special forces today. So basically, Sharon's job, given to him by Ben-Gurion directly, was to run deadly price tag missions whenever there was an attack on Israelis, and it was effective.  For all of the Left's righteous indignation about the "price tag" attacks, it was a leftist Prime Minister, along with the etrog of the Left, Sharon, who put it to it's deadliest use in Israeli history.

Like I said at the beginning, I don't support the current version allegedly done by some of the Jews.  I think that spray-painting cars, cutting trees, and other such acts of vandalism are nothing more than criminal acts and don't discourage terror today. The idea of extracting a high cost, or institutionalizing collective punishment is nothing new in this region.  The seeds of the deterrent power of price tag attacks were sown by none other than Ariel Sharon. So while Obama and the Israeli left are sending their notes of condolence over the death of the man who fulfilled their wishes and dreams in sending Jews from their homes, let's mourn the loss of the real Ariel Sharon, the dedicated protector of Israel, who was willing to do whatever it took, and extract any price from the enemy, in defense of all of us.

If it ain't broke, the government can fix that.

A lot of hot air has been expended by various government officials about the real estate crisis recently. Every minister has a solution for the problem of out of control prices.  And every one of these solutions has one thing in common, they all show that nobody in the government has ever worked in real estate and construction.  Hearing our esteemed finance minister speak about the government setting up a company to build and market rental properties honestly drives me to drink.  Does anyone actually believe a man that thinks middle class problems are not enough money to vacation abroad more than once every couple of years has any concept of the type of people in the rental market, and what their needs are.  Honestly our government's answer to fixing the problem of rising prices has been to repeatedly raise the minimum needed for a down payment. this shows that nobody in the government or Bank of Israel has no concept of either the middle class or any other market considerations in real estate.

The actual biggest issue in the Israeli housing market is supply.  There is a 30,000-40,000 unit shortage per year. Raising the minimum down payment won't change that, people will still need to live somewhere, all you are doing is making it harder for them to purchase a place where they can stay long term.  That doesn't change the fact thatchers till need to live somewhere.

If the government was serious about solving the housing shortage they would need to make major sweeping changes.

First of all, they would need to spend major money on transportation. Most people in this country are not willing to spend more than an hour commuting to work.  Since most of the jobs are still in the Merkaz, that means that bigger highways and hi-speed rails are of paramount importance if you want people to move out of the Tel-Aviv area and into other places.  A major highway should have more than 2 lanes in either direction.

Second, they need to make EVERY SINGLE PIECE OF LEGALLY BUILDABLE LAND available for purchase, with the caveat that construction must begin within 5 years or the land reverts to the government.  There is no reason why the land should be left locked away. If a developer thinks that on a specific piece of land he should need to wait until the Land Authority decides it wants to offer that piece, if it chooses to at all.  Let the market and private industry set the land price, not the government.  As we say in real estate, ultimately, a property's value is what someone pays for it.  

Ultimately this won't change until we require that ministers must have previous experience before they can be come minister of whatever department they will head up. If our construction and housing minister was never a real estate broker or developer, he will never have a use understanding of what it takes to get a home built and sold. If our finance minister was never an accountant or controller, he will never understand what it takes to budget or finance a development. If our industry and trade minister was never a business CEO or other senior management officer, he will not have an understanding of how to best allow the government to let businesses grow and flourish. Ok I guess we are making some progress on that one.

Basically if the government wants to help people be able to get an affordable home, and keep the market from getting out of control, they need to stop interfering so much, and just let the market take it's natural course, without subsidies or restrictions.

I know some of you will say that what happened to the American market shows that you need regulation, but remember I said remove, interference, not regulation, they are 2 vastly different things.

This is of course just one man's opinion,  it just happens to be a man with more experience in the industry than all of the government officials trying to get headlines with their sound bites and half baked plans combined, that's all.