Almost Eden

On Monday, February 16th the City of Ma'ale Adumim treated the new olim to a tour of the Kotel tunnels. I've been meaning to tell you all about it for weeks but hadn't had the time to edit the video I took. This week our local news paper Zman Ma'ale (M… more »

Michael was interviewed by BBC journalist Olivia Macleod on Friday. How did she find him? Well, it seems that he's been stirring up trouble using the comment section of several BBC online "news" articles to dispute the BBC's bias toward Arab (a.k.a. Palestinian) terrorists. Ms. Macleod had Michael on the phone for about 45 minutes on Friday (while he was supposed to be making his special Shabbat salad) and only managed to come away with 224 of his passionate words (I heard him yelling through the closed door and over the noise of my food processor) for use in this article (you'll have to scroll down to the second page to read his interview). One alarming point that came out of the other three interviewees mouths was their opposition to our right to live in Ma'aleh Adumim (referred to by some as the "West Bank" - we consider it part of the Biblical Land that Hashem gave to Bnei Israel). ASSAF NATHAN, in Haifa: "I don't care about land so much - I consider the settlers to be even worse than Hamas." ZALLI JAFFE, in Jerusalem: "I do think some of the land in the West Bank - the majority - will have to be returned to the Palestinians." HANNAH STERN, in Tel Aviv: "In terms of a wider peace deal, if it was up to me I'd give up the whole of the West Bank." Unfortunately, BBC News has not turned the Comments feature on for this article, otherwise I'd tell ZALLI JAFFE that there is no such thing as Palestinian people and no Arab "nation" ever ruled over this land. And I'd remind this "religious Jew" that we are living on the land given by God to the tribe of Judah (that's where the name "Judean" desert comes from!) I'd tell HANNAH STERN that if it were up to me, I'd relocate the Gazans (who have been displaced by their own Arab brothers for use as political pawns) to the bleeding heart liberal Tel Aviv neighborhoods for a while. I think that would change your tune pretty quickly. These people don't belong in Gaza, the "Palestinian nation" is fiction for your entertainment, and the "West Bank" belongs to the tribe of Judah. And to ASSAF NATHAN, I challenge you to spend one week in the West Bank Jewish community of your choosing and then an equal week with a nice Hamas family and get back to me with your opinions because I can't consider them valid when you speak from such ignorance and hatred of your own people. more »

An article about Yisrael's ulpan fun day appeared in this morning's issue of Zman Maale (translated: Maale Times). I can't tell you what it says because my Hebrew reading skills haven't reached that level yet. If anyone out there in blogland would like to give it a try, feel free to post a translation in the comment section below. more »

There I go opening my mouth again and ending up in the newspaper! And they never manage to print what I actually say - often using words that are just not natural for my vocabulary. But Ruth Eglash at least got the gist of our conversation despite a few minor details. So I submitted a comment of correction to be posted at the bottom of the article - just in case they don't post it, here's what it said... more »

I received an honorable mention in the July 11th edition of the Jerusalem Post after a 10 minute interview at the airport the previous day... more »

We were featured, along with 5 other families, in the May 23rd edition of the Cleveland Jewish News in an article titled They can go home again! Click the link to view the full article with photos. more »