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Shavuah Tov

Shavuah Tov - a good week to you and yours.

May this second week of the month of Sivan be filled with hope, learning, Judaism, health and love.

Home again

I'm home again, back in the US, that is. Israel too continues to feel like home (and if my sentiments on the latest trip have longevity, aliyah may be in my future so then Israel will really be home).

We had a wonderful time. The trip went well, no major glitches, we saw, did, toured, hiked and grew a connection for the participants with the land of Israel. We did a fantastic social justice project, made great friends and breathed in the air, atmosphere and joy of Israel.

Back to regular life.

Ani Ba'aretz! - I'm in Israel!

Hooray - I'm in Israel!!!! I arrived on Tuesday and am here for just over a week. What a wonderful time to be here. It is so great to do some of my work here and to hear the music, language, people and heartbeat of Israel. Wow.

I love this place!

More later, when there is another internet connection!

Shalom m'ha-aretz (shalom from Israel)!

Israeli Ingenuity - A Credit Card USB Drive!

Do you carry a USB key (when it isn't Shabbat or a khag)? Have you ever mislaid it? Well, an Israeli inventor by the name of Alon Atsmon, CEO of Walletex, has come up with a solution - a USB storage device in the shape of a credit card. Since people tend to take care of credit cards, he figured that it might be a better storage solution.

Israel 21c reports:
"I think the card shape is the future," Walletex CEO Alon Atsmon told ISRAEL21c. "If it is much smaller it gets lost. The most convenient place is in your wallet."

Atsmon, a graduate of the Israel Defense Forces' prestigious Talpiot technology program and then the Israeli Air Force, is very familiar with card technology. In 1998 he set up a company called ComSense to develop a battery-powered card for authentication purposes. ComSense was later sold to Israel company Beepcard, but the credit-card shape stuck in Atsmon's mind, and in 2004 he established Walletex to revolutionize the USB drive market.

"The challenge was to make everything thin," he explains from the company's offices in Rishon Lezion. "This is the thinnest USB drive in the world."

Great idea, isn't it. Find out more on Israel 21c. Celebrate Israeli ingenuity and check it out.

Nazi Records of Hate Just Released - Over 60 Years after the End of the War

While surfing the web, I found and article about something interesting. For years, Germany has known what happened to some 17.5 million people during World War II and the Nazi genocide. They have known all along what happened to millions of lives, but have refused to release the information. No matter who asked, the Red Cross, governments and others, including the families. Now, people can begin to know.

Here are some quotes from the Guardian's article "Nazi death camp records reveal fate of millions":

After the war 11 nations formed a commissions to look after the records, but as the decades passed the tracing service metamorphosed into an archive, processing individual requests for information about relatives and digitalising millions of papers.

Researchers have long called for the archive to be opened to build up a detailed picture of where people went: into exile, hiding or concentration camps. But Germany always argued against making them available, saying that doing so would breach its strict privacy laws.
....
The Washington Post has accused Germany and the Red Cross of conspiring to keep historians out of the archive. It said: "The backlog of victims waiting for information about their lives is now in the hundreds of thousands, evidence that the archivists hold back documents is overwhelming, survivors' groups in Germany and elsewhere are protesting and historians are demanding better access."

What will happen now?

According to the article, "The records will now be copied and distributed within the 11 commission countries, including Britain, where their sensitive content will be dealt with according to local laws, said Miss Zypries's spokesman yesterday."

I pray that families may now have some peace.

Wishing you and yours a wonderful end of Pesach.

On Today's Attack

Here are some links on today's hateful bombing:

Allison Kaplan Sommer's post

Ha'aretz summary article

Lisa's powerful eye-witness post, including pictures

May the Holy One send healing to the wounded and comfort to those whose lives have been forever changed.

Passover Tragedy Again

Flashes of the nightmere of a few years ago....bombings on Pesach....hateful responses to freedom...death in a time of life and renewal....

Hamas Starting to Consider Talking with Israel?

Google News is carrying various reports that Hamas is considering beginning to tall with/about Israel. For example - Ha'aretz "Haniyeh: Hamas won't cave in to external economic pressures" and the Globe and Mail. I'll believe it when I see it.

Israeli Elections

In just a few hours, Israeli's will go to the polls and direct the country's path over the next few years. I hope that turnout is high, people consider all potential consquences of their vote and choose wisely.

May Israel's choices cause her to go from strength to strength.

Bird Flu Scare in Israel & Gaza

It might be in Israel - it being the bird flu.

Here are some links:
Haaretz on the status of 3 people suspected of having bird flu (they might not have it)

JPost on Israel working with the Palestinian Authority to combat the potential bird flu.

Blogger Allison Kaplan Sommer on the bird flu scare

As we enter shabbat here in the states, may the Holy One bring healing to Israel and the world.
Shabbat shalom

Tzedek (Justice) in Action

Check out a woman engaging in tzedek, helping to clean-up and rebuild part of devestated Mississippi - Deb's Katrina in Mississippi Log.

May she go from strength to strength.

Another well-written Israeli Blog

Take a look at this enjoyable, well written Israeli blog - Frothing at the mouth about politics, idea and culture.

Enjoy!

UPDATE: Allison wrote about another powerful blog (with a terrifying parenting story), Stefanella's Drive-Thru.

Video Blog from Israeli Foreign Ministry

The Israeli government launched a video blog called Israel Videoblog. Any Israeli can submit video to it. As Allison writes (thanks for the tip), it is "designed to show the world the sides of the country that you don't see on CNN.
It's open to everyone -- any Israeli can send in their video and if it makes the grade, it will be put on the site. It's being put together by the consulate in New York, and its target audience is internet-savvy international youth aged 16-30."

Check it out, submit video and let's do our part to raise Israel's image in the world.

Another Link Addition

>Allison (mazal tov on your new neice) introduced me to Giving Up Sundays, an Israeli blog.

The title itself brought back memories of living in Israel. One of the elements of minor culture-shock when I first arrived was the idea that the weekend was Shabbat only - Friday mid-day through Saturday. Sunday was a regular day. Wow - living the Jewish calendar each week and holidays. Fun - most of the time.

Many who work in the rabbinate are long used to giving up our Sundays for Religious School, teaching, tutoring, programs and events. Maybe instead of grumbling about it, I can think of it as one way to live my life closer to how it is lived in Israel!

Typing farewell to use my time well now and every day.

Additions to the Link Blog

It's almost 1 am and I am wide awake, so as I watch the Olympics (and fast forward through quite a bit - hooray for Tivo) I'm blog surfing, finding many new interesting blogs. Here are some I'm adding into my links:

Israeli Blogs:
Adventures in Nikkiland
Am Echad
Homey in a Strange Land, Stranger in a Homeland
Horsefeathers
My Home in Israel
Raanana Ramblings
The Dry Bones Blog
Tour Guide Tales



Jewish Blogs:
The Hazzn's Tish
Rachel's Adventures


Enjoy and feel free to suggest more!

Energy - Renewable and Real - Thanks Israel

So, did you watch/listen to the prez tonight? I didn't, but I heard that he planned to speak about the environment and conserving engergy. Somehow it is hard to imagine a prez whose family fortune is in the oil industry with a vp whose money is in the oil industry (along with rebuilding Iraq at very high bids) wanting to truely conserve.

One of the countries around the world doing something about energy invention and conservation is Israel.

A company called Genova has created a way to use organic waste for energy. Yep, you read it right, olive pits can create electricity and coke (the energy, not the drug)! Tania Hershman writes all about it in Israel 21c

Let's hear it for invention and cleaner fuels!!!

Go Israeli inventors!

An Interesting Visitor in Israel

In case you haven't already heard, an Iranian blogger named Hossein Derakhshan (aka Hoder) is visiting Israel, experiencing life there.

Read his English and Persian blogs.

Lisa of On the Face is hosting him and is posting about their visit together.

Search him on Google and you will find a number of other posts about him.

Interesting stuff. Enjoy!

UPDATE - SavtaDotty has also posted about his visit.

Waiting for....Tefillin

I'm waiting for Tefillin. Yep. I took the plunge and bought a new set of tefillin. According to the tracking on USPS.com, they have made it through customs and are on their way to me. What fun it will be to get them and use them for the first time!