The Vicious Babushka

Juice for the Juice

Meet the "Juice Man" of Jerusalem.

Hamas Celebrates 16th Anniversary of Tel Aviv Terror Bombing

 This is the the kind of stuff they did before the "Apartheid Blockade"

Palestinians Drop Big Honking Cinder Blocks on Jews at "Disputed Holy Site," Claim It's Israel's Fault

Palestinians worship peacefully at the Harm Al Sharif, known to Jews as the "Temple Mount." AP Photo.

Palestinian president's office issues special statement following Temple Mount clashes, says Friday's events 'aimed at damaging the chances to resume the peace process.' PA calls on US to intervene in order to 'stop the adventure which may spark a religious war in the region.' Syria condemns 'desecration of Arab and Islamic sanctities'

The Palestinian Authority on Friday pointed a finger at Israel following clashes which broke out on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem and left 60 Palestinians and about 20 police officers injured. Eight policemen were evacuated to hospitals in the capital. Five protestors were detained for questioning.

According to a special statement released by the office of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, "Today's events were aimed at damaging the chances of resuming the peace process and Israel is crossing all the red lines – after the Arab League's monitoring committee recommended that the negotiations between the sides be resumed."

The statement also said that Abbas, who was being updated on the events in Jerusalem, had called on the American administration to "stop the adventure which may ignite a religious war in the region" and demanded that the international community "take responsibility and stop the Israeli recklessness, which may have serious implications on the entire region and on peace and security in the entire world."

Syria said Friday it "condemns the Israeli aggression" at the Temple Mount which showed the Jewish state rejected efforts to relaunch the peace process.

"The desecration of Arab and Islamic sanctities comes as the Arab League accepted the launch of indirect negotiations... which is further evidence of the seriousness of Israel's quest for peace," said a foreign ministry statement.

"It's also proof that the Israeli policy rejects the peace process and seeks to liquidate the Palestinian cause."

Read more at YNet.

Bahrain Foreign Minister Admits Meeting with U.S. Jews

Bahrain Foreign Minister (right) at home of Rabbi Avraham Shemtov in Washington D.C.

Bahrain's foreign minister, Shaikh Khalid Bin Ahmad Al Khalifa, has denied media reports that his meeting last month with Jews in the US was a secret, insisting that the American society was now ready to listen to Arab views.

"The meeting was never a secret. I have mentioned it on my Twitter, which allows many people around the world to follow and to interact with me," Shaikh Khalid said. "I received a dinner invitation from American citizens who were Jews. There was no Israeli present at the meeting," the minister told Al Wasat daily.

According to Shaikh Khalid, diplomats often receive invitations from all the components of the US society.

"I will not hesitate to hold similar meetings with Americans. Such meetings are not based on religion and a diplomat meets all components of society. At such meetings, we must have views to share with others. The US society is now ready to listen to the Arab view that is committed to the Arab League and to the Arab peace initiative," he said.

For the foreign minister, there is a strong need to convey the Arab view to all parties concerned with the conflict in the Middle East, and he blamed "attempts to abort putting across the Arab views on ways to achieve peace".

Newspapers and agencies have claimed that Shaikh Khalid made the secret visit to the office of a Rabbi to meet Israelis.

Read more at COLLive.com

If the Sheikh thinks that Chabad will help him promote the "Arab Peace Initiative" he has another think coming.

Oh Noes! Juice Boxes Seen at US/Canada Border!

When a plane made an emergency landing back in January after a teenage boy donned the black Jewish prayer boxes known as tefillin, people across North America treated it as something of a humorous oddity.

But weeks after that incident, a similar case – this time of a super-vigilant passerby sounding an alarm among U.S. border officials – led to the detaining of a rabbi and his Jewish driver as they tried to return to New York from Canada.

It was just before sunset when Rabbi Eli Silberstein, director of the Roitman Chabad-Lubavitch Center serving Cornell University in Ithaca, suggested, as he had done time and time before, that his driver, Ken Kaplan, don tefillin while it was still daytime. The two men, who were heading to Montreal, stopped at a gas station in Watertown just before crossing the border.

“He likes me to put on tefillin, because I drive him all over the place,” said Kaplan, who has driven Silberstein for four years. Besides for the religious requirement, “it’s good luck.”

The pair got out, Kaplan popped the truck, and soon the rabbi was helping the driver wrap one of the box’s leather straps around his arm.

No sooner had they finished, that a person approached the car.

“It was right after I put the tefillin back in the trunk that someone came up to us and said, ‘You can’t leave now, I need to talk to you,’ ” recalled Silberstein. “He was so suspicious of what we had been doing that he took our license plate number.”

They tried to explain and Kaplan drove off. At the border, Canadian officials inspected the car and, finding nothing suspicious, waved them through.

“When we got to Montreal, I got a call from my wife saying that the police in Watertown were searching for us, and that we were under suspicion for trafficking babies across the border,” [WTF???] said Kaplan. “The guy in the gas station saw us standing over the trunk with the straps and assumed that we were doing something criminal.”

Read more at Chabad.org

Haman: Jewish People are an Insult to Humanity (News Item, not a Purim Joke)

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Sunday said that the existence of "the Zionist regime" is an insult to humanity, according to Iranian news agency IRNA.

Ahmadinejad made his remarks at a conference called "National and Islamic Solidarity for the Future of Palestine" where he declared Israel the reason for instability in the Middle East.

The Iranian leader said Israel's presence on even one inch of the region's soil was a cause for crisis and war, adding that the only way to confront Israel is through the resistance of Palestinian youth and other nations in the region.

Ahmadinejad also told the conference that the "Zionist regime" is the origin of all the wars, genocide, terrors and crimes against humanity and that it is a racist group that does not respect human principles.

Also in attendance at the conference were Hamas Chief Khaled Meshal, Islamic Jihad leader Ramadan Abdullah Shallah and the head of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine General Command, Ahmed Jibril, all of whom live in exile.

The Iranian president ended his speech by suggesting a referendum on the destruction of Israel.

Haaretz.

Doofus of the Day: Luddite Rabbi Destroys a Computer as "Tool of Satan"

 This video makes Babushka cringe with embarrassment that there are morons like this in our community. A shandah un a bushah!

NY Times Profiles Holocaust Survivor Who Had 2000 Descendants

WHEN Yitta Schwartz died last month at 93, she left behind 15 children, more than 200 grandchildren and so many great- and great-great-grandchildren that, by her family’s count, she could claim perhaps 2,000 living descendants.

Mrs. Schwartz was a member of the Satmar Hasidic sect, whose couples have nine children on average and whose ranks of descendants can multiply exponentially. But even among Satmars, the size of Mrs. Schwartz’s family is astonishing. A round-faced woman with a high-voltage smile, she may have generated one of the largest clans of any survivor of the Holocaust — a thumb in the eye of the Nazis.

Her descendants range in age from a 75-year-old daughter named Shaindel to a great-great-granddaughter born Feb. 10 named Yitta in honor of Mrs. Schwartz and a great-great-grandson born Feb. 15 who will be named at a bris on Monday. Their numbers include rabbis, teachers, merchants, plumbers and truck drivers. But these many apples have not fallen far from the tree: With a few exceptions, like one grandson who lives in England, they mostly live in local Satmar communities, like Williamsburg in Brooklyn and Kiryas Joel, near Monroe, N.Y., where Mrs. Schwartz lived for the last 30 years of her life.

Read more at NY Times.

ADL, AJC Deny Giving "Approval" to Passion Play Script

(JTA) -- The Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Committee said a news release suggesting that they had approved of this year's Oberammergau Passion Play was misleading.

"American Jewish Committee and the Anti-Defamation League have not approved the 2010 Oberammergau Passion Play," said a statement issued jointly by Rabbi Eric Greenberg of the ADL and Rabbis Noam Marans and James Rudin of the AJC, who had consulted with the Oberammergau production team.

"After our  rabbinic team met in Oberammergau with the directors and church (Catholic and Lutheran) theological advisor in October 2009, we made clear a number of issues of great concern regarding the play’s text, visual images and significant plot changes that we believe can transmit toxic anti-Jewish images and perceptions," the statement said. "We notified them about our concerns in a Nov. 4, 2009 letter, and have never received a response."

Both groups asked the producers to remove references suggesting their approval from press materials.

The most recent Oberammergau news release on the play's Web site, dated Nov. 30, 2009, says that "Two high-ranking rabbis of the Anti-Defamation League and American Jewish Committee were consulted in order to avoid any anti-Semitic references."

The Oberammergau is a Passion play that has been staged in the Bavarian village -- and featuring only its residents -- every 10 years, going back to the 1600s. It is a major tourist attraction, drawing half a million viewers to its shows, which will be staged this year between May and October. Its depictions of Jews at the time of Jesus' crucifixion were notoriously anti-Semitic.

In 1970, the village started consulting with Jewish authorities in order to tamp down anti-Jewish imagery. The efforts have had mixed success.

JTA.org
 

Hasidic Rabbis Harrassed by Fans and Papparazzi Who Think They're Brad Pitt

Chabad of Conejo wishes everyone a Happy Purim!

Jewish Inmate Prays, Receives Lethal Injection

STARKE - A Florida Death Row inmate was executed Tuesday for the slaying of a state wildlife officer more than 25 years ago.

A spokesman for Gov. Charlie Crist said Martin Edward Grossman, 45, died at 6:17 p.m. at Florida State Prison. Earlier Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to block the execution.

Grossman was convicted of first-degree murder in the death of 26-year-old Margaret "Peggy" Park, who was shot with her own gun Dec. 13, 1984.

Officials began administering the lethal injection at 6:02 p.m. and Grossman was pronounced dead 15 minutes later.

Before the execution began, Grossman made a brief statement: "I would like to extend my heartfelt remorse to the victim's family. I fully regret everything that occurred that night, for everything that was done, whether I remember everything or not. I accept responsibility."

He prayed briefly in Hebrew, then closed his eyes.

Grossman was the 69th person executed in Florida since the death penalty was reinstated here in 1979. He was the 25th by lethal injection, the fifth executed under Crist and the first in 2010.

Authorities said Grossman beat Park with a flashlight and shot her in the back of her head after she found the then-19-year-old and 17-year-old Thayne Taylor with a stolen handgun while she was patrolling a wooded area in Pinellas County. Grossman, who was on probation for a burglary, asked Park to not turn him in, but she radioed the Sheriff's Office.

Park managed to fire a wild shot with her gun and kick Taylor in the groin, but Grossman wrestled away the gun and fired a shot into the back of Park's head.

Two weeks later, authorities arrested Grossman and Taylor.

Grossman was convicted in October 1985 and the jury recommended a death sentence. Taylor was convicted of third-degree murder.

Read more at Sun-Sentinel.

Justice has been served.

Doofus of the Day: Student Who Shouted "Slaughter the Jews!" at Oxford Says He Didn't Really Mean It

 
Oxford anti-Israel Demonstration

LONDON – The Oxford student who shouted “slaughter the Jews” in Arabic at Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon during his talk at the university last week says his remark was misunderstood.

The Oxford Student newspaper named the student as sophomore Noor Rashid and said that Rashid claimed he used a classical Arabic chant “Khaybar ya Yahod” which commemorates a seventh-century battle between Arabs and Jews.

The battle of Khaybar was an attack launched by the prophet Muhammad in 629. It led to the defeat of the Jewish community in the Arabian peninsula, forcing the Jews to pay half their income to the Muslim victors.

“My version went: ‘Khaybar, O Jews, we will win.’ This is in classical, Koranic Arabic and I doubt that apart from picking up on the word ‘Jew,’ that even the Arabic speakers in the room would have understood the phrase,” Rashid told The Oxford Student.

“As you can see, I made no reference to killing Jews,” he said, adding that the remark had “absolutely no derogatory or secondary meanings.”

Rashid – who on his Facebook page is a “fan” of Abdul Rahman al-Sudais – the imam of the Grand Mosque in Mecca – and veteran anti-Israel activist British MP George Galloway – claimed in the article that “Jew” and “Israel” were interchangeable terms and that he had been misunderstood.

Sudais has publicly prayed to God to “terminate” the Jews, and as a result has been barred from conferences in America, and been refused entry to Canada. In 2002, in a sermon, Sudais called the Jews “monkeys and pigs.” He was listed as an example of theological anti-Semitism by the Anti-Defamation League, when he called curses down upon Jews and labeled them the “scum of the earth” in his sermons.

Read more at Jerusalem Post.
 

Should Chabad Rabbis Pack Heat?

Ever since the brutal massacre at Chabad of Mumbai in November 2008, the importance of security has been on the minds of many Chabad Shluchim in practically most countries in the world.

Merkos L'Inyonei Chinuch formed a security commission, Chabad Houses installed security cameras, and the location of Mumbai's reopened Chabad House remains a secret.

While the extent of the security measures is in question - due to lack of funding and the risk of alienating potential members and guests - all are in agreement of its need.

Here is where a pistol may come in handy.

"We rely on G-d and spiritual means of protection, such as tzedakah and mezuzos. Yet, we need to take physical steps to protect ourselves," says Frank Pomeranz, a member of Chabad of Venice, Florida.

When he first approached his rabbi Sholom Schmerling about wearing a gun to shul, the Shliach asked him to keep it hidden from others.

"Ideally, every Chabad House should have its own security person," says Pomeranz, who is advocating awareness through his website ChabadSecurity.net.

He found that "some of the liberal-minded men in shul thought it was unnecessary, but soon came around to feeling more comfortable with the idea.

"It actually surprised me that Chabad women adjusted more quickly than the men to this reality," he noted in an article for the December 2009 Nshei Chabad Newsletter.

In separate instances, two Shluchim from Tennessee and Arizona told COLlive.com that a community member offered them a fully loaded handgun for their personal safety. Both declined.

"It's a very serious issue," Steve Sheinberg, Director of Community Security at Anti-Defamation League (ADL), told COLlive.com when asked about rabbis carrying firearms.

Read more at COLLive.com
 

Life Goes On In Sderot

COLLive.com

Just in case you may have forgotten.

Arab Groom Finds Big Surprise Underneath Bride's Niqab

 

DUBAI (AFP) – An Arab ambassador called off his wedding after discovering his wife-to-be, who had worn a face-covering veil whenever they met, was bearded and cross-eyed, the Gulf News reported Wednesday.

The envoy had only met the woman a few times, during which she had hidden her face behind a niqab, or face-covering veil, the paper said.

After the marriage contract was signed, the ambassador attempted to kiss his bride-to-be, upon which he discovered she had facial hair and was cross-eyed, it said.

The ambassador told an Islamic Sharia court in the United Arab Emirates that he was tricked into the marriage as the woman's mother had shown his own mother pictures of her sister instead of her, the report said.

He sued for the contract to be annulled and also demanded the woman pay him 500,000 dirhams (136,000 dollars) for clothes, jewelry and other gifts he had bought for her.

Read more at AFP. 

EPIC FAIL: In-Flight Phylacteries Cause Plane Panic

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) – A US Airways passenger plane was diverted to Philadelphia on Thursday after a religious item worn by a Jewish passenger was mistaken as a bomb, Philadelphia police said.

A passenger was alarmed by the phylacteries, religious items which observant Jews strap around their arms and heads as part of morning prayers, on the flight from New York's La Guardia airport heading to Louisville.

"Someone on the plane construed it as some kind of device," said officer Christine O'Brien, a spokeswoman for the Philadelphia police department.

No one was arrested or charged, O'Brien said.

The plane landed without incident and the passengers and crew were taken off the plane, a spokesman for US Airways said.

Phylacteries, called tefillin in Hebrew, are two small black boxes with black straps attached to them. Observant Jewish men are required to place one box on their head and tie the other one on their arm each weekday morning.

Thursday's incident was the latest of several false alarms on U.S. flights since the December 25 incident in which a Nigerian man attempted to detonate a bomb in his underpants from materials he smuggled onto the plane just as his flight was about to land in Detroit, authorities said.

Read more at Reuters

UK Royal Pledges $100K to Rebuild Mumbai Chabad

 

 British Prince Michael of Kent, visited the destroyed Chabad Center of Mumbai Wednesday, accompanied by Rabbi Avraham Berkowitz of the Mumbai Relief Fund.

Queen Elizabeth's first cousin, Prince Michael of Kent, visited the destroyed Chabad Center of Mumbai at Nariman House Wednesday.

The prince was escorted by Rabbi Avraham Berkowitz of the Mumbai Relief Fund, on a tour of the Chabad center that was attacked by terrorists last year.

The prince noticed the photos of the Rebbe and the Holtzbergs, and he inquired about Shluchim and their work. Later, he lit a candle in memory of the murdered Shluchim, Rabbi Gavriel and Rivka Holtzberg.

The prince also pledged a donation of $100,000 in rebuilding part of the Nariman House.

"I along with other donors from London pledge a donation of $100,000 in restoring part of Chabad House including the kitchen. We will continue to offer every kind of help," Prince Michael said.

"The destruction caused by terrorists is immense. I am saddened to see all this. I feel deep sorrow for what happened here," he said, adding he was touched on hearing about the how the nanny Sandra saved baby Moshe.

COLLive.com

"Al Qaeda Lady" Demands Jews be Banned from Jury in Terror Trial

Jury selection in the "Lady Al Qaeda" trial got off to a bizarre start Wednesday with the accused terrorist telling jurors she was "boycotting" - and demanding Jews be excluded from the panel.

"If they have a Zionist or Israeli background...they are all mad at me," said Aafia Siddiqui, a U.S.-trained neuroscientist charged with attempted murder.

"I have a feeling everyone here is them - subject to genetic testing....They should be excluded if you want to be fair," she told Manhattan Federal Judge Richard Berman.

Prospective jurors weren't present for that outburst, but they were in the courtroom to hear her say, "I'm boycotting the trial...there are too many injustices."

At another point, Siddiqui repeatedly refused to talk to her own lawyers, saying she didn't trust them.

"I don't trust you either," she told Berman.

She even tried to toss a handwritten note to prosecutors requesting time each day to pray. Berman said time would be set aside.

Siddiqui, 37, is accused of picking up an M-4 Army rifle and firing two rounds at a team of Americans who tried to question her in Afghanistan on July 18, 2008.

Prosecutors argue she screamed, "Allah Akbar" and vowed to kill Americans before she was wrestled to the ground. She allegedly had two pounds of poisonous sodium cyanide and hundreds of pages of notes and documents on how to build chemical and biological weapons.

Read more at NY Daily News:

Move Over, Mattisyahu, Here Comes the Newest Jewish Singing Sensation

Jerusalem - Israel’s new sensation in Chassidic music is not from Jerusalem or Bnei Brak. Until a few years ago he was an African-American Christian from Ohio.

In an interview to Israel's CH. 2 “The Jews are the children of HaKadosh Boruch Hu,” says rapper Yehuda Menashe, who studied in a New York yeshiva, converted and adopted a Hebrew name. He made aliya almost a year ago, and his speech is now a medley of English, Yiddish and Hebrew.

His booking agent, Moshe Kornfeld, tries to present him as a major figure in the music scene. “We met at the yeshiva,” Kornfeld recalls. “I simply saw someone who sings and makes others and himself happy. He sings from the heart. ‘How can I not be a part of this?’ I said to myself.”

Since being discovered, Yehuda Menashe keeps a tight schedule. This week he led a couple to the chuppoh in song. Last week, at a Bnei Brak wedding, he shared the stage with top frum singers Dudu Fisher and Yishai Lapidot.

Read more at Vos Is Neias.

Israelis Cheer Tear Gas Attack on Bus Full of Jews

 

A woman who boarded a bus designated for religious passengers sprayed tear gas at an Orthodox man who demanded she move to the rear section last week in Ashdod.

The incident began on Friday, when an 18-year-old Orthodox man noticed the woman, 60, sitting at the front of the bus on a route on which men and women are segregated for purposes of religious modesty.

The man objected to the woman's seating location, and asked her to move to the back, police said, but she refused to budge.

The exchange quickly escalated into a confrontation, police said.

After being cursed at repeatedly, the woman told him to "shut up," adding, "What do you care where I sit? So what if this is a religious bus? Nothing will happen if I sit at the front," according to her police interrogation transcript.

The woman then sprayed tear gas "to scare the youth who was yelling at me," she told officers.

The bus driver stopped the vehicle, and opened the doors to air out the bus, while the young religious man called the police.

The woman was detained for questioning and released on bail. She is suspected of assault.

Jerusalem Post. 

While Babushka is no fan of these segregated bus lines, the "Macing Granny" deserves no medal either. If an Arab sprayed tear gas on a bus full of Jews, is that OK? How about if a feminist blows up a bus full of Haredi Jews, is that OK?

Book Granny for assault and give that "youth" a spanking for disrespecting an elder.