Obama Iran Israel

How Obama betrays Israel and threatens her survival
Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum all but accused Obama of deliberately selling out Israel and the United States.
We're throwing Israel under the bus because we know we're going to be dependent upon OPEC. We're going to say, "Oh, Iran, we don't want you to get a nuclear weapon — wink, wink, nod, nod — go ahead, just give us your oil." Folks, the president of the United States is selling the economic security of the United States down the river right now.
Santorum later told CNN that Obama's actions support the view that the president was choosing Iran over Israel. He accused Defense Secretary Leon Panetta of divulging sensitive information about Israel's plans to strike Iran and then invited scorn upon the Jewish state from the rest of the world.
"This is a president who is not standing by our allies," he said, likely in reference to Israel, "is trying to appease, trying to find a way to allow — clearly to allow Iran to get this nuclear weapon."
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Growing up jewish

AH, THE GOOD OLD DAYS!   If you get this and you are not Jewish... I cannot even begin to explain it to you. This actually goes back 2 generations, 3 if you are over 50. It also explains why many Jewish men died in their early 60's with a non-functional cardiovascular system and looked like today's men at 89, Before we start, there are some variations in ingredients because of the various types of Jewish taste (Polack, Litvack and Gallicianer). Just as we Jews have six seasons of the year (winter, spring, summer, fall, the slack season, and the busy season), we all focus on a main ingredient which, unfortunately and undeservedly, has disappeared from our diet. I'm talking, of course, about SCHMALTZ (chicken fat). SCHMALTZ has, for centuries, been the prime ingredient in almost every Jewish dish, and I feel it's time to revive it to its rightful place in our homes. (I have plans to distribute it in a green glass Gucci bottle with a label clearly saying: "low fat, no cholesterol, Newman's Choice, extra virgin SCHMALTZ." (It can't miss!) Then there are grebenes - pieces of chicken skin, deep fried in SCHMALTZ, onions and salt until crispy brown (Jewish bacon). This makes a great appetizer for the next cardiologist's convention. There's also a nice chicken fricassee (stew) using the heart, gorgle (neck), pipick (a great delicacy, given to the favorite child, usually me), a fleegle (wing) or two, some ayelech (little premature eggs) and other various chicken innards, in a broth of SCHMALTZ, water, paprika, etc. We also have knishes (filled dough) and the eternal question, "Will that be liver, beef or potatoes, or all three?" Other time-tested favorites are kishkeh, and its poor cousin, helzel (chicken or goose neck). Kishkeh is the gut of the cow, bought by the foot at the Kosher butcher. It is turned inside out, scalded and scraped. One end is sewn up and a mixture of flour, SCHMALTZ, onions, eggs, salt, pepper, etc., is spooned into the open end and squished down until it is full. The other end is sewn and the whole thing is boiled. Yummy! My personal all-time favorite is watching my Zaida (grandpa) munch on boiled chicken feet. For our next course we always had chicken soup with pieces of yellow-white, rubbery chicken skin floating in a greasy sea of lokshen (noodles), farfel(broken bits of matzah), tzibbeles (onions), mondlech (soup nuts), kneidlach(dumplings), kasha (groats), kliskelech and marech (marrow bones) The main course, as I recall, was either boiled chicken, flanken, kackletten, hockfleish (chopped meat), and sometimes rib steaks, which were served either well done, burned or cremated. Occasionally we had barbecued liver done to a burned and hardened perfection in our own coal furnace. Since we couldn't have milk with our meat meals, beverages consisted of cheap soda (Kik, Dominion Dry, seltzer in the spritz bottles). Growing up Jewish: If you are Jewish, and grew up in city with a large Jewish population, or are gentile with Jewish friends or associates, the following will invoke heartfelt memories. The Yiddish word for today is PULKES (PUHL-kees). Translation: THIGHS. Please note: this word has been traced back to the language of one of the original Tribes of Israel, the Cellulites. The only good advice that your Jewish mother gave you was: "Go! You might meet somebody!" You grew up thinking it was normal for someone to shout "Are you okay?" through the bathroom door when you were in there longer than 3 minutes. Your family dog responded to commands in Yiddish. Every Saturday morning your father went to the neighborhood deli (called an "appetitizing store") for whitefish salad, whitefish "chubs", lox (nova if you were rich!), herring, corned beef, roast beef, cole slaw, potato salad, a 1/2-dozen huge barrel pickles which you reached into the brine for, a dozen assorted bagels, cream cheese and rye bread (sliced while he waited). All of which would be strictly off-limits until Sunday morning. Every Sunday afternoon was spent visiting your grandparents and/or other relatives. You experienced the phenomenon of 50 people fitting into a 10-foot-wide dining room hitting each other with plastic plates trying to get to a deli tray. You had at least one female relative who penciled on eyebrows which were always asymmetrical. You thought pasta was stuff used exclusively for Kugel and kasha with bowties. You were as tall as your grandmother by the age of seven. You were as tall as your grandfather by age seven and a half. You never knew anyone whose last name didn't end in one of 5 standard suffixes (berg, baum, man, stein and witz). You were surprised to discover that wine doesn't always taste like cranberry sauce. You can look at gefilte fish and not turn green. When your mother smacked you really hard, she continued to make you feel bad for hurting her hand. You can understand Yiddish but you can't speak it. You know how to pronounce numerous Yiddish words and use them correctly in context, yet you don't know exactly what they mean. Kaynahurra. You're still angry at your parents for not speaking both Yiddish and English to you when you were a baby. You have at least one ancestor who is somehow related to your spouse's ancestor. You thought speaking loud was normal. You considered your Bar or Bat Mitzvah a "Get Out of Hebrew School Free" card. You think eating half a jar of dill pickles is a wholesome snack. You're compelled to mention your grandmother's "steel cannonballs" upon seeing fluffy matzo balls served at restaurants. You buy 3 shopping bags worth of hot bagels on every trip to Montreal and ship them home via FedEx. (Or, if you live near Montreal or another Jewish city hub, you drive 3 hours just to buy a dozen "real" bagels.) Your mother or grandmother took personal pride when a Jew was noted for some accomplishment (showbiz, medicine, politics, etc.) and was ashamed and embarrassed when a Jew was accused of a crime... as if they were relatives. You thought only non-Jews went to sleep away colleges. Jews went to city schools... unless they had scholarships or made an Ivy League school. And finally, you knew that Sunday night and the night after any Jewish holiday was designated for Chinese food. Zei gezunt!!

Tu Bishvat

wedding thanks

Sara and I can't thank you enough for your role at our wedding.  You were just perfect and we both felt so lucky to have you there.  We really wanted to have a "Jewish wedding" and you made our dream come true.  Everything felt so special and sincere.  Your remarks were warm, relevant and sounded like you've known us for a long time.  We got a lot of compliments after the wedding about your service and it was well deserved.

 

Thank you for making our day so special.  Hopefully I will see you soon.

 

Fyi, my younger brother and his fiance really enjoyed your service and so did her parents.  Her dad is orthodox and his Rabbi won't do their wedding at the hotel.  If it's ok with you, I'll forward your information off to my bother and hopefully he'll contact you.  It would be great if you can be a part of his wedding also.

Jewish creators of Superman

 

Superman: From Cleveland to Krypton

The Man of Steel's Jewish roots.

By Simcha Weinstein

·          

Coming over from the old country, changing his name like that. Clark Kent, only a Jew would pick a name like that for himself.

-- The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, by Michael Chabon

The Birth of Superman

Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, the two ordinary young men who created an extraordinary hero, lived twelve blocks apart from each other in Cleveland. The pair collaborated on stories for their high school newspaper and shared a passion for science fiction and pulp comics. It was the 1930s, and comic book publishing was in its infancy. Like many young Jews with artistic aspirations, Siegel and Shuster yearned to break into this fledgling industry. Comic book publishers actively hired Jews, who were largely excluded from more "legitimate" illustration work.

Error! Filename not specified.The 1930s were also, arguably, the most anti-Semitic period in American history. Nazi sympathizer Fritz Kuhn of the German-American Bund led legions of rabid followers on marches through many cities, including Siegel and Shuster's hometown. Radio superstar Father Charles E. Coughlin of the pro-fascist Christian Front was one of the nation's most powerful men. And Ivy League colleges kept the number of Jewish students to a minimum, while country clubs and even entire neighborhoods barred Jews altogether.

So Siegel and Shuster began submitting treatments under the pseudonym Bernard J. Kenton, just to be on the safe side. Throughout the Great Depression, the two boys scraped together every penny they could just to cover postage. Shuster sketched on cheap brown wrapping paper.

From these humble beginnings, Shuster and Siegel carved out a character that embodied their adolescent frustrations, served as a mouthpiece of the oppressed, and became an American icon. Many years later, Jerry Siegel recalled the birth of Superman:

"The story would begin with you as a child on far-off planet Krypton. Like the others of that world, you had super-powers. The child's scientist-father was mocked and denounced by the Science Council. They did not believe his claim that Krypton would soon explode from internal stresses. Convinced that his prediction was valid, the boy's father had been constructing a model rocket ship. As the planet began to perish, the baby's parents knew its end was close. There was not space enough for three people in the small model craft. They put the baby into it. The mother chose to remain on the doomed planet with the man she loved, and die with him. Tearfully, hoping that their baby boy would survive, they launched the craft toward the planet Earth. Shortly, Krypton exploded and its millions of inhabitants were destroyed."

The idea of for this new superhero came to them in 1934. It would take another four years before Superman would be transformed from a feverish dream to a full-fledged hero. In 1938, Detective Comics, Inc., was looking for a character to launch its new magazine, Action Comics. They paid young Siegel and Shuster $130 for the first thirteen pages of Superman. Action Comics #1 came out in June of that year. The issue sold out, and a star was drawn.

In a brilliant stroke, Shuster and Siegel gave their superhuman hero a secret identity, that of an all-too human reporter, the meekly-mannered Clark Kent. Practically speaking, this notion of "double identity" allowed for almost endless storyline twists and thematic depth. On another level, it added considerably to the "mythology" that would eventually accrue around this fictional crime fighter. Clark's shyness undermines his courtship of his co-worker, the gutsy Lois Lane. Siegel and Shuster later admitted that the shy Clark struggling for a date reflected their own social challenges.

Superman #1 was published in the summer of 1939. Across the Atlantic, in Germany, Adolph Hitler was exploiting his nation's economic and social ills by scapegoating Jews. Living in a country that had stripped them of their citizenship yet perversely obstructed their exit, German Jews resorted to desperate measures. Just as the baby Superman was sent away from Krypton to avoid the mass destruction of his people, many Jewish children were sent on the Kindertransports to seek safety with families in England.

After the attacks on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, America entered World War II, and so did Superman. In Siegel and Shuster's comic, Clark Kent tries to enlist in the Armed Forces, but he fails the routine medical examination,. Clark accidentally uses his X-ray vision to read the next room's eye chart.Distraught, he muses, "I've got the most perfect body the world has ever known, and through a sad trick of fate, the army turns me down as hopeless!" This feeling of desperation and despondency was felt across the country. As news of the Nazis' murderous Holocaust plan emerged, American Jews felt utterly powerless to help their European brethren.

Word of Superman and his ethnic undertones did not escape the enemy's notice in real life. Josef Goebbels, the Nazi Minister of Propaganda, denounced Superman as a Jew. In April 1940, Das Schwarze Korps, the weekly newspaper of the Nazi S.S., attacked the comic and its Jewish writers:

"Jerry Siegel, an intellectually and physically circumcised chap who has his headquarters in New York. . . The inventive Israelite named this pleasant guy with an overdeveloped body and underdeveloped mind "Superman.."

Here were Nazis wringing their hands over a cartoon character cooked up by a couple of boys across the sea. Yet this ideologically driven rant actually touched on something vital--the importance of Shuster and Siegel's Jewish heritage.

Superman #1 begins with a brief synopsis of the hero's escape from Krypton, which draws heavily on Jewish sources. Superman's journey closely reflects the story of Moses. Like the people of Krypton who faced total annihilation, the Israelites of biblical Egypt faced the murder of their male offspring. To ensure her son's survival, Jochebed places Moses in a reed basket and sets him afloat on the Nile. Her desperate decision is clearly echoed by Superman's father, Jor-El, who launches the little rocket ship containing his son into outer space.

Moses and Superman are eventually discovered and raised in foreign cultures. Baby Moses is found by Batya, the daughter of Pharaoh, and raised in the royal palace. Superman is found by Jonathan and Martha Kent in a Midwestern cornfield and given the name Clark. From the onset, both Batya and the Kents realize that these foundling boys are extraordinary. Superman leads a double life as the stuttering, spectacle-wearing reporter whose true identity no one suspects. In the same way, for his own safety, Moses kept his Israelite roots hidden for a time.

Superman's original name on Krypton also reveals Biblical underpinnings. Superman is named Kal-El and his father Jor-El. The suffix "El" is one of the ancient names for God, used throughout the Bible. It is also found in the names of great prophets like Samuel and and Daniel and angels such as Michael and Gavriel. We may never know whether Siegel and Shuster were aware of these precise Hebrew translations; nevertheless, the name could not be more apt.

While the invincible Superman may have stood the test of time, the lives of his creators were not as triumphant. From the beginning, Siegel and Shuster were so busy they had to hire assistants, but while DC Comics was making millions, Superman's creators weren't sharing the wealth. The two men were paid a salary, but their initial payment back in 1938 had included all rights. They had sold their percentage of a goldmine for $130 and were eventually fired from their own creation.

Lawsuits followed. None were successful. Siegel and Shuster tried and failed to create new characters. Their names were familiar only to comic book aficionados. Then, rumors began to circulate in the early 1970s that a big budget Superman movie was in the works. DC Comics received $3 million for the rights to film Superman. Once again, Siegel and Shuster were left out of the equation.

This time, the two men tried a new approach. They bypassed their lawyers and went straight to the media. Newspapers across the world picked up the story of Siegel and Shuster, the poor boys who'd created an American icon, made DC Comics rich--and were now penniless and forgotten. That Shuster was now going blind added to the story's poignancy.

Legally, DC Comics owed Siegel and Shuster nothing, but bad publicity was costing the company dearly. A financial settlement was reached, and the names "Siegel and Shuster" appeared in Superman comics once more. In 2006, Superman returned to the big screen, and not a moment too soon--in today's post 9/11 world, we need a hero more than ever.

www.rabbijonathanginsburg.com

Iran and the bomb

MI chief: Iran can produce 4 bombs

Maj.-Gen. Aviv Kochavi speaks before Herzliya Conference, reviews regional changes, Arab Spring and Iranian threat

Neri Brenner

Published:  02.02.12, 09:39 / Israel News

"Iran has enough nuclear material for four bombs," Director of Military Intelligence Major General Aviv Kochavi warned Thursday. Kochavi made a rare appearance at the 2012 Herzliya Conference, where he reviewed regional changes, the effects of the Arab Spring and the Iranian threat.

"Iran is vigorously pursing military nuclear capabilities and today the intelligence community agrees with Israel on that. Iran has over four tons of enriched materials and nearly 100kg of 20% enriched uranium – that's enough for four bombs," he said.

www.rabbijonathanginsburg.info



 

humor

Abie and Sadie had a Jewish religious store on Delancey Street on
the Lower East Side of NYC. The neighborhood was changing. Sales were
down on all Jewish related items. "Abie, we have to close the store,"
said Sadie.

"We can't", said Abie. "This neighborhood is our life. We've been
here for 50 years. Maybe we can start stocking Catholic articles too."

Sadie says,"What? Catholic articles? Bistu a gantzen Meshuggeh?
We're Jewish, No Catholic articles!!!"

Well, a month passed and they sold nothing but two tallaisim, three
mezzuzahs and one set of tfillin. Now was the time to decide. Sadie
agreed that they had to stock Catholic articles, so she said to
Abie,"OK, call that Catholic supply house on Park Avenue ."

Abie agreed to call: "Hello, Catholic supply house on Park Avenue ?
This is Abie and Sadie's on Delancey Street . I want 100 autographed
pictures of the Pope, 200 of those beads - what do you call them,
rosaries? 500 crucifixes. Oh yeh, I need those things here tomorrow."

"OK, Sir. I got your order. Let me read it back. 100 autographed
pictures of the Pope, 200 sets of rosaries and 500 crucifixes. But
tomorrow we don't deliver, "it's Shabbos."