A New Direction

Here is the foreign policy speech that Jourdan mentioned.




Comments? Criticisms?

Sense from Down Under

A Double Feature

Happy Hannukah! Happy Thanksgiving!

As everyone has heard by now, for the first time ever (or the first time since 1899 or 1863 depending who's counting) the first day of Hannukah and Thanksgiving coincide.  I thought this picture encapsulated the coincidence very nicely. 

Here's what I wrote on my Happy Hannukah post on my own blog about the calendaric calculations:

This year, 5774 according to the Jewish (lunar) calendar, Channukah coincides with the American Thanksgiving holiday. This is a confluence that hasn't happened for over 100 years and won't happen again for thousands of years to come. From the link:

The Jewish month of Kislev can currently start as early as November 3 or as late as December 2, which means that the first day of Hanukkah can come as early as November 28 or as late as December 27.

The reason for the broad range of possible dates is that the Jewish calendar is lunar-solar. The months are based on the cycles of the moon. But the calendar changes the lengths of those months, and even how many months are in a year, to make sure that Passover always falls in the spring. This complex system — put in place by Rav Shmuel in the first half of the first millennium CE — ensures that the Jewish date and the secular date match up every 19 years. (By contrast, the Muslim calendar is purely lunar, which is why Ramadan can fall during any time of the solar year. The Christian religious calendar is almost entirely solar, but Easter falls on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox [around March 21], a calculation that involves the moon as well as the sun.)

Because of this Jewish 19-year cycle, 19 years from now, in the year 2032, Hanukkah will again fall on November 28. But Thanksgiving in that year falls three days earlier, on the 25th.

On average, we would expect the 19-year Jewish cycle and the 7-year Thanksgiving-on-November-28 cycle to coincide about every 19x7 years, which is to say, approximately every 133 years. And they sort of do.

One-hundred and fifty-two years ago, in 1861, the first day of Hanukkah and the 4th Thursday in November were both on November 28th. But there was no Thanksgiving back then.

[...]

The Shmuelian calendar and the Gregorian calendar have been diverging at the rate of about 11 minutes a year, or 3 days every 400 years.

[...]

This is why (remember the question from several paragraphs ago?) in the year 2165, when we'd expect Thanksgiving and Hanukkah to coincide again, Hanukkah will actually be one day later.

And that is why Thanksgiving and Hanukkah will never again coincide.

Well, almost never.

Read the rest of the fascinating calculations and historical explanations.

In case you thought it a wonderful thing for our two nations to share a holiday once in a lifetime, you would be mistaken. Well, not really. Here's a hilarious spoof from Israeli journalist Matthew Kalman who writes about the outcry as Israel steals Thanksgiving:

(Tehran, September 28) IRAN’ S SUPREME LEADER called on the international community to condemn what he described as “an outrageous act of cultural imperialism by the Zionist enemy” – the hijacking of Thanksgiving by the Jewish state.

[...]

 “Is it Hanuka, Channukah or Honecker?” demanded Khamenei to roars of approval. “No-one even knows how to spell the damn thing!”

“We say to the Zionists: Take your filthy oil-based foodstuffs to the wintry days of December, where they belong, and allow our American allies to celebrate their genocide of the Native American Homelanders without interference!” he added.
The Iranian leader was addressing thousands of ordinary Iranians who had come to bathe in the heavy water facility at Arak as part of a Plutonium Peace Party organized to celebrate the recent Geneva agreement under which Iran will be allowed to slaughter as many people as Bashar Assad.

LMAO! Read the whole thing. :-D


So in celebration of the joint festivities, nicknamed "Thanksgivukah" by some bright sparks, I bring you a wonderful, bouncy, catchy music video by Ari Lesser, the Orthodox Jewish reggae star who made a name for himself with his anti-BDS "boycott Israel" video:

May we continue to have much to be grateful for, and may we not forget to Whom we owe our thanks.

Happy Hannukah and Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Something for the soul

I'm taking the liberty of cross-posting this from my own blog. As an antidote to the bad news that has been dominating the news lately, this is in a class all of its own. I was considering keeping this piece for my weekly Good News Friday post, but it really deserves and needs a stand-alone post.

Ascending a precipice, we approach a lone tree reaching upwards to its Maker. (photo: Qanta Ahmed)

This is simply one of the most beautiful and moving articles about Israel that I have ever read. You may think it is written in prose, but it is pure poetry. It could almost be set to music.

It brought tears to my eyes and made me yearn for my country - and I'm right here, living in it.

The most incredible thing about this is that it's written by a Muslim woman of Pakistani origin, the amazing Dr. Qanta Ahmed.

Here's just a short excerpt of "This is the Land" which is also accompanied by the most glorious photos of Israel, taken by Qanta Ahmed herself:

Rolling fields are immaculately tended. Not an inch of space goes to waste. Dates, mangoes, bananas grow in neat lines, ranks of an impossible army. Some of the more delicate fruits are veiled – protection from bats. For the first time I see pomegranate trees! Gracefully bowed, their short branches deeply curved, weighted with still young fruit supplicate to the Holy land.

The golden land of Galilee. (photo: Qanta Ahmed)[/

[...]

Yet still the land unfolds: fields; lapis-colored reservoirs; soft rolling hills. No one has prepared me for the soft beauty of the Golan. In my brain I had conjured images of a demilitarized zone, barren, desecrated and godforsaken. Instead I see a landscape which speaks England. Neat fields, intensely green, pepper the landscape. Soft brown hills evoke the Scottish Highlands save the purple heather. This land was host to conflicts and wars, bunkers and bombs? Somehow, like the rest of Israel, the resilient land has recovered and not only repaired, but blossomed, responding to destruction with incredible vitality and bold beauty. What spirit, this land!

[...]

After two weeks of being in Israel, I now accept there are many things here I will not understand, including how Israelis can move towards not only tolerance in peace, but nurturing partnerships with those once their mortal enemies.

[...]

In the days before I have clumsily clambered over Jerusalem. I have competed with tourists from every corner of the globe. I have stayed in East Jerusalem and West. I have visited shrines to the three great monotheisms and cast prayers at every site, some written, some spoken, all heartfelt. But nothing prepares for the view of Jerusalem as God sees it – the view from His heavenly throne.

If those words alone didn't move you to tears you need to read some more. Be sure to click on all the photos in both photo galleries accompanying this article. They are a work of art in themselves.

Go and read "This is the Land". You know you want to.

Friends...Israel has them...

Gene Simmons hands Obama his ### on a plate.  KISS this Mr. President.