“This is the bread of affliction that our ancestors ate in the land of Egypt; let all those that are hungry enter and eat thereof; and all who are in distress, come and celebrate the Passover. At present, we celebrate it here, but next year we hope to celebrate in the land of Israel. This year we are servants here, but next year we hope to be free people in the land of Israel."[ /B] - Passover Haggadah At sunset on April 2nd, 2007, the holiday of Passover begins. Usually Passover is said...

A general strike, orchestrated by Hezbollah and supported by Syria and Iraq, has flared into violence. The intent of the strike was to topple the pro-Western government of Sinoria in favor of a Hezbollah led government. Opposing the Shiite Hezbollah forces is the Sunni Future party, which is headed by Saad Hariri, the leader of the parliamentary majority and son of Rafik Hariri, the former prime minister many Lebanese believe was murdered on Syria’s orders. Hundreds of followers of e...

On January 20th, 1942 a meeting was held by senior Nazi officers in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee. The purpose: to inform participants of plans for the "Final Solution of the Jewish problem." That solution being the extermination of the 11 million Jews living in Europe. By the time the Wannsee meeting was held, hundreds of thousands of Jews had already been killed, mostly in Russia. Deportation of Jews from occupied territories, beginning with Germany and Austria, to labor camps in Pol...

Okay, I finally gave in and bought a 42" Plasma TV., a Toshiba 42HP66. The picture is stunning, much warmer than either the Samsung or Panasonic TVs that I looked at. See Link I have a large collection of DVDs and intend to continue to play them. Does it pay to buy an upconverting DVD and if so, is the Oppo 981 worth investing in? (See Link for the Oppo's specs.) Sound is also a consideration for me, I have an Onkyo HT-R520 6.1 Home Theater and I want the best sound possible. Com...

The Independent, a British daily news "rag", has published an article comparing the Virgin Mary to today's Palestinian women. The lead paragraph of the article refers to the Virgin Mary as a Palestinian beginning "In two days, a third of humanity will gather to celebrate the birth pains of a Palestinian refugee in Bethlehem." This is outrageous, slanted Pro-Palestinian propaganda, pure and simple. The New Testament states that Mary was related to Elizabeth wife of Zacharias. Elizabeth w...

You can run a safe, secure PC on a limited budget. These are my personal favorites, hopefully readers will contribute more based on their experiences. Browsers Firefox 2 has to be on the list. I use several browsers and I know people have strong preferences, but I still recommend Firefox. Tabbed browsing is now mainstream, with the introduction of IE7, but Firefox still gets the nod, in my opinion. It has a slight edge for security, again in my opinion. You can get it here: Link ...

HBO's The Wire is, in my not-so-humble opinion, the best written and best performed adult drama on TV. Yet after 50 episodes it continues to fly below most people's radar. I love good drama and I love ensemble acting. The Wire is a hard-hitting urban drama, set in modern day Baltimore. It has adult themes, dealing with on-going police investigations of drug dealers and is as real as today's headlines. In a unique twist, The Wire shows the events from both sides, which provides a int...

There is an old joke to the effect that every Jewish holiday can be described as "They tried to kill us, we survived, let's eat." Hanukkah (or Hannukkah or Channukah or..well, you get the idea) is no exception. Tonight begins the Hanukkah festival. After Alexander the Great died, his empire split into three parts. Egypt was ruled by the Ptolemaic kings, while Syria was ruled by the descendants of Seleucus. The kingdoms fought amongst themselves and in 198 BC Antiochus III defeated the Egyp...

Kayla Steinberg is one of the students in my JCS 7th Grade class. The following is her own composition and is posted with permission. Pretty remarkable to have been written by a 7th Grader! ****************************************************** On the first night of Hanukah, My true love sent to me A menorah in a pretty blue box. On the second night of Hanukah, My true love sent to me Two chocolate gelts, And a menorah in a pretty blue box. On the third night of Hanukah, My ...

The Simon Wiesenthal Institute is convening a video conference of testimony by 70 Holocaust survivors to refute the Holocaust denial meeting being conducted in Tehran. Holocaust survivors from around the world are being invited to contribute their testimonies. In Los Angeles, artifacts from the concentration camps will also be on display. For anyone unfamiliar with the Simon Wiesenthal Institute and the Museum of Tolerance, this is their Mission Statement: The Simon Wiesenthal Cente...

Joel Hunter is the pastor of the Northland Church, a board member of many Christian organizations, a noteworthy author and scholar. For a brief period of time he was also the President of the Christian Coalition. But he left (or was asked to leave) because he wanted to expand the agenda beyond opposition to gay marriage and abortion, wanting to take on issues like poverty and disease. "I look forward to … expanding our mission to concern itself with the care of creation, helping society's ...

More than Al Queda, I fear the growing power of the Shiites and the possibility of a pan-Shiite state. Iran is on the verge of becoming a nuclear power, if it is not already one. 90% of the Iranian population is Shi'a. The country is a theocracy, ruled by the Supreme Leader (Rahbare Enghelab) currently the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, although the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad appears most often in the media. A substantial amount of evidence points to Iran as the leading supplier of arm...

Last Saturday, the JCS 7th Grade, students and parents, saved the world. We didn't save the whole thing, but we started with a little piece of it. I teach Sunday school at the Jewish Cultural School, a Jewish secular institution located in Ann Arbor, Michigan. As part of the curriculum, we cover each individual's obligation to serve the community, to perform acts of Tzedakah or charity, and good deeds, or Mitzvot. Each year our class raises money to contribute to worthy causes, such as Ron...

Regular readers of mine (if there are any such) know that I teach Sunday School at the Ann Arbor Jewish Cultural Society, a secular Jewish institution. Today we went on a field trip to the JCC West Bloomfield for “Zap! Pow! Bam!” an exhibit on the Jewish influence in comic books. The trip was fun and also educational. Among other things that we learned were: Superman the character was created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, two Jewish teenagers from Cleveland. Superman embodies the Jewish...

I very rarely copy and paste from other articles, but this postmortem was just too good to not share: Feb. 12, 2002 "As we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns - that is to say, we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns, the ones we don't know we don't know." Jan. 9, 2002 "I'm not into this detail stuff. I'm more concepty." In an interview with the Washington Post. Feb. 7, 2003 ...