Those poor, "deeply offended" radical Muslims--now who can really blame them for holding a Holocaust cartoon contest?
The recent attempts to placate Muslim demonstrators--and calls to "understand" how "deeply offensive" the Danish cartoons depicting Mohammed are to Muslims-- frankly offends me to the point of fury. The reasons for this are—literally--graphically clear. The source of my rage is not hard to locate--it is readily available on websites which offer up the richly perverted tradition of antisemitic cartoons and televised antisemitic and anti-American propaganda disseminated throughout the Muslim world on a regular basis.…
Article comments
76 - sr
Ruvy mi Amigo. Glad to know your safe. Your comments speak to my heart. America is a boob tube culture for certain. Twenty 9/11's and America is watching Jerry Springer. Elvira my love. Thought you retired. Ruvy is right. I desire to move to the City of David. Im not a Jew. Im not a Christian. Im a follower of JESHUA. For you muhammad rahim. Your time is limited. Iran you Persian pigs. America the liberal (lack of ball's) will let Israel do the dirty work. Ruvy you are a soldier. Maybe we will meet someday. Elvira, go fishing and sing your song.
77 - Purple Tigress
Just two notes.
I just glanced at the article about the caricatures and it didn't seem to be about the Muslim world so much as the Arab Muslim world.
I didn't see any reference to Chinese Muslims or Indonesian Muslims.
Second, regarding the Japanese attacking America first. Americans enforced unequal treaties along with other Western nations. The western nations had different rules for their imperialism as opposed to Asian imperialism. America cut off Japan's oil. You can never tell what will happen when you cut off the oil/gas of an industrial nation.
Why did the US open up Japan? Imperialism?
Isreal exists because of European intervention and there isn't exactly freedom of religion there. Most of the surrounding countries, if not all, were colonized by European or Western powers.
When I looked at the Web site, I had to wonder that status of each newspaper that it used as an example. That wasn't clearly explained and this is fault methodology.
78 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
A grizzled face that needs a shave blinks tiredly at the screen, shaking wis head in disagreement. Yawnnnn!!!!
ss, Richard,
It's morning in J-lem. The weather men here, like weather men do world wide, are hyping their big news: "Jerusalem bracing for snow!" I'll have to get the Hebrew broadcast for details. I'm supposed to go on a trip to a small village in the mountains not too far from the Jordan to investigate some police problem... We'll see. In the mean time I'll try to explain this concept to you guys. Then I have a whole series of errands to do.
Normative Judaism posits a six thousand year cycle, and this is year 5766 in that cycle. This is the period of time that there is supposed to be the "yetzer hará," the evil inclination. At the end of this cycle, the "yetzer hará" is destroyed. That is what the messiah does, and why there is peace, prosperity etc. in the world. People with no evil inclinations don't do evil.
Now that is 233½ years away, and I shouldn't even be worrying about it, right? But always, there is a fly in the ointment. There is a "medresh" an explanatory story, that says that because the slavery in Egypt lasted 190 years instead of the predicted 400, and there was a 210 year "discount," so to speak, in the early part of the cycle, so correspondingly there will be a 210 year "discount" on the end side of the cycle. That suddenly brings us to the year 5790, which is 23½ years away. This isn't how I was taught bookkeeping, but I didn't write the medresh.
According to our scholars, this is the projected date of the "rising of the dead."
Just a second, while I get my coffee...
The rising of the dead is supposed to occur after the messiah has done his other tasks, like doing in those who curse Jacob and seeing to it that a Temple has been built (or descends from the sky, depending on which rabbi you follow - an argument I won't waste bandwidth on here).
In other words, the hell that is supposed to precede the coming of the messiah will be all done and over with. The wars, the earthquakes, the disasters, the plagues, the whole megilla - finished and done with. All this has to occur within 23½ years.
Then there is this disturbing line in the Zohar - the redemption will occur in the year 66. This is the year 5766.
Bilaam, that evil man with the open eye, prophesied that a fleet of ships from a great distance would attack Assyria - and its other shore. Not now, but from afar, he saw it. That was 3,300 years ago - definitely from afar. How would you characterize the American fleet in ther Gulf? The other shore of Assyria is Persia. Who is allegedly planning a missile strike on Persia? In the prophetic books it says that Damascus will be a heap. If the Syrians do attack us, as they just threatened last week to do with their missiles, Damascus definitely will be a heap.
I may be off by a few years. If the medresh was wrong, maybe 210 years. But that's all.
And Richard - attempts to screw around with G-d's prophecies usually boomerang in your face. Rabbi Michael Weissmandl, a true hero of the Jewish, people tried to do just that in Slovakia 62 years ago. He failed, and suffered terribly all of his life for his failure. He did the right thing! He tried to save thousands of Jews from the hands of the Nazis. But he wasn't meant to succeed.
Also, do understand. The evil to be repaid is not just on the Arabs, who are merely tools of evil who will be reconciled to their cousins in the end. It is also on the American government and particularly the Europeans, who bear far greater guilt and have far more blood on their hands.
Well, it's time for that shave and time to do errands!
Later!
A somewhat awakened Ruvy prepares for another fascinating day in the "neighborhood".
79 - Nancy
Ruvy, so...I'm confused: does this mean it's all starting now? Or in 23 years?
80 - Nancy
Interestingly, the Mayan calendar ends in 2012, and if I remember correctly, according to the Fatima secrets, isn't this supposed to be the last pope before the antichrist?
81 - Dave Nalle
I think it means that Ruvy has more than just coffeee in that cup.
Dave
82 - Richard Brodie
Ruvy: attempts to screw around with G-d's prophecies usually boomerang in your face.
Well, we shall try very hard not to frustrate that "fleet-of-ships-attacking-the-other-Assyrian-shore" prophecy.
So that I can pass this along to the Defense Department, does this mean that we need to launch our bombing runs from carrier decks, or would the Nautilus, Triton, and Sea Wolf qualify as "ships"?
83 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
I knew this would get a few comments, so we'll take them, one by one, the most ridiculous first.
Dave says: I think it means that Ruvy has more than just coffeee in that cup.
As a matter of fact, I did - milk and brown sugar.
Richard says: So that I can pass this along to the Defense Department, does this mean that we need to launch our bombing runs from carrier decks, or would the Nautilus, Triton, and Sea Wolf qualify as "ships"?
Don't waste you time, unless you know some real in-charges there. Bilaam's prophecy meant that ships from many nations shall come from afar. Forces either from the ships or from the nations sending the ships will attack. I guess the further you get from the Hebrew bible, the harder it is to understand prophecy...
Nancy, you are the one making the most sense. First of all, if I understand all this correctly, the End of Days, which is what my explanation is all, about began in 1991, when a fleet from many nations attacked "Assyria" from afar. So it has all begun already. If the Jewish sources I referred to above, the Midrash and the Zohar, are right, it will be over in 23½ years.
Finally - you note correctly that the Mayan calendar ends in 2012, I think in October, but I'm not sure. Prophetic wisdom is not distributed just to us Jews. You're seeing a convergence of sorts here. The Mayans predict an end to their 'Long Cycle' in 2012. The Shia expect their version of the messiah, the Mahdi, to arrive shortly. The Iranian president is acting accordingly. Christian millenarianism would have brught some major change in 2000 - but who knows? Since Jesus was a "nice Jewish boy," maybe it'll be set for his bar mitzva plus 2000. And Benedict - who is most assuredly no blessing - is allegedly the next to the last pope.
84 - Richard Brodie
Forces either from the ships or from the nations sending the ships will attack.
We're tired of screwing around. Expect the "force" emanating from the "ships" (subs) to be something other than young American bodies this time.
85 - Elvira Black
Touche, Rudy. What about Nostradamus?
86 - Elvira Black
Uh, that's Ruvy. I've been injesting some herbal supplements and fruit of the vine since all this talk of the Apocalypse has me very agitated.
Shhhh...don't tell my 80-something nice Jewish aunts. Oy, a shanda!
87 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
Elvira asks:
What about Nostradamus?
Nu, what about him? I've seen his quatrains taken apart a dozen ways from Sunday. The guy made a couple of good shots - Hister instead of Hitler, Napoleon... The rest is all up for grabs and it's all in midieval French. Sacre bleu, I have enough trouble with modern French, mon cherie.
88 - Elvira Black
Well, Ruvy, when I saw that Nostradamus movie with Orson Welles back in the 80s--especially the scene with the guy in the turban obliterating New York--it did give me pause.
Anyway, thought I'd throw him in the mix. Pourquoi pas?
89 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
If you're going to toss seers into the mix, there was a fellow who lived in Scotland or northern England who foretold events in his county with astounding accuracy. Thing was, his vision was very local, kind of like someone who could tell you what would happen in Flatbush next year, but didn't have a clue about Coney Island. Also I forgot his name (shame shame).
90 - Elvira Black
Ruvy, I'd like to know what's going to happen in Flatbush next year. My prediction: real estate prices will go up (lol).
PS: I had to share this terrifically written editorial concerning Muslim outrage with whomever might be interested.
91 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
Elvira,
I went to the blog you recommended and left a memento there.
92 - Elvira Black
Ruvy:
That was a great and enlightening comment--wish you'd cut and paste it here just for good measure.
Thanks to everyone for the most recent comments. I've been contemplating responding to some with questions and such, but I keep asking myself, do I want to quibble here? Though I have issue with a few things, I think the larger picture is being portrayed. But I may change my mind later.
93 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
Elvira,
If you look up my comments to Blog Critics, you'll see I have been singing this song about the Wahhabi like a broken record - and insisting repeatedly that there is no such thing as an Islamo-fascist - and constantly saying that the terrorist enemyhas an address. I should bang my head against the wall.
"Mr. Insensitive" (David Brown) has posted another article whinig about Islamo-fascism and confusing the issues concerning Islam.
94 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
I ran into a very interesting article and an even more interesting comment on it in my e-mail box today. The article, by Victor Davis Hanson, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institute asks, in the wake of all these problems with rioting over cartoons, "What Will Europe Do?"
The article seemed innocuous enough. The comment that came with it is what I'd like you folks to consider. It's from Aryeh Zelasko, a fellow who lives in Israel. A thought I had never really considered...
"Whatever Europe will do it will be too little and too late. They are a dead culture and have no children. Unless they are willing to actively revive religion as the central point of European culture, they will never generate the kind of fervor to begin repopulating Europe and creating a cultural identity.
Atheists are inherently cowards and will do anything to preserve their lives. That is, after all, their only value, staying alive. Only someone who truly believes that there is more to existence than this world and its fleeting physical gratifications can make the sacrifices to raise a family, defend their culture and if necessary offer their life for G-D and country. The Arabs have that, the Europeans do not."
In two paragraphs, Mr. Zelasko captured the essence of the crisis gripping Israel today - the chasm between believers in G-d and those who reject Him. In this country, those who reject Him control the government, the army, nearly all of the media, and most of the money. That leaves the rest of us with little but our faith - and the knowledge that what we do will last and that what the non-believers do won't.
95 - zingzing
oh, fuck... that comment from ruvy's fellow israeli is foolish and will only lead to religious warfare. "defending [your] culture" doesn't have to include self-sacrifice. culture is a moving, vibrant thing, constantly changing (and struggling) to suit all that live in it. even israeli culture changes. even eskimo culture changes. denying this change is the only thing that will kill a culture. european culture is not dead, obviously. the influx of arab influence into europe will cause some growing pains. for the culture of europe (not european culture, but the culture of europe) to survive, native europeans and arab immigrants both need to work together to make sure that immigrants are properly absorbed, adding their culture to the culture that already existed.
what your buddy is saying here is, "in the coming religious war, the arabs will win because the europeans don't have their god backing them up." whatever. just avoid the fucking religious war. europe need not be another middle east.
96 - ss
Well put, zing.
The trend each player needs to address to avoid drifting into the religious war (IMO):
The Europeans need to quit using 'multiculturalism' as a nice progressive sounding mask for their own xenophobia. The ghettos just make all their worst fears about Muslims come true.
The Muslims need to quit feeding their own anti-semitism/antiWest sentiment every time they feel they're treated unfairly. The groups in the Muslim world who benifit most from that just make
thier own worst fears about how they're viewed/treated by the West come true.
America needs to quit using its unprecedented power in the world as a toy for the arm chair generals back home. The (false) credibilty and unending line of recruits this provides guys like Osama just makes our worst fears come true.
The Israelis need to give up their own sense of divine entitlement. The sympathy this generates for the Palestinians lets them get away with way to much they shouldn't, and makes the Israelis worst fears come true
The Israelis have a legitimate gripe when it comes to every government in the world seeing what Israel needs to do but not looking in the mirror and holding up their own end.
97 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
Zing, I'm working on the assumption that you are an American. When was the last time Americans burned down foreign buildings, locked up foreigners, etc. over a perceived insult like a cartoon?
If I had been the Danish premier, I'd have pulled out my embassies and ambassadors from any Arab country that even mouthed a threat, cancelled any aid programs to these countries, kicked out the Syrian, Pakistani and Lebanese diplomats, after subjecting them to beatings from my own thugs in the Danish police, frozen Syrian and Lebanese assets in Denmark and expelled ALL Arabs and their families in Danish jails after confiscating their passports and denying them further entry to Denmark.
The bureaucrats in Brussels may have bitched, but I'd be the most popular Danish premier in history. The left wing press would bitch and I'd just smile. Fascism for fascists would be the response. And most of the Danes would eat it up.
That is the kind of guts I imagine Aryeh might have been talking about (though I can't talk for him)...
One has to be willing to fight if someone attacks you. The Danish government was unwilling to take offensive action to clarify to Arab regimes that this behavior (riots, attacks, etc.) would not be tolerated, and that there would be stiff consequences for it.
The reason is that they think like atheists. If you are not willing to defend your own honor, you will be stepped on - again and again.
98 - ss
No offense Ruvy, but you all have won every war you've fought, the Mossad and Shin Bet are the envy of the world intel community and what do you have to show for it?
4.5 million Palestinians who won't move and vote for the more violent of the two terrorist groups that dominate their politics.
It's made Israel the living proof that everything America's going to spend the next fifty years trying turns out to be just as ineffective as peace at any price.
If 'give peace a chance' appeasement is ineffective and 'give total war a chance' is just as ineffective you can keep the cycle going forever or you can try something else.
Or you can believe it's ok when the worst finally happens because it was god's will anyway.
99 - Elvira Black
Ruvy:
The comment you left on the post I referenced seemed to clarify certain things for me in a nutshell. Wish you'd repeat it here or let me paste it in?
Again, thanks to everyone for the great comments.
100 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
Elvira, here is ther comment I left on the other blog.
Ruvy in Jerusalem said...
Muttawa beat me to the punch. The source of most of this garbage is the hijacking of Islam by the Wahhabi sect of Arabia.
Some American businessmen (including Prescott Bush, Dubya's grampa) helped one of the Wahhabi chieftains attain power in Arabia, a fellow named ibn Saud.
The Bush family has been nothing more than headwaiters for the Saud family ever since.
The Wahhabis are nothing more than camel drivers with a vicious distortion of Isalm for a religion and an ambition to rule the world.
They are behind the Moslem Brotherhood, Al Qaeda and the Taliban, along with all the madrassas world wide that teach only hatred of the non-Moslem. They are a cancer within Islam that, unless checked and destroyed themselves, will destroy Islam entirely.
101 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
Now to serious business.
ss;
It is one thing to win a military victory; it is quite another to consolidate it.
Let's look at the Six Day War as an example. In fact it is the basic "dugmá" (framework) for you to understand why we in Israel are in the shit-hole we are.
In early June 1967, the Israeli army sat on the shores of the Suez, the shores of the Jordan, in el Quneitra in the Heights of Golan. Our flag flew on the Temple Mount.
Not only that, the Egyptian airforce was non-existent, its tank forces were obliterated, the Syrians were in disarray, but most important, the Arabs in the territory liberated from Jordan were at the bridges of the Jordan ready to flee.
Moshe Dayan, the Chief of Staff, made two mistakes that have cost us thousands of lives, endless grief and billions of shekels.
First, he allowed the Arabs to to return to their homes, or more precisely, he prevented them from fleeing by blowing up ther bridges on the Jordan.
Second, he handed the keys to the Temple Mount to the Arabs.
Refusing to do either - and annexing the territory liberated from Jordan and Syria immediately - would have consolidated the victory. Everybody would have bitched and moaned and screamed - they hate it when a Jew wins and makes sure that he keeps the spoils - but the issue would have been resolved.
Conslolidating a victory means clearing the potential enemy from YOUR soil. If you can't (or refuse to) do that, you have not won. Period.
So, Moshe Dayan pissed away the victory we won nearly forty years ago in an attempt to look magnanimous.
Screw magnanimity!! See what it has gotten us?
Now look over the events of the last forty years with an eye to an alternative history that would not include Arab control of any part of the Land of Israel, and a synagogue on the Temple Mount.
Would a war have broken out in 1973? Probably. Would it have had the same result? There you see the imponderables involved in how people would relate to their country. Israelis would relate to Shehem differently than they did to Nablus. Would there have been an intifada? NO. Would there be Hamas in Ramallah? No?
Would Israelis be condemned as imperialists, Nazis, etc.? Probably. Gazelle would still write, as she did in comment #1 to this post:
"The cartoons are anti-zionist, not anti-semitic. The reason is israel's "Occupation" of Palestine, the forced displacement of palestinians, some into 50 year old camps!
Resolve that issue and many of these problems will disappear."
Would any Israeli give a damn about Gazelle saying things like this? No.
To sum up, we did not win all these wars. We prevented a military destruction of our country, but did not consolidate the military victory. This was only done in 1949, when the Arabs living here fled (or were driven out), and those that remained were forced to live under a military government.
Now where does G-d come into all of this. Believing Jews are starting to understand that the victory in 1967 was a gift from G-d - a gift that we spurned. The non-believers MAY understand this when their homes and wives are aflame from a massive missile strike that will come out way in the not too distnat future.
102 - Dave Nalle
No offense Ruvy, but you all have won every war you've fought, the Mossad and Shin Bet are the envy of the world intel community and what do you have to show for it?
So let me get this straight, SS. You and the world revile the US for a couple of isolated incidents of torture and a small number of long-term detainees in Guantanamo, but praise Israel for keeping an entire nation of people prisoners in their own land and regularly engaging in torture and state sponsored murder. Come again?
Dave
103 - ss
Dave:
I was pointing out to Ruvy that no matter how good your military and intelligence apparatus is, you're not going to solve the problem of terrorism relying on soley on your superior force.
And I realy don't revile the U.S., Dave. On the whole, I'd say we shoot for the win-win (with possibly us winning a little more) more often than not. The only thing I see really wrong is that we have an 'ends justifies the means' mentality, and when we do abuse our power, we tend to ignore all critism.
104 - zingzing
ruvy in j-town: "Zing, I'm working on the assumption that you are an American. When was the last time Americans burned down foreign buildings, locked up foreigners, etc. over a perceived insult like a cartoon?"
THAT'S THE PROBLEM! arabs are not being assimilated into the culture. if they were an accepted part of danish society (that they aren't is everyone's fault), then these cartoons probably never would have been printed in the first place.
if arabs could move to a place and not instantly form ghettos, and if native europeans could recognize their worth to society and not exhibit such racism, then the world would be a much better place. of course, that would mean the world would be free of racism and religious fanaticism, which is just a fucking dream.
but your concept of "defend[ing] your own honor" is so horribly dated, i wonder if you need to oil up that crusades-era armor in order to get out of it. got some wd-40?
i know you are jewish, but there is a very christian concept, hell, it might be jewish too, called "turn the other cheek." you constantly bash the muslims for their "kill the non-believer" shit, yet you say the same goddamn thing. the religious, tolerant way to think is not "beat them back," it's "embrace your enemy."
no one wants to die. martyrdom is a religious concept, and it's been manipulated and perverted by generations of upper-class, hidden leaders that tell the little people (maybe like you) to die for your "honor" or your "religion" or your "god."
i wish all the people who want to die for their religion (or some line drawn on a map that can't be seen in the sand), would just go ahead and get it done with, die now. then, the people who want to just try to live, no matter how or where or with whom, could give that a shot. if you want to die, die. if you don't, learn to live in the real world.
105 - ss
Here's a specific example that acually relates to Elvira's post:
I've noticed, in the blogospere anyway, that even Muslims who seem pretty secular and seem to like living in Europe have used this cartoon controversy to vent on their favorite obsession,
the 'double standard' the west applies to Israel and the Arabs. We've pushed the Israelis to give up land for 15 yrs now, and still the elements in the Muslim world we should be able to see (more)eye to eye with nuture this obsession, that goes right up to the edge of antisemitism, and sometimes crosses it. (Check out pickledpolitics for a good example of this) This leaves practicly no one in the entire Muslim world to stem the constant flow of outright, virulent antisemitism that's such a constant feature of the Arab media.
If we'd push the Israelis a little less on land, (till they get a negotiating partner, at least)and occasionally condemn some of the Israeli tactics, maybe more secular Muslims could drop the obsession with the double standard and concentrate more on what's wrong in their own community.
It may not work, but considering the success of 'Valley of the Wolves' in Turkey, if we can't find a way to bring secular Muslims who like the west to the fornt, what we've been doing is just going to put the Islamist who screams 'dirty jew' the loudest into elected office.
106 - Elvira Black
Well alrighty then.
I must admit that my knowlege of the history of the Arab Israeli conflict is woefully inadequate, and for that I am deeply ashamed. However, "reasonable" or not, as an American and a Jew, I support Israel, in part because history has shown that Jews have been persecuted and outsted time after time and thus need a homeland. Since the holy land is sacred to three major religious groups, this makes for an unholy bloody mess.
If this makes me a "perpetual victim," so be it. If one goes far back enough in history, one might remember that the Jews were once slaves in Egypt. And the Holocaust is definitely not a myth. During WW II, Jews were turned away from a number of countries where they sought safe haven, which was a veritable death sentence. So I can’t really blame Jews for wanting some piece of land they can call their own, without danger of being driven out or persecuted further (fat chance of that).
As far as cries of imperialism etc, I think that the struggle over land is virtually hard wired into homo sapiens. If my recollection of history is correct I imagine that, right or wrong, this is how most modern countries came to be. How many nations throughout time have been conquered and their indigenous people slaughtered and/or marginalized? The US is a prime example of this, but this is certainly far from unique--more like a universal "imperative"--fair and right or not. I think that Israel's "ambitions" are considerably more modest than most.
Let me cease and desist , since I think this strays from the point of the post...
Speaking of which, thanks ss, for the very relevant comment. Recent events in particular seem to demonstrate to me that the Arab world will accept nothing less than complete surrender of the land to them and the ousting of Israel. This does not bode well for any kind of "working out of differences." And frankly, I think that secular Muslims would be scared shitless to say anything even if they disagree with what is happening for fear of reprisal.
107 - gazelle
Ruvy, i wish you a greater israel, but without smoking more than x times 6 million arabs, if you can manage it. I don't want to imagine what you are capable of.
On the ground hamas will compromise. in new equations on both sides. so will you.
That land should have everyone coexisting jew muslim arab christian askenazi sephardi falasha algerian indian palestinian faithless in one whole - that can be israel, and it will not any more test my tolerance.
I find it amusing that you suggest living over dying in the current scenario, although i cant find anymore where you say that. I imagine a wry smile.
best
108 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
Gazelle,
I'm telling you this as a Jew who believes in the G-d of Israel and in His prophecies.
"Compromises" on the ground will only bring death.
They will not happen - not because I agree with them or not. I'm a mere English speaking immigrant in a nation whose government doesn't respect English speaking immigrants, only English speaking non-Jewish officials. What I say is less than worthless unless it is written in Hebrew, and the news cycle is too fast for me to do that.
"Compromises" will not occur because the G-d of Israel will step in at a certain point and impose His will on the situation. It is that simple. If I didn't have that faith, I would still be selling whopper sandwiches at a Burger King in Minnesota. So I'm staking my life on my beliefs.
In the end, there will be reconciliation between the Children of Israel and the Children of Ishmael. It will not come from the hands of politicians, and there will be a high price paid on both sides. But the reconciliation will come. And when it does, the Land of Israel will stretch according to its Biblical borders, and the Children of Ishmael will bless their cousins in peace.
Shavua Tov - have a good week
109 - sr
Ruvy and Elvira, nice talking to you.
110 - Bliffle
I'm about fed up with muslim extremists. I've had my fill of petulant excesses and childishly unreasonable demands. There are more important things to do.
Why shouldn't any reasonable nation simply bar them from immigration and even hesitate to issue visas?
111 - gazelle
Ruvy:
What I say is less than worthless unless it is written in Hebrew
Could you elaborate - what does writing in Hebrew mean in today's Israel?
g
112 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
Gazelle,
Writing in Hebrew gains you entrée to the majority of the readers here who read English only with difficulty, if at all. Bear in mind that most reading is done for "entertainment," so for an Israeli to struggle with my English is not "entertaining." He'll read the Hebrew instead.
My Hebrew isn't yet good enough that I can compose a letter or article with the speed that I'm writing this comment.
It took me all of five minutes to type what you see. It would take at least twice that long for me to do so in Hebrew. That's why I'm writing here instead of Walla! or Yediot Ahronot On-line, or trying to get pieces into Makor Rishon or Hamodia.
Reuven
113 - teutates
Ruvy,
can u hook me up with a sane rabbi?