We're Still Waiting for Gilad Shalit

Last year I posted a similar post on this day.

I truly, horribly, completely wish that I were not writing the same post today.

From this website:

Gilad Schalit was born on August 28th, 1986, in Nahariya and raised in Mitzpe Hilla in the Western Galilee by his parents Aviva and Noam with his siblings Yoel and Hadas. At the end of July 2005 Gilad began his military service in a combat unit of the armored corps. For the two months prior to his kidnapping, he has been on duty guarding and ensuring the security of the settlements around Gaza.

On Sunday, June 25th 2006, in a terrorist attack on an IDF post at Kerem Shalom during which his unit friends have been killed, Gilad was taken captive and has been held since in the Gaza Strip by Hamas.

To this day Gilad didn’t receive any visits from an official faction, including the Red Cross, and there is no reliable information about his well being.

Three years have passed since his abduction. Let's remind everyone that he has yet to come home and demand his quick return.

On June 25th, the three-year anniversary to his abduction, please replace your personal profile picture with Gilad’s picture on Facebook, Windows Live Messenger, ICQ, Tapuz, bona, Mekusharim, news groups and any other social network or blog you’re a member of, and show the world that you are waiting for Gilad Schalit’s return.


Unfortunately, since my post last year, the remains of soldiers Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser, abducted at the same time as Gilad, were returned to Israel.

We are still waiting for Gilad. Each and every day.

May his return come speedily and safely.

Let's Take it Real World...

Crossposted from my other blog.

I was talking with some folks (as I do constantly) about the matzav (situation) in Israel. I feel a bit obsessed, as I think many of my fellow Israel-lovers and bloggers do, with the news. I can't stop refreshing Muqata and IsraellyCool and I scroll through my tweets looking for the news.

There are so many misconceptions being played out in the mainstream media (MSM). I nearly have an aneurisum each morning as I read my newspaper and I definitely almost ripped the radio out of my car the other day as I heard Jerome McDonnell say "well, there have just been a few rockets sent into Israel, right? and no one's really been hurt by it, right?" as he interviewed an Israeli journalist. (Who responded, wonderfully, by saying "That's like having the doctor say - your 14year old is pregnant but the good news is that she's only a little bit pregnant. There is no such thing as good rocket fire.")

I really believe that I am getting a balanced view. I'm sure there are those who would disagree with me, who would say that all my sources are Israeli in origin so I'm bound to get a biased view of the operation from that perspective. And I suppose that would be true. But I do believe that the MSM seems so biased against Israel, and since I continue (oddly enough) to read newspapers and MSM websites, I feel that I'm getting a pretty good sense of what might be the "Real Story."

(Picture from Reuters.com - of Israelis sheltering from a Qassam missile.)

The thing that bothered me the most this week, however, was the very well-intentioned person who listened to me refute information about the UN "school" that was bombed. (When we think of school, I'm pretty sure you all have the same idea in your head that I do - kids running around, books, desks, teachers, papers, pencils and erasers....but this is not that kind of school. So I feel that it puts the wrong idea into people's heads right off the bat. But I digress...)

Back to the well-intentioned person. She asked in a not-snottty, totally honest and well-intentioned way: "How are those of us who are not as informed supposed to know all of this?"

And I know that she is not an internet user, beyond the email and other tasks in the office. I know that if I asked her to regularly visit Muqata or even Haaretz.com she would not really be able to do it. So truthfully, I was a bit stumped and didn't quite know how to asnwer her except to say that I could provide her with a list of sources for her to look at.

But she probably won't.

She'll probably continue, in her kind and well-intentioned and well-informed way, to read the newspapers and watch the 6 o'clock news (which I haven't watched in years...it's still on, right?). And she'll believe, like so many Americans and Europeans do, that the nicely coiffed men and women sitting so officially behind those shiny desks or standing in front of those pretty flat-panel monitors are telling The Truth and reporting The Facts.

When we know they're not always.

So I offer this challenge to you, my dear readers. I am always asking you to blog or tweet or comment or visit. But today's challenge is a little different.

I'm asking you to pick one site or post or picture that you feel is representative of The Truth -- not the stuff being thrown around by the MSM but the stuff that you find to be Real and Right. Start, perhaps, with one of Jack's round ups or one of Jameel's liveblogs, or even just the count from your QassamCount status update.

Print it out. 
(I know, I know, I'm supposed to be all green, but bear with me.)

And share it with the people that you care about most, the people that you think will not be reading it, the people that you think might look at you when you suggest that they log into TwiddleEast as though you're suggesting they jump through the Looking Glass. Share the paper with your co-workers, your friends, your grandmother.

We're all working so hard out here on the Internet. I think the time has come to move beyond that and back out into the Real World, Old School...

Are you with me?

Let us pray....*updated

The ground incursion into Gaza has begun. A news blackout is in place.

All we can do is pray.

Prayer for the Welfare of Soldiers in the Israel Defense Forces

May He who blessed our fathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, bless the soldiers
of the Israel Defense Forces who keep guard over our country and cities of
our Lord from the border with Lebanon to the Egyptian desert and from the
Mediterranean Sea to the approach to the Arava, be they on land, air or sea.

May the Almighty deliver us our enemies who arise against us, may the Holy
One, blessed be He, preserve them and save them from all sorrow and peril,
from danger and ill.

May He send blessing and success in all their endeavors, may He deliver to
them those who hate us and crown them with salvation and victory, so that
the saying may be fulfilled through them, "For the Lord, your God, who walks
with you and to fight your enemies for you and to save you", and let us say,
Amen.

As posted by Jameel, who is live-blogging. Stay tuned.

For other updated stuff, go to the IDF Spokesperson blog and see things like this:

(they're so young....)

Put it all in Perspective

15 Seconds in Sderot

Operation Cast Lead - Gaza Information

My colleague Rabbi Paul Kipnes has posted a great list of media sources for Israel.

These are all "mainstream" type media. Here are some of the on-the-ground blogger/non-mainstream media types who are also posting, including live-blogging. It's very interesting to hear and see what is going on from this perspective.

IsraellyCool - liveblogging
Muqata - also liveblogging
The Sderot Media Center
Jack is rounding up posts here and here. Check him regularly for updates.

And read this interesting post from Dan Illouz.

If you twitter, check out #gaza, and also consider following QassamCount, NewsIsrael and I'm sure there are others that I can't quite think of right now.

There's a lot out there beyond cnn.com and what the newsmedia is saying. Don't forget that during the Lebanon War there was a lot of misinformation and media-handling by Hizbullah. Hamas is certainly no different in trying to beat Israel out in the court of world opinion. But I don't believe that is going to stop Israel from defending herself, nor should it.

We'll all stay tuned.

Sadness in Israel today

I wanted to believe it wasn't true.

But it is.

I think this sums it up for me too.

I've Been Waiting for Gilad Shalit for 2 Years

From this website:

Gilad Schalit was born on August 28th, 1986, in Nahariya and raised in Mitzpe Hilla in the Western Galilee by his parents Aviva and Noam with his siblings Yoel and Hadas. At the end of July 2005 Gilad began his military service in a combat unit of the armored corps. For the two months prior to his kidnapping, he has been on duty guarding and ensuring the security of the settlements around Gaza.

On Sunday, June 25th 2006, in a terrorist attack on an IDF post at Kerem Shalom during which his unit friends have been killed, Gilad was taken captive and has been held since in the Gaza Strip by Hamas.

To this day Gilad didn’t receive any visits from an official faction, including the Red Cross, and there is no reliable information about his well being.

Two years have passed since his abduction. Lets remind everyone that he has yet to come home and demand his quick return.

On June 25th, the two year anniversary to his abduction, please replace your personal profile picture with Gilad’s picture on Facebook, Windows Live Messenger, ICQ, Tapuz, bona, Mekusharim, news groups and any other social network or blog you’re a member of, and show the world that you are waiting for Gilad Schalit’s return.

And he's not the only one. We still await the return of Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser as well, both abducted at about the same time.

May their return come speedily and safely.

New Eats in Town....Worth it!!!!

Highland Park has a new kosher Israeli restaurant.

It is awesome.

Mizrahi Grill is the next-best-thing to actually eating felafel in Israel.

People speak Hebrew there.
And put cheeps into your felafel for you.
And charif.
And yum.

(And I hear the meat options are pretty darn yummy too. You'll have to take my husband and father's word for it. I won't try it just for you, my blogging public.)

Run, do not walk. They might run out of that amazing pita. Then again, they seem pretty on top of things. But go now. And then go back again!

(It's at 215 Skokie Valley Road, two doors down from Max's Deli. They now have a big sign. I drive by it regularly and salivate. That's how good it is. Closed on Shabbat, obviously.)

Looking up at the Moon....

It was living in Israel that I really became aware of the cycle of the moon. Was it the clearer skies? Was it the life lived by the Hebrew months? Or was it the metaphorical closeness of the heavens? I believe it was all of the above. Only in Israel did the moon seem to guide my life, give me a sense of the date, greet my nights.

1.

Keren haYesod Street, Jerusalem, midnight, Yom Kippur
Walking on a quiet, car-empty street
the moon is half-there, growing in potential as we grow ourselves…

2.

Mitzpe Ramon Crater, the Negev, 11:00pm
Laying on the rocks, looking up, the moon so close
we can reach out and touch it.

3.

Moses Montefiore’s windmill, Jerusalem, 3:00am, Shabbat morning.
Watching the moon rise and set over the Old City of Jerusalem…
talking, holding hands, waiting for him to kiss me for the first time.


Wherever I am, wherever I go, when I see the moon, I am in Eretz Yisrael.

The waxing and waning of the moon has been compared to the Jewish people, always returning, always present, always renewing ourselves. The moon may be hard to see but it always returns, even more vibrant, more beautiful each time we see it. Israel is like this to me – no matter how many weeks, months, years pass between my visits, it is more vibrant, more beautiful.

“You are a crown of glory for those who are borne in the womb, for they, like you, are destined to be renewed.” (from Kiddush Levanah)

Eretz Yisrael…our crown of glory…may its shimmering light shine for us always.

Sadness...

Our thoughts are with the students and families of Mercaz haRav Yeshiva.

May the memory of these students be for a blessing...

Read more here (note graphic photos, though)

My heart bleeds...