Here is an interesting story.

My brother-in-law rents a home in a Chareidi neighborhood (probably because he is Chareidi). He lives there with his wife and 5 children. His landlord decided she wants them out.

Her first step was raising the rent. But as much as it hurt, he agreed. It’s not easy finding apartments in their neighborhood.

Next she claimed he owed her money and refused to pay. They had made a deal that he would install bars on the windows and it would be reduced from the rent.

Then she simply told them to get out, and decided to take them to Beit Din to get them to comply.

It should be noted that they are good tenants and keep the house in good condition. She even admitted that. She just claims she doesn’t like them and want to continue renting it out to anyone else.

So they went to the Beit Din, and first off, the landlord claimed they owed her rent money as the bars could only cost a hundred shekels each.

My sister-in-law pulled out the receipts that showed that bars cost at around 300-400 shekels each (which is about the cheapest price you can get in Israel).

So first of all, the court determined that the landlord owed my brother-in-law 500 shekel which she have need to pay (and not the other way around).

Then the court determined that if she planned to continue to rent out the apartment, and if they were willing to pay the rent, and were good tenants, then they had “first rights” to continue to live there - and it wasn’t right to kick out a family of 7 people for absolutely no tangible reason.

And finally, since she claimed her problem is that she simply didn’t like them on a personal level, the court said they (the court) would now be managing the property. The court would collect the rent and transfer it to the landlord and she needn’t interact with her tenants at all.

It’s an interesting and scary decision all at the same time.

Comments & Reactions anyone?

There is no point to this post, except an article on YNET discussing the knee-jerk use of terms by the media.

Since the term "Leftist Fury" and the phrase "Criticism on the Right" are pretty rare, I figure I'd use them, so in case someone does a search, it will stand out.

This is not the first time this has happened.

Israel promises to release PA terrorists from jail, and some refuse to go.

This time, one of the 250 prisoners refuses to go because he gets good medical treatment (for free) for his medical condition.

Last time this happened, a large number of prisoners refused to go because it was a few weeks before they would take their high school matriculation exams – and they all wanted to graduate – something that wouldn’t happen in the PA.

Arutz-7 once did a write up about PA teenagers getting themselves arrested to get a free Israeli high school education.

I’d say there are plenty of Palestinians that wish for the good old days of the “Occupation”, there are clearly plenty in Israeli jails who are quite happy with it.

On one side of the table, we have citizens who willingly and non-violently broke the law to fight against a law they felt was morally wrong and even evil.

On the other side of the table, we have a government and government representatives who willingly and violently broke the law to allegedly protect the Rule of Law.

Let’s compare.

One group is being hurt by what they see as an abuse of the legal system and the Rule of Law by a few influential individuals in key positions and then chooses to civilly and non-violently protest something they are sure is morally wrong.

The other group claims to represent the Rule of Law but then willing and violently breaks and ignores all the inconvenient sections of the laws they claim to uphold.

I raise this subject because a bill just passed a preliminary reading in the Knesset and the second may end up being included too.

The original bill grants amnesty to citizens who non-violently protested what has proven to have been a morally evil decision.

A counter-bill (or amendment) has been proposed to grant amnesty to policemen who used violence against non-violent protesters.

Hardly seems fair.

>Arutz-7 shows even more hypocrisy from the left:

MK Yossi Beilin (Meretz) objected to the bill, saying that from a judicial standpoint, "it is unacceptable to legitimize violence against soldiers merely because it was done for ideological reasons." MK Benny Elon called out, "You have no judicial problem with pardoning convicted terrorists and setting them free - but to pardon a young boy who protested against the expuslion - that's a problem?!" Beilin said the two cases should not be compared.

Of course they shouldn’t be compared. Beilin’s position is morally reprehensible and evil, but it advances his distorted political worldview and therefore it is OK. But protesting to keep your home, or perhaps even defending yourself against a violent policeman who has stepped outside the boundaries of Rule of Law is wrong.

A clear example of what is wrong with this country.

In related news, the court decided that a policeman who was caught on film (and therefore it couldn’t be denied or ignored) harming non-violent protesters, should not be fired. Instead it was decided he should be given a job away from protesters. The only aspect of this that is punishment to the sadistic police officer involved is that he won’t be able to relieve his internal torment on innocent people for a little while.

Chazal liked to play word games. By changing the way a word was pronounced they would come up with interesting and related messages to the pasuk in question.

I was looking at the “Chomesh First” signs and was thinking, “How appropriate”.

The messengers got the message right. You see the fight isn’t whether we rebuild or return to this or that destroyed Yishuv first, because ultimately that is dealing with a symptom, not the disease.

But if we read the sign as “Chumash First”, then we are dealing with the disease.

That Jewish children grow up ignorant of the Chumash – the five books of the Torah is the root cause of the problem. They have no connection and no understanding why they are here and what their rights to Eretz Yisrael are.

If only they learned “Chumash First”, we wouldn’t be in such a bad position.

So don't read Chomesh first, read Chumash first.

I received a letter today that was quite interesting.

It seems Channel 10 has decided to blame the Settlers again for something. That in of itself is nothing unusual, but that is before you hear the details.

It seems that Channel 10 publicized a film that blames a Yishuv for destroying the apricot orchards of a nearby Arab village. These settlers allegedly did this to install a sewer pipe.

While the local villagers are apparently interviewed, no one thought to ask the Yishuv for their reaction (or if they did it was ignored)

So lets go through some of the facts. First of all, it is not a sewer pipe being laid, but rather a water pipe.

Second, this Yishuv is not responsible for nor connected to the pipe, and when the case went to the Supreme Court the Yishuv wasn’t even mentioned.

Why?

Because it is the government that is laying this pipe and it has to do with the Wall they are building and has nothing to do with the Yishuv.

But those minor facts have no relevance to Channel 10.

----

Meanwhile, as we speak, the Gush Katif Victims are protesting in Jerusalem demanding the government return what they stole from them. Specifically their land, farms, hot houses, and livelyhoods.

No response is expected.

There are a number of dumb and dangerous bills being promoted in the Knesset these days.

Yisrael Beitenu wants a bill that will withhold a day’s salaries from workers who don’t vote.

Personally, if I didn’t want to vote it’s my business. If you (the government) want me to vote then provide me with direct representation. I don’t need to support your farce if I don’t want to.

The second is by Shas to start censoring the internet. They want the ISPs to automatically block “porn” sites unless one specifically asks to have it unblocked.

My first question is who decides what is porn?

Second, is it really (halachically) right that someone will have a government (or government legislated) job to look at porn all day to decide if it is blocked or not?

But that starts the slippery slope.

Forget for a minute about deciding what is porn, what happens when the government, seeing how easy that was, decides that Hamas and Al Quida sites must be blocked.

Of course since, we are blocking terrorists sites, there goes anything that mentions the name Kahane. After that, bye-bye Muqata and JoeSettler, they are far too radical for the average Israeli to be reading. It will certainly be a good way to get Arutz-7 off the internet too.

Shimon Peres would certainly support and promote that kind of bill:

Peres: "There is a radical minority within us -- it is forbidden to let them express their opinions/views over the airwaves and media. They are a grave danger to democracy."

(hattip: Muqata )

Isn’t there too much government interference in our lives already?

How about giving me the opportunity to vote you jokers out and vote in individuals I want.

That is a bill I would support.

I have never seen such solidarity in the Land of Israel. I have never seen everyone, be they on the Left, Right, Arab, Jew, MK or News Pundit agree on one thing. It’s incredible. It’s as if the Mashiach could come any day now.

There is absolutely no disagreement.

Shimon Peres will use his position as President of Israel as a platform for intrigue and to undermine the policies of the State of Israel for his own personal pet agendas.

Some say it openly, some imply it clearly, and some hint at it with their backhanded compliments.

The Foreign Ministry writes they are used to Peres trying to go around them, and expect it to continue (in nicer words). Livni says that it is Olmert who will have the problem of Peres’s foreign policy games, and stupidly asks why would Peres try to undermine Olmert when they agree, are such good friends, and Peres owes him (sic). Bibi basically said that Peres lives in a dream world disconnected from reality.

His own words before his inauguration show the intrigues have already begun and we wouldn’t have expected less.

But I am amused when people say that after Weizmann and Katzav he will clean up the Presidency.

There certainly are a lot of questions and documentation floating around concerning the Peres Peace Center, its investments, and how (and to and from where) the money flows. No matter, the press will ignore it like always, and the true tradition of the scandals of the Presidency and other political elite will continue.

At least everyone agrees there will be intrigues.

OK, let's hear it.

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My problem with Jewish holidays is that they try to force you into certain moods or emotional states at specific times, and that simply doesn’t resonate with me.

Sukkot irritates me when I have to spend up to $25 on a lemon. I never feel repentant on the days leading up to Yom Kippur, and when Yom Kippur comes around, I tend to feel I missed the opportunity yet again. Purim simply makes me angry with all the drunks running amok, smashing on your car, and so on. You get the idea.

But the Three Weeks, the Nine Days, and especially Tisha B’Av have always been especially problematic.

Here we are, right smack in the middle of summer break and suddenly we have to be downcast and depressed. No swimming. No music. No fun.

And three weeks of this artificially enforced emotion and behavior – can be way too much.

(Yes, I know some people will strongly disagree with me at this point, and good for you that you are able to keep up being down and depressed for 3 weeks on end. Can I recommend Prozac?).

Occasionally sitting by the steps leading up to Har HaBayit I might feel a twinge, but again I know it was in part compulsory and driven by outside forces and demands.

Intellectually I understood it, but the feelings were mostly not from inside.

After all, for me, the Temple Mount looks like it always does, I didn’t experience the destruction, or see what it was like before, or visit it and walk in its courtyard. It was an intellectual understanding.

That all changed on 9/11.

Suddenly the bedrock and foundation stone of the world I live in was rocked, shaken, and fractured. It wasn’t the building itself, but the steadfastness, and constancy that it represented and previously existed, that was destroyed.

I wasn’t necessarily feeling grief for the thousands of victims or a few buildings, but rather for what was destroyed for me as a result. The veneer of a continuity, steadfastness, and civilization that I was a part of. The reality of my environment. The idea that something so huge and permanent could be gone so instantly and everything around it can suddenly change and disappear and perhaps no longer be safe.

It was literally at that point that I first felt what the destruction of the Temples must have been like to the Jewish people then and how it should feel to us today.

And while the strong shock is gone when I visit the site of the Twin Towers, the impalpable feeling of loss and destruction still remains.

It is that shock and loss that the Rabbis of the Churban try to have us remember and feel every year. And that is why they instituted such a long period of annual mourning because they (and as a result, we) were so devastated by this loss and this was their natural reaction, and they wanted it to be ours too.

It is only now that I have what to draw from, that I understand emotionally what this loss means to the Jewish people. I can now begin to grasp the enormity of something that I before took for granted because I knew of nothing else.

I have internalized, at least in part, the emotional impact and meaning of Tisha B’Av.

I can think of no other way to finish this post than with "L’shana haba b’Yerushalyim habnuya".