Ima 2 Eight

Apparently Palestinian Authority’s Mahmoud Abbas is publicly complaining about Israel acting like a democracy.  This story seems Onion-like in its absurdity. http://www.israeltoday.co.il/default.aspx?tabid=178&nid=21143.

Tzedek-Tzedek is a powerful blog that confronts really difficult issues Israel faces today. I appreciate the writing as well as the courage of the topics.  I think this piece, about fires recently started in Israel, is a disturbing and important one, but I always wonder about giving more publicity to shameful behavior in the religious Jewish world.  http://tzedek-tzedek.blogspot.com/2010/05/grave-and-burning-issue.html. This would be a sad, sad example of Abbas getting his way. Our democracy not at work.

According to this one source, Obama is losing his ground with American Jewish voters.  http://www.jpost.com/International/Article.aspx?id=176051. The article juxtaposes two polls to suggest that the shift in support is due to the shift in support for Obama’s Middle East policies. I don’t believe there has been a dramatic transformation, and that suddenly Israel has become a primary reason for US Jewish votes for either party. So I wonder how much of the shift really has anything to do with Israel, and if as little as I suspect, then why the shift?  Is it sadly just “the economy, stupid”?

On a much lighter note, I resisted watching this youtube video when my friends all posted it. Then I watched it. And then I posted it on twitter and facebook. So if any of you haven’t gotten it yet, or resisted it like me, please watch. A young mother from Kansas City and her husband went looking for “truth” while in Kansas City, and found Judaism. Then on vacation in Israel, she felt it was a safer place to raise her kids than the violent streets of her former home.  The cynic in me is pretty sure the story is being played up more than a little for the ratings of Israel’s American Idol, “Kochav Nolad”. But it is still a feel-good story. Here is my question: if American Jews had to live in worse neighborhoods would they finally learn how safe and peaceful Israel is for children too?

Lastly, I want to make a shameless plug for Natural Jewish Parenting. Not the philosophy, the magazine and web site. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do. Apparently there are a bunch of us “freaks” out there, scattered in each community…