Annual community dairy lunch in honor of our dear son Avner’s 6th birthday!

Join us as we celebrate together. Wednesday, June 8 after services.

Shavuot marks the day we received the Torah and the day Avner was born. It is customary to eat dairy on this holiday. As milk sustains an infant so too, the words of Torah continue to sustain and bring life to the Jewish people.  

Lunch: Wednesday, June 8th 12:30pm or after services at Kol israel. Services begin at 10am.

Kindly RSVP by replying to this email so we may plan accordingly. There is no fee.

Lunch Sponsored by Avner’s parents, Rabbi Ari & Chaya Kirschenbaum.

We look forward to greeting you and sharing in our simcha.

Shavuot Eve Torah experience @ CKI

Learning on Shavuot night

On the first night of Shavuot (this year, Tuesday night, June 7), Jews throughout the world observe the centuries-old custom of conducting an all-night vigil dedicated to Torah learning and preparation for receiving the Torah anew the next morning.

One explanation for this tradition is that the Jewish people did not rise early on the day G‑d gave the Torah, and it was necessary for G‑d Himself to awaken them. To compensate for their behavior, Jews have accepted upon themselves the custom of remaining awake all night.

Join us for text based study as well as Open mic: Bring your Torah questions and open a conversation.
10:30pm -1:00am
Cong. Kol Israel 603 St Johns Pl.
Light refreshments served.

President Obama and the 1967 Borders

What Israel should do now

by: Rabbi YY Jacobson The Yeshiva.net

President Obama presented yesterday his blueprint for Mideast peace: Israel must withdraw to its pre-1967 borders. A Palestinian State needs to be created, viable and sovereign. Israel must be recognized and its security guaranteed.

I wish it was otherwise, but the words of the President demonstrate profound ignorance of the reality. Let us clarify some of the vital issues at hand, not based on illusions, but on facts.

Question:

Why can’t Israel just withdraw to its pre-1967 borders and put an end to the present conflict?

Answer:

The present conflict between Israel and the Arabs has absolutely nothing to do with the 1967 occupation. Consider the following facts:

1) The Palestinian Liberation Organization, known today as The Palestinian Authority, was founded in 1964 at a time when the “occupied territories” were under Jordanian control. There was not one Jewish settlement in the territories, nor any Jewish “occupation.” Yet the charter of the PLO from 1964 till this very day states as its goal “the destruction of Israel.” (Yes, even the present charter of the Palestinian Authority calls for the destruction of Israel.)

2) What compelled Israel in 1967 to capture the territories? Five Arab countries—Jordan, Syria, Egypt, Iraq and Lebanon joined by Saudi Arabia—contrived a plan to annihilate Israel and “drive the Jews into the sea.” Israel fought back and won the war, including the territories from which they were attacked.

Israel never sought to occupy the West Bank, East Jerusalem, the Golan Heights, or Gaza. The war which brought about the “occupation” was thrust upon Israel. Yet this crucial point is almost never conveyed in the international and American press.

Keep in mind that in 1967 the Arabs controlled 99.9 percent of the Middle East lands. Israel represented less than one-tenth of 1 percent of the land mass. But even that was too much for the Arabs. They wanted it all. No matter how many land concessions the Israelis make, it will never be enough.

3) During the summer of 2000 at Camp David, Yasser Arafat was offered by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak 98 percent of the “occupied territories” and a first time ever Palestinian state with its capital in East Jerusalem. Arafat rejected the Israeli offer and initiated 20 months of bloodshed in Israel. Arafat pocketed every Israeli concession, turned his territory into an armed camp and then launched a vicious terror war that has lasted more than three years and killed more than 1,000 Israelis.

4) In the summer of 2005, Israel withdrew completely from Gaza, which it obtained in the 1967 war. Not even on an inch of land remained under Israeli occupation. The then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon believed that with not a single Jew left in Gaza and with the Israeli occupation over, the Arabs living there would now be driven to create a functioning state, and security would increase for both sides.

Alas, the exact opposite occurred. Hamas swept into Gaza and turned it into a terrorist infrastructure, with a clear objective: to destroy Israel. The result was increased rocket attacks from unoccupied Gaza targeting Israeli civilians on a daily basis.

The widespread notion that the murder of Jews in Israel has anything to do with the “occupied territories” is a myth. The territories are merely being used as a justification to exterminate Jews and destroy their land.

Question:

Still, why can’t Israel demonstrate goodwill by putting an end to the “occupation” and declaring Palestinian statehood? This would foster hope and put an end to the psychology of violence.

Answer:

For one to demand this gesture from Israel one needs to be either foolish or cruel. It is akin to demanding that a person with cancer give his malignant tumor uncontrolled rein in one part of his body. Such a “gesture” would secure his death.

Arab terror, just like the terror we experienced on 9/11, is a cancer. The thousands of fighters in the territories are not opposing Israel’s right to a particular piece of land. They don’t recognize Israel’s right to any of the land. They do not recognize Israel’s right to exist. To make peace with cancer is an act of war; to declare war against cancer is an act of peace.

Sadly, even today, the charter of the so called moderate Palestinian Authority calls for the destruction of Israel. Every single territorial concession Israel has ever made, only increased violence, and never brought peace even an inch closer. Arabs have used the ceded territory to launch attacks on Israel and murder its civilians from closer proximity. Concessions have also demonstrated to the Arabs, that terror is effective, and if the terror continues, they will receive yet more land.

Has the education curriculum in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza been altered to start teaching children about the importance of peace and co-existence? Have the Imams during their weekly sermons in the Mosques changed their jargon exclaiming that Israel is not the face of the devil? Have Arab communities stopped naming streets and quarters after suicide bombers who murdered Israeli civilians?

Sadly, nothing of this has occurred. No one in the international community even demands it as a prerequisite for peace negotiations. While Israeli schools teach that peace is our greatest ideal, in every single Arab school without exception Israel is portrayed as the enemy of G-d which must be obliterated. With these realities unaltered, giving away more territories, removing roadblocks, ceasing construction of Jewish homes, would bring more war not peace.

The creation of a Palestinian state would be a tragedy for innocent people throughout the region, Jews and Arabs alike. You don’t give a state to people who want to see your children burned alive and your teenagers blown to pieces. Such people you destroy. If not, they will destroy you and thousands of more innocent people the world over.

The very negotiations about a “Palestinian state” are dangerous. It is these types of negotiations that have granted legitimacy to terrorists and have encouraged them to continue on their path of destruction.

How could intelligent people say, “In the end Israel will have to return to the negotiations table?” Israel has been negotiating land for peace for years now; it has given the Arabs virtual control over 90 percent of the territories. What has it brought Jews? Blood, blood and more blood. Clearly, another solution must be sought.

Question:

What about the moral injustice of occupation? How could Israel hold on to the homeland of another nation, the Palestinian nation?

Answer:

To call Israel occupiers of the West Bank and Eastern Jerusalem is akin to calling the U.S. occupiers of New Jersey.

First and foremost, the Bible—a book embraced by billions of Muslims and Christians as the word of G-d—states clearly that the entire country, including the West Bank, Gaza and Jerusalem, is G-d’s eternal gift to the Jewish people. Read the Bible and draw your own conclusion.

The American people are a moral people who bow their heads before truth. It is about time that Jews begin stating the truth without shame: “Israel is occupying nothing but its own land; the Creator and Master of the entire world gave this land to the Jews.”

Second, the entire concept of a “Palestinian people fighting for their ancient homeland occupied by the Jews,” is nothing short of a lie, a myth that has become an accepted truth in the American press.

Let us reflect on some history:

Israel became a nation in 1312 B.C.E., 2,000 years before the birth of Islam. Forty years later, in 1272 B.C.E. the Jews conquered Eretz Israel and enjoyed dominion over the land for a thousand years. Even after the Babylonians and then the Romans put an end to the Jewish sovereignty, Jews continued to reside there throughout all of their history. In short, the Jews have had a continuous presence in the land of Israel for the past 3,300 years.

What about the “Palestinian people”? Israel did not seize the West Bank and Old Jerusalem from a “Palestinian nation.” Such a nation never existed in the history of mankind. Israel captured these territories from Jordan’s King Hussein and the Gaza Strip from Egypt after they declared war against the Jewish state. It was only in 1967, following the Six-day War that Arab refugees in Israel began identifying themselves as part of a “Palestinian people.” One can’t help but wonder why all these Palestinians suddenly discovered their national identity after Israel won the war but not during the “Jordanian occupation”?

The answer to this enigma is that there has never been a land known as Palestine governed by Palestinians. Palestinians are regular Arabs, indistinguishable from Jordanians, Syrians, Lebanese, Iraqis, Egyptians, etc., who have all lived for hundreds of years under Turkish rule, and then, after World War I, under British rule. There is no language known as Palestinian. There is no distinct Palestinian culture. There is no such an entity as a “Palestinian people.”

The first time the name Palestine was used was in 70 C.E. when the Romans committed genocide against the Jews, smashed the Temple and declared the land of Israel would be no more. From then on, the Romans promised, it would be known as Palestine. This region was ruled alternately by Rome, by Islamic and Christian crusaders, by the Ottoman Empire and, after World War I, by the British.

(The name was derived from the Philistines, a Goliathian people conquered by the Jews centuries earlier. It was a way for the Romans to add insult to injury. They also tried to change the name of Jerusalem to Aelia Capitolina, but that had even less staying power.)

Mark Twain took a tour of Palestine in 1867. This is how he described that land: “A desolate country whose soil is rich enough but is given over wholly to weeds. A silent, mournful expanse. We never saw a human being on the whole route. There was hardly a tree or a shrub anywhere. Even the olive and the cactus, those fast friends of a worthless soil, had almost deserted the country.”

Where was this great Palestinian nation? It did not exist. It was not there. Palestine was a region under the control of Turkey.

Many people are unaware that Saudi Arabia was not created until 1913, Lebanon until 1920. Iraq did not exist as a nation until 1932, Syria until 1941. The borders of Jordan were established in 1946 and Kuwait in 1961. To state that Israel “robbed” the Palestinian people from their homeland is simply not true.

Question:

How can Israel justify the suffering of so many innocent Arabs in the territories?

Answer:

Every decent human heart goes out to the pain of innocent Arab children, women and men. Their suffering should evoke the compassion of all moral men. But let us be clear on the matter: Their suffering has absolutely nothing to do with Israel. Their profound agony is the result of the Arab and Palestinian leaders who have in a most cynical way used them as weapons in their bloody battle against Israel, robbing them from any prospect of a brighter future.

This abuse of the Arab refugees by their leaders began back in 1948. The refugees were encouraged by Arab leaders to leave Israel, promising to purge the land of Jews. Sixty-eight percent left their homes without ever seeing an Israeli soldier.

Out of the 100 million refugees after World War II, theirs is the only refugee group in the world that was not absorbed or integrated into their own peoples’ lands. As Prime Minister Netanyahu pointed out today in the White House, Jewish refugees were completely absorbed into Israel, a country no larger than the state of New Jersey. Yet the Arab refugees were intentionally not absorbed or integrated into the Arab lands to which they fled, despite the vast Arab territory. Why? Because cynical Arab leaders realized that the true value of the refugees was not as Arab brothers but as pawns to be used against Israel.

Question:

Much of the international community, the academia and the press condemn Israel. Many claim that Israel abused and sometimes even massacres Palestinians in the territories. Is it possible that Israel is right and the whole world is wrong?

Answer:

Let us not be ashamed to respond with clarity: You bet your life it’s possible! It is true now and it’s always been true. Abraham gave the world ethical monotheism and the whole world fought him. Moses taught the world individual freedom and universal morality and the world’s super-power was against him. Just 65 years ago the entire world watched in silence as 1.5 million Jewish children went up in smoke. Was the whole world right then, too?

Universal morality and the value of life was the Jewish gift to the world. At a time when the whole world was accustomed to slaughtering children to the pagan gods, the Jewish people, alone in a hostile world, declared the word of G-d, “Thou shall not kill.”

If we had listened to the world then, murder today would be legal. If we listen to the world now, terrorism tomorrow will become the norm.

How cynical, how cruel it is to accuse Israel of the massacre of civilian Palestinians. The entire culture of the Jewish state is based on the value of every single human life. Israel has always sacrificed its children in order to secure the safety of Arab civilians. Israel restrained itself for years in the territories despite ongoing killings of Jewish children, women and men.

In the history of the Jewish state, how many Jewish suicide bombers have blown themselves up in Arab communities?

How many Arab buses were blown up by Jews?

How many Arab pizza parlors, malls, discotheques and restaurants were destroyed by Jewish terrorists?

How many airplanes have been hijacked by Jews?

How many Ramadan feasts were targeted by Jewish bombs?

How many Arabs have been lynched in Israeli cities, or Arab Olympic athletes murdered by Jews? How many Arab embassies have been bombed by Jews?

How many mosques, cemeteries and religious schools were fire bombed or desecrated by Jews in North Africa, France, Belgium, Germany, England or any other country?

How many Jewish schools contain books claiming that Arabs poison wells, use Christian blood to bake pita, control world finance and are the work of the devil? How many claim that Arab elders meet secretly to plot a world takeover?

And now, the Arabs have the chutzpah to continuously accuse Israel of massacres! And the entire world follows suit?

Question:

The Arabs claim that they are fighting against the brutal Israeli occupation, which has stripped them from their dignity and humanity.

Answer:

It would be foolish to claim that “Israel never did any wrong” to Arabs living throughout the territories. Of course, Israel has made errors. Yet the fact remains that the Arabs living under Israeli rule enjoyed more civil rights than Arabs living in almost any Arab state. The Arab press in the West Bank has been among the liveliest and freest in the Arab world, and it routinely attacks its “occupier.”

When was the last time a Syrian, Iraqi, Libyan or Saudi publicly attacked one of his or her leaders? How is Syria treating its protesters as I write? And Iran? And Libya?

Question:

So, what is the solution to the conflict?

Answer:

As long as the status of the entire country remains ambiguous, the terror campaign against Israel will continue. As long terrorists see the opportunity to seize more land and attack Israel from closer proximity, they will not cease their agenda. Israel should stand up and put an end to the ambivalence around Jewish ownership of the land; it must stop intoxicating the terrorists. Israel must state clearly that “Until the culture and education of the entire Palestinian population does not change, there will be no more negotiations on even a single inch of the land of Israel. We have attempted to negotiate land for peace with our neighbors; we have offered them 98 percent of the territories and an independent state side-by-side with our state. Yet they have reciprocated by sending suicide bombers to our pizza shops, cafés, supermarkets and streets. They have blown to pieces hundreds of innocent Jewish men and women. One cannot give land to leaders who have taught their people to celebrate Jewish death.”

Israel should allow anybody who wishes to depart for another country to do so. Then it should go in and reclaim its permanent sovereignty over all of the territories. This will save not only countless Jewish lives, but also scores of Arab lives. It will once and for all purge the region from continuous bloodshed and terror.

Israel’s concessions due to intense world pressure were foolish. Politics superseded security; morality was defeated by fear. To demand Israel’s withdrawal from any territory is asking the Jewish State to help commit suicide. That it should get any encouragement from the United States or from its secretary of state is a disgrace

is similar to one demanding from a surgeon to stop the surgery before finishing because the sight of blood is repulsive. The short-term cover-up of the terror nests will only allow the long-term blossoming of the terror organizations.

The best way to bring about genuine peace in the Arab-Israeli war is by Israel putting an end to any future negotiations on the land. Israel must assume full security and military control over all of the territories under the united banner of a single country, Eretz Israel.

This is not an occupation. It is the land of Israel, given by G-d to the Jewish people. It is moral and just. Let’s set the record clear once and for all: This is Jewish land, not Arab land. The Arabs who wish to desist from killing Jews will enjoy cultural and religious freedom, civil rights, gender equality and freedom of expression, privileges most of them have never experienced in their own countries. Those who cannot tolerate living under a united Jewish country should be welcomed to emigrate.

All other suggested paths are merely romantic delusions that will bring continued grief to innocent Jews and Arabs. Let all Jews and people of moral standing unite and encourage Israel in its campaign to bring life and peace to all good people in the region, Jew and Arab.

10 Commandments & Ice Cream party!

On Shavuot we re-receive the Torah, and are gifted with wisdom and insight for the whole year ahead.
This is our special day, our birthday as a nation.

Shavuot is an especially important day for the children, as they were the original guarantors for the Torah and they are the future of our people.
Bring the Children & family and Celebrate! with Ice Cream and the Reading of the 10 Commandments

Wednesday, June 8
Services 10am
10 Commandments 11:00am
Lunch 12:30pm
at Cong. Kol Israel
603 St Johns Pl

Is Confession a Jewish Thing?

I distinctly remember when the idea first hit home. I was sitting at my dining-room table listening to a recording of a talk I had recently given. Boy, did I get self-conscious. For the first time in my life I was able to hear myself lecture. For once, I was hearing what the audience heard. It’s weird, observing oneself from the outside, and frankly, it can get downright disconcerting.

I found myself judging the speaker as I do any other speaker, even more severely. “Did I really say that?” I caught myself wondering. Somehow it had sounded different when I said it in my mind.

I went red a few times and even winced once. It turns out that listening to me tell a joke was not nearly as enjoyable as I’d always imagined it to be. When I found myself laughing at my quips to be polite, I knew it was time to turn me off.

Vidui
Confession is as Jewish as the Bible is (i.e., very Jewish).

“If a man or woman commits any sins against another man . . . they should confess the sin they committed [before G‑d].”—The Bible

Maimonides understands this command as a requirement for one who has sinned “to confess with one’s lips and state verbally those things [regret and repentance] which one has resolved in one’s heart.”

One thing that has always puzzled me about vidui (Jewish confession) is that this final step in the process of teshuvah—and a positive mitzvah unto itself!—seems meaningless.

What’s the point of vocalizing our thoughts of remorse to G‑d? Aren’t the thoughts and feelings deep within the recesses of our minds and hearts revealed before G‑d like an open book?

But what if the purpose of confession is not for G‑d’s sake, but for our own?

Lip Service
There are three ways to understand the function of Jewish confession.

The first is that it serves merely as a declaration of one’s feelings of repentance. We take our thoughts more seriously when they are spoken. At that point they have passed our internal security system—the filter that healthy humans put in place to screen words and sentences before they become sounds—and have been allowed entry into oral territory, where they are less retractable.

The second way to understand the function of vidui is that it serves not only to reveal or reinforce our inner thoughts, but to intensify them; for when spoken, human emotions run faster and thicker.

(It is this fact that underlies Rabbi Shalom Dov Ber of Lubavitch’srevolutionary tip for anger management: Keep silent, he advised. The spoken word adds fuels to the fire of feeling, negative or positive. Venting to a friend in the heat of anger exacerbates, rather than eliminates, negative feelings. Out of sound is out of heart.)

So in this view, a verbal confession functions not just to transport thoughts of remorse from within to without, but also to deepen those thoughts.

The third perspective is most intriguing.

Close analysis of a passage in the Sefer HaChinuch (authored by an anonymous 13th-century scholar) reveals that, in his view, vidui doesn’t just serve to express or intensify existent thoughts, but it is also a means ofcreating feelings of remorse when they are sadly nonexistent.

In his words: “Furthermore, through mentioning the sin specifically, he will feel remorseful about it.”

But how does that work?

If introspection didn’t yield remorse, how will paying lip service help?

LOL
And here’s where attending my own lecture comes in. Upon reflection, it was then that I got the concept of vidui loud and clear. It struck me that no matter how critical or “objective” we try to be of ourselves, we are blinded by self-love which, according to King Solomon, “prevents us from seeing our shortcomings.”

In other words, we go about life viewing ourselves from the inside. Through speaking out our shortcomings in vidui, however, we step into the mind (and ears) of an outsider, and only then does the severity and foolishness of our deeds hit us like a ton of bricks.

“Did I really think/say/do that?” we may wonder. “How could I have fallen so low?”

It’s like looking back at a hurtful text we sent someone a week earlier in the heat of an angry exchange. It doesn’t make sense anymore. It was harsh, petty and pointless. It’s like viewing a video of ourselves acting distastefully, or reviewing our dropdown history on the computer after wandering too far. Those are all virtual viduis.

And that’s the point of Jewish confession. It’s not spoken for G‑d to hear, and it’s not spoken to the next person for him to absolve; it is, rather, an acknowledgement to ourselves about ourselves—that sadly we lost our way, slipped into a blind spot with our judgment clouded over by a passing “spirit of folly.” But luckily, with G‑d’s help, we merited a moment of clarity just in time.

However, vidui is not a process of leaving our true and subjective selves by donning an outsider’s objective perspective; it’s the process of leaving the subjective outsider that managed to get inside us and donning the objective perspective of our true inner selves.

In sum, the power and beauty of vidui is not that we shame ourselves before others, but that we shame the migrant “other” (evil inclination) before our true selves.

P.S. On the topic of creating feelings through speech: this doesn’t only apply to feelings of remorse. It happens that we refrain from saying nice or loving things to others because we “don’t feel it,” and heaven forbid us from saying “in vain” things that make others feel good or loved. So if you suffer from this ailment of repressed feelings or misplaced sentiments of piety, try the following exercise: Just say it! Say those nice things that you would love to be feeling, and in time, you will find yourself feeling them.

Inspired by Likkutei Sichos, vol. 27, p. 207.

Lag Ba’Omer Annual BBQ Smoke Event

Save the date. Saturday eve, May 21 9:00pm

Lag B’Omer Celebration, BBQ Smoke & Zohar

Join together for the annual Lag Ba’omer celebration as we sit around the warmth of fire and discover the mystical and magical teachings of the Zohar led by Rabbi Ari Kirschenbaum.

Lag BaOmer — this year, May 22nd — is a festive day on the Jewish calendar, celebrating the anniversary of the passing of the great sage and mystic Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, author of the Zohar. It also commemorates another event. In the weeks between Passover and Shavuot, a plague raged amongst the disciples of the great sage Rabbi Akiva. On Lag Ba’Omer the dying ceased.

No reservations necessary, please feel welcome to bring friends. $10 cover please. Sponsors Welcome 347.787.0864 - info@brooklynyid.com

Location to be announced

We look forward to celebrating together.

Sale of Chometz form

בס”ד

Delegation of Power of Attorney
for Sale of Chometz

It is traditional not only to put your leavened products out of sight during Passover, but also to sell them through a Rabbi to a non-jew. This is done in order to fulfill the commandment of not owning any Chometz.

Kindly print, complete, sign and return this  form and email it to rabbiari@brooklynyid.com or fax (718.504.4019) us by Friday, April 17^th 2011.

I _________________________________ fully empower and permit Rabbi Ari Kirschenbaum to act on my behalf to sell all Chametz/ Mixtures of Chometz owned by me, as defined by the Torah and Rabbinic Law, particularly at the address/es listed below, and elsewhere. This power is in conformity with all Torah, Rabbinic and Civic laws.

Residence Address ________________________________ Apt. ______

City/State/Zip _______________________________________________

Business Address _________________________________ Suite ______

City/State/Zip _______________________________________________

Signature _______________________________ Date _______________

Must be signed by head of household, and preferably by all parties.

Best wishes for a happy, healthy and kosher Passover.

Any donations or contributions accompanying your form will be distributed to the local needy families to assist with Passover expenses.

Rabbi Ari Kirschenbaum
Director
Chabad Prospect Heights & Fort Greene

Community Passover Seder | RSVP

Join the Kirschenbaum clan & Chabad Prospect Heights & Fort Greene for a meaningful and spiritually uplifting experience as we celebrate freedom this Passover

Monday Evening, April 18th 7:00 pm At Congregation Kol Israel of Prospect Heights 603 St Johns Pl. In the heart of Brownstone Brooklyn

The First Seder: Eve of First day Passover

Monday, April 18th, 2011
Evening Service 7:15pm
Followed by candle lighting
Seder begins 8:00 pm

To RSVP please email info@brooklynyid.com or call 347.787.0864 Reservations must be made in advance. Kindly include number of reservations with names and ages of children attending as well as any special requests. Children will be served an earlier dinner.

Cover fee: $40 adult / $18 child | In the Passover spirit of “All those who are hungry, come let them eat”, no one will be turned away for lack of funds. Co-Sponsor $360

We look forward to greeting you at the Seder!
Rabbi Ari & Chaya Kirschenbaum

Shul Pesach Cleaning & Southern style BBQ Smoked Ribs & Brisket

“True happiness comes from the joy of deeds well done, the zest of creating things new.”Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Dear Friends,

The shul provides us a place to rejoice, share and spiritually connect and sometimes, it needs us to physically connect with it and it’s upkeep.

This upcoming Sunday, April 10, at 10am we would like to invite you to join us in preparing Congregation Kol Israel for Pesach. Various small forms of maintenance need to be done and with enough of us, we can get it done quickly, starting from the women’s section to the basement. If you have building tools (hammers, screws, etc.) and gentle cleaning items (brooms, paper towel, dusters, etc.), please feel free to bring them.

Thanks to Phillip Gerschel & Adam SaNoguira, we will have a meat smoker for a tasty BBQ following cleanup.

While you do NOT have to RSVP it is appreciated so they may prepare accordingly. It would also help knowing what cleaning utensils you intend on bringing so we don’t end up with 40 rolls of toilet paper and one dustpan

Sponsors Welcome

Special thanks to Mellina Paez for initiating the project.

Thank you!
Rabbi Ari Kirschenbaum

Facebook and the Third Intifada

When a Gesture for Peace is an Invitation for War

by rabbi yy jacobson | www.theyeshiva.net

One decade earlier, the Oslo peace agreements between Israel and the Palestinian Authority persuaded Israel to cede territories in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank of Jordan), obtained from Jordan in the 1967 war, to the Palestinian Authority. What was the result? Those very territories have become bastions of terror from where young Arab men and women were sent to blow up and murder as many civilians as possible. Endless rivers of blood and tears began flowing in the buses, streets, café’s, and schools of Israel.

The Facebook group calls for a third initifada to begin in May

Swept up by the momentum of the recent Facebook-powered revolutions in the Arab world, a newly formed, super-viral Palestinian group on Facebook openly advocates another Intifada (terror war) against the citizens of Israel.
The “Third Palestinian Intifada,” calls for a million supporters to join forces in a violent uprising against Israel on May 15, 2011, or Nakba Day, the date on which Arabs mourn the establishment of Israel. Previous intifadas (1987 and 2000) resulted in the murders of thousands of innocent victims through suicide bombings, rocket attacks, roadside shootings and numerous acts of terror.
The facebook page, entitled Third Palestinian Intifada, has more than 350,000 fans. Facebook has refused to remove the page. Will a Jewish young man, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, actually assist the bloodshed of his own people?
Supporters of Israel are deeply worried. On Friday night, March 12, a young Israeli family in Itamar was butchered to death. Last Wednesday, a bombing in Jerusalem killed a woman and wounded dozens. Rocket attacks from Gaza are increasing by the day. Are these barbaric acts heralding the launch of a third Intifada?
Over the last two years Israel has acquiesced to the incessant demands of the Palestinian Authority and the Obama administration that it freeze construction of Jewish neighborhoods in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, in order to promote peace. It also removed scores of roadblocks allowing Palestinians free entry into Israel cities and towns. The economy in the West Bank has been prospering. Why, then, the sudden fury against Israel?The answer is painful. Without even a single exception, every time Israel ceded territory or made security compromises to its neighbors, that territory became an infrastructure of terror, from which Arabs were sent to murder innocent Israeli civilians.
In the summer of 2005, Israel withdrew completely from Gaza, which it obtained in the 1967 war. Not even on an inch of land remained under Israeli occupation. The then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon believed that with not a single Jew left in Gaza and with the Israeli occupation over, the Arabs living there would now be driven to create a functioning state, and security would increase for both sides. Alas, the exact opposite occurred. Hamas swept into Gaza and turned it into a terrorist infrastructure, with a clear objective: to destroy Israel. The result was increased rocket attacks from unoccupied Gaza targeting Israeli civilians on a daily basis. One decade earlier, the Oslo peace agreements between Israel and the Palestinian Authority persuaded Israel to cede territories in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank of Jordan), obtained from Jordan in the 1967 war, to the Palestinian Authority. What was the result? Those very territories have become bastions of terror from where young Arab men and women were sent to blow up and murder as many civilians as possible. Endless rivers of blood and tears began flowing in the buses, streets, café’s, and schools of Israel. At Camp David, in 2000, Yasser Arafat was offered a Palestinian State with its capital in East Jerusalem, along with 100% of Gaza and 98% of the West Bank. Arafat’s response was a terror campaign that claimed the lives of thousands of his own people, in addition to thousands of dead and maimed Jews. For years Israel said to its Arab neighbors, “Let us live together.” Their consistent reply was: “Rather than live together, we will die together.” In 1947, the UN in its famous partition plan, offered the Arabs a state alongside a Jewish one. Israel accepted the offer; the Arabs rejected it.
After the Six Day War, Israel offered the return of the territories in exchange for peace and the Arab league issued its three famous No’s: No to peace, no to negotiation, and no to recognition. Why did the Arabs not, for their own benefit, accept the path of coexistence? The painful answer is that the Arab objective is not to establish the twenty-second Arab state, but to destroy the only Jewish state. Arab leaders have always craved a Palestinian state that, in their oft-repeated phrase, would “extend from the river to the sea,” i.e., from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea—all of Israel. It is not about Arab desire for more land that drives the continuous strife; it is the feeling that if Israel exists, their existence is somehow worthless. The Arab war against Israel is no more a territorial conflict than was Al Qaeda’s strike against America, and it can no more be resolved by giving away territory than anti-Americanism could be appeased by yielding New Jersey to Osama bin Laden. What has changed from 2005 to 2011 that should convince Israel that this time around it would be any different? Has the education curriculum in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza been altered to start teaching children about the importance of peace and co-existence? Have the Imams during their weekly sermons in the Mosques changed their jargon exclaiming that Israel is not the face of the devil? Have Arab communities stopped naming streets and quarters after suicide bombers who murdered Israeli civilians? Sadly, nothing of this has occurred. No one in the international community even demands it as a prerequisite for peace negotiations. While Israeli schools teach that peace is our greatest ideal, in every single Arab school without exception Israel is portrayed as the enemy of G-d which must be obliterated. With these realities unaltered, giving away more territories, removing roadblocks, ceasing construction of Jewish homes, would bring more war not peace. Two weeks ago, on March 13, the municipality in Ramallah, under the Palestinian Authority, named a new town square. It was named for the female leader of a 1978 bus hijacking in which 35 Israelis were murdered, including 13 children. Dalal al-Mughrabi, a member of the then-underground Fatah movement, led the hijacking of the bus on Israel’s Haifa-Tel Aviv highway. ”We stand here in praise of our martyrs and in loyalty to all of the martyrs of the national movement,” Fatah member Sabri Seidam said at the unveiling of a plaque showing Mughrabi cradling a rifle against a backdrop map of Israel, the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The square was festooned with Palestinian flags. The naming ceremony was conducted two days after five Israelis were stabbed to death in their home in Itamar, the victims including an infant and a four year old. What does this teach Palestinian youth about murdering Jewish babies?
For decades, the Palestinian Authority has demonized Israelis and Jews as enemies to be destroyed, vermin to be loathed, and infidels to be terrorized. Children who grow up under Palestinian rule are inundated on all sides — in school, in the mosques, on radio and TV, even in summer camps and popular music — with messages that glorify bloodshed, promote hatred, and lionize “martyrdom.’’
The toxic incitement that pervades Palestinian culture has been massively documented. What children are taught in Palestinian classrooms, Hillary Clinton said in 2007, is “to see martyrdom and armed struggle and the murder of innocent people as ideals to strive for…This propaganda is dangerous.’’
Last year Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat called the Netanyahu position at the time against freezing the construction “very unfortunate” and said he hoped the U.S. “will be able to convince the Israeli government to give peace a chance by halting settlement construction in east Jerusalem and elsewhere.” “Give peace a chance?” Israel has stretched out its neck time and time again in order to give peace a chance and it has received in return thousands of orphans. If some day the Arabs are serious about creating a democratic Palestinian State with its capital in East Jerusalem, co-existing peacefully with Israel, why are Jews not allowed to live and build homes there? What type of free democracy would it be if Jews would be banned from there? Arabs are allowed to live in all parts of Israel, but Jews are forbidden to live in parts of Palestine? How can leaders of free democracies advocate the creation of a new Palestinian State which does not allow a single Jew to live in its midst? Why can’t Jews build homes in a free Palestinian State? Unless, of course, this Palestinian State has at its core agenda the extermination of Israel. At the end of World War II, Winston Churchill quipped, “You can always rely on America to do the right thing, once it has exhausted the alternatives.” Israel, which has far fewer alternatives than the U.S., has long ago exhausted them all. How much more innocent blood needs to be spilled before we abandon the failed maps of the past? How many more children have to be blown up by suicide bombers before we pursue the only real course for peace? How many more throats have to be slashed in order to sober us up?

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