Here in Highland Park, New Jersey

I feel fortunate: I live in a great area. Many Jews (and other ethnic groups) have reported great difficulties in their areas. Trouble spots include Yemen, Mumbai, and most recently, Venezuela.

Some links:

• Baila: Venezuela, Venezuela on My Mind
• Gail: Trouble in Venezuela
• Vandalism of Jewish Cemeteries in Greece
• Iceland Protest: Jews are Not Welcome
• Yemeni Children Assaulted Over Gaza
• Our Community Will Not Survive: Mandaean in Iraq
  “Historically it is said that we are Jews originally and we came from Israel 2,000 years ago…At least you have Israel, but we don’t have that backbone to keep us safe, our country Iraq has been taken from us, hijacked by those extremists.”

Mom in Israel just posted pictures of Israelis treating Palestinians. She translates the accompanying text:

Pictures of Israeli soldiers rescuing Palestinians from a tunnel (used for smuggling weapons) in Gaza.
In the most moral army in the world, instead of blowing up the tunnel, they [the soldiers] rescue the one who is trying to kill you.
After smuggling weapons they [the Palestinians] receive:
Medical care, blankets, a cup of tea.

Read the whole thing.

What is a hilul Hashem? Bernard Madoff.
(or you can read Therapydoc’s interpretation – the trench coat and the boys is a good analogy for doing the right thing)

Among the many philantropies that have suffered losses because of this guy’s schemes are Yeshiva University (which my husband and father attended), Maimonides School in Brookline, MA (which I attended for twelve years), Ramaz, SAR Academy, The Robert I. Lappin Foundation, Chais Family Foundation, the Gift of Life Foundation, a Jewish bone marrow registry, Yad Sarah … the list goes on.

A bit on Yad Sarah:

Yad Sarah, the largest voluntary organization in Israel, provides a spectrum of free or nominal cost services designed to make life easier for sick, disabled and elderly people and their families.

JTA article on Madoff Scandal
Jeffrey Woolf Heartbreak: Madoff Fallout

Our rabbi is glad the Ponzi scheme is not named after Madoff, even though Madoff ripped off many more than the original Ponzi. In a Ponzi scheme, you reward the first investor by giving them money from the second investor…until the whole thing collapses.

In a search for something positive to say, Tzvee Zahavy writes about driving Rav Soloveitchik in the early seventies:

During one such drive around 1971, with some concern I inquired about what the Rav thought about the serious financial crisis of that time that YU faced. I was surprised to hear both the certainty and the flavor of the Rav’s response to me. He said: “The Yeshiva has survived many serious financial crises for many years and I am sure it will survive many more serious financial crises for many more years.”

(Hat tip: Rebbetzin’s Husband)

I would prefer just to be writing about the sunset my daughter and I saw on Raritan Avenue in Highland Park earlier this week. When we got into the car and I took my camera, she made me promise not to photograph any flowers on our trip. But she didn’t say anything about sunsets.

Unfortunately, there is too much urban drama going on in the home city of photo blogger magiceye. As I type this post, I am wondering about the safety of the Chabad rabbi and his wife, trapped by terrorists in the Nariman house in Mumbai. (Update: Chabad Rabbi and his wife in Nariman house reported killedtortured and then murdered, and more than 125 too many reported dead in Mumbai). Thank you to Dina in Jerusalem for posting about this. To use Twitter for updates, go to http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23mumbai or click http://hashtags.org/tag/mumbai/. For updates on Chabad, http://search.twitter.com/search?q=nariman (Nariman is the name of the Chabad house in Mumbai).

An upsetting post about the Taj by an eyewitness

In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I’ll say I’m thankful that there is an America.

For more Skywatch participants, please visit:

Received in a synagogue announcement late last night:

This Thursday, September 25 at 7:30 there will be a rally at the corner
of 3rd & Raritan Avenues. The purpose of the rally is to express our
disappointment that the Mennonite Central Committee, the parent
organization of the 10 Thousand Villages store, is hosting the
president of Iran for dinner while he is in New York, and to protest
Ahmadinejad’s calls for genocide against Israel.

Ahmadinejad is basically a modern day Haman. He has threatened to destroy Israel and has held a Holocaust-denial conference. One of the hosts is someone named Penny Pritzker. I’ll let you do the research.

Disturbing news from Lithuania

I was alerted to this news by a JTA article in our local newspaper The Jewish State. The JTA article was written by Rokhl Rachael Kafrissen. Here’s Rachael’s blog.