The following video is the first of a several videos I will be doing about my reality living in Israel. I will discuss issues such as visiting Israel, moving to Israel, working in Israel, terrorism, wars, Jewish/Arab relations, etc.
The song in the intro is Shalom Levan Dodi by Jo Amar.
Unless you have been under a rock, by now you may have heard that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) are fighting against Hamas and various terrorist elements in Gaza. This was a long time coming, and in some ways is a bit too late. Arab terrorists in Gaza have been firing rockets at bordering Israel towns since the Israeli disengagment in 2005. It is estimated that almost 6,000 or more rockets have been fired in the last 7 years at Israeli citizens from Gaza Terrorists. About 4,000 rockets have been fired by terrorists in Gaza since the disengagement in 2005 with little or no response from Israel. Many of the terrorist fire rockets from civilian populated Arab neighborhoods, so that Israel can not easily respond.
At least 80 Israeli Air Force (IAF) aircraft, including both jets and helicopters, struck pre-selected targets in Gaza, reportedly dropping at least 100 bombs. According to Arab sources in Gaza, the death toll there is 205. Hamas sources predicted that the body count would reach 350. Among the targets was a Hamas ceremony for graduates of a paramilitary course. Gaza terror squads kept firing rockets at Israeli civilians. One of these rockets hit a home in Netivot, killing one civilian -- Beber Vaaknin, 58 -- and wounding six others.
The offensive began eight days after a six-month truce between Israel and the militants expired. The Israeli army says Palestinian militants have fired more than 300 rockets and mortars at Israeli targets over the past week, and 10 times that number over the past year.
The IDF Spokesman published the following announcement in the early evening hours:
"Since this morning, the IDF attacked dozens of targets affiliated with the Hamas terror organization in the Gaza Strip. The targets included command centers, training camps, various Hamas installations, rocket manufacturing facilities and storage warehouses. The vast majority of the casualties are terror operatives; most of whom were wearing uniform and working on behalf of terror organizations."
Israeli police say a missile from Gaza hit near the city of Ashdod in the deepest missile strike inside Israel yet. Regional police spokeswoman Sarit Philipson says she was driving home Sunday when she saw the missile hit the ground near Ashdod, about 23 miles from Gaza. In Gaza, Hamas claimed responsibility for firing the missile.
Gaza's Hamas rulers have been stockpiling weapons in recent months, including medium-range missiles. Until Sunday, the deepest targets inside Israel had been the city of Ashkelon and the town of Netivot, which are closer to Gaza.
Topsy Turvy
Just like clock work various countries, many of which have really bad human rights records, are decrying the Israeli response. Countries like Russia have a lot of nerve acting like we Israelis are in the wrong for responding. Russia recently waged war against Georgia and they somehow have the right to tell us what to do when we sustain continiued attacks from terrorists. Many of the Arab nations are decrying us, but many of them have a historical hand of involvement in the situation.
The Sudanese foreign ministry issued a statement calling for an end to the Israeli attacks that it described as "brutal raids" and saying Arab states should take a unified stand to protect the Palestinians."
Ehav's Note: The Sudanese government has a LOT of nerve with such a statement. With all they have been doing in Darfur, and no missles were fired at them.
Hamas leader Khalid Mashaal called Saturday night for a "third intifada" against Israel, speaking from Damascus following the IAF attack on Gaza earlier in the day. According to Channel 2's Arab affairs correspondent, the strategy of the terrorist group is to ignite rioting in Judea and Samaria as well as inside Israel, with the aid of the Islamic Movement.
Defense Minister Ehud Barak instructed the IDF to open the Kerem Shalom Crossing Sunday morning in order to enable international humanitarian agencies to deliver supplies into Gaza. Thirty trucks bearing medical supplies, basic food commodities and other humanitarian goods are scheduled to make their way through the crossing beginning at 11:00 a.m.
"As the prime minister said yesterday, we are not at war with the Palestinian people, but with the Hamas terrorists, and therefore we are bringing in the goods for the Palestinian people," noted IDF Major Peter Lerner, Defense Ministry Coordinator for Government Activities in the Territories."
This is a reality that has been coming for a long time. It is also the result of the no-Jew zone policy that has been the agenda of the West, most Arab nations, and even the Israeli government.
That is to say that when one says that the only way to have peace with Arabs is for Jews to be forbidden to live in lands that have always been native to Jews, these are the results. The idea of forcing Jews out of Gaza was that it would make Israel safer and it would be a step on the road to peace. The goal of this plan is to create an Arab nation called Palestine by forcing Jews out of places where Jews have always lived. Yet, Arabs can live in either Israel or in the Arab areas that they want to call Palestine. The reality is that Jewish blood has been meaningless for the last thousand years, and that must be realized by us.
In order to really understand the roots of this conflict you have to understand the history of the Jewish presense in the Middle East, and also the failures of past attempts of peace with the various Arab nations that surround us. The following links a good start here and here.
I will have more thoughts about all of this soon. For the moment I have so many emotions about all of this that I may need to make a video in order to express. So with that.....The Chronicles of Ehav Ever will cotinue.
So I have been extremely busy these last few weeks with work and more work. I have so much that I want to either write about or do a video about, but I am trying to take my time with some things. So don't worry all loyal fans of the Chronicles I have not disappeared off the face of the earth. I have simply disappeared within myself, if that makes sense.
What's Nu? Beit El!
This past weekend I took part in a ZFA (Zionist Freedom Alliance) and Qumma Shabbaton in Beit El. For those don't know, Beit El is a religiously observant Israeli town and local council in the Benjamin region of Shomron, within the borders of the Matte Binyamin Regional Council.
It is located in the hills north of Jerusalem just to the east of al-Bireh. Its Pisgat Ya'acov neighborhood has a hilltop observatory with a commanding view of the surrounding hills where one may view as far away as the Tel Aviv area and even Mount Hermon on very clear days. It has a higher elevation than Jerusalem and has cool nights in the summer. Occasionally, it snows in the winter.
In Biblical times, Bethel was the site where Jacob slept and dreamt of the angels coming up and down a ladder. In that dream, described in the Torah portion of WaYetze (Gen. 28,10 - 32,3), G-d promises Jacob the "land on which you are lying," as well as "sea-ward, eastward, northward and towards the Negev." Beit El is the 10th-largest town in Judea/Samaria, with some 5,000 residents. Beit El also has a number of small factories such as tefillin factory, a winery, metal works, carpentry shops, a bakery and others. Beit El has a large percentage of immigrants from other countries and is also home to a unique community of Bnei Menashe from Manipur and Mizoram.
Being in Beit El was a really moving experience, and gave me some time to think about many of the things going on in Israel, and in my own life. This reawakening, so to speak, began before I even arrived in Beit El.
On Friday I went to Jerusalem to pick up a few Qumma people who were visiting from America to take them to Beit El, and on the way there we ended up taking a wrong turn. That wrong turn took us right into the entrance to Ramallah.
I will do a V-Log about this, but lets just say that the "kill all the Jews"and the "Jews smell like pigs" as well as more graphic graffitti was definitely a wake up call to the reality we Israelis live in. When we were outside of Israel they once shouted at our forefathers, Jews go back to Palestine and now that we are back in Israel they shout Jews get out of Palestine. Talk about being indecisive. It has been the Jewish reality for hundreds of years that we are often blamed for the world's problem, often in weird or far-fetched ways. Needless to say we made it out of Ramallah okay.
We Need to Talk
A few weeks ago I was on the phone with my mother and she told me, "We need to talk." What did she want to talk about you ask? She wanted to discuss what will happen with her estate when the day comes when she will pass away. Okay, no problem. My mother and I have always had a really open relationship and we can talk about almost anything. There was a time where this subject was off limits for me, not because of any fear about my mother one day passing away. I am quite aware and okay to deal with the reality that this will happen one day. The major problem before was that she has a lot of land that she had intended to have me assume control over to continue in her name. Yet, when it became clear that, by the hand of Hashem (G-d), I was never leaving Israel this became a tricky topic. So now she says that she wants to make sure that she has all her affairs in order.
Pressure
Right now I am under a lot of pressure, and I sometimes feel like I need to take a moment to myself. The pressure that I face is what I call, "Everybody wants a piece of the Ehav." Whether it is at work, in my social environment, or with family stuff I feel like people want so much from me and I try my hardest not to ask anyone for anything. Maybe one of my problems is that I sometimes need to be more assertive with my "no's" or better yet "HELL NO!" I don't know, but sometimes I kind of wish that people didn't expect so much from me. Especially since I sometimes feel like if people really knew my weaknesses they would be disappointed. Not that this matters, but I have never been in a situation where I could just simple go with the flow. Often I have had to live up to some high expectations, and I sometimes don't feel like I have what it takes to meet the expectations that people have for me. It is days like this that I wish my father was still alive to talk to me and help me through the pressure. If only there was some way I could feel like my father was there for me when I face off against my greatest challenges.
Dragonball Z - Gohan Defeats Cell
Best Quote Out There From Scrubs
As I get older I really miss him, even though I don't remember him. (He passed away when I was three.) Maybe I should just do a video about this.
Well, that's all for now. I will post a video soon to kind of gather all my thoughts. Until then the Chorincles of Ehav Ever will continue.
Okay, so I decided to do another video response. This is a response to the YouTube user BaldButWigged. She did a video called Keeping Her, concerning why do men stop wooing a woman once they have married her. Her video can be found at the link here.
So below is my video response. I may have to do a part two because I had some other ideas that I didn't get to fully explore because of the YouTube 10 minute limit. Yet, I think this on some level sums up my position on why some men stop wooing their wives. Let me know what you think.
This is my first video response on YouTube. It is a response to a video titled Understanding The Male Species - Pt 3/Marriage by YouTube user BaldButWigged. I couldn't put the video in my blog, but the link to the video is here.
When I was a kid I loved hip hop. I loved it so much I did it for a number of years before I gave it up in college. I still have some love for hip-hop but only things that remind me of my path as an Israeli. That means that I predominately listen to Israeli hip-hop, or the stuff from my childhood like Whodini, Fresco and Miz, Blood of Abraham, Black By Demand, WISE Guys, Isis aka Lin-Que, MC Lyte, Chubb Rock, 3rd Base, Eric B and Rakim, etc.
So there is a rapper that I have been hearing about a lot and that is Y-Love. I have mentioned his blog before, but now I would like to present some videos about him. The following videos are Y-Love doing what he does best. He also has a blog called This is Babylon.
מתוך הרצאה של הרב אמנון יצחק , אדם חילוני מסביר שקשה לו לחזור בתשובה ולקחת עליו פתאום בבת אחת את כל ההלכות וכו'... צפו בסרטון.
For those who don't understand Hebrew this video is of Rabbi Amnon Yitzhaq. The man asking the questions is asking how he can return to Judaism when he has been secular for years. Rabbi Amnan Yitzhaq explains to him that it is as simple as making a choice, and then learning what is correct and what is incorrect behavior based on Jewish sources. He then gives the man a first step by helping him with Tzitzit.
Hochmah (חכמה) in Hebrew means wisdom and Musar (מוּסר) means ethics/discipline. A multi cultured Jewish approach to the world. My name is Ehav Ever (אהב עבר) and as an Israeli of mixed ancestry (Sephardic Jewish-Spanish, African American, Senegalese, French, etc.) I feel like I have an interesting view of issues that affect Israelis, Jews, African Americans, Americans, religious people, non-religious people, etc. all of which shine through in my adventures and misadventures through life. These are the Chronicles of Ehav Ever (הדברי הימים של אהב עבר).
It is located in the hills north of Jerusalem just to the east of al-Bireh. Its Pisgat Ya'acov neighborhood has a hilltop observatory with a commanding view of the surrounding hills where one may view as far away as the Tel Aviv area and even Mount Hermon on very clear days. It has a higher elevation than Jerusalem and has cool nights in the summer. Occasionally, it snows in the winter.
