Hilarious, really. Shas is the only political party in Israel that successfully runs under the ethnic card, playing on the rift between Ashkenazi and Mizrahi (aka Sepharadi). Their name is made of two letters in Hebrew and stands for “Shomrei Torah Sepharadim“. They openly support a very sectoral agenda, bringing up the “historic wrong” done to Jewish people of Middle Eastern origin in Israel.

Now, generally speaking, these people usually have a darker skin tone (and for the record, I’m a “mongrel”, so “these people” are also my people). In fact, back in the days, the derogative term (or one of them) used by the Ashkenazi Jews to describe them was “Schwartze” which literally means black in Yiddish. Funny, when you think about all those Ashkenazi families named Schwartz, a typical Jewish name in some countries because Jews were perceived as being darker than non-Jews back in Europe.

Back to Shas. They seem to feel close to Obama, obviously, shamelessly borrowing his “Yes, We Can” for their own needs. It’s funny because they have zero to do with any of the progressive, liberal or democratic ideas. Shas has the Torah in their name for a reason, being an ultra-religious party, supporting ideas which align with those of the far-right Christians of the US. Ideaologically, they are as far away from the US Democrats as can be. I guess they feel that one’s ethnic roots, not to mention skin color, is the key issue? Sad, really.

Dinner with Grandpa and Grandma before they took off to tour Burma for a month:

IsraeliDad was helping out with the local (municipal) elections:

Some long overdue pictures from Dan’s birthday. These are from the party we had in his kindergarten:

In the Israeli birthday tradition - the chair lifting ritual! Five times plus one for the next year:

“Mommy made me a yummy looking cake. She said it would be a train, but it looks more like a catterpillar with wheels?”

Well, at least it tasted well - IsraeliDad enjoying:

For our family birthday party, IsraeliDad was in charge of making the cake. Not a train this time, but a Ben 10 Omnitrix! Ben 10 is Dan’s favorite super hero and the Omnitrix is his watch that gives him his super powers. Here’s IsraeliDad preparing the cake:

And the result, our homemade omnitrix cake:

The birthday boy got the best gift ever - his own omnitrix! Note the Ben 10 hat too:

One last photo-op for November - Ron and Dan on a train journey to Tel Aviv.

Trainspotting in Israel:

Loud and scary:

On the train, Dan admiring the evening view and Ron working on his Soduku:

Whew, I hope your computer isn’t overloaded by now! Have a great December everyone!

We had a special market day yesterday at the kids’ school. In what was supposed to be an anti-materialistic, anti-global-marketing, pro-earth day, our school held a “Give and Take” market day (in Hebrew:  “Shook Kach Ten”). The kids were asked to bring toys, books, games and anything they no longer want or need. They then set up “stalls” where they put the merchandise on display and lively barter action began. They would spend some time sitting and getting offers from prospective buyers, and when they got tired of it, they picked up some of their stuff and moved around with it, bargain hunting around the other stalls.

Ron and Dan didn’t bring a lot of stuff. With a new cousin on the horizon here, we’re sort of keeping books, toys and games for him. We did have a few “girly” items which the boys wouldn’t touch, so I gave them those. They included a picture frame decoration kit, a long piece of pink ribbon and a bunch of colorful glass beads, strung in groups of two’s and three’s.

To be honest, I didn’t think they would do too well with those. I figured only girls will want those items, and what could these girls possibly have to offer in return?There were plenty of toys there that grabbed Ron and Dan’s attention - but how do you talk little boys to trade their dinosaurs, robots, racing cars and transformer action figures for pink ribbons and glass beads?

So, I decided to stay, and dispense some marketing lessons to my boys…

I explained about belief in your product, and talking about how wonderful it is, and about the benefits for the customer. After all, it’s not every day that you can get your hand on original glass beads from the US, in unique colors and design! And they would make a great gift for any mom or sister! And that pink ribbon, Man! It actually reflects the sun light and looks absolutely magical!

I couldn’t believe it myself. Those little beads and pieces of pink ribbon (we cut the ribbon into five pieces, for increased value ) were an absolute hit. Once marketed correctly, kids were bidding on our beads, offering their best toys for them. Who knew little boys would offer so much for a couple of glass beads?

You know, they say Native Americans sold Manhattan to the white folks for glass beads. I guess they can be extremely attractive. Ron and Dan didn’t get Manhattan, or any real estate for that matter, but they did come out with a pile of new (for them) toys:

All that said, we have this family thing with coming up with new family traditions. Obviously, an oxymoron, I’m not sure which of our “new traditions” will hold up even until next year. One such tradition that we keep talking about is a new holiday to celebrate our prehistoric ancestors. The idea is to have one day, or evening, in the year, in which we’ll live like ancient cavemen. No electiricy, no modern tools or utensils; just sleeping outside by the fire, maybe in a makeshift cave, eating whatever we can cook on an open fire (and marshmellows won’t be on the menu). We’re still working on the details for that one, including the right timing…

But I digress. This post is about my decision to use the date to add a multi-cultural touch to our dinner tonight. No turkey here, not even a super huge meal, but we will set time aside to talk about this holiday and do our own little speech giving thanks to the universe for all of the good things we have.

And on this note, I’ll end with a message to all of our American friends:

Happy Thanksgiving!

What they do is they track searches for terms like “flu symptoms” and try to outline geographic trends by the IP addresses associated with the search. I wonder what’s next… the big G is watching us all…

I remember when I was a kid, a phone call to India would have been the only way to connect. Conference calls were unheard of, and the calls were frightfully expensive. We’ve come a long way since then!

What is it about 16 people locked up in a villa for 100 days? When it was launched, I simply ignored the Israeli version of “Big Brother”. I figured it was way too stupid for me to spend time on. Then one day, sometime around day 60 or so, I turned on the TV, and there they were. I got hooked. I actually went and watched all of the previous episodes too, on VOD.

There, it’s out. You can all go on and make fun of me now. Before you do, I have some thoughts to share. Some “intellectual” insights gained from watching this show.

One of the major issues on the show is a supposed Ashkenazi/Sepharadi rift. Actually, I’m using the word “Sepharadi” for the benefit of English speakers. The current term for Jewish people of Middle East origins is Mizrahi (literally: Easterners). In the villa, you have Yossi Booblil and his daugher Einav Booblil, evoking this issue again and again, with them being “The Mizrahim” and supposedly suffering from the condescendence of the Ashkenazi players.

Yossi Booblil

The Booblils (aren’t we lucky it’s not “Lilboobs?”) are of North African origins (Yossi having a distinct Lybian accent). His daughter is the one complaining of being looked down at by players such as Shifra Kornfeld (typical Ashkenazi name) and Tzabar Gadish.

Shifra Cornfeld

This is actually quite an interesting topic, which uncovers a the cultural pychosis inherent in the Israeli national character. The Western liberal “European” cultural streak, contrasted by the Eastern conservative “Arab” one.

Interestingly, I think Booblil’s complaint reflects something that I have heard before from some Arab participants on boards. Many of them are saying that Israel brings something that is culturally foreign to the region. That these “Jews from Europe” don’t want to become part of the Middle East, but rather to bring in a culture that is not local and can’t be tolerated here. They have a point, in a way - both the Booblil’s of Israel and the Arabs. There is a definite part in Israel which does not want to blend in the Middle East, that wants to retain its affinity to Western culture, to liberal values, to European mannerism and behavior codes, if you like.

Here’s another interesting fact. Being Asheknazi or Mizrahi, as this show clearly shows, has very little to do with your “genetic” heritage. Despite Booblil Jr.’s complaints, Shifra, Tzabar and Leon (Schinerovsky - can’t get any more Ashkenazi than that in name!) have aligned with Shai Sheetrit (clearly of North African descent) and with the Arab player, Ranin too. The show’s “rich bitch” who was totally “Ashkenazi” in behavior and in who she hooked up with - was Keren Hasis (Morrocan name there, again). It’s a mixed world out there, and while there is a clear cultural distinction, it really doesn’t necessarily correlate to people’s actual origins.  Or as Einav Booblil said it so well: “Even the Arab they brought into the show is an Ashkenazi”

On a more positive note, and a more personal one too, being a mongrel myself (of Tunisian origin from Mom’s side and Polish from Dad’s side), I think that there is a certain blend of both culture always going on. The Ashkenazi today - using this in the cultural sense, again - are not as European or Western as they’d like to think. The Mizrahi are not as hardcore Middle Eastern or as conservative as they were a couple of generations ago. There is a unique blend constantly being created in our little melting pot. It’s happening not only in Israel, but in Lebanon too, and to some extent in some groups in Egypt and Jordan as well as among the Palestinians. I imagine it may be happening elsewhere in the Middle East as well. This new sub-culture, with its free-spirited, liberal, democratic values may just be the key to a peaceful and prosperous Middle East in the future. Inshalla.

Every once in a while, I get one of these frantic virus warnings from a thoughtful friend or relative:

Hi All,  this has been checked with Norton Anti-Virus, and they are gearing up for this virus! and it is for real!!
Get this E-mail message sent around to your contacts ASAP.
PLEASE FORWARD THIS WARNING AMONG FRIENDS, FAMILY AND
CONTACTS!

This alarming message is followed by a description of “the latest” virus around.

This comes from people I love and care for, and I usually take the time and email back to explain. I figured I’d put it all in a post for a change, for easy reference. So here’s the bottom line:

You should never forward virus warnings to “friends, family and contacts”.

It’s not only useless, it’s actually a form of manual mail virus that you are distributing. Don’t worry, it’s not going to harm anyone’s computer. What it does instead is load up email servers around the globe with useless emails, sent over and over again by caring individuals. Like a virus, these emails mutliply exponentially and create a burden to servers and recepients alike.

Here is why these warnings are pointless:

New computer viruses are constantly written and released into cyber space. Some may be more successful and spread more quickly while others are more limited. The point is, you can’t keep track in your head of every new virus (not to mention “old” ones which never completely die out). For that reason, it doesn’t make any sense to inform people of a specific virus.

Are these warning emails harmful?

Yes, they are. Not only do they clog up servers and take up everyone’s valuable time, they also get forwarded to huge mailing lists when caring recipients forward them to their entire list of contacts. Almost always, these emails are open for all to see, and are preserved in the body of the email, as the next recipient forwards it on. I sometimes get these warnings with thousands of personal email addresses tagging along together in cyberspace. I don’t mean to sound paranoid, but these lists are like candy for spammers who can harvest them and add those emails to their nasty reservoirs.

In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if some spammers start these chain letters, hoping to to harvest a few thousands of valid email addresses this way. It’s just a conspiracy theory, of course. I’d like to believe that the majority of these warnings are actually spawned by caring individuals. Either way, they create a huge collection of valid emails surfing around the net creating, at the very least, a privacy issue for all concerned.

What can you do?

It’s simple really. Follow simple safety rules when it comes to using your computer and forget about the viruses altogether. It’s not worth worrying about, as long as you maintain a basic anti-virus routine. Here are the two golden rules, offered as friendly advice:

1. Always run an up-to-date version of a good anti-virus program. Have your anti-virus software check for updates at least on a daily basis. Run full scans of your system every few days - just in case.

2. Never ever open email attachments unless you’ve been expecting them. Even if they show up as being sent from a friend or relative, it could still be a virus pretending to be the latest cool powerpoint presentation or PDF file. DO NOT OPEN IT. It’s that simple.

Follow these two rules and you are pretty much covered: Anything that you get in a warning chain-letter kind of an email becomes redundant. After all, all these emails will tell you is to update your Anti-Virus software and not to open attachments.

There is more you can do to protect yourself from cyber-threats. If you really want to dive into it all, check out this page by Symantec (the makers of the famous Norton Anti-Virus):

http://www.symantec.com/norton/security_response/index.jsp

Click on the items in the navigation menu to the left there and you too can become an expert on internet security.

Hopefully, if you took the time to read my humble post here, you won’t be forwarding virus warning emails to “your friends, relatives and contacts” ever again. For myself, from now on, when I receive one, I am going to send them back a link to this page. Hopefully, you’ll do the same The key here is education, and if we can teach people not to forward these warnings, we’ll help destroy this form of human-powered viral contamination of the web.

The link directly to this post is:

http://www.israelimom.org/general/209/virus-warning.html

In case you want to help spread the word - thank you!

We had a small birthday party at his kindergarten yesterday morning, with games for the kids, songs, a cake and all that. Then today, we had a small get-together for the family. It was just grandparents (the ones currently in the country, anyway), IsraeliDad’s brother and his wife, my brother and his wife and two daughters and my sister.  It was a nice intimate breakfast/brunch outside, followed by a cake decorated with a homemade Omnitrix (IsraeliDad’s special design) and lots of presents.

We were worried it may rain, as we have to hold such family meetings outdoors (our home is way too small). Fortunately, it was a glorious day. Just beautiful. In fact, I had a great time just driving along to bring my Mom, Grandpa and sister over here. Nature was putting on a lovely autumn morning display.

Not only did someone hang a large pale moon up in the bright blue sky, but there were also large flocks of white and black storks flying in the sky along the beach. Clearly visible from the road, they looked like they were dancing in huge circles, up and down and into each other. Just beautiful. Made me feel sorry everytime the traffic lights changed back to green.

I didn’t take this picture - was too busy driving - but this picture from the website of the Society for Protection of Nature in Israel shows you what they look like. Multiple this by about 100, and imagine them gliding through the sky in huge circles. I found a video of storks over the Karmel ridge which is not far from where I spotted mine this morning. It’s blurry, but it might give you a sense of the sheer size of these majestic flocks.

I’ll post some pictures from Dan’s birthday parties later on - still haven’t downloaded them from the camera.

It’s Election Day here in Israel today. Just for the local municipalities, thankfully, but still quite the festival. IsraeliDad has volunteered to help our candidate, so he’s there “in the field” from dawn till who knows when. For me, after a long day with the kids, it’s time to tune in to Big Brother - the Israeli version. Yeah, I’m shallow. Sue me.