tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-58681982011-04-22T02:11:18.459+03:00The View from the Jezreel Valley Thoughts, articles, opinions and essays from an American immigrant to Israel.
by Joseph YudinJoehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13726362635289672499noreply@blogger.comBlogger191100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5868198.post-1098299406061386752004-10-20T21:09:00.000+02:002004-10-20T21:10:06.063+02:00Rationalizations
I spoke with an old friend yesterday who is an ardent Zionist albeit one who lives in the States. He is a leader amongst liberal Jewish democrats of the eastern seaboard and I am sure his thinking is a good barometer to what other north-eastern Jewish democrats are thinking at the moment. “So who are you voting for?” he asked. I thought the question was a little absurd.
“Bush ofJoehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13726362635289672499noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5868198.post-1097666693888471532004-10-13T13:24:00.000+02:002004-10-13T13:24:53.890+02:00Target Practice
It’s dangerous being a Jew these days and in many cases much more dangerous being an Israeli. Today if you are a Jew you are a target around the world. In the past few years Jewish sites have been bombed on a regular basis, and individual Jews have been violently attacked. Whether in South America, Europe, Asia or Africa, Jews are not safe. We saw the Jewish community center in Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13726362635289672499noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5868198.post-1094762416483446172004-09-09T23:39:00.000+03:002004-09-09T23:40:16.483+03:00Acting on Impulse
I was seething mad, but I couldn’t show it. Here I was in Jaffa guiding a family of tourists and I could sense the dismal mood of the shop keepers. I thought it was due to the lack of tourists but that wasn’t so. As I walked by a gift shop, their radio was blaring the sad news: there had been twin homicide bombings on two Beersheva public buses just minutes before. We would Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13726362635289672499noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5868198.post-1091481642931535052004-08-03T00:19:00.000+03:002004-08-03T00:21:22.913+03:00Destroying the Jezreel Valley
I was riding my mountain bike today through my backyard and I took the time to appreciate my surroundings. My backyard happens to be one of the least developed areas of Israel: the Jezreel Valley. I love it here. I love the fresh air, the rolling hills off in the distance, and most off all I like to listen to the quiet. Its not your average ordinary quite. Its the Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13726362635289672499noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5868198.post-1088436671189975612004-06-28T18:30:00.000+03:002004-06-28T18:31:58.946+03:00How Much Longer?
Yasser Arafat is condoning and encouraging the murder of our children and we ( as in you who are reading this and me) are letting him get away with it. War sucks. That’s right it sucks. I would use even harsher language if I thought it would get printed so let’s stick with the adjective “sucks”. I think most civilized people try to stay out of war because they realize that it Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13726362635289672499noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5868198.post-1085005694898578732004-05-20T01:28:00.000+03:002004-05-22T19:04:34.490+03:00Another Day Another Bus Ride
I wake at zero-five hundred and I usually take about a half an hour to get ready for the day before making myself a cup of powerful coffee (that we in Israel simply call “mud”) and read a few headlines off the Jerusalem Post website. This morning an article caught my eye entitled “Israeli Arab planned attacks”. Apparently a certain Basel Mahajneh, a 19 year old fromJoehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13726362635289672499noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5868198.post-1081110348177115362004-04-04T22:25:00.000+02:002004-04-04T22:29:31.186+02:00Let it Fall
The first time people started yelling and screaming that the Temple Mount was in danger of collapse was when Bibi Netanyahu was Prime Minister back in 1996. He had authorized the opening of the Western Wall tunnels that ran along the entire western side of the Temple Mount and ended in the Moslem Quarter. The Palestinian Authority began disseminating propaganda that “the Jews” where Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13726362635289672499noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5868198.post-1080156238126698322004-03-24T21:23:00.000+02:002004-03-24T21:27:25.873+02:00The Problem Is Not Palestine
Every time a European or American leader declares that the problem here in Israel and the disputed territories needs to be resolved peacefully with negotiations according to the “Roadmap,” they are doing a disservice to both the Palestinian and Israeli people. Every time a reporter highlights Israel and Palestine as the most important problem to be solved in the Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13726362635289672499noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5868198.post-1077785967245087722004-02-26T10:59:00.000+02:002004-02-26T11:08:44.653+02:00Sweet Dreams Mr. President
The presidency of George W. Bush seems vulnerable right now, and the major reason for this seems to be the issue of weapons of mass destruction - more precisely the apparent lack of same - in Iraq.
The left-leaning media attack the president on this issue daily, as they should in a healthy democracy, and most Democrats in this election year are doing the same. There Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13726362635289672499noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5868198.post-1076272926771435072004-02-08T22:42:00.000+02:002004-02-08T22:44:48.263+02:00Birthright
I had the honor of guiding a group of college students from North America for the last 10 days here in Israel. It seemed miraculous to me, watching the metamorphosis from wild, partying, and typically uninterested youth to caring, aware, and involved Jewish young adults. Believe it or not, those 10 days have made a world of a difference in the lives of many of those students.
When I Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13726362635289672499noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5868198.post-1071006041797505752003-12-09T23:40:00.000+02:002003-12-09T23:40:53.566+02:00Fences & Neighbors
Last week two terrorists armed with suicide bomb-belts and grenades were captured trying to cross into Israel from the West Bank at a place where there still is no security fence, wall or barrier. They were on their way to blow themselves up at a junior high school in the city of Yokneam just 15 minutes from where I live. One of the terrorists was from Zbuba, a small Arab Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13726362635289672499noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5868198.post-1070300297570885302003-12-01T19:38:00.000+02:002003-12-06T19:45:33.770+02:00Tour of Duty
This past reserve duty was the hardest that I can recall. At thirty-five years of age I am now one of an elite group of soldiers in my platoon who are closer to the age of “retirement” from army service than those who are closer to the beginning of their stint in the reserves. Most of the guys are in their twenties. For about a third of the platoon, this was actually only the Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13726362635289672499noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5868198.post-1067073322025395662003-10-25T11:15:00.000+02:002003-10-25T11:33:21.800+02:00Duty Calls
It used to be fun. That was the first thing I thought when I received my reserve duty call up orders last month. Yes when I was in my twenties I would actually look forward to the olive drab uniforms, the dessert hummer exercises, the endless field training of the latest weaponry and I would even be anxious to get out onto the “frontlines” whether it be in Lebanon, Shechem (Nablus) orJoehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13726362635289672499noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5868198.post-1066518732702191382003-10-19T01:12:00.000+02:002003-10-19T01:58:11.656+02:00The Week in Review
Let’s take a look at what’s happened in the last week shall we?
I’ll begin on the home front. Israel had intelligence information that Palestinians were smuggling shoulder launched anti-aircraft missiles through tunnels from Egypt into the Gaza Strip. These weapons are useless against Israeli military aircraft but they may be able to bring down commercial airliners. The IDF Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13726362635289672499noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5868198.post-1065533155371523042003-10-07T15:25:00.000+02:002003-10-10T10:51:35.530+02:00It’s About Time
Two days after another terrorist bombing in a crowded Haifa restaurant murdering 20 including half a dozen children, and a day after Yom Kippur, I went to the Jerusalem Post website and read about our bombing of a terrorist camp in Syria within earshot of the capital Damascus. “It’s about time.” I said aloud. It’s about time Israel took off its gloves and hit those responsible Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13726362635289672499noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5868198.post-1064877417436719302003-09-30T02:16:00.000+03:002003-09-30T09:24:14.876+03:00Yom Kippur on the Moshav
The Day of Atonement, or Yom Kippur, takes on a particularly unique significance here in Israel. Every year all members of my moshav fast. No electricity is used, no fire is lit and the roads are blocked off so even those who do drive (and there are not many) will not disturb the tranquility of the agricultural community here in the Jezreel Valley. Radios are left on butJoehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13726362635289672499noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5868198.post-1064789314910975042003-09-29T01:48:00.000+03:002003-09-29T02:01:58.603+03:00The Reason for Terror
According to reliable Palestinian and Israeli polls, most Palestinians justify their purposeful killings of Israeli civilians as a response to Israeli settlement policy and the “occupation” in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Think about it. Palestinians and their supporters are saying that it is not only fine to kill Israeli babies in retaliation for “the settlements” and Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13726362635289672499noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5868198.post-1064788739443408752003-09-29T01:38:00.000+03:002003-09-30T09:29:50.776+03:00Sunday, September 28, 2003
Life in Arabia
According to various United Nations reports one out of every four children on average in the Arab states, a total of about 10 million children, do not attend school. Did you know that 50 per cent of all women and 30 percent of the men in the Arab nations are illiterate? Or that the average life expectancy among the Arab states is age 63 and one half, Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13726362635289672499noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5868198.post-10646881227700422003-09-27T21:42:00.000+03:002003-09-28T14:06:32.486+03:00Wake Up Calls
August started out promising. The “Hudna” or tactical & temporary cease-fire between Palestinian terrorist groups had diminished (but not completely stopped) the intentional murders by Palestinians of Israeli civilians. Former Palestinian Prime Minister Abbas was consolidating his powers, walking tall and talking a big game. Finance Minister Bibi Netanyahu pushed through a new Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13726362635289672499noreply@blogger.com0