Opuscula Trumpl promises To move embassy To Israel’s capital

IN AN EFFORT TO WIN Jewish (but not necessarily liberal) votes, presidential candidate after candidate promised to move the U.S. embassy – now in Tel Aviv – to Israel’s capital, Jerusalem.

The U.S. congress, in 1995 !, passed the Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995.

According to The American Thinker, in an article dated June 8, 2015,

This past Wednesday, despite the Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995 and the will of the current Congress, President Obama joined the ranks of previous feckless administrations refusing to move the American Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

In all fairness to Obama, from Clinton onward, this law, which unambiguously gives full U.S. recognition of Jerusalem as the undivided capital of Israel, has been skirted by presidential order under the guise of national security interests.

NOW, the headline reads Trump pledges to recognize Jerusalem as united capital of Israel.

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump told Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu that if elected president, he would recognize Jerusalem as the “undivided capital” of Israel, ending a long-standing US policy whih has kept the American embassy in Tel Aviv

If elected, will he or won’t he?

Candidate Clinton has suggested Jerusalem should be recognized as Israel’s capital, but her husband Bill (“I did not have sex with that woman”) made the same noises, but, according to a BBC article titled Hillary in Jerusalem controversy

  

Hillary, when she was seeking the Democratic nomination for the Senate seat for New York, told a Jewish leader that she considered Jerusalem to be the "eternal and indivisible capital of Israel".

  

She also said she believed the US embassy in Israel should be moved to Jerusalem from its present location in Tel Aviv.

  

Mrs. Clinton was replying to a letter from Mandell Ganchrow, president of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America.

  

In 1992, Mr. Clinton campaigned for the presidency on a promise to move the embassy from Tel Aviv, but he has disappointed the Israeli lobby by not fulfilling that pledge.

  

He has since blocked a 1995 law that authorized relocation, citing the danger of undermining final status negotiations on the sovereignty of Jerusalem, as well as threats to US security.

Could, should anything different be expected of Mrs. Clinton given her email, Benghazi, and financial scandals, and her seemingly mixed opinions about Israel and the so-called Palestinians?

Certainly moving the embassy to the nation’s capital would have NO impact on any “peace” negations with the so-called Palestinian Authority (PA); leaving the embassy in Tel Aviv has done nothing to being the PA to the table. But then neither did the Rabin-Peres sellout of Israel at Oslo, Norway. They – and the late PLO terrorists Yasser Arafat – were given the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994 for a peace that never happened.

The question for single-issue voters who focus on Israel is simple:

DO THE CANDIDATES TELL ONE GROUP ONE THING AND THE OPPOSITE THING TO ANOTHER GROUP, must as the Muslims say one thing in English for world consumption and another in Arabic (or Farsi) for their own populace?

U.S. politicians don’t have a corner on the “tell them what they want to hear then do something else” market. Most party leaders in Israel are no better.

Once elected we are “stuck” with the new president for at least four years; typically 8 years unless a president is utterly bad (one-term Jimmy Carter comes to mind).

Effective presidents work with Congress, even when Congress is in the hands of the other party. The incumbent has antagonized Congress and, with help from the GOP, has polarized the nation to a degree last seen when Lincoln was president.

People who want the U.S. embassy in the capital must feel akin to Charlie and the MTA.

Opuscula Haridim harass Datee soldier Who protects them

PROVING ONCE AGAIN that, like haridim around the world, they are willing to take while – like the “good Jews" they aren’t – denigrating and harassing those who provide for them, the “good Jews" of the Zichron Moshe neighborhood of Jerusalem prevented a Jewish soldier from praying with a minyan.

May this congregation never make another minyan.

The soldier was datee (religious), and for that reason alone, the “good Jews” of Zichron Moshe harassed him to the point he had to pack up his tallit and tefillin and leave.

According to the Israel National News in an article headlined Radicals target haredi soldier in synagogue,

The soldier, who showed up at the ‘shteiblach’ [small synagogues with multiple prayer groups around the clock] in the Zichron Moshe neighborhood in the capital, was targeted by a group of locals who shouted at him, calling him a “hardak” – a portmanteau of haredi and haydak (bacteria) – and demanding he leave the area.

After enduring the verbal abuse, the soldier gave up and left the building.

TO BE FAIR not all haridim behave as badly as the “good Jews” of Zichron Moshe*. Some learn at hesder yeshivot that combine yeshiva studies with military service.

 *   Zichron Moshe = Remember Moses (rabanu), the man who led the Israelites in the wars in the wilderness.

Opuscula Use drones To check Eruv wires

EVERY FRIDAY AFTERNOON and afternoons before haggim, if a community has an eruv, someone has to check that the wire demarking the eruv is in place and not broken.

It’s a time consuming pain in the neck for the people who assure the eruv is still up and not just some wires dangling from a pole.

Yes, I know, some eruvs take advantage of natural borders or permanent man-made walls, but for most communities, at least part of the eruv consists of wire strung from utility poles.

THE “PAIN IN THE NECK” eruv check may soon be a thing of the past, at least for “modern” observant Jews.

An article in USA Today titled Utilities' drone plans cleared for takeoff tells how the feds are making rules authorizing use of drones for commercial purposes.

Drone prices, as all things “technology,” are falling, A search of the Web will confirm that many drones cost less than US$500, well within most congregations’ budgets.

One drone that would be suitable for checking an eruv is the Hubsan X4 Brushless FPV Quad. Unfortunately, as this is keyed, the drone is listed for US$300 on Amazon.

What’s so interesting about Hubson? Several things that should be important to the eruv manager. The “basic” specs:

• Camera: 1080 pixel HD
• Time in air: 20 minutes
• Video: Live
• Charge time: 35 minutes

The handicap is that the controller must be within 1000 feet of the drone. The blurb does not mention what impact tall buildings and inclement weather (e.g., rain, snow) have on the controller’s range.

Another contender, the Parrot Bebop Quadcopter Drone with Sky Controller Bundle (from US$290) apparently has a controller range of about a mile and includes a GPS homing feature that may - or may not – mean that the person flying the device could launch it from Point A and have it return to Point A without having to follow it around the eruv. The drawback to this unit is its air time – a brief 10 minutes on a 90 minute charge. If the eruv is small, not a problem, but if the eruv is very large . . .

Check with the techies in the congregation and ask them to investigate the drone option. It may not be viable for one congregation but it could be just the thing for another.If multiple congregations reside within a common eruv, the cost of the drone could be shared.