RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://frontpagemag.com/2013/davidhornik/jews-under-muslim-attack-in-europe/print/

With President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry planning to visit Israel and the Palestinian Authority next month, speculation proliferates as to whether Obama plans—once again—to push for “peace” between Israel and the PA, or has learned from his first term that such an outcome is hard to attain and still more effort in pursuit of it is not likely to be rewarded.

Meanwhile the French Jewish community reports a record rise of 58% in anti-Semitic incidents for 2012—a total of 614 compared to 389 in 2011. While seemingly not directly relevant to the question about Obama’s visit, the situation in France—and Western Europe generally—in fact tells much about the Middle East and Israel’s position in it.

Amid the general increase in anti-Semitic activity in France, then, there were almost twice as many physical attacks on Jews there in 2012 as in 2011, and 25% of those involved a weapon. Why the dramatic rise? While anti-Semitic behavior is known to burgeon during and after major Israeli military operations, 2012 saw only the eight-day-long Operation Pillar of Defense against Gaza rocket fire in November.

Yet the incidents in France started to mount well before then—after an incident on March 22. In it a French Muslim of Algerian descent named Mohamed Merah murdered four Jews in a school in Toulouse. Merah had earlier murdered three off-duty French soldiers.

Merah’s victims at the school were a 30-year-old teacher-rabbi, his six-year-old and three-year-old sons, and an eight-year-old girl whom Merah chased, grabbed by the hair, and shot in the head.

Ever since, French Jewry has been reporting a rise in attacks. The above-linked report confirms it: “After the Toulouse attack, numerous anti-Semitic acts were committed and included support or identification to Merah and his act.”

In other words, there were many for whom the school massacre was an inspirational event, evoking not condemnation but emulation.

http://www.steynonline.com/5425/every-man-a-criminal For Chris Matthews, the sob-sister sap who hosts MSNBC’s hilariously misnamed Hardball, President Obama’s inaugural address bore comparison to Lincoln at Gettysburg. Whether Lincoln would have felt the same is doubtful. “He talked about the government that we want,” enthused Chris, “which is infrastructure, education, regulation, all the good things . . .” Infrastructure? […]

http://daphneanson.blogspot.com/ Sydney lawyer and international affairs analyst David Singer’s latest article is entitled “Palestine – Backtracking Begins As Democracy Dies”. In it, he takes issue with the views recently expressed in Peter Beinart’s Daily Beast by Dr James J. Zogby, founder and president of the Arab American Institute and author of Arab Voices: What They […]

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/feb/21/when-burqas-become-accessories-to-crime/ When it comes to using female Islamic garb as an accessory to crime, Philadelphia, the city where I live, has quietly, unassumedly, become the capital of the Western world. First, a tutorial on Islamic coverings, all of which tend to be called veils in English, but which fall into three main categories. Some (the […]

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/feb/21/preserving-genetic-privacy/ Science has broken the code of human composition and can read the genetic “fingerprint” unique to each person. The forensic technique of collecting DNA raises serious privacy concerns, however, especially when government demands it with the force of law. The Supreme Court has an opportunity to safeguard this most personal of information and preserve […]

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/feb/22/why-an-education-system-to-leave-everyone-behind/ America’s educational system is leaving behind anyone who starts with disadvantages, and that is wrong. Those born in poverty already face significant challenges. For those striving to climb the ladder of success, we must fix our schools. The question then bears asking: What is the best way? Let’s start with what we’ve tried. We […]

http://www.wnd.com/2013/02/thank-joe-mccarthy-dont-demonize-him/

Diana West drubs those criticizing Ted Cruz over Senate committee behavior

Diana West is the author of “The Death of the Grown-up: How America’s Arrested Development Is Bringing Down Western Civilization,” and blogs at dianawest.net.

Freshman Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas is just the latest in a long series of public figures to be reviled for “McCarthyism” following his recent questioning of Chuck Hagel, President Obama’s nominee for secretary of defense. The response? Conservatives have rushed to defend their own against the charge. To understate the case, that’s not enough. It’s time to debunk McCarthyism itself.

No matter how much evidence vindicating the late Sen. Joe McCarthy comes out, what we call McCarthyism remains anathema in American life. Simply to utter the word is to deep-freeze debate, even thought itself. Even as we learn about the history-changing extent to which American traitors working for the Kremlin penetrated and subverted the U.S. government (including many individuals investigated by McCarthy), the unsupportable fact remains that nothing in American public life is worse than to be compared to the man best-known for his uncompromising fight against the secret, massive assault on our nation. When will we realize it’s time to make amends and honor his memory?

Liberals and conservatives alike continue to fall for the poisonous bait. Last summer, for example, Romney adviser Eric Fehrnstrom called Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s accusations that Mitt Romney hadn’t paid his taxes “baseless” and “shameless,” and compared them to so-called McCarthyism. The Hill newspaper’s write-up of Fehrnstrom’s comments perfectly sums up society’s ignorance on the issue:

Purim begins on the evening of February 23….tomorrow. It is, like so many Jewish holidays, based on our endless history of suffering and harassment, and ultimate triumph and victory. What I find endlessly amazing and comforting is how the Jews have survived centuries of unspeakable oppressions and genocide. But we are still here while other mighty empires have crumbled and disappeared. I leave the explanation of this holiday to my learned and articulate friend Yoram Ettinger whose counsel and optimism and brilliance are of the greatest value to me.

Happy Purim to all. May we enjoy and retell this story for eternity and may the people of the Land of Israel thrive and prosper in peace.

RSK

http://send.hadavars.com/index.php?action=message&l=2096&c=16353&m=14853&s=a317a26441993bdd8f740ee9a6c71bce

1. “Purimfest 1946” were the last words of Julius Streicher, the Nazi propaganda chief, as he approached the hanging gallows (Newsweek magazine, October 28, 1946, page 46). On October 16, 1946 (Jewish year 5707), ten convicted Nazi war criminals were hanged in Nuremberg. An 11th Nazi criminal, Hermann Goering, committed suicide in his cell. Julius Streicher’s library documented much interest in Purim and its relevance to enemies of the Jewish people.

According to the Scroll of Esther, King Ahasuerus allowed the Jews to defend themselves and hang Haman and his ten sons. The Talmud (Megillah 16a) claims that Haman had an 11th child, a daughter, who committed suicide following her father’s demise.

In the aftermath of the hanging of Haman and his sons, Queen Esther asked King Ahasuerus: “If it shall please His Majesty, allow the Jews who are in [the capital city] Shushan to act also tomorrow as they did today (in literary Hebrew, “tomorrow” refers sometimes to a distant future), and let Haman’s ten sons be hanged on the gallows (Esther 9:13).” Why would she request the hanging of Haman’s already hung sons? Esther’s request was interpreted as a reference to a future event which would require a similar hanging. The original Hebrew text of the Scroll of Esther – which documents the hanging of Haman’s sons – features one very large letter, ו (which equals 6 – the 6th millennium), and three very small letters, ת, ש, ז (which equal 707), referring to the year 5707 during the 6th millennium –1946/7 in the general calendar.

2. Purim’s historical background according to Prof. Israel Eldad:

*Xerxes the Great – King Ahasuerus, known for his grand and long banquets – succeeded Darius the Great. He ruled the Persian Empire (from India to Ethiopia) during 465-486BC, 150 years before the rise of Alexander the Great, who defeated the Persian Empire.

*Greece was Persia’s key opponent in its expansion towards the Mediterranean and Europe, hence the alliance between Persia and Carthage, a rival of Greece.

*Greece supported Egypt’s revolt against Persian rule, which was subdued by Persia with the help of the Jewish warriors of Yeb (in Egypt) and Carthage, which had a significant Jewish-Hebrew connection (the names of Carthage’s heroes, Hannibal and Barca, derived from the Hebrew names, Hananyah and Barak).

*Xerxes was defeated by Greece at the battle of Salamis (480 BC), but challenged Greece again in 470BC.

*According to a Greek translation of the Scroll of Esther, Haman (the Agagi) was Macedonian by orientation or by birth. Agagi could refer to Agag, the Amalekite King (who intended to annihilate the Jews) or to the Greek AegeanIslands. Haman aspired to annihilate the Jews of Persia and opposed improved relations between Xerxes and the Jews of Yeb. He led the pro-Greek and anti-Carthage faction in Persia, while Mordechai was a chief advocate for the pro-Carthage orientation.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323949404578314741758153624.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEFTSecondBucket

tp://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323949404578314741758153624.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEFTSecondBucket

From the City Journal

he American economy has had little to cheer about since the 2008 financial meltdown and the resulting recession. Recovery has been feeble, and many states continue to struggle. One bright spot in the general gloom, however, is Texas, which began shining long before 2008. Not only has Texas created jobs at a stunning rate; it has also—pace critics like the New York Times’s Paul Krugman—created lots of good jobs. Indeed, the rest of the nation could turn to the Lone Star State as a model for dynamic growth, as a close look at employment data shows.

The first thing to point out is that Texan job creation has far outpaced the national average. The number of jobs in Texas has grown by a truly impressive 31.5 percent since 1995, compared with just 12 percent nationwide, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data (see Figure One). Texas has also lapped California, an important economic rival and the only state with a larger population. The Texas employment situation after the financial crisis was far less spectacular, of course, with the number of jobs growing just 2.4 percent from 2009 through 2011. But that was still six times the anemic 0.4 percent growth rate of the overall American economy.

Illustrations by Alberto MenaThe National Establishment Time-Series (NETS) Database, which provides detailed information on job creation and loss for firms headquartered in each state, can tell us more about Texas’s employment growth. NETS data are divided into two periods—the first from 1995 to 2002, the second from 2002 to 2009. During the 2002–09 period, small businesses of fewer than ten employees were the Texas employment engine, adding nearly 800,000 new jobs; of those, about three-quarters were in firms with two to nine employees, as Figure Two indicates. Larger Texas companies—those with 500 or more employees—lost a significant number of jobs over this span, and medium-size firms likewise shrank, trends that also showed up on the national level.