You Can Chose Your Friends But You Can't Chose Your Co-Religionists

It's been a while. I wanted the first post of 2018 to be memorable. Unfortunately you are just going to have to make due with this one. I can tell you that the last month has been very interesting. On the personal level, I was able to convince everyone that the name Saba did not fit me. My wife came up with a good alternative and from now on I will be known as Grumps. I actually like it as I think it matches my personality.

The babies are doing well. The boy still does not have a name. On Sunday we are doing a Brit/Pidyon and Simchat Bat and he will finally get his moniker . For now I call him Baby Boy. I was calling him BB until it was pointed out that not everyone is a fan of the prime minister. Funny thing is, that never crossed my mind.

My granddaughters name is Shaked Ester or Shakedelah. This is a tradition from my dad. He liked to add the elah to every name. I tried to mess him up by calling our eldest Ayelet. He figured it out anyway and called her  Yalelah.

Both babies are getting bigger and fatter by the day. They now look like humans, albeit like very tiny humans. It is strange to see your Ivy League educated daughter turned into a dairy farm but life is strange that way, isn't it.

Both kids have taken to parenthood. This sounds obvious but my daughter really doesn't like kids. My wife said she would like her own but I had my doubts. Watching her look lovingly at her children is both heartwarming and astonishing.

I know most of your don't really care about family updates so I will keep them shorter in the future. Now on to the real stuff.

A few interesting incidents over the last few weeks that I want to comment on. None directly connected but all really of the same ilk  ( you will see what I mean).

Two haredi boys were accosted by arabs at the Silwan a few weeks ago. They were made to say Hamas is great and allah is g-d. A horrible story in and of itself but I was wondering who they were expecting to help them. Would they call the army, which they accost in their neighborhoods weekly. Perhaps the police, who they call Nazi's . What I really couldn't understand is why, if these boys where on the way to the mikva, didn't their prayers work. Perhaps they were not sincere. Who knows, I am not one to judge.

This was followed up by the attack on a soldier in Beit Shemesh. Hariedim saw him, in his car and in uniform. They started to pelt it with garbage. There was so much of it that he could not see where he was going. He collided with a pole and totaled his car. Fortunately he is OK. A good blog was written on the tragedy of this story http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/we-are-not-the-same-people-anymore/If you can, read it . It gets to one of the main issues of this phenomenon, that there is a whole group of people who are educated, from a very young age, to think they are the only Jews who count.  I made some comments which you my find interesting.

Finally we have the Shas Rabbi who called on Yeshiva Boys ( presumably modern orthodox as most of the haredim don't serve) to refuse to serve in any unit in the army which is co-ed. This is 95% of the units. This is a desperate plea by people knowing they are fighting a losing battle. Last year more Orthodox girls signed up for the army ( as opposed to national service) ,2700, than ever before . It is 4 times the number that signed up in 2012. Meanwhile kipa sruga boys are the only demographic that has not seen a decline in their desire to serve in combat units.

We will leave the supermarkets bill for another time.

So what is the connection between these disparate stories . I am not really sure but in my head it just solidfies my conviction that we have to figure out how to do more to stop this fanatic minority from imposing their warped version of Judaism on the rest of us. Don't worry, I am working on it.

Two more quick things.

A recent poll shows that Israel is one of the few countries whose population likes Donald Trump more than Obama. Out of 134 countries, we now join an exclusive club of four whose other members are Belarus, Macedonia and Liberia. Something else to be proud of.

Lastly, A few posts ago I said I would be doing restaurant reviews. I really want to get back to that at some point but this post is already too long. I will say that we went to a restaurant the other day that was very good. It is called על המים ( on the water) and is on Sharon Beach in Herzliyah. It has been their for ages but has only recently become kosher. I am looking forward to the spring so we can sit outside and enjoy the sea.