Category: Israel / Judaism

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, a dominant figure for decades in shaping the Middle East, was fighting for his life on Thursday after suffering a massive brain hemorrhage.

As I write this, whether Sharon even survives or not is still up in the air. If he does survive, the odds that he will again be active in politics are slim indeed.

A friend of mine pointed out this afternoon that whether Sharon’s illness is bad news or not depends on whether you think that continuity of government in Israel is a good thing. I’m not so sure about that.

Regardless of what you think of Sharon or his government, political instability is not what Israel needs. A sudden transition of power with elections upcoming and with both Likud and Labor in transition thanks to Sharon’s recent forming of Kadima, make for a very, very confusing time Israel this spring.

The menorah is polished, the candles are out, and the table is prepped for wax drips. All we need now is sundown!

Here’s some Chanukah fun for all. (Thanks for sending me the link, Shari!)

Simon Wiesenthal, who waged an untiring campaign to track down Nazi war criminals and keep alive the memory of six million Jews killed in the Holocaust, died on Tuesday at the age of 96. Full obit here.

Zecher tzaddik livracha.
(The memory of the righteous is a blessing)

My husband is of the opinion that everyone in the Middle East is nuts, and that the hot climate helps make them that way. I disagree with him on that point, but once in a while I come across something that makes me wonder whether he’s not right after all:

A week ago, 20 men gathered in darkness around a grave in northern Israel to carry out the cabalist ritual pulsa denura, which in Aramaic means “lash of fire.” The object of the curse was Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who refuses to cancel his plan to evacuate 25 Jewish settlements in Palestinian territory.

According to participants, Sharon will be struck down by the Angels of Destruction in less than a month, or else the 20 men themselves will die.

The ritual might have drawn little attention at a quieter moment in a country that has long been a showcase for extreme beliefs. But as the evacuations approach, Israeli society is transfixed by every detail of what Sharon calls disengagement, and images of the chanting men have been played repeatedly on Israeli television.

Sober assessments also appeared in Israeli newspapers Wednesday noting that a pulsa denura was invoked nearly a decade ago against Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin not long before he was killed by a Jewish extremist opposed to his support of the 1993 Oslo accords.

I’m no fan of Sharon, but I don’t want to see him dead either. What I want is an end to the bloodshed. So I hope that G-d decides to confuse the lot of them and ignore the ritual.