Yom Shnee
Monday
3 Av 5781
July 12 2021
The Quote of the Day
“I would not recommend having a wedding in September.”
Dr. Nachman Ash, incoming Director General of the Ministry of Health
Obviously, those on the forefront of fighting Corona feel that we are on the verge of a major surge which will necessitate a return to restrictions of the type that prevented large weddings. See today’s corona update below.
The Photo of the Day
A remarkable potshard recently excavated at Khirbat Qeiyafa in southern Israel.
The piece dates from 3,100 years ago (1100 BCE)–from the Biblical time of Judges and King David.
What is written on the potshard is “Jerubbaal” (roughly translated as “Warrior against Baal”–referring to the idol Baal) a name heretofore only seen in the Torah (Judges 6-8). In that context it is used as another name for Gideon. Whether this jug belonged to that Gideon is unknown; however “Jerubbaal” was a name only used at that time.
It is a remarkably rare find and a remarkable confirmation of a name in the Bible.
The News on the Israeli Street
The daily Corona (Covid-19) update:
6,438 Israelis have now died from Corona–an increase of 9 from last week.
Two weeks ago, Israel was averaging 263 new cases a day; so far this week, the average is 449 per day.
There are 4,130 active cases–75 of whom are hospitalized. Of this 75, 44 are in critical condition.
We reported here on OneIsrael yesterday that Israel no longer has enough Pfizer vaccine to give citizens two shots, and that no more vaccine would be forthcoming until September or October. Late last night it was announced that the government has reached an agreement with Pfizer for the delivery of 200,000 more doses in early August.
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The daily Palestinian terror update:
1. Guess what greeted your humble servant and his wife this morning as we walked out of our house? An explosive balloon from Gaza flying overhead. We immediately called the Ashdod police.
2. Palestinian terrorists will begin receiving their usual monthly blackmail money tomorrow courtesy of Qatari “envoy” (aka blackmail moneyman) Muhammad Al-Madi who arrived in Gaza last night with suitcases full of $100 dollar bills.
3. The new Coalition’s Political-Security Cabinet approved freezing 597 million shekels a year from funds collected by Israel for the PLO to offset the money that the PLO pays to terrorists and their families. One twelth (1/12) will be deducted each month–unless our so-called “Defense Minister” Benny Gantz decides to suspend the freezing–as he did numerous times last year. The money is collected from VAT taxes and other tariffs Israel collects at border crossings as well as income tax and health taxes taken out of Palestinian workers’ paychecks in Israel.
TODAY’S BLOG:
Much Ado About Something Or Nothing?
Two vastly different actions yesterday have the opposition steaming this morning. The question is: do they have something to steam about or not?
First, the High Court of Justice expanded the Surrogacy Law to permit single men, or male couples to “adopt” children through surrogacy. I use “..” to denote that the rest of the world does not normally consider a baby produced by the input of one of the parents (either sperm or egg) and then carried by a surrogate mother an adoption.
As you can imagine, Israel’s LGBT community, led by our gay Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz, hailed the decision as a landmark step on the road to “gay equality.” On the other hand, the orthodox parties (Shas, United Torah Judaism, National Zionism) decried the ruling as one more step in the de-Judaification of Israel. To them, a baby produced by surrogacy involves extremely important issues of “Jewishness.”
For example, what if a non-Jewish surrogate mother carries a fetus produced from a Jewish man’s sperm and a non-Jewish woman’s egg? Or what if a non-Jewish surrogate mother has a child which was “created” from a Jewish man’s sperm and a Jewish woman’s egg? And on and on.
You can see that this situation can become extremely complicated extremely quickly.
The second action yesterday was the attempt by PM Bennett to keep the Ra’am Islamic Party in the Coalition by apparently catering to its demands.
The government approved the transfer of the Bedouin Development and Settlement Authority from the Ministry of the Economy to the Ministry of Labor, Welfare, and Social Services.
In fact, a list of demands was presented to the Coalition having to do with a wide range of topics such as crime in Arab neighborhoods and building infrastructure in Arab villages.
To hear Netanyahu this morning, one would have thought that the sky had fallen. He immediately denounced Bennett as having “sold the Negev” to the Bedouins. It was a particularly ironic denunciation given the fact that the Bedouin virtually took over the Negev with illegal settlements during Netanyahu’s decade in office while he did nothing.
As it turns out, what Bennett agreed to is nothing more than was agreed to two months ago in Coalition negotiations. This is not to say that what was agreed to was right; it is merely to say that nothing much new was agreed to.
So I leave it to you dear reader, was all of this much ado about nothing, or much ado about something?
A student from Malawi, who had worked with an Israeli health volunteer in his country battling AIDS, came up to us as we walked down the street in the UC-Davis Picnic Day Parade and wanted to carry the Israeli flag.