10 new Jews completed our online conversion course with beit din, mivah etc in Chicago

Family of 7 interviewed by beit din after online conversion to Judaism home study program

Why are Democrats opposed to stop terror funding?

We have the ability to tap into huge amounts of energy here, enough to make is energy independent.
Worldwide terrorism is financed by Arab oil revenues we send.
Stop buying Arab oil and severely limit worldwide terror.
Who would be opposed to this? Opec.
So why are Democrats and Obama so opposed to getting all the energy we can? We can do it in an environmentally ok way.
Are the left wing environmental groups being funded by Arab oil money?

(Steven Hayward)

Middle Eastern potentates have been acknowledging their nervousness over the hydrocarbon revolution that has seen American domestic oil production increase by 2 million barrels a day over the last two years, with much more to come as cutting edge American technology spreads around the world.  OPEC’s days as the drivers of the global oil market may be in eclipse, especially if global demand for oil peaks, as has been forecast recently.

So if you’re a Middle Eastern country and you want to do something to slow this up, one thing you might do is try to funnel money to environmental organizations that want to stop fracking and keep land closed to new hydrocarbon production.  We already saw Chesapeake Energy give over $25 millionto the Sierra Club to fight against coal so as to increase demand for its natural gas.

Is there any evidence that Middle Eastern nations are funneling money to enviros?  Not that I know of.  But then there’s this story from the Free Beacon:

Liberal Foundation Distributed Money from Bermuda to Liberal Nonprofits

A major left-wing foundation has received tens of millions of dollars from a shadowy Bermudan company with ties to wealthy American hedge fund managers and distributed those funds to prominent liberal nonprofit groups.

A sizable portion of the Sea Change Foundation’s revenue since 2011 has come from a single company, incorporated in Bermuda, called Klein Ltd. The company’s only officers are employees of a Bermuda law firm, and neither provided information on what Klein actually does.

Documents filed with the Bermudan government suggest that the company exists only on paper.

The money Klein has donated to Sea Change has been passed on to some of the largest liberal and environmentalist groups in the United States, including the Sierra Club, the League of Conservation Voters, and the Center for American Progress (CAP).

CAP, which attacked the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in 2010 for supposedly using foreign money for political purposes, has also received fundsfrom the Bermuda-based Atlantic Philanthropies, as has its 501(c)(4) arm, the Center for American Progress Action Fund

High Holiday seating request form

High Holiday Seating-
Dear Congregant(s),
During the last holiday season, many individuals expressed concern
over the seating arrangements in the synagogue. In order for us to
place you in a seat which will best suit you, we ask you to complete
the following questionnaire and return it to the synagogue office as
soon as possible. We will try to honor as many of your requests as
possible.
1. I would prefer to sit in the... (Check one:)
___ Talking section
___ No talking section
2. If talking, which category do you prefer?
(Indicate order of interest:)
___ Stock market
___ Sports
___ Medicine
___ Congregants' secret medical tragedies
___ General gossip
___ Specific gossip (choose:)
___ The rabbi
___ The cantor
___ The cantor's voice
___ The cantor's wife
___ The rabbi's wife
___ The cantor's wife's voice
___ Fashion news
___ What others are wearing
___ Why they look awful
___ Your neighbors
___ Your relatives
___ Your neighbors' relatives
___ President Clinton
___ Sex (Preference: ______________________ )
___ Who's cheating on/having an affair with whom
___ Other: _______________________________

3. Which of the following would you like to be near for free
professional advice?
___ Doctor
___ Dentist
___ Nutritionist
___ Psychiatrist
___ Child psychiatrist
___ Mother in law
___ Podiatrist
___ Chiropractor
___ Stockbroker
___ Accountant
___ Lawyer
___ Real estate agent
___ Architect
___ Interior Decorator
___ Travel Agent

4. I want a seat located (Indicate order of priority:)
___ On the aisle
___ Near the exit
___ Near the window
___ In Aruba
___ Near the bathroom
___ Near my in-laws
___ As far away from my in-laws as possible
___ As far away from my ex-in-laws as possible
___ Near the pulpit
___ Near the Kiddush table
___ Near single men
___ Near available women
___ Where no one on the bimah can see/hear me talking during services
___ Where no one will notice me sleeping during services
___ Where I can sleep during the rabbi's sermon [additional charge]

5. (Orthodox only.) I would like a seat where:
___ I can see my spouse over the mechitza
___ I cannot see my spouse over the mechitza
___ I can see my friend's spouse over the mechitza
___ My spouse cannot see me looking at my friend's spouse over the mechitza
6. Please do not place me anywhere near the following people:
(Limit of six)
_________________________
__________________________
_________________________
__________________________
_________________________
__________________________
Your name: _________________________________
2013/2014 5774 Building fund pledge: _________________________
good seats given to best pledges (we don't actually expect you to fulfill them)

How can there be peace when the other side just hates?

Culture of Violence: A Palestinian Hobby

Jonathan S. Tobin | @tobincommentary08.05.2013 - 4:55 PM

In the last year, the Western press has focused a great deal of attention on what has been described as a wave of violence committed by Jewish settlers living in the West Bank against Palestinians. The vandalism and other crimes committed by Jews—known as “price tag” attacks—have been widely condemned by the Israeli government and virtually everyone in Israeli society outside of the extreme right. But this marginal phenomenon—and even Israel’s sternest critics must concede that this is something that is the work of a tiny minority even of settlers, let alone Israel—that has received disproportionate news coverage is rarely contrasted with a far more widespread phenomenon: Arab violence against settlers and Israelis.

As we learn in a front-page story published today in the New York Times under the headline of “My Hobby is Throwing Stones,” violence directed at Jews isn’t just a troubling trend, it is something that has become more or less the national Palestinian sport. Children, adolescents, and even adults treat flinging lethal rocks at any passing car with Israeli license plates as not merely boys being boys but acceptable behavior that is somehow justified by the ongoing dispute between the two peoples over the land and a host of other issues. The conflict between Jews and Arabs over the land is complex and there are victims on both sides. But what this story tells us about contemporary Palestinian culture and its glorification of violence, as well as the rejection of alternate means of dealing with the Jewish presence in their midst, speaks volumes about how difficult it will be to ever achieve peace.

There are a couple of key points to understand about this wildly popular Palestinian “hobby.”

The first is that though the story only mentions the victims of the stone throwing in passing in one sentence, flinging a large rock at an individual or a moving vehicle is not a game. It is a form of terrorism. Such actions are felonious assaults by any definition of the law. The purpose of the stone throwing is not making a political statement but to inflict injury and even death on those so unfortunate as to be in range of these missiles. Anyone who wants to understand what is driving the “price tag” attacks by a small number of settlers need only read this piece and understand that what they are reacting to is routine illegal violence that is condoned by the entire Arab community.

Defenders of the Palestinians may say that stone throwing is a reaction to the “occupation” and that those who throw rocks have no other way of protesting the settlements or what they consider wrongful behavior on the part of the Israel Defense Forces. But this ignores the fact that most of the tense encounters between the IDF and Palestinians stems from the violence that the latter habitually commit.

That leads to the second point: nowhere in this story does anyone ever stop and say that perhaps it would be better for the Palestinians’ quality of life and even their political aspirations if they decided to treat the Jews who live near them as human beings rather than merely enemy targets.

It is worth noting that Beit Omar, the town featured in the Times story, is located nearby the Gush Etzion bloc of settlements in the West Bank. Jodi Rudoren, the paper’s Jerusalem bureau chief, notes that Beit Omar’s location is ideal for stone throwing since it abuts a major highway near a group of Jewish communities. But she leaves out the fact that there is an interesting history of Jewish-Arab interaction in the era that is instructive in understanding the conflict.

The Gush Etzion bloc is, after all, not built on stolen Arab land, as the cliché goes about all such West Bank settlements, but on the ruins of Jewish communities that existed prior to 1948. In the months prior to Israel’s birth as the ruling British stood back and allowed a civil war to rage on their watch, local Arabs, aided by foreign volunteers, laid siege to the Jewish villages in the Gush Etzion area. Efforts to reinforce them from Jerusalem (which was itself under siege) failed and eventually they fell to Arab attack. Many of the inhabitants were subject to indiscriminate massacre while others were captured. Their homes were destroyed as local Palestinian Arabs celebrated.

Nineteen years later, after Israel took possession of the West Bank ending an illegal Jordanian occupation, the process of rebuilding Gush Etzion began and today the various towns in the area flourish and are rightly seen as Jerusalem suburbs that are not centers of settler violence or intolerance. No one envisions its evacuation even in the unlikely scenario of a peace deal being signed.

If Palestinians still dream of repeating the events of 1948, at least as far as Gush Etzion is concerned, that is more than a public safety problem. It represents a basic unwillingness to live in peace alongside their Jewish neighbors. If Palestinians can think of nothing better to do than to steal from or attack Jews in the town over the hill, how can we believe they are ready to accept peace with Israel under virtually any circumstances?

The Palestinians’ culture of violence goes much deeper than stone throwing. It is in fact merely a symptom of the hatred of Jews and Israelis that is fomented in their official media and throughout the Arab and Muslim world. Whatever your opinion about settlements or where the borders of Israel should be located, the longer Palestinians condone routine violence and train new generations of children to take part in this mayhem, the longer they are putting off the day when peace will arrive.