Binding Ties and Severing Lies by Aliza Davidovit

We live in times where we have just about heard it all, so much so that it becomes increasingly hard to hear anything at all. Our ears, eyes and minds simply can’t keep up with the shocking bombardment of events that our marking our times. We once thought it was incredible to try the 9/11 conspirators in a Manhattan court but that seems to pale in comparison to the current plan to build a mosque next to Ground Zero. Before we can digest one travesty a grimier one surfaces to entertain our ulcers.

Yet there is another headline, an evermore subtle one that equally grates upon me. It was the criticism Saeb Erekat, a senior Palestinian negotiator, launched against Prime Minister Netanyahu for mentioning the Jewish people's biblical ties to Jerusalem this past Jerusalem Day. He accused the prime minister of “[using] religion to incite hatred and fear.” Never mind the blatant hypocrisy of his condemning “incitement,” a weapon the Palestinians use ever so proficiently, but I viewed it as a fundamental and dangerous strategy aimed at the final delegitimization of the Jewish Homeland. First they accused Jews of behaving like Nazis vis-a-vis Palestinians to justify their terror upon Israeli citizens. Then they decided to launch a war against the “truth” of the Holocaust as to minimize the need of a Jewish refuge and homeland. Now there appears to be a nascent battle against the decisive binding tie to the Promised Land—the Torah--by rendering mention of the Bible as inciting. I take it that it is in the name of peace that Palestinain children are taught from birth to hate and kill the Zionist enemy, that suicide bombings are glorified, that streets and town squares are named after the mass murderers of innocent civilians, that ketuhshas are smuggled underground, that Israeli goods, films and athletes are being boycotted with fervor and glee, including the most current Palestinian attempt to prevent Israel's acceptance into the OECD.

There is only one claim (excluding the UN resolution that voted Israel into modern existence) that the Jews have to Israel, and that is because God gave it to them. It is not the Holocaust; it is not international consent or approval; it is not the strength of their guns. Therefore, the attempt to stifle an Israeli prime minister from speaking of this biblical connection to the Holy Land appears to be an “incitement” of the most dangerous kind. Let me remind those of you who may have forgotten God’s words: "And I will give to you and to your descendants after you… all the land of Canaan as an eternal possession….” (Genesis 17:8).

The Bible refers to Jerusalem and Zion 850 times. It is not mentioned even once in the Koran, nor is it even mentioned in the PLO Charter. Jews throughout the world pray facing Jerusalem; by contrast all Muslims face Mecca when praying. Jerusalem has NEVER been the capitol of any other nation except Israel, nor has it ever been a holy city to the Muslims. No Arab ruler other than Jordan’s King Hussein ever even visited Jerusalem during the 1948-1967 period of unfettered Jordanian rule over the eastern part of the city.[1] Jerusalem is merely an excuse and a symbol of the greater struggle to wipe Israel off the map. Let us not forget that the Palestine Liberation Organization was established in 1964, three years before Israel secured the West Bank and Old Jerusalem. So what was the PLO trying to "liberate" then? Clearly, the entire pre-'67 state of Israel.

A common misconception is that Jews were forced into the Diaspora by the Romans in the year 70 C.E. and then, 1,800 years later, returned to Palestine demanding their country back. In reality, the Jewish people have maintained ties to their historic homeland for more than 3,700 years. Even after the destruction of the Second Temple and the beginning of the exile, Jewish life in the land of Israel continued and often flourished,[2] and the Jewish hope to reclaim it as their own never abated.

In less ancient history the story is told of Napoleon who, when walking through the streets of Paris, passed by a synagogue and heard people weeping inside. When the emperor asked his companion why they were weeping, he was told that it was the holiday of Tisha B'Av when the Jews mourn the loss of their Temple. Upon hearing that Napoleon then said, "If they are still crying after 1800 years, then I am certain the Temple will one day be rebuilt!"

On May 14, 1948, the Jews reestablished sovereignty over their ancient Biblical homeland with the third temple yet to be rebuilt. But it must be noted that even though many conquerors since 500 B.C.E have conquered the Holy Land -- the Babylonians, the Persians, the Greeks, the Byzantines, the Romans and the Turks--never during all that time was there ever a people called Palestinians nor any such tribe, certainly none who rose up against those mighty empires and declared that their country was taken from them. The Palestinians and their cause is a modern phenomenon. Jews, their hope, and the State of Israel, however, are an ancient truth. If you don’t believe me, ask God!


[1] Information provided by the ZOA
[2] “Myths and Facts,” http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/myths/mf1.html#a
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Mother and Daughter: A Personal Tale

This blog is a personal story and dedicated to my mother for Mother’s Day.


“The foot bone connected to the leg bone, the leg bone connected to the knee bone,
the knee bone connected to the” femur bone, the femur bone connected to the pelvic bone. Let me know when you’ve stopped singing. The femur bone, also called the thighbone, as you may know, is the longest, largest, and strongest bone in the body. It’s an unusual thing to think of for a daughter, but my mother reminds me of a femur bone because it’s her strength of character alone and continued support and love that gives everyone close to her a leg to stand on. She is like an indomitable scaffold that sustains our courage and our family through the hardest of times.

There is not a thing upon which she lays her hands that she does not transform from average to beautiful--from décor, cooking, fashion, to extracting an individual’s full potential. Even death she made beautiful for my father. After the doctors told us that he had six more months to live, she didn’t leave him to their care but rather took care of him at home, herself, and decorated the remaining days of his life with music, love, and laughter until the angel of death closed his big blue eyes.

My parents were deeply in love for 38 years, like Romeo and Juliet. My mother would visit his grave every day for five years straight after he passed away. But I will never forget the night my father died in their bed. Through her sobbing tears, my mother went to blow dry her hair because the funeral was the next day. She said to us that my father loved seeing her look beautiful and even after having lost her parents, a daughter, a sister, and now her beloved sweetheart, she would not allow death to triumph over life. We all looked at her in awe. She was our femur that kept it all together just as that durable bone brings the upper and lower half of the body together.

But life’s a bitch and even as you try and put your best femured foot forward it can ravage you. A few years ago, my sprightly, energetic mother got out of bed one morning and five steps later found herself lying on the floor in screaming agony. It took her three hours to reach the phone. She called my brother, and being the superhuman body builder that he is, he beat the ambulance and broke down her five inch wooden doors with his own hands. I got the phone call in New York. I was on the next plane out. My mother’s complete femur bone was broken, eaten up by lymphoma. My beautiful mother, my best friend who I speak to a thousand times a day--I was not ready to say goodbye. I never will be. I had just signed a deal to ghostwrite a book on Jewish success, but instead of heading to the library I found myself sleeping on a lawn chair in my mother’s hospital room for three weeks and then staying in Canada for the next five months caring for her and her toy French poodle, Papoush. It was excruciating for me to see my mother that way. She was always so independent, coming and going, and now she had to go through chemo and learn to walk all over again with a titanium filled leg. She was my rock but now I had to become her femur. Yet even in the hospital, my mother wouldn’t surrender and refused to wear their hospital gowns or use their bed linens. She may be the only patient in the history of the oncology department who had a chiffon beaded nightgown and 700-thread sheets.

It was the hardest thing that we ever went through. Even the dog fell into a depression during that difficult time. Yet, I found strength in myself that I never knew I had. That strength was shaped like my mother. I have never met a person whose presence brings such light into any room as does hers. That light continues to guide my way. As we went through MRIs, surgery, chemotherapy, hair loss and rehabilitation, I was empowered by all the times in life I saw her fight instead of fall. I’d sing to my mother to distract her from her nerves and would make all the technicians and doctors laugh with my terrible voice. At my mother’s bedside, I wrote a book, nurtured her and her French poodle back to health, found the power of laughter, and realized that I stood in the shadow of the greatest role model a daughter could ever have. But most of all I learned how deep, special, and strong are the bonds of a mother, a daughter, and a French poodle. The femur bone had nothing on us.

On this Mother’s Day, I just want to thank God for the great blessing of a having a mother like mine, a mother who has taken so many lost souls under her wing and taught them to fly, a mother whose honesty will criticize you into perfection not weakness, a mother who has surely done God’s work, when He was busy elsewhere.
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Holy Bagels! by Aliza Davidovit

Dear readers, we are close enough for you to know that I suffer from opsomania, which is, the abnormal love for one kind of food. In my case it’s bagels. Therefore, I cannot deny that as Passover approaches, I lament the loss of this round shaped carbohydrate and my spirit sadly flattens like a whole wheat matzo.

But Passover is not just about cutting bread from the menu or getting rid of the last possible crumbs from your fridge, your car, your sock drawer, or anywhere else you are harboring baked stowaways. On a deeper level, Passover, just as Easter, is a time for us to take an introspective look at ourselves, to clean up our spiritual crumbs, and to commit ourselves to do things differently today than we did yesterday.

The yeast that makes bread rise is compared to a man’s pride and to the puffery we entertain ourselves with in our ego-driven lives. Yet matzos are hardly attention getters, either by sight or smell. Everything about them bespeaks humility. Quite frankly, they are a needed reminder to a people who, bloated with their own success, forget that at any moment history can take the air right out of them. The destiny of a Jew can pivot in a second.

This past week, as we watched politics play out with President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, we were reminded of that fact. And ominously, in the shadow of Passover, history seemed to repeat itself.

Once there was a leader named Moses who came before Pharaoh and said, “Let my people go!” But Pharaoh’s heart was pumped up on self-importance, ego and pride. Though he had chance after chance to do the right thing, he spurned Moses and God. He was, figuratively speaking, a yeast filled bagel. But egos make for poor scaffolds and thus the Egyptian empire crumbled. Netanyahu, too, arrived in the columned halls of DC with a similar message regarding housing for Jews in Jerusalem, basically saying, “Let my people grow.” The prime minister was met with the same defiance and arrogance of a true enemy of the Jewish people, a dislike that breached all former protocol, decency and semblance of friendship. Pharaoh told the Jews to make bricks with no straw, Obama tells Jews to build houses with no bricks.

My friends, the moment is as brittle as a matzo. This night is certainly different than all other nights as the US-Israel relationship hits an historic low and Iran casts an ominous gloom on the tiny Jewish state. Let’s pray for the sake of sparing lives and friendships that Obama will learn something from the humble matzo and soften his stance toward America’s stalwart ally in the Middle East. As for Netanyahu, like Moses, I implore him to stay the course, despite the pressures, so that God will continue to stand behind him and bless the Promised Land. If the president would have spent less time listening to his reverend’s hateful speeches and more time listening to scriptures he would have learned that the bread you cast upon the waters flows back your way. But, until it all plays out, let us just be glad that Obama bows and bends to foreign leaders as if he was a Geisha girl-- like this he won’t feel too disjointed if the God who watches over Israel has to bring him to his knees.

Happy Passover and Easter!!!
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From Toe to Head by Aliza Davidovit

As I was lying on my couch with my feet propped up on the armrest reading the Bible that was resting on my stomach, I realized that from above the top of the page I could see my toes. Something about my position seemed disrespectful to me. I didn’t think my feet should be elevated above God’s book. I started to tell myself I was being silly and continued reading but my toe kept looking at me straight in the face. I then began to investigate if there were any discussions about this in Judaic literature and discovered that I didn’t invent an issue where there was none. Turns out that there are many rules on how to handle holy books. For instance, one can’t put a book down on the same bench you are sitting on, or place a book face down or on the floor. It is even a sign of respect to close the book when one is not reading it and to kiss it once done reading it or if you drop it on the floor. This search led me to read on about other traditions that advocate respect, such as requiring a woman to dress beautifully before lighting her Sabbath candles in order to show respect to the holiness of the day, or the past requirement of Talmudic students to sit on a lower level than their teacher, or that of priests officiating in the temple to wear special garb. All these procedures were followed in the name of respect.

These traditions touch me deeply even though they may seem benign and boring to others. It touched me because what I think is at the core of so much of today’s problems, from broken families to strained relationships even on the political scene, is the lack of respect between individuals. When I see all the fences religions erect vis-a-vis inanimate objects in order to preserve respect and to enhance our ability to differentiate between the holy and the mundane, I wonder why it’s not blatantly evident that the same has to be extended to people in order to preserve relationships.

The other week I was walking in a shopping mall when I heard a little girl, probably aged 9 or 10, tell her mother to shut up. I was disgusted with the mother, not the child. For it is obvious that that parent didn’t put up the essential scaffold that maintains all relationships: respect. I’m sure there were many infractions which went unchallenged before that impudent kid had the nerve to tell her parent to shut up. I have seen brides and grooms read their vows with such love and devotion and just a few years later they call each other every name under the sun. As a little girl I used to wonder how people who loved each other could actually get divorced. At what point does it break down, at what point does it become irreversible? We all recently saw how the United States spoke very rough and tough to Israel, its steadfast ally.

Relationships don’t crumble overnight. As we let our guard fall as to how we speak to others and how we let them speak to us, these insipid leniencies that seem meaningless and harmless in the moment end up creating a great chasm. A child shushes you quiet at 5 years old and tells you to shut up at 10, you call you husband “stupid” as a joke the first year of mariage and five years later you’ve expanded your liberties and call him a *!!@$%!@@*. The Holy Book starts off on your bookshelf and ends up as a coaster on the coffee table. Strategic interests unite two nations but harsh words and disrespect seem more potent in defining the future.

I guess this whole blog is to urge us all to guard the moments and to realize how important respect is as the glue to preserve all that’s decent and precious. We’ve become such an informal generation, and respect is one of the greatest casualties. In my temple growing up there was a big sign above the pulpit that said, “Know before whom you stand,” I think I too started forgetting, but my toes served to remind me.
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Who is left to protect Israel? by Aliza Davidovit

Someone once told me that if you want to see how well Jews are doing just read an antisemitic paper. In it, the Jews, who make up .02 percent of the world population, are alleged to be running the entire world. The statistics alone would prove this to be preposterous.

Yet as my BlackBerry lights up like wild fire with 100s of e-mails a day from legitimate news sources, it is quite evident that Jews are in deeper peril today than ever before. All the fences Jews relied on to protect them are crumbling before our eyes. The troubles facing the Jewish State of Israel lay at the core of these tenuous times for the Jewish people. A new generation has arisen that remembers not the smell of smoke which arose from the crematoriums. This generation knows only Facebook, Twitter and iPhones and faces the world through flat plasma screens and not in 3-D reality where hate is spreading with alarming speed. It does not realize that without Israel every Jew throughout the world is a hated orphan who will be abused, assaulted or even murdered though they have assimilated into their local cultures. Remember the Jews of post-Weimar Germany. They, too, felt more German than Jewish…until they were brutally awakened as to their true status in the Fatherland.


In the past, education and strong ties to Eretz Yisroel have preserved a people confronted by villainous persecutions. But today Jews have become too comfortable in their host countries and have forgotten how much they need Israel for their survival. As such, Jews donate more charitable funds to save opera and whales than they do to save Jews. What message does this send to the next generation? As the "poisoning" of America's elites against Jews and Israel, especially in academia where anti-Israel agenda is metastasizing across campuses, our Jewish youth doesn't even know how to respond because they don't know the facts. Their ignorance has become our enemy’s greatest tool. Our kids live in an educational vacuum that we have let others fill. So, who is left to defend Israel: Obama, Ahmadinejad, Hamas, Hilary Clinton, the United Nations, or you and me?

My friends, I believe that as pertains to the Jewish state there is an enemy in the White House. How can we forget that prior to becoming president, Obama addressed AIPAC in 2008 and said, “Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided”—until he changed his mind the next day. Now that’s commitment! Maybe we missed the fine print on his AIPAC statement which modified the word “undivided” as meaning that Jews can’t build houses in Jerusalem but Arabs can.

Oh, and then there was Obama’s promise in that same AIPAC speech in which he promised, "I'll do everything in my power to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon,” which translates into, “We will do nothing but offer carrots and sticks until they have a chance to complete their nuclear program and be a certain existential threat to Israel and the Western world.” If that devotion to its loyal ally is not enough, the president now sends Vice President Biden to Israel to make sure Israel does not defend itself against Iran in a pre-emptive strike. I ask you again, “Who is left to defend Israel?”

Shouldn’t we all be terrified when Biden calls the United States’ bond to Israel “unshakable” on Tuesday and then three days later Secretary of State Hillary Clinton tells Netanyahu that building housing for Jews in East Jerusalem puts Israel’s bilateral relations with the U.S. into question. I have never seen something so unshakable shake so quickly.

This week Jews begin to read the third book of Moses, Leviticus. It begins with a call of duty to Moses, but its timing has never been more crucial. It is a call of duty to all Jews and friends of Israel to defend the Jewish homeland by all means. For Jews who voted for Obama it’s time you woke up and realized that behind whatever facade you wear in this life you are a Jew and no one will let you forget it as hard as you may try. It is time to get behind your people and your Jewish homeland; it is time to teach your children and wake up already.

If you still believe in the “yes, we can” man, fine, but put the pressure on him to stand by America’s most loyal ally in the Middle East. Tell the contortionist-in-chief to stop bowing and bending to foreign leaders and to stand up straight for his friends.

The days of wine and roses are over. There is a jihad against our people and the clock is ticking in double time.
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The Shouts Heard Around the World by Aliza Davidovit

This week’s blog marks the end of the second book of the Bible. And as we review the lessons learned to this point it becomes evermore clear that God's book is not a history book, but a living legacy. It demands not only that we increase the flame but pass the torch from generation to generation. As such, today’s piece will be co-written by my younger cousin Brittany who will be bat mitzvahed in the coming year. As it says: “Teach your children and your children's children” (Deuteronomy 4:9).

Although the first bullet has yet to be shot, America is engaged in a Civil War. There is such polarization between political parties and people that the yellow tape which is usually used to mark a crime scene can now be used to outline the map of the United States. The greatest country in the world has become the brutalized victim of divisiveness because each side is so arrogantly absorbed with its own existence. But any rational mind would know that truth, civility and cooperation are not found in the extremes but rather down the middle of the road. Can it truly be that the Republicans are 100% right? That the democrats are 100% wrong? Can there be no exchange of wisdom and compromise that would serve us all better as a people and a nation?

In this week’s biblical portion God tells Moses to tally the people by taking a half monetary unit from each, in other words, instead of a dollar, each was counted by giving fifty cents. The moral of the story is clear: None of us is SO complete as to obviate the need of others in order to form a perfect whole.

With that lesson in mind, perhaps our country is in urgent need of a humility lesson. For in pride and arrogance and self-absorption, we become evermore fragmented as the parts begin to mistake themselves for the whole “pie.” The dumbest student in the class and in life is always the one who thinks he knows it all.

Just imagine that America is a child in a huge custody battle. Would it serve the child best for the opposing parents to demonize each other and keep the hate alive or to realize that a child needs both parents for healthy balance and growth?

Another powerful lesson we learn from the biblical account is that the Torah was given not on the loftiest and proudest of mountains but rather on Mount Sinai, a comparatively small and humble one. This, too, is a symbolic lesson meant to teach that even God’s laws and wisdom which should be powerful enough to ram through any heart can only enter a humble heart, a heart that does not overestimate its own wisdom.

Perhaps these shouting matches that have deafened a nation along partisan lines should be toned down and a softer and more common sense approach should be used. Often school teachers whisper instead of scream to get their students to tune in and pay attention. Maybe we should try this quieter approach of engaging before it's too late and a nationally fatal shot is heard around the world.
By Aliza Davidovit & Brittany Pekeles
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I Don’t Forgive You and Take a Hike by Aliza Davidovit

This week on Facebook I asked my friends how America has been hurt or helped by the forgiving nature of its people. I’m not surprised to learn that my friends are merciful, compassionate and kind-hearted—I chose my friends well. So please friends forgive me for thinking that this country is too forgiving and such lenity is eating away at our souls.

There was a great line in the movie Hud with Paul Newman that hit me: “Little by little, the look of the country changes because of the men we admire.” But when these men plummet, they take us all with them, especially our starry-eyed kids who every day have one less person to look up to. Yes, “the country changes” when the mighty fail and fall.

When public figures such as Eliot Spitzer, Bill Clinton, Tiger Woods, Mark Sanford, James McGreevy, Gary Condit, Gary Hart, Newt Gingrich, John Edwards, Jim Bakker, and so many more, drop their pants in the wrong building, they are not only cheating on their spouses but on all those who trusted them to be attending business--not monkey business.

When Congressmen are indicted, when athletes get juiced, when Wall Street scams us, when spiritual leaders are caught with their hands in the till, when the media becomes propagandists, they are unraveling all we believe in and everything we are. So why do we find it so easy to forgive? One Facebook friend basically said, albeit using different words: He who has not sinned among us, let them cast the first stone. So, basically, are we supposed to cater to our weaknesses? We might murder one day too, so let’s forgive the murderers. We might rip someone off one day, so let’s forgive the CEO’s for all the people they’ve cheated out of their life savings. Instead of creating a world where we can look up and strive for greatness, we are preparing our safety nets in case we mess up.

I do not believe that our indulgent forgiveness is creating a better world. Sometimes the things we believe in demand tough love. If we make it so easy for everyone to go on the apology tour with a speech produced by a PR company and we forgive them, then we are contributing to our own demise, especially in this age of the information superhighway where misdeeds and apologies become YouTube moments.
Not only do Americans forgive wrongdoers, but it seems to reward them. Tiger Woods’ paramour, Rachel Uchitel, was hired as a special correspondent on NBC's Extra. Sadly, trained, skilled young journalists who work so hard to get a job, move to the back of the queue because engaging in a scandal and having sex with a famous person are the prerequisites to board the express train to success. Is that the advice you would give your daughter vying for a job? If you can forgive Extra for that, then you are giving silent consent.
If we want to prove ourselves as merciful, good people then let’s get a little tougher and less forgiving. Let's have some mercy for the things we value and not pretend it's raining when cheats spit on us with impunity. I say kick the bums out, fire them, take away their endorsements, teach them a good lesson that will make the next guy think ten times before he screws his mistress and his country and corrupts the soul of a nation. How many cheeks can we turn while they keep kicking us in the butt?
In this week’s biblical reading we learn how the Menorah in the temple had to be illuminated by the purest of oil, teaching us that that which is meant to bring light and direction to the world needs to be clean and untainted. Thus, for those who have set themselves as leaders and icons among us, we must demand nothing less. Let a new clarion call rise up throughout the land: “I don’t forgive you, and take a hike.”

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