15 Seconds: Not Enough Time

Watching Over You- A Song of Faith (A Yeshivat Lev HaTorah Production)

After a week of intensity in the South of Israel, all of Am Yisrael finally felt the pain and began to understand what the citizens of Sderot and other cities of the South have been feeling for years. The internet was filled with well-wishers and blessings to the soldiers and citizens of Israel. Gabe Rosenfeld reacted in a way that was so natural to him. As rocket fire escalated and emotions were flowing, the words to this song began to write themselves. With the help of his Yeshiva, Yeshivat Lev HaTorah in Ramat Bet Shemesh, this song became more than just an idea. 

The song describes the emotions of a young man who loses contact with his younger brother during a "Tzeva Adom" - Red Alert Siren. This song is not just a beautiful attempt at understanding our brothers and what they are going through but it is also a sign of hope. If Klal Yisrael can begin to care, feel, and pray about other Jews around the world regardless of affiliation, then maybe situations like this would not even occur. This is the focus and goal of Yeshivat Lev HaTorah and Gabe and friends have done a truly inspiring job in getting this important message across. 

For more information about Yeshivat Lev HaTorah, please visit our website www.levhatorah.org or checkout our facebook page www.facebook.com/levhatorah

Simcha Leiner - "Mimamakim"

What Israelis Do with Rockets

There's this concept of life throwing you lemons so you make lemonade - and now, if life throws rockets at you, I guess you take it to make a symbol of light and triumph - the Chanukah Menorah.

WHAT A HUMAN SHIELD SHOULD LOOK LIKE; An Israeli mother protects her child from savage Hamas missiles as sirens blare in Ofakim, Israel

Glenn's special message for Israel

I want to tell you what it's like to live in most of Israel right now.
A missile is fired by Hamas in Gaza...
A siren goes off.
You get 15 seconds to find shelter.
I want Americans to think about what that means.
If you lived in a place where missiles were fired at you...
Hundreds a day...
And you would get just 15 seconds to hide...
How would you live?
Stop what you're doing. Run to a basement. A shelter.
And if you can't make it inside...
Lie flat on the ground with your arms over your head.
That's life in Israel right now.
None of us would be willing to accept this.
None of us would have to.
Every country has a right to defend itself against terror.
But they keep telling Israel... "don't overreact!" "don't fire back!" "be careful!" "don't ramp things up!"


Let me get this straight...
If Mexico fired a missile into El Paso, you know what we would do?
If Japan fired a missile into Beijing, you know what China would do?
So why does Israel have to hold back?
Why does every country get to defend itself...
But not Israel?
Why could that be?
I think we know why.

A Jewish man was walking down the street in midtown Manhattan over the weekend.
He passed by a group of people protesting on the street.
They were holding up signs, criticizing Israel.
He was wearing a yarmulke.
So they called him a "dirty Jew."
We've seen this move before.
We've seen the terror before.
We've seen the sirens...and the bombs... and the threats.
We've even seen the insults.
"Dirty Jew."
Nothing original there.

So I think we know what's really going on here.
It has nothing to do with embargoes... or borders... or anything else that CAN be solved.
It's because Israel exists. And it's a Jewish state.
Let's be honest with ourselves.
There are some people who can't get past that.
The world's oldest hatred.
Anti-Semitism.
It's alive in our time. And it's not hiding.
It's right there in Gaza.
Gaza is the new Nuremberg.
The epicenter of Jew-hatred.
The birthplace of a million young haters.
And they all want the same thing.
Kill the Jews.
That's all they know.
All they ever will know.
In every generation that came before us,
They would beat up the Jews.
Harass the Jews.
Chase the Jews.
Kill the Jews.
Always the Jews.
And usually, they got away with it.


But not this time.
No more.
This time, we will stand with Israel.
We will stand for the truth.
We will stand for freedom.
We will stand for life.
And so I want to say something.
Something for those kids in the bomb shelters.
The kids who can't keep their sheets dry at night, they're so scared.
The kids who are just like my own kids.
They just want to play with their friends.
See them at school.
They don't want to hide in holes in the ground.
We are with you.
We will always be with you.
You have many, many friends here in America.
And this is a message for Israel's leaders.
We will not forget you, nor forsake you.
We are brothers.
The nation of Israel lives... forever.

This Kassam brought to you by which Kupat Tzedaka?

This image was sent to me yesterday. It is being passed around described as a Kassam rocket that was shot to Israel. The body of the Kassam rocket was made from a pole of a bus stop or light pole that was cut and stolen from Bnei Braq, and the Hamas rocket makers somehow forgot to remove the tzedaka boxes that were welded on before making and shooting the rocket into Israel.

this Kassam rocket sponsored by Kupat Ha'Ir

It is a pretty funny story and picture, and worth posting just for the laughs.

Clearly it is a "photoshopped" picture. There is no way they could have not noticed the tzedaka boxes, or forgotten to remove them. And leaving them on, while I am not an engineer, I do not believe there is any way such a rocket could have been shot, let alone travel with any accuracy or distance with that unbalanced extra weight on it...

Still, it is pretty funny.

What To Do In Case of Rocket Attack

An Israeli woman walking through her home that was hit by a rocked fired from the Gaza Strip.

Ultra-Orthodox Israeli men help an elderly Israeli woman run to a shelter as a ‘Red Alert’ sounds in the southern Israeli coastal town of Ashdod, 17 November 2012. A short while earlier a Grad missile fired by Palestinian militants inside the Gaza Strip landed in the road behind, burning a car and shattering many windows of nearby apartments. Several Israelis were lightly wounded in this attack that the Iron Dome missile interceptor system failed to shoot down. Credit: EPA

Count to Fifteen: Israel, America Under Fire

Operation Amud Anan AKA Pillar of Defense

An injured Israeli child from Kiryat Malachi, where three Jews were killed by a Hamas rocket.

Israel’s current operation against the Islamic terrorists in Gaza — Hamas and affiliates, supported and financed by Iran — has been translated into English as “Operation Pillar of Defense.”

This is a poetic translation which fails to convey the true meaning and purpose of Israel’s military operation.

The original Hebrew is, עמוד ענן, “Amud Anan,” a phrase taken directly from the Torah.

When the children of Israel sojourned through the desert, a divine cloud, “a pillar of cloud” went before them in order to shield them from harm.

And the angel of G-d, who had been traveling in front of Israel’s army, withdrew and went behind them. The pillar of cloud also moved from in front and stood behind them, coming between the armies of Egypt and Israel.

—Exodus 14:19-20

Rashi (Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki, February 22, 1040–July 13, 1105) the greatest of all biblical exegetes, a medieval vintner and scholar from Troyes, France, explains:

They [the Egyptians] shot arrows and catapult stones at them, but the angel and cloud caught them.

Thus, the name of this operation is particularly appropriate as Israel defends itself from terrorist rockets and mortars — modern arrows and catapults.

It looks like the war will escalate. Israel must destroy the terrorist infrastructure or she will be at the mercy of genocidal Islamists, and there will be no deterrence.

Israeli air strikes continue. Terrorist missile sites are positioned near mosques, schools and apartment buildings. As always, the terrorists use civilians as human shields.

It’s important to note that the rocket attacks from Gaza have increased massively since Syria fractured into civil war. The Iranians are backing Assad, and it looks like they have made a bad move. The Gulf states bitterly oppose Iran and their client Assad. Hence, in a classic case of distraction — it’s the fault of the Jooz — Iran instructed their lapdog Hamas to step up the attacks on Israeli population centers.

The Arab world will, no doubt, claim to be outraged. But behind closed doors, they look forward to Hamas getting kicked in the teeth, a way of reducing Iran’s regional influence. The Gulf sheikhs understand that Israel is the only power capable of thwarting Iran’s regional ambitions. This extends, naturally, to Iran’s nuclear program.

Consider: the United States, under Barack Hussein Obama, is not a factor in the current Middle East. We have little influence, and no one is looking to us for — well, anything, save Obama’s tedious, Castro-like verbal flatulence. Community organizers get cut down to size very quickly in the Middle East.

As Seraphic Secret wrote the day after Barack Hussein Obama was elected to another four years, Benjamin Netanyahu is now the leader of the free world. Which, in the end, is a blessing.

Meanwhile, IDF combat soldiers and ground troops stream southward towards staging areas near the Gaza border, in preparation for a ground incursion. We can assume that IDF Special Forces are already operating within Gaza and, perhaps, in the Sinai, where the Muslim Brotherhood Egyptian government has little influence and Al Qaeda affiliates operate freely.

Prepare for a deluge of false reports, phony atrocity photos, and Jew-hating blood libels from Islamist and liberal social media, Al Jazeera and the New York Times.

My friend in Israel, Jameel of the Muqata, is liveblogging the war.

Children of Sderot

Qatari PM: Israel's 'Vicious Attack Must Not Pass Unpunished' Qatari Prime Minister warns that Israel's retaliatory strikes on terrorists in the Gaza Strip must not go unpunished.

Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem al-Thani warned that Israel's retaliatory strikes on terrorists in the Gaza Strip must not go unpunished, state news agency QNAreported on Thursday, according toAFP.

"This vicious attack must not pass unpunished," QNA quoted the premier as saying at a Wednesday meeting in Saudi Arabia of the six Gulf Arab nations and Russia.

"The UN Security Council must take up its responsibility to secure peace and security in the world," he said, adding the latest escalation of violence in Gaza is likely to "promote extremism."

"We reject extremism and terrorism but such irresponsible and unjustified attacks must be condemned by the world," he said.

In October, Qatar's emir was the first head of state to visit Gaza since Hamas seized control from the Palestinian Authority in 2007.

Israel launched Operation Pillar of Defense on Wednesday-- beginning with the targeted assassination of Hamas military chief, Ahmed Jabari-- as terrorists in theGaza Strip continue launching rockets that pulverize Jewish communities in the South.

More than 200 rockets have been fired from Gaza in the last 24 hours, killing three people and wounding two others in the southern Jewish community of Kiryat Malachi.