Sunday, August 27, 2006

84 and Still Going Strong!

Yes, this is the 84th edition of Havel Havelim, instituted by the one and only Soccer Dad, to give an internet forum, "carnival," for Jewish and Israeli blogs.

Psalm 84
1
For the Leader; upon the Gittith. A Psalm of the sons of Korah.
2
How lovely are Thy tabernacles, O HaShem of hosts!
3
My soul yearneth, yea, even pineth for the courts of HaShem; my heart and my flesh sing for joy unto the living G-d.
4
Yea, the sparrow hath found a house, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young; Thine altars, O HaShem of hosts, my King, and my G-d--.
5
Happy are they that dwell in Thy house, they are ever praising Thee. Selah
6
Happy is the man whose strength is in Thee; in whose heart are the highways.
7
Passing through the valley of Baca they make it a place of springs; yea, the early rain clotheth it with blessings.
8
They go from strength to strength, every one of them appeareth before G-d in Zion.
9
O HaShem G-d of hosts, hear my prayer; give ear, O G-d of Jacob. Selah
10
Behold, O G-d our shield, and look upon the face of Thine anointed.
11
For a day in Thy courts is better than a thousand; I had rather stand at the threshold of the house of my G-d, than to dwell in the tents of wickedness.
12
For HaShem G-d is a sun and a shield; HaShem giveth grace and glory; no good thing will He withhold from them that walk uprightly.
13
O HaShem of hosts, happy is the man that trusteth in Thee.

To me, King David, the composer of Psalms, was the first blogger. His was a mostly personal blog; writing his feelings helped him strengthen his faith in G-d.


Havel Havelim is hosted by a different blogger each week and coordinated by
Soccer Dad. The term “Havel Havelim” is from Kohelet, Ecclesiastes, which was written by King Solomon, who built the Holy Temple in Jerusalem and later on got all bogged down in materialism and other “excesses” and finally realized that it was nothing but norishkeit, “havel” or in English “vanities.”

I'm including all of the posts submitted, even if a blogger sends in a few. I don't like the idea of "selecting" the "only best." We love all our children the same; don't we? And if you expect this missive to be organized, sorry, it's almost as big a mess as my house. So just grit your teeth and enjoy yourself. Feel free to comment; all criticism will be deleted; so don't bother trying. Praise only will be accepted. The school year starts soon, and I must put myself in a good mood; you wouldn't want the kiddees to suffer. We don't need teenage boys on a rampage, ok?


If any of you have been left out, please accept my apologies and send your links in as comments. I'm sure some of my favorite bloggers are somehow missing. That means, that you're kindly requested to read the comments, too.

First prize for first post submitted goes to Irina who submitted a moving post, not even her own,
illustrating the question: Who's a Jew?


I see the continued Aliyah artza, to live in Israel and join the army as the ultimate sign of faith. Pictured
here are Nefesh B'Nefesh immigrants from the August 9, 2006 flight.






SimplyJews explains hypocrisy. And Mere Rhetoric tells of the destabilizing by Iran. From Meryl Yourish is A must-read on Hezbullah training and tactics.
Here are some pictures of the
ghetto wall surrounding northern Jerusalem. Someone even spray-painted the word "ghetto." And here are some pictures of a demonstration and talk about "who's guilty."
The Olah Chadasha from French Hill tries to make sense of Dichter's talk of
giving Syria the Golan. And she also tells us who the biggest losers are when it comes to the UN peace-keeping force.
Moshe Burt manages to combine Parshat Shavua with the proposed
Minister of Justice. Tzedek, Tzedek!
Sarah did a supper, oops! super job on the
9th Kosher Cooking Carnival!
Just perfect for Chodesh Elul, Beyond Tshuva tells us to
Honor All Your Failures.

Simply Jews talks about
Bibi's great answers. I was impressed, too.

Life in Israel ponders the "just like in America"
spiel in a different category.

Arlene Peck reacts to the emergency
airline security; just you try to take away her mascara!

A Simple Jew is really a
red-bearded Perry Mason!

Cosmic X gives us the low-down (real low) about the newspaper,
Ha'aretz. And Olah Chadasha from French Hill adds more about it and Israel's left.

Shemita Rediscovered gives us
East vs West-WWIII Chas Vechalila- Radical Islam vs. Materialist Western Culture.

Don Radlauer brings up an important point in
ClichéWatch: “Israel’s lost deterrence”.

"Ricky Ricardo," not Lucy's—though sure looks like him—goes over the
halachot of tzedaka refused. I've had things like that happen.

MR Reacts to Bloggers' Conference Call With Israeli Ambassador Uri Lubrani

Rabbi Lazer Brody discusses
emunah, faith and more.

Trent Telenko
explains how Israel is now perceived.
Haganah writes about
faith.
JoeSettler tells us about
Cowardly Generals, other true stories and a book he read. The third is from the new blog he shares with Jameel.
From Reb Chaim HaQoton,
Freedom and Torah Supremacy.
Meet
Nasrallah you never knew and learn Scapegoating as a business at Simply Jews.
Sultan Knish tells us
How America and Israel Failed Against Shiite Terrorism .
According to Life In Israel,
The sh*t is hitting the fan.

Doven for a
Refuah Shleimah for Ruvein ben Tova Chaya the grandson of Emes Ve-Emunah.

Look at that
butterfly at Sarah's.

And read what my husband
quoted. Here he points out Olmert's chutzpah!

Westbankmama asks
Are We Being Ants or Grasshoppers? What do you think?

A Mother in Israel writes about
eccentric children; and that's not a bad trait to have. If we were all the same, wouldn't it be boring?

What's it like for Jews in Harlem? Ask
Akiva Micah.

Ask Shifra about
splogs, scary stuff.

Real scary! The Bagel Blogger blogs about
the Iranian threat.

Baleboosteh writes about her daughter, Jade's,
adjustment to their becoming Jewish. Shalom and good luck.

Look at the
first day of school at Jewess with Horns.

Boker Tov, Boulder writes about the
fence and our "partners."

Shanah pokes her head
out of the bomb shelter.

Jerusalem Cop gives us:
WHY I’M PROUD TO BE A JEW - by Bruce from New York.

Read about
Jews and baseball on Jewschool.

From Kallah Magazine,
muse on the mikvah.

Allisonks sends a very clear message to
those powerful men with uncontrollable urges.

If you still think that Bush supports Israel, read IRIS Blog,
Bush: $230 Million for Hezbollah, $0 for Israel!

Not a nice story from Irina.

Daled Amos writes about
the Democratic Party and Israel.

Should the blogmeister be a
cantor?

Jerusalem Joe sent me
A Secular Jew, A Religous Jew, A Believing Jew - So Near, and Yet So Far . What do you think?

Life in Israel mulls over
Israeli politics.

For those who know Russian, from Irina:
An Israeli soldier, wounded in Lebanon, confronts Olmert, etc.

From Ra'anana Ramblings, we have a story about
helping sick Arab children.

Yitz, from Heichal Hanegina, tells us about
The Skulener Rebbe: Enduring Decrees with Love and Song.

Here's
A Military Assessment of the Lebanon Conflict from Winds of Change.

Infidel Bloggers wonders about
who is really in charge of American policy.

Benjamin of Kesher Talk, talks about
Peace Now, while Van, at the same address, talks about Tom Cruise.

LGF, which gets more hits in a minute, than all my blogs together get in a day, writes that
CAIR will Host an Anti-Israel Event in DC.

The Eye of an Eagle from Bat Eyin reveals the state of his
eyes.

Here are a couple of posts from Daled Amos; the first is
Rabbi Avi Weiss's trip to Israel, (the one from Riverdale.) The second discusses Israel's Right of Return.

A Simple Jew writes about
Elul.

From Israel and the Sin of Expulsion:
Israeli Delegation to French Minister on Expulsion: “We are Israelis. Those being expelled are Jews.”

Soccer Dad joined
me in discussing the next Israeli general trying to become a political leader, Moshe Ya'alon.

History News Network compares Israel's demonstrating against Olmert now with
the Arab countries' embracing Nassar after he led them to defeat in 1967.

House of Joy and kids have a
great time at the Pisgat Zeev Mall. Maybe I should take my granddaughters there!

Read the movie review from the
Counterterrorism blog.

Israellycool actually has something
good to say about the media. And here's something worth reading from Newsweek, of all places.

Jameel remember the
Hebron Massacre of 1929.

Random Thoughts updates us about the
restaurant named after Hitler.

This Dry Bones about the
UN will soon be a classic; he says more in those 4 little boxes, than most writers say in a book.

Mottel shows us great pictures from
the beginning and the end of camp. And here are more pictures from him in night games.

Beyond Tshuva and
Elul, of course, and here he gives a more physical example of what it's all about.

Beirut's
last Jews are discussed on Crossing the Rubicorn2.

My husband wrote about
Amnesty International. And Daled Amos wrote about Human Rights Watch. Maybe the question is "who's human?" And Ted Belman wrote: HRW is guilty of “war crimes”, not Israel .

On Jewish Current Issues, read about
Mark Steyn.

Carl tells us about
Emanuel Moreno, an Israeli hero.

On Back Spin, read about
Christians refusing Hisbollah aid.

Westbankmama tells us about an untypical
Israeli family reunion story.

From the Maryland conservatarian, read about
Democracy Activism - Mid East style.

The sundries shack will tell us
what people in Arab countries think 5 years after 9-11.

Boker tov, Boulder wants to
solve a mystery...
Ya'akov Menken asks:
What are we Jews, anyway? Also on Cross- Currents, Rabbi Adlerstein wrote about European Antisemitism, and kindness from the Poles of all people. And then Rabbi Rosenblum asked if the Democratic party is being infected with European Antisemitism. In addition, there are two posts questioning whether Kehillat Orech Eliezer is, in fact, an Orthodox congregation appointing a woman as its spiritual head: one by Rabbi Menken and the other by Rabbi Shafran. And Eytan Kobre wrote about a pair of Jewish baseball stars.
On Esser Agaroth, Ya'aqov gives us
a story about the Jewish Legion and a recipe!

I have three posts from Joe Settler:
Cowardly Generals, True stories from war and a book review.

On Blog Free! I have the
link for media fraud.

Jameel has
A Passionate Yearning for Eretz Yisrael and discovered "strange and dangerous lights" on his way to an anniversary dinner with his wife. He also posts about "the circle of life."

Last summer, many of us were amazed at the parallels between Disengagement and Katrina, and now
a year later...

May this be dedicated to the memory of
My Cousin Mickey, Z"L, who passed away last week. He was physically handicapped with Cerebral Palsy, but he had "no complaints" and thanked G-d every morning when he woke up. Everyone who knew him misses him terribly.



This will be posted on both
me-ander and Shiloh Musings. Me-ander should be easier to read, since Akiva fixed the template. Thanks again.

Send your links for the next edition of Havel Havelim via Conservative Cat’s
handy form or the blog carnival one, and at the same time you may discover other “carnivals” to visit and enter. You can also use those forms to send kosher recipes and other kosher food posts to the Kosher Cooking Carnival. Blog carnival also has a great listing of recent carnivals for your sidebar. You can either get one for a specific carnival, like HH or KCC, or a general one.

Thanks to
Soccer Dad for his hard work keeping this going, and if you want to host, please let him know at dhgerstman at hotmail dot com.

This appears in the
UberCarnival.Please put up a blurb on your site alerting readers to Havel Havelim.

19 comments:

westbankmama said...

David HaMelech as the first blogger - definitely something I never thought of before! Great idea to put on the Tehillim, and thank you for the links.

Sarah Likes Green said...

wow... i just kept scrolling down and it didn't stop!
great job :)

YMedad said...

Excellent work.

The Husband

Olah Chadasha said...

Well done!!!
-OC

Baleboosteh said...

Wow, great job, you have obviously put a lot of time and effort into that big long list!

Thanks for the link too!

Don Radlauer said...

Well done, Batya! Now all I have to do is find time to read all the good stuff everyone else has written, and still find a little time to write!

Irina Tsukerman said...

Great job! Thanks for including me! : )

Jack Steiner said...

Nice job.

Daled Amos said...

Wow.
Great job of compiling such a diverse collection of links.
And thank you for including some of mine.

Batya said...

My thanks to all of you. I certainly couldn't have done it alone.

It's nice to be part of such a great community of bloggers!

Anonymous said...

Amazing job -- yasher koach.

mother in israel said...

Great job--thanks for finding my post and linking to it!!

Batya said...

thank you

I couldn't have done it without all you great bloggers

Anonymous said...

been blogging for a while, but just now discovered the havelist.

thanx!!

Cosmic X said...

Wow!

SnoopyTheGoon said...

Wow! Four links - about three more than expected. I am both humbled and challenged now.

Thanks, Batya!

Anonymous said...

Thanks for including all the links that I sent
you in this morning's HH!

However, perhaps because I didn't use the right
form, a few of the links
are showing the URLs from your yahoo mail account
rather than the "true"
ones.

Here are the accurate links:

http://www.cross-currents.com/archives/2006/08/21/a-topsy-turvy-world/
http://www.cross-currents.com/archives/2006/08/23/is-the-democratic-party-going-european/
http://www.cross-currents.com/archives/2006/08/25/boychik-of-summer/


Thanks again for including them all....

Yours,

Yaakov Menken

Batya said...

Thanks to all of you. I'm glad you're happy with the results.
For those of us who post a few times a day, just one link is a toughie.

rabbi neil fleischmann said...

Very nicely done.