postgresql

Life in the Galilee keeps moving at a nice, slow and steady pace. I haven't posted in a while, so I'm going to give you a quick update. The English speaking community in our village has really grown in the past year. NBN has helped 20 or so new English speaking families move in and it is beginning to change the demographic. At this year's Purim event the community has decided to include English as part of the entertainment so the new olim will feel comfortable participating.

Exciting news for me, I'm going to be speaking at the postgresql conference in NY this March. I wanted to talk about the relevance of open source database to the Israeli Arab conflict while living in a small village in the Galilee, but I couldn't come up with good stuff to talk about, so I settled for discussing using the database engine as an application server.

update: example of apparent "Turkish" email sting (עוקץ) in the wild

Now that the the Turkel Committee has released its findings regarding the Mavi Marmarma incident, a new variation of the email scam is again finding its way to people who may be vulnerable. here's the new format - note that it keeps improving. For your information the UK phone number this time is in Cardiff.

I hope the Israeli Police Cyber Crime Unit is on this stuff...

------------------------------------

[from the evidently hijacked email address of the person you know]

Urgent

Apologies for having to reach out to you like this, but I made a quick trip to the UK and had my bag stolen from me with my passport and credit cards in it. The embassy has cooperated by issuing a temporary passport, I just have to pay for a ticket and settle Hotel bills.
To be honest,i don't have money with me,I've made contact with my bank but the best they could do was to send me a new card in the mail which will take 2-4 working days to arrive here.i was thinking of asking you to lend me some quick funds that i can give back as soon as i am out of here,i really need to make a last minute flight that leaves in a few hours.

I can furnish you with info on how you will get me the money. You can reach me via hotel's desk phone, the number is, +44 2920 644 171.

Thanks
[name and details of the person you know]

------------------------------------

People who receive emails like this should call the alleged sender using the landline or cell number they have, not the number in the received email if they are unsure about the provenance of the message.

The person whose email has been hijacked should try sending all the people on their hijacked email list an email from another email address forewarning them and giving them your new "secure" email address. The rest of us should probably make their usually belated monthly password change yet again.

Hoping this prepares someone for this - before it happens to them.

Shweky Concert

Last night we headed down to Caesarea for a Shweky concert in the old
Roman amphitheater. We actually went because my nephew was in the choir
and we wanted to see him perform. The choir did an excellent job.
Shweky's choreography has not changed very much in the past 9 years (or
so) when we saw him perform in the US. It was thoroughly entertaining.
The crowd had a small percentage of "not outwardly religious people"
(meaning men not wearing kipot and women not dressing according to the
modesty standards), which surprised me, but it seems like "chasidic"
music is really making a comeback among the secular. For those who
haven't seen it yet, I recommend going to you tube and searching for
אנחנו מאמינים בני מאמינים and watching the Lee Fishman video.

If you get the Shweky in Caesarea DVD that is coming out in the near
future and see us in it, please let me know.

Caesarea was very nice. We got there early and went to the port, where
there is a mixture of ruins and tourist shops. We ate at a nice outdoor
cafe, pricey but very good. There was a sign up that said the beach was
closed for swimming, but there were still plenty of people in the water.
There was even a small water slide in one section.

example of apparent "Turkish" email sting (עוקץ) in the wild

You may be aware that there are recommendations to change your email (and other) passwords following a reported heist and broadcast by Turkish hackers of tens of thousands of email addresses and passwords of Israelis which took place after the Mavi Marmara flotilla event. There is also indication that if your email address(es) and password(s) is not on the list (which may or may not be available any longer on the net) you should act as though it(they) are not secure.

This morning, I received what appears to be a cry for help from a friend.

Perhaps I should have immediately called this person to verify if this was real or not. Instead, I responded which is not recommended since in sender details IP is exposed. However, I am sharing their responses which may offer further detail and may be of use to readers of this posting.

In any case, I report it here as a heads-up to other people, and hopefully the relevant authorities in Israel who should be reading this.

In retrospect, there are several giveaways or tells that might have alerted me but this was good enough to get me motivated to want to help my friend. In fact, there is another spoiler or two but I will not reveal them openly here.

I did call my friend after the last response and he established that he was locked out of his yahoo account and was about to send "real" warnings to the email addresses he remembers that were on his contact list. He also reported the lock out to yahoo.

I now report this here, leaving out names.

Heads Up!!!

Email exchange:

first email received:

urgent help needed

Hey!

I'm writing this with tears in my eyes,I came down here to London,England for a short vacation and i was mugged at gun point last night at the park of the hotel where i lodged all cash,credit cards and cell were stolen off me.

I've been to the embassy and the Police here but they're not helping issues at all,My flight leaves in less than 3hrs from now and am having problems settling the hotel bills.

The hotel manager won't let me leave until i settle the hotel bills now am freaked out.

I need your help.

Regards

------------------------------------

I answered:

Just saw your email. I trust if you don't reply, that you are on your way back.

If you can answer and you are still in UK, supply hotel name and manager's name

and telephone number and anything else that can help us help you.

------------------------------------

response:

[my name], i actually have limited time on the internet as the hotel manager has directed that the phone in my room be disconnected. all they want is for meto settle their bills. You can call him on this number +447045791223.i am so glad you replied back to my email. I have nothing left on me and I'm grateful to God that i still have my life and my passport.it would have been worst if they made away with my passport.$1,300 will cover all my expenses but i will appreciate whatsoever you can afford to wire right now, I promise to refund it to you as soon as I arrive home. You can wire it to my name from a western union outlet around. Here are the details you need to get it to me;

Name - [the person you know]
Location - 22 St. John Street London, EC1M 4AY United Kingdom

I still have my passport so I can use it as identification, e-mail me the transfer details and the confirmation number include the amount sent.
we shall talk when this is over.


------------------------------------

my answer:

Please tell me something that only you would know. So I can be sure it is you.

------------------------------------
response:

My wife's name is [her actual maiden name] she is a [profession] and am an [actual profession] .my abode is Canaan, Safed, Israel.[my name],it is me.....there's really no time to talk much...

------------------------------------
(end of email thread)

Dinner in Yaara

It's been a while since I've last posted, though I'm sure you check the blog on a daily basis to see if the inspiration has hit me again. 13 years ago today (July 7), in an Italian section of Toronto next to highway 7 at a hall called "The Royalton" I got married. It was not only July 7th, apparently there was a Hebrew date too, and my BIL cares and knows what it is.

We can't go out this evening because of Book Club, and tomorrow night is English Shiur, Thursday night we're going camping... We actually had a dual celebration, the week before the kids got out of school, I took off a day and took my lovely wife on a 3 hour hike in the Yehudiya nature reserve. We had planned on going on the 7-8 hour hike, but we noticed 150 teenagers going on that hike when we arrived and decided, along with the advice of the guy who helps you choose a trail (I'm sure there is a title for him), to go on a shorter hike. We headed down the lower Zavyatan, a beautiful trail with a nice mountainside. Lots of interesting flora etc. There was nobody else on the trail, so we really got to enjoy the peace and quiet of nature's wonderland. After about an hour of walking we got to a very nice pool, very deep with lots of fish, and went swimming for a bit. We then went to a nice shady area for some lunch and climbed up the mountain. Very steep climb but thoroughly enjoyable.

Last night we finished our anniversary celebrations with Dinner in Ya'ara. Ya'ara (as everyone knows) is a small village about 5 minutes from Lebanon. Surprisingly, they have 2 kosher lemehadrin (super kosher) restaurants in the village. We had made a reservation at Beef Bahar and went there with another couple. You can find Ya'ara by taking the 70 up to Shlomi and keep on the road as it turns into the 899 until you see the sign directing you in. It's about a 20 minute drive from our village. The restaurant was very quaint and tzimmer-like. We ordered a first course of "fried things," which included Moroccan cigars, kubas and stuff like that, and a main course. They first brought out 12 different salads, bread and a large bowl of fries without asking us, which was very nice. The food was delicious and the portions were large.
The menu was pretty small, but it included a couple items for children

Highly recommended.

012 has lousy customer service

Kavei Zahav 012 has horrible customer service.

I highly recommend not using them for Internet.

This is the second time that I had an issue with them and each time I
had to talk to a manager.

The first time they promised to call me back 4 times and never did. I
finally insisted on talking to a manager, which solved the problem.
However, the frustration getting to that point was not worth it.

The story is that I wanted to cancel my service and they said I had an
18 month contract. I asked them for proof of the contract and they said
they would have to get the recording and someone would respond within 24
hours. 48 hours later I called them back, they said that was impossible
because it takes 3 days to get a recording from the outsourcing company.
They promised that someone would reply to me within 72 hours. 4 days
after that I called them back and they said they hadn't sent the request
yet but it would take 2 weeks. 2 weeks later I called back and at that
point I insisted on talking to a manager. After discussing it with her,
she checked and said, the recording is here, this wasn't outsourced. In
the end, my wife had agreed to the contract and had forgotten about it.
I can accept that, and agreed to keep the contract. It was just so
frustrating.

2 days ago I was called by 012 to renew my contract. I asked the
representative when my contract was up and she said it was in 3 weeks. I
foolishly believed her. I signed up with a different company and then
called to cancel 012. They told me it did not matter what the rep on the
phone said, my contract was for another 2 months and I would have to pay
a penalty. I asked them if I could hear the recording of the
conversation with the sales person and they said there was no record of
the conversation. Obviously, if I would have agreed to extend the
contract there would have been a recording of the conversation.

I finally agreed to a cancellation fee because the 48 shekels it cost me
was worth getting rid of them.

prohibition on lying

Uncle Moshe has made me mad enough to break the silence and return to
the keyboard. I was preparing for my Pirkei Avos shiur yesterday when I
stumbled on a falsehood that has been perpetuated by Uncle Moshe for
many, many years. We are up to the 9th misha of the first perek, Shimon
ben shetach explains to judges how they should interrogate the witnesses
to determine if they are lying or not.

There are very few commentaries on this mishna, so I brought sources
from Sanhedrin about the process and the story of the 80 witches that he
killed. I got into the Ten Commandments etc.

Then I decided to veer on the subject to the issue of lying in general
and, remembering the Uncle Moshe song, I turned to the verse that says
מדבר שקר תרחק. As the song goes, "מדבר שקר תרחק never tell a lie, Hashem
knows just what happened there's no reason to deny, honesty is אמת make
sure all your words are true so tatti, mommy and Hashem will be so proud
of you." This indicates that the torah source for lying comes from that
pasuk. However, that pasuk is not talking about lying at all. It is an
admonition to judges to be straight in their judgements. The pasuk
before states "don't bias your judgement towards poor people and the one
after says don't take bribery.

It seems that Uncle Moshe is trying to teach children not to lie with a
lie. We can judge him favorably and assume he is ignorant and actually
thinks that that is the source of the prohibition. Until last night I
was also ignorant and assumed that was the source of the prohibition,
but that is only because of his song. The actual prohibition comes from
a pasuk in Lev 19:11, which states "don't steal, deny or lie, a man
among his people."

The talmud brings down a number of cases where it is permitted to lie,
including a famous argument between beis hillel and beis shammai about
whether you should say that a bride is beautiful even if she is not. We
follow the opinion of Beis Hillel which says that after someone buys
something you should compliment it instead of telling him what you
really think. There is no purpose in telling someone after they buy it
that it was an unwise purchase, unless there is actual benefit to the
buyer (and informing him that he has bad taste is not really considered
beneficial.) Since there is a very strict return policy on wives, it is
appropriate to tell the groom that his bride is beautiful even if you
don't really think so.

Here in the Galilee we are getting ready for Pesach. the question of the
year is whether we eat canola oil or not. The rabbi said there is no
clear ruling and I can either eat it or not eat it, my choice. So I'm
taking a poll with all the people who will be eating with us, as to
whether they have a problem with it and if everyone is good with it, we
will start using it this year.

The big pesach tiyul has not been determined yet.

helping converts

Wishing my readers a tzom kal (easy fast).

This week there was a notice in shul that they are looking for families to host not religious/pre-Jewish immigrant soldiers for a traditional shabbos. The Education corps has a learning course in which they teach the fundamentals of traditional (Orthodox) judaism to those who are interested.

A couple of years ago we had over some soldiers who were in the middle of the conversion process and they came to our house a number of times for shabbat. We had lively discussions and they promised to keep in touch after the conversion was complete. Well they didn't. One of them called us once afterward and after that she never even returned my calls and the other one never called and never returned my calls. I think one of them actually had the potential, but I don't know where she is or what she is up to now.

The question is should we do it again? On one hand there is a serious problem with the russian immigrants who are not halachically jewish, but came to Israel after being treated like Jews their entire lives. They get to Israel and are not allowed to get married and are outcasts in a number of ways. Technically the State of Israel should have stricter controls of who comes in and who doesn't, but they are here now and it is our problem.

One on side, we don't want to be converting people who are probably not going to be keeping mitzvos. On the other hand, if they are interested in being part of the Jewish nation and they are willing to learn what is required, I don't know if it is my issue if at the end of their conversion they decide to join the secular majority of the Jewish people. That is, as long as I do my part and do my best to show them what traditional Judaism has to offer and to convince them that it is their best interest to keep the mitzvos.

camping at the dead sea

We just came back from a multi-day chanukah excursion. Monday night we camped at the Ein gedi beach by the dead sea. It was supposed to be bitter cold, but the weather turned out to be very nice. So we had a bbq and a small bonfire and everyone had a great time.

We went to ein bokek monday morning on the trail and there was a lot of water. The weather was perfect, but not really for a swim. As I watched my children I saw a lot of differences in thought patterns (or lack thereof). It was chilly out so none of the adults went into the water, aside from our feet as we walked through it. Some of the kids went into the pool and had a great time. When they came out they were freezing. We didn't bring a change of clothes because we didn't think it was possible that they would go into the water.

In any case, what I noticed is:
Child - Sees water wants to go in, goes in and has a great time. Comes out. It is cold. complains bitterly until something else catches his attention.

Adult - Sees water and doesn't even consider going in because it will be cold when he comes out.

The child obviously had more fun because he did not use any foresight. The question is does his discomfort after playing in the water offset the fun he had?

We will never know the answer.

erev yom kippur

This has been a crazy busy week between rosh hashan and yom kippur, I did two selichos tours, one in Tsfat with the boys(actually 2, one with each class) and then to Jerusalem the next evening with the girls. We also built our sukkah, which we got from our friends who bought a new paper sukkah.

Hopefully I will get to writing those experiences, but now I will talk about today. Today started at 4:30AM. That's not as early as it sounds because we changed our clocks last night, so it only felt like 5:30AM. I've been getting up at 5:30 anyways for the past 2 weeks for selichos. Last night I had decided that I was going to go down to the nachal (stream) for an early dip in the mikvah (ritual bath). My plan was to daven (pray) at 6 and then go down afterwards, but I told my wife that if I happen to wake up at 4 then I would go then.
When I opened I eyes and saw that it was 4:30 I decided that it was a good time, and I was parked dopwn by the nachal by 4:45. It was very dark, but there was enough moon and starlight to see the path. The hue on top of the mountains was a deep purple and everything looked dark and menacing. I was thinking on the way down that I should have brought a knife with me in case any animals threatened me. After a couple seconds I realized that the only animal that might threaten me are wild pigs, and a knife won't help against them. Afterward, I realized that the jackals might also attack if they are in a bunch, but I didn't think about it then and I didn't have a knife anyways so it didn't matter.

I walked along the dark path for about half an hour until I got to the springs and the big pool. The only sounds I heard were my own sandals and animals crashing through the brush when i disturbed them. The only animals I actually saw were a jackal, an interesting looking animal that was bigger then a squirrel, maybe a weasel, ferret or really large rat, and some fish. There are some Persian fallow deer in the area, but I haven't see any.

I got to the springs at 5:10AM and it was getting much lighter. The water was perfectly clear and I saw some fish swimming about. I was in a bit of a rush because I had to get back to davening at 6, so I quickly jumped in and dunked 7 times and got out. It was so peaceful, with nobody else around. When I started walking back, I noticed that that the leaves on the trees had changed from dark black to light green and I could see the holy raspberries on the bushes.

About half way back I noticed a tent set up in a clearing with a small family cooking breakfast. It's surprising that I didn't see the tent on the way in, but it was dark.

I made it to shul before 6 and got home by 7.

After breakfast, I took the boys to buy our lulavim and esrogim, here you pay the same price as back home, the only difference being the currency.

I wish you all a g'mar chasima tova, an easy fast and a happy, healthy sweet new year.

sefer torah fundraiser problem

UPDATE:
See bottom for update

Disclaimer: I have not consulted with any rabbinic people about my issue, so don't take this the wrong way.

I recently received a fund-raising request from my yeshiva high school alumni association. They are writing a sefer torah and dedicating it to the rabbeim. It is being marketed as a way to give back to the school and show appreciation for the hard work and dedication that they had put into your education and life. As it is a dormitory school, the rabbis are a very big part of your life and teenage-hood.

After I got the first mail from the alumni association, I got another email from a former classmate asking me to participate in buying a parsha with our class.

I really liked my high school and I liked the rabbis, not all of them obviously, but I got along well enough with most of them, which is not something most of my contemporaries from other high schools can say. I am still in contact with the high school and see one of the rabbis once a year, generally. I have donated in the past and I will continue to donate in the future, may God continue sending me parnasa.

I have a small problem with this particular fund-raiser though. I haven't ruled out participating in my class parsha, and I most probably will participate.

Here's my problem -
They are selling:
Entire Torah: Already Sold
Individual parshas: a bunch of them already sold
Special parshas within the individual parshas: A bunch already sold
Pasukim

If someone already bought the entire Torah, then he gets credit for writing a sefer Torah. The guy who donates a parsha is really not donating a parsha, because the guy who bought the entire torah already got that parsha. The guy who buys a special parsha or a pasuk is not really donating them either.

In other words, if someone buys a pasuk in a special parsha, that pasuk has already been sold to 3 other people, The Torah donor, the parsha donor, the special parsha donor and finally to the pasuk donor. I would think (and I could be wrong) that all of the donors aside from the original Torah donor are going to get credit for giving tzedaka, but not for writing a Torah.

I would like to hear from my readers what they think of this situation. As I mentioned above, I have not consulted with any rabbis about my issue with this yet and it is very possible that I am wrong and that everyone involved does get Torah writing points and not just regular tzedaka points (which are nothing to sneeze at).

UPDATE
I got a response from the yeshiva and I'm happy to tell you that my issue was unfounded. The head of the alumni association sent are sponsa to the exact same question from R' Zalman Nechemia Goldberg. The question asked went much farther then the question I asked and included the question, do you need to make a kinyan on the letter in the sefer somehow. The question indicated that most of the time when you purchase a letter in a sefer torah you do not make a kinyan on it. However, I have seen where the person sponsoring a letter has given the pen to the sofer and made him a shaliach in the writing. They also asked if someone who is not allowed to write a torah donates, does that pasul the entire torah.

If anyone wants to read the responsa themselves, please let me know and I'll forward it over (in Hebrew).
The answer is that when someone buys a parsha, they are not in actuality buying a parsha. The parsha is dedicated to them. However the way that it technically works is that you take all the money collected for the sefer torah project and combine it into one pot. If one person spends $1000 and another person spends $200 then the person with the $200 donation gets 1/5 of the amount of Torah writing credit then the $1000 donor. So if you want to know how much sefer torah writing credit you actually get, you add up the sum total of donations and divide the amount of your donation by it and that percentage is what you take with you as torah writing credit and the rest of the donation goes with you as tzedaka and harbatzas torah credit.

A groiseh yasher koach to the hanhala of the yeshiva, I recommend all of my readers donate to a sefer torah project.

shana tova

I want to wish all my readers a שנה טובה ומתוקה, a sweet and good new year. May this year be a year of health, wealth and happiness for all of us.

I have been very busy this entire year, with very little time to blog, as I'm sure you've noticed. God willing this coming year will be just as busy, if not more so.

selichos

It looks like I missed the JBloggers conference in jlem this year. I've
been pretty lax in my blogging recently and I hardly read anybody so I
didn't feel the pull to connect with my fellow bloggers. Maybe next year.

Normally I leave my house at 6 AM to beat traffic into Haifa, so I daven
when I get there. The shul on the Technion campus is mostly a sefardic
institution and they have been saying selichos for the entire month of
elul. Now that it is a week before rosh hashana, ashkenazim have started
saying selichos as well. After some inner debate I decided that it was
worthwhile leaving at 5:30 AM to get to selichos on time and I will hope
I don't get punished too horribly for saying sefardic selichos instead
of the regular ones.

I got to the shul 2 minutes late and someone was at the door saying
ashkenazim that way. They had a seperate minyan for ashkenazic selichos.
I had been worried about the singing and chanting, but this way there
were no worries. It was the familiar hum of reading the words as fast
you can possibly get them out, reading out loud together the key phrase
over and over with a single pizman other then the daily שמע קולנו. I
don't know if God forgave us because of the stuff we read, I'm not even
sure that anyone who was there knew what he was reading. But he
certainly forgave us because we showed we cared by getting up extra
early to ask.

school politics

I'm on the school parent board again this year (like a PTA). I
considered leaving the board and making room for someone new. In fact, I
tried. I volunteered to be one of the class parents, we have 4 this
year. One of the class parents is supposed to be elected to represent
the class on the school board. I actually insisted on a correct process
this year where 3 people are voted as class parents and only one
represents the class on the school board. Last year, I was the only
volunteer and we had to convince 2 others to raise their hands. This
year 3 other people instantly put up their hands. Nobody had a problem
with 4 class parents. At the end of the meeting I asked the other 3 if
anyone wanted to represent the class and one woman said that her husband
really wanted to. I thought this would be a great way out of it. It is
so hard getting anything across and the culture is so different here
that I thought, "I tried for a couple years, and they'll be relieved
when I tell them that I'm not returning."

So I went down to the final meeting where we were talking about whether
to strike the system because a teacher wasn't given all the hours we
wanted and told them that 6th grade will be represented by another
parent. I was informed by the principal and a few other parents that
that is ridiculous and 6th grade can be represented by more then 1
parent. I explained to them that we had already agreed to 1 parent per
class and they rejected that with the explanation that at the beginning
of the year a bunch of parents join and then leave, so most probably the
other guy wouldn't stick it out.

At the meeting, most of the other parents actually agreed with me
(surprise) that we could not threaten to strike the system when the
school has more hours then it is supposed to and we only want 5 more,
which we can pick up from other classes here and there.

Last week I met with the principal and we worked out some of our
misunderstandings, so all is good.

Lost and Found

On July 16 2005, I wrote a blog post about going to Morgenfeld's
restaurant on Moshav Liman. The restaurant has since moved to across
from Akhziv and the food is excellent, we were there 2 nights ago with
settler friends from the West Bank.

Laurie commented that she was looking for a friend, Amir Tlumak who used
to live in moshav Liman. I don't know either Laurie or Amir, but
yesterday, more then 2 years later, Amir commented on that blog post
that he is still in Israel and hasn't seen Laurie in 27 years.

Amir did not leave an email address or phone number, and Laurie did not
leave any contact information either.

If Laurie is still reading and Amir still wants to be found or if anyone
knows Laurie or Amir, please let me know if they find each other. I'm
very curious.

sefardi selichos rap

I go to a sefardic shul for morning prayers every morning and now during the month of elul they have started saying selichos. Ashkenazim only have to say 1 week of selichos because as a general rule we have less to be forgiven for.
Sefardim don't just say selichos, though, they chant them. And sometimes they slaughter a goat in the middle.
The way it works is different people randomly start leading the chant at different places, so one guy might start chanting out loud and everyone will start answering and then in the middle a different guy will start his own chant.
Today someone started rapping instead of chanting. I think he was going for a new selichos feel. But he actually rapped shomer yisrael. It was very moving. Then he started to breakdance and that's when the rabbi asked him to leave. He felt that it was inappropriate to rap and breakdance the selichos as it is supposed to be a chanting with minor in-sync swaying.

tzfat klezmerfest

While I'm already blogging...

The klezmer festival is back in tzfat (or safed if you write it like
that). The hebrew site can be found at http://www.klezmerf.com/ and
there is also a English site at
http://safed-home.com/KlezmerFestival.html The English schedule is at
http://safed-home.com/2009KlezmerFestivalSchedule.html one of the links
on the site doesn't work.

The festival starts today, Aug 10 and goes until Wednesday. We've gone
for the past couple years and have really enjoyed ourselves. I highly
recommend Simply Tzfat who is playing tonight at 11PM. We won't be there
as it is way too late for the kids, but it is definitely worth seeing.

If you just roam the streets you'll find a mad fiddler or too and that
totally make the evening.

Enjoy the music.

50 shek for a blogging convention???

I just received my invitation to the 2nd annual Jewish bloggers
convention. It will be held somewhere in Jerusalem on Sep 13, 2009. The
exact location is not being released due to security concerns.

I enjoyed the 1st blogging convention. I didn't learn anything listening
to the panelists, but it was a lot of fun meeting the other bloggers,
some of whom I read and others who I had never heard of. When I first
suggested this blogging convention to Jameel 5 years ago, I told him
that people would happily pay to go to a blogging convention and he told
me I'm out of my mind.

I'm not so sure that I'm going to go this year. Maybe it's the 50 shekel
cover charge. Maybe it's because I'm not seen as often on the blogging
scene anymore. Maybe it's because I don't have any freaking time.

In defense of the cover charge, last year's dinner was easily worth 50
shek. If you have a couple of piled high deli sandwiches and some
drinks, you could easily surpass the cover charge. I would doubt this is
for profit, and even if it was I'm pro-free market.

But at the moment I'm not registering. We'll see what tomorrow brings.

sys admin in haifa

I'm looking for a sys admin in Haifa with good Linux experience. If
you're interested shoot me a note.

apples from the US

Today, at work, I noticed that the Granny Smith apples had a tag that
said Product of the USA, Washington Apples. I asked the woman who is in
charge of food why we are buying our apples from the US. We have plenty
of apples grown in the country. She replied that we buy from the
supermarket, whatever they have. But it is probably because of shmita,
then she and another woman (both of them secular) started arguing about
exactly when shmita ended and if that was a valid reason.

A couple weeks ago we visited the Breishit fruit packing plant in the
Golan. The apple picking is starting in another 2 weeks, so there are no
fresh apples from Israel yet, last years crop was indeed a shmitta crop,
so unless we are eating heter mechira (and it is odd that the
supermarket we buy from wouldn't) we have to eat apples from chool (out
of the country).

Speaking of the harvest, I saw a bunch of random people in one of
kibbutz yagur's fields picking tomatoes. A guy I was giving a ride to
told me that the machine already finished the harvest, and these people
are doing leket. Leket is one of the commandments of a field. After the
harvest, anyone can come to the field and pick up what is left. It is
one of the 3 commandments relating to poor people picking other people's
crops, giving them something to eat. The other 2 commandments are שכחה
and פאה. I have not seen a corner of any field marked off as being for
poor people to harvest, but I imagine that if a buncle is left in the
field, someone will come and take it.

According to <a
href="http://www.ynet.co.il/yaan/0,7340,L-15229-MTUyMjlfODA3MzA4NDZfMTQ4Njg3MjAw-FreeYaan,00.html">ynet's
encyclopedia</a> these mitzvos are only done when most of the Jewish
people live in Israel. Until then this is a Rabbinical commandment, and
I'm happy to see it is being fulfilled.

Finally on the topic of harvest, we went to the Golan last week to a
U-Pick in Moshav Sha'al and had a great time picking sour cherries,
raspberries, blackberries, mulberries, little plums and some other
assorted berries. It is 23 shekel entry fee for all you can eat and then
20 shek a kilo for what you take home. Highly recommended.