Shabbes and the tree of knowledge

My father Leo was what I call a ba'al she'ela, 'one who questions'. For those unfamiliar with Hebrew, this is a play on words, a pun, on ba'al tshuva, or one who returns to the fold of the devout, essentially a born again Jew. Whence the pun? Well, tshuva means 'answer' as well as 'return', so anyway...

Yeshivish till he was 18, Leo began to spend too much time with his handful of buddies at the Brooklyn Public Library, reading all sorts of apikorsus. The ringleader and poisoner was a certain Jerry Eckstein who began to whisper in their tender ears all sorts of sexy new ideas, and lead them to the forbidden books, the tree of knowledge. This leader of the teen delinquents would eventually become an esteemed philosophy professor at SUNY Albany. Hard to believe that whole bunch of 'em are all about 80 years old today -- All except for my father who died 14 years ago.

Leo learned many interesting songs at pirkhey, which he passed down to me, and I figured I'd share with you one for Shabbes and mitzva night:

Down the ol' Canarsie line,

Down the ol' Canarsie line,

For ev'ry hundred people,

The Jews were ninety nine,

So on a hot Yom Kippur day,

All the Jews, they stayed away,

So the BMT went bankrupt

On that Yom Kippur day!

Rivkeh my dahling,

Rivkeh my love,

Hop into my pushcart,

And I will take you home...

Shabbes, is coming,

We'll eat gefilte fish,

But Rivkeh, my dahling,

You ah my fayvrite dish!

Rivkeh my dahling....

Today in the life of the Jews: The arrest of Jews in France by Philip Augustus in 1180. His father Louis VII was more tolerant, but even before Louis died, Philip was find of persecuting landsmen. One Shabbat he whisked a large number of Jews from synagogue into prison. They were liberated only upon payment of a ransom of 1500 marks of silver, which incidentally didn't protect them from the general expulsion of 1182. At this time however, the domain of the French king was rather small, but the territory under French control gradually expanded, and Jews were expelled from any new territories that came under their control.

Coping without me, Abisl Abbas and Jews who liked ghettos

Figured I'd check in. Hope my three day absence didn't worry any of you too much, and that you were able to cope. If you couldn't, I would understand that too. The long weekend is always dominated by the kinderlakh, rendering bloggery impossible.

Just a brief note on Eretz Yisruel: in the early 1990s, Rabin & Peres thought it would be a great idea to provide tens of thousands of rifles to Arafat & Co, assuming the latter would take care of Hamas, doing the dirty work for the Jews. But Arafat turned the weapons on Jews. In a new spin on Groundhog's day, circa 2006, Olmert & Co. supplied tens of thousands of rifles to Abu Maazen (Abbas) & Co, assuming the latter would use them on Hamas. As it turns out, the moderate Abbas, the holocaust-denying Abbas, delivered a speech to his minions in which he implores them to aim their guns against 'the occupation' and not each other. Anyway...

It's imperative that you be informed that 402 years ago today (or the year 1605, lest your life become needlessly complicated) In the life of the Jews was the day that the Ghetto in Verona, Italy was officially established. Until then, Jews lived where they pleased on the peninsula. Oddly, it seems they didn't mind too much; the forced resettlement seems to have afforded them feelings of security and solidarity. It was exactly five years earlier that they dedicated a new synagogue in the ghetto (It was the first day of Shvat), a day that was ordained a special holiday, featuring Purim-like festive processions and celebratory hymns. This curious day was celebrated in this manner until the French Revolution - about two centuries.