My call to capitulation below is based on the following article:

FROM WND'S JERUSALEM BUREAUMore London bombings on way, warns MuslimUK Islamist leader claims Brits ready to carry out 'many attacks'
Posted: July 2, 20071:00 a.m. Eastern
By Aaron Klein© 2007 WorldNetDaily.com
See: http://tinyurl.com/23gepe

Capitulate! Capitulate, I tell you!

Listen to me. I know of what I speak.

Their demands are so rational, so modest and so few.

What do they ask of you, oh you stiff-necked infidels, you heathens you?

They ask only that your women wear burqas in public, be the illiterate, barefoot maidservants Allah created them in His DivineWisdom to be, allow themselves to be beaten, submit to their husbands' every sexual whim whenever the urge strikes him (and he strikes her) and to not go out unescorted.

They ask only that you give up the booze and the bacon butties. Isn't there enough spam on the net? Must you have it in little cans too? I mean really.

Must you, I mean *must* you, put alcohol in shoe polish and floor varnish? That's crass.

They ask only that the blind not walk around the streets with their unclean dogs. I mean, they've got a point. They are terribly unsightly.

Wouldn't it be nice to wake to the sound of the pitter-patter of 40 little feet in your two-room apartment every morning?

And what have you to do that is more important, or more entertainingfor that matter, than praying five times per day?

Do not be so hard-hearted, brothers and sisters, but let the light and love of Allah Akbar in.

Those of you who reserve doubts as to whether this is the life you want to live and want for your children and their children after them can comfort yourselves in the thought that giving in to radical Islam will hasten a Malthusian crisis and usher in the end of days.

Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat, Israel
DoreenDotan@gmail.com

The piece below was inspired by an article entitled:
"Rise of man theory ‘out by 400,000 years’", published June 25, 2007 in the TIMES ONLINE

See: http://tinyurl.com/3xq7t9

Anachronistic Agriculture

The recent discovery of microscopic-sized agricultural tools in a container of Spirulina amazed even the most skeptical of scientists and opened anew the discussion as to how early in our development agriculture in fact began.

The results of the research are astounding and have caused a revolution of thinking among evolutionists. Agriculture, it has been conclusively proven, dates to the mid-Hadean aeon, that is, 4 billion years ago!

Storehouses containing traces of spelt, einkorn, emmer and kamut, cultured by a people called the Pro-Karyotes, have been found in the Nile Delta region.

These little guys were busy as beavers. Their granaries were enormous relative to their size. Some measure as much as 20 X 20 mm.

Caches of flintlock firearms were found as well. It is believed that these were used by the Pro-Karyotes to defend themselves against marauding bands, whom they refer to as the Anti-Karyotes in their records, which are written in cuneiform.

The Anti-Karyotes, for their part, retained records in which they described themselves as "rewilded ferals" who returned to being hunter-gatherers. They subsisted mainly on Wooly Mammoth and cherimoya, but they did sometimes give in to their old ways and indulged their taste for processed foods and Hershey's Kisses. They seemed to have been partial to Velveeta Cheesefood. They typically wore nothing but red bandanas and their ideogram, with which they were all tattooed on their forearms, looks amazingly like the phrase "Guns and Roses". The Anti-Karyotes were the progenitors of the two branches of modern day Bushmen, those who inhabit the Kalahari Desert and those who inhabit Texas Desert.

Exacting inventories of stock were scrupulously kept by the Pro-Karyotes. Their mathematical abilities were impressively advanced for their time. Teensy weensy abaci were found in their managerial and accounting offices, which were on the top floor of some of the granaries.

The Pro-Karyotes worshipped a god they called Hugh (or Huge) Karyote. They described him as being unfathomably great in wisdom and magnitude. He was believed to look something like a "gargantuan abbey" that contained vast, labyrinthine corridors, which they referred to as "mite-o-chondria" or "might-o-chondria, within the holy of holies, which was named Nucleus, a name so sacred as to be forbidden to be pronounced on pain of death.

Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat, Israel
DoreenDotan@gmail.com

THE UNIVERSE APPREHENDED

Thanks to the combined, dedicated, heroic and unswerving forensic efforts of cosmologists and ATF Special Agents, the world's most, mercurial and fugitive fugitive, the Universe, has been apprehended after almost fourteen billion years at large, evading even the most sophisticated efforts to bring it into custody.

Fast forward: The Trial - The Planet Earth vs. The Universe

The Universe didn't look so big and bad being hauled manacled and in leg irons and chains into Federal Court earlier today accompanied by California State Police. Federal Justice Gary Joseph Easton was perceptibly astounded when he saw the charges leveled against the Universe.

The indictment drawn up against the Universe lists crimes so myriad and heinous as to defy the imagination. The Universe is known to have performed equally myriad acts of loving-kindness, but it has been amply demonstrated by the Prosecution that these were either meant to throw authorities off the track; fronts intended to conceal illegal and nefarious activities or money-laundering operations. The more minor charges against the Universe include paedophilia, zoophilia, piracy, use of computer software without license, tax evasion, marketing tainted toothpaste internationally, tapping bears for their bile, counterfeiting, pandering, extortion and one charge of loitering. The Universe was charged with innumerable capital offenses the world over as well. A mere sampling of these include: murder during hostage-taking, murder for hire, treason, adultery and apostasy. Among the military capital offenses allegedly committed by the Universe are participating in the Paris Commune, desertion during the American Civil War and not rendering unto Caesar what is Caesar's. But the crime of all time that the Universe is being charged with is the notorious Big Bang. The explosion to end all explosions was originally believed by the Pinkertons to be the result of the detonation of an "infernal machine" by Anarchists for the sake of striking terror in the Multiverse, starting with downtown Chicago. But more in-depth investigation has proven the Big Bang to have been long-planned by the Family of the Universe to establish its youngest son as the undisputed kingpin in a network of organized crime that was intended to, and eventually would have, spanned the entire Multiverse had it not been nipped in the bud.

Not in the least bit apprehensive in the courtroom, the Universe swaggeringly pleaded guilty to all the counts in the indictment and was so brazen as to tell the Judge that its only regret is that they know so little of the Universe's "adventures". However, when the death sentence was handed down by Judge Easton, the Universe began to tremble. Escorted out of the courtroom by State Police, the Universe realized that it would be spending the next few billion years on Death Row.

Twenty Billion Years Later: The Execution

In time, the Universe mellowed, matured and waxed introspective. It took up tai chi chuan and began to read such treatises as The Tibetan Book of the Dead. It became genuinely repentant and a model prisoner. It wrote numerous books, some of which it illustrated, aimed at youth at risk warning them of the hazards of a life of crime. Yet, its every request for a stay of execution was rejected. Having exhausted every legal channel, and near exhaustion itself, the wizened Universe was led to the cell in which it would expire. Understanding that all resistance was futile, the resigned Universe contracted itself into the 6 X 9 X 9.5 feet cell. The metal door of the cell clanged ominously behind the Universe and the bolt was thrown. Immediately, super-heated gas began to flow into the cell. Five minutes later a tiny, barely audible whimper was heard…and then absolute, eternal silence.

Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat, Israel
DoreenDotan@gmail.com

Ms. Multiverse

It was a tough contest, but the judges finally arrived at a decision. Here's the moment we've all been waiting for. We have a winna! And now, without further ado, allow me to introduce Xcolodjenenrhneymenejtmoethe 9838585, this year's Ms. Multiverse!

Step right up and speak loud and clear into the voice synthesizer, dear. My, you look and sound so excited. You're emitting photons and phonons all over the place. Not like the girls on earth who just tremble and giggle nervously. Is she?

I can't believe I won! I never expected this! There were soooo many beautiful contestants, from soooo many universes. I thought I might get Ms. Congeniality, because everyone's always told me the yellow light I transpire makes them feel so happy, but I never expected to be Ms. Multiverse. I feel soooo honored to have been chosen to represent my galaxy, Ademordna, and my universe.

No need to be modest, Xcolodjenenrhneymenejtmoethe 9838585. You were a sure win. You wowed us all in both the swimsuit and formal wear competition.

Step up to the electron microscope and let us get a better look at you. Oh, yes. You are a lovely creature. Lovely indeed. May I call you Xcolodjenenrhneymenejtmo for short?

Of course you may! That's what they called me when I was a blastocyst.

Is it too presumptuous to inquire as to your vital stats? You are enviably statuesque and svelte, you know.

It's not presumptuous at all. I am 47.013 meters tall and weigh exactly 7.279495 femtograms. I'm very careful about my diet and never let my weight fluctuate. And I exercise a lot too. But I'm careful not to let myself get too thin. I was really traumatized when the top model in Ademordna died of anorexia. She had been soooo beautiful. When she died she weighed something like 6.734592 attograms. She looked awful toward the end. She was so young, too. It was a tragedy, a terrible tragedy.

What are your favorite forms of exercise?

Sports. I love to play demrmentatsisiygs.

I've never heard of it. How is it played?

Oh. It's something like a cross between your badminton and foosball. Just instead of being played with a shuttlecock or a ball, we use subatomic particles that exist in our universe called pasteyons. Their lively -8/7 spin really makes for a great work-out.

Ah. I see. Well, I must say, the results are stunning. And your complexion is positively radiant, absolutely flawless. How do you keep it festering and oozing like that? Can you let us in on your secrets?

Sure. Back home I use an exfoliating scrub with a pH of 0.2 that I concoct myself from things I find in my Mom's kitchen. Here on Earth a wad of fiberglass imbibed with Diet Coca Cola with Vitamins and Minerals is a pretty good substitute, but I do find the Coke a bit harsh sometimes.

And your hair! It's so luxuriant. May we ask how you care for it?

Xcolodjenenrhneymenejtmoethe 9838585 tosses her magnificent mane, laughs and says. Oh, that! The most important element in having beautiful hair is choosing one's ancestors wisely. I only let it grow really long on my palms. The rest I keep neatly trimmed. She winks cheekily and smiles mischievously at the audience.

Is that your natural color?

The midnight blue is mine, yes, but the violet highlights are from a rinse.

And hobbies. Do you enjoy any hobbies?

Oh, yes! I love watching galaxies collide and painting my toenails.

That must take up a good deal of your free time. How many toenails do you have, Xcolodjenenrhneymenejtmo?

Four score and seven, last I counted.

What color is your toenail polish? Earthlings can't see in that range.

Oh, I'm sorry. How stupid of me. I keep forgetting the culture gap. It's frosted Kozmique Ray Blue. It makes me feel very feminine and goes soooo well with my hair. It's such a nice change from the Gamma Ray Grey I am expected to wear at work as an implanted 'bot too.

Your English is excellent, Xcolodjenenrhneymenejtmo. Where did you pick it up?

Why, thank you! At a store for second-hand designer clothes in the East Village. Just kidding. No, actually, when I was selected Ms. Ademordna I began to read Beowulf. Then I simply extrapolated what the development of the language would be by computer-simulating your culture and history and by the time I got here for the Ms. Multiverse contest I spoke what you call modern English with a few anachronisms.

Smart girl. Good thinking.

What do you like most in creatures, Xcolodjenenrhneymenejtmo? What are your turn-ons? What really gets your juices flowing?

Well, I get bored quickly. So, I really like creatures with a quick wit and short half life. A short half life is soooo hot.

And what turns you off?

Intolerance, impatience and lack of BO. Definitely. Also the red button on my back.

What are your plans for the future, Xcolodjenenrhneymenejtmo?

My long-term goal is to evolve into a Drormentejthemiszimentjltl. In the intervening light years, I'll use the prize money for travel. There are soooo many universes that I want to see! I've received soooo many invitations to stay with the many friends I've made among the contestants. I'm really excited about the prospect of visiting them and seeing their home star systems. Oops, there I go exuding the photons and phonons again.

There you have her, Ladies, Gentlemen and Life Forms of All Stripes, Xcolodjenenrhneymenejtmoethe 9838585, this year's Ms. Multiverse! Those of you that have hands, or reasonable analogues thereof, give her a warm round of applause.

Be careful descending the ramp, dear. Don't trip on those stiletto heels.

Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat, Israel
DoreenDotan@gmail.com

THE CREATION OF A STATE

This is what is involved in the creation of a state:http://tinyurl.com/2kyw6l

We Israelis too were brutalized and reduced to the ignominy of committing acts that would have been unthinkable before we had a state to defend. It really does not matter if we are more than, less than or equally brutal to the Palestinian Arabs. We have both become far more brutal and violent than we were - all for the sake of achieving and defending a state with "secure borders".

And that is why when people ask me if I believe in a two-state solution, I tell them that I believe in a zero-state solution.

No state is a solution to violence, to intrigue, to nefarious undertakings, systematic povertization of target populations in order to keep the drug, prostitution and weapons markets humming. No state will not send its young to war for the sake of maintaining the power of the elite.

And although I do not see Israel as an imperialist state because none of the land that we seized was as a result of our initiative, but rather as a result of wars that we did not begin, but were victorious in - still I do not doubt that we would be imperialists and colonialists if we could, because that is the way of the realpolitik of statecraft. And the Palestinians, given the chance, would do exactly the same thing.

From what I understand from scions of families that have inhabited this area for many generations, Arab and Jewish alike; these problems did not exist before the British arrived and fomented discord to their own purposes. Historians say the same. There was also no concept of state in this area until it was imported.

I don't see any solution to the conflicts in this area until states and borders are abolished. Only when there are no borders can disarmament, particularly nuclear disarmament, occur. Only then can prosperity based on truly free trade agreements take place. Only then can there be free educational and cultural exchange. Only then can there be religious speculation that is not the concept by which we measure our pain, as John Lennon so aptly observed, but rather the measure of our joy.

Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat, Israel
DoreenDotan@gmail.com

So, what do we mean by civilization?

I was floored when someone who lives in England wrote on a message board recently that British imperialism and colonialism were media for the spread of civilization and that Britain was, and still is, a "beacon of civilization" to the world. I simply could not believe that anyone still held the view that imperialism and colonialism was a favor that the White man did for the "colored savages".

It is all the more surprising when one considers that this person is highly critical of Israel's relationship to the Palestinians. Less surprisingly, this person refuses to accept the fact that it was the British who flooded the area that was to become the state of Israel with Arabs from the surrounding countries, going so far as to apply pressure on France to allow this, and created the Israeli-Palestinian problem in so doing. But that is the subject of other treatises.

The following passage is a first-hand account of a man who lived under colonialism. While he is from Peru, the imperialism and colonialism of Britain was no less barbaric than that of Spain, it's competitor in the attempt to conquer as much of the world as possible.

In the passage quoted below Prada also mentions that the "gentlemen" who owned the haciendas were often educated in England. His description of the effects of that education should be noted.

Robert Graham's Introduction: "Manuel Gonzáles Prada (1848 – 1919) was a Peruvian poet, writer and intellectual who moved toward an anarchist position around 1920. He was familiar with the major anarchist writers, and shared with Kropotkin an admiration for the French moral philosopher, Jean Marie Gayau (1854 – 1888)*, and opposition to Social Darwinism. He was one of the first Latin American writers to discuss the issue of indigenous peoples. The following excerpts are taken from his 1904 essay "Our Indians" translated here by Paul Sharkey."

"A hacienda comes about through the amassing of tiny plots wrested from their lawful owners and the lord wields the authority of a Norman baron over his peons. Not only has he a say in the appointment of governors, mayors and justices of the peace, but he conducts weddings, appoints heirs, disposes of inheritances and has the sons submit to a slavery that normally lasts their lifetime just to clear the debts of the father. He enforces fearful punishments like the foot-stocks, flogging, the pillory and death; or as droll as head-shaving or cold water enemas. It would be a miracle if someone with no regard for life or property were to have any regard for female honor; every Indian woman, single or married, may find herself the target of the master's brutish lusts. Abduction, violation and rape do not mean much when the belief is that Indian women are there to be taken by force. And for all that the Indian never addresses his master without kneeling and kissing his hand. Let it not be said that the lords of the land act that way out of ignorance or for want of education; the children of some hacienda owners are shipped to Europe in their childhood, educated in France or England and return to Peru with all of the appearances of civilized folk; but once they are back on their haciendas, the European veneer comes off and they act even more inhumanely and violently than their fathers; haciendas are tantamount to kingships in the heart of the Republic and the hacienda owners act like autocrats in the bosom of democracy…

So, what do we mean by civilization? …The greatest accomplishment of morality, for individuals and societies alike, consist of its having turned man's strife with his neighbor into a mutual agreement to live. Where there is no justice, mercy or goodwill, civilization is nowhere to be found: where the "struggle for existence" is enunciated as the rule of society, barbarism rules. What is the point of amassing the learning of an Aristotle when one is a tiger at heart? What matter the artistic gifts of a Michelangelo when one has the heart of a swine? Rather than going around the world spreading the light of art or science, better to go around dispensing the mild of human kindness. Societies where doing good has graduated from being an obligation to being a habit where the act of kindness has turned into an instinctive impulse deserve the description highly civilized. Have Peru's rulers attained that degree of morality? Are they entitled to look upon the Indian as a creature incapable of civilization?"

* I heartily recommend the writing of Jean Marie Guyau as well. Excerpts from his work can be found in Kropotkin's ETHICS: ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT", Chapter XII, Development of Moral Teachings--XIX Century, (Concluded). See: http://tinyurl.com/2pnqk2

Source: ANARCHISM – A Documentary History of Libertarian Ideas, Volume One: From Anarchy to Anarchism (300C3 to 1939), Robert Graham Editor,
Copyright @2005 BLACK ROSE BOOKS, pp. 322 - 323

Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat, Israel
DoreenDotan@gmail.com

Hear Ye! Hear Ye!
Oral Law is Now Mandated in Laputa Manqué

Henceforward, and from now on too, Oral has been instituted as the Law in all the Realm of Laputa Manqué.

In consideration of the manqué of the subjects of Laputa, We have found it proper and fitting to mandate Oral and not require masturbation of Our subjects. The Queen of the Laputans Manqué is an enlightened and compassionate Monarch and does not wish the good subjects to bring harm upon themselves.

Anyone found guilty of not performing cunnilingus (preferably double clitics) or fellatio, or both, in the course of any sexual encounter will be subject to public humiliation and catcalling from brawny, sweaty construction workers perched precariously on scaffoldings and rails on the buildings surrounding the commons.

Is that new Page, Horatio, around? Have him toss a couple of fish to the Official Seal and then attach it hereto. Then have him washed and brought to Our tent.

Queen Doreen of Laputa Manqué, Rhomboid and Pneumatic

Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat, Israel
DoreenDotan@gmail.com

Dr. Otto Gross – The One Truly Committed Psychoanalyst

A bit about Otto Gross:

OTTO GROSS : Nietzschean Psychoanalyst, Love Guru, Pagan Anarchist

http://tinyurl.com/2lozna

Wikipedia article

http://tinyurl.com/2pnslv

Who was Otto Gross?

http://tinyurl.com/38sc78

What made Dr. Otto Gross so dangerous a threat to the establishment?

The BBC documentary series "The Century of the Self", to be found on You Tube, proposes convincingly that Sigmund Freud, and more so his daughter Anna, intended psychoanalysis to be a most power and indispensable tool of population control and manipulation.

Society was held up as the unquestionable standard of normalcy and any aberrant, rebellious or non-normative behavior demonstrated by any individual was considered pathological on the part of the individual. That pathology was to be corrected with psychoanalysis.

In contradistinction, Otto Gross wrote the following, which is excerpted from the small amount of his work that has been translated. Evidently, the psychiatric community would rather keep him in obscurity. You will see why presently.

"…I must assume that knowledge of the Freudian method and its important results is already widespread. Since Freud we understand all that is inappropriate and inadequate in our mental life to be the results of inner experiences whose emotional content excited intense conflict in us. At the time of those experiences – especially in early childhood – the conflict seemed insoluble, and they were excluded from the continuity of the inner life as it is known to the conscious ego. Since then they have continued to motivate us from the unconscious in an uncontrollably destructive and oppositional way. I believe that what is really decisive for the occurrence of repression is to be found in the inner conflict…rather than in relation to the sexual impulse. Sexuality is the universal motive for the infinite number if internal conflicts, though not in itself but as the object of a sexual morality which stands in insoluble conflict with everything that is of value and belongs to willing and reality.

It appears that at the deepest level the real nature of these conflicts may always be traced back to one comprehensive principle, to the conflict between that which belongs to oneself and that which belongs to the other, between that which is innately individual and that which has been suggested to us, i.e., that which is educated or otherwise forced into us.

This conflict of individuality with an authority that has penetrated into our own innermost self belongs more to the period of childhood than to any other time.

The tragedy is correspondingly greater as a person's individuality is more richly endowed, is stronger in its own particular nature. The earlier and the more intensely that the capacity to withstand suggestion and interference begins its protective function, the earlier and the more intensely will the self-divisive conflict be deepened and exacerbated. The only natures to be spared are those in whom the predisposition towards individuality is so weakly developed and is so little capable of resistance that under the pressure of suggestion from social surroundings, and the influence of education, it succumbs, in a manner of speaking, to atrophy and disappears altogether - natures whose guiding motives are at last composed entirely of alien, handed-down standards of evaluation and habits of reaction,. In such second-rate characters a certain apparent health can sustain itself, i.e., a peaceful and harmonious functioning of the whole of the soul or, more accurately, of what remains of the soul. On the other hand, each individual who stands in any way higher than this normal contemporary state of things is not, in existing, conditions, in a position to escape pathogenic conflict and to attain his individual health i.e., the full harmonious development of the highest possibilities of his innate individual character.

It is understood from all this that such characters hitherto, no matter in what outward form they manifest themselves – whether they are opposed to laws and morality, or lead us positively beyond the average, or collapse internally and become ill – have been perceived with either disgust, veneration or pity as disturbing exceptions whom people try to eliminate. It will come to be understood that, already today, there exists the demand to approve these people as the healthy, the warriors, the progressives, and to learn from and through them.

Not one of the revolutions in recorded history has succeeded in establishing freedom for individuality…Only now can it be recognized that the root of all authority lies in the family, that the combination of sexuality and authority, as it shows itself in the patriarchal family still prevailing today, claps every individuality in chains…" – "Overcoming Cultural Crisis", originally published in Die Aktion in April 1913, translated by Dr. John Turner of the University of Wales, Swansea, courtesy of Gottfried Heueer and the International Otto Gross Society, reprinted in ANARCHISM – A Documentary History of Libertarian Ideas, Volume One: From Anarchy to Anarchism (300CE to 1939), pp. 282-3, Robert Graham, editor, copyright 2005 Black Rose Books.

We can see from the passage above, in which he eerily presaged his own "elimination", why Dr. Otto Gross was considered so very dangerous by the psychoanalytic establishment.

Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat, Israel
DoreenDotan@gmail.com

Zeno, Zeno and Big Bill


It comes as no surprise that the Paradox of Motion, known as Achilles and the Tortoise posited by Zeno of Elea (ca. 490 BC – ca. 430 BC: [ See: http://tinyurl.com/yp2g5r http://tinyurl.com/8xtcy and http://tinyurl.com/2ztsuy ]) should have entertained the mind of Bertrand Russell (May 18, 1872– February 2, 1970), as it did so many intellects of eminence since the time of its pronunciation. Russell wrote: "Having invented four arguments all immeasurably subtle and profound, the grossness of subsequent philosophers pronounced him to be a mere ingenious juggler, and his arguments to be one and all sophisms. After two thousand years of continual refutation, these sophisms were reinstated, and made the foundation of a mathematical renaissance…" PRINCIPIA MATHEMATICA I, 1903

The date of the publication of the PRINCIPIA MATHEMATICA is significant. Einstein was working on his theory of Special Relativity and it was a mere three years after Max Planck had discovered that E=hf. The world was ready for another way of thinking. The work of Zeno of Elea, which had come to be considered mere philosophical amusement, was rehabilitated and given serious consideration once again, this time in light of new thinking about the nature of space, time and movement.

The following is a physicist's attempt to tackle the problems that Zeno of Elea raised: http://tinyurl.com/ky5p5 . The author ends his considerations thus: "Have we now finally resolved Zeno's "youthful effort"? Given the history of "final resolutions", from Aristotle onwards, it's probably foolhardy to think we've reached the end. It may be that Zeno's arguments on motion, because of their simplicity and universality, will always serve as a kind of "Rorschach image" onto which people can project their most fundamental phenomenological concerns (if they have any)."

We should, then, have expected that the Paradox of Motion articulated by Zeno of Elea in the 5th C. BCE would be solved, if at all, by a physicist or an analytic philosopher. Indeed, they tried. While their efforts were admirable, they did not produce a satisfying outcome as they readily admit.

It may be a surprise to some that the Paradox of Motion was most unambiguously articulated, elucidated and finally resolved in December of 1911 by William Dudley (Big Bill) Haywood (http://tinyurl.com/2og22u , http://tinyurl.com/2jpfkr ) who, despite having been referred to as "the Lincoln of Labor" by Eugene V. Debs (see: http://tinyurl.com/bq2h2 ) for his passionate and compassionate desire to emancipate laborers, from whose class he hailed, was also the subject of a biography entitled ROUGHNECK1.

It is highly unlikely that Haywood thought of himself as a philosopher, although his grasp of the conditions that create an underclass of workers was singularly insightful, analytical and sensitive. It is very unlikely that Haywood had considered the Paradox of Motion of Zeno of Elea from a purely philosophical view, if he ever did at all. Haywood was a man of action, not sophistry. He most certainly was not versed in higher mathematics. His education was cut short in early childhood. At the age of nine he began to work in a coal mine. Having been born into the working class in the United States in 1869 there was precious little time for him to learn philosophy or mathematics. It was as an honest man of action that he would solve the Paradox of Motion.

Had Haywood learned philosophy at all, we should have expected him to be more interested in the Anarchistic statement of Zeno of Citium than the paradoxes of Zeno of Elea. He likely would have been in agreement with the stance of Aristippus vis-à-vis society, if not with the spirit of his philosophy.

Zeno of Citium (ca. 336-ca. 224 BC) was so named after the Greek colony in Cypress that he lived in. Zeno of Citium was a student of Crates of Thebes, the Cynic (see: http://tinyurl.com/3aubby ). He was a merchant, the son of a merchant. Interestingly, like the vast majority of Anarchists of over two millennia later; he was not a common laborer, but was deeply concerned about a system of social organization that the common people would most benefit from if it were implemented. He worked at his profession until he reached the age of forty-two, when he founded the philosophical school that we know as Stoicism. The school of philosophy he founded was named for his teaching platform, the stoa, (Greek for 'platform' or 'porch'). None of Zeno of Citium's works are extant, to the best of our knowledge, but one of the quotes of Zeno of Citium that we are in possession of is this: "Men are rational, they do not need control; rational beings have no need of a state, or of money, or of law-courts, or of any organised, institutional life. In the perfect society men and women shall wear identical clothes and feed in a common pasture."

Aristippus (either the elder or the younger, see: http://tinyurl.com/2a9omp) was the founder of the Cyrenaic school of philosophy, the salient tenets of which were extreme, even crude, hedonism and egoism. Though so very different in his views from the Stoics; Aristippus articulated a similar sentiment concerning government as that of Zeno of Citium. He wrote: "The wise should not give up their liberty to the state".

Mayhap, had Big Bill had the leisure, he would have concerned himself with the Anarchistic ruminations of Zeno of Citium and Aristippus. It is highly unlikely that he did, or would, concern himself with the Paradoxes of Zeno of Elea. So, it is all the more remarkable that he is the final elucidator and resolver of the Paradox of Motion.

In December of 1911, Haywood, who had once been a member of the Executive Committee of the Socialist Party of America but was leaning more toward Anarchism by that time, told a Lower East Side audience at New York's Cooper Union that parliamentary Socialists were "step-at-a-time people whose every step is just a little shorter than the preceding step."

In making that statement, Big Bill Haywood, the child of working-class parents whose formal education ended when he went to work as a nine-year-old boy, made manifest the solution to the Paradox of Motion that Zeno of Elea had posed in the 5th C. BCE, the self-same Paradox that had proven to be so inscrutable a conundrum that the greatest minds who attempted to tackle it since its pronunciation could not solve it definitively.

Haywood, the man of action, dedicated to the cause of Human advancement, understood the nature of action as no analytic philosopher, mathematician or physicist had. Zeno of Elea's Paradox of Motion is not a phenomenological problem at all and any attempt to resolve it as such leads nowhere. No advancement in solving the problem such can be made. Zeno of Elea's Paradox of Motion is a moral question. Haywood understood that those who take action on the pretense of advancing others, while interested only in their own advancement would make no progress either for themselves or for others. To such people attempts at advancement are ever less efficacious. Such people would, ineluctably, become jaded and come to the conclusion that progress for Humankind is impossible.

We see, then, that attempting to solve Zeno of Elea's Paradox of Motion either as a purely phenomenological problem while in a purely intellectual state of mind, and thus not passionately concerned for Human welfare, or attempting to understand it while under the influence of desire for personal advancement will lead one nowhere. That is the moral lesson of the Paradox and, this author believes, is the salient lesson that Zeno of Elea intended when he posited the paradox.

Haywood knew that being untrue to oneself and sacrificing one's values on the alter of realpolitik caused myriad phantasmagoria to arise in the mind because those conclusions are based on convoluted thinking. The convolutions in thinking that people resort to in order to make dishonest decisions is that which causes every path to become crooked and advancement impossible. The illusion that one is advancing is one of the phantasmagoria of the disingenuous, while it is very real in the worlds of those who set themselves to action for Humanity's sake.

Simply stated, opportunistic phonies go nowhere fast.

ROUGHNECK, The Life and Times of Big Bill Haywood, Peter Carlson, 1983, page 199.

Article on CRIMSON BIRD: http://www.crimsonbird.com/history/zeno.htm

Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan of Tzfat (Safed), Israel
DoreenDotan@gmail.com

Pity the Poor Stem Cell

Surely you have seen the highly-magnified photos in magazines of bedraggled, malnourished stems cells peeping out piteously from squalid hovels.

Don't turn away. Don't pretend you don't know. Don't pretend that you don't see.

Think of their totipotential! Imagine what they can grow up to be with your help!

Show them you care.

Adopt a stem cell. Do it now. Tomorrow may be too late for these, our smallest and most vulnerable, victims.

Just a $1 a day can make so much difference in their little lives.

Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan of Tzfat (Safed), Israel, GRANDMOTHER
a.k.a. D2 and Doreen, Queen of Éire East and West,
The Laputans Manqué and Jewish Israeli Princess (JIP); also
Founder, Adept Extraordinaire and Sole Devotee of
Anarcho-Anachro-Nacro-Necro-Narcissism
DoreenDotan@gmail.com

Becoming Ever More Israeli

In July I will be here 25 years.

I married here and became a parent here. So, most of my life as a responsible adult and the whole setting up of home and family experience happened to me here. My husband is a Sabra and an expert in the Hebrew language. So, my interactions with my family are mostly in Hebrew. In fact, my daughter's English is very poor. I have no choice but to speak in Hebrew with her. My son's English is considerably better.

I can pronounce the gutteral reish and ayin, even the kuf, which is so deep a gutteral that it issues from somewhere around one's knees.

Still, the process of becoming more Israeli goes ever on.

I remember being aghast that people would pick nuts or other finger foods out of the large, open sacks and boxes in the shuq. It looked so unsanitary to me. Just the thought of any number of people whose hands had been I know not where touching food and eating it one after the other me made me sick.

One day; I pinched a cookie in the shuq, tossing regard for sanitation to the wind. I enjoyed the septic morsel thoroughly and was delighted with my progress toward real Israeliship (Israeliness?).

When I got home I said to my son: "Today I became a real Israeli! I ate a cookie from an open box in the shuq!"

He looked at me levelly and said: "If you were a real Israeli you would do it without thinking about it and would never mention it."

I advanced nicely and today I even make my tuna and egg salad with humous instead of mayo.

Today, I took yet another giant step toward become a real local. Though I have a plastic squeeze bottle of real Heinz ketchup in the fridge; I put techina (tahini) on my hamburger today, like a lot of Israelis do. The first time I heard of putting techina on hamburger I thought I'd barf.

My next project: Learning how to smooth humous and labane on my plate with the back of a spoon and fashion a perfect indented pool in the middle for olive oil and za'atar.

When a Jew becomes more Israeli is that acculturation or enculturation?

Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat (Safed), Israel
DoreenDotan@gmail.com

Cho Seung-Hui Morality and Debauchery

OK. Let's discuss morality and debauchery.

Let it be said unequivocally that I would have preferred if Cho Seung-Hui had used the abilities that he honed as an English major constructively and had gone on to contribute to the efforts of the people you'll find mentioned on this URL:
http://tinyurl.com/3bk5hk (Yes, this is a pitch.)

However, I understand that this man did not have the emotional resources to be able to channel his outrage constructively. Not all do.

Rather than elaborating in detail on what I think about Cho Seung-Hui, whom I consider a Attentäter par excellence; I will allow those whom I consider to have expressed the issues most eloquently to speak for me.

"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society."- Krishnamurthi

"Oftentimes have I heard you speak of one who commits a wrong as though he were not one of you, but a stranger unto you and an intruder upon your world.
But I say that even as the holy and the righteous cannot rise beyond the highest which is in each one of you,
So the wicked and the weak cannot fall lower than the lowest which is in you also.
And as a single leaf turns not yellow but with the silent knowledge of the whole tree,
So the wrong-doer cannot do wrong without the hidden will of you all…
And this also, though the word lie heavy upon your hearts:
The murdered is not unaccountable for his own murder…
The righteous is not innocent of the deeds of the wicked." THE PROPHET by Kahlil Gibran

"The Psychology of Political Violence" by Emma Goldman: http://tinyurl.com/36mshx

Finally I should like to draw your attention to the article entitled: "Class War in the School and Office" by Michael Nenonen. See: http://tinyurl.com/3afv9w

Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat, Israel
DoreenDotan@gmail.com

HaTikva

A dear friend who belongs to a Jewish genealogical group sent this to me. Listen to the three versions carefully. I will post them in chronological order: Rare recording of Al Jolson singing Hatikva:

http://www.mtzioncongregation.com/jolson.html

The following link goes to a recording introduced by NPR's Scott Simon from 61 years ago. It features a reporter who was with the British army when they liberated Bergen Belsen in May 1945. In the midst of chaos, with dead bodies lying around them, the surviving Jews, some barely able to stand, joined voices to sing Hatikva, "The Hope," which would become the Israeli National Anthem. It will bring tears to your eyes.

http://genealogy.org.il/BergenBelsenHatikva.mp3

And if you'd like to follow along with the lyrics, you can find themin both Hebrew, a transliteration of the Hebrew and English at thisIsraeli site. You'll also find a number of other versions including aknock your socks off performance by Barbra Streisand:

http://www.science.co.il/Israel-Anthem.asp

Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat, Israel
DoreenDotan@gmail.com

The Clausenburger Rebbe

Someone posted this on a board a couple of years ago. I lost it in my files. Just recently I found it again.

It's as charming as ever

http://tinyurl.com/2a27n8

The Abbrahms Meshpucha
Of Yud-Gimmel Street in the Old City of Tzfat, Originally
FromWilliamsburg, Brooklyn

The following can be adapted to become a Purim spiel. Expanded, it can be a TV series.

I want to do a take-off on the Addams family - The Abbrahms Meshpucha.

Some of the Kroivim are:

Morticia will be Toityana

Gomez will be Goilem

Wednesday will be Mitvuch

Pugsly will be Pitschetch

The baby will be Choleryeh

Uncle Fester will be Fete Finster, who enjoys resting on a bed of schpilkes

Toityana has an adopted brother, a foundling, by the name of Imglick. When Toityana was a child she enjoyed nothing better than to play in the dump behind the genetic engineering lab near her house in Brooklyn. She loved the aroma of the noxious emissions and the feel of the slimy effluvium squishing though her toes.

Little did the innocent Toityana know that one day a miracle would come to the Abbrahms family from that laboratory.

One of the first attempts at cloning a human being was deemed to be an utter failure. The scientists agreed that the DNA of the blastocyst was so hopelessly corrupted that it had no chance of survival. They mindlessly tossed the Petri dish containing the blastocyst from their window.

Just then Toityana came by to play. Out of the corner of her eye she saw what looked like a small flying saucer coming straight at her.

It fell at her feet in the slimy effluvium, making quite a splash.

Toityana picked up the Petri dish and saw a tiny, tiny speck the middle of some clear, gooey stuff. She decided to bring it home and ask her parents what it might be.

She showed to it her mother, Glitshik, and her father, Klog.

They examined the Petri dish under their microscope and were astounded to see that it was a humanoid blastocyst.

"Mama, Tati! Can we keep it?", Toityana entreated.

Glitshik and Klog looked at one another and then at Toityana. Exhibiting typical Abbrahms ruchmunis and ahavas chinam they said: "Of course we'll keep it. We'll culture it and raise it as though it were our very own experiment."

They called the blastocyst Imglick and showered great love upon it.

Imglick grew to be movie-star handsome. Some said he looked like Boris Karloff. Others said he resembled Bela Lugosi. Others said he resembled Danny DeVito. The Abbrahms thought he was a dead ringer for Marty Feldman.

There was just one strange thing about Imglick. When a hat was placed on his head spontaneous combustion occurred. The hat burst into flames and smoldered until it was consumed. No harm was done to Imglick, but everyone wondered about the phenomenon.

We'll find out why this phenomenon occurred in Episode I of The Abbrahms Family.

Another experiment from that laboratory that would find its way into the Abbrahms' Family hearts and homes was the first attempt at creating a human-Tasmanian Devil hybrid. She would come to be named Vilde Chimera.

Grandmama, Morticia's mother, now Toityana Abbrahm's mother, will be Bubbie Glitshik

Toityana's father will be Zayde Klog

Toityana's grandfather, Zayde Klog's father, is Siamese twins Gornisht and Oisvarf

Goilem's father will be Zayde Moisheh Kapoyer

Zayde Moishe Kapoyer's father will be Alter Zayde Sheigitz

Toityana's sister the witch will be Tante Kuchleffel

Goilem's mother will be Bubbie Hartsveitik

Hartsveitik's brother is Fete Kopveitik

The Cousin with the long hair will be Ich Vais Nit

There'll be a cousin by the name of Greener Cousiner

More cousins will be the identical quadruplets Cousins Meeskeit, Kronkeit, Narishkeit and Nishtkeit.

Lurch, the Butler, will be Schlepp.

Shlepp, the Butler, has recently married. The Abbrahms Meshpucha has graciously agreed to hire Shlepp's lovely bride in the capacity of household Maid. Unfortunately, since she was hired Shlepp has been shlepping less and less and his new wife more and more. Introducing a new addition to the Abbrahms Meshpucha household: Oysgemitshet, the Maid. What the Abbrahms family and Shlepp don't know is that Oysgemitshet is one of identical triplets and she and her sisters Oysgematert and Oysgehorevet have secretly been sharing the housework - and Shlepp.

Thing will be Lapeh.

The Abbrahms Family has two pets. Their mongoose, Shmei Drei, and their dragon, Gilo Monster.

The Abbrahms family has a long and illustrious history. For instance, you may think that the guillotine was invented by Dr. Joseph-Ignace Gullotin. But he only came up with the idea of putting a basket in place to catch the head. The guillotine was actually invented by Hockmesser Abbrahms, who also invented g'hakte leber. The Abbrahms family has been petitioning the French government to change the name of the famed invention from the guillotine to the hockmesser.

Episode I

Every Wednesday night the Abbrahms family make a picnic by some of the Kivrois HaTzaddikim. It's Mitvuch's favorite night and event of the week. It makes her feel like the family is making a special yahrtzeit celebration just for her.

It's also always a great opportunity to do the mitzvah of bikkur metim.

They make a kumsitz and roast marshmallows and locusts. Then they tell horror stories about lawyers and bankers and other dreadful creatures that suck blood by day and then hide in houses with perfectly manicured lawns and white picket fences at night. The children shudder in terror.

One Thursday morning, just at dawn, the Abbrahms family returned from a particularly fun and lovely night in the cemetery.

They are surprised to see policemen waiting for them at their door.

They approach the policemen and one of them asks if the family knows where Imglick Abbrahms might be.

Shocked, Toityana asks the policemen why they want Fete Imglick.

They are about to find out why Imglick's hats always burn…

***All rights reserved. No portion may be downloaded, recopied, edited, or used in any form except with express written permission of the author. ***

Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat, Israel
DoreenDotan@gmail.com

Book Recommendation:

PARADISE EMPORIUM by Charmaine (C.L.) Frost

The recommendation is on the following link:

http://www.geocities.com/dordot2001/ParadiseEmporium.htm

Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat (Safed), Israel
DoreenDotan@gmail.com

Ya see how people are?

When an Israeli ambassador is found bound, gagged and nekkedik, except for BDSm accoutrement, does anyone accuse him of hatching a dastardly plot? Is any ulterior motive attributed to him? Noooo.

It's understood that the guy has a hard job and needs some harmless, amusing diversion.

But just let a Muslim get on a plane with a magnet up his arse and a couple of wires sticking out of it and everyone is up in arms accusing him of being a terrorist concealing a detonation device in his hidey-hole.

Does anyone give the guy the benefit of the doubt? Nooooo. Maybe he was just taking some vocational stress and strain off by engaging in a little kink. Maybe he just likes the buzzzzzz when he goes through the detectors. Did anyone ever think of that? Nooooo.

The Israeli ambassador is lionized and the Muslim is demonized. It's a crying shame that people are so prejudiced, so narrow-mindedly niggardly of spirit.

Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat (Safed), Israel
DoreenDotan@gmail.com

Was Sir Winston Churchill Jewish?

According to " JEW WATCH", Sir Winston Churchill's mother was Jenny Jerome, the daughter of a Jewish father who changed his name from Jacobson to Jerome.
Unimpeachable Source: http://tinyurl.com/2ztuer

Much discussion has been devoted to trying to vet this claim.

Here's the real low-down:

"Winston Churchill", born Zalman Zelig, was the illegitimate son of the Pitchifkisser Rebbe, Reb Mendelbrot Schulhill , and Yenta Glitshik neé Hartsvaitik.

He behaved like the little mamzer that he was and was kicked out of yeshivah before obtaining smikhah.

He was banished in disgrace from Kareninatevkah, the shtetl in the Ukraine wherein he was born.

He arrived in London with one peckle to his name, his gonsa fameigins, and a pitetchy attitude.

He began his career selling schmatas and chachkes from a pushcart. Alte zakhen! Alte schiach! Eventually, he created an empire of department stores that came to be known as Marx & Finster.

He changed his name from Zalman Zelig Schulhill to Winston Churchill and, when asked what his religious affiliation was, he began to answer "goi".

After his groise success in geschaeft, the road to becoming Prime Minister and All Around Grober Mensch was short.

Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat (Safed), Israel
DoreenDotan@gmail.com

PATIENCE

I found what was, for me, a very instructional and inspirational site:

http://tinyurl.com/y8krhb

So, now I feel prepared to make my New Year's resolution for 2007.

I resolve to endeavor to cultivate the traits and abilities that patient people possess – at my pace and to the best of my ability at any given time.

Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat, Israel
DoreenDotan@gmail.com

"If there is no flour there is no Torah; if there is no Torah, there is no flour." - Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah

An antagonist asked: Doesn't our Torah have enough commandments concerning helping the poor and the poor's welfare?

I answered: You sound as though there are so many that they are a burden to you. You should cherish those mitzvot above all others and those are the mitzvot that you should perform most assiduously.

Why do I say this? Because they are the mitzvot that are the conditions upon which all of the other mitzvot can be carried out.

"If there is no flour there is no Torah; if there is no Torah, there is no flour." - Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah

I'll quote that again: "If there is no flour there is no Torah; if there is no Torah, there is no flour." - Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah

That statement does not mean that there is no Torah only for those who have no flour. It means that there is no Torah for the ones hardening their hearts, or making of themselves luftmenschen, and not seeing to it that everyone has flour (and water, clothes, shoes, housing, inoculation, education and the conditions under which every individual can grow to her or his maximum Spiritual-Moral, mental, emotional and physical potential).

It is because I see the poor in this country becoming increasing beggared and more and more people falling into poverty, that I feel absolutely confident in saying there is no Torah in Israel. If there was one-third of the children in Israel would not be under the poverty line and they would not be going to school hiding the roll the have from others so that no one will see it has nothing on it, the elderly and infirmed would not be eating out of garbage cans and widows would not have their electricity turned off in the winter.

You stated: It seems to me, there are scores of commandments requiring compassion to the poor; forbidding oppressing the poor.

I responded: And are they being fulfilled? Are people as careful to do those mitzvot as they are when choosing their "glatt" chickens? No! They (maybe) give their 10% tzeddakah and a few hours of their time to help others, which only perpetuates the misery. They do not fulfill the commanment: Unloose the shackles of injustice. They do not go up against the system that creates and perpetuates poverty.

He went on to inquire: Why do we need a philosphy that is not rooted in Torah?

I responded: Do you not see that what I am saying is pure Torah? Shame on your teachers!

From the day that Avraham smashed his father's idols Judaism has been nothing but radical social transformation. Anyone who isn't smashing the idols that keep us in thrall, poor and subject to corrupt regimes is not of the covenant of Avraham, has not begun to understand what that covenant is.

Anarchy is not a philosophy from outside Torah. Anarchy is the mitzvot "concerning helping the poor and the poor's welfare" with the utmost punctiliousness and assiduousness.

Why do you think the old Jew blessed Rudolph Rocker after he helped the Jewish workers win their demands in a strike in 1912?

I once took a course with a rabbi on tzadakah. At one point he stated that there must always be poor people so that we can do the mitzvah of giving tzaddakah. I left his course and have not read a word that he has to say since. He went down to credibility zero with me when he said that. The cruelty that passes itself off as Torah in this generation is absolutely astounding.

We may be sure that even in a society of Anarcho-Communalism, in which all of our physical needs are provided for; there will be endless opportunities for us to give emotional tzaddakah; to help those who need us in numerable ways and to be helped by others in innumerable ways.

Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat, Israel
DoreenDotan@gmail.com

A Jew Who Knew

Rudolph Rocker was a German non-Jew who devoted his life to ameliorating the conditions of the working poor Jews in London at the start of the 20th C.

He learned Yiddish so well that he became the editor of the Yiddish Anarchist papers Dos Fraye Vort (The Free Word), Der Arbeiter Freint (The Workers Friend) and Germinal.

For his efforts he was detained by the British for years as an "alien enemy of the state".

Shortly after leading Jewish sweatshop workers to victory in a 1912 strike he recalled:

"As I was walking along a narrow Whitechapel street, an old Jew with a long white beard stopped me outside his house, and said: “May God bless you! You helped my children in their need. You are not a Jew, but you are a man!” This old man lived in a world completely different from mine. But the memory of the gratitude that shone in those eyes has remained with me all these years." THE LONDON YEARS, the last page of Chapter 23 – Workers' Circle. The Great Strike.

In 1912, you may be sure, that an old Jew with a long white beard knew the halakhah.

How many Jews today can honestly say they would do for the Jews what the gentile German Rocker did?

Today, far too many Jews who fancy themselves Orthodox and knowledgeable in Torah would dismiss Rocker as a "sheigitz" or perhaps try to shame him publicly for being an "abominable" Anarchist, or proffer a description of his "touched" personality based on an astrological chart, or throw in his face that his father celebrated Christmas or speculate on his mental state or call him a "freak". (See the Yahoo! group "Tzfat" in order to understand to what I am referring.)

But we all know deep in our heart of hearts that the Jew with the long white beard who was already old in 1912 was the real thing. May God bless him as he blessed those who helped the (secular, Anarchistic) Jews, who he called his children, in their need.

And thank God for a gentile who bothered to learn Yiddish so he could help the Jews, who recorded the words of that old Jew, immortalizing him, so that the voice of true Judaism can still be heard today by Jews like me who yearn to hear it but so very rarely do.

Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat, Israel
DoreenDotan@gmail.com

Corruption in Israel

Five hundred people were surveyed by the Israeli branch of Transparency International.

Corruption, for the purpose of the study, is defined as "the use of political or other power for the advancement of personal interests".

The results, according to a report that appeared on Dec. 12, 2006 of "Kol HaIr", one of the local papers of Tzfat, edition 640, are the following:

66% said that the current gov't does not do enough to fight corruption.

55% said that corruption negatively affects their personal quality of life.

81% said that corruption negatively affects the business enviornment.

86% said that corruption negatively affects quality of gov't.

16% said they believe that the gov't actively encourages corruption.

4% admitted to giving bribes during the past year. (We can assume that this is a very small percentage of those who actually did give bribes. Admitting to doing so is admitting to committing a crime and most people will, understandably, be reluctant to do so, even on a supposedly anonymous survey.)

Add to these results, the recent finding that 92% of Israeli businesses do not conduct themselves in accordance with labor laws.

How, I ask you HOW, can Torah flourish in such an enviornment?

Take the most well-meaning, religious man. He gets up in the morning, does netilat yadayim...has his brakhot as he dresses...goes to shul, dons t'fellin...Learns a blat Gemorrah...

Then, he goes to work. Because he has, b'li ayin hara, a family he, if he's a salaried employee, will keep his mouth shut if he sees his boss cheating. He will do what he is told, even if it is not on the "up and up". He will let himself be abused by his boss who, 92 chances out of 100 on the average, is cheating him of what is coming to him.

If he's an independent, he has to compete with others in the field. He may have loans with the banks in astronomical figures and tens of thousands of shekels is held in escrow by his suppliers.

What does that do to him?

How can he have a crooked heart and tongue all day and then be pure when he sits down to learn Torah, or when he does a mitzvah?

That is what is called: "Ablution in a mikveh while holding a serpent."

First, and I'm going to keep pestering and nudging until this is understood, first we build a just society - then we can go about the business of learning and doing Torah as we should.

Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat, Israel
DoreenDotan@gmail.com

Some Facts to Ponder Before Channukah

I do not celebrate Channukah. I know that is very odd. Channukah is one of the most cherished holiday seasons in Judaism. It is considered a festival of light and a time of great joy celebrating the purification of the Second Temple and the reinstatement of the Temple Service.

I do not celebrate Channukah for the following reasons. The Maccabees were Priests, but they were not B'nie Tzadok. Only those Cohenim who are B'nei Tzaddok were entitled to be High Priests. The Maccabbim, who were Cohenim but not B'nei Tzaddok, expropriated the office of High Priest. This was only the first of their sins. They would eventually arrive at a level of depravity and degradation that the mind and heart can hardly fathom. It was because of their internecine power struggles within the family, which included murder and castrations of close family members, all of whom were Cohenim; their orgies with Gentiles in the Temple; their crowning themselves kings, which is forbidden for Cohenim to do that led to the destruction of the Temple and our galut. The period of their reign was the darkest period in Jewish history. There were more atrocities committed by them, but the heart is too rent to consider all of it. I am humiliated that an episode such as that is part of our history.

The Isi'im (the Dead Sea Sect) who wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls were B'nei Tzaddok who left Yerushalayim in disgust as a result of these events.

The settled in Qumran, formed a communitarian society of common property and devoted themselves to the study and performance of Torah with the utmost assiduousness.

The Isi'im were lost to history at the end of the Second Temple period.

Thinking they were "out of the way" and not knowing that they had hid their writings in caves in Qumran, the redactors of the Talmud engaged is unbridled mendacity in their representations of who the B'nei Tzaddok were. They said that they rejected Oral Law, in addition to other besmirching.

For 2000 years all that was known about HaIsi'im was written about them in the Talmud.

And then, on the self-same day that the partition of Palestine was voted by the UN, the first of the Dead Sea Scrolls that was found by a Bedouin shepherd boy was sold to Yigal Yadin's father, Professor Eliezer Sukenik.

For the first time in 2000 years; HaIsi'im were able to speak for themselves. They wrote that they were a sect founded by B'nei Tzaddok who left Yerushalayim after it became so defiled by the Maccabbim that they could not longer conscience living there. They wrote about their community. But for the sake of this discussion, most importantly, they wrote about the Oral Law.

The redactors of the Talmud wrote that the B'nei Tzaddok did not believe in any Oral Law, that they followed the written Torah only.

But at Qumran T'fillin were found, and the contained the very same passages that are found in Rashi and Rebbenu Tam T'fellin, only in a different order. Carbon dating showed that they were well over 2000 years old.

One of the fragments of a scroll discusses how much water is needed for a proper mikveh.

Another passage discusses how far one may walk on Shabbat.

Another discusses how one may rescue someone who has fallen into a pit on Shabbat.

All of these matters are Oral Torah.

If you wish to read my writings on the Dead Sea Sect, HaYachad, as they called themselves, you can find them on the following web sites:

http://www.geocities.com/dordot2001/index.html

http://www.geocities.com/dordot2001/essenes_my_writings.html

The redactors of the Talmud misrepresented the B'nei Tzaddok. They did so intentionally in order to become the sole representatives of Torah. They lied in order to establish their absolute authority.

That being the case we are not only free to, but absolutely must, call everything in the Talmud into question. We cannot believe that their intentions were pure about anything they wrote. Certainly, we would be foolish to reject all of the Talmud out-of-hand. But we are equally foolish to accept it uncritically and unquestioningly.

I think it is pertinent here to discuss a group of people who did try to live according to the written Law without an Oral Law – the Karaites.

They were excommunicated, in toto, from Judaism.

Do you know that Aaron ben Moshe ben Asher and his descendants, the House of Asher, those who fixed the version of HaMasorah HaT'veriani were Karaites? (See: http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/benAsher.html). Everything we learn in Torah is thanks to the impeccable knowledge and the work of a long line of Karaites.

Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat, Israel
DoreenDotan@gmail.com

DOING

Someone on a message board wrote the following to me:

"Let me know if you ever get off your duff in the periphery, and come down to the center of the country to actually DO something constructive regarding the things you write about. "

I answered:

There is a mystical Jewish teaching which holds that this world is called the World of Doing (or Action) - עולם העשיה in Hebrew.

It is the lowest of four worlds, each more rarified, sublime and vast than the one beneath it in the order of creation.

There is nothing in this world that is not doing. It cannot be otherwise.

To say to someone in this world that she or he is not doing something, is to misunderstand what doing is and the nature of the level of reality that we inhabit fundamentally.

Is not writing doing?

Is making people think not doing?

In this world even thinking is doing. It is an action in and of itself, even if it does not lead to further action.

My mother taught me when I was a child that the pen is mightier than the sword. I believe that to be true.

Writing is what I do and it is as much doing as another other activity in the World of Doing (or Action), which we inhabit.

Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat, Israel
DoreenDotan@gmail.com

THE LEAVING FOR THE SAKE OF THE RETURN

One can keep kashrut out of a need to belong, keep Shabbat out of fear of what their family and neighbors will say and keep Taharat HaMisphachah out of desire for a place in the world to come... - all without loving HaShem with one's entire being.

But no one devotes their entire life to humanity, consistently over the period of a lifetime, unless they love HaShem completely and are devoted to HaShem in a way that the Orthodox can only feign being. That devotion need not be conscious, but it is there.

Am I conflated? Am I making a shatnez of Torah and secular ethics? In fact, there is nothing that I have written that is not pure Torah.

Ideally a Jew should keep the mitzvot and serve humanity. They do not only not contradict; they are supplementary one to the other.However, Judaism as it is currently taught and practiced, with all of the chumrot and minhagim that have been added to Torah (in contravention of the injunction not to add to Torah!) does not allow for the performance of both those mitzvot that bring down holiness into the physical plane and the social service aspects of Torah - both of which are essential and should be performed in such a way that they enable and advance one the other.

We have been taught in Chassidut about the principle of the descent for the purpose of the ascent.

In our times, time of darkness and blindness we are in need of a more radical cure for our moral-spiritual ills. We are in need of the leaving for the sake of the return.The only solution to the problem is to leave this farce that we are told is Torah and build a just society that is not based on greed and violence and power-hungriness. In such a society there will be no incentives for Rabbis who serve the power structure to distort Torah and make it into shackles and manacles that bind the mind, the heart and Soul. In such a society Torah can be rediscovered in its pristine purity because there won't be a power structure that will have interests in making the populace spiritual slaves and moral cripples.Torah has been so horribly misrepresented, so grossly misunderstood and so abused as an instrument of mind and behavior control that the only way to return to it is by leaving what we think is Torah, but is not.

Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat, Israel
DoreenDotan@gmail.com

Genuine Religious Jews

Jews inspired by genuine Divine afflatus do not engage overmuch in ceremonies, nor do they speak in clichés, quoting others verbatim by rote.

They are not overly punctilious and scrupulous about ritual purity and they do not carry out formulaic actions obsessively-compulsively.

They do not care a whit about their own salvation and nothing they do is for the sake of ensuring an eternal place of rest and joy for themselves.

They act in, rather than speak of, love.

They do not wax pontifical or esoteric. They concern themselves with the needs of human beings qua human beings.

They do not sacrifice the material levels of our beings for the sake of the "spiritual" levels.

They do not profit from the encouraging and teaching of others to observe ritual.

They do not claim immaculate morality on the part of their teachers; neither do they claim that they their tradition or their teachers are infallible.

They do not set themselves up and judge and jury over humankind.

The only abomination they recognize is injustice and the misuse of power.

They need no social acceptance or group to be part to know what they should do or give them a sense of identity. They are strong enough to stand alone, all alone, if need be.

Their every action, the very purpose of their lives and their entire being is given over to the alleviation of the suffering of humankind.

Injustice is intolerable to them and they fight for justice for all no matter what the personal price they must pay for it.

Gustav Landauer, Emma Goldman, Alexander Berkman, Saul Alinsky, Martin Buber and Murray Bookchin were religious Jews. They carried within them the whole of Torah. The received and passed on the torch of the Prophets of Israel. This was true despite the protestations of some of them that they were atheists. It is recorded of Emma Goldman, the self-professed atheist Anarchist, that: "A rabbi who heard her lecture a large conference of clergymen on atheism probably came closer than the public to understanding her antireligious stand. "In spite of al Miss Goldman has said against religion", he announced, "she is the most religious person I know." (RED EMMA SPEAKS, An Emma Goldman Reader, Compiled and Edited by Alex Kates Shulman, Preface to Part Two; Published 1998 by Humanity Books, an imprint of Prometheus Books)

It is certainly be true that some Jews who adhere to the minutiae of Jewish Law may be true Orthodox Jews, but this is true if and only if they do so in addition to devoting their entire lives to the amelioration of the human condition and the alleviation of human suffering. Their performance of the minutiae of Jewish Law is not that which defines them at genuine Orthodox Jews. That is a mere appurtenance. Their devotion to justice is that which defines them as genuine Orthodox Jews.

Those who teach Jewish Law in such a way that it comes in lieu of acting in the world for the betterment of human kind; if it obviates doing so; if it becomes so all-demanding, time-consuming and burdensome that there is no strength or time for fighting injustice; if the observance of Jewish Law imparts the illusion of being absolutely right and just; if it attenuates the desire to right wrongs or puts off the doing so for the Mashiach to take care of; if it brings one to believe that each of us has only to tend to our own imperfections – then we may be entirely sure that what we have is not Judaism at all, but an ersatz, painstakingly deliberately fabricated and purposefully promulgated in order to confound us, to keep our energies invested in that which will avail nothing and deflect us from our duties by nefarious interests.

A great deal of money, ink and blood is being poured in order to keep Jews distracted from our true purpose and our true values. This is as true of the religious segments of our society as it is of the secular segments. The only difference is the methods being employed in order to dissipate our energies.

History has proven that Jews who are devoted to justice en masse are invincible. It is then that HaShem performs miracles for us.

Every effort is being made, in the religious and secular worlds alike, to prevent us from knowing who we truly are, what our purpose in creation is, from mobilizing in unison, reaching a critical mass of power and changing the course of the world. We can do it. We have done so before. If we were not capable of changing the world, so much investment would not be being invested in atomizing us and reducing our strength.

Do not be fooled. Do not be misled. Do not be bought. Do not be enthralled. Do not be enticed. Do not be led astray.

We Jews were put here for the sake of participating in the creation of a just world with every other and for every other sentient being.

Let nothing, but nothing, be it pseudo-religious principles or iPods and other things that go beep in the night steer you away from what you are and what your designated tasks are.

The Hebrew version of this essay is to be found on the following URL: http://tinyurl.com/yfnud6



Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat, Israel
DoreenDotan@gmail.com

I BELIEVE

Clearly, we cannot know the whys and wherefores of that which transpires and, if we notice, as we advance on our path the experiences we have become more and more complex and confusing. As I grow older I understand less and less. It seems to me that this common experience is a process of aging that involves the surrendering of the will to conquer the world with our minds to HaShem. Eventually we will surrender everything to HaShem. First we must surrender our desire to know - which is really a desire to conquer.

I believe we are not intended to understand HaShem, not because HaShem could not make us understand if It willed that we would, but because we are being tested to see how we react to that which occurs which defies human understanding.

I believe that it is observed on high if we gaze upon the death and destruction of others and condemn those who suffered for some sin either of their own or, worse, others. I believe we are being observed to see if we are smug in believing that we are chosen. Do we interpret this as superiority or do we understand it as an imperative to serve humankind?

I believe that the Torah, as it presents itself to our every day, constricted consciousness, is a test. It is impossible to observe every mitzvah and to believe every tenet. I believe we are being observed to see what we adopt and what we reject, what we do and what we don't, what we believe about ourselves and what we believe about all of humanity.

HaShem, I believe, wants us to struggle and grapple with what is written in Torah, knowing that none of us accept and do it all. What do we cherish? What do we overlook? What do we stress? What do we minimize? All this, I believe, is telling about who we are and is being observed.

I believe that HaShem rejoices when we refuse to carry out the condemnations in Torah, which I believe are planted therein to see if we find that fruit sweet or bitter. I believe when we encounter the tests in Torah and we cry out to God: If that is what You expect of me, then send me to hell! I'll have no part of any World to Come if those are the conditions! - that God says בני נצחוני! –" My children have conquered me!" - in the sense that my children have seen past the words into My heart, they have passed the tests I set before them.

I believe that those who stress the strictures of Torah are not kind and good people, despite their having learned the clichés and giving lip service to love and devotion. I believe our attitudes and actions are being observed.

Shabbat Shalom,
Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat, Israel
DoreenDotan@gmail.com

By: Daniel McGrory and Tony Halpin
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-2473385_1,00.html

Poisoned Spy Visited Israel with Oil Dossier

"A dossier drawn up by Alexander Litvinenko on the Kremlin’s takeover of the world’s richest energy giant will be given to Scotland Yard today as police investigate the former KGB spy’s secret dealings with some of Russia’s richest men.

It emerged yesterday that Mr Litvinenko travelled to Israel just weeks before he died to hand over evidence to a Russian billionaire of how agents working for President Putin dealt with his enemies running the Yukos oil company.

He passed this information to Leonid Nevzlin, the former second-in-command of Yukos, who fled to Tel Aviv in fear for his life after the Kremlin seized and then sold off the $40 billion (£21 billion) company…"

By Doreen Ellen Bell Dotan:

Traces of Radioactive Matzah Ball in Berezovsky's Stomach

Traces of a radioactive matzah ball, which was prepared with the blood of Christian children, was found in the Russian Berezovsky's stomach.

It is known that the jet-setting Russian spy, who hob-nobbed with multi-billionaires, flew frequently to Israel to visit his favorite restaurant, which serves Borscht, Gefilte Fish and Chicken Soup with Matzah Balls in Tel Aviv and it is known that he supped at the elegant restaurant just days before he died.

Scotland Yard has discovered strychnine in the boiled chicken, mercury in the Gefilte Fish and cyanide in the Borscht at the restaurant.

Scotland Yard's sleuths are not sure, but they think there may be a link between the odd findings at the restaurant and Berezovsky's untimely and suspicious death just days before he was supposed to hand over top, top, top secret and sensitive documents that would have the utmost impact on revealing the truth about the Elders of Zion and international oil dealing.

The journalists who provided the breaking story above, and no doubt the BBC, will let you in on the rest of the sordid details.

DoreenDotan@gmail.com

I've begun another web site. Yes, yes, yet another.

I had no choice. This topic must be aired.

The site is called Critique of Judaism and is to be found on the following URL:

http://tinyurl.com/yed5pe

Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat, Israel
DoreenDotan@gmail.com