A True Tale

“New Social-Media User Guidelines” (via newyorker)

Tartans have been used to distinguish between different clans and tribes in Scotland for over two hundred years, but Jews never had their own–until earlier this century.

Though the couple in this recent viral video of a Scottish Jewish wedding seem to be sticking to their own plaid, since 2008, the rest of the tribe has been able to dance their jigs in officially sanctioned communal attire, thanks to this registered tartan for the approximately 6,400 Jews living in Scotland.

Rabbi Mendel Jacobs, the only Scottish-born rabbi living in Scotland, initiated the process of designing a Jewish tartan, which had rabbis work together with so-called “Heritage Experts.” The design they came up with reflects both Jewish values and Scottish history. It features blue and white–the colors of both the Israeli and Scottish flags–with a central gold line representing the gold from the Ark in the Tabernacle, a silver line representing the silver that adorns the Torah, and red for the red wine drunk at Kiddush.

Tartans are traditionally made out of wool, and this one is certified free of shatnez–the Biblical prohibition against mixing wool and (gasp!) linen.

If you’ve been holding off buying a kilt because you couldn’t decide which clan to choose, wait no more. Your day has come.

These kites? The ones that have been appearing in our skies, softly floating over from Gaza with a burning tail or molotov cocktail waiting to explode upon impact and cause these horrific fires that are devouring thousands of acres of our unharvested wheat in a flash, polluting our skies, and endangering our firefighters and farmers and our homes? Do you KNOW where they come from? They were sent from JAPAN as a gift to the children of Gaza.

Yep. You heard me. I thought it was kind of interesting that they all looked pretty much the same size and color and of the same materials… as if they had had some cynical sort of crafts day in Gaza to build all of these kites. But I heard it from Avri Gilad this morning, on Israel Channel 13. (I’m not creative enough to make this stuff up.)

This kite was retrieved in Kibbutz Beeri’s field yesterday. A kite that originated in Japan, as a gift to the children of Gaza, went through Kerem Shalom crossing, no doubt, to get there, and now being “repurposed”. Some carry incendiary devices to destroy our fields and forests. Others, like this, carry messages.

This one says:

“Be’eri we have returned just like we promised we would, and we will reduce you to ashes.”

This is NOT about the American Embassy in Jerusalem. This is NOT even about the embargo. This is about a terrorist group that wants to reduce us all to ashes. “The Great March of Return” – they have been saying it all the time, why isn’t the world listening?