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Dave’s Gone By Skit: RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #120 (3/29/2015): Bibi’s Back

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Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection #121 (3/29/2015): Bibi’s Back

aired March 28, 2015 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: http://youtu.be/t7yMCkes6B8

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of March 29, 2015.

Much to many people’s surprise, Benjamin Netanyahu was elected for a third term as the Prime Minister of Israel. Everyone assumed Labor would win. Everybody thought Netanyahu’s hard-line, status-quo policies were on the way out, and peaceniks were on the way in. Well, pre-April fool! Or technically, Adar fool, since it’s the Jewish calendar we’re dealing with.

But let’s be clear: for all Israel’s weariness of war, and for all the country’s gratitude to the United States for support, for money, for defense, for money, for money, for money . . . Israeli voters nevertheless sent a strong message and a mandate. The safety and security of Eretz Yisroel comes before everything else. It comes before friendship, before negotiations, before swallowing the latest Palestinian PR. They said to Netanyahu: “Give us strong borders and a promise that you won’t sell our country down the river—Jordan or Nile—and we’ll vote for you again.” He did, and they did.

Therefore, much to the chagrin of President Barak Oblivia, Bibi is back. And the shocking part is: he did it, not by kowtowing to the left, not by lying about the potential for peace with our sworn enemies, but by facing facts. The Arabs hate us, they won’t even recognize Israel on their maps or GPS systems, and any chance they get, they’d gladly send the Jews on a blind date with Robert Durst.

In his campaigning, Bibi went so far as to say that on his watch, there would never be a Palestinian state, which is harsh to hear even for a die-hard Zionist like yours truly. I’ve always said, I have no objection to a Palestinian state . . . in Algeria, in Curacao, maybe somewhere north of Omsk. The two-state solution, however, just seems like a disaster on the drawing board: unsafe, untenable, and you know it would just turn Jerusalem into a ping-pong ball. Filled with explosives.

Still, you’re not allowed to say that. If you’re a diplomat or a head of state, you’re supposed to make believe there’s always room for negotiation, that the Arabs really will lay down their arms and be all neighborly-like. Because, hey, they’ve been such good citizens in Yemen, Tunisia, Iraq, Syria, Libya – fill in the name of a country; the Muslims have probably terrorized it.

Our President won’t admit that, of course. It’s like he’s living in the movie “Candyman.” If you say the name “Moslem” five times to a camera lens, the bad guys’ evil will be unleashed. But here’s news, Mr. Pres, the bad genies are already out of the bottle, and if there’s one country on earth that knows not to trust the Bedouins, it’s their Semitic brethren.

Now, for the sake of diplomacy, Benjy Netanyahu has already gone back on his pre-election speechifying. He says he didn’t really mean there was no solution, that he’s always willing to schmooze with Abbas, and we should take his posturing with a grain of hummus. He’s a politician. He says what he has to to get what he wants. Once he’s got it, then he can be more truthful. Not completely truthful, but a percentage.

Meanwhile, the President, who has been going through an otherwise impressive stretch of lame-duck vigor, is pitching a hissy fit over Bibi’s bonanza. Obama wants to be the next Jimmy Carter, brokering the all-but-impossible peace deal that will cement his legacy for the ages. But lemme tell you, Barack, if you’re listening, which I know you are: with Israel and Egypt, Jimmy Carter did an amazing, impossible, fantastic thing. No one can take that away from him. But if you ask anybody about the legacy of James Earl Carter, 39th President, the response will be: hostages, oil shortage, inflation, Cold War, losing the Panama Canal, and a general American bad mood. In other word, that peanut-brained peanut farmer had as much business ruling the free world as Bill Cosby would have running a rape crisis center. So if Obama thinks he’s got anything to gain by twisting Israel’s arm into a phony truce with terrorists, he’s in for a rude awakening.

And yes, it was rude of Netanyahu to visit America and gab with Republicans when the White House all but begged him not to. But I repeat: maybe, just maybe, Bibi knows whereof he speaks when he cautions that trusting Iran to scrap its nuclear program is like trusting Bill Cosby to run a rape crisis center. I know, I already used that joke, but I’m hungry, and I want to finish this stupid essay and get to my brisket.

Folks in Washington are saying that relations between Israel and the United States are nearly at an all-time low. But I think—or at least, I hope—that’s overstating the case. Deep down, both American parties are very committed to Israel and realize how strategically important it is to the West, as well as its moral right to exist in a post-Holocaustal world. If Obama wants to rattle his saber—and you know, those people are blessed with long sabers—it could be the same kind of bluff and bluster Netanyahu was using to win his election. What actually goes on behind the scenes . . . that’s for statesmen to know and Aaron Sorkin to fabricate.

So I hope this is all just smoke and mishegoss, and that the Democrats—especially their presumptive 2016 candidat-ess—remember that what’s good for Auntie Israel is what’s most prudent for Uncle Sam. Or, put another way, don’t throw the Bibi out with the bathwater.

This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York.

–> https://wp.me/pzvIo-20j

Dave’s Gone By Skit: RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #116 (2/8/2015): UC Dervish

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RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #116 (2/8/2015): UC Dervish

(aired Feb. 7, 2015 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: http://youtu.be/jisuZvALtjg)

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of February 8th, 2015.

What is the purpose of education? In an idealistic sense, it is to broaden the mind, to open young people to a world greater than themselves that they have to wade into in order to become productive members of society. Or, more simply put: live and learn. But one can also say the purpose of education is to take a bunch of kids who are too stupid to be left alone during post-adolescence, and corral them all in one place before we inflict them willy-nilly upon the planet.

Well, you don’t get kids much dumber – or potentially dangerous – than the yutzes at UC Davis, the University of California, Davis. Pro-Palestinian, liberal wackjob teenagers, who comprise the rotting corpse that is the student body, voted to boycott Israel over the country’s treatment of the poor, poor Palis. In a vote that passed 8 to 2, these bleeding-heart buttheads recommended that the University divest itself of all business dealings with the land of milk and honey. The SJP, whose letters stand for Students for Justice in Palestine (though they could just as easily stand for Suck my Jewish Penis), the SJP cheered and waved Palestinian flags as the vote went down in their favor. Best of all, as Jewish and pro-Israel students shuffled out of the meeting hall, the Arab-sympathizers began chanting, “Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar.”

Now, where have we heard that poem before? Oh yeah, every time a Muslim with a grudge and an AK-47 decides to vent his spleen on a bunch of innocent civilians, those are the words: “Allahu Akbar.” It may sound like a religious prayer, but it’s more like a death yell. We heard it from Nidal Hasan, who killed 13 people in Fort Hood a few years ago, and we heard it last month, with a French accent, when the Koran Krazies lit into Charlie Hebdo for drawing cartoons.

I don’t need to tell you how I feel about the Israeli-Palestinian situation. But I will anyway. As I’ve said fifteen quadrillion times, Israel is a country — the size of a postage stamp — created after the Holocaust for Jewish people to finally have their own homeland. Anyone else on it either has to live by Israel’s rules or get the Allah out. And if you live in a country bordering Israel, or on land Israel gave back in the vain hope of trading acreage for peace, you better not be hostile, or we’re gonna stomp you like a wine glass at a wedding. But alas, up until that time, it’s the Arabs and their misguided sympathizers that do the violence, over and over again.

After the UC Davis vote – that the SJP won – the anti-Semites weren’t even satisfied with that! Two days later, someone painted swastikas on the walls of the Jewish fraternity, Alpha Epsilon Pi. (Actually, they should call it Aleph Epsom-Saltz Chai, but that’s for another time.)

It’s unclear whether this act was perpetrated by Arabs or just white kids goaded by all the latent Hebrewphobia stirred up by the vote. Either way, UC Davis has a nasty hurricane coming. I don’t mean a riot. I mean the whooshing sound of Jewish students exiting a place of higher learning that has sunk to a valley of lower squirming. It’s the sound of Jewish alumni divesting their donations and bequests from UCD and sending them to the UJA. It’s the whooshing sound of freshman applications – and application fees – being turned into paper kites because little Missy Horowitz and her 1500 SAT score now chooses to attend USC or UC Berkeley instead.

People at the University say the graffiti and the protests and threats are coming from outside sources and not the college kids themselves. How convenient. You light a torch and you wonder why someone behind you screams fire. Well, I’m screaming, too. Screaming at the retarded students of UC Davis who buy into this wahh-wahh, right-of-return, push-Israel-off-the-map garbage. And all this time, what’s been happening in the Arab world? More beheadings, hostages being burned alive, kidnapping and attacks – business as usual in the radical Muslim cyclone everywhere they are. And yet Israel is the bad guy.

Students of UC Davis, in my gradebook, you get an F for Flunk and a U for Uninformed. I realize you probably can’t spell, so I’ll put them together for ya: F. U.

This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York.

–> https://davesgoneby.net/?p=27424

Dave’s Gone By Interview (1/10/2015): DAPHNA LEVY & Rabbi Sol Solomon

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Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews life coach Daphna Levy

Topics include: Israel, Yom Kippur War, marriage, relationships, Tel Aviv.

Segment aired Jan. 10, 2015 as part of the “Dave’s Gone By” radio program hosted by Dave Lefkowitz.

Please Note: Segments extracted from “Dave’s Gone By” may have music and other elements removed for timing and media re-posting considerations. For the full interview with all elements, please visit the audio of the complete original broadcast: Full Episode

More information on Dave’s Gone By: http://www.davesgoneby.com

More information about Rabbi Sol Solomon: http://www.shalomdammit.com

Dave’s Gone By Skit: RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #111 (11/23/2014): Murder in Jerusalem

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RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #111 (11/23/2014): Murder in Jerusalem

aired Nov. 23, 2014 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: http://youtu.be/Nko93BwJGS0

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of November 23, 2014.

And here I was, all set to do a gentle sermon about Thanksgiving. How grateful we should all be for friends and co-workers and family — well, maybe not family — but for all the loving, helpful people in our lives. How we must be thankful to HaShem if we still have good health, functioning limbs, working brain cells, food on the table, a roof overhead — preferably one with a fiddler on it — a decent job, a couple of hobbies, a warm winter coat and a not-bad summer vacation.

Saying grace after every meal has never been my thing. What, I should sit there thanking God for his bounties, and by the time I’m finished, the food gets cold? No wonder goyim are so skinny; by the time they finish praying, their entrees are back in the microwave. Nevertheless, a couple of times a year, it’s good to remember that everything comes to us by the courtesy of God above and the hard work of our peers and forebears.

How lovely to offer a Rabbinical Reflection on such a spiritual and fraternal topic. However, the news this week forbids me from doing such a gentle, joyful sermon. I am, once again, detoured from being my usual snuggly marshmallow of delight into sounding like a vindictive, vituperative expounder of hate and revenge. Last Tuesday, two Palestinians armed with guns and meat cleavers burst into a Jerusalem synagogue and began firing and chopping. They murdered five people, including a policeman, three American Rabbis and an Orthodox Jewish Brit. For their troubles, the assassins, Ghassan Abu Jamal and his cousin, Oday Abu Jamal, were sent to martyrdom and their 72 ugly-ass virgins in the sky.

As an extra-punitive measure, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu then ordered that the killers’ houses be demolished. Honestly, I don’t know how upsetting that is to a dead terrorist. What’s he gonna say? “Aww, I was gonna make hummus tonight. No wait, I’m being shoveled into an unmarked grave. Gee, I’m gonna miss the sun room.”

Still, hurrah for any action by the Israeli government that warns Arabs we will not stand for such horrors as violence, murder and television programs featuring Jane Velez Mitchell. Let there be no doubt: bloodthirsty Palestinians may not storm into a temple in Yerushalayim and start executing people. Not unless it’s the high holy days and they bought a ticket.

Seriously, do you know why these terrorists embarked upon their rampage? Was it eye-for-an-eye revenge? Were they mad about Jews who went on a killing spree in the local Falafel Mart? No, because that didn’t happen. The Palestinians were irate because Jews have been visiting a holy site on the Temple Mount that the Arabs think should be off-limits to Hebrews. Doesn’t matter that Arabs in East Jerusalem can go anywhere they damn well please; Jews are forbidden from going where the Arabs don’t want them. Apparently, the penalty for trespassing in the Arab world is being hacked to death. Which makes sense, since the penalty for stealing is cutting off a hand, and the penalty for adultery is, well, let’s just call it extreme circumcision and leave it at that.

Following the synagogue attack, lame-duck President Obama is calling for peace and restraint on both sides, downplaying the savagery of the event and, as usual, doing nothing. Hey Barry! We had three Americans murdered by agents of a foreign regime. Isn’t that like, war, or something? I know the dead Rabbis weren’t black, but you could at least raise an eyebrow.

In the weeks ahead, you can bet your burqa Israel will do a lot more than snivel and call for moderation. There’ll be raids, roundups, demolitions and, alas, probably some vigilantism, too. I won’t deny that there’s a back-and-forth, you-did-this-so-I-do-that element to Israeli/Arab conflagrations. Remember last time? They killed those hitchhikers, so some misguided, hyped-up Israelis murdered some soccer-playing kids. Much as I hate the radical Arabs, killing innocent people is never an answer to anything. In fact, that’s what got us here. If the Palestinians would stop being terrorists, we’d stop being enemies. And if we stop being enemies, they can visit our synagogues, and we can be tourists at their shrines. And we’ll talk, and we’ll laugh, and we’ll bitch about the government, and we’ll share music and art and sports and do business deals, and food! We’ll sit down together with pastrami and goat and borscht and eggplant and kugel and yogurt, and we’ll watch TV, and we’ll fall asleep, and you know what we’ll call it? Thanksgiving.

This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York.

–> https://davesgoneby.net/?p=27484

Dave’s Gone By #485 (11/22/2014): ALL THAT CHAZZ

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Here is the 485th episode of the long-running radio show/podcast, Dave’s Gone By, which aired on UNC Radio, Nov. 22, 2014. Info: davesgoneby.com.

Featuring: Rabbi Sol Solomon chats with actor Chazz Palminteri. Plus: Rabbi Sol’s Rabbinical Reflection (Murder in Jerusalem), Inside Broadway, The Wretched Pun of Destiny (Old Tea), Bob Dylan – Sooner & Later (Rolling Thunder), Saturday Segues (Randy Newman, Thanksgiving Feast).

Guests: actor Chazz Palminteri, Dave’s wife, Joyce Weil

00:00:01 DAVE GOES IN (Oofty’s Nuts, UNC’s perks, Waste Management Phoenix Open, winter blues, bad-news Bears, Boing!, bad Bard)
01:32:00 SATURDAY SEGUE – Randy Newman
01:54:00 Sponsors
01:59:00 GUEST: Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews Chazz Palminteri
02:31:00 Friends
02:36:30 INSIDE BROADWAY
03:02:00 THE WRETCHED PUN OF DESTINY #13 (Old Tea)
03:04:00 BOB DYLAN – Sooner & Later – Rolling Thunder
03:30:30 RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #111 – Murder in Jerusalem
03:39:00 Weather
03:42:00 SATURDAY SEGUE – Thanskgiving Feast
04:01:00 DAVE GOES OUT

Nov. 22, 2014 Playlist: “Laugh and Be Happy” (01:34:30), “Shining” (01:37:00), “Real Emotional Girl” (01:43:30) & “Losing You” (01:46:00; Randy Newman). “Have You Seen My Baby” (Chris Smither; 01:41:00). “Disc Jockey” (02:41:00; Mike Nichols & Elaine May). “Tonight, I’ll Be Staying Here with You” ({live 1975 version}, 03:09:00), “Isis” ({Live 1975 version}, 03:16:00) & “Sara” ({live 1975 version}, 03:21:00; Bob Dylan). “Mama, You’ve Been on My Mind” ({live} 03:13:00; Bob Dylan & Joan Baez). “A Lonely Grain of Corn” (03:43:00; Uncle Bonsai). “Pumpkin Soup” (03:46:30; Kate Nash). “Turkey in the Straw” (03:49:30; Neil Morris & Charlie Everidge). “Squash” (03:51:30; Townes Van Zandt). “Saving Grace” (03:53:30; The Cranberries). “Thank You Friends” (04:03:30; Big Star).

Dave’s Gone By #474 (8/2/2014): HAVING ANOTHER BALL

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Here is the 474th episode of the long-running radio show/podcast, Dave’s Gone By, which aired on UNC Radio, Aug. 2, 2014. Info: davesgoneby.com.

Featuring: Rabbi Sol Solomon chats with actor-singer George Ball. Plus: Inside Broadway, Saturday Segues (Joseph Spence, Tony Bennett), Rabbi Sol’s Rabbinical Reflection (Going Great Guns in Gaza) and the Wretched Pun of Destiny (Football).

Guests: songwriter George Ball, Dave’s wife Joyce

00:00:01 DAVE GOES IN w/ Joyce
00:30:00 SATURDAY SEGUE – Joseph Spence
00:44:00 INSIDE BROADWAY
00:53:00 WRETCHED PUN OF DESTINY – Football
00:55:00 GUEST: Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews George Ball
02:03:00 RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #104 (Going Great Guns in Gaza)
02:10:30 BOB DYLAN – Sooner & Later: Another Side Knocked Out Again
02:34:00 Friends
02:41:00 SATURDAY SEGUE – Tony Bennett
03:01:00 DAVE GOES OUT

Aug. 2, 2014 Playlist: “Good Morning Mr. Walker” (00:30:30), “Yellow Bird” (00:33:00), “Rock Daniel” (00:35:30), “Goodnight Irene” (00:37:30; Joseph Spence). “A New Sun in the Sky” (“The Band Wagon” 1959 film soundtrack; 00:51:30). “Some Enchanted Evening” (00:55:00), “If I Were You” (01:05:00), “The Moon is Still Over her Shoulder” (01:14:00), “Fanette” (01:27:30), “Highway Patrolman” (01:44:30) & “Save the Last Dance for Me” (01:58:00; George Ball). “Ballad in Plain D” (02:40:30) & “Brownsville Girl” (02:23:00; Bob Dylan). “Until I Met You” (02:44:30) “Shakin’ the Blues Away” (02:47:30), “Lost in the Stars” (02:49:00), “For Once in My Life” (02:53:30) & “The Best is Yet to Come” (02:57:00; Tony Bennett). “August Winds” (03:03:00; Sting).

Dave’s Gone By Skit: RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #105 (8/31/2014): Eventful August

RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #105 (8/31/14): Eventful August

aired Aug. 30, 2014 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJUCZgwGJnI

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of August 31st, 2014.

Well, it’s been an eventful month in World Woebegone. What should have been a nice, relaxing laze through the end of summertime – or for those of you in New Zealand, your last good shot at a snowball fight – instead has been an August fraught with war, tumult and misfortune.

Closest to my own heart, of course, is the battle raging between Israel and Palestinians in Gaza. When last we checked in together, Israel was mourning the loss of three innocent hitchhikers who took a wrong turn at Albuquerque. That was followed by Palestinians firing rockets at Israel – actually it was preceded by and followed by Palestinians firing rockets at Israel. Which led to Israel saying “enough’s enough.”

Which led to massive bombings, more rockets, a couple of psychotic Israelis killing Arab children, a few cease fires that lasted long enough for the Arabs to import more rockets, lots of dead Arab terrorists, Hamas militants and semi-innocent-semi-civilians, too many dead IDF soldiers, and a battle that President Obama has been kind enough to let Israel wage without much interference beyond the occasional “naughty-naughty.”

My feelings about the Gaza situation have been spoken so many times, I feel like a “Murder She Wrote” rerun on the Hallmark Channel. Still, I’ll say it again: tiny little Israel shaved off a sliver of itself to give the Arabs in exchange for peace. What do the Palestinians give us in return? Thousands of attempted murders by rocket attacks, punctuated by the occasional real murder, just to break the monotony. How does Hamas expect to give the Palestinians a permanent home if they’re such horrible tenants when they rent?

And to all the left-wing ignoramuses – ignorami? Ignoramians? – okay, morons, who march in Times Square and the garment district with their Arab flags and their Zionism-is-Nazism banners and their screaming about Israeli war crimes, I will say once again: when the Arabs stop terrorizing Jews – and every other culture in the Western World, we’ll stop killing Arabs back. And if they don’t like living in or near Israel, there’s plenty of Arab land in the Middle East where they can worship Islam, stone their women and cut off each other’s hands for picking their noses.

Oh, and for all those “Democracy Now” types bashing Israel for killing Arabs, guess how many Arabs were killed by Arabs in Syria? 191,000, give or take. Meanwhile, Iraq is falling apart, so we have to go back there because of militant Mohammedans, and in response, a Syrian terrorist cut off the head of an American journalist and put it on youtube to see how many likes he could get. Some say the video is a fake, but even if it is, somebody got his head handed to him.

And speaking of violence: it just wouldn’t be a summer in the American south without racial tension, would it? So a black guy shoplifts from a convenience store, roughs up the owner a little bit when he tries to resist, gets stopped by a cop for reasons that have nothing to do with the crime, starts charging at the officer – or surrendering – depending on whose story you believe, and gets a half a dozen bullets in his head for his troubles.

Are the blacks upset? You bet. The guy had no knife, no gun, no nothing. Instead of his deadliest weapon, the cop coulda reached for a taser, or his nightstick. Then again, Michael Brown coulda reached for his wallet instead of stealing those cigars. He’s lucky the store owner didn’t blow his head off before the po-po did.

Obviously, police have a trigger-finger problem, especially when it comes to foreigners or people whose skin is darker than your average manila file folder. So if this whole Ferguson, Missouri calamity leads to better policing, I’m all for it. But when I see protestors willing to believe everything bad about American cops and everything angelic and wonderful about Michael Brown, my eyebrow rises. And when I see other protestors somehow equating Israel’s retaliation against Hamas with the death of this teenager, my gorge rises. And when I see actress Penelope Cruz denouncing Israel for committing genocide, my dick rises. I can’t help it, it’s Penelope Cruz. But the bitch really needs to show more tits and less mouth. I hope she chokes on her Nescafe.

Speaking of choking, a fond farewell to Robin Williams, actor, comedian and apparently all-around good guy. He really wasn’t that funny, but he made such a constant effort to be funny that you had to give him props and marvel at his gusto. I liked him in “Mork and Mindy,” I loved him in “Awakenings,” and I’ll miss his risk-taking performances as much as his more patented standup. Yes, he suffered from depression, but if you made “Patch Adams,” you’d be depressed, too.

We also had a suicide by Nascar, with Kevin Ward, Jr., stepping out of his vehicle to confront driver Tony Stewart for sending him into a spin. Okay, here’s a math problem everyone: If you stand in front of a car going 250 miles an hour, what are the odds of getting hit by a car going 250 miles an hour? I’d say 100 percent, Alex. Maybe Kevin Ward was too angry to think straight, but he was certainly too dumb to live.

Then again, the state of our government could make anyone suicidal. The Republicans keep vowing to impeach the president for being Karl Marx, while 2016 GOP front runner Rick Perry gets indicted for being Machiavelli.

We lost a nice Jewish girl named Betty Jane Persky who grew up to be Lauren Bacall, and the month of August also gave us a 6.0 earthquake in Northern California, causing millions of dollars of damage to vineyards in Sonoma and Napa Valley. Great, just when we need to get rip-roaring drunk to forget all the crap that’s happening, God smashes the bottles.

So where will we be a month from now? Will Russia invade the Ukraine? Will September 11th come and go without ISIS offering us an anniversary gift? Will Malaysia start making airplanes out of rubber, just in case they have to bounce? Hang on, my friends, it’s going to be a bumpy ride.

This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York.

–> https://davesgoneby.net/?p=27576

Dave’s Gone By Skit: RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #103 (7/6/2014): Brothers’ Keepers

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RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #103 (7/6/2014): Brothers’ Keepers

aired July 5, 2014 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: http://youtu.be/fS3rlY_ICn0

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of July 6th, 2014.

This is for all the Israel bashers, Palestinian apologists, Muslim excuse makers, and other misinformed idiots of the world: Israel is mad as hell, and they’re not gonna take it anymore. Nor should they. You wanna talk peace? You wanna talk statehood? You wanna talk dismantling settlements? Go ahead. Press your lips to your asshole, and talk all you want.

Meanwhile, Israel is going to open a can of whoop-ass on Hamas, and it’s lonnnnnnng overdue. What’s the latest abomination? Three teenagers, 19, 16 and 16, were hitchhiking in Israel. They were kidnapped, they were brought to the West Bank – which, I remind everyone – is also a part of Israel. At some point over the last two weeks, they were murdered there, in cold blood, and the bodies were found on Monday in a shallow grave. These young people were not spies, they were not terrorists, they were not rabble rousers, and judging by their outcome, they were not great judges of character, either.

Hamas was founded in 1987 as an offshoot of the so-called Islamic Brotherhood. Their goal was to push Israel into the sea. Not just take over the West Bank and Gaza, but the whole country, that Palestinians could then turn back into a pre-historic sandpile. For awhile, Hamas made believe it was interested in negotiating. Maybe there could be a two-state solution. Maybe Israel could push back to its pre-1967 borders, and tolerate the occasional scud missile and exploding restaurant, just for old times’ sake. But just this year, Abu Marzouk, the deputy chairman of Hamas told an Arab newspaper, quote, “Hamas will not recognize Israel. This is a red line that cannot be crossed,” unquote. That’s okay, Abu baby, Israel recognizes you, and your cohorts. And when they see you, they’ll put a bullet in your head.

How many times, how many years have I spent saying that radical Islam is a scourge, that these Arab countries cannot be trusted, and that Israel has a right to defend itself by any and all means possible – including tickle torture and episodes of “Teen Mom.” If the Palestinians want to live somewhere, let them knock on the doors of Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Kuwait – we’ll see how welcoming their Arab neighbors are to these tired, huddled masses, yearning to move out of democracy and into Sharia law.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Hamas will pay for its killing. These boys, he said, “were kidnapped and murdered in cold blood by animals” – that’s his word, not mine. Well… and mine – animals! And may the punishment not only fit the crime but outscale the crime by 3000 to 1; a thousand times the pain for each of the three innocents murdered by people who use Mohammed as a weapon and Allah as an excuse. Meanwhile, Israel needs to build more settlements in the territories – not take them down, build more. Because we won that land, rightfully and righteously, in wars brought upon us by the children of Hagar. And I don’t mean Hagar the Horrible; he’s a Viking and really not that horrible. His wife’s a little unpleasant, but even she and he together are not comparable to the lawless, soulless, terrorist slime that squats on 98 percent of the Middle East.

But I will say this for the other two percent. It’s been reported that some Palestinians, and even the Palestinian Authority, helped out during the two weeks of searching for these missing boys. There was actual cooperation during the rather beautifully named “Operation Brother’s Keeper.” Certainly, gratitude and good wishes go to everyone, whatever their background, who tried to lend a hand. But, of course, Arabs being Arabs, after a few days of house-to-house searches and bad traffic and inconvenience, the rank and file turned to rebellion and violence and wishing the Israelis dead.

Well, back atcha, towelheads. Let the rockets fly, let the round-ups begin, let the falafel balls fall where they may. In the Book of Deuteronomy, God says, “Vengeance is mine; I will repay.” Get ready, Hamas, `cause payback’s a bitch.

This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York.

–> https://davesgoneby.net/?p=27586

Dave’s Gone By #472 (7/5/2014): TO DAVE IS THE HIGHWAY

click above to listen to the episode (audio only)

Here is the 472nd episode of the long-running radio show/podcast, Dave’s Gone By, which aired on UNC Radio, July 5, 2014. Info: davesgoneby.com.

Featuring: Rabbi Sol Solomon chats with singer songwriter Eric Andersen and with Gene Kelly archivist Patricia Ward Kelly. Plus: Rabbi Sol’s Rabbinical Reflection on the murdered Israeli teenagers, a birthday salute to Beck and Bob Dylan: Sooner & Later (Like a Rolling Stone).

Guests: musician Eric Andersen, biographer Patricia Ward Kelly, Dave’s wife Joyce

00:00:01 DAVE GOES IN w/ Joyce
00:36:00 SATURDAY SEGUE: Beck
00:59:00 Sponsors
01:04:30 GUEST: Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews Eric Andersen
01:55:00 RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #103 (Brothers’ Keepers)
02:01:00 BOB DYLAN – Sooner & Later (Like a Rolling Stone)
02:27:00 GUEST: Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews Patricia Ward Kelly
03:35:00 DAVE GOES OUT

July 5, 2014 Playlist: “Girl” (00:36:00), “Heart is a Drum” (00:39:30), “Movie Theme” (00:44:00), “The New Pollution” (00:48:00) & “The Golden Age” (00:51:30; Beck). “Violets of Dawn” (01:04:30), “Beat Avenue” ({excerpt} 01:21:30), “Sheila” (01:38:00), “Dance of Love and Death” (01:47:00), “Hello Sun” (01:52:30) & “Rollin’ Home” (03:42:00; Eric Andersen). “You Can’t Relive the Past” (01:13:30; Eric Andersen & Lou Reed). “Thirsty Boots” (01:32:00), “Like a Rolling Stone” (02:02:30), “Like a Rolling Stone” ({early version}; 02:09:00) & “Like a Rolling Stone” ({live Manchester version}; 02:13:00; Bob Dylan). “Like a Rolling Stone” (02:10:30; Sebastian Cabot). “Good Morning” (02:24:00) & “Singin’ in the Rain” (02:51:30); “Singin’ in the Rain” 1952 soundtrack w/ Gene Kelly, Donald O’Connor & Gene Kelly). “The Worry Song” (03:05:30) & “You Wonderful You” (03:32:00; Gene Kelly).

*Eyal Yifrach, Gilad Shaar & Naftali Frenkel*

Dave’s Gone By Skit: RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #91 (2/9/2014): SodaStream and ScarJo

click above to listen (audio file)

RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #91 (2/9/2014): SodaStream and ScarJo

aired Feb. 8, 2014 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: http://youtu.be/rxtEvftNrTU

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of February 8th, 2014.

So many times in my Rabbinical Reflections, I am forced to take celebrities over my metaphorical knee and spank them for their misdeeds and maladjustments. Justin Bieber, Charlie Sheen, Ryan Dunn, Lance Armstrong – the list is an embarrassment of Richie Riches. I am delighted, therefore, to offer something different this week: a Hollywood star with a good head on her shoulders. She also has good shoulders and a great rack. But I come to praise Scarlett Johansson – not for the bubbles on her chest, but for the bubbles in her glass. She is the spokesperson for SodaStream, a company that helps you carbonate your own water, so you can make your own soft drinks.

Half-Jewish on her mother’s side – which makes her all-Jewish to me – Scarlett Johannson is one of the most glamorous actresses in Hollywood. She’s so hot, Woody Allen actually looked away from a 10-year-old to make her his muse. And she’s so in-demand, she can pick and choose what she wishes to advertise or promote. Her latest choice? Seltzer. What could be more Jewish than that? Only, it isn’t called “seltzer” anymore. It’s called “sparkling water” or, if you’re a lower tax bracket, “soda.” Back in the day, we used to call it “two cents plain,” but now nothing’s plain when you’re trying to sell it, and the only thing you can buy for two cents these days is one penny.

Anyhoo, in 1991, Peter Wiseburgh, a nice Jewish boy from Israel, bought SodaStream from Cadbury-Schweppes and made it the biggest purveyor of shpritz in the world. You don’t want to pay two dollars for a liter of Coca Cola? You don’t want all the caffeine and sugar of Pepsi? Can’t bring yourself to try that Mexican pineapple soda because, well, it’s Mexican pineapple soda? You buy a machine that looks like a mixer, then you get these canisters of carbon dioxide. In goes the glass of water, in goes the syrup, mix it up and voila – in three minutes you have a glass of soda … that would have taken you ten seconds to pour from a Coke can, but nevertheless. With Sodastream, you can control the level of carbonation and the amount of goo. Plus, you’re not opening a giant cola bottle that in three days goes flatter than Debra Messing in a sports bra.

So there is much to recommend in the home-made soda idea and the Sodastream company, which has factories all over the world, including three in Israel. And ay, there’s the rub. Two of the factories are in parts of Israel that the Arabs don’t think belong to Israel. Granted, the Arabs don’t think any of Israel belongs to Israel, but in this case, they’re specifically talking about the so-called “occupied territories” – land that Israel won, fair and square, in wars fought decades ago. I know I sound like a broken record – and for you kids out there, a record is a round vinyl thing with a hole in it that your grandparents used to play music on. Look it up. Anyhoo, I’ve said time and again that the Palestinians have millions of other miles they can live on, so if they feel oppressed in a Jewish state, they can get themselves a two-hump U-haul and move.

Still, they bitch and moan about Israel occupying land – it’s not “occupied,” shitheads, it’s annexed. And if you want Israel to bulldoze homes and let go of it, you damn well better give us peace in return. And maybe a few of those 70 virgins you’re always talking about, just to sweeten the deal.

One organization taking up the misguided cause against Israel is something called Oxfam. No, that’s not Gabourey Sidibe’s parents, it’s a non-profit initially formed to fight the war against poverty all over the world. Somehow, alas, the honorable mandate to feed the hungry morphed into a more vague “human-rightsy” sort of a thing, which slid into a political agenda and has now warped into anti-Israel propaganda. Oxfam wants people to boycott Sodastream because the factories are making beverages on land where the Palestinians should rightfully be making bombs. Defenders of Sodastream say the hundreds of Arabs who work at the company are well-treated, make a decent wage and have a life they could never aspire to beforehand.

So where does Scarlet Johansson belong in all this? Well, in my bedroom, if life were fair – but no, the actress was caught up in the controversy because she was an ambassador for Oxfam. I say “was” because last week she handed in her resignation. Why? Because ScarJo is also the spokeswoman for Sodastream. She even did a sexy commercial for them that debuted during the Super Bowl! She’s wearing a bathrobe and sucking on a straw. You don’t have to be Freud to know what’s really going on…she’s thirsty! For soda!

When the Oxfammished begged her to drop the company, Scarlet Johansson dropped them, citing, quote, “a fundamental difference of opinion,” unquote. That’s legalspeak for: “I’m Jewish, you’re idiots, the West Bank is part of Israel, Israel is a Jewish homeland, Sodastream are the good guys, and in the interest of international peace, I really should tweet more homemade nude photos on the internet.” Okay, I added that last part, but you know what I’m saying.

Ironically, the Scarlett Johansson Sodastream ad was nearly censored from the Super Bowl. Not by Oxfam or for any political reason, but because she mentioned Coke and Pepsi, and CBS crapped itself worrying that those monster advertisers would pull out if they heard their product being disparaged by the actress who played Natasha in “The Avengers.” The ad stayed, but the line was cut. I guess we know who has the real political power in this country…

But Scarlett Johansson, for being a mensch and standing your ground – that ground being the holy sand of Eretz Yisroel — I toast you holding a glass brimming with Sodastream. Mmmmmm good. Actually, it’s Dr. Brown’s Cel-Ray, don’t tell anybody.

Thank you ScarJo. This has been RebSolSol coming to you from TempSoBi, Great Neck, NeeYo.

–> https://davesgoneby.net/?p=27843