stop me before I ramble, ramble

[Wayne Johnson]

I'm with you on this one Mr. Storm.

Hope you are feeling good.

wgJ
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Gerry Storm" <mesmo@gilanet.com>
To: <austin-ghetto-list@pairlist.net>
Sent: Monday, September 06, 2004 5:22 PM
Subject: Re: stop me before I rant again


> Mike,
> I would like to see Sharon and his policies fail and be replaced by a more
> moderate stance. I would like to see Perle, Wolife, Feith,et al fail and
> spend the rest of their lives in Abu Ghraib or San Quentin. I would like
to
> see all governments as secular institutions. I would like a break in the
> daily news from the constant fights in Israel.
> G
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Michael Eisenstadt" <michaele@HotPOP.com>
> To: <mesmo@gilanet.com>; <austin-ghetto-list@pairlist.net>
> Sent: Monday, September 06, 2004 12:42 PM
> Subject: Re: stop me before I rant again
>
>
> > Gerry,
> >
> > I dont know how much you want to know about
> > Israel considering your heritage ;-) but I thought
> > I'd bring to your attention a book I just finished
> > reading, Real Jews by Noah Efron, an Israeli
> > professor. (you might ask for it through Interlibrary
> > Loan at your local public library).
> >
> > It is about the Haredim, the super orthodox,
> > not to be confused with religious West Bank
> > settlers, these are the old timey jews in black
> > studying the bible being their main occupation.
> >
> > It is a more or less sympathetic look at them,
> > written primarily to inform secular Israelis who
> > resent the Haredim as corrupt free-loaders.
> > According to Efron, the Haredim are about
> > 10% of the population and as far as one can
> > tell, this percentage is not changing very much
> > despite the large families they have. Apparently
> > a lot of their children abandon the faith and
> > become secular. The reason they have such
> > political clout is, in part, because they practice
> > massive fraud in elections with faked IDs,
> > multiple voting, and voting the cemeteries.
> > At recent elections, secular poll-watchers were
> > in place at Haredim precincts but it turned out
> > to be very hard to closely surveille the IDs of
> > the voters as regards their real identity.
> >
> > But it is not as you say. Israel, surprisingly, at
> > this moment is having an economic boom with
> > a strong growth rate.
> >
> > As best I can tell from reading Ha'aretz and
> > the Jerusalem Post, the Israel I defend is NOT
> > on the ropes. If anything their internal strife that
> > you speak of seems far less than that here in
> > the US. Why do I get the sense that it would
> > delight you if they WERE in internal strife?
> >
> > Could it just be that you got an attitude towards
> > these folks? I hope not.
> >
> > Nice though that you remember the Israel of
> > the 50s which was a far less corrupt society
> > than it is now (the way it changed was explained
> > to me by an Israeli math teacher/rabbi on a
> > Pan Am flight from NYC to Houston in 1979).
> > It's a complicated country.
> >
> > Mike
> >
> >
>
>
>