Yehuda Lave, Spiritual Advisor and Counselor | | | | Yehuda Lave is an author, journalist, psychologist, rabbi, spiritual teacher and coach, with degrees in business, psychology and Jewish Law. He works with people from all walks of life and helps them in their search for greater happiness, meaning, business advice on saving money, and spiritual engagement | | | A person who has great wealth will still be unhappy if he hasn't also mastered gratitude As an exercise in appreciation, try for one hour to feel grateful for every single thing you find yourself doing. When you read, be grateful you can see and read. When you walk, be grateful for the use of your feet. When you talk, be grateful for the ability to communicate with others. For a full hour do not take even the smallest action for granted. Be aware of every detail of what you can do. Anyone who does this daily for even a short time will have a much greater appreciation for everything he does. Love Yehuda Lave | | Average Israeli Salary Rises Slightly To NIS 11,004 Per Month Average Israeli salary rises slightly to NIS 11,004 per monthMean monthly pay increases by 3.4% since last year; highest paid sector is information and communications, lowest is food and hospitality industriesBy LUKE TRESS Illustrative: The DLD Tel Aviv Digital Conference, Israel's largest high tech gathering, September 27, 2016. The tech industry is the among the highest paid in Israel, with an average salary of NIS 23,375 ($6,719) per month. (Miriam Alster/Flash90) The average Israeli salary stood at 11,004 NIS ($3,163) per month, as of July 2019, the Central Bureau of Statistics reported on Sunday. The sum marked an increase of 3.4 percent over the same period last year. The number of salaried workers in the country was 3,812,000, an increase of 1.8%. The highest paid industry was the information and communications sector, which includes many technology companies, where the average pay was NIS 22,122 ($6,358) per month, followed by financial and insurance services, where the mean salary was NIS 20,153 ($5,792). Israel's 329,500 high-tech workers made an average of NIS 23,375 ($6,719) per month, an increase of 4% over the previous year, with science researchers and developers leading this group, at NIS 25,517 ($7,334). The lowest paid sector was the hospitality and food industry, where the average pay was only NIS 5,150 ($1,480). The education field had the largest number of salaried workers, with 546,800 people making an average of NIS 9,106 ($2,617) per month. Healthcare and welfare service workers, another major sector with 439,500 salaried employees, took home a below-average salary of NIS 9,680 ($2,782). Wages were not equally distributed — 66.5% of salaried workers, 2,534,000 people, were employed in fields where the average pay was below the national average. | | Chabad of Rechavia CELEBRATING A DECADE! Join our community-wide celebration, upcoming next week, in honor of our tenth anniversary!
Tuesday, November 5, 2019
with the participation of Rabbis, Dignitaries
and Community Leaders.
At the Yeshurun Central Synagogue 44 King George Street, Jerusalem We deeply thank the honored leadership of the Yeshurun Synagogue, for their friendship, and for welcoming us and hosting this event in the Shul! | | Anti-Semitic hate crimes in NYC have risen significantly in 2019 NEW YORK (JTA) — The number of hate crimes against Jews in New York City has risen significantly over the first nine months of this year, part of a citywide rise in such offenses. The New York Police Department has reported 311 total hate crimes through September, as opposed to 250 reported through the same period in 2018, according to Deputy Inspector Mark Molinari, who heads the department's Hate Crimes Task Force. Molinari said 52 percent of the reported hate crimes, or 163, have targeted Jews. Over the same period last year, the NYPD reported 108 anti-Semitic hate crimes. At a meeting Thursday with Jewish philanthropists, Molinari discussed the numbers and how to prevent anti-Semitic crimes in the city. He recounted a list of anti-Jewish hate crimes that had made the news just this week: * Two Jewish men had their hats knocked off by a group of teens. * A separate group of children broke the windows of a Brooklyn synagogue during the Rosh Hashanah holiday. * Also during the holiday, a third group of kids harassed a Jewish woman, pulling off her scarf and wig. "Although the proximity is ridiculously close, those are not the same three groups of children," he said. "I would love if one person in New York City committed all of my 311 hate crimes and I could lock up one person and make it go away. For the most part I'm dealing with 311 random individuals of very diverse backgrounds committing these hate crimes against different people." That's the challenge facing the city as it tries to stem a rising tide of hate in its precincts — much of it directed against Jews. Molinari said the criminal behavior doesn't appear to be coming from members of high-profile extremist hate groups like the Ku Klux Klan or the far-right marchers who demonstrated two years ago in Charlottesville, Virginia. "The national narrative is not the narrative we see here in New York City," Molinari said." There aren't roving bands of white supremacists, from khakis and tiki torches to hood-wearing people." He added later, "Political ideology, religious ideology, we do not see that happen here in New York." Molinari was speaking to a group of donors to the UJA-Federation of New York, an umbrella communal organization. Appearing alongside him was Deborah Lauter, who was hired recently to head the city's new Office for the Prevention of Hate Crimes following a career at the Anti-Defamation League and other Jewish organizations. Lauter stressed that one of the keys to preventing hate crimes, especially among kids of different backgrounds, is education and long-term partnerships between religious and ethnic communities. "The Jewish community at one point started withdrawing from its community relations agenda," she said. "We're feeling the repercussions now. This is hard work. You've got to do the long game on addressing these problems." At the event, UJA-Federation announced that it was doing just that as part of a set of new initiatives to combat anti-Semitism in America's Jewish metropolis. Together with the local Jewish Community Relations Council, UJA is investing $4 million over two years in physical security upgrades for 2,000 Jewish institutions. It's hiring six directors who will collectively coordinate communal security for Jews in the city's five boroughs, as well as suburban Long Island and Westchester County, and a special coordinator for the area's Jewish summer camps. The federation is also establishing a community relations security committee to work with other ethnic and minority communities. "Our hope is that this strategic investment will allow Jews across the region and people of all faiths to feel welcome in our institutions, secure in our communal spaces and generally safe," said Alisa Doctoroff, UJA-Federation's past president. "We need to be there for other people, for other communities, if we expect them to be there for us." Molinari had some good news: Hate crimes in September had declined compared to September 2018 after rising over the course of 2019 overall. According to Molinari, 87 percent of the anti-Semitic hate crimes this year have been what he called "criminal mischief," generally vandalism involving the drawing of swastikas. The remaining 13 percent were person-to-person crimes, such as assaults. In order to be classified as a hate crime, an anti-Semitic incident needs to be an actual crime, as opposed to someone yelling an offensive phrase. But Lauter said age also was a factor in the swastika graffiti. Some of the vandals, she said, are teenagers who don't know the symbolism and anti-Semitic history of the swastika. She called for Holocaust education in schools to illustrate that the Nazi symbol is more than a provocative sign. "The kids who are doing the swastika incidents don't know from what a swastika is," Lauter said. "That's precisely the kind of thing that I want to look at. You need to make a statement. Kids don't know from hate crimes." | | WHEN G-D PUNISHES THE WICKED Parshat Ha'Eizinu "He will avenge His servants' blood. He will bring vengeance upon His foes" (Deuteronomy 32:43). The nations' hatred for the Jewish people will summon upon them G-d's well -justified zeal. Zechariah prophesied, "I was zealous for Jerusalem and Zion with a great zeal. And I burn with great anger at the nations that are at ease, for I was a little angry but they helped forward the evil" (Zechariah 1:14-15). It is a great mitzvah to rejoice when G-d takes revenge on those who curse His Name. Psalms 136 states that "G-d's kindness endures forever," not only because He "gives food to all flesh" (verse 25), but also because He "smote the firstborn of Egypt" (verse 10), "smote great kings" (verse 17), and "overthrew Pharaoh and his host in the Red Sea" (verse 15). Why is it so important to rejoice when G-d punishes evil people? Because the Torah says, "When the wicked increase, transgression increases, but the righteous shall gaze upon their fall" (Proverbs 29:16). When the wicked triumph and multiply, they increase sin in the world and thereby commit the greatest crime possible: fostering evil in a world exclusively earmarked for goodness and causing G-d's Name to be cursed and disparaged. For this, the wicked deserve to die. Furthermore, when injustice reigns on earth- when the kingdom of evil takes control and stifles the righteous and innocent- it is only natural for a person to ask, "Where is G-d?" He may even start believing that G-d does not exist or is incapable of helping. That's why the "righteous one shall rejoice when he sees vengeance; he shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked. So that people shall say: 'There is, indeed, a reward for the righteous; there is, indeed, a G-d who judges on earth'" (Psalms 58:11-12). The Jewish Idea Rabbi Meir Kahane HY"D | | Gigantic Prehistoric City Found In Israel During Road Works The archaeologists conducting the salvage exploration before the whole thing is built over suspect that at its peak in the Early Bronze Age, the site at En Esur had as many as 6,000 people, a huge population for the time. It would have dwarfed sites like Jericho and Megiddo, two famous examples of early urbanization in the Southern Levant, archaeologists say.
En Esur was smaller than the cities that arose contemporaneously in Mesopotamia and Egypt in the Early Bronze Age, but was apparently unique in size for its time in the Southern Levant, the region that includes modern Israel, Jordan and southern Syria, the archaeologists explain.Full Story (Haaretz.com) | | 'Israel's ancient NYC': 5,000-year-old Canaanite megalopolis may rewrite history Uncovered in northern Israel, Ein Esur, largest Early Bronze Age settlement ever excavated here, set to 'change forever what we know about emergence of urbanization in entire area'By AMANDA BORSCHEL-DAN 6 October 2019, 11:32 am 10 Aerial photograph of the Early Bronze Age excavation site near modern Harish. (Assaf Peretz, Israel Antiquities Authority) HARISH, northern Israel — A massive 5,000-year-old metropolis that housed some 6,000 residents has been uncovered alongside Israel's newest city, Harish, during new roadworks. The 160-acre (over 650 dunam) city is the largest Early Bronze Age settlement excavated in Israel, the Israel Antiquities Authority announced on Sunday. "It is much larger than any known site in the land of Israel — and outside the land of Israel — in the region of Jordan, Lebanon, southern Syria," said excavation co-director Dr. Yitzhak Paz in an IAA video. In addition, just ahead of the construction of a new interchange over the En Esur (Ein Asawir) archaeological site, IAA archaeologists also discovered an earlier, 7,000-year-old Chalcolithic settlement under several of the 5,000-year-old structures. "This is a huge city – a megalopolis in relation to the Early Bronze Age, where thousands of inhabitants, who made their living from agriculture, lived and traded with different regions and even with different cultures and kingdoms in the area… This is the Early Bronze Age New York of our region; a cosmopolitan and planned city," said excavation directors Itai Elad, Paz and Dr. Dina Shalem in an IAA statement. Excavation directors (right to left) Itai Elad, Dr. Dina Shalem, and Dr. Yitzhak Paz, walk in a 5,000-year-old alley at the Early Bronze Age excavation site near modern Harish. (Yoli Schwartz, Israel Antiquities Authority) Salvage excavations have been taking place at the site for the past two and a half years, financed by Netivei Israel – the National Transport Infrastructure Company Ltd. Over 5,000 high school students and volunteers from the area have participated in them. Due to the importance of the site, Netivei Israel has significantly increased the height of the planned interchange and will preserve the excavations through high-tech documentation and physical conservation. The digs have revealed an Early Bronze Age (end of the 4th millennium BCE) planned city located near Wadi Ara, near two water springs, in the Haifa district of northern Israel. According to Paz, the land is fertile for agriculture and is close to important, central trade routes. The ancient settlement contained public and private buildings and areas, streets and alleys and was surrounded by a fortification wall. "The excavation at this site revealed two main settlements," explained Shalem in an IAA video. "The earliest one is about 7,000 years old. It's a very large agricultural settlement. Two thousand years later, another settlement became one of the first cities known in this area of the world." The layout of the city, said Elad, the third co-director, indicates it was very thoughtfully planned. During the excavation, the team discovered a very large public building that was unlike any of the others. It was, said Elad, most probably a temple or a shrine, inside which was found an area containing burnt animal bones, presumably for sacrifices. In the temple courtyard is large stone basin for liquids, which the archaeologists assume was also used during religious rituals. "These findings allow us to look beyond the material into the spiritual life of the large community that lived at the site," said the archaeologists. Figurines from the Early Bronze Age excavation site near modern Harish. (Clara Amit, Israel Antiquities Authority) Among the interesting artifacts revealed at the site was a cylindrical stamp impression of a man holding his hands up in the air, as well as several figurines of people and animals and tools imported from Egypt. Flint tools, millions of pottery sherds and basalt stone vessels were also found. Seal impression of a man hands lifted next to an animal from the Early Bronze Age excavation site near modern Harish. (Yoli Schwartz, Israel Antiquities Authority) "These surprising findings allow us, for the first time, to define the cultural characteristics of the inhabitants of this area in ancient times," according to the IAA statement. It is during this era, said the statement, that Canaan's populations moved from rural to mostly urban environments. According to the archaeologists, alongside the more sophisticated construction and city planning, there had to have been complex governance in the site as well. Thousands of youth and volunteers participated in the excavation at the Early Bronze Age excavation site near modern Harish. (Yaniv Berman, Israel Antiquities Authority) For the 5,000 Israeli pupils and young adults — Jews and Arabs — who participated in the excavations, their firsthand knowledge and experiences may also change their perspective and their connection to the land of Israel. As history books are rewritten, the students were on the frontlines of early research. "The study of this site will change forever what we know about the emergence [and] rise of urbanization in the land of Israel and in the whole region," said Paz. "And it means that what we know now will change what is written today in the traditional books when people read about the archaeology of Israel." | | See you tomorrow Love Yehuda Lave | | | |
