by Rabbi Shraga Simmons
The significance, customs and mechanics of counting the Omer.
What is the Omer?
In the days of the Holy Temple, the Jewish people would bring a barley offering on the second day of Passover (Leviticus 23:10). This was called the "Omer" (literally, "sheaf") and in practical terms would permit the consumption of recently-harvested grains.
Starting on the second day of Passover, the Torah (Leviticus 23:15) says it is a mitzvah every day to "count the Omer" -- the 50 days leading up to Shavuot. This is an important period of growth and introspection, in preparation for the holiday of Shavuot which arrives 50 days later.
Shavuot is the day that the Jewish people stood at Mount Sinai to receive the Torah, and as such required a seven-week preparation period. The commentators say that we were freed from Egypt only in order to receive the Torah and to fulfill it. Thus we were commanded to count from the second day of Pesach until the day that the Torah was given -- to show how greatly we desire the Torah.
How to Count the Omer
The Omer is counted every evening after nightfall (approx. 30 minutes after sunset), ...   more »

By Ilana Teitelbaum  
Cranberries have long been known as a popular folk remedy for the treatment of urinary tract infections, but until recently there was no scientific evidence to back up this claim. Now Professor Itzhak Ofek of Tel Aviv University has discovered that the benefits ascribed to cranberries are not only real - there are several more as well.
"Cranberries started as a folk medicine in the US," Ofek told ISRAEL21c. "Every fourth American in the '60s knew it was good for urinary tract infection." Ofek's goal was to find out the truth behind the myth.
With his research funded by the cranberry juice-producing monolith Ocean Spray, Ofek recently published his findings in the journal Molecular Nutrition & Food Research. There is only one snag: the benefits of cranberries, though prodigious, appear to apply only to women.
"It appears that in certain infections, such as ulcers caused by H. pylori bacteria, a clinical trial showed that the cranberry has beneficial effects for women only," says Ofek. "In urinary tract infections (UTI), the cranberry has been tested only on women and has proven to be beneficial, although UTI is primarily an infectious disease most common in women."
Ofek has been ...   more »

Nissan Ratzlav-Katz(IsraelNN.com) Knesset Member Effie Eitam (National Union-National Religious Party) slammed Arab MK Ibrahim Sarsur (Ra’am-Ta’al) on Monday night after Sarsur compared IDF soldiers to Nazis and claimed Israel was targeting Arab civilians for extermination.
MK Eitam called the Nazi comparison “chilling” and said, "MK Sarsur's desecration of the memory of the Holocaust will never be forgiven, and it will remain a moral stain that will force the Knesset presidency to take appropriate action."
The statement by MK Sarsur was the latest in a series of incidents demonstrating that "Arab MKs have broken a new record in traitorous behavior towards the state and the IDF," said Eitam. "The Arab MKs have again proven their loyalty to the enemy," he said, adding that MKs who side with enemy elements, such as Hamas, should be removed from the Knesset as quickly as possible.
On Monday, MK Sarsur compared IDF soldiers to Nazis after five Arab civilians were killed in Gaza during an IDF counter-terrorism operation.
An initial IDF investigation showed that the civilians were not killed by the Israel Air Force strike. Rather, Arab terrorists were carrying a bomb near the family's house that detonated by accident. The IDF later ordered theartillery ...   more »

Major-General Amos Yadlin briefs cabinet on situation in Gaza Strip, warns Palestinian terror organizations may try to carry out mass-casualty attack during Israel's 60th anniversary celebrations
Roni Sofer
Military Intelligence Chief Major-General Amos Yadlin warned the cabinet Tuesday of terror organizations seeking to carry out a major terror attack during Independence Day.
The Israel Defense Forces, he said, "has intelligence indicating terrorists might try to mimic the Passover attack, including the possible abductions of IDF soldiers."
High Alert 
IDF must change operational strategy, says senior officer  / Hanan Greenberg 
Army's operational strategies called into question as probe into Saturday's attack on Kerem Shalom crossing continues. 'Staying on the defense begs for an offense,' says senior IDF officer 
On the eve of the holiday, a Palestinian terror cell detonated a car bomb near the Kerem Shalom crossing, in a failed infiltration attempt. Thirteen IDF soldiers were wounded in the attack. 
Yadlin briefed the cabinet on the situation in the Gaza Strip at the request of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. Hamas, he told the ministers "wants to break the blockade on Gaza and since Egypt is determined to stop that from happening on its side, Hamas will try to carry out another ...   more »

Archeologists working at the site uncover historic 'Davidka' shell used by Haganah during Independence War Efrat Weiss
More than 60 years after it was buried, archeologists working an excavation in the Western Wall Plaza unearthed a completely intact 'Davidka' mortar shell on Tuesday afternoon.
Sappers who were alerted to the scene removed the shell from the site and documented the finding before transported it outside city limits to detonate the explosives in a controlled environment. 
Largely ineffective, the locally manufactured three-inch Davidka developed by the Haganah prior to the country's inception is remembered more for the noise it made rather than the damage it inflicted.
The use of the Davidka and other similar models was phased out after the establishment of the IDF and the purchase of more sophisticated mortar shells, though many unused shells still stand at various monuments throughout the country.
Original Source   more »

Dear Friend,
I just dropped my daughter Leora off at the main entrance to our community.  She groaned when she saw the crowds standing near the guard booth, knowing she had a wait ahead of her for a ride.  She was on her way back to her National Service in Tel-Aviv and she had her week’s worth of (now) clean laundry squeezed into her oversized backpack and she was in a rush.   She text-messaged me less than an hour later that she was already at work!  The first car that stopped for her took her to the army checkpoint, 5 minutes away, where she figured she’d have a better chance of a ride, being on a main road.   Within minutes, another car pulled over, this one going to Petach Tikva.  After a quick discussion of which highway he was taking, Leora got in, deciding to get off at the Yarkon Intersection where she’d wait for a more direct ride to Tel-Aviv.  This time, another car pulled up, waiting patiently as she got out of her second ride, to roll down his window and ask if she needed Tel-Aviv.  She did and he popped open his trunk for her large backpack ...   more »

by Avi Tuchmayer
(IsraelNN.com) Refugees from destroyed communities in Gush Katif have appealed to the Supreme Court to force the government to enforce a pre-disengagement decision to erase refugees' debts to the World Zionist Organization.
The decision to erase debts incurred by Gush Katif pioneers when they established their communities was made by the Knesset Finance Committee in 2004. As with other areas around the country, Gaza communities benefited from long-term loans from the Jewish Agency in order establish farming infrastructure, but when the Sharon Administration decided to pull out of Gaza, it became clear that local residents would be unable to repay the debts.
Because the Finance Committee had supposedly "taken care" of canceling Gush Katif debts to the World Zionist Organization, the Knesset Laws Committee did not enshrine the debt erasure in the 2005 Evacuation – Compensation Law. As a result,  Gaza residents were left with little legal protection and saddled with debt for farming equipment and farm land they can no longer access. 
According to Anita Tucker, formerly of Netzer Hazani, the debt repayment is an especially sore point for pioneers who built up Jewish Gaza soon after the area was liberated from Egypt during the Six ...   more »

Sharon Astyk
When climate change and peak oil thinkers run out of other things to worry about, there's always the endless, inevitable debates about whether we are facing a "fast crash" or a "slow grind." And I admit, I'm worried about my fellow environmentalists - because I think they are about to lose their favorite distraction. When no one was looking, we got an answer. Fast crash wins. And we're in it now.
Wait a minute, you argue - that's not right. If we were in a fast crash we'd be well on our way to living in a Kunstler novel. But we've still got cars, we've got food, things are slowing down, but at worst this looks like a slow grind - but the crazy lady at the blog is saying fast crash?!?!?
Before you argue with me (and you are both welcome and encouraged to), I'd like to post something a bit out of my usual style - it is simply a description of what has happened with food and energy in the last year - that's all it is. Then tell me what you think - because it wasn't until I began to write this introduction to ...   more »

By Joel C. Rosenberg
 (Washington, D.C., April 29, 2008) -- Well, it was a fascinating week. Hard to summarize, but fascinating, to say the least. Glenn Beck of CNN Headline News had me on his program every night last week to discuss geopolitical events in light of Bible prophecy. Then on Friday, he had me on for a one-hour, prime time special entitled, "Honest Questions About The End of Days." He asked great questions -- tough, but fair. He admitted he would probably be a lot more popular if he had me on his show to mock me. But he was honestly curious. I think he, like many in the U.S. and around the world, increasingly sees events accelerating in the Middle East that simply do not make sense if they are viewed only through political or economic lenses. He wants answers. And there aren't many around offering the Bible as a credible sources of answers. There are certainly others more knowledgeable and academically trained to discuss Mideast events in light of Bible prophecy than me. But it was an honor to answer Glenn's questions as best I could. For those who watched, I hoped it was as intriguing and ...   more »

By IRA RIFKIN
The historical Jesus was a Jew, which remains an often vexing circumstance for many Christians. How this impacts Christian attitudes toward Judaism and the State of Israel is equally complicated. A quick review of both helps explain former US president Jimmy Carter's antagonism toward Israel, which is once again in the spotlight now that he has become an outspoken apologist for Hamas.
Christianity has innumerable theological, political and social fault lines. Two broadly defined alignments within Protestantism - itself a division of the larger Christian world that includes the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches - are liberal Protestants and conservative, or more traditional, Protestants. The former grouping includes the so-called mainline churches - Methodists, Presbyterians, Lutherans and Episcopalians/Anglicans - while the latter category includes fundamentalists and most evangelicals.
Liberal and conservative Christians - like liberal and traditionalist Jews, Muslims and virtually every other religious grouping - tend to emphasize those aspects of scripture with which they are most comfortable.
When it comes to the Hebrew Bible - what Christians call the Old Testament - liberal Protestants tend to favor the ethical teachings, which they generally interpret as demanding support for those perceived to be victimized by a ...   more »

Witness: Builder said 'when Congress sent down the money, it would be repaired the proper way'
Collapsed floodwall, New Orleans
Some New Orleans residents are questioning whether the millions spent to repair levees and floodwalls in the wake of 2005's devastation from Hurricane Katrina has made their city any safer after a witness to the recent construction revealed expansion joints between floodwall panels had been filled with newspaper instead of the rubber foam called for in the project's specifications.
New Orleans CBS affiliate WWL-TV visited a section of floodwall in St. Bernard Parish with a resident who asked not to be identified and who showed the news crew a section of floodwall where he had observed the contractor filling the openings between the walls with newspaper during repairs in 2006.
"The whole length of the wall was stuffed with newspaper," the resident said.
Because the concrete in the floodwall expands and contracts with temperature and humidity, the barrier is made of many separate panels, each separated by a half-inch gap, to prevent cracking and buckling.
The gap, or expansion joint, is filled with a series of barriers to prevent water from passing through. The primary barrier is the "waterstop," a ...   more »

Winners announced in 'The Sky's Not Falling' video-essay contest
Al Gore's global warming philosophy has been debunked by many scientists and studies, and now it has met the same fate at the hands of children, in "The Sky's Not Falling" video/essay contest, sponsored by WND Books, formerly World Ahead Media.
The contest was launched early in 2008 and was designed to highlight the absurdities, untruths and downright lies that children are being taught daily about "climate change" in public school.
Russell Young, a Minnesota writer who captured first place in the essay competition, explained the importance of using celebrities such as Gore and the medium of movies to enhance the educational experience for students.
"Here are just a few other films schools might use for their teaching curriculums. 'The Polar Express' could be used for instruction on transportation systems. 'Borat' is a perfect teaching tool for understanding how the Democratic Party uses focus groups. 'Alien,' could be used to teach students about anatomy and homeland security, all at the same time," he wrote.
"'Far fetched,' you say. Maybe, but 'Moby Dick' taught me all I ever needed to know about whales, and I'm a marine biologist," he said.
"Kids across ...   more »

'Supreme Court says a library doesn't have to provide porn'
"What parent would want their children to be in this disgusting environment?" he asked.
He cited for the board the 2003 decision from the U.S. Supreme Court affirming the Children's Internet Protect Act, which means libraries can impose a zero-tolerance pornography policy without First Amendment violations.
"You don't need battling attorneys to tell you what the law says," he said. "Just read the Supreme Court decision which says a library is not a public forum and that libraries don't have to provide any pornography unless they want to."
He cited for the board a policy from Rochester, N.Y., which blocks sexually explicit websites while still leaving a door open for legitimate research.
"Libraries should adopt this model policy that uses the latest technology," he said.
Support for stricter filters even came from within the library system.
Gerald Ward, who has spent 18 years in the library system and now works as a reference librarian, said the explicit images he's been exposed to have left him sickened.
"I have images locked in my head that I can't get rid of," said Ward, "because the current policy allows any adult to view ...   more »

Claimed in church newsletter Jews building 'ethnic bomb' that 'kills blacks, Arabs'
By Aaron Klein
Antoin "Tony" Rezko
JERUSALEM – Indicted Illinois businessman Antoin "Tony" Rezko, a key fundraiser for Sen. Barack Obama, was bailed from jail last week in part with surety posted by a pro-Palestinian activist who penned an open letter in Obama's church newsletter that labeled Israel an "apartheid" regime and claimed the Jewish state worked on an "ethnic bomb" that kills "blacks and Arabs."
The open letter by Ali Baghdadi, who served as a Middle East advisor to the Nation of Islam, landed Obama's Trinity United Church of Christ in hot water last month amid multiple other reports of controversial pieces published on the official "Pastor's Page" reserved for Obama spiritual adviser Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr.  
Baghdadi was listed among about 30 family members and friends of Rezko who reportedly put up cash or offered properties as surety to secure Rezko's $8.5 million bail. Baghdadi offered the court a two-story retail property in Chicago.
Baghdadi also appeared at the Chicago federal court on April 18 to state he would be willing to post his home as collateral toward Rezko's bond. Baghdadi was quoted telling the court ...   more »

By JOSH GERSTEIN 
PALO ALTO, Calif. — Rationing of rice by retail stores has spread as far as Israel since The New York Sun reported on the phenomenon in Northern California last week.
The Blue Square and Supersol supermarket chains have begun limiting purchases of rice, Israeli newspapers said yesterday. Supersol is restricting each customer to "three bags per type of grain product," the Jerusalem Post reported.
Meanwhile, Asian grocery stores seem to be joining their larger wholesale-style competitors in curbing purchases. A supermarket chain which caters to Chinese Americans, 99 Ranch, is imposing two-bag-per-customer limits on most of its 20-pound and 50-pound sacks of rice, according to signs at its store in Cupertino, Calif. That store and others in the chain were selling rice without limitation a week ago.
Last week, Sam's Club announced it was limiting customers to four bags of imported Jasmine, Basmati, and long grain white rice. Costco had imposed such limits earlier, though they were not widely known until the Sun's report.
Trade associations for rice farmers and processors in America contend there is no shortage here, though prices for the grain have risen two to three times in recent months. However, there have been ...   more »

The food crisis is bringing about a role reversal in the World Trade Organization: traditionally liberal major food exporters are now imposing restrictions on exports while protectionist states are pushing for liberalisation.
To deal with the recent hike in food prices, Argentina, Brazil, Vietnam, India and Egypt have all imposed limitations on the export of certain produce in order to ensure food security for their populations.
This is unusual for some of these countries. Argentina and Brazil, for instance, are part of the Cairns group, among the most aggressive proponents of liberalisation in the Doha round of trade liberalisation negotiations at the WTO.
The members of this group want the European Union and the United States to lower tariffs so they can export their food produce.
The direction taken by these developing nations is embarrassing their representatives in Geneva.
A Brazilian official told AFP that he "does not understand" his government's decision to announce Thursday a temporary stoppage of rice exports.
Brazil's government also said it was digging into its 1.6-million-ton reserve of rice to alleviate price pressure on the staple, which has become increasingly expensive worldwide as consumption grows in Asia, its main market.
"These measures concern stocks of ...   more »

* U.N. to set up task force to handle crisis
* World Bank says export bans make matters worse
* India slaps export tax on basmati rice
* Thailand says to release stockpiled rice
* U.S. President Bush says deeply concerned (adds Ban Ki-moon speech in Geneva, new paragraphs 11-12)
By Laura MacInnis
BERNE, April 29 (Reuters) - U.N. agencies and the World Bank pledged on Tuesday to set up a task force to tackle an unprecedented rise in global food prices that is threatening to spread social unrest.
The international bodies called on countries not to restrict exports of food to secure supplies at home, warning that could make the problem worse.
"We consider that the dramatic escalation in food prices worldwide has evolved into an unprecedented challenge of global proportions," the United Nations said in a statement.
This had become a crisis for the world's most vulnerable people, including the urban poor, it said after a meeting of 27 international agency heads in the Swiss capital, Berne, to chart a solution to food price rises that have caused hunger, riots and hoarding in poor countries.
"Though we have seen wheat prices fall over the last few days, rice ...   more »