Radio found in Iranian safehouse following botched terrorist operation. Photo: screenshot via DailyMail.

The unsuccessful bomb attack in Thailand to injure Israelis, which was planned by Iranian nationals a week ago, has forced Jews and Israelis around the world to keep a watchful eye on their surroundings these days.

Saedi Moradi was one of the Iranians in Bangkok planning the operation.  Things didn’t go as planned for Moradi, who blew off his own leg with an explosive device following an attempted escape from a safe house that went up in flames.

Now, according to a report in the Daily Mail out of Britain, information from the Iranian safehouse has been collected that suggests the bombs intended for use against Israelis in Thailand were to be carried using $27 radios.

Thai authorities say they found 5 of these explosive devices following the botched terrorist operation.

The devices were designed to explode in 4.5 seconds after detonation was initiated.

The operation in Thailand, which led to the arrest of 3 Iranian’s, currently in the custody of Thai police, happened during the same week in which Israeli officials were targeted in similar bomb attacks in Georgia and Israel.

Cover of 'UNORTHODOX: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots', written Deborah Feldman and published by Simon and Schuster. Photo: Amazon.

Who would have guessed that Anti-Semitism could lurk in the allegedly autobiographical words of a young Jewish woman? But they have, in ‘UNORTHODOX: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots’, the memoir of Deborah Feldman with stories she tells about growing up Satmar.

I don’t think that Feldman meant to create this monster, yet the intentions, for good or bad cannot stop the destruction this creation is causing. Many in our community say we should let it slide, to ignore it because it will go away in a few weeks and is not worth giving a platform to. I vehemently disagree. I think if we don’t address this lie we are no better than Ms. Feldman because we allow a lie to spread.

If we allow a New York Times bestseller filled with half-truths, untruths and outright lies to be the uncontested representation of the truth of our lifestyle and a butchery of Halacha, we are doing ourselves a disservice of the highest proportion. The wicked Joseph Goebbels, The Nazi minister of propaganda, used to repeat Hitler’s “Big Lie,” which paraphrased over time simply says, “If you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it.”

While we encourage those in our community to ignore it, and say, “Why don’t you let it slide into oblivion?” the big lie is repeated and repeated and repeated. Obviously even negative PR plays into the hands of such a book, because any controversy is good for book sales but by not contesting the truth and speaking out, a larger evil grows—that of the “Big Lie.”

As of today “Unorthodox” is a New York Times best seller, and I’m not surprised. It’s a book about religious Jews, with our Yarmulkes and traditional dress, our religiously protective and seemingly mysterious lifestyle. We do seem somewhat mysterious to the general population. Many of those reading this book already think we are all extremely wealthy. They whisper all kinds of rumors about how we conduct our personal lives, what we believe, how we live—all based on the stories of a young girl who admits she hated, refused and resented everything about her faith, her people and her community. To look for her to deliver a fair and balanced perspective of Orthodox Judaism is to expect an atheist to describe religion in a positive manner.

This is a direct attack on the Ultra Orthodox community, on the Torah, and on all that we hold dear.

I do not doubt that Ms. Feldman grew up in a tremendously difficult environment. I do not contest the fact that her decisions and her perceptions in life are hers to make. We must all live with the consequences of our decisions and now it is time for her to understand how her actions have affected others..

I am not attacking Ms. Feldman. I am championing truth. Look around and see how a family’s beautiful and kosher lifestyle is being put into the average American’s consciousness in the most degrading way. If left unchecked, that image will change the way practically every non-Jew perceives that lifestyle.

I don’t know how I ended up being the person to write this but someone has to step up to the plate—to take a stand. This is not the time to be reticent.

The coals of the fires of Anti-Semitism have been banked since WWII, but they have never been extinguished. Those who fanned the flames of hatred against the Jews half a century ago, can quickly fan the flames again, intentionally or not.

There are enough well written pieces and reviews about the book and how its author wrote a compelling work of fiction that should cause concern ‘Unorthodox’ provides a narrative to those who envision orthodox Jews with the same paintbrush that allowed the perception of Jews as evil to persist in the middle of the 20^th century, leading to genocide.

All mighty oaks grow from small acorns. A liberal media, and a world of readers hungry for criticism of orthodox Jews are watering the acorn this young woman has planted. The well-written and positive reviews of this book are fertilizing an idea, a perception, a fear and a hatred of Jews among nations who do not know us.

This is WHY we need to not bury our heads in the sand and wait for this to just go away. We need to come out and forcefully say, “This is not us at all.” It would be even better if Simon and Schuster sees the hullabaloo and calls her bluff.  If publishers could see that this book is her fictionalized anthology of every camp story she ever heard, along with some salt and pepper added for taste and shock value, perhaps they could see that she is destroying their credibility. The public trusts publishing houses to print the truth as truth and fiction as fiction.

New York Knicks point guard, Jeremy Lin. Photo: wiki commons.

Washington Post – All I can say is I’m ashamed I didn’t think to call Tamir Goodman myself, to ask the former Jewish Jordan what he thinks about the Jeremy Lin phenomenon.

Goodman, of course, became the subject of an ethnic-fueled media madness during his high school career in Maryland, especially after appearing in Sports Illustrated and then flirting with the Terps. He recently told ESPN 600 in El Paso that he had 700 media requests in the first week after that SI story appeared, and that “my private life was gone, literally, in one night.”

Read full story.

Members of National Council of Jewish Women Bergen County Section (NCJWBCS) joined with other concerned citizens at a rally in Trenton calling for restoration of the funds removed from women's health programs and family planning. Photo: www.ncjwbcs.org.

Amid controversy between the Obama administration and the Catholic Church over the use of contraception, Jewish groups have started voicing their opinions on the issue. Obama has proposed a legislation that would require all religious organizations, regardless of belief, to provide such health services to their employees. Only actual houses of worship would be able to exclude contraception from the health coverage of their employees entirely.

Some Jewish officials said they feel they are also being drawn into the issue. Nathan Diament, the Orthodox Union’s executive director of public policy, said that the organization is not so much against contraception coverage as it is concerned “that some organizations are deserving of protection” from government mandates “and others are not.”

Other Orthodox Jewish organizations expressed concern that this legislation infringes on their constitutional rights to regulate their own health care. However, Jewish women’s groups praised the law. “How can we ensure that women in this country have access to no-cost birth control regardless of where they work,” said Sammie Moshenberg, director of the National Council of Jewish Women Washington office.

Antartica. Photo: wiki commons.

Chabad has gone where no Jewish movement has gone before: Antarctica. Last Wednesday, Chabad emissary Meir Alfasi set sail from Argentina to Antarctica, heading off, he said, “on a mission from the Rebbe,” Israel Hayom reported.

“The Lubavitcher Rebbe issued a directive that the Tanya [the foundational book of Lubavitch Hasidism] be printed in every place where there are Jews, even if it is just one Jew living in a remote place,” Alfasi told Israel Hayom from the frozen continent. “There are several Jewish scientists living in Antarctica, as well as Jewish travelers, of course, who visit.”

One of the greatest challenges to Chabad emissaries in remote places is the religious requirement to pray in a minyan, or quorum of 10. The other great challenge is obtaining kosher food. Alfasi came well prepared, traveling with 10 Jews and packages of sliced bread, fruit, and vegetables.

Former New York City Mayor Ed Koch aboard the guided missile cruiser USS Lake Champlain. Photo: wiki commons.

Politico – Surveying American Jewish public opinion is notoriously difficult, but Ed Koch relies on his own sample: the several hundred emails a week he receives from all over, printed out and laid on his desk by his assistant. The former New York City mayor answers each one, in longhand, then returns it for a digital reply.

And in recent months, Koch has been hearing fewer and fewer complaints about Barack Obama.

Syrian protest in Baba Amr neighborhood, a rebel stronghold. Photo: wiki commons.

Haaretz – A senior Syrian military officer has defected from the forces of President Bashar  Assad’s regime along with a group of some two hundred soldiers in the city of Idlib, opposition sources reported on Wednesday.

The senior officer has a rank of Brigadier General.

Opposition sources said that a battalion has been established in the city to figh tregime forces. Meanwhile, the number of defectors from the Syrian army is growing, and many citizens are joining the Free Syrian Army.

Read full story.

Barack Obama, President of the United States of America, with Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canada. Photo: wiki commons.

JTA – Israel is the eighth most-favored country by Americans, a Gallup poll found.

Some 71 percent of Americans view Israel favorably, a three-point increase over last year’s results, according to the poll conducted Feb. 2-5.

Israel’s highest favorability rating in this survey was 79 percent in January 1991.

Read full story.

Attendees at the Kosher Food and Wine Experience. Photo: author.

Last week I had the pleasure of attending one of the best wine tasting events of the year, Royal Wine Corporation’s KFWE2012 (Kosher Food & Wine Experience – they could have at least put wine before food).  While there are a few equally incredible wine events in Israel (Sommelier, IsraWine Expo and the Israel Museum tasting come to mind), KFWE stands tall as a premier wine tasting event in the United States, providing the ability to taste hundreds of top-notch (some exceedingly expensive and rare) kosher wines in addition to a splendid array of gourmet kosher foods from many of New York and New Jersey’s leading restauran

ts and caterers.  Obviously, the event only showcases wines in Royal’s portfolio that, while gloriously extensive, is not close to being the full spectrum of wines available to the ever-appreciating kosher oenophile.  To round out the kosher wine tasting experience, Gotham Wine & Liquors puts on an annual tasting every year showcasing a wide plethora of wines spread across a multitude of regions, wineries, producers and importers.  This year Gotham’s event will be held on March 4^th.  As always, please check out my “Coming Events” page for links, details and special discounts to this and other wine related events worth of your attention.

I have attended this event every year since they started it in New York (other than last year when an unfortunately-timed, work-related trip to Australia coincided with the event) and can safely say that it has gotten better every year, with the food component being a brilliant addition to the event, providing spouses and friends less interested in wine (yes, folks like that actually exist) with something to do while the rest of us taste our way around the incredibly growing world of high quality kosher wines.

The increasingly large crowds (at least in recent years, the event has sold out at least a week in advance) of people willing to shell out the relatively high $100 ticket price is just another indicator of the increasing popularity of kosher wine and the willingness people have to spend money on it.  While doing a proper tasting among the hundreds of attendees can be difficult, there is usually pre-event press-time tasting for members of the trade & press which affords one the ability to do a more comprehensive tasting in relative calm before the discerning hordes descend on the event which, while creating a delightfully raucous environment, makes it a little difficult to make out the nuances of any but the biggest and most flavorful wines which tend to be crowd favorites due to their standing out with big, bold and fruity flavors that grab your palate’s attention by cutting through everything else.

For the first time, this year the “trade” portion of the event was from earlier in the afternoon from 12:00-4:00 PM which afforded people in the trade ample opportunity to taste the wines and chat with the winemakers in relative calm.  6:00-7:00 PM was designated at press time (although many of the press attended the earlier event including Alice Feiring and Howard Goldberg, both delightful individuals I was super-excited to meet, chat and taste wines with) and at 7 PM the doors were opened to the general public. Despite the throngs of attendees, for the bulk of the evening it wasn’t crazy crowded and most of the wines/winery representatives were accessible to all.  As I mentioned, the event was extremely well organized so kudos to the entire responsible team from Royal for that.

As a testament to the significance of the event and the importance of the North American market to the Israeli wine industry, a significant number of winemakers were in attendance (many of whom also traveled to Los Angeles for the West Coast event (the International Food & Wine Festival), including Assaf and Sasson from Binyamina, Yaakov Berg from Psagot, Yoram and his wife Ilana from Alexander, the entire Covenant team of Jeff, Jodie and Jonathon, Eitan Ben-Zaken from Castel, Phillip Jones of Goose Bay and now Pacifica as well, Jürgen from Capcanes, Tamir from Tulip, Pierre from Netofa (and Royal’s French Collection), Joe from Herzog, Irit, Shmuel and Ed from Barkan and other winery representatives including Adam from Carmel/Yatir, Dr. Moises from Elvi, Yossi Shor from 1848, Gilad Flam and Mayer Chomer from Shiloh.  As every year and despite how exhausted many of them were, they all had time for any and all questions and seemed to enjoy discussing the wines (more early on than later ).

The food was great and in my opinion has been a really successful addition, really enhancing the event and making it more inclusive.  As this is a wine newsletter and there was way to much to taste (or list) everything anyway, I just wanted to single out some of my personal favorites from the evening which included Po’ Boy sandwiches from Bistro 1310, barbequed ox tail from ETC Steakhouse, crazy decadent chocolate mousse from Finchi, corned beef and pastrami from Pomegranate, melt-in-your-mouth smokehouse brisket from Gemstone Catering, spicy Mexican chorizo from Jack’s Sausages, La Marais’ smoked duck breast, rib eye tartare (no raw egg unfortunately) from Downtown Brooklyn, a duck confit meatball and veal sheppard pie from Silverleaf Caterers and of course multiple incredible espressos from Noi Due.

Given the significant year-over-year improvements, I actually had very few complaints other than the fact that a few of the wines listed in the “program” to which I had been looking forward were no-shows (Valendraud, Segal Unfiltered, Psagot 2011 Chardonnay, Goose Bay 2011 Pinot Grigio, Binyamina 2011 Gewurztraminer), Binyamina was being a little stingy with the 2007 Cave (not to mentioned the under-the-table bottle of the Old vine version) and for some reason Castel continues to serve, pour and sell the obviously reductive 2009 Chardonnay..

Between attending Sommelier in Israel a few months ago and sitting on the judging panel for the Jewish Week’s annual “Kosher Wine Guide” I previously had the opportunity to taste many of the wines being offered, affording me more time for chatting with winemakers, friends and many subscribers to this newsletter.  It also allowed for more in-depth/detailed tastings of many of the wines I hadn’t yet tasted.  While this week’s newsletter doesn’t include any detailed notes (which will follow in the coming weeks), I have listed below a number of my favorite wines from the event that I highly recommend, many of which are completely new releases:

Binyamina, Reserve, Late Harvest Gewurztraminer, 2009:  Finally available in the United States.
Binyamina, Old Vine Cabernet Sauvignon, 2007: I previously reviewed this delicious & limited edition wine.
Bokobsa Selection, Domaine de Maltaverne, Pouilly Fume, 2007: Easily one of the highlights of the event.
Bokobsa Selection, Special Reserve, Sancerre, 2007: Together w/ the Pouilly Fume, a great showing by Bokobsa.
Chateau Léoville Poyferré, St.-Julien, 2005: Per the [over-]hyped 2005 Bordeaux vintage, Léoville’s best to date.
Chateau Pontet-Canet, 2004: An amazing replacement for its missing 2003 older sibling.
Capcanes, Peraj Ha’abib, 2009: Tasted alongside the 2008 and 2010; all great, this was my pick.
Castel, Rose, 2011: Not yet released but stay tuned for a delightful follow up to the successful 2009 Rose.
Castel, Grand Vin, 2009: Castel’s flagship wine for a reason – deep, complex, layered and rich.
Covenant, Cabernet Sauvignon, 2003: I have raved about this delightfully maturing wine before. A nice treat!
Covenant, Sauvignon Blanc, 2011: Crisper than 2010 version & very refreshing (partial malolatic fermentation).
Drappier, Carte-D’Or, Brut: Delightful new kosher true Champagne. Enjoyed it more than the Brut version.
Elvi, Clos Mesorah, 2009: Elvi’s new and deserving flagship wine (blend of Carignan, Grenache & Syrah)
Herzog, Generation VIII, To Kalon, Cabernet Sauvignon, 2006: An annual highlight of the event for me.
Flam, Reserve, Syrah, 2010: A sneak preview of Flam’s newly kosher reserve series to be released in a year or so.
Laurent Perrier, Brut, n.v: The romantic Rose gets all the attention, I actually prefer this crisply true Champagne.
Psagot, Prat, n.v: A welcome addition to the growing Israeli collection of port-styled wines.
Shiloh, Legend, 2007: Shiloh’s attempt at a more “Israeli” wine. Still needs time to develop but very well made.
Yatir, Forest, 2007: Together with 1-2 others, remains at the very top of the “Super-Israelis” list.

IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz with IDF soldiers. Photo: wiki commons.

In August of 1999, then Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak appointed retired Judge Tzivi Tal to head a public committee aimed at tackling the issue of the ultra-orthodox exemptions from the IDF.

Although not technically exempting the Yeshiva students, the status quo looked to respect those who dedicated their time to the study of Torah. Yet the growing discontent within Israeli society, where many viewed the existing state of affairs as undemocratic and unequal, and the inconsistency among ultra-orthodox youth – some using the ‘right to study’ as a guise for dodging the draft – forced Israeli politicians to find an alternative.

Tal, and six others, completed a report in April of the following year. The report focused on recommending manners in which ultra-orthodox participation in national service could increase, without preventing Yeshiva students from continuing their religious studies.

On 23 April 2002, the Knesset passed the Tal Law with a majority of 51-41.

The bill detailed conditions for Yeshiva students to qualify for military exemption: At the age of 22, students would be fronted with a choice to either continue their studies or step into the workplace. If they were to choose the latter, they would be required to fulfill national service duties by either enlisting in a minimalist army service of four months with addition of reserve duties according to the army’s needs, or a civilian service of one year, without any salary.

The law was met with widespread criticism within all denominations of Israeli society. Leaders of ultra-orthodox communities condemned the law on ideological grounds, while many secularists felt it let the Hareidim off too lightly.

In any case, by 2005 only several dozen ultra-orthodox students enlisted for military service, and the Knesset officially admitted that the Tal law had failed. The political climate was tense and the public scorned the government’s attitude toward the ultra-orthodox communities as unjust.

However, Judge Tzivi Tal, author of the law, claimed the bill flopped because the IDF “isn’t interested” in implementing it.

In an interview with the Yisrael Hayom newspaper, he said “no attempt was made to recruit them because the IDF does not want them,” citing the reluctance to absorb ultra-orthodox culture within the military as the primary impetus for neglecting religious recruits. “A framework would have to be established including kosher food, religious Shabbos observance, and gender-related Jewish laws,” he explained.

In a short moment of glory, the bill claimed a landmark achievement in 2008, in recognizing Chabad outreach activities as a legal product of national service. The inclusion of Chabad humanitarian programs – such as assisting the ill and infirm, and preparing youth for their Bar and Bat Mitzvahs – as legitimate forms of national service served the bill’s true cause of bridging the gap between the ultra-orthodox communities and military/civilian service ,w hile respecting the commitments of the religious society.

The bill kicked up dust again in the Israeli political sphere when in early January PM Netanyahu announced that the cabinet intends to extend the law’s validity for another five years. The law was originally introduced with a ten-year expiry that ends this August, and required the Knesset to discuss its possible extension or termination six months before.

However, facing political pressure from Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, Netanyahu reneged on his earlier statement and pledged “to deliver an alternative within six months” while referring the Tal law issue to a vote in the Knesset.

That vote came through yesterday (Tuesday, 21 February), with Israel’s High Court of Justice ruling by a majority of six to three against extending the law in its current format.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak welcomed the verdict, saying “The Tal Law, after ten years, did not meet expectations, nor did it lead to the required changes in all aspects concerning equally sharing the burden and expanding the number of citizens who undertake the civilian obligations.”

The defense minister emphasized the urgency of passing a new law that would bring equality to sharing the burden in Israeli society. Barak and Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz have both expressed their opinions in the past that all Israelis must be enlisted in either military or civilian service.

In its ten year history, the Tal law failed to meet the hopes and expectations of all corners within Israel’s public, and it will be laid to rest this coming August – without a promising alternative in sight.