Amadeus, the most beautiful scene

2017 A Good Year

In the year 2017 my savings increased 24% in US$ terms, which is average in NASDAQ but good on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, that increased only 3%. The problem with TASE was/is TEVA, an important component of the index, that lost half of its worth during the year. The best performing stock was Frutarom (3-400%) and Ashtrom, a building company. Ashtrom is something of a mystery, its founders and owners are dead and it is managed by unknown insiders. This is not an unknown configuration in Israel, with most of its institutions established by communes fifty-hundred years ago, that continue to operate and grow with its original members long dead and forgotten. The Kever Benjamin water company is like that: it was founded by a handful of farmers to finance a borehole to provide water for irrigation. That was when it was a small settlement in the Dameseq province of Turkey, and it developed into a large water and sewage corporation.  It is owned by the original families and managed in total secrecy. The water is drinkable.

2017 was a year when all the family was healthy and we increased by two newborn boys. Peace reigned in Israel.

I continued teaching in the university, lectured in a Water Congress and completed about forty - fifty projects. I have about then signed contracts to start working on. Although I am very old and obese, I managed to have an active sex life; specifically, I ogled lots of female bottoms in the street. The neighborhood was gentrified and the Cofix store nearby is selling cheap red wine (20 sheqel = 6$ a bottle). Most drinkable. 

Under the Pressure of January First

Two workdays more and thousands of official permits and licenses end and have to be renovated. Clients are pressuring me to complete their submissions to be in time. The more they pressure, so grows my internal resistance and less I can work. I want to work but my mind wanders.

Then this afternoon we have the "Pidyion Ha-Ben" (The Redemption of the First Son"). It is a Jewish ceremony said to be in memory of God killing the evil Egyptian's first sons (and first born calves too). God had declared unambiguously that all firstborns belongs to him, although as a special favor to the Jews, he is ready to accept money from the Jews instead of the circumcised babies. Therefore, a silver coin is paid to a Cohen, a descendant of the priestly line, to redeem the child. The Bible also states that a firstborn ass may be redeemed with a lamb.

Any person called Cohen can perform. I suspect that explanation whitens the real source of the ceremony, which is the Western Semite ritual sacrifice of the first born boy to God.They burned them alive in the "Tophet". There was a large Tophet near Jerusalem, in Guy Hinnom (Gehenna), the Valley of Hinnom, but the largest known was in Tunis, in Carthage. I am a first born son, I was redeemed, thanks to the Almighty God.

Kfar Chabad

Two Kfar Chabad institutions are adding wings. This morning I went to see both. Or Sameach (Happy Light) is an educational institute for problematic youth. The site is green, clean, impeccable. Order and discipline reigns. Everybody is very busy. Today's menu includes eggplants and fried fish-balls in breadcrumbs.

De Luxe Bordello

I have to record shortly that today I was looking for the address of the site of my next job, a large bakery, and found myself in a luxurious "hotel" which resulted to be a whorehouse. Nice blonde Russian girls. The bakery is in the same building, it has the same street address. Very discrete. Clients waiting in the lobby. Next time I may feel compelled to investigate it more deeply. Pic.: The back of the hotel, from below. The dry palm branches must have served for a "succah", the Feast of the Tabernacles ("Succot"). The red pipes are part of the sprinkler system, the over-anxious firefighters must have demanded it for the temporary roofing.

Kevin MacDonald creates a new blood libel

Ron Unz's miscellany website publishes an article by archi-antisemite Kevin MacDonald  blaming the Sacker family in particular and the Jews in general for the despair of American working class (pic from TIME) and the shortening of their lives. Unz is a Jew, which is not surprising, given the suicidal tendencies of the American Jews. But MacD's accusations are very serious and the conclusions, frightening.

I met the Sackler brothers at the opening of the Sackler School of Medicine, in Tel Aviv University's campus, a monstrous angular building, some twenty years ago. Now we are inaugurating  the Med School at Ariel, another bombastic architectural nightmare.  I  remember the Sacklers's bio saying that they made their money as publishers of scientific journals. I always wondered if science was profitable to the point of donating dozens of med schools all over the world.

I was not surprised by the Sackler making money selling painkillers. What does surprise me  is the craving of Americans for them, similar to the Russians universal craving for alcohol. They need chemical courage to go to work and need to numb their senses to work their eight hours and then return to their lonely homes Life for people without faith is unbearable, a "vale of tears". The West needs the "Good News", which is the real meaning in Hebrew (Aramean, Greek) of the New Testament. We Jews survive thanks to our faith in God and the mitzvot (Commandments). American Jews, most of them, are condemned to Hell on Earth. Specially if MacDonald keeps publishing calumnies.

UN Vote on Jerusalem: We Are Taking Names

United Nations's scorecard on Trump's Declaration that Jerusalem is Israel's capital. We are taking names. For the record.

Now we must turn around this resolution. I am sure we can do it. As the despicable Jew-hater K.MacDonald writes: "Jews are an incredibly successful and influential group."