The Red-Dead Seas Desalination Project

The fall of 450 meter between the Red Sea (and the Mediterranean Sea) spontaneously offers the possibility of a large hydro-electric project. During the last 150 years many designs have been published but nothing was done. Shimon Peres linked the generation of electricity with desalination and half-promised that Israel will build it and supply free drinking water to Amman. The "vision" was written into the Jordan-Israel peace accord, mediated by Clinton. The World Bank (aka USA) was to finance the project.

Now the King of Transjordan demands the water. The population of Transjordan has exploded from half a million in 1948 to more than twelve millions. Water is scarce as well as mismanaged. The current configuration of the project takes place entirely on Jordanian territory. What do they need us for? For completing the poker table? No. They are enviously watching as Israel has solved the water supply problem of the "territories", that being our legal obligation as so-called "occupying power", so they wonder, what about us? Are we not Palestinians? Why can't we enjoy the privileges of the "occupied"? Why, why, why?

What if Israel ignores the whole thing as it has been doing lately? We shall have a raving hysterical fit, we shall roll on the floor, we shall shame you in public! No peace! No peace!

Only half of the richest Americans are Jews

Forbes published its list of the richest Americans and it appears that only five of the richest ten are Jews.

The much maligned Soros - who is a Jew only by birth - is relatively poor in this company.

But yes, we Jews have advanced in the last two centuries. In those times, the large majority of the Jews in Western Europe were dirt-poor peddlers/beggars without residence permits. Actually, illegals. Pic. A Jewish peddler in Hungary. 

Golden Cookies

Yesterday went to the Industrial Area of Holon for the ampliation of a bakery - confectionary factory. I had designed the old factory about six years ago, and it was a nightmare. The raw materials are sugar in large quantities, margarine and oil, and flour. All considered highly pollutant by the local environmental agency. The workforce is the typical proletariat: Arabs (the supervisors), Sudanese refugees, ethnically uncertain Russians from the Far East, etc. The place is clean, the work is organized and the products are attractive and sickeningly sweet. They must be exactly what the Israeli public likes, because they are adding more equipment and personnel.

One of the problems is drainage. Although it is a dry factory, not much use of water, the Ministry of Health demands a drain in each room. The new addition is on the second floor of an old industrial building, and I cannot bore holes in the pre-cast concrete plates (pic) resting on the slabs, in order to hang the pipework from the ceiling of the lower stage. I'll have to try to pass the 110 mm pipes inside the floor plates. If possible. It is not. The pic right shows the plates over the parking - here I can bore holes and hang the pipework, the problem is inside the building itself, where the owner does not agree to have pipes hanging above his head and his machines. 

The trouble with Eynat

The new major of Haifa. Eynat Kalisch Rotem has a doctorate in architecture and urban planning and teaches at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology’s graduate school. The trouble with life is that there are so many beautiful and smart women and so little time.   

Marcus Licinius Crassus

It is still October and instead of working, I am following Librivox's reading of Plutarch's biography of Crassus. This admirable Roman was born into a family of unlaughing misers, but very talented and energetic. He made his fortune buying up the real estate expropriated by Sulla, the dictator, and by organizing a 500 man strong building company that bought and repaired burned down or collapsed buildings.

He was also a talented and cruel general (he erected crosses with crucified slaves all along the road from Reggio Calabria to Rome), and lost his life fighting against the Persians. Roma was a welfare state, its citizens received a daily portion of grain so they did not need to work, and they were entertained 200 days a year with exciting circus shows. This easy urban life conduced to negative vegetative growth and the fatal weakening of the Roman State. 

October: No income

The last bill I sent out to collect was a month and half ago, and my income was nil. I worked little, drank red wine, slept a lot. I am feeling well and healthy but I have to work. It is not only that I have no income: the worldwide "correction" in the financial markets erased about 10% of my savings. I have to take myself in my hands because next March I am scheduled to travel to New York and walk a lot. My leg is still not 100%.

Today we have municipal elections in Kever Benjamin City. The candidates are not attractive. The serious problem in this city is that we have little tax-paying industry, so 80% of the municipal budget is based on the arnona - residential taxes, which are among the highest in Israel. All the candidates talk about greenery, trees, parks, special education for the imbeciles, street art and culture. No one is interested in attracting industry and I do not mean "satanic mills" but high-tech chimney-less enterprises. Pic.: A business  building in the new industrial zone of Raanana, a wealthy neighboring town. I designed a large bakery in it. Our own new industrial area, bordering the separation wall, is being filled with garages and nut-toasting mini-businesses.

P.S. Yesterday's elections gave my city a new major - a retired police chief. It may be a reaction to the former major, jailed for corruption. 

About the Squirrel Hill Saturday Morning Massacre

Unease, not yet fear, seized American Jewish community when the news of the mass murder in the  Tree of Life synagogue was published. The murderer thought he was defending the White Race against the Jews that were murdering them. And HIAS that was promoting the Honduran would-be immigrant/murderers column. Nonsense, but reflects the sentiment in the racist circles. He was a lone wolf, no organization behind him. This phenomenon of a lonely individual working up himself and taking up automatic weapons and gunning down anyone in a school, a synagogue, a marathon, a homosexual club, a Socialist youth camp in an island, etc. is not typically American. It has happened in France and Denmark and even in the Grand Mosque of Mecca.

Regarding antisemitism, I don't think this attack means much. What is surprising is that there is no one under 55 among the killed, they are all old people. The absence of active adults and youth says a lot about the calamitous state of Reform/Conservative Jewry. In five or ten years, there will be no minian on Saturday morning in Squirrel Hill. Sad.

The attack will strengthen temporarily Jewish identity in America, but not increase Aliyah to Israel.