Prime Minister Naphtali Bennet

Well, it seems inevitable. A government with Avigdor Liberman as Finance Minister and the Finance Committee controlled by Yisrael Beytenu, and six ministries headed by Labour and Meretz, will be a distinctly secular left-wing government. It will dramatically harm the Haredi community and change the status quo on issues of religion and state. 

Who is Bennet? He is, like Netanyahu, a former leader of Sayeret Matkal, Israel's elite commando unit. His parents are American. He founded the high-tech company Cyota, which specializes in online information security. The company employs some 400 workers, and in 2005 it was sold to an American company for $145 million. Bennett also served as the CEO of Soluto, which was sold for some $100 million. He lives in the neighborhood. He is bald, like me. In short, he is qualified to lead the country. 

I have to start selling stock to pay my obligations. I have about two weeks to liquidate the portfolio. Just now the political plonter is on the way to a solution and the bourse is rising... I cannot wait more and shall sell for less than I could get if I wait for more. But I cannot wait. Expletive deleted. 

Kosher Cellular Animal Husbandry

Things have evolved since my notes on extensive animal husbandry in Argentina and the Sahel. I was the first in Corrientes Province to study the profitability of cattle growing on grass and writing a paper showing that the "estancieros" were losing money. The investments in land and fixed facilities, as well as cattle, were so large that actually, they were making less than American T-bonds. I proposed planting groundnuts and soya, and Caribbean pine. I left the place in a few years and Corrientes' economy has changed. I am not saying I did it but surely helped a bit. 

Now I am witnessing a change to meat produced by in vitro cell culture of animal cells, instead of from slaughtered animals. As humanity is moving away from nature, the killing of animals is being rejected and soon it will be illegal. Cultured meat will become acceptable, which poses a question to Judaism. Is it kosher? 

According to the sages, if the original cells are taken from a kosher animal, the meat - cultured and otherwise - is kosher. The mashgichim will need to learn biology in order to stay relevant.  One may wonder what is the meaning of kosher meat: I thought it was a permitted animal slaughtered by a shohat. But what about its cell line? Is the kashrut transmitted in the genes? What is this obscurantist nonsense? I don't care: it works to keep the Jews apart from the peoples.  

Already the patties sold for barbecues in Israel have never been part of a bovine. Comment: the cheese in the hamburger above is parve, made from soybeans. 

Viejo Verde

 Joe Biden looks at a little girl in the audience, the daughter of a veteran, and says "I love those barrettes in your hair. Man I’ll tell you what, look at her she looks like she's 19 years old sitting there like a little lady with her legs crossed."

In Argentina, people like Biden were called - affectionately - Viejo Verde, Green Old Man. Signaling that he was immature or possibly senile. Left: a Spanish satirical magazine from 1914, documenting that the issue is not new nor unknown. General Peron used to visit girls' schools during physical education classes. Of course, he was a dirty old fascist dictator.

Houston, we have a problem.

Dark Perspectives for Israel

 It has been announced that Bennet, from the Zionist Religious Party, is forming the government with Secular Lapid and ferociously anti-religious Liberman (representing the Russian immigrant public, hated by the religious). The next government will include the far-left Meretz and Labor. And the extreme anti-Israeli Muslim parties This will be the first time that a defeatist antireligious government rules Israel, planning to dismantle the Haredi educational network and the settlements. Very bad. Hope they cannot hold it together and will fall soon and Netanyahu will come back to save the nation. 

The Land of the Windswept Bonsai

 

I am not here but inside the Inugami-ke no Ichizoku mystery, pondering the murders in the Inugami clan (a name meaning Dog God), solved by detective Kondaichi. It is a classical story but in a Japanese environment. The violence is highly stylized, the agonizing formality and politeness sound awkward in the ears of this uncultured Jew, but we are in refined Japan, the land of the windswept bonsai, not Shuk HaCarmel.  

The Old Jew Working

Designing a large factory in the "Occupied Territories". The smiling smoker is the Project Manager. The weather was perfect, a fresh sprint morning in the Shomron mountains. 

Judging character

 I caught my 8 y.o. grandaughter drawing realistic pictures of people, reading long books, and making math calculations. She has such an insufferable temper that I did not notice that she is intelligent.