treppenwitz

A letter from Zahava

[My lovely wife happened to CC me on an email she sent out today to some of our friends and family.  Given the negativity of my post this morning, I decided it was worth sharing her little ray of sunshine here]

Dear Family and Friends,

As you know, David, Ari, Gili and I made Aliyah with Nefesh B'Nefesh in July 2003 [Ed note: our 3-and-a-half year old, Yonah, is an Israeli product made from imported materials].

As the Torah portion (parsha) this coming Shabbat (Shelach) recalls the sin of the 12 spies who gave a bad/inaccurate report of the land, I've decided to participate in a special Nefesh b’Nefesh project intended to try to “undo” the damage done by those biblical [and modern] spies!

David, the kids and I consider ourselves quite lucky in that we had the universal support of our friends and family regarding our Aliyah. 

The goal of this NBN project is to share with you 12 things that are special about living in Israel.

In no particular order:

1. The incredible feeling of being Home and belonging!
2. Being surrounded by our history — Israel’s great love affair with archeology makes the connection to our ancestors tangible!
3. Believe it or not, the “yenta” factor! I LOVE that all the Bubbies will yell at me if they think Yonah is over or under dressed! I love that people feel so connected that they are not shy about expressing their concern!
4. Hearing “Shabbat Shalom” from every possible sector of society (even some Arabs!) on Fridays when “out and about”
5. One day of Yom Tov
6. All Jewish holidays are national holidays (no more saving up vacation days!)
7. Fresh fruits and veggies that have actually ripened on the vine, are aromatic and taste like they smell! (gotta love that 6-hour maximum transport!)
8. Being able to do trumah and ma'aser (tithing) on fruits and veggies you grow yourself — again, the connection to our past and our heritage in a very real and meaningful way!
9. A FANTASTIC national park system — makes being outdoors fun and easy.
10. No insanely expensive day-school tuition!
11. A better work/life balance — from a sociological sense, society seems to be as geared toward family time and life-cycle events (even the “little” ones — like when your kids receive their first siddur in school, or they have a school play, etc.) as it is towards work.  Taking time off for these things is understood/expected. In fact, NOT participating in family events- large and small - is viewed as being out-of-sync... not the other way around.
12. GREAT place to raise kids! Kids here are treated like national treasures! (see numbers 3 and 11!)   

Feel free to be in touch with me any time if you'd like to hear more about my personal perspective of life in Israel.  [Ed note: Same goes for me.  also, any of you bloggers out there can consider this a (rare) meme and adopt it to your sites.]

If you'd like to know more about the viability of living in Israel, visit the Nefesh B'Nefesh's web site, and if you have ever considered even the remote possibility of aliyah, take a virtual pilot trip while you're there.

Please feel free to forward this message a link to this post to anyone who loves Israel.

Love,

Zahava

P.S. A special thanks to Nefesh B’Nefesh for reminding us how lucky we are to have realized our dream of living here!

Bring on R2D2 (and throw out the bums!)

The big news today is the announcement that the Israeli Defense Ministry has decided to take a pass on one of the only fully deployed/fielded solutions available today against the ongoing kassam/ketyusha threat faced by Israel in the south and north.  Instead they have decided in favor of an unproven solution being developed by the Israeli company Raphael that will only be availible in 2011!

It boggles the mind!

There has been a proven close-in anti-missile system called Vulcan Phalanx (naval)/C-RAM(land), available for decades that Israel has studiously ignored (OK, they put it on some of their ships, but then they forget to turn it on during warfare. 

Because of the white-domed radar housing on top of the C-Ram and Phalanx systems, they have been nicknamed R2D2 by more than a few observers.

Here's a view of the naval version*:

And one of the land-based C-RAM version*:

The system works like this:  You switch it on (note to Israel navy).  When the on-board radar detects an incoming object that falls within a preset series of parameters (bearing, closing speed etc.) and determines it to be a threat, it opens up with its 20mm cannon (actually five cannons that rotate like an old-fashioned Gatling gun to increase speed of fire and reduce the overheating of the barrels) and fires a stream of extremely dense high-explosive projectiles at the target in almost unimaginable rapid fire.  It tracks not only the incoming target but also its own projectiles so that it can constantly correct its fire towards the center of the target's mass.  It will not cease fire while there is still even a tiny portion of the target continuing to close on a threatening bearing.

I have seen the naval version of this thing used many times in exercises out at sea.  It is truly awesome to observe... and quite effective.  It fires so rapidly (between 3000-4500 rounds per minute)that the human ear can hardly discern a break between the individual projectiles being fired.  It sounds more like a buzz saw than a machine gun.  It has a success rate of about 70-80%.  Oh, and need I point out that firing bullets at incoming rockets is a hellovalot cheaper than firing rockets at them (as will be the case with Raphael's system).

For those not up on military hardware, here is a little analysis on the potential problems that Israel had to consider when making their decision (don't thank me... I'm a giver):

Problem:  The time-line between identifying a military threat and fielding a proven defense against it is often so long (years!) that by the time you have a proven solution, the threat has either gone away or has morphed into something that the solution can no longer address.

Israel's case: The threats currently being faced by Israel are fairly static having been limited by our enemies' budgetary, technological and logistical constraints to an assortment of rocket/missile threats that fall well within the capabilities of the C-RAM system to address.  In fact, the C-RAM is capable of intercepting far more sophisticated guided missiles that are not yet widely available to our enemies.

Problem:  It has a proven record of 'only' 70-80%.  What about the other 20-30% of missiles?

Israel's Case:  No system currently fielded has a 100% success rate.  In fact, no system that is even in development has anything close to a 70% success rate.  Given that Israel is about to throw money away invest on the low-tech 'solution' of adding concrete reinforcement to all the roofs in Sderot, I think intercepting 70-80% of the incoming rockets would be a welcome step.

Problem:  The C-RAM system can only defend a few hundred square meters which would mean having to purchase quite a few of the units at about $15 million a pop.

Israel's Case:  Given that Sderot (and the northern communities) are not very big, a small array of several C-RAM systems should be able to defend each community against incoming rockets.  Remember, the majority of missiles and rockets are headed into open areas that don't require defending.  Also, as large as $15 million may sound to those of us who work for a living, in terms of military spending it is minuscule.  Not only that, it is a drop in the bucket compared to the cost of developing a new system (such as the home-grown Raphael defense system that has not even been proven to work).

Problem:  What about the projectiles that miss the incoming rockets?  Aren't they going to fall on Gaza's civilian population? And aren't these bullets made of depleted Uranium or some other hazardous material???

Israel's Case:  Even the naval version has stopped using depleted Uranium rounds in favor of Tungsten.  However, the land-based system employs an explosive round that self-destructs if it doesn't hit the target.  This has been measured at 95-99% success.  Given the Palestinian propensity for firing machine guns into the air when they are a) happy; b) sad; and c) angry (i.e. pretty much all the time), any complaints about hunks of metal falling back to earth from the sky would be a tad disingenuous.

Problem:  Our Defense Minister and his advisers seem to have their collective heads up their a$$es.  Or barring that, they seem to be giving priority to lining the pockets of the Israeli defense industry over the immediate need to protect Israeli citizens.

Israel's Case:  Barring a new electoral process and a constitution, this is not likely to change any time soon.  Given that the Israeli population was powerless to remove the leadership directly responsible for the failures of the 2nd Lebanon war (and for Oslo, for that matter)from government and from public life, I doubt that a public uproar over this latest failure to make a rational decision about a proven defense system will have any affect.  Also, because of backlog of pending indictments against the current Prime Minister it may be some time before anyone notices close personal relationship between Olmert and Raphael's Yedidya Ya'ari (who Olmert tried to have placed on the Winograd Commission). ;-)

But we can try.

*  Source

That sound you hear? Angels singing!

You see, my lovely wife just brought home a box of something I thought I would never find here; Israeli Splenda®.  OK, it isn't really Splenda (they still stubbornly market to everywhere in the middle east except Israel), but rather a Sucralose product under the brand name; Sucralite.

To be fair, there has been a sucrolose product called Sucradiet available here in Israel for a couple of years now, but it was priced out of all proportion to the other artificial sweeteners here.  Also, I know it shouldn't matter, but the packaging was so horrible (a brown and tan color scheme that was completely unappetizing) that I often used the 'fizzy-pill' style Israeli sweeteners rather than have to look at this expensive stuff in the crappy packaging.

I don't know if it was pure greed or if the start-up, marketing and approval costs for Sucradiet were reflected in the astronomical price... but even after we noticed it on the shelves here, we continued to have friends bring back Costco-sized boxes of Splenda over from the states rather than having to perform a cost-benefit analysis every time we wanted to open a packet of the expensive Israeli stuff.

Anyway, getting back to the choir of angels singing... it now appears that someone finally got smart and realized that only millionaires and the odd Hebrew-fluent tourists were buying Sucradiet, and have come out with a Splenda look/taste-alike called Sucralite.  I'm sure it's no coincidence that the packaging is even the familiar sunny yellow packets with blue type that Splenda junkies instinctively reach for.

   

So, the good news is that I can now scratch one more thing off of the list of things I 'need' to have muled in from the old country. 

Oh sure, I'm still planning on popping into CVS for a buying spree on my next trip to the states.  After all, even though there are plenty of perfectly good Israeli products for everything that could ail a family member, there is something very comforting about reaching for the tried-and-true brand names with which I was raised when someone  I love has a cold... a scratch... or an allergic rash.

Now if only I could get a decent Bourbon here...