Tonight's the Night!

Not sure what this holiday is all about?
Well, according to www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org:

The Torah teaches that "the Jewish people are obligated to count the days from the second night of Passover to the day before Shavu'ot - a total of exactly seven full weeks or 49 days. This period is known as the Omer, in reference to the biblical omer which meant a unit of measure. On the second day of Passover, in the days of the Temple, an omer of barley was cut down and brought to the Temple as an offering.

The counting is intended to remind us of the link between Passover, which commemorates the Exodus, and Shavu'ot, which commemorates the giving of the Torah. It reminds us that the redemption from slavery was not complete until we received the Torah. Therefore, every night, from the second night of Passover to the night before Shavu'ot, Jews recite a blessing and state the omer count, in both weeks and days. For example, on the 16th day one would say, "Today is sixteen days - which is two weeks and two days - of the Omer."

The Omer period is also a time of partial mourning in memory of a plague that killed dozens of Jewish scholars during the lifetime of Rabbi Akiba. As such, Jewish tradition prohibits weddings, parties, live music, dancing and haircuts.

The 33rd day of the Omer (the eighteenth of Iyar) is a minor holiday commemorating a break in the plague. Today it is known as Lag B'Omer - the word "Lag" is not really a word at all; it is the number 33 in Hebrew, as if you were to call the Fourth of July "IV July" (IV being 4 in Roman numerals). The mourning practices of the omer period are lifted on that date.

In modern Israel, Lag B'Omer has been reinterpreted to commemorate the Bar Kochba revolt against the Romans, leading to customs that include having large dinner celebrations and lighting bonfires. In Sephardic tradition, Lag B'Omer is also the hillula, or anniversary of death, of the great sage Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai. In celebration of his life, every year thousands of Jews ascend Mount Meron outside the city of Safed to "eat, drink, and be merry." It is customary to throw locks of hair in bonfires as well."

And Tonight's the Night!

Lag Ba'Omer

Right now I'm away from my studio.
I did today's cartoon before leaving for a U.S. lecture tour. * * * This cartoon is a follow-up to an earlier cartoon that I did during Israel Apartheid Week. * * *
Right now I'm in America on my "Dry Bones Campaign to turn Z Street into the Grass Roots Zionist Movement that America Needs", and to explain my YIISA (Yale Initiative for the Interdisciplinary Study of Antisemitism) "Secret Codes" findings.

* * * You can keep up with my adventures in the U.S.A. by following me at facebook.com/drybonescartoon.

I plan to return home to Israel in time for for Shavuot (June 7).

Inflammatory Material

Back in October, I was in Boston for a conference at Boston University sponsored by the good folks at CAMERA. As I strolled into the venue at BU with Louise (a friend and fellow activist) we were greeted by a small but noisy and colorful contingent of anti-Israel demonstrators. The chanting, drum-beating, horn-blowing, Arab head scarf-wearing students were trying to hand out their anti-Zionist libels and "fact sheets" to passersby and to would-be conference attendees.

Other folks were furious and stopped to argue with the demonstrators, but not my friend Louise. Nope.

What Louise (Lulu to some) does in such situations is nothing short of brilliant. Amazed at what she did, I turned it into a Dry Bones cartoon (with a thanx to Lulu next to my signature). So if you decide to follow Lulu's (and now my advice) remember to save the inflammatory material for Lag Ba'Omer, the bonfire holiday of the Jewish people. The holiday will start this year on Saturday night May 21 and continue till nightfall Sunday May 22. By the way, on Sunday May 22 I'm scheduled to speak at a Lag Ba'Omer lunch in Fresno California and then I'll be flying off to an appearance that evening in LA. I'll post dates of the May2011 speaking tour as soon as everything is in place. On May 26 I'll be appearing in the Boston area (and hope to get some more strategic advice from Lulu).

We've still got a couple of open dates left for the May2011 tour, so if your Church, Synagogue, or Community Organization wants to book a Z Street, Young Israel-sponsored Dry Bones event do it now. Please contact plerner@youngisrael.org. But this is the last week to book!

Clean Up

We are now in the midst of the annual anti-Israel anti-Zionist hate-fest circus of antisemitic libels now parading through university campuses. Those of us who are activists sigh, gather our quotes, write our rebuttals, and prepare to expose the double standards and lies of the BDS movement and its annual Israel Apartheid Week. Yes, It'll soon be clean up time again. * * *

According to Dr. Catherine Chatterly, director of the Canadian Institute for the Study of Antisemitism:

"The first [Israeli Apartheid Week] event was held at the University of Toronto in 2005. The following year, it included Montreal and Oxford. In 2007, it grew to eight cities; in 2008, to 24 cities; in 2009, to 38 cities; last year, to over 40 cities. This year, IAW will be held in over 55 cities worldwide.

Four years after Durban I, in 2005, Israeli Apartheid Week was born in Toronto. That July, 170 Palestinian civil-society organizations released an official call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (better known as BDS) against Israel. The document clearly stated that the call was modelled on the example of the South African struggle against Apartheid.

As with the original anti-apartheid movement, the goal of IAW is explicitly political. And yet the rhetoric of IAW is left open enough to incorporate: (1) critics of Israel who still support a two-state solution; (2) those who support the dismantling of the current Jewish State and its replacement with a single (highly theoretical) secular democratic state; and (3) those who support the destruction of Israel by any means necessary. All three camps are included amongst supporters of IAW and the BDS campaign, and therefore the lines are often blurred between harsh criticism of the state of Israel, outright condemnation of its continued existence, and calls for its eradication. This is a serious problem, and one that appears to be designed quite consciously by IAW and the BDS movement."