Grandma's army

After Hamas carried out its horrific October 7, 2023 massacre by invading Israel, murdering hundreds of people and kidnapping individuals from various countries, Israel reached a breaking point. This barbaric act of terrorism led to ground-breaking developments For decades, the Middle East has been plagued by violence and instability, but Israel's response marked a significant turning point, dramatically transforming the region. Israel, in its counteroffensive against Hamas, targeted and significantly diminished the terrorist group's military capabilities crippling its ability to function effectively. The Iranian regime, a staunch supporter of Hamas, was activating other proxies, Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen, to attack Israel. In an unprecedented move, Iran also launched ballistic missiles from Iranian soil into Israel, thereby escalating the conflict. Israel's broader objective appears to be, not merely to respond to isolated acts of terrorism, but...

AN EVERLASTING LIGHT - I For all my new readers, I am rewriting a blog I wrote a few years ago, which is still relevant: Perhaps the most significant battle that the Jews fought, and won,  took place in the second century BCE.    Desiring to unify his kingdom through the medium of a common religion and culture Antiochus, the Greek ruler at that time, tried to root out the individualism of the Jews by desecrating their holy Temple and suppressing all the Jewish Laws. Tomorrow we start the eight day Festival commemorating this particular victory - this year coinciding exactly with Christmas. The story of Mattitiyahu Maccabee and his sons, who head the Revolt, is told in detail in the two books of the Maccabees.   A small, vastly outnumbered band of Jews waged battle against the mighty Greek armies, and drove them out of the land. Even though Judaism would have disappeared if Antiochus had succeeded in his strategy,  Jewish sages chose to leave these book...

It’s a verified fact that Hamas has been planning the ongoing war with Israel for decades. Hamas knew that they could not beat Israel militarily.  They also knew that  Israel would retaliate very strongly after the massacre on October 7 th - and the kidnapping and abuse of 252 men, women, children and babies. Hamas spent almost twenty years preparing the Gaza Strip as a killing ground for Israeli soldiers and Palestinian civilians. The  massive network of tunnels spanned more kilometers than the London Underground and  New York metro combined!  By integrating their military operations throughout civilian infrastructure - these tunnels served as missile launchers and storehouses of lethal weapons underneath kindergartens, schools, hospitals, even mosques, etc. The IDF had no choice but to fight the terrorists from, or close to, residential and commercial areas. In all those years, Hamas deliberately prepared nothing to protect it’s own civilians. On the co...

  FIGHTING FOR LIFE If there are doubts in anybody’s mind about the justice of the present war that Israel is fighting, one doesn’t have to go very far back: The 1970’s were a particularly violent decade for Israelis, who faced constant armed attacks  and tragedy. Although terrorism has been an ongoing factor since before Israel existed, the 70’s was a nightmare. Palestinian terrorists were sowing terror against Israelis, both on Israeli soil and around the world. The most glaring example was the terrorist attack on the Israeli team at the Olympic Games in Munich in 1972, in which eleven members of the team were murdered. In the same year, Ben Gurion Airport became a slaughterhouse, when three Japanese men - who had been recruited by the  “Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine”,   and trained in Beirut - stepped off an Air France flight from Rome. Within seconds of entering the airport’s waiting area, the three opened fire, murdering 26 people ...

  The Trust Company became one of the largest banks in the State of New Jersey the old-fashioned way, through internal growth: one customer at a time, one branch at a time. Siggi poured himself into building a loyal following by showing up, shaking hands, handing out gifts, listening to customers’ problems, and offering remedies. The FED, however, were not impressed by these small gestures, and would not allow Siggi to keep his companies together. He would have to use his prodigious brain to figure out what to do. The idea he conceived would be the most outrageous than any he had come up with before. In 1975 Siggi became the first person to sue the Federal Reserve. The FED’s formidable president, Paul Volcker, was six foot seven, the son of German immigrants. Memories of the Great Depression loomed over the pairing of commercial companies and banking, and Wilshire’s ownership of   TCNJ embodied everything “Big Paul” vowed to crush. Siggi’s response to the threat was t...

  North Jersey was seriously over-banked and competition was fierce. But Siggi made sure that TCNJ offered customers a more satisfying experience than any of its competitors. Customers were so appreciative of the personal and respectful attention they got, regardless of the size of their bank account, that they called the Trust Company, “Siggi’s bank”. He treated his employees with the same personal attention as his customers. As a result, employees remained loyal to him and to the bank. Three department heads worked for TCNJ for more than fifty years. Siggi opened his heart to all employees, customers, friends, acquaintances and, although over-overworked, he spent hours, sometimes weeks, helping others - at the expense of the business and his own family. Not for nothing was the bank”s motto “The bank with a heart”. He even took time out of his business schedule to give customers, large and small, free investment advice. Not surprising that, though the 1970’s was an era of high...