Architects, Designers In International Sukkas Competition

My Sukkah in Poughkeepsie is still in the works

One of the sukkah competing

New York - As the holiday of Sukkot, or the not-so-sexy translation, Festival of Booths, approaches, a design contest in New York City is determined to reinvent the traditional Jewish booth-like sukkah structure. Joshua Foer and Roger Bennett of the cultural organization, Reboot, launched the architectural contest in May 2010, inviting architects and creative minds alike to enter with their vision of a modern interpretation of the sukkah.
The contest was judged by celebrity names in the architectural world and inspired 600 entries, some from the biggest architectural firms around the world, interested in getting publicity for their creative talent. The 12 finalists will build their sukkah in Union Square Park in New York City September 19-21, and the final winner’‘s sukkah will remain standing throughout the Sukkot holiday.
Grounded by the many rules and regulations of building a sukkah found in Jewish law, contestants will have to think outside the box (get it?) to come up with a creative design. However, design philosophy and Jewish law have more in common than you might think – since both strive on finding creative solutions within strict parameters.

Many designers were challenged by the complex and sometimes odd-sounding requirements of a sukkah. The contest’‘s website, www.sukkahcity.com,  pictorially displays many of the specifications – there must be more shade than sunlight, at least 2 and a half walls, and organic materials to cover the roof. The website also shares fun, little known sukkah facts - one side can be made of a living elephant (!) and you can even build it on top of a camel or a boat. You’‘ll thank me the next time someone wants to build a sukkah on top of a horse (crazy talk!) Well, at least the biblical handbreadths and cubits have been translated into modern day measurements of feet and inches. But even these measurements were further constricted by New York’‘s limitations of what denotes a temporary structure on public property.

One entry that caught my eye was from Adam Baruchowitz, founder of Wearable Collections, who gathered second-hand raincoats for use in building his sukkah. Since the sukkah can be made of recycled materials, it inspired many sustainable and green designs, and will hopefully spark conversations about environmental awareness in building projects.

Stop by Union Square Park September 19-21 to see the structures from the finalists and vote for your favorite one.

via vosizneias.com

I have one built in my backyard out of branches and a grape vine

Fake Hate Crimes: An Islamist Weapon

Over the recent Fourth of July weekend, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) interviewed attendees of the 47th annual Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) convention about their experiences in dealing with "Islamophobia." Shortly afterwards, on July 6, CAIR called on the FBI to investigate an act of arson at a Georgia mosque, saying that hate crimes were increasing because of a "vocal minority in our society promoting anti-Muslim bigotry." The Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) referred to it as one of the "incidents of Islamophobia [that] are on the rise in this country." However, police later arrested a Muslim suspect.

As Daniel Pipes has documented for years, Islamist organizations in the West are quick to label crimes as anti-Muslim hate crimes as part of their effort to make Muslims feel under attack and to paint themselves as Muslims' protectors. For example, immediately following the Fort Hood shooting, CAIR asked Muslims to respond by donating to it. "We need financial help to meet these crises and push back against those who seek to score political points off the Muslim community in the wake of the Fort Hood tragedy," the fundraising pitch read. To no one's surprise, an anti-Muslim backlash did not ensue.
Cutting through the propaganda requires understanding the ways in which crimes are misrepresented as hate crimes — and why. There are two main culprits to consider: Muslims who stage fake hate crimes and Islamist organizations that seek to exploit them.
Why would anyone fabricate a hate crime against himself or his mosque? History indicates a pair of common motives.
In some cases, the faker has an obvious political goal of demonstrating the supposed prejudice against Muslims. A classic example occurred in 2008, when a 19-year-old female Muslim student named Safia Z. Jilani at Elmhurst College in Illinois claimed that she had been pistol-whipped in a campus restroom by a male who then wrote "Kill the Muslims" on the mirror. The alleged attack occurred just hours after she spoke at a "demonstration called to denounce the anti-Islamic slurs and swastika she had discovered … in her locker." A week later, however, authorities determined that none of this had taken place and she was charged with filing a false police report.
Similar incidents recently unfolded overseas. A Muslim community leader in London named Noor Ramjanally reported that he had been kidnapped by members of the quasi-fascist British National Party; he also said that he had received death threats and his home had been firebombed. His claim received widespread attention, causing him to boast, "I have got the whole UK Muslim community behind me now." Ramjanally later was arrested for faking the crime. Furthermore, last year in Australia, a prominent imam, Taj Din al-Hilali, told police that his mosque had been vandalized. When confronted with the security tape, which shows that he is the one who kicked in the door, he insisted that it had been manipulated.
In other cases, individuals are driven to fabricate hate crimes not for political reasons, but to cover up more mundane criminal activity. Take the bizarre story of Musa and Essa Shteiwi, Ohio men who received media attention in 2006 after reporting several attacks on their store, the third being with a Molotov cocktail. A fourth "attack" then occurred, when an explosion was set off and badly burned the father and son, injuries from which they later died. CAIR highlighted it as a hate crime. However, investigators found that the two had set off the explosion themselves after they poured gasoline in preparation for another staged incident and one of them foolishly lit a cigarette. The pair had hired a former employee to carry out the previous attacks as part of an insurance fraud scheme.
Now let us turn to the motives of groups such as CAIR for exaggerating the prevalence of hate crimes against Muslims.
First and foremost, Islamists try to undermine and delegitimize their opponents by placing blame upon them for hate crimes. For example, a 2008 CAIR report attributes an alleged increase in hate crimes — "alleged" because the claimed increase is wholly contradicted by FBI statistics — to "Islamophobic rhetoric in the 2008 presidential election" and people who are "profiting by smearing Islam." Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney is specifically rebuked for titling a campaign ad "Jihad."
CAIR's 2009 report takes aim at the anti-Islamist film Obsession, a bête noir among promoters of the hate crime narrative. To cite one example of this approach, on September 26, 2008, law enforcement was notified that a 10-year-old Muslim girl at the Islamic Society of Greater Dayton had been attacked with pepper spray. A member of the board immediately attributed it to advertisements for the documentary. However, the FBI found no trace of chemicals in the mosque or on the alleged victim; the pepper spray was discovered inside the mosque four days later. It concluded that there was no evidence that a hate crime had occurred.
Islamist groups also use the fear created by their publicizing of alleged hate crimes and anti-Muslim sentiment to try to mobilize the community into opposing counterterrorism programs. As Daniel Pipes has noted, CAIR started down this path a decade and a half ago, when it described the prosecution of World Trade Center bomb plotter Omar Abdel Rahman and the arrest of Hamas leader Mousa Abu Marzook as hate crimes.
Similar tactics remain in play. In February 2009, the American Muslim Task Force and the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) condemned the FBI after a story broke about the use of an informant in a mosque. They accused the government of an anti-Muslim conspiracy, saying that the informant was paid to "instigate violent rhetoric in mosques," and threatened to end outreach efforts with the FBI. Then, in October 2009, a Michigan-based, pro-terrorist imam named Luqman Ameen Abdullah, who had been preparing his followers to wage war against the U.S. government, opened fire when the FBI tried to arrest him for criminal activity. Abdullah died in the shootout, but CAIR and the Muslim Alliance in North America (MANA) are attempting to attribute his demise to foul play.
These groups assume the worst of the FBI's intentions and try to make the Muslim community feel as if it is threatened by its own government committing state-sanctioned hate crimes. True to form, attendees of the ISNA convention this past July were told how the FBI supposedly is targeting Muslims and advised that they should not talk to FBI personnel without a lawyer.
In summary, while real anti-Muslim hate crimes deserve the harshest of condemnation, claims about anti-Muslim hate crimes always should be taken with a grain of salt. CAIR and other Islamist groups thrive off of convincing Muslims that they are under constant assault from roving bigots and an oppressive state. Individual Muslims then feel empowered to fabricate hate crimes in order to paint themselves as victims.
For Islamists, the fear, isolation, and suffering of the Muslim community are nothing more than weapons to enhance their own prestige and pursue their political agenda.

Ryan Mauro is the founder of WorldThreats.com, national security advisor to the Christian Action Network, and an intelligence analyst with the Asymmetric Warfare and Intelligence Center (AWIC). This article was sponsored by Islamist Watch.

via islamist-watch.org

noahdavidsimon's posterous

Poll: Fewer than half of Israelis see themselves as secular - Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News

1.  In spite of the nonstop efforts of Israel's media, operating under the hegemony of the Israeli secularist Left, Israelis are in fact more religious than ever.  Almost 60% of Israeli Jews define themselves as religious to one extent or another.  Of the 42% claiming to be secularist, large chunks still observe important religious traditions, like fasting on Yom Kippur, building a succah, and so on.   Quite a few sometimes go to synagogue.   There are more Jews who claim they are becoming more religious than the number claiming they are getting less religious.

Now these numbers will no doubt upset the Radical Left.  After all, with so many people embracing Judaism, how in the world will they ever manage to get Israelis to commit national seppuka and capitulate to all the demands of the Arab Islamofascists!?

via zioncon.blogspot.com

Poll: Fewer than half of Israelis see themselves as secular

8% of Jewish Israeli adults define themselves as ultra-Orthodox, 12% as religious, 13% as traditional-religious, and 25% as traditional but 'not very religious,' according to Central Bureau of Statistics survey.

By Moti Bassok

Central Bureau of Statistics 2009
Photo by: Central Bureau of Statistics 2009

Eight percent of Jewish Israeli adults define themselves as ultra-Orthodox, 12 percent as religious, 13 percent as traditional-religious, and 25 percent as traditional but "not very religious," according to a survey by the Central Bureau of Statistics conducted last year and published yesterday.
Meanwhile, 42 percent of the Jewish population characterize themselves as secular, according to the poll, conducted among Jews over 20. Seventy-two percent said they had visited a synagogue over the previous year.

Among secular respondents, 24 percent reported that they had attended synagogue on Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur or both. Among secular Jews, 26 percent said they had fasted on Yom Kippur, 17 percent build a sukkah and 82 percent regularly conduct a seder at Passover.

Some 67 percent of secular respondents light Hanukkah candles and 29 percent light Shabbat candles. Ten percent of secular respondents kept kosher over the year and 22 percent observed Jewish dietary laws - kashrut - during Passover.
Among secular and traditional respondents, 52 percent light Shabbat candles at home but only 11 percent refrain from traveling by car on Shabbat. The rate of kashrut observance among the two groups collectively is 48 percent during Passover and 33 percent during the year as a whole.
Some 21 percent, which would amount to 790,000 Jewish Israelis, are more religious than they had been in the past. About 14 percent are less religious.
Among adult male Israelis, 23 percent go to synagogue daily, and 25 percent do so only on Shabbat and/or holidays, 11 percent on Rosh Hashanah and/or Yom Kippur and 16 percent on special occasions such as celebrations for memorial prayers. Meanwhile, 24 percent don't visit a synagogue at all.
Among women, 31 percent go to synagogue on Shabbat and/or holidays, 16 percent only on Rosh Hashanah and/or Yom Kippur, 18 percent only on special occasions and 32 percent not at all.

via haaretz.com

Judaism is quite healthy... this from the Newspaper that is most hostile

noahdavidsimon's posterous