Rewind and fast forward, snapshots of a busy month

So I haven't updated the blog for some time and the reason is simple. I landed a job and started working a month ago, and as I live in Beer Sheva and work in Tel Aviv I spend almost all my spare time, 4 hours a day, on buses. It's driving me slightly insane but I'll be moving to Bat Yam in a month or two. Below please find a few action points, each of which would deserve their own posts. In the best of worlds they might get them, bit in the meantime, here we go.

* Woke up to the sad new today that the grand son of the great Baba Sali, Rabbi Elazar Abuhatzeira, had been murdered here in Beer Sheva, just three blocks away in his Yeshiva. He was one of the country´s most important Mizrachi Rabbis, as well as my Ravs neighbor and my Rabbanits Rabbi. I went over to my Rav and talked for a while. The Rabbanit looked as she had been crying all night. Sad times.

Baruch Dayan HaEmet. Zicrono LiBracha.

* I went to Sweden for a while. Horrible weather and I got homesick for Israel almost immediately. But it was very nice to see my parents, my sisters and my grandma.

* I'm reading Richard Dawkin's The God Delusion, an anti-religious book trying to prove the non-existance of God. Mr Dawkin's is an Evolutionary biologist, and I don't doubt his expertise in his field. However, evolution has little to say about the existence of the divine, and hence Dawkins goes on to dabble in three unrelated disciplines: Philosophy, Statistics and Insults. And the only one he understands is Insults.

* I'm working at Webpals as an affiliate marketing content writer. It's a lot of fun and it's a very nice company with very nice co-workers. Basically we do affiliate marketing for casino web sites.

* My walk to work from the central bus station takes me through the worst neighborhood in Tel Aviv, a rundown maze of Sudanese refugees, strip clubs, sex stores, prostitute drug addicts and their customers, pimps and drug dealers. I´ve gotten used to it by now, but it's not a pretty sight.

* A racist madman har murdered 67 kids in Norway. It took Muslim-haters and Israel-haters about 2 days before they started making politics of the tragedy. The Norwegian ambassador took the opportunity to defend Hamas in an Interwiew, claiming that they - as opposed to Anders Breivik, may he burn in hell - was fighting for a noble cause. He should have his head examined. And seriously: What does this have to do with the ME conflict at all? If the ambassadors shoelace snaps, is this also the fault of the diabolical Jews?

* I need to find time to work on my Hebrew. Even though most Israelis in TA speak English, Israeli society is in Hebrew only. And living outside of society is a lonely place.

Shabat shalom!