ILL-frustration

I just opened YNET to discover once again that the local online press seems to think its readers so amazingly stupid that we’re incapable of understanding a sensational article unless it’s illustrated with a “victim.”  This is especially true when it’s of a sexual nature and a female is a victim whether it’s a rape or a molestation etc. though it’s done in other situations as well. 

The headline this time was about a rash of pedophilism taking place down south.  Next to it was a picture of a little girl in a playground.  In many cases these pictures have “illustration,” and sometimes even “picture not related to article” underneath it.  This time it was the main story on the main page and the only way to know in this case that the pictured little girl was not (thank goodness!) an abuse victim is if you happen to run your mouse over the picture (and even then it doesn’t have the disclaimer – for all we know maybe this is an abused child being used as an illustration - that’s what we’re supposed to presumably believe).

Why?!  No, my question isn’t why they’re not using a picture of an actual abused child.  My question is why they need to use a picture of a potential victim at all!  Do they think that without it the readers will be sitting around saying “a child, a girl…now what’s that?  I can’t seem to remember what one of those look like.  Oh one of those – like in the picture!”  Anyone incapable of figuring out what a child in a playground looks like to the extent where they need a child’s picture in order to understand the article  probably lacks the intelligence to understand 3 words put together let alone a whole article.

If you must have a picture because today’s online journalism demands accompanying pictures then take a picture of an empty playground, or of police consulting (to make us think of police trying to figure out how to catch these guys).  What is the point of showing a picture of an unconnected child unless they either think their readers moronic.  Unless they’re using her as bait to appeal to the pedophile community to read the article…?

We don’t want misinformation – so don’t forward it to us

One of my pet peeves is when people forward emails received from others without checking its content’s validity for themselves.  This type of spam is known in the techie world as “viral,” because like a virus its survival depends on

• people passing the (mis)information on to others and
• the item being sent by friends the receiver trusts so that they assume that it has been checked personally by the sender.

A tiny fraction of the spam sent virally is well intentioned material (such as a request for prayers or monetary aid for a child’s operation) whose circulation has long exceeded its relevance.However, most scam or hoax letters divide themselves up into a number of standard types making it easy to check if they’re known scams. Examples of common types include heartstring pullers (a girl dying of cancer supposedly cares that an email mentioning the fact is sent to millions of strangers), moneymakers (“Bill Gates is tracking this letter and for every person it reaches through you he’s going to give you a whole lot of money”), or virus warnings (“a file may have already reached your computer – look to see if files named command.com and autoexec.com are there and if so immediately delete them” which cause you to damage your own computer).The purpose of these letters seem to be

1. fooling you into believing you’re doing something nice or useful even though you’re bound to find out eventually and feel foolish
2. embarassing you in front of your friends for urging them to pass the letter on to their friends
3. giving some kind of twisted pleasure to some bored and often crude (a fake letter about a child with leukemia?!) people.

Call me unforgiving, but to me anyone who passes along an email that even sounds like it might be a forwarded email without checking its validity first is complicit in the spamming and/or scamming of the original composer.  It takes a couple of minutes at most to check on a site such as

• http://hoaxbusters.ciac.org/HBHoaxIndex.html
• www.snopes.com
• http://www.hoax-slayer.com

to see if the English language letter you’ve received is a scam or http://www.info.org.il/irrelevant/ for Hebrew hoaxes.    Please do yourself a favor and bookmark at least one of these sites.Many of you are probably thinking “don’t get carried away – I’m sending a single letter which the receiver can decide in a few seconds to read or delete.” But remember that if you have as few as 10 people to send it on to (and most of us have more on our lists) and they each send it to ten who send it to ten – even if the letter just goes through 7 people each way (quite normal for email in the course of a day – more is likely – especially with forwarded mail) that’s already 10 million people you’ve spammed in a single day!!   Furthermore because its coming from a friend’s personal email address it’s more likely they will take the time to read it lengthening the amount of time waste you’re personally responsible for.  Surely you can take a couple of minutes to make sure the scammers don’t win and that you not only don’t waste your friends time but also don’t make them look bad in front of their friends to whom they pass it on.  Please be responsible and not lazy – the world will thank you for it!

Got those “what page are we on in the prayer book” blues?

As a kid in the US I was a big fan of the (alas short lived) music duo Megama.  Their songs were all about issues in Jewish life and the difficulty of maintaining one’s Judaism in the face of the modern world.  The music was catchy, and the lyrics well crafted and self reflective. 

One of their more memorable songs, quoted in the title here, was about two Jews who come to pray in a synagogue, but because they’d grown up without a formal Jewish education didn’t know what they were supposed to do at any point in the service. Should they sit or stand?  What page was everyone on?  The fellow next to them, presumably an average shul goer, was of no used to them as he was “taking a snooze;” a playful though all too honest jab at many of the FFHes (frum from habbit) out there.

This is a problem faced by many secular Jews when they come to shul whether for a Bar Mitzva or to say Gomel etc.  They find themselves with a siddur which in the best of cases gives directions in acronyms and abbreviations (like kuf vav chet for example, which all religous people know means “kahal v’chazan” but to the secular vistor is gibberish) and in many cases barely that.  They’re often too shy to ask for help and feel uncomfortably that they’re being treated as a “special case” if helped.  The fear of looking ignorant keeps many of them from coming at times and with a frequency they might otherwise.  In Anglo countries, publications such as Artscroll have been aiming at this audience for awhile, but in Hebrew it really hasn’t been properly addressed till now.

Enter the Or Israel.  A new siddur which bills itself as a siddur/guide to shul.  It looks like a regular siddur so the secular visitor doesn’t feel like a tourist with an obvious guidebook.  Inside however it contains instructions and background material on the prayers and situations they’re most likely to encounter.  I should say up front that I have no affiliation to the people putting out this siddur – I discovered it through an article on ynet http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-3374041,00.html

The home page (where you can also find out details about purchasing it) is http://www.orisrael.net/.  If you belong to a neighborhood shul which tends to get secular Israeli  guests (the siddur’s in Hebrew), such as people doing Bar Mitzvahs or coming to Yizkor, you might want to take a look at the site and if you think it could be helpful mention it to the Rabbi or Gabai.  Even though they don’t know it’s you they’re thankful to, some secular Jew is sure to be grateful the next time he shows up and someone hands him a copy of that siddur to discover “hey look at all the neat explanations this has…oh they’re about to stand up at this part…” etc. 

Jews on first – and every other position

While it hasn’t actually started yet, a new national baseball league is about to start play in Israel towards the end of June.  The league which will start with 6 teams, 3 of them managed by former major leaguers and world series winners Art Shamsky (starting outfielder 69 miracle Mets) Ron Blomberg (first ever designated hitter in MLB) and Ken Holtzman (2 major league no-hitters) is preparing Israel for entry into the next world baseball classic.  While there might be an initial instinct to guffaw (big deal – a country of 7 million people with no baseball history – they’ll be gone faster than South Africa if they make it that far) keep in mind that world classic baseball rules enable a player to play for any country under whose natural rules that person would be eligible for automatic citizenship.  Since under Israel’s “law of return” any Jew (not athlete specific) is automatically eligible for citizenship
Israel could field a team that includes at its core the following Jewish players (probably more but this is what comes to mind) 

Pitching

• Jason Marquis – St. Louis Cardinals
• Jason Hirsh –Houston Astros
• Scott Schoeneweis – Cincinati Reds
• John Grabow – Pittsburgh Pirates
• Craig Breslow – Boston Red Sox
• Scott Feldman – Texas Rangers 

Catching

• Brad Ausmus – Houston Astros
• Mike Lieberthal – Philadelphia Phillies 

Infield

• Kevin Youklis – Boston Red Sox

• Ian Kinsler – Texas Rangers

• David Newhan – NY Mets 

Outfield

• Shawn Green – NY Mets
• Gabe Kapler – Red Sox (just retired) 

These guys are all legitimate MLBers though none except maybe Green, Ausmus or Youklis have even an outside chance of being asked to join the US team.  If they wanted to experience the WBC it would probably make ther moms happy at least if they played under Israel’s flag (even though they’d obviously never play in the Israeli league).  

Add on to that fringe MLB players (such as Mike Koplove and Alan Levine who have pitched in the MLB in the last few seasons though they’re not on rosters now), minor leaguers (such as Toronto’s minor leaguer Adam Stern) and the players in the local Israeli league (both Israelis and imports from minor league teams in the US) being developed by the former MLBers and league chief of development ex Red Sox Manager Dan Duquette, Israel might just surprise some people out there.  Noone’s thinking they’d win it all of course but they might upset some teams along the way.  You never know :- ). 

For more on the Israeli league http://www.israelbaseballleague.com/main/

US Citizenship through a grandparent – a guide from the initiated

I’ve found that many American expats tend to mistakenly assume that as US citizens their children are automatically eligible for citizenship.  As far as they’re concerned all they have to do is go over to the embassy and register their kids and they’re citizens.  In fact to pass on your own US citizenship to your children you need to fulfill at least one of the following requirements:

1) Be married to another US citizen OR

2) prove that you have lived for at least 5 years in the US of which at least 2 years have to have been past the age of 14.

Once they discover this requirement many older expats who moved with their children when young and whose children have married non-Americans are dismayed to realize that while their kids may have lived for 5 years in the US, the 2 years over 14 requirement means that those kids will not be able to pass on US citizenship to their children.   Some of the more savvy ones have heard somewhere about the possibility of a grandparent passing on citizenship to their grandchild but there’s really so little information out there that most either give up or at most pay out a lot of money to immigration lawyers to sort it out for them.

Well no need no more.  I’m going to explain to you here how to get start getting citizenship for your grandchild of a US citizen whose own parent is ineligible to pass on the citizenship due to the requirements stated above.  I first wish to make a disclaimer though.  I am NOT a lwayer or government official and make no guarantees.  All I present here is based on my own experience of naturalizing 3 children using the grandparent law and doing it on my own without any need for professionals – it’s just about understanding which forms you need to use.  Anyone else’s personal success will depend on various things such as the center they apply to and the documentation they are able to supply.

First I should note that the requirements listed above for naturalizing your child are for passing it on automatically at the embassy here in Israel.  If you came (as I did) before age 16 and aren’t married to a US citizen then that’s indeed not an option for you.  However there is an alternate option which is to apply for citizenship for your child under section 322 based on their US citizen GRANDPARENT fulfilling the second option (i.e. proving they’ve lived 5 years in the US at least 2 of which came after the age of 14).  Note that the grandparent needn’t be living in the US now nor will they need to go to the US at any point with the grandchild.  Unlike the automatic transfer from parent to child, however, citizenship through a grandparent will necessitate the citizen parent to take the child to the US for the naturalization interview (though there is no set amount of time you have to stay – if you want you can fly in the day before the interview and fly out a few hours after the interview).

Start the process by going to this page

http://www.uscis.gov/files/form/N-600K.pdf

which is to apply for citizenship

And downloading the forms there. They’re in pdf format so make sure you have a program (such as acrobat) that can read pdfs. If you don’t have one you can download it for free at

http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html

and fill out the forms (the pdf file includes instructions on what they want of you).

Please note that while the citizen grandparent won’t have to appear at your child’s interview s/he will need to provide the applying parent with Xeroxes of

1) his/her own birth certificate and proof of his/her US citizenship

2) proof that S/HE indeed lived there for 5 years at least 2 after age 14. What is proof? They won’t tell you outright – they just tell you to provide the best you can. My advice is pour on the official documentation: School transcripts, degrees, employment records – anything legal which can establish his presence in the US for those 5 years. You may not need all that much but remember the interest in their becoming citizens is yours not the Immigration service’s and so the tighter the case you can build documentationwise the safer you are (which is good since living abroad its not like you can just come back in three months with more documentation).

The citizen parent must also have their own

1) birth and marriage certificates

2) child(ren)’s birth certificate(s)

3) You can submit Xeroxes of both your and your citizen parent’s documentation (in fact you SHOULD provide Xeroxes rather than the originals) but WILL be expected to bring the originals to the interview and produce them for the interviewer if asked (they never asked for my originals but Murphy’s Law says that if I hadn’t had them they’d have asked)

4) proof that you have custody of your child – ridiculous for a married parent I agree but that’s bureaucracy for you!  What I did was got a printout (15 shekels apiece) from the Interior Ministry’s census registry which showed that we both (me and my kids) have the same address and that im living with their mother and am married.

5) All non-English documents must be accompanied by an English translation with the translator affirming himself competent to do the translation. You can abilitywise probably do it yourself but they don’t approve of that as it could affect your translating.  Also it’s best to have someone with a different last name do it.  Note that the Ministry of the Interior now offers a bilingual (Hebrew/English) birth certificate for the asking so you can save on translating that.

6) since you’re going to have to take the child(ren) to the states for the interview anyhow you might as well apply to a small processing center. Applying in New York LA or Miami could take several years till it all goes through. I applied through Philadelphia which is relatively small and it still took me almost 2 years. Someone else told me they did it through the Hartford Conneticuit office (which they said was an hour’s drive from NYC) and it all got done very quickly and in a friendly manner and I’ve heard similarthings about Rhode Island.  In any case best to pick a place that nobody immigrates to.  Coming from abroad means you have the right to apply to any field office anywhere in the US so check out the list here https://egov.immigration.gov/crisgwi/go?action=offices.type&OfficeLocator.office_type=SC and send your completed forms there along with xeroxes of the documents you intend to present to them as requested on the forms and listed by me above.

After a certain amount of time which can range anywhere from 3-4 months to 3-4 years depending in large part on what field office you apply to you’ll receive a letter from USCIS instructing you to appear before them at the field office with your child on a day they’ll set for you (usually about 3 months or so from when they send the letter).   At that point you make your travel plans and submit a request to the embassy for a visa http://telaviv.usembassy.gov/consular/niv/Apply.aspx#1 and include a copy of your letter from the USCIS with your other documentation to the embassy.  They’ll issue you a limited 60 day visa to take your child to the States for the interview.

The interview itself is a formality essentially.  They’re not likely to invite you to come to the US unless they’re already convinced after reviewing the documentation you sent them that your case is sound.  Of course they may want to check that you didn’t just create the documentation and that’s why it’s so important to have the original documentation with you.  I don’t know what they do for older kids but for my kids who were all under 5 when I took them, they spoke exclusively to me, asked me basic questions about my dad’s documentation and then printed up naturalization certificates for the kids within an hour or so at which point they were US citizens.

One final note: in the interview letter they ask you to bring proof that thevidence of the applicant child’s entry into the US.  What they want you to do is the following.  On the plane they give you this white card to fill out about your plans for being in the country etc.  When you go through border control they’ll take part of that card and leave you with the other part of it and stamp your kids passports (and yours) to show that you came through border control.  The citizen parent should make a photocopy of the page in each applicant child’s passport that has that border control stamp on it and bring to the interview (with the other documentation of course).  The interviewers appreciate that, especially since most people forget and then they’ve got to go photocopy the passport themselves – best to get them in a good mood right off by saving them the hassle.  Naturally they should also bring the kids passports and that white card from the plane with them to the interview as well.

Relicensed to drive

Well if today’s subject is going to be driving, I might as well take this opportunity to address the issue of Israeli and international driving licenses. A lot of people are confused about whether they need an international license to drive abroad or whether their Israeli licenses alone are enough. Many have heard of people being arrested for driving with just their Israeli licenses.

So first let me point out that different countries (and different States in the US) have different law regarding who they allow to drive with a foreign license unaccompanied by an international license if at all. The advantage to the Israeli license is that the information is written on it in English in addition to hebrew so that a US or British policeman doesn’t have to try and guess as to whether the foreign script on the card means you’re a rotary club member, licensed to drive, or licensed to kill.
On the flip side, the biggest problem with the Israeli license is the loaded wording. Israeli licenses are called “permits” which while all fine and well denotatively, is problematic in those places (such as New York State for example) where a permit is not a license but merely permission for a student driver to do their practice driving under certain conditions (such as with an adult with a valid NY State driving license) in the car with them. Therefore there was a problem awhile back where Israeli drivers were being arrested in New York City for driving with their Israeli licenses simply because of the wording.

To me the isue doesn’t seem worth fighting over. On a recent trip to the US I decided to go check out the cost of an international driver’s license and discovered that it cost a measly 13 shekels to get one and you get it on the spot. Essentially all it is is an internationally recognized document you keep with your license to tell foreign police that you’re a licensed driver in your home country.

Flash red not green

I was listening to a program this evening on Reshet Bet about road safety.  The discussion panel spent a good 10 minutes discussing whether there should or shouldn’t be a flashing green light before it changes at a crossroads.  Those who argued in favor of keeping it said that cancelling it out altogether will give no warning and have people crossing on red.  It seems to me that this is a misguided way of thinking.  IMHO leave the flashing light – but make it red.  A flashing green light is a temptation to a driver: “quickly the light is green you can still get past legally but you’re going to have to speed up to make it while I’m still this color.”  A flashing red light on the other hand sends the message “no more crossing, this light is red already.  If you’re already partway through rush out before I’m a solid red if you haven’t reached the crossing yet might as well slow down because there’s a red light ahead of you.

The point of the flashing light should be to put the driver’s mindset in a stop/slow down mode, not jolt him into a “hurry up and finish what you’re doing now” mode.

Entertainment to blight on cable and sattelite

Hello. My name’s Moshe and I’m a TVholic.

That’s what I could have said just a few years ago. I was a TV addict (maybe not of the worst kind but) who could compete with the best of them on sitcom trivia. When cable TV first came to this country I totally drowned in it (unfortunately so have many others which could explain the level drop I see in education and Jewish/Israeli culture but that’s an issue for another day and another posting). At a certain point though I just cut it off cold turkey. No it wasn’t for religous reasons (though there are certainly enough reasons there to justify doing so but simply because

1) it was taking up too much of my of time just because (as Edmund Hillary
said in another context) it’s there
2) for half the price of a monthly subscription to a number of English/Hebrew channels and a larger number of foreign language channels or channels I won’t watch for other reasons (which costs you roughly 200 nis a month give or take a bit) I could get a deal at my local Blockbuster giving me 2 movies a week.

3) with all the reruns and other junk being put on (or these days being moved to the extra package channels that you have to pay additional money to get) its unlikely that you’ll find more than 3 hours (2 movies worth) of must see TV in a month on the basic channels anyhow if you’re honest with yourself.

4) News media in English can be seen online when you want it (www.cnn.com www.bbc.uk
etc.) assuming you find it critical to see cars as they blow up and people being arrested for whatever reason rather than just hear about it.

5) there’s stuff even on the kids channel that I wouldn’t watch let alone risk my kids getting to it. Not for religious reasons but for low level trash reasons [anyone remember "the rebels" ("hamordim") for example]? Using a video and DVD gives me a filter whereby I can spend the otherwise monthly 200 nis or so on educational TV programs (or at least not smut) instead of sitting them in front of the cartoon network.

So I decided to take my TV viewing into my own hands and have never looked back. I’m not saying this will work for everyone (yes it was hard to cut off TV cold turkey) but I can say that
1) I find it harder to justify even movies that I really want to see to the extent of walking over to get them so why should i spend time zombied out by movies I don’t want to simply because they’re there?
2) my oldest child is at the top of her class (advanced group) in math and
Hebrew and has been reading and writing English and Hebrew since age 5
without going to a class and without any structured teaching whatsoever by
myself (and in case you were wondering my wife’s Israeli and speaks only
Hebrew to them) thanks to videos such as sesame street and between the lions
etc. bought with money not spent on cable or sattelite and
3) I have been asked to work for 2 different publications during that period of time
covering news based on what they saw as my awareness of up-to-the-minute
news. So yes one can survive even if one has to resort to radical measures
like reading books for entertainment occasionally.

And finally here are some refutations to likely arguments against this option
1) “Well not everyone has a high-powered career that takes up all their
time”
Answer – I’ve never had a high-powerd career and even while unemployed I saw no need to stare at whatever the cable/satellite people think I ought to watch. There’s family to be with (and no – watching TV together with the family is not actually communication), meals to make, dishes to wash, laundries to do etc. etc. and of course blogging for you readers whoever you may be.
I’m amazed and even quite jealous :- ) at the sheer amounts of free time that so many apparently have to not only watch all these programs they mention but debate about it online – and still have time for all the other necessary activities of life. I wish I could budget my time that well!

2 ) “I’ll miss my beloved (fill in program) too much”
Many of the top English language programs have their whole series on DVD at
blockbuster. OK so maybe I’m a season or so behind on the likes of 24 and
the sopranos but I’m also getting things done instead of sitting around
“just to see what comes after the episode” of whatever I wanted to watch.

3) “Walk to the DVD place?…it’s such a shlep…”
Answer: if you’re not excited enough about watching something you yourself
CHOOSE to see then you’re probably not that in need of watching anything and
are just doing it for something to do. Buy a few DVDs (you can buy 8-10
used ones for the price of a month of cable) you really like and when you
just want something to veg in front of then put one on. You’ll either get
into it (and then no loss) or get bored and go find something else to do.
If you really HAVE to watch something it’ll be enough of a goad to get you
to go to blockbuster.

It’s up to you. Either you can stay at the mercy of the 2 monopolies (cable and sattelite) and watch whatever they give you for whatever price they offer or you can take control
of what you watch when you watch it and what you have available for your
kids to access in your home.

An Item of Notary

I often see people asking on forums where they can find a US notary in their proximity so that they don’t have to shlep over to the embassy in Tel Aviv and pay for their notary services. The answers given are generally wrong. Following is information I received from 2 local US notaries on this issue AFTER having first shelled out money to have the notarization done by a local American notary.

1) Being both a US citizen and a licensed notary does NOT make you an American notary (obvious you’d think, but you’d be suprised how often when the question arises people in my town are referred to an Israeli licensed notary just because they know she’s American born)

2) Even those who ARE licensed US notaries are ONLY allowed to notarize while physically present in the state in which they’re licensed to notarize (possibly in the embassy as well but if you’re going to the embassy why drag a notary along?). Therefore for those matters that don’t require that the person whose document it is be present when the signing is done, US notaries can sign and claim they did it while abroad and physically in the state in which they’re licensed. However, if your document needs to be notarized with you physically present then your only choice is the embassy.

Should you wish to take the risk of having a non-embassy notary sign it you do so at your own risk and may well end up (as I once did) paying money only to have the whole thing rejected and sent back to you from the US department requiring the notarization with a notice that they only accept notarization abroad from an embassy notary. Thus not only have you paid for a useless service but you’ve delayed the process you wanted to get done and still have to go to the embassy.

Therefore check carefully as to whether your document requires your physical presence during notarization before deciding how to proceed. if you’re unsure and can’t get a concrete answer then best not to take the risk.

Cellphones and the NIMBY problem

A list member on a forum I’m on wrote to the list this week warning of the dangers of cellphone antennas in residential areas.  It seems that one of the cellphone companies placed an antenna in her building and now she’s frantic about the possible dangers she’s exposed to.  Upon question she admitted that she’s a cellphone user herself but would be willing to accept worse reception in order to get rid of this antenna.

It seems to me that this hypocrisy is a classic example of NIMBY (Not In My BackYard).  It’s one thing for someone like myself to object to cellphone antennas (I refuse to have one of the electronic slave collars even if I’m the last in Israel to remain without one).  But for someone who uses a cellphone to object to having an antenna in their own building seems to me hypocritical.  Yes, I realize there are those of you who’ll say “well a phone is a minor power source but an antenna is far more powerful energy source and far more likely to cause damage to those in its immediate area.”  This is true but the antennas still have to be SOMEwhere in order to be of any use and they have to be in proximity to where there are users (what use is an antenna stuck somewhere out in the field?  Do cows need to have good reception while reporting their milk supply in to the dairy?!)

The question is only one of who suffers in order that the majority have good reception.  It seems to me that anyone who has a cellphone enters themselves into a lottery for this risk.  To expect good reception wherever one goes yet object to others getting it in their own area seems to me hypocrisy.