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Thursday, February 17, 2005
Chewing gum ruled the practice of lower life forms!
From the
Scotsman
Rabbi Rules on Sticky Problem
Your chewing gum has just lost its flavour, but there is no rubbish bin in sight. What do you do?
According to Jewish law, get ready to swallow it.
A prominent Israeli rabbi has ruled that spitting gum on a pavement or hiding it under a desk is a violation of Halacha or Jewish law.
“Gum cannot be thrown where others are liable to be disgusted by it,” said Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu, the rabbi of the holy city of Safed.
Improperly discarded gum may appear to be hidden, but ”God knows” where it is, Eliyahu said.
Swallowing the gum is a better solution, the rabbi said, though he criticised the use of chewing gum in general.
“Chewing gum is the practice of lower forms of life. It expresses inner tension and lack of control. People with self-respect do not chew gum except on special occasions because of special circumstances,” he said.
posted by Rabbi Jason A. Miller
Wednesday, February 16, 2005
Spelling Guiliani wouldn't be any easier in Israel!
JERUSALEM - Israelis honored legendary New York City mayor Fiorello LaGuardia, revered by many in the country for his strong Zionist sympathies, by naming a Tel Aviv street after him. The problem is, they can't seem to spell it right.
Eager to correct a long-standing mistake in the Hebrew spelling of the street, Tel Aviv municipal officials consulted the highest authorities before rendering the verdict on a new spelling - only to get it wrong again.
Many foreign names on Israeli street signs are misspelled, reflecting the fundamental incompatibility of Hebrew's 22 letters with the Latin alphabet. Lincoln, for example, usually comes out as "Linkolin."
LaGuardia Street, a major thoroughfare in south Tel Aviv named for the man who led New York from 1933 to 1945, has been known to generations of Israelis as "LaGardia Street" because the original misspelling - reflecting the lack of a "u" in Hebrew - was never corrected.
The offending signs mark the off-ramp from a major highway into LaGuardia Street.
After getting letters and phone calls pointing out the error, Aviva Avigail, chairwoman of the Tel Aviv Municipal Street Sign Committee, sought the advice of the American Embassy and the prestigious Academy of the Hebrew Language to come up with a proper spelling.
The new signs produced by the commission still got it wrong - rendering the street "LaGvardia."
"I contacted them and asked how this could have happened," Avigail told Israel Army Radio on Monday.
Her interviewer, Yaakov Elon, seemed impressed by her forcefulness.
"So in any event, starting today, it will be LaGuardia, as we always should have said it, after Fiorello LaGuardia," he said.
"Right," Avigail said. "Fiorello LaGardia."
posted by Rabbi Jason A. Miller
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About
Rabbi Jason Miller
is the Associate Director of the
University of Michigan Hillel Foundation
. He is a Conservative Rabbi ordained by
The Jewish Theological Seminary
with a master's degree from the Davidson School of Jewish Education. Rabbi Jason Miller has also worked at
Camp Ramah
for several summers and taught at many
synagogues
across the country. He is the director of
Adat Shalom Synagogue
's SYNergy program for Shabbat enhancement and is a visiting assistant professor at
Michigan State University
.
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