jigielnik

They do. Atheistic Jew here in america who agrees with this idea. My israeli relatives, who are secular, also agree with this. The issue is that the hardcore believers in israel don't have to do mandatory military service because their belief says they should study scripture instead. When you have a true stake in the fighting, it doesn't take long to realize that you want nothing to do with it. I think the ultra orthodox in israel should be forced to join the military...

Holy crap... so the reason it's so quiet is because you're literally out-running the sound of the engine.

EDIT: turns out the physics of my statement don't entirely mesh with reality.

I thought that religion is used to make the religious fight!!!

The biggest myth about the state of israel is that it was created for religious reasons. more than 70% of israelis are secular, so secular they would even make many reform jews in America cringe... and Zionism is a completely secular moment.

These extremist, fundamentalist ultra orthodox jews however, are insane. SOme of them, living in israel, don't even recoginze the legitimacy of the government (crazy, right? I have no explanation) And even the ones that do can opt out of military service because their version of judaism says they should spend all available time studying scripture. As such, they are israeli citizens, so when they build the settlements, the IDF has no choice but to protect them, putting themselves (the soldiers) and palestinians in harms way. These fundies have nothing at stake with the settlements... they don't have to be the ones to die to protect them, and they don't care about the people they displace. Extremists give Israel a bad name

EDIT: to specify that its extremist ultra orthodox jews, not all orthodox Jews and not even all ultra orthodox Jews

Tell them there are terrorists with oil on mars, we'll be there by christmas.

Both of my grandparents on my dad's side lost their entire families as well... they just happened to meet post-war in Berlin. They had no one else left.

My grandmother had one friend of her sister's who survived, she was also the only member of her family to make it.

This is the tragic truth of the holocaust. We're just the lucky ones, many families were completely wiped off of the pages of history. My grandmother wrote a book about her experience, she called it (slightly shameless plug) By Pure Luck