Israel Warns of Al-Qaeda Kidnap Threat in Northern Africa

Wednesday, December 23, 2009

The Israeli government issued a concrete travel warning to its citizens Wednesday afternoon that the international al-Qaeda terrorist organization is intent on carrying out abductions, including against Israelis, in the Sahel countries in northern Africa.

“Information has been received that the organization intends to perpetrate attacks, especially abduction attacks, including against Israelis, in the various Sahel countries in Africa,” read he warning from the National Security Council Counter-Terrorism Bureau.

“Given this concrete threat, the NSC Counter-Terrorism Bureau recommends that Israelis avoid visiting or staying in the following countries/areas: Ivory Coast, Togo, Mauritania, Burkina Faso, Mali and northern Nigeria (about which there already is a valid travel warning).”

The NSC Counter-Terrorism Bureau also requested that Israelis maintain telephone contact with their friends and relatives currently in the above-mentioned countries/areas and update them on their status regularly.

In its warning, the Bureau also pointed out that in the past two years al-Qaeda gangs have kidnapped Austrian, German and Canadian nationals. The terrorists also attempted to snatch four U.S. citizens, but failed.

The Sahel is a geographical and climatic region of Africa that stretches in a swathe across the north of the continent between the Atlantic Ocean and the Red Sea, south of the Sahara Desert and north of the Sudan.

Countries in the Sahel include Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia, Sudan, Chad, Nigeria, Niger, Burkina Faso, Mali, Mauritania and Senegal.

'Imaleh!' Mastering the Fear of Roaches in Tel Aviv

'Imaleh!' Mastering the Fear of Roaches in Tel Aviv - Inside Israel - Israel News - Israel National News

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Seaweed Never Wrapped

Survival in the Seaweed Wrap

So it was my birthday, and my family organized the weekend to end all weekends for me. I was kidnapped, hijacked, spirited away to a fancy resort hotel at the Dead Sea, where my husband and I were treated to an all-expenses-paid Shabbat on the business-class floor of the Isrotel.

Really, it was stunning. The food was marvelous. The service, cordial. My daughter Cobi who works there, showed up Saturday night with her boyfriend Michoel and they took us out for dinner (think about the logic here, folks) in the hotel. The restaurant charged them a mere fortune-and-a-half for the steak dinners they absolutely insisted we eat. My husband of course obliged. I could not -- there was no room left. I forced down some chicken and called it a night.

But it was the gift of Sunday morning that really was the piece de resistance, the challenge to end all challenges. My family treated me to a Seaweed Wrap.

It had begun a week earlier, when Cobi artlessly inquired at the Shabbos table, "What do you think, would Olga (her friend) prefer mud, or seaweed?" I must have looked as confused as I felt, because she clarified -- "We are planning a surprise for her, and I was wondering what you thought she would prefer. Which is better? Which is more pleasant, more therapeutic? Mud, or seaweed?" I of course assured her that seaweed is a better bet -- after all, we who live in Arad can get Dead Sea mud whenever we want it!

Silly me. "You have a Seaweed Wrap at 9:30 am," she informed me when I checked in, in a daze on Friday. To my husband, she said, "And you have an anti-stress massage at the same hour. Now don't be late!" she admonished us both with a grin.

And now here I was, Sunday morning. "Today I am going to make for you a Seaweed Wrap" proclaimed the attendant, a sturdy blonde Russian woman of indeterminate age.

The massage table was covered in blue saran wrap. It looked a little odd.

"Take everything off," she directed, handing me two gauzy-looking fluff balls. "These are disposable underwear and a hair covering. Don't worry if the underwear don't fit -- anyway I will cover you." She then produced a bowl filled with green powder. "This," she announced, "is the seaweed wrap." Uh huh. "I am going to go prepare it while you get undressed."

Lovely. "When you are ready, please sit on the table." I began to wonder if she had had a past life as a gynecologist.

The room was not warm. At the Dead Sea, this is supposed to be an added benefit in the summer.

Returning, she began to slather the green goop, which was now wet, hot, and drippy, on to my back and the backs of my arms and neck. Once covered, she directed me to lie down, and then proceded to shmear the rest of it ALL over me. Everywhere. When it was all used up, she tucked my hands beside me at my sides, beneath my hips, and then wrapped the saran wrap sheet around me like a mummy. (hence the 'wrap' -- get it?)

She followed that by wrapping a sheet around the saran wrap. And then she wrapped a heavy blanket around the sheet that was wrapped around the saran wrap.

"You will stay here for 30 minutes," she instructed. "I am leaving."

Oh really?

"I will be back and forth, I will come in to the room, and check on you, and then leave. You will try to relax, and rest. Okay?"

Did I have a choice?

Almost as an afterthought, she added, "Oh, and my name is Shachaf." She peered at me. "How do you feel? Is everything okay?"

Oh yes. Dandy.

"Goodbye. Rest." She turned the lights down low and stalked out. Over the speakers set into the ceiling, I could hear the sounds of waves crashing softly against the surf, the Dead Sea version of the Pacific Ocean music bed.

And then the ultimate of ironies -- cool jazz, "I could have danced all night." I could not believe it. The sweat began to trickle down into my right ear. Squirming did not help. Resistance was useless.

"I can do this," I told myself. "My ancestors were Russian too. I am tough. I will survive." I resigned myself to suffer in silence. The music changed. More waves. A new selection, and drops of sweat began to tickle my waist. "Let my people go," softly wailed the clarinet.

A tap on my shoulder. It startled me. "Everything okay?"

Yeah.

More music. It took a long time. But 20 minutes more, and Shachaf flicked the brights into action as she started peeling layers away from my sweat-streaked body. "I will help you shower this off," she informed me.

Great. I can't remember the last time I soiled myself so badly that I had to have someone else clean me up. When I looked down, however, I understood: I was a bright, slimy kelly green, the kind of a color that even a lizard mother couldn't possibly love.

No more objections. I let her clean me up. I thanked her for the experience.

I even tipped her.

Isn't that what a birthday is all about?

Buses and Burnings in Arad

On the morning before the Passover seder -- after the momentous Blessing of the Sun -- the menfolk of the family stood around the pile of burning embers at the curb in front of our house in Arad.

Men and boys like to do this. They are enthralled with poking flames and watching the sparks fly up in dangerous masses, somehow.

My daughters had already abandoned the fire in which our chametz -- leavened items -- was being extinguished, bored and busy with other things.

But then we heard the roar of an Egged bus come trundling down the street. That made no sense, because we live at the mouth of a cul de sac. Big Green Buses do not come down to the end of our Dead End street. They turn politely at the corner.

Not today. "Hey, come on out here!" my husband bellowed out to me. Obediently (yeah, sure, OF COURSE) I trotted right out there. NOT. "HEY!!! COME OUT HERE!!"

Okay. The bellowing was rude so I went racing out to scold him. Instead I found a bunch of grinning males, with my husband pointing at the fire. A Big Green Bus was roaring off into the distance.

"Paki dropped off his chametz," he said with a huge smile.

Two nights later, on Friday night, my husband returned from synagogue to the Sabbath meal, chuckling and telling me, "I saw Paki tonight."

Turns out that Paki -- an Egged bus driver and esteemed member of the minyan at the nearby synagogue -- had to work the day of the Passover seder, hours before the holiday.

He told my husband that he had known he would not have a chance to fulfill the mitzvah of burning his chametz, thus eliminating that forbidden substance from his existence prior to Passover, so instead he brought it with him on the bus, figuring he would find a fire as he drove through town.

Once he hit the corner of our street, all he did was look toward our house, and he knew his problems were solved, he said. Other people on the bus forwarded their chametz as well, making Paki a sheliach mitzvah (mitzvah messenger) and my husband the Grand Passover Firebrand.

How could you go wrong?

Blessing the Sun at Masada 5769

Nearly two hundred men, women and children made their way to the top of the Judean desert fortress of Masada on Wednesday, April 8, 2009 in the grey light before dawn.

It was the morning preceding the Passover seder, and there was still much to be done before the holiday began.

What could have brought anyone out at that chilly hour?

Only a rare event, such as the Blessing of the Sun, could have inspired such a pilgrimage.

Once in every 28 years, the sun returns to the exact place in time and space in which it was first Created -- and for this event, Jews around the world rise to the occasion with a special blessing.

But this year in particular was special; the unique positioning of the sun at the vernal equinox is not expected to fall on the morning of the Passover seder again for another 500 years, or longer.