from the
Holy Land
from
Rabbi Ephraim Schwartz
"Your friend in Karmiel"
January 16th 2025 -Volume 14 Issue 12 17th of Tevet 5785
He didn’t ask me to give his inauguration speech or invocation. He didn’t even ask me to give a blessing or make a L’chaim. I’ll forgive the Donald that. It’s his loss. People pay a lot of money to hear me talk all day long. People print up my E-Mail each weekly for their Shabbos table. Some even sponsor it… after I nudge them enough and drop not so subtle hints. Some… So I’m not offended. I have enough of an ego to withstand this slight. Not as big as his, but a healthy enough sense of self-confidence to withstand it. It’s his loss.
Yet, I really wish that he had asked me to speak. I have some important things to say. Things that would hopefully give him light and guidance in these trying and troubling times. To a large degree our your new red-headed or at least red hair pieced president is the final king of Edom before Mashiach comes. He’s the last descendant of his red headed zaidy, “uncle Esau”, before Mashiach comes. He could certainly use some pointers on how to get out of this thing in one piece. On how to get home. How to take his rightful role since he sold us that birthright so long ago. Yeah… not all his deals were good either…Things that probably nobody else will tell him, besides me. It’s really one of the biggest problems I think facing Israel and the world today. Not enough people are listening to me or reading these E-Mails. This could’ve been over long ago. But I guess that’s just part of the hiddenness of Hashem’s word and light in this final generation.
Now I know that Trump has a lot of good Jewish advisers. Many of them even Frum Jews that believe in Hashem, keep Shabbos and eat chulent. Yet, even they are a little bit intimidated to really speak their minds. Maybe they’re scared of getting fired. We all know he tends to do that. As well, I’m not sure that they all get it either. They don’t all subscribe to my E-Mail. It’s pretty obvious. I mean they’re still living in the States and haven’t made Aliya, right?
So really, like usual it’s just up to me to put it out there. I like Trump. I think that he has potential. He could do the right thing. Much like Pharaoh he even has a daughter that found Hashem and converted. Although I do think it’s funny that Batya, the daughter of Pharaoh found a Jewish boy and called him Moshe- “pulled out” of the water, while Ivanka’s Jewish boy is named Jared- which means to go down.., but we’ll leave that on side.. of the river. As well I believe that just because I wasn’t asked to speak doesn’t mean that everyone else should lose out on the important words of wisdom that I would share. Just like eating has nothing to do with being hungry, my speaking or sharing my opinion, Torah and light- which are really all the same thing- has nothing to do with being asked or invited to do so.
I know you and he were probably concerned about me speaking, because there are those out there that might have told them that I might go on and on and on and have a tendency to speak and write very long. I don’t think they or perhaps even you appreciate how much I don’t say and edit out each week. I only leave the very essential stuff… Ok, now I admit, that’s not really true. But the truth is if they would’ve asked me to speak, I really would have only one very short important message. I could really say all I need to say in a few short sentences. My inauguration speech would be really something like this.
“Bi’rishus all of the great honorees, dignitaries and of course the President and the former presidents and the important kahal that is gathered here today. Mazel tov President Trump on your election. It’s shoyn tzeit, as we say in the frum world. Many Jews have been waiting for this moment longer and sadly more anxiously then for Mashiach. Particularly the ones that need tax deductions and presidential pardons that they couldn’t buy off the last guy. I wish you all the best in this new job. And I have one message, request, and piece of advice for you as you take on this new role for the second time.
Please don’t kill the Jews in your country. Please do not throw their babies into the river and drown them. Please don’t take my friends, family, readers, supporters and clients and put them into concentration camps and gas them to death. Don’t even take the ones that don’t read my E-Mail and have even unsubscribed. They’re my brothers and sisters too. I beg and implore you dear President, despite our many sins as a nation, we still represent that light of Hashem in the world. It’s not your job to destroy us. Don’t even force them to build pyramids in your honor. Jewish construction is really very overrated. We gave that up thirty-five hundred years ago.
Don’t murder us. Don’t persecute us. Don’t try to genocide or October 7th my nation in America or in Israel for that matter as well. Don’t Crusade us. Don’t make a decree to kill men women and children in one day, certainly not in the month of Adar. It really won’t work out well for you if you try. It never does.”
Yes, I know that in every goy our sages tell us there is an innate halachic tendency to hate us. Esau sonei es Yaakov. It goes back a long way and gets restrained here and there over time, but always surfaces. “Never Again” is always again. But you can overcome this. You can be better. You can help us bring Mashiach. I know that its going to be a big task to get the so many that feel way too comfortable over there in the US of A “medina shel chesed”, meatboards, large houses, Teslas and of course Torah like it’s never been learned before to leave and come to Israel where they need to be for the light of Hashem to shine out. But that’s not your problem to deal with. You don’t have to expel them. You don’t have to take away their rights. Their education and yeshivas. Their Pizza shops. Leave that to Hashem.
God Bless the President and the United States of America. Amen…
See, that wasn’t too long, was it? Now, I know that it sounds a little dramatic. And that many of you out there reading this probably feel that this is really not such a necessary speech to be giving. After-all this is Trump, not Biden, Obama, or Kamala. He’s “our” guy. We’re good. Even I voted for him. But the reason I voted for him was probably a little different than yours. See, my feeling is that with the other team it would probably take a lot longer until we get a good Mashiach-bringing, Armageddon-like, Gog U’Magog, Nuclear war. It would just keep on being the same-old same-old pacifying the Amalakite, evil-doers and shlepping this thing out longer and longer. Another few missiles. Another few dead soldiers and attacks. We kill a few more of their “commanders that participated in October 7th attack. (Am I the only one out there that seems to find it strange how many “commanders” there were and are?) But nothing really changes. Another deal. Or not… It’s tiring.
This thing isn’t over until we finally realize that the only end is when it goes ballistic. Literally. Pshuto k’mashma’o as we say in yeshiva. And that’ ain’t happening with the Dem’s. With Trump though, if someone makes fun of his hair or gives him a nickname he doesn’t like, this baby can escalate faster than you can say “Little Rocket Man” in Korean. And that my friends is where we have to get to…
But yes, despite the fact that I voted for him, I’m nervous. I read this week’s parsha. I saw the Netziv in the Ha’amek Davar and it’s insane how similar our situation is and how often this happens to us. Let’s open up the Chumash this week to the story of our first national exile. To the book of Shemot, the book of Exile and Redemption and try to understand what happened to us and what we need to be wary of today.
As we all know the Jews were in Egypt for 210 years. We finished last week’s and the Book of our the story of our Patriarchs with perhaps one of the most chilling endings, according to the Midrash.
And Yosef died at 110 years old and they embalmed him and placed him in a coffin in Egypt.
Chazak Chazak Vi’NitChazek!
That’s it. The end. The Midrash notes that until Yosef died the Jews pretty much stayed in their Ghetto in Goshen. They didn’t assimilate. Yosef made sure of that. But once he was gone, the Jews placed him in a coffin in Egypt. They made a big statue of the founding fathers of Egypt of which Yosef was. They were proud Egyptians and they wrote a lot of books about how the Jews were really behind everything there. Columbus was a Jew. Lincoln had Jewish advisers. We fought in the Civil War. We were decorated in Korea. We were all over that “Jew lover” Roosevelt’s cabinet. Forget about all of the industries we started. Medical breakthroughs. Every Egyptian college had like 50% Jews. Doctors, Lawyers, Pyramids construction. Egyptian nursing homes. We left Goshen and took over Egypt.
The Torah fascinatingly enough doesn’t tell us much about the 100 or so years of the worst persecution and suffering our nation experienced and the cause of it. All it gives us is a verse or two. But those verses say it all.
And the Jewish people were paru- fruitful, vayishratzu- they spread out like insects, they increased and became strong- very very much so and the land filled with them.
We all know this from our Pesach Seder and we all talk about the famous Rashi how they each had 6 children at once (as there’s six terminologies used). But let’s talk real here, what the pasuk is telling us is everything we need to know, the Netziv tells us. What happened is that we basically took over Egypt. The Midrash tells us that when it tells us that land was filled with Jews
“There weren’t any circuses or theaters that weren’t full of the Jews.”
We started the Egyptian Hollywood. Another Midrash tells us that it was in this period, after the death of Yosef that Jews stopped circumcising themselves. The Chasidic Rebbe’s read the words homiletically. The land filled them. We became obsessed with becoming part of the land that we were living in. We hung flags on our doorposts and we’re proud Yankee Fans.
Do you know what it means that they put Yosef in a coffin in Mitzryaim? Yosef, who had done the opposite of what they were doing, Yosef, who never assimilated and was so concerned about that happening. Yosef who named his first son Menashe to remind himself that he wasn’t Egyptian. That he was “displaced” like the gid ha’nasheh sciatic nerve, from his father’s house. Yosef who even went out and circumcised all of Egypt in order to raise them up, rather then to see us fall and become uncircumcised like them. We buried that Yosef in a coffin in Egypt in the bottom of the Nile. We turned him around and fake-newsed him on his head in his grave and spun him into a proud Egyptian that would be our entrance into the Egyptian congress, White House. We became more Egyptian and American then the Egyptians. We all voted for the new Pharaoh whose platform was to MAKE EGYPT GREAT AGAIN. We put those bumper stickers on our donkeys’ backside and proudly felt that we have finally made it. Slavery, persecution, kidnapping that was all stuff of the past. There’s a new Pharaoh in town and we were very very influential. He liked Jews.
The next verse tells us that a new Pharaoh got up that didn’t know Yosef. I’m sure the Rosh Yeshiva of The Goshen Yeshiva University was invited to speak by his inauguration and the Agudath Yisrael of Cairo delegation recited the shehechayanu on national TV. What a Kiddush Hashem… The Israeli flag of the 12 tribes waved proudly behind the Egyptian one. Pharaoh’s cute daughter Batya was even seen eyeing some of the nice Jewish boys over there… When Pharaoh looked out at this nation and the huuuuge crowds. Because Pharaoh always had huge crowds- not like the other guy. He didn’t see Yosef. He didn’t see that old ghetto circumcised slave boy that had once come to Egypt. Pharaoh didn’t see him or know him, because we buried him in a coffin in Egypt.
We had stopped speaking about the Yosef whose entire life was dreaming about returning to Eretz Yisrael. Who despite being given an Egyptian name by Pharaoh of Tzofnat Panayach- which is a pretty impressive title (revealer of the hiddenness), never used that name. He stayed Yosseleh. He never even called himself Joseph. But Pharaoh didn’t see him or know that guy anymore. He saw Jews who had forgotten that they were strangers in a strange land. That every minute that they were assimilating and feeling comfortable over there they were renouncing their divine mandate to return to Israel and bring the Shechina down to the world. Pharaoh looked out at this new strange nation who had maybe still wore their Yarmulkas and Shtreimels and kept their Jewish names and spoke yiddish and Hebrew but were also wearing Charles Tyrill togas and driving Teslas, building their own palaces in a country that they were clearly planning on staying in for a very long time if not forever.
The Navi Yechezkel (chapter 20-a very worthwhile perek to read through) tells us of how the Jews at that time rejected Hashem, how they reached the 49th level of Tuma and how primarily they wished to become “a nation like the others”. They didn’t want to leave when Hashem wanted to take us out. They were happy and integrated and comfortable in Mitzrayim. And thus Hashem poured out his Chamas upon them. Then, as Dovid Hamelech writes
Hafach libam lisno amo- he turned their hearts around to hate our nation.
The Egyptians that were once our best friends. That were our neighbors. Our clients. Our candidates. Our employees that we treated so nicely. That we enriched. Hashem turned their hearts around to despise us. To kill us. To give them thoughts of Anti-Semitism that we will take over their country entirely. That we will join their enemies. So they killed us. They threw our babies in the river. They put us into camps. They took off the yellow ribbons that they were wearing five minutes ago when they said “Don’t’ and “There will be Hell to pay” and turned them into yellow stars that they made us wear. It flipped in one second, because Yosef was dead. We had buried him. We forgot his message that he told Pharaoh “Mi’Biladai Elokim Ya’aneh Shlom Pharaoh- That Hashem is the only one that is controlling the world. And instead we put a big red Pharaoh MAGA sticker on our bumper.
We thought that with his election and the new patriotic American Egyptian Jew that shares a belief in a Higher power-with Pharaoh of course, rather than the Yosef that had the guts to get up by his inauguration and tell Pharaoh that he’s a nothing. That Hashem is everything. That no one has any power besides Hashem. We thought that if he saw a different Jew it would buy us at least another four years before we have to give up our nice house in Pico- Ramses, Pitom- Robinson, Pitom Ramses…. 😊and move to our nice smaller apartment in Shneller.
The Netziv writes that this has always been the problem “it’s why in every generation Hashem sends them up against us to destroy us”. V’ehi She’amda l’avoseinu.
he Netziv lived in a period of Torah flourishing like it never did before with his yeshiva of Volozhin. It was like living in Goshen. They were in the Lithuania but they felt like they were in Jerusalem. A holy Jerusalem. And yet everything turned. The enlightenment movement took hold Jews began to assimilate and the government turned against the Jews in one second. They ordered them- and there were many Jews behind these decrees, to start including secular education, to start reading their newspapers, to leave our bubble and become part of them. One of them. To bury Yosef. The Netziv even agreed to secular studies, but only outside of the walls of the yeshiva. That wasn’t acceptable to them. They couldn’t leave the walls of the Beit Midrash pure. They couldn’t leave Yosef alive. They needed to bury him in a coffin in Lita. In Uman. In Kerister. In Crown Heights. So he shut the doors and started the Chibas Tzion movement. Because he understood that there was only one place to go and one reason Hashem was doing this. He writes then.
“The voice of Hashem is knocking on the entrance of our doors saying, open me up an entrance with our work because the hour has come when it will never again be said that Eretz Yisrael is a land that is abandoned, and none are seeking her out to return to her.”
He never merited to return here. Like Yosef, he was buried there. Yet the Kibbutz Ein Ha’Netziv in the Jordan Valley is named after him. His students made there way here a decade before Herzl’s secular Zionist movement even spoke about a return to Israel. Yet sadly and tragically just as in Egypt 4/5ths of our nation never saw the writing on the wall and perished in slave pits of Europe.
We have two verses that describe that century of our persecution in Egypt. The first is our flourishing. B’Me’od me’od. And the second is the immediate flip. The slavery. The persecution. The decrees. The babies. The beatings. The demonstrations. The destruction and chaos that we never dreamed our friend Pharaoh who we put into office and the country which we built and saved and circumcised could ever bring down upon us. It’s all we needed to know then and it’s all we need to know now. The rest of the Book of Shemot is a story of only two years. The rest of the Torah is about 40 years, of which we really only have details about 2 of them. Yet that first century of our history, of our founding is in just these two verses. It’s a short speech, yet its words our eternal.
The Navi tells us that when Mashiach comes the miracles and redemption will be even greater than when we left Mitzrayim. Perhaps the greatest miracle will be that this time around, we are told No Jew will be left behind. We are all coming this time around. We will all come to the realization that our purpose is not to have an Israeli flag waving humbly behind a sitting president’s inauguration or as one of the hundreds waving at the entrance to the UN. Rather it’s that the flag of Hashem, of Mashiach ben Yosef and Ben Dovid are waving at the inauguration and really the only inauguration that we should be hoping for and even occupied or thinking about. There is only one Melech Chadash- one King who we wish to see inaugurated upon the entire world. Everything else is just Pharaoh in Mitzrayim. May His reign finally be revealed to all.
Have a liberating Shabbos!
Rabbi Ephraim Schwartz
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YIDDISH PROVERB OF THE WEEK
““Ven er iz tsvey mol azoy klug, volt er geven a goylem!.” - If he were twice as smart, he'd be an idiot!
RABBI SCHWARTZ'S TOUR GUIDE EXAM QUESTION OF THE WEEK
answer below at end of Email
4. The city of Beit She'an was known during the Roman period by the name of ______
The Lod mosaic presents scenes related to:
A. Blessing of the Nile
B. Shipping and the sea
C. Binding of Isaac
D. The Zodiac wheel
RABBI SCHWARTZ’S COOL VIDEO OF THE WEEK
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUzeP9J1PyE V’hinei Naar Bocheh abeautiful parsha song nice words.. and idea..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wu1weM-42Y – Kempeh Classics… Fantastic…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLdofCIrHd0 – Matisyahu “The Father’s Live” The Carlebach classic like you’ve never heard before. Like it or not?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kt-wMk59OwM – Ari Goldwag’s latest release Tikva Tova… Beautiful…
RABBI SCHWARTZ'S ERA’S AND THEIR PLACES AND PEOPLE IN ISRAEL OF THE WEEK
The other Pharaoh- 609 BC – We start the book of Shemot this week and we meet Pharaoh. As this column seems to find its way more often than not into the weekly parsha in our journey into the end of the reign and the death of King Yoshiyahu we meet Pharaoh as well. As well, I just started Mesechet Megilla this week with with the Amud Yomi program of Oraysa and it was amazing to find this Pharoah there as well. Cool!
This Pharaoh is called Pharaoh Necho by the Navi. The name our sages tell us he got when he attempted to sit on the famous throne of King Shlomo. The throne was perhaps one of the most incredible ever created. Our sages tell us that it had mechanical animals that would lift him from step to step. The first step was a golden lion facing a golden ox. The second had a wolf facing a lamb. The third a tiger facing camel. The next steps had various birds along the same theme finally when he made it to the final seventh step a golden eagle would fly down and place his crown on his head. I heard that Trump was looking to have a similar one built for his inauguration 😊. Well it seems that when Pharaoh Necho tried to go up this throne that he took from Yoshiyahu the lion gave him a big kick and he became a cripple.
Now this Pharaoh seemingly had a treaty with Ashur or Syria as we know it. Yet there was a new enemy that was rising in the world, that would eventually become a world power and destroy the Temple. Welcome Bavel or Iran to the world domination game. So when Ashur was getting attacked from Bavel who was also in control of Charan which is North of Syria in Turkey. Pharaoh came to help them in battle. It seems that these guys are always looking to join one another in wars that don’t really concern them. Yoshiyahu wasn’t a fan of the idea. We’ll talk about that next week.
Let’s just jump to the end of game of Pharaoh. It turns out that he lost the battle to Bavel. He came back home afterwards and then in an incredible feat he actually sent boats of Phoenicians that served under him to circumnavigate the entire continent of Africa and was in the process of building a canal there connecting the Red and Mediterranean seas. This made him the first King in history to travel and conquer that far to the African coast that wasn’t replicated until the Portuguese sailor Vasco De Gama did 2000 years later!
Yet with this Pharaoh as we will see the beginning of the end of the great Egyptian empire will begin to fall and the new empire of Bavel arises. We are in the last half century before the Churban and the map of the world and the chaos is beginning.
RABBI SCHWARTZ'S TRUMP INNAUGURATION JOKES OF THE WEEK
On the night of his inauguration, Donald Trump is visited by 3 ghosts
Early in the night, FDR appears. Trump asks him "how can I make America great again?"
FDR replies "think only of the people; do not make laws based on hatred, bigotry, or with the thought of lining your own pockets"
Trump's face sours "FAKE NEWS!" he screams and FDR disappears. Trump falls back to sleep.
A few hours later, he is awakened by George Washington's ghost. Trump asks "how can I make America great again?"
Washington replies "I would suggest you never tell a lie", which infuriates Trump. He screams for his bodyguards but Washington is already gone.
Trump asks: Barack, your approval ratings are pretty high. I love ratings bigly. Can you give me some tips?
Obama: The key is having a strong administration. I make sure that my administration not only works hard but is also composed of smart people.
Trump: What do you mean?
Obama summons Biden.
Obama (to Biden): Joe, I have a question for you. Who is a son or daughter of your parents but not your sibling?
Biden: It is me Barack!
Obama to Trump: See, that is how we roll...
After inauguration Trump decides to test this on Pence.
Trump: JD I have a question for you. Who is a son or daughter of your parents but not your sibling?
After some brainstorming Vance says "It is me!".
Trump furious: What are you talking about loser? It is Joe Biden. You are fired!
Obama, Biden and Trump are standing at the throne of heaven. God looks at them and says, "Before granting you a place at my side, I must ask you what you have learned, what you believe in."
God asks Biden first: “What do you believe?"
He thinks long and hard, looks God in the eye, and says, "I believe in hard work, and in staying true to family and friends. I believe in giving. I was lucky, but I always tried to do right by my countrymen".
God can’t help but see the simple goodness of Biden and offers him a seat to his left.
Then God turns to Obama and says, "What do you believe?"
Obama says, "I believe passion, discipline, courage and honor are the fundamentals of life. Like Obama I believe in hard work. I, too, have been lucky, but win or lose, I've always tried to be a true patriot and a loyal American."
God is greatly moved by Obama's eloquence, and he offers him a seat to his right.
Finally, God turns to Trump and says, "And you, Donald, what do you believe?"
Trump replies, "I believe you're in my seat."
A Russian spy under the alias of “Joe Smith” is arrested by American officials. He is put in an interrogation room and confronted by an official, Agent Perry.
Smith: “I don’t understand, why am I being interrogated?”
Perry: “Drop the act, Smith, if that even is your real name. We know you’re a foreign spy!”
Smith: “WHAT? No! I’m a real American, I can name all 46 Presidents of the United States, in order, with the dates of their inaugurations and their Vice Presidents.”
Perry: “We still know you’re a spy!”
Smith: “You’re all wrong! I can name all fifty states, US territories, and all their capitals!”
Perry: “We still know you’re a spy!”
Smith: “Wait… I know every word of the national anthem, the pledge of allegiance, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights!”
Perry: “We still know you’re a spy!”
Smith: “Ok, I submit, I’m a Russian spy under a fake name. But… how could you tell?”
Perry: “Because Americans don’t know any of those things.”
Yankel is elected president. Soon after, he calls up his mother to tell her the good news. "Mom, did you hear, I've been elected president!"
"Oy, Yankeleh, That's so great to hear, darling. I'm so proud of you!"
"So," he asks "you'll be coming out for the inauguration, right?"
"I'm not sure," says his mother, "D.C. is so cold this time of year."
"I'm the president, mom. I can arrange for you to get any sweater you want."
"I'm still not sure," continues his mother, "flying across the country is such a hassle."
"Mom, I'll have you flown out here on Air Force One. It'll be no trouble to you." Finally, his mother agrees.
The day of the inauguration rolls around, and his mother is seated between the Vice President and the Secretary of State. As he’s being sworn in, his mother nudges the vice president.
"You see that boy up there? The one with his hand on the Bible? His brother's a doctor. "
The date is 20 January 2025. Donald Trump has just been sworn in as President. He walks to the mic for his inauguration speech. He looks at Biden and says "You're Fired".
The Pope and Donald Trump are standing in front of the large crowd gathered for his innauguration
The Pope says to Trump, “Do you know that with one little wave of my hand I can make every person in this crowd go wild with joy? This joy will not be a momentary display, like that of your followers, but go deep into their hearts and for the rest of their lives whenever they speak of this day, they will rejoice!”
Trump replies, “I seriously doubt that, with one wave of your hand? Show me!”
So the Pope slapped him.
What did Trump say to Biden when he bumped into him intentionally in the hallway of the White House as he was leaving. Pardon me, please.
An assistant to Donald Trump told him she had a fantastic dream last night. There was a huge parade down Pennsylvania Avenue celebrating Trump. Millions lined the parade route, cheering when the President went past. Bands were playing; children were throwing confetti into the air; there were balloons everywhere. It was absolutely the BIGGEST CELEBRATION WASHINGTON HAD EVER SEEN!!!
Trump was very impressed and said, "That's really great!By the way, how did I look in your dream? Was my hair okay?"
His assistant said, "I couldn't tell, the casket was closed.
If Donald Trump becomes President I'm going to Mexico. Not by choice though.
Trump says to Vance, "China's mining too many ores"
Vance: What are you going to do?
Trump: Order more tariffs to make them mine less.
Vance: Mine fewer.
Trump: Shhh, don't call me that yet.
Donald Trump was asked what the J in Donald J Trump stood for
He said 'Genius'
The problem with Trump jokes: Republicans don't think they're funny, and Democrats don't think they're jokes
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The answer to this week”s question is B – Ok, so we’re back to the half and half scores. I got the first one wrong. I had no clue. I don’t remember all of the old Roman names. I knew that it was an important Roman city one of the Decapolis- the ten ciites that were famous for the Romans. But I forgot that it was called Scythpolis. Although if there would’ve been a multiple choice for this one it could be I would’ve gotten it, as I do recognize some of the other ones. On the other hand, Part 2 I did get correct, but only by process of elimination. I was never in Lod touring that I remember with tourists. But I did know where all of those other choices were. The Zodiac they have in lots of places including Tzippori. The binding of Yitzchak as well is in Tzippori and Beit Alfa and in most places. The b lessing of the Nile is a large Tzippori mosaic. So that left the shipping and sea thing, which made sense as Lod is a port. So I got that right and the new score is Rabbi Schwartz 2.5 Ministry of Tourism 1.5 on this exam so far.
