HS Production..

And I thought my performance as priest Francisco De Madariaga was awkward when I was in High School! Definitely things change over time...

Quoting Pilar Rahola

Pilar Rahola is a Catalan nationalist and anti-fascist journalist, writer an politician. She wrote this article that appeared on the kehilla's weekly newspaper, Nuevo Mundo Israelita. I'm going to quote her on this article, because I found it funny, sarcastic and at the same time interestingly refreshing to me as a jew:

Un chiste lo resume de forma magnífica: un día, un judío subió a la montaña y, al bajar, aseguró: “Dios es la verdad, y la verdad está en la Ley”. Se llamaba Moisés. Siglos después, otro judío aseveró: “La verdad es Dios, y Dios es amor”. Se llamaba Jesús. Luego apareció otro que, sin amor divino, aseguró que la verdad era el dinero. Era un tal Karl Marx. Después llegó Freud y situó la verdad algo más abajo del bolsillo, en la zona crucial de la entrepierna. Y, para acabar el círculo, apareció el judío Einstein y lo barrió todo: “La verdad es relativa”.

"this paragraph can roughly be translated as this: A joke resumes this in a magnific way: One day, a jew climbed to the top of the mountain and when he came down he assured "G'd is the truth, and the truth is in the Halacha (the Law)". His name was Moses. Centuries after that, another jew came and said "The truth is G'd, and G'd is love". His name was Jesus. After that, another one came and, whihout a trace of divine love, assured that the truth was the money. He was some guy named Karl Heinrich Marx. After that came Sigmund Schlomo Freud and he placed the truth was a little below the pockets, in the crucial area between the thighs. And at the end, to finish the circle, Albert Einstein Koch showed up and swept everything off by just saying "the truth is just relative"."

Just a few words that make me so proud of being jewish...!עם ישראל חי

Charming Panama..

After opening my account at Banistmo, who was recently acquired by HSBC and who will become HSBC Panama soon, and especially after Roxana, the nice and courteous lady who helped me opening my account after I shocked her telling all our sad stories about the tight currency exchange controls we have been living under this f**kin' government, we went to a HUGE Kosher supermarket to buy some food, and then left for the Royal Decameron Playa Blanca Resort, which is approximately 1.5 hours away by car. The only word I have to say about the hotel is Excellent. I can't complain, definitely. Good food, excellent drinks, nice beds, nice and clean beach, excellent service. Perfect :-)

At the end of my stay in Panama, we went to many places in the city, sort of a quick tour. Actually I don't like quickies, but oh, what to do, I had no time! I LOVED the old city, UNESCO World Heritage Site, which is slowly being restored to its original Spanish port charm.

and of course, the Panama Canal! what impressed me the most was not the magnificence of such a work of hardcore engineering, but how pristine and practically untouched is the rainforest that surrounds the Canal. Ja, natürlich, that rainforest feeds the Gatún river, the river that feeds Gatún Lake, one of the largest artificial lakes, and hence Panama Canal, what really moves this country's economy because it has no natural resources and needs the income that generates the canal, especially now that they're expanding it (yeah, making it wider so post-panamax ships can cross it) and enforcing the country as the commercial, financial and transportation hub of the Americas, something that COPA Airlines is definitely committed to achieve and dethrone Miami :-) After that, I returned to Caracas, via Bogotá, flying Avianca, so I could earn more SkyMiles.. I will come back, Panamá. Promise

Ma, I'm in Panama City!

One thing I didn't like that much of traveling to Panama was having to wake up at 3:00 AM to leave for the airport, and once I was there at 3:55 AM, the queue was full already so I had to wait for about 35 minutes to check my luggage and ticket. Oh, and the transit area at El Dorado Airport in Bogotá 9I flew Avianca to earn more Delta Airlines' SkyMiles. Otherwise, I loved it! Especially Tocumen International Airport in Panama City. Very modern and efficient, a real example of how an airport becomes an intercontinental hub :-)

And there was my friend Ivan, laughing at me because I was furious with Digitel, because I called a week ago to activate my international roaming service, and it was NOT activated! Thank G'd he knows some guy at Digitel's roaming service who activated my phone's. I was indeed pissed off, but seeing Panama City's sykline from the highway that brought us from the airport was definitely a relief. Very, very nice, as in the real estate mags we get here in Venezuela, with all the projects and prospects for buying a flat there .. well, here

I survived מאה שערים...

..this time I don't mean the fast itself, but the thing that on the eve of the fast of the seventeenth of Tammuz, I attended a farewell party for rabbi Mamrutt, the rabbi who used to give shiurim every thursday to a group of young people in Los Chorros. The problem was actually where the party was; it was going to be held at Bet Shemuel, a sephardi haredi synagogue in La Florida with a branch in the eastern part of Caracas, in Los Dos Caminos. These guys have the closest resemblance to Mea Shearim one can find in Caracas and due to this, I was kinda scared to attend, despite feeling affection for the rab. Anyway, I told Dani (my mentor and one of my best friends) about it and aksed him for counseking on what to do; so, he told me to go, since I was invited by the rab himself, but told me to follow their customs or at least not offend them by following these rules:

• Do not wear eye-catching colors like red, orange or light green
• Do not wear scratched/tore pants or pants with holes, like the "modern" jeans
• Do not wear too tight t-shirts
• Do not wear a crocheted kippa under any reason; do wear a dark-colour velvet or satin one
• Do not wear sandals or anything that shows your feet
• Do not wear too much cologne
  
• Sit down quietly and listen to every speech, and don't chat during the speeches, and
• DO NOT kiss any girl under any circumstance!

Anyway, I went down to the supermarket and bought two cans of Pringles, which are kosher and Josef told me to take to the party and then took a cab, dressed sharply neat, in a combination that might have been approved by them: dark jeans (something between dark green and black), a white long-sleeved shirt (a designer one; sorry, I'm a Delta Nu) under a black long sleeved sweater, brown Merrell shoes, a little mousse on my hair and a black velvet kippa. And most importantly, my three-week beard which Dani thinks makes me look like a hidden taliban in an israeli suit, hehehe.

The outfit proved to be so bloody good that Mr. Garzón, the president of Bet Shemuel (sephardi synagogues have a president, who leads the administrative part, and the rabbi, who is the spiritual guide) got close to me as soon as all the speeches ended and asked me what my name was, and if I attended a synagogue. Natürlich, I told him "my name is Carlos Manuel, Carlos Manuel Colina, and I go to Bet El". He just smiled widely and said "well, welcome to Bet Shemuel, you are welcomed any time you want to attend shiurim, pray or just visit us". I was kinda scared because nobody except my rabbi in there knew I am converting, so that would cause a BIG problem. Perhaps my looks helped me -thanks Mom and Dad for making me look the way I do, so perfectly northern moroccan that a Melillero would always tell me that I look like so-and-so- and the fact that I sat down, paid attention to all of the speeches, the brief shiur and prayed the Kaddish the way it should be done; in fact, it was the most perfect Kaddish I have ever prayed without a prayer book, hehe :-D

Every single aspect of my conversion should have the slogan used by McDonald's - I'm lovin' it!

الجنّة الآن

Last night I saw the Palestinian movie Paradise Now. I have to admit that I kinda liked it.. no, I really liked it. Even though I consider myself a zionist and sometimes a kind of revisionist, I realize that the palestinians need a place to be in the Middle East..the problem is that two people consider the same piece of land as their own, regardless of who's right and who's not, who's managed it better and who's not. I understood the despair of some palestinians trapped in an underdeveloped place that is collapsing due to poor mismanagement and lots of corruption, while some bloody guy brainwashes them saying that if they kill israelis, they will go to heaven guided by two angels. How can he prove that? Bullshit!

Another thing I liked was Suha becoming the guys' conscience, with the contrast that he is the daughter of a great Palestinian militant. She insisted on telling them that there are other ways to achieve what they want, and she was giving a try. And the last scene, when they depart from tore down, seized by gangs and chaotic Nablus and enter the secular, open coastal and very european Greater Tel Aviv (the Gush Dan) passing by Ramat Gan and its impressive skyscrapers. A stark contrast that made me think a lot of what we should do to solve the Israeli-Palestinian problem, to somehow help aleviate the damage we have done accidentally and intentionally.. but not forgetting that the other arabs (and many palestinians abroad) simply don't seem to care much, except for Jordan. Hizbullah doesn't care about the Palestinians, they just see their support as a mean of conquering the whole Middle East, expel all jews and christians and impose an Islamic State from Morocco to Mumbai; that's all

I even liked the final scene. The guy did what he thought he wanted to -give a meaning to his poor life. Too bad he took a lot of israelis on his way..