A Slap in the Face

One of the Joys of Yiddish is listening to the comedy of Dzigan & Shumacher, two comedians from Lodz who brought shtetl humor to the early years of the State. They would lampoon every aspect of the emerging bureaucracy and authority of Jewish government.

One of Shimon Dzigan’s quips keeps popping up in my head these days. He said:
“Heint in Yisrooel, der kreditt is gevorden azoi shvach as mir gebt emetzen a patsch in poonem, gebt er doos oich nisht zurick ! ”

[These days in Israel, credit has become so bad, that if you give someone a smack in the face he doesn’t repay even that!”]

How true this has become for our people.

In the good times of zero tolerance, even Labor leaders like Golda Meir would mete out immediate and disproportionate retribution for any attack on our people. Now even the would-be leaders of Likud like General Shaul Mofaz cannot bring themselves to respond to a smack in the face.

On an evening when there are no international headlines relating to Israel, I see a report on Arutz Sheva that our people have gone through 24 hours of security incidents of all different kinds:

• A Kassam launched from Gaza into Zikkim.


• Another Kassam into the Western Negev near a gas station in Mavki’im.


• A third Kassam in the same neighbourhood landed near Kibbutz Yad Mordechai.


• An unexploded Kassam defused near a cemetery in Sderot.


• A female infiltrator on the Egyptian border.


• Four others male infiltrators intercepted at the Gaza border fence.


• A woman driver stoned on Highway 60 in Binyamin.


• Another rock attack on a man driving near Rachelim.


• No less than 26 Fatah Tanzim, Islamic Jihad and Hamas terrorists were rounded up Sunday night in Shechem and Beis Lechem.


• An Israeli Arab abducted and found killed as a collaborator.

This is a day in the life of our people as our neighbors continue to spit in our faces and our leaders still maintain it is only rain.

Dzigan would have little to laugh about these days.
But sometimes a slap in the face is a good thing.
It can bring someone to their senses.
Before it’s too late.