Haveil Havalim Blog Carnival #394

Founded by Soccer Dad, Haveil Havalim is a carnival of Jewish blogs -- a weekly collection of Jewish & Israeli blog highlights, tidbits and points of interest collected from blogs all around the world. It's hosted by different bloggers each week, jointly coordinated through our Facebook Group, and headed up by Jack.  The term 'Haveil Havalim,' which means"Vanity of Vanities," is from Kohelet, (Ecclesiastes) which was written by King Solomon. King Solomon built the Holy Temple in Jerusalem and later on got all bogged down in materialism and other 'excesses' and realized that it was nothing but 'hevel,' or in English,'vanity.'

If you are a blogger and would like to submit a post or two for consideration for next week's roundup, please email Esser Agaroth  and put "HH" in the subject line.  If you're a Jewish blogger, please join our Facebook Group.  Volunteer hosts are also being sought. All you need is a Jewish blog and about an hour of your time.

There are a pack of new-to-HH bloggers mentioned, as well as some old favorites, in this week's roundup. It's also a very Israel-centric issue. Not that I'm complaining about that :-)

Don't know if immigrants all over the world do this, but in Israel, it's very common to celebrate the anniversary of the day you make aliyah. In this post, Lauren takes a look back on previous posts on her her third aliyahversary. I'm not gonna lie. I was happy that she mentioned one of my own top posts of all time.

As you might have anticipated, there were a lot of weather-related postings this week. Israel had extraordinary weather - heavy rains throughout the country that continued for days and, on Thursday, real, honest-to-goodness snow in Jerusalem and other places around the country.

In this post, Susan from Aliyah on Purpose, reflects on the weather and her first aliyahversary. As far as I know, Susan is a new blogger at HH. I plucked her from obscurity because she often makes me laugh. It's worth reading her blog, called Aliyah On Purpose, on a regular basis. Not by accident, her daughter writes a blog called Aliyah by Accident.

Ruti from Ki Yachol Nuchal! is planning a wedding (Mazal Tov!) so she didn't have time for a lot of words this week. Instead, she gave us one of her fabulous photo blogs, full of snow shots.

Batya had a busy blogging week. She reflects on the way Israelis react to a lot of rain, the way Israelis react to a little snow, the joy of excellent customer service and why a trip between Jerusalem and Shilo will demonstrate that the Land belongs to the Jewish people.

Besides weather in Israel, the upcoming national elections are on everyone's mind. Shev from they call me SHEV writes about how making aliyah changed her perspective on politics.

Esser Agaroth also had politics on the brain last week, though from a, ahem... less uplifting perspective. In this post, he talks about the nasty side of Israeli politics on the far right .And here, he reflects on the recent choice of the Obama administration and what he sees as the fundamental nature of Arabs.

Continuing on the darker theme of governmental threats to the Jewish people, Rafi reminds us what happened in Germany the day after Kristallnacht in 1938.

Shlomo from Thinking Torah reflects on former Chief Rabbi Rav Ovadia Yosef's controversial statement that yeshiva students are better off leaving Israel rather than serving in the IDF. He also reviewed a new English translation of the Mishnah Berurah this week and suggested what English speakers should think about before they invest.

Back to the joy! Living in Israel impacts all of us. Ima2seven writes about how, after learning more about them, she now views the vegetation that grows out of the Kotel stones in a spiritual way.

Finally, in Sussmans b’Aretz, perhaps another new-to-you blog, Romi writes about an "Only in Israel" experience with ricocheting money. I loved her story so much, I wrote a post about the very same thing.

Go ahead. Click a link. Enjoy more of the world of Jewish blogging.