Rabbi Claude's Scribbles

We are going to play a game. I will quote a slogan devised by a council or city and see if you can guess which area I am referring to:  1. 'The County of Opportunity' (Hertfordshire) 2. 'Putting the Community First' (Barnet) 3. 'Building a Better Borough' (Brent) 4. ' Home of the Derby' (Epsom) 5. 'Inspiring Capital’ (Edinburgh) 6. 'It's not quite heaven, but it's better than Devon'/ (Cornwall - also 'where we sell proper pastys' and other witty examples.) 7. 'Surrey welcomes you to.... Surrey' ‘Public relations’ is key in being able to sell a location to people, who might wish to either visit an area or live there.  Let's look at how the Torah 'sells' Sodom to anyone who wished to live there (a few choice verses) ....  Genesis 10:19 The [original] Canaanite territory extended from Sidon as far as Gerar, near Gaza, and as far as Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim, ne

"In the last Great Invasion of the Last Great War, the Greatest Danger for Eight Men was Saving...One...." This was part of the tagline for what is arguably one of the greatest war films ever made - 'Saving Private Ryan'. When it came out 21 years ago, veterans of the D-Day Landings, such as G.I. Frank DeVita, said that the first twenty minutes of the film were accurate. Others said that they represented the closest that non-combatants could get to the horror that faced the soldiers who risked (and in many cases, lost) their lives on 6th June, 75 years ago on Omaha Beach, Dog Green Sector. Frank was only 19. If you've seen the film, you know how harrowing some of the scenes are, as the eight soldiers fight their way through France to find the elusive Private Ryan and save him - his parents last remaining child. The only one of the his brothers who hasn't been killed in battle. The Israeli Army has a dictum that no soldier is ever left out o