MISTRIAL

A mistrial (Legaleese for "start all over again") was declared this week in the big murder trial before Judge Tinkler-Mendez. The Defendant, James Rolle, is accused of killing off duty Miami Detective James Walker. The state didn't  turn over a trial transcript of testimony of a witness in a related trial. Interesting to note that while the prosecution didn't provide it to defense attorneys, the defendant had it. 

Something is wrong with that.

THE TRAGEDY IN ISRAEL. 

Three teenage boys were abducted in Israel a few weeks ago while hitchhiking. They were murdered. A nation mourns the loss of it's sons. 

This madness must stop. Killing children is no way to advance a political cause and settle disputes. 

We came across this missive by Rabbi Ed  Feinstein. 

Rabbi Ed Feinstein:

We Pray for the Children JERUSALEM, July 1, 2014 I visited Israel for the first time when I was 16 years old. I came with my family and we stayed in Jerusalem with friends who had immigrated years before. Each night, the neighborhood kids took me out on the town. When my parents expressed their reservations about this, they were told not to worry. Israel was safe for kids. In Israel, everyone looked after kids. In Israel, everyone was family, there were no strangers. As a protest against the fear that haunted the generations of Jewish exile, Israel had constructed a child-safe society, a child-nurturing society. Embracing children was the way Israel affirmed life after a generation of Jewish death. Only if you understand how Israel looks upon children will you grasp why the tragedy of this week hurts so much. After so many wars, so much terror, after Intifada, suicide bombers and random rocket attacks, why are we so affected by the death of three young teens? Because Israel's greatest achievement was to return the promise of childhood to the Jewish people. Childhood is the most powerful human symbol of renewal --of new life and new possibility, of an open future. The promise of childhood was taken from us in the Holocaust, in the pogroms and in the brutality of exile. Israel gave us back childhood in all its sweetness. And that's what was murdered on a highway near Hebron. "We will learn to sing without you," affirmed the mother of Naftali Frankel. And at that, the entire Jewish people wept.  This is more than politics, more than nations struggling for power and territory. This week, Israel struggles for life against death, for hope against despair. This week, Israel struggles for childhood and its dreams. There will be military operations and diplomatic negotiation. Those will not heal the wounds nor will bring closure. What was taken cannot be won back by bullets, but only by a renewal of hope, a rekindling of faith in tomorrow. So this week, we will hold our children tighter, and we will pray. This week, the entire Jewish people join together in prayer for the children we have lost. We will ask God for the strength to reassure our children that tomorrow is coming....soon. Revenge Killing: In the wake of this horrible murder of three Israeli teenagers, comes word that an Arab teenager: Muhammed Abu Khedir was abducted in front of his home the day after the burials of the three Israelis. Muhammed was kidnapped and murdered  as be prepared to leave for early morning prayers. Muhammed. Age 16.  This is madness. The killing of children as targets in an ancient war between two peoples that have similar roots and supposedly similar values.  There is and never can be any moral justification for the killing of innocent children. Today, Israelis and Arabs need to pause a moment, and collectively hang their heads in shame for these outrageously horrible murders.  Shame on them. All of them. Children are being murdered. THIS MUST END.