Welcome to
Menachem Kuchar's
Stories Site
Telling a great story and spinning a good yarn
[Skip the site introduction and surf directly to the most recent article.]
I have been writing articles, publishing them only via this website for over two years now.
When I started to write, I didn't have an exact idea or a real direction on what I wanted to do here. I thought a Weblog might be a good idea.
On my seemingly never-ending journey across the web, I meet many people monetising their blogs by sharing space with sponsors. There are a number of companies who will populate your "free" space with commercials. If you write interesting stories, provide interesting material or have informative content, people will come to your site to read, be entertained, argue and learn. And if the sponsor provides relevant advertisements, you can make some money.
Harnessing the power of Web 2 (to the use current 'in' terminology) allows content generated by others to be displayed on your sites. That's what Web 2 is. Rather than producing "static" websites in the classic style, you allow anyone out there in the Internet world to write for you. This is great for monetising, as obviously the more pages you fill, the bigger your site, the more advertising "area" you achieve and more money you bring in. QED -- quod erat demonstrandum.
One morning I said to myself, well what the heck, I'll start a blog too, write a few stories, optimize them so the web searches point to me. I won't make it too interesting so people won't mind clicking out and away on the adverts, and I can make a few bucks in the deal.
But things never work out as I plan. In the words of the old Yiddish saying, Men tracht und Gott lacht, roughly translating to "Men plan and God laughs". Google's business model certainly isn't what it was ten years ago -- businesses and people have to be flexible and go with the flow.
But that's OK. I started to become more interested in the creative aspects of writing than the financial side. Maybe art is art and creativity is creativity, and I am using the same skills to write creatively that I use to produce fine-art photography. I think art can be defined as the ability to look at something in the world and use whichever skill or method is necessary to reproduce it in an artificial form. You can take a lump of stone and sculpture, a blob of mud and potter, a canvas and some paint or a camera. If you can see in your mind's eye what the end product will look like, and you can achieve this, then you have created a work of art. Writing falls into the same category. You create a word picture, and the reader smells the salt spray, feels the fog blowing on her face or hears the thunder of a mob of passing brumbies.
So what I really have here, right from the beginning, is more a collection of short stories than a classic blog. (That's got to be an anachronism -- blogs haven't been around for long enough to be "classic" -- but that's the age in which we live -- everything gets compressed in time and place.)
I haven't created a diary, nor a reporting system for any political philosophy. My stories cover much and varied ground. My past, my thoughts, my childhood, my hates, peeves, hatreds, loves . . . all presented in full technicolor on a wide screen.
Answers.com defines a blog (weblog) as a website which displays in chronological order, the postings by one or more individuals, and usually has links to comments on specific postings. Now, some fifty stories later, I certainly do not have a blog.
I believe what I have produced here is a collection of creative writings. A body of stories. What the Australians call "spinning a good yarn". I am the storyteller. I intend to entertain; I am not scared to say what I think, and I don't mind being insulting or mean if I feel the chronicle is enhanced by it, or that this is how I recall the events.
Parenthetically, I should say here that whatever I write is my own take on events and sometimes (not always) I embellish the truth to improve the story line. I do not claim to be writing history (but sometimes it is exactly what I am doing).
Many cultures have traditions concerning story telling. Civilisations pass their heritage to future generations via narratives; elders relating to a younger generation.
Rav Nachman of Breslov said, "The world says 'Stories are meant to help you sleep'. But I say, 'Stories are meant to wake you up!'" Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach said, "The essence of a story is understanding life."
Please enjoy my stories, my yarns. Let me know how they come across; I love to receive feedback and may publish some of it with my comments. If you enjoy my stories, feel free to pass them on to your friends, relatives and acquaintances. After all art, both my stories and my photographs have been created to be enjoyed.
And remember, anything I write here is my humble opinion and only represents my thinking and not that of any organisation for which I may work, consult or do anything else.
Thank you.
Please at your leisure.
And you can still read my original homepage.
Note that commercials on this site are from third party feeds.
While I have no control over them, they are supposed to be tailored to my page content. Feel free to view any of the sponsors' sites that interest to you.
Below is a list of my stories written thus far. Please stay tuned for more. I don't like dating them, but in order to give some idea of timeline, I add a date every now and again. I feel that time is fluid and my stories are immemorial.
- A Strange Savings Bank The Israel summer time wars -- religious or not so
- Another Year Has Passed Answering the Eternal Question
- My Facebook Photography Group
- Letter by my late father-in-law, Shalom Baruch, Sam Fisher
from Palestine Israel to his grandfather in Warsaw, Poland
- My late father-in-law, Shalom Baruch, Sam Fisher
- And even more on My Lettuce Eating Habits
and on the True Story of the Demise of Gush Katif
- More on My Lettuce Eating Habits
and on the True Story of the Demise of Gush Katif
- Why I don't Eat Lettuce or The True Story of the Demise of Gush Katif
- An Israeli School Boy Faces the Atrocities
of Jewish Life in Poland
- A Travelog in Six Parts: Visiting the "New" Jews of Africa -- Arrival to Africa
- Traps for Young Wedding Players -- a short guide to perplexed prospectives
- The End of Days -- The Ultimate Fulfilment of Prophecy
- Would the Real Menachem Kuchar Please Stand or Who am I?
- On Leaven, Sourdough, S'or and Hamets
- A Life Saved by Dog Biscuits
- More on Capos -- A moral dilemma
- The Truth, the Whole Truth, and Nothing But . . . by Howard Nissen
- The Truth Always Comes Out in the End -- Or does it?
- Remembering my Father on Yet Another Anniversary of His Death -- Yartzeit and Kaddish -- An examination of Death
- The Rise of Fair Consumerism in Israel -- From the perspective of both the buyers and of the sellers -- The saga of a rug purchase
- The Tale of the Sage and His Beadle
- A Search for Meaning in the Expanse -- How significant is a link in a chain?
- A Short History of Computational Machines, via my Israeli eyes
- The History of My Family via My Grandmother's Candlesticks
- A Short History of Computational Machines, via my Israeli eyes
- Tuesday Our Sages Tell Us Our Name is Engraved on Our Very Souls -- Our name is our very essense
- Wednesday Ultimately It Boils Down to Greed and Stupidity -- Doesn't it always?
- Monday Capos, Kapos and Nazi Murder Revisited -- How do Holocaust victims, and how should we, relate to Capos?
- Tuesday On Fasting and Feasting on Tisha b'Av-Transition to the End of Days, the Messianic Era or Let the Festivities Begin
- Sunday Facebook conversations with Australian political novices and Hungarian rotten egg eaters -- how many degrees of separation?
- Tuesday Simulating Reality, Prophecy and Physics Revisited -- "You don’t ever want a crisis to go to waste; it’s an opportunity to do important things that you would otherwise avoid." -- Rahm Emanuel
- Tuesday Today is the 17th Day of Tamuz -- Why do we bother fasting?
- Sunday What the Price of Privacy -- Why do we insist on spying on ourselves?
- Thursday Who Will Ascend the Mountain of the Lord, Who Will Stand Erect in His Holy Place -- He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who has not sworn in vain against My soul and who has not acted with deceit
- Tuesday Simulating Reality -- Responses and discussion on the original post
- Thursday Facebook and Styrofoam -- Man is a Social Creature
- Tuesday Simulating Reality --
"I, at any rate, am convinced that He does not throw dice"
- Thursday Why Do Jews Love a Free Lunch? Anything, Anywhere and with Anyone
- Tuesday The Present and Future of Communications and Social Media -- and the Messianic Age
- Monday The Putrid Parable of the Capped CupCakes -- A picky porcine person's particularly prickly problematic predicament
- Thursday The New World Order via the Prophets of Israel
- Tuesday It's All About The Dimensions, Three -- No Actually Four
because it doesn't go away with time
- Monday The Place of the Holy Temple Today
- Tuesday The Road from Presov to Kosice
-- A Mere Sixty Kilometres or an Eternity?
- Sunday Writing and Divine Providence
- Friday The Damsel in Distress The Distressing deTale
- ThursdayIt's a Matter of How You Say It
- Friday, Erev Pesach On Matza, Soccer Balls and Red Wine or How long is a piece of string?
- Tuesday Woosh, Plump, Ploop, Shhhhh
- Thursday On the Psychology of Sex and Wombats
- Monday Stay Away from Bureaucracy. It will swallow you alive
- Tuesday Noachide Meat -- Have we overstepped our dominion?
- Monday Ode to a Body Plethysmograph or How to Manage a Hospital
- Tuesday "My Life Story" by Edith Duci Gluck Kuchar Schwartz
- Wednesday A Eulogy
- Monday The Power of the Web -- Finding a manuscript and a family
- Thursday Another Year Has Passed -- Happy Birthday
- Tuesday Why I Like to Photograph Reflections or Why Do I Always Do Things in Reverse?
- Thursday Interview with Me in Midrasz Magazine published in Poland
- Sunday A DisKosher Disdelight -- Almost eating out on Broadway
- Wednesday What Was the Crime of the Sodomites? Jingoism, xenophobia or sodomy?
- Monday The more things change, the more they stay the same -- On Babel, the New World Order, One World Government, Carbon Trading and Socialism
- Wednesday What I Meant to Say -- Facebook and being Political Correctness
- Monday On Spaghetti Makers, French Management and Assessing Personality
- Tuesday My Holocaust Survivor Friends Tell It As It Is -- Another first hand account from the Amalekite and partners' attempts to annihilate God and the Jewish people in this world
- Wednesday Three Holocaust Experiences:
My friends tell me their stories
- Thurday "What Hath God Wrought" -- Language Detectives at Work
- Friday, erev Rosh haShana "The End is Nigh" --
The clock ticks on -- another step towards the Final Redemption
- Sunday Preying on the Aged i>Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less by Jeffrey Archer
- Tuesday
On Speaking Hebrew: How to pronounce Hebrew words correctly and why this is important
- Wednesday The Human Cost of International Travel -- Jet Lag
- Friday I Love Gush Katif Cherry Tomatoes -- Water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink
- Sunday More of Menachem on Meditation -- Pure meditation techniques from the first Jew
- Wednesday What Makes a Soul? -- Will this be the last Tisha b'Av?
- Sunday Menachem on Meditation -- I didn't intend to worship idols
- Friday A Taxi Ride to Yerushalayim -- or smuggling Jews into the Holy City
- Thursday What if my Liver were to Explode Half Way Through the Event? -- Government Sponsored Citizen Rip-Offs
- Wednesday You're Known by the Company You Keep
- Sunday How Much Would You Pay to Get a Million Dollars?
- Monday A Most Humbling, Though Frustrating Experience
- Thursday What Do Coffee, Tomatoes and Red Wine Have in Common?
- Tuesday They're Out to Kill Us! and no, I am not paranoid.
- Sunday Liars, Damned Liars and Insurance Agents
- Friday On Messier Madoff and Ponzi and all those who were sucked in
- Thursday A Time to Pick Sides -- the time to sit on the fence has ended
- Tuesday Of HUSSEIN Obama, Elie Wiesel, Cairo and Buchenwald
- Monday Hevron in Those Days and Now
- Sunday The Secret Art of Bread Making
and preparation of edible food
- Monday The Conquest of Hevron, the City of Our Forefathers
- Tuesday My First Writing Anniversary: Torah V'Avodah
- Monday Whose Land Is This?
- Thursday Capos, Kapos and Nazi Murder Inc.
Could the Germans have done it on their own?
- Monday The Entire World Must be Upside Down! Passover Eve in Yerushalayim
- Wednesday The Shattering of the Myth -- the Jews of the Galut/Disapora and the Jews of Israel
- Holocaust Memorial Day Smuggling out of the Soviet Block
- Monday The Smell Just Isn't Going Away
- Wednesday Skeletons in My Closet or I think I may smell a rat
- Thursday Some Benefits in Discovering Your Long Lost Relatives
- Sunday Lust and the Use of the F Word
- Thursday The Edomite Nation in Our Time
- Tuesday -- Purim Having a Happy Purim and Surviving Mishloach Manot
- Wednesday The Morality of Diet and Humane Eating -- How a Jew should view eating to live
- Monday Memories of my Father
- Friday The Edomite Nation in Our Time
- Wednesday Cogito ergo sum -- I Think, Therefore I Am; I Don't Think, Therefore Perhaps I Am Not -- What's all this Doublespeak?
- Tuesday Vibrant Colours and the Return of a King to Israel
- Sunday My Uncle the Soccer Star
- Thursday Preparing Pizza for Our Soldiers
- Tuesday The Moon is Made of Green Cheese
- Monday The Conned Con Artist or "He who laughs last, laughs best
- Thursday Confessions After Fifty-Six Years of . . .
- Tuesday Where am I? or perhaps Who am I?
- Wednesday in New York On-board a Transatlantic Flight: Thoughts on different Art Forms
- Monday Hidden Beneath a Cowshed -- Chapter II
- Sunday Hidden Beneath a Cowshed -- Chapter I
- Wednesday America Deposes One Hussein and Elects Another
- Tuesday Is My Phobia of Fat Men Normal? Am I a racist?
- Sunday Plagiarism, Theft, Larceny, Fraud and Impersonation -- On the web and at university
- Wednesday A Clandestine Affair -- Are we in the U.S.S.R. or something?
- Friday Three Old Friends, a Sewing Machine and a Kidnapping
- Sunday So what's in a Name
- The Friday after Rosh haShana, 5769 Returning Home after a Lengthy Absence
- Monday Another Uncle and Another, Very Different, Holocaust Experience
- Thursday An Art Exhibition and a Slice of Pizza for an Israeli Pizza for an Israeli Soldier
- Tuesday The Fear of Revenge and the Great Flood of 1959 revisited after Thirty Years
- Sunday Vintage Lenses on Digital Cameras -- a critque
- Wedneday It's Absolutely Not Only About Numbers
- Sunday The Social Power of the Web or How to Influence Friends and Win People
- Thursday Old Harry, Music and the Lifesaver
- Wednesday Setting the Record Completely Straight re My Aunts
- Tuesday I Once Had an Uncle
- Monday Learning from Experience -- Exhibiting Photographs in New York
- Thursday I Finally Meet My Father's Long Lost Relatives All Around the World
- Wednesday Three Men Spend a Night in a Cold Birmingham Hotel Room
- Fridday 22nd August My Month in the Hands of the Lubos
- Wednesday We Were Such an Evil Bunch -- the real criminals emerge from the woodwork
- Tuesday Don't Play With Your Model Railways in Your Bed
- Sunday Swimming with Orders of Nuns and Phyla of Crustaceans
- Friday The Crimes of the Boy Downstairs
- Thursday My Book Theft Accomplices Speak Out
- Wednesday Amelekites, Nazis and the Enemies of the Jews
- Monday A Hassidic Story in Real Time
- Sunday, 9th Av Rabbi Shurin, Tisha b'Av and Hevron
- Thursday Tying Up a Few Loose Ends
- Tuesday Government and Insurance Company Collusion -- little buttons and fat fingers
- Monday A Story Finally Revealed -- the theft that wasn't
- Sunday, 3rd August -- another month Chocolates and Antioxidants
- Friday Just a Simple Misunderstanding
- Wednesday On Political Aspirations: Do I have to Blog Daily?
- Monday On Akubras, Avatars, Avocations and Slowly Growing Older
- Friday On Worn-out Sports Shoes of Different Brands
- Wednesday Selling on an Auction Site: my first attempt to make a buck on eBay
- Monday, 21st July You are Your Own Big Brother -- Your privacy on the Web
- Friday On Holy Fruit and Vegetables
- Wednesday On Locked Doors, Windows and Gates, and Open Source Software
- Tuesday How Rumours Spread or how do you feel this morning, Bentley?
- Monday Are Old People Just Dumb? or Did I just have a senior moment?
- Sunday "Strunk and White" and Me -- why I write the way I do
- Friday -- hang in there -- shabbos is coming The Lesbian Rabbi Lied to Me
- Thorsday The Arabs are Taking Over from the Europeans
- Wednesday The Seven Year Work Itch!
- Tuesday Super-Highways in Israel and the poor little animals
- Monday Of Hobgoblins and Bogeymen and Politicians
- Friday, July 4th Photography for Propaganda in the Arab-Jewish Conflict
- Wednesday Who wants to drive in Israel?
- Monday The Yellow Monstrosity: Who needs a phone book in 2008?
- Sunday The Cohen Gene, the Samaritans and the Ten Lost Tribes
- Friday More on Social Entrepreneurs
- Thursday again Social Entrepreneurship
- Wednesday Truth is stranger than fiction
- Tuesday You are what you eat, unless your food is raw
- Monday Some Musings on the City of Efrat on it's 25th Birthday
- Sunday The Pleasures of Blogging
- Friday I'm left-handed but nobody bothered to tell me
- Thursday The Samaritans and the Pascal Lamb
- Wednesday, 18th June Am I Really a Photographer?
- Tuesday The Last Event at the Katif Hotel Before All Residents Were Evicted
- Monday My Church or What Happens if you don't Appoint a Successor
- Sunday, 15th June A generation living next to a Used Tractor Salesman
- Friday again (Sorry I had a bad week) A Noisy Gym
- Monday Yom Yerushalayim -- Jerusalem Day
- Friday Sef the Chocolate Monster Rides again!
- Wodensday, 1st June Will someone discover me and make me famous?
The Photography of Menachem Kuchar
- Toosday It's all in the links
- Friday I'm a Chocolate Nut -- Nuts for Chocolate -- Chocolate Addict
- Thursday My Home Town, EFRAT
- Wednesday Vegans, Vegetarians, Raw Food and Whole Food, Plant based Diets
- Monday again Shemita, Shemitah, Shemitta, Shemittah -- the seventh, Sabbatical Year
- Friday, 15th May More on Google image searches
- Thursday Linguistics and Semantics
- Wednesday Another sobering thought
- Tuesday A sobering thought
- Monday, 18th May And this was the start of my Blogging Career -- the entry point
Want to tell me something -- or
have a look at my photograph galleries
(each gallery from a different part of the world
and representing a different theme -
worship in Thailand,
Eating Out in Bangkok,
Sydney Harbour and Beaches,
Hong Kong,
New York and non location themes:
the World in Reflection and
Actualities in Black & Orange).
I've also produced two benchers, birchonim:
Gush Katif and
Hevron (Hebron).
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