Issue 140

NEW REVELATIONS

100 TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE MENDEL BEILIS TRIAL

inside

IS YESHIVA T CHOVEVEI TORAH ORTHODOX ?

Our

BOYS in

ISRAEL

AND THE CHALLENGES

OF LONG-DISTANCE PARENTING

ISSUE 140 OCTOBER 23, 2013 19 CHESHVAN 5774 $4.99 OUT OF NY/NJ $5.50 CANADA $6.00 UK £3.99 EUROPE €5.50 ISRAEL NIS 14.90

KOSHER FOOD IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS?

TURKEY EXPOSES TEN ISRAELI SPIES

KEEPING KIDS FROM IMITATING THEIR FATHER

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Departments

8 12 14

EDITORIAL Is Open Orthodoxy Orthodox?

LETTERS ATIONAL AND N INTERNATIONAL NEWS YOS SI KRAUSZ

18 20

SIGHTINGS AND CITINGS BEN ROSEN

EWISH NEWS J Halal and kosher food in public school— New Haven cemetery database RAFI BERGER AND NESANEL GANTZ

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EWISH LIVING IN: J Linden, New Jersey E LIANA M EIRA RANTZ

26 28

BUSINESS YEDI DA WOLFE

MBASSADORS A A deal he will never forget SARAH MASSRY

30

UNCH BREAK L With Menachem Lubinsky

32

ARNOOOSA P Our third choice MAURICE STEI N

64 66

MY WORD!

HE JOURNEY T Taking on Shylock

68

SK A My husband is a bad example.

70

HE SHUL CHRONICLES T Guest speaker

72 74

BRAINSTORM

NE SANEL GANTZ

ASH ER V. FI NN

RABBI SHOLOM FRI EDMANN

RABBI SHAI S TAUB

RABBI MOSH E TAUB

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STREETS OF LIFE The princess, the pea and the periodical RABBI MORDECHAI KAM ENETZKY

Features

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S PYVIEW: BUCHARDT II The Nazis who got away JOHN LOFTUS

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O UR BOYS IN ISRAEL How can you keep tabs on your bachur when he’s learning overseas?

YOSSI KRAUSZ

54

H OW BIZARRE CAN A BLOOD LIBEL BE? One hundred years after the Mendel Beilis trial, his grandson and new research reveal the eccentric characters and strange courtroom antics that made a man into a hero DOVID ZAKLIKOWSKI

YITZY YABOK

THE HUMAN EXPERIENCE Secrets in a Texan Jewish library DOVI D ZAKLIKOWSKI

In the News will return next week

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RABBI YITZCHOK FRANKFURTER

Is Open Orthodoxy Orthodox?

Y

eshivat Chovevei Torah (YCT), the flagship institution of Rabbi Avi Weiss’ “Open Orthodoxy” movement, has been on the fringe of the Orthodox community since its founding in 1999. In April 2006, YCT applied for accreditation with the Rabbinical Council of America, the major American association of Modern Orthodox rabbis, which would have made YCT graduates eligible for RCA membership. When it became apparent that the request would be denied, YCT withdrew its application.

Recently, things have become even more contentious. This past October 6, when YCT installed Rabbi Asher Lopatin as its new president, the ceremony featured a panel on rabbinic training that included non-Orthodox clergy and educators. That invitation evoked much reprimand from various corners.

In a communiqué and series of articles issued by Rabbi Avi Shafran as spokesperson for Agudath Israel, the Agudah “took that institution to task for crossing a particularly bright red line by inviting non-Orthodox Jewish clergy to make presentations at a ‘roundtable’ entitled ‘Training New Rabbis for a New Generation’ at its installation of a new president.” Other noted commentators voiced similar condemnations.

Incongruously, YCT founder Rabbi Avi Weiss is a talmid of Rav Yoshe Ber Soloveitchik, zt”l. Rav Soloveitchik expressly forbade cooperation with heterodox movements in matters of religion and theology. YCT, however, in total disregard for Rabbi Soloveitchik’s ruling, declares in its mission statement: “[YCT promotes] actively pursuing the positive and respectful interaction of all Jewish movements.”

The admonitions directed against YCT’s recent cross-denominational activity ironically seemed to confer upon it a certain degree of credence and legitimacy as an Orthodox institution, as otherwise it would be superfluous to point out that its latest venture is a breach of Orthodox principles. If YCT is not in actuality an Orthodox yeshivah, as many believe, then the invitation to non-Orthodox educators cannot be considered “crossdenominational.”

The question that consequently begs to be asked is: By condemning YCT’s invitation to Conservative and Reform clergy, are we not inadvertently sending the message that YCT is Orthodox?

There are other inconsistencies to contend with as well. Several 8 A M I M A G A Z I N E / / O C T O B E R 2 3 , 2 0 1 3 / / 1 9 C H E S H VA N 5 7 7 4

commentators cited at length the defenses YCT offered for its actions, with which they then took issue. If YCT is in fact heterodox, it would seem that they were doing precisely what they said YCT isn’t permitted to do: engaging in theological dialogue and debate with a non-Orthodox movement.

The cause of these discrepancies seems to lie in the fact that “Orthodoxy,” a non-halachic term, is a confusing label, since it has no objective, legalistic criteria. Furthermore, as Rav Shamshon Rafael Hirsch, zt”l, stated, “It should be pointed out that it is not ‘Orthodox’ Jews who first introduced the term ‘Orthodoxy’ into Judaism. It was the modern, ‘progressive’ Jews who first applied the epithet ‘Orthodox’ to their ‘old-style,’ backward brethren to distinguish them, in a derogatory sense. Initially, the oldstyle Jews resented this label, and rightly so. ‘Orthodox’ Judaism knows of no variants of Judaism. It views Rabbi Asher Lopatin Judaism as one and indivisible.”

In an article entitled “So-Called Orthodoxy: The History of an Unwanted Label,” Professor Jeffrey C. Blutinger of California State University, Long Beach, wrote: “One of the stranger aspects of the polemical arguments between German-Jewish reformers and traditionalists that took place in the middle of the 19th century is their odd agreement on the singular inappropriateness of the term ‘Orthodox’—literally ‘right believing’—to describe traditional Jews.

Instead, they disagreed about who was to blame for the use of this label, with each group attributing its origin to the other.”

Rav Hirsch in fact preferred the label “gesetzestreu” (“true to the law”) to describe authentic Jews. Were we to employ that term in the conversation about YCT instead of “Orthodox” many of the incongruities would dissipate.

Indeed, why should we use the imprecise language of unlearned journalists when we can utilize terms recognized by halachah? The correct question to ask is whether or not YCT is “gesetzestreu,” or Torah-true, for which there are objective standards and tests, not whether it is “Orthodox.” And if it is determined that YCT is not “gesetzestreu,” as seems to be the case, then it follows that it is forbidden for Torah-true Jews to engage in any activity in conjunction with that institution, rather than chide YCT for engaging in cross-denominational activity with other heterodox movements.

YCT’s belated classification as a non-Torah-true movement needs to be articulated sooner rather than later. That would free up the Torah-true community to tackle far more important issues.

•

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LETTERS EXECUTIVE CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER

Rabbi Yitzchok Frankfurter

CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD

Chesky Kauftheil EDITORIAL

EDITOR IN CHIEF

Rabbi Yitzchok Frankfurter

A PICTURE OF A GADOL Thank you for the work In reference to Issue 138

SENIOR EDITOR

Rechy Frankfurter

Dear Editor:

S P E C I A L

I S S U E  S P E C I A L

I S S U E  S P E C I A L

I S S U E  S P E C I A L

I S S U E

A NATION MOURNS

MANAGING EDITOR

Yossi Krausz

RABBINIC EDITOR

Rabbi Moshe Taub

RAV OVADIA YOSEF ZT " L 5681— 5774

1920 — 2013

I would like to thank you for the incredible job you did with the special edition this past week on Rav Ovadia Yosef, zt”l. My husband and I bought numerous publications with the hope that this way we could learn a lot about the Rav, and we were most impressed with the variety of articles that your magazine had.

The very first piece was incredible, truly capturing in a nutshell who and what Rav Ovadia was. While there are no words to adequately explain the greatness of such a man, that piece brought him to life, especially for those who are unfamiliar with the Rav. We also appreciated the various interviews with the different family members. As much as Rav Ovadia Yosef, zt”l, was well-known for how approachable he was to all of klal Yisrael, the articles captured a special part of him—the part that was a husband, father and brother. All the articles were written beautifully, as they tried to impart the greatness that was lost. I hope that many other readers took the time to read and learn about Rav Ovadia Yosef, zt”l, and were inspired as we were.

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEWS

CONTRIBUTORS

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Toby Worch

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Zack Blumenfeld

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Malky Friedman

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THE SON: CHIEF RABBI YITZCHAK YO S E F

THE DAUGHTER: RABBANIT ADINA BAR-SHALOM

THE BROTHER: R ’ N A I M OVA D I A

T H E S E C R E TA R Y : R ’ A M I R K RY S PA L THE RABBI OF HADASSAH H O S P I TA L : RAV MOSHE KLEIN T H E TA L M I D : RAV YITZHAK DWEK

ISSUE 138 OCTOBER 9, 2013 5 CHESHVAN 5774

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LETTERS BRINGING HOPE TO A CHILD A mother responds

In reference to “Editorial,” Issue 139

Dear Editor: How does one say thank you for fanning the flame of hope, for the spark of delight in the eye of a child? Or show appreciation for unconditional affirmation and for encompassing and validating the pain and the efforts of one young child?

Or give gratitude for cheering him on and for making it all worthwhile? I have yet to find a way. But thank you I must, for the article in Ami that we saw just this morning was masterful. And it did all of the above.

I was humbled and once again blown away at Hashem’s omniscient serendipity.

It follows us and it guides us and it blessedly directs us. It has been an honor to be even a tiny part of such a touching moment. Thank you again.

We have such great appreciation and gratitude to you for helping to be able to restore Rafael’s faith in himself, and for being able to encompass this story. It takes a special heart. Rafael has been my greatest gift and when he walks into the room, he literally takes my breath away. But in the last years, his life has become more complicated and we are hard-pressed to remind him of how special he really is and how much he inspires us.

Truth be told, it is not my story, or Rafael’s or even Rabbi Goldberg’s. As he so eloquently told Rafael last night, it is the story of am Yisrael, their strength and temerity and determination: their singleminded devotion to this G-d Who believes in us much more than we believe in Him, and Who is so very, very good.

May you go mei’chayil el chayil and continue to bring much nachat to the Borei Olam. And I can only wish that you will be the catalyst of many, many more such moments on behalf of am Yisrael. We are an extraordinary, remarkable nation— Mi k’amcha Yisrael. And it takes such a fine publication as yours to remind us of it again and again.

I feel it is important to Rabbi Goldberg with Rafael Levy add an important footnote to this entire story. There are many organizations that do a tremendous And it teaches them to never be afraid. It amount for sick children. There is certain- takes the powerlessness and the weakness ly something about children with medical and turns it into being empowered, purchallenges that pulls at some very particu- poseful and focused. And it takes the delar heart strings and pulls deeply. People bilitated and the incapacitated, the broken are so generous with their time and their in body, and makes them warriors and heresources, as only am Yisrael could be. roes, and whole in spirit. It teaches them And the children are always thrilled with that it does not matter how betrayed they balloons and clowns and presents and are by their bodies, because their hearts, even trips. And they are a blessing and a their minds, their spirits and their souls godsend. are what will shine forever. That is where The thing, though, that sets Rabbi the light comes from. And it is indeed a Goldberg and KKC a world apart is that, light that lights up the entire world. It is a although a child does not get a balloon or light of true life that ironically is given to a toy car, he gets something much more those who face death. valuable, and that is the gift of himself— Candies and toys are here for a moment of his power, and of his significance and and their sweetness fades, remaining but a purpose in this world—something many wistful memory. Empowerment is the gift adults will spend a lifetime looking for. of a lifetime, and indeed the gift of life.

This amazing learning module teaches these children to reach deep inside to With much gratitude and best wishes, depths definitely unexplored up until now, and depths they never believed they had. Debby Levy 1 9 C H E S H VA N 5 7 7 4 / / O C T O B E R 2 3 , 2 0 1 3 / / A M I M A G A Z I N E

13

NEWS

NATIONAL AND WORLD

A CLOSER LOOK

ANALYZING THE NEWS THAT MAKES A DIFFERENCE

Betrayal in the Middle East?

WILL TWO “MODERATE” MUSLIM COUNTRIES BREAK WITH WESTERN COUNTRIES?

Protesting Morsi’s ouster

I

n the dangerous and chaotic Middle East, alliances are important. Western countries, at odds with countries like Iran and Syria, need allies in order to maintain influence in the area. But two new stories, involving Egypt and Turkey, may indicate cracks in important regional alliances.

One came late last week, with the Obama administration’s announcement that it would reduce funding and supplies

for Egypt’s military because of its role in bloody crackdowns on Muslim protestors.

The State Department said that support for counterterrorism efforts and security in Sinai would not be curtailed. But the Egyptian foreign minister, Nabil Fahmy, told Al-Ahram that US-Egypt relations were in turmoil, and that the entire Middle East could suffer.

Tally Helfont is the managing director of

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the US-based Foreign Policy Research Institute’s Program on the Middle East. She recently wrote an article discussing the dangers of the US reduction in aid to Egypt.

Ami spoke to her about the administration’s move and the possible repercussions in the region.

Helfont says that the administration has not released the exact amount of aid they are planning to continue to provide.

BY YOSSI KRAUSZ

“I think that they’re being pretty cagey about releasing those figures. Secretary [of State John] Kerry has made several statements emphasizing the fact that the aid that has been cut isn’t going to negatively affect their government’s ability to function and move in the direction it needs to go.”

Though there had been concern expressed by Israeli officials about the cuts, Helfont says that she doesn’t believe that they will actually have an effect on Egyptian military readiness.

“Most people are saying that the specific funds and the delivery of large-scale military systems that are being withheld are symbolic—a slap on the wrist—but that they are not going to have a dramatic impact on the Egyptian military’s functioning. It will have an effect on the relationship [with the US].”

She says that there is a debate in Egypt about the importance of US aid. “Some in Egypt say that they don’t really need US support. They have Saudi support and support from the Gulf States. Others say that this support is important.

“This money never went to the [Egyptian] people, and the people are now empowered, so they care less.”

Is the Obama administration doing a good job here?

Helfont said: “A lot of people have been critical of the administration and have said that this is a muddled response, that they’re trying to have it both ways. I do agree with that to some extent. And I do think that the decision came very late in the game. I think that it is a step but it doesn’t go far. So it’s neither here nor there. And it’s very much based on domestic pressure on the president to react.”

She says that Egypt’s interests in a relationship with the US extend beyond the financial benefit. For example, though the Egyptian military of yesteryear was trained

by Soviet military advisors, for a number of years the training has been carried out by US military forces.

The US, for its part, has many benefits from its alliance with Egypt, including physical access to the Middle East region through overflight rights and access to the

Suez Canal. Counterterrorism and intelligence assets have also been a plus for the US. Helfont doesn’t see any government outside of the region becoming a rival to the US for Egypt’s allegiance; Russia, in particular, still has a prickly relationship with Egypt since their military cooperation ended.

Instead, the US may find itself competing with Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States for open influence, and it may find Iran attempting to exert its will covertly.

“It had seemed, however, that because of the situation in Syria now and all the trouble this was causing Turkey, that there would be an incentive for at-least-tactical cooperation between the two countries [Turkey and Israel]. But this cooperation doesn’t get to the news, so we don’t know if it happened or not.”

She believes that secularists inside Turkey would see this news as unwise, because it hampers Turkey’s relations with the West.

But she says that Erdogan’s Islamic party

“Some in Egypt say that they don’t really need US support. They have Saudi support and support from the Gulf States.”

One of the regional players that had been seen as resisting Iranian influence in the region has been Turkey. But revelations by The Washington Post’s David Ignatius this week may throw that into doubt. Ignatius quoted “knowledgeable sources” as saying that animosity between Turkey and Israel had reached such a fevered pitch last year that the Turkish government had revealed the identity of up to ten Iranians spying for Israel to the Iranian government.

The Iranians had been meeting their Mossad case officers inside Turkey, where the Turkish intelligence service, the MIT, had been able to monitor them.

Gallia Lindenstrauss, a research fellow at the Israel-based Institute for National Security Studies, says that Turkey’s move is surprising. “This is something that could make other countries hesitant on whether to cooperate with Turkish intelligence.”

The Israeli intelligence services have had a relationship with their Turkish counterparts since 1958. But Lindenstrauss says that there had been worry for some time in Israel about the choice by Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to put former Turkish army officer Hakan Fidan in charge of the MIT in 2010, because of Fidan’s close relationship with the Iranians.

faces little organized opposition inside Turkey.

“A former member of his party, who is now the Turkish president, is also significant.” She says that there is a rivalry between Erdogan and the president. “He is the only one who can hold back Erdogan, but it seems that currently they are coordinating their steps.”

Lindenstrauss says that the report from Ignatius would not come as a surprise to policymakers in the US or Israel; they would have already been informed well before this. But she says that it comes as NATO has reacted with suspicion toward the purchase by Turkey, a NATO member, of an air-defense system from China rather than NATO countries. “Even Russia would have been better than China in the eyes of NATO,” she says, because of the fear of espionage or interference by the Chinese against NATO. She says that the Israeli public, also, is reacting angrily to the news about Turkey.

The apology that Israel finally begrudgingly made to Turkey over the deaths of Turks during the May 2010 Gaza flotilla incident now looks like an uneven exchange. “It looks like Israel is making all the concessions,” says Lindenstrauss.

1 9 C H E S H VA N 5 7 7 4 / / O C T O B E R 2 3 , 2 0 1 3 / / A M I M A G A Z I N E

15

NEWS

NATIONAL AND WORLD

Shutdown Fallout WHERE THE CHIPS FELL FOR REPUBLICANS The end of the government shutdown and the raising of the debt ceiling until February have been widely viewed as a defeat for the Republican Party. But not all wings of the party have fared the same. Despite widespread criticism and a low approval rating in the general US population, Texas senator Ted Cruz, who some see as an architect of the recent crisis, is doing well at home and within the conservative wing of the Republican Party. He recently

LIFE IN NUMBERS

won almost as many votes in a presidential straw poll at the Values Voter Summit as all of the other candidates combined. In Texas (which in some ways is the only place that counts for him), he remains very popular. And he made about a million dollars in contributions in the days after his filibuster.

For Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who shepherded through the deal that brought the government back online and raised the debt ceiling, there is less to be happy about. Republicans were scandalized by the revelation that the bill to do all that included $1.2 billion in funding for rehabilitation of a lock and dam system on the Ohio River between Kentucky and Illinois,

Scared in Europe

Over the last few years, there has been a steady stream of news from Europe about the rise of anti-Semitic groups and the burgeoning power of Muslim communities, which often promote antiSemitism. Attacks on Jews in France or Denmark or the Baltic States have given worldwide Jewry a frequent sense of déjà vu.

All the time, there has been an underlying question: How has the threatening atmosphere affected the Jews of Europe? A new poll

Percentage who refrain from wearing yarmulkes or other Jewish clothing in public:

Sweden —49% France —40% Belgium —36%

Percentage who say anti-Semitism has increased in the last five years:

Hungary —91% France —88% Belgium —87% Sweden —80% Germany —60% Britain —60% Italy— 60% Latvia— 39% Percentage who have experienced an anti-Semitic incident in the previous 12 months:

Hungary—30% France —21% Germany—16%

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of Jews in nine European countries has looked at that question.

Results of the survey, which was conducted by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, have not yet been published. But JTA obtained preliminary results, which show that fears of anti-Semitism are high. Is the viability of European Jewish communities in danger? The results show that for some communities that might be true.

Who perpetrated the anti-Semitic incident?

Muslims—30% People with left-wing views —22% People with right-wing views — 19% Percentage who say they don’t report anti-Semitic harassment to the police:

75%

Percentage who say they don’t report physical assaults to the police:

64%

Percentage from all countries who avoid Jewish events or sites because of security concerns:

22%

BY YOSSI KRAUSZ

a favored project of McConnell’s. McConnell didn’t write that part of the legislation; two other senators did. But conservative groups have pointed out that McConnell could hardly have failed to notice the funding, since the entire bill was only 25 pages long.

This issue has already made its way into ads attacking McConnell and supporting his primary opponent, Matt Bevin, who is attacking McConnell from his right flank.

And Democrats may be the huge winners here. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee posted its best nonelection-year fundraising ever this September.

unleash your miles {Corporate accounts our specialty}

The Enemy of Your Enemy Is My Friend WHO IS AFRAID OF A DEAL WITH THE IRANIANS? There have been signs that the US and Israel may soon have a conflict over negotiations with Iran. In the wake of the recent round of six-party talks with Iran, US officials have floated the idea of allowing Iran access to billions of dollars in frozen assets if the Islamic Republic makes concessions in regards to its nuclear program. That contrasts starkly with Israeli prime minister Netanyahu’s recent push to keep sanctions as strong as possible until Tehran capitulates entirely.

But it is not just Israel that is unhappy. Saudi Arabia, always at odds with Shiite-dominated Iran, has been showing signs of discomfort. One subtle rebuke to the US came when the Saudis recently refused a seat on the UN Security Council, citing the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict, continued nuclear proliferation in the Middle East and the impunity of the Syrian regime in killing its own people as signs of the Security Council’s lack of leadership.

Despite the Saudis’ historical reliance on Washington, they’ve begun discussing a regional security organization for Arab states.

The Saudis appear to be frustrated that Washington is fickle enough to consider overtures from the Iranians seriously. And despite the differences between the Saudis and the Israelis, they may begin sharing both a distrust of the way the US is handling the Middle East and a determination to use political pressure or even military might to take a different direction.

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Ben Rosen

Sightings&Citings Synopses of, and excerpts from, interesting items that have recently appeared here and there —and sometimes way over there—in the media

CHIP ON HIS SHOULDER Conspiracy theory takes root in the brain The Egyptian actor Hassan Youssef has a fascinating explanation for what he sees as bizarre behavior from his friend, Muslim Brotherhood spiritual leader Youssef al-Qaradawi: The Israelis must have planted a chip in his brain.

MEMRI translated an interview that Youssef gave to Dream 2 TV. Initially, Youssef claimed that recent statements by Qaradawi, apparently extremist ones, must have been made by a double.

Eventually the interviewer asked him about his claims that a chip had been planted in Qaradawi’s brain: “[Y]ou even suspect that Israel has planted a chip in his brain—which is a metaphoric way of saying that it has taken control over his mind…”

Youssef retorted, “It’s not a metaphor.” He went on to accuse Israel of planting a chip Considering the people who’ve won in the past, it’s not such a joke.

in the brain of the nephew of King Faiswal of Saudi Arabia’s, who killed Faisal in 1975.

“I’m afraid many people have got chips in their brains recently,” the interviewer responded.

T he Egyptians have Jews on the brain; that’s for sure.

THE ANNEX AS AN ARCADE GAME? Video game designer “remembering” Anne Frank JTA reports that a German video game designer is developing an interactive video game that will depict one tense day in the life of Anne Frank.

Kira Resari’s game, “Anne Frank,” is supposed to put the player in the position of Anne Frank during a day in October 1942, described in her diary, on which her family’s hiding place was nearly discovered.

The Anne Frank Center in Berlin and the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam have not yet examined the game.

Resari says that he designed

the program as an “interactive experience” that is not supposed to be “fun.” He said, “It’s more like you get carried away, touched, and perhaps moved to tears.” He said that he “would not give away the ending.”

U nfortunately, we know the ending.

LIKE FATHER… Top burial spots for Nazis The son of Nazi war criminal Erich Priebke said that, for all he cared, his father “can be buried in Israel so they will be happy,” referring to “the Jews.”

JTA reported on an interview that Jorge Priebke gave to a Buenos Aires newspaper in reaction to the refusal by Italy, Argentina, and his father’s hometown to allow burial of the Nazi.

Priebke, who died at age 100, had served 15 years of a life sentence for his role in the March 1944 Ardeatine Caves massacre, in which 335 men and boys, including about

MAYBE NEXT TIME

NOBLE AT THE NOBEL? “It sounded very real to me because, first of all, they had very distinguished Swedish accents.”

—Economist Robert Shiller, co-winner of the 2013 prize in economics from the Nobel Foundation, about how he knew the phone call from the committee wasn’t a prank.

Swedish scammers, take note.

75 Jews, were killed south of Rome.

Jorge Priebke accused Jews of being more interested in events 60 years ago than deaths today, and said, “The case against my father is a forgery made by the Jews.”

S omeone should really take care of those wicked Jews, no? Oh, wait…

“[It] should have been mine.”

—Syrian president Bashar Assad, commenting “jokingly” on the Nobel Peace Prize award to the group destroying Syria’s chemical weapons, according to AFP.

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JEWISHNEWS

Will Halal Activists End Up Making Public Schools Kosher?

B

A CONTROVERSIAL BILL IN NEW YORK’S LEGISLATURE

ills making their way through the New York State legislature, originally intended to provide a halal meal option in public schools, may cause kosher food to become available in such schools as well.

State Senator Tony Avella and State Assemblyman Felix Ortiz introduced the legislation in their respective legislative bodies. The initial language of the bills would require that in any New York State city with a population of 1,000,000 or more, schools with at least a quarter of their students practicing halal would be required to offer a halal option for meals.

Those bills were in response to community requests, legislators told Ami. One of those advocating for a halal option was Mazeda A. Uddin, the national women’s chair of the Alliance of South Asian American Labor (ASAAL), a board member of the Bangladeshi immigrants’ rights group SHEBA, and a Queens Democratic County Committee member. She spoke to Ami about the push for halal food, which she has been working on for years, because of her own experiences.

“I’m a mom of five children. I moved to the US in 1985. When I came here, my eldest son was only four months old, but after four years, when I sent him to school, I found that my son was crying, because he couldn’t eat the meat. He would say, ‘All the other children are eating meat. Why can’t I?’ “He was starving and hungry when he

came home. Once I took him to the hospital because he hadn’t eaten the whole day.

When he would come home, he was so weak that he couldn’t do homework. And that was the way I raised five children.

“At one point I thought that private school would be a better choice, but the same thing happened there.”

Uddin says that she found that she wasn’t alone.

“There were so many parents with the same situation. It was common knowledge that I was involved in New York City politics, so they begged me to do something.

“There are 1.3 million Muslims in New York State and over 100,000 students in

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the public schools. That’s ten percent of the students; one out of every ten students is a Muslim.”

(That percentage is actually true only in New York City, where public schools serve about a million students and where the vast majority of the state’s Muslims live, not in New York State.)

“My children recently told me about a boy who was suspended because he went out of school to get halal food from a food cart. This just isn’t right for students.”

Mazeda Uddin says that she isn’t limiting herself to what the legislators have passed so far. “I’m not emphasizing only public schools. This should be true in pri-

BY RAFI BERGER

vate schools as well.”

Uddin says that fears about the cost of halal food are overblown. “Only the meat part of the menu needs to be changed,” she told Ami; the rest of the menu can stay the same and be acceptable to Muslims.

Plus, she told us, the fact that Muslim children fast during Ramadan, despite the fact that their parents indirectly pay for those months also through taxes, means that the public schools save money for an entire month that should be used to provide halal food the rest of the year.

Uddin said that she is fighting for kosher food to be provided in public schools as well, though her efforts have focused on halal. (She mentioned several times that kosher food would partially help Muslims, as well, because some Muslim leaders rule that kosher meat may be used when halal is not available.)

She complained that some politicians have said that the push for halal food is related to terrorism or “like Al-Qaeda.”

She responded, “These are our children. Muslim students are not Al-Qaeda.

Muslim students are not terrorists from birth.” (She went on, however, to say, “You make them terrorists. They want to negotiate. If you don’t hurt anyone, they won’t hurt you”—all statements that might be seen as undermining her point to some extent.) But she said that she has been encouraged by the support that the bills have received so far.

But when we contacted legislators who have been involved in the Senate and Assembly bills, it became clear that the way forward may not satisfy Ms. Uddin.

The present bill is in committee in both bodies and may undergo major changes.

Celia Dosamantes, communications director for Assemblyman David Weprin, who is a cosponsor of the bill, told Ami that the current plan in the Assembly’s committee is to change the bill to provide a vegetarian menu rather than a halal one, which would be permitted under the rules of halal but would not single out a specific religious diet. That would also keep down

the costs of such legislation.

While that change might be technically acceptable to halal eaters, it wouldn’t satisfy Mazeda Uddin’s demand for halal meat in the public schools.

(At present, the New York City Department of Education actually does provide a vegetarian option to schools. Marge Feinberg, a spokesperson for the department, told Ami: “We offer a vegetarian menu option to schools. The vegetarian menu must be approved by the school community as well as the principal. PS 244 in Queens is the only one to have this option for all its meals five days a week. We do not offer specialty meat. Our vegetarian option offers an array of non-meat dishes.

In addition, many students who prefer specialty meat bring their own lunches from home.”)

Ami spoke to State Senator Avella about the bill, as well, and he revealed that a different direction is being taken in the Senate.

“I’ve changed the bill now,” he said, “because I had always thought that the public schools had already offered vegetarian meals and kosher meals for the students. But I found out that they only offered vegetarian meals. So I’m in the process of changing the bill so that it’s not just halal and it’s not just kosher. It would be that for any religious diet where a school’s population is 25 percent [observers of the diet], the Department of Education would have to make those accommodations.”

(It’s clear that at least a couple of public schools would end up serving kosher meals under the new bill. There are two public Hebrew language charter schools in New York City. Staff at Harlem Hebrew, one of the schools, told me that the meals they serve are kosher but are paid for privately by parents, and that there are at least 25 percent of the students who keep kosher.)

Senator Avella says that there has been no fiscal analysis of the bill yet. “Obviously there would be some costs. But I think that whatever costs there are would

“My children recently told me about a boy who was suspended because he went out of school to get halal food from a food cart.

This just isn’t right for students.” be outweighed by the religious aspect of this. We have to be fair to everybody. Religious freedom is one of the paramount principles of this country.” He did explain that the requirement of 25 percent of the population was an attempt to make costs reasonable.

Since the Senate doesn’t go back into session until January, Avella says that discussions of and votes on bills won’t begin until about February. Right now, he said, it is in the Rules Committee. He said that he is hopeful that the bill will be passed this coming year.

Is the introduction of halal foods into public schools a problem? Ryan Mauro of the Clarion Project, which monitors the spread of radical Islam and sharia law, told Ami, “We are fine with Muslim students being served halal, as long as equal accommodations are made for students of other religious groups and it is not forced upon non-Muslims.”

The plans being talked about by legislators would indeed meet those criteria.

Bizarrely enough, accommodating Muslims may soon mean that kosher food will show up in the public schools.

•

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21

JEWISHNEWS

Novel Cemetery Database in New Haven

HOW AND WHY RABBI GREER SAVED 26,000 JEWISH KEVARIM FROM ETERNAL ANONYMITY

A

lmost three years ago, New Haven resident Rabbi Greer’s wife experienced a difficult pregnancy. She was carrying twins and was hospitalized for over a month due to complications. Sadly, one of the babies passed away. Rav Greer needed to arrange the burial of the stillborn twin. “I didn’t want to simply bury her and move on,” explains Rabbi Greer.

“I wanted her to be in Eretz Yisrael. Her passing was beyond what we can understand, and I felt that Eretz Yisrael would be the proper place for her. I contacted the chevrah kaddisha and they told me that they never bring nefalim to Eretz Yisrael; it’s just not done. However, because we had advance notice (it was still several weeks before they were due to be delivered), I asked if they might make an exception and arrange it. With Hashem’s help we were able to bring her to burial on Har Hazeisim.

Afterwards, I wanted to do something to express my hakaras hatov to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, something meaningful that would have an impact on others. Then it hit me: Right here in New Haven there are kevarim four blocks from where I grew up; my wife and I are both from New Haven.

I also knew there were cemeteries not far from in dire need of repair, and I thought perhaps I could do something.

New Haven, Connecticut, was once a blossoming city of Torah. The first Jews on record came in the 1840s, with an influx arriving from Russia at the turn of the last

century, creating a new Jewish enclave on American shores. In 1917, its vaad ha’ir invited Rabbi Yehuda Levenberg from Volozhin to become the city’s chief rabbi.

A gifted orator, he would speak on a rotating weekly basis at each of the different synagogues in the community.

Rav Levenberg founded his yeshivah circa 1920, and enrollment quickly swelled. Many great Torah leaders were associated with it, including Rav Yaakov Ruderman and Rav Moshe Feinstein who were rebbeim there. Rav Ruderman’s father-in-law, Rav Sheftel Kramer, served as mashgiach and is buried in New Haven.

Prominent talmidim of the yeshivah include Rabbi Shachne Zohn; Rabbi Nochum Dovid Herman (son of Rabbi Yaakov Yosef Herman of All for the Boss); Rabbi Chaim Pinchas Scheinberg and Rabbi Menachem Zvi Eichenstein. In 1930 Rav Levenberg

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moved to Cleveland, bringing the yeshivah with him. Several years later, the Rav was stricken with a brain tumor, and had to go to New York for treatment. Rav Ruderman took the remnants of the yeshivah to Baltimore and founded Ner Yisroel.

There are approximately 26,000 Jews buried in some 40 cemeteries throughout southern Connecticut; 20 cemeteries are within the New Haven city limits. Sadly, many of these are in dire need of restoration, and with no existing records of who is buried where, finding a loved one’s final resting place has been nearly impossible for decades. That is, until Rabbi Eliezer Greer, property developer and manager of the Yeshiva of New Haven, made an effort to change that.

On Rabbi Greer's recently launched searchable online database (http://www. yeshivanewhavensynagogue.org/cemetery. asp), all one has to do is enter a last name.

A click takes you to a detailed plot locator complete with drawings, maps and directions.

It took Rabbi Greer over two years, and in his own words, “literally days upon days of walking” to complete this task.

“Most of these cemeteries were mainly used by frum people,” he explained, “probably close to 80 percent. Sadly, over time, more and more people stopped being observant and the number of non-halachic burials increased. Numerous Torah luminaries are buried in these cemeteries, giants in Torah who were renowned talmidei chachamim in their day. Many of

BY NESANEL GANTZ

them were pioneers who transplanted solid Torah ideals to the shores of America. These include Rabbi Gershon Grossman; Rabbi Avraham Hefterman; Rabbi Chaim Bick, Chief Rabbi of Lynn, Massachussetts; Rabbi Tzadok Bailey, mara d’asra of Sheves Achim Bnei Yaakov of New Haven; and Rabbi Avraham Abba Rosen, who passed away in 1915 and was chief rabbi of New Haven prior to Rav Levenberg. The most famous person, however, is Rav Levenberg himself. He ultimately left New Haven due to the changing attitudes toward frumkeit, but stipulated in his tzava’ah (will) was that he be buried here. His resting place has become a popular place for people to come and daven.”

How did Rabbi Greer take his plan from dream to reality? “I heard of a man named Rabbi Dr. Edward Cohen who had documented various cemeteries in Connecticut, Massachusetts and New York in the late 1980s. Unfortunately, some of his writing was unclear and the lists were out of order, but the information did help me greatly in compiling the current database. Most of these cemeteries were no longer affiliated with any synagogues to help with their upkeep, although some were managed by the local Jewish Federation, which basically means non-Orthodox. I approached them with my idea and asked to join the board, explaining that I do property management for a living. In no uncertain terms they said, ‘No way, no how.’ They weren’t interested in having a frum person on the board. Well, I declared my intent to begin documenting my findings, and told them that they couldn’t stop me from walking around cemeteries. After completing several of the frum ones, they called me and asked me to document the plots in their cemeteries as well.”

“Only if I can join the board!” was Rabbi Greer’s response. “They had a lot of funding, and I wanted to be able to channel some of those funds into renovating several of the cemeteries where frum people were buried. For example, many cemeteries had walkways for kohanim that were impassible because of weeds and trees blocking

“One woman found her grandmother’s kever and arranged a minyan to recite Kaddish on her 99th yahrtzeit.” the paths. They ultimately relented—and that was the beginning of a positive relationship that resulted in a great kiddush Hashem. Many of the board members have admitted to me that they were unaware of the halachos involved as well as basic Jewish burial customs. We now work very well together. In fact, on October 20 they’re having a dinner to honor me for the work I’ve done.”

How is a digital cemetery map created?

“There’s a very talented computer expert named Esther Murrof who works in the Yeshiva of New Haven, where my father is menahel. She helped me create the digital renderings. I walked through the cemeteries and documented each person’s name, date of passing and birth date when available. I also took countless pictures and made drawings of their actual layout. It took me well over two years.”

The response has been overwhelming. “I

was happily surprised by the global interest in the project,” he said. “The secretary at the Federation tells me they’re getting ten calls a day from people looking for graves. I myself get at least four or five calls or emails daily. I received an email from someone in Rishon LeZion in Eretz Yisrael who was able to locate a great-grandfather who passed away in 1875. Another was from a woman who found her grandmother’s kever and arranged a minyan to recite Kaddish on her 99th yahrzeit. I also helped a woman find her parents. They had passed away only 20 years ago; because she hadn’t visited in a while, she had forgotten where they were buried, and was able to locate them through the website.

“The positive feedback I’ve gotten makes all the hard work well worth it. It was quite a journey, but I was determined to preserve the memory and honor of those who have passed on.”

•

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23

JEWISH LIVING IN

Linden, New

There are about 125 families, of which 25 are young families

W

hen looking for a Jewish community in New Jersey, Linden is not the first place that comes to mind. It should be! The Jewish community in Linden had a resurgence ten years ago. Under the leadership of Rabbi Joshua Hess, the community has slowly transformed into a place that people are excited to move to.

Congregation Anshe Chesed, the hub of the Jewish community, encompasses the full range of modern Orthodoxy. There are woman who cover their hair with sheitels

or tichels, and those who only cover their hair for shul. Members are eclectic in their backgrounds and beliefs, which fosters a caring and accepting environment. It’s a welcoming community where no one will judge you by what your profession is or how you dress: Everyone will accept you for who you are.

Young families started moving in, joining the more established members, and the trend continued. Not only have families been consistently moving to Linden (seven in the last year, with three more in the process), but the community is growing internally as well. In the past five years

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REAL ESTATE Housing in Linden affordable. You can rent a two-bedroom apartment for around $1,000 per month. Home prices range from $225K to $400K and home rentals average around $2,000 a month. All of these housing options are within close proximity to the shul and fall within the eruv.

there have been over 20 babies born, with more on the way. There are about 125 families, of which 25 are young families.

Jersey

BY ELIANA MEIRA RANTZ

 WEATHER

Linden is part of Union County, which gets 48 inches of rain per year and an average snowfall of 26 inches. The number of days with any measurable precipitation is 120. On average, there are 205 sunny days per year. The July high averages 87°F. The January low averages 22°F.

on the chance to spend Shabbos afternoon with their friends.

Moreover, Linden’s surrounding communities offer various kosher food choices and many educational opportunities. The newest addition to the Linden community is the Vaad of Linden, under the supervision of Rabbi Hess, which has successfully kashered three local establishments—Rita’s Ices, Dairy Queen and the bagels at Clark Bagels. The Clark ShopRite Bakery is next on the list to become kosher.

Anshe Chesed also hosts a simchah hall, The Grand Orchard, where you can celebrate birthday parties, brisim, bar and bat mitzvahs, and weddings.

One of the most exciting things to happen in Linden is the Mikvah Project.

In July 2013, we broke ground on a new mikvah on the grounds of Anshe Chesed.

Construction is moving quickly and the plan is to have the mikvah up and running within the next year.

Getting There From NYC: Easy car, train and bus access: 30 minutes From Boro Park: 30 minutes From Lakewood: 45 minutes From Monsey: 45 minutes



What is unique about Anshe Chesed is that it is a community in the truest sense of the word. Everyone has the opportunity to contribute their talents and volunteer their time to the success of various programs.

Members of the community participate in a variety of committees, including Youth, Food Services, Education, Religious Activities and Membership. Congregants are encouraged to participate in these committees and daven for the amud.

In line with the recent internal growth, Anshe Chesed offers babysitting every Shabbos during services, and for most shulwide events as well. There are also youth groups every Shabbos that include davening and age-appropriate learning opportunities. During the winter months, family learning is available prior to Minchah for children third grade and up. This proves our commitment to the youth of the shul.

In addition to providing learning opportunities for the youth, there are many adult education programs. There is Mishnah Yomit prior to Shacharis and five minutes for halachah following Maariv daily.

On a weekly basis, Rabbi Hess runs Lunch and Learn, and History and Halachah Breakfasts. Every Shabbos morning before shul, Rabbi Hess runs a Gemara shiur. All interested parties are welcome to take part in any or all of these opportunities.

Sunnyside Park is transformed every week into the Shabbos Park. All the young families gather with their children to share snacks, play on the swings and slides, socialize, learn some Torah and even celebrate birthdays. No one wants to miss out

From Israel: 10-12 hours by plane to Newark Airport, 15-20 minutes away by car.

Anshe Chesed is a family-oriented community with exciting things to offer. Spend one Shabbos in Linden and see what all the fuss is about. We can guarantee that you’ll be coming back for more.

•

To submit a community’s story or to have your community featured here, please contact us at submissions@amimagazine.org.

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25

BUSINESS

l NEWS

B Y Y E D I DA WO LF E

Google’s Big Break WHERE THE CASH CAME FROM

I

n 1999, Google wasn’t making any money. Conventional wisdom at the time was that there was no money in search; banner ads were the way to go.

Investors were nervous, because Google produced the best search results but no income. Meanwhile, competitor GoTo.com was raking in cash with a novel advertising model: paid search. GoTo.com’s investor Bill Gross concocted a pricing scheme where advertisers had to pay for page-views, offering text-ad placement by auction. Gross says the “whole point of Internet advertising, I thought, was accountability.” But GoTo signed a deal with AOL that basically forced the company into focusing on its ad business, giving up search, at the same time that Google cold-called its first customers for keywords. (Source: Slate.com)

Data Point Child labor is down, but 168 million children still work.

(Source: Wall Street Journal)

168

million

Is China Holding A British the US Hostage? Bubble LARGEST US BONDHOLDER USES DEBT DEADLOCK FOR POLITICAL GAIN

Chinese officials, among others, criticized US policymakers for the political gridlock that almost led to default on US Treasury bonds.

A Brazilian investment banker warned, “Once you are so important, you cannot toy with your role in the financial system.” China’s Xinhua news agency called for a “de-Americanized” world. As the United States’ largest bondholder, China’s warnings make sense, except that its government continued to invest in US Treasuries throughout the deadlock, increasing its exposure to American debt. The US is still the safest haven for China’s extra cash. And it’s possible that China can wield its status as America’s single largest foreign creditor as a political weapon. (Sources: NPR, Financial Times, New York Times)

10

WAYS TO

RAISE

PRICES WITHOUT LOSING CUSTOMERS 1. Be honest.

2. Thank your customers.

3. Explain your costs.

IS THE UK ON THE BRINK OF A HOUSING CRISIS?

4. Add features.

As UK housing prices soared 16 percent in the past year, fewer young people are able to join the ranks of homeownership without family loans. Neighborhoods like once-dangerous Hackney now have trendy cafes, as people are willing to buy “anything that’s for sale,” according to agents. Yet the International Monetary Fund and OECD say the UK housing prices are dangerously high, blaming a construction deficit of nearly 100,000 units per year. Economists foresee a potential real estate bubble as the Helpto-Buy program makes credit easier to access for young people, requiring only 5 percent down on properties worth up to 600,000 pounds. (Source: Salon.com)

6. Over-deliver for at least 100 days.

5. Offer a lowerpriced option.

7. Add more value.

8. Emphasize reasons for a price hike other than improving profit margins.

9. Explain, but don’t apologize.

10. Let customers know in advance and offer to upgrade them before the increase.

(Source: Inc.com)

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l AMBASSADORS / / KIDDUSH HASHEM IN THE WORKPLACE

BUSINESS

A Deal He Will Never Regret HE COULD NOT FORGET THE FACES OF THE CITY’S POOR CHILDREN

BY SAR AH MASSRY

He thought of the children.

Winter was coming.

Were these children properly dressed to face a harsh Yerushalayim winter?

S

itting behind the large mahogany desk in his posh Manhattan office, David’s mind drifted to his recent trip to Israel.

Although it had served as a lovely and much-needed vacation, he had witnessed things that had greatly disturbed him. Sure, he had heard about the severe poverty in Jerusalem. He’d read the descriptions in the tzedakah appeals and letters that were regularly mailed to his home; he had even seen pictures of it. Yet witnessing it first-hand had left a stark impression. When he had left his five-star hotel and walked through the streets and shuls of the old Yerushalmi neighborhoods, David had seen too many children with torn shoes and tattered clothing. He saw countless men—and women—begging for money on the streets. In the shuls and yeshivos, he was approached by learned and respectable Yidden who had to beg for money too. Over the course of his weeklong trip, he had, unfortunately, heard quite a number of heartbreaking stories.

At the time, he had done what he could; he donated generously, to as many needy Yerushalmi Jews as possible.

But, he decided, I did not do enough. I can do more. I will do more.

He thought of the children. Winter was coming.

Were these children properly dressed to face a harsh Yerushalayim winter? The nights, in particular, could be brutal. Was there sufficient heat in the old Yerushalayim apartments to keep the small children warm?

David understood that although he could not solve the deep and severe poverty in Yerushalayim singlehand-

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edly, he could make a difference—and every bit would help. Thus he made his decision: He would do what he could to help keep these children warm. No, he couldn’t provide sufficient heating for all the apartments. But, as the manufacturer of various products—including children’s pajamas—he had the ability to provide warm winter pajamas for the children.

Within the next few hours, an acquaintance of his put him in touch with Reb Yankel, an askan in Eretz Yisrael. He explained his idea to Reb Shmuel.

“That’s a wonderful idea,” Reb Yankel replied, “and I can surely find children who can use the pajamas. But how will you get them here in time for the winter?”

“I’ll figure it out,” David answered.

“The pajamas will arrive in Israel before the winter. Your job will be to take over from there.”

David was determined to find a way to ship them and used all his business skills to make it happen. A lift was sent to Eretz Yisrael with thousands of pairs of plush and warm children’s pajamas. Once they had reached their destination, Reb Yankel took over, and made the necessary arrangements to distribute the pajamas to needy children in Yerushalayim.

When David received the update about the successful distribution, he smiled. As Reb Yankel informed him, he had brought genuine happiness— and warmth—to the poor children.

This deal was not a profitable one—at least not monetarily. But it is one that gave David the most satisfaction in his business career. l To submit your story for this column or to have your story featured here, please contact us at submissions@amimagazine. org.

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l TALK // WEEKLY INSIGHTS FROM BUSINESS LEADERS

BUSINESS

B Y N E S A NE L G A NT Z

Name: Menachem Lubinsky

Established: 1984

Age: 64

Position: President and CEO

Lives: Flatbush Company: Lubicom Marketing & Consulting Background: Menachem Lubinsky is the founder of Lubicom Marketing & Consulting. Born in Germany, he came to America when he was one year old. He has a master’s degree in marketing and advertising from Baruch College. He has consulted for many major companies including Sprint, Coca-Cola and Nestlé. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife Hindy, a graduate school director of speech language pathology at Touro College. He has three daughters and ten grandchildren.

LUNCHwith BREAK Menachem Lubinsky How did you get into consulting?

I was vice president of public affairs for the Agudah and did all of their public relations, including marketing, for many years. I then decided to go on my own and opened my own marketing and consulting company. While we still do marketing for many companies, lately I have been hired more and more as a consultant for strictly business purposes.

Besides training, what qualities does a person need in order to become a consultant?

I think there has to be a special skill set with knowledge of the overall business environment. You have to be a

people person. A big part of business and selling is to be a people person.

In all of your years of consulting, is there a constant quality you have seen in successful businesses?

They all shared the same quality: the desire to succeed.

Doesn’t everyone who works or starts a business want to succeed?

Of course everyone wants to make money, but in order for a business to succeed you need to focus 100 percent of your attention on it. A business needs to be babysat. The people who are successful are people

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who give their all to their business.

You can’t have your hand in many different pies and still be successful.

On the flip side, is there a common reason why businesses fail?

Yes: when the business venture is not thought out properly. If you have a wild idea during Shemoneh Esrei and your wife agrees, that doesn’t mean it will work. You can’t sell hair tonic to bald people or typewriter ribbons in a modern world. Believe it or not, most people don’t do enough research into their business. That’s a main reason why they aren’t successful.

What advice would you give to

the average person today struggling with parnasah?

Whether in a job or in business, remember two things. Things don’t happen overnight, and you should not be afraid to start out small or in a low position. Especially when looking for a job, I cannot begin to tell you how many times I have seen people take jobs that were “too low” for them, only for that to lead to more successful positions. Additionally, always learn. Regardless of what your job description is, always look over your shoulder and try to learn what the other person is doing. The more knowledge you acquire, the more equipped you are to be successful.

What is the best business advice you have ever received?

The best advice I’ve ever received is to be honest in business. Good oil swims to the top. While you might think that you won’t make money if you are honest, eventually you will make more money by being honest. Being honest always pays off in the end.

What is the first piece of business advice you would give to others?

Be realistic and make sure you are basing your business on reality, not dreams. You can’t build a multimilliondollar business if you don’t have a penny.

Keep your eyes open and get advice from people with experience. I still learn from every consulting job.

Is there anything you think a frum business person specifically has to know?

A frum person should create integrity in the business and promote professionalism in the workplace. If you do that first, people will respect you. I would like to point out, as well, that when a frum person

behaves with integrity you are not only representing your business, you are representing all of us. You are helping not just yourself, but also your friend, to be successful in business.

Does everyone necessarily benefit from a consultant?

There is no comparison to talking to someone who has experience. Find someone to talk to who has driven through the potholes on the road and has been successful. If for any reason you can’t hire a consultant, research as much as you can about your business: research, research and more research.

What should people know before hiring a consultant?

To lay it all out. If you are going through the expense of hiring a consultant, you have to be honest and tell all. I can’t tell you how many times I had to pull teeth to get information. You don’t want to pull the wool over your consultant’s eyes and expect the result you desire. It’s like going to a doctor and not telling the doctor what’s hurting you. If you hire a consultant, you have to trust that consultant.

You have consulted with megacompanies, such as Nestlé and Coca-Cola, on how to market to the Jewish consumer. What can the average person learn from those companies?

In the mega-companies, there is a thought process to everything. Why am I producing this product? How am I selling it? It is a very meticulous process that is very thought-out. One of the questions I ask people is: What happens to you if you are successful, if you get a large order you can’t handle? They are not prepared.

Most people plan for when they fail, not for when they are successful.

•

BUSINESS

l PARNOOOSA

PARNOOOSA!

BY MAURICE STEIN

Our Final Choice Our third pick, Simon W., is 56 years old, with a lot of work experience behind him. The challenge is to find something for him in a business world that is very different from the one with which he is familiar.

Here is the e-mail Simon sent to the Ami offices:

SIMON PROFILE: SIMON W. Age: 56 Resides in: LAKEWOOD Family status: MARRIED; 8 KIDS Education: BACHELOR'S DEGREE Field of interest: BUSINESS MANAGEMENT AND/OR BOOKKEEPING Years of experience: 35

have tried various things. I was able to make a little money from some of them, but nothing was close to a real parnasah.

My wife can’t work due to health issues, and while all my kids are married, baruch Hashem, my expenses are still high and I need a good income. I have a lot of experience running a business, and I am willing to do almost anything.

Please help.

Dear Maurice:

Very sincerely yours, Simon W.

My name is Simon [W.] and I was in the textile business for over 30 years. I was doing very well for the first 20 years, but then the market shifted overseas and business started slowing down. It reached a point where my clients couldn’t pay me and I had to close down. Since then I

Many people are in a situation similar to Simon’s: people who have worked for years in a certain industry only to find themselves out of work either because the company they worked for downsized, or they owned a business but their industry changed and they didn’t

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change fast enough with it, and they had to close.

The challenge for people of Simon’s age is that, on the one hand, they have a lot of experience in running a business and they know how to negotiate with vendors and to manage cash flow and employees. They have a lot to offer new businesses that are just starting to grow.

On the other hand, people his age often lack the knowledge and skills needed to use the cutting-edge technologies that are required in every business today. Even if they are familiar with the new technology, younger business owners are often hesitant to hire older people.

I do not know yet in which direction to go with Simon; we have to spend more time together before any decisions are made.

CHAIM PROFILE: CHAIM W. Age: 21 Resides in: BORO PARK Family status: MARRIED; 1 CHILD Education: YESHIVAH, KOLLEL Field of interest: WORKING WITH PEOPLE, BEING CREATIVE Years of experience: NONE I spent another hour with Chaim, trying to get a clearer vision as to what type of business he envisions himself in. He was not able to suggest any specific job or career, and while he loves being part of big projects it’s not clear whether he wants to take responsibility for organizing or managing a project.

He says he likes nice events. He loves beautifully designed affairs and flower arrangements, but does not seem inclined to be a designer himself. One doesn’t necessarily lead to the other.

For example, some people love graphic design. They study every ad they see, and think about how they would do it differently, or better. They can sketch their concepts on napkins or envelopes to express their vision, and can imagine their ads as if they themselves designed

it. In those cases it is probably worth taking some classes in design software and see what you can do.

On the other hand, some people love looking at interesting or beautiful ads, and admiring great designers, but they do not entertain any thoughts of being designers themselves. Being a passionate artist is not the same as being passionate about art. Chaim is of the latter. So I do not feel that he should pursue an art-related career.

All I am left with is that he likes to manage things and be part of the action, but this is not a lot to work with. Chaim simply doesn’t have any clear direction at the moment on what he should focus.

I therefore told Chaim to look for a temporary job for the upcoming busy holiday shopping season. He can offer to help out in a warehouse or office for the next eight weeks for free or for pay. This will give him an opportunity to experience real-life work and get a feeling of what he likes.

Chaim was very surprised by my suggestion that he should work for free. He wondered: “Do you really think it makes sense for me to work for eight weeks for free?”

My answer was: If you can get a paying job for the next

eight weeks, take it. But if you can’t, offer to work for free and someone will definitely take you up on the offer.

If you explain to any business owner why you want to work for free, he will work with you. By allowing you to help out in different departments in the company, he can help in your search to find what you are good at, which is exactly what you want.

At this point your priority is not to make money, but to find a job that you like. So consider it on-the-job training and you don’t even have to pay for it.

In most business schools, students have to do an internship with companies before they can graduate. Generally the students work for two to three months with no pay, doing various jobs at companies in order to gain valuable experience. Why wouldn’t you invest two months doing an internship in order to get experience in the business world?

Chaim is digesting the idea, and has committed to approaching at least three business owners by the end of the week to ask if they have some work opportunities for him with or without pay. He will first try to see if he can get work in the food industry, which might lead to something he likes in that field. If he

determined not to settle for a job unless he is convinced that it’s something he is really passionate about and something that he can visualize being successful at in his future.

Shalom knows that he is very talented and feels that there is no point in working unless he really feels he is accomplishing by using his natural skills to something worthwhile.

I gave him an exercise to do: creating a life vision. Right now he is working to create a clear vision for himself. It’s a simple exercise but not always easy, because as soon as we start to think about the dreams that we feel we are

capable of achieving, a voice in our head jumps in to remind us to be “realistic.”

The challenge is that any vision worthwhile pursuing is to some extent not realistic, because it’s big and it will take a lot of hard work to get there. That, though, is what makes it exciting to get there.

At this point I am not sure whether he should be looking for a job or for something more. Some people are entrepreneurs by nature and they can’t really think about working for someone else, while others need the security of a steady job and steady pay. I think Shalom is somewhere in between.

We’ll see what develops…

SHALOM PROFILE: SHALOM T. Age: 24 Resides in: FLATBUSH Family status: MARRIED; 3 KIDS Education: YESHIVAH Field of interest: OPEN TO ANYTHING Years of experience: 1 YEAR IN SALES

Over the past week, I spent a few hours with Shalom trying to clarify his thoughts and which direction he would like to pursue in looking for a job. He is

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by John Loftus

Members of Rome’s Jewish community show their signs outside the apartment of former Nazi officer, 93-year-old Erich Priebke, in Rome, Monday, June 18, 2007. Signs say: “Priebke Executioner” (at left); “I don’t forget, I don’t forgive” (center background); “I don’t forget the Ardeatine massacre,” (at right).

Buchardt II The ones that got away

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35

by John Loftus

I

n early 1994, I got a call from Harry Phillips, a producer for ABC Television. He said that they had a tip that a major Nazi war criminal named Erich Priebke was living in Argentina, but ABC had hit a stone wall in its investigation.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center said that the only records they could find showed Priebke as a Nazi intelligence officer in northern Italy at the end of WWII. The Wiesenthal Center had told ABC that they could not link Priebke to any war crimes or atrocities.

“Hold on a minute,” I told Harry, and pulled out a volume on Nazi officers compiled by General Eisenhower’s intelligence staff. It took me less than 30 seconds to find out that Priebke was no minor player. He had been deputy chief of the Gestapo in Rome for most of the war.

Something in my memory clicked.

“Oh my G-d, Harry. I think this is the guy who carried out the Ardeatine Caves Massacre.” I explained that 33 German soldiers had been killed by Italian partisans, so Hitler ordered the execution of ten Italians for every German killed. Priebke rounded up 335 Italian civilians, some as young as 14, including 70 Jews, and helped kill them all—each with a single shot to the back of the neck. Priebke made the victims kneel on top of the other bodies so he could neatly stack them up in rows to fit inside the cave. It was one of the worst atrocities in Italian history.

So I didn’t find Erich Priebke. ABC did that. I just told ABC who he was. They filmed my intelligence document and Sam Donaldson interviewed me on camera. I had identified the last major war criminal of WWII and helped provide the evidence to arrest him and put him on trial. Sam Donaldson and ABC’s Primetime Live gave the story a lot of play, and the publicity forced Argentina to extradite Priebke.

I should have warned them. The Italian trial was fixed. Priebke knew too many scandals about former Nazis connected to Italian and American intelligence, not to mention the Vatican. I had written a couple of books about the Nazi smuggling system so I knew a good deal about Italian corruption. Priebke’s first trial was a farce. He was acquitted on the grounds that he was only following orders, even though the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg had rejected that as a defense.

The people of Rome revolted and dimmed the street lights in protest. Priebke was rearrested and convicted at a second trial, but was given only a five-year sentence for murdering hundreds of people. The people of Rome again went nuts. Priebke should have kept his mouth shut and done the short jail time, but he was stupid and appealed. This time he got a life sentence.

Soon it was discovered that Priebke was being allowed to live 36 A M I M A G A Z I N E / / O C T O B E R 2 3 , 2 0 1 3 / / 1 9 C H E S H VA N 5 7 7 4

Former SS Captain Erich Priebke, seen in this May 17, 1996 file photo, sits in Rome’s military court surrounded

by Carabinieri (paramilitary policemen).

out his “sentence” in comfort at home or in the luxury vacation villa of a friend. Once again, public uproar forced him back to prison. He died in October 2013. Argentina rejected the return of Priebke’s body, and the Vatican ordered every Catholic Church in Italy to refuse his burial. I really like this new Pope.

Eventually, an ultra-right Christian group tried to hold a funeral for Priebke, but public rioting kept his family from attending. Someone in the Italian government seized the coffin and had Priebke buried secretly in a place that was “pleasing to his family.”

No one knows where. I hear it’s on an Italian military base.

Like much of Priebke’s life, his last resting place is a secret.

I know a few of his other secrets. Priebke was one of the few Germans who spoke Italian fluently and often acted as an interpreter between the top Nazis and the top Fascists in Italy. I told ABC about the other important interpreter, the adjutant to the Nazi Commanding General. That Nazi interpreter was hired by CIA spy chief James Jesus Angleton as an informant and put on the payroll of The New York Times. Eventually, Priebke’s buddy became the Times’s bureau chief in Rome.

By the time the CIA was formed, Angleton had already restored half of the Fascist police and intelligence thugs back to power in post-war Italy. That’s why Priebke kept getting out of jail: He knew too much about his jailors. But even Priebke is not the worst guy we ever hired.

That dubious honor goes to Friedrich Buchardt. As Guy Walters explains in his book, Hunting Evil: The Nazi War Criminals Who Escaped and the Quest to Bring Them to Justice, “Buchardt can be regarded as the most murderous Nazi employed by the Allies after the war. Barbie, Kopkow, and Arājs—although by no means petty criminals—were not in the same league as Buchardt, who

It took me less than 30 seconds to find out that Priebke was no minor player. He had been deputy chief of the Gestapo in Rome not only supervised the killings, but also helped construct the flawed academic easel upon which the Nazis mounted their picture of racial superiority, which in turn would lead to genocide. Buchardt’s criminality is therefore exceptional, and it is hard to believe that there were no misgivings expressed within the Allied intelligence agencies that hired him.”

Like Priebke, I had stumbled across Buchardt’s path early on and kept him in my memory as one of the worst of the worst.

In the underground Top Secret vault of the Army Chief of Staff for Intelligence, I had discovered the memoirs of an anonymous Nazi intelligence officer. There are 20 underground vaults at Suitland, Maryland, each one-acre in size.

To find out the name of the anonymous SS officer, I had to leave the Top Secret “Vault Six” and walk down the underground passage to the Q-clearance-level “Vault Two” where things above Top Secret are stored. I was probably the first person in 50 years to have enough security clearances to browse the vaults at will. Inside the “Q vault” (where nuclear weapons secrets are stored) I found the “Sensitive Document” files. On the front of the SD file index was a sealed envelope marked “Confidential Informants.”

I ignored the written warnings and ripped open the envelope. Most of the “Confidential Informants” were top Nazi experts on chemical and biological weapons. They were hired by Dow Chemical and other American companies. And then

there was SS Obersturmbannführer Friedrich Buchardt, the anonymous author himself. Other intelligence files showed that Buchardt was a major wanted war criminal. He had served with the Einsatzgruppen: the SS mobile killing units in what are now Belarus and Russia.

Then one of those little light bulbs went off in my unusual memory. I went to the Library of Congress (where I had a special pass for direct access) and retrieved a copy of Alexander Dallin’s book, German Rule in Russia. I could still read enough German to realize that Dallin had plagiarized Buchardt’s manuscript. My boss, Walter Rockler, hit the roof when I showed him that Dallin had even cited Buchardt’s name as an interview source in his book (while omitting his SS connection).

Buchardt had recruited and hired most of the top Nazi collaborators from Russia, Ukraine, the Baltic States and Belarus.

Many of the people Buchardt named were already identified by our office as Nazi war criminals living in America. At the very least, Buchardt would be a key witness to identify these Eastern European Nazi collaborators in court. At best, we would capture the last major war criminal who had escaped being tried at Nuremberg.

My boss, Walter Rockler, had been a Nuremberg prosecutor himself and immediately authorized the enormous (for us) sum of $6,000 to have Buchardt’s manuscript translated by an expert for use in court. Walter also authorized me to fly out to Professor Dallin’s office in Stanford Uni-

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by John Loftus

versity, to have him explain what was going on.

Dallin was terrified that he had been found out. His entire academic career and his professorship in Stanford’s Department of History had been based on the Buchardt fraud. He had plagiarized someone else’s work, and a Nazi war criminal’s at that. Dallin produced his original copy of Buchardt’s manuscript, which matched the one I found in the Top Secret vault.

He stammered out his confession. When Dallin was a sergeant in the US Army in post-war Germany, he had interviewed Buchardt for US intelligence and kept a copy of his memoirs for himself. “What happened to Buchardt?” I asked. Dallin said he did not know for sure, but he thought I should ask the CIA. I said I would, I sure would.

Dallin also blew the whistle on Harvard, explaining how their Russian Research Project was nothing more than interviews with Nazi intelligence officers and collaborators. Dallin gave me a list of the real names of the subjects for Harvard’s B6 Refugee Interview Project. Several were war criminals already known to be in America. How deep did this sewer run?

The Harvard interviews of Nazis were paid for by some weird pre-CIA undercover spy outfit at Maxwell Air Force Base. It turned out that former US Army Counter Intelligence Corps Sergeant Henry Kissinger was connected to one of these research front groups, the “Operations Research Office,” along with other famous names like Allen Dulles. Kissinger’s “operations research” turns out to have been interviewing former Nazis who could help America prepare for an invasion of the Soviet Union. Hey, if those guys were any good, the Germans would not have lost the war.

I should not have bothered, but I stubbornly kept on digging.

Every government agency, especially the CIA, vehemently denied having worked with Buchardt. No one knew where he was, but I did receive the sly suggestion that I might check with the West German Federal Intelligence Service: the Bundesnachrichtendienst.

The BND was the postwar German equivalent of the CIA. The CIA even paid for the BND’s entire budget for many years.

When I asked to see the CIA’s copies of reports from the BND, the CIA officers looked a bit embarrassed. They couldn’t find them either. Someone (Allan Dulles, I later learned) had scrambled their file system and they could not find their right hand without the missing code name index. The Director of Technology at the CIA later asked me to write a memo for them on why they could not find their own Nazi files.

Basically, the problem was a government mutiny inside the spy agencies after Dewey lost to Truman. The CIA was still hunting Nazis while Dulles and his State Department spy cronies were recruiting them. When Dulles’s gang merged with the CIA, they purged the CIA files to keep everyone in the dark about Dulles and his Nazi buddies. I checked the State Department vaults and confirmed that the CIA did not have a clue that many of their recruits were Nazis. But State did.

I had an embarrassing problem. I now had to ask the State De38 A M I M A G A Z I N E / / O C T O B E R 2 3 , 2 0 1 3 / / 1 9 C H E S H VA N 5 7 7 4

It hit me that someone may have been lying to me back then about the cupboard being empty of Buchardt files. partment to contact the West German government for permission to interview Buchardt about how he sold his Nazi recruits to the State Department. Yeah, they weren’t too enthusiastic about that.

Neither were my new bosses. Walter Rockler had been forced out of office by a torrent of petty leaks. He was a good man, and he stepped down so as not to jeopardize funding for the Nazi hunters. He was replaced by Allen Ryan, who had once written a memo stating that the Justice Department should not waste taxpayer dollars hunting old Nazis. Yeah, there’s the guy to put in charge of Nazi hunting.

Ryan kept telling me that no one in the US had any information on Buchardt, and besides, it would just make our other deportation cases harder if we had to admit in court that US intelligence had smuggled some of the Nazis in: Forget about Buchardt; it was an empty well. Ryan said that no one in American intelligence had files on the guy anyway, and the West Germans obviously wouldn’t want to help us either. Quit obsessing about Buchardt.

Just let it go.

And so I did, for 30 years. Then an academic friend e-mailed me about the aforementioned British book by Guy Walters, mentioning Buchardt, Hunting Evil: The Nazi War Criminals Who Escaped and the Quest to Bring Them to Justice. The section on Buchardt accurately described the probable number of his war crimes and atrocities as being in the tens of thousands, not counting nearly 100,000 Jews he deported to the death camps. Here is the part of the book that brought me to my feet screaming in anger: “Buchardt was captured by the Americans shortly after the war, and he was handed over to the British, who held him at the vast POW camp in Rimini. It was during his internment that Buchardt was to produce a document that would save his life. Entitled ‘The Handling of the Russian Problem during the Period of the Nazi Regime in Germany,’ Buchardt’s paper was a complete rundown of his own espionage operations in Eastern Europe, and it emphasized the importance of native collaborators in SS operations.

As a result, the document almost became a blueprint for MI6 operations in Eastern Europe, and it ensured that Buchardt was not only never brought to trial, but also employed by the British. It is not known exactly what services Buchardt provided for MI6, but there can be little doubt that his knowledge of the Baltic States, Poland and Russia, as well as his enormous number of anti-communist Russian contacts, would have proved immensely useful.

However, MI6 dropped Buchardt in 1947, and he offered his services to the Americans. It is unclear whether they accepted, but it seems likely that they did. In March 1950, the CIC [US Army Counter Intelligence Corps] learned that the Bavarian Land Indemnity Office was gathering evidence against Buchardt for a possible trial, and it warned EUCOM [the US European Command], because it suspected that Buchardt ‘may be presently employed by an American intelligence agency.’ The agency in question was presumably the CIA. In another report, the CIC indicated that ‘this unit [i.e., the CIA] should be informed of such an investigation by a German organization.’ If Buchardt was indeed employed by the CIA, then the warning was heeded, because the former Einsatzkommando leader escaped justice for his crimes. He lived out most of his days in Heidelberg, and he died in Nussbach on December 20, 1982. At the time of this writing, Buchardt can be regarded as the most murderous Nazi employed by the Allies after the war.”

I had torn US intelligence apart back in the 1970s looking for the Buchardt files, and now this British author was getting scads of pages of all sorts of declassified Buchardt files from the American archives. It suddenly hit me that someone may have been lying to me back then about the cupboard being empty of Buchardt files. The British author had gotten files from at least three different intelligence units about Buchardt while I got zip. Nada.

Nothing. Buchardt who?

I think there is no way that three or more American agencies would have conspired to withhold all the Buchardt documents

from me back in 1979 to 1981. I certainly think that the conspirators would have been smart enough to burn the Buchardt files back then, so as not to keep the documentary proof of their criminal behavior lying around. Nor did I think it possible that three or more intelligence agencies had a simultaneous attack of the stupids so bad that they declassified the incriminating Buchardt files and sent them off to the National Archives so that the whole world could read them.

There is no way that the CIA, CIC, EUCOM and all the other agencies named would have conspired to withhold the Buchardt files from me in the first place. Those agencies could not work together without leaking scandals, let alone keep a crime like obstruction of justice a secret. Half of my Nazi leads came from tips within one agency about Nazis working at another agency.

No, I think each of those agencies responded routinely to my requests for Buchardt’s files, and someone inside the Justice Department kept hiding my mail. I’m not being paranoid here. I found a Top Secret file containing the records of a Nazi war criminal that Congress and the General Accounting Office had repeatedly requested. The note said “Do not disclose to GAO without permission of SOG [Special Operations Group].” It was a written order to obstruct congressional investigations of Nazi war criminals.

Without telling my bosses, I demanded a meeting with a representative from SOG to explain who was censoring the Nazi files.

The representative turned out to be a lieutenant colonel in the Air Force, detached to work with SOG, the paramilitary unit of the

‫מפעל הישועות‬ The holy

REBBE

GEDALIA MOSHE

OF ZEVILL, ZY’’A continues to intercede

REFUOS &

YESHUOS

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AN IMPORTANT MESSAGE FROM GEDOLEI YISROEL ...One of the most troubling issues facing us today is that the ugliness of child abuse is occurring with increasing frequency.

There is an understandable reluctance to bring these shameful matters into a public forum, but it is critical that we seek out strategies and methods that will prevent them from causing further damage.

"‫מעודדים בכל לב את התוכנית "לב טהור‬ ‫ תשס"ח‬,‫ ג' לסדר ואלה שמות בני ישראל‬.‫ב"ה‬ ‫ איש על מחנהו‬,‫ בחינוך תשב"ר במדינות ארה"ב‬,'‫ אישי הסגולה העמלים במלאכת ה‬,‫למע"כ מצדיקי הרבים ככוכבים‬ – ‫ ה' עליהם יחיו‬,‫ואיש על דגלו‬ ‫ מלמדים ברוכים – בכמות ובאיכות – נדרשת‬,‫ בחסד עליון‬,‫בד בבד עם התפתחות מערכות החינוך התורני בארה"ב‬ ‫נגף על‬-‫השקט להציב אבני‬-‫ לעומת הנסיונות מעצת היצר המרשיע ללא‬,‫ עשיית משמרת למשמרת‬,‫העמידה על המשמר‬ .‫דרכם הטהורה של שלומי אמונים‬ ‫ הן במעשי ניוול מידם‬,‫ היא התופעה המבישה של התעללויות בילדים‬,‫אחת מן הבעיות הכאובות שאין להעלים ממנה עין‬ ‫מנוס מבקשת‬-‫ אמנם אין‬,‫ כבוד אלקים הסתר דבר‬.‫ רח"ל‬,‫ והן בהזנחה גופנית ונפשית בבית ובמשפחה‬,‫דרך‬-‫של סוטי‬ .‫נפש לאומללים שנפלו ברשת עכורה זו‬-‫ ולהמציא מזור ותעלת‬,‫עצה ותושייה ונקיטת אמצעים ראויים לעצור בעוד מועד‬ ‫ יראים‬,‫ מעובדת בידי צוות מחנכים דגולים‬,"‫ הובאה לפנינו תוכנית "לב טהור‬,‫בשליחותם של גדולי התורה שליט"א‬ ‫פעולה למחנכי מוסדות התורה סימני זיהוי שונים‬-‫ בתוכנית זו משורטטים קוי‬.‫ ובראשם הרב ר' משה בק שליט"א‬,‫ושלמים‬ .‫ והכשרה מקצועית מתאימה לטיפול בקרבנות של התעללויות‬,‫ דרכי תגובה נכונות לתלונה ואזהרה‬,‫של מקרים שכאלו‬ ‫ לפקוח עיניהם על כל הנעשה ולהזדקק לשאלות ולספיקות המתעוררים‬,‫על התוכנית סמכו ידיהם גדולי התורה שליט"א‬ ‫ והן מצד תוכנה של התוכנית אשר‬,‫ הן בגין הצורך המצער הדורש מענה נכון וראוי‬,‫ גם לנו נראים הדברים מאוד‬.‫לפי העניין‬ .‫ בדעה ישרה שרוח חכמים נוחה הימנה‬,‫כלליה ופרטיה ערוכים ברוב עצה ותושייה‬ ‫ יזדקק‬,‫ אין ספק שראוי עד מאוד שכל מחנך החפץ להתעסק בקדשים ולעשות מלאכת ה' באמונה ולא ברמייה‬,‫ובכן‬ ‫ ומה נכון שגם מוסדות החינוך ידרשו‬.‫ כדי לדעת הדרך לילך בה והמעשה אשר יעשה‬,‫להתלמד ולהתאמן בתוכנית זו‬ .‫ הנוגעת במישרין לאחריותם ולאחריותו של המחנך למילוי תפקידם באמת ובאמונה‬,‫מהמחנכים להזדקק להכשרה זו‬ ‫ ויהי נועם ה' עליכם‬,‫ להעמיד לגיונו של מלך לכבוד שמים‬,‫ להמשיך ביתר שאת ועוז בעבודת הקודש‬,‫ה' עמכם גבורי החיל‬ .‫ומעשי ידכם יכונן‬

The gedolei Torah of the United States have brought to our attention a new program called Project Innocent Heart, which was prepared by a team of outstanding mechanchim under the direction of Rabbi Moshe Bak...

The gedolei Torah of the United States have endorsed the program and agreed to serve in a supervisory role and to be available to evaluate problems and questions that may arise over time.

We also very much approve of the program, both because there is an urgent need for such a response to the problem and because of the great wisdom and skill which obviously went into this particular program...

PROJECT INNOCENT HEART ADVISORY COMMITTEE

MADE POSSIBLE BY THE SUPPORT OF NYS ASSEMBLY MEMBER DOV HIKIND

Esther Deblinger, Ph.D.

Rabbi Yerachmiel Milstein

CO-DIRECTOR, CHILD ABUSE RESEARCH EDUCATION AND SERVICE (CARES) INSTITUTE UMDNJ-SCHOOL OF OSTEOPATHIC MEDICINE

EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, PROJECT CHAZON

Gavriel Fagin, MA, LCSW DIRECTOR, TIKUNIM COUNSELING SERVICES ADJUNCT PROFESSOR, WURZWEILER SCHOOL OF SOCIAL WORK

Barry S. Horowitz, LCSW-R

David Pelcovitz, Ph. D. PROFESSOR, EDUCATION & PSYCHOLOGY, YESHIVA COLLEGE AZRIELI GRADUATE SCHOOL OF EDUCATION & ADMINISTRATION

Mel Schneiderman, Ph. D. DIRECTOR, VINCENT J. FONTANA CENTER FOR ABUSE AND NEGLECT

FOUNDER/DIRECTOR, COURAGEOUS JOURNEYS THERAPEUTIC SERVICES

Hylton Lightman M.D. PEDIATRICIAN, TOTAL FAMILY CARE

Faye Wilbur, LCSW DIRECTOR, JEWISH BOARD OF FAMILY AND CHILDREN’S SERVICES - BORO PARK CLINIC

I N A S S O C I AT I O N W I T H

PROJECT PROJECT

innocent heart innocent heart SAFEGUARDING OUR COMMUNITY FROM HARM – ONE INNOCENT HEART AT A TIME

1-888-506-7162 www.innocentheart.org

Do you know what a child asking for help looks like?

CHILDREN WHO ARE IN TROUBLE ARE OFTEN UNABLE TO ASK FOR HELP.

WE’RE HERE TO SAY THEY SHOULDN’T HAVE TO. PROJECT INNOCENT HEART was formed at the behest of the Gedolim to help dramatically decrease the incidence of child maltreatment within our community. Learn the early signs of child abuse. Learn to ask questions. We believe that by simply asking questions we can create safer communities for our children. ASK . It may save a life.

AWARENESS. SENSITIVITY. KNOWLEDGE.

SAFEGUARDING OUR COMMUNITY FROM HARM—ONE INNOCENT HEART AT A TIME

Intervention • Prevention • Parent Training • Safe Schools Program Safe Shuls Program • Clinical Training • Public Service Messages

by John Loftus

CIA. SOG was previously called the War Department Detachment or the Defense Department Unit. However, everyone on the inside knew that SOG started with Allen Dulles before the CIA was ever formed. Almost all that the Nazis brought in by State and Justice just happened to have worked on paramilitary planning against Russia, which was why SOG kept an eye out for them.

I asked the SOG officer who had given him permission to hide Nazi files from Congress. He looked at me with a puzzled expression. He said that it was my own agency, the Justice Department, that had approved the file sanitizing. Didn’t I know that? No, but it made sense.

I found a 1947 document confirming that it was the Justice Department that had conspired with State to throw the blame on the military if one of their Nazi “bad apples” were ever discovered

by Congress. They thought that Congress would go easy on the military. Maybe SOG had been set up as the fall guy because of the military component back in 1947, but someone at Justice had given SOG specific orders in the 1970s to hide certain Nazi files from me, a federal prosecutor.

But which one of my bosses was telling the CIA/SOG liaison to hide Nazi files? Did the Justice Department tell SOG to hide all the Buchardt files? Or did someone inside Justice just steal the incoming Buchardt files from my inbox? Whoever was behind the cover-up had committed a federal crime by letting an international war criminal like Buchardt go free. There is that pesky old Nuremberg indictment hanging over his head.

So who among the Nazi hunters at Justice was still protecting the Nazis, 30 years after the end of World War II? Allan Ryan repeatedly ordered me to stay out of the intelligence vaults, but he may just have been an innocent dupe of Mark Richards, the Deputy Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Criminal Division. Richards turns out to have been an evil career bureaucrat who sabotaged the hunt for Nazi war criminals. I found out that Richards had probably known all along that it was the Justice Department that helped State smuggle the Nazis in, behind the CIA’s back. It was one of Richard’s fellow Deputy Assistant Attorney General bureaucrats who threatened me with prison and disbarment if I ever told anyone what I had seen in the Justice Department files.

How could they have been so evil and so stupid? Buchardt had worked for British intelligence from 1945–1947 on Eastern European operations. That meant Buchardt must have been personally hired or at least directly approved by Kim Philby, the Soviet double agent inside British intelligence. Philby wanted the gullible Americans to hire Buchardt’s recruits because Russian intelligence had already recruited them as spies before World War II. One of these “Communist Nazis” had defected to the USA and explained that many of the leading Nazi collaborators were communist agitators whose orders were to commit ghastly atrocities to turn the Eastern Europeans against the Germans.

The Justice Department never understood why so many government intelligence agencies were secretly working to help me.

42 A M I M A G A Z I N E / / O C T O B E R 2 3 , 2 0 1 3 / / 1 9 C H E S H VA N 5 7 7 4

Police in riot gear go after protesters after scuffles broke out outside the Society of St. Pius X, a schismatic Catholic group, where funeral of Nazi war criminal Erich Priebke was scheduled to take place, in Albano Laziale, on the outskirts of Rome.

It is because the spy guys knew how thoroughly the Russians had used the Nazi angle to worm their way inside US intelligence.

Our security was so bad that we didn’t even know that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was the son of a suspected Nazi war criminal from Soviet Georgia.

I think Philby needed Buchardt’s “credibility” to sell these Red Nazis to the gullible Americans. That is why MI6 agreed to let Buchardt work for the Americans inside their Pullach, Germany spy base. If I had been allowed to interrogate Buchardt, I would have wanted to ask him not only about his war crimes, but also how many of his Vertrauensmänner (confidential agents) had turned out to have been playing both sides.

It is not just an academic question. The CIA once censored me for saying this, but during the peak of the Cold War the casualty rate for their agents behind the Iron Curtain was 97 percent.

This incredibly high fatality rate can only be attributed to massive communist penetration of our entire intelligence organization.

The people who protected Buchardt and tried to get Priebke out of jail were not only protecting war criminals, they were (and are) doing exactly what the Kremlin wants.

Today, there is a new generation of double agents in America: the sons of the “Red Nazis,” who have taken their fathers’ places inside US intelligence. You know them as the Muslim Brotherhood. You’ve seen what they did in Egypt. You have no idea how deadly their intentions are for America. You have no idea how many secret citizenship applications were signed by the Attorney General for former Egyptian Nazis who entered America after WWII. The Kremlin should give a medal to the Justice Department for being the most useful idiots in their war against the US. I did my best, and for one guy, I did a pretty good job. I got Priebke and I almost caught Buchardt. More importantly, I have left a trail of research and documents for future historians to follow. The only way out of this mess is to tell the truth.

•

Attorney John Loftus, author of America’s Nazi Secret, is a retired Army officer, intelligence analyst and federal prosecutor. He previously held a Q clearance for nuclear top secrets while working for the US government.

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OUR BOYS

WHEN A BACHUR GOES OFF TO ERETZ YISRAEL, HOW CAN PARENTS MAKE SURE HE’S HAVING A POSITIVE

IN ISRAEL

BY YOSSI KRAUSZ

W

e’re

“YOUR SON SHOULD KNOW THAT HE’S NOT ALONE ON HIS JOURNEY.”

more than halfway through the month of Cheshvan, but the winter is just starting.

For parents who have sent their sons to learn in Eretz Yisrael, a season of uncertainty may be starting as well. For many of these bachurim, it is their first time away from home.

While it’s a cliché to say that the experience for bachurim in Eretz Yisrael can be either productive or dangerous, that doesn’t mean it’s not true. Bachurim can find growth in Eretz Yisrael that is inaccessible elsewhere. On the other hand, they may find themselves in situations there that are more spiritually dangerous than anything they would normally encounter back home.

Deciding whether a bachur is ready to be sent to Eretz Yisrael is the first question that should be asked. Rav Moshe Wolfson, shlita, the mashgiach of Torah Vodaath, told Ami’s editor that he is opposed to sending any bachur who is not clearly a masmid and yerei shamayim to Eretz Yisrael because of the dangers that exist there. “That’s because of the greatness of Eretz Yisrael,” he said.

Part of the danger is that almost everything that surrounds them is Jewish in some way, yet there are many things that are the antithesis of kedushah. However, as Rav Wolfson explained, another major component is simply the fact that there is no longer parents nearby to oversee what they are up to.

This means that bachurim have an easier time falling prey not just to exotic, illicit temptations but even to the familiar temptation of wasting time. And with the ubiquity of Internet technology that can be transported anywhere, these perils may not necessarily be coming from the Israeli streets; they may be coming from other bachurim with whom they are roommates.

When bachurim are entirely on their own,

PAYING ATTENTION FROM ACROSS THE OCEAN To get an idea of what parents should be looking for, I spoke to Rabbi Moshe Perlstein, rosh yeshivah of Yeshivas Meshivas Nefesh in Yerushalayim, a school designed for working boys who’ve decided to return to yeshivah. His experience with bachurim in Eretz Yisrael goes back many years.

“I used to have many, many yeshivah bachurim coming to my Shabbos seudah.

There was a period when we had 20 to 30 at every meal, from all types of yeshivos. Some of the boys started opening up to me. They enjoyed the warmth of the seudah, so they would stay afterwards to talk and ask to speak to me during the week. Some wanted chavrusos with yungeleit and I was able to help them. Others were struggling with different issues and were comfortable expressing themselves to me.

“Many bachurim come to the bigger yeshivos in Eretz Yisrael from smaller yeshivos in America or Europe, and they’re used to having a more one-on-one relationship with their rebbe and they get a little lost here. A new country, a new setting, a whole new atmosphere… Finding the right person with whom to have a connection takes some time. I think that some of the yeshivos today are having smaller shiurim, so it might be getting easier for bachurim to get closer to rebbeim. But in the bigger shiurim—100, 200 talmidim—lots of times they don’t feel comfortable, especially in the beginning, when they need the most warmth to be able to acclimate. For a lot of them it’s their first time away from family, the first time meeting new people. They’re in a dirah with bachurim they've never met before.”

Rabbi Perlstein eventually began speaking to the boys’ parents as well. He started arranging for avreichim to learn with cer-

OUR BOYS

there is a serious possibility of encountering danger from within and without.

There are, of course, many different scenarios for bachurim learning in Eretz Yisrael. Chasidishe bachurim, for example, often go at a younger age than Litvishe bachurim. Some may attend yeshivos with dormitories, while others will need to find their own apartments.

Some parents may wonder if their son really needs to be monitored. After all, many bachurim, particularly from nonchasidishe yeshivos, are already 21 by the time they go to Eretz Yisrael. And parents may be concerned that their son would object to having someone keep an eye on him from afar.

Rav Elya Ber Wachtfogel, shlita, rosh yeshivah of Yeshiva Gedolah Zichron Moshe of South Fallsburg, told me, “I heard from someone that there was a sh'eilah about what to do with a bachur who doesn’t want a shomer. If they do want to have a shomer, that’s good. If they don’t want to have a shomer, then they certainly need shmirah.

One way or the other, they need it.”

Rav Wachtfogel explained that hashgachah with regard to keeping Internet access out of an apartment isn’t something a bachur should resist. “If you have one bachur [with it], it’s a michshol [stumbling block]. Even if you have a bachur who was never exposed to it, if there is even one bachur who is using it, it can be mosheich [attract] many bachurim. One should definitely ensure that bachurim are in an apartment with shmirah.”

Distance is often the real problem.

Parents may be concerned about their children but uncertain how to monitor what’s going on in their lives. How can parents even be aware of what their sons are up to so far away from home?

Rav Elya Ber Wachtfogel

tain bachurim, which he says is particularly important in Eretz Yisrael, where there is less supervision. Even if a bachur is a masmid, he may find that his chavrusa doesn’t show up on time to seder. An avreich is a steady learning partner who will help even good bachurim, Rabbi Perlstein says.

Hiring an avreich to learn with a bachur is also a powerful tool for parents to quietly monitor what their son is doing. But he says there are other ways parents can watch for signs of trouble.

“Sometimes you have a parent who knows his son only too well, and all of a sudden he’s hearing that Eretz Yisrael did magic seemingly overnight. Every time he talks to his son, he hears that everything is going wonderfully.

“If your son was always a kid you needed to keep two eyes on, and all of a sudden he’s telling you what a masmid he became and he’s in yeshivah all day and his chavrusos are the best, it makes sense not to believe it so quickly and verify what he’s saying.

“I had a case of an American boy whose parents were trying to call him for days but no one was answering. After a few days they finally got through to him. ‘Wow!’ the bachur said. ‘I was so involved in yeshivah that I didn’t have a chance to call home.’ The parents thought it sounded too good to be true.

IN ISRAEL

So they investigated and found out what was really going on.”

Communicating with the yeshivah is equally important.

“It’s a good idea to know who your son’s maggid shiur is and give him a call if you can, just to show that you’re on top of things. Your son should know that you didn’t just send him off and he’s now alone on his journey.”

Another warning sign Rabbi Perlstein points to is receiving calls from your son at inappropriate hours, either in the middle of seder or in the wee hours of the morning in Israel. Parents should have an idea of their son’s schedule.

“You should know when the sedarim are and try calling a few times during seder and see if he picks up.” A bachur may be avoiding yeshivah because he’s unhappy for some reason, but won't tell his parents.

“Another very important thing is to know approximately how much money a bachur needs every month. If all of a sudden he’s calling and needs a lot more

and the numbers don’t make sense, that’s something to be concerned about. If it’s your first time sending a child to Eretz Yisrael, ask other people who already did this how much is normal. And use your seichel.

“Unfortunately, gambling is a problem in some apartments, as is spending money on many other things that aren’t a good idea, including Internet cafés.

“I know a lot of stories where the parents were too generous and kept giving more and more. By the time they realized that, hey, I gave him way too much, it’s too late. Sometimes the spending is innocuous. But it’s worthwhile to investigate.”

Rabbi Perlstein says that finding out who your son is spending time with, and particularly who his roommates are, is also vital. “Sometimes you’ll ask your son who’s living in his dirah and you’ll hear a name or two you wouldn’t want your child associating with in America.” That doesn’t necessarily mean you should make sure he moves out, Rabbi

“I LEARN IN YERUSHALAYIM, BUT MY APARTMENT IS IN NETANYA.”

Perlstein says. But it should sound a note of caution.

Calling your son two or three times a week is a good idea; many parents fail to call often enough. “As important as it is to become independent, once they realize they’re totally on their own and no one is looking at what they’re doing, if the yetzer hara is pushing them towards something, they have a little more leeway.”

But he also says that overdoing the longdistance parenting can be a bad idea. “It’s also important to realize that parents can sometimes be overprotective. You don’t have to make a big deal about everything.

That can do a lot of damage too. Bachurim think their parents don’t trust them.

“That’s another reason why it’s worthwhile to have a yungerman learning with him. That way, you know exactly what’s going on and can stay on top of things without making him feel you’re on his back.

“You have to remember that bachurim are bachurim. Not everyone is so eidel. Bachurim like to have a good time. Sometimes a mother will hear that her son went to Tzefas and will start saying, ‘Oy! He’s going off the derech!’ Just find out if he’s going to appropriate places. You don’t have to get so scared if there’s nothing to suspect.

“When bachurim go away for Shabbos, it depends on what type of bachur you’re talking about. For a lot of boys it can be very healthy to go to places like Tzefas and Bnei Brak. It’s part of the geshmake experience here.

“But you have to know your bachur. Some bachurim travel around and won’t take a hat or jacket or even Shabbos clothing along.

It becomes a free-for-all. If you know you have a good bachur you don’t have to worry if he says he’s going to Tzefas for Shabbos.

But you can certainly insert a question like ‘What did you pack?’ into the conversation.

If you figure out that he didn’t take his hat and jacket and he usually wears them, you might have something to worry about.”

Rabbi Perlstein says that it’s not just bad behavior a parent should be watching out for: “I’ve seen many bachurim who come to Eretz Yisrael and get depressed. Chavrusos didn’t work out; they’re not happy,

things they shouldn’t have. So you have to look out for the little things. You also need siyata di'shmaya.

“If you hear something that disturbs you, you should follow up on it. If something sounds fishy, don’t ignore it. That doesn’t necessarily mean you should act right then; you don’t want to cause a problem, chas v'shalom. Nonetheless, watch out for

OUR BOYS

they slept through a few days and think the zman is over…there are plenty of reasons.

Other bachurim become hermits. They sleep a whole day long because they feel lost or unaccomplished. Lots of times it takes a while until a bachur finds a chavrusa. If the first one doesn’t work out and he dumps him…he’ll just give up.”

Having a yungerman as a chavrusa, Rabbi Perlstein points out, can keep this from happening.

“You see this more among bachurim who chose to attend bigger shiurim. In a smaller setting, a maggid shiur will sometimes realize if a bachur has been missing for a few days. But if it goes unnoticed, bachurim can literally become hermits and not leave their diros for days. If someone brings in a laptop, a bachur like that is a candidate for the yetzer hara.”

I asked Rabbi Perlstein if he had ever encountered a parent with a totally incorrect idea of what his or her son was up to in Eretz Yisrael. In response, he told me a story.

“I have a friend who is an askan and deals with bachurim. He had a shidduch for a certain bachur who, for lack of a better word, was a complete bum. He had known him for almost two years and thought of a shidduch that seemed very appropriate for his type. He called up the mother and told her the name of the girl—who also, of course, wasn’t typical. The mother went berserk!

‘You redt that girl to my son? Do you know who my son is? He’s the top bachur in the yeshivah!’ On and on she went.

“My friend almost had a heart attack. He didn’t want to tell the mother the truth, that if the boy ever came to shul it was without a hat and jacket, and that the language coming out of his mouth was an embarrassment for everyone standing near him. My friend was so shocked that he didn’t know if it was the right time to speak up. She had obviously sent a decent bachur off to Eretz Yisrael two years before, but this askan only knew him after he changed. He couldn’t believe the mother had no inkling of who her son was.

And the bachur wasn’t even embarrassed because he was so far away.

“There are many cases like that. Bachurim are very good at concealing what they’re doing. They don’t want to admit they did

a pattern forming. Great things happen in Eretz Yisrael. But we know that if the koach hakedushah is strong, the koach hatumah is also strong.”

HOME AWAY FROM HOME

A new organization that started operations this zman is taking an over-arching approach to keeping bachurim supervised.

IN ISRAEL

Called Hisalus, literally “elevation,” it provides a home away from home for young men learning in Eretz Yisrael.

The US representative of Hisalus, Rabbi Mordechai Tzvi Silber, recently visited Ami’s offices. Rabbi Silber, who is a rosh chaburah in Brooklyn, explained how the organization came into being.

“Basically, there’s a major, major problem in Eretz Yisrael. A lot of bachurim go there with the intention of shteiging.

But they come back not only not having shteiged, but also having hung out in the

wrong places. At the extreme, there can be major drug problems, major Internet issues. And the problem is escalating every year because of technology.”

Rabbi Silber says that the consciousness raised by the Citi Field asifah caused a group of askanim to wonder what they could do to help ensure that bachurim from well-protected homes wouldn’t be brought into contact with everything their parents protected them against back home.

“They’re far away from home,” he

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says. “Their parents don’t know what they’re doing. How can we see to it that they shteig and not fall, so they come back at least the same if not better than they went?

“A few of us went to speak to the Skulener Rebbe and Rav Elya Ber Wachtfogel. We sat with Rav Elya Ber for hours, and also with his shvugger, Rabbi Yossel Burzstyn, in Lakewood. Basically, he suggested that bachurim in Eretz Yisrael should have a guide, a father figure, away from home.”

That became a core idea of Hisalus.

The organization is run by Yerushalmi Jews who had welcomed bachurim into their neighborhoods for years but were beginning to become concerned about their spiritual challenges. Rav Chaim Yosef Weissfish is the head of Hisalus; he is assisted by Rav Yossel Leifer and Rav Dovid Gruber.

“In Eretz Yisrael,” Rabbi Silber continued, “the ruchniyus authority is Rav Yitzchok Elazar Moskowitz, the Shatzer Rav. Any questions in hashkafah are posed to him.”

The program begins as soon as the bachur steps foot in Eretz Yisrael.

“There’s a car waiting for them to take them to their dirah right when they come out of the airport, and their first supper is provided by us.”

The bachurim are contacted by a yungerman every day, who makes sure that everything is going well both spiritually and physically. If a bachur needs to visit a doctor or find a place to do laundry, the yungerman helps arrange that. If he needs to talk to someone, the yungerman is available.

Much of the program is designed to give bachurim safe spaces outside of the beis midrash.

“A lot of bachurim come to Eretz Yisrael with no family there whatsoever. Every Shabbos is a struggle. They have to go to the Kosel or the Stolin beis midrash or wherever to find a meal, and they’re together with another 100 bachurim. Every bachur wants to feel that he’s an individual. So we make sure he has a certain family to eat with, and whenever he needs a place he can go there.

We have five or ten families who are ready to take in up to 15 bachurim for Shabbos.

We understand the American mentality, that they need more food. We try to do it in a way that’s geshmak.

Interestingly, Rabbi Silber told me that Hisalus is willing to assign a yungerman to a bachur who has told his parents that he doesn’t want to join.

“Like a detective?” I asked, his words conjuring up images of yungeleit as private eyes.

“Yes,” he said.

However, he went on, that’s only true when a bachur is a responsible person who has resisted joining simply because he feels he doesn’t need hashgachah. Bachurim heading off to Eretz Yisrael just to have a good time aren’t in the purview of Hisalus.

AT THE MIR One of the most popular yeshivos for bachurim headed to Eretz Yisrael is Mir Yerushalayim. Accordingly, the Mirrer Yeshiva is the largest in the country (and one of the largest in the world). What many parents, even alumni, may find surprising is that despite the huge number of talmidim, new policies enacted over the last two years have succeeded in creating a small-yeshivah environment that rivals many smaller yeshi-

“WOW!” THE BOY SAID. “I WAS SO INVOLVED IN YESHIVAH THAT I DIDN’T HAVE A CHANCE TO CALL HOME.”

OUR BOYS

“We have another program on Thursday nights—a ‘leil shishi’ after night seder with singing and cholent, then a shmuess given by a mashpia, either Rav Tzvi Meir Silverberg or Rav Meilech Biderman—famous mashpi’im in Eretz Yisrael. Then we learn the Ohr Hachaim Hakadosh. Nobody’s forced to go. It’s a service we provide to help bachurim feel at home. Three hours before Shabbos there’s a place to eat ‘to’ameha’ [food before Shabbos].

“Then we have the same thing on Motzaei Shabbos, a beautiful melaveh malka for the Hisalus bachurim with a guest speaker, one of the Hisalus menahalim.”

The bachurim’s progress is reported back to their parents every two weeks, Rabbi Silber says.

These services are all included in a monthly fee of $75, although there are several additional services that can be arranged for additional fees. Bachurim who are learning on their own, perhaps while waiting to be accepted into a specific yeshivah, can have a yungerman learn with them; Hisalus screens and recommends such chavrusos.

The Skulener Rebbe recommended that the organization provide a special mussar program for any bachur who wants one; that can be arranged as well.

Until now the organization has been focusing on chasidishe bachurim, although Rabbi Silber said that it hopes to encompass all yeshivah bachurim soon. All potential participants must be interviewed, to be sure the bachur intends to grow in Eretz Yisrael. The organization, he explained, takes responsibility for its bachurim; they can’t do that unless they have the proper intentions starting out.

vos. Information about their sons’ progress and well-being has also been made accessible to parents.

Sources intimately familiar with the new policies spoke to me about them at great length.

A new registration process was put in place during the final years of Rav Nosson Tzvi Finkel, zt”l, the beloved rosh yeshivah of Mir. American bachurim must now register and be farhered in the US, so the yeshivah can make certain that they are traveling to Eretz Yisrael to learn and not for other reasons.

One source quoted Rav Nosson Tzvi as saying, “We have an open door policy, not a broken door policy.” The new process allows the yeshivah to reject bachurim they feel should not learn in the Mir. Another new policy is that a bachur must be part of a specific group, with a specific rebbe.

“The batei midrash have areas for each chaburah or maggid shiur. There are places for bachurim, yungeleit, chutznikim, European, Americans… Each area is well organized, in a way that someone is in charge of each group,” says a source.

One fascinating fact that many may not know is that the Mir has the largest group of chasidishe bachurim of any yeshivah in the world, making it technically the largest chasidishe yeshivah anywhere. A special group of rebbeim caters to the chasidishe bachurim and yungeleit.

In the Bais Yeshaya beis midrash on the fourth floor, where American, non-chasidishe bachurim learn, there are nine maggidei shiur and about 660 bachurim. Yet despite their

IN ISRAEL

Ben Yehuda Street at night

number, the rebbeim are highly aware of how their bachurim are doing.

“The first person who would really know a bachur’s matzav—the entire picture b'ruchniyus uv'gashmiyus—is his rebbe,” said one source. “The rebbeim have an average of 40-60 bachurim per shiur.”

Each rebbe has at least one shoel u’meishiv to assist him, including with monitoring the bachurim. If a bachur doesn’t show up, he gets a phone call from his maggid shiur.

The heads of the second seder chaburah also inform the morning rebbeim if they have any concerns about the talmidim. Then the morning rebbeim return for

night seder. And everything they know about a bachur can be accessed by parents.

“The secretaries in the American office have a spreadsheet for every rebbe with the hours when he can be reached. They make time to speak with parents.” The shoel u’meishivs can also be reached at certain times.

(Rav Asher Arielli’s shiur, the largest in the world, works differently. Rav Asher doesn’t keep track of the bachurim himself. Instead, there are different rebbeim and meishivim who oversee the batei midrash where Rav Asher’s talmidim learn. But those rebbeim are just as available as the others.)

“WE HAVE AN OPEN DOOR POLICY, NOT A BROKEN DOOR POLICY.”

But the relationship between the rebbeim and bachurim is only half of the equation.

The Mir recently put into place a system that lets members of the hanhalah stay in contact with the bachurim in their diros as well.

A source familiar with the history of the Mir says that Rav Nosson Tzvi repeatedly tried to find a way to financially bring the diros into the yeshivah, to make them sort of “outside dormitories.” That turned out to be too difficult. The new system, however, has managed to create the positive aspects of a dorm without requiring the yeshivah to be involved in the monetary aspects. They’ve done that by requiring that bachurim live in what is called a “dirah me’usheret”—a certified apartment.

“When bachurim come to yeshivah,” a source explained, “95 percent of them come as groups. If necessary, the yeshivah helps them find an apartment.” Over 100 American bachurim are assisted in this way every zman. The yeshivah helps them negotiate with landlords if necessary.

Each category of bachur—American nonchasidishe, chasidishe, Israeli—has an “av

bayis” assigned to these diros. “The yeshivah keeps a list of certified apartments where they have a relationship with the landlord. He knows to tell the bachurim that everyone in the dirah must be registered in Mir. A bachur can’t be in an apartment if he isn’t registered, or is attending another yeshivah.

“The av bayis visits regularly to monitor what’s going on. They know the bachurim and are there to help with whatever they need. You can’t finish the registration process until you have a certified apartment.”

The av bayis helps with everything from the conditions of the apartment to finding a doctor to knowing which hashgachos they can trust when purchasing outside food. The system gives the bachurim new security: They know there is someone to turn to when they have needs outside the walls of the beis midrash. At the same time, it enables the yeshivah to keep Internet use out of the diros to the best of its ability.

New procedures have also been adopted in the dining room to make sure

that bachurim who are not in the Mir aren’t pretending to be.

“Each part of the dining room is reserved for a different maggid shiur,” a source says. “There are charts on the wall showing where each shiur sits.” No outside bachurim can blend in anonymously; they’d be spotted immediately.

There’s even strong hashgachah on bachurim during bein hazmanim, when Rav Yisroel Glustein, a rosh yeshivah and Rav Nosson Tzvi’s shvugger, has a program.

“All the bachurim learn in one beis midrash. Rav Asher Arielli gives a shiur, and they chazer all the learning from the previous zman. That’s the morning seder.

Every afternoon they go on a different trip, such as to a mehadrin beach, biking or hiking. Rabbi Glustein arranges something different every day.

“Then there’s a one-week optional camp with the rebbeim, usually the middle week of bein hazmanim, for whoever wants to go.”

A NEW WORLD Despite the many innovations the Mir has implemented, sources did tell me that there are still bachurim who tell their parents they are enrolled there when they aren’t, apparently because some parents don’t realize that enrollment no longer takes place in Eretz Yisrael. One askan told me that a bachur once said to him, “I learn in Yerushalayim, but my dirah is in Netanya.” Of course, a quick phone call to the Mir’s New York offices can immediately set the record straight.

Most bachurim, of course, aren’t trying to fool their parents. But even a good bachur can run into negative influences.

The world has become a more dangerous place, and parents need to take precautions. Keeping in contact with your son and watching out for problems is the first line of defense. But with the advent of organizations like Hisalus and resources from yeshivos like the Mir, parents have new tools for ensuring that bachurim grow, rather than fall, in Eretz Yisrael. 

By David Zaklikowski

How Bizarre Can a Blood Libel Be? NEW RESEARCH AND THE GRANDSON OF

MENDEL BEILIS

REVEAL THE ECCENTRIC CHARACTERS AND STRANGE COURTROOM ANTICS FROM A TRIAL THAT MADE ONE MAN A HERO

J

ay Beilis thinks that anyone hearing the story of his grandfather Mendel, without knowing that it’s true, would assume it’s fictional. As he continues to learn new details about the case, he cannot believe that such accusations were made in the 20th century, because they sound like something straight from the Middle Ages. Unfortunately, however, Mendel Beilis, an innocent clerk at a Kiev brick factory, had the distinction of being at the center of this bizarre plot cooked up by a group of violent anti-Semites in relatively recent history.

As the 100th anniversary of the trial approaches, two books are about to be published that shed new light on the subject.

“While I’ve already heard bits and pieces from the authors,” says the grandson, “I can’t wait to read them in their entirety. I’m anxious to learn everything I can about the case.”

The new accounts are culled from actual transcripts, newspaper clippings and neverbefore-seen government files, including secret communications, all of which create a riveting story.

Ami Magazine interviewed both authors and spoke to Jay Beilis for the inside scoop on this fascinating chapter in Jewish history.

Speaking from his New Jersey home, the grandson told Ami, “It’s just one ridiculous story, and I have a hard time believing the details myself.”

But to Edmund Levin, author of A Child

“THE AUTOPSY TOLD A STORY OF HOMICIDAL RAGE AND POSSIBLY REVENGE, NOT OF A CALM, DELIBERATE RITUAL FOR COLLECTING BLOOD.” of Christian Blood—Murder and Conspiracy in Tsarist Russia: The Beilis Blood Libel, set to be released next year by Schocken Books, the fact that many of the details are so fantastic just underscores their veracity. “You can’t make up those kinds of things,” he says.

Life for the Jews under Nicholas II, ruler of the Russian Empire, was not easy. Some 450 laws governed everything from where they could live to what types of businesses they were permitted to own. Yet according to Levin, there were no actual pogroms during this period, and relative peace reigned. “The Tsarist regime wanted to prevent violence.”

Robert Weinberg, a professor of history at Swarthmore College and the author of the soon-to-be-released Blood Libel in Late Imperial Russia: The Ritual Murder Trial of Mendel Beilis, published by Indiana University Press, explains the Tsar’s attitude toward the Jews.

“Nicholas didn’t trust them. He felt they were politically treacherous and behind all the political unrest. But that was a common sentiment among many Russians and people in the government.”

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Weinberg makes the claim that charging the Jews with ritual murder, specifically Beilis, was not a popular idea in government circles. “Not many in the upper echelons agreed. They felt that the prosecutor was pursuing a case he couldn’t win.”

In fact, the entire case was a perfect storm of political pressure and one or two bad apples in the government.

“There were regular anti-Semites and extreme anti-Semites,” explains Weinberg.

“With regard to the prosecutor, I can’t tell you if he was an extreme anti-Semite. But he was certainly willing to pursue the case in a way that would make the extreme antiSemites happy.”

Levin, too, is stumped as to how the extremists were successful in bringing the age-old charge of ritual murder to trial. “It was a crazy thing for the prosecutor to do.”

The Blood Libel In January 2011, former vice presidential candidate and Alaska Governor Sarah Palin made a statement that had many Jewish

Beilis' house

Authors Edmund Levin (above) and Robert Weinberg (above, right). Jay Beilis (below, right), grandson of Mendel Beilis

chinsky, a student at the Kiev Religious School, was found by two children playing around in a warren of caves that had been discovered by construction workers in 1850 and were a popular destination for treasure hunters. One of the boys ran and told his stepfather, and the stepfather summoned the police. Eventually word spread, and “crowds of the curious surrounded the cave in a thick circle,” as one newspaper account noted. Much of the evidence was also disturbed by the initial gawkers.

Several suspects were soon taken into custody: the mother, stepfather and other family members of the victim.

Nonetheless, it did not take long for the flames of anti-Semitism to be fanned. The Black Hundreds, a right-wing nationalistic movement, immediately charged that the child had been murdered by the Jews for ritual purposes. At the funeral, held a few days before Pesach, small white leaflets floated over the child’s grave that read, “Orthodox Christians! The Zhids tortured Andrusha Yushchinsky to death! Every year before Passover, they torture several dozen Christian children to death in order to mix their blood into their matzah…” A young man named Nikolai Pavlovitch was arrested on suspicion of incitement of violence for handing out the inflammatory leaflets.

Pavlovitch was not only a member of the Black Hundreds, but was also associated with the Union of Russian People and the Double-Headed Eagle, all fanatical right-

PHOTOS COURTESY OF EDMUND LEVIN

leaders furious. It came after Arizona Representative Gabrielle Giffords was shot in the head by a lone man on a rampage. On her Facebook page Palin posted a map of the United States with what looked like target symbols over certain congressional districts in swing states, one of which was Arizona.

In the wake of the violence, some people accused her of symbolically putting Giffords in the crosshairs.

In response to the public outrage, Palin made a video in which she declared: “Acts of monstrous criminality stand on their own.

Especially within hours of a tragedy unfolding, journalists and pundits should not manufacture a blood libel that serves only to incite the very hatred and violence they purport to condemn. That is reprehensible.”

Jay Beilis is still livid about her statement.

“The blood libel claim is thrown around way too much. It cannot and should not be used lightly. Sarah Palin should have known better.”

It is believed that the original accusation of blood libel can be traced to a book written in 1150 by the Welsh monk Thomas of Monmouth, in which he took it upon himself to investigate the 1144 murder of a 12-year-old boy in Norwich, England.

“When Thomas arrived in Norwich,” Levin explains, “he became obsessed with solving the mystery, and was determined to prove that the boy was a martyr… Thomas introduced the novel idea of ritual murder as a Jewish Passover rite. He also pioneered the sophistry, twisting of evidence and calculated obtuseness that would mark all subsequent accusations of Jewish ritual murder.”

In 1235, after five Christian boys were killed in Fulda, Germany, residents and traveling Crusaders accused the town’s Jews of ritual murder and burned 34 of them at the stake. Levin surmises that the accusation “sprang from the creative imaginations” of those who were “inspired to embroider the original slander by Thomas of Monmouth.”

Almost 700 years later, on March 20, 1911, the body of 11-year-old Andrei Yush-

Beilis leaves court with indictment papers, May 1913 (left). Beilis under guard during trial (above)

wing groups. Levin writes, “The Black Hundreds would play a central and sinister role in the Yushchinsky case. Their success in elevating a local murder into a national rallying cry epitomizes this historical moment in Imperial Russia.”

Even as Yushchinsky’s family was still under suspicion, allegedly motivated by a promissory note for a large sum of money that had been left to the lad by his estranged father, another possible suspect was being looked into. Vera Cheberyak was the mother of the dead boy’s best friend, Yevgeny, the last person who had seen him before he vanished. Cheberyak was the leader of a local gang of violent thieves who lived in the neighborhood where the body was found.

When a local newspaper published an article fueling the charge of ritual murder, Vasily Feneko, Kiev’s Investigating Magistrate for Especially Important Cases, posted an appeal for calm. “Neither the circumstances nor the motive of the crime have been established. The Investigating Magistrate requests all persons who have any information about this case to inform him of such, verbally or in written form.”

After the official investigation came to a dead end, the Black Hundreds criticized the police as failures and insisted there was another place to look: the Jews. But the prosecutors weren’t ready to go there just yet. “Three obstacles stood in the way of any attempt to pin Andrei’s death on the

Jews,” writes Levin, including “the lack of evidence, the absence of witnesses, and the opposition of the two respected officials in charge of the case: the local prosecutor, Nikolai Brandorf; and Investigator Vasily Feneko… [They] believed the ritual murder explanation of the crime was absurd. The autopsy reports told a story of homicidal rage and possibly revenge, not of a calm, deliberate ritual for collecting blood.”

The first mention of Mendel Beilis was in a May deposition given by Vladimir Golubev, a Kiev University student who headed the Double-Eagle youth group. Golubev had decided to do his own investigation, which would of course focus on the Jewish aspect.

He told the police that near the cave was an estate belonging to a Jew, and that “the manager of the estate and brick factory is a certain Jew named Mendel…who after the discovery of Yushchinsky’s body behaved somewhat strangely, giving out candy to children and asking them not to say anything to the police.”

Golubev was relentless in fabricating evidence, bringing numerous alleged witnesses and concocting testimony that Beilis had murdered the child for ritual purposes.

Pressured by the fact that all other avenues had come up with nothing, and given the public outrage over the arrest of the dead child’s mother and other relatives, the lead prosecutor, Grigory Chaplinsky, made the momentous decision to go after Beilis.

On July 22, 1911, Mendel Beilis was arrested. He recalled the event in his autobiography, The Story of My Sufferings, which was recently republished by his grandson Jay: “Suddenly I heard knocking on the door, such knocking that I thought

T•R•A•V•E•L

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Courtroom Drama Interestingly, Levin says that the Russian regime “did not direct the verdict. The jury came to its own decision. The Russian system of justice came up to Western standards and was actually satisfactory in a typical trial. In this case too, the legal procedures were observed. There were depositions, a few surprises and the judge was prejudiced in favor of the prosecution, but for the most part it was an orderly proceeding.”

In fact, according to Weinberg, the Russian judicial system was held in high esteem by the Western world. “There was a jury and specific rules of bringing evidence.” It is also fascinating that the Russian trials were rather free-form and less prescribed than Western ones. All sorts of people were permitted to ask questions at any time, including the judge. In fact, the judge told Beilis that if he wanted to, he could also question witnesses.

However, when one reads the volumes of transcripts in Russian, which were published daily in newspapers and later in book format, it still causes one to scratch his head at how an intelligent group of prosecutors could have brought this case to trial.

“These were educated and sophisticated lawyers and officials,” says Weinberg. “Yet

they chose to engage in political actions that weren’t all that smart.”

On October 25, 1913, Beilis was led into the courtroom surrounded by guards. The proceedings were open to the press, and some 150 news organizations, mostly foreign, covered the daily events, many as front page news.

Beilis was represented pro bono by four renowned lawyers with experience in the area of incitement against minorities. The prosecution, by contrast, had a mediocre team, one of whose members was Alexei Shmakov, a notoriously proud anti-Semite who famously decorated his study with pictures of Jewish noses.

The proceedings began with the judge’s questioning of Beilis: What is your name? Menachem Mendel Tevye Beilis.

How old are you? Thirty-nine.

How many children do you have? Five.

Your place of permanent residence is Kiev?

Kiev.

The next question was not something that would be asked in today’s courtrooms, although it was asked of every witness.

Are you a Jew? Yes, a Jew! As Beilis noted in his autobiography, “I did not recognize my own voice when I answered,” explaining that it just burst out of him in a shout.

The proceedings were very tiring for the defendant, who repeatedly broke down and wept during the testimony. Beilis’s emotion clearly made the judge uncomfortable and brought tears to many of the spectators, but as one reporter wrote, “It is obvious that Beilis is not a broken man. [He had an] expression of suffering, not of a timid or submissive person, but an indignant one.”

However, as the days wore on it seemed that the case was not really about Beilis, whose name was hardly mentioned. As one journalist put it in the Kiev Opinion, “We must inform our readers of an exceptionally interesting piece of news: Beilis has ceased to be a defendant.”

Levin believes that the entire trial was more about vindicating the head of a criminal gang than accusing Beilis of a crime.

Vera Cheberyak, who had given numerous depositions and only in her last one fingered Beilis, was one of the prosecution’s

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there was, G-d forbid, a fire at the factory. I jumped out of bed and ran barefoot to open the door. As soon as it opened, approximately 12 men stormed in screaming loudly, ‘Are you Beilis? You are arrested, arrested!’

They surrounded me on all sides, standing firmly as if they were afraid I would break away from their hold and escape. I tried to ask them: ‘Why? What?’ ” Beilis was told that he would soon find out, and was led on a two-mile walk to the local jail. Thus began Beilis’s grueling two years of incarceration on a charge of being part of a “fringe group” of Jews, the chasidim, who had murdered the 11-year-old for his blood.

In truth, Beilis, an uneducated Jew, did not really know what a chasid was. He later admitted embarrassingly, “I must tell you that I really did not know, and it is still not entirely clear to me, what a chasid is.”

Levin says that Mendel Beilis was “the classic ordinary man who was forced to look for resources within himself.”

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BEILIS, AN UNEDUCATED JEW, LATER ADMITTED, “I MUST TELL YOU THAT I REALLY DID NOT KNOW, AND IT IS STILL NOT ENTIRELY CLEAR TO ME, WHAT A CHASID IS.” star witnesses.

Cheberyak claimed that her son, who was deceased by the time of the trial and could obviously not testify, “had told me that he had been playing with Andrusha Yushchinsky on the clay grinder in the brick factory, and that Mendel Beilis had seen them there and chased after them.” Only her son had been able to escape.

What was really going on was that Andrei had once been in the criminal gang’s lair when it was filled with stolen goods and—during a fight with a playmate—had threatened to go to the police. He obviously had to be killed. Cheberyak and her cohorts had then come up with a plan: If his death could be made to look like a ritual murder, they might be able to instigate a pogrom and take advantage of the ensuing confusion to loot Jewish homes and property.

Unable to keep track of her lies, Cheberyak asked that the court reporter read her depositions aloud before she began to testify. Clearly asking so as not to contradict herself, the judge refused her request and the defense lawyers repeatedly tripped her up when questioning her about her conflicting testimony, forcing her to continually say that she couldn’t remember.

An obvious lie was exposed when she was pitted against her own husband’s testimony.

Her husband, whom she had blinded with acid years earlier, had testified that his stepson had immediately told him about the incident. The defense lawyer asked whether her husband had mentioned this to her.

If so, continued the defense lawyer, why hadn’t she said anything about it in her first deposition?

In an obvious blow to her credibility she said, “I didn’t pay it any attention. I didn’t attach any significance to it.” Many found it hard to believe that a mother wouldn’t have cared if someone tried to kidnap her son.

Another example was the testimony of a couple of drunken lamplighters. Called by the prosecution, their depositions contained many conflicting versions of the

same events. The judge began by questioning them: Did the detectives tell you to testify against Beilis?

The detectives gave us vodka to drink.

They told us to say this and that.

Why were there so many changes in your testimony? Did they coach you?

Of course.

Did they give you liquor until you were drunk?

Yes, until we were drunk.

At one point in the proceedings something occurred that made Beilis burst out in laughter. When Golubev was called up to testify, he passionately declared that Beilis came from a long line of tzaddikim, referring to the Chabad Rebbes, whose third leader, the Tzemach Tzedek, was also named Menachem Mendel. Not only did Beilis have a distinguished lineage, but he “was respected because he was a tzaddik.”

Another absurd moment came on day 11 of the trial. Cheberyak had claimed that her son had once gone to buy milk from Beilis,

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who at one time had owned a cow. Her son saw two strangely-attired Jews in long black garments. The prosecution’s claim was that these were the chasidim who were Beilis’s accomplices in the murder.

Cheberyak, however, was unaware that the cow had already been sold in September of 1910, and witnesses were brought to testify to that fact. “At the end of the trial,” says Levin, “the prosecutor came back to the matter of the cow and blurted out, ‘And don’t forget about the cow!’”

As the trial drew to an end the prosecution began calling so-called experts to explain Jewish practices and rituals. One of these was Justin Pranaitis, a Catholic priest who was introduced as an authority on Judaism.

In a humorous exchange, the defense asked him, “Where did Baba Basra live, and what was she famous for?”

The word baba in Russian means old woman; it was hoped that Pranaitis would take the bait and not know that this is the name of a tractate in the Gemara, on which he was presumably an expert. “I don’t

Beilis's defense team

The Good Guys Levin says that what surprised him most about the case was “the number of good people who outnumbered the bad.”

Mendel Beilis himself acknowledged this fact in his memoir, expressing his gratitude for “the Russian gentiles who sacrificed themselves for me. There was real heroism, real sacrifice. They knew that by defending me their careers would be ruined; even their very lives wouldn’t be safe. But they persisted because they knew I was innocent.”

Two months before his death in 1934, Beilis wrote to his attorney about the heroism of those who had stood up for him. “I can never forget you. In your work you suffered just as I did, and your great pride and courage gave me much strength. I remember very well when you, my dear friend, came to me when I was in the prison at Lukianov. When I saw you for the first time I was immediately comforted. I am happy.

G-d permitted me to live, and I am able to write to you. I have not lived a single day without mentioning you.”

One of the “good people” Levin points to is Father Alexander Glabolev, a Kiev profes-

Judge Fyodor Boldyrev (above), Pile of religious books introduced into evidence in court (above, right), Mendel Beilis after trial (below, right)

sor and authority on the Jewish religion and rituals. When asked if such a ritual existed he denied it absolutely, noting that Jewish law clearly prohibits the ingestion of blood, and that the practice was not mentioned in any Jewish texts. “[It is] counter to the principles of Judaism, ancient and modern.” He also emphasized that chasidim were in fact more pious and “less likely than other Jews to commit such an act of sacrilege.”

Another example is Investigative Magistrate Vasily Feneko, “who tried to stop the prosecution,” insisting that there was absolutely no evidence to indicate that Beilis or anyone else associated with the factory was involved in the murder. As he later recalled, “In order to prove the insufficiency of the basis for charging Beilis, I scribbled down on a piece of paper all of the arguments laid out by Chaplinsky, and it added up to some kind of unbelievable assortment of suppositions and guesses, but no logical framework of a pattern of evidence. When I read aloud this shameful—from my point of view— indictment and expected that it would convince him of the impossibility of charging a person with murder, let alone for a ritual purpose, the effect was the opposite.”

But Levin’s favorite is the former detective Nikolai Krakovsky, who did his own investigation. Concluding that Vera Cheberyak had, at the very least, been an accomplice to the murder, Krakovsky published his findings in a major newspaper. He was later

PHOTOS COURTESY OF EDMUND LEVIN

know,” he responded, causing many in the courtroom to erupt in mirth. One spectator had to be escorted out.

At the end of the exhausting trial, the judge asked Beilis if he had anything to say. “I could say much in my defense,” he declared, “but I am tired and have no strength. You can see that I am innocent, and I ask to be acquitted so I can see my poor children who have been waiting for me for two and a half years.”

Beilis was taken back to prison.

The next morning the jury was given two charges to decide. Was this a ritual murder, and was Mendel Beilis the actual murderer?

An hour and 20 minutes later the jury had reached its verdict. While they found that the death was the result of ritual murder, they pronounced Beilis not guilty and all the accusations were dropped. The judge told Beilis, “You are a free man. You may take your place among the public.”

Nevertheless, the far right celebrated the ambiguous verdict and threw a bash for the prosecution in Moscow.

Beilis trial: court in session

jailed for his courage in standing up to the prosecutor.

Beilis the Hero Jay Beilis remembers the first time he heard about his grandfather’s heroism. As a child in the 1960s, he and family used to spend summers up in the Catskills. Many of the old people would come up to Jay’s father, David Beilis, and ask him if he was Mendel Beilis’s son. When he answered yes, “they would cry and say that his father had saved their lives.” In the same way that Kristallnacht had served as a warning to Jews to flee Germany, the Beilis trial had motivated many Jews to leave Russia. “Thanks to your father,” they told David, “we can practice religion freely here in the United States, not like those who are still in the Soviet Union.”

Ultimately making his way to New York City, Mendel Beilis was given a rent-free apartment in the Bronx’s Hunts Point neighborhood. In an interview shortly before her death, his daughter recalled their home as “always being full of visitors… Whenever I saw the crowds I would run out: I didn’t want to hear about [the blood libel] every minute.”

David Beilis, who sat through most of the court proceedings and had also been imprisoned overnight, was also forever traumatized by the experience. “He was like a Holocaust survivor who never retold the story in its entirety, although he did give me

his father’s autobiography,” says his son Jay. According to Levin, “Mendel Beilis dealt with his situation as best he could and showed moments of great heroism.” At one point, Beilis’s lawyer warned him that the Black Hundreds would try to poison the food he was receiving daily from his family and attempt to pin his death on the Jews; rumors had already been spread that the Jews, afraid he would slip up and reveal something, wanted Beilis dead. Beilis petitioned to be allowed to eat from the “commoners’ pot,” but his petition was denied. The official response was, “You’ll eat what you’re given or else you’ll starve. There will be no special privileges for you.” Writes Levin, “He responded with a courageous act of defiance, and declared a hunger strike.” After three days the prison authorities relented and he was allowed to take a portion of the communal fare.

At another point during his long wait for a trial the date was pushed off. Without an official date, prisoners weren’t allowed to receive family visitors. He was so filled with anguish that he contemplated suicide.

“Rather such a life, death is better,” Beilis wrote in his autobiography. Yet he ultimately thought better of it, realizing that the case wasn’t just about him. If he killed himself, “my death would leave a stain on the Jews… The Jew-haters would say I did it because I wasn’t able to prove my innocence, or that the Jews did me in so the truth wouldn’t be exposed. This truly prevented me from taking this terrible step, and gave me strength and courage.”

While he was not a great Jewish scholar, “I still remembered some words from my days in cheder, such as ‘Eizehu gibor? Hakoveish es yitzro—Who is mighty? He who conquers his evil inclination.’ This verse would constantly float in front of my eyes whenever the thought of suicide arose. I had to be a hero and restrain the evil inclination and live.”

Beilis recorded an incident that happened after he had been in jail for a year. A general approached him and informed him that he would soon be free. “On what grounds?”

SOME 150 NEWS ORGANIZATIONS, MOSTLY FOREIGN, COVERED THE DAILY EVENTS, MANY AS FRONT PAGE NEWS.

He later moved to Israel before settling in New York, but the trauma of the experience affected him for the rest of his life. “He was a hero,” says Levin, “but it was tough for him to make a living.”

Why Now? Jay Beilis believes that the reason more people aren’t aware of his famous grandfather is that the story was soon eclipsed by the horrors of the Holocaust. Nonetheless, “It’s an important part of Jewish history. The blood libel is one of the foundations of anti-Semitism and we don’t want it to happen again, especially given the way it’s used in the Muslim community.”

Levin, however, downplays the number of people who actually believe the premise used for this libel tactic nowadays. “I don’t think you want to exaggerate the extent to which it’s believed.”

A hundred years after the trial, the only people in Russia who bring it up now are extreme nationalists. “There’s a little shrine where Andrei Yushchinsky is buried,” says Weinberg, “and on the anniversary of his death they gather there to talk about his martyrdom. Otherwise, I think that people in Ukraine don’t believe it anymore.”

However, “the idea that Jews are metaphorically bloodsuckers” is still prevalent in our day and age, Levin insists.

Summing up the trial, Weinberg notes, “It shows the ability of the state to use prejudices for its own benefit and political agenda. In this case it was anti-Semitism, but the larger concern is how government can use religious beliefs to its own end.” 

SA

LE

he asked. The general responded that “the 300th anniversary jubilee of the reign of the Romanoff dynasty is soon to be celebrated. There will be a manifesto pardoning all convicts.” Beilis declared that he would not leave, even if ordered to do so, and “even if you threaten me with shooting, I shall not go without a trial. I am strong enough to suffer until then.”

Interestingly, decades after Mendel Beilis’s death in 1934, the popular author Bernard Malamud wrote a novel, The Fixer, loosely based on the famous case. While the book won a Pulitzer Prize, it contained entire almost verbatim paragraphs and narratives from Mendel Beilis’s 1926 autobiography without giving proper credit. Malamud’s plagiarism is still being debated today.

Beilis continued to demonstrate courage even after his acquittal, remaining in Kiev so the Black Hundreds couldn’t say that “I ran away.”

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my word!

A S H E R V. F I N N

Each week, “My Word!”—penned by the esteemed president of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to English—highlights often-misused or misspelled phrases or words, common grammatical challenges, unusual expressions or neologisms. Or it just calls attention to curious or interesting locutions.

So if you want to learn some new things about English—or are already expert in the language and want to prove it to yourself—you’ve come to the right place.

Junctural Metanalysis and Us

T

he clever humor in an advertisement for a “onesie”—the trademarked name for an infant’s “stretchie” lacking legs and with snaps or Velcro (another trademarked name) strategically placed to facilitate diaper-changing—would have totally puzzled a shopper just a few years ago.

The article of baby clothing being hawked carried the cute legend “There’s a nap for that.”

The reference, of course was to Apple’s (likewise trademarked) slogan “There’s an app for that.”

An “app,” of course, like “onesie,” is a neologism, or new word. It is a shortened form of “application,” which can refer to a computer program that can be downloaded to a “smartphone” (oy, there’s another one!) to facilitate a task or take the place of another device or tool.

The joke in what was written across the front of the onesie derives from a sort of garbled misreading—or, to be eggheaded, a “junctural metanalysis,” sometimes called a “false splitting.” Some common English words, as it happens, are a result of just that.

Take an apron. Well, yes, if your spouse asks you to prepare dinner, do indeed. But even if it’s take-out night, take “an apron”—as an example.

Originally, the word was napron, related to the Latin word mappa, which (like the identical Aramaic word, familiar to every Talmud student) meant “tablecloth” and, eventually “map,” since the latter was traditionally spread out on a table to be read. (Today, of course, there are apps for that.) At some point, the tablecloth, or at least the word for it, came to 64 A M I M A G A Z I N E / / O C T O B E R 2 3 , 2 0 1 3 / / 1 9 C H E S H VA N 5 7 7 4

be used for something worn in the kitchen to catch the splatterings born of cooking.

Sometime in the Middle Ages, the French, whom of course one can never trust, decided to replace the “m” with an “n”, and so the naperon was born, and worn. It was later simplified as “napron.”

English picked up the word at some point and the phrase “a napron” devolved (through junctural metanalysis) into “an apron.” Talk about splatterings.

Speaking of baseball—Oh, we weren’t? That’s too bad— another example of junctural metanalysis is the word “umpire,” which began its life as the Old French word nonper, meaning, “peerless”—or an arbiter who stands above others—and was used in a legal context.

It sounded like, and eventually became spelled as, “noumpere” which, after moving to Middle English, became “an oumpere.” With the advent of baseball, the word was promoted from its legal usage to the more exalted status of a sports term.

A case where an “n” was added, not dropped, is “nickname,” which was originally an “ekename”—“eke” meaning “additional” in Old English.

And speaking of breakfast (well, I was thinking about it, anyway), the word “omelet” is thought to have begun as “la lemelle,” which sort of translates as “the flat, plate-shaped thing.”

As the French (and you can trust them here) are wont to say: On ne saurait faire une omelette sans casser des oeufs.

And you certainly can’t make a junctural metanalysis without breaking a few words.

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O

r u

JOURNEY B Y R A B B I S H OL OM F R I E D M A N N

A W E E K LY L O O K A T T H E K L E I N M A N F A M I LY H O L O C A U S T E D U C A T I O N C E N T E R

Taking on Shylock SHAKESPEARE GETS A REWRITE

A

nyone who has made it through high school most likely recalls, without much affection, the study of Shakespeare’s Macbeth and Julius Caesar. If you’re like me, you failed to see the masterful writing of these works, and wondered how they became enshrined as great classics of literature and theater. You surely did not voice these valid musings for the fear of sounding like an uneducated boor. So to folks like us it is not surprising or disturbing to hear that some of Shakespeare’s works are to be revised by contemporary writers.

Penguin Random House Publishers has signed a group of writers to put a modern spin on selected plays by Shakespeare.

The Booker Prize-winning author Howard Jacobson, a Jewish writer, was chosen to revamp Shakespeare’s most controversial play, The Merchant of Venice, in a bid to tackle its antisemitism.

Mr. Jacobson vowed not to shy away from those central aspects of the text. “Mr. Shakespeare probably never met a Jew, the Holocaust had not yet happened, and antisemitism did not have a name,” he said.

American postcards from the early 1900s Property of KFHEC

“For an English novelist, Shakespeare is where it all begins. For an English novelist who also happens to be Jewish, The Merchant of Venice is where it all snarls up.”

Well, this development does have some

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members of the literary elite all snarled up.

These Shakespearean purists are livid that this timeless work will go under the knife of some (Jewish) novelist. I, of course, don’t share these sentiments, but I was

1919 Royal Doulton plate titled “Shylock” Property of KFHEC

It’s not the most outrageous objects that I find most difficult to look at, but the everyday, commonplace items that just happen to have antisemitic imagery on them. shocked to read Mr. Jacobson’s words.

“The Holocaust did not yet happen.” But Jews were massacred in London and York in the late 1100s! And if Shakespeare never met a Jew, that would be because of the ethnic cleansing that followed King Edward I’s Edict of Expulsion in 1290.

And even if antisemitism did not have a name, did it not exist? Has he never heard of “the longest hatred”?

The Merchant of Venice was written in the late 1500s, when English society was described as “Judeophobic.” Barred from land ownership and other forms of income, many turned to money lending, as depicted by the Jewish character Shylock.

Christians were not allowed to engage in the activity as it was viewed as unethical.

However, since it served a vital economic need, it was common practice to borrow from the Jews, who they deemed as mor-

ally inferior. In Venice and in some other places, Jews were required to wear a red hat at all times in public to make sure that they were easily identified. Indeed, the yellow star that became synonymous with Jewish life in Nazi Germany was merely the most recent manifestation of a form of antisemitic persecution common to both Christian and Islamic societies for centuries. Some historians (e.g., John W. Hales, Shakespeare and the Jews) see the play as a continuation of this tradition.

Others have posited that, although the Bard himself did not harbor such feelings, he simply reflected the contemporary public attitude against Jews in order to make his work more appealing. If so, he did his job all too well. The caricature of this hook-nosed swindler has crept its way into history. For example, Royal Doulton, a well-known English tableware company

that still exists today, produced dinnerware that was emblazoned with Shylock images.

Mrs. Shoshana Greenwald, our Collections Curator, displays one such china plate dating from 1919. “What I find most offensive is that this was manufactured by a reputable ceramic and stoneware company,” she remarks. “It wasn’t meant to shock or offend, but just as an amusing depiction of a despicable character.”

In the Kleinman Family Holocaust Education Center’s collection of antisemitic artifacts, one discovers disturbing evidence of how commonplace this was even in modern American life. Even in New York City, post cards with such pictures were sold and used for regular correspondence.

Mrs. Greenwald states, “It’s not the most outrageous objects that I find most difficult to look at, but the everyday, commonplace items that just happen to have antisemitic imagery on them. I imagine the buyer didn’t even think about the meaning, but just chuckled to him or herself about the ‘money-grubbing Jew’.”

Of course, in the years prior to World War II The Merchant of Venice was prominent in German propaganda. Shortly after Kristallnacht in 1938, The Merchant of Venice was broadcast over the German airwaves, and extreme versions of the play followed throughout Nazi territory. The Shylock character was a favorite of the Nazi propagandist Julius Streicher, and emerged as the central figure engaged in all sorts of ugly behavior.

Classical plays can usually be categorized as tragedies or comedies. It is interesting to note that as time progresses, we can still identify with a tragic story of friendship and suffering. But our idea of “funny” has changed dramatically. So if those comedies contain any humor, it is lost on us.

I do believe that Shakespeare would not be amused if he learned that his play was now at the mercy of a Jewish writer, so Mr. Jacobson does, at least, get the last laugh.

•

Rabbi Sholom Friedmann is the Director of the Kleinman Family Holocaust Education Center, located in Brooklyn, NY. To learn more, visit kfhec.org. You can also contact the Center at kfhec@kfhec.org or 718-759-6200.

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Don’t Be Like Tatty Dear Rabbi Taub: I am really impressed with your responses every week so I decided to write to you. I’ve been married almost two decades. From the beginning, I realized something just wasn’t right, but I didn’t have the money, time or energy to do anything about it. (Don’t try to send me to one of the mental health organizations. I’ve tried them; they are either incompetent or just out there to make money.) I may sound to you like a bitter person, but on the outside I go around with a huge smile, and nobody suspects anything. At night my tears soak through my pillow.

Recently, my spouse finally agreed to see someone. It was amazing to see how in a very short time, the professional got a clear picture.

He said that it is a very complicated issue and he was surprised that I was able to survive until now. My spouse, however, thinks this whole thing is a big joke.

Now, let me clarify what made me write to you now. I am not concerned about my welfare; I am worried about my kids—they are reaching marriageable age. I’ve been ignoring the problem until now; I’ve been trying to keep the atmosphere in the house as “normal as possible,” but they are not stupid. My question is as follows: 1) I do not want my kids to go into marriage thinking this is “normal.”

I want them to look forward to [marriage], not dread it.

2) I do not want them to imitate my spouse, thinking this is normal behavior. Do I tell them their parent has a problem? I don’t want them to look down on him (more than necessary). I know the situation now is less than ideal, but at least, superficially, it seems like a normal family.

How do I deal with this?

Hoping to get an answer ASAP. Thank you so much!

Worried About My Kids

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D

ear Worried About My Kids: I sense the deep frustration you must feel and I am quite impressed that, as you say, you are not concerned about yourself as much as you are worried for your children. It takes a lot of maturity to come to that point, that is, if you’re saying it out of acceptance and not out of resignation. There’s a huge difference.

Acceptance means to have made peace with the past and present so that you are free to think proactively about your future. Resignation, in contrast, causes us to become blind to future choices. My concern is that, as you yourself admitted, there is a lot of bitterness here. Thus, I am not so sure you have come to terms with your lot in a healthy way and, to be frank, I am not so sure that you shouldn’t be concerned about yourself. It may actually be an avoidance tactic.

I know I may sound like I am talking out of both sides of my mouth right now, so let me try to clarify. On the one hand, it’s really admirable of you to think of your children before yourself. On the other hand, I have this nagging sense that maybe you are focusing on them in order to avoid dealing with your own situation. Worse yet, you might even be focusing on your kids as a way of actually reinforcing your feelings of frustration or victimhood. I’m not saying that this is what you are doing. I’m merely saying that from your words, I picked up on that being a possibility. I know you felt a strong feeling of vindication when the professional diagnosed your spouse and sympathized with you. I’m wondering if, on some level, you could be looking for similar affirmation from your children. Again, I am not saying that this is what you are doing. I just feel the need to point out the possibility.

But you’re asking me about the kids, not about yourself, so I will not continue to point the spotlight on this aspect of your situation. As my final mention of this subject, I will just briefly suggest that you

consider getting help for yourself at some point. I will again remind you of how much relief you felt when you and your spouse saw that professional, and the professional so quickly and accurately summed up the situation. That’s why I’m thinking that, even if your spouse is unwilling to see anybody, you could see somebody on your own. Just the fact that somebody understands your situation may give you a great deal of relief.

At any rate, as I said, I will not dwell on this aspect of your situation. Your question was about what to tell the kids, so let’s talk about that. Of course, your kids are not really kids; they’re almost adults.

First of all, I hope you know, this is a question that most parents must face at one time or another, and in this respect, your situation is really not unique. As their children grow up and become old enough to figure things out, parents grapple with the question of how much they are supposed to “admit” to their kids. This dilemma arises in various forms in almost all homes. It doesn’t have to be something on the level that you describe, where one parent has a pervasive issue.

I’m sure you’ve heard of “Do as I say, not as I do.” Well, we can call this scenario, “Do as I say, not as Mommy (or Tatty) does.” For instance, when a mother tells her teenage son to get up and go to minyan even though Tatty doesn’t get up and go, does Mommy need to explicitly acknowledge this reality? Should she say, “Do as I say, not as Tatty does”? This is a common dilemma.

Let me ask you your opinion. Setting aside your personal situation for now, do you think it’s ever effective for parents to say, “Do as I say, not as I do,” or for one parent to say, “Do as I say, not as the other parent does”?

Experience has shown that not only is this kind of double message ineffective, it can even cause additional harm. When preaching “Do as I say, not as I do,” the issue is hypocrisy. But when telling a child “Do as I say, not as your other parent

does,” this puts the child in the midst of a conflict that is not his or her place to deal with. It implicitly asks the child to choose sides between one parent and another. Obviously, this causes any child, even a grown child, a great deal of stress and confusion.

As you yourself told me about your kids, they “are not stupid.” If they haven’t figured out things on their own by now, then your telling them is only going to result in one of three things: a) they will be resentful toward you that you are maligning their “innocent” parent for “no reason,” b) they will see you as a pity case who’s trying to get their sympathy, or c) both of the above. My concern, with all due respect, is that you may actually desire option b, at least on some level. I hope that I am simply misreading things. If

concerned so much with the impression of marriage they are getting from your spouse.

I would be concerned with the impression of marriage they are getting from you. That is precisely why I am so concerned about the bitterness, the conflict and the secret pain that you feel. In other words, if your spouse is clearly “off”—and you have pretty much said that this is the case—then your kids probably will not extrapolate any general rules about marriage from that. But if

I WOULD BE CONCERNED WITH THE IMPRESSION OF MARRIAGE THEY ARE GETTING FROM YOU. I am off base, please forgive me.

I said I would focus on how you should deal with your kids and not with yourself.

However, I feel that in this case, dealing properly with yourself is the best way to deal with your kids. You see, at this point, either your kids understand that their parents’ marriage is atypical, or they don’t.

Sharing with them your interpretation of reality will not change their perceptions.

They have formed their own understanding of what went on in the home where they grew up. You cannot rewrite that reality for them anymore.

The main influence that you have on your children is the kind of spouse that they perceive you to be. Your attitude as a spouse will influence the degree to which they will head into marriage with a healthy attitude.

In other words, if I were you, I wouldn’t be

you are more or less the “normal” one, and your kids pick up that you are resentful or that you feel like a victim, then that will, chas v’shalom, have more of a detrimental impact than anything. That is why I feel that you should get some support for yourself. In this case, the way to put your kids first would actually be to take care of yourself.

•

With blessing, RST Rabbi Shais Taub is a noted expert on Jewish spirituality and addiction. He is the author of the best-selling G-d of Our Understanding: Jewish Spirituality and Recovery from Addiction.

Questions to Rabbi Shais Taub should be sent to ask@amimagazine.org.

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Guest Speaker REVISITING THE SHUL OF MY YOUTH: THE BAYT “Nostalgia…it ain’t what it used to be!”

—American proverb attributed to Yogi Berra A PROLOGUE:

I was five years old and our kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Witty, announced a special “trip” our class would be embarking on: a flight to Israel.

No, we were not really going, not in the physical sense. Rather, it was to be a day dedicated to the Holy Land, which would begin with a simulated flight—with seatbelts sewn onto our chairs and a video recreation of flying through the sky—and finally a tour of our sacred country. The day of the announcement we all received our flight “tickets,” which, in reality, were just rectangular cutouts of maroon construction paper.

The euphoric—almost narcotic—feeling I experienced in my anticipation was the type known only to children and chased by some adults for the rest of their lives. I remember well arriving at school that next morning with my mother. I remember the smell of my construction-paper ticket and how, when holding it, I felt like Charlie holding onto his golden ticket to the chocolate factory. I remember “buckling” myself into the seat. I remember the announcement for “takeoff.” I remember watching the video (back then it was a projector) climbing through the air, and then…nothing. My memory of the incident ends there.

Toronto was a smaller Jewish community back then, and everyone knew everyone.

Having the good fortune of being raised in the same city, in the same home, for all of my formative years, my memories of the place are many. But my memories from kindergarten are clearest of all. Mrs. Witty was an amazing morah, and I still vividly recall learning the aleph-beis from her and hiding under her desk to scare her, so desperate was I for her attention.

Ever since my mother passed away, the women of my parents’ shul have made a siyum on all the parshiyos of the Torah on each and every yahrzeit.

Along with a guest speaker and some food, each year they meet, they recall my mother, and they celebrate their own growth in Torah.

It is a beautiful event and a proper testament to a true “woman of valor.”

For this year’s event, marking her 12th yahrzeit, I was asked to speak. My daughter was born during my mother’s shivah.

Named for my mother, she will become bas mitzvah mere days following the yahrzeit, marking this year’s yahrtzeit with conflicting emotions.

This public forum is not the place to talk in great detail about my mother, a”h.

Suffice it to say that she was a baalas chesed of the highest order; her food delighted the palates of tens of thousands of guests

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in her cut-short life, and she served as an eizer k'negdo as she and my father helped create the largest non-chasidic-court shul in North America—the BAYT, in Thornhill, Ontario, Canada. I am confident that many readers of Ami have attended simchos in its stunning building and hall.

While this weekly column focuses on the role of the rabbi, we would be remiss not to make mention of the role of the rebbetzin, personified by my mother, my stepmother Malkah (y'bch’lch), and the present rebbetzin of the BAYT, Mrs. Korobkin.

We have often discussed in these pages that one of the more frustrating elements of the rabbinate is its disposable nature; the best joke, story, or vort must be retired as soon as it is first spoken, since a rav faces, more or less, the same audience each and every time he speaks.

One would then think that speaking

BY RABBI MOSHE TAUB

out of town would be cathartic, since a rav can—finally—gather a “best of” collection of his past remarks.

One would think so…but the “disposable” nature is just too embedded, and speaking to rabbinic colleagues, I know that I am not alone in finding it difficult to even remember past remarks.

As I pulled into the parking lot of the BAYT, I was so overwhelmed with emotion, memories and thoughts, that even had I better prepared my remarks I would have had to start all over again. The shul, still thriving, has continued to be a wonderful makom Torah with four separate Daf Yomi shiurim, a flourishing kollel, and endless classes each day from morning to night. Walking into the beis midrash (not even the kollel’s), I was met with the splendid sight of innumerable chavrusos learning together.

I had a sudden flashback to when I was three years old, of my mother giving me a tray of orange juice to bring down to the mispallelim in the minyan then in our home’s unfinished basement; of the oneg Shabbos we would hold in our home Friday nights when most of the shul could fit in our living room; and of driving with my mother to Motti’s Pizza in the then more established frum area of Toronto and excitingly pointing to someone in the street wearing a yarmulke, so rare was that sight during the infancy of Thornhill’s growth.

Growing up as the “rabbi’s son,” the memories of this shul are ingrained in my head, both figuratively and literally! For as the shul grew and grew, a plan was put into place to build the magnificent present-day shul, the model of which sat in our basement in a glass vitrine that, due to some young-boy vildkeit, left a scar on my head still visible today. Ingrained indeed!

After I spoke, I had a chance to catch up with some of the attendees, some of whom were endearingly referring to me as

“Moishe” or “Rabbi Moshey.”

Rabbi Korobkin, the multitalented and wonderful present rav of the shul, sought to correct them. “It’s Rabbi Taub,” he gently suggested to them.

But I would not have had it any other way. One woman used to babysit me when we lived in Flatbush; another had witnessed me destroy the expensive drum set that she bought for her son’s birthday before she even gave it to him; etc., etc., etc.

I remarked to the rav—as I did when we had last met in Buffalo—the famous proverb “ein navi b’iro,” that one cannot

Why is it that happy memories bring such an array of conflicting emotions?

Even Webster’s Dictionary defines “nostalgia” as: “pleasure and sadness that is caused by remembering something from the past and wishing that you could experience it again.”

While it is rare to see a dictionary being a mechadesh—not just telling us that nostalgia may bring sadness, but why nostalgia brings sadness—I would disagree with its assessment.

The sadness often associated with nostalgia is caused when one’s idyllic memories

The sadness often associated with nostalgia is caused when one’s idyllic memories of the past are confronted with the marching nature of time. be a prophet in his/her hometown, and how, oddly, this comes from a sentence in the Gospels (l'havdil)! (See Otzar Hayedios vol.2 for other “Jewish” proverbs that in reality come from sefarim chitzonim.)

As the room slowly cleared and only a few of us remained, one woman came over to ask if I might possibly remember her mother, who was standing across the room. “My maiden name is Witty; my mother used to teach you in kindergarten.”

Do I remember?!

Just yesterday I was in her class, just last week I held that construction-paper ticket, just the other day she taught me the aleph-beis.

It meant so much to me that Mrs. Witty was there. It had been many decades. The last time she’d seen me I was under her desk. Now I was in front of a pulpit.

Again I found myself overwhelmed emotionally.

of the past are confronted with the marching nature of time.

So it may not be the desire of experiencing it all over again, but rather the recognition of the reality—that even our present world is destined to change—that shades our nostalgia with a tint of sadness.

Our hope is that those changes be positive, that Torah observance and study continue to rise to unseen heights.

May my mother’s neshamah have an aliyah, and may all those who help build Torah—whether through being a rebbetzin or a morah in kindergarten—be met with a cup running over with brachah. 

Rabbi Moshe Taub has served as the rabbi of the Young Israel of Greater Buffalo since September 2003, and also serves as the rav hamachshir of the Buffalo Vaad Hakashrus.

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BRAIN STORM YITZY YABOK is the pen name of a young man who shares his life-altering experience in Ami’s exclusive serial. His story, which began a little more than 12 years ago and traverses several continents, has touched the hearts of people all over the world and been an inspiration to many who face challenges. He has lectured before all kinds of audiences, from medical doctors to

kollel yungeleit, about his nisyonos and salvation. He is currently a rebbe in the Midwest and a candidate for a license in clinical mental health counseling. With the blessings of gedolei Torah and tzaddikei Yisrael, he now shares the chasdei Hashem that were bestowed upon him, as both chizzuk and guidance for all those who may be dealing with traumatic illness.

CHAPTER LII

The MRI had detected a little white line along an area on the edge of the tumor resection site. I didn’t feel any different, nor had I experienced any physical changes. But as they always said at the Duke University Brain Tumor Center, “We have to check it out whenever the scans aren’t superimposable.”

That means placing the current scans over the last ones and checking for any changes. While some changes can be good, most often, when dealing with brain tumors, changes are not something a person wants. This was especially true in my case, when the baseline scans were clean.

After a few days of uncertainty, the doctors at Duke unanimously concluded that based on the size and location of the “white line” and a couple of other technical factors, what they were seeing was only scar tissue. At first I was still very nervous. It wasn’t as if I didn’t trust them, but I worried that maybe they were making a mistake. It was also strange that I never got a thorough explanation.

In every other instance they had always explained everything in the easiest possible way for a layman to understand.

In fact, that was one of the things that set the medical staff at Duke apart from the other facilities I had been in. I would later learn that it’s really a professional judgment call, based on having seen hundreds of such scans, to be able to tell the difference between tumor regrowth and scar tissue.

The good news meant that I was back on track for a second round of Temodar. I am no expert on treating brain tumors, but it seemed that the doctors were enamored by this new drug. It had very few side effects, and I’m happy to report that the dreaded nausea never really showed up. While I did feel sick many times, comparatively speaking, it was not what I expected. The only scary thing was the havoc these tumorcell killing drugs played on my blood counts. The way to monitor this was by taking weekly blood tests. My blood counts did not affect the way I felt, but with my white blood cell counts always so low I had to be extremely cautious about being near anyone who was sick.

My red blood cells were also in a state of flux, and my platelets dipped dramatically low a couple of times. But I was still

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able to go back to yeshivah a month after the Pesach bein hazmanim was over.

It was an exciting time for me. I had missed the social aspects of my life for a long period of time, and it felt good to be back. Actually, before returning to my regular yeshivah I was learning in Yeshivah Sh’or Yoshuv, but I was always a little uncomfortable that others thought of me as “the guy who’s home from yeshivah because he’s sick so he’s just hanging out here.”

Part of being away from home involved managing my ever-changing meds, doctor’s appointments and blood tests. My rosh yeshivah was very understanding and accommodating and allowed me to do whatever I had to do. Still, he never gave me a free pass and demanded that I put forth my best effort, which at the time I didn’t appreciate but can now see was the best thing for me. Had he coddled me more, I probably would have made excuses as why I did not want to shtel tzu to this and conform to that. To his credit, he was able to recognize that trait in me during my short time there.

In fact, everyone at the yeshivah was expected to be diligent, not just those

A PERSONAL JOURNAL BY YITZY YABOK

Each time I came out of a brain scan clean it felt like I had dodged another bullet.

who were in life-threatening situations!

I was very fortunate that Dr. Robert Shanik, the famous Lakewood physician, offered to do my weekly blood tests for free. His office had the equipment necessary to perform a plain CBC test.

For the more detailed tests, like checking hemoglobin levels and other assorted things, I would go to a Quest Diagnostics laboratory in Brick, New Jersey, right outside of Lakewood. By now I’m sure

there are facilities in Lakewood itself that do the more sophisticated blood work.

I always felt strange going into the pediatrician’s office. I was uncomfortable among all the young mothers with their babies and toddlers and was never quite sure where to sit in the waiting room. If I was a self-conscious, awkward bochur before, the state of my hair—or lack of it—didn’t add to my poise or self-confidence. Luckily, my blood levels were

usually low but not too alarming.

Just before the second round of Temodar was completed I needed to undergo another MRI scan to make sure that things were going well. Baruch Hashem, everything was fine. Each time I came out of a brain scan clean it felt like I had dodged another bullet. Just recently my parents told me that they felt as though they had never been able to breathe until the doctor called with positive results.

I had two weeks off before the next offensive, which would involve a round of a new chemotherapy drug. This time, I was warned, they were going in for the kill. These drugs would definitely have the side effects that had made chemotherapy so infamous.

If I had known what would happen next, I would probably never have elected to start them.  To be continued...

‫ ב ה‬

A Mystery in Texas A COLLECTION OF ANTIQUE SEFARIM UNLOCK THE SECRETS OF ONE MAN’S PAST

W

FADED MEMORIES The grandfather Markson remembered was a learned man, constantly attached to his beloved books. He had made his living selling furniture. The images Markson

Dan Markson with Rabbi Krinsky

retained over the years were of his grandfather, who in the United States was called Louis Hurvitt, sitting and studying, “praying in his white prayer shawl” and “dancing with me on his shoulders.” Also etched in Markson’s mind were memories of young students coming to grandfather’s home at all hours of the night to speak with him: “My grandmother would announce, ‘Here they go…’ and all of them would file into my grandfather’s study.” As a young child, Markson did not understand anything they discussed, but knew it was complicated enough to keep the group talking until the wee hours of the morning.

Markson also recalled an old story about the time his grandfather took his wife to the movies, where he sat on the aisle with a sefer

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in his lap, studying under the light at the end of the seat. “[It] probably did not make my grandmother very happy,” Markson jokes.

Markson’s aunt told him that Rabbi Hurvitt, her father, encouraged her to keep a kosher home. But she had not learned any of the laws of kashrus in the Boston suburb where they lived and where Jewish education was scarce. “Whatever you do is to your credit,” he told her, “and you will learn as time goes on”.

At the end of the day, however, Markson could not tell Rabbi Block much about the man: “I had a sense he was pious and that he had some Chabad connection.” All Markson had left of him were the forty books he’d chosen from his grandfather’s library after he died. Interestingly, along with the

Photos BY Allan Smith and Lubavitch Archives

hen Rabbi Chaim Block attended a Jewish social event in San Antonio, the last thing he expected was an invitation to see a collection of antique sefarim.

But that is what he got when he met Dan Markson, a real estate developer who had inherited the books years before from his grandfather. Unable to read Hebrew, Markson had little idea about the books’ content, or even where they first came from. He had the feeling, however, that the rabbi would know, and might even be willing to help him learn more about them. The opportunity was irresistible to Rabbi Block, most of whose “clientele” had barely a clue about Judaism, never mind centuries-old sefarim.

When Rabbi Block, the veteran Chabad shliach in the city, finally saw the books at Markson’s home, he practically fell from his chair: They were handwritten sefarim on chasidus dating back to the 19th century.

Markson then showed Rabbi Block some other documents he had, which indicated that he was a descendant of the Shelah Hakadosh. And which, it turned out, made Markson and Block distant relatives.

Rabbi Block couldn’t help but wonder about the man from whom Markson had inherited these books: Who was he? Did he have a connection to Chabad? And how had he managed to get such valuable sefarim into his possession?

BY DOVID ZAKLIKOWSKI

books, his grandfather left behind an ethical will that indicates to the trained eye his affiliation with Chabad: He made a specific request that no hesped be made for him, a standard Chabad custom.

At eleven years old, Markson was unable to make a connection with his grandfather’s legacy. But as an adult, he became obsessed with learning more about him. He hoped that with Rabbi Block’s help, he would not only discover what the books said, but also what they could tell him about his family’s past.

At the end of that first meeting, Rabbi Block suggested that Markson learn some of the volumes of Chabad teachings in English.

Markson was ecstatic. “I wanted to unlock the source [of] my grandfather’s collection,” he says. Using books translated into English by the Lubavitch Kehos publishing house, Markson went to work.

MAKING CONTACT Sometime after beginning their studies, Rabbi Block received a call from his new friend. “Do you know why a Rabbi Krinsky of Lubavitch World Headquarters would be calling me?” Markson asked him.

It turned out that Markson had recently dedicated a volume for Kehos, “in memory of Louis Hurvitt, a descendant of the Holy Shelah.” Soon afterward, he got a message from Rabbi Krinsky, asking him to be in touch.

Rabbi Krinsky, Block explained, was the chairman of the educational and social service arms of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement and a very, very busy man. Rabbi Block had no idea why he would be calling a Texas real-estate-developer-turned-novice-Torah-learner. He could only assume it had something to do with Markson’s book dedication. Maybe it was too long and needed to be cut?

When Markson finally called Rabbi Krinsky, he could hardly believe what he heard.

“Your grandfather was a great scholar, a dear friend of my father [Rabbi Shmaya Krin-

sky] and an informal teacher of mine in Boston,” Rabbi Krinsky told him. “He was one the most learned men in Boston and the founder of Chabad there. He was a known rabbi, and he was known as Leibke Smargonya, the lion of Smarhon,” a city that is today in Belarus.

“I freaked out,” Markson remembers.

“Here is this man I thought was an ordinary furniture salesman, a guy who had some books and liked to study them, and I find out that he is a major scholar and never told anyone. I remember my cousin asking me, ‘How could he have kept that a secret?’”

With Rabbi Krinsky, Markson had struck upon the wellspring of information he’d been looking for. Over their many

whom he helped found Boston’s Chabad community.

Markson offered to give Krinsky a collection of hundreds of letters, correspondences he had with Markson’s great-grandfather and other rabbis from New York, elsewhere in the United States and “the old country.”

Reading them with Rabbi Krinsky and other Chabad rabbis gave Markson new insight into his grandfather’s life.

For many years, Markson knew that there was a bed sheet that was treasured by the family, but he never knew why. The letters unraveled the mystery. When the Rebbe Rayatz was in Boston, he stayed at Rabbi Hurvitt’s home. The Rebbe later sent him a letter of thanks saying, “I am returning [this

“Here is this man I thought was an ordinary furniture salesman, and I find out that he is a major scholar …How could he have kept that a secret?” conversations, Markson learned that his grandfather had studied in the original Chabad-Lubavitch yeshivah in the town of Lubavitch, shortly after it was founded by the fifth Chabad Rebbe, the Rebbe Rashab.

“When he started Tomchei Tmimim,” Markson explains, “[the Rebbe] searched for Torah talent…my grandfather was the one selected from his city.”

He learned that his grandfather was forced to flee Russia when he was in the army, where upholding Yiddishkeit was next to impossible and where Jewish soldiers were forced to fight on the lethal front lines. He arrived in the United States in 1912. Later, he would settle in the Boston area, building a close friendship with Rabbi Shmaya Krinsky, Rabbi Yehuda’s father, with

sheet] to your possession. It should be kept in your family and in 120 years it could be made into shrouds.” The sheet “must have been the one that the previous Rebbe had slept on.”

About Rabbi Hurvitt, Rabbi Krinsky said, “‘Humble’ would be an understatement. He struggled all his life to make a living. He worked very, very hard, and yet he was a great talmid chacham.”

AN UNEXPECTED TREASURE As their relationship grew, Rabbi Krinsky presented Markson with an offer he couldn’t refuse: “Would you like to see your grandfather’s books?” Markson was invited to visit the central Chabad library in New York, home of many volumes that Markson’s

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“How many other people have stories like mine, who could be awakened like the spark in the coal and reignite the flame after fifty years?”

Louis Hurvitt

grandfather had once owned.

Markson expected a small reading room with maybe a hundred books or so. But “when he took me through the metal door in the basement,” he recalls, “it was like revealing some hidden treasure [vault], where there are hundreds of thousands of volumes stored.”

Rabbi Krinsky showed Markson a Haggadah dating from 1792. When they opened it, a matzah crumb fell out. “That crumb must have been a hundred years old!” gushes Markson. Krinsky showed him chumashim the size of a table and others the size of a matchbox. Markson says, “I felt like I was breathing all of the souls of all the people who handled these books, who studied from them, prayed with them and during persecution hid them and then passed them on to the next generation with self-sacrifice. There is so much energy in there. It was riveting.”

During that visit Rabbi Krinsky told him of his last meeting with Rabbi Hurvitt in Boston. “A year before he passed away, [Rabbi Hurvitt] called me aside when I was visiting my parents in Boston. He told me that there is a mishnah that says, ‘There’s a bird that fell out of its nest; who does it belong to? Which neighbor does it belong

to?’ The mishnah decides that if it is within fifty cubits of a nest, it belongs to the one who owns that particular nest.

“What he was trying to tell me was, when he will pass away, he wants to be buried in New York near the Rebbe [Rayatz].” However, Rabbi Hurvitt didn’t tell Rabbi Krinsky about any arrangements he’d made, and so he was buried in Boston.

A NEW-OLD LIBRARY Last year, on the anniversary of the birth of the Baal Shem Tov and the Baal HaTanya, the founder of Chabad Chasidus, Markson dedicated a new library in memory of his grandfather Rabbi Hurvitt at the Chabad Center for Jewish Life and Learning being built in San Antonio. On a shelf in the library, together with thousands of other Jewish volumes, sits the volumes owned and studied by Rabbi Hurvitt.

“In my own small way,” says Markson, “I was able to honor [his] spirit with dedicating the library at the Chabad Center in San Antonio, and bringing the memory of…my grandfather to life.”

Markson says that now, he feels he knows his grandfather better than he knows some of his living relatives. “I understand how he ticked from what he learned. From the letters, you could see that at the time, people just solely lived for chasidus. I wish I could do that; it is just magnificent.”

After studying chasidus, Markson understands why his grandfather did not boast of the amount of knowledge he had: “It would be calling attention to himself. If you look in Kuntrus Eitz HaChayim from the Rebbe

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Rashab, there is a quote from the Ramak, and it is talking about somebody who studies Torah for recognition—for profit…

There is a negative description of how bad that is, what a misuse of Torah study that would be. For my grandfather, I think any sort of recognition would have been abhorrent to him.”

Markson looks back on this series of events, which brought him to his grandfather, as a miracle, as well as a chance “to come back to the life that he once lived.”In his continued growth in Yiddishkeit, he now puts on tefillin and davens daily, has a daily shiur and keeps all the Yomim Tovim.

Rabbi Krinsky, says Markson, “has been an amazing gift in my life. I am grateful for my friendship with him and his instilling love of chasidus in me, and for teaching me about my grandfather. And for Rabbi Block, for bringing me into this in the modern world: for being able to study this intricate and magnificent philosophy.”

For his part, Rabbi Krinsky, who attended the dedication, is awestruck that one of Rabbi Hurvitt’s grandchildren built a library in his honor, beginning with the forty books from his own collection. But Markson just considers himself lucky. “How many other people have stories like mine, who could be awakened like the spark in the coal and reignite the flame after fifty years? It has been this amazing experience of reconnecting, and it just still keeps unfolding.”

•

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Minding Our P’s and Q’s IT’S NOT ALWAYS PROPER TO BE A CRITIC

I

may not be a prince, but perhaps I have a Litvishe back.

Let me explain: Did you ever hear the story of “The Princess and the Pea?” It is a short tale, one of the scores written by the Danish author Hans Christian Andersen and read by me fifty years ago. My memory is muddled by many contemporary injections since then, and thus I can only think of the story in somewhat present-day terms. The story goes something like this: There was once a prince who was looking for his bashert. And if you think we have a shidduch crisis in this era, back then when there were real kings and queens, princes and princesses, it was a whole lot worse. The mother of the prince, the queen—the potential shvigger—was adamant that her daughter-in-law should be an actual princess. After all, “I won’t let my handsome prince marry just a poshute maidel.” Not only was the queen worried about whether or not the potential machateiniste actually used Royal China or put plastic on top of the tablecloth for her Shabbos meals, the queen worried about the girl as well! She had to be a certifiably authentic princess, with real yichus.

I know that in the 50 years since I last read the tale, some cobwebs of modernity have been spun into the story. But I remember the basic plot, and of course the punch line, or shall I say the pea line: Many potential young ladies were presented, but the queen was not satisfied. She would not allow her son to marry anyone who could not prove that she was an authentic princess, and unfortunately no one had what they call a yichus briv.

One evening, there was a terrible storm. A young girl came pounding on the castle door, pleading for shelter. She claimed that she was a real princess. The queen (whose son was surely away in yeshivah) let the girl in and saw that she had wonderful middos and all the sterling qualities mentioned in the new Bais Yaakov cookbook. The potential shvigger decided that this unusual visit seemed destined. “Perhaps,” she thought, “this is the real basherte!” But rules were rules and standards were standards, even back then. The queen decided that she would put the girl to a test.

The queen offered the young lady a bed for the night, but not before she had secretly placed a small pea on it. She took 20 mattresses and piled them on top of the pea. Then she took 20 featherbeds and put them on top of the mattresses. She showed the girl to her room and gave her a ladder to climb into bed.

The next morning the king and queen asked her how she had slept.

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The poor girl explained that she had not slept the entire night.

She felt as if she had been lying upon some hard object, and claimed that her body was black and blue.

According to Mr. Andersen, “They saw at once that she must be a real princess if she had felt the pea through 20 mattresses and 20 featherbeds.” Basically, the idea was that nobody but a real princess could have such sensitivity.

RABBI MORDECHAI KAMENETZKY

Though I am no prince, I have a Litvishe back as well. There are certain nuances that pain me, and sometimes they get me into trouble. I guess certain sensitivities are specific to certain cultures. But maybe no matter where you’re from, there is something that makes a pea feel as if it is a boulder—even when it is under 20 mattresses and 20 featherbeds.

Some people are irked by the soup spoon being placed where the teaspoon should have been. Others are bothered when the bow on the hat is on the wrong side, be it the right or the left. And some are bothered by the improper use of apostrophes or semicolons or just words in general—enough to create a Society for the Prevention of Misusage.

My sensitivity was almost my undoing this week. “The Streets of Life” needed major reconstruction, a total road repair. That’s because I wrote an article this week about something that irked me. I thought it was a big deal; at least to me it was. I shared my thoughts with friends before I sat down to type. Some looked at me as if I were harping on a pea. Others egged me on. But in the end, all I got was pea soup.

I had seen a certain commercial product with a peculiar name.

It used a Hebrew word, a holy word, which I thought should not be associated with the product. I was truly bothered by the use of what I felt was a sacred description for a very mundane product.

And thus I wrote a bit of a diatribe, mitigated, of course, by a few humorous asides and the like. But it still dripped with a certain mixture of irritation and confusion, sprinkled with a topping of disdain and garnished with a cherry of sarcasm.

As good as it was, the article will never see the light of day. What was meant for Ami will remain imi (with me).

The editors at Ami, whether they agreed with my point or not, refused to print it—unless I received explicit permission from the owner of the company who made the particular product in question. They refused to allow me to unilaterally criticize this Jewish business owner in the pages of their magazine.

The editors felt that a reader might take my words so seriously or misconstrue the intent of the article so badly that he or she might decide to discontinue patronizing the product. I would have argued quite vehemently with them, dismissing their views about a small article on the back pages of a magazine, but I understood where they were coming from. I have had experience with those who unfortunately transform a minute critique—a sensitivity to a pea, if I may—into a scathing rebuke or a federal case. And vice versa. (I had recently learned about people misquoting something or using a tiny point to perpetrate the preposterous. After my essay noting the importance of sincerity and empathy while giving mussar to shul talkers, I was accused by some of opening the verbal floodgates during the most sacred of prayers. In fact, I received a call from a sincere yungerman who had begun chiding— in his words, “very respectfully”—some incessant in-the-middle-of-davening shmoozers. Suddenly one of them, who obviously had come prepared with

ammunition, thrust my article at him as if it were a blanket permission slip, a get-out-of-jail card that would allow him and his cohorts to perpetuate their crimes and misdemeanors.)

And thus, Rabbi and Mrs. Frankfurter insisted, rightfully so, that I must call the product’s owner to explain my point and ask for his permission. I did not feel comfortable doing so; I was not sure whether the man would understand the pain I felt with what might only be a pea of a problem, and I risked becoming the object of his ire and ridicule.

But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that it was the right thing to do. I made the call and I was truly and very pleasantly surprised. The owner took the time to explain why the product was originally given the sacrosanct moniker. He then explained the evolution of the business and why he had to retain the original name.

The editors at Ami refused to print it—unless I received explicit permission from the owner of the company Though he understood my point, he asked me to do him a favor: “Don’t print the article. It may hurt my parnasah.”

After hanging up, I felt that the fellow was a true ben Torah, a talmid chacham and someone who is what I consider to be the ultimate tribute: an ehrliche Yid. I was happy to ditch the entire column and substitute it with this one. And I am very glad that I did not insist on printing the original.

Truth be told, as much as I think that my pea of a point was correct, even if one person would become zealously motivated by my words not to use his product, I would be guilty of hurting a Yid’s parnasah.

I hearkened in my mind to stories of Reb Moshe and my zeide, zichronam livrachah, sitting for hours on end in front of snapping cameras and flashing bulbs all because the photographers pleaded, “Rebbe, it’s my parnasah.”

Everyone has his pet peeves. Some have their pet peas. But if you are really subject to an esoteric sensitivity that makes your back ache, be careful how you gripe.

After all, there may be two peas in a pod. 

Rabbi Mordechai Kamenetzky is the rosh yeshivah of Yeshiva Toras Chaim at South Shore, a weekly columnist in Yated Ne’eman, and the author of the Parsha Parable series. He can share your story through the “Streets of Life,” and can be reached at editorial@amimagazine.org 1 9 C H E S H VA N 5 7 7 4 / / O C T O B E R 2 3 , 2 0 1 3 / / A M I M A G A Z I N E

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