The BJH Spotlight

BJH: Tell us a little about your personal and professional background.

YC: I’m a lifelong resident of Baltimore. I graduated from Columbia University. I also have a Masters in Talmudic Law from Yeshivas Ner Yisroel and a law degree from the University of Maryland. I married my wife, Geoula, in 1984 and we have eight children ה”עב.

BJH: You are a published author, tell us about your books.

YC: I wrote three books-

The Runaway

Danny Gold shows up one day during the 1920’s on the Lower East Side just in time to rescue Joey Bergson from a bully. He’s eager to help the Bergson boys earn money and he’s good-natured, but he’s also a daring attention-seeker who dances with the organ grinder’s monkey and does chin-ups on lampposts, and he won’t tell anyone where he came from or why.

The Bergson children can’t help wondering what Danny is up to. Is he a fugitive? A thief? Or is Danny really a good guy? Readers won’t want to put down this riveting tale until they find out.

Major theme: Loyalty. Danny explains that he kept kosher under difficult circumstances and wants to stay true to his heritage because he “didn’t want to turn traitor.”

V.I.P.

Thirteen-year-old Yitzy Blackton insists on being the center of attention, but his showing off gets him into a huge mess. His best buddy snubs him for getting him into trouble, his baseball teammates are upset when his showing off makes them lose a game, and he nearly drowns in a flooded lake after going out too far on the limb of a fallen tree. Kids won’t want to stop reading until they see how Yitzy is going to extricate himself from the predicament he’s gotten himself into.

Major theme: Accepting responsibility and correcting mistakes. The main character’s father tells him, “If you’re enough of a mensch to recognize that you’ve made some mistakes, then you’ll figure out a way to fix things.”

Ezra’s Secret

When Sam and Miriam Cohen agree to foster a troubled boy with a criminal history for just one summer, they don’t know what they’re in for. Twelve-yearold Ezra turns out to be a helpful and good-natured kid who earns his new foster parents’ love. But why is he so scared of making friends with other boys his age? And why won’t he tell anyone why he’s been stealing?

Major theme: “One of the main reasons Hashem sent us into the world is to help each other.”

Spotlight on Yehuda Cahn

BJH: What inspired you to write these books?

YC: Jewish values often differ from those of the general population and need special emphasis in children’s literature.

These novels illustrate Jewish values in the context of an exciting story while making sure that the themes are consistent with the plot and not preachy.

For example, we want kids to know that it’s important to tell the truth even when it’s difficult, but I don’t present the characters as angels. As one character in V.I.P. puts it, “Everybody tells a lie once in while even though they shouldn’t.” This makes the story more realistic, allows readers to identify with the characters, and makes the ending believable when the main character discovers that people ultimately benefit from being honest.

Similarly, it’s important for kids to know that everyone makes mistakes, but when someone does, they need to face those mistakes and correct them. In The Runaway, a rabbi and his wife mistakenly suspect Danny of stealing, showing that even respected adults can make mistakes. When they find out they were wrong, the rabbi makes a point of hunting down Danny and apologizing.

BJH: What’s your writing Methodology?

YC: I use several techniques to draw readers into the story and keep their attention. One is to create a mystery. In The Runaway, for example, the main character shows up on the Lower East Side out of nowhere and is evasive about his background and why he came there. In Ezra’s Secret, the main character seems like a nice kid, and no one can figure out why he sometimes breaks the law.

V.I.P. employs a different approach. The main character is good-natured but has a flaw — he likes to show off and it gets him into serious trouble. Since readers like him, they are rooting for him, but they cannot imagine how he’ll ever get out of the mess he’s gotten himself into. That’s the incentive to keep reading.

BJH: What’s the reaction that you get from parents and children who read your book?

YC: Many parents have told me that the novels are so absorbing that their children read through the whole thing in one sitting. I have also had a few adults tell me that they enjoyed reading them either along with their children or by themselves.

BJH: We can’t wait to read your books! How can we obtain a copy?

YC: These great books are available at Jewish bookstores or through Menucha Publishers who can be contacted at 855-636-8242 or online at www. menuchapublishers.com.

had previously served as a prisoner in Israel, but after his release, he worked as a Palestinian Authority police officer in the Bethlehem area.

A letter supposedly written by the 40-year-old Abu Diah was later shared on Palestinian news outlets, where he claimed that he had made the decision to “take revenge and hurt the Zionists” as well as sacrificing his life to protect Muslim holy sites.

Also on Tuesday, a terrorist armed with a knife attempted to enter the Israeli settlement of Elon Moreh in the West Bank but was stopped by security authorities.

Samaria Regional Council head Yossi Dagan praised the settlement’s leadership for their response.

“You showed bravery, and you saved lives in Israel today,” he said. “All settlements in Samaria are proud of you and the people of Israel are proud of you.”

Dagan noted that the terrorist was stopped after security cameras were installed by the IDF’s Home Front Command fairly recently at the settlement’s request.

“Here we had a miracle that the terrorist tried to infiltrate a settlement that had security cameras installed just a year and a half ago,” Dagan said. “What would have happened if there weren’t any installed? It would have been just like when Rina Shnerb was killed in Ein Bubin two years ago.”

He called on Israel’s security apparatus to immediately order more security systems for the settlements to be completed.

90 Nations: Restore Palestinian Funds

el’s punitive measures against the Palestinian Authority.

The U.N. General Assembly late last month approved a resolution calling on the International Court of Justice to “render urgently an advisory opinion” on Israel’s “prolonged occupation, settlement and annexation of Palestinian territory.” In response to the P.A.’s ongoing “political and legal war” against the Jewish state, the Israeli Security Cabinet decided, among other measures, to withhold taxes and tariffs collected on behalf of and transferred to the P.A., in an amount equal to that which Ramallah paid to terrorists and their families in 2022 under its “pay-forslay” policy.

The letter was signed by representatives of the Arab and Islamic countries, including Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan, along with Western and other nations such as Germany, France, Italy, Ireland, Sweden, Norway, Cyprus, Japan, Brazil, Argentina and Mexico.

“Regardless of each country’s position on the resolution, we reject punitive measures in response to a request for an advisory opinion by the International Court of Justice, and more broadly in response to a General Assembly resolution, and call for their immediate reversal,” the letter states.

Similarly, a spokesperson for U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said he “notes with deep concern the recent Israeli measures against the Palestinian Authority,” adding that there should “be no retaliation…in relation to the International Court of Justice.”

In line with the Security Cabinet decision, Jerusalem last week transferred 138.8 million shekels ($39.5 million) of revenues collected for the P.A. to Israeli victims of terrorism and their families.

At a press conference, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said, “We promised to fix this, and today we are correcting an injustice. This is an important day for morality, for justice and for the fight against terrorism. There is no greater justice than offsetting the funds of the Authority, which acts to support terrorism, and transferring them to the families of the victims of terrorism.”

For his part, P.A. Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh said the punitive measures would “promptly lead to [the P.A.’s] collapse.”

In an interview with Haaretz, Shtayyeh described the Security Cabinet decision as “another nail in the Palestinian Authority’s coffin, unless there is immediate intervention by the international community, namely the [Biden] administration in Washington and Arab countries.”

He added: “Previous Israeli governments worked to eliminate the two-state solution, and the current government is fighting the Palestinian Authority itself.”

U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price described the step aimed at curbing and punishing Palestinian terrorism as a “unilateral move” that “exacerbates tensions.”

The P.A. pays monthly stipends to Palestinians, and/or their families, for carrying out terrorist attacks against Israel. In 2021, the P.A. paid out an estimated 512 million shekels ($157 million) as part of this “pay for slay” policy. (JNS)

A Decrease in the Jewish Majority

A recent surge in legal immigration has led to a decrease in Israel’s Jewish majority, according to an analysis of data from Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), Channel 14 reported on Sunday.

The Israeli Immigration Policy Center, an NGO established in 2012 to promote immigration policy which serves Israel’s strategic interests, found that last year’s 23-year record in the number of new immigrants had resulted in a 0.3% decline in Israel’s Jewish majority, to 73.6% from 73.9% at the end of 2021.

This continues a 30-year trend, with the country’s Jewish majority having declined by a total of about 10% over that span, losing about one percent every three years on average.

“It shouldn’t be possible for new immigrants to lead to a decline in the Jewish majority. This is a demographic deficit that will harm the Jewish identity and character of the country,” said Attorney Yona Sherki of the Israeli Immigration Policy Center.

In the last year, 77,000 people received status in Israel, including 71,000 new immigrants who entered under the “Law of Return,” which recognizes an individual with a single Jewish grandparent as eligible for citizenship. However, such people are not considered Jewish according to halacha, Jewish religious law.

As a result of the “grandparent clause,” of the new immigrants in 2022, only 32,000 (45% of the total) were Jewish.

Of non-Jews who enter Israel, 85% on average immigrate under the Law of Return’s “grandparent clause.”

Regarding the Law of Return, then-Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion decided with the establishment of the Jewish state that “whoever was born to a Jewish mother and is not of another religion, or whoever converted according to Jewish law” will be considered a Jew.

In 1970, it was ruled that the children and grandchildren of a Jewish person could immigrate to Israel by virtue of the Law of Return. During those years, many discussions were held in order to determine who is a Jew and how to define a person who converts through a non-Orthodox conversion process, but to no avail.

The issue recently came to the fore after a wave of immigrants from Russia and Ukraine entered Israel following Moscow’s invasion of the European country, most of whom were not Jewish – only three in 10, according to mid-November data from Israel’s Population and Immigration Authority.

In November, Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Israel Rabbi David