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ט״ו חשון- ב׳ חשון
oct
15 -
oct
29 . vol 2, #16
Bikur Cholim of Baltimore Cycles to New Heights PAGE 6
Israel:
Chai Lifeline Maryland Paints the City
PAGE 17
A Special Report 48
TRUST IS THE KEY!
JOE BONDAR
410.905.8403 | JoeBondar@gmail.com
ALIZA WEIN
443.629.1547 | AlizaWein@gmail.com
Baltimore’s Hoshana Rabbah 5776/2015 in Photos JOE BONDAR
PAGE 8
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THE BALTIMORE JEWISH HOME
OCTOBER 15, 2015
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Committee Chaim & Rikki ambindeR hananYa & Chana dena COhen dOvid & TamaR ChaRnOwiTz hal & JOdY CRane david & RaChelle daniel leib & FRan davids Tehilla diamOnd OURiel & aTaRa dzikOwski aRi & inbal elman miChael & linda elman ORi & Tami Feld akiva & YehUdis Feldman niv & Jill Fishbein max & ROChel ChaYa Ganz JasOn & aviGail GelbeR Chaim & ChaYa GlazeR keelY & Jillian GOldbeRGeR shlOmO & FRimee GOldsTein mORdeChai & Tzipi GOTTlieb mOshe & aviva heinemann nesanel & maTi JakObOviTs Tzvi & ChaYke kaRp YankY & RaChel kaTz YisRael & zehava leFkOviTz dOvid meiR & FaiGY lOeb RaChi & devORah messinG YOnasOn & leba mUsman shai & Chani mYeRwiTz YehUda & shiRa nelkin eli & Chana neUbeRGeR RaFi & ROChel neUbeRGeR YOssi & YOna Openden YiTzie & nanCY pReTTeR mOTTY & shOshanna RabinOwiTz JOnaThan & devORah meiRa RinGO azi & Riki ROsenblUm ROnnie & sandY ROsenblUTh ROni & aliza sameT maTT & sUsie sChOenFeld aRi & andRea sChUlman elliOT & Yael sChwaRTzenbeRGeR asheR & dena sOndhelm Yedidia & TammY TabbOUChe esTheR TendleR mOshe & lieba ROChel TesseR sam & dOnna waCh peReTz & saRala weRTenTeil JeRRY & sUe wOlaskY levi & shOshana zaslOw
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This Sunday!
FI THE RS N T IE ED M IT AN IO N
PRESENTS
NOw MOrE THAN EvEr: The Keep Your Community Safe Initiative Presents:
Help Safeguard STAY SAFE IN Our Children Studying in Israel
OCTOBER 15, 2015
SRAEL
Practical Tips for Parents in Today’s New Reality
E Oct. 18 • 9:30-11am E A Sunday, STUDENT’S HANDBOOK R F Seating Limited – Reservations Strongly Recommended:
Project Ezra
Of Baltimore
WIN A FREE TO ISRAELNewest Pick Up Your Free CopyTRIP of Our Highly-Acclaimed SEE PAGE 4 FOR DETAILS! Edition of Stay Safe in Israel by Frank Storch at the Meeting! BY: B Y : E NENDORSED dOrSEd
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Safe children. Strong families. Healthy communities.
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to provide safety and security training in Yeshivos and Seminaries this coming year in Israel.
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CONTENTS
THE BALTIMORE JEWISH HOME
OCTOBER 15, 2015
COMMUNITY Around the Community . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6
JEWISH THOUGHT The Baltimore Shabbat Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 Noach: Crisis & Confidence. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 A Matter of Taste. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
HUMOR & ENTERTAINMENT Notable Quotes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 Centerfold. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
COVER STORY Israel Gripped by Terror Is it the Third Intifada?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 The Jarring Episode of Shabbetai Tzvi. . . . . . . . . . . 50
LIFESTYLES 613 Seconds with Howie Friedman. . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 Fly A Companion For Free With You For An Entire Year. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 Healthy Lifestyle Tips. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 Winter Preparation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46 5 Advantages of Internet Marketing vs Traditional Marketing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 In the Kitchen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
NEWS
Dear Readers, We have just started the post Shemitah year in which we are commanded to “Gather together the people, the men, women and small children, and the stranger who is in your cities, so that they will hear, they will learn and they shall fear Hashem and be careful to perform all the words of the Torah.” The purpose of this mitzvah was to relive the experience of the Jewish people at Mount Sinai. As the Rambam writes, when the Jewish King would read from the Torah, the assembled Jews concentrated on his words, as if they were hearing from G-d himself. Let’s think for a second. If the Jews who entered the land of Israel needed to relive the experience of Kabalos Hatorah every seven years, how much more so our generation needs to remember and refresh our relationship with Hashem. We will then tread the path of the generations that came before us. Yom Kippur gave us the opportunity to tap into this relationship followed by Sukkot, and this year Hakhel, a time when pure joy emanating from the soul can be experienced. Still, we sat in the Sukkah wrapped
in Hashem’s embrace and wonder what happened to us during the year... but G-d says, you’re the one I want. You are the purpose of creation. If we can accept that we have flaws, but we have purpose, then perhaps this year we will indeed change our behavior. If we are not the glutton we sometimes feel like, the insensitive person we sometimes act like and the impulsive animal we sometimes think like, then we are simply shedding outside layers which have covered us. And that is a reason to be joyous. We can be better. And we will be. What has been happening in Israel over the last week or so, is nothing less than frightening. There are no words to describe the pain and fear that is going on over there. We must do our part and continue to pray, continue to do acts of kindness on their behalf. Through this we should merit the ultimate rebuilding of Yerushalyim in our day. What a site and experience that will be. Wishing you a wonderful Shabbos and peace to all our brothers and sisters, Yaakov
B A LT I M O R E J E W I S H H O M E . C O M
Global News. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 National News. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 Israel News . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 That’s Odd. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
The Baltimore Jewish Home is an independent bi-weekly newspaper. Opinions expressed by writers are not necessarily the opinions of the publisher or editor. The Baltimore Jewish Home is not responsible for typographical errors, or for the kashrus of any product or business advertised within. The BJH contains words of Torah. Please treat accordingly.
5 Nearly four decades of Torah Literacy
from
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C.B. Weinfeld has a knack for uncovering engrossing true stories everywhere — in a tire factory, a pawn shop, a beis medrash, an elegant accounting office. And as she shows us the greatness of other Jews we find that we can discover greatness in ourselves as well.
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Master Mechanech. Beloved Rebbe. “The Chofetz Chaim of our time.”
Share the Rosh Yeshiva’s dream and inspiration in this spectacular multimedia DVD. More than 40 interviewees, including • Rav Matisyahu Salomon shlita • Rav Aharon Feldman shlita • Rabbi Paysach Krohn shlita • Rabbi Berel Wein shlita • Rabbi Yaakov Bender shlita • Rabbi Rafael Katz shlita • Rav Nosson Tzvi’s childhood friends, his rebbes, and his talmidim • And Rav Nosson Tzvi zt"l, in his own words! Join the tens of thousands of readers who have discovered Rav Nosson Tzvi's greatness in these bestselling biographies! Produced by Torah Legacy Productions in conjunction with Kolrom Multimedia
SOMETHING SWEET by Miriam Pascal
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STORIES THAT UNITE OUR HEARTS by Rabbi Binyomin Pruzansky
PRAYING WITH MEANING by Rabbi Heshy Kleinman
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B A LT I M O R E J E W I S H H O M E . C O M
Recent Releases
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THE BALTIMORE JEWISH HOME
OCTOBER 15, 2015
6
Around the
Community
Bikur Cholim of Baltimore Cycles to New Heights Photo Credits: Uri Arnson photography and Adina Levitan photography
“When you are on the right path doing the right thing Siy’ata D’Shemaya (help from heaven) kicks in... HaKadosh Baruch Hu smiled down on us with the most gorgeous weather for the Bikur Cholim Bike-a-thon,” exclaimed Aharon Newman, ride marshal and committee member for Biker Cholim. On Sunday, October 11, Bikur Cholim of Baltimore held its second annual men’s bike-a-thon where almost $110,000 was raised! 194 cyclists, both novice and professional, joined
together on beautiful scenic routes of 42, 25, a new 10 mile challenge, and 10 miles through the Stevenson neighborhood and rural Baltimore County. Fortified with Clif bars and Gatorade, the excitement in the air was palpable. Chaverim, and Hatzalah, were graciously on hand supplying safety and logistical help for all. Over five hundred family members and friends joined the post ride festivities As the family members greeted and cheered at the finish line, the children enjoyed a packed Family Fun
Event. Moshe Rock’s famous balloon creations dazzled the children as well as the adults, face painters adorned toddler’s faces, Craig Chaim Feinstein amazed with fabulous magical feats, and the high school girls of Bais Yaakov arranged a challenging and fun carnival. Music and snappy repertoire was masterfully provided by DJ, Ahron Schiller. Laughter, excitement and a tremendous feeling of accomplishment by cyclists and spectators pervaded the parking lot at Beth Tfiloh as the party continued. Yaffa ca-
terers prepared a delicious and lavish barbeque that all enjoyed. Rabbi Zvi Teichman, Rav of Ohel Moshe and board member of Bikur Cholim gave an uplifting and extremely meaningful speech using the analogy of cycling up a hill to conquering life’s challenges. He congratulated the riders and Bikur Cholim for a magnificeint job not only on the successful event, but on the multitude of chesed that Bikur Cholim provides for our community. Our very own, Zevy Daniel, announced the top fundraisers this year:
Around the
Community
OCTOBER 15, 2015
Jeff Schwartz, Zevy Daniel, and Rochelle Goldberg along with many volunteers who made the event such an overwhelming success. The sun truly shone on all, making the event a day of personal and communal fulfillment. Bikur Cholim thanks all our corporate sponsors, volunteers, and cyclists for the tremendous success. Start training now for our 2016 bike-a-thon event!
THE BALTIMORE JEWISH HOME
Matt Schoenfeld-$4,055, Gil Neuman- $3,541, and Bill Goldberg- $3,258, who were awarded plaques for their tremendous achievement. Also recognized were the pre-teenagers who raised the most funds: Yossi Morgenstern, Meyer Klein, and Yitzchok Isrealoff. The event was chaired by Mordechai Gottlieb, Yaakov Feinstein, Yaakov Berkowitz, Tzvi Feigenbaum, Aharon Newman,
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B A LT I M O R E J E W I S H H O M E . C O M
THE BALTIMORE JEWISH HOME
OCTOBER 15, 2015
8
Around the
Chai Lifeline does it Again… this Time on The Chesapeake Bay Six Chai Lifeline families from the Maryland/ DC region spent a relaxing and rejuvenating day together on the Chesapeake bay to connect and reflect on the past year. The intimate day was spent in the company of Chai Lifeline volunteers
who hung out with our Maryland/DC kids and gave their parents a chance to bond. Between boats on the lake, a
pool, soccer and football, a Jacuzzi, jet skis on the Bay, a boat ride on the Bay and a delicious BBQ, everyone spent
the day having fun, worry-free. A special thank you to 7-Mile Market who donated delicious food for the BBQ and all the volunteers who prepared the food, and took great care of our kids and gave them a day to remember.
Baltimore’s Hoshana Rabbah 5776/2015 in Photos BaltimoreJewishLife.com/Jeff Cohn
Hoshana Rabbah this year saw the addition of more shuls in the Baltimore community and the opening of K’hal Chassidim on Park Heights Ave between Parkington & Menlo.
B A LT I M O R E J E W I S H H O M E . C O M
Community
Photos below are from K’hal Chassidim, Ohr HaChaim (Rabbi Zvi Weiss), Shomrei Emunah (Rabbi Binyamin Marwick), Kol Torah (Rabbi Yosef Berger), Bnai Jacob
Shaarei Zion (Rabbi Moshe Hauer) and The Agudah Park Heights (Rabbi Moshe Heinemann).
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ASSISTED LIVING & MEMORY CARE
PIKESVILLE CELEBRATES
A Call to Seniors, Families & Caregivers
The Baltimore SHABBAT Project
“BAKE A DIFFERENCE”
THE BALTIMORE JEWISH HOME
ASSISTED LIVING & MEMORY CARE
OCTOBER 15, 2015
Join Us for Our 2nd Annual
Please JOIN US! Oct 22, 23 & 24
SENIOR CHALLAH BAKE Thursday, Oct 22, 6:45 pm
*RSVP for transport in our wheelchair accessible van
Fri, Oct 23 5:00 pm Welcoming Shabbat & Shabbat Dinner*
*RSVP to join us for dinner or deliver to the homebound
Sat, Oct 24 9:00 am Shabbat Services in our Shul 11:30 am Community Kiddush
The Baltimore Shabbat Project asks that you join women throughout our area and around the world for the mitzvah of baking challah and bringing us closer to Shabbat, family and friends. Round trip transportation in our wheelchair accessible van is available with reservation.
RSVP Hava Barr at 443-676-4386 by Oct 18th
RSVP Hava Barr at 443-676-4386 by Oct 18th
Sherri Zaslow, Executive Director 7218 Park Heights Ave, Baltimore, MD 21208 www.peregrinetudor.com
Sherri Zaslow, Executive Director 7218 Park Heights Ave, Baltimore, MD 21208 www.peregrinetudor.com
Meat
Meat
B A LT I M O R E J E W I S H H O M E . C O M
Thu, Oct 22 6:45 pm “Bake a Difference” Senior Challah Bake*
THE BALTIMORE JEWISH HOME
OCTOBER 15, 2015
10
Around the
Jewish Community Football League Week 2 and 3 With the fall season approaching and the weather beginning to change, the Jewish Community Football League, sponsored by Northwest Refuse, continued in its 4th season. The theme of this year’s season has been balance and parity. Each week, any team with a losing record has had the ability to upset a team with a winning record and completely change the standings and the ever approaching playoff picture. The balance of competition has had a palpable impact on the league, with players giving it all week in and week out. The current standings are as follows:
Team
B A LT I M O R E J E W I S H H O M E . C O M
Community
Won
Lost
OK Uniform Company
3
0
Park Heights Roofing
2
1
Y and L Landscaping
2
1
Elle Remodeling
2
1
Samuelson’s Diamonds
1
2
Limited Goods
1
2
Early Steps Therapy
1
2
East Insurance Group
0
3
in this one, winning by a final score of 48-20. The Roofers scored on their first two possessions of the game and added another score as time expired in the first half, giving them a 21-6 lead at the half. Backed by strong quarterback play and a tough, stingy defense, PHR dominated in the second half as well. Single-threat QB Chaim Finkelstein (Talmudical Academy) was simply outstanding, throwing 7 touchdown passes and even adding an interception on defense. Rafi Strum (also a TA alum) made numerous tough catches in traffic, including 4 touchdowns, and also had an interception on defense. Josh Zaslow (another TA graduate) contributed with two touchTied Pct. down catches of his own. In addition, 0 1.000 up-and-coming star Shmuel Moinzadeh 0 .667 (you guessed it, a former TA student 0 .667 as well) also had an interception in this 0 .667 one. But of course, the player of the game was Yaakov 0 .333 “Ageless Wonder” Spatz as he added 0 .333 another receiving touchdown to his 0 .333 illustrious Hall of Fame career.
To learn more about the league, check out their website: http:// www.leaguelineup.com/welcome. asp?url=jewishcommunityfootball&sid=283687172 For a recap of the excitement from weeks 2 and 3 of the season, read on: Week 2
Park Heights Roofing East Insurance Group
48 20
Park Heights Roofing dominated East Insurance Group from start to finish
0
.000
OK Uniform Company Limited Goods
28 19
Staring at a double digit deficit and dealing with a sidelined quarterback who was nursing an injured finger, OK Uniform Company refused to quit, despite nearly insurmountable odds. The game started as a back and forth affair. Thanks to the introduction of their full-time defensive line (Shmuel Fischler and Yisroel Raskin), OKUC
got the scoring started early as Raskin sacked Limited Goods’ QB, Dovid Flamm, in the end zone for a Safety and an early 2-0 lead. After a defensive stop, Flamm’s crew answered with a long drive, capped by a beautiful touchdown throw and catch to Shmuely Luxenburg, for the 6-2 lead. OKUC’s QB Asher Sondhelm had the response, hitting WR Dave Kraukauer in the back of the end zone for the baseball like score, 8-6. Once again, Flamm had the answer, leading another long, meticulous drive that ended with Luxenburg and the ball in the end zone, on a pretty looking crossing pattern. The worst part of that series for OKUC, however, was Sondhelm sustaining a severely bruised finger while attempting to grab a flag. With Sondhelm unable to fully grip and throw a football, backup QB, Jacob Karasik, was forced to step in and the results were painful to watch. 3 straight empty series were enough to convince Sondhelm to tape it up, try a new football, and re-enter the game. After Sondhelm threw an interception on his first possession back in the game, Flamm again found Luxenburg on a crossing pattern and at 19-8, with OKUC’s QB at limited strength, the game seemed over. However, on the ensuing drive, Sondhelm figured out the grip and moved the ball down the field. Although the drive didn’t result in points, Sondhelm proved he could still be effective. Following another stop by the OKUC defense, Sondhelm’s next drive did lead to points and the result was a now competitive, one score game. Once again, the OKUC pass rush couldn’t be denied and after a punt, Sonhelm had his boys back in the end zone, this time with the lead, 20-19. After another safety (Raskin’s second of the game) Sondhelm completed the miracle comeback by hitting Kraukauer on a bomb for a TD, putting OKUC up for good.
Y & L Landscaping Early Steps Therapy
37 21
If you like offense, this was a game for you. Both Y & L Landscaping and Early Steps Therapy came out firing early and scored touchdowns on their first 2 drives. Y & L’s QB, Dan Gutman, delivered a deep strike to WR/playbook manager, Ari Pliskin, putiing the red-jerseyed team up early. EST answered right back with QB Ross Mailman hitting WR Chaim Kazen for a TD on a well-executed slant route. However, after the early back and forth, the game shifted in Y & L’s direction. The Landscapers defense stepped up their game, adding some strong QB pressure from their Defensive Lineman, Ben Gutman, and some timely sacks from their hybrid defender, Moishe “The Matrix” Abramson. With their defense up to the task, Y &L pulled away in the second half. Mid second half, Dan Gutman found WR Josh Erez in the back of the endzone to go up 31-14 and the team never looked back. When all was said and done, Y & L stood victorious and undefeated at 2-0.
Elle Remodeling Samuelson’s Diamonds
48 13
The story in this one was the return of Elle Remodeling’s star waterboy and team morale booster, Yossi Openden. After missing part of week 1, Openden returned to form, ensuring that all his teammates were properly hydrated and that their confidences never dropped below an acceptable threshold. On one memorable play, following a TD by Samuelson’s Diamonds, Elle Remodeling’s WR Shulie Hochman walked over to the sideline, only to be met immediately by Openden. In one swift motion, Openden provided
Around the
Week 3
25 24
This one was a nail biter from start to finish. The popular QB rivalry of Flamm vs. Finkelstein began this past Sunday with Finkelstein testing the Limited Goods secondary and ultimately regretting it as LG picked off Finkelstein on his first 2 pass attempts. The Goods Providers of a Narrow Quantity capitalized on the turnovers to go up 6-0, thanks to a pretty TD pass to Shmuel “Iron Man” Luxenburg. However, Finkelstein, aided by the support of his father/coach on the sideline, orchestrated a successful drive of his own, tying the score at 6-6. Each team was stopped on their next few possessions with LG linebacker, Moshe “Spiderman” Miller, flying all
Flamm couldn’t stomach the idea of a loss and with full determination (and a motivation to ensure that he would fully enjoy Rosh Hashana 5776), led his team on the game-winning drive. With just seconds remaining, Flamm found “Iron Man” once again on a deep crossing pattern for the win.
Early Steps Therapy Samuelson’s Diamonds
25 19
The game remained close throughout the entire first half of Sunday’s thrilling matchup between Early Steps Therapy and Samuelson’s Diamonds, with EST clinging to a 6-0 lead with less than 20 minutes of football to play. On their second drive of the sec-
ond half, led by the arm of QB Judah Fuld and the gadget play of WR/RB/ QB Levi (pronounced like the famous flood walls of New Orleans in 2005) Zaslow, only 10 yards stood between SD and tying the score at 6 apiece. Unfortunately for the diamond dealers, within those 10 yards lurked EST CB/DL Howie Friedman, who took a Judah Fuld pass the other way for a Pick 6, giving EST the two score cushion they needed to relax. Led by their enforcer, Barry Dollman and his passion for the referees, EST was able to establish a middle of the field presence that resonated throughout the other positions on the EST defense. On offense, EST received contributions from all 8 of their active players, 7 of whom tallied a reception, while the lone player held receptions-less played a flawless C. But the star of the EST offensive and the player who continues to emerge in big spots situations, (most likely top 5 of the all-time JCL receptions list) was WR/CB Dovid Pensak, who along with his multiple TDs, made countless outstanding grabs and accumulated HEAPS of YAC. SD kept it close even towards the end, and was truly an opponent worth beating.
OK Uniform East Insurance Group
31 30
With QB Asher Sondhelm playing
with a broken finger and star safety Yisroel Raskin missing his 2nd game in three weeks, OK Uniform Co. really had to gut one out against a tough East Insurance Group team. Star receiver, Aaron Nachman, got the scoring started with a great catch and run, his first of 3 TDs on the game to put OK Uniform up 6-0. Both team would exchange blows, with no team ever leading by more than one score. East Insurance Group, led by QB Avi Yudkowsky, took the lead 30-24, thanks to a big TD catch by Josh Resnick, with under a minute left in the game. But OK Uniform would not be deterred and was able to tie the score 30-30 with a TD pass from Sondhelm to Nachman with only 2 seconds to play. With no team having converted any conversions all day, savvy veteran QB Asher Sondhelm went against the trend and hit a wide open Shmuel Fishler in the back of the end zone to take the lead and ultimately, the game at 31-30. East Insurance Group would have one last chance to win the game but Yudkowsky’s final heave was knocked down by Jake “The Beast” Karasik. With the win, OK Uniform Co. is the last remaining undefeated team at 3-0.
OCTOBER 15, 2015
Limited Goods Park Heights Roofing
over the field and sacking Finkelstein multiple times. D-Flamm threw another big touchdown and was successful on a one-point conversion, which proved later to be the difference in the game. The two teams traded another touchdown at the beginning of the second half but with only a few minutes remaining in the game, Finkelstein (picking on someone far from his own size), threw a goahead touchdown to Josh Zaslow in the back left corner of the end-zone, putting the Roofers up by 5 points.
THE BALTIMORE JEWISH HOME
Hochman with a cold, cup of water while also telling him, “You’re doing a fine job out there son. We’re all proud of you. Remember, this is only a game.” Openden continues to prove his value to the team and the league and rumor has it that Openden is adding a third element to his already diverse skillset, with plans to wash all of his team’s jerseys at the conclusion of each week’s game.
Community
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Binyomin Gutman singing at Hershey Park over Chol Hamoed B A LT I M O R E J E W I S H H O M E . C O M
B A LT I M O R E J E W I S H H O M E . C O M
THE BALTIMORE JEWISH HOME
OCTOBER 15, 2015
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Around the
Community
Mesivta Neimus Hatorah Moves into New Home This past Elul Zman was a momentus one for Mesivta Neimus Hatorah of Baltimore. For years, the yeshiva has had to move numerous times. Understanding that this simply could not continue, the search for a suitable location began almost two years ago. With the recent purchase of the Bais Issac Shul in the Millbrook neighborhood of Baltimore, that dream has become a reality. The 11,000+ sq. ft. facility has a beautiful Bais Medrash, ample room for classrooms and recreation, a kitchen and eating area, and offices. Fully functional now, it will require some renovating over the coming months to achieve the desired setting. Once completed, the facility will provide the space needed to fully
spacious new building provides much needed space for us to grow - in many different ways,” said senior Mordechai Landau. A great deal of time and effort over many months was expended, and a special thanks to members of the board who made it happen.”We are very pleased with the purchase, and it was well worth the effort,”said board member Mr. Avi Bernstein, who gave many hours of his time throughout the process. “This building will provide a proper setting for the yeshiva, and it will enhance what is already a great resource. We wish them much hatzlachah in their new home.” It has been a productive and busy z’man over the last few weeks. The
implement the yeshiva’s unique program, as well as cater to the needs of its talmidim and staff. “There has been a lot of excitement with the move, and the atmosphere has been very positive,” said Rabbi Laib Schulman, Menahel. “The year has gotten off to a great start, and we look forward to creating a place where our talmidim can grow and thrive. We invite members of the community to stop in for a visit.” The boys have been involved with the building setup, as well as taking on various responsibilities- such as kitchen management and cleanup. Many of them have come over to express their satisfaction with the move.”Our
first day had every boy building his own desk for use over the year. Always an exciting and anticipated activity, much thanks to Rabbi and Mrs. Dovid Hoffman for sponsoring the desks. The boys have jumped right in to learning Perek Lulav Hagazul, as well as the Halachos pertaining to all the Yomim Tovim of Tishrei. Of note is a new Shmiras Halashon program, in which members of Rabbi Weissman’s twelfth grade learn daily halachos and get quizzed every week, with great incentives. Another important part of the schedule is public speaking, in which a talmid gets to deliver a short d’var torah each day before mincha. On the Thursday before Rosh
Hashanah, the yeshiva had a special visitor, as Rabbi Avrohom Schorr, well known mashpia of Brooklyn, NY, gave a short but powerful talk. He then spent a few minutes greeting each bochur and giving a warm brochoh to each one. Much thanks to Mr. Mendel Rosen for arranging the visit. Another important visitor was Rabbi Avrohom Kurcfeld of the Star-K, who gave a fascinating, hands-on presentation about kashering a kitchen. With a large, modern kitchen in the new building, the boys are now ready to make it suitable for use. Thanks also to Rabbi Zvi Teichman and Rabbi Sholom Weingot for stopping by to deliver divrei chizuk. Community involvement is an important component of the Neimus Hatorah program. Assisting in the Ahavas Yisroel warehouse with Shabbos packages as well as visiting elderly people at Weinberg Park are two examples. As in previous years, the boys volunteered their time for Sukkah building. Together with Mr. Avi Brilliant, the younger bochurim put up the Agudah of Park Heights’ Sukkah in record time, while the twelth-grader helped a family on Menlo Drive.” I am often approached from people in the community in need of a few helping hands”,said Executive Director Rabbi Ari Soloff. “Whenever possible, we- and the boys- are happy to oblige. Aside from the chesed involved, it is an opportunity for development of social-skills as well as personal growth. Now approaching a decade since its inception, Mesivta Neimus Hatorah has been helping high-school boys from Baltimore and beyond who have struggled in a mainstream setting. With a unique individual approach that emphasizes life-skills, the yeshiva continues to help bochurim reach their potential. For more info, call 301-3001767, or email info@neimushtorah. org.
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• Professionally Trained Instructors • Professional Studio Recording and CD • Live/On Stage Concert Performance • Lessons Taught with the Newest Songs in Jewish Music
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OCTOBER 15, 2015
Join parenting expert and author Rabbi Yakov Horowitz for a workshop to guide mothers and fathers raising mentschen in modern times. Reception to follow.
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Sunday, November 15th 8:00 to 10:00 p.m. Shomrei Emunah Learn more at boytomentsch.com or call CHANA at 410.234.0030.
men are born; mentschen are made.
This project is supported by Grant No. 2013-CY-AX-K010 awarded by the US DOJ, OVW. The opinions, findings, conclusions and recommendations expressed in this do not necessarily reflect the views of the US DOJ, OVW.
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Around the Community SENIOR HOME REPAIR AND BENEFITS Providing home services and peace of mind to older adults and individuals with disabilities
OCTOBER 15, 2015
Since 1987, Chai Lifeline’s mantra has been “Fighting Illness with Love”. They are tasked with bringing joy and hope to thousands of children globally facing life-threatening and life-long illnesses. As one of the premier chesed organizations in the Jewish community worldwide, Chai Lifeline has become synonymous with an incredible standard of innovative care and dynamic production on behalf of children and families fighting for their lives. This Sunday, Chai Lifeline has once again demonstrated a fun and revolutionary way to help the children in our community. This past Sunday, more than forty children dealing with a difficult diagnosis - and their siblings - took to the streets of the 410 to paint the town with graffiti. Under the direction of a professional art therapist, our community’s children utilized spray paint as a therapeutic technique to better express themselves and their feelings. Since 1987, Chai Lifeline’s mantra has been “Fighting Illness with Love”. With new programs and initiatives being implemented over the years, Chai Lifeline has not only defined, but redefined what that actually means. It is clear that “love” it not merely a mantra for them, but a mission.
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Chai Lifeline Maryland Paints the City
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• Home safety assessments and advocacy • Benefits evaluation • Housing options counseling • Facilitation of funding assistance from government and private programs • and more…
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A Path to a Healthy Family: A Bonei Olam Journey A letter from Seth and Hindy (Poupko) Galena.
Getting off the subway that early Sunday in middle of nowhere Brooklyn we felt as lost as we had been for the past year since our daughter Ayelet passed away. The grey, concrete streets felt the same, but wider, and more frequent yarmulkes and sheitels quickly passed us by, exchanging stares, were familiar but also felt foreign from our Upper West Side enclave that we rarely left unless it was for a vacation or a Rosh Hashanah/ Pesach exodus. Brooklyn is something we have talked about, read about in the nytimes, and referenced it as if we knew all about the hipsters, “yeshivish flatbush”, and cool restaurants, but rarely, if ever, experienced it together. The director of Bonei Olam, who we had been connected to via friends a few weeks prior, said he really would like to meet us in person. “Why did we have to meet in person? What does Bonei Olam do anyway?” I’d whine to Hindy as we tried to find our bearings in non-number and now alphabetical streets. “Can’t we just email all our details? I mean our entire life story is online, what more does he need?” Our lives really were online. We had detailed our daughter’s battle with a rare genetic disease and a bone marrow transplant and somehow the Jewish people were captured by our daughter’s fight for life, and crushed by our heartbreaking loss of her death. Over 60,000 people were following our daughter’s ups and downs as we tried to survive in Cincinnati’s Children’s Hospital as observant Jews, as young first time parents, as self-made medical experts for our Ayelet. After 8 months Ayelet got an infection she didn’t have an immune system to fight and sadly, didn’t make it. We returned childless, lifeless, lost. “The director just wants to meet us”. Hindy was somewhat unsure as well. We found a cute kosher cafe, ordered greek salads, thick muffins and warm soups and then rushed to pay so we could get this ‘meet and greet’ over with. Getting dressed up and traveling below 72nd st. on a Sunday was not our thing. We waited outside the locked basement office of Bonei Olam and saw a young chassidish man with a short beard and bekesha approach and quickly open the door and invite us in. He had a warm smile, and I think he could tell we were way out of our element. We thanked him
for letting us in and impatiently asked if Rabbi Jalas will be coming soon? He said, I am Chaim. You were expecting someone else? We laughed. Our initial thoughts as we answered his very basic questions were that we would be giving him an education on our daughter’s story, her genetics, and her 800 page medical history. After all, our experiences had made us virtual doctors. But it was exactly the opposite. The more we talked, the more Chaim’s brilliance radiated. He somehow knew our daughter’s genetic makeup, her history, where the specific mutation was found in her DNA, and all the doctors, researchers and players we had been in consult with every day of our lives over the past 3 years. And we were just one of the 80 cases he was working on. His knowledge unraveled layers and layers like the payis corked behind his ears. I don’t know what we talked about over the course of those next three hours but it somehow was one of those epic conversations that covers everything in this universe that mattered. Love, loss, religion, education, klal yisroel, the challenges, and the realistic steps we’ll need to take to our holy grail of consolation: a future child. We were dazed and confused as we got up to leave. Hindy and I both walked out of the small basement office and our eyes were opened - it was a new vibrant Brooklyn, the grey was gone - we finally somehow found a human on this planet who understood where we were. What we had been through and what needed to do to get things done. There was a world built in that one meeting. A bonei olam. We felt there was hope again. Over the course of the next year, Bonei Olam would generously help fund and support the extremely costly and long, exhausting process of Preimplantation Diagnosis, and Invitro Fertilization. These words sound complex and they were at first, but this is where Bonei Olam really helped us. At every step, Chaim would tell us which doctor to call, what lab to use, what to ask, what it means. What to expect when you are, trying to get to, expecting. This guidance was more priceless than the support because it showed us
a practical path to not feeling helpless. To feel empowered, like we had an inside connection to research labs, clinics,. “Chaim told me about you…” was how most new appointments started. His advice was priceless. His name is golden, and his personal care for every step with us was inspiring. Chaim’s curiosity also decided in that conversation that Ayelet’s disease was so unresearched that he would like to further study our daughter’s disease, perhaps there was something more to it. He called us months later, as he continuously guided us through the world of PGD, and IVF to tell us he had finished an academic research paper about our Ayelet’s disease - and proved it should be added to the ashkenazic genetic pan-
Photos from last year’s event
el. In other words, Ayelet’s DNA, her life, with Chaim’s research, will potentially save countless lives in the future. Bonei Olam somehow finds ways to give to the young couple in search of hope and the larger Jewish people of the future, in new and innovative ways that is unmatched on this planet. I don’t know if we’ll ever go back deep into Brooklyn, but I do know, as we hold our son Baruch Akiva in our arms, our blessing, who was born just a few weeks ago, that there are many worlds like ours, that need your help to begin to hope again. To begin to dream again, To begin to smile again. “Those who sow in tears, will reap in joy” - In this world of fertility, there are far too many tears, mostly hiddenand not enough joy - but things change in the blink of an eye. Bonei Olam is opening up our community to change and we hope that you can continue to support these builders, in their efforts one family at a time. You don’t know how many people need your help. Bonei Olam is taking each of these couples by the hand, walking beside them, and together we as a people are continuing to walk, to create, in the ways of Hashem. With endless gratitude and appreciation to all who are here tonight and to Bonei Olam, keep on building - as you have done for our family, our future. Thank You, Seth & Hindy and Akiva Upper West Side The annual Bonei Olam Baltimore Blossoms of Hope Event is an event that enables the members of our community to have a hand in building Jewish families. This year’s Bonei Olam Baltimore Event will IY”H take place Monday, November 2nd, 2015 at 7:30 P.M. at the home of Ben and Shira Ram, 3209 Bonnie Rd, Baltimore, MD. Join us for an evening of great food, live entertainment, and great company. We need your help to be able to continue to help end the anguish and suffering of so many couples in the Five Towns community. “The most painful thing for us is to ever have to say no to, or even delay, a request for help,” says Rabbi Bochner, “For the sake of Hashem’s children, we hope to continue hearing a resounding ‘yes’ from the Five Towns community to their neighbors’ pleas for help.”
Looking back at Opening BBQ with Bubble Soccer The New Year for Greater Washington NCSY couldn’t have started better! Over 90 teens came out to reconnect with friends,
meet new teens while playing Bubble soccer!
collect the outstanding debt. The enactment of a Pruzbul was instituted by Hillel the Sage. As the Sabbatical year approached, people were hesitant to make loans as they were concerned about not getting paid back, this solved the problem. Mitchell Posner, Executive Director, executed the Pruzbul on behalf of CHAI in the presence of the three judges of the Beit Din: Aryeh Goetz, Roy Kiewe and Ed Schaffer, staff members of CHAI.
Yisroel Saunders
Do you ever listen to the weekly parsha or try to learn the sedrah and ask yourself questions regarding the meaning and essence of its wording? Do you try to understand the parsha and how the order of its segments actually relate to one another? Do you ask yourself, “what can I learn from the parsha?” and “how does it relate to my daily life as a Yid?” If you have any of these questions, then Rabbi Sklare’s parsha shiur is the place for you. Rabbi Sklare illuminates the parsha vividly, unearthing its deeper meaning. In an analytical style, he lays out the particular parshios within the sedra and shows how their flow conveys the greater message. One will find, as chazal teach us, that there is no such thing as an extra word or phrase that is wasted. In an astounding fashion Rabbi Sklare shows the relationship between specific terminologies and how they relate to the broader picture until the whole panorama emerges. The re-
sult is not only a better understanding of the parsha but an overarching perspective. Rabbi Sklare illustrates that the Torah works in circles, by utilizing both well-known correlations (such as “Maysah Avos Siman Labonim”) and original parallelisms (for example, between Devarim and the earlier Sefarim). We listeners walk away with not only a deeper appreciation for Torah but with aspirations about how to grow as a Yid. Let’s get the word out so that this fascinating shiur reaches others and is marbitz Torah Berabim. The shiur is given in Shomrei Emunah’s boardroom on Wednesday nights and will start again after Simchas Torah at the new time from 8:00 pm to 9:00 pm, followed by Maariv in the main Shul. On Shabbos afternoons it can be found at rotating houses in the Greenspring area one hour before minchah. For information please contact Chanoch Hoenlein at 443-386-4757.
NCSY Sukkah Making Two weeks ago, Owings Mill JSU learned all about the holiday of Sukkot! After they talked about the idea of a Sukkah and “owning” a mitzvah, the
teens actually built their own personal Sukkah. The best part was that their Sukkah was edible and delicious!
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On Friday afternoon September 11, just a few days before Rosh Hashana, CHAI executed a “Pruzbul” in connection with its 168 outstanding Homebuyer and Home Improvement Loans . A Pruzbul is a Jewish legal document that protects a lender and enables the collection of a loan, following a Sabbatical Year (shmita). The Torah in Deuteronomy 15:1-9 (Parshas Re’eh) explains the mitzvah of releasing debts which cancels loans at the end of each seven year shmita cycle. The Pruzbul document states: “I hereby turn over to you all of the debts owed to me, whether or not the debts are evidenced in writing, so that I may therefore collect these debts at any time that I desire.” The document legally transfers the loan to the Jewish Court (beit din) and enables the lender to continue to
Rabbi Yonah Sklare’s Weekly Parsha Shiur; an Appreciation
OCTOBER 15, 2015
A Pruzbul for CHAI
Community
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OCTOBER 15, 2015
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Yeshiva Toras Chaim Has Doubled In Size With All Local Boys, Off To A Great Start With much siyatta diShmaya, Yeshivas Toras Chaim has had a great start to the new school year, with an enrollment of local boys more than double what it was last year, and has added an eighth grade.
of the Baltimore community, eighth through twelfth grade boys receive an excellent education in both limudei kodesh and general studies. Toras Chaim offers a structured program and interactive teaching methodologies in
ies program with veteran teachers. Says Rabbi Moshe Juravel, who often comes to night seder, “I see that this Yeshiva is giving to its students the skills that they will need in order to become independent learners. Often,
class. Rabbi Marc Messing continues teaching English and History, and Rabbi Donald Berman continues teaching Math. Rabbi Pinchas Goldfinger also teaches Biology. Mr. Jay Taffel, the president of the
All of the new students have come from TI and TA. Located in the heart
a happy, warm and vibrant environment along with a sound general stud-
students would rather focus on concepts and s’varos and do not enjoy the “drudgery” of vocabulary and of reading precisely and accurately.” Limudei kodesh classes are divided into four tracks. Rabbi Pinchas Goldfinger teaches the aleph shiur; Rabbi Ayson Englander, who is also the Assistant Menahel, is the Rebbe for the beis shiur; Rabbi Chainina Szendro, Menahel, teaches the gimel shiur; and Rabbi Dovid Jaffee joins the staff this year to teach the daled shiur. The boys are fortunate to have terrific general studies teachers, as well, and the school is proud to add jobs to the frum Baltimore work force. One of the parents, Nochum Hurvitz, said “Rabbi Messing, Rabbi Goldfinger and Rabbi Berman are clearly experienced and veteran teachers who are knowledgeable in their subjects and passionate about what they teach. We appreciate their expertise and ability to provide Nossi with a well run, structured secular studies program. At the end of the day, Nossi is always ready to return with enthusiasm for night seder.” Says Rabbi Juravel, “The Yeshiva is a happy place to be”. Joining the secular staff is Mr. Akiva Kent, who will be teaching chemistry, and Mr. Mordechai Barron who will be teaching the new eighth grade
school, stopped by one morning to see how the school is doing. He found that the upbeat and encouraging atmosphere in the beis medrash at Yeshivas Toras Chaim is very positive and supportive. Spirited and energetic discussions filled the air. Boys were reviewing the Chumash and Gemara for the day, and the rebbeim were answering questions. "I am happy to see the school growing and flourishing.”, says Mr. Taffel. “Keeping our boys in town is very important. Not only does this allow some boys to stay home who might otherwise have had to look out of town for an option, but in-town jobs are created are local businesses are supported. The family does not have to come up with travel expenses on top of already stressed budgets.” Toras Chaim’s mission is to produce talmidim who find satisfaction and joy in learning and avodas Hashem and are capable of advancing to excellent beis medresh programs and beyond. Rabbi Chanina Szendro, the Menahel, says “Our talmidim have been working hard and have seen success. Our yeshivah is a special place where each boy receives individual direction, encouragement and recognition. Stop by some time and hear the beautiful sounds coming from our beis medrash.”
Talmudical Academy Position Available Facility Manager
JOB DESCRIPTION: Manage the maintenance and cleaning functions of our school and camp campuses. Be responsible to oversee all onsite maintenance activities as well as vendors, porters and laborers.
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Community
Ensure all properties are cleaned daily, and deal with any issues which arise regarding routine maintenance and cleaning. Coordinate with trash removal companies, landscapers and snow removal contractors. Oversee the bidding process for outside vendors, and supervise certain special projects. Be willing to not only manage the maintenance and housekeeping crews, but be involved in the actual work when necessary.
Maintain building interiors and exteriors by performing upkeep and repair tasks regularly, and respond promptly to maintenance requests when needs arise. Be on call during non-business hours and weekends for maintenance emergencies. REQUIREMENTS: Experience in building/facilities maintenance, including preventive maintenance and repairs. Knowledge of and experience working on building systems such as HVAC, fire alarms, plumbing, heating and electrical. Experience with skills and equipment such as carpentry, roofing, concrete, asphalt, cleaning tools, landscaping equipment, power tools, appliances, plumbing fixtures, and lighting fixtures. Be a self starter, be able to manage a large team and to work independently. Previous experience managing a staff of maintenance workers is preferred.
Qualified candidates please email resume to ycohen@talmudicalacademy.org .
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THE BALTIMORE JEWISH HOME OCTOBER 15, 2015
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Dirshu Receives Guidance from Gedolei Yisrael as Daf HaYomi B’Halacha Embarks on Hilchos Birchas Hashachar and Davening Gedolei Yisrael Address Precarious Situation in Eretz Yisrael Chaim Gold
“I can’t believe I learned the ize that in the eyes of the Gedolei entire hilchos tefillin with Mishnah Yisrael, the Daf HaYomi B’HalaBerurah! Even the difficult siman cha and mussar program can play lamed beis and the Mishnas Sofrim an important role in arousing the about how to properly write the letrachamei shamayim needed to neuters in tefillin, mezuzos and Sifrei tralize and stop these gezeiros from Torah was not skipped. It was the transpiring. first time in my life that I learned Rav Gershon Edelstein: these halachos! The Daf HaYomi Shmiras Halashon Can Lead to B’Halacha program has taught me Hatzalas Nefashos not to be scared of any area, but The first Gadol that Dirshu visrather to plunge into the learning, ited was HaGaon HaRav Gershon one day at a time, one se’if after Edelstein, shlita. Rav Gershon, Harav Aharon Leib Shteinman imparting direction to Hanhallas Dirshu another and realize how, with a whose every word is measured small daily investment I can slowly in his public statements, told the make huge strides in knowledge of Dirshu hanhala that, “learning the halacha and mussar.” These were concepts of shmiras halashon carthe excited sentiments expressed ries within it the power of hatzalas by a person who began the second nefashos. The senior Rosh Yeshiva machzor of Daf HaYomi B’Halaadded that learning hilchos tefillah cha just over six months ago and in a comprehensive manner, with has not looked back since. cheishek, excitement and desire, He continues, “Now we have has the power to transform a perstarted the halachos of birchas hason’s tefillah. [This enhanced adshachar and the daily tefillos. I am herence and devotion to] tefillah is so motivated! a segulah that can help a person be Guidance from Gedolim to saved from difficult occurrences.” Engender Success Rav Chaim Kanievsky: HalaHarav Shimon Baadani, who had joined the One of the underlying hashcha and Mussar, Shields for Salrecent Dirshu mission to Radin kafos of Dirshu is to constantly vation! seek guidance from Gedolei YisraFrom the unassuming apartel, both with regard to existing proment on Rechov Rashbam in Bnei grams and new programs in their Brak where Rav Chaim Kanievsky planning stages, in keeping with the lives, the light of Torah shines forth words of the Gemara that, “Anyto the four corners of the world. one who takes advice and guidance Although it is well known that Rav from the elders will not stumble.” Chaim is extremely sparing with Thus, last week, senior members his words he nevertheless has a of Dirshu’s hanhala went to the special place in his heart for Dirshu homes of several senior Gedolim to and expresses his deep simcha and receive their bracha and words of respect for the tremendous amount chizuk as Daf HaYomi B’Halacha of Torah learning and Torah living embarks on the daily halachos of that Dirshu has facilitated among Rav Dovid Hofstedter receiving guidance from davening and in mussar on shmiras Yidden the world over. When DirHarav Chaim Kanievsky earlier this week halashon. Among the Gedolim visshu came to receive guidance and ed wave of terror attacks perpetrated by ited were the senior Rosh Yeshiva, HaGachizuk from Rav Chaim, Rav Chaim said, young Arabs against innocent Israeli cion HaRav Aharon Leib Shteinman, shlita, “It is obvious that chizuk in the learning vilians. Dirshu’s hanhala found the Gedthe Sar HaTorah, HaGaon HaRav Chaim of daily halacha with a program such olei Yisrael very worried about the plight Kanievsky, shlita, the senior Rosh Yeshias Daf HaYomi B’Halacha coupled with of Am Yisrael and in tremendous pain va of Ponovezh, HaGaon HaRav Gershon the words and ideals of mussar from the over the loss of life and injury caused by Edelstein, shlita, and the senior Sephardic Chofetz Chaim can serve as a shield and the wave of attacks in multiple cities and Rosh Yeshiva, HaGaon HaRav Shimon a source of salvation during this difficult especially in Yerushalayim where there Baadani, shlita. period [that Am Yisrael is undergoing.]” have been numerous serious incidents reThe visits transpired this past Sunday, Rav Shimon Baadani: Daily Halasulting in death and serious injury. 28 Cheshvan/October 11, when Eretz Yischa Learning… An Antidote to Travail Little did the hanhala of Dirshu realrael was in the throes of an unprecedentand Suffering
HaGaon HaRav Shimon Baadani, shlita, member of the Nesius of Daf HaYomi B’Halacha, was extremely distraught over the difficulties that Yidden across Eretz Yisrael are facing due to the outbreak of Arab terrorism in cities throughout the country. Rav Baadani bemoaned the fact that still, despite everything, people are often not careful in what they say about their fellow man. “Negative speech and lashon hara is so dangerous!” he reiterated. He then praised Dirshu for instituting a program where the halacha and mussar regarding lashon hara is learned because just as speaking lashon hara can r”l, be the source of much difficulty and travail for Klal Yisrael Rav Aharon Leib Shteinman: Learning Daf HaYomi B’Halacha Can Change the Situation A visit to the humble abode of the venerated senior Rosh Yeshiva of our time, HaGaon HaRav Aharon Leib Shteinman, shlita, is always a deeply inspiring, instructive experience. The visit of Dirshu’s hanhala to his austere home this past Sunday was no different. As always, Rav Shteinman greeted the hanhala of Dirshu who were accompanied by his close talmid, HaGaon HaRav Chizkiyahu Mishkovsky, shlita, Mashgiach of Yeshiva Orchos Torah, with great affection. After hearing a report about Dirshu’s latest accomplishments and plans, as well as the hisorerus engendered by the recent Dirshu mission to Radin, Rav Shteinman addressed the Daf HaYomi B’Halacha program and the current wave of terror in Eretz Yisrael that is causing the Rosh Yeshiva such heartache. He spoke about the power of all limud haTorah and limud halacha to neutralize difficult gezeiros saying, “It is simple and obvious that learning in a program like Daf HaYomi B’Halacha can help [Klal Yisrael] in the present difficult situation.” Later, he qualified his words with even greater emphasis saying, “It is clear that joining the Daf HaYomi B’Halacha can serve as a means to change the matzav…” Rav Shteinman ended with warm, heartfelt bracha to Dirshu that “they should continue to accomplish only good things!”
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Boruch Hashem the inspiring DVD “Torah Legacy Productions Presents: Triumph of the Spirit” - Reflections on the Life and Legacy of the Mir Rosh HaYeshiva, Rav Nosson Tzvi Finkel zt”l! We just released the trailer can be
viewed on our website www.torahlegacy.com and just became available for sale by our distributor Artscroll. It’s available at Shabsi’s and will it will be available as well in other Judaica stores. The interviews were filmed concurrently while writing the
Artscroll Youth biography - some of the many interviewees include: Dr. Yitzchok Adler – The Rosh HaYeshiva zt”l’s doctor, HaRav Yaakov Bender shlita – Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshiva Darchei Torah, HaRav Aharon Feldman shlita – Rosh Yeshiva of Ye-
shivas Ner Yisroel, Rabbi Paysach Krohn – Noted author and lecturer, HaRav Matisyahu Salomon shlita – Mashgiach Ruchani of Beth Medrash Govoha Yeshiva of Lakewood, Rabbi Berel Wein – Noted historian and Chavrusa of the Rosh HaYeshiva zt”l
Peregrine’s Landing at Tudor Heights, an Assisted Living & Memory Care community located at 7218 Park Heights Avenue in Baltimore, will be hosting the 1st annual Pikesville Senior Health Fair on Wednesday November 4, from 10 am to 3 pm. The Fair is free and open to the public. The Senior Health Fair is a collab-
oration of Peregrine’s Landing at Tudor Heights and the local healthcare community to help inform seniors on how to live a healthy lifestyle and remain safe throughout the cold winter months and beyond. It will offer seniors an opportunity to meet with eldercare specialists, physicians, therapists, pharmacists and dieticians from
the Pikesville area. The event will also provide free healthcare screenings for cholesterol, blood pressure, hearing and balance, as well as demonstrations of physical & rehab therapies and exercises specific to seniors. Scheduled lectures include informational seminars on Alzheimer’s
support, Parkinson’s support, Pet Therapy, VA Aid & Attendance benefits, Estate Planning, and more! Informational booths will offer important information on nutrition, vision, hearing, and home healthcare, Additional activities will expound on the benefits or drum circles and maintaining a more youthful appearance.
OCTOBER 15, 2015
Peregrine’s Landing at Tudor Heights Hosts Pikesville Senior Health Fair, Wed, Nov 4th
THE BALTIMORE JEWISH HOME
Triumph Of The Spirit Comes To Stores
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TENS OF THOUSANDS EXPECTED to gather in Baltimore as part of the worldwide participation in The International Shabbos Project
Wednesday, October 21, 2015 6:30–9:00 p.m. Rosenbloom Owings Mills JCC The Magic of Shabbat is designed for about a thousand grandfathers, fathers, and sons who will come together to make their own silver yads
(pointer for the Torah), their own keepsake Havdalah sets (Havdalah is a short service in song sealing the beauty of Shabbat), to play Gaga, MinuteTo-Win-It, and trivia games, and to enjoy a Shabbat-themed magic show by renowned magician, Arnie Kolodner. Thursday, October 22, 2015 6:30–9
p.m. Maryland State Fairgrounds The Great Challah Bake, for grandmothers, mothers, and daughters, is anticipated to bring 4,500 together to prepare traditional bread (challah) for Shabbat. Participants will be provided with all the ingredients and aprons, and will take their dough home for baking. Singing, dancing and new friendships are promised!
Shabbat is From Sunset Friday, October 23, 2015 to Sunset Saturday, October 24, 2015 Synagogues, Agencies, Organizations, Schools & Private Homes Shabbat Community programs and meals, spanning across every denomination, every affiliation, and every label, are being offered. From lay-led “block party” style meals to classes and discussion groups to cross-denominational synagogue meals and worship, every member of the community will have the opportunity to make this a very special Shabbat. Tens of thousands expected to join in some Shabbat activity over this particular event. Saturday, October 24, 2015 8–11 p.m. Rosenbloom Owings Mills JCC One People One Heart Concert Featuring Moshav! This year, The Baltimore Shabbat Project will engage children from all denominations in making spice bags
and Havdalah Candles which will be distributed to thousands among the community as all gather together for a FREE Moshav Concert! The Official Sponsor for The Baltimore Shabbat Project is Myriad Genetics. Myriad has been partnering with the Jewish Community for over 20 years to accurately answer patients’ questions about hereditary disease and preventive treatment options. The Official Media Sponsor is The Baltimore Jewish Times. The JT has arrived at readers’ homes every week, without interruption, for nearly a century. Earning national and international acclaim, today the JT is a cornerstone of the Jewish community.
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From October 21–October 24, it is expected that thousands of Baltimore Jews from all aspects of the Jewish community will unite through activities leading up to, during, and after this global event. The International Shabbos Project was established in 2012 in Johannesburg, South Africa by Rabbi Warren Goldstein. Last year, Baltimore joined in with a Challah Bake and lay-led Sabbath meals. The vastly expanded 2015 Baltimore Shabbat Project includes:
Co-Chairs: Contact: Rabbi Nitzan Bergman Nisa Felps, Project Manager Liora B. Hill 410-804-4204 nisafelps@gmail.com
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THE BALTIMORE JEWISH HOME
OCTOBER 15, 2015
Sponsored by
Howie Friedman, CFO of DC Dental
Where did you grow up? I was born and raised right here in Baltimore on Clarinth Road across from the old Stewart’s/Caldor/Zayre/Ames. I am a proud Baltimorean, though I have spent many years in other places including Israel, Passaic, Queens, Long Island, and Silver Spring. I always found myself coming back to Baltimore. What was your first job? My first job was working for the Internal Revenue e Service as an IRS Agent. It offered me a great first look into the business world and really toughened me up. I know what it is liked to be disliked. I learned so many things that I was ultimately able to use later in my career. What are you truly passionate about? My number one passion will always be family. I have learned early in life that many things come and go, but what will always be there for you when you need it, is your family.
Can you give us a short synopsis of what an average day looks like for Howie Friedman? My weekdays and weekends are polar opposites. On a typical weekday, I am fortunate to be able to drive my son, Avi, to school where he is the 6th grade of Talmudical Academy. I go right to work from there, which is just around the corner. I start work about 8:30. I am typically zoned in (with at most a 15 minute break) until about 7-8pm when I finally make it home for bedtime with my kids. By 8:30, most nights, I am out to exercise (basketball or softball) or a shiur and return home about 10:30. I collapse shortly after that. My weekends are always different, but always centered around my wife and kids (and sports). As the CFO of a business with locations in multiple States, what background is needed for your position? The background that I need to perform effectively are management/ leadership skills, business analytics & reporting, technology, strategic planning, risk management, and general accounting skills. My mentality is always on providing value where it is needed and to focus on the big picture. The knowledge to for all of this comes from my past business experience, business management degree, and CPA designation. You are a founder of the JEWELS School, can you tell us a little about it and what was your inspiration behind it?
My sister, who is older than me has special needs, so the issue was always near and dear to my heart, but I would give much of the credit for JEWELS to my wife, Shevy, and her do-or-die determination to accomplish what needs to be done. Baltimore has never been able to create a true end-to-end education system caring for these most cherished angels in our community. There are still dozens of children attending secular schools that would love to be able to be part of a Jewish educational system. Shevy works with many of these parents in her physical therapy practice, so we joined forces with the parents of two of her patients who shared her passion, as well as the needed connections, to see this through. Other members of the community stepped in shortly thereafter. JEWELS is now rapidly expanding and hopes to finally be able to say that a special needs child born in Baltimore can attend a Jewish day school until they are ready to graduate. What local organizations are you involved with? I was a founding member of Mercaz Torah and Tefillah (R’ Eichenstein’s Shul) and of JEWELS School. I would like to get more involved in the local political landscape as I think the Baltimore Jewish Community, both in the City and County are currently underserved and underrepresented. My friend Yitzy “Isaac” Schleifer is running for City Council, and to the extent my schedule permits, I would like to get involved in that worthy effort to getting him elected.
What is the best career advice you can give to someone just starting off in business? My advice to everyone starting out their career is as follows: Make sure that you are passionate about what it is you plan on doing, as 8-12 hours days are grueling if you hate your job. Be focused not just on working hard, but on being valuable to your employer. Nowadays, there are plenty of people that will do the grunt work (just drive by Home Depot in the morning) but very few people whose bosses know they will always get it done and with little supervision. The latter gets paid the big bucks. It’s not easy supporting a family, so buckle up What do you attribute your success to? I owe my success to my wife, my parents, many other people in my life, and G-d,. Certainly not to me. How do Jewish values impact you and how does it affect your approach to business? As the great sage, Hillel, said, “What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. That is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation of this”. That is a good starting point. I come from a long lineage of special people and they passed their heritage on to me. It starts with being a mensch. I just hope I can pass those lessons on to my children.
The Week
Iran Tests Missile Capable of Reaching Israel
Hold onto your multicolored hats and round red noses. Argentina has a new law for treating children in hospitals that requires doctors to literally send in the clowns. The groundbreaking law — the first in the world — for Argentina’s largest province, Buenos Aires, was inspired by the “laughter therapy” of American physician Hunter “Patch” Adams and was implemented in August. All public hospitals in the province that have pediatric services are required to work jointly with specially trained clowns. The project aims to provide “complementary medicine to bring joy to sick children in hospitals, their families and the medical and non-medical personnel,” according to the Argentine Senate. One child who knows the benefits is Ezequiel Belsu, 12, who was crippled by pain from a pulmonary disease in intensive care at Hospital Piñero. He needs an oxygen mask and IV line and was not moving in his bed.
Fukushima Radiation Linked to Cancer in Children Thyroid cancer rates in children living near the Fukushima nuclear meltdowns are 20 to 50 times than that of children elsewhere, a new study has found. Most of the 370,000 children in Fukushima state have been given ultrasound checkups since the March 2011
meltdowns at the tsunami-ravaged Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant. The most recent statistics, released in August, show that thyroid cancer is suspected or confirmed in 137 of those children, a number that rose by 25 from a year earlier.
Elsewhere, the disease occurs in only about one or two of every million children per year by some estimates. “This is more than expected and emerging faster than expected,” lead author Toshihide Tsuda told reporters during a visit to Tokyo. The study was released this week and is being published in the November issue of Epidemiology. The data comes from tests overseen by Fukushima Medical University. Making sense of the relationship between radiation and cancer is tricky: it’s scientifically impossible to link an individual cancer case to radiation. Looking harder with routine check-ups, like the one in Fukushima, leads to quicker discovery of tumors, inflating the tallies in a so-called “screening effect.” Right after the disaster, the lead doctor brought into Fukushima, Shunichi Yamashita, repeatedly ruled out the possibility of radiation-induced illnesses. The thyroid checks were being ordered just to play it safe, according to the government. But Tsuda, a professor at Okayama University, said the latest results from the ultrasound checkups, which continue to be conducted, raise doubts about the government’s view. Thyroid cancer among children
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The U.N. Security Council prohibits foreign powers from assisting Iran in developing its ballistic missile program in any way, a ban that will remain in place under the terms of the July 14 nuclear deal that will see other sanctions lifted. The United Nations also prohibits Iran from undertaking any activity related to ballistic missiles that could deliver a nuclear warhead, which applies to the Emad but Iranian officials have pledged to ignore the ban. “We don’t ask permis-
Funny Medicine in Argentina
But his eyes suddenly widened and he smiled when three enthusiastic clowns stepped slowly into his room and asked if he wanted to make a wish. José Pellucchi, a physician who is director of Payamedicos, an organization of medical clowns, said professional clowns have already been working in more than 150 hospitals in Argentina and neighboring Chile since 2002. When the clowns arrive at Hospital Piñero, they first write down each child’s name, age and disease they will visit. They also consult with the pediatricians to know which patients they can entertain without disturbing them — or getting exposed to a disease. “We do an activity with everyone in the hospital, from the cleaning employees to the security officers and the doctors, to … generate well-being in the workplace,” said Gustavo Iribarne, another Puente Clown professional and an anthropologist. The doctors believe the clowns benefit the patients. “The fact that someone comes in with a white medical coat and a red nose saying the same things [as a doctor] but with a distinct language changes everything,” explained Daniel Rivero, a physician who heads the pediatrics department at Hospital Piñero. “Health issues are not just related to our body. Determining factors include our sensations and human contact, which can change how our body works … called the placebo effect,” he said.
OCTOBER 15, 2015
Iran defied a United Nations ban this week when it tested a new precision-guided ballistic missile. The test signaled an apparent advance in Iranian attempts to improve the accuracy of its missile arsenal. The Islamic Republic has one of the largest missile programs in the Middle East, but its potential effectiveness has been limited by poor accuracy. State television showed what appeared to be a successful launch of the new missile, named Emad, which will be Iran’s first precision-guided weapon with the range to strike Israel. “The Emad missile is able to strike targets with a high level of precision and completely destroy them ... This greatly increases Iran’s strategic deterrence capability,” Defense Minister Hossein Dehghan boasted at a news conference.
sion from anyone to strengthen our defense and missile capabilities,” Dehghan bragged. The Islamic Republic is wary of a potential pre-emptive strike on its nuclear sites by Israel. In turn, Israel fears that a nuclear agreement Iran sealed with world powers in July may be insufficient to stop Tehran from developing an atomic bomb. The accord curbs proliferation-prone aspects of Iran’s nuclear energy program in exchange for crippling sanctions being lifted. Iran insists its nuclear activity is wholly peaceful.
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THE BALTIMORE JEWISH HOME
OCTOBER 15, 2015
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The Week is one sickness the medical world has definitively linked to radiation after the 1986 Chernobyl catastrophe. If treated, it is rarely fatal, and early detection is a plus, but patients are on medication for the rest of their lives.
Russia Captures ISIS Members before Attack Russian security services have foiled a terrorist attack on Moscow’s public transport system by a group of Islamist terrorists. A statement by the federal security service (FSB) said they had detained a group of people in Moscow and seized bomb-making materials they were planning to use in an attack on the capital’s busy transport system. Some of those captured were reportedly trained by ISIS in Syria.
in Syria,” it said. The FSB said the suspects arrived back in Russia long before Moscow launched a bombing campaign in Syria late last month. Footage of the raid shows police officers carrying sacks of evidence out of the building, including a washing machine that “could have been used as a hiding place.” Officers found a device consisting of a plastic bucket with ammonia and aluminum powder, complete with a phone-activated detonator, the report said. Moscow commenced airstrikes in war-torn Syria in late September following a request from its long-standing ally Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Moscow claims it is targeting ISIS and other terrorist groups, but in practice the Russian air force is mostly bombing more moderate rebels battling Assad’s forces and ISIS alike. Russia, which has battled its own Islamist insurgency in the volatile North Caucasus, says that some 2,000 of its citizens are fighting in the ranks of ISIS. Moscow suffered the last in a string of bloody attacks in January 2011 when Islamist insurgents killed some 37 people in a bomb blast Domodedovo airport.
Russian-Made Missile Downed Flight MH17 “During questioning of two of the detained men, it became known that they were planning a terrorist attack on the Moscow public transit system,” said the statement which was carried by Russian news agencies this week. Russian security forces had arrested at least three people in a raid on an apartment block in central Moscow where security forces also found an explosive device, with dozens of people evacuated from the area. The raid came after the security services identified a Moscow address “where six to 11 people periodically lived, some of whom went through combat training in Islamic State camps
On Tuesday it was revealed that Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was shot down by a Russian-made BUK missile fired from war-torn eastern Ukraine last year killing all 298 people on board. Even though air crash investigators in the Dutch-led inquiry did not say who pulled the trigger, Russian officials were scrambling to dispute the findings. “Flight MH17 crashed as a result of the detonation of a warhead outside the airplane against the lefthand side of the cockpit,” the chairman of the Dutch Safety Board, Tjibbe Joustra, said. “This warhead fits the kind of missile that is
In News installed in the BUK surface-to-air missile system.” Sadly, the report also revealed that it was possible that some on board the Boeing 777 en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur may have been conscious during the 90 seconds it took to crash on July 17 last year.
Malaysia vowed it would seek the prosecution of the “trigger happy criminals” who downed the flight, the second aviation tragedy for the country after the mysterious disappearance of flight MH370 in March 2014. “The wreckage was spread over several sites” near the villages of Grabove, Rozsypne and Ptropavlivka in Ukraine, most of which were in rebel territory, the Dutch report said. It could not say, thought, whether the missile came from an area under control of Russian-backed separatists. Some, though, have speculated that former Russian military officials were involved as it would have been difficult for rebels to operate the device that was developed and used in Russia. The report also criticized Ukraine for allowing civilian aircraft to fly over the eastern part of the country despite the tumultuous conflicts that were raging. On the day of the tragedy, at least 160 commercial flights flew over the area. “There was sufficient reason for the Ukrainian authorities to close the air space above the eastern part of their country,” Joustra said.
Doctors Without Borders Mourn their Loss, Demand Investigation Doctors Without Borders is comprised of selfless, brave individuals who want to help the world. The charity group provides medical care in the some of the world’s most dangerous places. Last week, an aid group was stationed in the Afghan city of Kunduz when it was hit by a deadly U.S. airstrike. The attack on Saturday killed 12 medical staff members and at least 10 patients, three of them children. It was “the biggest loss of life for our organization in an airstrike,” Dr. Joanne Liu, International President of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) or Doctors Without Borders, said. Another 37 people were wounded. Obama has apologized for the fatal mistake but Doctors without Borders are saying it is too little and too late. “President Obama expressed regret over the tragic incident and offered his thoughts and prayers on behalf of the American people to the victims, their families, and loved ones,” the White House statement said.
But an apology is not sufficient, the organization said. “We reiterate our [request] that the U.S. government consent to an independent investigation led by the International Humanitarian Fact-Finding Commission to establish what happened in Kunduz, how it happened, and why it happened,” Liu said after
The Week
absolutely positive for Syria,” said 39-year-old civil servant Nizar Maqsoud. “All the West stood against us. Only Russia backed us; we are all here to thank Russia and President Putin,”
said Osama Salal, an 18-year-old student, at the rally. Rebels in the capital’s suburbs have targeted the embassy in the past, and it was not clear if Tuesday’s attack targeted the rally.
YOU’VE I EARNED IT.I
OCTOBER 15, 2015
Russian Embassy in Syria Attacked
and Russian President Vladimir Putin, and waved the two countries’ flags. Some held placards that read: “Thanks Russia” and “Syria and Russia are together to fight terrorism.” “President Putin’s stances were
THE BALTIMORE JEWISH HOME
the attack. The charity group is calling the strike an “attack on the Geneva Conventions” and urging an independent investigation by a never-before-used international commission. Gen. John Campbell, commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, has said the hospital was hit accidentally during an American airstrike. The Pentagon is carrying out an investigation, as are NATO and Afghanistan. “If errors were committed, we will acknowledge them,” Campbell said. “We will hold those responsible accountable, and we will take steps to ensure mistakes are not repeated.”
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It was supposed to be a rally thanking Russia for its interference in the Syrian conflict, but it ended up as an attack. On Tuesday, insurgents fired two shells at the Russian embassy in central Damascus as hundreds of pro-government supporters gathered outside the compound to thank Moscow for its intervention in Syria. The first shell slammed into the compound and people started to flee as smoke billowed from within. A second shell then hit the area. No one was injured in the blasts. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov condemned the attack, saying, “This is obviously a terrorist act intended to, probably, frighten supporters of the war against terror and to not allow them to prevail in the fight with extremism.” Before the shelling, the demonstrators had gathered outside the embassy carrying posters showing Assad
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The Week Insurgents have vowed to fight Russian forces after Moscow began launching airstrikes in Syria late last month. Russia has been one of Assad’s strongest supporters since the start of the uprising in 2011. The civil war has killed more than 250,000 people and displaced half of Syria’s population. Russia began launching airstrikes in Syria on Sept. 30, allowing Syrian government forces to launch a multipronged ground assault. Moscow insists it is mainly targeting the Islamic State group and other “terrorists,” but the ground-and-air offensive is being waged in areas controlled by U.S.backed rebels as well as other insurgents, including the al-Qaida-affiliated Nusra Front. Earlier Tuesday, the Nusra Front released an audio message from its leader, Abu Muhammed al-Golani, describing the Russian military intervention as a new “Crusader campaign” aiming to save Assad’s rule. He called on Syrian militant and rebel groups to unite and intensify shelling of villages inhabited by members of Assad’s minority Alawite sect. Al-Golani also called on Muslims in the former Soviet Union to attack Russian civilians if Russians target civilians in Syria. “The Russian intervention came to declare a new eastern Crusader war after the western Crusader war failed in Syria,” al-Golani said, in an apparent reference to airstrikes by the U.S.-led coalition that began last year. Al-Golani said the Russians are not targeting the IS group, but are instead striking at militants who are fighting the government. The jihadi leader promised to pay 3 million euros ($3.42 million) to whomever kills Assad and 2 million euros ($2.28 million) to whomever kills Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, whose men are fighting alongside Assad’s forces.
ISRAEL Hamas Leader Declares Intifada The last few weeks in Israel have been horrific, as Israel has been hit with attacks almost daily.
Hamas’s chief in Gaza is calling the violence that has hit Israel and the West Bank in recent days an “intifada” and urged further unrest. “We are calling for the strengthening and increasing of the intifada… It is the only path that will lead to liberation,” Ismail Haniyeh declared during a sermon for weekly Muslim prayers at a mosque in Gaza City. “Gaza will fulfill its role in the Jerusalem intifada and it is more than ready for confrontation,” Haniyeh proclaimed. The Islamic terror movement Hamas rules Gaza, the Palestinian enclave squeezed between Egypt and Israel and separated from the West Bank. Gaza has been the site of three wars with Israel since 2008, but it has remained mainly calm amid the recent unrest in Israel and the West Bank. However, a march of about 300 people last week near the border with Israel in the northern Gaza Strip saw youths throw stones toward Israeli soldiers on the other side of the frontier, who responded, causing two injuries, Gazan rescue services said. Other reports put that number at five wounded, with some reports saying a Palestinian had been killed. A recent outbreak of stabbing and
In News stoning attacks all across the country, along with noisy rioting, have increased fears of an official third intifada.
Tuesday’s Terror The attacks don’t seem to be abating. On Tuesday morning, two separate attacks hit Jerusalem within just a few minutes, when two Arab men stabbed passengers on a bus and a car rammed into a group of people in the center of the capital.
One person was killed and another wounded as a driver rammed into a crowd on Malchei Israel Street in the Makor Baruch neighborhood in the center of Jerusalem. The attacker, Alaa Abu Jamal, an East Jerusalem resident and an employee of the Bezeq phone company, reportedly stepped out of the crashed vehicle and attempted to stab the wounded. He was related to Uday and Ghassan Abu Jamal who killed four men and a policeman in a shul in Har Nof last November. He was killed by police after the attack. Rabbi Yeshayahu Kirshavski, 59, the victim in the car ramming attack, was buried that day in Har HaMenuchot cemetery. Rabbi Krishevsky was a renowned scholar, compiling the sefer, “Pearls of Yeshayahu.” He learned all day and was asked to speak regularly because of his extensive Torah knowledge. He had just finished davening on Tuesday morning and went to the bus station to meet with his regular chavrusa when he was killed by the terrorist. His son, Shneor, eulogized his fa-
ther at the funeral. “He was a Jew who was all heart and kindness, he loved all Jews. Those poor people who no one wants to go near them, he would come to them, help them, without thinking at all.” In a separate incident minutes earlier, two male passengers were killed — a 60-year-old who died at the scene, and a 45-year-old who died in the hospital — and three others suffered gunshot wounds in a combined shooting and stabbing attack on Egged bus 78 in the neighborhood of Armon Hanatziv in southern Jerusalem. Two assailants were involved in the Armon Hanatziv attack and were shot and subdued by police. One terrorist was said to have been killed, and the other was caught by police. Some 15 people were said to have been injured in the attack. In Ra’anana, a man stabbed four people with a knife on Jerusalem Boulevard. One was in serious condition with stab wounds to the upper body. The three other victims were lightly injured. The attacker was arrested. The attacks follows just hours after another stabbing attack in Ra’anana, in which a man was lightly injured when stabbed while standing at a bus stop on the central Ahuza thoroughfare in the city. Passersby held the attacker and beat him to stop the attack until police came to take him into custody.
Netanyahu: Terrorists Must Pay On Tuesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed that terrorists will pay the price for their actions. The Israeli leader gave a speech in the Knesset special session in memory of Minister Rehavam Ze’evi, who was killed by a Palestinian Arab terrorist in 2001 – and made it clear that significant decisions will be made. “Today we decide on a series of bold steps to further our war against incitement and terrorism,” he began. “They will be applied in the field as quickly as possible.”
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The Week “Israel will come to settle accounts with the murderers, those who try to murder, and anyone who helps them,” he continued. ”Not only will we take away rights, but they will pay the full price. “All whoever raises a hand to hurt us – his hand will be cut off,” he warned. ”We will use every means at our disposal, and I do not hesitate to use them, in order to restore peace to the cities of Israel.” Netanyahu spoke in the midst of an unprecedented wave of terror attacks against Jews in Israel, with no fewer than 20 stabbings in ten days – as well as shootings, rock-throwing and firebomb attacks, and car attacks nationwide.
“Do not turn murderers into heroes,” Netanyahu thundered, referring to the Hamas, Palestinian Authority and Islamic Movement. “If there is deterioration due to the provocations of Hamas, the Palestinian Authority and the Islamic Movement – it’s on your shoulders.” He urged Israeli Arabs to choose the right path and not head down the path of terror. “Do not be misled by agitators,” he said. “It’s easy to unravel the threads that bind us to one another. Do not be tempted to do so.” He added, “There is a large group among Israeli Arabs who understand things, and their leadership must act boldly, and face agitators.”
Tel Aviv in Top Twenty-Five According to Qatar Financial Center, Tel Aviv has been chosen as one of the world’s top 25 leading financial centers. The distance from the top three – London, New York, and Hong Kong – is still great, however, the White City nonetheless precedes dozens of other very important financial centers. According to the study, Tel Aviv is ranked 25th, and advances, among others, Abu Dhabi (28), Beijing (29), São Paulo (31), Stockholm (32), Rio de Janeiro (35), Amsterdam (36), Paris (37), Oslo (67), Moscow (78), and Madrid (79).
The list, which has been published since 2007, is released every six months and ranks the 84 leading financial world centers. The ranking is based on five central competitive categories analyzed by experts from various fields such as banking, investments, security and governance and on an analysis of rankings and financial parameters of various sources. Hila Oren, head of Tel Aviv Global City of the Mayor’s office, said that this is the latest in a series of achievements. “Tel Aviv was ranked 32nd in 2013, and since then we have risen to 25th,” she pointed out. “The ranking reflects the city’s hard work as a world financial center and the hub of Israel’s economy.” The flattering ranking joins a list
In News of other commendable accolades and titles given to Tel Aviv. Newsweek called it one of the 21st century’s most thriving cities, and the Wall Street Journal says it is the leading technological center of Europe.
PA Paying Terrorists
In the latest loathsome Palestinian Authority revelation, official Palestinian government documents have been published showing hundreds of thousands of dollars in payments to prisoners convicted in some of the deadliest attacks on Israelis. The report came after days of violent clashes and repeated Israeli accusations of Palestinian incitement to violence. Hefty sums have been given to murderers serving out multiple life sentences in Israeli prisons. Individuals who received funds from the Palestinian Authority include members of the PA security forces who were implicated in terrorist attacks against Israelis during the Second Intifada, as well as senior Hamas members serving time in Israeli prisons. Abdullah Barghouti, a Hamas commander and bomb-maker serving 67 life terms for his involvement in several terror attacks, including the bombing of the Sbarro restaurant in Jerusalem in August 2001 that killed 15 Israelis and wounded some 130, has received over NIS 250,000 ($64,000) from the Palestinian Authority. Palestinians have long acknowledged paying support to the families of prisoners held by Israel, but payments made
personally to prisoners convicted in deadly attacks have never been made public. Ashraf al-Ajrami, a former Palestinian minister for prisoners’ affairs, confirmed the report, saying the prisoners are “heroes” and the money is for their families.
Hateful PLO Agenda The PLO showed more of its true colors this week. The Palestinian Liberation Organization’s executive committee has been advocating accelerating internal Palestinian reconciliation and convening a Palestinian National Council including the participation of Hamas and Islamic Jihad. The PLO also urged UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to apply the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 and force Israel to comply with “international law” and withdraw from Judea-Samaria and eastern Jerusalem.
Another major decision recently made by the committee was “the need to implement the objectives included in the President’s [Mahmoud Abbas] speech to the UN General Assembly, including the immediate transition from the status of an authority to the status of a state.” In his speech before the UN on September 30, Abbas renounced the Oslo Accords, claiming the Jewish state had effectively “de-
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The Week stroyed” the agreements, effectively “negating” them and freeing the Palestinian Authority of its own commitment. In a statement released at the end of a PLO meeting chaired by Abbas, the PLO said it would continue to fight against Israel’s “aggression” as well its plans to “undermine the two-state solution and establish an apartheid state” separating Gaza from Judea-Samaria.
pany allows Mirelman to work a short workday of between 2-3 hours, giving him ample time to pursue his hobbies. In his free time, Mirelman hangs out at the beach or at a martial arts studio where he trains in Thai boxing.
Interview with Israel’s Top IQ Yaron Mirelman is thought to be the smartest Israeli in the world. With an IQ of 183— that’s 20 points higher than Albert Einstein is believed to have had—Mirelman is among the 33 most intelligent people in the world. Life with that brain capacity is not always easy. In a recent interview, Mirelman discussed the challenges he faces as a result of his intellectual prowess and recounted that as a child he shied away from his gift in an effort to ward off bullying and unwanted attention from his peers. “During my childhood I began to downplay my ‘otherness’ and gifts because I hated the reactions it aroused,” he related. “I wasn’t always accepted or understood,” Mirelman added, recalling being frustratingly bored for the majority of his school years. As a result, Mirelman said he retreated and slowly stopped interacting with his peers and teachers, which ultimately damaged his self-confidence. “The more my self-confidence went down, the harder it was for me to interact in social settings,” he said. Mirelman now works as a business consultant and claims dozens of clients from a wide variety of spheres. “At the end of the day, all of these companies manage people, money and procedures. And that is something I’m good at doing,” he said. Mirelman is often recruited to problem solve for his clients, and he works to streamline production or operational procedures. Owning his own consulting com-
Towards the end of the interview, Mirelman was asked why he chose not to utilize his gift for the good of humanity, such as trying to make life-saving advances in the field of medical research. Mirelman said he is unable to concentrate or function in any long-term initiatives and dedicating his life to scientific research wasn’t for him. He also countered that he feels like he is “doing something good for humanity, because companies who earn more provide greater stability for their employees.”
Netanyahu’s Passionate U.N. Address
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rebuked world powers on October 1 for failing to challenge Iran over its threats to destroy Israel. The emotional address was given before the Unit-
In News ed Nations General Assembly. “Last month, [Iranian Supreme Leader Ali] Khamenei made his genocidal intentions clear. Before Iran’s top clerical body, the assembly of experts, he spoke about Israel, home to over six million Jews. He pledged, quote, ‘There will be no Israel in 25 years,’” Netanyahu said in the UN. “Seventy years after the murder of six million Jews, Iran’s rulers promise to destroy my country, to murder my people, and the response from this body, the response from nearly every one of the governments represented here, has been absolutely nothing. Utter silence. Deafening silence,” he added. Netanyahu then stood in silence for 44 seconds, staring reproachfully at the crowd. “Perhaps you can now understand why Israel is not joining you in celebrating this deal,” he said. “If Iran’s rulers were working to destroy your country, perhaps you’d be less enthusiastic about the deal.” While Iran deployed terror groups and weapons to multiple Mideast nations, Netanyahu said, world powers, including Western governments, were rushing to embrace the regime in Tehran. “We see a world celebrating this bad deal, rushing to embrace and do business with a regime openly committed to our destruction,” he said, referring to the nuclear deal, signed between Iran and six world powers in Vienna in July, that Israel has vociferously opposed. “Check your enthusiasm at the door,” he said. “For those of you who believe that the deal in Vienna will bring a change in Iran’s policy, just listen to what Khamenei said five days after the deal was reached: ‘Our policies toward the arrogant government of the United States will not change. The United States,’ he vowed, ‘will continue to be our enemy.’ Giving the mullahs more money will fuel repression inside Iran. As the leader of a country defending itself every day against Iran’s growing aggression, I wish I could take comfort in the claims that this deal” will prevent an Iranian nuclear weapon. Netanyahu offered an explicit warning to the international community. Israel “will not allow Iran to break in,
to sneak in, or to walk into the nuclear weapons club,” he asserted. “I know that preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons remains the official policy of the international community,” he added dismissively, “but no one should question Israel’s commitment to defend ourselves against those who seek our destruction. “So here’s my message to the rulers of Iran: Your plans to destroy Israel will fail. Israel will not permit any force on Earth to threaten its future. And here’s my message to all the countries represented here: Whatever resolutions you may adopt here, whatever decisions you take in your capitals, Israel will do whatever it must do to defend our state and to defend our people.” Netanyahu concluded his speech by turning to the Palestinian arena, reiterating his past insistence that Israel under his stewardship “remains committed to achieving peace with the Palestinians as well.” “Israelis know the price of war. I know the price of war. I was nearly killed in battle. I lost many friends. I lost my beloved brother Yoni… I am prepared to immediately [begin] direct peace negotiations with the Palestinian Authority without any preconditions whatsoever.”
Where are the World’s Jews? According to Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics, the number of Jews in the world is still lower than the number of Jews before the Holocaust. The CBS’s annual statistical report shows that in 1939 there were 16.6 million Jews living around the world; today there are 14.31 million. According to the data, the world had 7.8 million Jews in 1882, 24,000 of them in the Land of Israel. In other words, less than 1 percent of the Jews were living in Israel when the First Aliyah began. When World War I broke out in 1914, the number of Jews in the world had already reached 13.5 million, 50,000 of them in the Land of
The Week 2014 – the highest number since 2003. A total of 3,149,728 people immigrated to Israel since the State’s establishment.
NATIONAL Trump’s Current Poll Status Whether you’re a Republican or Democrat, pro-Trump or anti-Trump,
there is no denying that everyone cares where he is holding in the polls. A new poll from CBS News reveals that Trump is still leading the race for the Republican Party’s nomination with a 27% backing. However, when asked what they would do if Trump won the nomination, 19% of Republican primary vot-
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Israel. In 1939, just before the Holocaust, there were 16.6 million Jews in the world, 449,000 of them (3 percent) in Israel. When the State of Israel was established in 1948, the number of Jews in the world was 11.5 million, and 650,000 of them (6 percent) were living in Israel.
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The next 32 years saw a moderate increase in the number of Jews in the world, which reached 12.84 million in 1980, 3.283 million of them in Israel—one in four Jews was living in Israel at the time. Thirty years later, while the number of Jews in the world went up very moderately to 13.925 million, 42 percent (5.803 million) of them lived in Israel. According to the figures for 2015, there are 14.31 million Jews in the world, 6.219 million, or 43 percent, live in Israel. The number of Jews outside Israel is gradually decreasing due to the immigration to the Jewish state and assimilation. In 1975, for example, there were 9.781 million Jews living outside Israel, while today there are only 8.1 million. Essentially, while the Jewish population in Israel more than doubled itself, the Jewish population in the world dropped some 20 percent. According to the CBS figures, there are currently 5.7 million Jews living in the United States, 467,000 in France, 386,000 in Canada, 290,000 in Britain, 183,000 in Russia, 181,000 in Argentina, 118,000 in Germany and 113,000 in Australia. The annual report also includes the number of new immigrants in Israel. A total of 24,112 people made aliyah in
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ers said they would not support him. More than 4 in 10 said they would “support him with reservations,” and 29% said they would back him “enthusiastically.”
One thing is certain: The Donald is popular. He has about 4.4M Twitter followers, over 450K Instagram followers, and close to 4M Facebook fans. Now for those that aren’t media savvy, trust us, that’s popular. Just for a frame of reference, Ben Carson, who is polling second, has 723K Twitter followers, 110K Instagram followers, and over 4M Facebook fans. Among the other candidates, Ben Carson, the retired neurosurgeon, came in second with 21%, with Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas at 9%, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida at 8% and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Carly Fiorina, the former head of Hewlett-Packard, tied at 6% in the polls.
States Ranked from Thickest to Thinnest There are seven Dunkin’ Donuts within 50 miles of Arkansas’ capital Little Rock and in Denver, the capital of Colorado, there are 14 branches within 50 miles. But it seems that in Arkansas, donuts must be the bestselling item and in Colorado it is probably black coffee with no sugar or milk. Arkansas boasts the highest obesity rates in the country while Colorado has the lowest.
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ty levels include: New York (27.0% obese) (tie) and Rhode Island (27.0% obese) (tie); New Jersey (26.9% obese); Montana (26.4% obese); Connecticut (26.3% obese); Florida (26.2% obese); Utah (25.7% obese); Vermont (24.8% obese); California (24.7% obese); Massachusetts (23.3% obese); Hawaii (22.1% obese); District of Columbia (21.7% obese); and Colorado (21.3% obese). In fact, many Southern states have high obesity rates, West Virginia, North Dakota, and Indiana all have a high percentage of people who classify as obese, according to a new report by the Robert Woods Johnson Foundation and Trust for America’s Health. According to a recent study conducted at Harvard, being surrounded by people who are obese increases personal risk as well. Your family and friends can dramatically impact your health and fitness. In fact, just having a close friend who becomes obese raises your own risk by 57 percent. Surprisingly, having a sibling or spouse whose obese also increases your risk, but to a lesser degree. The logic is simple: if you are around high caloric food, you are more likely to eat it, and if your friends either encourage or discourage exercise it will affect your decisions. Twenty-two states now have obesity rates that top 30 percent, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance Survey. Overall, the nation’s obesity rates have plateaued but obesity rates are growing in five states: Ohio, Minnesota, Kansas, New Mexico and Utah. The editors at Eat This, Not That! magazine ranked all 50 states and Washington, D.C., according to obesity rates. The top ten states for obesity include: Arkansas (35.9% obese); West Virginia (35.7% obese); Mississippi (35.5% obese); Louisiana (34.9% obese); Alabama (33.5% obese); Oklahoma (33.0% obese); Indiana (32.7% obese); Ohio (32.6% obese); North Dakota (32.2% obese); and South Carolina (32.1% obese). The states with the lowest obesi-
Record High Cubans Retiring to Florida Florida is a hotspot for retirement, and not just for American senior citizens. Many Cubans are retiring in the Sunshine State and receive government assistance from the U.S. despite never living or working in the country and not paying a single dollar in taxes.
Since 2010, the number of Cubans over 60 immigrating to Florida has increased fivefold. Cubans’ special status allows a growing number of elderly to retire to the U.S. with taxpayer support. Unlike most other immigrants, Cubans qualify immediately for food stamps and Medicaid. If they are over 65 with little or no income, they also can collect a monthly check of up to $733 in Supplemental Security Income (SSI). Congress created Supplemental Security Income in 1972 as a safety net for
disabled adults and children and poor seniors. “They’re getting cheap apartments, food stamps,” said Cuban-born attorney Pedro Fuentes-Cid of Tampa. “They tell their friends in Cuba, and they come over.” This is all made possible under a humanitarian policy of treating Cubans who arrive as refugees. Cubans are eligible for government assistance for up to seven years after arriving and longer if they go through the process of becoming citizens. Miami-Dade is top in the nation among large counties in the percentage of people over 65 collecting SSI. In 2013, Miami-Dade County had more seniors living on Social Security than all other Florida counties combined. About two-thirds of Miami’s elderly SSI recipients are Cuba natives.
Legality of Iran Deal Being Questioned It turns out that the Iran nuclear deal struck by the Obama administration may not have exactly been legal. Senior U.S. officials involved in the implementation of the Iran nuclear deal say that part of the deal, namely a concession that gives Iran access to tens of billions of dollars in U.S.backed commerce, conflicts with existing federal statutes.
At issue is a passage tucked away in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, as the Iran nuclear
The Week
A new book by Bob Woodward reveals that former President Richard Nixon believed that years of aerial bombing in Southeast Asia to pressure North Vietnam achieved “zilch.” This disclosure is shocking only because Nixon publicly declared the bombings were effective and ordered more bombs while running for reelection in 1972. Nixon’s private thoughts were revealed in a handwritten note from Nixon. Nixon’s note to Henry Kissinger, then his national security adviser, on January 3, 1972, was written sideways across a top-secret memo updating the president on war developments. Nixon wrote: “K. We have had 10 years of total control of the air in Laos and V.Nam. The result
The day before he wrote the “zilch” note, Nixon was asked about the military effectiveness of the bombing by Dan Rather of CBS News in an hour-long, primetime television interview. “The results have been very, very effective,” Nixon declared. Nixon’s private assessment was correct, Woodward writes: The bombings were not working, but Nixon defended and intensified it in order to advance his reelection prospects. The claim that the bombing was militarily effective “was a lie, and here Nixon made clear that he knew it,” Woodward writes. Nixon’s note, which had not previously been disclosed, was found in a trove of thousands of documents taken from the White House by Alexander P. Butterfield, deputy to H.R. Haldeman, Nixon’s chief of staff, and not made public until now.
Obama Admits to Failing in Syria
Despite President Obama’s repeat-
ed attempts to resolve the Syria crisis, all has failed. “I didn’t say it was going to be done in a year,” Obama declared in a CBS “60 Minutes” interview on Sunday. “Syria has been a difficult problem for the entire world community. … What we have not been able to do so far – and I’m the first to acknowledge this – is to change the dynamic inside of Syria.” The White House spend $500 million to train and equip a moderate opposition to fight the Islamic State, but the administration ended the program last week following a report by the U.S. military that efforts to train as many as 5,000 rebels had only done so for about 50 and now only four or five remain. “There’s no doubt that it did not work,” said Obama, while acknowledging that he was “skeptical” about the plan from the beginning and that he was willing to try several options. Obama admitted that training Syrians to defeat the Islamic State will be nearly impossible as long as the regime of President Bashar Assad remains in power. On the other hand—and across the world—Russian President Vladimir Putin is confident in his strategy regarding Syria. In an interview on Tuesday with CNBC, the Russian leader declared, “Let me be clear, we are not going to get into leadership [debates about Syria]. There is only one leader in Syria which is the Syria people.” He continued, “What we’re trying to achieve is to contribute to the fight against terrorism which is a threat both to the U.S., to Russia, to European countries and the whole world,” he said. “They [the western alliance] don’t have a clear understanding of what’s happening on the ground.” Russia began a bombing campaign in Syria last month, ostensibly joining the Western countries in fighting ISIS. But it is clear to all that Putin has become involved in the conflict to bolster the regime of Syrian leader Bashar Al-Assad, much to the concern
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Another Nixon Lie Revealed
= Zilch. There is something wrong with the strategy or the Air Force.”
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sidiaries to be treated differently than U.S. parent firms. The second option is to treat both categories the same, as ITRA mandated – but still violate the section of ITRA that requires Iran’s removal from the State Department terror list as a pre-condition. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), the G.O.P. presidential candidate who is a Harvard-trained lawyer and an outspoken critic of the Iran deal, said the reopening of the loophole fits a pattern of the Obama administration enforcing federal laws selectively. “It’s a problem that the president doesn’t have the ability wave a magic wand and make go away,” Cruz said in an interview. “Any U.S. company that follows through on this, that allows their foreign-owned subsidiaries to do business with Iran, will very likely face substantial civil liability, litigation and potentially even criminal prosecution. The obligation to follow federal law doesn’t go away simply because we have a lawless president who refuses to acknowledge or follow federal law.”
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deal is formally known. Specifically, Section 5.1.2 says that in exchange for Iranian compliance with the terms of the deal, the U.S. “shall…license nonU.S. entities that are owned or controlled by a U.S. person to engage in activities with Iran that are consistent with this JCPOA.” In short, this means that foreign subsidiaries of U.S. parent companies will, under certain conditions, be allowed to do business with Iran. The problem is that the Iran Threat Reduction and Syria Human Rights Act (ITRA), signed into law by President Obama in August 2012, was explicit in closing the so-called “foreign sub” loophole. ITRA also says that when it comes to doing business with Iran, foreign subsidiaries of U.S. firms shall in all cases be treated exactly the same as U.S. firms. So, what is prohibited for U.S. parent firms has to be prohibited for foreign subsidiaries, and what is allowed for foreign subsidiaries has to be allowed for U.S. parent firms. Additionally, ITRA contains language requiring that the terms spelled out in Section 218 shall remain in effect until the president of the United States certifies two things to Congress: first, that Iran has been removed from the State Department’s list of nations that sponsor terrorism, and second, that Iran has ceased the pursuit, acquisition, and development of weapons of mass destruction. Administration sources say that it is the intention of Secretary of State John Kerry, who negotiated the nuclear deal with Iran’s foreign minister and five other world powers, that the re-opening of the “foreign sub” loophole by the JCPOA is to be construed as broadly as possible by lawyers for the State Department, the Treasury Department and other agencies involved in the deal’s implementation. But the apparent conflict between the re-opening of the loophole and existing U.S. law leaves the Obama administration with only two options going forward. The first option is to violate ITRA and allow foreign sub-
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of Western powers who view Assad as a major cause of the country’s civil war. When asked to defend himself against President Obama’s recent remarks against the Russian bombing campaign, Putin insisted, “All our actions fully comply with the United Nations charter and international law, contrary to the actions of our colleagues from the so-called U.S.-led international coalition which is acting without any UN Security Council resolution and invitation of the Syrian authorities.”
The Fastest Growing Foreign Language
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What’s the most common foreign language you hear on the streets? The fastest growing household language in the U.S. may surprise you…
The Census Bureau’s 2014 American Community Survey (ACS) discloses that Arabic and Urdu, Pakistan’s national language, are growing the most rapidly in percentage terms from all other foreign languages spoken in people’s home in the U.S., according to a new report by the Center for Immigration Studies. After a half century of high quantities of immigrants, a record 63.2 million U.S. residents speak a language other than English at home. That’s about one out of every five homes.
Between 2010 and 2014, there was a 29 percent increase in Arabic, a 23 percent increase in Urdu, and a 9 percent jump in Persian, which is spoken in Iran. This survey supports recent studies that claim that Muslim immigration is the fastest growing bloc of immigrants. Each year the United States voluntarily imports more than a quarter of a million, about 280,000, Muslim migrants. This figure includes permanently resettled immigrants, guest workers, refugees and foreign students. All of these immigrants are invited into the U.S. on visas and therefore have the opportunity to collect welfare, resettle their relatives, and eventually apply for citizenship and voting rights. According to estimates, about 91.4% of Middle Eastern immigrants receive food stamps.
Clinton Leads Democratic Party Despite Scandal Hillary Clinton has come a long way since serving as First Lady in the White House in the early 2000s. She intends to spend more time in the White House next year—hopefully in the Oval Office.
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mains the leader in the Democratic polls. She has received more money, endorsements, and numbers on the polls than any other declared candidate, making it highly possible that she will secure the party’s nomination. This week Clinton released her proposal for the college affordability plan, a policy prescription driven in large part by the party’s progressives. However before long, discussions returned to the ongoing investigation regarding Clinton using her private email account while secretary of state. On Monday, as Clinton shook hands with hundreds of supporters who turned up at a ski resort in New Hampshire to hear her speak. Her challenger, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, packed a sports arena in Los Angeles with more than 15,000 people. Earlier this week, Clinton announced she would hand over her personal email server to investigators after months of fighting a government investigation, yet she stilled polled high. The only state that Clinton isn’t leading in is New Hampshire, where more voters say they’d vote for Bernie Sanders.
Deportation of Immigrants at New Low
Despite the scandal and controversy surrounding her, Clinton re-
Many Republican candidates have made immigration the focus of their campaign and a recent study reinforces the fact that there is an issue. In the last 12 months, the Obama administration deported the fewest immigrants since 2006, according to internal figures obtained by The Associated Press. Total deportations dropped 42
percent since 2012. Despite Obama’s pledge to focus on finding and deporting criminals living in the country illegally, deportations of criminal immigrants have fallen to the lowest levels since he took office in 2009. Overall, a total of 231,000 deportations occurred in the last year; that figure generally does not include immigrants from Mexico who were caught at the border and quickly returned home by the U.S. Border Patrol. The figure does include roughly 136,700 convicted criminals deported in the last 12 months. The percentage of criminal immigrants specifically deported increased slightly, from 56% to 59%.
In a statement last Tuesday evening, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman Jennifer Elzea said the agency “has refined its priorities to improve the quality of its removals by focusing on the most serious public safety and national security threats as well as recent border crossers. As a result, overall removals may show a decline, consistent with a substantial drop in overall apprehension, among other factors,” Elzea said. Ironically, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton recently accused Obama of implementing deportation policies that are too harsh. In an interview with Spanish-language TV network Telemundo, Clinton vowed to be “less harsh and aggressive” than Obama in enforcing immigration laws. “The deportation laws were inter-
The Week
Can I Write Your Fortune?
The Facebook Felons Wearing a new outfit and want the world to know? Take a selfie and post it on social media. How about a major party that you’ve attended? Want everyone to know? Take a self-
But Mogan wasn’t satisfied with counting the cash in private. Instead, the two started taking selfies with the greenbacks and then uploaded the pictures to Facebook. Their bragging online earned them great status—a ride in a police car two days later, with a minimum of four years in prison if convicted. Some things (I say, most things) are best left private.
Doing the Mumba In Hong Kong, kids are exercising way too early. In fact, some of them are sweating it out even before they begin to walk. In “Mumba” classes in the busy city mothers are using cute accessories as weights in their workouts—their children. Once the preserve of traditional
communities, the art of wrapping a baby across a caregiver’s body so it can be carried during daily activities is being taken up by modern parents. Hong Kong’s busy and narrow streets make pushing a stroller too difficult and so many parents are wearing their children on their backs or across their bellies. And when they head to the gym, they keep their favorite accessory on. “Mumba” fitness, baby-wearing belly dance, ballet, yoga and pilates classes, and even suspension training (TRX) classes have sprung up in recent months – all allowing parents to exercise while their baby is strapped to them in a carrier. “There is huge demand from mums who wanted to get back in shape and to get strong again after the challenges of labor, but who also didn’t want to leave their young babies behind while they spent time exercising,” explains Ifat Hindes, co-founder of Mumba Fitness. “We have combined different types of exercise including yoga, dance, TRX, and pilates, and the bonus is that you are using your baby for weight training,” she says. “There’s no need for expensive gadgets – it’s just you and your baby, with other parents, being guided by a professional. You know everyone is in the same boat. Hong Kong can be a difficult and unwelcoming city for new mothers.” Mey Jen, director of Oasis Dance Centre, says that the babies enjoy her belly dancing class. “The mothers want to belly dance and they want to be with their babies at the same time. The little ones react very naturally to the beats and the movement. Often the babies become very calm and fall asleep.” Yeah, it’s easy to sleep when mom is doing all the work.
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I love to eat Chinese food. In fact, the best part of a meal out for me is the dessert—sliced pineapples, oranges, and yummy, crunchy fortune cookies. Fortune cookies don’t just provide a great taste at the end of a meal of chow mein, Peking duck and fried wontons, they give great advice and amazing insight too! “Too many cooks spoil the broth.” Yes, the soup was a little salty today. “If at first you don’t succeed, try try again.” OK, mom, I’ll study a little harder next time. “Children should be seen and not heard.” Or maybe we should just leave them at home. “Little strokes fell great oaks.” I’ll keep pushing for a raise. So who writes these great strokes
ie and post it on social media. What about the perfect SAT score? That’s something to brag about. Take a selfie and post it on social media. But if you’ve just robbed a bank and are counting your loot, you may want to leave the iPhone at home. Two brilliant crooks, John E. Mogan II, 28, and Ashley K. Duboe, 24, robbed Savings Bank Ashville North in Ohio in August. Mogan handed the teller a note, grabbed the cash and fled on foot.
OCTOBER 15, 2015
That’s Odd
of genius? Believe it or not, it’s not philosophers or even a wise grandmother. The writers of fortune cookie intelligence are really high school students and struggling writers. There are around 40,000 Chinese restaurants in the U.S., and every year a mind-boggling 3 billion fortune cookies are manufactured and consumed. Each cookie needs a fortune line buried in its shell. That’s a lot of advice that needs to go around. Kay Marshall Strom, 65, was a high school senior when she saw a little blurb in the local San Francisco newspaper asking for a fortune writer. Intrigued, she sent an inquiry – she had been contemplating becoming a writer when she grew up and figured, why not start small? She got the job. Where do they get their nuggets of inspiration? Well, everywhere. Writers jot down ideas and then submit them to the companies. Some companies are more conservative, others enjoy creative lines. “You will be hungry again in an hour” was written by Strom. Wise words indeed. Russell Rowland, interestingly, doesn’t like fortune cookies. But that didn’t stop him from churning out 700 fortunes—at 75 cents apiece. He turned to literature and used famous quotations to get to his quota. “Love is the secret to happiness” was written by him. And my secret to happiness is chowing down fortune cookies. I’ll leave the little scraps of paper to someone else, though.
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preted and enforced, you know, very aggressively, during the last six and a half years, which I think his administration did in part to try to get Republicans to support comprehensive immigration reform,” Clinton said. Obama has overseen the removal of more than 2.4 million immigrants since taking office; roughly 11 million immigrants are thought to be living in the country illegally. About 52% of that figure are immigrants from Mexico.
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Leaves for Sale Remember back in the winter when we were surrounded by piles of snow and people who were stuck (?!) in warm states were actually paying for the fluffy cold stuff? Well, the insanity didn’t stop when the snow melted. As October brings in cooler temperatures and the leaves start filling your yard, you may be able to make a couple of bucks.
Beards May Make You Healthier It’s been a long yom tov and some men in the community have sported thicker beards over the holiday. And that’s a good thing. You see, according to researchers from the University of Southern Queensland, a thick beard may offer benefits to the person upon whose face it’s attached.
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dust and pollen, which sounds like bad news for people with asthma or hay fever. But they work like fuzzy fortresses, protecting your nose, eyes, and mouth from irritants. What’s more, an impressive coat of facial hair retains moisture and acts as a barrier against harsh wind, keeping the skin underneath fresh and youthful. It’s also a great way to capture challah crumbs so you can enjoy the taste all week long.
The Phone that does ZERO
Kyle Waring and his wife have been searching for the perfect leaves on their hikes and are now shipping the foliage to customers who live in states where their leaves stay green all year long. For just $19.99, customers can have the perfect bundle handpicked from New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Vermont. Once the Warings collect the perfect specimens, they “undergo a unique preservation process” that involves soaking them for 2-3 days and allowing them to dry for a few more. This ensures that they’ll last long after the fall season is over—an estimated 5-7 years, according to their company’s site. So far, Waring has seen the most demand from season-starved customers in California, Texas, and Florida. “I guess there’s something about New England foliage,” he says. Or maybe Americans living in those states are just more gullible.
In their 2012 study, researchers left a group of mannequins, some bearded and some bare-faced, under the harsh sun of the Australian outback. When they compared the amount of radiation absorbed by each subject, they found that the beards blocked 90 to 95 percent of the harmful UV rays from the faces of the mannequins. This level of built-in protection in human beard-owners should successfully slow the aging process and reduce the risk of one day developing skin cancer. “Facial hair has an Ultraviolet Protection Factor (UPF) of anywhere from 2 to 21,” one scientist on the study, Alfio Parisi, related. “The percentage of UV blocked to the skin depends on the thickness and angle of the sun.” Though the adequate thickness of a beard can be hard to quantify, Parisi said that “it has to be a thick bushy beard and not just stubble.” Beards are also good at capturing
Do you suffer from hand-to-phone contact? Do you always need to have a slim, rectangular object in your hand? Do you relish the feeling of heft in your back pocket? Introducing the ZERO, the new “smartphone” from New York-based NoPhone. The ZERO is the same size as Apple’s iPhone 5, but it does way less. And I mean, way, way less. In fact, it does nothing at all. Zip, zilch, ZERO. No, the ZERO does not make calls. It does not take pictures. It does not record video or connect to the internet or let you play Solitaire. So why would someone buy this bricklike device? “It’s a technology free-alternative to constant hand-to-phone contact,” says NoPhone Co-Founder Van Gould, facetiously. For Gould, the ZERO is a satirical comment on our device-obsessed culture. “We want to
become the largest fake phone company in the world,” he says. “That’s kind of the goal.” Meeting its Kickstarter fundraising goal in September, the ZERO offers fewer features than ever before. Its designers have stripped it of the grooves previous models included to mimic an outlet, camera, and home button, thus removing even the illusion of distraction. All that’s left is a sturdy, thin rectangle, void of any purpose aside from helping you re-focus on your life. It’s perfect the person who needs a little time away from the constant pull of social media or connection to the outside world but can’t seem to go no-phone cold turkey. You can hold the ZERO in your hand, fit it into your pocket or purse, or have it next to you as you prepare dinner. The company’s website advertises the NoPhone as a way to “never again experience the unsettling feeling of flesh on flesh when closing your hand,” striking a tone just serious enough that it’s hard to tell if it’s a joke or serious experiment. “The most amazing part of the NoPhone is that, in the future, it could be nothing at all,” Gould gushes. The original NoPhone sells for $12, but the ZERO is debuting at $5, making it a more palatable purchase for the curious. For just $5 you too can experience life in the 19th century when people didn’t need to update their status every five minutes or take pictures of their cat—and pretend to like other people’s pets. And then, of course, once you purchase the ZERO, you can turn back to your (real) phone and make sure to Facebook your new, inspired purchase to all your thousands of (real) friends.
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Travel Eli Schreiber
to be true your Companion can even join you if your flights were booked with miles (as opposed to paying in cash), and with round-trip flights ranging on average between 15 - 20k miles each that is nearly six - eight flights where your companion can join you for free. And finally, if you earned the Companion Pass in January of this coming year, it will last you until the end of Dec of 2017. Yes, you heard right. This deal is valued in the thousands. The last time we sent out this info one of our customers took advantage of the information. Here is his story: “After being informed by PEYD about the Southwest promotion, I signed up for one card. The same computer wouldn’t allow me to sign up for the second card [to get both 50,000 card offers] but I was able to sign up for the second offer using another computer. Just make sure you are on a site where the offer is for 50,000 bonus points. I
almost signed up on a site where it was 25,000 for one card. I spent the amount on each card needed to get bonus points, plus the additional amount needed to reach 110,000 [$2,000 for each 50,000 bonus card, only gets to 104,000 points, with 6,000 additional points still required] by paying for my kids summer camp tuition in advance. I then received an email within a day of of my statement date, which was within 3 months from the sign-up, that I got a companion pass! A few days after choosing my spouse [as the beneficiary] of the companion, I received a card in the mail. I booked a flight to Las Vegas, two tickets for the price of one, which I find amazing. I feel like this is too good to be true. After that one flight, I still have 90,000 plus points for future flights or use for hotels/car rentals [earning the Companion Pass doesn’t take away any points, you still have the points to pay/use for the flights as well!!]. Its gotta be worth thousands of dollars which was awarded to me, just for spending what I anyways needed to spend. Thank you PEYD
for informing me about, what in other words, is a deal that will be paying for my future vacation(s). “ There is even a way to get the remaining 6,000 points needed without spending the extra $6,000 by converting Chase Ultimate Rewards Points to either Hyatt or Marriott hotel points and then transferring those hotel points directly to Southwest. We encourage our customers and friends to take advantage of this amazing offer before Southwest changes their rules. Visit www.PEYD. com for more information and signup links. CUSTOMERS MUST VERIFY INFORMATION PRIOR TO APPLYING AS TERMS & CONDITIONS ARE SUBJECT TO CHANGE WITHOUT NOTICE.
OCTOBER 15, 2015
We have talked to you in the past about the Companion Pass from Southwest, and what an amazing deal it is. In summary, Southwest has a promotion where passengers who earn 110,000 points in a calendar year can earn a Companion Pass, which basically allows you to choose one person to fly with you FOR FREE, EVERY TIME YOU FLY until the NEXT CALENDAR YEAR IS OVER. And not only that, you can earn the Companion Pass with bonus miles from Southwest credit cards. And there are currently three Southwest credit cards with 50,000 miles bonus offers (usually each card’s bonus offer is 25,000 miles). But wait, there’s more. Once you earn the Companion Pass, you still have the 110,000 miles you can then use for flights throughout the US, Mexico and Caribbean. And if you thought this was too good
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Fly A Companion For Free With You For An Entire Year, Every Time You Fly
Eli Schreiber is a partner and director of marketing at Get PEYD.
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The Week In News
Notable Quotes
Palestinian shot dead after Jerusalem attack kills two.- How the BBC reported last week’s terrorist attack when two Israelis were murdered by a terrorist who was then shot and killed
“Say What?!”
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The race for president is really starting to get competitive, and Donald Trump recently said that he’s actually getting ready to air his first campaign ads. Even the Geico lizard was like, “I think we already see enough of you on TV, mate.” – JIMMY FALLON
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SEPTEMBER 1, 2015 | The Jewish Home
The CDC is accusing Big To-
ees.” – JIMMY FALLON •••••••••••••••••••
I have had a gun held on me when I was in a Popeyes… Guy comes in, put the gun in my ribs. And I just said, “I believe that you want the guy behind the counter.” – Ben Carson recalling once being held up and what his laissez-faire response was •••••••••••••••••••
bacco of using different flavors of e-cigarettes to try and lure in young people. They’re especially concerned about the newest flavor, Cheerios in a Ziploc Bag. – SETH MYERS •••••••••••••••••••
You know, the NRA’s position reminds me of negotiating with the Iranians or the Communists. There’s no possible discussion. And it’s for political purposes. – Hillary
If Bernie Sanders wins, he will be the first socialist elected since 2008.- Jay Leno, during a guest appearance on the Tonight Show, during which he delivered a part of the opening monologue ............................................................................................. And Hillary Clinton is not the only Democrat running. Martin O’Malley, ex-governor of Maryland, you know him? He’s running for president. See, look, nobody knows him. He’s two percent in the polls. Two percent. He’s been in the race for eight months and he’s only tied with low fat milk. That’s not good. That’s not good. – Ibid.
Clinton discussing gun laws in the aftermath of the Oregon shooting and hastily using an analogy which uncovers her true beliefs about President Obama’s Iran deal •••••••••••••••••••
Whole Foods announced yesterday that it is cutting 1,500 jobs, although Whole Foods doesn’t want to call them “unemployed.” They’re calling them “free range employ-
Today is National Coffee Day. For those who don’t know, coffee is an ingredient in the milkshakes they serve at Starbucks. – JIMMY KIMMEL What’s the secret of my popularity? Honestly, it’s my looks. I’m very handsome. That’s the only thing I can think of right now. – Donald Trump, responding to a questioner at a town hall meeting •••••••••••••••••••
Vladimir Putin celebrated his 63rd birthday today. He had a nice party,
The Week In News
SEPTEMBER 1, 2015 | The Jewish Home
– JIMMY FALLON •••••••••••••••••••
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U.S. officials have been wondering why, according to photos, ISIS seems to have so many Toyotas. One clue seems to be ISIS’s credo, “Fanatical about
– SETH MYERS •••••••••••••••••••
***And what Dr. King said, injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere, has implications for us as
at a march in Washington last weekend •••••••••••••••••••
As we sit here, there is an apartheid wall being built twice the size of the Berlin Wall in height keeping Palestinians off of illegally occupied territories, where the Europeans have claimed that land as their own. We are grateful to G-d to be able to be here and to speak a word on behalf of Palestinian justice. Palestinians are saying, “Palestinian lives matter.” We stand with you, we support you, we say G-d bless you.- IBID.
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There’s almost no measure by which we’re not better off than when I took office and we stand bein order to “stir Crop experts when we startside our Palesin Illinois are up the pased this process reportedly con- tinian brothers sions of peofor change. But and sisters, cerned that ple.” Then Al it does kind of who have been there will not be Sharpton was make you wondone one of the like, “You know a strong enough most egregious der. Why are so pumpkin crop you’re talking many Republiinjustices in to fill the deto me, right?” – can politicians JIMMY FALLON the 20th and mands of both so down on 21st centuries. ••••••••••••••••••• Halloween and America? Why Apartheid is Thanksgiving. Hundreds of going on in Pal- are they so But don’t worry, grumpy?- Presthousands of estine. – PRESIDENT your pumpkin ident Obama at worshipers should OBAMA’S spice lattes will a fundraiser in be ascending to pastor, JereSan Francisco Al-Aqsa in order to be fine because miah Wright, fend off an Israeli
the chemical
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I think that it was a mistake.- President Obama, when asked on 60 Minutes about Hillary’s use of a private email server
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harvest was plentiful.
OCTOBER 15, 2015
Despite claiming last week that he would have rushed the Oregon shooter to save lives, Dr. Ben Carson yesterday recounted how he was once held up at gunpoint in a Popeyes Chicken and told the gunman, “I believe you want the guy behind the counter.” So we know at least one guy who’s definitely not voting for Ben Carson. – Seth Myers
In an interview with Al Sharpton, Hillary Clinton said Donald Trump just says whatever he needs
plot to spill their blood. Lone terror must be turned into a real intifada.- Arab member of Israel’s Knesset, MK Haneen Zoabi, in an interview with a Hamas newspaper
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but it got awkward Islam, sensible about gas milewhen two of his age.” – CONAN O’BRIEN friends got him the same country. • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
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Riddle!
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You Gotta be
SEPTEMBER 24, 2015
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Two Japanese people who have never seen each other bump into each other at the New York Japanese Embassy. They begin talking and go for lunch. They then realize that one of them is the father of the other one’s son. How is this possible? See answer below
Kidding!
Lucy is having a bad day at the roulette tables. Down to her last $100, completely exasperated, she cries, “What horrible luck! What in the world should I do now?” A gentleman next to her, trying to calm her down a bit, calmly suggests, “I don’t know... Why don’t you play your age?” He walks away. Moments later, he is intrigued to hear a great commotion at the roulette table. Maybe she won! Rushing back to the table and pushing his way through the crowd, he is stunned to see Lucy lying limp on the floor, with the table operator kneeling over her. He asks, “What happened? Is she all right?” The operator replies, “I don’t know, buddy.... She put all her money on 45. When 67 came up she fainted!”
You Might Just Be a Jewish Redneck If... • Your home is mobile and your sukkah isn’t
• You’ve fired a shotgun at the sound of Haman’s name
• You have a gun rack in your sukkah
• Your belt buckle is bigger than your yarmulke
• Your standard is “Ad dillo yoda”… every day
• Your shul used to have wheels, but now it’s up on blocks • You’ve called the “psychic hotline” to answer a halachic question • You know what bracha to make when you see a UFO
• Your siddur lists the Sabbath greeting as : “Shabbot shalom y’all”
• Your rabbi has yelled “Yee-Haw” during his drasha • You keep a can of spray paint in your tallis bag
• Your Shabbos suit was purchased at Walmart
• You know which brand of grits have an acceptable kashrut supervision
• Your tallis is made from camouflage cloth • Your local sofer shoots his own parchment • Gefilte fish is the most solid thing you can eat with your tooth • You’ve used the song “Rawhide…rawhide…rawhide” for Kedusha
• Your omer counting calendar has come up with three cherries in a row
Go funnt y?
Comm let the ission er dec
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ads@b
ome.com
Answer to riddle: The Japanese people are husband and wife and both are blind since birth.
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• The only plant in your home is your lulav
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4. You’re given a cube of cheese and a knife. How many straight cuts of the knife
6. At 3:15, what is the angle between the minute and hour hands on an analog clock? a. 0 b. 7.5 degrees c. 6 degrees
Answers: 1. A 2. D 3. B 4. D 5. A 6. B wisdom Key: 5-6 correct: Congrats! You should actually fly out to Silicon Valley right after Sukkos for an interview at Google! (Maybe we could fly together.) 3-4 correct: You won’t get the Google job, but you can become CEO of AOL if you want. 1-2 correct: You won’t get the Google job, but you can work at a pizza shop if you want. 0 correct: When you Google your name, does a “nobody home” sign come up?
Picture of the Week!
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3. Using only a 4-minute hourglass and a 7-minute hourglass, measure exactly nine minutes. You must use both. a. Start both hourglasses, flip over the 4-minute glass when it’s done, flip both glasses over when the 7-minute glass is done, then flip over the 7-minute glass when the 4-minute glass is done b. Start both hourglasses, flip over the 4-minute glass when it’s done, flip over the 7-minute glass when it’s done, let it run 1 minute, then flip it again for the 9th minute c. Start the 7-minute hourglass, flip the 4-minute hourglass when the 7-minute glass is done, measure 2 minutes using the 4-minute hourglass d. Start the 4-minute glass, flip it when it’s done to measure another 4 minutes, then flip the 7-minute hourglass to measure 1 minute
5. You’re in a car with a helium balloon tied to the floor. the windows are closed. when you step on the gas pedal, what happens to the balloon: does it move forward, move backward, or stay put? a. Moves forward b. Moves backward c. Stays put
d. 5.5 degrees
OCTOBER 15, 2015
2. You put a glass of water on a record turntable and begin increasing the speed slowly. what will happen first: will the glass slide off, will it tip over, or will the water splash out? a. Fall b. Tip over c. Have water splash out d. Depends on the shape of the glass and how full it is
do you need to divide the cheese into twenty-seven little cubes? a. 10 b. 12 c. 8 d. 6
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1. when there’s a wind blowing, does a round-trip by plane take more time, less time, or the same time? a. More time b. Less time c. The same time d. It depends on the airplane
SEPTEMBER 24, 2015
The following are a sample of the type of questions you will be asked during the Google interview process, according to William Poundstone’s book titled, “Are You Smart Enough to Work at Google?” Good luck!
n a c u o Y k Thin Work at
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Shabbat Project The Baltimore Shabbat Project Rabbi Nitzan Bergman
On September 1st, I went to a political rally. AIPAC, with a day’s planning, gathered together well over 1600 Jews in Baltimore to protest the Iran deal. Every type and shape of Jew was there, truly unified, for the purpose of demanding a better deal. Rabbi Wolberg introduced the rally with his usual auditory brilliance. He noted that when Joseph’s brothers decided to kill him, they threw him into a pit. Then the story continues, “They sat to eat bread.” “How could they do that?” asked Rabbi Wolberg, “Their brother is dying in a pit and they sat down to eat bread? He concluded, “This was actually their greatest sin. And that,” he declared, “is equivalent to not taking action and speaking up against the deal.” This gathering was out of Fear, a confrontation of yet another threat to the existence of us as a people. Looking around the packed house, I wondered if there were a way we could unite together out of Love, fueled by the joy we have in simply being who we are as Jews. I returned home to continue to work on what my days are taken up with: co-chairing together with Liora Hill the Baltimore Shabbat Project. (Go to baltimoreshabbatproject.org to learn about it and sign up for the communal events.) As I was working, it dawned on me that I was actually working on
the very answer to my question! The Baltimore Shabbat Project is about Jewish unity through Love. It is already happening. Thanks to the work of Nisa Felps, the Project Manager, and over 100 volunteers now involved on our different committees, the response so far across our entire community has been nothing but absolutely positive. And we’ve just begun to reach out! I believe the reason for everyone saying Yes! is because our mission to unify our Jewish community is driven by the values of respecting, dignifying and honoring each other – all expressions of Love. In addition to the planned community events, there are some astounding happenings during Shabbos that have been conceived by both clergy and lay leaders. Including a Shabbos meal shared by Suburban Orthodox and Baltimore Hebrew (Reform), another shared by all three shuls housed at Ner Tamid, services and teachings being shared by Beth Israel (Conservative) and Temple Emanuel (Reform), and the list goes on! There will be special Friday night Onegs, guest speakers, and hundreds of lay-led meals transcending denominations all over town. Our entire community is coming together enhancing our observance and celebration of Shabbos. At our core we are one. When we get down to our very existence, when
we hit bottom, at the core of Fear, we find ourselves on the solid bedrock of our unity. When a Jew in Auschwitz fell during a forced march, his friends didn’t ask in which shul he davened before risking their own lives to pick him up. They did it because their brother, their own flesh, had fallen, and it’s instinctive to save one’s own life. As bitter as our suffering through the hands of our enemies is, if we survive it, we cannot deny the sweet taste of unity and togetherness we experienced through it. The tragedy is that we lose sight of this intrinsic unity as soon as things get a little better. G-d warns us of this, as it pertains even to our relationship with Him. When He promises us the land flowing with milk and honey, He warns, “You will eat and be satisfied. Beware, because you are predisposed to forget the Lord Who brought you out of the land of Egypt.” It is the human condition. However, if we read carefully, G-d only warns us. It is not ordained that we will forget. And that means we are capable of being mindful. Mindful that our all our blessings come from G-d. We are also capable of remembering that we are One People with One Heart. What we need now, maybe more than ever, is to take positive action to create unity. So, what is a positive, clearly Jewish action that we can we take as a community to create unity? One answer is that we are able as a community at large to celebrate, honor and enhance Shabbat. The mission of The Baltimore Shabbat Project is about taking actions which will unite us. Each person, each family, each community is being given the challenge to sign up to be a part of the project. Our goal is to have a majority of our 100,000 strong community join in. For some, it will mean participation in the communal events. For others, it will mean participating in special Synagogue meals/programs. Others are hosting their own meals and inviting guests from the entire spectrum of the community. Obviously, because this is a community wide project and at its heart, a unity project, it’s a great opportunity
for all Jews in the community to reach outside of our normal comfort zone and invite guests for a Shabbos meal. Sometimes, there are even people in our own Kehila and neighborhoods that we really don’t know and have never sat down to a Shabbos meal together. There is something intrinsically worthwhile to the fact that a Shabbos meal is a Jewish meal, but like all life, the soul which invigorates it, determines it. The soul of the Shabbos meal is the conversation had. If the conversation is about the mundane, then the life it breathes into the meal will be mundane. If, however, the soul of the conversation is meaningful, about being Jewish, about G-d, Torah, our values, beliefs and the way of life that distinguishes us, then such a conversation will invigorate a holy life. Our communal commitment to enhance our Shmiras and Kavod Shabbos can also take many forms. For last year’s Shabbos Project, Rabbi Avigdor Goldberger of Minneapolis came up with a brilliant idea. He took Rav Simcha Bunim Cohen’s book, The Shabbos Kitchen, and divided it into 50 parts to be learned each week by the families of his Kehilla over the year. He has graciously given us the materials and we will gladly share it with any Kehilla interested in doing this over the next year. Furthermore, we will help any Kehilla divide and arrange a calendar for any other sefer about Shabbos they would like to learn over the next year. For example, I recently completed Shabbos Malchasa by Rav Shimon Pincus ZT”L and I can say my Shabbos has been transformed. Imagine, for a moment, the majority of our entire community, uniting out of Love to celebrate, honor, and enhance Shabbos, and how that would transform our community. Please go now to www.BaltimoreShabbatProject.org and sign up, and get your family and friends involved, your Kehila and schools. We can do it! With respect, dignity and honor we can build a unified community.
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to Start Off a Healthy New Year By Cindy Weinberger MS, RD, CDN
Now that all the yomim tovim are over, everybody is eager to shed those unwanted pounds that we gained in the past month from all those constant festive meals. Here are some tips to help you make small, simple changes to your diet and daily routine in order to drop those pounds. 1.
there. Spontaneous eating often results in poor food choices. Make sure your dinner is planned and will be ready to eat within an hour of getting home. If not possible, make sure you have a healthy snack option planned to fill you up long enough to hold out until dinner. Find ways to keep moving, especially if you have a sedentary job. Try standing instead of sitting if you can’t fit any physical activity into your schedule. Try to do at least 20-30 minutes of physical activity 2-3 times a week. Walking briskly, jogging or biking outside is a great option to enjoy the beautiful fresh air before the cold weather comes our way.
Aim to have 8-9 servings of fruits and vegetables daily. Vegetables can be eaten fresh, roasted, grilled or steamed. Fruits are healthiest when eaten fresh, since dried fruits are high in sugar. Fruits and vegetables are low in calories and packed with vitamins, minerals, fiber, phytochemicals and antioxidants. Antioxidants help fight off free radicals in our cells that can cause damage to our bodies. These beneficial antioxidants help protect our body from heart disease and other illnesses. Try to incorporate vegetables into each meal. Vegetables are also a great snack in between meals since they are low in calories. Fruits can be eaten as snacks, as part of a meal, thrown into a salad or
for dessert! Increase your fiber. Most Americans don’t get nearly enough fiber. The American Heart Association recommends 25-35g/day. Fiber promotes satiety and prolongs hunger by making you feel fuller for longer. Fiber also promotes regular bowel activity and helps lower cholesterol levels thus reducing the risk of cardiovascular disease. Include whole grains into your diet in order to get adequate amounts of fiber. Increasing your daily fruit and vegetable intake will also help you meet the daily fiber recommendations. Consume 2-3 servings of fatty fish per week in order
Cindy Weinberger MS, RD, CDN, is a Master’s level Registered Dietitian and Certified Dietitian-Nutritionist. She graduated CUNY Brooklyn College in 2013 receiving a Bachelor’s in Science and Master’s degree in Nutrition and Food Sciences. Her Dietetic Internship was completed under Brooklyn College primarily in Ditmas Park Care Center and Boro Park Center where she developed clinical and education skills to treat patients with comprehensive nutrition care. She is currently a dietitian at Boro Park Center and a private nutrition consultant. She can be reached at CindyWeinberger1@ gmail.com.
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Start the day off with a balanced breakfast high in protein to help curb your cravings for the day. For example, try a low fat yogurt with fruit, a high fiber cereal with skim milk, an egg white omelet, or oatmeal. • Make sure to pay attention to the portion size when eating cereal. Most serving sizes are ¾ cup, so be mindful when pouring. Once you finish your healthy, balanced breakfast, do not leave the house in the morning without having a plan for dinner. Once you walk through that door hungry after a long, exhausting day, it all goes downhill from
Once you finish your healthy, balanced breakfast, do not leave the house in the morning without having a plan for dinner.
to get adequate amounts of omega-3 fatty acids. EPA and DHA are omega-3 fatty acids that are found in fish and have been shown to reduce triglyceride levels which in turn lower one’s risk of developing cardiovascular disease. Omega-3 also serves as an anti-inflammatory agent. Furthermore, research has shown omega-3 fatty acids may help prevent Alzheimer’s disease. If you don’t eat fish, omega-3 fatty acids can also be found in flaxseeds. Ground flaxseeds can be mixed into a yogurt, a smoothie or cereal. Drink water. Water will fill you up and prevent you from overeating. Hopefully these healthy lifestyle tips will start you off on a healthy new year.
OCTOBER 15, 2015
Healthy Lifestyle Tips
Real Estate
OCTOBER 15, 2015
Winter Preparation
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Submitted by: Ben Schwartz | Founder VacancyFillers.com Give your home a once-over and tend to winter preparation tasks and repairs before the year’s first frost. Getting the exterior of the home ready for the cold winds, snow and ice is critical for keeping Old Man Winter out and keeping it warm and toasty inside. By being proactive, you’ll lower your energy bills, increase the efficiency and lifespan of your home’s components, and make your property safer. Windows and Doors Check all the weatherstripping around windows and doorframes for leaks to prevent heat loss. Replace weatherstripping, if necessary. Replace all screen doors with storm doors. Replace all window screens with storm windows. Examine wooden window frames for signs of rot or decay. Repair or replace framing to maintain structural integrity. Check for drafts around windows and doors. Caulk inside and out, where necessary, to keep heat from escaping. Inspect windows for cracks, broken glass, or gaps. Repair or replace, if needed. Lawn, Garden, and Deck Trim overgrown branches back from the house and electrical wires to prevent iced-over or wind-swept branches from causing property damage or a power problem. Aerate the lawn, reseed, and apply a winterizing fertilizer to promote deep-root growth come spring. Ensure rain or snow drains away from the house to avoid foundation problems. The dirt grade — around the exterior of your home — should slope away from the house. Add extra dirt to low areas, as necessary. Clean and dry patio furniture. Cover with a heavy tarp or store inside a shed or garage to protect it from the elements.
Clean soil from planters. Bring pots made of clay or other fragile materials indoors. Because terra cotta pots can swell and crack, lay them on their sides in a wood carton. Dig up flower bulbs, brush off soil, and label. Store bulbs in a bag or box with peat moss in a cool, dry place for spring replanting. Remove any attached hoses and store them away for the winter to prevent cracks, preserve their shapes, and prolong their life. Wrap outside faucets with covers to prevent water damage. Shut off exterior faucets. Drain water from outdoor pipes, valves, and sprinkler heads to protect against pipe bursts. Inspect decks for splintering, decay, or insect damage and treat, if needed, to prevent further deterioration over the winter. Clean leaves, dirt, and pine needles between the boards of wooden decks to thwart mold and mildew growth. Inspect outdoor lighting around the property. Good illumination will help minimize the chance of accidents on icy walkways at night. Check handrails on exterior stairs to make sure they’re well secured. Tools and Machinery Bring all seasonal tools inside and spray them with a coating of lightweight oil to prevent rust. Weatherize your lawn mower by cleaning off mud, leaves, grass, and debris. Move your snow blower and shovels to the front of the garage or shed for easy access. Prepare the snow blower for the first snowfall by changing the oil and replacing the spark plug. Sharpen ice chopper and inspect snow shovels to make sure they’re ready for another season of work. Make sure you have an ample supply of ice melt or sand on hand for steps, walkways, and the driveway.
Heating, Ventilating, and Air Conditioning Inspect the firebox and flue system to ensure that they’re clean of any soot or creosote and that there aren’t any cracks or voids that could cause a fire hazard. Check fireplace for drafts. If it’s cold despite the damper being closed, the damper itself may be warped,
worn, or rusted. Consider installing a Chimney Balloon into the flue to air seal the area tightly. Clean or replace the air filter in your furnace for maximum efficiency and improved indoor air quality. Clean your whole house humidifier and replace the evaporator pad. Bleed valves on any hot-water radiators to increase heating efficiency by releasing air that may be trapped inside. Check that smoke alarms and carbon monoxide detectors are in working order. Remove air conditioners from windows or cover them with insulated liners, to prevent drafts. If you have an older thermostat, replace it with a programmable unit to save on heating costs. Install foam-insulating sheets behind outlets and switch plates on exterior walls to reduce outside airflow. Make sure fans are switched to the reverse or clockwise position, which will blow warm air down to the floor for enhanced energy efficiency and comfort. Flush a hot water heater tank to remove sediment, and check the pressure relief valve to make sure it’s in proper working order.
Examine exposed ducts in the attic, basement, and crawl spaces, and use a sealant to plug up any leaks. Gutters, Roof, and Drains Check for missing, damaged or warped shingles and replace, as necessary before you get stuck with a leak. Check for deteriorated flashing at the chimney, walls, and skylights and around vent pipes. Seal joints where water could penetrate, using roofing cement and a caulking gun. Check the gutters and downspouts for proper fastening, and re-secure if loose or sagging. The weight of snow and ice can pull gutters off the house. Clean gutters of any debris. Make sure downspouts extend away from the house by at least 5 feet to prevent flooding of the foundation and water damage from snowmelt. Clean leaves and debris from courtyard and pool storm drains to prevent blockages. Ensure all vents and openings are covered to prevent insects, birds, and rodents from getting inside to nest in a warm place. Submitted by: Ben Schwartz | Founder VacancyFillers.com Are you looking for a tenant for your vacancy? VacancyFillers.com can help! VacancyFillers.com uses their professional and simple systems, to quickly find quality tenants for landlords. Founded by Ben Schwartz in January of 2014 in response to the needs of landlords who lack the proper time and resources to find tenants by themselves, VacancyFillers.com has already assisted in the signing many leases for landlords just like yourself! For more information, please visit: www.vacancyfillers.com
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The Week In News
Israel Gripped by Terror Is it the Third Intifada? By Nachum Soroka
If you’re the Western media, you can call it unrest; if you’re Hamas, you can call it Intifada; if you’re an Israeli, you know that it’s terror at its worst. B A LT I M O R E J E W I S H H O M E . C O M
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he Palestinians have taken to officially terrorizing innocents again, this time mostly with knives, though, as opposed to ball bearings and BBs. Why? No one really knows, even the attackers themselves, some of whom are too young to actually hold an occupation, let alone know what the “Occupation” is. And they are certainly too young to remember the last intifada and whatever consequences it had on their territories. The ongoing uprising contrasts with the First and Second Intifadas in its complete disorganization.
The First Intifada, which began in in 1987 and lasted all the way to 1993, consisted mainly of Arab mobs blocking roadways and hurling Molotov cocktails. The unofficial prime mover of the riots was the PLO, led by Yasser Arafat, who adopted the practice of murdering Arab collaborators with Israel. The Second Intifada, which is infamous for its images of blown out buses and restaurants, claimed the lives of over 1,000 innocent Israelis and was again instigated by Arafat, with the help of many Arab MKs, as well. It began in September 2000 after Arafat rejected thenPrime Minister Ehud Barak’s offer to hand over 96% of the West Bank to the PA, causing much frustration for the Palestinians. During that time, crowded civilian areas were the prime targets for suicide bombers, and the killings only ended with the building of the Israeli security fence around the West Bank.
sukkah while celebrating with her family, the same night a shooting into a sukkah in Lod sent a five-year-old boy to the ICU. Odel and Aharon Benita, young parents of two, were attacked on Sukkos by a 19-yearold terrorist in the Armenian shuk, a popular route from the Kotel. The attack, which left Aharon dead and Odel running through the market’s alleys with a knife in her neck, was casually captured by an Arab storekeeper on his cellphone. “I screamed, I begged for aid” from the Arabs, she told the New York Times. “They stood chatting and laughing — they spat at me.” That stabbing preceded another stabbing of a fifteen-year-old in the Old City by just a few hours. But the terror in Jerusalem is not limited to Arab sections: this past Shabbos’ stabbings occurred not only by Shaar Shechem, the entrance to the Muslim Quarter, but also by Kikar Hadavidka, a central Jerusalem street that is as quiet at 10 o’clock on a Shabbos morning as much as any Chareidi neighborhood. Two teenagers were nearly stabbed to death by a thirteen-year-old and sixteen-yearold Arab terrorist while walking in Pisgat Zeev on Monday. One can attempt to steer clear of the Number 2 Bus and opt to walk to the Kotel, but how can one avoid venturing to his neighborhood shul altogether? Must he forego his daily pre-sunrise
“We call for escalating and deepening the intifada... We are proud of you, the heroes of knives.”
THIS TIME OUND,
Israelis find themselves attacked from all sides. No longer can one avoid busy streets or crowded buses in Jerusalem to feel secure: On Rosh Hashana, a 64-year-old man was killed after his car was attacked by angry Arab teenagers in East Jerusalem. On Sukkos, a young girl was shot in her
walk to vasikin, which doubles as his time for introspection because there is no one else out at that hour to make the trek safe? Must a soccer fan avoid attending Teddy Stadium, the home of the Beitar Yerushalayim club, because of planned Arab attacks on fans going to and returning from a soccer match?
On Tuesday of this week, thousands gathered to attend the funeral of Rabbi Yeshayahu Kirshavski, 59, who was killed by a terrorist who rammed his car into him as he was standing at a bus stop in central Jerusalem after davening Shacharis. The Arab was not satisfied with the car attack; he exited his car and then commenced to stab Rabbi Kirshavski numerous times. Another person was injured in the attack. Rabbi Kirshavski was killed just minutes after two male passengers were killed and others were wounded when terrorists stabbed and shot at riders on a bus in Jerusalem. And on that same day, in Ra’anana four people were stabbed with a knife just hours after another man was stabbed in the city. The attacks are coming in all shapes and sizes and in all areas of the country. In West Bank areas like Chevron, where living with roadside ambushes and infiltration into yishuvim are, unfortunately, the norm, such occurrences are becoming more frequent. Last week saw numerous stabbings in the areas surrounding Kiryat Arba and Chevron, including three in Kiryat Arba on Thursday. On Shabbos alone, an attempted infiltration on the Negahot yishuv near Chevron was thwarted by the IDF and a homemade roadside bomb was immobilized just outside of Kiryat Arba on Motzei Shabbos. Then, on Sunday, an alert border policeman stopped a female suicide car bomber near the Ma’ale Adumim checkpoint, and Kever Rochel was put on lockdown because of Arab rioting there. The weekend violence in the West Bank came days after the murder of Naama Henkin and her husband Eitam, hy”d, a noted talmid chacham and American citizen. The couple was shot to death in their car by Hamas gunmen while their four young children watched from the backseat. Rock-throwing by Arab teens in these areas has intensified at border checkpoints. On Sunday, twenty rock-throwing teenagers were injured by rubber bullets as police endeavored to stop the violence. In other areas of Israel which have been less contentious in the past, Palestinians are still
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It seems as if the leaders of the Palestinian world are igniting the flames. Clearly Hamas leader Haniyeh is inciting the terrorists with his calls for an intifada. “We will liberate Al-Aqsa and we as Gazans intend to join” the current upheaval, he declared at Friday prayers. “We call for escalating and deepening the intifada... We are proud of you, the heroes of knives,” he cheered. In a surprising about-face, though, the Palestinian instigator-in-chief, Mahmoud Abbas, is publicly disapproving any escalation of violence and is outwardly urging calm. The EU claims that the PA President told an EU official over the weekend that he intends to keep the situation “under control.” According to the Shin Bet, Abbas is indeed not behind the recent events, which were carried out mostly by individuals. But there is no denying that declarations like “The dirty feet of the Jews must not be allowed to desecrate Al-Aqsa,” and “Every drop of blood that has been spilled in Jerusalem is holy blood as long as it was for Allah” – which Ab-
LIKE SO MANY TIMES before in its short history, Israel
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and increasing of the intifada… It is the only path that will lead to liberation” was the message the “cleric” delivered in his sermon. Whether the Palestinians consider themselves involved in an intifada or just enjoy throwing rocks, ramming cars and stabbing innocent citizens is not clear, but Hamas certainly wants the violence to escalate to an uprising on the level of an intifada. The incidents have become so frequent and so ubiquitous throughout the country that a non-for-profit startup has cre-
SO WHO IS BEHIND THESE RECENT ATTACKS?
bas stated just before Rosh Hashana – and his “clairvoyant” comment about Israel’s “attack” on the mosque is leading the country into “another intifada” – which he made at that time – were enough provocation in and of themselves. Even if Abbas is not to be blamed, there is still much incitement coming from within Israel, from the Arab leadership in the Knesset. Many Arab MKs consider themselves part of the Islamic Movement, an offshoot of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood and the leading group, along with Hamas, in the current wave of the “defense” of Al-Aqsa. Netanyahu recently quoted an interview from the Hamas newspaper in which MK Haneen Zoabi said, “Hundreds of thousands of worshipers should go to the Al-Aqsa Mosque to stand up against Israel’s conspiracy to condone violence against East Jerusalem residents. If individual attacks will continue without popular support they will die out in a matter of days – thousands of people going out will turn these events into a true intifada.” Arab MK Bassel Ghattas justified the cold blooded murder of the Henkin family because, after all, “they were settlers.” The prime minister had strong words for the Arab MKs when he addressed the Knesset earlier this week, “You cannot... enjoy all the rights and at the same time undermine the state. I ask you to choose the right way,” he said. Netanyahu has called for an im-
continues to be under siege from all sides and by many elements. The threat of ISIS looms larger to Israel than most other countries, the libelous BDS movement is gaining steam throughout Europe, and the U.S. is in the middle of inking a treaty which would allow Israel’s most vocal enemy, Iran, to have the weapons it needs to act on its most nefarious desires. Yet, like before, Israel has proven resilient. The country’s startup economy is second largest in the world (with over $47 billion invested in the year 2014), it ranks as the eleventh happiest country in the world (the United States is 15), and it just announced that it will be the first nation to have privately funded rockets sent to the moon. As Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the Knesset on Monday, “After 100 years of terrorism and 100 years of attempts to destroy the Zionist enterprise, our enemies still have not learned. Suicide terrorism was not victorious over us in the ‘90s and ‘00s, and the terrorism of knives will not be victorious over us now. What always wins is the recognition that this is our home and our homeland. “Our will to live trumps our enemies’ desire for death.” Israel is a nation that truly means it when it says, “Am Yisrael chai.”
OCTOBER 15, 2015
“Our will to live trumps our enemies’ desire for death.”
ated an app which features a real-time interactive map of all the attacks in the country over the past few weeks. The MappingTerror app by StandWithUs is built on the MapMe platform which in lighter times was used to map the hummus “ecosystem” of Israel. Instead of displaying the concentrations of falafel joints along the highway from Jerusalem to Chevron, MappingTerror has icons along the route which provide information of an attack which occurred there. As of Tuesday evening, there are seven icons there. In Jerusalem, there are forty six.
mediate criminal investigation into Zoabi for her incitement of terror against civilians. Zoabi’s response was to call on Netanyahu to resign. Ironically, the Arab MKs who have fomented the incitement for the recent attacks do not seem to have their constituents’ better interest in mind. A recent poll revealed that 80% of Israeli Arabs do not support the newfound unrest. They are tired of the destruction the rioting has wrought on their personal property and the tensions it has caused between them and the Jews. In Nazareth, the Arab mayor yelled at the lead Arab MK, Ayman Odeh, who was conducting an interview on TV, “Ayman, you need to go elsewhere; you’ve destroyed our city!” Netanyahu is also contemplating banning the Islamic Movement from the country, a move that may be almost impossible to carry out. One needs to only look as far south as Egypt to see the struggle the current Egyptian president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has had in trying to disable the Islamic Movement’s cousin, the Muslim Brotherhood, imprisoning its leaders and supporters, and banning its preachers from mosques. Still, the movement is strong there.
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trying to carry out terror. A viral video from last week shows an Arab knife-wielding woman being shot in the legs in the Afula bus station in the North. (Russian media posted a link to the video with the headline, “Videos emerge online showing Israeli police shooting Palestinian woman ‘execution-style.’”) In the North and South of the country, the rockets continue to fall. In the Golan, Israel is the unhappy recipient of stray rockets from the Syrian conflict. In retaliation, the IDF fired on Syrian military positions in that country. “Israel will not tolerate violation of its sovereignty,” IDF spokesman Peter Lerner tweeted. “Syrian military is responsible and accountable for any aggression emanating from Syria.” In the South, Hamas has been firing mortars from Gaza for the past few weeks and most recently over the weekend as an alleged retaliation for IDF troops killing protesters along the Gaza border. It was as part of the border riots that Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh announced a new intifada on Friday. “Gaza will fulfill its role in the Jerusalem intifada and it is more than ready for confrontation. We are calling for the strengthening
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SEPTEMBER 1, 2015 | The Jewish Home
By Rabbi Pini Dunner
Jewish History
The Jarring Episode of Shabbetai Tzvi, Infamous Messianic Deceiver Part I
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B A LT I M O R E J E W I S H H O M E . C O M
Jewish History
hree hundred and fifty years ago this year, in 1665, a young Sephardic rabbi called Shabbetai Tzvi claimed that he was the long awaited Messiah, redeemer of the Jews. The announcement bounced around the Jewish world and was widely welcomed. It was not too long before he was exposed as a fraud, although – sadly – not in time to prevent hundreds of Jewish communities from being thrown into turmoil. Who was this Messianic pretender? How was he ever taken seriously? And how is it possible that even his conversion to Islam failed to convince people that he was a charlatan? To understand this jarring episode one must understand its origins in Kabbalah, or the Jewish mystical tradition. For centuries, Kabbalah did not have a history of being interested in Messianism or in the process of Jewish redemption from exile. Rather, it had mainly focused on the mystical and symbolic view of the universe and its creation, on understanding G-d and on how one could connect to G-d through the performance of His commandments. To the early Kabbalists, who were small and secretive groups of Jewish mystics, the concept of Messiah and the redemption process was seen in the same way as non-Kabbalists: a firm belief in an ultimate moment when a Messiah chosen by G-d would lead the Jews back to the Holy Land and the Temple would be rebuilt. It was very much part of the belief system, but neither urgent nor particularly mystical. After the dramatic expulsion of Jews
from Spain in 1492, this paradigm shifted. The upheaval of the Spanish expulsion, and the Inquisition that followed in its wake, shook the Jewish world to its foundations, probably more than any other event since the destruction of the Jerusalem temple by Titus 1,400 years earlier. During the sixteenth century Tsfat emerged as the spiritual and Kabbalistic headquarters of Judaism. Its emergence proved to be pivotal, particularly as the Kabbalah espoused by the Kabbalists of Tsfat was mainly eschatological in theme and content. Eschatology is the branch of theology concerned with the end of time. Some of Judaism’s greatest minds and souls found their home in Tsfat, and to this day some of the most studied mystical and legal texts of Judaism can be traced to sixteenth century Tsfat. The greatest of the Kabbalists of Tsfat, and the one with the most far-reaching influence, was Rabbi Isaac Luria Ashkenazi (1534-1572), known as The Arizal or The Ari. The Arizal had a close circle of disciples who recorded all his teachings. He wrote nothing himself, and everything we know of him and his teachings emanates from these disciples, principally a man called Rabbi Chaim Vital. The Arizal’s Kabbalistic system – known as Lurianic Kabbalah – revolved almost exclusively around this previously overlooked topic of exile and redemp-
tion. In the most basic of terms, it posited that the whole of creation was directly tied into the exile and redemption process of the Jewish nation. In summary, G-d can only allow for the existence of a physical world through an act of withdrawal. The calibration of “withdrawal” and “G-d” within creation is the balance between spiritual and unspiritual, or
anic mysticism that discuss the Messiah figure, one is worth noting. The Arizal predicted that he would possess an “Evil Side,” and in the course of his activities the Messiah would perform actions or be involved in events that might seem antithetical to his Messianic mission. One fascinating example of this idea can be found in a text from the 1550’s by an anonymous author of the Tsfat school. He discusses the frequency of Biblical heroes who were somehow connected with “inappropriate” women: Yehudah and Tamar, Yosef and the wife of Potiphar, Moshe and Tziporah, Shimshon and Delilah, Boaz and Ruth, Yehoshua and Rahab. The text offers a number of explanations and interpretations, one of them: the need for a male – representing good – to effect “tikkun” on a female – representing evil; or another one: by uniting two disparate elements from opposite ends of the spectrum G-d can realize the purpose of creation. In time these ideas would be used by Shabbetai Tzvi’s apologists as justification for his peculiar behavior and public desecration of Jewish law. Lurianic Kabbalah’s interest in the redemption created a Messianic excitement and expectation in the Jewish world that had not been seen since Bar Kochba’s devastating defeat by the Romans at Betar in 135 C.E. Groups devoted to bringing about the redemption proliferated, and between 1630 and 1660 the sense of an imminent redemption was heightened, promoted and discussed in many communities.
To his enemies his behavior demonstrated that he was an evil madman. To his supporters and devotees his behavior proved that he was special, divine and holy. physical, in the universe. The sin of Adam and Eve created a state of imbalance, in need of tikkun, or correction. The exile of the Jewish people in the physical world is a reflection of this imbalance. If the Jewish nation achieves ultimate perfection, as reflected through Messianic redemption, then all of creation can at last be in balance, and G-d will have realized His original purpose for creation. It is noteworthy that the Arizal did not devote much attention the Messiah himself. Who he would be, or what he might do or say, and how he might reveal himself seemed of little relevance. Among the few scattered references within Luri-
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SEPTEMBER 1, 2015 | The Jewish Home
LET US TURN NOW TO
zarim – strange or paradoxical acts. His weird behavior eventually grabbed the attention of the senior Jewish leadership in Izmir, and they decided to expel him from the city before his malign influence could cause problems for the insular and fairly unsophisticated Jewish community.
Next Time: Shabbetai Tzvi’s nomadic travels as he battles detractors and descends into ever stranger behavior, and his fateful meeting with a brilliant rabbinic scholar in Gaza called Nathan Azati that changed his life and began his journey towards Messianic revelation.
Rabbi Pini Dunner is the Rav of Young Israel North Beverly Hills in California.
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of his marriages it became evident that his behavior was erratic and unpredictable. Many of the accounts written about this period were written much later, and mostly by his detractors, but even those written by his supporters and defenders reveal an extremely strange young man. At times Shabbetai Tzvi was enthusiastically joyful, exuberant and ecstatic; at other times he was depressed, anxious, paranoid and passive. Today we recognize these symptoms as those of someone suffering from acute manic depression, or bi-polar syndrome. In the 1600’s such symptoms were interpreted somewhat differently. To his enemies his behavior demonstrated that he was an evil madman. To his supporters and devotees his behavior proved that he was special, divine and holy. He claimed to experience visions, and he was able to stay awake for days at a time without food. Or he would disappear for days, or even weeks. His supporters claimed he needed time alone so that he could atone for the world’s sins. One of the most unusual aspects of his manic episodes was his transformation from a meticulously observant orthodox Jew into a flagrant violator of Jewish law. His supporters would later refer to these antinomian acts as maasim
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the protagonist himself: the Messianic pretender, Shabbetai Tzvi. Shabbetai Tzvi’s biography is unsurprisingly full of contradictions. Glorified by acolytes, and vilified by detractors, the truth about him is hard to pin down. But some of the facts are incontrovertible. He was born on August 1, 1626, which that year was also the 9th of Av – Tisha B’Av, when we fast, and mourn the destruction of the two Jerusalem temples. But there was no fast that day, as it was a Shabbat. Mystical literature is insistent that the Messiah will be born on Tisha B’Av, which will mean that redemption emerges out of the ashes. It was in honor of the day of his birth that his parents named their baby son Shabbetai. Shabbetai Tzvi was born in Izmir, Turkey, known in those days as Smyrna. His family was originally from Greece, but his father, Mordechai, had moved his family to the coastal city to more easily and profitably conduct his trading business. It is possible that the family were originally Ashkenazi – Tzvi is not a typical Sephardic family name. Mordechai was a trading agent, acting on behalf of English traders living in Izmir. This was a common arrangement: Western Euro-
pean traders would hire Jews to act for them, as they spoke many languages and were extremely well connected. Shabbetai was the second of three sons, and his family was wealthy, prosperous and prominent. Both his parents died before the Messiah saga – his father in 1663, and his mother many years earlier. Shabbetai’s main teacher was a man called Rabbi Yosef Escapa, author of the halachic work Rosh Yosef. As a student, Shabbetai was earnest and competent, and he mastered Talmud and Jewish law at an early age. At just 18, he received his rabbinic ordination. No one knows when he started studying Kabbalah, but it was certainly at a young age. Crucially, he studied it on his own – a practice that was highly unusual. Aspiring Kabbalists were expected to master their subject only with guidance from a mentor – hence the term “kabbalah,” or “received” teachings. At 20, Shabbetai Tzvi married for the first time, but the marriage was never consummated and a few months after the wedding, following a complaint to the local rabbis by his wife’s father, the young couple divorced. Almost immediately he married again, but again the marriage was not consummated and ended in divorce. At around the time
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A Parsha Thought Noach: Crisis & Confidence Rabbi Shmuel Silber
“These are the generations of Noah, Noah was a righteous man he was perfect in his generations; Noah walked with God” (Genesis 6:9)
The fate of man and his world were sealed. Death and destruction would come in the form of a flood which would obliterate all that God had created. It was Noach who was chosen from all humanity to be the savior, to be the second Adam from whom the world would regenerate and start anew. Yet the text conveys mixed messages regarding Noach’s piety. On one hand we are told he was righteous; however, when we look at the verses that follow we see nothing extraordinary or exceptional in his behavior and actions. This leads to a rabbinic debate regarding the true nature of Noach’s spiritual identity. Some explain that Noach was a “relative” tzaddik
(righteous individual). Compared to the rest of this immoral and corrupt society he was righteous, but had he lived in the company of truly righteous men his identity would have been eclipsed by their true sanctity. This is why the above-quoted verse says that Noach was “perfect in his generation.” Others explain that Noach was an “absolute” tzaddik – after all, if he could maintain some level of piety in such decadent circumstances imagine what he could be have become with fellow co-tzaddikim. This tension surfaces again just a few verses later: And Noah went in and his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives with him into the ark because of the flood waters
was special and unique. Had he chosen to act he could have done more. Even if he would have been unable to reverse the Divine decree and save humanity, perhaps, he could have salvaged a few
commanded as a fundamental lack of faith in God. I have always been troubled by this interpretation of Rashi. The Torah calls Noach a tzaddik, the Torah calls him a tamim (complete) and now we are going to say he is lacking in faith! How are we to understand this harsh criticism of Noach? The great Chassidic master, Rav Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev (17401809) offers a novel insight. The Rebbe explains that when Rashi says, Noach m’kitanei emunah haya (Noach was small and lacking in faith) – he is not referring to Noach’s belief in God; rather he is referring to Noach’s belief in himself. The Rebbe makes an amazing observation – why didn’t Noach pray for his generation to be saved? Why didn’t Noach go out and preach to the masses? Why didn’t Noach do something to try to salvage some greater remnant of humanity? Because he felt powerless, he felt insignificant, he saw himself as no better than anyone else and so he figured if he was going to be saved surely others would as well. He waited outside the ark until the waters forced him in because he assumed others would be joining him. Noach lacked faith in himself; he failed to realize that he was chosen because he
more souls. Perhaps, he could have petitioned God for a little more time to allow humanity to repent and change. But when you don’t believe you are significant, when you don’t believe you can accomplish something great, when you lack confidence in your ability to influence your circumstances, you simply sit back and wait for life to direct you. Noach m’kitanei emunah haya, Noach lacked faith in himself. Noach was a great man. If only he had realized how great. If only he had recognized his full potential. If only he had believed in himself who knows how the story would have ended. There is an important lesson for us contained in these ancient words. It is not enough to believe in God, you must also believe in yourself. Too many people journey through life feeling helpless and frustrated. We fail to see the good we possess, we fail to see the progress we have made, and we fail to see the power and potential that lies, dormant within. There are some things in life we cannot change – but many more that we can. Let us find the courage to believe in ourselves and begin to build and shape our life and our world.
(Genesis 7:7).
Rashi explains that Noach was m’kitanei emunah (small or lacking in his w
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faith). God had already commanded Noach to enter the ark. Yet, he only entered when the rising flood waters forced him to seek refuge. Rashi understands this unwillingness to enter the ark when
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It Could Have Happened To You Rabbi Eli Scheller
When our Temple was destroyed we were forced from our home into adoptive care, and the family unit was disrupted. Some of us were fortunate enough to maintain the rich array of our family’s traditions, while for others there remained minimal to no remnants of religious practice. How does a family that merited to preserve a tradition for thousands of years share their noble legacy with a family member who was raised differently? When the gourmet market is trying to introduce a new type of cheese the store provides two things: A representative to describe the origin and nature of the cheese. Even more effective; the store hands out samples for the customer to taste. To gain a genuine appreciation for
Judaism its traditions must be experienced. In Shabbos Mussaf we say, “Toameha Chayim Zachu-Those that taste it have earned life”. An educator can try to explain Judaism using lectures and handouts, but a more direct, effective, and powerful method is to provide a taste of our noble religion. What better way to do this than to invite a family member not raised with our traditions for Shabbos? On October 24 Jews around the world and in Baltimore will be handing out Shabbos samples. No doubt the customers will be back for more. Rabbi Eli Scheller is the author of the popular series ‘A Minute Vort’ on the parsha. To recieve his weekly dvar torah email schellereli@gmail.com
Me? I hate coffee. My doctor says I should start drinking coffee. He says it’s good for the liver, and that he drinks 16 cups a day. True story. I tried it when I was a young boy and that cured me for life. But that doesn’t mean I won’t be happy to take you out for a fresh hot cup and talk about your upcoming graphic design needs. I’ll be back in Baltimore in October, and would love to sit with you – not drinking my coffee – while you enjoy yours. Contact us today to set up a time. At the very least, it will be good for your liver.
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Visit staiman.com for samples of our work!
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cipals involved in the deal. He tracked down David’s Manhattan phone number and called, excited to resume contact after years of separation. David, too, was excited, and agreed to visit his younger brother on his next trip upstate. Three weeks later, David knocked on his brother’s door, and the two embraced after a brief moment of recognition. David immediately noticed the simple nature of his brother’s apartment and intuitively understood that his brother had not even achieved the level of lower middle class. David took his brother to a local coffee shop where they tried to catch up after decades of separation. Attempts at reminiscing proved difficult, because the younger brother remembered very little of his early privileged childhood. David tried to help his younger brother envision what their family had before things fell apart, but to no avail. David was pained by the fact that his brother could not appreciate the richness and nobility of the finer lifestyle they had experienced as young children. He thought of an idea. David asked his younger brother to accompany him to New York City for the day. David first drove to a department store and fitted his younger brother with designer clothing. He then drove to his own house where his younger brother met with David’s family. The younger sibling was showered with love and gifts. All the while the younger brother noticed David’s calm demeanor and his genteel character traits. They ended the night at a beautiful steak house. His younger brother’s face was shining. As they completed a memorable meal David turned to his brother and said, “When you were young this is what it was like every day!” The Jews went to Egypt as one family, and left there in the same way. As family we traveled in the desert for forty years, and then fought to conquer Israel. During the three regalim we gathered as family at the Holy Temple to experience the Divine presence.
OCTOBER 15, 2015
I have a close friend David who grew up in a wealthy and prominent family in the suburbs of Tel Aviv, Israel. As a child he, his three younger siblings, and his parents lived the life of the upper class - their home was beautiful, they dined on specially prepared meals served on fine china, and every meal was accompanied by a fine wine. There was no question that he and his siblings would have a promising future. But then, the unexpected happened. When he was eight years old his parents divorced. His mother retained custody of the four children, and his father moved away. As the sole caregiver, she initially was able to maintain her own well-being as well as that of her children. She made sure the kids lived an upper class lifestyle as they were used to and she treated them with the same love and warmth as she had in the past. After several years her mental health declined, and she could no longer care for her children. The extended family became involved in the welfare of the children, and a well-to-do relative in Manhattan was able to take in David, the oldest of the four. The other three children were placed with a kind but poor family in a small town in upstate New York. David lost contact with his younger siblings. In his new home David did not require much of an adjustment. His Manhattan relatives had a large and well-kept apartment with a beautiful view, and they employed housekeepers and a live-in assistant to prepare meals and keep the apartment tidy. David went to the finest schools and married a young lady from a wellknown New York family. He joined a Wall Street law firm and built a career in real estate acquisitions. One day David received a phone call from his long forgotten younger brother, still living in upstate New York. His brother had read an article in the local paper about the redevelopment of the mall in the city, and he noticed David’s name as one of the prin-
THE BALTIMORE JEWISH HOME
A Matter of Taste
Digital World 5 Advantages of Internet Marketing vs Traditional Marketing Google’s search engine has 3.5 Billion searches a day and over 1.2 Trillion searches a year. So if your business is still spending a good chunk of the marketing budget on print and cold calling, you should probably rethink your marketing strategy. I have outlined below the main advantages of internet marketing vs traditional marketing to help you make that mental shift.
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Benefit #1: Your Customers Find You – Inbound Marketing One of the main forms of internet
marketing is utilizing different tactics such as Search Engine Optimization and Pay per Click Advertising to help rank first in the search engines. That means you control which search terms/keywords trigger your website to show. So the only visitors to your website are potential customers looking for your services. Benefit #2 Measurable When online marketing is done right, every campaign and click can and should be measured. That means
you know where the click came from and what it did on your website. You can even know what ad or keyword causes the most phone calls, this is done with dynamic call tracking. Once you know what works and what doesn’t work you can start making better marketing decisions. Benefit #3: Reach Traditional marketing, whether in the form of a print ad or postcard, can only reach the audience that reads that magazine or who made it to your mailing list. Internet marketing can reach your target audience anywhere. 40% of the world’s population has internet access that is 3 billion people surfing the web. Benefit #4: Targeting Abilities Social media is utilized as a platform to spread all types of personal information. Whether it is your industry, job title, location or interests, all the information is utilized and re-purposed for marketing. So, for example, if your company sells Jewelry, you can use Facebook to show your ads specifically to people with engaged status or if your company engages in B2B sales you can target your ads to only show for CEO’s on LinkedIn.
Benefit # 5: Cost Internet marketing, when done right, can be extremely cost efficient. While traditional marketing can run you many thousands of dollars a month in print, radio and television advertisements, digital marketing such as email, blogging and social media can get your brand name out there for free or low cost. Conclusion If your business is still focused on traditional old school marketing, the time has come to rethink your strategy. People just don’t look for businesses in the Yellow Pages anymore, they just Google it. If you are confused where to start and need help road-mapping your online marketing strategy Digital Trax can help you. Shlomo Trachtenberg manages online marketing at Laureate education, a nine figure international corporation, headquartered in Baltimore, Maryland. Shlomo is also the CEO of Digital Trax, LLC, a digital marketing agency focused on adapting corporate digital marketing strategies and strategically applying them to small and intermediate businesses. To contact Shlomo email hello@digital-trax.com or call (410) 697-1256
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Be m’sameach other simchas! Donate your fresh flower arrangements and we will match your simcha date with simchas following yours.
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In memory of our grandfather Menachem Mendel ben Mordechai Yaakov
In The Kitchen
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SEPTEMBER 1, 2015 | The Jewish Home
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In The By Naomi Nachman
I
OCTOBER 15, 2015
find it hard to keep our kids entertained and family time in the kitchen is always a crowd pleaser. Homemade pizza is my kids’ number one choice, especially with so many toppings to play with! This recipe is really easy and my kids really love to make and eat their own creations. Each child can make their own dough by hand then use a wide variety of toppings, such as peppers, tomatoes, onions, olives, mushrooms, and even pineapple (a favorite in Australia). We also use tomato sauce or even pesto sauce and a choice of different spices. As a family that loves cheese, I bought out a selection of cheeses from Sincerely Brigitte for the kids to choose from and I got very creative with mine. I recently tried the Sincerely Brigitte Marble Blue Cheese, and I thought this would be a perfect choice for pizza. To balance out the strong flavor of the blue cheese, I caramelized pears in butter and placed them on the pizza with some fresh baby spinach and pesto. The results were incredible and my kids kept on stealing my slices!
THE BALTIMORE JEWISH HOME
K tchen
THIS RECIPE MAKES ONE 12-INCH PIE, WHICH USUALLY COMES OUT TO FOUR SERVINGS.
Homemade Pizza with Pesto Sauce, Blue Marble Cheese & Caramelized Pears
Photo Credit by: Caramelized Pears
Pizza Toppings
Ingredients
Ingredients
2 tsp. dry yeast 1 tsp. sugar ¾ cup very warm water (120-130 degrees) 2 cups flour 1 tsp. salt
4 TBS unsalted butter ½ cup sugar 3-4 red Anjou pears, cut into ½-inch-thick wedges (or ¼-inch-thick wedges if pears are firm)
Caramelized pears (see previous recipe) ¼ cup store-bought pesto 3 cups baby spinach
Preparation
Preparation
Preheat oven to 400°F. Soak yeast in warm water and sugar for 5 minutes. Add flour, then add salt. Continue to knead for 2-3 minutes until flour is well blended and a dough ball forms. Cover and let rise in a warm place for 15 minutes. Roll dough to fit a 12-inch disposable pizza pan sprayed with cooking spray or rubbed with olive oil.
Heat butter in a large skillet over medium heat until melted. Add the sugar and stir until dissolved, 1 to 2 minutes. Add pears and cook, stirring occasionally, until soft and just golden, 12 to 20 minutes.
Naomi Nachman
1 cup grated blue marble cheese by Sincerely Brigitte Pizza Assembly Once the dough is fitted into the pan, spread pesto sauce over the dough, leaving a border around the circumference of the dough. Place the spinach around the center of the dough. Sprinkle grated blue cheese, scatter the pear pieces around the pie. Bake for 15 minutes at 400°F or until cheese melts.
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Quick and Easy Pizza Dough
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