Baltimore Jewish Home 9-23-14

Around the Community

Kollel Dirshu of Baltimore Makes Historic Siyum on Seder Moed

BaltimoreJewishHome THE

‫ טו’ תשרי‬- ‫כח׳ אלול‬

PAGE 10

Jewish Community Football League PAGE 8

Super Sunday PAGE 11

TRUST IS THE KEY!

JOE BONDAR

410.905.8403 | JoeBondar@gmail.com

MHIC 82438

ALIZA WEIN

443.629.1547 | AlizaWein@gmail.com

Experience makes a difference.

Make sure your realtor has it!!

Barry Nabozny 410.977.7600

NOBODY SELLS MORE REAL ESTATE THAN RE/MAX.®

Best quality & workmanship We will beat written quotes by 10%

Call Gedaliah Kosoy

410-358-ROOF 7

6

6

3

410.581.1000

JOE BONDAR

Residential | Commercial | Investment

www. BondarRealty.com

1517 Reisterstown Rd., Corner of Old Court Baltimore, Maryland 21208

Premier Associates

See our available homes inside

Premier Associates

sep. 23

-

oct. 9

. vol 1, #16

14CPK342_Hersheypark_Ad_5x7_Layout 1 7/2/14 5:07 PM Page 1

THE BALTIMORE JEWISH HOME

SEPTEMBER 23, 2014

2

CHOL HAMOED SUKKOT

in Lancaster County and Hershey, PA October 13, 2014 I 11 am – 7 pm We rented out the entire park!

Family friendly & better than ever!

NEW – Specially priced children’s tickets

Returning Favorites – Refundable Rain Tickets See website for details/restrictions

LODGING Rates starting as low as $83

DINING

Sukkahs inside park!

Outside food not permitted

ONE DAY ADMISSION Tickets starting at $37 featuring ADMISSION Sunday’s Includes free parking, Sneak Peek Pass rides, Zoo America and Chocolate World

MOSHAV BAND ATTRACTIONS Family fun at nearby attractions

Explore nearby attractions!

AAA Buggy Rides, Cherry Crest Adventure Farm, Choo Choo Barn, Strasburg Rail Road™, Tanger Outlets, The Amish Village, Turkey Hill Experience

Live performance Sunday night – $10

ACTIVITIES Spend Sunday at Chocolate World

Visit us online to view sweet deal savings www.lancastersukkot.com

TICKET DEADLINES: • Oct. 5 – Group, Advanced and Refundable Rain Ticket Sales • Purchase tickets online or at gate

Spend the Night!

866-946-9977 www.lancastersukkot.com

Photos courtesy of Hershey Entertainment & Resorts.

Hershey, Hersheypark, Chocolate World and Skyrush are trademarks used with permission.

3

THE BALTIMORE JEWISH HOME SEPTEMBER 23, 2014

404 Reisterstown Road.

Between 7 Mile and Knish Shop

THE BALTIMORE JEWISH HOME

SEPTEMBER 23, 2014

4

CONTENTS COMMUNITY Around the Community . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7

JEWISH THOUGHT Halachically Speaking. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 The Paper Chicken. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 How You Play the Game. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

HUMOR & ENTERTAINMENT Centerfold. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 Notable Quotes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

COVER STORY A Peek into the Sweet Life of a Honeybee. . . . . . . 38 From New York To The 101 Kilometer . . . . . . . . . . . 52

LIFESTYLES Forgotten Heroes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 In the Kitchen: Sweet and Delicious. . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 In the Kitchen: A Simanim Inspired Menu. . . . . . . 42 Kosherology. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

NEWS Global News. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 National News. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 That’s Odd. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

ISRAEL Israel News . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

Dear Readers, Well, it’s time to start our departure from this incredible year. What a year.

On the international front, the Arab Spring has taken a sharp left and spiraled into a bunch of extremist Islamist groups competing to see who is the most “authentic” Jihadist.

How bizarre that the silver lining in this conflict is that these various groups have more of a hatred for each other than for the Jewish people! This has created a begrudging understanding of the political turmoil Israeli’s have faced in the preceding months and indeed, in the previous decades. The indefatigable enemy who doesn’t want to “live and let live” and who consistently demands that the region is, “Yours or mine, no room for both,” is now exposed. Only time will tell how this will all play out.

On the Israel front, Jews throughout the globe experienced the thrilling taste of Jewish unity as we rallied behind our sisters and brothers in Israel. Many articles have since been written on possible ways we can draw from this inspiration and continue this attitude even as we returned to our daily lives and differences. There was also the wave of inspiration which came along with the unpredictable success of the Iron Dome, the discovery and destruction of so many of the “terror tunnels” and the exceptional number of miracles that were documented throughout Operation Protective Edge.

For those following these recent upheavals in the media, there is fear that the recent months are a prelude to pending destruction. For the first time, Israeli intelligence has issued a strong warning about the possibility of a serious terror attack targeting Jews in Western Europe. In fact, you might say that with the power of the internet and the prevalence of modern technology, the potential for chaos is even greater than it was in the 1930’s. Deep felt concern for our future is logical but maybe misplaced.

Now, for some reason we are calm. We believe this time it will be different. We have certainty that somehow it will all end well. Perhaps after centuries of Jews believing in the end of days, this belief is ingrained in our DNA so that we sense and know that the creator will deliver on his promise to show great wonders as he remembers his people and “takes each one by the hand” out of this exile. That instead of there being a caliphate which will terrorize humanity there will be a light unto the nations which will teach peace and understanding.

Let us hope that that the “crowning” of our creator this Rosh Hashanah will indeed be fulfilled in its literal sense when all the nations of the world will recognize the purpose for which we were created.

Wishing everyone a happy healthy sweet New Year,

Yaakov

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.

Precise, Profound A Pleasure to Use.

&

Chumash with Rashi Ikar Sifsei Chachomim completely re-typeset, punctuated with all abbreviations spelled out

ize eS x lu De

rd da n a St

Onkelos, the most authentic version, positioned next to each pasuk (with difficult words translated into simple Hebrew)

ze Si

SEPTEMBER 23, 2014

THE FEATURES THAT MAKE IT THE NEW STANDARD:

Precise and accurate Nikud and Taamei HaMikra

Ramban the only shul chumash with Ramban

Toldos Aharon, references to all citations in the Gemara at the end of every Parshah

Baal HaTurim

All Haftorahs and all 5 Megillos

—All newly typeset!

Now Available in 2 Convenient Sizes!

INTRODUCTORY DISCOUNT EXTENDED

DELUXE-SIZE (8¼” x 10¼”)

STANDARD-SIZE (6¾” x 9¾”)

List Price $ 16.95

List Price $ 13.95

only $

12.

70

only $

10.45

NOTABLE FEATURES FOUND IN THE DIRSHU SHUL CHUMASH: • Carefully chosen traditional yet eye-pleasing font, design and layout.

• Now, in a handy standard-sized edition!

• Attractively priced for shul budgets.

• All chumash text on one side of the page, meforshim on the other side, for ease of following along with the kriah.

Distributed by

888-536-7427

Bottom Line Marketing Group: 718.377.4567

• Printed on premium paper and bound with an enhanced durable binding.

• The most widely studied combination of Rashi/Ramban make this the perfect chumash for maavir sedrah.

5

THE BALTIMORE JEWISH HOME

A n Att ew ent Ch ion um Sh as uls hf & ND – or Sc THE DIRSHU SHUL CHUMASH 2 EDITION the ho THE NEW STANDARD IN SHUL CHUMASHIM ne ols: w ye ar!

6

5775

SUKKOT

day trips with Eve Harow

MONDAY, OCTOBER 13 19 TISHREI

OCTOBER 14 TUESDAY, 20 TISHREI

THE WESTERN NEGEV OUR PROTECTED EDGE

IT’S A DATE! JORDAN VALLEY

Exclusive tour for One Israel Fund due to our unique relationship with these communities • We start our day in the southwest at the KATIF HERITAGE CENTER in NITZAN and their Sukkot Happening • A high level expert tour of NETIV Ha’ASARA, their hothouses and an overlook into Gaza.

• After lunch in a local Sukkah, we will go to a private security-agricultural tour of ALUMIM by the security chief. The residents stayed home during Protective Edge despite mortars, bombs and tunnels. We will get up close and personal

All this and more. Don’t miss the opportunity to be inspired and educated literally in the field.

TRIP DETAILS

• With SHADMOT farmer Udi Panini in his date plantation we’ll stand under living schach, learn about the lulav of this festival and its connection to Eretz Yisrael. Shemitta and the boycott - 2 challenges that will be met.

• The funky crew of the artist village, BROSH HABIKA’A, are fixing up an abandoned building on Road 90. We will visit and give a hand to their new creative venture.

• Delicious dairy lunch in the sukkah of NIMROD’S CAFE CAFE. Then a birds-eye view of Moav from near the SARTABA, where ancient bonfires lit the way for announcing new months and holidays.

• Always inspirational - The Atidyas at their EINOT KEDEM Sheep Ranch and an opportunity to buy organic olive oil and dates. Did someone say ‘buycott’?

• Why is KASR AL YAHUD so crowded on Sukkot? Where we entered the Land with Joshua and what it means to others as a place of new beginnings.

For reservations & additional information visit

COST: $75pp / $65 children 12 and under

WWW.ONEISRAELFUND.ORG/DAYTRIPS

WHEN: Trips depart from the Liberty Bell

Email to daytrips@oneisraelfund.org or contact: In US: Ruthie 516.239.9202 x10 In Israel: Chaim 058-650-9974

Parking Lot promptly at 8:30am and return approximately 6:30pm.

FOR TERMS AND CONDITIONS, PLEASE VISIT THE WEBSITE OR CONTACT OUR OFFICE. ITINERARY SUBJECT TO CHANGE AS DETERMINED BY SECURITY AND WEATHER CONSIDERATIONS.

THE BALTIMORE JEWISH HOME

SEPTEMBER 23, 2014

CHOL HAMOED

‫סוכות‬ ‫תשע"ה‬

SUCCOS 5775

Daf HaYomi B’Halacha

L’ Bochurim

Coming Soon...

THIS SUCCOS BEIN HAZMANIM LEARN THE ENTIRE

‫הלכות ישיבת סוכה‬

THAT PERTAIN TO YOU  inaugural ‫ הלכה‬shiur by renowned ‫פוסקים‬  Beautiful Dirshu ‫ משנה ברורה‬booklets with the daily learning schedule  Specially designed ‫סיכום‬  Pre-recorded CD with ‫ שיעורים‬on ‫הלכות ישיבת סוכה‬  Raffles for ‫ ספרים‬and CD’s  Concluding Test with Stipends To Join:

888-5-DiRSHU

SEPTEMBER 23, 2014

our lives, from home to work to self, and how this is the key to bringing the Shechina into our communities and bracha into all we do.

Rabbi Lief eloquently summed up the significance of the evening by contrasting the madness of the outside world with the dedication of the Baltimore Torah community where so many people can come together to hear Divrei Chizuk at the end of a long busy day.

‫ו דף היומי‬ ‫ש‬ ‫בה‬ ‫ל‬ ‫ר לבחורים כ‬

‫ד‬

On September 11th, In a beautiful display of communal striving for improvement in preparation for Yomim Noraim, some 450 men gathered in Shomrei Emunah’s Social Hall Wednesday evening to hear Divrei Chizuk from the Rosh Yeshiva, HaRav Aharon Feldman, shlita, Rav Shraga Neuberger, shlita, and Rav Moshe Tuvie Lief, Rav of Agudas Yisroel Bais Bintomin in Flatbush (Brooklyn, NY).

The focus was on the importance of increasing kedusha in all aspects of

‫ה‬

BaltimoreJewishLife.com/Jeff Cohn

T n TE HU T A oC B

THE BALTIMORE JEWISH HOME

Baltimore Men’s Evening of Chizuk

i Ri on m :

Around the Community

7

8

THE BALTIMORE JEWISH HOME

SEPTEMBER 23, 2014

Around the

Community

Jewish Community Football League

The third season of Baltimore’s “Jewish Community Football League” kicked off on September 7th at the Pikesville Middle School Fields on Seven Mile Lane. With ninety players (ages 18-53) divided amongst nine teams, the league provides a friendly, competitive, and athletic outlet for a large number of our community members. As in previous years, the teams play almost every Sunday morning at 9:30 AM through the end of November.

The 2014 season’s nine teams are represented by the following sponsors: Early Steps Therapy, Elle Remodeling, Harris Automotive, Jerusalem Rentals of Distinction, Limited Goods, Northwest Refuse, Park Heig0hts Roofing, Recruiting Innovators, and Y and L Landscaping.

The current standings are as follows:

Team

Won

Northwest Refuse

2

Early Steps Therapy

2

Y and L Landscaping

2

Elle Remodeling

1

Limited Goods

1

Jerusalem Rentals of Distinction

0

Recruiting Innovators

0

Harris Automotive

0

Park Heights Roofing

0

To learn more about the league, check out their website: http:// www.leaguelineup.com/welcome. a s p ? u r l = j e w i s h c o m m u n i t y f o o tball&sid=283687172

For a recap of the excitement from the first two weeks of the season, read on: September 7

Elle Remodeling Park Heights Roofing

34 6

Elle Remodeling, the defending champs,

picked up where they left off last season with a convincing win over Park Heights Roofing. Elle Remodeling QB Moshe Afrah paced the offense with four passing and one rushing touchdown. Elle Remodeling newcomer Jeromy Bittan kept the Park Heights Roofing offense out of sync all game by putting constant pressure on the quarterback resulting in a league record 9 sacks.

Early Steps Therapy Harris Automotive

41 21

It was a classic tale of two halves. After 0 1.000 a few quick 0 1.000 strikes to Da0 1.000 vid Pensak and 1 .500 Abbo Aranbayev, Harris 1 .500 Automotive 1 .000 quickly went up and led at 1 .000 halftime 212 .000 6. Rallied by the late arriv2 .000 al of Herschel Bacharach, EST got back to basics in the second half. With discipline on defense and a methodical approach on offense, EST scored 5 unanswered TDs in the sec-

Lost

Pct.

ond half to pull off a 41-21 victory.

Northwest Refuse Limited Goods

73 6

Northwest Refuse kicked off their season with a bang, demolishing their opponent 73-6. Led by QB Chaim Finkelstein, Northwest set a Jewish Community Football League record for most points scored and largest margin of victory in a single game. Linemen Yitzy Wach and Ben Gutman dominated Limited Goods on both sides of the ball all day. Overall, Northwest Refuse played great offense and defense, and showed that they will be tough to beat this year.

Y & L Landscaping Recruiting Innovators

42 36

In a matchup of 2 of the predicted top 4 teams, Y&L Landscaping, led by QB Yoyo Strauss (5 passing TDs,1 rushing TD) and #1 WR Shulie Hochman (3 receiving TDs), won a nail-biter over Recruiting Innovators and QB Dovid Flamm (6 passing TDs), 42-36.

RI surprised Y&L’s safeties with a successful, long TD pass on the first series. With that, the most competitive game of the morning was underway.

Both teams put up strong offensive first halves with Y&L leading 36-18 until a late RI touchdown made the halftime score 36-24.

The second half displayed much stronger defenses. RI’s defense stiffened up and Yoyo was somewhat out of sync with his receivers, even being intercepted once. Y&L just missed connecting on a few potential TDs as well. Y&L’s defensive line amped up

the pressure and managed to wreak havoc in the offensive backfield, particularly in the second half, pressuring Flamm. Newcomer (to the league) Yoseph Orshan (5 sacks) spearheaded the pass rush, singularly contributing 6-7 tackles behind the line of scrimmage.

With a few minutes left in the game, the game was tied at 36. Y&L scored to take back the lead 42-36. RI took over possession with under a minute left in the game and drove the ball down to inside the Y&L 10. On 3rd down, with under 10 seconds left, RI completed a pass in front of the goal-line but the receiver was immediately tackled just short of the end zone. Time expired with the ball at 1 yard line.

September 14

Limited Goods Harris Automotive

25 0

After a slow start, Limited Goods picked up the pace and never looked back. After going up 13-0 at the half, LGs defense took over with disrupted passes by the D-line consisting of “Hermdawg” Herman and Jack “Be Nimble” Gertz, and a key pick 6 by Menachem “Heavy Moves” Khoshkerman. Limited Goods bounced back from a big week 1 loss to prove to the rest of the league that when they are organized and playing as a team, they are a force to be reckoned with. Meanwhile, Harris Automotive showed great speed and true talent at the quarterback position with Avraham “Back Labyrinth” Schjzochet. The key difference in the game was the strength of LGs offensive line which provid-

Around the

Community

9

THE BALTIMORE JEWISH HOME

Early Steps Therapy Jerusalem Rentals of Distinction

28 0

Early Steps Therapy captain Matt Bernstein took one for the team and filled in at QB while a core of his team was out of town for a wedding. Matt and was methodical in spreading the ball to all his receivers, helping EST grab a 21-0 lead into the half. The second half was more of a defensive battle at both ends of the field and in the end EST upheld a shutout and won 28-0.

Northwest Refuse Park Heights Roofing

70 6

After a record-setting performance in

Week One, Northwest Refuse cooled off a little, but still beat Park Heights Roofing 70-6. NWR is now the first team in the Jewish Community Flag Football League to score 70 points in back-to-back weeks. Josh Erez and Rafi Strum were unstoppable all day. Each had three interceptions and multiple touchdown catches, but the highlight of the day was when Strum made a fully-extended, diving catch for a 40-yard touchdown. WR Shmuly Luxenberg led the team with 17 catches, and linemen Yitzy Wach and Justin Nicholas were dominant on both sides of the ball. Yaakov Spatz made some big plays, and Dan Gutman caught an extra point. QB Chaim Finkelstein had two rushing touchdowns in this game, setting a new career high for rushing touchdowns in a season with two.

NWR faces Harris Automotive next week.

Y & L Landscaping Elle Remodeling

25 13

Y&L Landscaping played another nail-biter that was in doubt until the last play of the game. Led by #1 WR/DB Shulie Hochman (2 receiving TDs and 1 INT return TD) and a fast, swarming team defense (4 INTs), Y&L Landscaping beat Elle Remodeling and QB Moshe Afrah 25-13 in a hard fought defensive battle. Despite playing the toughest schedule in the league thus far, Y&L survived to go to 2-0 on the season.

Going into this contest, both teams knew that points would be at a premium and that whichever team won the turnover battle would likely win the game. ER scored first to take an early 7-0 lead. Y&L tied the score on a strong drive culminating in a TD throw by backup QB Shua Reznick to Hochman. Y&L scored again on a TD to WR/DB Yossi Lurman to go into the half up 13-7.

ER tied the game early in the second half and there was no scoring for

over 20 minutes after that. Particularly in the second half, Y&Ls DL Moshe Miller (4 sacks) and DL Yoseph Orshan (3 sacks) created intense pressure on Afrah. Finally, Yoyo drove Y&L down the field and scored on a controversial catch by Hochman in the back of the end zone to go up 19-13. The next series Y&L intercepted Afrah for the 3rd time to seemingly put the game away. Y&L deliberately ran the clock down to under a minute on a long drive down the field but missed a golden chance to effectively end the game on 4th down on a high degree of difficulty, cross-body, cross-field throw by Yoyo that Lurman was unable to corral. In a replay of the week before, Y&L’s opponent got the ball back with under a minute left with a chance to win the game. On 3rd down, with 3 seconds left, backed up at his own goal-line, Afrah managed to heave up a Hail Mary that was intercepted by Hochman and returned for a Pick-6 with no time left on the clock.

FREE Trader Joes (Pikesville) Healthy Eating Shopping Tour Sponsored Exclusively by Baltimore Jewish Home Supporting Our Community’s Healthy Eating For The Chaggim

* Great Healthy Recipe Ingredient Ideas for the Holidays *Great Healthy Products You May Not Be Aware of

* Ask Any Personal or Family Healthy Eating Questions to an Expert * Healthy School Lunch / Snack Ideas for the Children * Share Ideas in a Group Setting Date: Monday, October 6 Time: 7:30-8:30PM

Space is limited

by RSVP Only First come, First Served To RSVP or to ask any questions, please call 410-870-LIFE (5433) Tour Given by Adriane Stein Kozlovsky Adriane Stein Kozlovsky, MS, RDN, LD is a Licensed Registered Dietitian Nu-

tritionist, educator and writer, in private practice in Baltimore, MD, working with individuals, groups, corporations and nonprofits for the past 25+ years. She is also a Certified Yoga Instructor and teaches private group Yoga classes. For any questions, she can be reached at 410-870-LIFE (8433), www.ChaiLifeNutritionForU. com, or email akozlovsky@gmail.com.

SEPTEMBER 23, 2014

ed time for “Hermdawg” Herman to shred the secondary and hit every single one of his teamates, spreading the offense and getting everyone involved in a true team effort.

THE BALTIMORE JEWISH HOME

SEPTEMBER 23, 2014

10

Around the

Community

Kollel Dirshu of Baltimore Makes Historic Siyum on Seder Moed “You are the quintessential group that all of Klal Yisrael must emulate!

In today’s world, everyone is running around helter-skelter. You lomdei Dirshu have it right! You are running every morning to learn Torah. It is amazing to see a group of more than 50 baalei batim coming together each morning and now making a siyum on the entire Seder Moed!”

Those were the heartfelt words of HaGaon HaRav Aharon Feldman, shlita, Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshiva Ner Yisrael of Baltimore at a unique siyum held this past Sunday, 19 Elul/September 14 at the Shaarei Zion.

A Mini-Yeshiva of Baalei Batim… at 5:50 A.M.!

Led by Rav Shalom Weingot, Kollel Dirshu Baltimore is the brainchild of Reb Daniel Ely, the kollel’s indefatigable coordinator. Ten and a half years ago, Daniel Ely was looking to create an environment for balei batim of Baltimore to have a regularly scheduled place to learn in the early morning hours. Hearing of Dirshu worldwide, started by Rabbi Dovid Hofstedter, Daniel decided to start it up in Baltimore. The first step was finding a place that could accommodate them. Daniel reached out to Rav Zvi Dov Slanger, shlita, Rosh Yeshiva of the Mesivta of Baltimore, who welcomed them with open arms. It has been a beautiful marriage ever since.

The kol torah can be heard from 5:50 with the balei batim flowing in while it is still dark outside.

The Dirshu Kollel in Baltimore is

one of Dirshu’s largest baalei batim kollelim comprising of more than 50 people who come each morning at 5:50 a.m. to learn an amud of Gemara with a chavrusah. “It is like a mini yeshiva of baalei batim. Upon entering

range of ages weaves a beautiful mosaic highlighting Baltimore’s ahavas torah. Dirshu has also had a tremendous impact on the member’s families.

They expressed that when their kids get up in the morning and their father

the Mesivta of Baltimore where the kollel meets, one hears a thundering Kol Torah,” says Daniel Ely. The kollel, which began in 2004, has been learning an amud a day ever since. Weekly tests on the material learned are taken by many of the participants. Dirshu members, who spend most of their day hard at work, manage to get up early to start each day learning withtheir chavrusa in this torah environment. The beautiful blend of every neighborhood in Baltimore and diverse backgrounds and wide

isn’t home yet, the children know it is because he got up early to learn at Dirshu and realize the chashivus of torah.

That learning is the utmost priority and their father starts his day with it, no matter how late he went to sleep the night before.

Rav Aharon Feldman highlighted the fact that this group has remained bnei yeshiva, despite pursuing varied careers during the day. “What defines them is their love of Torah that they absorbed in yeshiva. That love of Torah carries over into their lives.”

“In an Era when the Term ‘Historic’ is Overused, This is Truly a Historic Occasion!”

The event began with a siyum made by the Rav Weingot. After the siyum, the entire assemblage spontaneously erupted into an enthusiastic dance together. Rav Hofstedter, then gave words of chizuk pointing out that “the word “historic” is a term that is perhaps overused in our times, but in the case of this siyum is entirely appropriate. To have a group this large coming together every morning before davening for years who then make a siyum on the entire Seder Moed is truly a historic accomplishment!” exclaimed Rav Hofstedter.

Rav Hofstedter went on to ask, “with so much Torah being learned in the world. Why then has Moshiach not yet arrived? Furthermore, when we look at the difficulties that Klal Yisrael has experienced over the past months it gives us pause. The vaunted Israeli army fought in a stalemate with a band of terrorists. According to teva, nature, they should have easily won. However, as we see from the Ramban, in Parshas Shoftim, We should not rely on our strength and the prowess of our army but rather do teshuvah, trust in Hashem’s salvation and realize that Hashem does not want our strength.

He wants us to fear Him and hope for His chesed.” The Ramban is teaching us that we have to accept Hashem’s commandments upon ourselves. But how can we even know what Hashem’s commandments are if we do not

Around the

born. Now looking back on the over years and the over 100,000 hours of learning of balei baltim it has become an amazing reality. He explained how Dirshu has become a family, leaning together but also helping each other in parnassa, advice and any way they can help out each other.

The last speaker was Rav Slanger, Rosh Yeshiva of the yeshiva the hosts Dirshu every morning. Rav Slanger, a survivor of the Holocaust and subsequently one of the early talmidim of the Ponovezh and Slabodka yeshivos in Eretz Yisroel, commented, “The famed Mashgiach, Rav Elya Lopian would arise early to learn every morn-

Super Sunday

BaltimoreJewishLife.com/Jeff Cohn This year, 852 donors made September 14 a Super Sunday for Baltimore’s Jewish community.

Together, they committed $1.2 million to The Associated: Jewish Community of Baltimore’s Annual Campaign.

It was the Baltimore Jewish community’s largest single-day fundraiser and the money will help our community’s vulnerable, support Jewish education and aid our global people.

During Super Sunday, The Associated also introduced its #100DayChallenge. Every new and increased pledge made before the end of the year will be matched dollar for dollar.

Super Sunday Co-Chairs Michael and Clara Klein applauded the support of all members of our community for answering the call to help. They also emphasized that all gifts – no matter how big or small – will make a difference in what we can do.

Other notables who stopped by to show their support for The Associated were several area politicians including Congressman John Sarbanes, Delegate Sandy Rosenberg and Baltimore County Councilwoman Vicki Almond.

ing. He explained that the first se’if in the Shulchan Aruch enjoins us to wake up early before the day starts. After 120 years when they ask me if I kept the Shulchan Aruch, I don’t want to strike out on the very first se’if!”

As the crowd dispersed there was a rushed sense of purpose. One misayem explained, “I have to get to sleep so I can be at Dirshu in a few hours. We are starting Seder Nezikin!” Dirshu never stops. Come visit in the pre-sunrise darkness illuminated by the resounding kol Torah it will be music to your ears!

SEPTEMBER 23, 2014

hakaros hatov to Rav Shlanger, Rav Weingot and Daniel Ely. Thanking Rav Shlanger for making Dirshu feel so welcome in such a makom Kadosh to spend their early mornings He expressed how Rav Weingot’s warmth and hadracha have been guiding Dirshu for the past 10½ years. He explained how Rav Weingot has turned the Kollel into a family. That Rav Weingot has developed a warmth and zest for avodas hashem that has permeated every person in the Kollel. He then went on to give the background on how Daniel Ely started the Kollel with a dream and a vision, and on February 2, 2004 the tenth of Shvat, Dirshu was

THE BALTIMORE JEWISH HOME

regularly learn halacha l’maasah?

The event was attended by nearly 100 men and 70 women, who reveled in their husbands’ accomplishments.

A window into the importance of the siyum could also be gleaned from the prestigious guests. In addition to the Roshei Yeshiva, Rav Feldman and Rav Shlanger numerous local Rabbonim were in attendance including Rav Berger, Rav Eichenstein, Rav Frankel, Rav Hauer, Rav Hopfer, Rav Horowitz, Rav Katz, Rav Kostelitz, Rav Seideman and Rav Weiss, Rav Teichman.

On behalf of the members of Dirshu, Yaakov Spatz expressed their

Community

11

THE BALTIMORE JEWISH HOME

SEPTEMBER 23, 2014

12

Around the

Community

Dr. Leslie Ginsparg Klein becomes Academic Dean at Maalot Baltimore heading the General Studies Division Baltimore, MD - Sept. 15 - Dr. Leslie G. Klein comes to MAALOT with an impressive list of academic accomplishments. Her Ph.D. from New York University is in Education and Jewish Studies, and her previous work experience includes, though is not limited to, Director of the Touro College (Lander College for Women) Honors Program, Assistant Professor of History and Jewish Studies at Touro, History Instructor at Chicago’s Hebrew Theological College (TI), and Instructor of Jewish History and Limudei Kodesh at Beth Tfiloh High School.

In the following interview, Dr. Klein answers questions about her new role at MAALOT. What are your vision and longrange plans for Maalot?

MAALOT Baltimore offers a fantastic educational program, enabling students to pursue a variety of educational and professional options.

Hitting your target isn’t always this easy.

I hope to strengthen the academic excellence and professionalism of MAALOT, thereby providing students with a quality education within the positive, frum environment that is the hallmark of a MAALOT education.

Is there anything new in the works at Maalot?

Of course, there is always something new at MAALOT! We are modernizing our computer science major to stay current with the latest innovations in the field. We are expanding our web

NOW FORMING! Leadership coaching groups: • Change management • Communication • Delegation • Energy leadership Contact us for more information!

Enhance your organizational capacity with high impact leadership training and support.

212.470.6139

www.impactfulcoaching.com • info@impactfulcoaching.com Naphtali Hoff, President

design, graphic design, and art program.

These courses will be open to women in the community, for credit or audit. (You can find our course schedule on our website.) Additionally, in the spring we are adding a course in digital photography, also open to the community. We are also expanding our summer offerings to include courses in music, writing, health and wellness, and the sciences. These courses will be great options for high school students looking for an interesting way to get a head start on college, students looking to finish their degree, or women who have a passion for learning and want to continue their education.

Additionally, many students don’t realize that the courses they want to take in the fall semester have prerequisites.

The summer semester is an opportunity to fulfill those requirements.

Maalot strives to integrate college studies into a setting that is befitting a “bas yisrael.” But Maalot students are interested in a wide variety of programs that have prerequisites that may include questionable material.

How does Maalot address this issue?

At MAALOT, Mrs. Rosenbaum and I work together to make sure that these subjects are taught with sensitivity and with a Torah hashkafa.

That is the beauty of MAALOT. We are able to provide students with the training they need in a positive,frum environment where students feel comfortable and can socialize freely. Why should students have to compromise on either their education or their frumkeit?

At MAALOT, they don’t. MAALOT provides the best of both worlds. For example, like students in other undergraduate programs, our students are required to take a “diversity” course. It is both an undergraduate requirement and a prerequisite for many graduate programs.

But many of the topics in diversity courses are hashkafically problematic.

We are going to offer the course, and we are going to teach the curriculum so our students learn what they need to know in order to be successful. These are topics and ideas that our daughters are going to encounter in graduate school, in the workplace, or simply by living in America. But at MAALOT, when discussing

controversial topics, in addition to having a college instructor, one of the Rabbanim from the Limudei Kodesh faculty will provide a Torah perspective on the issue. The same course that in a secular college would be problematic, at MAALOT becomes a valuable learning experience.

In your role as Academic Dean, will you be interacting personally with the students?

I will continue to teach courses at MAALOT. And my door is always open to students who want to talk about their academic program, graduate school, or their future professional lives. The same is true of all of the academic advisors.

And not only for our current students.

Once you are a MAALOT student, you are forever part of MAALOT. We regularly receive phone calls from former students asking for academic and professional advice and we welcome those connections. We develop close relationships with our students, mentoring them and maintain ongoing contact. We are very invested in their success. Even when a student leaves Baltimore before completing her degree, we continue our advisement and assist her in finishing her degree and moving on to the next stage of her academic and professional life.

With students interested in so many different professional areas, how do you accommodate all of their educational needs?

We do this by working hard and staying current. We keep up on the latest trends in graduate school programs and in the workplace and inform our students about the best options and most current opportunities available to them.

I read up on what new fields might be of interest to our students and then tailor our course schedule in accordance with their needs. We put a lot of effort into making sure students can take all the prerequisites they need on campus. And if a student needs a course that we can’t offer, we advise her on the best ways to fulfill that requirement. Regardless of the field, we stress the importance of professionalism in the workplace and making valuable contributions to the community.

13

Shana Tova

THE BALTIMORE JEWISH HOME

Discover why Tudor Heights is the First Choice of more Seniors, Families & Physicians.

SEPTEMBER 23, 2014

“It’s a Sweet Life at Tudor Heights” The sweet life awaits with our gracious accommodations, fine kosher dining, wonderful activities, and a devoted, professional staff always ready to assist with sensitivity and a smile. Call 410-318-8000 for a Private Tour & Complimentary Lunch

Join Us to Celebrate the Joy of Sukkot!

Baltimore Tummelers Klezmer Concert

Tuesday, October 14th, 7 to 8:30 pm Refreshments in our Sukkah. RSVP 410-318-8000 by Oct 10th Meat Kosher Dining Services Dairy Kosher Dining Services

Baltimore’s First Choice for Kosher Senior Assisted Living & Memory Care www.seniorlifestyle.com 7218 Park Heights Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21208

14

TRUST IS THE KEY. 410.653.1999

THE BALTIMORE JEWISH HOME

SEPTEMBER 23, 2014

RESIDENTIAL

v

COMMERCIAL

INVESTMENT

Joe Bondar BROKER

Joe Bondar 410-905-8403 Aliza (Bondar) Wein 443-629-1547 www.BondarRealty.com JoeBondar@gmail.com

!

Y MMUNIT NEW CO Y

PARK HEIGHTS - MAPLE GLEN

WESTERN RUN

0 $10,00 ON

R 24 LUXUMES O TOWNH

LE NAB EASO SED! R O N U R REF OFFE

STRUCTI PRE-CON EDIT! CR

Centrally located, upscale new Townhome community on Fords Lane. 4-5 bedrooms, 3 1/2 bathrooms, wood floors, huge gourmet kitchen with granite counters.

Many other upgrades!

CHESWOLDE-NEW HOMES

MEADOWWOOD COUNTY

CROSS COUNTRY/PEARCE

Spacious 2 story, 4/5 Bedroom, 3 1/2 bath brick and stone home in sought after block. Brand new kitchen with granite counters, large pantry, wood floors, fireplace.

First floor family room, flagstone patio, updated roof, heating, and air conditioning.

Nearly 1/3 acre level lot. Must see!

7 MILE / SHELBURNE

NEW

TIME E STILL TOMIZ S TO CU

0K!

ED 4

C REDU

NEW

D

SOL

New development with just 4 detached Magnificent renovated 4BR, 3 1/2 baths split level home in pristine condition. Grand first Colonial homes to be built on a Well built 3 BR,1 1/2 BA stone home floor master bedroom with new, luxury beautiful tree-lined street. Each home bathroom with tub and stall shower. Wood on prime 50x200 lot. Wood floors, Fully renovated 4 BR, 3 BA colonial with Trex front porch and back wood deck. central air. Price reflects need for will have 4-6 bedrooms on 3 levels.

Huge 20 x 17 storage garage, new HVAC, windows, siding, kitchen, floors, replacement windows, cathedral updating. See and make offer! ceilings, 2 fire place’s and lots more.

Call Joe Bondar for details. stainless appliances & much more. See for yourself!

MT. WASHINGTON/CHESWOLDE

CHESWOLDE

RANCHLEIGH COUNTY

SMITH

UY! GREAT B

D SOL

UNDER

TRACT

CON

D SOL

29K

1 LY ON

UNDER

CT

A CONTR

Well constructed brick, 5 bedrooms, 3 Charming 4 bedroom cape cod 1/2 baths on prime street. Updated Short sale! Great bones but in need on huge 1/3 acre lot. Wood floors, kitchen and bathrooms, open floor plan, of total renovation-priced accordingly. replacement windows, updated kitchen. Rehabbed 4 BR, 2 1/2 Bath cape cod on terrific block. Remodeled bathrooms, wood floors, central air, beautiful lot.

Semi with 3 BR’s, 1 1/2 Baths, flooring, carpeting, windows and much more. Priced for quick sale.

Priced at only $199,000 for quick sale. carport, nice lot. Investors welcomed.

Priced for quick sale.

7 MILE / BONNIE K! 229 NLY

O

STEVENSON

NEW

Well built 4 BR Cape Cod on prime block. Wood floors, central air. Price reflects the need for renovations.

QUARRY LAKE

CROSS COUNTRY - FALLSTAFF

Almost new 4 bedrooms, 3 1/2 baths Townhome in upscale community.

Magnificent 5 BR custom brick and Huge gourmet stone home nestled on a 3/4 acre Great opportunity to purchase a never kitchen with lived in condo in THE BLUFFS. Nearly wooded lot. Lots of fine architectural granite counters, wood floors, details. Spacious open floor plan, 2,000 Sq. Ft. of bright open living master bath, huge finished rec room space. 2 BR’s, 2.5 baths, sun room, updated gourmet kitchen with custom in lower level. Must see! cabinets and granite counters. office, and much more.

D

SOL

UNDER

ACT CONTR

BANCROFT VILLAGE

9K! ONLY 40

BEST BUY IN AREA! Sprawling 5 BR, 3 Ba brick rancher with fully finished walk-out lower with complete in-law suite. Huge beautifully landscaped lot, new roof, updated kitchen with granite counters and much more.

D

SOL

D

SOL

15

See for yourself why so many people choose Shimmy for their mortgage needs.

Call today for a low rate mortgage–

Shimmy Braun

Vice President of Mortgage Lending

773.290.0344

shimmy@guaranteedrate.com www.guaranteedrate.com/shimmy

NMLS (Nationwide Mortgage Licensing System) ID 2611 • IL - Residential Mortgage Licensee - IDFPR, 122 South Michigan Avenue, Suite 1900, Chicago, Illinois, 60603, 312-793-3000, 3940 N. Ravenswood Ave., Chicago, IL 60613 #MB.0005932 - NMLS: 112849 - IL - 031.0000741, MD - 112849 - 13181, NJ - Licensed - Licensed

SEPTEMBER 23, 2014

Shimmy Braun has built his business by providing the best service possible for your home loan. That’s why he has closed 60 million in loans since entering the Baltimore market and was named #4 loan officer in the country according to Scotsman’s Guide.

THE BALTIMORE JEWISH HOME

Great Service is Good Business

THE BALTIMORE JEWISH HOME

SEPTEMBER 23, 2014

16

Around the

Community NCSY News

First Latte & Learning a Huge Success Thank you to everyone who came out Wednesday night for our first Latte & Learning of the year! Starbucks was happy to have all their favorite Baltimore teens back in town, and we all had a wonderful time reuniting with our friends and jumpstarting the year.

Congratulations to our Brand New Chapter Board!

We are extremely pleased to welcome the following outstanding teens onto this year’s Chapter Board! They have each shown tremendous initiative, ability, and passion for Baltimore NCSY and we cannot wait to see what they will accomplish this year.

bat Programming) Miriam Waxman - Vice President (+Torah Programming) Maya Alezra - 11th Grade Rep Eli Ankri - 12th Grade Rep Micaela Franks - VP Social Media Noam Petersen - 10th Grade Rep Sara Primak - VP Events Chaya Rappoport - VP Israel & Summer Programs Yocheved Sharaby - VP Events

Ian Subin - VP Fundraising Samantha Subin - VP Social Action Opening Greater Washington BBQ 2014 NCSY Greater Washington opened the year with the much anticipated opening BBQ, which was a huge success. We broke the record for biggest BBQ with 77 teens! A special thank you to the Mayberg family for hosting this

event!

Opening Latte at Ben Yehuda Pizza Greater Washington NCSY rolled out the first Latte of the year and it was an amazing success! Latte had a fresh look with teen led discussion groups,on balancing Faith and Knowledge. A special thanks to Sarah Morris, Tani Makovsky, and Chana Aliza Miller for leading the discussions.

Aaron Burstyn - President (+Shab-

Something New: Ohr Chonon Shabbos Connections For You Fresh aromas and colors galore greeted Shani as she strode into the local shopping center. The one thing about changing neighborhoods that had worried her was where she was going to spend her Shabbos meals. Not that Shani couldn’t cook, but rather spending Shabbos seudos with others was always more meaningful. During the past few weeks, she had gone out to friends, but now she was starting to realize how nice it would be to branch out more and meet new people. As Shani careened her shopping cart down the aisle, she almost bumped into a former teacher of hers, Mrs. Green. After chitchatting for a few minutes, Mrs. Green scrambled around her purse looking for that tiny scrap of paper where she had jotted down a telephone number of a new organization in

town. Mrs. Green unfolded the crumbled paper and proceeded to give Shani the phone number for OHR CHONON SHABBOS CONNECTIONS. Shani was interested, but wondered, “WHAT IS OHR CHONON SHABBOS CONNECTIONS”?

Dovi Cohen anxiously checked his watch as he waited for his children in the carpool line. The day was zooming by and he still had not made plans for Shabbos. Dovi would have loved to spend quality time at home with his two girls on the weekends that they were with him, but they insisted that going out was much more fun and exciting.

The problem was that Dovi hated being such a burden on others. He wished there was a way that he could better network, but Dovi dreaded making those

phone calls. He confided in his friend Avi, who suggested checking out Baltimore Jewish Home for his answer. Avi was hopeful, but wondered, “WHAT IS OHR CHONON SHABBOS CONNECTIONS ALL ABOUT?” These two realistic scenarios described above, are just two of many possible reasons why one would contact Ohr Chonon Shabbos Connections.

This new organization began when two women from Rabbi Berger’s shul, Kol Torah, started The Shabbos Connection program to match up people interested in going out for Shabbos meals to host families. They expanded this concept with others in the Baltimore community who were interested in the same goals.

Ohr Chonon Shabbos Connections was created l’illui nishmas Reb Chonon

Shugarman a”h in whose zechus it is fitting to “light up Shabbos for others,” as Reb Chonon a”h loved Shabbos and was involved with organizations to bring Jews together.

The committee members of OCSC have organized a system to address both those interested in joining a Shabbos meal as well as those wishing to host others. The mission of OCSC is to facilitate a comfortable, safe, and simple method for anyone within the religious Baltimore community to participate in a Shabbos or Yom Tov meal with a warm, trusted, and friendly host. You may also contact OCSC if you are interested in publicity sponsorship opportunities.

To contact us today please call 410-SHABBOS or email ohrchonon@ gmail.com.

17

THE BALTIMORE JEWISH HOME

FULL PAGE TEMPLATE

SEPTEMBER 23, 2014

.25” Bleed Area- To avoid a white border you must extend your image /background color to

5.375” wide x 8.375” high Final Trim AreaThe book will be cut on this line to

5”wide x 8” high Safe AreaKeep all important design elements in this box.

18

Global Who are the Biggest Givers?

– ‫– דרשו לבחורים‬ Inaugural ‫ הלכה‬shiur on the topic of

‫הלכות ישיבת סוכה‬ Rabbi Yosef Berger ‫מורא דאתרא קהילת קול תורה‬

Sunday, October 5 • ‫י"א תשרי‬ 7:00 pm Kehillas Kol Torah 2929 Fallstaff Rd.

Americans have big hearts. Recently, the Charities Aid Foundation ranked the most and least charitable countries in the world. In order to rank each country, the survey focused on three areas: willingness to help a stranger, donating to a charitable organization, and volunteering time.

So which nations have the most open hands? Ireland came in third; Canada, New Zealand and Myanmar tied for second; and the United States came in at number one on the list.

Last year’s winner was Australia, who was moved down to the seventh spot this year, allowing America to reclaim the crown. The U.S. overall score was 61%. To break it down by category, 77% of Americans surveyed said they’d lent a helping hand, 62% had donated to an organization, and 45% had volunteered time.

of it in you par t rc a ity Be ‫ו דף היומי‬ ‫ש‬ ‫בה‬ ‫ר לבחורים לכ‬

Florida Lakewood Los Angeles Montreal Monroe Monsey Passaic Philadelphia Providence St. Louis Skvere Staten Island Toronto Williamsburg

‫ד‬

Atlanta Baltimore Boro Park Boston Chicago Cleveland Dallas Deal Denver Detroit Edison Five Towns Flatbush

‫ה‬

THE BALTIMORE JEWISH HOME

SEPTEMBER 23, 2014

The Week In News

‫סוכות‬ ‫תשע"ה‬

SUCCOS 5775

Daf HaYomi B’Halacha

L’ Bochurim

FOR MORE INFORMATION:

888-5-DIRSHU ‫דברי חיזוק וברכה מאת הראשי ישיבה‬ ‫ פייוול שוסטל‬.‫הגאון הרב ר' שלמה ש‬ ‫ראש הישיבה נאות יעקב‬

‫הגאון הרב ר' ארי' מלכיאל קטלור‬ ‫ראש הישיבה בית מדרש גבוהה‬

‫הגאון הרב ר' אלי' דב וכטפוגל‬

‫הישיבה דישיבה גדולה סאט פאלסבערג‬

‫ראש‬

‫ פייוול שוסטל‬.‫הגאון הרב ר' שלמה ש‬ ‫ראש הישיבה נאות יעקב‬

‫הגאון הרב ר' אלי' דב וכטפוגל‬

‫הישיבה דישיבה גדולה סאט פאלסבערג‬

‫ראש‬

‫הגאון הרב ר' ארי' מלכיאל קטלור‬ ‫ראש הישיבה בית מדרש גבוהה‬

As for the countries that are least generous, China and Croatia second for second place, and Greece came in as the least generous nation in the world. I guess they want all that Greek yogurt for themselves.

According to the National Philanthropist Trust, 95.4% of American households give charity with the average annual household contribution of $2,974. In 2013, Americans gave $335.17 billion in charity. For 2013, the estimated dollar value of volunteer time was $22.55 and about 64.5 million adults volunteered 7.9 billion hours of service, totaling an estimated value of $175 billion.

Nazi Guard, 93, Charged with Accessory to Murder

Oskar Groening of Hannover, Germany, lived the last eight plus decades in peace. But the former Nazi doesn’t deserve to live peacefully; he is responsible for the killing of hundreds of thousands of people.

This week, German prosecutors charged the 93-year-old man with 300,000 counts of accessory to murder for his service as a Nazi SS guard at Auschwitz during World War II. Groening confessed to being a guard at Auschwitz from May to June of 1944 but said he did not personally commit any of the atrocities. Within that timeframe, some 425,000 Hungarian Jews came to Auschwitz; 300,000 were murdered in its gas chambers.

In an email to The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday, Efraim Zuroff, the chief Nazi hunter of the Simon Wiesenthal Center and director of its Jerusalem office, wrote: “This is very good news and we fully support the final efforts being made by German prosecutors. It is unfortunate that this proactive approach has only been applied so many years after the end of World War II.” Groening is one of about 30 former Auschwitz guards who were recommended by German federal investigators to be charged by state prosecutors following the conviction of John Demjanjuk, who died while his case was under appeal. About 20 Auschwitz victims and their families are co-plaintiffs in the case against Groening.

The Week

An anonymous millionaire is determined to know the truth, and he is putting his money where his mouth is.

Wifka, a German private investigation firm, was contacted by an individual hoping to solve the mystery of the plane shooting. The anonymous person offered up $30 million in exchange for information. That’s a whole lot of money. Just as a point of reference, post 9/11, the U.S. offered $25 million for information leading to Osama Bin Laden.

After the tragic “accident,” all political parties agreed that family members of victims deserve to know the circumstances of the crash. However, the facts have never been clarified for them just yet.

Wifka is attempting to determine the following questions: Who shot down MH17 on July 17? Who gave the order? Who covered up the shootdown? Who can provide details on the circumstances that led to the shootdown? Who was directly involved?

What happened to the people who were involved? What happened to the weapon used? Who can name the people that cleared the shoot-down?

Josef Resch, an employee of the Wifka firm, told Capital Magazine,

gating company. Resch believes the bounty may have come from an intelligence agency that did not want to put their name on the money, or from a Russian oligarch looking to take down Putin behind the scenes. In order to ensure that the offer was legitimate, Wifka confirmed this client had the money in advance. They found the $30 million sitting in a Swiss bank, waiting to be dispersed if the investigation is successful. The company has already

been paid about $52,000 for handling the investigation. It is unclear whether or not the mystery man will share the information obtained.

More Billionaires Join the Pack The billionaire club is getting larger. This year, according to the 2014 Billionaire Census from Wealth-X and the

SEPTEMBER 23, 2014

There’s been a lot of mystery and speculation as to what exactly happened to Malaysia Airlines flight 17 that was shot down in July. Initially, pro-Russian separatists took responsibility for the attack but later retracted their confession.

In News

THE BALTIMORE JEWISH HOME

Millionaire Offers $30M for Answers into Malaysia Airlines Flight 17

“Everyone can be bought; it’s just a question of the price.”

While the company is ready to take information from the general public, they are warning all whistleblowers to take extreme caution in sharing their information. They have a “secure way of communication” set up and are urging people to avoid phone and email communication.

The client behind the award money is anonymous, even to the investi-

19

THE BALTIMORE JEWISH HOME

SEPTEMBER 23, 2014

20

The Week Swiss bank UBS, 155 men and women broke the billion dollar threshold and joined the club. The worldwide population of those with wealth exceeding $1 billion has grown to 2,325, up 7% from last year.

The typical billionaire has about $3.1 billion, is male, is about 63 years old, and owns four properties, each worth an average of more than $23.5 million. Their average wealth grew by 4.4% this year. Nearly 90% are married and on average, they have two kids. Most did not break the billionaire mark until their late 40s. Just 286 of the world’s billionaires are women.

The combined wealth of these billionaires increased last year by 12% to a staggering $7.3 trillion. To put that into perspective, the figure is higher than the combined market capitalization of all the companies that make up the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

Michael Santoli, a senior finance reporter, says the growth of extreme wealth at one end of the global economy is nothing new. He says, “It’s really the result of globalization and bigger and bigger markets for entrepreneurs, for investors, and for people who have assets and are building capital.” The record-breaking rise of the extremely rich isn’t necessarily the result of global equity markets breaking records of their own. Santoli says this is “not strictly a kind of on-paper effect.” He says many of these men and women are becoming extremely wealthy by ‘‘building private empires of businesses.”

The U.S. leads the way with the highest number of billionaires. 57 of the newly minted billionaires are American. New York is the city with the highest concentration of billionaires—103 billionaires live in the Big Apple. Moscow is second with 85, followed by Hong Kong, London and Beijing.

What Makes the World’s Worst Economies?

How productive is your country?

This year, the U.S. came in at two spots higher on a world ranking of competitiveness. The World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report defines competitiveness as the “set of institutions, policies and factors that determine the level of productivity of a country.” Many factors, including improving business sophistication and institutional frameworks, helped the U.S. improve. This high score was given despite perceptions of an inefficient government and a weak macroeconomic environment.

Switzerland came in at number one for the sixth year in a row. Singapore came in next, coming in at second place for the fourth consecutive year. The United States took the third spot on the list. Finland, Germany, Japan, Hong Kong, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and Sweden rounded out the top ten.

Yemen, Chad and Guinea came in last on the list.

The least competitive economies in the world are missing obvious ingredients. Nine of the bottom 15 scored low because they lack basic economic requirements, such as institutions, infrastructure and education.

These economies have also yet to develop quality infrastructure such as roads, telecommunication systems or transportation networks.

Maintaining strong nationwide institutions and infrastructure often requires a great deal of investment. The least competitive nations typically lack the ability to borrow large sums of money in order to finance investment. With only a few exceptions, these countries have relatively low debt levels; in these poorer nations, access to financing is often a challenge not just for businesses, but also

In News for governments.

Still, the least competitive nations face larger impediments than debt.

Most of the bottom low scoring nations have experienced a major regime change in the past two decades.

Political and economic stability have historically always been necessary for financial prosperity.

Israel Lone Soldiers Reunited For Yom Tov

El Al, the Israel Hotel Association, the IDF Manpower Directorate, and the Association for the Wellbeing of Israel’s Soldiers area all teaming up to put together a heartwarming gift for lonely members of the IDF. As many as 6,000 soldiers who participated in Operation Protective Edge are alone in Israel with no family for yom tov. More than 200 family members of 77 lone soldiers will receive free round-trip tickets and five-day hotel stays in the Tel Aviv area during the holiday period.

Lone soldiers received heightened media attention during Operation Protective Edge after the July deaths of Sean Carmeli and Max Steinberg, two Israeli soldiers who had recently emigrated from the United States. Many lone soldiers serve in the hope of building better lives for their families, but others feel a particular attraction to the State of Israel. “When I first came here at the age of 12, I thought to myself, ‘When am I going to come back?’”

Maksim Kolesnikov, a lone soldier whose parents arrived at Ben-Gurion on a sponsored ticket, recounted.

Standing next to him at the airport terminal, Kolesnikov’s mother, Irena, expressed mixed feelings about her son’s military service. On the one

hand, she worries about his safety, but on the other, she is proud that he has the chance to serve his country. “The whole month that the war was going on, I was checking the news on the Internet every second,” she said.

Other lone soldiers started out in Israel and returned back after their life’s journey moved them away. Lee Fmouha moved from Israel to Kenya at age 10 with her parents, and returned last year to enroll in the IDF officer’s course.”Kenya was a great host for those eight years that I lived there,” she said. “But at the age of 18, I felt like it was time to say thanks to my host and return to Israel.”

Though Fmouha said being a lone soldier has its downsides, she has seen a massive outpouring of support from Israeli society. “The countless offers I got from people to spend Rosh Hashana was really incredible,” she said.

“It’s something really special about this country.” Fmouha’s parents received a free flight from Kenya to visit her for the first time since she enlisted.

Nearly 9 Million Living in Israel New census figures released ahead of Rosh Hashana show that Israel’s population is reaching almost 9 million, with an increase of some 200,000 people. According to the Population and Immigration Authority, the population of the State of Israel stands at 8,904,373.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pointed out at a weekly cabinet meeting that Israel’s population has surpassed 8 million in 2013, including a population of over 6 million Jews, a historically freighted figure equaling the number of Jews killed in the Holocaust.

The Week The 10 most popular names for boys this year were: Yosef, Daniel, Uri, Itai, Omer, Adam, Noam, Ariel, Eitan, David. Meanwhile, baby girls were most commonly named Tamar, Noa, Shira, Adele, Talia, Yael, Leanne, Miriam, Maya, Avigail.

Sweeteners Not as Sweet as We Thought

antibiotics that killed their digestive bacteria, they found that the mice did not develop glucose intolerance. “The relationships we have with our personal gut bacteria is significant to understanding how the food we eat affects us, and our tendency to develop conditions such as obesity and diabetes,” Elinav pointed out.

Israeli Tech Revolutionizes Online Clothing Retail

The Internet has hurt a lot of brick and mortar retailers. Online shopping

SEPTEMBER 23, 2014

We are all careful about what we eat. A lot of us think that we have smartly made the decision to leave the sugar out of our morning coffee and go for the substitute sweetener that has no calories. But a new study out of the Weizman Institute in Israel has some hope-dashing research to share.

According to a study just published, artificial sweeteners may be worse for your health than the sugar we are avoiding.

“Our research findings attest that consuming artificial sweeteners

causes the development of the very health problems they’re supposed to prevent,” Dr. Eran Elinav. “Our findings beg reconsideration of the massive, unregulated use of these substances.” According to the study, artificial sweeteners can actually increase intolerance of glucose (a simple sugar) by altering the bacteria in the digestive tract, even though artificial sweeteners do not contain any glucose.

In the experiment, a set of mice were given three commonly used artificial sweeteners approved by the U.S. Food & Drug Administration that were diluted in water, while another set of mice got regular sugar that was diluted in water. The mice that were given artificial sweeteners developed greater glucose intolerance, and by consequence, the sweeteners can be seen as making someone more susceptible to diabetes and obesity.

When the scientists repeated the experiment with mice that were given

THE BALTIMORE JEWISH HOME

“This number has a dual significance in light of the path our nation has followed in the past century, as well as into this century,” he said on Sunday morning.

The number of Jews living in Israel actually topped the 6 million mark in early 2013, according to the Central Bureau of Statistics, a milestone marked by Netanyahu at the time. “Six million Jews perished in the … Holocaust.” Netanyahu said at a Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremony in April 2013. “Today, for the first time since the establishment of the State, more than 6 million Jews live in the State of Israel. You, the citizens of Israel, are the testament to our victory. From the abyss of the Holocaust, we climbed to the peak of Zion. From a deep pit, we rose to a pinnacle.”

Israel absorbed 24,801 immigrants in the past calendar year, and to date, some 176,230 babies were born this year in Israel — 90,646 boys and 85,584 girls.

In News

21

THE BALTIMORE JEWISH HOME

SEPTEMBER 23, 2014

22

The Week is easier than ever before and delivery is practically quicker than the time it takes to get your bags back from the store and up your driveway. But the clothing industry is one area that has not been completely overtaken by online shopping. While tons of clothes are bought online, over half of purchased clothing gets returned. Often, fit is the issue, but looks are also a problem.

Many consumers complain that outfits just don’t look as good on them as they had expected. An Israeli tech firm may just have the answer that online clothing retailers are looking for.

Fitterli, an Israeli-developed platform, has been announced as the winner of Intel’s Business Challenge Europe 2014. Fitterli provides technology that lets users create an online avatar that can try on clothing for them. The company will now go on to the World Business Challenge finals, set for California later this year If returns are a problem for on-line retailers, “trying on” syndrome is a problem for brick and mortar stores.

Retail clothing industry experts say that customers looking for a bargain will often try on outfits in a department store, and then use an app like Amazon Price Check — which lets you check the online price of a product – by scanning its barcode.

Fitterli’s platform hopes to solve both problems. Sites using the system offer shoppers an opportunity to upload a scan of themselves, which, using advanced algorithms, is turned into a virtual full-body avatar. That avatar can then try on outfits to see how they look. Key to the system is the exactness of the avatar – and according to Fitterli, the avatar is extremely accurate, taking into account all of a person’s features, even down to “unsightly bulges.”

While fashion doesn’t sound like it would be up Intel’s alley, the company has become interested in the sector in recent years, as wearable technology becomes ever more popular. “We expect 500 million wearables to be sold annually by the end of the decade,” said Neil Cox of Intel Europe. “We’ve spoken to a lot of companies in recent months, and they have a lot of great ideas on how they would use wearable tech.”

Fitterli, along with four other European firms, will represent Europe at

the Intel Global Challenge 2014 Finals at UC Berkeley later this year. Teams competing in the Finals in came from 12 countries: Israel, Norway, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Hungary, Romania, UK, Bulgaria, Ireland, Denmark and Poland.

National Free Culture Trips for NYC Illegals

In News cards. Without an official ID, some illegal immigrants cannot do routine tasks like opening bank accounts and signing rental leases. Supporters of the program have said the ID cards also would improve access to basic health and shelter services for illegal immigrants.

Three Republican City Council members voted against the measure in June, saying the funds would be better used for hiring firefighters or police officers.

New York’s ID cards can be obtained with a foreign birth certificate, driver’s license or proof of residence such as a utility bill. The cards will include the holder’s photo, name, date of birth and address along with an expiration date.

The program is very impressive.

If an Alaskan has qualified for all of the checks distributed since the beginning, they would have collected $37,027.41. With the upcoming distribution, the state will have distributed more than $21.9 billion over the years.

But if you plan on moving to take advantage, don’t forget that the money is not tax-free. Even though Alaska has no income tax, Uncle Sam’s taxes still apply. Yes, the IRS gets you every time.

Small Cities, Big Impact

Green Given for Black Gold in White State

If you like Chol Hamoed trips, it pays to be an illegal immigrant. Mayor Bill de Blasio is now offering free or heavily reduced admission to some of the City’s cultural and family attractions in order to coax illegal immigrants to join an identification card program in New York. The Bronx Zoo, New York City Ballet, Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Carnegie Hall are among the destinations that will be free for a year for all who sign up.

New York is joining other U.S. cities with large immigrant populations including Los Angeles and New Haven, Connecticut, with municipal ID cards for non-citizens. New York’s $8 million ID card program begins on January 1. It was approved in June by the New York City Council. “The municipal ID is a powerful tool to bring more New Yorkers out of the shadows and into the mainstream,” de Blasio said in a statement. “It is now also a key that opens the door for hundreds of thousands of more New Yorkers to our city’s premier assets in culture, science and entertainment.”

The ID program targets residents lacking legal immigration status who have trouble obtaining official U.S. identification. However, all New York City residents are eligible for the ID

Alaska has something other states don’t. Every year since 1982, on October 2nd, the state pays all of its residents. It called The Permanent Fund and was established in 1976 after the discovery of oil on Alaska’s North Slope. It is the proceeds from the state’s oil wealth savings account and the good people of Alaska are on the payroll just for living in the Last Frontier. This year’s share of nearly $1,900 per resident is the sweetest since the Great Recession and the third richest ever.

Governor Sean Parnell announced the amount of the Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend with great fanfare.

“This is all good news for Alaskans,” he heralded at an Anchorage press conference. This year’s payout is more than double last year’s $900 but still short of the 2008 record of $2,069.

What’s cool about the fund is that every single resident qualifies. Is you are living in the state for at least one calendar year, or were born in Alaska by the December 31 deadline of the previous year, you get a check. This year, nearly 599,000 Alaskans will receive checks, either through direct deposit or in the mail. Of those, the oldest recipient is 109 years old and the youngest includes 26 children who were born December 31. Altogether, the checks total $1.1 billion.

Small cities are becoming bigger and bigger contributors to the American economy. And small cities are no longer so small; they are becoming larger and larger. So called “mega-regions” are not the only places that matter any longer. Since 2000, small cities with between 100,000 and 250,000 residents have enjoyed a 13.6 percent population growth rate, more than twice that of New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, and have grown roughly 10 percent faster than the national growth rate. The main driving force, notes demographer Wendell Cox, appears to be domestic migration, which is negative in the largest cities.

In order to determine which small metro areas are booming, and to help us understand why, the Praxis Strategy Group has ranked them based on four factors: population growth, job growth, real per capita personal income growth, and growth of regional gross domestic product per job — if GDP per job is increasing, it’s an indicator that the area is adding high-value, productive industries to its economy, as opposed to lower-wage jobs.

The Week have worked “well” with one another in the past few years and emphasized that would continue and he would remain involved.

“They deserve the recognition, they deserve the CEO title,” he said of Catz and Hurd. “I’m going to continue doing what I’ve been doing over the past several years.”

Ellison co-founded Oracle in

In News 1977. The company went public on March 12, 1986, a day before Microsoft held its initial public offering.

Ellison remains Oracle’s largest shareholder, holding 1.1 billion shares, or 25 percent; his estimated net worth is $43 billion.

Best Museums Around

TripAdvisor has proved itself to be a very useful resources for planning vacations. Being that it’s user-generated, it provides practical feedback. Each year, it gives out awards to the best museums. According to a recent survey by the site, 28% of U.S. respondents plan to visit a museum this fall—especially this Succos.

SEPTEMBER 23, 2014

Larry Ellison of Oracle Steps Down

www.sandbox-marketing.com

Last week, Larry Ellison stepped down as CEO of Oracle Corp., the software maker he founded. This surprising resignation clears the way for a new generation of executives.

The company announced last Thursday that Mark Hurd and Safra Catz, currently co-presidents of Oracle, were both named CEO to succeed Ellison. Hurd will run sales, marketing and strategy, while Catz will remain chief financial officer and oversee legal and manufacturing operations Now, don’t think Ellison, who’s celebrated his 70th birthday last month, is filing for unemployment anytime soon. He will become chairman, replacing Jeff Henley, and also take on the title of chief technology officer.

LAST MINUTE BUSINESS MEETING

IN HONG KONG?

When your travel agent is PEYD, booking a flight couldn’t be simpler.

PEYD Travel is your one stop for expert advice, discounted airfare & dedicated service.

Ellison led the Redwood City, California-based company for more than 35 years, turning it into the world’s largest database-software company and one of the biggest providers of business programs. Oracle’s products have become the foundation of modern commerce and industry. The company has a market capitalization of more than $185 billion and produces annual revenue of $38 billion.

Ellison said that he, Catz and Hurd

THE BALTIMORE JEWISH HOME

Here is the top 10 small metro cities in the nation: 1. The Villages, Florida 2. Midland, Texas 3. Odessa, Texas 4. Fargo, North Dakota 5. Jacksonville, North Carolina 6. Longview, Texas 7. Bismarck, North Dakota 8. Houma-Thibodaux, Louisiana 9. Watertown-Fort Drum, New York 10. Madera, California

23

Join the thousands of satisfied customers who have trusted PEYD to help navigate the credit card rewards & travel industries.

THE GUYS YOU KNOW, THE COMPANY YOU TRUST 646.801.7393 • WWW.TRAVELWITHPEYD.COM • INFO@PEYDTRAVEL.COM

Take PEYD Travel with you on your vacation! Tag your photos on social media with #TravelWithPEYD and receive a bonus mystery prize!

THE BALTIMORE JEWISH HOME

SEPTEMBER 23, 2014

24

The Week The Art Institute of Chicago founded in 1879, was named the most-liked museum in the U.S. in TripAdvisor’s Travelers’ Choice awards for the second consecutive year. This year, it was also named the world’s favorite.

The awards are based on millions of reviews and opinions from travelers from the last 12 months.

The most-reviewed museum on the list, with 14,999 reviews, was the New York Metropolitan Museum which locked down the No. 3 spot in the U.S. and No. 7 worldwide.

Here are the top ten museums in the United States. Have you been to them all?

1. Art Institute of Chicago 2. Getty Center, Los Angeles 3. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC 4. The National WWII Museum, New Orleans, 5. National Gallery of Art,

Washington, D.C. 6. Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, Washington, D.C.

7. USS Midway Museum,

San Diego 8. Chihuly Garden and Glass, Seattle 9. Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, Tucson, AZ 10. Newseum, Washington, D.C. If you’re traveling around the world, here are the top ten museums in the world for you to visit: 1. Art Institute of Chicago 2. National Museum of

Anthropology, Mexico City 3. State Hermitage Museum and Winter Palace, St. Petersburg, Russia 4. The Getty Center 5. Galleria dell’Accademia/Statue of David, Florence, Italy 6. Musee d’Orsay, Paris 7. The Metropolitan Museum of Art 8. The Acropolis Museum, Athens, Greece 9. Prado Museum, Madrid, Spain 10. Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial, Jerusalem

In News Air Force: “G-d” is Optional Under the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States, every American citizen has the right of Freedom of Religion. This tenet is the basis of the Air Force’s recent decision to change a long-standing policy.

Airmen will be permitted to omit the words “so help me G-d” from their enlistment oaths if they choose.

The decision came after an airman at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada struck out the words on his Department of Defense reenlistment paperwork and ran up against a policy that prohibits omissions. Attorney Monica Miller of the American Humanist Association is representing the airman, who she says has requested anonymity for fear of retaliation. Miller says that her client was told by his commanders on August 25 that he must recite the phrase or he must leave the Air Force.

The case reached the Department of Defense General Counsel, which issued an opinion on Wednesday saying the language could be left out if the airman preferred.

Occupy Wall Street Movement Tackles Student Debt While they’ve certainly quieted down in recent months, the Occupy Wall Street movement is alive and kickin’. The crusade for the 99% just

‫לשנה טובה‬ 410.559.0000 ASHLEYHOMES.COM   

CUSTOM HOMES ADDITIONS LIGHT COMMERIAL

OVER 30 YEARS EXPERIENCE !!

ASHLEY HOMES WOULD LIKE TO WISH YOU A HAPPY AND SWEET NEW YEAR!!

THANK YOU FOR ANOTHER GREAT YEAR! MHBR NO. 126 MHIC NO. 39601

25

lawsuit ends in CFPB’s favor, the debt Occupy bought and eliminated would be forgiven anyway.

Kent Jenkins, spokesman for Corinthian Colleges, said the school stands by their “high-quality” education. He said that their graduation and job rates are higher than other community colleges.

Of course, it is impossible to get rid of the whole country’s student loans and medical debt so Strike Debt will focus on The Debt Collective, a new platform that will bring debtors together to negotiate debt with creditors. “Debt is the tie that binds the 99%, whether you are a student delinquent on your student loans or a parent struggling to pay healthcare bills,” Strike Debt member Ann Larson said in a statement. “Being forced into debt for basic social services is a systemic problem.”

SEPTEMBER 23, 2014

Rich Man, Poor Man The United States added more than 2.3 million jobs in 2013, the most in any year since 2005. Despite this, income levels and poverty rates did not improve in most of the United States last year, according to recently released figures from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey.

JU RELEAST SED!

'‫חל ק ב‬

2 volume set on the Moadim, in English

$

24.

95

2 Volume Set on: Pesach, Shavuous, Bein Ha'metzorim, Shabbos, Rosh Chodesh

:'‫כרך א‬ ‫ בין המצרים‬,‫ שבועות‬,‫פסח‬ ‫ ראש חודש‬,‫שבת קודש‬ :'‫כרך ב‬ ‫ סוכות‬,‫ ימים נוראים‬,‫אלול‬ ‫ פורים‬,‫ ד' פרשיות‬,‫חנוכה‬

‫ב' כרכים על המועדים‬

$

10.95 Per Volume

In these unique works, Rav Dovid Hofstedter, Nasi of the internationally acclaimed Dirshu Torah organization, offers deep insights into the moadim.

The newly released Hebrew edition of Dorash Dovid on Moadim, Chelek Beis, features timely maamorim on Elul, Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur and Succos.

While many American households continue to struggle to make ends meet, those in the richest states continued to earn far more than households in the poorest states. Maryland was the wealthiest state in the U.S. again last year, with a median income of $72,483. Mississippi, in turn, was yet again America’s poorest state, with a median income of just $37,963.

States with relatively low median incomes typically had poverty rates that were much higher than the national rate. In fact, all but one of the nation’s 10 poorest states also had among the 10 highest poverty rates. Mississip-

Every maamar in Dorash Dovid begins with several questions, then develops an in-depth approach, opening new vistas that enable one to truly grasp the messages that the Torah and our Sages impart.

OT H E R S E F O R I M I N T H E D O R A S H D OV I D S E R I E S

NEW RELEASE! Bottom Line Marketing Group: 718.377.4567

The group’s Strike Debt initiative announced on Wednesday that it has cleared $3.8 million worth of private student loan debt since January. It said it has been buying the debts for pennies on the dollar from debt collectors, and then forgiving that money rather than collecting it. The group can’t buy into the country’s $1.2 trillion in student loans because it is backed by the government, but it can tackle private student debt.

In total, the group spent about $100,000 to purchase the $3.8 million in debt belonging to 2,700 people. The funds were taken from a pool of about $700,000 raised through events in the last few years. The loans had been taken to attend Everest College, which is run by Corinthian Colleges, one of the country’s largest for-profit education companies that has been in legal trouble lately. Following a number of federal investigations, the college group told investors this summer that it plans to sell or close its 107 campuses due to financial problems, potentially leaving its 74,000 students.

“Despite Corinthian’s dire financial straits, checkered past, and history of lying to and misleading vulnerable students, tens of thousands of people may still be liable for the loans they have incurred while playing by the rules and trying to get an education,” a Strike Debt member said in an email.

This week, the company was hit with a lawsuit from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau over allegations of predatory lending practices.

The lawsuit demanded that Corinthian forgive the more than $500 million in outstanding student loan debt that its students had incurred since 2011. If the

THE BALTIMORE JEWISH HOME

celebrated its third anniversary. As part of their celebrations, they are applauding their first accomplishment of getting hospitals to forgive millions of dollars in emergency fees. Their current mission is to help people out with their student loans.

‫ג' כרכים על‬ ‫חמשה חומשי תורה‬

2 volume slipcase set on the entire Chumash, in English

French Edition 3 volume set on the entire Chumash

Available in Judaica stores nationwide or direct from the distributor, Israel Book Shop 888-536-7427

THE BALTIMORE JEWISH HOME

SEPTEMBER 23, 2014

26

The Week pi, the nation’s poorest state, had a poverty rate of 24% last year, the highest in the nation. By comparison, when surveyed, 15.8% of Americans said they lived below the poverty line at some point in the last 12 months.

So what the nation’s richest states?

Connecticut is the United States’ fifth richest state. The median household income is $67,098 and only 10.7% live below the poverty line, the nation’s fourth lowest. Hawaii came in fourth; New Jersey, with a median household income of $70,165, came in third; Alaska came in second; and Maryland, with a median household income of $72,483, came in as the richest state in the nation.

Kentucky, Alabama, West Virginia, and Arkansas were among the poorest states in the nation. Mississippi, with a median household income of $37,963, is the poorest state in the United States.

No state had a higher poverty rate than Mississippi, where more than 24% of people lived below the poverty line.

Last year, 8.6% of workers were unemployed, the sixth highest rate nationally, while 19.4% of households relied on food stamps, the second highest rate.

tionwide votes for drivers of the state divided by the number of respondents from the state.

According to the survey, if you like respectful roadways, stay away from the following states: Utah, Nevada, New Jersey, Delaware and Vermont.

Massachusetts, Wyoming, New York, and District of Columbia came in at the top five, with Idaho leading the nation with the country’s rudest drivers. Are they drunk on potatoes?

Readers also ranked the rudest behaviors. 47% said the rudest habit is when drivers talk on their cell phones while driving, 37% ranked tailgating as the rudest, 35% said not signaling turns is the worst behavior, 28% feel weaving in and out of lanes earns the rudest title, and 26% say driving too fast is the worst.

Man Breaches White House Security with Knife

Where Rude Drivers Rule The only thing that makes rude driving behaviors worse than rude table manners is that it can be extremely dangerous as well. Weaving in and out of traffic on a busy highway, speeding, not signaling before turning, and blasting your horn are all characteristics of offensive road behavior.

Insure.com surveyed 2,000 licensed drivers nationwide to determine which cities are the guiltiest of these offensive driving behaviors. Rankings were calculated using a ratio of the na-

On Friday, a Texan, armed with a knife, climbed the White House fence and made it to the executive mansion before Secret Service officers arrested him. The president and the first family were not in the White House.

Omar Gonzalez, 42, was charged with unlawfully entering a restricted building or grounds while carrying a “deadly or dangerous weapon,” according to an affidavit released by the U.S. Attorney’s Office on Saturday. It was initially thought he was unarmed.

If convicted, he faces up to 10 years in prison.

Daniel Hochman, a Secret Service officer on duty at the White House when the incident occurred, said Gonzalez was carrying a folding knife with a 3-1/2-inch long serrated blade.

“After he was apprehended, Omar Gonzalez told United States Secret

In News Service Agent Lee Smart that he was concerned that the atmosphere was collapsing and [he] needed to get the information to the President of the United States so that he could get the word out to the people,” a Secret Service affidavit said.

The incident, one of the most significant breaches since Obama became president, raised questions about security procedures at the White House, a heavily guarded complex filled with Secret Service officers and snipers. Security since the incident has since been increased.

“Every day the Secret Service is challenged to ensure security at the White House complex while still allowing public accessibility to a national historical site,” the agency said in a statement. “Although last night the officers showed tremendous restraint and discipline in dealing with this subject, the location of Gonzalez’s arrest is not acceptable.”

Despite the close call, the president is confident in the abilities of those guarding him. “The president has full confidence in the Secret Service and is grateful to the men and women who day in and day out protect himself, his family and the White House,” spokesman Frank Benenati said.

A second man was arrested on Saturday for trespassing at the White House. Secret Service spokesman Ed Donovan said the man approached the White House gates on foot, was sent away, then returned in his vehicle.

Home Depot Credit Cards Hacked You may want to use cash when shopping at Home Depot. On Thursday, Home Depot Inc. announced that some 56 million payment cards were likely compromised in a cyber-attack at its stores, suggesting the hacking attack at the home improvement chain was larger than last year”s unprecedented breach at Target Corp.

It will take months to determine the full scope of the fraud, which affected Home Depot stores in both the United States and Canada and ran from April to September.

Retailer Target incurred costs of $148 million in its second fiscal quar-

ter related to its breach. Target hackers stole at least 40 million payment card numbers and 70 million other pieces of customer data.

Home Depot said that criminals used unique, custom-built software that had not been seen in previous attacks and was designed to evade detection in its most complete account of what had happened since it first disclosed the breach on September 8. Now, the company has closed off the hackers” method of entry and has eliminated the malware from its network.

“We apologize to our customers for the inconvenience and anxiety this has caused and want to reassure them that they will not be liable for fraudulent charges,” Chief Executive Frank Blake said in a statement.

Of the estimated cost so far of $62 million, which covers such items as credit monitoring, increased call center staffing, and legal and professional services, Home Depot said it believes that $27 million of the amount will be paid for by insurers.

It may be even more than was the company estimates. Home Depot said it has not yet estimated the impact of “probable losses” related to the possible need to reimburse banks for fraud and card replacement, as well as covering costs of lawsuits and government investigations.

“Those costs may have a material adverse effect on The Home Depot”s financial results in the fourth quarter and/or future periods,” the company said in its statement.

Hitesh Sheth, chief executive of Vectra Networks, a cybersecurity firm in San Jose, California, said Home Depot’s breach exposes a weakness, noting that the company said hackers used unique, custom-built malware. That “essentially means the technology they are using is only designed to detect malware that has already been used in a previous attack, and that is symptomatic of the retail industry,” Sheth said.

“Retailers need to upgrade to tech-

27

THE BALTIMORE JEWISH HOME SEPTEMBER 23, 2014

THE BALTIMORE JEWISH HOME

SEPTEMBER 23, 2014

28

The Week nology that is available and detects behavior of malware that is new because these attacks are not going to stop anytime soon,” Sheth pointed out.

1 in 4 Americans Open to Secession

Last week, Scots voted on whether or not to secede from the United Kingdom. Ultimately, the country voted to stay part of the UK. But talks of secession stirred emotions for some Americans; according to a recent poll, almost a quarter of Americans are open to their states leaving the union.

23.9 percent of Americans polled from August 23 through September 16 said they strongly supported or tended to support the idea of their state breaking away, while 53.3 percent of the 8,952 respondents strongly opposed or tended to oppose the notion.

The urge to sever ties with Washington cuts across party lines and regions, though Republicans and residents of rural Western states are generally warmer to the idea than Democrats and Northeasterners, the poll revealed.

Ire at President Barack Obama’s handling of issues ranging from healthcare reform to the rise of Islamic State militants drives some of the feeling, with Republican respondents citing dissatisfaction with his administration.

But others said long-running Washington gridlock had prompted them to wonder if their states would be better off striking out on their own, a move no U.S. state has tried in the 150 years since the bloody Civil War that led to the end of slavery in the South.

“I don’t think it makes a whole lot of difference anymore which political party is running things. Nothing gets done,” said Roy Gustafson, 61, of Camden, South Carolina, who lives on disability payments. “The state would be better off handling things on its own.”

“It seems to have heated up, espe-

cially since the election of President Obama,” said Mordecai Lee, a professor of governmental affairs at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, who has studied secessionist movements.

Brittany Royal, a 31-year-old nurse from Wilkesboro, North Carolina, said anger over the “Obamacare” healthcare reform law made her wonder if her state would be better off on its own.

“That has really hurt a lot of people here, myself included. My insurance went from $40 a week for a family of four up to over $600 a month for a family of four,” said Royal, a Republican.

“The North Carolina government itself is sustainable. Governor McCrory, I think he has a better healthcare plan than President Obama.”

By region, the idea was least popular in New England, the cradle of the Revolutionary War, with just 17.4 percent of respondents open to pulling their state out.

It was most popular in the Southwest, where 34.1 percent of respondents back the idea. That region includes Texas, where an activist group is calling the state’s legislature to put the secession question on a statewide ballot. One Texan respondent said he was confident his state could get by without the rest of the country.

“Texas has everything we need.

We have the manufacturing, we have the oil, and we don’t need them,” said Mark Denny, a 59-year-old retiree living outside Dallas on disability payments.

Denny, a Republican, had cheered on the Scottish independence movement. “I have totally, completely lost faith in the federal government, the people running it, whether Republican, Democrat, independent, whatever,” he said.

Even in Texas, some respondents said talk about breaking away was more of a sign of their anger with Washington than evidence of a real desire to go it alone. Democrat Lila Guzman, of Round Rock, said the threat could persuade Washington lawmakers and the White House to listen more closely to average people’s concerns.

“When I say secede, I’m not like [former National Rifle Association president] Charlton Heston with my gun up in the air, ‘my cold dead hands.’

It’s more like – we could do it if we

In News had to,” said Guzman, 62. “But the first option is, golly, get it back on the right track. Not all is lost. But there might come a point that we say, ‘Hey, y’all, we’re dusting our hands and we’re moving on.’”

That’s Odd Going Bananas for the Ig Nobel Prize

The ceremony included a three-act mini-opera about people who stop eating food and instead nourish themselves entirely with pills, inspired by the pill-heavy diet of Google engineering director Ray Kurzweil.

A personal favorite of Marc Abrahams, editor of the Annals and architect of the Ig Nobels, was a study by a team of Norwegian and German researchers who tested how reindeer react to seeing humans wearing polar bear costumes. “I’ve never in my life met anyone who disguised himself as a polar bear to frighten a reindeer,” Abrahams said.

What about an analysis on scientists’ sense of humor? Seems like there won’t be much to study.

Whistle While you Work Ever step on a banana peel? Well, Japanese scientist detailed the hazards of stepping on banana skins for their paper titled “Frictional Coefficient under Banana Skin.” It seems like the scientific world truly believes that research into banana peels are important; the team was one of ten that took home this year’s Ig Nobel Prize.

Like the name implies, the Ig Nobel Prize awards scientists for comical scientific achievements. Seems like these experts have a sense of humor. The prize is awarded by the Annals of Improbable Research as a whimsical counterpart to the Nobel Prizes which will be announced next month.

Another winning team also focused on food, studying how pork strips can be stuffed into people’s nostrils to stop severe nosebleeds.

Isn’t that what gauze is for?

Ig Nobel prizes this year also went to researchers who measured the relative pain people suffer while looking at an ugly painting, investigated whether cat ownership can be mentally hazardous, and studied how people who routinely stay up late can be more psychopathic.

Former winners of real Nobels handed out the spoof awards at a ceremony at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on Thursday.

A janitor at an Illinois hospital does much more than mop floors. Rolando Maaba brings sweet songs to patients during his 15 minute breaks when he plays calm and moving songs on the piano in the lobby of the Rockford Memorial Hospital.

“The bottom line is I want to be helping guests who are waiting for their relatives after an emergency or a surgery and they’re worried,” Maaba, 55, related. “When I play, they forget all their worries.”

“I want to help them just relax and the doctor will take care of them,” he said.

Maaba, a native of the Philippines, moved to Rockford in 1999. He began working for the hospital last year and says he started playing the piano by simply asking if he could. “They didn’t know me then but when I played, they liked me,” Maaba said of the hospital staff.

Maaba doesn’t use notes to serenade hospital patrons; he plays by ear.

People have loved his music so much, that Maaba now plays piano every

29

Wishing Your Family a Healthy and Prosperous New Year!

NOBODY SELLS MORE REAL ESTATE THAN RE/MAX.®

DUMBARTON

$699,000 SHELBURNE ROAD $299,000

SUMMIT PARK

CARLA ROAD

OWNERS RELOCATING

Move right into this beautifully updated 3BR/1.5BA split level home. Fabulous newly renovated eat-in kitchen with granite counters, stainless appliances & hardwood floors. Large family room off the kitchen.

Gleaming hardwood floors in living & dining room. Finished lower level with rec. room, laundry area & utility room. New carpet & freshly painted throughout.

Fabulous 3-4BR/2BA Rancher with everything all on one level - no steps.

Spacious living room. Separate dining room. Modern eat-in kitchen with stainless appliances. Large den could easily be used as a 4th bedroom.

Beautiful backyard with storage shed.

$349,900

$299,900

Beautiful sprawling 5BR/4BA home in Dumbarton. Modern updated kitchen with granite counters, stainless appliances & adj. breakfast room. Formal living room & dining room with hardwood floors. Upper level master bedroom suite with balcony and study. Lower level rec room, bedroom & bath. 2-car garage.

$649,000 Beautiful newly renovated 5BR/3BA detached home. Glemaing hardwood floors on main level. Gourmet kitchen with granite counters & stainless appliances. Upper level has a large master bedroom & master bath with whirlpool tub & separate area with 2 sinks. There is also a large bonus room on the upper level. Finished lower level with family room, 2 bedrooms & full bath.

OLYMPIA AVENUE $350,000

Move right into this well maintained 4BR/3BA all brick rancher. Living room with hardwood floors & fireplace. Separate dining room.

Spacious modern eat-in kitchen with doors leading to patio area.

Hardwood floors in main level bedrooms. Newly finished lower level with huge family room, bedroom, bath, cedar closet & laundry area.

BANCROFT VILLAGE

THE FALLS GARDEN

SUMMIT RIDGE

PARK TOWERS WEST

Move right into this 5BR/3.5BA townhome.

Gleaming hardwood floors in the living / dining room.

Spacious kosher kitchen with 2 sinks, 2 dishwashers & center island. Upper level w/ master bedroom suite, 2 bedrooms & laundry area. Finished lower level has a family room, 2 bedrooms, full bath & storage.

Well Maintained 2BR/2BA Unit. New Carpeting & Freshly Painted. Recently Replaced Heat Pump. LR & DR w/ Sliders Leading to the Balcony.

Spacious Master Suite w/ Walk-In Closet.

Beautifully updated 2BR/2BA with den terrace level unit. New carpet & freshly painted throughout. New kitchen with stainless electric range & dishwasher. Updated baths.

Spacious master bedroom suite with walk-in closet. Private patio area.

Bright & spacious well cared for 2BR/2BA unit in luxury full service building. Modern eat-in kitchen with updated appliances. Large living room & dining room with slider leading to balcony. Master bedroom suite has updated master bath with accessible tub. Second bedroom with built-ins.

Laundry room in unit.

$289,900

$154,900

$179,900

$99,900

410.581.1000 • 1517 Reisterstown Road, Corner of Old Court Road • Baltimore, MD 21208

SEPTEMBER 23, 2014

Completely renovated 5BR/5.5BA brick colonial. Large formal dining room w/ fireplace, built-ins & hardwood floors. Spacious living room with built-ins & hardwood floors. Brand new gourmet kitchen with custom cabinetry, granite counters, stainless appliances & adjoining breakfast room. Main level guest BR with en-suite bath. Fabulous master suite with luxury master bath. Newly renovated baths, new gas furnace, new upgraded electric, new windows, refinished hardwood floors and much more!

DUMBARTON

THE BALTIMORE JEWISH HOME

Barry Nabozny Broker/Realtor 410-977-7600

THE BALTIMORE JEWISH HOME SEPTEMBER 23, 2014

30

The Week

Swamp training will never be the same for Sgt. Jesse Phillips, a mortarman for the U.S. Marines, who recently participated in his first-ever alligator hunt and helped bag a Mississippi state record.

The massive gator weighed 792 pounds and measured 13 ½ feet from nose to tail. It was the largest male gator bagged in the state, with a belly girth of nearly 70 inches.

“During my swamp training I’m going to think about it a lot different now that I’ve snagged a 13-foot, 5-inch gator,” Phillips is quoted as saying in Military Times. “I don’t like snakes and I don’t like gators. But it ended up good—I faced my fears.”

Alligators, which are native to the southeast United States, are hunted seasonally to keep their numbers in check.

States allocate a certain number of permits each season.

Phillips and two friends, Brian Montgomery and Scott Berry, ventured into the swamp along the Mississippi River at midnight. In their small boat, they carried heavy-duty fishing rods with which to snag the thick-skinned reptiles (a traditional hunting method in most areas that allow hunting).

But those rods were no match for the giant gator. It took the might of all three hunters and 70 long minutes to get the reptile close enough to be roped. The powerful beast inflicted damage to the boat and broke six hooks before it could be hauled close enough to be fashioned with a noose.

Caring and Compassion and a New Family Nurses are known for their kind and giving hearts. Tricia Seaman gave more than just compassion and caring for one of her patients—she gave her son a home.

When Tricia Somers was given the devastating diagnosis that she had terminal liver cancer last spring, her main concern was figuring out who would care for her 8-year-old son, Wesley. Somers didn’t have any family who she believed could care for her son; her parents died year ago.

But one day, after witnessing Seaman’s compassion for so long, on the day she was discharged from the hospital, Somers made one request: “If I die, will you raise my son?”

Initially, Seaman didn’t know how to respond. “I didn’t know what to say in that moment,” said Seaman. “I told her I was flattered enough [that she] asked me.

I said to her, ‘Why don’t you take a little time with this.’ ... I was trying to be very diplomatic, everything in me said was saying, ‘Yes I’ll do it.’”

At that point, Seaman and her family had actually been in the process of becoming foster parents. They have three teenage girls and a 10-year-old son.

“She came in and I just felt this overwhelming feeling of comfort,” Somers recalled. “It was strange. I never had that feeling before and I thought she is going to take care of me. She is the one.”

After the request, Seaman and her family visited with Somers and Wesley at their home, and then they invited the duo to their home. She said she wanted to make sure that everyone felt that it would be a good fit.

“The first time she was here, I said, ‘Does everything look okay to you? Is it what you had in mind?’“ said Seaman. “I felt like I was interviewing. ... She said it

was perfect.”

When Seaman spoke to her husband Daniel about the idea of adopting Wesley, he simply told her, “We need to do something to help this lady,” Seaman recalled.

When Somers became weaker due to her chemotherapy, Seaman decided to not only take Wesley into their family, but Somers as well.

“At one point I said, ‘I can’t be your nurse anymore. I’m your family now,’” said Seaman. “I talked to her and said I want you to come [home]. She kind of fell apart and cried. She said, ‘I’d love to.’“ Seaman said when Somers arrived in May, doctors thought she would survive for only a month. But with care and time, Seaman said Somers has improved and can now walk without the help of a cane.

“We just want to Trish to live life to the fullest and ... we love her and love Wesley,” said Seaman. “He’s a very smart little boy. We want to see him get an education and be successful and know that he’s not alone. He has a family. He’s not going to be all by himself.”

High Five New York!

New Yorkers have a sense of humor.

Ever been standing on a street corner in the City with your arm in the air, hailing a cab? It can be pretty boring, but a Lubavitcher chassied tried to make it fun

for New Yorkers last week by “high fiving” them as they tried to grab a cab.

The video of Meir Kalmanson, 24, leaping into high five “action” went viral last week. He’s wearing street clothes and a baseball cap as he runs and prances past commuters while slapping their outstretched arms. Most think he’s funny—and are amused—other, more serious folk, are shocked by the intrusion.

In one instance, a scowling businessman is hip to the scheme and moves his hand in time to avoid the slap, while a smiling Kalmanson flies by him, locks flowing. The businessman later turns and gives a grudging smirk to the camera.

Kalmanson said he is “honored and amazed” by the feedback he has gotten.

“I wanted to make people smile, give off good energy and good vibes. Everyone is always hustling and bustling, trying to grab a taxi. Just the simple act of a high-five can do wonders at a moment when someone is stressed out,” Kalmanson told the media.

1220 Reisterstown Road Pikesville, MD 21208 (410)653-0057

SEPTEMBER 23, 2014

Greatest Gator Grabbed

Once it was subdued, it was hauled into the boat, leaving almost no space for the hunters.

“It was shocking, a little scary,” Phillips said of the experience.

The three planned to eat some of the meat, and to have the gator stuffed as a trophy.

On average, adult American alligators measure about 10 feet and weigh roughly 500 pounds. For the sake of comparison, the largest alligator ever taken by a hunter was a 15-foot, 1,011.5-pound specimen harvested in Alabama earlier this summer.

THE BALTIMORE JEWISH HOME

Wednesday night at a local restaurant.

And just because Maaba plays the piano at his workplace, it does not mean he does not take his job seriously. He even times his music, he jokes, so as not to miss a minute of work. “I play for 14 minutes and 39 seconds a day,” he said.

He’s sweeping happiness into people’s lives.

In News

31

T H E J E W I S H H O M E n M AY 2 4 , 2012

THE BALTIMORE JEWISH HOME

SEPTEMBER 23, 2014

32 94

In the Kitchen

Sweet and Delicious

BY ESTHER OTTENSOSER

Charming Carrot Muffins I just got back from my baking supplies store, and needless to say, I could not resist buying these adorable carrot toppers to put on top of my carrot muffins.

Ingredients 2 jars of carrot baby food 2 grated carrots 2 cups flour 4 eggs 2 cups sugar ½ tsp cinnamon 1 tsp vanilla 1 ½ tsp baking powder 1 ½ tsp baking soda 7/8 cup oil ½ tsp salt Preparation Preheat oven to 350°.

Place all the ingredients in the bowl of your mixer. Mix well. Spoon batter into muffin tins and bake for 30 minutes or until toothpick inserted into center of muffins comes out clean.

Using a bit of icing, place a carrot topper on top of the muffin once cool.

Wishing you a happy and healthy sweet new year!

Supplies Sugar cookie dough Hexagon cookie cutter Plastic straw Yellow chocolate, melted or yellow royal icing Edible bees (available at baking supply stores)

SEPTEMBER 23, 2014

Directions Roll out the sugar cookie dough to approximately 1/4” thickness. Using the cookie cutter, cut out hexagons from the dough. Then, using a straw, poke holes in the dough to resemble a beehive. Bake cookies according to recipe directions.

Allow cookies to cool once they’re done. Then, ice the cookies using the yellow melted chocolate or royal icing. Stick the bees onto the cookies when the icing is still wet.

TJH Allow to dry. 

33

THE BALTIMORE JEWISH HOME

Be the Queen Bee with these adorable honeycomb cookies! They’ll be swarming back to the hive for more crispy deliciousness with every buzzy bite!

T H E J E W I S H H O M E n M AY 2 4 , 2012

Honeycomb Cookies

95

THE BALTIMORE JEWISH HOME

SEPTEMBER 23, 2014

34

Forgotten Heroes Avi Heiligman

The Daring and Fearless Escape at Acre Prison

P

risons are built to be escape-proof and history has proven that trying to escape some penitentiaries could be dangerous or even fatal. Prisoners have a lot of time on their hands but the guards try to stay one step ahead of them to thwart any attempts to break out. Help from the outside, especially for political prisoners or POWs (prisoner of war), has produced some of the most fascinating tales of courage and daring. Several attempts were made in WWII, including the Cabanatuan Raid, Colditz Castle and the doomed Baum Task Force. Each of these prison escape attempts deserves an article of their own. A little known, somewhat successful attempt was made two years after WWII in the soon-to-be State of Israel.

The Acre Prison Escape is one of only a handful of cases where an underground unit actually stormed a prison.

The British presence caused several underground factions in their Middle East mandate to come to arms. Jewish units, mainly the Irgun, Haganah and Lechi, carried out several raids, bombings and the like to protest the British occupation. Many of these fighters were captured and sent to prisons in the region. The highest security of these was the Acre Prison in which 90 Jewish fighters and some 700 Arabs were held. Lechi’s operation officer, Eitan Livni, the father of Tzipi Livni, was captured and sent to Acre. On April 19, 1947, four members of the Irgun were hanged by the British at the prison. Lechi fighters decided to do something to free their comrades and came up with a daring plan.

The Acre fortress was an Ottomanbuilt structure completed in the 1700s by the Galilee governor Ahmed al-

An Accredited BACHELORS DEGREE Major in Business or Behavioral Science/ Human Services Additional Majors are available; contact YIEP

• Apply up to 70 Judaic credits in transfer toward the required 127 credits of the degree • Government tuition grants and loans available • Registration is currently underway • New programs begin October 2014

BACHELOR DEG RE PROGRAMS & E MS IN CLINICA COUNSELING L BEGIN OCTOBE R 2014 REGISTER NO W

An Accredited MASTERS DEGREE MA in Educational Leadership - Began August 2014 Master of Business Administration - MBA - Began August 2014 MS in Clinical Counseling - Begins October 2014 • Apply your Bachelors Degree from any regionally accredited or Association of Advanced Rabbinical and Talmudic Schools (AARTS) accredited or affiliated institution • Government student loans available • Registration is currently underway

Earn your degree through ONLINE COURSES, accessible anywhere

NOW IN OUR

10 TH YEAR!

(in 18-30 months, depending on the degree)

For more information: TheYIEP@gmail.com or 917-209-8204 Visit us at www.theYIEP.com

MS in Clinical Counseling (leading to licensure)

Jazzar. After the British took control of Israel, the fortress was made into a high security prison. A deep moat on two sides and the Mediterranean Sea to the west protected it from invaders. Many armed guards, more than any other prison in the country, watched for any breakout attempts.

Despite all of the precautions taken by the British, there were some loopholes in its defenses. An Arab kitchen worker said that he heard women’s voices from a storeroom. This meant that there was a street behind the prison and some prisoners would be able to slip out undetected. However, Eitan Livni had another idea: to break out using arms smuggled in for the inmates. TNT was brought in to fashion grenades and bombs to blow holes in the walls large enough for a man to get squeeze through. The south wall was also unprotected from the outside and could be exploited for the break out.

The prisoners also had their families help smuggle in materials as the ever-vigilant British guards were fooled

The entrance to the prison

he was never checked for contraband.

Since this was an undercover operation, the escaped prisoners would need to be hidden until it was safe for them to resurface. Only 41 of the 60 jailed fighters could be freed, and it was up to Livni to decide who would have to stay. The ones who weren’t chosen for the escape were still enthusiastic to help their buddies and were used to create a diversion inside the camp.

The day before the break-in, the Irgun fighters gathered for a briefing. 20 of the fighters would be wearing British uniforms complete with a British Army regulation haircut, and three would be in Arab garb. They would pose as engineers and travel in a six vehicle convoy. Up in front would sit Dov Cohen, dressed as a British captain and the ground commander for the operation.

The convoy set out on Sunday, May 4, for Acre Prison. As they approached, the convoy spread out into their designated positions. The two vans entered the market behind the prison while a truck stood guard. Ladders were set up and the explosives were hauled up to the break out spots. Charges were A New York Times story on the prison break set as the men prepared to blow down the wall. Other men were time and again. Explosives, weapons sent to block British units from getting and tools were hidden in food con- to the escapees, and mines were laid tainers and other household items that in the area leading up to the break out were passed under the guards’ noses. It area. The three fighters dressed as Arabs should be noted the prison rav, Harav went to the north side and prepared to Aryeh Levin zt”l, had his pockets sewn fire mortars. up by his rebbetzin and they were filled Meanwhile, inside the prison, the with messages and other materials for cell doors were open at 3pm but only the prisoners. Out of respect for the rav, the prisoners who were to remain left

Acre Prison, 1942

Insight

Make your message heard.

GRAPHIC & WEB DESIGN SOME OF OUR RECENT CLIENTS: AHAVAS YISRAEL

Creativity

BALTIMORE

ALEH AST DEFEASANCE

ISRAEL LOS ANGELES

DEL. SANDY ROSENBERG

GANEI HA’ELA ISRAEL FOREVER

INTERNATIONAL

BE A MENCH

JERUSALEM

BEIT TOVEI HA’IR

JERUSALEM

JEWISH ADVOCATES FOR DEAF EDUCATION

BEMAALEI SHIR

JERUSALEM

LEMA’AN ACHAI

CHAMBER OF THE HOLOCAUST MOUNT ZION

CHESED FUND

Results Staiman Design

BALTIMORE

ANNAPOLIS

BEIT SHEMESH

BALTIMORE

BEIT SHEMESH

MARYLAND SMART METER MARYLAND AWARENESS MIS SUPPORT

BOCA RATON

STAIMAN.COM 410-580-0100 info@staiman.com

NER YISROEL KOLLEL

BALTIMORE

OHEL AVRAHAM

BALTIMORE

TALMUDICAL ACADEMY

BALTIMORE

WASTE PROFESSIONALS

ORLANDO

WEALCATCH INSURANCE BALTIMORE WHITE GLOVE NURSING

QUEENS

YESODEI HATORAH

BALTIMORE

ZEMER ORCHESTRA

BALTIMORE

35

SEPTEMBER 23, 2014

nation site in groups. The first group blew down the gate inside the cell block with explosives that had been smuggled in earlier. The second group obstructed a path that the guards could use by igniting a fire. The third group chucked grenades onto the roof, scattering the guards. Then, in three groups, the escapees left, escorted by members of the Irgun. The mortar team dressed as Arabs hurled at least five mortars into the area to confuse the guards as the where the main attack was taking place.

However, the first group ran into

lodging and soon were dispersed around so far, in perfect fashion.” Some Jewthe country. ish organizations were wary of a BritThree members of the blocking ish response and said it was irresponunit, Avshalom Haviv, Meir Nakar and sible, while Irgun leader Menachem Yaakov Wiess, did not hear the signal Begin called it was an act of heroism. to leave Acre and were captured after Most people living in the Yishuv were a firefight with British guards. At the glad that something was being done other blocking station, two other fight- by the occupation and the anti-British ers, Amnon Michaeli and Menachem sentiment according a newspaper was Ostrowicz, were also captured. “stronger than ever.”

In total, three fighters and six esThe British government respondcapees were killed ed like the unin the breakout. derground units Eight escapees and hoped. The Brits the five members were tired of the of the blocking fighting in their force were capmandate and soon tured. It was the declared that they price to pay for were pulling out the freedom of the of the region. The 27 escapees. Some mandate was hand200 Arab prisoners ed over the U.N. also escaped in the and the State of Ismayhem of the exrael was created a plosion. In the imyear later. This was A monument to commemorate the escape mediate aftermath, one of the most Haviv, Nakar and Wiess were executed daring rescue attempts in history and in by the British. Michaeli and Ostrowicz some respects achieved success. were given life sentences for their part in the escape.

The response of the media was that Avi Heiligman is a weekly contributor to The of awe when the daring attempt became Jewish Home. He welcomes your comments public. One paper even called it “an am- and suggestions.for future columns and can bitious mission, their most challenging be reached at aviheiligman@gmail.com.

problems soon after the escape. No British Army camps were within three miles of the prison but troops were spread throughout the area. They made a wrong turn and drove towards the shore where a group of British soldiers from the 1st Paratroop Battalion were bathing. A firefight ensued and the driver ran into a wall, which then overturned the van. Dov Cohen, the commander, opened fire with his gun but was killed. Another fighter and five escapees were also killed in the firefight. Of the remaining eight prisoners, six were injured and all were recaptured.

The rest of the escapees were more successful at running away from the prison, although they also sustained casualties. The two remaining groups quickly boarded vans and left the area. However, one of the escapees, Lechi fighter Chaim Appelbaum, was wounded while trying to board the first van. He managed to get onto the second van but later died of his wounds. He was buried in Haifa the next day.

The vans that did manage to get away from the British made their way to Kibbutz Dalia and traveled on foot to Binyamina. There they were given

THE BALTIMORE JEWISH HOME

to go to the courtyard to create a diversion. The escapees stayed in three different cells waiting for the explosion.

At 4:22pm, a loud blast rocked the area and the men began to hurry to the deto-

Halachically Speaking

T H E J E W I S H H O M E n M AY 2 4 , 2012

THE BALTIMORE JEWISH HOME

SEPTEMBER 23, 2014

36 102

Rabbi Moishe Dovid Lebovits

Eating and Drinking Before Hearing the Shofar

W

e spend most of the day davening in shul on Rosh Hashanah. The davening usually concludes long after a normal Shabbos or Yom Tov davening. Even though it is the day of judgment, it is very difficult to avoid eating until after mussaf. Over the years, the practice has developed to eat and drink at a small break before the shofar is blown.1 Is this practice recommended? Is kiddush required beforehand? Is there a difference when Rosh Hashanah falls out on Shabbos and the shofar is not blown? Which foods and drinks are permitted? How much? What are some of the other halachos which apply to this break? All these concerns will be discussed in this article

Eating Before Mitzvos – Introduction The Shulchan Aruch rules in many different places that eating before fulfilling a mitzvah is not allowed. For example, the Shulchan Aruch2 says that one may not eat before taking a lulav on Succos.3 On the first day he has to stop eating even in middle of the meal.4 On the other days, he does not have to stop as long as there is enough time in

1

2

3

4 5 6

7

8

9

See Katzei Hamatei 588:4, Natei Gavriel page 288:footnote 1, teshuva pages 451457.

652:2, Chai Adom 148:16, Kitzur Shulchan Aruch 137:5. Refer to Meseches Succah 38a, Shabbos 9b. See Besamim Rosh 74, Moed Lechol Chai 23:160.

Refer to Biur Halacha 652 “ossur” who says this applies to other activities as well.

Mishnah Berurah 8.

Taz 3, Mishnah Berurah 8.

Shulchan Aruch O.C. 233. Refer to Kulo Machmadim 14.

Shulchan Aruch O.C. 433, Magen Avraham 445:2.

Shulchan Aruch O.C. 692. Refer to Nishmas Avraham 1:page 330.

Shulchan Aruch O.C. 672:5.

the day to perform the mitzvah after the meal. Some opine that the second day of Yom Tov has the same halacha as the first day.5 Other discussions concerning eating before a mitzvah include: before mincha and maariv,6 before bedikas chometz,7 before megilla reading,8 and before Chanukah lighting.9 Reason The reason for not eating (and various other activities) before doing mitzvos is that we are afraid that one will forget to do the mitzvah since he is preoccupied with eating.10 The Rokeach11 brings down that as a chavivus to a mitzvah, Chassidim would fast before performing mitzvos such as lulav and others.

Tasting – Hilchos Lulav The Magen Avraham12 says that although eating is prohibited, tasting is permitted.13 However, one should not be lenient unless it is a great need.14 Tasting means eating no more than a kebeitzah of bread, but there is no limitation on fruit15 or non-intoxicating beverages.16 Eating an item made with the

10

11 12 13

14 15

16

17 18

19 20

Refer to Rashi Meseches Shabbos 9b “ad”, Tzitz Eliezer 6:7, Moadim V’zemanim 1:4.

353.

652:4.

This is the opinion of others as well (Erech Shai 652).

Mishnah Berurah 7.

Refer to Shulchan Aruch 232:3, Mishnah Berurah 35.

Magen Avraham 17, Mishnah Berurah 232:3, Heishiv Moshe 19.

Mishnah Berurah 232:34.

Refer to Oles Shmuel 83, Tzemech Yehuda 1:38, Betzel Hachochma 4:147, Mekadesh Yisroel 133.

Avnei Yoshpei 4:82:2.

Divrei Bineyahu 13:43.

five grains is permitted, as long as one does not make a meal from it.17 Introduction to Eating Before Shofar All these rules should apply to shofar as well. Therefore, some question the practice of making kiddush before tekios18 and eating more than the allotted shiur of mezonos.19 Some poskim wonder why the halacha of not eating before shofar is not mentioned in the Gemara or Shulchan Aruch,20 since this halacha is discussed in regard to many mitzvos. Some explain that since Rosh Hashanah is the day of judgment one will not forget to stop eating to hear the shofar (see below).21 Shofar – Forbidden to Eat There are poskim who say that a healthy person should not eat before shofar. The Matei Ephraim22 prohibits

21

22

23 24

25

26 27

28 29 30

Ibid. Refer to Tosefta Meseches Shabbos 1:7, Magen Avraham 692:7.

588:2. Refer to Maharsham 1:1, Pe’as Sudcha 2:130.

Teshuvos V’hanhagos 4:137.

Yeshurun 20:page 160:2, see Bnei Bonim 1:14, 2:page 233. Refer to Minchas Yitzchok 5:111.

Mareches Rosh Hashanah 2:pages 8889:31.

Refer to Mekadesh Yisroel 133.

6:7, 7:32, 8:21, 18:18:3, 20:23, see Chasam Sofer Y.D. 7, Meoros Nosson (Purim) 34, Nefesh Chai (Margoles) 584, Minhag Yisroel Torah 585:3.

Hisoreros Teshuva O.C. 1:225.

1:4. Refer to ibid for additional reasons.

Moadim V’zemanim 1:4.

eating before shofar, and a weak person should eat in private.23 Harav Henkin zt”l24 is quoted as saying that one should not eat before tekios (except for sick people).

Eating Before Shofar – Reason for Custom The Sdei Chemed25 says that in his days it was common for people to make kiddush and drink tea even before leining. There were many talmidei chachamim in the crowd, and no one protested.26 The Sdei Chemed only permitted drinking; however, the custom of many is that even a healthy person may eat a small shiur of food as well. What is the rationale for this?

The Tzitz Eliezer27 explains as follows: The prohibition of eating before performing a mitzvah is because we are afraid that one will forget to do the

31 32 33

34

35 36

Nezer Hatorah 7:page 96.

O.C. 589:6.

See Magen Avraham (O.C. 489:1, concerning sefiras ha-omer) who says that women have accepted [certain] time-restricted mitzvos as obligations.

He does not, however, single out shofar more than any other time-restricted mitzvah. Chai Adam (141:7) and R’ Akiva Eiger (Teshuvos 1, addendum) also state that women have accepted shofar as an obligation.

See Nezirus Shimshon (quoted in Sdei Chemed, Ma’areches Mem, 136) and Teshuvos Sha’arei De’ah 2:237.

Salmas Chaim 1:88.

Eishel Avraham Butchatch 589, Chai Adam 141:7, Kitzur Shulchan Aruch 129:19. Refer to Rivevos Ephraim 3:393:2,

38 39 40

41

42 43

44 45

46

4:144:32.

Opinion of Harav Shlomo Zalman Aurbach zt”l as quoted in Lev Avraham 1:page 18.

Refer to Minchas Yitzchok 5:111.

Divrei Bineyahu 13:43.

Orchos Rabbeinu 2:page 182:4. Refer to Darchei Chaim V’sholom 716:page 251.

Orchos Rabbeinu 2:page 181:1. Refer to Chelek Levi 189.

As related by Harav Aron Felder Shlita.

As quoted in Chag B’chag page 113:footnote 79.

Matei Ephraim 588:2.

Katzei Hamatei 588:5. See Orchos Rabbeinu 2:page 181:1.

Rama O.C. 232:2, Mishnah Berurah 235:18.

Custom of Some Gedolim The Steipler zt”l used to recite the Zohar and other tefillos during the break. In his later years, he recited portions of Tehillim.40 He did not make kiddush before tekios.41 Harav Moshe Feinstein zt”l did not eat before tekios.42 Harav Elyashiv zt”l43 and lbc”l Harav Yisroel Belsky shlita do not eat or drink before tekios.

Weak Person If one is weak and will not be able to concentrate without eating, he should make kiddush and eat and drink. This should be done in a discreet manner.44 One may drink coffee and tea without kiddush according to many poskim.45 Appointing a Shomer In a place where a person reminds people to go to shul for mincha or maariv, it is permitted to eat a regular meal before davening, since people

47

48

49

50

51

52

53

Refer to Peshat V’iyan Meseches Berachos page 98:447, Piskei Teshuvos 585:2.

Opinion of Harav Yisroel Belsky Shlita, see Mikadesh Yisroel (Yomim Noraim) 140.

Moadim V’zemanim 8:1:4, Teshuvos V’hanhagos 4:138, 5:179.

Refer to Shulchan Aruch 128:38, Ohr Hahalacha 1:page 56:38, Moadim V’zemanim 1:4. See Kaf Hachaim 286:26.

Ze Hashulchan 500:page 80, Katzei Hamatei end of 590:28, Gam Ani Odcha 86:19 (page 178).

Harav Yisroel Belsky Shlita, see Elef Hamagen 621:6, Oles Noach 7:pages 31-33, Teshuvos V’hanhagos 2:277, Be’er Eliyahu O.C. 3:76, Refer to Matei Ephraim 590:37.

Orchos Rabbeinu 1:page 2 (additions to chelek 1).

Rosh Hashanah on Shabbos When Rosh Hashanah falls out on Shabbos, the shofar is not blown.

Therefore, some poskim say that one may eat before mussaf. However, one is still bound by the halachos that apply to eating before mussaf on a regular Shabbos, as discussed below.48 Others feel that one should not eat even when Rosh Hashanah falls out on Shabbos.49 Kohanim and Eating at the Kiddush A kohen who wishes to duchan at birchas kohanim should not drink a reviis of wine because he will not be in the correct state of mind to perform the mitzvah.50 Leaving Sifrei Torah on the Bimah During the break on Rosh Hashanah, the custom of most places is to place the sifrei Torah on the bimah, covered with a tallis. This may be considered a disgrace, since the sifrei Torah are left alone, and the shul is empty of people. Is this the preferred method, or is there an alternative? Often, there are a few people who do not eat and remain in the shul, so they can watch the sifrei Torah.

Some recommend returning the sifrei Torah to the aron kodesh before the break.51 There are a few disadvantages to this approach. First, the shofar reminds us of Har Sinai (Torah), so it is appropriate to keep the sifrei Torah on the bimah for shofar. In addition, the half kaddish that is said before mussaf applies to returning the sifrei Torah to the aron kodesh. If one would place them in the aron kodesh before the break, then no half kaddish would be said before mussaf. The custom of most places is to leave the sifrei Torah on the bimah, covered with a tallis.52

54 55 56 57

58

59

60

61

Kol Amunim 1:page 28:1.

Refer to Meseches Berochos 28b.

Meseches Berochos 28b, Taz 286:2.

Shulchan Aruch 286:3, Magen Avraham 1, Mishnah Berurah 8. For a discussion on this refer to Birurei Chaim 1:pages 329-333.

Bach O.C. 286, Chasam Sofer O.C. 69, Mishnah Berurah 9, Shar Hatzyion 9, Kaf Hachaim 31, Aruch Hashulchan 13.

Refer to Magen Avraham 286:1, Taz 2, Mishnah Berurah 9. Refer to Shulchan Aruch 286:3, Aruch Hashulchan 286:13, Kaf Hachaim 31, Yabea Omer O.C. 5:22, see Nishmas Shabbos 2:362.

Birchei Yosef 386:7, Daas Torah 286:3, Ikrei Hadat O.C. 13:3, Ohr L’tzyion 2:2:14.

Refer to Chelek Levi 189:page 72.

Magen Avraham 286:1, Erech Shai 652,

Tallis and the Break People frequently remove their tallisim during the break. Usually the break is not for more than 20-30 minutes. The question arises whether one has to recite another bracha on his tallis when he returns from the break. Some require a new bracha,53 but the custom is not to recite a new bracha unless the break is for more than two hours.54 Eating before Mussaf in General (not necessarily on Rosh Hashanah) There is a discussion in the poskim if one is permitted to eat before Mussaf on Shabbos. There is a minority opinion that holds one may not even taste food before Mussaf,55 but the halacha does not follow this opinion and one is allowed to taste before Mussaf.56 This includes bread up to a kebeitzah, fruit, and mezonos.57 There are some poskim who say that even a meal would be permitted if one feels ill and needs to eat in order to concentrate.58 However, this is not the overwhelming custom unless one is weak.59 In addition, there is a discussion whether one who eats before davening is required to make kiddush. There are some who are lenient, since the obligation for kiddush may only apply after davening,60 but most poskim require kiddush prior to eating before davening.61 If one does not have wine or other valid beverages for kiddush, he can be lenient.62 If there is no food, then one should drink an entire reviis of wine.63 There is a discussion in the poskim if one may eat before mussaf by appointing a shomer to remind him to daven mussaf after he finishes eating.64 Rabbi Moishe Dovid Lebovits is a former chaver kollel of Yeshiva Torah Vodaath and a musmach of Harav Yisroel Belsky shlita. Rabbi Lebovits currently works as the Rabbinical Administrator for the KOF-K Kosher Supervision.

62

63 64

Biur Halacha 286 “achila,” 289 “chovas,” Aruch Hashulchan 286:14, Kaf Hachaim 286:24, Aprakasisa D’yana 1:65, Hisoreros Teshuva 138, opinion of Harav Shlomo Zalman Aurbach zt”l quoted in Yeshurun 15:page 122, Nishmas Shabbos 2:364, Mikadesh Yisroel (Yomim Noraim) 137, Shevet Halevi 4:54:3, Betzel Hachochmah 4:147, Igros Moshe O.C. 2:26:2, , Avnei Yoshpei 1:66.

Sharei Teshuva 1, Mishnah Berurah 386:9, Kaf Hachaim 28, Yabea Omer O.C. 5:22.

Refer to Minchas Shabbos 77:34, see Kovetz Bais Aron V’Yisroel 12:pages 107111.

Mishnah Berurah 286:7.

Refer to Sharei Zevulun 13:page 69-73 in great depth.

TJH

103 37

SEPTEMBER 23, 2014

37

Custom in Yeshivos The custom of many Yeshivos is for everyone to go to the dining room, hear kiddush and eat.37 Others are not happy with this since everyone eats publicly.38 It would be preferable that those who are weak make kiddush and eat in private.39

will not forget to daven.46 The poskim do not mention this as an option to permit a person to eat before hearing the shofar.47

THE BALTIMORE JEWISH HOME

Women The restriction on eating before tekias shofar is more lenient in regard to women, because they are generally exempt from time-bound mitzvos like listening to the shofar.32 There are poskim, however, who hold that although women are technically exempt from listening to shofar, they have nevertheless accepted this mitzvah upon them-

selves as an obligation.33 Based on this view, it has become customary all over the world for women to go to shul to listen to the shofar, or else to hear the shofar at home.

Not all poskim, however, agree that women have accepted upon themselves an obligation from which they are clearly exempt.34 Some poskim rule, therefore, that women are not obligated to listen to tekias shofar.35 Although most women follow the stringent opinion, a woman who must eat before tekias shofar may do so,36 even if the amount of food she requires is considered a kevius seudah.

T H E J E W I S H H O M E n M AY 2 4 , 2012

mitzvah since he is preoccupied with eating. On Rosh Hashanah, however, everyone eats together, and the entire break is over in a short period of time.

It is very unlikely that the entire congregation will forget about the shofar because of the eating. Therefore, it is permitted to make kiddush and eat and drink within the parameters expressed above (see “Tasting”).

Others offer a unique explanation for this heter: During the era when the Sanhedrin established the calendar based on witnesses’ sightings of the moon, they would not blow shofar until the witnesses testified. The witnesses most often would not appear until the latter part of the day. Chazal did not impose a prohibition to eat until tekias shofar because it would constitute too great a burden to require everyone to wait until the end of the day to eat.28 Even today, when we have a set calendar, there is no restriction on eating before shofar.

The Moadim V’zemanim29 says we know that one is supposed to have simchas Yom Tov, and the long davening may limit the simchas Yom Tov. Therefore, we eat a bit at the break.30 Another argument is that we make a break for the older people and women who need to eat because the davening is too long. Once we are making a break, the healthy people may also eat.31 In any case, one should make sure not to overeat, as a full stomach will hinder his concentration.

T H E J E W I S H H O M E n M AY 2 4 , 2012

THE BALTIMORE JEWISH HOME

SEPTEMBER 23, 2014

38 86

A Peek into the Sweet Life of a Honeybee

BY BRENDY J. SIEV

If

you’re

reading

this

article, chances are you’re planning on dipping and drizzling some honey for a sweet next year.

If

you’re

reading

this

article, chances are that you have already eaten 1.3 pounds of honey this past sweet year.

And it took 104 honeybees to make that just for you, from nectar from 2.7 million flowers. In fact, those bees flew 75,000 miles to do that, as if they rotated the Earth 3 times to get all the nectar for your sweet treat.

What’s the story behind that honey, that magical liquid sweetness?

Super-sweet Origins

Honey is manufactured by bees from nectar they find in flowers. While bumblebees and some wasps can also make honey, most honey comes from honeybees and has been harvested by beekeepers.

Its manufacture is lovely and complex.

The bees gather nectar from various local flowers, called pasturage. They swallow it into their honey stomachs. Then they bring it back to the hive where they regurgitate it. The nectar is digested and regurgitated several times and then stuck into a tiny little hexagonal cell in the honeycomb.

But this honey isn’t so sweet—it’s rather watery. All that water could invite bacterial growth and spoilage.

So the bees work to evaporate off all the water. They start to fan their wings, creating coolness on the comb and a strong draft. This lifts the excess water off, concentrates the sugar making it supersaturated, and stops any possible fermentation. Then, the bees seal that part of the honeycomb with more beeswax, where it’s ready for winter.

This honey has a long shelf life. As long as it’s sealed against moisture, it can last hundreds of years. (Though microorganisms can’t grow in it, sometimes tiny spores of the bacteria clostridium botulinum remain suspended in the honey. These are only dangerous to infants, because these spores “hatch” and transform into live bacteria in immature baby GI tracts.)

While honey is as sweet as sugar, this natural dehydration makes it slightly acidic. But its inherent moist sweetness makes for an excellent moist muffin or a glazed steak.

Honey Flavors

The taste of honey depends on the flowers the bee harvest-

ed for nectar. Scientists can even tell where the honey comes from by looking at the pollens and spores in unfiltered honey.

To make monofloral honey, or honey from one flower, beekeepers give their bees limited access: they keep the hives surrounded by acreage of the same flowers. Most of the honey that reaches our tables, therefore, has been blended, so that we taste combined flower power.

The most common pasturage in North America is clover, orange blossom, blueberry, sage, tupelo, buckwheat, fireweed, mesquite, and sourwood. In Europe, honey comes from thyme, thistle, heather, acacia, dandelion, sunflower, honeysuckle, and lime/chestnut trees. North African honey comes from the nectar of clover, cotton, and citrus (orange blossoms).

Bits of pollen from these flowers that the bees drop into the honey lend the honey antioxidant superpowers. The pollen, pocketed by bees in little pollen baskets on their hind legs, has special proteins and amino acids intended to nourish baby bees. They help people too: in the lab, honey kills cancer cells. Some people believe it helps alleviate their allergies to particular flora, as they desensitize their bodies to particular pollens.

Some honey, called honeydew honey, does not come from nectar at all. Bees in places like Germany’s Black Forest and Bulgaria take sweet secretions of aphids in the forest. This honey is very dark, smells like fig jam, and is not so sweet.

Ready and Ripe

Because the honey needs to be processed and cooled by the bees, beekeepers need to be able to tell exactly when the honey is ready for the taking. In beekeeping parlance, this means that they need to know when the honey is ripe.

ximize to mam your iles

cas h in

SEPTEMBER 23, 2014

EXCHANGE join our thousands of satisfied customers

732.367.MILE

MILEs@ahExchangE.nEt [ 6 4 5 3 ] c o r p o r at e

WE BUY MILES & CREDIT CARD POINTS

a c c o u n t s

w e l c o m e

GREAT RATES | IMMEDIATE PAY | SIMPLIFIED PROCESS

DELTA • UNITED • AMEX • STARWOOD • AIR CANADA • CHASE REWARDS • & MORE

w

& Be w st o W te e rkm qua n w a li qu ill n ty ot be sh es a ip by t 10 %

rit

MHIC 82438

Gourmet honey

comes from the French island of Corsica and is

Hive Sweet Hive

Sometimes it’s time to move on. Bee real estate has specific criteria; their interior design is specific as well.

Location, location, location: The potential site for a new hive must be large enough to hold not less than 6.5 gallons of honey. It needs a small entrance, with

valued like the champagne of honey.

THE BALTIMORE JEWISH HOME

Hip Hop Honey

Most honey comes from “artificial hives” kept by beekeepers. They harvest the bees’ excess honey, and consider their bees “semi-domesticated.” Many of these bees have been trained or bred not to sting.

Artificial or natural, each hive has a queen bee, a variable number of male drones, and 20,000 – 40,000 female worker bees.

That’s right: even in the 21st century, the women are still doing the cooking and caretaking. They raise the larvae and collect the nectar and bring it back to make the honey. And they do it while dancing.

Yes, that’s the way they communicate with their sisters. They do the waggle dance. The entrance to each hive has a special dance floor. When bees return to the hive from a nectar-hunting expedition, they do a little dance for their sisters.

During the waggle, the bee dances in a figure-8 pattern with a straight walk between loops and sporadic fluttering of wings.

Long waggles (100 per dance) mean that the flower patch is far away: every extra 75 milliseconds indicate another 330 feet of distance. The bee’s vigor while dancing shows how rich the source is.

And she dances at an angle, showing the nectar source’s angle to the sun.

Through her antennae, she shares the smell of the flowers.

She does a shake dance when the source is very rich. She does a tremble dance when the site has so much nectar that she needs more bees to process them.

So, after her arrival at the hive, her sisters know exactly how far to fly and at what angle to get more nectar. They know the flower they’re seeking by smell. And they know how many bees are needed to harvest the flowers.

87 39 T H E J E W I S H H O M E n M AY 2 4 , 2012

Ripe, freshly-collected honey flows from a knife in a straight stream, not breaking into drops. After falling, the honey forms a bead. When poured, the honey creates small temporary layers that disappear fairly quickly.

The honey is classified by letters A, B, or C, as well as by its floral source and packaging or processing. It gets scored by a number based on color and optical density (or clarity). Zero, for example, is water white honey, while 114 is dark amber.

The perfect honey has a good, normal flavor, without caramelization, smoke or chemicals, and very low water content.

Raw honey has not been exposed to any heat. It has been strained as is, and so contains some pollen and tiny bits of wax.

This is the honey that allergy sufferers turn to to build up tolerance to pollen. Most other honey has been strained and heated to around 160 degrees, so that it can pass easily through a finer filter.

Honey also comes in creamed and dried versions, as well as on the comb.

Your Local Roofing Contractor • Best service and best quality products • 10 Year labor warranty on all new roofs • 1000S of satisfied and happy customers • Factory trained employees on every job • Licensed by all major roofing manufactures • 3 Generations of roofing contractors from father to son Call Gedaliah Kosoy

410-358-ROOF 7 6 6 3

Visit our new roofing show room at 7092 Milford Ind Road • Pikesville MD 21208 New Roofs • Roof Repairs • Regular & Designer Shingles Attic Blown In Insulation •Seamless Gutters 5 & 6 • Attic Ventilatio Chimney Pointing • Drywall Repair Exterior Painting • ,ca rnua

a maximum diameter of 1.5 inches. It must face south for warmth and be high off ground.

Like little Martha Stewarts, once the bees find the site, they get to work.

They scrape off loose wood and coat the interior with bee paint, called propolis or dried tree resin. Then, the bees generate beeswax and varnish the interior walls with floral herbicides and fungicides. They embed a special colony-specific odor to distinguish between intruders and members.

The finished nest has 100,000 cells in six combs. This means that the total surface area of the hive is 27 square feet. The hive takes 2.5 pounds of beeswax and 15 pounds of honey to synthesize the wax.

These cells store more than 40 pounds of honey needed to survive a typical winter and nursery space for 20,000 immature bees that the overwintering bees will raise in the spring.

To defend the hive, bees can use their stingers, but they mostly rely on a protective nest. Guard bees patrol the entrances and communicate through pheromones when they feel threatened. Once they communicate, they launch a massive counterattack against intruders.

T H E J E W I S H H O M E n M AY 2 4 , 2012

THE BALTIMORE JEWISH HOME

SEPTEMBER 23, 2014

40 88

Love that Honey

When bees return to the hive from a nectarhunting expedition, they do a little dance for their sisters.

Over time, honey has been used by various cultures as a talisman and a symbol of sweetness. Cave drawings found in Spain, painted thousands of years ago, show honey seekers, people climbing ropes to reach a wild bee nest.

In those times, people relied on the honeyguide bird to lead them to wild bee hives. Remains of honey have been found in Georgia in clay vessels of an ancient tomb.

The Egyptians used honey to sweeten cakes and biscuits and to embalm the dead. They offered honey to the gods.

The Maya considered bees sacred and used honey as a basic food. In Rome, Pliny the Elder wrote about bees and honey in his Naturalis Historia, and in China, Fan Li wrote about beekeeping in the Golden Rules of Business Success. In India, the Hindu consider honey one of the five elixirs of immortality. They have used honey for medicine for more than 4,000 years.

Even today, doctors in Russia use honey to cure infected wounds, and British pediatricians recommend honey for children with sore throats and coughs.

Interestingly, because honey is only processed by the bee in its honey stomach, it is kosher. This is the only food from a non-kosher source that we can eat. Unlike milk, that is created by an animal, honey is manufactured by the bee.

Today’s top honey producers are China, Turkey, Argentina, the Ukraine, and America. Gourmet honey comes from the French island of Corsica and is valued like the champagne of honey.

Worldwide, in 2012, 1.3 million metric tons of honey were produced. Considering that a bee, in its entire lifetime, only makes 1.5 teaspoons of honey, that’s a lot of beekeeping.

So, You Wanna Be a Beekeeper?

Want to start your own little hive? Be a hobbyist beekeeper. Log onto beesource.com and join 14,000 members in the most active online beekeeping community. You’ll cultivate

honey and beeswax, or, if you’re African, honey beer.

When you’re ready to harvest your honey, you’ll pull out the comb, cut it up and squeeze out the honey with your hands. Then you’ll strain it through a wire strainer and finer mesh. Perhaps you’ll use centrifugal force in a machine filter to force the honey out of the comb.

Since you’ll want the beeswax—it’s used in makeup, pharmaceuticals, polishes, and candles—you’ll put the empty comb in water, heat the water slightly until the wax melts, and then strain it through a screen. When the wax hardens, it’ll separate from the water, and you’ll have your prized beeswax that you can store and sell.

Once you get a wee bit more professional, you’ll take your combs to an extractor room where machines will do the scraping and filtering for you and pour the honey into barrels.

When the barrels arrive at the packaging plant, workers will surround the barrels with heating belts to make the honey a tad more manageable. Then your honey will be poured through pipes and pistons into jars.

Interested in meeting a fellow city-dweller who pulled this off and made lots of money? Consider Burt Shavitz, the man behind Burt’s Bees.

Burt’s Bees: The World’s Most Famous Beekeeper

The world’s most famous beekeeper, according to the New York Times, is Burt Shavitz, founder of Burt’s Bees.

Shavitz, star of the documentary “Burt’s Buzz,” grew up in New York, but a childhood summer in Maine convinced him that life lived apart is the real Eden. He worked for years as a photojournalist in New York; he then moved to Maine and became a beekeeper. He no longer owns this eponymous company: he sold his shares before it was sold for hundreds of millions of dollars. He gets paid for the use of his image.

A cross between a hippie and a mountain man, Shavitz— yes, that’s his face on the Burt’s Bees lip balm and other products—loves living far from others on his own land. At 79, he lives in northern Maine with no running water. He heats by woodstove. He has a radio he occasionally listens to with an antenna: a piece of aluminum foil on it gives a bit of better reception.

How did he learn to keep bees?

“It was a godsend,” he told the Times. “Manna out of the heavens. The fact that there was a man who was patient, knowledgeable and even-tempered to teach me beekeeping was another plus. He told me to stand back and watch what he did. He showed me how to use the tools.”

Burt would still keep bees, but he has a bad back.

And What about Those Honeystix?

Those thin straws of honey are simply long tubes of plastic that are filled by special machine and then cut and sealed into sticks. Honeystix, that are kosher, were dubbed the Candy of the Future at the 1986 World Trade Exposition, and NASA made sure to stick them on shuttles as the zero-gravity candy for space flights. They’ve been on Mount Everest expeditions too.

And who thought of them?

Beekeeper Glenn Peters of Salem, Oregon, was trying to give people a taste of his honey. He was sure they would buy jars of it if they could only taste a teaspoon. But the smallest packages available—then—were those bear bottles (you know the type).

And then, one night, he went to the theater and ordered a soda at the concession. He pulled the wrapper off his straw and thought, Perfect! He contacted the straw manufacturer the next day and soon people were buying not just his honey, but his honey in its sample size.

TJH I’m sure you’ll be enjoying one this Tishrei too. 

73 41 Rabbi Yanki Tauber

Once,

Yom Kippur for more than twenty years now, and had always wanted to observe his Rebbe at this most solemn moment.

“You want to see an extraordinary kaparot?” said Rabbi Elimelech. “Go observe how Moshe the tavern-keeper does kaparot. Now, there you’ll see something far more inspiring than my own, ordinary kaparot.”

The chassid located Moshe’s tavern at a crossroads several miles outside of Lizhensk and asked to stay the night. “I’m sorry,” said the tavern-keeper. “As you see, this is a small establishment, and we don’t have any rooms to let. There’s an inn a small distance further down the road.”

“Please,” begged the chassid, “I’ve been traveling all day, and I want to rest awhile. I don’t need a room – I’ll just curl up in a corner for a few hours and be on my way.”

“O.K.,” said Moshe.

“We’ll be closing up shortly, and then you can get some sleep.”

After much shouting, cajoling and threatening, Moshe succeeded in herding his clientele of drunken peasants out the door. The chairs and tables were stacked in a corner, and the room, which also served as the tavern-keeper’s living quarters, readied for the night. Midnight had long passed, and the hour of kaparot was approaching. The chassid, wrapped in his blanket under a table, feigned sleep, but kept watch in the darkened room, determined not to miss anything.

Before dawn, Moshe rose from his bed, washed his hands and recited the morning blessings. “Time for kaparot!” he called quietly to his wife, taking care not to wake his guest. “Yentel, please bring me the notebook – it’s on the shelf above the cupboard.”

Moshe sat himself on a small stool, lit a candle, and began reading from the notebook, unaware that his “sleeping” guest was wide awake and straining to hear every word. The notebook was a diary of all the misdeeds and transgressions the tavern-keeper had committed in the course of the year, the date, time and circumstance of each scrupulously noted.

His “sins” were quite benign – a word of gossip one day, oversleeping the time for prayer on an-

other, neglecting to give his daily coin to charity on a third – but by the time Moshe had read through the first few pages, his face was bathed in tears. For more than an hour Moshe read and wept, until the last page had been turned.

“Dear Father, today is the eve of Yom Kippur, when everyone forgives and is forgiven.”

“Yentel,” he now called to his wife, “bring me the second notebook.”

This, too, was a diary – of all the troubles and misfortunes that had befallen him in the course of the year. On this day Moshe was beaten by a gang of peasants, on that day his child fell ill; once, in the dead of winter, the family had frozen for several nights for lack of firewood; another time their cow had died, and there was no milk until enough rubles had been saved to buy another.

When he had finished reading the second notebook, the tavern-keeper lifted his eyes heavenward and said: “So you see, dear Father in Heaven, I have sinned against You. Last year I repented and promised to fulfill Your commandments, but I repeatedly succumbed to my evil inclination. But last year I also prayed and begged You for a year of health and prosperity, and I trusted in You that it would indeed be this way.

“Dear Father, today is the eve of Yom Kippur, when everyone forgives and is forgiven. Let us put the past behind us. I’ll accept my troubles as atonement for my sins, and You, in Your great mercy, shall do the same.”

Moshe took the two notebooks in his hands, raised them aloft, circled them three times above his head, and said: “This is my exchange, this is in my stead, this is my atonement.” He then threw them into the fireplace, where the smoldering coals TJH soon turned the tear-stained pages to ashes.  Yanki Tauber is the content editor of Chabad.org. Reprinted with permission from Chabad.org.

SEPTEMBER 23, 2014

on the evening before Yom Kippur, one of the chassidim of Rabbi Elimelech of Lizhensk asked his Rebbe to allow him to see how he, Rabbi Elimelech, observes the custom of kaparot.

“How I do kaparot?” repeated Rabbi Elimelech.

“How do you do kaparot?”

“I am an ordinary Jew – I do what everyone else does. I hold the rooster in one hand, the prayer book in the other, and recite the text, ‘This is my exchange, this is in my stead, this is my atonement...’”

“That’s exactly what I do,” said Rabbi Elimelech. “I take the rooster in one hand, the prayer book in the other, and recite the text. Actually, there might be a certain difference between your kaparot and mine: you probably make sure to use a white rooster, while to me it makes no difference: white, black, brown – a rooster’s a rooster...”

But the chassid persisted that his Rebbe’s kaparot was certainly no ordinary event. He had been coming to Lizhensk to pray with the Rebbe every

THE BALTIMORE JEWISH HOME

The Paper Chicken

T H E J E W I S H H O M E n M AY 2 4 , 2012

Chassidic Tales

THE BALTIMORE JEWISH HOME

SEPTEMBER 23, 2014

42

In the Kitchen

BY JAMIE GELLER

m i n a m i AS u n e M d Inspire S

imanim are so my thing. Now, of

cabbage, pomegranate, apples, leeks and

course I know that on Rosh Hashanah

dates). I am nothing if not efficient. And all

they are everyone’s thing, but in

recipes are kissed with honey… well more

addition to holding a Rosh Hashanah Seder

than kissed. I call for generous measurements

where all the simanim make an appearance

because why shouldn’t our cup runneth over

(even that fish head!) I let them inspire my

with sweetness this new year?!

menu.

This fish course features no less than 9 simanim (fish, honey, spinach, carrots,

This entire course serves 6 to 8 and can easily be doubled and tripled should your table runneth over with company.

Jamie Geller is one of the most sought-after Jewish food personalities worldwide. A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of NYU, Jamie developed an outstanding media career as an award-winning TV producer and marketing executive at CNN, HBO and The Food Network. Ever since her first cookbook, Quick & Kosher: Recipes from the Bride Who Knew Nothing (Feldheim, 2007), became a Jewish cookbook classic she has been at the helm of a rapidly growing media empire. The savvy bestselling author founded Kosher Media Network (KMN), an integrated media and marketing company along with Chairman Henry Kauftheil and spearheaded by Grey Advertising veteran Milt Weinstock. KMN is organized into four business segments: Publishing, Broadcasting, Digital, and Live.

In the spring of 2010, KMN, unveiled its Joy of Kosher with Jamie Geller consumer brand, with the simultaneous launch of JoyofKosher.com – the first and #1 social networking community for the kosher foodie – and the awardwinning magazine, Joy of Kosher with Jamie Geller.

I tested this recipe on my family the night my mom arrived from Philly for her annual Israel summer visit.

Two ladies and five kids ka”h polished off this 2 pound side of salmon in a blink. Any recipe that has my kids eating and loving heart-healthy fish is a year-round winner.

te Spinach Salad with Pomegrana

Dressing

It’s incredible how simanim-inspired cooking can also be healthful. This salad is loaded with green leafy spinach, carrots and cabbage and topped with whole wheat croutons. Just trying to keep your “new year’s resolutions” on track from day one.

Ingredients For Salad 6 cups baby spinach leaves, whole or thinly sliced 2 cups carrot ribbons 1 cup cucumber ribbons 1 cup thinly sliced red cabbage Honey whole wheat croutons (recipe below) ½ cup pomegranate seeds For Dressing 1 shallot, minced 2 tablespoons pomegranate juice 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar 1 teaspoon kosher salt ½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper ½ cup extra-virgin olive oil Preparation In a salad bowl, toss the spinach, carrots, cucumbers, cabbage, croutons and pomegranate seeds.

In another bowl, whisk shallots with pomegranate

Apple Rice Salad

Preparation Preheat oven to 350°F. Line a baking sheet with baking paper. Place salmon skin-side down on prepared pan.

In a small bowl, whisk together garlic, oil, and honey. Pour and brush glaze all over salmon. Sprinkle with sesame seeds. Bake at 350°F for 25 to 30 minutes or until cooked through.

To sear lemons: Cut lemons in half and sear cutside down in a medium sauté pan over high heat for 5 minutes or until nicely browned.

To prepare sauce: In a small bowl whisk together mustard, mayonnaise, honey, lemon juice, and dill.

Serve salmon warm or at room temperature with dipping sauce, and seared lemon halves for garnish.

juice, mustard, vinegar, salt, and pepper. Whisk in oil in a steady stream. Before serving, drizzle dressing over spinach salad to taste, and gently toss to coat.

Honey W ho le W heat C hallah C

rout ons

I always use my leftover challah to make croutons and these are extraTJHspecial being laced with honey.

If you measure your oil first, your honey will easily slide right off that tablespoon.

Ingredients 2 cubes Gefen frozen fresh crushed garlic or 2 minced garlic cloves 2 tablespoons olive oil 2 generous tablespoons honey 4 cups whole wheat challah, cut into 1-inch cubes Preparation Preheat oven to 425°F. Line a baking sheet with baking paper.

In a large mixing bowl, whisk together garlic, oil, and honey. Add bread cubes and toss to coat.

Spread on prepared baking sheet in a single layer with enough space so the bread will crisp. Bake at 425°F for 3 to 5 minutes or until golden and crisp.

Once completely cooled, store any extra croutons in a resealable bag for at least 2 weeks.

Since lots of Ashkenazi folks have the custom to refrain from nuts during the High Holiday season, I have omitted them from this recipe. But year-round, consider adding ¼ to ½ cup chopped walnuts.

3 tablespoons red wine vinegar 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil 2 generous tablespoons honey Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper to taste 1 red apple, cored, quartered and thinly sliced

Ingredients 4 cups cooked brown or wild rice 1 cup thinly sliced celery ¼ cup thinly sliced leeks 4 pitted dates, thinly sliced ¼ cup chopped fresh dill 2 tablespoons lemon juice

Preparation In a large bowl, combine rice, celery, leeks, dates, and dill. Gently toss to combine.

In a small bowl, whisk together lemon juice, vinegar, oil, honey, salt and pepper. Pour dressing over rice salad and toss to coat evenly. Top with apples just before serving.

SEPTEMBER 23, 2014

Ingredients For Salmon 2 pounds side of salmon, skin on 2 cubes Gefen frozen crushed garlic or 2 minced garlic cloves 2 tablespoons olive oil 2 generous tablespoons honey 2 teaspoons toasted sesame seeds 2 teaspoons black sesame seeds Seared lemon halves for garnish

For Sauce ¼ cup Dijon or yellow mustard ½ cup regular or light mayonnaise ¼ cup honey 2 to 3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice 3 tablespoons chopped fresh dill

THE BALTIMORE JEWISH HOME

with Honey-Sesame Side of Sal mon ping Sauce Honey Mustard and Dill Dip

43

100 T h e J e w i s h h o m e n m ay 2 4 , 2012

THE BALTIMORE JEWISH HOME

SEPTEMBER 23, 2014

44

Kosherology Alex Idov

End the Meal on a Sweet Note Apple Honey Cake Ingredients 1 cup white sugar, or ½ white sugar and ½ brown sugar 1 cup applesauce 2 large eggs ¾ cup clover honey 1 tsp imitation vanilla extract 2 ½ cups cake flour 1 tsp baking powder 1 tsp baking soda 1 tsp salt 1 tsp ground cinnamon ¼ tsp ground allspice 3 large gala or Fuji apples and 1 Granny Smith apple

Biscochitos/Biscochees

Sephardic Cinnamon Sugar Cookie Rings Ingredients 6 eggs 1 ½ cups sugar 1 cup oil ½ cup orange juice Rind of one orange 8 cups flour 1 TBS + 1 tsp baking powder 1 tsp baking soda 1 tsp vanilla extract Pinch salt Cinnamon/sugar Preparation Preheat oven to 350°F. In a mixer, beat eggs. Slowly add sugar and beat until creamy. Add remaining ingredients while continuing to beat and beat until a thick dough is formed. (If the dough is too sticky to work with, you can add a little flour to make it more firm.) Refrigerate for at least one hour. (I recommend when rolling the cookies to remove small portions of dough from the refrigerator at a time so the rest will be as firm as possible.)

Roll dough into strands and cut into 1” strips. Roll into cinnamon-sugar mixture and form into a ring, pinching down where the ends meet. Two strips may be braided together after being rolled in cinnamon-sugar for a braided effect.

Place on a cookie sheet and bake for 15 minutes.

Preparation Preheat oven to 325° F. Beat sugar and oil until creamy. Add eggs, one at a time. Add honey and vanilla.

In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking powder, soda, salt, cinnamon, and allspice. Add flour mixture to liquid mixture. Shred or grate apples and add to cake batter.

Pour into a liberally greased Bundt pan and bake for 50-60 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.

101

Cinnamon Ice Cream

Ingredients 1 cup white sugar ¾ cup non-dairy creamer ¾ cup water 1 cup parve whipping cream 1 tsp. vanilla extract 2 tsp. ground cinnamon 2 eggs, beaten

White Chocolate Pomegranate Meringues Ingredients 3 eggs whites, at room temperature 1/8 tsp white distilled vinegar ¾ cup sugar Dash of salt ½ cup fresh pomegranate seeds ½ cup white chocolate chips Preparation Preheat oven to 275°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Beat egg whites, salt, and vinegar until they stand in soft peaks. Add sugar, a little at a time, and continue to beat until stiff. Gently fold in pomegranate seeds and white chocolate chips.

Place the mixture in a piping bag with a large opening out the bottom and pipe out into a peak shape. Bake for 50 minutes-1 hour or until lightly golden.

Preparation In a saucepan, whisk together the sugar, non-dairy creamer, and water over medium-low heat. When the mixture begins to simmer, add eggs and continue to whisk. (Whisk the mixture quickly and constantly so the eggs do not scramble).

In a mixing bowl, whip cream until stiff. Add whipped cream to saucepan and continue whisking. (The cream will melt, but should still retain some firmness). Add vanilla and cinnamon and whisk a final time. Freeze.

After mixture is frozen, place in mixer and whip or beat the mixture to churn the ice cream. Re-freeze the ice cream and repeat the process one more time.

If using an ice-cream maker, prepare according to manufacturer’s instructions.

SEPTEMBER 23, 2014

Preparation Preheat oven to 400°F. Coat apples in enough flour to make them lightly powdered and silky and set aside. Mix together white and brown sugars and cinnamon until thoroughly combined. Sprinkle a small amount of the sugar mixture onto the bottom of the pie shell. Place apples on pie shell until the dough is covered.

Generously cover the apples with sugar mixture and cover with another layer of apples. Repeat until both the apples and sugar mixture are used up.

For the crumble topping, combine 1/3 cup sugar with margarine and flour, crumbling with your hand and sprinkle over pie.

Bake 30-40 minutes, or until the top is a light golden-brown color.

THE BALTIMORE JEWISH HOME

Ingredients 1 unbaked deep-dish pastry pie shell 5 cups Gala apples, cored and thinly sliced ¼ cup brown sugar ¼ cup white sugar ¼ tsp. ground cinnamon Flour for coating apples Crumble 1/3 cup sugar 6 tablespoons margarine, room temperature ¾ cup flour

T h e J e w i s h h o m e n m ay 2 4 , 2012

Rustic Apple Crumble Pie and Cinnamon Ice Cream

45

Notable

THE BALTIMORE JEWISH HOME

SEPTEMBER 23, 2014

T H E J E W I S H H O M E n M AY 2 4 , 2012

46 90

Quotes

Compiled by Nate Davis

“Say What?”

Vice President Joe Biden will travel to Iowa this week, three days after Hillary Clinton’s high-profile return to the state. He’ll spend two days there — one campaigning and another stuck in a corn maze.

- Jimmy Fallon

An English-speaking man went into a coma and came out speaking only Mandarin Chinese.

It’s a true story. On the bright side, now he can find work.

- Conan O’Brien [Adrian Peterson] beat a fouryear-old with a tree branch.

Here’s a tip for any profootball players out there, curious as to whether or not they may be child abusers: You can’t do something to a four-year-old that you’re not allowed to do to a 300 pound lineman in a helmet and pads.

– John Stewart Don’t take me to an elevator!

- A heckler at NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell’s press conference

The kids like kale here, and they eat broccoli.

- Shelley Mathias, principal of Vermont’s Burlington County Elementary School, talking about the implementation of the federal school lunch and snack regulations championed by First Lady Michelle Obama

A new study found that artificial sweeteners in diet soda might actually increase some people’s chances of obesity. Doctors recommend people just drink water, while people said, “No. We’re drinking diet soda. You guys figure it out.”

– Jimmy Fallon

Go ahead and do what you’re gonna do. I pretty much dare you to give me the death penalty because I’m innocent.

– Convicted killer James Herard at his sentencing hearing in front of a Florida judge

I want to talk about the Orioles. This is in no way to minimize the debate going on now.

- Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) during the Senate debate on how to take on ISIS, stopping to congratulate the Orioles for clinching the American League eastern division There were no injuries this week when a truck in San Diego overturned and spilled thousands of oranges on a highway. But it did mark the first time in 20 years people in California were yelling, “Look out! OJ is on the highway.”

- Jimmy Fallon

Vast numbers of Christians do not believe that if you leave the Christian religion you should be killed for it.

Vast numbers of Christians do not treat women as second class citizens…So, to claim that this religion is like other religions is just naive and plain wrong. It is not like other religions.

- Bill Maher on the Charlie Rose Show on PBS, referring to Islam Amazon has cut the price of its Fire smartphone to just 99 cents to compete with the new iPhone. When they heard, even Blackberry said, “At least go out with dignity, man.”

- Jimmy Fallon

- Conan O’Brien Hillary Clinton also gave a speech in Iowa. She fueled speculation that she’ll run for president when she admitted that she’s “thinking about it.” And next week, she’ll be “thinking about it” when she’s in New Hampshire before she spends a few days “thinking about it” in Florida.

- Jimmy Fallon The people of Scotland are voting on whether to declare independence from the United Kingdom. If Scotland votes for Independence, it could have major ramifications. Great Britain is concerned that if they lose Scotland, they could be cut off from a major supply of bagpipes and kilts.

- Jimmy Kimmel The official ballot is one line: “Should Scotland be an independent country?”

And that’s it. Why is it that I have to go through 18 pages of terms and conditions to download iOS 8 while a whole country can secede from the United Kingdom by checking a box that says “Yes”?

- Ibid

We never treated President Bush the way they treat President Obama.

- Nancy Pelosi on MSNBC One could go on forever about the deceptiveness of the Jews. They are liars. They allow cannibalism, and the eating of human flesh. Check their Talmud and religious sources. On their religious holidays, if they cannot find a Muslim to slaughter, and use drops of his blood to knead the matzos they eat, they slaughter a Christian in order to take drops of his blood, and mix it into the matzos that they eat on that holiday.

- Sheik Abd Al-Mun’im Abu Zant on Hamas’ Al-Aqsa TV last week

If I wanted, Russian troops could not only be in Kiev in two days, but in Riga, Vilnius, Tallinn, Warsaw or Bucharest, too.

- Vladimir Putin during talks with Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko

President Obama hosted a picnic at the White House today for members of Congress. Obama said it was a great opportunity to gather every member of Congress in one place — so he could turn on the sprinklers. Payback!

- Jimmy Fallon

Now that we have read about two men of power who abused their power in various ways, we will compare and contrast them and their actions.

- The homework assignment asking 5th graders in McKinley Middle School in Washington D.C., to compare and contrast Hitler and George W. Bush after the class read Fighting Hitler, A Holocaust Story and Bush: Iraq War Justified Despite no WMD

Exchange between Sen. Rubio (R-FL) and Secretary of State John Kerry at a Senate hearing about ISIS: Rubio: Let me ask you about that then. What you’re saying now is there is the potential the U.S. will be coordinating with Iran.

Kerry: No, I never said anything about coordinating.

If we are failing and failing miserably who knows what choice they might make?

Today Trump Entertainment Resorts declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Or as Donald Trump described Chapter 11, “back-to-back No. 1’s.”

- Conan O’Brien

Do you know who I am? I’ll…kill you.

- George Zimmerman to a driver in Florida last week, during a road rage incident

QUOTES CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE

SEPTEMBER 23, 2014

The family sat with the National Security Council officials. And basically he [an official] bullied and hectored them [the family], and they were scared.

- Spokesman for the family of beheaded American journalist Steven Sotloff, on CBS, claiming that the Obama Administration did not cooperate with their attempts to try and figure out a way to rescue Steven

47

THE BALTIMORE JEWISH HOME

South African sports officials have ruled that Oscar Pistorius is free to run competitively again. Shortly after the announcement, he was signed by the NFL.

91 T H E J E W I S H H O M E n M AY 2 4 , 2012

With Jews we lose.

- Slogan of Robert Ransdell, a Neo-Nazi write-in candidate for U.S. Senate from Kentucky

92 T H E J E W I S H H O M E n M AY 2 4 , 2012

THE BALTIMORE JEWISH HOME

SEPTEMBER 23, 2014

48

In a recent interview, Texas Governor Rick Perry revealed that he has spent the last 20 months preparing to run for president. Then Hillary said, “Call me when you’ve spent 67 years.”

- Jimmy Fallon

The hero I had is Forrest Gump. I like that guy. I’ve been watching that movie for about ten times. Every time I get frustrated, I watch the movie. I watch the movie before I came here again for coming to New York. I watched the movie again.

- Jack Ma, CEO of Alibaba, the Chinese company that went public last week and is valued at close to $200 billion, when asked

by MSNBC who his hero is

Hillary Clinton’s supporters are calling on her to be more herself, after some of her recent appearances seemed to be too scripted. Hillary said, “I don’t know where you guys get this stuff. Shrug and shake head.”

- Jimmy Fallon Hey Ray, just want to let you know, we loved you as a player, it was great having you here. Hopefully all these things are going to die down.

I wish the best for you and Janay. ... When you’re done with football, I’d like you to know you have a job waiting for you with the Ravens helping young guys getting acclimated to the league.

- Text message sent to Ray Rice

by Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti minutes after he released him from the team

Thirteen years ago this October we started bombing Muslims in the Middle East. We’re still bombing them.

Does any sane person think that thirteen years from now we’re not going to still be bombing them? Of course we are. …Maybe there’s no alternative other than bombing people. But we’re getting in the middle of four— count ‘em—four civil wars here.

- Democrat strategist James Carville Everyone goes through the different stages of buying a new iPhone: The first stage is “I don’t need a new phone,” followed by “maybe I’ll just check it out in the store,” followed by “maybe something will happen to my current phone,” followed by, “oh no, it ‘fell’ in the toilet.”

- Jimmy Fallon

The team’s ownership and front office have only made things worse. Some fans had become so disenchanted that they pledged not to attend any games until there was a change in ownership. Others compared Castergine’s job to selling “deck chairs on the Titanic” or “tickets to a funeral.”

- From the complaint in a federal lawsuit filed by former New York Mets executive Leigh Castergine after she was fired

Well, Bob, I think there’s frankly a kind of tortured debate going on about terminology. What I’m focused on obviously is getting done what we need to get done to ISIL. But if people need to find a place to land: in terms of what we did in Iraq originally, this is not a war. This is not combat troops on the ground. It’s not hundreds of thousands of people. It’s not that kind of mobilization. But in terms of al Qaeda, which we have used the word war with, yeah, we’re at war with al Qaeda and its affiliates.

And in the same context, if you want to use it, yes, we’re at war with ISIL in that sense. But I think it’s a waste of time to focus on that, frankly, let’s consider what we have to do to degrade and defeat ISIL, and that’s what I’m frankly much more focused on.

- Secretary of State John Kerry’s “tortured” response when asked by CBS host Bob Schieffer whether or not “we are at war with ISIS”

The moss-covered-too-long in Washington crowd cannot help themselves. War, war, what we need is more, more war. Their policies and the combination of feckless disinterest, fraudulent red lines, and selective combativeness of this administration have led us to this point. Yes, we must now confront ISIS… But let’s not mistake what we must do. We shouldn’t give

a pass to forever intervene in the civil wars of the Middle East. Intervention created the chaos. Intervention aided and abetted the rise of radical Islam and intervention made us less safe in Libya and Syria and Iraq.

– Rand Paul, arguing on the Senate floor about President Obama’s plan to take on ISIS

People would come to him and talk about what was happening to them at home in terms of foreclosures, in terms of bad loans that were being… I mean these Shylocks who took advantage of, um, these women and men.

- VP Joe Biden, talking about his son’s legal work and using the derogatory name of the ruthless Jewish moneylender in The Merchant of Venice The vice president reached out and we spoke today.

Clearly there was no ill-intent here, but Joe and I agreed that perhaps he needs to bone up on his Shakespeare.

– Abraham Foxman of the JDL, discussing Vice President Biden’s remarks

The FBI debuted its new facial recognition software which will archive the faces of tens of millions of Americans every day. This groundbreaking, amazing new software is called Facebook.

- Conan O’Brien No, I wasn’t. I really thought it was important for us to maintain a presence in Iraq.

- Former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta when asked on 60 Minutes whether he was confident in President Obama’s decision to pull all troops out of Iraq two years ago

The right coverage from neighbors you know & trust!

homeowners auto commercial real estate business Herman E. Wealcatch, Inc. Contact us today for a quote, or with any questions on your current policies:

37 Walker Ave., Suite 200 | Pikesville, MD 21208 | 410-653-3053 | info@wealcatchmd.com

SEPTEMBER 23, 2014

We compare prices and policies to get you the best value from the top carriers.

THE BALTIMORE JEWISH HOME

e c i o h c + e c i v ser y p p a h = g n i c i + pr t a s t n e i cl

49

78 T H E J E W I S H H O M E n M AY 2 4 , 2012

THE BALTIMORE JEWISH HOME

SEPTEMBER 23, 2014

50

You Gotta be

Riddle!

Kidding!

Someone placed a shofar in one of four locked boxes. The boxes are numbered 1, 2, 3, 4, in that order. There are four different keys that each has their own color. Use the clues below to figure out which key goes in which box and to find the box where the shofar is being kept.

1. The green key goes to the third or fourth box 2. The shofar is to the left of the fourth box 3. The shofar is to the right of the first box 4. The yellow key is to the left of the shofar 5. The blue key is to the right of the yellow key and to the left of the green key 6. The red key goes to the first box

A Frenchman, an Irishman and a Jew are walking through the hot desert. As they are shleppig along, the Frenchman says, “I am so tired. I am so thirsty and tired. I must, must have some French wine.”

A few minutes later, the Irishman says, “I am hot, and I am tired. I must have some good Irish beer.”

They walk a little further and the Jew says, “Oy vey, am I tired. Oy, I am so tired and thirsty. I must…have diabetes.”

Answer on next page

Wordisms AQUADEXTROUS [ak wa deks’trus] (adj.) – Possessing the ability to turn the bathtub tap on and off with your toes.

CARPERPETUATION [kar’pur pet u a shun] (n.) – The act, when vacuuming, of running over a string or a piece of lint at least a dozen times, reaching over and picking it up, examining it, then putting it back down to give the vacuum one more chance.

DESSERTION [dez ert’ shun] (n.) – The act of making your husband leave the wedding, even though the Viennese tables have not yet been brought out. (That’s right, because no man would leave early on his own in that situation)

he finally decides to give up and sweep it under the rug.

GLUTTENVY [glut e’n vee] (n) – The sweeping bitterness you feel when the food you ordered doesn’t look as good as another diner’s.

LACTOMANGULATION [lak’ to man gyu lay’ shun] (n.) – Manhandling the “open here” spout on a milk container so badly that one has to resort to the “illegal” side.

NOODLECIDE [noo du’hl syde] (n.): When you’re boiling pasta and the noodle you want to test gets scared and leaps off the spoon and plummets beneath the burner.

PARKANOIA [park uh’ noy uh] (n.) – The act of parking your new car miles away from a store entrance to protect it from stray shopping carts

DISCONFECT [dis kon fekt’] (v.) – To sterilize the piece of confection (a lolly) you dropped on the floor by blowing on it, assuming this will somehow “remove” all the germs.

PEPPIER [peph ee ay’] (n.) – The waiter at a fancy restaurant whose sole purpose seems to be walking around asking diners if they want fresh ground pepper.

ELBONICS [el bon’iks] (n.) – The actions of two people maneuvering for one armrest on a plane

PHONESIA [fo nee’ z’ huh] (n.) – The affliction of dialing a phone number and forgetting whom you were calling just as they answer.

FRUST [frust] (n.) – The small line of debris that refuses to be swept onto the dust pan and keeps backing a person across the room until

TELECRASTINATION [tel e kras tin ay’ shun] (n.) – The act of always letting the phone ring at least twice before you pick it up.

73 79

4. At the 1960 U.N. Assembly meeting, the delegate from the Philippines declared that Eastern Europe had been “deprived of political and civil rights” and had effectively been “swallowed up by the Soviet Union.” What did the Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, who took offense to the comments, do? a. He stood up, spat towards the podium and then walked out. b. He shouted “Хотите совершить экскурсию Сибири?” (translation: Want to take a tour of Siberia?) c. He started banging a table with both his fists and then took off his right shoe and started banging it on the table. d. He punched the delegate in the face when he finished his speech and was walking back to his seat.

5. In 1975, the U.N. passed Resolution 3379, which said that: a. Women in the Middle East should not be forced into unwilling marriages b. Tribes in Africa should stop killing all of those who prescribe to different religious beliefs c. The U.S.S.R. should allow the sick to leave the Iron Curtain for medical treatment d. Zionism is racism

been several omissions about Waldheim’s life between 1938 and 1945 in his then-recently published autobiography. The World Jewish Congress and other organizations then conducted an investigation and discovered that Waldheim fought for the Nazis. Waldheim won the Austrian elections anyway, providing further proof that the country of Hitler’s birth remained deeply anti-Semitic. Throughout his term as president, Waldheim and his wife Elisabeth were put on a watch list of persons banned from entering the United States.

2. D- I guess we also can learn from this story that Churchill didn’t lock the bathroom door when he took a bath.

3. F 4. C 5. D- The U.N finally revoked the resolution in 1991.

Wisdom Key 4-5 correct: You could be the next Secretary General of the United Nations…if your name is something like BakaWaka DingDong.

2-3 correct: You don’t know much…you belong in the U.N. 0-1 correct: I must say, congratulations!

The less you know about the U.N., the better it is!

Answers: 1. B- While running for president of Austria in 1986, it was revealed that here had

Answer to riddle: John doesn’t own any cars. If the first statement is true, then the last is true as well. If the last is true, then so is either the first or the second statement. But if the second is true, the first and last aren’t necessarily true.

John can own no cars, making the first and third false, but the second statement true. Since only one can be true, the second is true. He owns zero cars. I guess he likes to walk.

GO FUNNT Y?

Comm Let the ission er dec Send your s tuff al

ads@b

t

ide

t

imor o idshho fivetow centeejrefw o l m @ e. nsjewis hhome. com com

SEPTEMBER 23, 2014

2. President Roosevelt came up with the name “United Nations” and ran the name by British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. Where was Churchill when Roosevelt told him the name? a. He was visiting with the Queen of England and quickly turned to her and asked her if she approved of the name.

When she said, “Aye,” he congratulated Roosevelt for coming up with the winning name. b. He was in a hospital bed recovering from gallbladder surgery. The nurse had to scream the name into his ear several times and then told Roosevelt—who was waiting on the phone line—that Churchill approved and was wiggling his toes in a “yes formation.” c. Churchill was on a tour of Hitler’s bunker and a military aid passed him a telegraph from Roosevelt. He sent a telegraph back saying: “As I tour the darkest of places, I am comforted by the light that shall shine forth from the United Nations.” d. Churchill was sitting in a White House bathtub when Roosevelt excitedly burst in and told him the name that he came up with.

3. Which of the following countries is not currently on the Human Rights Council? a. China b. Cuba c. Kuwait d. Saudi Arabia e. Pakistan f. Britain

THE BALTIMORE JEWISH HOME

1. Kurt Waldheim of Austria served as U.N. Secretary General from 1972 to 1981.

In 1985, Waldheim became embroiled in the “Waldheim Affair,” when it was discovered that: a. He accepted bribes from Arab countries while he was U.N. Secretary General. b. He was in the Nazi German army during World War II. c. He stole stashes of food from the U.N. food banks and resold them on the black market. d. He falsified data about nuclear material in the U.S.S.R. to protect them from world condemnation.

WIISSHH HHOOMMEE nn MS AY TTHHEE JJEEW E P T2E 4M,B2012 E R 1 8 , 2014

U.N. Trivia

51

111

FROM NEW YORK TO THE 101 KILOMETER Yube Levin Recalls his Experience on Israel’s Frontlines During the Yom Kippur War

THE BALTIMORE JEWISH HOME

by Naftali Halpern

An Israeli soldier praying during the war

AT THE YOUNG AGE OF 24, WHEN MOST PEOPLE ARE BEGINNING THE FIRST CHAPTERS OF THEIR ADULT LIVES, YUBE LEVIN HAD ALREADY COMPLETED HIS: SERVING IN THE GOLANI BRIGADE OF THE IDF. IT WAS 1973, AND HE AND HIS NEW WIFE HAD DECIDED TO SETTLE IN THE UNITED STATES TO START THEIR NEW LIFE TOGETHER. BUT ALL THAT CHANGED ONE AUTUMN DAY IN OCTOBER WHEN NEWS BROKE THAT THE ARAB NATIONS HAD JOINED FORCES IN A SURPRISE ATTACK AGAINST ISRAEL. HAVING LEFT THE IDF LESS THAN A YEAR EARLIER, YUBE WAS NOT YET IN THE RESERVES AND DID NOT HAVE TO REPORT TO DUTY. BUT HE COULDN’T STAND BY AND WATCH FROM FIVE THOUSAND MILES ACROSS THE ATLANTIC. “IT’S NOT THAT I’M A HERO, IT’S JUST THAT I WOULDN’T BE ABLE TO FACE MYSELF IF I DIDN’T GO. AFTER ALL, I AM ISRAELI AND MOST OF MY FRIENDS WERE STILL IN THE ARMY,” HE EXPLAINS. SO HE BOOKED A FLIGHT TO ISRAEL.

T H E J E W I S H H O M E n M AY 2 4 , 2012

SEPTEMBER 23, 2014

52

53

Yube (at left) and a fellow soldier with Suez City in the background

W

hen Yube decided to return to Israel to join up with his old artillery unit, he immediately booked a flight on TWA. However, getting to Israel would not be so easy. Due to the dangers of flying in the region, his flight was cancelled. For several days, Yube booked flights on different airlines, but each time, the flights were cancelled. Finally, El Al announced that they would be making a flight to Israel to take volunteers. Yube was able to get onto that flight.

Israeli forces crossing the Suez Canal

When he arrived in Israel, he landed in Ben Gurion Airport and was greeted by darkness. “They gave us a few tokens to make phone calls, but nobody in my family was home and nobody knew that I came,” he relates.

Yube and the other volunteers were taken to Cassina, near Beer Sheva, where there was a base for his unit. Once there, he was told that his unit was fighting in the Sinai Peninsula, near the Suez Canal. However, due to the lack of preparation, combined with the classic Israeli laissez faire attitude, nobody seemed to be

“You didn’t see the men with white beards running through the desert?

They stopped our advance!” in a rush on the base. He remembers telling an officer, “Listen, we didn’t come from the United States to be stuck on this base!”

After three days of waiting around, an Israeli officer came into the room and asked if anyone knew how to drive a semi-trailer truck. A guy from Chicago who Yube befriended raised his hand and told Yube to do the same. Yube whispered to his new friend, “I don’t know how to drive a rig!” The guy turned to him and asked, “Do you want to continue sitting in this field office or do you want to actually get to the frontlines?”

Raring to go to battle, Yube raised his hand and within a few minutes he and his new friend were driving an ammunition rig into the hot and hazy Sinai desert as part of a large convoy heading to the frontlines.

It took them 24 hours to finally get to the battlefront.

During the journey, they were taking fire from the Egyptian airforce the whole time.

In the early days of the war, Egypt had almost total control of the skies. In fact, it is well known that Israel,

which at that point was making its own planes, was in such a rush to get them out of the factories that they wouldn’t even paint them. In order to identify themselves as Israeli planes, so as not to be shot at by their own army, the pilots would “tip” from side to side, like a bird flapping its wings.

Yube recalls that when Egypt controlled the skies, the only thing that saved the Israelis was that the Egyptian fighter pilots were simply dumb. When the Egyptian planes would attack, the Israeli radios would crackle with shouts of “Koninu tzipurim.” (“We’ve got planes.”) Upon hearing that, the Israeli soldiers would try to get as far away from their convoys as possible, knowing that the tanks and ammunition trucks would be the primary targets.

They would run from the roadway into the desert sand, in all different directions. Much to the Israelis’ surprise, instead of simply bombing the convoys, which were sitting ducks, the planes would fire at the fleeing soldiers. Yube recalls running through the desert with overhead planes trying to gun him down, as if the sky itself was raining bullets. “It was such a strange feeling,” he recalls, “while we were zigzagging through the desert, trying to outrun the planes shooting at us, we could not help but think about how stupid the Egyptian pilots were.”

W

hen Yube reached the frontlines, near the Suez Canal, the scene was chaotic. Having not slept for days, Yube and his friend were told to pull the truck to the side of an asphalt roadway and take turns sleeping. As Yube sat in the truck dozing off, he was immediately awoken by horrific screams.

“My friend got out of the truck to sleep near it in the sand,” he says. “While he was sleeping, a tank drove over his feet. He was immediately medivacked from the scene.” Yube later learned that his friend recovered and his feet were fine, since the sand cushioned the blow.

A few minutes later, an Israeli officer came over to Yube’s truck and commanded, “Take this truck right away and go in the opposite direction.” Yube, who had

SEPTEMBER 23, 2014

Y

ube grew up in a family with deep Zionist roots.

His father, Naftali Levin, was a high level Israeli government official. He is most well-known for his role as Israel’s first foreign correspondent in Europe. Every night when Israelis would turn on their radio, they would hear the Hebrew version of: “This is Naftali Levin reporting from Paris.”

The family then moved to Benin, West Africa, where Naftali Levin served as Israel’s advisor to the Benin government. Yube explains that back then, West Africa had just gotten a vote in the UN so Israel and other nations were jockeying to curry favor with them. Even Russia got involved in trying to influence them. Perhaps highlighting the backwardness of Communist Russia, they donated snow blowers to the African country which lies near the equator and has a tropical climate. The average temperature in Benin is approximately 80 degrees.

Yube attributes a lot of his love for Israel to his mother. In fact, nobody in his family even knew that Yube returned to Israel to fight (although some family members thought that they saw him on TV footage). But after a month of fighting, Yube was given a day off and hitched a ride to Arad, where his mother lived. As he knocked on her front door, he was disheveled and had not showered in a month. She opened the door and was shocked to see her son, whom she thought was safely in America, standing in front of her, very clearly having just come from the battle field. Rather than expressing concern about her son fighting on the frontlines, she expressed great joy that he had returned to fight for the State of Israel.

Yube Levine

THE BALTIMORE JEWISH HOME

T H E J E W I S H H O M E n M AY 2 4 , 2012

112

54

THE BALTIMORE JEWISH HOME

Yube (middle row, far right) while in the Golani Brigade

never actually driven the truck, tried starting the truck but had no clue how to start it. The officer turned to him and asked, “Are you a truck driver?” Yube stammered, “No, I have no clue.” The Israeli soldier, in classic Israeli form, said, “Okay, get out of here, I’ll handle it.”

Yube then got into a command car with a group of soldiers who were all looking for their units. A few minutes later, he heard someone calling him, “Yube!

Yube!” It was soldiers from his former unit who spotted him. When I ask Yube if they were excited to see him, he chuckles and says, “They were, but what really excited them the most was that I brought four cartons of Marlboro cigarettes for them.”

It was not just cigarettes that the soldiers relied on, rather they turned to prayer. Yube— who was not yet religious at that point in his life— recalls how he and all of his comrades who were not religious would stand near the religious soldiers when they davened. “We didn’t really know how to daven ourselves, but we knew, just stand near the soldiers davening and it would be as if we were praying,” he says. He also carried around a mini Tehillim that the chief rabbi of the Israeli army gave out on a visit to the frontlines. “I kept it in my pocket at all times,” he says.

It is quite understandable how even the soldiers who were not religious were turning to Hashem. After all, they witnessed open miracles. Yube recalls what may have been the biggest miracle to have taken place in the war. In fact, it may be the only reason that Israel was able to ultimately prevail on the Southern front: Egypt began the war by crossing the Suez Canal and entering Israel. At that point, Israel had barely any defense lines in the Sinai Desert because they never suspected that Egypt would attempt to cross the Suez Canal. The five hundred soldiers guarding the Israeli side of the Suez Canal were caught off guard and were all killed in the surprise attack. At that point, the Egyptian army could have simply marched into Israel. Yet, for some reason, in the middle of their advance, they suddenly stopped. Once they stopped, it gave the Israelis time to implement Genernal Ariel

Israeli, Egyptian and UN officials at talks at the 101 Kilometer in Egypt

Sharon’s strategy of surrounding the Egyptian army and cutting off their supply lines, which led to Egypt’s eventual surrender.

When talking to captured Egyptian soldiers, Yube and his fellow soldiers asked the Egyptians why they suddenly stopped their advance. The Egyptians responded with amazement and said, “What do you mean? You didn’t see the men with white beards running through the desert? They stopped our advance!”

Suffice it to say, there were no men in white beards in the Israeli army at that time.

“We knew, just stand near the soldiers davening and it would be as if we were praying.”

Despite the miracles that took place, Yube witnessed horrific carnage and tragedy. He recalls seeing a commander, Shooky, a”h, passing by to go to the battlefront in order to send back coordinates to the artillery unit. As he passed, he called out, “Ma nishma, Yube!” A few minutes later, Shooky’s vehicle was blown up.

Yube was also involved in transporting injured soldiers. He explained that before his unit crossed the Suez Canal, the paratrooper units landed on the other side. Those who were shot down or otherwise wounded had to be transported back across the Suez Canal, to the Israeli side. Yube recalls being part of the chain of soldiers helping to transport the injured soldiers and says, “The images will stay with me forever.”

Eventually, Yube and his unit crossed the Suez Canal themselves. “That was a nightmare experience,” he says. “You are crossing in the nighttime, on a narrow makeshift bridge, and as soon as you get to the other side, there are sharpshooters hiding in trees

Yube and friend beside their convoy

shooting at us.”

Once his unit breached Egypt’s defense lines, they began their advance into Egypt with almost no resistance. They reached Suez City and advanced so deep into Egypt that they reached a place which has come to be known as “101 Kilometer,” as it was 101 km from the Egyptian capital of Cairo. At that point, the tide had turned and the Egyptian army was at the precipice of a cataclysmic defeat. It should thus come as no surprise that the world pressured Israel to enter into a ceasefire. Yube recalls that even before Israel entered the ceasefire, he and his unit on numerous occasions confronted U.N officers who were transporting food and supplies to the surrounded Egyptian Third Army.

Once the ceasefire was implemented, Yube remained stationed at the 101 Kilometer for approximately one month. “We drank Turkish coffee with the Egyptian soldiers,” he relates.

He explains that they had to stay for a while just in case the ceasefire would fail. “We were standing around with us over here and them over there, so what were we supposed to do?” he shrugs.

A

fter the war, Yube returned to the United States and resumed his new life. He is forever grateful that he was able to fight for the land of Israel and that Hashem watched over him. He does say, in jest, that he did sustain a wound due to the Yom Kippur War. “After I came back to the U.S., I got a call from the soldier from Chicago, who tracked me down.

I was so excited that he was alive that I tripped over a nearby piece of furniture and broke my toe.” He quips, “I was teaching in a school at that time and all of the students would ask me if my injury was from the war, and I had to confess to them that it was actually from tripping over a TV stand.”

Although he can smile about it now, Yube lowers his voice as he sadly shares, “There is no such thing as a happy war, but this was a really sad war. Because, although we won it, we won it with three thousand dead soldiers.

TJH May their memories forever be blessed. 

T H E J E W I S H H O M E n M AY 2 4 , 2012

SEPTEMBER 23, 2014

113

55

The Observant Jew Rabbi Jonathan Gewirtz

we would be wise to learn the lesson of the gridiron that sometimes it’s in your best interest not to look for a penalty.

By choosing not to see someone else

THEY REALIZED THE WISDOM OF LETTING IT GO SO THEY DID NOT LOSE OUT. would lose the yards they had advanced by a successful pass to their intended receiver. They chose to decline the penalty.

By refusing to “press charges” as it were, they were entitled to keep the play that had actually occurred and they thereby benefited more than they would have by punishing the other team. Eureka!

In Krias Shema al HaMita, the bedtime Shema, there are some phrases that basically absolve people who have harmed us from blame. We say that we forgive those who have wronged us and that no one should be punished because of us. Why would we do that? Surely, people should not be able to damage or harm us with impunity!

The football analogy gave me my answer. Though they could have demanded the penalty stand and the defensive team be punished, by doing so, the team who was trying to advance would lose their own progress. They realized the wisdom of letting it go so they did not lose out.

Hashem treats us middah k’neged middah, measure for measure. One who is lax regarding his own honor, allowing things to slide, will in turn find himself being given a pass as well. Just as he doesn’t stand on ceremony and demand that his honor be avenged, so does Hashem allow slights to His honor to more easily be ignored.

One who doesn’t respond when he is maligned, opting instead to hold his tongue, will merit a hidden light of insight which is reserved for great tzaddikim. This is a tradition from great men such as the Vilna Gaon who told this to his wife and family in a letter. He urged them not to talk back when others spoke ill of them, assuring them that the reward for such self-control would be greater than imaginable.

As we reach the Days of Judgment,

punished, you will end up benefiting far more.

It may seem counterintuitive at first to say that you should give up the chance to see someone pay for what he’s done to you, but if you think about it, you’ll understand that fair play doesn’t always mean following the letter of the law as to what you’re allowed to demand. Instead, if you are interested in a happy outcome for yourself, and maybe getting a few penalties of your own to slide, you’ll re-

alize that declining the penalty, and forgiving someone who might not deserve it, is one of the best strategies for playing the game.

Now in bookstores, The Observant Jew, a compilation of some of Rabbi Gewirtz’s best articles from years past, is receiving critical acclaim. With short, funny, insightful selections, this book is the perfect summertime companion. Look for it in your favorite Jewish Book Store or visit Feldheim.com.

Jonathan Gewirtz is an inspirational writer and speaker whose work has appeared in publications around the world. He also operates JewishSpeechWriter.com, where you can order a custom-made speech for your next special occasion.

Sign up for the Migdal Ohr, his weekly PDF Dvar Torah in English. E-mail info@ JewishSpeechWriter.com and put Subscribe in the subject. © 2014 by Jonathan Gewirtz. All rights reserved.

SEPTEMBER 23, 2014

yell at the coaches and players through a TV screen or radio receiver.

Now, I’m sure all this is very interesting to you but what’s it got to do with anything? Well, one evening, I heard a play on the field that made me think about this article. You see, a team had thrown a pass, and the defensive team illegally held another player, though not the receiver who actually caught the ball and scored a first down. (If you’re not a football fan, just know that they reached an intended milestone.) The referees threw a penalty flag.

This would normally mean the pass didn’t count and the offensive team would get another chance to run the play.

However, if that were the case, the team

THE BALTIMORE JEWISH HOME

Q:

Why do Jews play football? A: To get the quarter back! As a boy growing up in New Orleans, Louisiana, I was not a baseball fan. We didn’t have a professional team in the city, and nobody played baseball at school. Football was a different story.

Though one could argue that in 1980 New Orleans didn’t have a professional football team (the New Orleans Saints had one win and fifteen losses that season, earning them the dubious moniker, the “’aints”), we did play football in school.

I once met Archie Manning, the New Orleans quarterback, who invited me to play football with him and his sons, Cooper and Peyton. That would have been a cool story… “Yeah, I sacked Peyton Manning (today a highly successful professional Quarterback in the NFL)… he was 9 years old at the time.” But, I can’t say that, because I never did go to play with them.

I did play on the schoolyard, though, and we used to go to football games in the Superdome. I even took my mother to a game once and as a player lay injured on the floor, she asked in perfect innocence, “Is he going to get up again?” I gained an appreciation for watching football, though I generally don’t yell and scream with each play when I’m not at the stadium itself, unlike some who will

How You Play the Game

Plaza PAL Auto Leasing

BS”D

CALL 718-975-9000 2750 Nostrand Ave Corner of Ave N Brooklyn NY 11210

WE SELL, LEASE & FINANCE

ALL MAKES AND MODELS

www.PlazaAutoLeasing.com

Plaza Auto Leasing Wishes You And Your Loved Ones

A Happy New Year!

ARE YOU A PAL YET?