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nthusiasm is high for Mesamche Lev’s Power Auction 2017, organizers say, as they prepare for the final wave of entries. Two days to the deadline, the automated auction phone line, the website, and Mesamche Lev’s office lines are swamped with orders.

Mesamche Lev has arranged for a large number of volunteers to man the phones this week, in response to the unprecedented volume of calls. The auction ends this Tuesday, January 31.

“This is such an unusual auction,” says Dina W. of Crown Heights, who placed a $180 order by phone.

“I love the double wins, where you can win two prizes in one. I’m really hoping to win $8000 in Showroom on 13. It comes with a great Build a Bear prize. Such fun! And the cash – I mean, there’s so much I can do with $18,000!” Her $180 entry entitled her to a great free gift, a riding toy that doubles as a stroller. Free gifts are awarded to donors who give sixty dollars or more. While the prizes and free gifts are very attractive, Dina is so glad to be supporting Mesamche Lev. “I have relatives who participate in Mesamche Lev’s Yom Tov programs, and I’m so happy to do this for them. I feel like by entering the auction, I’m helping them get shoes and meat for Pesach.”

A self-professed procrastinator, Dina admits to almost missing the deadline.

“It happens to me all the time. I want to order something, and before I know

By: Frimet Blum it, I miss the date. I didn’t want that to happen now.” She entered with time to spare, a full week before the January 31st deadline. There is still time to order – but it is rapidly slipping away.

“Last year, we had people calling just after the phone lines closed. It was too late. They missed it,” said a Mesamche Lev staff member. He urged the entire

community to enter now.

“The Power Auction supports all of Mesamche Lev’s programs,” he said. “The community’s support is crucial.”

Mesamche Lev’s programs serve some twelve and a half thousand families. They provide Yom Tov provisions, including meat, poultry, matzah, groceries, and more to thousands. Mesamche Lev also assists widows in Eretz Yisroel and the US, and marries off orphans in Eretz Yisroel.

One of Mesamche Lev’s more famous programs is the annual shoe distribution, where forty two thousand children from the entire Eretz Yisroel receive new shoes. The distribution has become a part of the pre-Pesach landscape in Yerushalayim. Children from across the

country converge upon the distribution site, and walk out with new shoes and huge smiles. Dina Abramovitz of Yerushalayim described what new shoes mean to her children.

“My son’s shoes were ruined in the rain,” she says. “There were cracks in the soles. The water went right in.” With her husband out of a job, and the family living hand to mouth, there is no money for shoes.

When Mesamche Lev replaced the water logged, misshaped shoes with a solid up-to-date pair, Dina and her son were ecstatic.

“I was thinking, ‘what am I going to do? Where am I going to find money for new shoes now?’” she said. “You think this is a pair of shoes? This is a yeshuah gedolah for me.”

All of Mesamche Lev’s programs are a yeshuah gedolah for the twelve and a half thousand families they serve.

“The Power Auction plays a major role in our work,” says Rabbi Tzvi Friedman of Mesamche Lev. “We spend a huge amount of money each year. Just the programs for widows, and the orphan weddings, cost a fortune. Then there’s the shoes, the meat, the groceries – we depend on the community’s support.”

The Power Auction drawing will take place Tuesday, January 31, at 11:00 pm, in the Mesamche Lev Lounge at 4708 13th Avenue. To enter, call the Power Auction line at 877.677.1313; or visit mesamchelev.org.

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by Jeff Jacoby

The World’s Eight Richest Men

They have wealth equal to half the population.

It’s a striking statistic but it’s also irrelevant.

Oxfam grabbed headlines on Monday with a report claiming that the world’s eight richest men own as much wealth as the world’s poorest 3.7 billion people – half of the planet’s population.

The report was released in Davos, Switzerland, at the start of the World Economic Forum, an annual powwow of high-powered business and political leaders. The executive director of Oxfam International, Winnie Byanyima, seized the occasion to portray the gap between the world’s superrich few and extremely poor many as a moral and social calamity.

“It is obscene for so much wealth to be held in the hands of so few when 1 in 10 people survive on less than $2 a day,” she said. “Inequality is trapping hundreds of millions in poverty; it is fracturing our societies and undermining democracy.” Oxfam’s proposed solutions are the usual leftist nostrums: higher taxes, a “living wage” for employees, more government spending.

Headlines notwithstanding, Oxfam’s “new” finding is the same-

10

old, same-old it trots out every year. In 2014, Oxfam reported that the world’s 85 richest people have as much wealth as the 3.5 billion poorest; in 2015, it shaved the number of multibillionaires to 80; in 2016, the number dropped again, to 62. Now Oxfam claims the world’s poorest half is out-owned by just eight men.

To be sure, it’s a striking statistic. It’s also irrelevant.

The eight superbillionaires singled out by Oxfam are Microsoft founder Bill Gates, investor Warren Buffett, Mexican telecom mogul Carlos Slim, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Spanish clothing magnate Amancio Ortega, Amazon creator Jeff Bezos, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, and Michael Bloomberg, the financial-services entrepreneur and former New York mayor.

Besides being unimaginably rich, the eight men have a few things in common that Oxfam doesn’t dwell on.

To begin with, all eight men earned their extraordinary wealth.

Through ingenuity, talent, and immense effort, they created enterprises that provide hundreds of millions, even billions, of human beings with goods and services that make life better, healthier, safer, and more affordable.

Moreover, the Oxfam Eight didn’t grow their fortunes by

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preventing other people from growing theirs. Their wealth may equal that of half the people on Earth (though Oxfam’s methodology is dubious), but the world’s poor have been climbing out of poverty at the fastest rate in human history. Byanyima rightly bewails the fact that “1 in 10 people survive on less than $2 a day” – what she omits is that over the past 30 years, the number of people living in such extreme poverty has fallen by nearly 75 percent. Johan Norberg, writing in Spiked Review, provides hard numbers: Worldwide, an average of 138,000 people climb out of extreme poverty every day. Since 1990, the world’s population has grown by more than 2 billion, yet the ranks of those in extreme poverty has shrunk by more than 1.25 billion.

It is, in Norberg’s words, “the most important story of our time: Poverty as we know it is disappearing from our planet.”

Just as capitalism made it possible for Gates, Zuckerberg, and the others to reach the highest rung on the economic ladder, it is making it possible for billions of men and women to climb up from the lowest

rung. Oxfam’s billionaires are richer than they used to be. So is almost everyone else.

Of course, the super-wealthy ought to share their great fortunes.

Not because wealth disparities are “obscene,” as Oxfam says. And not because the economy is a zero-sum game, with the rich getting richer only as the poor get poorer. But as a matter of goodness and gratitude – the timeless moral principle that from those to whom much is given, much is required.

Oxfam’s megabillionaires agree.

They have all given vast amounts to charity, using their wealth to do good for enormous numbers of people in need, in danger, or in pain. Gates has donated more to charitable causes than anyone, ever. Buffett and Zuckerberg have pledged to give away more than half of their wealth to philanthropy, as have scores of other billionaires.

Wealth is good, and the more people who can create and earn it, the better. All decent people should worry about what the very poor lack. If you obsess instead about what the very rich have, you’re doing it wrong.

Gates has donated more to charitable causes than anyone, ever. Buffett and Zuckerberg have pledged to give away more than half of their wealth to philanthropy, as have scores of other billionaires.

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A mass grave, 70 years later.

Back to Ukraine H

by Mordechai I. Twersky

ere in the land of Tevye, the roosters still crow. Cows graze in open fields.

But Tevye doesn’t live here anymore.

I have set out from Israel to Ukraine to trace my ancestors. My first stop is west of Kiev, in a corner of the czarist-era Pale of Settlement for Jews, where “Fiddler on the Roof ” was set. Here sits an old Jewish cemetery, now a plowed-over field. It bears not a single headstone, just a house-like memorial for the late-19th-century maggid, or preacher, Mordechai of Chernobyl, my paternal ancestor five generations back.

I continue on, more than 250 miles, to the outskirts of Khotyn, a 1,000-yearold Bessarabian fortress city beside the Dniester River. I enter another open field to connect with a far darker time. I find a 30-foot-long concrete slab, etched at its head with the names, in Hebrew, of 45 men, women and children. First are my

16

grandfather and uncle: “The holy Rabbi Mordechai Israel Twersky and his son, Aaron.”

Following a Jewish tradition, I remove my shoes. This is sacred ground — one of three mass graves in the city, containing in all an estimated 1,900 Jews who perished early in the Holocaust, 70 years ago this summer.

“The earth shifted for days,” an old, toothless man tells me in Russian. He is one of Khotyn’s 15 remaining Jews and among the minyan, or quorum for worship, who accompany me. “They couldn’t bury them fast enough.”

I had never fully understood what happened here in 1941. Growing up in New York, I heard stories from my father, who survived five labor camps before making it to Ellis Island and becoming a rabbi. Not one to subject his three children to horrors, he focused on how his father had lived. On this visit, I wanted also to learn how my grandfather had died.

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In the quiet streets of this city, where a Jewish community of 15,000 once thrived, I find no living witnesses. But I carry vivid testimonies written and spoken by Khotyn’s survivors, a guidebook from another era.

The history is complicated; it begins with the Soviet occupation in 1940 of Bessarabia and northern Bukovina, which the Nazi-Soviet pact allowed Stalin to detach from Romania. The Romanian Army’s withdrawal, and its return a year later with the invading Germans and their mobile S.S. killing units — the notorious Einsatzgruppen — unleashed a systematic Romanian-German campaign of torture, rape and mass murder. Then the Romanians deported some 23,000 Jews from the Khotyn district, which includes the city, to an occupied zone known as Transnistria.

Over a three-week period in July and August of 1941, approximately 50,000 Jews were murdered in Bessarabia and northern Bukovina, the historian Avigdor Shachan

I continue on, more than 250 miles, to the outskirts of Khotyn, a 1,000-year-old Bessarabian fortress city beside the Dniester River. wrote in “Burning Ice: The Ghettos of Transnistria.”

According to the International Commission on the Holocaust in Romania, 280,000 to 380,000 Romanian and Ukrainian Jews died in Transnistria during the war.

They were victims not just of Germany, but at least equally of Romania’s anti-Semitic government. Just days before the dictator Ion Antonescu’s henchmen murdered my grandfather, experts on the Holocaust say, his next in command, Mihai Antonescu, advised top officials about the coming deportation of Jews. The ministers, he said, could be “indifferent if history judges us as barbarians ... This is the most opportune moment in our history. If need be, use machine guns.”

On Stefan Cel Mare Street, I gaze at my grandfather’s house. A couple sits outside at a table, drinking beer. What was once a synagogue sanctuary is now a grocery store.

“Your grandfather prayed from that balcony,” says Genya Cherkes, pointing upward and narrating a history her Jewish family bequeathed to her. “On the Sabbath and holidays,” she says, “people gathered below just to hear him pray.”

Ms. Cherkes, now 60, says her

grandparents told her they had hidden my grandfather and his family in their orchard (in a non-Jewish neighborhood) after the Russians evicted the Twerskys from their home, leaving them to fear being deported or shot.

I stare at the locals. My thoughts turn to the many collaborators, Romanian and Ukrainian, who assisted the Romanian and German armies in their atrocities.

“They entered the homes of Jews with axes in their hands,” Nahum Morgenstern, a survivor, said of the collaborators, in a remembrance on file at Yad Vashem, the Holocaust remembrance institution and archive in Jerusalem. “They forced the Jews to undress and took their clothing.

Then they decapitated them.”

I am taken to a deserted compound about a mile away. It resembles a warehouse, with large glass windows and a high ceiling. A cow grazes outside. “In 1941 this was a girls’ school,” says one of my guides, a man named Ilya, whose mother survived the war. “Here,” he says of the Romanians and Germans, “they gathered all the city’s Jews, then picked out the Jewish leaders. Your grandfather was one of them.”

I feel that I know this compound. For years, I imagined it as I read testimonies depicting Jews’ being herded into classrooms, gasping for air, debating whether to rejoin their leaders. “I was pressed up against the second-floor window,” Mr. Shachan himself recalled when I spoke with him. He was 8 at the time.

Here, according to testimony at a

war crimes tribunal held in Bucharest in 1945, Jews pleaded for their lives with a Romanian police commander who, in quieter times, had engaged Jews in fluent Yiddish. But he told the assembled Jews that day that he had a new name: “My name is Hitler.”

I open my briefcase. I show Ilya an account from the Yad Vashem archives. A Jew, sensing the end was near, asked Rabbi Twersky to make sense of it all. “It will be good,” the rabbi replied, in Yiddish. “One must always have faith.”

We trace the path taken by the doomed Jewish leaders — doctors, lawyers and teachers, but also scribes, butchers and pharmacists — along the Dniester River, where hundreds of Khotyn’s Jews were shot. My grandfather was seen breaking from the line. “He jumped into the river to purify himself,” according to testimony from a survivor, Rachela Katz, cited in “On the Roads of Exile: Memories, 1941-1945”

by Solomon Shapira. “The soldiers pulled him out and beat him.”

We arrive at the spot — a foul-smelling marsh — where, in Ms. Katz’s account, the Jews were forced to dig their own grave.

There is an eerie quiet. The grass is high and thick. I recite psalms and a prayer for the dead, Kel Moleh Rachamim (Hashem Full of Compassion). I read from Ezekiel, “Son of man, can these bones live?”

Roosters are crowing now, seemingly louder and louder. To these ears it is a piercing, heckling sound — Tevye’s roosters sounding out an impudent “Taps” for a community where real Tevyes once lived.

A towering poplar engulfs the grave in its soothing, protective shade. “It is a sign,” one Jew tells me in Russian. “Life can still sprout here.”

Time is short. I must travel to Murafa, where my grandmother Batsheva, Rabbi Twersky’s wife, rests. She died there of malnutrition and typhus in a ghetto set up

by Romanian authorities in 1942.

Before leaving, I ask Ms. Cherkes, who tends Khotyn’s centuries-old Jewish cemetery and the graves of her forebears, how she can still live in a city where the martyrs so far exceed the remaining Jews.

“You can’t begin to understand,” she says, annoyed by the question but forcing a smile. “You will never understand.”

This op-ed originally appeared in the New York Times.

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Jews and the Circus 7 Fascinating Facts

by Dr. Yvette Alt Miller

Did you know that Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus is owned by a Jewish family?

Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus has announced it will close in May 2017, after 146 years of operation. The owners,

22

Feld Entertainment, a family firm, disclosed that declining ticket sales and high operating costs had made the circus unsustainable, particularly after they phased out the use of elephants because of concerns about animal welfare, in 2016.

Many fans were surprised to learn that Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus has been owned by a Jewish family for nearly 50 years, longer than it was ever owned by the Ringling brothers, or by Barnum and Bailey themselves. Bought in 1967

by Irvin Feld, the father of current CEO Kenneth Feld, Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus has been a family affair, with Kenneth’s three daughters, Nicole, Alana and Juliette, serving as executive vice presidents. Jews have a long history in circus

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extravaganzas. Here are six other little known facts about Jews and the Circus.

Bloody Origins

“Circus” means circle in Latin, and some elements of modern-day circuses can be traced back to the spectacles held in huge, circle-shaped amphitheaters throughout the Roman Empire, such as chariot races, mock battles, and gladiatorial combat. The Circus Maximus, in Rome, held spectacles for over 1,000 years.

The Jewish historian Josephus, who was captured after the Jewish revolts against Rome in the 1st Century CE and brought to Rome, wrote in his book The Jewish War that after crushing the Jewish rebellions in Israel, Roman captors sold many Jews into slavery in gladiator schools, forced to fight other men and wild animals to the death.

Perhaps the most famous Jew to serve as a gladiator was Shimon ben Lakish (also known as Reish Lakish), who sold himself into servitude as a gladiator, and later turned his life around, becoming an esteemed Jewish scholar instead.

Circus Acts and Stage Names As modern-style circuses became popular in Europe in the 19th century, a number of performers seem to have been Jews, often with unusual acts. The Warsaw Circus, for example, featured an exotic performer known as “Takhra Bey” who entertained crowds by piercing his face and body with needles and hanging weights from them. In real life, “Takhra Bey” was Moyshe Shtern, a local Jewish performer.

The use of stage names hid the Jewish identity of his and many other performers.

Some European circus stars who were open about their Jewishness included Moyshe Fayershteyn, who would seem to swallow animals, then produce them, amazing the crowds. Zishe (Siegmund)

Breitbart performed in the 1920s in Europe as a circus strongman. Known to his non-Jewish fans as “the strongest man in the world,” he also was affectionately called “Shimshon ha-Gabur” (Samson the Mighty) by his many Yiddish-speaking fans. Two European Jewish families even became circus dynasties. Tightrope walking sisters Pese and Leah Rozentsvayg married other Jewish circus performers: Pese married Jewish clown Itsik Gayler

top in 2008). And since 2016, the director of arguably the world’s most popular circus franchise, the Canadian-based international circus powerhouse Cirque du Soleil, has been Jewish entertainment businessman Mitch Garber.

Escaping Death in the Circus

During the Holocaust, four members of one Jewish circus family survived by being hidden in plain sight. Irene Bento was a trick rider; her husband (who, according to some conflicting accounts, might or might not have been Jewish) worked as a clown. Their two young children lived a travelling circus with them and other circus members, performing throughout Germany with a family circus owned by Alfred Althoff.

Kenneth Feld, CEO of Ringling Bros.

The scion of a 300-year-old and Barnum & Bailey Circus circus family, Alfred Althoff was determined to conceal the four Jewish members of his circus.

“Circus people don’t ask if you and Leah married Yankev Birnboym, and are Christian, Jewish or heathen,” he later acrobat. Together, the two families and explained, when asked how he was able to their circus-performing children appeared resist the pervasive virulent anti-Semitism throughout Europe and the United States. of the war years.

Alfred arranged false papers for the Bentos and they kept performing under pseudonyms. As the circus travelled During the golden age of European through Germany, Alfred would try to ask circuses, a number of circuses were founded his contacts for a warning when the local and run by Jewish circus families. In Gestapo was about to come to check the Germany, the Lorch family intermittently identity papers of the circus employees. ran the Circus Gebruder Lorch from He and the Bentos arranged a code: before the late 1800s until 1930, performing each Gestapo visit, Alfred would knock all over southern Germany, Austria and on their trailer door and tell them to “go Switzerland. The German Jewish family fishing”. “You can do a lot in a circus and Blumenfeld owned the Circus Blumenfeld, keep it a secret,” he recalled after the war.

The Bentos survived the war and closing in 1928. Several popular circuses continued their careers as circus that were founded by Jews still exist today. performers.

Their children eventually Foremost among these is the Moscow joined them in the ring, as well. Alfred Circus, which remains one of the world’s Althoff was honored by the Israeli most prestigious circuses and was founded Government after the war.

He passed away in 1880 by the Jewish-German showman peacefully in his sleep at the age of 85 in Albert Solomonsky. In the US, the popular 1998.

Big Apple Circus was founded by Paul

Jews Building Circuses

Binder in 1977 (he retired from the big

Circus Family in the Clutches of Mengele The Ovitz family, a Jewish family living in a small village in Romania in the years before World War Two, had an unusual distinction: they were the largest recorded family affected by dwarfism.

Their father, Rabbi Shimshon Eizik, and seven (out of a total of ten) children all had the condition, marked by unusually short stature.

The family arranged for music and performance lessons for the children; the Ovitz siblings were musically gifted and soon became accomplished performers.

The five sisters and two brothers with dwarfism formed a successful circus act, which they dubbed the “Lilliput Troupe.” Their normal-sized siblings and mother helped out with costumes and other activities.

Perla, the youngest sister, played a pink guitar, Frieda played the cimbalom, Rozika and Franziska played violins, while Elizabeth played the drums. Their brother Micki played the cello and accordion and brother Avram wrote the group’s scripts and worked as manager of the troupe. For 15 years the Ovitz siblings performed their successful act, even performing before King Carol II in Bucharest.

On May 16, 1944, however, the Ovitzes were deported to a concentration camp. After a three-day train journey crammed into a cattle car with scores of other Jews during which many perished, the Ovitz family arrived at Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Instead of being murdered on arrival like their relatives and friends, the Ovitz family was a curiosity. SS guards woke Dr. Josef Mengele who welcomed the siblings, relishing the chance to perform medical

experiments on the dwarves. The Ovitzes quickly added a few “family” members to their group, including a neighbor and their handyman, saving these 15 normal sized people’s lives. But for the dwarves, months

18 month old son Shimshon. Mengele made the little boy malnourished to the point where he never cried or talked, and insisted on being called the traumatized toddler’s “Uncle Mengele”.

In 1945, the Ovitz family was liberated from Auschwitz. They returned to their village, some of only 50 Jews to return out of 650 who were deported.

In 1949, the family moved to Israel where they continued to perform.

Israel’s Medical Clowns In recent years, clowns have been moving out from under the Big Top and into hospitals where they help cheer patients and even can have medically significant, measurable healing effects on patients. Israel is emerging as a world leader in the use of clowns in medical settings.

In other countries, clowns typically visit patients after their medical treatment; Israeli researchers are researching “clown therapy” as a researchdriven, standardized branch of medicine. Israel has at least 80 clowns operating in 18 hospitals.

These Israeli clowns are also paramedics, and participate in diagnosing and helping to devise treatment and rehabilitation plans, much the same way that art therapists and occupational therapists are part of patients’ medical teams.

In 2007, Israel’s University of Haifa became the first undergraduate degree program in the world in medical clowning.

In other countries, clowns typically

visit patients after their medical treatment; of torment was about to begin. Mengele spared their lives but at a gruesome cost, performing experiments on the siblings that left them exhausted, ill and in excruciating pain.

Mengele enjoyed spending time with the Ovitz clan, praising Frieda and insisting that she wear makeup which he provided. The sadistic doctor brought toys from children he’d killed for Leah’s

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Mental Illness and Dating

by Avital Mintz

I

t’s not easy telling someone you have a mental illness, but your greatest fears may be your ultimate strength.

Esti* had been dating someone seriously for several weeks and felt that before continuing, she must let the guy in on her secret. She had to tell him that she suffers from a mental illness.

Esti had been diagnosed with anxiety many years ago, but few people knew about

34

it. She regularly engages in psychotherapy and takes daily prescribed medication.

She is successful socially, educationally and occupationally, but she is constantly battling her illness, trying to prevent it from flaring up. And she conquers her illness with much perseverance.

Now she stood at a bridge and called me for advice. I heard her get choked up as she said, “I really like him and I’m afraid he

won’t want to continue anymore once I tell him. How do I deal with this stress? This is such a huge part of who I am.”

Suddenly, a light bulb went off in my head. “You know, Hashem gives us lots of struggles and I am genuinely inspired by the way you handle yours with such grace. Yes, you have very difficult days and sometimes weeks. But you put your effort in and persevere. You’re aware of the

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warning signs and what exacerbates it, and you get the help you need before it is too late. You’ve learned to live with your illness and the challenges it brings.

“These experiences have enabled you to help yourself and others in ways nobody else can. It would be much more worrisome for someone to get married when they don’t know how to manage their illness. Your adversity will be an asset to the marriage, not a hindrance. All marriages face struggles and you already have more insight than the typical girl who is dating. Tell it to him like it is and explain how you overcome the obstacles.”

I could sense Esti’s despondency starting to lift. She begged me to call the guy she was dating and share my insight with him. I assured her that it was a message that only she could deliver. The rest was in Hashem’s hands. Esti thanked me and I prayed for the best.

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Mental illness can add a significant amount of additional stress to the dating process. The thought of revealing a part of you that you try to keep hidden from everyone is daunting, even terrifying.

But as frightful as this task is, it must be done. There is no way around it. Marriage is a lifelong commitment with your other half, built on love and accepting someone’s strengths and weaknesses. It is important that your future spouse knows you and your imperfections before getting married. It is unethical to conceal something this crucial.

Hopefully, the person who discovers that the person he cares about suffers from mental illness will see this issue in the greater context of his partner’s life. It may be a good idea for him to speak with his partner’s therapist or mentors who have seen her thrive when the illness is creeping up on her and work together to create strategies to cope with stressors that otherwise may strain the relationship. It is important for him to learn to see life through his partner’s eyes and gain a better understanding of where he stands. This way when the going gets tough, they will be able to work together to overcome their challenges.

I told Esti that many people have been in her place and that she should take a deep breath, recognize her strengths and like her for who she is. “If he says no, hold your head up high and keep walking. Know that one day someone will see how special you are and not marry you in spite of your illness, but because of the valuable tools and insight it has ingrained in you.”

Esti had that difficult conversation with her date and he took some time to think about what she had divulged.

Ultimately, after many conversations, he realized how special Esti is and was undaunted by the challenges her illness might bring their way. They got married and are living happily with mutual support and honest conversations.

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10:

Care Package to Heaven

by Slovie Jungreis-Wolff

How to honor a parent who is no longer alive.

S

unday found me back again, besides my father’s grave. It was my father’s yahrzeit (date of death) and the custom is to return once more to the resting place of your loved one.

As we stood, my mother, my sister, and I, an icy rain started to fall. Hard droplets began to pelt us. We did not budge. The words in our prayer books became wet and blurred, but we did not move. It felt as if the heavens were once again crying with us; feeling our painful loss.

Can it be that years go by and still the hurt is searing?

Beyond the pain, though, is this connection to a man who loved me absolutely for all my life. No matter how

difficult his day, my father never lost his temper with me. I cannot recall his voice raised in sharp anger or in a fit of rage.

When I was a little child, I felt as if he always tried to hear my words. He would tenderly call me ‘sheyfalah,’ little dear, and sooth my little hurts. As I grew, there was this beautiful, beaming smile that carried me throughout my teenage years and beyond.

When there was nothing left to say, his warm, bright eyes said it all. “Everything will be okay -- you are loved no matter what.” No burden was too heavy, no hour too late, if it meant being there for one of us, his children. Years passed, and then it was his grandchildren who discovered the magic world of a Zaidy’s absolute love.

Our life together brought moments that I still think about and cherish. I want to laugh with him again; share dreams with him again, talk to him again, and have my children hear my father’s wisdom. I wish that my children and grandchildren could hear his soothing bedtime Shema before they go to sleep or treasure the simple moments he’d taught us to savor. They would feed challah to the ducks, color rainbows with scented markers, and giggle at life’s wonders together.

I wish that I could once again hold his hand and walk with him to synagogue, prepare a delicious meal for him, or help him with his hat and coat. I would love to have a chance to honor my father even for

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41

just a moment. When I read the words of grown children who live with anger and resentment because of their parent’s awful mistakes, I miss my father even more.

If one has been blessed with a parent’s love and then the parent passes from this earth, is it possible to still maintain the lifelong connection? Of course we are all obligated to respect and honor our parents; it is one of the Ten Commandments. But how can I honor my father if he is not here?

Higher and Higher

I recall a recent shivah visit that I made, to a student of mine who had lost her father. As I sat down, she told me that she had only one question.

“I loved my father so much, how can I still honor him now that he is gone?”

I explained to her that there are ways that we can not only honor our parents, but even help them, as they now enter the World to Come. Once a soul leaves this world there are no longer any opportunities for the soul to accomplish and do mitzvot. Our Sages teach us that the soul feels pained and remorse with the realization that it is too late to rectify any misdeeds or gain mitzvot and achieve goodness. Facing judgment, the soul cries out, “If only I would have the opportunity to correct my actions!”

We who remain in this world can do a great kindness and show honor once again to our parents. (Though I am speaking about a parent; all these concepts apply to any loved one who has departed this world). Each time we do a mitzvah in the merit of the deceased, we help his soul rise higher and higher in the Heavens above.

Our mitzvot become our parents’ lifeline as we link our good deeds to their soul and they now benefit from our actions. We can create the ultimate connection. It is as if we’ve sent a care package to Heaven.

What Can I Do?

Our Sages have provided us with specific ways that we can help our loved ones gain merit in our daily lives. We can dedicate our actions for the soul through the following suggestions: • Study Torah or ask a Torah scholar to dedicate his study to your parent’s soul

42

(during the week of shivah, others study Torah since mourners are not allowed to study Torah).

• Tzedakah: Give charity or donate a Torah scroll, prayer books, or holy books in the name of your loved one to an organization, synagogue, or school. It is a good idea to have the name of your parent (or relative) inscribed inside the book.

Visiting the grave, giving charity, and studying Torah are all additional ways for us to add to our ‘care package to heaven’.

• Acts of Kindness: Whenever you do a chessed, a kind deed, keep in mind that you are doing this mitzvah as a merit for the soul of your parent. This creates a great impact, for just as you have accomplished kindness, the soul of the departed will now benefit from Hashem’s kindness in turn.

• Prayer: There is, of course, the holy Kaddish prayer that is said, during the first

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year (12 months) of mourning and on the yahrzeit. Kaddish proclaims our desire that the name of Hashem be sanctified.

When one suffers a loss and is then able to recite the Kaddish, he is publicly accepting Hashem’s decree.This is considered to be one of the most awesome mitzvot -Kiddush Hashem, the sanctification of Hashem’s name. The merit for the soul is real and great.

• Embrace a Mitzvah: Choose a mitzvah and ‘put your signature on it’. It can be a mitzvah that your parent loved doing, or one that you would now like to take on. There are hundreds of mitzvoth to consider; such as helping children with special needs, visiting the sick, driving patients to doctor appointments, offering your professional services to those who cannot afford them, cooking and baking for families under stress, Saying blessings before and after you eat, keeping kosher, honoring Shabbat, praying each day, and avoiding gossip and shaming others.

• Light a yahrzeit (memorial) candle in honor of your parent’s soul. Four times a year one lights a memorial candle, besides on the yahrzeit (date of passing) date itself. The holidays of Yom Kippur, Passover, Shavuot and Sukkot, allow us the opportunity of Yizkor, remembrance.

We light the candle at sundown and the flames burn for (more than) 24 hours.

The flame of the candle symbolizes the human soul which is never extinguished.

While lighting the candle, think about your loved one and say that “I am lighting this flame in the merit that my loved one’s soul find peace and attain greater heights in the heavens above.”

The date of the yahrzeit also gives us added opportunities to help the soul soar higher in heaven because yahrzeit is a day of judgment for the soul. It is a custom to gather together and have a meal, a seudah, where we speak about the fine character of our loved one. We tell personal stories that relay his goodness, kindness, and integrity. Visiting the grave, giving charity, and studying Torah are all additional ways for us to add to our ‘care package to heaven’.

An Invitation Above When we completed our psalms, my

sister opened her bag and took out a folded white paper.

This week, my sister’s daughter will be getting married and my sister brought the wedding invitation to the cemetery. She gingerly put it on my father’s resting place and covered the invitation with the small white pebbles that lay over his grave.

“Abba, please come to our wedding, and bring all our Zaydahs and Bubbies with you,” she cried.

My mother then uttered her own personal invitation to my father, and to my Zaydah and Bubby who rest beside him.

She sobbed to the souls in Yiddish, and pleaded for them to join us and grant us all their blessings. My sister placed invitations on their graves and whispered a private prayer. Our tears flowed freely and mixed with the rain that was falling.

When there is a wedding below and a new Jewish home is being established, permission is given for the soul to attend the chuppah and rejoice with the bride and groom. It is a custom to invite the souls of your parents and grandparents to the wedding.

I recalled how 25 years ago, I was about

to walk under my own chuppah, and my

My father then took my hand and

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“Sheyfelah,” he said, “you are about to walk under the chuppah. You are starting a new life, building your own home. You never have to be afraid. All your holy Zaydies and Bubbies from the heavens above are here with you tonight. You are not walking alone. Never forget this moment.”

together with my mother and all the precious souls from above, we walked down the aisle.

I await my niece’s chuppah this week so that once again I have a moment with my precious father and all the holy souls from above.

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Cooking

Tofu with

Gitta Bixenspanner n.d.

Tofu is considered the staff of life in the Asian culture.

It is a staple in China and Japan. As a full protein it is a good source of Vitamin C and Calcium. Moderate consumption of tofu complements legume and grain choices in the diet. Tofu can be added to almost any dish. It combines easily with other ingredients in entrees, soups, side dishes and desserts. It is delicious with stir-fry vegetables or in fruit smoothies.

There are numerous varieties of tofu in their original state or in fast food prepared mixes that can be consumed in the place of animal protein. Many of these ready patties or meat substitutes are very palatable Tofu is so versatile and can be served in so many 48

ways, that it can definitely add some spark to a vegetarian diet and can add a new dimension and a change from the Western meat based meals.

Here are a few tofu recipes, designed for those occasions when you need a change from your usual diet and are ready to explore something a little different.

Tofu comes in many varieties. It comes in 1 lb packages of soft, semi soft, firm or extra firm, or in hard blocks, that are either vacuum packed or packaged in water. Once opened, tofu should be left in a container of water, and water should be changed daily. Once opened it should be consumed as soon as possible, even though it will last up to seven days when refrigerated.

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Chinese soup with tofu floats The Chinese cook their soup very simple.

Some vegetables like Napa lettuce, carrots, and celery julienned cooked into a light broth, with spices to taste. Then they cut a hard block of Tofu into small squares and they drop it into their soup.

Garnish with fresh scallions, for added taste.

Preparation 30 minutes Serves 4

Tofu stir fry Though I may not be the greatest tofu lover, I found Marinate cubes of tofu in ¼ cup tamari sauce and ¼ this recipe is both very tasty and appetizing and great cup honey, for at least ½ hour. Heat 1 tablespoon oil in a wok (or frying pan). Insert a fork into the fresh for a taste changer. piece of ginger and smear all over the saucepan for a few seconds until pan is well coated , that will give Ingredients the dish a very subtle taste of ginger.. Discard ginger. ½ block firm tofu, cut into 1x1 squares and patted dry Stir fry marinated tofu for a few minutes in the oil until browned on both sides. Remove from pan and set between paper towels 2 Tbs oil aside. Fry onions and garlic in 2 Tbs of oil and then add other vegetables cut julienne style (narrow thin 1 Spanish onion cut in thin strips 1 red pepper strips) and mix well just for a few minutes, Add a little Tamari and spices to taste (garlic powder, rosemary, 1 yellow pepper paprika). Return tofu pieces to the mixture. Stir-fry for 1 stalk celery another few minutes.

1 handful of mung bean sprouts Serve over a bed of wild rice or favorite pasta. Delicious!

2 cloves garlic 1 inch piece of fresh ginger Preparation time 25 minutes ¼ cup honey Serves 4 Directions 50

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Marinated Tofu kabobs Kabobs add a exotic touch to any meal.

They can be broiled or barbequed. With the summer season approaching their colorfulness and nutritious content will impress your guest.

Ingredients ½ block firm tofu, cut into 1x1 squares pat dry between paper towels 1 Spanish onion cut in cubes 1Tbs oil 1 red pepper cut into 1x1 squares 1 yellow pepper cut into 1x1 squares 1 stalk celery cut into 1’ pieces 1 can baby corn 1 8 oz package of baby tomatoes 1 8 oz package of mushrooms Teriyaki sauce found in the sauce section of better health food stores. (optional) or ½ and ½ Tamari and honey mixture.

Directions In a Chinese wok stir-fry tofu in a little bit of oil, until all sides are seared and slightly browned.

Pierce ingredients through skewers alternating tofu pieces with colorful vegetables.

Let the kabobs marinate in a teriyaki sauce for 2 hours Broil it in the oven or on an open grill turning over after a few minutes until required doneness.

Serve over a bed of rice, millet or quinoa.

Top with your favorite sauce or the Teriyaki sauce that follows.

Preparation 20 minutes Serves

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Simple Homemade Teriyaki sauce Great homemade sauce handy to have around as it is useful in many dishes Ingredients ½ cup organic brown sugar 1 cup soy sauce 1 cup lemon juice 2 Tbs fresh grated ginger root 4 cloves freshly pressed garlic Directions Mix all ingredients together and use as stir-fry sauce or to marinade vegetables, or over your favorite pasta.

Sweet Sauce Here is an alternative to bought sauces that are easily made at home with very good results.

Ingredients 1cup water ¾ cup brown sugar ½ cup ketchup 2 Tbs lemon 2 cloves garlic crushed 4-5 Tbs sesame seeds toasted Directions Cook first 5 ingredients until it boils and reduces a bit about 10 minutes on medium high flame. Remove from flame. Add sesame seeds and mix until well combined..

Pour over the kabobs and rice. This sauce is delicious on other dishes as well, such as chicken, fish or pasta.

Preparation time 15 minutes Serves 6 52

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Chinese Tofu Squares Supreme For the occasional time that you want to eat something really good, try this batter fried tofu. Flavorful and delicious right out of the pan.

Ingredients 1 block firm tofu cut in 2x2’ squares (pat dry between 2 paper towels) Marinate tofu pieces in a mixture of ½ cup Tamari and 1/3 cup honey.

Next, prepare this batter: ½ cup seltzer (or better yet beer if you have some at home) 1 cup unbleached flour, or white spelt flour 3 Tbs oil 1 flat tsp baking powder ½ tsp sea salt Shake of garlic and basil leaves

1 cup mushrooms Directions In a saucepan, brown onions and garlic in water, with some Tamari Lite soy sauce. Add vegetables and sauté for 5 minutes, until it is al dente (Italian term for not too soft).

Mix flour and water and add to the vegetables. It will make a delicious sauce that can be poured over any grain/pasta.

Preparation time 1 hour Serves 6

Directions Mix all ingredients with a fork until thick and well blended.

Coat the marinated tofu pieces in this mixture and then fry in a little oil until golden brown on both sides.

Serve on a bed of your favorite grain like millet, quinoa or rice. Top with sweet sauce from above recipe For an alternate vegetable sauce: Ingredients 1 small onion and 1 clove of garlic chopped 1 red and 1 yellow pepper 2 Tbs unbleached white flour 2 Tbs onion powder soup mix (optional) 2 cups water ½ can baby corn

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Smooth Chocolate Tofu Mousse Tofu can even make delightful desserts, when mixed with fruits or cocoa. Here is a popular chocolate mousse that can easily pass for the real deal.

Ingredients 14 ounces soft tofu 3 ounces bittersweet chocolate, plus additional for garnish 2 Tbs unsweetened cocoa powder 2 Tbs honey 1/2 tsp finely ground French roast or espresso coffee 1 tsp vanilla sugar/extract Directions 1.

Cut the tofu into 1 inch blocks and place

54

between paper towel with a real plate over it to drain.

Allow to drain 10-20 minutes and discard liquid.

2.

Chop the 3 oz of chocolate into chunks and microwave in a small bowl for 30 seconds. Stir and microwave in 15 second intervals, stirring in between, until melted.

3.

Place chocolate and tofu in a food processor and immediately blend. Add cocoa powder, honey, coffee powder and vanilla sugar/extract and blend until smooth.

Divide between four bowls and use a vegetable peeler to top each serving with chocolate shavings.

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Smooth Chocolate Tofu Mousse This delicious custard cups are easy to make and make a beautiful dessert for any meal. Impress your guest with this original confection.

Use six glass or ceramic 6 - 8 oz ramekins for this recipe for a beautiful presentation.

Ingredients: • 1 recipe raw nut crust (recipe for crust below the custard recipe) • 1/2 cup lemon juice (from 2 - 3 fresh lemons) + 1/4 cup water • 1 Tbsp agar powder (thickening agent found in health food store) • 1 box Firm Tofu (12.3oz) • Zest of 1 lemon (fresh is best) optionall • 1/2 cup honey/agave syrup or favorite sweetener Raw Nut Crust Ingredients • 1 cup nuts (hazelnuts, almonds, walnuts, pecans or brazil nuts are good - combine 2 or 3 kinds) • 8 Medjool dates, pitted • 1 tsp cinnamon • 1 cup shredded coconut Crust Directions: Soak dates in boiling water for 5 - 10 minutes Add nuts, coconut and cinnamon to food processor and process until crumbly

Pit the dates and add to food processor to completely blend with nuts. The mixture may form a sticky ball. It should at least stick together when pressed with your fingers.

Divide the crust between the six ramekins, and press firmly into the bottom, using a spatula or your fingers Lemon Custard Directions Zest one lemon into a dish Squeeze lemons and strain to make 1/2 cup lemon juice Heat lemon juice and agar slowly, stirring with a whisk until it thickens (3 - 5 minutes). Set aside.

Add the silken tofu, lemon zest, honey /agave syrup to a food processor and process until the mixture is smooth, scraping down the sides of the bowl with a spatula as needed If you don’t have a food processor, mix with an immersion blender or a whisk until smooth Add the lemon and agar mixture to the silken tofu mixture and blend Spoon the lemon tofu custard into the ramekins, on top of the raw crust. Cover and chill for 4 hours minimum.

Serve garnished with fresh berries. Enjoy!

Total prep & cook time: 30 min 6 Servings

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