Five Towns Jewish Home 11.09.23

November 9, 2023

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Sisters Rinat and Natali Beg for Their Father’s Release

79 Thousands Unite at Massive Queens Asifa

44 Rabbi Zev Leff Brings Chizuk

76 Chabad Commemorates October 7

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Dear Readers,

I

think each of us will always remember where we were when we heard the news of the October 7th massacre.

Truthfully, I didn’t believe it at first. Our guests on Shemini Atzeres told us that they heard of hundreds of people being killed in Israel. But I thought to myself, Hundreds? An exaggeration. But if only that number of two hundred people killed was true.

Only after yom tov did the full story come out. And it came in bits and pieces. Rumors of what was done to those who were slaughtered.

Stories of the horrors. Pictures and videos of the terrorists’ bloodlust glorified for the world to see their savagery and cruelty.

It’s hard to believe that it’s been 30 days since 1,400 of our brothers and sisters were slaughtered because they were Jews. For most of us, we are still in the mourning phase, a period when our world is still tinged and colored in dusky tones, a time when we can’t – won’t – fully enjoy the pleasures that we used to take for granted.

Our minds never stray too far from the Holy Land, from the losses we endured and from those who are laying in hospital beds with missing limbs and twisted, puckered scars, who are constantly reliving the atrocities that they witnessed.

Our minds never stray too far from those families who are left with gaping holes in their hearts and homes, families whose lights have dimmed forever.

Our minds never stray too far from those who were snatched from their beds and paraded through the streets, who are living in fear and at the mercy of sadistic murderers in dark rooms tens of feet underground.

Our minds never stray too far from those who valiantly venture into enemy territory, young men who have barely experienced life, who are putting their lives at risk to save the Jewish People.

We have become changed people. We look at the world differently. We see each moment as an opportunity to become closer to each other, to ourselves, to our Creator. Our lives have become transformed, mission-driven to do good in this world and to use our time here to beseech the One Above to bring us salvation and comfort, as only He can. We’ve become focused on saying another perek of Tehillim, of reaching out to someone who needs our help, of being calmer, more centered individuals.

Sometimes, I wonder how it is possible for the Israeli army to traverse all those boobytrapped tunnels and bring our brothers and sisters home to their families. There are no maps, no guidelines on how to navigate the winding, interconnected tunnels manned by terrorists who are itching to be martyrs. But then I remind myself that it is not the army who will be rescuing our nation. It is our Creator, Who will be bringing both the captives and the soldiers back home to safety.

Jews are believers. And when you look at our history, you see the miracles that our Creator has performed for our Nation, His beloved People. Our past is paved with salvations that could only have come from the One Above. And so, we daven and we beg and we ask Him to once again save our nation, the People who love Him and rely on Him so deeply.

May this week bring us besuros tovos, Shoshana

Yitzy Halpern, PUBLISHER

publisher@fivetownsjewishhome.com

Yosef Feinerman, MANAGING EDITOR ads@fivetownsjewishhome.com

Shoshana Soroka, EDITOR

editor@fivetownsjewishhome.com

Nate Davis Editorial Assistant Nechama Wein Copy Editor Rachel Bergida Shana Brecher Lani White Design & Production Gabe Solomon Distribution & Logistics P.O. BOX 266 Lawrence, NY 11559 Phone | 516-734-0858 Fax | 516-734-0857 Classified Deadline: Monday 5:00PM classifieds@fivetownsjewishhome.com text 443-929-4003 PAYMENT VIA CREDIT CARD MUST BE SUBMITTED ALONG WITH CLASSIFIED ADS The Jewish Home is an independent weekly magazine.

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Shabbos Zemanim

Weekly Weather | November 10 – November 16

Friday, November 10 Parshas Chayei Sarah

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Candle Lighting: 4:23 pm Shabbos Ends: 5:24 pm Rabbeinu Tam: 5:53 pm

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Contents LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

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COMMUNITY Readers’ Poll

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Community Happenings

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NEWS

88

Global

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National

32

That’s Odd

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ISRAEL Israel News

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Bring Them Home Now

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How Can We Ever Be Whole? By Rebecca Byrd

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Why are the October 7 Atrocities Being Denied? By Caroline Glick

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Poisoning the Jews, Then and Now by Rafael Medoff

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JEWISH THOUGHT Rabbi Wein on the Parsha

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An Ode to Sarah by Rav Moshe Weinberger

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When Selfish Becomes Selfless by Rabbi Shmuel Reichman

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Delving into the Daf by Rabbi Avrohom Sebrow

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Headlines and Halacha by Rabbi Yair Hoffman

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PEOPLE Inspiration Nation

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Bronze and Silver Star Recipients by Avi Heiligman

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HEALTH & FITNESS Plant-Based Alternatives by Tehila Soskel, RDN, CDN

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FOOD & LEISURE A Marblespoon Menu by Vera Newman

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The Aussie Gourmet: Kaiserschmarrn

114 LIFESTYLES

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Life Cycles by Barbara Deutsch

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Dating Dialogue, Moderated

by Jennifer Mann, LCSW

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Parenting Pearls

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School of Thought

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JWOW!

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Mind Your Business

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Your Money

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Nothing Like Teamwork by Rivki D. Rosenwald Esq., CLC, SDS

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HUMOR Centerfold

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POLITICAL CROSSFIRE Notable Quotes

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Ukraine’s Hopes Hang in the Balance by David Ignatius

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Antisemitism On the Left Needs to Be Called Out, Too by Marc A. Thiessen 123 CLASSIFIEDS

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Dear Editor, I want to thank the person who came up with the initiative to put up posters of the kidnapped hostages on the stores on Central Avenue. And, I want to thank the stores that have the good sensitivity to post those signs. This shows that you are about more than just making money.

Although we daven for nissim, as the days go by, we may unfortunately get used to this reality that there are hundreds of our men, women, and children suffering in the most inhumane way we could imagine. We may start turning our attention to Chanukah presents, winter vacation, football games, etc. This doesn’t make us bad—through years of repetition, our yearly schedules tend to follow the same goalposts. Although we will do many regular things in the coming months, we can do them in a way that we maintain a touch of awareness of what our people are going through.

These signs on the stores help that effort.

I urge everyone to encourage the storeowners who have the signs up and to speak up and bring awareness to those stores that do not have the signs up. If you explain to them how important it is to you—the customer—they will probably listen. Ultimately, they will benefit from it, too.

May Hashem bring the hostages home and I look forward to the day that we have a parade on Central Avenue as we remove each of the signs from the stores one by one….in celebration of the hostages being reunited with their families.

Zehava K.

Dear Editor, What’s required of man? To rise above nature, to die on kiddush Hashem, to save humanity? Examining Genesis, it seems Fear of G-d at the minimum. Avraham claims that in the place of Avimelech, there is no fear of G-d, which discounts its place in society. Why is fear of G-d so pivotal? The Rambam puts forth the concept that our minds follow our desires. This means that once someone desires something, whether it be correct or not, the mind will justify carrying it out. However, Fear of G-d can stop this mechanism as the mind has the ability to think before it initiates anything.

A thinking man is a powerful man.

The verse testifies to this notion as it says, “The beginning of wisdom is fear.” Fear ensures a successful life and a humane society.

Steven Genack Dear Editor, Hamas, what were you trying to do?

What were you trying to do? Your objective? Your intent? Was it to destroy the lives of innocent men, women, children, babies and break the moral of Israel? You only partially succeeded.

Hamas, you are pure unadulterated evil for Israel and the Palestinian people as well. All who deserve freedom and dignity. Innocent people, Israelis and Gazans... Hundreds of children perished.

Many of Israel’s brightest and best. Young adults, families, senior citizens, you caused to perish. What have you gained?

Accomplished? You had to have known Continued on page 10

Cover photo by Chaim Goldberg/Flash90

Do you wear a wristwatch?

68 32 %

Yes

%

No

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Continued from page 8

that Israel would not allowed such a massacre to go unpunished. And tragically, as you hide like cowards, under schools, hospitals, Mosques, day care centers, shielding your barbaric selves behind your own babies. Sadly, Israel must end your nightmare once and for all.

As moral people, Israel has notified Gazans to evacuate. You couldn’t care about Israelis, inflicting unimaginable barbaric cruelty as you slaughtered the innocents. As rockets flew over Israel, parts of Gaza has had to be leveled in order to reach the launching pads.

Again, what have you accomplished? Israelis deserve to live in safety and peace and will accept nothing less. Gazans too deserve to live in safety and peace. Will such atrocities bring us one iota closer to peace? I think not. Israel must wipe Hamas off the face of the Earth.

When the dust settles, there is no victor for families who have lost precious loved ones. Though I may not see it, I pray for an everlasting peace for Palestinians, Israelis, Gazans, and the entire Middle East.

Joseph M. Varon West Hempstead, NY

Dear Editor, Antisemitism is at an all-time high with Jewish students afraid to walk on campus even at Ivy League colleges.

Thousands support Hamas protests in every major city across the United States yelling, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” many without understanding that they are advocating for the destruction of the State of Israel. The FBI Director says they have a handle on the known terrorists, but he can’t say about the unknown terrorists or “got aways” who have crossed the open border. Furthermore, President Biden has not addressed antisemitism in the U.S. where 60% of the hate crimes are against Jews versus 8% against Muslims, according to FBI statistics.

Although President Biden had initially backed Israel, he has begun to waffle with calls for a “pause” in the war that is echoed by well-orchestrated protesters in the U.S. and around the world. This pause is suggested while not announcing that Israel is allowing 100+ humanitarian aid trucks to cross the border from Egypt.

To add insult to injury, V.P. Harris announces a campaign against Islamophobia, former President Obama authors a podcast that there are two sides to the story of Israel and the Palestinians, and

Secretary of State Blinken has the chutzpah to show up in Israel reiterating the international community insistence on a cease fire to allow humanitarian supplies for Gazans. The fact that Israel is still working to identify the 1,400 burnt bodies of babies, children, elderly, men and women as well as Israeli Defense Force soldiers, all of whom were tortured and desecrated, is no longer mentioned.

Still the Biden Administration plays politics with the president tying Israel’s aid to aid for Ukraine. The Republicans, under the Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, have passed a $14.3 Israeli Aid bill that would not add to the deficit and sent it to the Senate for approval.

Senator Schumer, the self-proclaimed “Shomer,” should be spearheading the effort to get aid to Israel without Ukraine and border issues which need to be debated. We, in the Jewish community, and others who are Israel’s supporters, should deluge Senator Schumer urging him to get the aid to Israel passed and not play politics.

Jan Henock Woodmere, NY Dear Editor, As we have changed the clocks this week, I urge all parents to speak to their children about safety. Many children come home from school while it is dark.

Drivers aren’t used to waiting for schoolchildren crossing the streets under the cover of darkness.

Please, if you can, buy knapsacks that have reflective lines or accessories on them. Or buy a reflective attachment that you can attach to your kids’ backpacks. Additionally, please remind kids to be extra careful when coming home from school.

And drivers, please be mindful. Chil-

dren are out – coming home from school, going to shul – when it’s dark. We need to avoid all tragedies and accidents.

Sincerely, Chana Tomer Dear Editor, Etti Siegel’s article on the importance of “really listening” to other people comes at a most appropriate time. We are all bombarded by news and information. There is so much that vies for our attention at all times. But if we truly sat down with those around us and listened to them, we will be able to understand them and heal them and help them in truly fundamental ways. Each person deserves to be heard – children, spouses, friends, family. Listening, really listening, is the key to helping people in these challenging times.

Respectfully, L. Weiss Dear Editor, Sarah Beth Solomont is a true hero. I read and cried and smiled and connected with her words, her attempts to connect with her feelings and understand her emotions while grappling with the pain and anxiety that are widespread.

But I think that it’s important to note that there are so many Sarah Beths in Israel right now, each with their own “diary,” and each with their own challenges and concerns, each with their own family members serving in the army or missing or no longer alive.

Each person in Israel is experiencing their own saga. We need to be able to feel for them and connect with them and pray for them as we storm the Heavens for a salvation.

May we share in good news.

Sincerely, A Reader

2023 Election Results Nassau County Supervisor Donald Clavin 81,868 votes, 65.06% Olena Nicks 43,661 votes, 34.7% Councilmember District 3 TOH Melissa Miller 14,826 votes, 68.2% Ingrid Izaguirre 6,851 votes, 13.52% County Legislator District 7 Howard Kopel 10,167 votes, 78.68% Tanvir Ahmad 2,750 votes, 21.28% County Legislator District 10 Mazi Melesa Pilip 11,233 votes, 60.20% Weihua Yan 7,388 votes, 39.59%

Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz 97,388 votes, 67.5% Michael Mossa 38,479 votes, 27.4% Queens City Council, District 31 Selvena Brooks Powers 8,597 votes, 89.7% Daniella May 988 votes, 10.3% Brooklyn City Council, District 44 Kalman Yeger 7,362 votes, 83.1% Heshy Tischler 1,692 votes, 18.7%

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The Week In News

Southern Europe Slammed By Storm

by fallen trees and over one hundred schools have yet to be reopened.

The Met Office, which is the United Kingdom’s meteorological agency, has issued warnings, cautioning the country’s citizens about the “danger to life” presented by debris hurled by the storm’s violent winds and rain. Trees and homes have been damaged, and it will likely be very difficult for residents to travel in the near future.

This storm came only two weeks after Storm Babet, which hit several parts of Europe and killed seven people.

China Lending to Developing Countries Four are dead, a million are left without electricity, and hundreds of schools have been shut down after storm Ciarán hit southern England, the Channel Islands, France, and other areas in southern Europe, carrying with it violent winds.

Of the four who were killed, two died in France: a truck driver who was driving when his vehicle was hit by a falling tree branch, as well as a seventy-year-old man who fell off his balcony while trying to close the shades. The other two victims, who were in Belgium, were a sixty-five-year-old woman and a five-year-old child who were both killed in Ghent after being struck by branches in two unrelated cases.

The electricity of around 1.2 million people in France has yet to be restored.

Of the 1.2 million who have no power, about 780,000 reside in the French region of Brittany. According to Meteo-France, the French national meteorological service, the Finistère department, which is in Brittany, saw wind speeds of over 75 mph and gusts of over 124 mph.

“The very violent winds and gusts which followed one another throughout the night had the effect of causing many trees, branches and electrical and telephone lines across the entire road network to fall to the ground,” stated the government of Finistère.

The Channel Islands and British Isles were struck by storm Ciarán, as well. In the island country of Jersey, every airport and school was closed, the government said, and in Cornwall, a county in southwest England, 8,500 individuals are still living with no power.

Many Cornwall roads are still blocked

After lending $1.3 trillion to developing countries, mainly for big-ticket infrastructure projects, China has shifted its focus to bailing out many of those same countries from piles of debt.

The initial loans were mostly part of the Belt and Road Initiative, which Xi Jinping, China’s top leader, started in 2013 to build stronger transportation, communications and political links in more than 150 countries.

But now the two main Chinese state banks that provided most of the infrastructure loans have reduced their new lending. Rescue loans climbed to 58% of China’s lending to low- and middle-income countries in 2021 from 5% in 2013, according to a new report from AidData, a research institute at William and Mary, a university in Williamsburg, Virginia, that compiles comprehensive information about Chinese development financing.

“Beijing is navigating an unfamiliar and uncomfortable role — as the world’s largest official debt collector,” the institute wrote.

While the Belt and Road Initiative bought geopolitical clout for Beijing and helped finance economically useful projects, Chinese loans were also used to build expensive projects that have not spurred economic growth and have loaded countries with debt.

Much of the recent lending by Beijing consists of loans from China’s

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central bank to the central banks of countries that took out Belt and Road Initiative loans. Another large and growing chunk is from state-controlled Chinese commercial banks, working in conjunction with groups of Western banks.

Unpaid debts to China are part of billions owed by developing countries to other nations, to the International Monetary Fund and to private lenders.

Recent economic shocks caused by the Covid pandemic and a global surge in energy and food prices from the Russian invasion of Ukraine have made the current cycle especially acute.

China is shifting the focus of its lending as the United States seeks to match China’s early success in establishing strong ties to developing countries.

The U.S. International Development Finance Corp., created by the Trump administration and Congress in response to the Belt and Road Initiative, plans to announce this week a $125 million loan for shipyard modernization in Greece and up to $553 million in lending for port expansion in Sri Lanka, said American officials with a detailed knowledge of the plans. (© The New York Times)

United Against Antisemitism

The antisemitism envoys of 24 countries, including the United States, have made a joint call on governments to protect their local Jewish communities in the wake of the Hamas terror group’s October 7 devastating attack on Israel.

Thirty officials signed the statement on Monday. In addition to representatives of countries across Europe and North and South America, it includes signatories from multinational organizations like the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and the Organization of American States.

More than 3,000 Hamas terrorists burst into Israel on October 7 and murdered more than 1,400 people. At least 240 people – including children and grandparents – were taken hostage.

There have “been demonstrations in many countries – including in some countries and regions which we represent – in which individuals praised these heinous actions of Hamas, ‘celebrated’ the murder of Jews, and even called for more antisemitic assaults,” said the statement posted on Monday, while noting there has also been widespread condemnation of the October 7 attack.

“Jewish communities are fearful and are being threatened,” said the statement.

The statement asked governments and law enforcement agencies to ensure “necessary security assistance” for Jewish communities; calls on university administrators to ensure Jewish students are safe; asks civil society organizations “including sports federations, religious communities, the cultural sector and academic circles” to not remain silent; and demands that social media platforms address the surge of “antisemitic messages, disinformation, hate speech, and terrorist content, which instigate real world hate crimes and threaten the very social cohesion that binds our democratic societies together.”

“Synagogues and other Jewish sites have been attacked,” it noted. “Schools have closed since they can no longer guarantee the safety of their students.

Shabbat gatherings require the presence of armed guards for protection. In some cities, Jews are being harassed and accosted on the streets. Posters of the captive hostages are defaced and torn down.

Antisemitism online has surged in an unprecedented way.”

Ironically, the statement, which was signed by Deborah Lipstadt, the U.S. State Department’s envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism, does not mention the war taking place between Hamas and Israel.

Chinese Ex-Premier Dies

Li Keqiang died on October 27 at age sixty-eight of a heart attack, thrusting much of China into a state of mourning.

Li, a well-liked premier who had the potential to be a competitor to Xi Jinping, kept his position for over ten years and

remained the only Party member not appointed by Xi until he stepped down last March.

While the government’s reaction to his death has been, according to some, underwhelming, many citizens of China are having trouble coping with Li’s death, as to many, he represented a better future for the people of the communist state.

The ex-premier was committed to fixing China’s economy and wished to remove the country’s large wealth gap and lower the cost of housing, but he had trouble doing so because of Xi’s policies.

“The public outpouring of grief for Li reflects the mourning of some Chinese people for a more open and optimistic time, before Mr. Xi steered the country in a more authoritarian, statist, and nationalist direction,” Neil Thomas, a fellow at the Chinese Politics at Asia Society Policy Institute, said.

After his death, the Communist Party called Li a “time-tested communist soldier” and encouraged the people of China to “turn grief into strength.” His funeral, which Xi was present at, took place at the Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery. Li’s successor, Li Qiang, was also at the funeral. In other places in the country, such as the city of Hefei where Li grew up and in Zhengzhou where he worked as a top provincial official, thousands of grieving citizens placed bouquets and cards, praising the man for his accomplishments and qualities.

According to Kyle Jaros, a global affairs professor who works at the University of Notre Dame, the people of China have always liked premiers such as Li, who focus more on the country’s struggles as opposed to global affairs.

“Sometimes to praise the path not taken is to make a comment on the path that was taken… Li represented a top leader who looked out for the little guys.

He made them feel ‘seen’,” said political scientist Wen Ti-Sung who studies China and Taiwan at the Australian National University.

At this point, some are confused as to why China is censoring Weibo social media posts which are in praise of the deceased ex-premier. As one Chinese woman asked: “[Li was] a great leader. Why can’t we show it?”

Nepal Earthquake On Friday, a 5.6 magnitude earthquake killed 157 people in northwestern Nepal and caused entire buildings to collapse.

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“We are only focused on search and rescue operation right now,” said Kuber Kadayat, a spokesperson for Nepal police. “That’s why we don’t yet have a proper estimate of collapsed and damaged houses and other infrastructure.

There are some villages where an estimated 90% of houses have collapsed.”

Of the 157 people who died, 105 were killed in Jajarkot district, while 52 were killed in nearby Rukum West district, Kadayat said. An additional 170 people have been injured, he added.

“The number of injured could be in the hundreds, and the deaths could go up as well,” warned Harish Chandra Sharma, a district official in Jajarkot. “Many houses have collapsed; many others have developed cracks.

Thousands of residents spent the entire night in cold, open grounds because they were too scared to go into the cracked houses as aftershocks struck.”

As rescuers scrambled to help, operations were hampered by the fact that many of the mountainous villages could only be reached by foot.

Roads were also blocked by landslides triggered by the earthquake. Soldiers could be seen trying to clear the blocked roads.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi posted on the X social media platform that he is “deeply saddened by loss of lives and damage due to the earthquake in Nepal.”

“India stands in solidarity with the people of Nepal and is ready to extend all possible assistance. Our thoughts are with the bereaved families, and we wish the injured a quick recovery,” Modi added.

Nepal has seen many earthquakes, but the South Asian country, which resides where the Eurasian and Indian tectonic plates come in contact, has not experienced such a deadly earthquake since 2015, when a 7.8 magnitude earthquake killed over 9,000 people and caused $6 billion in damage.

Smog Blankets New Delhi

Smog caused by serious pollution has once again filled the air of India’s capital, New Delhi. According to IQAir, a Switzerland-based air quality company, the air quality in the city, which measures at PM 2.5, is almost 80 times more than the air quality limit put in place by the World Health Organization. Contained within the toxic air is sulfate, nitrates, and black carbon, all of which can seriously affect those breathing them in.

“Sadly, every year when November rolls around, there is a sense of dread as the air turns foul,” said Prachi Bhuchar, a resident of the city. “We have been in Delhi for over 15 years now, but each year makes it tougher to stay on.”

In an attempt to limit exposure to the smog, locals have been buying air purifiers, wearing face masks, and spending as little time outdoors as possible.

New Delhi, a city with over 20 million residents, is one of the most polluted cities in the world. A 2021 study conducted by the University of Chicago’s Energy Policy Institute even suggests that those living in the capital may have their life expectancy cut by nine years due to the toxic air.

“Sicknesses from pollution are getting worse over the years because of prolonged exposure and worsening levels,” said Dr. Suranjit Chatterjee, a senior Internal Medicine consultant at the Indraprastha Apollo Hospital in New Delhi. “High pollution level spares nobody but the most vulnerable population are people with lung diseases like asthma, bronchitis and lung damage.”

In 2019, the government put forth plans to lessen particulate pollution by 2024 by as much as 30%. Still, the situation has not improved, especially in recent years, partially because of India’s heavy use of fossil fuels.

Now, many residents fear that the smog will hinder India’s ability to play in the upcoming and widely anticipated Cricket World Cup.

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Iran Prisoner Starts Hunger Strike

Narges Mohammadi, the imprisoned Iranian human rights activist who won this year’s Nobel Peace Prize, began a hunger strike on Monday, after she was denied hospital treatment for two blocked coronary arteries, her family said.

Mohammadi is serving a 10-year sentence in the notorious Evin prison on charges of “spreading propaganda against the state,” but she has continued to be a vocal critic of the government even from behind bars. Last week, she refused to cover her hair with the mandatory hijab when prison authorities wanted to transport her to a hospital. In response, they told her she would not be released for medical care, according to her hus-

band, Taghi Rahmani.

“We are extremely worried. There is a history of prisoners dying in prison after hunger strikes,” Rahmani said in an interview. “Her life is in danger.”

He said Mohammadi told him she will only drink water with salt or sugar and will refuse dry food. Rahmani is a prominent political activist who lives in exile in Paris with their two teenage children. The couple’s 17-year-old twins, Ali and Kiana, are “very anxious,” and hope that international pressure on Iran’s government will ease the restrictions on their mother and her punishment, Rahmani said.

Mohammadi has suffered a number of health problems, including a heart attack, while in prison. Prison guards assaulted her in September, she said at the time, leaving her body bruised, and in May, the prison revoked Mohammadi’s telephone and visitation rights because of statements posted on her Instagram page condemning Iran’s human rights violations, according to her family.

The news of her hunger strike comes as her husband and children are preparing to attend the Dec. 10 Nobel Peace Prize ceremony in Oslo, Norway. They will accept the prize and speak on her behalf, her husband said.

Mohammadi has organized protests

and sit-ins inside the prison as part of the uprising, led by women that rocked Iran last year, written guest essays and organized weekly prison workshops for women. “The more they lock us up, the stronger we become,” she wrote in an opinion essay for The New York Times in September. (© The New York Times)

Blinken Meets Iraqi PM

After meeting with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Sunday, November 5, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken went to Baghdad to meet with the prime minister of Iraq, Mohammed Shiaa al-Sudani.

According to the U.S. State Department, Blinken and Sudani “discussed the humanitarian situation in Gaza and our continued commitment to coordi-

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nating with Iraq and our other partners in the region to ensure sustained and safe access to food, water, medical care, and other assistance required to meet humanitarian needs.” Additionally, they both agreed that the forced displacement of Palestinians should be avoided.

This meeting came as Israel continues its ground offensive in Gaza to purge the land of the Hamas terror organization, the group which, as part of an invasion that took Israel by surprise, murdered over 1,400 people, kidnapped more than 240 others, and wounded more than 5,000 people. Prior to Israel’s response, the Jewish State warned Gazans to migrate south and has tried to exclusively target Hamas terrorists and not Palestinian civilians.

During the discussion with Sudani, Blinken brought up his concerns about the Iran-backed Iraqi militia groups who have been attacking U.S. forces stationed in Iraq and Syria.

“I made very clear that attacks or threats coming from militias that are aligned with Iran are totally unacceptable,” Blinken said after the meeting. “We will take every necessary step to protect our people.”

Around 2,500 U.S. forces are currently in Iraq in order to eliminate ISIS. From

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October 17 to November 3, the troops were attacked seventeen times in Iraq and twelve times in Syria. The majority of these attacks were conducted by the “Islamic Resistance in Iraq” militia group and only caused slight injuries. The Iraqi prime minister has denied any involvement in these attacks and has asserted that the matter is being investigated in order to punish the responsible parties.

Iraq, like many countries in the Middle East, has refused to recognize the sovereignty of Israel and has insisted on calling the Jewish State’s military response in Gaza a “genocide.”

Sgt. Rose Lubin, Hy”d

On Monday morning, Sgt. Rose Ida Lubin was murdered by a 16-year-old terrorist who stabbed her near Herod’s Gate in the Old City in Jerusalem.

Another officer was lightly wounded in the attack.

The murderer, from the town of Issawiya, was killed by officers responding to the scene.

Rose, originally from Atlanta, had attended Camp Nageela in New York for five summers, growing in her Jewish observance. “She was fiercely proudly of being Jewish,” according to those in Camp Nageela. “She gave her life for being a Jew.” Rabbi David Shenker of Camp Nageela said, “The last year she was in camp, she gave a speech where she described how something clicked this summer and she sees herself as a proud part of the Jewish people.”

Rose had made aliyah before becoming a police officer.

She was 20 years old when she was killed.

Emily May Still Be Alive

After the atrocities of October 7, Thomas Hand was told that his eightyear-old daughter Emily was killed in the massacre. In an interview with CNN days after the attack, the grieving parent said that he was relieved when he heard that Emily was killed by Hamas militants.

“They just said, ‘We found Emily, and she’s dead,’” he told CNN. Thomas recalled that he said, “Yes,” when he heard the news.

“I knew the alternative for my daughter. I knew she’d either be found dead or kidnapped and taken to Gaza,” he said.

“The thought of a little eight-year-old child in the hands of those animals... Can you imagine the sheer horror for an eightyear-old child?”

Now, weeks later, the Hand family has been told by the Irish Embassy in Israel that it is believed that Emily had been kidnapped in the attacks and not murdered by Hamas terrorists.

The little girl, who was born in Israel and has an Irish father, was at a sleepover at a friend’s house in Kibbutz Be’eri, where they both live, when the terror attack took place. More than 100 people were killed in the small community, which is only about three miles from the barrier separating Gaza from Israel.

Emily’s half-sister Natali, 26, speaking on Israeli TV, addressed the little girl directly, saying, “I want to tell you that we are doing everything to get you home. We know you are being held hostage. We love you so much and miss you.”

Wagner Group Supports Hezbollah According to U.S. intelligence, the Wagner Group, a powerful Russian militia organization, will be sending a Russian SA-22 system, equipped with anti-aircraft missiles and air-defense guns, to Hezbollah, an Iran-backed Lebanese

terror organization.

“The information that was reported

by The Wall Street Journal is concerning,” said White House National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson.

“We know that Russia has refused to condemn Hamas for its horrific terrorist attack on Israel and they recently hosted Hamas officials in Moscow. This comes as Russia is continuing to commit atrocities in Ukraine.”

The Wagner Group’s troops in Syria are credited with helping Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who is a friend of Russian President Vladimir Putin, defeat his main competitor in the Syrian presidential election.

This potential deal also has implications with Russia’s ties to Iran, as the two countries continue to work on the building of a Russian drone factory. Some experts speculate that the Wagner Group’s gift might be a payment of sorts for the help Iran has given to Russia, considering how the Kremlin has been exerting more control over the Wagner Group since its leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, mysteriously died last August in a plane crash.

As the Jewish State goes to war against Hamas to defeat the terrorist organization which invaded southern Israel on October 7, murdering over 1,400 people, abducting more than 240 others, and wounding thousands more, many have been concerned that Hezbollah will join in the fight and launch a full-scale attack in northern Israel. Last Friday, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah delivered his first speech since the October 7th attacks and insisted that while the Lebanese terror group will not be launching a major attack yet, it will not hesitate to do so in the future if Israel goes “any further.”

“The conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East have clear links,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said to the Senate Appropriations Committee in an attempt to convince Congress to give Israel and Ukraine military assistance. “Since we cut off Russia’s traditional means of supplying its military, it’s turned more and more to Iran for assistance. In return, Moscow has supplied Iran with increasingly advanced military technology, which poses a threat to Israel’s security.”

In late October, several high-ranking Hamas officials met with Russia’s deputy foreign minister Mikhail Bogdanov.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry has claimed that the topic of discussion concerned the release of those abducted, although the Israeli government has criticized the Kremlin for hosting members of a terrorist organization in its country.

S. African Diplomats Recalled From Israel

In an act of protest against Israel’s military actions in Gaza, the country of South Africa has decided to withdraw all of its diplomats from its embassy in Tel Aviv.

Along with the announcement of such action, Khumbudzo Ntshavheni, a minister who works in the office of the president, criticized Israeli ambassador Eliav Belotsercovsky for making “disparaging remarks” about those in the South African government “who are speaking against the holocaust being committed by the Israeli government.”

“There seems to be a strange practice among some ambassadors in South Africa, that they can just say what they like…

I don’t know if it’s because it’s an African country and they disrespect us but it’s something that we should not tolerate,” said Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor, suggesting that Belotsercovsky’s pro-Israel comments were motivated by racism.

Pandor added that a withdrawal of this sort is “normal practice” and that the diplomats would receive a “full briefing” in order to determine whether a “continued relationship is actually able to be sustained.”

“We are…extremely concerned at the continued killing of children and innocent civilians in the Palestinian territories and we believe the nature of response by Israel has become one of collective punishment,” she alleged. “We felt it important that we do signal the concern of South Africa while continuing to call for a comprehensive cessation (of hostilities).”

During a phone conversation with Hamas’ leader, Pandor says she discussed humanitarian aid and did not speak of

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her support for the terrorist organization.

“Israel expects South Africa to condemn the murderous terror group Hamas, which is worse than ISIS, and support Israel’s right to defend itself from an assault by a terror group that raises the banner of destroying the State of Israel,” the Israeli Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

Other countries have recalled their diplomats from Israel, including Chad, another African country, as well as Turkey, Jordan, Bahrain, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, and Honduras, who have all withdrawn their ambassadors from the Jewish State since the start of the Israel-Hamas War.

Blinken Visits Israel On Friday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Israel and offered support for Israel’s “right” and “obligation” to defend itself after the October 7th horrific attacks by Hamas terrorists.

Speaking to the press in Tel Aviv, Blinken appeared shaken and described seeing new graphic images and

videos of the attacks, calling it “striking” and “shocking” that the brutality of the attack “has receded so quickly in the memories of so many.”

“Today, we saw additional images, additional footage collected by the Israeli government from video cameras, some the terrorists, some others and communities that were attacked,” Blinken said after viewing graphic footage, previously shown to journalists.

“It remains almost beyond the human capacity to process, to digest.”

This was Blinken’s fourth visit to Israel since the massacre. During this visit, the top U.S. diplomat met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Isaac Herzog, and the country’s war cabinet.

Still, Blinken also referenced the Palestinians during his visit, declaring, “we need to do more to protect Palestin-

ian civilians.” He noted that “civilians should not suffer the consequences for (Hamas’) inhumanity and its brutality.”

In his meetings, Blinken also discussed the need for continued humanitarian aid to reach Gaza and efforts to get hostages freed from Hamas.

“We believe that each of these efforts would be facilitated by humanitarian pauses,” Blinken said.

However, Netanyahu publicly rejected the idea of a pause in fighting without the release of hostages first.

Speaking alongside Herzog earlier on Friday, Blinken reiterated that the way Israel conducts its operations matters.

Herzog sought to emphasize that Israel is following international humanitarian law. He showed Blinken a leaflet – 1.2 million of which he said had been sent to citizens of Gaza warning them to leave before military operations – and said Israel had “carried out six million text messages and four million phone calls to the citizens of Gaza according to the rules of international law, where we alerted the citizens in advance.”

Outside of the press conference, protesters were calling for the release of the hostages. In response, Blinken assured that they “are determined to do

everything we can to bring them back safely, to bring them back to be with their families and loved ones.”

“Our heart goes out to them. We understand it. We want their immediate release,” Herzog said.

A Day of Remembrance

At 11 a.m. on Tuesday morning, all across the country, Israelis observed a minute of silence to commemorate the more than 1,400 people who were slaughtered by Hamas militants in the horrific October 7th attacks.

The minute of silence marked the start of memorial ceremonies across the country, but unlike Holocaust Remembrance Day and Memorial Day, it was not accompanied by a siren.

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Nahal Oz Control Center Reopens

Following the silence, flags across Israel were lowered to half-staff and mourners sang the national anthem, Hatikvah.

At least 247 people, mostly civilians, were taken hostage on October 7, including young children and the infirm; four were released and one was rescued.

Prior to Tuesday’s memorial events, a Defense Ministry ceremony was held on Monday night in the State Hall of Remembrance at Mount Herzl, Israel’s larg-

est military cemetery, where the newly engraved names of 349 people killed on October 7 were unveiled on the walls of the commemorative building. The names included those of soldiers, police officers, Shin Bet operatives and civilian security team members who died defending communities on October 7.

At the same time, the faces of the hostages held in Gaza were projected across the walls of Jerusalem’s Old City.

The use of the yellow ribbon to show

solidarity with captives held by terror groups in Gaza since October 7 recalls a 2008 campaign to raise awareness about the plight of Gilad Shalit, an IDF soldier who was held in Gaza in 2006-2011. In keeping with the symbolism, a Bar Ilan University memorial ceremony released 242 yellow balloons, one for each known hostage still held by Hamas.

The Nahal Oz surveillance control center was decimated by Hamas on October 7. During the October 7 th massacre, the terrorists killed and captured several members of the Combat Intelligence Collection Corps 414th unit at the Nahal Oz base. This week, the IDF said that it reopened the surveillance center at a temporary site on the Re’im army base.

The soldiers at the center are tasked with monitoring surveillance cameras along the Gaza border and dispatching forces to potential incidents. The unit has multiple command centers in various army positions along the border. The vast majority of those serving in the unit are female soldiers.

Footage published by the IDF a week after the attacks showed Unit 414 soldiers on October 7 opening fire using remote weapon systems at Hamas terrorists approaching the border, from a different base near the community of Kissufim. “Commander, commander, we are at war,” a soldier was heard saying over the radio.

Defense Minister Yoav Gallant later told Unit 414 soldiers at the Zikim base who survived the attacks, “You went through things that soldiers in Israel have not gone through since the War of Independence… You functioned in combat conditions, experienced heavy losses, and played an important part in the battles.”

The new command center that opened on Sunday at the Re’im camp allows the surviving soldiers and reservists to again carry out their jobs — monitoring the Nahal Oz area.

Re’im, which houses the Gaza Division’s base, is located opposite the Gaza border, a few kilometers south of Nahal Oz. It was also attacked on October 7.

“The story of the Nahal Oz command center will forever be remembered as a story of heroism and fighting,” said the commander of Unit 414,

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Human Error Leads to Banking Snafu

Lt. Col. Ofir Avram.

“We bow our heads in memory of the fallen, embrace and strengthen the dear families who are an inseparable part of the 414th [unit] from now and forever,” he added, in remarks provided by the IDF. “Nahal Oz is home. Anyone who has ever been there will testify. Nahal Oz is a command room with a special character, and it will remain so even if our current location has changed,”

said Sgt. “Aleph” — identified only by her rank and first initial in Hebrew.

“We established a new command room in Re’im, but our spirit is still the spirit of Nahal Oz, and we will continue to fight for the country, in memory of our comrades and the home we rebuilt,” she added.

Outside the new command center, a mural has been painted showing three soldiers in a field of sunflowers, with text reading: “The flowers will

continue to bloom.”

Surveillance soldiers are referred to by many as “the eyes of the army” as they provide real-time intelligence information to soldiers in the field, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The soldiers gather information through a variety of cameras, sensors and maps, and are expected to be acutely aware of every small change that happens in the 15-30 kilometers of land that they are each responsible for monitoring.

Problems emerged on Friday from the Automated Clearing House (ACH) payments system across many banks, causing headaches for consumers and employers.

For days, customers still hadn’t received their direct deposit payments, although banks are insisting that all funds are secure.

The funds that hadn’t gone through on Friday were resent by banks this week, although banks said that the process may take time.

It’s not clear how widespread the impact continues to be or how long it will take for all customers to receive their deposits.

The Clearing House, the private operator of ACH, said on Monday it is working with banks and the Federal Reserve to “resolve this issue as quickly as possible.”

“Many of the delayed payments have already posted, and we will continue working with financial institutions to ensure the remaining transactions are processed,” The Clearing House spokesperson Greg MacSweeney said.

Among the bank affected were Bank of America and Chase. Wells Fargo, US Bank, Truist and other banks also reported some problems on Friday.

According to MacSweeney, the problem started as a “processing error” on Thursday where some ACH payment instructions were sent to financial institutions with account numbers and customers “masked.” That missing data meant that some ACH payments were delayed.

“The November 2nd error was an unfortunate and isolated issue, and immediate steps have been taken to prevent a reoccurrence,” he said. “The ACH network continues to operate normally, processing tens of millions of electronic payments each day.”

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MacSweeney said the problem impacted less than 1% of the daily ACH volume in the United States. Still, 1% of a massive system is a large amount. The ACH Network processed an average of $330 billion per day in September, according to Nacha, a nonprofit that governs the network.

WeWork Files for Bankruptcy

This week, WeWork, the coworking space company, filed for bankruptcy, marking a stunning downfall for what was once the world’s most valuable startup.

The Chapter 11 bankruptcy announcement was widely expected after the company said last month it was struggling to pay back its debt. The pandemic was

probably the biggest nail in its financial coffin, as people began working more from home than commuting to office spaces.

WeWork said it would remain open and operational as it renegotiates its leases and debt obligations. The company said late Monday that investors holding 92% of the company’s secured debt have agreed to adjust the terms of their loans to help the company remain in business.

“Now is the time for us to pull the future forward by aggressively addressing our legacy leases and dramatically improving our balance sheet,” said David Tolley, WeWork CEO. “We remain committed to investing in our products, services, and world-class team of employees to support our community.”

Monday’s announcement does not impact WeWork outposts outside of the U.S. and Canada.

Once a much-celebrated tech unicorn that promised to revolutionize the future of office work — via, among other things, free-flowing craft beer — a perfect storm of factors caused WeWork to start to come undone in the wake of a botched attempt to go public back in 2019.

At the time, IPO paperwork revealed larger-than-expected losses and potential conflicts of interest with the com-

pany’s cofounder and then-CEO Adam Neumann. Neumann, whose unorthodox leadership style resulted in WeWork’s culture becoming the subject of much news coverage, was ousted in 2019 following pressure from investors.

WeWork eventually went public roughly two years later at a much-reduced valuation of some $9 billion. Even after going public, the company struggled to turn the ship around. The flexible workspace provider was confronting a difficult time in the commercial real estate sector after the pandemic led to a rise in hybrid and work-from-home options – threatening the very office culture WeWork’s foundation was built upon.

Shares for WeWork have plunged roughly 98% in 2023 alone. In May, WeWork announced a leadership shakeup with the departure of its chairman and CEO Sandeep Mathrani, a real estate executive who investors hoped would save the company. David Tolley, a WeWork board member, stepped up as interim chief executive and was officially named CEO in October. In August, meanwhile, the company said that it had “substantial doubt” about its ability to stay in business over the next year as losses and debt continued to mount.

NYC Marathon Winners

A decorated women’s field had slowly come unglued over the final few miles of the New York City Marathon on Sunday, to the point where just two runners remained in the hunt for the title.

Hellen Obiri, a two-time Olympic medalist for Kenya in the 5,000 meters and the reigning Boston Marathon champion, tends to run with ferocious power.

She does not run a course so much as she attacks it, all arms and legs and palpable determination.

Letesenbet Gidey, on the other hand, seems to cover the ground beneath her with effortless grace, as if her stride were conceived by the distance-running gods.

Gidey tucked behind Obiri as the finish line came into view.

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Their contrasting styles were on full display as Dathan Ritzenhein, Obiri’s coach with the Boulder, Colorado-based On Athletics Club, watched and worried.

Before the race, he had advised Obiri to avoid trying to break away until Mile 24.

Obiri, though, was fearless, and with one final burst of speed before a cheering crowd, she dropped Gidey and charged to a dramatic victory in 2 hours, 27 minutes, 23 seconds. Gidey finished six seconds back in second place, while Sharon Lokedi of Kenya, who won last year, placed third.

“In a marathon,” Obiri said, “it’s about patience.”

While the women’s race was slow and tactical until the late stages, Tamirat Tola of Ethiopia seized the men’s title by running hard from the start. Tola, who was the world champion in the men’s marathon in 2022, finished in 2:04:58, breaking Geoffrey Mutai’s course record from 2011 by eight seconds. Jemal Yimer, also of Ethiopia, finished second, and Albert Korir of Kenya was third.

Tola had arrived in New York with questions about his fitness after he dropped out of the marathon at the world championships in Budapest, Hungary, this summer. He quelled those concerns as Sunday’s race wore on.

“The people of New York are amazing

to give me moral support every kilometer,” said Tola, who added that he had succumbed to a stomach bug in Budapest.

Clear skies and mild temperatures greeted a field of about 50,000 athletes who gathered at the base of the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge on Staten Island for their annual pilgrimage across the five boroughs. (© The New York Times)

Marijuana Bad for the Heart

Well, if you need another reason why you should stay away from marijuana, consider your heart.

According to two new non-published studies presented this week at the American Heart Association Scientific Sessions in Philadelphia, older adults who don’t smoke tobacco but do use marijuana were at higher risk of both heart attack and

stroke when hospitalized, while people who use marijuana daily were 34% more likely to develop heart failure.

The American Heart Association recommendations advise people to refrain from smoking or vaping any substance, including cannabis products, because of the potential harm to the heart, lungs and blood vessels.

Marijuana use is on the rise among older adults. A 2020 study found the numbers of American seniors over age 65 who now smoke marijuana or use edibles increased two-fold between 2015 and 2018. A 2023 study found that binge drinking and marijuana use among the over-65 crowd rose by 450% between 2015 and 2019.

Nearly three out of every 10 marijuana users develop a dependence on weed called cannabis use disorder. A person is considered dependent on weed when they feel food cravings or a lack of appetite, irritability, restlessness, and mood and sleep difficulties after quitting, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

Marijuana use becomes an addiction when a person is unable to quit using weed even though it interferes with many aspects of life.

Compounding the addiction in older adults are the chronic conditions that often plague those of older years.

“What is unique about our study is that patients who were using tobacco were excluded because cannabis and tobacco are sometimes used together, therefore, we were able to specifically examine cannabis use and cardiovascular outcomes,” said lead study author Dr. Avilash Mondal, a resident physician at Nazareth Hospital in Philadelphia, in a statement.

Researchers found the 8,535 adults who abused weed had a 20% higher risk of having a major heart or brain event while hospitalized, compared to over 10 million older hospitalized adults who did not use marijuana.

Both abusers and non-users had already been diagnosed with high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes or high cholesterol. The study found that having high blood pressure readings of over 130/80 mm Hg and high cholesterol were key predictors of major adverse heart and brain events in the marijuana users.

A second study presented on Monday followed nearly 160,000 adults with a median age of 54 for about four years to see if use of cannabis would impact their risk of developing heart failure. At the end of the study, researchers found people who reported daily marijuana use had a 34% increased risk of developing heart failure, compared to those who reported never using marijuana.

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A study published earlier this year also found that using marijuana every day can raise a person’s risk of coronary artery disease by one third compared with those who never partake. Coronary artery disease, also called atherosclerosis, is caused by plaque buildup in the walls of the arteries that supply blood to the heart.

FDA Might Ban BVO

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is now considering banning brominated vegetable oil (BVO), an additive found in several types of foods and sodas, after new research points to the ingredient potentially causing a variety of health problems, including migraines, nervous system damage, skin and mucous membrane irritation, exhaustion, and loss of muscle coordination and memory.

“The agency concluded that the intended use of BVO in food is no longer considered safe after the results of studies conducted in collaboration with the National Institutes of Health … found the potential for adverse health effects in humans,” James Jones, the FDA’s deputy commissioner for human foods, said.

In October, California passed the California Food Safety Act banning BVO. The ingredient is also banned in Europe and Japan.

“In 1970, the FDA determined BVO was no longer ‘Generally Recognized as Safe’ … and began overseeing its use under our food additive regulations,” Jones added. “Over the years, many beverage makers reformulated their products to replace BVO with an alternative ingredient, and today, few beverages in the U.S. contain BVO.” The final verdict on whether or not to ban the additive in the U.S. will be decided in the coming months. Until January 17, 2024, the government agency will be accepting comments about the proposed rule.

Scott Faber, the senior vice president for government affairs at EWG, praised the FDA’s proposal, commenting on how the ban “will ensure everyone has access to products that don’t contain BVO.” Although the studies were conduct-

ed on animals, the FDA has said that the results nonetheless strongly indicate that BVO is unsafe for humans as well. Jones added that the ban proposal “is an example of how the agency monitors emerging evidence and, as needed, conducts scientific research to investigate safety-related questions, and takes regulatory action when the science does not support the continued safe use of additives in foods.”

Texas Rangers Win First World Series

The Texas Rangers won their very first World Series last Wednesday. The winning team, which has been around for sixty-three seasons, went up against the Arizona Diamondbacks in Phoenix.

The last game was the fifth of the series, with the Rangers having won four and the Diamondbacks having won one, giving Texas the majority of games won in the best-of-seven series.

For the first six innings of the final game, neither team had scored a single run, and Diamondbacks pitcher Zac Gallen had prevented the opposing team from getting a single hit. In the seventh inning, Corey Seager, a shortstop for the Rangers, had finally succeeded in hitting Gallen’s pitch. Only two batters later, a successful hit from Mitch Garver allowed Seager to get the first run of the game.

While the eighth inning was rather uneventful, by the end of the ninth, the Rangers’ advantage over the Diamondbacks had grown enormously with the Texas team scoring four more runs, two of which were scored as a result of Marcus Semien’s home run, making the final score 5 - 0.

“Man, this is the biggest moment,” Semien said of his home run. “Just felt so good. Just looked over at the bench (and) screamed. Just an unbelievable feeling. I know I keep saying that word, but just to run the bases knowing that we are that much closer felt great.”

“I’m just happy to be a part of this team,” Seager, who was named the MVP of the Series, said. “The resilience of this group, just the fight, the fight is what it is.”

Torey Luvollo, the Diamondbacks’ manager, called the game “painful” and

told his players to “absorb it [the loss] and process it the right way. Don’t compartmentalize it; don’t put it away. Think about how you feel when you get to that point, and we’ll get to that crossroads at some point and be able to say, ‘Wow, this was a great run.’”

Former President George W. Bush, who was the team’s managing general partner from 1984 to 1994, as well as its former part-owner, congratulated the team for their win, and said he was “thrilled for Texas Rangers fans.”

Jewish Man Dies at Rally

Paul Kessler, 69, a Jewish man, was hit in the head with a megaphone on Sunday at a pro-Palestinian rally in Los Angeles.

According to a statement by the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles and a police report, Kessler was struck in the head with a megaphone held by one of the protesters and died of his wounds on Monday. The Sheriff’s Office has ruled Kessler’s death a homicide. It said it “has not ruled out the possibility of a hate crime.”

The police statement said Kessler “died as a result of injuries sustained during an altercation at a Pro-Israeli/Pro-Palestinian event, both of which were occurring simultaneously.” Elsewhere, the Sheriff’s Office describes Kessler as a “pro-Israeli protester.”

“Witness accounts indicated that Kessler was involved in a physical altercation with counter-protestor(s),” the statement said. “During the altercation, Kessler fell backwards and struck his head on the ground.”

“We are devastated to learn of the tragic death of an elderly Jewish man who was struck in the head by a megaphone wielded by a pro-Palestinian protestor in Westlake Village,” the federation statement said. “Our hearts are with the family of the victim.”

No arrests have been announced.

The federation’s statement also referenced previous antisemitic incidents in the area this year, including the arrest of a man in February who shot two men outside their synagogues. On Oct. 26, a man

was arrested after breaking into a Jewish family’s home and saying he wanted to kill Jews. The suspect in that case did not injure anyone.

“We remind you that this is the fourth major antisemitic crime committed in Los Angeles this year alone,” the statement said. “Violence against our people has no place in civilized society. We demand safety. We will not tolerate violence against our community. We will do everything in our power to prevent it.”

Sam BankmanFried Guilty

Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder and CEO of FTX cryptocurrency, has been under legal fire since FTX went bankrupt around a year ago. Bankman-Fried, who was once thought to be a successful genius, was found guilty on Thursday, November 2 on seven counts of fraud and conspiracy.

The former billionaire now faces up to 110 years in prison; his sentence will be determined on March 28, 2024.

The thirty-eight-year-old’s rise to fame started with the 2017 founding of Alameda Research, a crypto trading firm started by Bankman-Fried and Tara Mac Aulay. A two-bedroom Airbnb in California served as the hedge fund’s first headquarters. In 2018, he moved Alameda to Hong Kong.

In May 2019, Alameda’s sister company, FTX, was co-founded by Bankman-Fried, who became the infamous cryptocurrency company’s CEO. Later on, he appointed Caroline Ellison, who was his girlfriend at the time, as the CEO of Alameda Research.

In 2021, Bankman-Fried moved his two companies to the Bahamas, which he called “one of the few places to set up a comprehensive framework for crypto” due to its lax regulation rules and its low taxes. In January of 2022, FTX was worth $32 billion, but by the year’s end, the company had gone bankrupt when customers suddenly panicked and withdrew billions of dollars upon hearing that the CEO of Binance had decided to sell all of his stock in FTX’s digital currency, FTT, “due to recent revelations that have come to light.”

In December of 2022, U.S. prosecutors filed criminal charges against Bankman-Fried, and he was apprehended in

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the Bahamas. Now, he has been found guilty of stealing billions of dollars from his FTX customers and of transferring customers’ FTX money into an Alameda Research bank account. Bankman-Fried claims he only found out that Alameda owed $8 billion to FTX in the fall of 2022, although no action was taken to fire whoever was responsible. Gary Wang, the cofounder of FTX, testified that Bankman-Fried asked him to add code into the FTX program which would allow Alameda Research to make as many withdrawals as they pleased.

On Friday, Bankman-Fried testified that despite being called the crypto king, he actually knew “basically nothing” about digital currencies.

“I had absolutely no idea how they worked…. I just knew they were things you could trade,” Bankman-Fried said.

Santos Still Standing A Republican-led effort to expel Rep. George Santos of New York failed decisively last Wednesday night, after a group of lawmakers from Santos’ home state could not persuade nearly enough of their colleagues

that his admitted lies and federal indictment were sufficient grounds to oust him.

Even as House members condemned Santos for lying to voters and donors about his biography and résumé and apparently falsifying ties to the Holocaust and Sept.

11, many said that expelling him now — nearly a year before his trial is even set to begin — would set a dangerous precedent.

With Republicans holding a razor-thin majority that they are loath to imperil, many of them, including Speaker Mike Johnson, chose to defer judgment on Santos’ fate to the conclusion of the criminal case or a continuing House Ethics investigation. But dozens of Democrats also opposed the motion to expel Santos, even as their party has been unified in calling for his resignation.

The vote — 213 opposed to 179 in favor, with 19 representatives voting “present” — is the second time in nearly six months

that Santos, 35, has evaded a push to expel him. And it has cleared the way for him to remain in office as he fights a federal indictment accusing him of involvement in a range of fraudulent schemes.

Santos said after the vote that he did not consider surviving the resolution a win. “Due process won today,” he said.

“Not George Santos.”

The resolution — which fell more than 80 votes shy of the two-thirds majority needed — was introduced by Rep. Anthony D’Esposito, a first-term Republican representing a neighboring district on Long Island.

Every Democrat and 77 Republicans would have had to vote to expel Santos, assuming all 433 members voted on the matter. While 24 Republicans voted to oust their colleague, 31 Democrats voted against expelling Santos.

Rep. Katie Porter, D-Calif., said it was not proper to expel Santos with both the criminal case and the ethics investigation outstanding. “We will again have to consider, once those proceedings have concluded, whether he belongs in this body,” she said.

Santos’ criminal trial is tentatively scheduled to begin in September. The House Ethics Committee on Tuesday declared that it was “expeditiously” reviewing the allegations against Santos and would “announce its next course of action” on or before Nov. 17. (© The New York Times)

Brandeis Bans ProPalestinian Group

national umbrella group and has chapters across the country on different campuses.

Brandeis said support for Hamas, which the United States has designated as a foreign terror group, is not protected by the university’s free speech principles.

“Students who choose to engage in conduct in support of Hamas, or engage in conduct that harasses or threatens violence, whether individually or through organized activity, will be considered to be in violation of the University’s student code of conduct,” the letter from Brandeis says. “Students who wish to express their support for the rights of Palestinian civilians may form another student organization, through established procedures, that complies with University policies.”

Brandeis had been founded by Jews after the Holocaust.

After the October 7 massacre perpetrated by Hamas, the university’s student senate voted down a resolution condemning Hamas — a move that others in the university community soundly rejected, including through an open letter that garnered more than 1,000 signatures in one day.

Florida’s public university system banned Students for Justice in Palestine last month at the direction of Gov. Ron DeSantis.

The Brandeis chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine called the university’s decision “racist” in a statement posted on Instagram.

“With heavy hearts, we would like to announcethatourchapterofStudentsforJustice in Palestine has been unjustly de-charted,” the group wrote. “This comes as a part of Brandeis University, an institution that values social justice, trying to silence us from speaking our truth.”

House Censures Tlaib

Brandeis University announced this week that it is revoking its recognition of the campus chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine. The university said that the student group “openly supports Hamas.”

The group was informed of the decision on Monday. Now, the group will not be able to receive university funding or hold activities on campus. It had scheduled a Vigil for Palestine on Monday night, and that event had to be canceled.

“This decision was not made lightly, as Brandeis is dedicated to upholding free speech principles,” the Massachusetts university wrote in its letter.

Students for Justice in Palestine is a

This week, the House passed a GOP-led resolution to censure Rep. Rashida Tlaib over comments critical and defamatory against Israel and in support of Palestinians amid Israel’s war against Hamas.

Tuesday’s move was a rare rebuke for the Michigan Democrat who has been vocal about Palestinians in Congress. She is the first Palestinian-American woman to serve in Congress.

The vote was 234 to 188, with four Re-

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publicans voting against and 22 Democrats voting in support of the censure resolution.

The resolution was introduced by Georgia GOP Rep. Rich McCormick. The Democrats endeavored to block the measure earlier in the day.

Tlaib has defended herself against the censure attempts, arguing that they are an effort to silence her and saying that her “colleagues have resorted to distorting my positions in resolutions filled with obvious lies.”

A censure resolution is one of the most severe forms of punishment in the House, which has historically been saved for the most egregious offenses such as a criminal conviction. A censure does not remove a member from the House and carries no explicit penalties beyond a public admonition.

In addition to the Republican criticism directed at Tlaib, a number of Democrats have been critical of the congresswoman over her defense of the pro-Palestinian chant “from the river to the sea.”

The Anti-Defamation League describes the chant “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” as “an antisemitic slogan” and “rallying cry (that) has long been used by anti-Israel voices, including supporters of terrorist organizations such as Hamas.”

Tlaib has defended the phrase, writing on X, “From the river to the sea is an aspirational call for freedom, human rights, and

peaceful coexistence, not death, destruction, or hate. My work and advocacy is always centered in justice and dignity for all people no matter faith or ethnicity.”

Tlaib also posted on social media her assertion that Israel is responsible for an attack on a hospital in Gaza, even though Israeli and American intelligence have confirmed that Israel was not involved in that incident and that the rocket in question emanated from Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

A Golden Throne

This week, four men were charged for a theft that took place in 2019. But that’s not unusual. What is unusual is what the men are accused of stealing: an 18-carat gold toi-

let.

The plumbing apparatus was installed at Blenheim Palace in England as part of an artwork titled “America” and was intended to be a satire about excessive wealth.

Indeed, the piece of art by Maurizio Cattelan was valued at $5.95 million.

It vanished just days after it was installed in September 2019.

The Crown Prosecution Service said Monday it has authorized criminal charges against four men, ages 35-39, over the theft.

They are accused of burglary and conspiracy to transfer criminal property. Seven people had been arrested over the heist, but no charges were brought until Monday, four years after the toilet was stolen. The artwork has never been found.

The golden toilet was fully functioning, and prior to the theft, visitors to the exhibition could book a three-minute appointment to use it. Police said that because the toilet had been connected to the palace’s plumbing system, its removal caused “significant damage and flooding” to the 18th-century building, a UNESCO World Heritage site filled with valuable art and furniture that draws thousands of visitors each year.

The Guggenheim Museum in New York, where the artwork was installed in a bathroom prior to it being shown at Blenheim Palace, described the toilet as “cast in 18-carat gold.”

The museum said the artwork invited viewers to “make use of the fixture individually and privately” to experience “unprecedented intimacy with a work of art.”

Authorities doubt the toilet is still in one piece.

Sounds like it all went down the drain.

Big Baby

When Chance and Britteney Ayres had a baby last month, they knew it was big news.

And it was.

Sonny was born at a whopping 14 pounds, 8 ounces – twice the size of an average baby. He was 55 centimeters long.

“It was a mind-blowing experience,” Chance said. “The way the doctors and nurses were cheering. It was like the [Toronto] Maple Leafs won the Stanley Cup. It was insane. Everybody was jumping and screaming. It was fun.”

He added, “Everybody was making bets

as to how big he was going to be, even the doctors and nurses… I never thought in a million years [he’d] be 14½ pounds.”

Sonny is child number five. Two of his siblings had been born at over 13 pounds.

“I’m 5’ 5” or 5’ 6”,” Britteney Ayres said.

“But Chance is very tall and he has tall family members. My dad’s tall. My brother’s tall. So yeah, I guess it just runs in the family.”

Sounds like big news.

Paddling in a Pumpkin

Dave Rothstein is out to squash the competition.

The Massachusetts man took to the Connecticut River over the weekend in a giant, hollowed-out pumpkin and paddled from Deerfield to Holyoke – more than 40 miles.

His giant gourd weighed 1,024 pounds before he constructed it into a makeshift boat.

Rothstein was determined to break the Guinness World Record for longest journey by pumpkin boat (paddling). The record is currently held by Nebraska man Duane Hansen, who paddled 37.5 miles in his pumpkin boat in 2022.

Steve Kueny of Lebanon, Mo., took a 38.4-mile paddling journey in his own pumpkin boat last month, but his attempt has yet to be certified by Guinness World Records.

It took Rothstein almost 3 days to accomplish his feat.

“Beating the world record is a record for everyone here in the valley so I don’t consider that mine,” Rothstein told WWLP-TV. “This is just to raise awareness to the Connecticut River Watershed because there a lot of us that live in close proximity to it, and it’s an incredible resource that needs to be protected.”

Rothstein is a wildlife biologist and environmental attorney by profession, a sculptor and photographer by passion, and a paddler by hobby.

“I love canoeing,” he said. “But I’ve never been in a round boat before, let alone a pumpkin,” he said before setting out on his vegetable vessel.

Let’s not go overboard.

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Around the

Community Rabbi Zev Leff, shlita, giving divrei chizuk to talmidim at Yeshiva of South Shore

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Around the Community

Thousands Gather in NYC in Support of Israel

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ver 10,000 people gathered on Monday night next to Central Park in New York City for a vigil and rally organized by UJA-Federation of New York, to mark 30 days since the October 7 massacre and demand the re-

lease of the 230+ hostages kidnapped by Hamas on that horrific day.

Speakers included actors Brett Gelman and Debra Messing; and two relatives of hostages. Israeli singers Gad Elbaz and Idan Raichel performed for the

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audience.

“In the Jewish tradition, the 30th day is a religiously important day,” said Eric Goldstein, CEO of the UJA-Federation of New York. “It’s the Shloshim that marks the continuing sense of mourning, but

Photo credit: Michael Priest

a time when people come together to be with each other, to feel a sense of solidarity, one from the other in times of real grief.”

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A Night of Honors in Cedarhurst Photos by Gabe Solomon

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L-R: Cedarhurst Trustee Izzy Wasser, Mayor Benjamin Weinstock, LCFD Deputy Chief Meyer Adler, LCFD Fire Fighters, Jason Stukes and Shoshanna Weiner, Nassau County Fire Commission representative Charlie Brocher, Trustees Daniel Plaut and Myrna Zisman, and Deputy Mayor and NYS Assemblyman Ari Brown

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edarhurst’s Village Board Meeting held on November 6, 2023 became a memorable occasion as Mayor Benjamin Weinstock and the Board of Trustees honored Lawrence-Cedarhurst Firefighters Shoshanna Weiner and Jason Stukes, who recently journeyed to Israel to assist in the war efforts. Their remarkable response

and willingness to lend a helping hand in times of crisis exemplify the true spirit of selflessness and compassion. The Village extends its deepest appreciation for their bravery, dedication, and the positive impact they have made.

The Mayor and Village Board also took this opportunity to recognize the Chiefs of the Lawrence-Cedarhurst Fire Depart-

L-R: Trustees Daniel Plaut and Izzy Wasser, Mayor Benjamin Weinstock, Cantor Joel Kaplan, Trustee Myrna Zisman, and Deputy Mayor and NYS Assemblyman Ari Brown

ment, Michael Beilinson, Meyer Adler and Joseph McHugh, for their steadfast support and cooperation in fostering the ties between our community & Israel.

They also extended the Village’s heartfelt appreciation to Cantor Joel Kaplan who led the crowd in emotional renditions of Kel Maleh Rachamin and a Mishaberach L’Chayalim at a pro-Is-

rael rally that was held in Cedarhurst on October 15, 2023. Cantor Kaplan’s beautiful voice and soulful interpretation inspired and united attendees at the rally, spreading a message of hope, solidarity, and shared values.

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The talmidos of the Ganger Early Childhood Center at TAG shaped themselves into Sara Imeinu’s candles in their parsha-themed Movement class

The sixth grade boys at HALB celebrated their Mesibat Hatchalat Gemara on Sunday along with their parents and rabbeim

Encouraging letters and notes written by HAFTR students line the war-equipment of the chayalim fighting to defend Israel

Central Shabbaton Unites School Community

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alk into any classroom at Central and simply mention the word “Shabbaton.” Student reactions will be loud and excited! It’s a high point of the school year, an event that creates memories that Central alumnae recall fondly decades later.

Central’s Schoolwide Shabbaton was held from Friday, November 3 to Sunday, November 5, Parshat Vayeira, at the Kartrite Resort and Waterpark in Monticello. In keeping with Central’s focus on positivity, the theme for this year’s Shabbaton was “Positively United.”

“We wanted to emphasize our positivity theme with this year’s Shabbaton approach,” said Judaic Studies faculty member and Programming Director Mrs. Yael Axelrod. “The Jewish people are united – the way people have come together during this war is amazing.

During the Shabbaton, we focused on the power we have when we come together.”

The Central Shabbaton coincided with the national Shabbat Project, an initiative that brings Jews of all lifestyles and levels of religiosity together to celebrate and keep Shabbat together as a global community. Kartrite was an exciting spot for this weekend, with the water park serving as a particular draw for students and faculty alike.

It was also the first Central Shabbaton for Judaic Studies faculty and Programming Director, Ms. Sydney Daitch.

“I am always excited for the overall Shabbat experience – the meals, the singing, the davening,” she said. “It’s a special way to connect as a community. And the theme was really apropos to the current time – the idea that we’re more powerful as a united front is inspiring.”

The weekend was filled with learning sessions, games both schoolwide and gradewide, meals, davening, and, on Motzei Shabbat, highly anticipat-

ed DJ Melave Malka and a chagiga. On Friday night, seniors led sessions with teacher facilitators, giving underclassmen the opportunity to spend time with upperclassmen who can speak to their time at Central in retrospect. On Shabbat, a “choose your own schmooze” session took place in which teachers shared personal experiences from challenging situations, promoting the concept of “ayin tova” – having a good eye, or a positive attitude. These schmoozes offered a chance for students to get to know their teachers outside the classroom.

Regardless of the activity, the objective of any Shabbaton is community strength through friendship, affection, and respect, and this is the lesson Central students take home with them. Junior Tali Aliav shared her favorite aspect of Shabbaton: “Learning about how everyone’s different Shabbat experiences at home is great,” she said. “We all bring

different foods from home to share, and we can see all the different cultures that exist at Central.” Sophomore Talia Butbul echoed Tali’s enthusiasm: “Shabbaton is the highlight of the year!” she said. “It’s so much fun.” This was truly a Shabbaton to remember, and everyone went home, feeling positively united.

Pheffer Amato Supports State’s Purchase of Israel Bonds

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ew York State Assemblywoman Stacey Pheffer Amato (D-South Queens) applauded New York State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli’s decision to purchase an additional $20 million in Israel Bonds. Comptroller DiNapoli serves as the Chief Financial Officers for the State of New York and is thus responsible for the financial management of the State. Through this purchase, New York State has purchased a total of over $267 million in Israel Bonds.

The purchasing of bonds is a powerful tool that aids in securing the continued financial strength of the New York State Pension Fund. The State’s pension fund provides the retirement benefits for all City and State public employees which includes those like teachers, nurses, and first responders. Assemblywoman Pheffer Amato also serves as the Chair of the New York State Committee on Governmental Employees which is the leading legislative authority on all public em-

ployees. “By helping Israel, we are helping New Yorkers,” said Assemblywoman Pheffer Amato The Assemblywoman praised the purchase by the Comptroller. “Investing in Israel is not just the smart choice, it’s the right choice. We are ensuring Israel gets additional financial support while also generating a strong financial return for New York that benefits our residents too. I’m proud to be joining in announcing to the world that in New York we un-

equivocally support Israel,” said Pheffer Amato.

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Around the Community

Chai Lifeline Presents Evening of Unity with Israel on December 4

Shabbat Project at HAFTR

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midst the most significant crisis to face Israel and the Jewish people in our generation, Chai Lifeline will present a special “Evening of Unity” on Monday, December 4, at Pier Sixty in New York City.

Since the outbreak of the war, Chai Lifeline has mobilized its global network of staff, volunteers, and trauma specialists to assist children and families coping with an unprecedented array of challenges – both in Israel and in Jewish communities across the globe.

“While we never imagined we would be forced to contend with such a devastating and wide-ranging crisis, Chai Lifeline’s decades of experience dealing with all types of traumatic events gave us an existing infrastructure to rely and build upon when it came to implementing a comprehensive response,” said Rabbi Simcha Scholar, Chai Lifeline CEO. “Over these days and weeks, our focus has been on expanding our resources and services to meet the needs of the worldwide Jewish community as we all cope with the horrors of October 7.”

That response has included safely relocating Israeli families with children under active cancer treatment out of high-risk areas and providing them with counseling, programming, and support; distributing trauma resources in multiple languages and offering psychological guidance to hundreds of thousands; leading crisis interventions and consultations for thousands in global communities, schools, and organizations; establishing a dedicated 24-hour helpline to help those directly affected by the war; and ensuring medical care continues uninterrupted for families whose medical hardships are further complicated by the ongoing situation.

Congressman Ritchie Torres

The Evening of Unity will pay tribute to the incredible dedication and efforts of the more than 200 dedicated volunteers across the world who comprise Chai Lifeline’s Crisis Services team, led by their director, Rabbi Dr. Dovid Fox. Congressman Ritchie Torres, U.S. representative for New York’s 15th Congressional District, will receive the Champion of Israel award in recognition of his unwavering support of Israel and the Jewish community, as well as his ongoing advocacy against antisemitism.

The program will feature a Unity Kumzitz with Eitan Katz and other musical guests, as well as an Israel-themed culinary experience.

“During these darkest of times, we have witnessed the incredible resiliency and unity of our community,” said Rabbi Scholar. “The international response of so many good and kind-hearted people is a testament to the eternal power of giving and caring for others. This evening will highlight that unity and support, and our commitment to continue to be there for our brother and sisters in need.”

For reservations, donations, or to learn more visit www.chailifeline.org/unity.

Did you know?

You use approximately 200 muscles when you take a single step.

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his past week, HAFTR students across all divisions participated in activities connected to the worldwide Shabbat Project. These various undertakings highlighted the joy and fun of Shabbat. This included gaining further in-depth knowledge of practices and rituals and appreciation of Shabbat and its importance throughout the week from their teachers. Additional projects increased camaraderie among the students and enhanced their connection to the holy day.

The Early Childhood students baked challah together with their teachers. This hands-on activity not only introduced them to the wonderful world of this cherished tradition but also left their taste buds delighted.

Lower School students, together with their families, baked challah and made their own Havdalah sets. The separated challah was taken as a merit for the chayalim fighting to defend our homeland and for peace for all of Am Israel. The Havdalah sets were colored and bedecked with sparkly sequins and colorful marker work, beautifying the mitzvah. It was a massive turnout, with well over 800 attendees.

Middle School students bonded over an entirely different piece of Shabbat: cholent. The wonderfully warm Shabbos day comfort food was crafted by 15 different groups across the Middle School.

The students, aided by their rebbeim and morot, peeled the potatoes, cut the onions, sliced the beef, and spiced up their crockpots. Later that evening, a panel of celebrity judges/HAFTR parents (Gabriel Boxer, aka the Kosher Guru, and Melinda Strauss), armed with pen and paper, rated each cholent on the basis of presentation, smell, texture, overall impression, and flavor – with the victors winning the “Golden Cholent Bowl.” All the students thoroughly enjoyed savoring their and their friends’ creations. As the judges

rated the students’ cholents, the students participated in an art project related to Havdalah as well. With resin as their base, they made brachot for Havdalah cards. They adorned the back with artwork of their own design, thereby making the mitzvah their own. The students found a lot of meaning in this endeavor and look forward to using them every week.

At HAFTR High School, the girls in grades 9-12 participated in a special Shabbat Project challah bake. Gathered in the school’s lunchroom, students excitedly prepared and kneaded the sacred dough with the guidance of their Morot.

Their separated challah was taken in the merit of the courageous chayalim fighting to defend our homeland.

Lastly, to garner even more excitement for the special day, on Thursday, the PTA sponsored a Shabbat-themed lunch across the entire school, giving the students the opportunity to savor the specialties that make Shabbat what it is.

As we navigated this past week, the activities centered around Shabbat served as a beacon of light. They reminded us that, even in the face of adversity, our achdut and traditions can bring us comfort and joy.

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Around the Community

Chessed with Jewelry

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n her after-school Jewelry classes at HALB, Ofra had her students make one bracelet for themselves and another for a soldier in the IDF. A HALB parent heard about this and decided to take it one step further. Dahlia Saperstein hosted her daughter’s entire grade

5 Towns Flag Football Final Weekend

of girls for a jewelry-making activity in her home. Ofra donated her time and supplies, and all of the girls made a bracelet for themselves and a second bracelet for a girl the same age in Modiin! It was a very special experience for the girls and everyone involved!

Technology Awareness Event at Bais Yaakov Five Towns

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n Monday, Oct 30, the parents and staff of BY5T were fortunate to have Rabbi Avraham Robinson, Menahel Elementary Division of Yeshiva South Shore and creator of the “Keeping Tech-in-Check” program, present an informative and important workshop about technology and navigating our digital reality.

Rabbi Robinson addressed the numerous challenges that technology use can present to anyone, and especially to young children. He raised an awareness of the effect of screen time on brain development, emotional regulation and self-esteem. He recommended various strategic approaches that parents can

take by setting practical and sustainable boundaries that will empower children to navigate and control their own tech usage, resist peer pressure and create a healthier home environment.

BY5T looks forward to continue working with its wonderful parent body to provide focused educational tools which can give adults and children alike the power to make responsible technology decisions which have the maximum positive impact.

For more information on Bais Yaakov Five Towns, visit www.BY5T.org or call 516-500-BY5T.

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hat a last weekend at 5 Towns Flag Football! It started out with a full slate of games on

Friday.

In the second grade division, the Patriots beat the Giants, and the Eagles beat the Jets in a battle for the football that ended in an Eagles victory through five overtimes! This was the game of the season with matched Frankel vs. Mayer.

What a game that went back and forth until Leon pulled it out in the 5th overtime.

In the third and fourth grade division, the Giants beat the Dolphins, the Patriots beat the Falcons, the Jets beat the Panthers, and the Packers beat the Broncos with some great catches by Eli Heimleich. In the fifth and sixth division, the Seahawks beat the Saints, the Steelers beat the Dolphins, the Jets beat the Packers, and the Giants beat the Panthers with some great flag pulls by Asher Fine. In the seventh and eighth division, the Jets beat the Texans, and the Giants beat Vikings with an amazing Pick-6 by Elisha Rodin.

Championship Sunday was just as good with the games so evenly matched

and games coming down to the last second.

In the 2nd grade championship, it was the Eagles coached by Leon Mayer vs. Patriots coached by Rabbi Gena.

What a game this was! It was back and forth all game until the Eagles picked off Rabbi Gena on their own 5-yard line and ran 95 yards for a pick 6. That play put it in the books for the Eagles and Leon’s first championship in 5 Towns Flag Football. In the 3rd/4th grade championship, it was the Jets vs. Giants, and what a game this was. Back and forth this game went, but eventually, the Giants pulled it out and Rabbi Konigsberg won his first championship. In the 5th and 6th grade league, it was the Giants vs. the Seahawks, and the Seahawks took the game by 2 touchdowns. In the 7th/8th grade league, it was the Jets vs. the Giants in the Super Bowl. The Jets were victorious with Ahron Moskowitz leading the way. He must get the will to win from his father.

Looking forward to next season as registration is already open for the spring season. www.5townsflagfootball.com.

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A Premium Partnership is Inaugurated at Darchei Torah Photos by Yoel Hecht

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Rabbi Joel Kaplan, executive director of Yeshiva Darchei Torah; Meir Brody, CEO of Premium Health; Sender Orenstein, President of Premium Health.

The children of Harry and Lee Hirsch, L-R: Wendy Thomas; Dr. Glenn Hirsch, chair of behavioral health services at Premium; and Laurie Marton.

Dr. Glenn Hirsch, who dedicated the Center; Rav Yaakov Bender, Rosh HaYeshiva; Shia Ostreicher, founder of Premium Health; Rav Moshe Bender, s’gan rosh hayeshiva of YDT; Meir Brody, CEO of Premium Health

Audrey Pheffer, NYS Assemblymember Stacey Pheffer Amato, and Rabbi Baruch Rothman, director of institutional advancement at YDT

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railblazing Chinuch,” the familiar tagline of Yeshiva Darchei Torah, is not just a clever catchphrase, it’s the truth.

Darchei’s recent initiative — partnering with Premium Health Centers for the first-of-its-kind school-based health center in New York— is proof.

“Our mission at Premium Health has always been to offer high-quality, hardto-access care in a culturally sensitive way,” says Mr. Meir Brody, Premium’s CEO. Premium Health, highly regarded for its excellence in many areas of healthcare, be it physical, mental, or emotional health, is now collaborating with Yeshiva Darchei Torah. In this unique model, Premium brings their Kochavim program with its robust network of expert providers and years of excellence to serve the talmidim of YDT. The Center’s medical component offers on-site services including flu vaccines, strep tests, wound care, and the like. With experienced nurse practi-

tioners leading this division, busy parents can obtain high-quality medical care in collaboration with their pediatrician’s office. Perhaps more groundbreaking is the other division of the Center, which focuses on behavioral health.

Dr. Glenn Hirsch, who recently departed his leadership position as director of the NYU Child Study Center to become Premium’s chair of behavioral health and Kochavim, says that “Rabbi Bender, to his credit, is a very forward-thinking person. When the initial discussions took place, Rabbi Bender said, ‘Okay. When can we start?’”

When children struggle, it disrupts their classroom, their families, and their peer relationships. “When kids get the right help, it lifts up the child, the class, the family, and the entire school,” notes Mr. Brody.

This center is groundbreaking in its ability to collaborate with the Darchei Torah hanhala, rabbeim, teachers, and parents, getting everyone on board and on the same page.

“Working on all fronts in a cohesive way enables us to make better, quicker gains for each child,” explains Dr. Hirsch.

Led by Rabbi Dr. Zev Brown, a universally admired alumnus of Yeshiva Darchei Torah, the team consists of nurse practitioners, social workers, and psychologists.

“The hallmark of this program is the integration,” explains Rabbi Dr. Brown, “and that is a complete game changer.”

Parents of children with challenges that require professional intervention often have to make a difficult choice: pay exorbitant prices for expert care or work with novice practitioners. Uniquely, the care at the School-Based Health Center at Darchei is offered at no cost to the parents.

Sunday, October 29 marked an important milestone for the Darchei community: the dedication of the Premium Health School-Based Health Center, in loving memory of Dr. Hirsch’s parents, Harry and Lee Hirsch, who were longtime friends and supporters of Yeshiva

Darchei Torah.

With the participation of Mr. Brody and Rabbi Sendy Ornstein of Premium, Dr. Glenn Hirsch, the Yeshiva hanhala, and Assembly Member Stacey Pheffer Amato, the ribbon-cutting ceremony marked the expansion of this amazing initiative which will benefit so many children in the months and years to come.

“This is a tremendous occasion that I am honored to have helped shepherd into existence,” remarked Assemblymember Amato. “The amazing health services that students of Yeshiva Darchei Torah will be eligible to receive matches that of the amazing education they get every day. I applaud the entire school community for coming together and am so happy to see the dream come to fruition.”

Rabbi Bender sums it up in his trademark genuine, clear style. “Working with Premium Health has been a blessing. A blessing for our parent body, staff, and most of all, for our students.”

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By Hadassah Bay

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ince the outbreak of war in Israel on October 7, Meir Panim’s staff and volunteers have been working tirelessly to support war efforts in every corner of the country.

In addition to their primary mission of providing hot meals to individuals in need, including families, the elderly and Holocaust survivors, Meir Panim staff and volunteers are stretching resources and their own schedules, supporting services to soldiers and displaced families.

In order to keep up with the increased demand, branch managers have been adding extra hours, even opening up facilities right after Shabbat to begin cooking for the week. Escalated activities are evidenced by the new floodlights installed at one branch to facilitate work late into the night, and a new industrial sized oven donated to another branch to augment cooking capacity.

Meir Panim has been providing tens of thousands of meals, care packages and

equipment for soldiers on the front lines.

Last week, they hosted a barbecue for one troop and served breakfast for 700 troops on base. Nir, a regular volunteer for Meir Panim, now called up for reserves duty and who visited the branch on his short furlough, affirmed, “Everything you’ve been sending has really boosted our morale and motivation. We can feel that the nation is standing with us!”

Meir Panim has been providing meals, goods and clothing to displaced families from the north and south. Meals are being sent to people living temporarily with family and friends, being hosted at hotels and any secondary homes/ dorms/summer camps that can be found.

In addition to the thousands of displaced families that Israel has evacuated, there are thousands more, such as from the city of Ashkelon, who have been dealing with constant, daily rocket fire. Many homes in this area do not have shelters in their homes or buildings, and residents have essentially “moved in” to community shelters or places that have shelters

on site. In partnership, Meir Panim has provided these families with food and clothing as well as games and toys.

As the conflict continues, Meir Panim remains committed to its expanded role in supporting the soldiers – Israel’s sons and daughters, husbands and relatives, who have put their lives on hold and at risk to defend the country – and among the families who are experiencing the hardships of being refugees in their own country.

Mimi Rozmaryn, Director of Global Development, highlighted the surge

in volunteer support, exemplified by a 96-year-old gentleman who contributes daily, showing the community’s united effort in these challenging times.

You can help, too! Make your donation today online at www.mpdonate.org, through the toll-free number at (877) 7-DONATE / 877.736.6283 , or by mail to American Friends of Meir Panim at 88 Walton Street, Suite B1 Brooklyn, NY 11206-4479. All donations made in the US are tax-deductible under EIN# 201582478.

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Meir Panim Expands its Kindness to Include Soldiers, Displaced Families

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MTA’s Open House Welcomes 200 Families

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his past Motzei Shabbos, MTA hosted its annual Open House and welcomed 200 families to experience the unique qualities of MTA! Parents and their sons joined for a short presentation, including a video made

by Yeshiva University about the current situation in Eretz Yisrael, which was followed by the recitation of a perek of Tehillim. Everyone then heard a brief welcome from YU President, Rabbi Dr. Ari Berman, as well as a video showcasing the Torah learning, sports, extracurriculars and warmth that make MTA the incredible institution that it is.

Parents and the boys were then split into groups to get a real sense of the building and experience of being an MTA

talmid. Some highlights were student panels, science experiments, and presentations highlighting our Limudei Kodesh curriculum as well as our General Studies classes. Everyone moved from station to station smoothly and swiftly.

The evening concluded with a Curricular Fair and Melave Malka. A highlight, besides the incredible food, was the Robotics station, the Extracurricular station, a Lions Live station and MTA’s special Names Not Numbers station, among many others. All in all, a positive feeling was felt by everyone in attendance, and MTA looks forward to continuing the admissions season with many special programs for eighth graders.

With Appreciation

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n a show of appreciation to the 101st NYPD Police Precinct for providing an increase of patrols recently and for the special patrols during the October 23rd community asifa in Far Rockaway, JCCRP, Achiezer, RNSP, and Hatzolah delivered lunch and cards of appreciation to the officers at the precinct. Students from Bais Yaakov Ateres Miriam, Bais Yaakov of the Five Towns, Bnos Bais Yaakov (BBY), HAFTR, HALB, Shulamith, Siach Yitzchak, Torah Academy for Girls (TAG), Yeshiva Darchei Torah, Yeshiva Ketana of Long Island (YKLI), and Yeshiva of South Shore (YOSS) wrote beautiful cards expressing their appreciation to the police officers for protecting us all.

A special thank you to Captain Schultz and Detective Blanchette of the 101

NYPD and to the JCRC-NY Partners Against The Hate.

the talented HANC ECC music teacher, Morah Kayli. As HANC Early Childhood Director Morah Trudy Rubinstein added, “To see the joyfulness of all of the yeladim singing together was an absolutely beautiful sight.” Concluding this energetic and exciting event, the children all enjoyed a yummy, decorated doughnut and colorful marshmallows as a special

treat in honor of Shabbat.

The children enjoyed this meaningful experience and couldn’t wait to bring home the magnificent art projects that they created with love to enhance their families’ celebration of Shabbat. It was a special week dedicated to the joy of Shabbat that the children truly enjoyed.

Preparing for Shabbat at HANC EC

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hile preparing for Shabbat is always a major focus in HANC’s Early Childhood Center in West Hempstead, the preparations began extra early this week in anticipation of the special Shabbat Project.

This week’s focus was on enhancing the children’s family Shabbat table. In the Nursery Aleph classes, the yeladim decorated challah covers. Each class chose its own medium to decorate the fabric, including color washing and spray painting. They then added Shabbat symbols to create their beautiful challah covers and adorned the covers with beautiful jewels. The Nursery Bet children created magnificent challah trays with pieces of colorful tissue paper, and then added extra shine and durability by adding a special finish to them when their artistic designs were complete. Some classes created beautiful besamim containers so that their family’s Shabbat will conclude

with a carefully decorated container made especially for them by their HANC pre-schooler.

Later in the week, each child had the opportunity to make a delicious challah.

Each class chose their own type of challah to bake, including raisins, chocolate chips or sprinkles. As the children measured the ingredients and prepared the dough, they utilized their science skills as they watched the yeast interacting with the liquid and marveled at how the dough expanded over time. The scent of challah baking permeated the school building and helped to add extra excitement for the much anticipated Shabbat party.

Finally, after all of the preparations were complete, each grade gathered for a Shabbat party like no other. The children “lit” the candles and recited Kiddush together. The children and teachers sang beautiful Shabbat songs, led by

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Around the Community

HANC Challah Bake

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he eighth grade girls at HANC had a special opportunity this past Monday. They went to the home of Rebbetzin Tehilla Jaeger in Far Rockaway. (Fun fact: two of her granddaughters were recent morot in the middle school.) They were joined by Mrs. Morey and Morah Klein. They sat around Rebbetzin Jaeger’s table and heard strengthening words about the situation in Israel. She encouraged each girl to take on something small to remember the chal-

United in Tefillah

lenges our brothers and sisters are living through. Each bracha we make and Amen we say are so powerful. The Rebbetzin then went around explaining the meaning and depth behind each girl’s Hebrew name. Her knowledge of Tanach is vast, and she blessed the girls to be strong women like their names.

The girls then went into the kitchen to braid challah dough. It was a special experience, and they couldn’t wait to eat the delicious challah on Shabbat.

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he Flatbush community gathered this past Motzei Shabbos for a kinus and Tehillim for Eretz Yisroel, organized by the FJCC and Hakhel.

Harav Avrohom Schorr and Harav Moshe

Tuvia Lieff spoke. Harav Meir Platnick, Harav Hillel Haber, Harav Yonason Katz and Harav Mordechai Twersky led the Tehillim.

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Tiyul B’Stav

Kabbalah Cards at HALB

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ast week, HALB students in grades 1-5 joined together for a meaningful assembly. They heard inspiring messages from soldiers in Israel, listened to a song by Rabbi Werner’s son, and learned about the concept of taking on a mitzvah in honor of someone. Each student was then given a “Kabbalah Card,” where they had a space to fill in a mitzvah they will take on in the zechut of a specific soldier whose name appeared on their card.

Hundreds of young students are doing mitzvot to keep our soldiers safe!

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ev Chana children went on a “tiyul b’stav.” They walked around outside, observing the trees and

leaves. They discussed the different colors in Hebrew and commented on what a fantastic Artist Hashem is!

Names, Not Numbers Program Launched At YTM

Grandparents Join Mercaz Academy for Pre-Shabbat Celebration

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n Tuesday, October 24, the eighth grade at Yeshiva Tiferes Moshe was introduced to the Names Not Numbers project. One of the purposes of this project is for students to meet and interview Holocaust survivors.

The yeshiva has been part of this project for a number of years, and it is now our present eighth grade talmidim’s turn to participate.

As the entire event was professionally filmed, Rabbi Don Pacht, menahel, opened the program with a brief introduction followed by Rabbi Yaakov May, former menahel, who explained the project’s importance. Mrs. Tova Rosenberg, head of Names Not Numbers, graced us with her presence and re-enforced why it was important that the talmidim partake

in this project. She emphasized the importance that survivors’ stories should be heard. She also explained that the project is student-based from interviewing to filming and editing in order to bring forth these stories into documentary form.

The boys then watched a film clip of a student interview of a survivor. After the showing, Mrs. Shoshana Soroka, editor at The Jewish Home, talked to the talmidim about interviewing techniques.

Afterwards, Yehuda Davidowitz, Moshe Deutscher, Efraim Koenig, and Benzion May were interviewed describing their feelings about what they heard and saw.

Many thanks to Rabbi Becker and Rabbi Levine who helped make this event a successful one.

ercaz Academy was delighted to welcome grandparents (and other special people) back to the campus for a Shabbat Project-inspired celebration last Friday. This year’s gathering was dedicated by students at the school to IDF soldiers and children who are recovering.

The highlight of the morning was when the students from first through sixth grade surrounded the room to sing sweet renditions of “Lecha Dodi,” “Shalom Aleichem,” and “V’Zakeini L’gadel,” all traditional prayers said to welcome Shabbat. A moving video of these soulful renditions of Shabbat songs is being sent to Mizrachi and to ALYN Hospital to help those who are not in their usual home environments enhance the beauty of their Shabbat.

Students and their guests were seated at lovely Shabbat tables set up with traditional Ashkenazic and Israeli foods like

knishes, salads, hummus, and rugelach.

Upon arrival, grandparents or other special guests were photographed with their Mercaz students. The photo was printed on a transparency with the bracha and additional prayers recited when lighting Shabbat candles. After families colored these transparencies together, the beautifully decorated result was placed in a keepsake stand as a beautiful and useful souvenir for candle lighting.

Students finished the program by giving their grandparents and special people an informal tour of Mercaz Academy, pointing out the places, friends, and teachers that are such a big part of their lives at school–and bringing their loved ones into their school lives as well. Mercaz students were delighted and proud to do their part in transmitting the warmth of Shabbat throughout our homes here in the United States and in Israel.

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Ohr Torah Boys Mishnayos Siyum Celebration

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almidim of Yeshiva Ateres Eitz Chaim had the opportunity to get a glance behind the scenes of an e-commerce business at Scharf Industries, LLC. Students learned the ins and outs of how to grow a company, as well as run and manage a business. Mr. Andrew

Scharf answered questions from students and spoke about the importance of having emunah with the ups and downs when dealing with business and in life in general. Thank you, Mr. Scharf, for this wonderful opportunity!

very week, a group of boys in North Woodmere gather on Shabbos afternoon at Ohr Torah to learn Mishnayos with Rabbi Aryeh Dachs, rabbi of Ohr Torah Ashkenaz. The group of boys, ranging in age from 7-13, completed Meseches Pesachim which they have

been learning week in and week out for approximately nine months. The chabura celebrated this achievement with a lavish siyum at Traditions Eatery.

Next up for the Ohr Torah Mishnayos Chabura is Mesechtes Beitza!

NOVEMBER 9, 2023 | The Jewish Home

Hands On Learning

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Rav Zev Leff Addresses the YOSS Motzei Shabbos Learning Program

Great Neck Synagogue Donates Ambulance and Intensive Care Medi-Cycle Motorcycle

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ast Motzei Shabbos, the Yeshiva of South Shore had the great privilege of having Rav Zev Leff, shlita, rav of Moshav Matisyahu, visit the learning program. Rav Leff addressed the overflow crowd and the message he imparted was that in addition to the Chayalim who are fighting in Eretz Yisrael, it is specifically the Torah and tefillah of the Tinokos Shel Beis Rabban, innocent young children, who are also a very key element and most potent part of the army in Klal Yisrael. Rav Leff thanked the boys and the fathers who come to learn Torah on behalf of Acheinu bais Yisrael.

After the learning, the boys had a great zechus to give shalom and receive a warm bracha from Rav Leff. It was a very

inspiring event and one that the children will remember for years to come.

n Sunday, October 29, the Men’s Club and the Sisterhood of the Great Neck Synagogue raised over $200,000 to sponsor a Medical Intensive Care Unit (MICU) Ambulance and an Intensive Care Medi-Cycle Motorcycle – equipped with advanced life support and intensive care modalities – via the American Friends of Magen David Adom (AFMDA). All funds raised will be matched by the generosity of former New

York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

In peaceful times, AFMDA builds the ambulances in America and ships them to Israel via cargo ship, which takes many months to reach Israel. The ongoing war has accelerated the need and demand for ambulances. A generous donor has offered to speed up the process by flying the newly-minted ambulances via cargo plane and paying for the expedited transportation of these life-saving vehicles.

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MAY Open House 2023

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t was standing room only at the Mesivta Ateres Yaakov Open House this past Sunday, as the yeshiva hosted over 120 prospective students, along with their parents, all eager to learn about what Ateres Yaakov has to offer.

The day’s program was an opportunity to educate parents and students about the Yeshiva’s unique mission, objectives, and resources.

It was an exciting and educational experience that included an elaborate Student Fair, informative panels, video presentations, engaging dialogue, shiurim from rabbeim, sports challenges, raffles, a catered lunch, prizes, competitions and more.

Upon arrival, attendees were warmly greeted by the MAY Hanhalah, its talented and dedicated faculty, and scores of student and parent volunteers. Guests were ushered into the Student Fair, held in the Yeshiva’s expansive gymnasium where a multitude of booths, manned by current Ateres Yaakov talmidim, described the school’s myriad extracurricular programs and activities.

Following the Student Fair, the Rosh

HaYeshiva, Rabbi Mordechai Yaffe, addressed the enormous crowd in the newly renovated Mesivta Bais Medrash. He explained that “the goal in our Mesivta extends far beyond the high school years” and that “the ultimate purpose is to build better husbands, fathers and ovdei Hashem. Therefore, literally everything that occurs within the yeshiva is aimed at facilitating that goal.” Rabbi Yaffe concluded his remarks by clearly explaining each phrase of the Mesivta’s slogan “Rabbeim for Life. Education for Life. Torah for Life.” Rabbi Yaffe’s address was followed by an emotionally charged, informative video presentation that immersed the guests virtually into the Mesivta experience.

Following the video presentation, the students then enjoyed a science presentation with 9th grade science teacher, Mr. Pinchas Fiber, a stimulating shiur delivered by 12th grade Rebbe Rabbi Tsvi Greenfield, and a Q & A About MAY moderated by the Menahel, Rabbi Yossi Bennett. The afternoon concluded with a delicious Chinese buffet and a grand raffle!

Parents attended panel discussions focusing on Limudei Kodesh, General

Did you know?

The masseter muscle in the jaw is the strongest muscle in the body by weight.

It allows the teeth to close with a force of up to 55 pounds on the incisors or 200 pounds on the molars.

Studies, and MAY Alumni. Prospective parents asked current parents and panelists a variety of questions and received enthusiastic responses.

Alumni Panel: Three MAY Alumni represented their peers and recounted their personal experiences in the Mesivta with great nostalgia. They spoke about their ongoing relationships with their rabbeim, memorable Shabbatons, and growth in learning. Their focus was on the incredible foundation they received in MAY – both in ruchnius and in gashmius.

General Studies Panel: Rabbi Sam Rudansky, General Studies Principal, who moderated the General Studies Panel, noted that “MAY has adapted its curricula to challenge our students. In ELA, for example, we assign frequent essays and other writing assignments to build advanced writing and communication skills and to provide constructive criticism to facilitate revision.”

Limudei Kodesh Panel: Rabbeim and Hanhala described the unique approach the Mesivta has to engaging its talmidim in Limud HaTorah and preparing them for the next level. They explained that a vital component is building real relationships with their talmidim and thereby bringing them into their own s’vivah of Torah.

“There are many excellent local options,” Rabbi Yaffe explained in his Welcome Address. “Each yeshiva has its own emphasis and areas in which it excels.

MAY is uniquely outstanding in that it excels in Limudei Kodesh, Limudei Chol and in extracurricular activities. With our expansive, state-of the-art campus, there is always something exciting going on, but never impeding the personal atten-

tion and long-lasting relationships that help students of all capabilities succeed.”

One parent noted, “The warmth in MAY was palpable. It’s clear that the Rabbeim are very sincere and have a very strong emotional connection with their talmidim and truly care about their success.”

The MAY talmidim really made the event a success. Visitors challenged Ateres Yaakov talmidim in Ping-Pong, football and basketball while being cheered on by friends. Attendees picked up the Mesivta’s Chesed Directory, listing the ample chessed opportunities available to its talmidim. Athletics and Competitions were represented by various members of the Mesivta’s football, basketball, softball and Torah bowl teams who were happy to display the school’s jerseys and many championship trophies! The ample Torah L’shma opportunities were represented by regulars of the Pre-Shacharis Cocoa Club, Post-Shacharis Mishnayos Shiur, 12th grade Advanced Bikiyus and voluntary Night Sedarim, and Bein Hazmanim Learning Programs. The Mesivta’s Student Government, Arista, Extracurricular Activities, Clubs, Ruach and Recharging booths were represented by the MAY students showcasing the myriad opportunities and activities the Mesivta provides for its talmidim.

Applications for the 2024-2025 z’man are now being accepted. For more information contact the Mesivta at (516) 3746465 or visit their website at www.ateresyaakov.com.

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KIDNAPPED FROM THEIR HOMES RETURN THEM NOW! Get yours @

STANDFORTHEGOOD.COM

By Guy Tsadik

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s a dual Israeli/American citizen, like many of us, I’m deeply concerned about the current events in Israel and worldwide. Instead of standing by, I’ve taken action by posting signs of all the hostages in my local community as well as helping others in many other states to do the same. I singlehandedly have posted well over 200 “Kidnapped” posters, and I’m proud that

almost every business in my community continues displaying our unity on this matter. Thankfully, we have been fortunate that our efforts have been featured in all local papers as well as on national television multiple times.

I’m dedicated to doing more and have launched a new #standforthegood campaign. This new campaign now enables all individuals to join. My team has designed and printed bumper magnets so

WE STAND UNITED Get yours @

STANDFORTHEGOOD.COM

that we can ALL bump evil and spread the truth to the world.

Please join me in displaying these magnets on your cars, office spaces, refrigerators, and more as a reminder to ourselves and to the world that we must stand up to evil because truth and the good will always win.

Our unique magnets are available to

order at www.standforthegood.com as well as in Gourmet Glatt, Kiss and MakeUp, Kol Save, Judaica Plus, and Seasons.

Show The Unity In Our Community!

Am Yisrael Chai! *All Proceeds Will Be Donated To Zaka

NOVEMBER 9, 2023 | The Jewish Home

#StandfortheGood

Around the Community

HANC Joins in the Shabbat Project

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P Rabbi Juravel , the 7th grade Rebbe at Siach Yitzchok, seen going with his talmidim to vote on November 7

YSZ Girls HS Night Of Chizuk: Honoring Soldiers and Inspiring Unity

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his past Motza’ei Shabbos, the YSZ Girls High School was privileged to host a powerful evening dedicated to honoring Israeli soldiers and inspiring their students towards meaningful involvement within klal Yisrael. The event was filled with insightful speeches and activities, motivating the students to contribute to the community in various ways.

Mrs. Rina Zerykier, YSZ’s menahelet, delivered a memorable speech that emphasized dedicating our passion not only through physical acts of kindness (chessed), such as donating to the IDF, but also storming the heavens with our prayers and cries to Hashem.

Rebbetzin Amit Yaghoobi shared powerful insights on the idea of miracles, drawing connections to Parshas Lech L’cha. Her words resonated deeply, emphasizing the significance of belief and faith.

Students channeled their inspiration by collectively finishing the entire Sefer Tehilim, emphasizing the spiritual

strength derived from this act.

Alongside this, the recitation of the Misheberach Lachaylim showcased the unity and care our students hold for those in need.

The night concluded with an uplifting kumzitz led by Mrs. Ruchama Turk, filling the air with melody and unity, binding us together through song and camaraderie.

Abigail M., 10th grade, said, “I felt the unity in the room. The stories and speeches shared touched each and every one of us.”

Daniella I., 11th grade, said, “The speeches and the kumzitz were so inspirational. I’m very glad to have spent Motza’ei Shabbos with my YSZ High School family.”

Hodaya Y., 11th grade, said, “Thank you so much for a beautiful event! My neshama had so much fun! I had an amazing and spiritual time.”

The evening was a testament to YSZ’s collective strength and determination to contribute positively to the world around them.

reparation for Shabbat began early this past week in HANC’s Elementary School in West Hempstead.

Joining thousands of families across the world by participating in The Shabbat Project, the children spent all week engaging in Shabbat related activities in order to enhance their own family’s Shabbat at the end of the week, as well as for needy families in the community. This project began in 2013 in South Africa under the leadership of Chief Rabbi Warren and Rebbetzin Gina Goldstien in an effort to spread the light of Shabbat joy to affiliated and unaffiliated families. The effort then spread throughout the world and has been growing ever since.

Thanks to a generous sponsorship from the HANC PTA, the first graders assembled Shabbat packages to benefit families in need who receive assistance from the West Hempstead Food Bank.

Each child designed and decorated Shabbat pictures on the bags, and together they packed the bags with two challot, a bottle of grape juice, and a delicious babka cake. These delightful packages will surely enhance Shabbat dinner for these grateful families.

All week long, the hallways were filled with song, as the third and fourth grade classes practiced singing Shabbat zemirot. Combined with creative choreography, they prepared to compete in the Zimriyah for the coveted prize. Congratulations to the fourth grade girls for their winning performance of “Menucha V’Simcha,” which they performed at the Friday schoolwide Shabbat Assembly on Friday morning.

In addition, the Kindergarten and second through sixth grade classes were busy creating Shabbat projects that would later be distributed to patients at North Shore University Hospital. The

children decorated washing cups, kiddush cups, challah covers, and besamim bags and created beautiful scratch art Shabbat pictures. In addition to their decorated Shabbat items and in keeping with this year’s school theme, each gift bag also included electric tea lights so that the patients could safely “Ignite the Light” on Erev Shabbat in their hospital rooms. Cards with brachot, songs, and a personal card of encouragement from a student were also included in each package that the sixth grade students assembled. Due to their combined efforts, these packages that were created with so much love from HANC students helped to make patients in the hospital so much happier and enabled them to celebrate Shabbat in a more beautiful way.

At the end of the week, the entire school assembled to sing songs of Shabbat, Jewish unity, and recite Tehillim for the brave soldiers who are defending our people and the state of Israel. As the children sang and danced to usher in Shabbat, the sense of pride and unity was truly palpable. To further enhance this meaningful moment, members of HANC’s Board of Directors joined in the Shabbat Assembly and were truly impressed by the sincerity of Achdut and the love and devotion to Israel and Klal Yisrael that was on display for all to see.

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The Shulamith ECC worked collaboratively to create Ohel Avraham. This allowed the girls to partake in the mitzvah of hachnasat orchim.

Under the direction of teacher and coach Mrs. Elisheva Pinsky, the YOSS Robotics club has begun building their robots using math, engineering, advanced technology and creativity, in preparation for their first tournament.

The third grades at Siach Yitzchok celebrated their hascholas Mishnayos

NYPD Shomrim Society Award Presentation

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he NYPD Shomrim Society paid tribute to heroes at their 98th Annual Louis Weiser Memorial Service Scholarship and Awards Presentation on Sunday, October 29. The event solemnly remembered 24 Shomrim Society Members who gave their lives in the line of duty. Notable honorees included Retired Sergeant-Supervisor Detective Squad and past Shomrim Society President Eric Finkelstein, recipient of the Asser Levy Award for Outstanding Service. NYPD Police Commissioner Edward Caban received the Lt. Otto Raphael Award, and Honorary NYPD Surgeon Dr. Jeffrey Stahl was awarded the Maimonides Award. Brooklyn Chamber

of Commerce Vice Chairman Gil Cygler was recognized with the Exemplary Citizen Award. Adina Hindi and Tanya Furman received scholarships in recognition

of their academic achievements. NYPD Shomrim Society President Philip Weisbord expressed gratitude to the attendees and emphasized that the sacrifices of

those who serve are never forgotten.

May the memory of those lost be a lasting blessing.

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Thursday Night Learning With HANC Middle School

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his year’s Thursday Night Learning (TNL) at HANC kicked off with two amazing programs. One was for boys/fathers/grandfathers/special persons, and one was for girls/mothers/grandmothers/special persons. We had the privilege of hearing from an amazing HANC High School faculty member at each of the programs. At the boys’ program, Rabbi Nafi Orlofksy spoke about Parshat Noach and how the

fish were somehow able to survive the flood. At the girls’ program, Morah Batsheva Fink spoke about Rochel Imeinu at it was her Yahrzeit. It was beautiful to watch the different generations learning as well as enjoy a delicious dinner.

We thank Mrs. Aryana Ritholtz, Community Outreach Manager, for her help in communicating the program. A big thank you as well to Rabbi Orlofsky and Morah Fink for giving the shiurim.

A Surprise Visit from the IDF

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his past Friday morning, HAFTR’s Lower and Middle School divisions were graced with a visit from a true hero – an Israeli IDF soldier. The atmosphere in the school transformed as he stepped in, radiating excitement and pride throughout the room. To add an extra layer of emotion to this already special moment, our visiting soldier surprised his daughter, one of our cherished teachers, after having been separated for a month. The reunion was nothing short of heartwarming, with tears of joy and a palpable sense of admiration for this courageous figure.

In a powerful address to our students, the IDF soldier expressed profound gratitude for the unwavering support and unity that thrives within HAFTR. He passionately encouraged everyone to continue spreading kindness, perform acts of goodness, and stressed the significance of each individual contributing their part to the greater good. His words struck a chord, leaving our students with a renewed sense of purpose and a more profound commitment to unity and strength.

As a token of appreciation, the visiting soldier was presented with a special gift –o an IDF t-shirt adorned with sig-

natures from our Lower School students.

Each signature represented a heart overflowing with gratitude for his sacrifices for our beloved Israel.

This visit was a profound honor for our HAFTR family. It underscored the unbreakable bond between our community and those who stand guard to protect our homeland. We are profoundly grateful for this soldier’s service and inspired by his dedication. His visit left an indelible mark on our hearts.

As we as a Five Towns Community, move forward, let’s carry his powerful message with us, continuing to spread kindness and perform acts of goodness.

Together, we have the power to make a real difference.

Chessed “Around the Clock” at Shevach High School

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hevach High School’s acclaimed chessed program was launched for this year on Wednesday, October 25. Using the theme of “Chessed Around the Clock,” the Chessed committee outdid themselves in all ways to bring excitement and an eagerness to participate in this special zechus. Under the leadership of Shevach Assistant Principal, Rebbetzin Chani Grunblatt, the Chessed committee introduced various opportunities and practical suggestions in how to make a difference in the lives of many families and wonderful institutions within our community.

The morning opened with words of inspiration by Shevach Menaheles, Mrs. Shulamith Insel, who quoted from a letter written by the Chofetz Chaim almost 100 years ago. The Chofetz Chaim quoted a Chazal which states that Hashem says that if those who are in need of chessed do chessed for one another, Hashem Himself, Who is full of chessed, will, how much more so, do chessed for His cre-

ations. The letter continues, “In our days we have to strengthen ourselves with all our might in the middah of chessed so that we can thereby awaken the middah of chessed in Shamayim to protect us in these trying times.” Mrs. Insel reflected that reading this letter felt like a personal message sent directly to her, and really to all of us, during these painful days for Klal Yisrael. How incredible it is for us to know, she continued, that our acts of chessed have such a powerful impact in Shamayim.

The students were then privileged to hear from Rabbi Chaim Aryeh Zev Ginzberg, rav of the Chofetz Chaim Torah Center of Cedarhurst, a sought-after speaker and the founder of the beautiful organization Ohel Sarala. Ohel Sarala, was created in memory of his teenage daughter Sarala, who he and his Rebbetzin tragically lost seven years ago. It matches up singles wishing to find their shidduch with couples struggling with infertility. Each person then davens for the

partner they were paired up with. This combination of the power of chessed and the power of tefillah has brought yeshuos to thousands of people.

Rabbi Ginzberg stressed that no chessed or tefillah goes unanswered, and he encouraged the students to do something extra to bring the rachamim that Klal Yisrael needs now. Just as Noach and his family were busy with chessed the entire time they were in the teivah, thereby deserving to survive the Mabul, so too we have the power to change any judgment upon us to rachamim through our acts of chessed. And just as Avraham brought chessed to a new level, we too should be looking for creative ways to bring chessed to the larger community.

We are living now in a time of pain and distress, but at the same time, all Jews are rallying for the sake of other Jews. There are warehouses of chessed in so many cities and countries, where people are working tirelessly to provide supplies to the brave soldiers defending

us in Eretz Yisroel and packages to their families. For our part, we need to redirect our thoughts, tone down our simchas, and play an active role in easing the challenges of others. We should be grateful and alert to the many possibilities and opportunities around us.

The Chessed committee then sang an original theme song followed by a well-done song-video depicting how “Chessed Never Ends at Shevach.” Thanks to the hard-working Shevach Senior Chessed heads, Rochel Becker, Dina Bondi, Gitty Hellman, Shani Koss and Shira Lesser, the Shevach students left with a feeling of pride, motivated to incorporate the words of Mrs. Insel and Rabbi Ginzberg into their daily lives for the benefit of Klal Yisroel during this difficult time. May the acts of chessed the Shevach girls perform be a zechus to end the tzaaros that are upon us and bring Moshiach bimhaira veyamainu amein!

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NOVEMBER 9, 2023 | The Jewish Home

Rabbi Zev Leff spoke in learning with the boys of Rabbi Shonek’s eighth grade class in YOSS

Medicare – Picking a Broker and Picking Plans

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fter 40 hard-working years at his company, Yankel decided that it was time hang up his boots and retire. At his retirement party, Yankel tells everyone his grand plans to travel the world, play Pickleball, spend afternoons with his beloved grandchildren, and finally learn to juggle. Lost in his daydreams, Yankel feels blindsided when a co-worker asks about his health insurance. Yankel laughs a bit and admits that it wasn’t exactly the first thing that came to mind when he made the decision to leave his job. The rest of the party passes by in a blur of goodbyes and well-wishes, but Yankel can’t shake the dread that despite the fact that he has all of these wonderful plans in place, if chas v’shalom the unplanned happens and he gets sick or needs to go to a hospital, it’s going to cost him a pretty penny. He spends the next week frantically researching Medicare and all the different types of health plans that go along with it, but Yankel can’t make heads or tails of anything he reads.

It seems the more articles he reads about Medicare, the less he knows.

Instead of enjoying his well-earned retirement time, Yankel is seated in front of his computer every day trying to decipher the puzzle of Medicare. After weeks of fruitless searching, he finally decides to call his older brother, who retired a few years ago and has been on Medicare ever since. “Yitzi! I’ve been trying to figure Medicare health insurance for the past month, but it might as well be Spanish!

How did you ever figure out what you had to do to get health insurance?” Yitzi chuckled and said, “Yankel, I don’t un-

derstand any of it! I called a Medicare insurance broker who knows the system inside and out who helped me through the whole process. You should give him a call! It takes an expert who speaks the language of Medicare to sort through everything.”

Taking the advice of his wiser older brother, he gave the Medicare adviser a call and was blown away by the results.

The Medicare insurance broker properly explained how Medicare works and was able to answer all of Yankel’s many questions. The Medicare insurance broker was able to find Yankel a Medicare plan that worked best for him and his financial needs and lifestyle. Thanks to the assistance of an expert Medicare insurance broker, by the end of the phone call Yankel felt like he was an expert in Medicare! With the complications of Medicare behind him, Yankel hung up the phone, turned off his computer, and got in his car to spend some precious time with his grandkids.

If you or someone you know is turning 65, retiring, or losing employer coverage, please feel free to reach out to Medicare Menachem (Michael) Friedman at (347) 738-6846, at Insurancemd@gmail.com, or visit his website at Mindfulmedicaresolutions.com. He is a licensed Medicare insurance broker in 25 states, an expert in navigating the maze of Medicare, and has been providing a priceless service to his clients for over 15 years without ever charging a price.

Written by Josh Goldenberg, Staff Writer at Mindful Medicare Solutions

The Jewish Home | NOVEMBER 9, 2023

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Around the Community

Chabad Commemorates the Shloshim

Faculty In Service Day at Gan Chamesh

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he teachers at Gan Chamesh enjoyed an interesting and informative Faculty In-Service Day. They had the opportunity to hear from esteemed early child educators who shared innovative thoughts and ideas related to block play and its benefits, emotions,

energy in motion, the driving force behind child behaviors, and the wonders of natural clay. The presentations and the knowledge the staff gained serve to enhance the skills and creativity the teachers bring to the classroom. Teachers need to learn, too!

The Power of Amen at Shulamith

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here was standing room only at the Chabad Five Towns evening for Israel commemorating 30 days since the tragedy of October 7.

The community joined to gain strength and inspiration.

A highlight of the evening was hearing from Rinat Sheleg and Natalie Afgan, whose father Luis Norberto Har is currently being held hostage in Gaza. Together they lit a candle in memory of all those who we lost on October 7 and shared how their father and other family members were taken hostage, as well as the brutalities that their kibbutz experienced.

We also were honored to have current IDF soldier Noah Neustater lead a prayer for the IDF. Rabbi Zalman Wolowik, director of Chabad of the Five Towns, shared timeless wisdom from the Torah on how to react in these times.

The Honorable Dov Hikind, assemblyman for many decades and activist for Israel and for humanity,

share some words of inspiration, especially as he has just returned from a visit to the southern border in Israel Additionally, our current county legislator, Howard Kopel, joined the event and was uplifted and inspired.

As the evening concluded, all attendees were encouraged to take on a mitzvah and many good deeds, as spiritual protection for Israel.

Following the program, the two sisters, Rinat and Natalie, led by Chabad Rebbetzin Chanie Wolowik, drove to the gravesite of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, zt”l, to pray and gain strength.

Did you know?

There are 650 skeletal muscles in the body.

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n Monday, Shulamith acknowledged the sholoshim of the Simchas Torah attacks and channeled our tefillos and actions in the zechus of a swift victory. It is our belief that by encouraging achdus, we can bring more light into the world and make a positive impact. To that end, Shulamith launched a brachos and Amen initiative that involves all of our students, grades 1-8. The power of Amen cannot be overestimated. The Rebbe Shmelke of Nickolsberg explained that when one recites a bracha, it creates an angel, but the angel isn’t complete unless someone answers Amen to the bracha. This practice not only strengthens the power of the bracha but also fosters unity and connection among those reciting and responding to

it.

We began the initiative with brachos parties in each grade. We encourage our Shulamith families to join in our commitment to making brachos aloud and answering Amen for all to hear. May the zechuyot of our students along with all of our efforts bring a swift yeshua.

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Around the Community

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e all find ourselves searching for answers in uncertain times. We can all feel helpless being so far from our brothers and sisters, seeking any small or big way we can to show our support, show we care, and show we won’t forget. And as the weeks since the horrendous attack of October 7 progress, the tefillot, Tehillim and mitzvot of Ezra Academy students continue to proliferate. Taking on a specific soldier to daven for, daily Tehillim as a school, packing bags to send to Israel, making brachot with fervor and wearing tzitzit have been regular parts of the day.

We’ve all thought of spiritual ways to help, financial ways to help, but at Ezra Academy –inspired by one rabbi – a select few boys discovered a way to combine the spiritual and the physical.

A particular initiative took place recently. After hearing Rabbi Zucker speak in class about ways to help out in Israel, Ben Khaimov and Natan Alishayev took it upon themselves to heed their rabbi’s words. Rabbi Zucker encouraged his students to raise money to help buy mezuzos for several army bases that did not have the spiritual shield on their doorpost.

Ben and Natan were more than up to the task. With Rabbi Zucker’s guidance and

motivation, Ben and Natan thought they would raise enough money to buy mezuzos for several bases, but the boys tirelessly went from class to class over the course of several weeks. With the help of the rest of the school, Ben and Natan were able to raise over $2,000 dollars, enough mezuzos for 25 army bases.

Ezra continues to encourage their students to contribute any way they can and to constantly remember their role in the Jewish community. While we all pray for a speedy yeshua to the current mazav, we hope and pray that the efforts of klal Yisrael to stay unified and devoted to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, His Torah, and each other remains indefinitely.

NOVEMBER 9, 2023 | The Jewish Home

Continued Support for Israel at Ezra Academy

The Jewish Home | NOVEMBER 9, 2023

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Around the Community

MTA Joins YU in Commemorating the Shloshim of the October 7 Massacre

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e are so proud of our 1A Banot from Shulamith who got together on Sunday morning in Woodmere for a class bake sale to raise money for Israel. They each baked or brought something yummy

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TA had the privilege of joining YU students and Roshei Yeshiva for a special program commemorating the Shloshim of the October 7 massacre in Eretz Yisrael. The program included divrei chizuk, communal recitation of Tehillim and Mincha with Avinu Malkeinu. After everyone gathered in Lamport Auditorium, everyone heard a personal account from relatives of a few of the current hostages. It hit home especially hard to hear the firsthand account from family members waiting anxiously for news about their loved ones.

The program continued with divrei chizuk from YU President, Rabbi Dr. Ari Berman, who spoke of his own sons and neighbors in Israel who are currently on the frontlines. Rabbi Berman also recited the first perek of Tehillim, which was

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to sell and ended up raising $725 in just one hour! The girls will be donating the money to an IDF artillery unit for Army tactical gloves and individual first aid kits that they really needed!

Kol hakavod!

Anti-Semitism in West Hempstead

by Shimmie Ehrenreich

followed by other YU Roshei Yeshiva and MTA’s own Rabbi Kerner. Mincha was recited, and the program concluded with the singing of Acheinu.

It was moving to see so many people davening together on behalf of Klal Yisrael, in hopes that our chayalim will be safe and the hostages will be freed. May we hear besoros tovos soon.

A Gesture of Appreciation

he YOSS PTA sponsored dinner one night this week for the police precinct in an effort to thank them for their increased security and continu-

Cookies – and Cakes – for a Cause

ous support over the last couple of weeks.

The police officers were so touched by the delicious food and beautiful cards made by the YOSS students.

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hile eating dinner at 7:00 on October 31, my son called me to ask if I knew what was happening on my block. He had seen on a West Hempstead men’s WhatsApp chat that cars were being defaced with shaving cream with antisemitic slurs. I immediately went outside and saw that the car directly across the street had a terribly offensive curse word written on the back window. Their neighbor also had that word with “JUWS” on the window.

Two houses down, the name “Hitler” was written on a car in shaving cream.

I immediately called the Bias Crime division of the Nassau County Police Department. Another person had seen the 10-12 teenage boys on the next block carrying cans of shaving cream and called 911. Within a few minutes, five police cars arrived and closed off my small block of four Jewish owned houses. A few other frum people who were driving by stopped to see what had happened. We were ground zero.

A detective took statements from a few of us. We showed him a video of the teens entering a CVS store a few blocks away, apparently to purchase the shaving cream. The Detective told us that unfortunately there was not much that the police could do. The boys were minors, and there were no cameras on our block that could identify the individuals who did the actual spraying. Also, they did not use paint or damage the cars in any way. The teens also sprayed curse words

on cars on other blocks in the neighborhood. They were also filmed spraying cameras on homes so that they could not be identified. Eventually, the boys were caught and detained until their parents came to pick them up.

The next day, two police officer came to my home to take my statement for the record. Afterwards, News 12 arrived to interview me and Neal Polaniecki, the other person who had called the police and stayed on my block for two hours and helped clean off the cars. Our interviews were shown on News 12 that night.

Certainly, the most disturbing part of this story is that although the teens probably thought it was just a Halloween prank, the antisemitic slurs shook this peaceful frum community. Secondly, it is a cause for alarm considering what these teens are hearing in their homes and not being taught in their schools. Apparently, at the scene when the parents were picking up their sons from the police, some were very upset and were reprimanding their children. But this entire event is disturbing. If no hate crime charges can be filed, and these teens see that they can get away with this disgusting behavior, then they may feel that they can take the next step and be more aggressive. Every one of us here in West Hempstead and other Jewish communities should be on alert and report any antisemitic incident.

Maybe the police will get the message that this activity should not be tolerated and those who perpetrate these acts should be prosecuted.

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Around the Community

Letters of Solidarity

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n a heartwarming display of solidarity, students from HAFTR’s Lower and Middle School divisions devoted their time last week to penning letters of encouragement to soldiers and patients in hospitals. These heartfelt missives carried a profound impact, delivering an abundance of strength and comfort to those in our homeland, whether they were in the midst of battle or on the path to recovery.

These touching letters were hand-delivered by Rabbis Yaakov Trump of Young Israel Lawrence & Cedarhurst and Rabbi Shalom Axelrod from Young Israel of Woodmere. This initiative was part of a larger mission orchestrated by the Rabbinical Council of America and Mizrachi, under the leadership of RIETS. Upon receiving the letters, Rabbi Trump expressed immense gratitude for the outpouring of support, emphasizing, “The most important thing we can do is show them we care.” Through these hundreds of letters, it is evident that care and concern resoundingly prevail.

In a further testament to the students’ deep empathy and commitment, an idea from Rabbi Hopkovitz sparked a project involving the 7th and 8th grade boys. As they honed their skills in tying tzitzit, they decided to craft tzitzit for the cha-

yalim, utilizing specially designed undershirts in the distinct IDF green. This endeavor not only demonstrated their newfound mastery of this mitzvah but also illuminated the spiritual assistance they can offer. Rabbi Trump commended the students for their unwavering dedication to supporting the soldiers, both emotionally and spiritually.

Through these initiatives, HAFTR students have not only demonstrated their empathy and support but also exemplified the impact that small acts of kindness can have on those in need.

Names, Not Numbers Opening Event at HANC Middle School

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s Am Yisrael continues to mourn the tragic massacre that took place on Simchas Torah, the Queens community gathered together on Sunday, November 5, for a special Tehillim gathering that brought thousands of attendees from diverse backgrounds on to the streets of KGH near Yeshiva Kesser Torah.

The event was not a loud protest with people demanding anything from anyone. It was a sincere gathering of prayer, of calling out to Hashem at a time of Tzaarah, as depicted in the Rambam.

The event was initiated by the Chazaq organization as a vehicle to bring about achdus, and the logistics of the gathering were put together in a joint effort by Shmira, Misaskim, and Chaverim along with dozens of yeshivas and organizations that joined in.

The gathering truly transcended religious and cultural boundaries, demonstrating the power of unity and prayer to overcome challenges that communities face.

The gathering was MC’d by Rabbi Yaniv Meirov and Rabbi Yehuda Davis, It featured words of chizuk from Rav Noach Issac Olebaum. Tehillim was led by Rav Menashe Tzadka, Rav Akiva Grunblatt, Rav Yigal Haimoff, and Rav Doniel Lander.

The singing of “Acheinu” was a poignant moment of unity, led by the talented Zalman Pollack, filling the venue with a sense of togetherness and spirituality.

Attendees left the Community-Wide Asifa with a renewed sense of connection, faith, and purpose, inspired to continue working together to uplift their community during challenging times.

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n Monday, October 16, the eighth grade at HANC began a project called Names Not Number. In the program, students interview Holocaust survivors and edit the interviews, which are then made into a documentary.

The program began with powerful words from Rabbi Hecht, the Middle School principal, who spoke about the magnitude of a project like this. He explained that it is crucial for the students to participate and internalize the stories so that they can pass them on to future generations. He explained that some things you need to forget in order to move on. On the other hand, something like the Holocaust can never be forgotten.

Next, we heard from Mrs. Tova Rosenberg, the creator of Names, Not Number.

Mrs. Rosenberg gave an inspirational speech about how important this project is and how lucky we are to get the chance to participate in this program.

After Mrs. Rosenberg, the students watched a 20-minute clip of an interview with Moshe Avital, a”h. The students sat spellbound watching his story. It is something which I am sure will stay in their memory for a very long time.

Next, there was a presentation from Shoshana Soroka, editor of The Jewish Home. Mrs. Soroka gave the class tips on how to talk and interview Holocaust survivors. Mrs. Soroka did an amazing job of guiding the students. She was so engaging and listened intently as each student suggested certain types of questions. She went through the interview and explained how there would be questions about before the war, during the war, and after the war. Mrs. Soroka explained what types of questions would be best. She talked about what happens if the survivor cries or is silent for a bit.

The grade is looking forward to participating in this project.

NOVEMBER 9, 2023 | The Jewish Home

Thousands Unite at Massive Queens Asifa

The Jewish Home | NOVEMBER 9, 2023

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Around the Community

Cedarhurst Stands in Solidarity with Israel

L-R: Nassau County 4th Precinct Police Officer Andy Fried, Village Administrator Salvatore Evola, Trustee Daniel Plaut, Nassau County 4th Precinct Sargent John Fortunato, Senator Patricia Canzoneri-Fitzpatrick, Nassau County 4th Precinct Police Officer John Roffrano , Deputy Mayor and New York State Assemblyman Ari Brown, Cedarhurst BID Jeff Beja, Mayor Benjamin Weinstock, Trustee Israel Wasser, Trustee Myrna Zisman, Cedarhurst BID Robert Wengrofsky, Cedarhurst BID Executive Director Sharona Hoffman, Cedarhurst BID Zohar Pereg, and Cedarhurst BID Alex Beja

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n heartfelt solidarity with the people of Israel, the Village of Cedarhurst is proudly displaying Israeli and American flags across the Business District. Flying these flags in the heart of the Village symbolizes our unwavering sup-

port for Israel and its allies in the United States during these challenging times.

It is the Village’s hope that these flags serve as a soaring reminder to both the residents and the citizens of Israel of our shared values and hope for peace.

Mayor Benjamin Weinstock expressed on behalf the entire Village Board, “In the face of adversity, we stand shoulder to shoulder with our friends and family in Israel. The flags we proudly display throughout the Village con-

vey our unwavering support for their well-being and peace. Our hearts go out to everyone affected by the heinous massacre on October 7th and Israel’s ongoing war against terror. We hope this gesture serves as a beacon of hope and strength.”

YCQ’s Kindergarten Open House Featured Uncle Moishy

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early 100 families attended YCQ’s Open House on Sunday, November 5. After Rabbi Mark Landsman, principal, welcomed everyone and led the audience in Tehilim for Eretz Yisrael, the Uncle Moishy concert began. Uncle Moishy engaged the crowd with some old and new Torah-themed songs, including classics like the “Clean Up Song” and “Hashem is Here.” Parents and their children then broke into 4 groups and had the opportunity to meet the Morot of YCQ and see the Kindergarten and 1st Grade classrooms in action.

Attendees heard about the new developments in the Kindergarten curriculum including the introduction of a rotational and blended learning method to the classrooms. Under the leadership of Mrs. Sharon Korn, Early Childhood Director,

and Mrs. Allison Blass, K-2 ELA Curriculum Coordinator, students are now reaping the benefits of the model that has been previously introduced in the elementary school. For literacy and math instruction, students are divided into small groups that rotate through four learning centers. The rotations enable teachers to maximize the attention they give to students and teach each group of students at their own academic level and pace.

Participants at the open house also witnessed YCQ’S first-rate Ivrit program in action. Teachers are using a “name, letter, word” curriculum based on “Fundations,” which is being solidified with visual and auditory discrimination exercises. The lessons are supported by the spectacular Morah Idit who comes into the classrooms three times a week

and particularly works on enhancing students’ vocabulary and conversational abilities.

The engaging and educational day ended with a Q&A session for parents and a story in the library for children led by YCQ’s Librarian, Mrs. Etta. YCQ thanks everyone who attended and all the staff and parent volunteers who made the Open House so successful.

Early Childhood applications for the 2024-2025 year are now available at ycqweb.com/apply. Admission is done on a rolling basis so apply today!

Yeshiva Har Torah Contributes to the Protection of Chayalim in Israel

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he eighth grade boys of Yeshiva Har Torah recently participated in a meaningful event aimed at supporting the chayalim (soldiers) in Israel.

In response to a request for tzitzit from the soldiers, and under the guidance of Rabbi Etan Ehrenfeld, Middle School Assistant Principal, the students engaged in the making of tzitzit. By crafting the garments, the eighth grade boys of Yeshiva Har Torah hoped to provide the chayalim

with an additional layer of protection as they fulfill their duties in protecting Medinat Yisrael.

The students were provided with all the necessary materials to create the tzitzit for this event. It served as a handson learning experience, allowing the boys to understand the significance of the mitzvah and the power tzitzit holds in the Jewish community, especially now.

Through this act of chesed, Yeshi-

va Har Torah’s eighth grade boys have demonstrated the power of unity and the impact of collective mitzvot and the effect it can have all over the world, reaching our brothers in Israel. Their efforts serve as an inspiring example and should help merit the safe return of all of the hostages and chayalim back to their homes in Israel.

Special Thanks to Mr. David Schwartz, grandfather of Sammy (2nd grade) and Zach (1st grade), for making this possible.

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n Marblespoon at Home, bestselling author Vera Newman – whose thousands of fans turn to her for bold, unique, and family-friendly meal ideas – shares a brand-new collection of recipes you will absolutely love, and best of all, they are easy to make, with ingredients that you already have in your home.

In classic Vera style, these alwayspractical and unfussy recipes for weekday and holiday meals are geared for busy people.

Easy, quick and absolutely delicious – that’s the Marblespoon recipe!

The following is a conversation with Vera Newman about her fantastic new cookbook.

Amazing – this gorgeous new cookbook is full of “low effort, high reward” recipes. What does that mean to a busy cook, and how do you go about developing recipes that meet this promise?

Vera Newman (VN): For me a “low effort, high reward” recipe needs to meet the following criteria:  No fancy equipment needed  Uses a few pantry staple ingredients  Quick to make  Lots of flavor  Family-friendly Most recipes in my book follow that criteria because that’s what works for me and my lifestyle. I don’t have the time to spend hours in the kitchen every day.

Supper needs to be on the table in under an hour from start to finish. I create recipes for people just like me: busy mothers living in a fast-paced world, juggling so much while still trying to feed our families delicious and nourishing meals.

Tell us about the stunning tablescapes that begin each chapter.

VN: I’ve always had an eye, taste and appreciation for beautiful things. I remember when I was in high school, my mom was a part of this weekly shiur with

a large group of women, and they all took turns hosting. We lived in Panama, and that means a 12-foot table full to brim with delicacies and mini desserts and delicate pastries and gorgeous, colorful salads and fancy mini sandwiches, all served on the fanciest china. I’m sure you can picture what that table looked like. My mom would let me skip school to set the beautiful table with her. When I started having children, I would make them the cutest birthday parties, full of fancy details and delicious food. Later on, I became a party planner to fuel that passion. I want every single picture in the chapter dividers to inspire my readers and let them feast their eyes with beauty.

Tough question: What are some of your favorite recipes?

VN: I would say my favorite chapter is the “weeknight suppers” chapter because I end up making those recipes the most often and they are all so yummy and practical. But if I had to pick a favorite

NOVEMBER 9, 2023 | The Jewish Home

Marblespoon at Home

recipe it would have to be meatball noodle soup or the summer burger bowl.

Purchase Marblespoon at Home at ArtScroll.com or at your local Hebrew bookstore.

Rosh HaYeshiva of Touro’s Lander College for Men, Beis Madrash L’Talmud Visits Yeshivas in Israel on Chizuk Mission

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or HaRav Yonason Sacks, Rosh HaYeshiva of Touro’s Lander College for Men, Beis Medrash L’Talmud, offering chizuk to the yeshiva students in Israel was top priority as the war broke out a few weeks ago. While many Americans swiftly headed out of the country, Rabbi Sacks flew in to Eretz Yisrael on his personal mission.

Over the course of a few days, he visited 10 yeshivas including Kerem B’Yavne, Torat Shraga, Netiv Aryeh, Yeshivat Hakotel, Reishit, Lev Hatorah, Shaalvim, Mevaseret, Yishrei Lev and Aish HaTorah.

He went to encourage and support the many talmidim spending the year learning in Israel and his message was timely, using the pasuk in Tehillim, (92,3) “Lehagid baboker chasdecha v’emunascha balailos.” He explained that during the light of day, when we experience abundant bracha, we express the chessed of Hashem, but in the darkness of night, b’eis tzarah, we need to strengthen our faith, our emunah and bitachon.

“When there is an eis tzarah, tefillah is paramount, indeed Torah learning itself is a form of tefillah,” said Rabbi Sacks.

Rabbi Sacks giving a shiur in the miklat at Kerem B’Yavne

Joint Forces—The Chayalim and the Mispallelim “In Parshas Matos (Bamidbar 31:4), the Torah describes the Jewish people going to war, “Elef l’mateh elef la’mateh.”

The Midrash Rabbah explains that this repetition indicates that each shevet was represented by 1,000 soldiers and 1,000 people praying. The mispallelim accompanied the soldiers to the battlefield. Both forces are necessary – the chayalim and the mispallelim,” said Rabbi Sacks.

He explained to the talmidim that their role is to be the mispallelim and the lomdei Torah who serve together with the chayalim. “A soldier wouldn’t dare

wake up late or leave his post early or unmanned, so too, those who are learning Torah must be just as vigilant and disciplined especially in this time of distress for Klal Yisrael. This is your battle,” continued Rabbi Sacks.

He shared that the talmidim were davening and learning with diligence and passion. They sensed they had a responsibility to take their role of serving Klal Yisrael and Hashem very seriously. The common response among students at all the yeshivas was a sincere desire to know what their purpose is at this time, what more they could do and how they can maximize their efforts for Klal Yisrael.

Unlike other times the Rosh Hayeshi-

Rabbi Yonason Sacks, Rosh HaYeshiva, Touro’s Lander College Beis Medrash L’Talmud

va has traveled to Israel, this time it was clear the country was at war. He stayed at a hotel that had hardly any guests but was filled with soldiers and refugees from southern Israel. At some of the yeshivas he visited, many of the Israeli talmidim and rebbeim were absent, having been called to serve in the IDF. The mood was solemn, but he found that everyone shared a sense of purpose.

“The unity of Klal Yisrael was both heartfelt and inspirational,” said Rabbi Sacks.

The Jewish Home | NOVEMBER 9, 2023

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1. *

TJH Alternative Dictionary

Centerfold You Gotta be Kidding Me!

Avoidable: What a bullfighter tries to do.

Baloney: Where some hemlines fall.

Bernadette: The act of torching a mortgage.

Burglarize: What a crook sees with.

Coffee: A person who is coughed upon.

Eclipse: What an English barber does for a living.

Eyedropper: A clumsy ophthalmologist.

Heroes: What a guy in a boat does.

Paradox: Two physicians.

Bubba and Jimbo have a ranch. They have just lost their bull and have to buy another one. Bubba goes to the market and finds a bull. Now, he needs Jimbo to come with the truck, but he forgot his

Pharmacist: A helper on the farm.

Polarize: What penguins see with.

Primate: Getting your spouse to leave a store.

phone at home. One guy is willing to allow him to use his phone but only lets him send a text. Bubba sends a one-word text to Jimbo: “comfortable.”

Relief: What trees do in the spring.

Selfish: What the owner of a seafood store does.

Sudafed: Suing the federal government.

Skeptical, the owner of the phone asks, “How will Jimbo know to come with the trailer from just that word?”

Bubba answers, “What’s the problem? I told him to come for ta’ bull!”

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NOVEMBER 9, 2023 | The Jewish Home

In honor of National Tongue Twister Day See how fast you can say these…

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Betty Botter bought some butter but she

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said the butter’s bitter. If I put it in my

Of all the felt I ever felt, I never felt a

batter, it will make my batter bitter. But a bit

piece of felt which felt as fine

of better butter will make my batter better.

as that felt felt, when first I felt

So ‘twas better Betty Botter bought a bit of

that felt hat’s felt.

better butter.

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I thought a thought. But

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the thought I thought

Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled

wasn’t the thought I thought I thought.

peppers. A peck of pickled peppers

Peter Piper picked. If Peter Piper picked a peck of

If the thought I thought I thought had

pickled peppers, where’s the peck of pickled peppers

been the thought I thought, I wouldn’t have

Peter Piper picked?

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If you must cross a coarse, cross cow across a crowded cow crossing, cross the cross, coarse

cow across the crowded cow crossing carefully

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A skunk sat on a stump and thunk the stump stunk, but the stump thunk the skunk stunk.

thought I thought.

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A tutor who tooted the flute tried to teach two young tooters to toot. Said the two to the tutor,

“Is it harder to toot, or to tutor two tooters to toot?”

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Pad kid poured curd pulled cod. (OK, now say it another 9 times…good luck!)

Riddle Me This What word, describing a job title, has three consecutive double letters?

Answer: Bookkeeper

Torah Thought

Parshas Chayei Sara ART BY MIcHoEL MucHnIK

The Jewish Home | NOVEMBER 9, 2023

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By Rabbi Berel Wein

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n truth, our mother Sarah, like many other mothers past and present in Jewish life, has not quite received her due. Rashi, quoting Midrash in describing Sarah’s life, states that all the years of Sarah’s life were “for good.”

He must mean “for good” in a spiritual and holy sense, for in her physical worldly life there was little good that

she experienced. Wandering over the Middle East by following her visionary husband to a strange and unknown destination; being forced into Pharaoh’s harem; being unable to conceive children; having her maidservant Hagar marry Avraham and attempt to usurp her position in the household; kidnapped by Avimelech, the king of the Philistines;

seeing her precious son’s life threatened by an aggressive and violent stepbrother, Yishmael; and passing away almost fifty years before her husband – this does not make for a happy resume of a life that was “all good.” In fact, it raises the eternal question of why bad things happen to good people.

But powerless as we are to really answer that question cogently and logically, we should, in retrospect, view our mother Sarah with a renewed sense of awe and appreciation. Lesser people would have been crushed by such a cascade of events in one’s lifetime. The Mishna speaks of the ten tests in life that befell Avraham – and that he rose above all of them. We should also make men-

must revert to the understanding that since the “all good” in the life of our mother Sarah must perforce be interpreted in a spiritual sense – in a sense of continual service to G-d and man and a commitment to a higher level of living than mere physical existence and an optimistic frame of mind – so, too, must we search for such an “all good” interpretation in our individual lives as well. The striving for finding such an “all good” approach to life is the essence of Torah and Jewish ritual.

I once had to attend a rabbinical court here in Israel in order to register as being married. As often happens in government offices here, the wait to be serviced was long and the ambience

The rabbi gently shushed me and said: “Here in the Land of Israel, all is good!”

tion of the tests in life that our mother Sarah endured in her existence and that she, too, rose above them. “The wisdom of women builds their home,” said King Solomon. That certainly must be said of the house of Avraham, the founding home of the Jewish people. It was Sarah’s wisdom and fortitude that was the foundation of that home.

In everyone’s life, there are moments of danger, frustration, disappointment and even tragedy. Who amongst us can say in truth that all the years of our life were “all good”? This being the case, we

was not very pleasant. The clerk handling the matter was rather surly and disinterested in my problem. Finally, a wonderful rabbi came out of his inner office and took care of me and my need expeditiously and warmly. When I was foolish enough to begin to complain to him about the long wait and the less than forthcoming clerk, the rabbi gently shushed me and said: “Here in the Land of Israel, all is good!”

And when one is on that level of spirituality, that is certainly true.

Shabbat shalom.

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From the Fire Parshas Chayei Sarah

An Ode to Sarah

By Rav Moshe Weinberger Adapted for publication by Binyomin Wolf

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he pasuk (Bereishis 23:1) says, “And the life of Sarah was one hundred years and twenty years and seven years, the years of the life of Sarah.” There are many questions on, and explanations of, this pasuk. One question is why, after the pasuk introduces Sarah’s age with “And the life of Sarah was,” was it necessary to say again, “the years of the life of Sarah”?

Rashi explains that it is to teach us that “they were all equally good.”

The Malbim explains that “the primary life of a person is the life he lives with intelligence and hard work; that is what is called ‘the life of a person,’ not life lived based on emotion, which is the life of an animal. [The pasuk] therefore says that they were all years of life… ‘they were all equally good.’” Sarah lived her life based on what she knew with her intellect to be good and true. She did not base her choices on her instincts or base emotions. She truly lived.

There is no doubt that Rivkah, Rochel, and Leah also knew how to live. The days of their lives were also certainly all equally good. So why does the Torah never specify the age of any of the other Imahos, Matriarchs, upon their deaths like it does regarding Sarah?

The reason must be that everything that exists in the world grows from its roots. The Avos, the patriarchs, are the roots of our people. Each one of them specialized in a unique character trait and brought that special quality into our nation. Avraham brought down the quality of kindness, Yitzchak brought down the quality of strength, and Yaakov brought down the qualities of truth, compassion, and beautiful synthesis.

Because each one of the Avos initiated a new quality different from the others,

the Torah explains the details of their lives in detail. Because the Torah does this with only one of the Imahos, Sarah, it follows that all of them had the same characteristic bequeathed to them from the original mother, Sarah Imeinu.

What is the singular characteristic of our mother Sarah which was carried on by the other Imahos? It was the quality of the first mother, Chavah, who the Torah says was so named because she was the “mother of all life” (Bereishis 3:20).

Sarah, like all Jewish mothers after her, dedicated her life to one thing – bringing souls down into the world and raising them to live lives of holiness. The only thing she wanted was to raise her children to live years of goodness, purity, and wholesomeness about which one could say, “they were all equally good.” One who can have children can do this with her own children. For one who cannot, it means dedicating her

life to giving to others, thus becoming a spiritual “mother” to them.

Our mother Sarah initiated this attribute of motherhood, which was so perfect and all-encompassing that nothing could be added to it. There was nothing more for Rivkah, Rochel, and Leah to add in the generations just after Sarah.

They only wished to carry out that characteristic to the greatest degree possible.

This is equally true today. Our wives and mothers have nothing more to add to the ideal quality of motherhood exemplified

by Sarah. The goal is to continue reaching for that pinnacle and living up to it to the best of one’s abilities.

That is why the pasuk says about Rivkah, “And Yitzchak brought her to tent of Sarah his mother, and he took Rivkah and she became his wife and he loved her, and Yitzchak was comforted [for the loss of] his mother” (ibid.

24:67). Onkolus on this pasuk explains

that Yitzchak saw “that her actions were proper like the actions of Sarah.” When Yitzchak saw that the cloud of Hashem’s Presence dwelled on the tent in which he lived with Rivkah (Rashi on ibid.), he knew that she was great in the same way that Sarah was. Rivkah’s greatness, like all Jewish women, was that she was a worthy bearer of Sarah’s legacy. That was Yitzchak’s greatest comfort because it meant Sarah’s legacy was being carried on by his wife Rivkah.

How did Sarah achieve her greatness? We know (Rashi on Bereishis 21:12) that Sarah was a greater prophet than her husband Avraham. And Avraham achieved his greatness through the ten tests that he endured. But what about Sarah? She was even greater. How did she achieve her greatness? Avraham’s tests were the type that would have made headlines. They were dramatic events like leaving home for a new land or being told to slaughter his son.

Sarah faced much less attention-grabbing trials. After struggling for years with the crushing pain of infertility, she achieved her greatness with “simple” tests like waking up multiple times overnight with a child. She, like Jewish women today, do great things with little fanfare, like trying to daven on Rosh Hashanah or Yom Kippur while their husbands go to shul for a day full of davening with a minyan, where it is easier to become inspired. These “little,” non-spectacular acts are the expressions of motherhood that make Jewish women’s days “all equally good.”

Unfortunately, because the world in large part no longer appreciates the “life of Sarah,” many people view a woman who chooses to live a life of quiet giving and sacrifice for her children a life filled

Chaim, he became very emotional and began kissing it repeatedly. After a few moments, he looked up and saw that the people around him appeared to feel that his reaction was somewhat excessive. So he said to them, “If you knew how many tears my mother shed over this siddur, you would grab it from my hands and kiss it too.”

explain the phenomenon. However, when pressed, she revealed what she considered a “small thing.”

“Before my chasunah, my mother gave me a siddur with Tehillim,” she related. ‘Listen to me carefully,’ she told me. ‘We are required to raise our children in the ways of Torah and yiras Shamayim. So take this siddur in your

The only thing she wanted was to raise her children to live years of goodness, purity, and wholesomeness about which one could say, “they were all equally good.”

I told my wife this story and she shared with me the following story recounted in Hamodia Weekly’s magazine, At Home with Inyan, a few year ago: It is told that the elderly mother of the Chofetz Chaim was once asked in what zechus she merited such a son.

She repeatedly insisted that she knew of no particular merit that could possibly

hands, and in every spare moment, beseech the Creator of the world to merit to raise your children to Torah and yiras Shamayim. And don’t neglect to shed tears while you daven!’

“So did my mother instruct me,” the Chofetz Chaim’s mother continued, speaking with great simplicity, “and I followed her instructions. I don’t have

many merits, but this I can tell you: At every opportunity – such as when I waited for a pot of food to finish cooking on the fire – I would take the siddur with the Tehillim and daven for the hatzlachah of my children. Tears flowing, I would plead, ‘Ribbono Shel Olam, open the eyes of my Yisrael’ke to Your Torah, and help me raise him to be a talmid chacham and a yerei Shamayim…’”

Even though people today may have some time between placing the order for Chinese food or sushi and the delivery boy coming to the door, not many of our children see their mothers – or fathers – using such spare time to cry crying over a book of Tehillim for their children. It is therefore very difficult to raise children today with this wholesome quality of motherhood. May Hashem bless all Jewish wives and mothers to live up to the paradigm set by our mother Sarah, the mother of all life, so that Hashem will be able to say about every day of their lives that “all of them were equally good.”

Rav Moshe Weinberger, shlita, is the founding Morah d’Asrah of Congregation Aish Kodesh in Woodmere, NY, and serves as leader of the new mechina Emek HaMelech.

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with days that are “all equally bad.” They look down on women who carry on Sarah’s legacy. Because I care little for the farcical concept of political correctness, I do not mind saying that the Torah values a person who works to live up to his or her own unique expression of the image of G-d. A great many women legitimately accomplish many things outside the home, but the granddaughters of Sarah find their primary fulfillment in motherhood. “Hashem knows the days of the wholesome” ones who dedicate themselves to fulfilling the purpose for which they were created.

The cloud rested on Sarah’s tent, indicating that Hashem’s Presence dwelled there, just as the cloud covering the Mishkan indicated the same thing. The Mishkan was where the Jewish people brought sacrifices to G-d. The greatness of Sarah’s life was that it was, similarly, a place of daily, no-frills sacrifices for her children. She lived to give to her family and to others, to be “the mother of all life.” That was her essence and why she was the singular mother of all mothers.

I recently saw in a sefer that, during the Chofetz Chaim’s life, a member of the family found his mother’s siddur. When they showed the siddur to the Chofetz

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Think. Feel.Grow.

When Selfish Becomes Selfless

By Rabbi Shmuel Reichman

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enjamin left his office building in Manhattan to get lunch, walking straight into the beggar standing beside the door. The beggar looked decrepit and ungroomed. Everyone walking on the sidewalk eyed him with contempt. Something stirred in Benjamin, though, and he was filled with compassion.

“Sir, are you all right?” he asked.

The beggar rolled his eyes and said, “Just leave me alone.”

Benjamin stayed where he was and continued speaking calmly to the man.

“Are you hungry?”

“No, I’ve just come from dining with the president,” the beggar replied sarcastically. “Now leave me alone.”

Benjamin’s smile remained intact as he gently helped the beggar up instead.

“Come, let’s get out of the cold and get a bite to eat.”

Benjamin led the man into a small café. He bought a few rolls and some coffee, and gently handed them over to the

older man.

“Jack, you still don’t recognize me?”

Benjamin asked.

Jack examined his face.

“Well, you do look familiar.” he said slowly.

“Do you remember a cold and hungry boy who frequently visited this place when you used to work here?” Benjamin asked. “Perhaps he’s grown old, hasn’t he?

“I had just graduated, and I came to the city looking for a job. It took me a while to find one, and eventually I ran out of cash. I lost my apartment, and I had to move out onto the streets of the city in the middle of February. I walked into this store, hoping to find something I could afford with the few coins in my pocket.”

Jack’s face lit up, and he began to smile. “Now I remember you. I used to work at the counter.”

“I know,” Benjamin said. “You offered me the biggest roast beef sandwich,

something to drink, and a table for me to sit at and enjoy the meal. I saw you put the price of my food in the cash register.

You paid for my meal.”

“So, you started your own business?”

Jack asked.

“No, not exactly. That very afternoon, I got a job. I worked my way up. Then, I started my own business.”

Benjamin opened his wallet and pulled out a business card. “Please pay a visit to the personnel director of my company. I’ll go talk to him now. I am sure there is something in my office that we can use your help with. We can even pay you some of your salary in advance.”

Fighting back tears, Jack asked, “How can I ever repay your kindness?”

“You don’t have to,” Benjamin answered. “You already did.”

ny we call life. This desire is an inherent part of being human. We yearn to expand beyond our limited sphere of existence and to become a part of something meaningful, something infinitely greater than ourselves. Although often channeled through ego and the desire for fame, this yearning stems from a deep, spiritual place. We possess a deep, inner knowledge that, at root, we are part of something infinitely greater than ourselves. Each of us is a unique and irreplaceable piece in a collective whole that transcends the sum of its parts.

The question in life is not whether we wish to accomplish something significant with our gift of life; the question is how. How can I become more selfaware, more disciplined, more caring, and more successful?

The Desire to Contribute

Aharon’s Avodah

Everyone wants to contribute something significant to the world, to play a meaningful part in the cosmic sympho-

When describing the avodah (Divine service) that Aharon Hakohen performed on Yom Kippur, the Torah states

The Two-Step Process In order to understand Rabbi Akiva’s seemingly contradictory statements, as well as the puzzling order of Aharon’s korbanos, we must study the concept of giving in greater depth. The fundamental prerequisite for giving is that we must first have that which we want to give. In order to contribute to this world, we must first build something worth contributing.

In order to truly love another, we must first love ourselves. The first step of life is building internally, developing our own skills and gifts. This means build-

ing our mind and inner world, developing our beliefs, our convictions, and our understanding of Hashem and His Torah. Simultaneously, we must develop our middos and personality, work on our self-discipline, and craft the ideal lifestyle to maximize our potential in this world. Only then is it possible to expand outwards and contribute to Klal Yisrael and the world as a whole.

When Giving Isn’t Giving Many people have an incredible desire to give but have nothing to actually contribute. It’s wonderful to dream of giving one million dollars to tzedakah.

But if we have no money, that desire will

one else. Chayecha kodmin is the first step toward fulfilling v’ahavta l’reiacha kamocha. Thus, investing in ourselves is the most selfless form of selfishness, as it becomes the very foundation and prerequisite for giving.

With this principle in mind, let us explore the process of human growth.

Many people grow from the outside in.

They look around at their friends, their family, and society, and then shape themselves to fit their surroundings. The clothes they wear, the food they eat, and the things they talk about all reflect their external environment. In this model, a person is a slab of clay, and the goal of life is to fit as neatly as possible into the

Our job in life is to discover who we really are and to express our dormant perfection.

not have much effect. It’s admirable to want to be a role model and a teacher, but if we possess no knowledge nor character traits to be emulated, what good is that desire? Of course, the desire itself is praiseworthy and may someday lead to something extraordinary, but at present it has no effect. (The goal of this idea is by no means to diminish the importance and validity of noble desires. The point being made is that, for practical purposes, desire is not always enough.)

The same goes for marriage. Marriage can only be as great as each individual spouse is. The beauty of marriage is the result of what each spouse invests and contributes into the relationship. In an ideal marriage, each spouse expands outwards by giving themselves fully into the relationship. But if neither spouse has anything to give, what kind of marriage will it be?

The Process of Human Growth This understanding of giving sheds light on Rabbi Akiva’s seemingly contradictory statements. Chayecha kodmin isn’t a contradiction to v’ahavta l’reiacha kamocha; it’s a prerequisite for its ideal fulfilment. Only if we first invest in ourselves can we then expand outwards and give to others. Only once we embrace our true “self” and discover our potential can we truly fall in love with ourselves. It is only after we love ourselves that we can then expand outwards and love some-

molds that society creates for them.

This model couldn’t be further from the ideal. Each one of us is created with our own unique potential that is waiting to be actualized. Our job in life is to discover who we really are and to express our dormant perfection. Growth isn’t about becoming great, it’s about becoming you. Learning isn’t about discovery, it’s about self-discovery. You are born as a masterpiece masked by confusion; your job in this world is to uncover yourself.

Instead of becoming a mirror, which reflects everything outside itself, we can become projectors. We can build something majestic and beautiful within ourselves and then express that out into the world.

A thermometer reflects its environment; the temperature outside determines its internal state. A thermostat, however, is unaffected by the external state of things; it first builds the reality within itself and then expresses that outwards into the external environment.

A true model of growth is where we first develop ourselves internally and then express that out into the world.

We can now explain the meaning behind Aharon’s avodah. A leader must be the ultimate example of working from the inside out — first developing himself internally and only then expanding outwards. Before Aharon could begin serving Klal Yisrael, he had to first work on his own personal connection with Hashem. Only after bringing a korban for his

own personal atonement was Aharon then able to expand outwards, helping all of Klal Yisrael build their connection with Hashem.

An Ageless Principle When we think about focusing inward, investing in ourselves and our growth, we generally think of those in their teens and early twenties who are still in school or at the beginning of their careers, focused on learning and investing in themselves as much as possible.

However, when properly understood, investment is imperative at every age.

In order to give, we must first invest in ourselves, creating something powerful within that we then express outwards.

Therefore, at all stages in life, we must balance these two principles: investing and contributing. Sometimes, we may spend more time and energy on investment, and sometimes, we may focus more on contribution, but they must always remain partners in our approach to life.

It’s never too late to grow, and it’s never too early to contribute. The valuable skill is knowing how to create the ideal balance between these two and knowing when to shift the balance one way or the other.

May we be inspired to endlessly invest in ourselves while realizing that everything we invest into “me” can ultimately be contributed into “we.”

Rabbi Shmuel Reichman is the author of the bestselling book, “The Journey to Your Ultimate Self,” which serves as an inspiring gateway into deeper Jewish thought. He is an educator and speaker who has lectured internationally on topics of Torah thought, Jewish medical ethics, psychology, and leadership. He is also the founder and CEO of Self-Mastery Academy, the transformative online self-development course based on the principles of high-performance psychology and Torah.

After obtaining his BA from Yeshiva University, he received Semicha from Yeshiva University’s RIETS, a master’s degree in education from Azrieli Graduate School, and a master’s degree in Jewish Thought from Bernard Revel Graduate School. He then spent a year studying at Harvard as an Ivy Plus Scholar. He currently lives in Chicago with his wife and son where he is pursuing a PhD at the University of Chicago.

To invite Rabbi Reichman to speak in your community or to enjoy more of his deep and inspiring content, visit his website: ShmuelReichman.com.

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that Aharon is commanded to first bring a korban (sacrifice) to atone for his own sins and then bring the korban to atone for the sins of the entire Jewish People.

The order of these sacrifices is peculiar, appearing antithetical to Aharon’s role as the spiritual leader of the Jewish People. A leader is called upon to be selfless, unceasingly devoted to his or her people, putting the Jewish People’s needs before their own. Why then does Aharon take care of his own atonement before turning his attention to the people? What is the deep meaning and lesson behind this?

This same issue lies at the core of a discussion that takes place in the Gemara (Bava Metzia 62a). Chazal discuss the case of two men stranded in a desert with a single flask of water between them, belonging to one of the two men.

If the owner of the flask drinks the water, he can survive long enough to make it safely back to civilization. If the men split the water, they will both die. The initial opinion, as quoted in the Gemara, is that the owner of the flask must share his water. This opinion stood until Rabbi Akiva came along and contested it, arguing that “chayecha kodmin — your life comes first”; therefore, the owner of the water must save his own life at the expense of his friend’s.

Although this statement of Rabbi Akiva seems logically justifiable, it is shocking in that it seems to completely contradict another well-known statement made by Rabbi Akiva. One of Rabbi Akiva’s most famous statements and principles is “‘V’ahavta l’reiacha kamocha,’ zeh klal gadol baTorah — ‘Love your friend as you love yourself,’ this is a foundational principle in the Torah” (Toras Kohanim 19:45; Rashi, Vayikra 19:18). If this statement is true, and if it represents Rabbi Akiva’s view, then how can he say chayecha kodmin — that you should prioritize your own life? Is this not a contradiction to loving your friend as yourself?

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Delving into the Daf

Of Cats, Cattle, and Craters

By Rabbi Avrohom Sebrow

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here is a worrying epidemic called “high-rise syndrome” that affects many New York families. Cases are more prevalent in the summer months. One New York City hospital reported three to five new cases a week in the summer. The sad part is that, according to experts, it is almost entirely preventable. The good news is that the survival rate for high-rise syndrome can be as great as 90 percent. What exactly is this malady? It is the phenomenon of cats falling out of windows that are more than two stories high.

What leads to the high survival rate for high-rise syndrome? For starters, whereas the so-called terminal velocity (maximum falling speed) of a man in free-fall is about 130 mph, that of a falling cat is about 60 mph. This is due in part to their small size, light bone structure, and thick fur. Further, a cat may spread out its body mid-fall to increase drag and slow its descent. Another trick in the cat’s arsenal is the ability to right itself while it is falling. A cat can orient itself to land on its feet, preventing cat-astrophe.

A study published by the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association examined 132 cases of cats that had fallen out of high-rise windows and were brought to the Animal Medical Center, a New York veterinary hospital, for treatment. On average, the cats fell 5.5 stories, yet 90 percent survived. (Many did suffer serious injuries.) When the vets analyzed the data, they found that, as one would expect, the number of broken bones and other injuries increased with the number of stories the cat had fallen – up to seven stories. Above seven stories, however, the number of injuries per cat sharply declined. In other words, past a certain height, the farther the cat fell, the better its chances of escaping serious injury.

The authors explained this by saying that after falling five stories or so, the cats reached terminal velocity. Thereafter, they hypothesized, the cats relaxed and spread

themselves out and assumed the best position for impact, minimizing injuries.

(Some have disagreed with the vets’ interpretation, pointing out that the study is only based on cats brought to the hospital. Cats that fall from above seven stories will either be in somewhat good shape with a decent chance of survival or will be in an obvious cat-atonic state, in which case they wouldn’t be brought to the hospital at all. This skews the statistics.)

The ability to assume the most beneficial position for impact mid-fall is not limited to cats. It can apply to bulls, as well.

The Gemara in Bava Kama discusses the liability of one who digs a pit in a public thoroughfare (reshus ha’rabbim), that is at least 40 inches (10 tefachim) deep. If an ox falls into the pit and dies, the one who dug the pit must pay damages. (There are many conditions that are beyond the scope of this article.) Rav said that one is responsible only for damage caused by the noxious air commonly found in a pit.

Shmuel says that one is also held liable for damage caused by the physical impact with the bottom of the pit.

The Gemara (later in the mesechta) says that the practical difference between the two opinions is in a case where one made a 40-inch hill with a cliff in middle of a public thoroughfare.

If an ox walked up the hill and fell off the cliff, Shmuel would say the creator of that hill must pay damages for the ox, whereas Rav would say the creator is exempt. The reason is that since we are discussing an above-ground fall, there is no noxious air present. According to Rav, the Torah does not obligate the creator of an obstacle in reshus ha’rabbim to pay for damage that came about because of an impact with the ground and is only obligated for damage due to the noxious air that he caused to be present by the digging of a pit. But in Shmuel’s opinion, the creator of the hill is liable for the damage caused by the impact.

Rashi asks the obvious question: Why didn’t the Gemara say the practical difference between Rav and Shmuel is where an ox fell into a pit and broke its bones?

Obviously, the breaking of the bones was caused by the impact of the fall and not by noxious fumes. Wouldn’t Rav say

that the one who dug the pit is absolved from responsibility for the broken bones, since they were not caused by the fumes?

Shmuel, on the other hand, who holds that the digger of a pit is liable even for damage caused solely by impact, would say that the digger must pay.

The answer, according to Rabbeinu Peretz, is that we generally assume that the noxious air in a pit plays a role in any injuries sustained by the falling animal.

If not for the fumes breathed in by the animal, the animal would have better positioned itself and avoided injuries. Even in mid-fall, the ox could have reoriented itself somewhat to avoid major injuries if not for the hindrance to its mental faculties caused by the fumes. Although the fumes are only a contributing factor and we can’t be certain that the fumes did indeed play a role, nevertheless the digger of the pit is obligated to pay. For, if not so, according to Rav, there would never be an obligation for the digger of a pit to pay any damages. He could always claim that the damage was not caused by fumes. How could we refute him?

Yet we know that the Torah does indeed obligate the creator of a pit to pay damages in at least some cases. It must be that if it is possible that the fumes played a role in the injuries sustained by the ox, the Torah obligates the digger of the pit to pay. So, even according to Rav, the creator of a pit must pay for all physical injuries to the animal, because we can argue that the fumes stopped the animal from taking preventive measures.

This article barely scratches the surface of the cat-egory of damages called bor, but hopefully it was enough of a cat-alyst to make you crave meow-re.

Rabbi Avrohom Sebrow is a rebbe at Yeshiva Ateres Shimon in Far Rockaway. In addition, Rabbi Sebrow leads a daf yomi chaburah at Eitz Chayim of Dogwood Park in West Hempstead, NY. He can be contacted at ASebrow@ gmail.com.

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Taking Down Iran’s Satellite

By Rabbi Yair Hoffman

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ctober 7th was one of the most horrific days since the Holocaust for the Jewish people, but about a year ago, Russia, formerly on friendly terms with the State of Israel, did something that gives new meaning to the term “stabbing in the back.” The Russians helped build and launch a spy satellite for Iran – a country that has openly said that they plan the destruction of Israel.

And Iran isn’t just saying it – they are the ones orchestrating Hamas, Hezbollah, and Syria attacking Eretz Yisroel.

The satellite is named “Khayyam,” after a 12th-century Persian mathematician who was known for unifying the fields of algebra and geometry. Of course, Iran is saying that the satellite was launched in order to help the environment. But the fact of the matter is that this satellite launch places Israel in grave danger as it includes a high-resolution camera that gives it continuous monitoring of all of Israel and also the Middle East. This places Israel, and Ukraine, and the moderate Arab neighbors of Iran in the category of “Habah l’harg’cha hashkaim l’hargo – if someone is coming to kill you, wake up early.”

This satellite has the potential to give Iran the ability to pinpoint specific targets in Israel and to give over that information to its proxies. It is a game-changer, for the enemy, Heaven forbid.

It Needs To Come Down There is no question that this satellite needs to come down. The problem is that only China, India, Russia, and the United States have successfully used anti-satellite tech and have only done it on their own obsolete satellites. The good news is that Israel has something called the Chetz III (Chetz means “arrow” in Hebrew). The Chetz III is a missile that is capable of taking down satellites and was jointly funded and developed by Israel’s

Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) and the United States (specifically Boeing).

Israel, the United States, Europe, and the Arab World all need to join forces to bring down the satellite. And now is the time to do it.

Will such a move precipitate an exo-atmospheric international cold war?

Probably. But, nonetheless, it must be done because human life is at stake here.

The Source There are actually three different sources that allow for such a rescue of human life. Two of them are based on a Gemara in Sanhedrin, and the third source is found in the Rambam.

The Braisah cited in Sanhedrin (73a) asks: From where is it derived that with regard to one who pursues another in order to kill him, the pursued party may be saved at the cost of the pursuer’s life? The verse states: “You shall not stand idly by the blood of another” (Leviticus 19:16); rather, you must save him from death.

The Gemara asks: But does this verse really come to teach us this? This verse is required for that which is taught in a baraisa: From where is it derived that one who sees another drowning in a river, or being dragged away by a wild animal, or being attacked by bandits [listin], is obligated to save him? The Torah states: “You shall not stand idly by the blood of another.” The Gemara answers: Yes, it is indeed so that this verse relates to the obligation to save one whose life is in danger.

The Gemara asks again: But from where do we derive that one may be saved at the cost of the pursuer’s life? The Gemara answers: It is derived by means of an a fortiori inference from the halacha governing a betrothed young woman who was assaulted by a predator: If in the case of a betrothed young woman, whom the predator comes only to degrade, i.e., the result of the activity will be that her status

The Chefetz missile defense system

is lowered, the Torah said that she may be saved even at the cost of the predator’s life, then in the case of one who pursues another person to kill him, “all the more so” should one say that he may be saved even at the cost of the predator’s life.

The Gemara further questions, how can one punish only through an “all the more so” argument – we have a principle that we cannot punish simply by an “all the more so” argument! The Gemara answers that this is also a Hekesh – a type of law where one law is derived from another set of laws through a Torah “hyperlink” – so to speak, between a would-be murderer and an engaged damsel.

The Gemara then asks what the source is for the engaged damsel itself from which the derivative law of wouldbe murderers is derived. The Gemara answers from the school of Rabbi Yishmael who taught that from the verse, “and she has no rescuer for her,” we can infer that if she does have a rescuer – you may do anything else to save her.

We thus have two sources from this Gemara: The verse of “Do not stand idly by your brother’s blood.”

A specific law regarding a pursuer that is derived through a biblical hyperlink (a hekesh).

There is a third source, too. The Rambam (Hilchos Rotzayach 1:7) uses a verse from Devarim (25:12), “You shall cut off her hand – you shall not have pity” (regarding a woman who raises the stakes in a fight) – rather than the two sources discussed in the Gemara. The Raavad explains that the Rambam’s source is the

Sifrei on that verse. The Sefer HaMitzvos (#293) uses the same source as the Rambam.

What is interesting is the language that the Rambam uses. He says that one may do so – even if the pursuer has not yet killed. He also cites as an example that one may use a “chetz,” an arrow, to do so.

Does It Work Through Pikuach Nefesh?

Rav Chaim Soloveitchik, zt”l, (in Chiddushei Rav Chaim, Hilchos Rotzayach 1:9) explores a conceptual analysis of the laws of a rodef. Does the idea of saving someone through “taking out the pursuer” or “taking out the pursuer’s ability to kill” emanate from pikuach nefesh – the saving of life? Or is there a special concept that anyone who pursues another to kill him is put to death? The difference being is, under certain circumstances, when it is possible to save the victim in another way without killing the pursuer and the one kills him is one liable.

The issue is also addressed also by Rav Chaim Ozer, author of the Achiezer Vol I Siman 19, the Minchas Chinuch Mitzvah 296:7 and Rav Shach, zt”l, in his Avi Ezri (Rotzayach 1:7). Specifically, the debate, among other things, deals with someone who is trying to kill someone who is terminally ill. It seems pretty clear, however, that the Iranians are not merely concerned about the environment.

The author can be reached at yairhoffman2@ gmail.com.

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Israel Today

Bring Them Home Now Sisters Rinat and Natali Beg for Their Father’s Release

By Eliyahu Rosenberg

I

t has been over a month since Hamas terrorists invaded southern Israel, killing and wounding thousands, and abducting 241 people, most of whom have yet to return.

With each passing day, the lives of those whose family members were taken captive become more and more difficult. Every day, there are more questions, more uncertainty. Are they alive? Are they alright? Will they be coming back?

One thing, however, is certain: Hope, like a flickering flame, must be preserved for there to be light.

On Monday, November 6, former Assemblyman Dov Hikind and Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman hosted a press conference at Congregation Yismach Moshe in which two sisters, Rinat Har Sheleg and Natali Har Afgan, whose father, Luis Norberto Har, age 70, and four other family members were taken hostage, shared their unspeakably tragic story.

“Seeing and hearing the horrors, the brutality, the barbarism, evil personified – it’s hard to believe that people from the human race could do the things they [Hamas] did,” Dov Hikind said of the horrific terrorist attack. “Whatever you’ve read, whatever you’ve seen, whatever the Israeli government has released, I know it’s much worse.”

Hikind had just recently returned from a visit to Israel to see the horrors firsthand.

County Executive Bruce Blakeman welcomed the Har sisters to Nassau County and shared his thoughts on the tragedies, noting how this isn’t a war about Islam, territory, or anything of that sort.

Rather, it’s a war against pure evil.

“We stand with Israel. We stand with the families. We stand with the hostages.

They must be returned, and we must demand this, and make sure that those who are holding those innocent people realize that if any harm comes to them, the consequences will be severe,” the county executive said.

“We will not rest until your family and

friends are brought back home,” he said to Rinat and Natali.

Before the sisters began speaking, Dov Hikind called upon the rabbi of Yismach Moshe, Rabbi Heshy Blumstein, to say a few words.

“Antisemitism is not something new to the Jewish people. The holy Torah records

Until October 7, the Har family lived a happy life. Sure, there were challenges, but at least they all had and loved each other.

Rinat and Natali’s father, Luis Norberto Har, just wanted to spend as much time with his children and grandchildren as possible. Rinat explained how, as a single mother, she and her two boys, eight-year-

“Abba, we miss you and want you to come home now. Now. Now!”

that there was a war that the Jewish people waged as they were entering into Israel,” Rabbi Blumstein said, quoting a pasuk: “The Canaanite King Arad heard that the Jewish people were successfully marching into Israel and he waged war.”

The pasuk goes on to say that the Jewish people cried out to Hashem, and then G-d heard the voices of Israel and that allowed them to win the war.

“The implication, the reason they were successful was,” the rabbi added, “because G-d heard Jews raising their voices… We are all here today to raise our voice, first of all in prayer obviously, but two: in protest, and maybe most of all: in solidarity.”

old Yoav and five-year-old Daniel, had been living with her father until the war broke out.

“My father is everything to me. He’s my best friend. I’m a single mom... He helped me with everything,” Rinat said. “Every day, he’d take them from the kindergarten, from the school. He helped me, and I really hope that he comes back soon.”

At 10 a.m., on the morning of the attacks, after Rinat had heard the news about rockets hitting her kibbutz, she received a text from her father, telling her that her family had gone into the safe room because they heard Arabs lurking outside.

One hour later, Luis texted her once more,

informing her that the terrorists had entered their home and proceeded to shoot and destroy everything. He sent his kisses to everyone, and that was his final text.

Rinat had planned on spending Shabbos with her father, but a friend of hers who lives in the north had invited her and her kids for the weekend.

“They just happened, by miracle in a sense, to not be there when all the tragedy was unfolding,” Dov Hikind explained.

Natali tearfully lamented the end of life as she, her sister, and the Jewish nation knew it, knowing her birthday is coming up but her father won’t be home to celebrate it with her. Shabbos, once a beautiful day to spend with family, would forever feel empty as long as her family is not safe at home. Life will never be the same, she said.

“We lost our home, we lost our father.

My kids lost their grandfather also,” Rinat said. “And they lost their mom because I’m not fun anymore. I’m not the mom that I used to be.”

Earlier this year, on Rosh Hashana, as the family gathered around the table together, they each spoke about their dreams for the year. Luis had one hope for the upcoming year: to spend more time with his children and his grandchildren.

The story of the Har sisters is beyond tragic. And although this past month has been a time of perpetual darkness, loneliness, and fear for everyone who has to cope without knowing where their family members are, not even knowing if their loved ones are even alive, a spark of hope has motivated Rinat and Natali to spread awareness of their story. They say they won’t stop sharing the truth until every single hostage is released, including their relatives – their father, their sister Gabriela Leimberg and her seventeen-year-old daughter Mia Leimberg, as well as Clara Marman and Fernando Marman.

“Abba, we miss you and want you to come home now. Now. Now!” Natali said, her hands pressed together.

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How Can We Ever Be Whole?

By ReBecca ByRd

I

t’s been 30 days since the horrific attacks of October 7, a day when the lionized story of the State of Israel was ripped from its course. A day which marked a searing end to the tranquility and serenity that had deluded and lulled the citizens of Israel into thinking that their enemies had quieted their thirst for Jewish blood.

But the screams of terrorists, Allahu akhbar, swiftly dispersed those delusions. Their neighbors were just as thirsty and just as sadistic, and they were coming for Jewish blood – rivers of it, streams of it, blood oozing and spurting from infants and mothers and whole families locked in embrace.

The murderers came in a frenzy, mounted on motorcycles and paraglides. They used guns and grenades and knives and fire. And they attacked en masse on revelers dancing for peace and families sleeping in their beds. They used sadistic tactics, techniques honed to inflict the most terror and pain.

And those they didn’t butcher or kill or maim, they grabbed as human trophies to bring home to their families, to parade in the streets – to the world – their cruelty.

It’s been 30 days since the horror, and we are not whole. No, we won’t ever be whole.

How can we ever be whole when more than 1,400 of our brothers and sisters – babies, mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, whole families, friends – were slaughtered in the most inhumane manner? How can we ever sleep peacefully knowing what happened to our beautiful family?

How can we ever be whole when thousands of our brothers and sisters who managed to escape with their lives are living with the physical and emotional scars of those attacks? Limping without legs, ripped open from their insides, hearing the constant, echoing screams of their friends and relatives begging for their lives? Will they ever be able to walk again, to hear again, to bathe without the pain of their burnt flesh flaring from the inside?

How can we ever be whole when our brothers and sisters are in mourning, sitting on the ground in ripped clothes, staring blindly at the freshly dug dirt housing their loved ones – loved ones who will never come home again, loved ones who will never walk through their front doors, loved ones who will never join them at a Shabbos seudah or walk their child to the chuppah or throw their grandchildren up in the air?

A hole. A gaping, searing hole. So many holes.

How can we ever be whole?

How can we ever be whole when 241 of our brothers and sisters are living underground, held in the bloody hands of Hamas terrorists who gaze at them with bloodthirsty, leering gazes, murderers whose sadistic thoughts are so terrifying and so horrifying that we shudder to think of what our brothers and sisters are enduring. We tremble and heave and are scared to even contemplate the horrors they are suffering. We are left hoping, grasping at the light, praying and beseeching and begging the One Above to bring them home, bring them home, to please, bring them home.

How can we ever be whole?

We won’t.

We can’t.

But if 30 days have taught us one lesson, it is this: it is that even though our enemies have hurt us and slaughtered us and butchered us and maimed us, the spirit of our nation is still whole.

They can never suppress our love for each other, our love for our nation, our love for our G-d and our Creator. They can never stamp out our thirst for our Truth and our desire to do good and our efforts to bring light into the world.

Thirty days have shown us that our love for our brothers and sisters is so much deeper than any head covering or shul affiliation, so much more intense than any political alignment or belief.

Thirty days have highlighted how our devotion for each other is so deep, so pure, so profound, so visceral that it surpasses any external barriers that could have gotten in the way.

Thirty days have revealed to us that we are a family, a real, loving family, a family composed of so many different, varied members – but we are all one. Different, diverse – but we are all one.

We are the same. And maybe, together, we are whole.

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hirty days later, we are still mourning and heaving, feeling the searing pain of burnt homes and shattered lives. Our hearts are left with gaping holes, voids deep and yawning. But as we mourn together and pray together and cry together and love one another, we are becoming more whole.

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School of

Thought

Life Cycles

By Barbara Deutsch

“I

t was the best of times; it was the worst of times.” How many of us remember reading this line that describes the French Revolution in the high school required reading classic Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities? Even though I usually reluctantly read and rarely loved the required high school reading of my youth, I loved this novel.

This line still resonates as we confront the hard daily news of the world in which we find ourselves today. This week, my husband and I celebrated an aufruf, two bar mitzvahs, two weddings and a sheva brachos. As a reflection of the complicated times, at all of the celebrations, we said a perek of Tehillim, and at the chuppahs, we sang Acheinu along with Im Eshkocheich Yerushalayim.

My thinking is that this will become a new tradition at simchas.

At one of the weddings, the host father shared that in his family there was a back-and-forth debate over whether the wedding dinner should be postponed in light of all the sadness and anxiety in the world right now. For very good reasons, they chose to move forward with the wedding; they were very happy that they did.

Each simcha was unique in its ability to spread hope and joy.

We are taking a friends and family victory lap as we contemplate and plan our move to Israel. That is why we try our best to participate when invited to milestone occasions. We are also trying to set up playdates and meals with longterm and new friends.

Time takes its toll, and it is sometimes hard to see the effects of living to a ripe age.

We also try to pay our respects for sad milestones, too.

On a recent rainy Friday morning after a wonderful brunch with longtime friends, we went to pay a shiva call to a member of our community. The man sitting shiva was not a close friend but

Soldiers celebrating a wedding in the midst of a war

someone with whom we had interacted with often as we have many acquaintances and family in common.

We pulled up to the house, right around the corner from our home, and waded through the deep puddles to the shiva house. The house was empty save for the aveil and his wife. As soon as we sat down, we realized that this was not the person we thought who was sit-

neighbor,” I responded.

It was a quick save, and it worked.

The man’s face broke out in a huge acknowledging and grateful smile.

My husband high-fived me with his eyes.

When I was sitting shiva for my mother at my brother’s house, a prominent community rabbi dropped by to pay a call. When he saw our faces, he

We must choose to value and savor the good while keeping the plight of our loved ones in our hearts and minds.

ting shiva; he had the same name but not the same anything else. The aveil was much older, much, had a deep accent and no clue who we were nor why we were there. We scrambled when he asked us to introduce ourselves – who were and why the visit.

“We noticed in the announcements from shul that you live on our block, and we wanted to pay our respects to a

stopped in his tracks near the door, went “Oops,” smiled, called out Hamakom, excused himself and left.

That rabbi makes a lot of shiva visits.

In our family, we always laugh when we talk about that story.

As I take my daily walk down Central Avenue every morning, the once anonymous faces of the kidnapped and missing smile back at me from the store

window displays. I look at their happy faces and wonder about them and their lives. I ache in my bones for their worried and terrified families hoping and praying as they wait for them to come home.

When I say my daily tefillot and Tehillim, I reflect on the precious people, babies, children, women, men and soldiers, gone too soon.

Are there people to mourn them in the devastation of October 7?

9/11 has had to make room for October 7 in the pantheon of one-day atrocities.

I pay them my respects by thinking of them as I pray.

It is the best of times – weddings and bar mitzvahs celebrated everywhere in our Jewish world. It is the worst of times – war, kidnapping, antisemitism, fear on campus, displaced families, heartache and pain. We must choose to value and savor the good while keeping the plight of our loved ones in our hearts and minds.

We cannot forget our losses, but we must not give up our need for joy and celebration.

Mazal tov Eitan, Doniel, Shoshana and Elior and Elisheva and Judah; it was a joy to celebrate with you and your families.

Next week, we have sheva brachot, a pidyon haben, a bris and an Open House for HANC where we will welcome the next group of young Jewish minds onto their Torah journey.

The best of times is on the horizon. We must continue to believe and pray.

Mrs. Barbara Deutsch is currently the associate principal at HANC 609 and a longtime reflective educator, parent, grandparent, and new great-grandparent. Even after all these years, she still loves what she does and looks forward to working with kids every single day.

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nspiration Nation

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Mendy Pellin: A Jew With Jokes

By Eliyahu RosEnBERg

T

hroughout the Gemara, various professions are discussed. Some jobs are said to be desirable, and others are not. In Taanis 22a, the Gemara speaks of an interaction between Eliyahu Hanavi and Rabbi Beroka during one of their meetings at the marketplace. The rabbi posed a question to the great prophet: “Of all the people in the market, is there anyone destined for the World to Come?” The immediate answer was no.

The following day, Eliyahu Hanavi and Rabbi Beroka had once again assembled at the marketplace, when in walked two men. Eliyahu pointed them out to the rabbi and noted that unlike nearly everyone

else in the vicinity, these two individuals deserved Olam Haba. And thus, out of curiosity, the Tanna questioned the pair, “What do you two do for a living?”

“We are jesters. We cheer up people who are depressed,” they replied.

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here is something so beautiful about the sound of laughter, for it is a testament to how a few humorous words can transform sorrow into joy.

Laughter is an appreciation of one of the finest arts known to man: comedy. Is there any other form of entertainment that is as focused on making people smile?

I suppose that’s why it’s all the more

In His Words… i think a lot of people get so caught up in yiddishkeit – in the different practices and different fences – that they forget about the main essence of it all.

”

What is our purpose in this world? What are we doing here?

We were tasked as yidden to come down to this world and be a light onto the nations.

”

Everything is in place to get you closer to your source.

”

Everything you don’t do, you fail at. By default, it’s a failure,

so you may as well just try it out, because then you may have some success.

”

inspiring to see a fellow Jew succeeding in the business. When you look at Mendy Pellin, a man whose talents have revolutionized the Jewish entertainment industry, I’d say it’s fairly difficult not to be impressed.

A comedian since his youth, Mendy Pellin was born in Denver, Colorado, and grew up in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. In addition to his popular skits and parodies and his work as a standup comedian, he is a filmmaker and music video producer.

As a child, he was, admittedly, the class clown, making jokes and pulling pranks, and while he continues to light up people’s day all these years later, he does so now with a surprisingly high level of maturity.

According to Mendy, comedy’s main purpose extends far beyond its basic function of making people laugh.

“What is our purpose in this world?

What are we doing here?” the comedian asked. “We were tasked as Yidden to come down to this world and be a light onto the nations.

“The problem is that we get sucked into the craziness of the world,” he noted.

“There’s so much darkness that is trying to fight with the light. So, there are different little things to kind of remind your brain what your purpose is, so that you don’t get so sucked into this physical world…and that’s where comedy comes in.”

To Mendy, comedy is a reminder to not take life too seriously: that the world, no matter how real it may seem, is in many ways just an illusion – a short prequel to a true and everlasting life in the World to Come. Humor can, in a way, wake a per-

son up and make them realize how ridiculous certain aspects of life can be.

Although he’s worked on several movie sets and has interacted with both Jewish and non-Jewish celebrities, Mendy Pellin’s religious identity is a secret to no one; his appearance – the yarmulke and the beard, in particular – easily gives it away. As a Lubavitcher from birth, he admits that he finds it rather hard to separate Judaism from his job.

On one occasion, he recalls, he had to arrive at a movie set before sunrise, and so he brought his tefillin along with him to work. While on the job, he encountered several non-religious Jews, and his first thought was to ask them if they’d like to put on tefillin. At first, he tried to resist the urge, fearing that he would be seen as unprofessional, but he couldn’t help but feel as though he was missing out on an incredible opportunity to expose secular Jews to Yiddishkeit.

After failing to talk himself out of it, he surrendered to his instincts and went on to persuade the non-religious set director to don tefillin. Before sunset, Mendy had the privilege of wrapping several other individuals in tefillin.

On stage, Mendy has this full-of-energy, hilarious persona, and oftentimes, people don’t realize that beneath this stage personality, there’s a real, serious person.

“Literally, people come over to me and say, ‘Be funny’ or ‘Say something funny, tell me a joke.’ You know, like as if you put in a quarter and the joke’s gonna come out.

You’re not always on,” Mendy explained.

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long time, because I was making videos and doing sketch comedy, but I was afraid of failure: I’m a comedian, I could do comedy, but then if I actually do it and I’m not good at it, then my whole identity is off.”

But he took a step forward, pushing his fears and doubts aside. To Mendy’s amazement, his first show was a success, well exceeding his expectations.

“I’ve always been into trying to dial into the person or the audience, and, I mean, that’s what comedy is. It’s more about listening than talking. You have to really dial into the audience or else it’s going to be a horrible show,” he said. “The best shows are when I’m not even there. I just kind of dial into the crowd and I go on

vacation, and it’s just like we’re a bunch of people having a good time.”

Mendy Pellin’s success as a standup comic is not significant because it brought him fame or admiration or because it put him on the cover of the Wall Street Journal and brought him on “The Tonight Show.” Rather, his talents and good fortune are significant because they brought thousands of people joy in an appropriate, frum way. Seeing him on stage or in one of his videos reminds the viewer not to take the world so seriously. When will we realize that not everything in life is as important as we make it out to be?

Moreover, Mendy’s victory over fear and his refusal to surrender to self-doubt enabled him to bring smiles to so many

people. When we consider taking risks, we often only think about the consequences that the actions will have on our own lives, but how about the lives of others? As the Baal Shem Tov taught: Hashem sends each neshama down to Earth for seventy or eighty years just so it can do a favor for a fellow Jew. How much more would we be able to help others if we weren’t burdened and paralyzed by the fear of hurting ourselves?

How many fewer chessed opportunities would we turn down if we could act and push ourselves despite our self-doubt?

“Everything you don’t do, you fail at,” Mendy asserted. “By default, it’s a failure, so you may as well just try it out, because then you may have some success.”

This article is based on a podcast, “Inspiration For the Nation,” hosted by Yaakov Langer. To catch more of this conversation, you can watch it on LivingLchaim. com or YouTube.com/LivingLchaim or listen wherever you listen to podcasts (just search for “Inspiration For The Nation”) or call our free hotline: 605-477-2100.

NOVEMBER 9, 2023 | The Jewish Home

But in all fairness, being a comedian does have its advantages. For instance, the joy and satisfaction of entertaining an entire audience is a feeling that very few have had the pleasure of knowing, and the triumph of finishing a show after a night of laughter and applause might make the whole profession worth it. But believe it or not, Mendy was initially scared to try out standup comedy. He had been doing skits and parody videos for quite some time when he started becoming interested in standup. The only thing that was holding him back was fear.

“Standup comedy is amazing when it’s a good show,” Mendy said. “But it was something that I was avoiding for a

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Dating Dialogue

What Would You Do If… Moderated by Jennifer Mann, LCSW of The Navidaters

Dear Navidaters,

My husband’s 34-year-old sister is still in shidduchim. My husband and I are constantly trying to set her up. Sometimes, she will give the guys a chance “as a favor,” and most times, she just refuses to go on a date. She is very adamant about getting a specific type and “look.” To be honest, it

seems like, in her mind, she’s frozen as a 25-year-old and expects men not to age.

He has a bit of a belly? It’s a no because he’s too heavy. He has a receding hairline? It’s an immediate no because he looks too old. He has outdated glasses? He’s not on trend enough. On Shabbos at shul (we go to the same shul), she’s constantly pointing out the young, single men as she is trying to explain that THOSE are the type she wants, and she can’t understand why they don’t want to go out with her or why shadchanim aren’t finding those types for her.

As a family, we’ve tried bringing her down to earth but to no avail. We try explaining that aging is normal and not all guys look a certain way as they get older, but these words always fall on deaf ears. Do you have any other suggestions of things we can do to wake her up? Or do you think there is no point?

Thank you, Tova*

Disclaimer: This column is not intended to diagnose or otherwise conclude resolutions to any questions. Our intention is not to offer any definitive conclusions to any particular question, rather offer areas of exploration for the author and reader. Due to the nature of the column receiving only a short snapshot of an issue, without the benefit of an actual discussion, the panel’s role is to offer a range of possibilities. We hope to open up meaningful dialogue and individual exploration.

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The Panel

Rebbetzin Faigie Horowitz, ova, you and your husband are a caring sibling and sibling-in-law. You have tried to get your sister-in-law to consider other perspectives, move from her list, and shift her view of what makes compatibility beyond looks. She and the other family members are not successful at “waking her up.” Leave it alone. She is tuning you out.

She is probably tuning out shadchanim too if she insists on a certain look; shadchanim often give advice, whether they are solicited for guidance or not.

Only her peers, a dating coach, a therapist or a mentor has a chance at helping her sort out her blockages and perspectives.

She will have to initiate contact, however.

She is an adult and cannot be made “to bring her down to earth” nor to get help.

Lay off and focus on having a decent relationship with her. Pray for her. Hopefully, she will reach out to others for support and real help. Someone else may be able to get through to her if she is willing to hear.

Right now, according to what you are saying, she is not hearing the family members.

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The Shadchan Michelle Mond t sounds like you have a lot of pentup frustration

I

dealing with your sister-in-law’s shidduchim. You are very kind for thinking of ideas and trying to set her up.

From what you describe, her expectations are not realistic at all, and it might benefit you to simply enhance your role of loving sister-in-law rather than shadchan.

As you know, every person has bechira, and you cannot make anybody change.

If a person wants to change and become more openminded, it must come from deep within her/himself. You can step back from your role as shadchan and simply be an amazing sister-in-law. Simply tell her that you are not aware of any men that you feel she would approve of. You and your family can be there for her emotionally and provide her with love and encouragement.

When a person has unrealistic demands such as these, often there is a strong egotistical component. Does she ever focus time and energy on helping others? If she is out in the real world, helping others, and interacting with people in a meaningful way, it is more likely she will recognize that people are multifaceted and “normal.” Real people are not magazine covers or movie stars.

There might be deeper issues that she can only work through in therapy or with deep internal dialogue, but that will have to come from herself, hopefully guided by her parents.

Hatzlacha with everything!

Pulling It All Together The Navidaters Dating and Relationship Coaches and Therapists

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hank you for writing into the panel.

Your sister-in-law is so blessed to have you and your husband in her corner, looking after her and making many attempts to help her get married. Have you asked her what she is looking for aside from good hair and abs?

I guess you can suggest to her that

she see a therapist. Or if you know someone older who was this picky and immature about looks and regrets that his mindset left him single in his older years, you can try to arrange a conversation between the two of them.

This is really on your sister-in-law to

The Single Tzipora Grodko ear Tova, There’s this subliminal message that if a single hasn’t met the community standard of marriage by a certain age, then there’s something “wrong with them” and that it’s “our responsibility” to “fix them.”

Every person has their own tikkun in this world that comes along with challenges and opportunities for growth and impact.

Respectfully, it would service you better to be compassionate to her pain and determined to be a positive person in her life.

I’m confident that she wants nothing more in the world than to build a family and have children. You have absolutely no idea how painful it is to feel like a familial and community disappointment because you did not yet get married, not to mention the isolating stagnating feeling of dissatisfaction one struggles to fight daily, knowing their life is limited by one of the greatest gifts that G-d can offer, furthermore expected to thrive and flourish while struggling with the anxiety and fear of “when will I get married” or often sadly… “IF” it will ever happen.

Please, eliminate your judgment and replace it with compassion.

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She rejects men with receding hairlines? If she rejects a perfectly fine guy simply because he is balding, it’s hair loss.

She rejects men with outdated glasses?

Don’t make fun of them – they might have contacts.

But, my wife (who is also my best friend and harshest critic) said, “No, don’t try to make jokes about glasses. You’ll just make a spectacle of yourself.” So: Approach #2 – Rationality You could sit down with your sister-inlaw and reason with her. Explain the difference between having strict standards and having unrealistic expectations.

It is perfectly okay for her to have strict standards, and only date men who share her values, hopes, and aspirations.

By contrast, it is not okay for her to have unrealistic expectations, because it limits her dating options and is a sure prescription for a long, lonely, single lifetime of regrets.

But, my wife objected to this approach and said, “Forget it! Trying to reason with her is never going to work.” So: Approach #3 – Realism Unfortunately, the sad truth is that the sister-in-law, at this time, will not be amenable to any advice from well-meaning relatives and friends.

Dr. Jeffrey Galler ow to help your sister-in-law? I considered three different approaches.

Approach #1 – Humor She rejects men who are too heavy? Try explaining to her that it’s not fair to discriminate against men who are too heavy, because they already have too much on their plate.

This 34-year-old woman who is still looking at 25-year-old men is not thinking in a mature way and will not be open to the opinions of others. All you can do at this point is to be kind, loving, and warm, and hope that she will, someday, see the light and have more realistic expectations about dating and marriage.

My wife agreed that, “unfortunately, this is probably true.” She recalled how her mother, a”h, often said, “The way you make your bed, that’s the way you’ll sleep in it.”

figure out. You can also think about letting her know that you’ve decided to stop setting her up because she rejects everyone, and you don’t know an Adonis for her.

Attraction and chemistry are vital. Relationships rarely survive without them.

Everyone is entitled to be attracted to their partner. What you are describing seems al-

most like an emotional immaturity. Your sister-in-law has to be the one to see this as a problem and has to want to deal with it and make changes. You can only decide how much involvement you are going to have.

All the best, Jennifer

The Zaidy

H

Jennifer Mann, LCSW is a licensed psychotherapist and certified trauma healing life coach, as well as a dating and relationship coach working with individuals, couples, and families in private practice at 123 Maple Avenue in Cedarhurst, NY. To set up a consultation or to ask questions, please call 718-908-0512. Visit www.thenavidaters.com for more information. If you would like to submit a dating or relationship question to the panel anonymously, please email JenniferMannLCSW@gmail.com. You can follow The Navidaters on FB and Instagram for dating and relationship advice.

NOVEMBER 9, 2023 | The Jewish Home

The Rebbetzin

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Parenting Pearls

Building a Home

By Sara Rayvych, MSEd

A

hhh, home! That’s the feeling we want our family to experience each time they walk through that door. The crazier the outside world gets, the more crucial it is that the home we create is one of peace and stability.

As adults, we have busy schedules and need to return to a place that provides us with calm and relaxation after a long day of work, errands, carpool and doctor appointments. Without time to unwind, we may take out our tension on those dearest to us. Kids, too, need to have a place that is their calm from the storm and provides them with stability and comfort.

Children and teens have busy schedules and work hard in school. Adults often don’t appreciate the demands that are placed on young people. They may not have bills to pay or need to do grocery shopping, but they have long days in school with a full schedule of limudei kodesh and chol. They may have homework, reports or other projects along with mishmar, chessed hours or other requirements. Most importantly, they lack the experience and cognitive maturity that we have earned over decades of experience. We’re old enough to be their parents for a reason!

We’re all walking around with tension

and uncertainty, anger and frustration.

We check the news, desperate to hear progress, only to see there are losses (chas v’shalom) among the gains and homegrown hatred sprouting faster than weeds. It’s even more crucial now that as our children (and ourselves) cross that threshold, everyone is stepping into an oasis of peace and stability. This doesn’t mean we need to smile and cheer all day, nor do we need to pretend the outside world is full of good news, but the overall tone in our homes should be one of security and even simcha.

The Tone There are places you enter and feel tension; you can almost touch the anger and unpleasantness in the air. There are also homes that give you a sense of comfort and relaxation as you walk in.

There’s a family friend, now a grandmother, whose home exudes a feeling of peace and calm at the entrance. It’s not that the house has modern decor, nor are there expensive furnishings (not that I’ve personally priced them). It’s the overall tone set by the adults that is only enhanced by the warm, family-focused furniture and numerous photos. Our homes need not be expensive or worthy of magazine photo shoots for us to raise happy

and emotionally healthy generations.

The tone is set by the adults. It is we who create an abode of acceptance and love, or the opposite. We can greet each person as they enter, or we can pretend they aren’t there. We can respond sharply and angrily or with a smile and warm words. If we yell, then we are building a different home than we would if we sang.

We choose how our home will be defined.

It’s a well-known secret that teachers will often lower their voice to calm a rowdy class. You’d think they would talk louder to reach over the noise, but the children will only do the same. Instead, they lower their volume, and their students follow their example.

A while ago, I “lost my voice” and I had to whisper all day. I could barely be heard, and it was truly frustrating. I noticed something very interesting, though.

My kids started whispering, too, and kept their volume low throughout the day.

They instinctively knew to speak lower when Mommy did.

We want to create an environment that is conducive to a child’s development. Let’s be cautious before bringing news and social media into our homes.

They hear more than we realize – both inside and outside the home – and there is a limit to how much their emotional

health can tolerate. It is definitely important to stay updated, but our children need some time away from the stress that comes with constant exposure.

You’ll notice that good teachers have “a presence.” Their students somehow just know who is in charge. We, too, are natural leaders in our homes, and we create the environment.

Child-Friendly We want our homes to be a place where our children feel welcomed. That won’t happen if major parts of the house are off-limits to them. Obviously, the master bedroom, office or similar spaces are not meant to be kid-friendly. Adults are certainly entitled to their privacy, and it’s very important that children learn boundaries. But, if kids are yelled at each time they access the main area, they won’t feel welcomed in their own homes.

As mentioned above, our homes don’t need to have expensive knickknacks or furniture. Perhaps, even the opposite is true. If we fill our home with expensive items or turn our house into a museum, it creates a place where children will be constantly yelled at for doing something wrong. Easily breakable items are better left where children can’t easily access them.

Friends and Fun

Warmth By Design We’ve lived in our home for close to twenty years, baruch Hashem. We purchased the house move-in ready, and we’ve done minimal renovations since that time. My parents joined the many seniors who moved to sunny (and sometimes very rainy) Florida. Recently, we decided to make some changes to our

get yelled at. Kids are entitled to be normal and that includes the inevitable bumps to both them and the house.

The kitchen could be called the center of the home, especially a Jewish one.

Besides the daily fare, there are many Shabbos and yom tov meals to prepare.

Additionally, maintaining a kosher home is a top priority, and it’s unsurprising that a fair number of shailos develop

It’s even more crucial now that as our children (and ourselves) cross that threshold, everyone is stepping into an oasis of peace and stability.

sign will allow us to be connected to children that are in further, but now more visible, rooms.

We prioritized durability throughout the areas that would be accessible to our children. At times, we had to choose a slightly less exciting item for one that would withstand an active child. The more expensive and fragile an item is, the more likely a child will break it and

from this one room. Children enjoy being in the kitchen and part of the action – especially when fresh chocolate chip cookies are involved.

We want our children to feel welcomed into the tasty action. A little forethought can help us set up our kitchen to accommodate all the members of the family. Little kids, in particular, enjoy having a place to sit or stand where they

are part of everything. It can be helpful to assign them a location where they will feel included but not be in the way.

Kids can be far more proficient in the kitchen than we appreciate. Many children and teens are an integral part of the food prep. Besides being helpful to the adults, this also teaches the child critical skills and gives them a feeling of accomplishment. Clearly marking meat, dairy and pareve utensils can help introduce our children to cooking with less calls to a rav.

W

e are living in very challenging times. When we feel ill prepared to handle everything around us, we can only imagine the fears and insecurities our children face. More than ever, our children need a place to feel safe and loved. As we build a home of peace, we continue to daven for a world that is all shalom.

Sara Rayvych, MSEd, has her master’s in general and special education. She has been homeschooling for over 10 years in Far Rockaway. She can be contacted at Rayvych Homeschool@gmail.com.

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We want our children to be proud of their home and comfortable inviting others over. Having games, snacks or other kid-friendly items handy can help encourage our children bring home a friend. The long Friday nights or motzei Shabbos evenings can be a good time for socializing.

Depending on their chosen peers, it can become even more important to host.

Being nearby allows us to keep a better watch, when necessary. There are many reasons a parent may want that increased oversight, including friends who are not ideal or a child who is having difficulty interacting with others. Even when these reasons don’t apply, we still need to be alert and remember that we are responsible for maintaining a comfortable and appropriate environment in our home.

home so our parents will have a comfortable place to stay when visiting their New York children.

It’s unnecessary to renovate a house to make it child-friendly. As kids are expensive enough, there’s no need to add in that extra cost. But, once we were doing some changes to meet my parents’ needs, we also had our children foremost in our minds. As an example, a more open de-

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School of

Thought

The Value of Listening Smartly

By Etti Siegel

L

ast week, I wrote about listening. Listening helps others hear themselves. Often, that is the nicest gift we can give people, a way to work out their thoughts in a safe place, with a safe person, with judgement suspended.

Validating is another wonderful gift we give someone when we listen. We allow them the space to feel heard, and we help them process their feelings.

However, listening is so much more than just hearing what another person is saying.

When parents greet their children after a long day at school, listening might be allowing a child to get stuff out of their system. In this setting, parents should not be validating or even totally believing the events as they are being portrayed because accuracy is not the name of the game in this situation. If a child was hurt by someone or something, he/she will rush to assign blame. This is a universal trait of disgruntled humans. As adults, we know that there is usually more to the story, there are two sides to most issues, and often the matter that upset us was probably done unintentionally.

When we listen and validate in the heat of the moment, when our children are tired, hungry, and/or upset, we cement feelings that just needed airing. We make the grievance worse. The very same child, when given space to calm down, can learn to see the matter from another perspective and come out wiser and stronger from it. Many, when they are no longer so irate, come to this healthy place on their own.

There is a famous story of a Rebbe who listened to a student’s tale of woe with much empathy. When the tale was over, he took his student’s hand and said, “I feel for you. You are right.”

The next person to enter the Rebbe’s room to share his sorry tale was the aggressor from the previous student’s story. The Rebbe listened warmly, and when the tale ended, grasped this student’s hand, and said, “You are right.”

When other students heard about it, they asked the Rebbe how it could be so.

The Rebbe replied with a very important lesson. “They were both right.”

In my position as a coach to principals and teachers, I have seen situations where the school was 100% correct, and the parents were 100% correct, and they were both 100% wrong.

For example, a child in a Bais Yaakov-type school is

asked to go to the principal’s office for talking about movies and television shows in class. The school has a policy that children should not have televisions in the house and should not be watching movies. At the same time, the parents are upset because the child was publicly shamed, and it wasn’t like she was discussing anything that was particularly inappropriate.

Both parties are right. The school does have a policy about TV and movies. Parents sending to the school do not want their children exposed. The parents don’t want to hear that their child was singled out and sent to the office.

But, in my opinion, they are also both wrong. The school is wrong because this is bigger than the child and needs a conversation with the parents who are not setting the child up for success in their school by disregarding policy. The parents are missing the point that the school has certain guidelines, and if they disagree with the school guidelines, they should not be sending their daughter to that school.

Another school-home experience where both the school and home can be right and wrong is when a child is struggling.

Sometimes, a child acts out inappropriately in class, and it is due to stress and or trauma being worked on. His parents want the school to be extra understanding as he is getting help, and recovery takes time. The school wishes the parents would understand that the behavior being exhibited is not behavior that can be tolerated and destroys the decorum of the class/interrupts the learning. They are both correct – and both wrong. The child is hurting and needs a safe place to be when he is experiencing the pain.

At the same time, the child cannot be allowed to disrupt learning and destroy the class’s feeling of safety.

A third area might be when a child might need therapy (speech, OT, PT, etc.) and does not want to go out of class.

The child needs the help (or they would not have gotten the referral for the service) but does not want to miss class.

As adults, we need to be able to hold onto both truths at the same time. My child is hurting. The school/teacher also has a side.

Sometimes, parents get so incensed by what they are hearing they rush to judgment, forgetting that as adults they can and should work to see the larger picture. I have heard from upset children that they wish their parents hadn’t confronted the school or rushed in to help as the situation was not so bad in retrospect. Kids want to know they can vent without worrying the parents will swoop in and try to fix things.

You can love your child and feel their pain AND understand the school or teacher and the job they are trying to do.

When children are able to revisit a situation and expand their focus, they learn perspective-taking, empathy, and critical thinking. It does not mean criticizing them, nor does it mean discounting and belittling them. There is a middle road, and it is a gift to have your whole family learn to take it.

Empathize. “That must have hurt.” “Sounds upsetting.”

Shelve it for now. “Let’s discuss it more later. I want to hear everything, but I think now is a good time for a hug and a snack. And maybe some homework.”

Discuss it later. Add in, “Hmmm. I hear you. It sounds like it was really upsetting for you. Is it possible that your teacher…” “If you were the teacher, how would you have handled the situation? What would have been the consequences of handling it that way?”

Parents have told me that kids sometimes end up giggling (or smirking if they are older) as they imagine the teacher doing things the way they first thought the teacher should. They see the ridiculousness of the situation when they are given the space to think it through.

We all do much better looking at situations when we are not in the throes of our emotions. Let’s give our children the gift of space, perspective-taking, and empathy.

So, join me as I work on listening, but let’s listen smartly!

Looking forward to hearing from you, -Etti

Mrs. Etti Siegel holds an MS in Teaching and Learning/Educational Leadership and brings sound teaching advice to her audiences culled from her over 35 years of teaching and administrative experience. She is an Adjunct at the College of Mount Saint Vincent/Sara Shenirer. She is a coach and educational consultant for Catapult Learning, is a sought-after mentor and workshop presenter around the country, and a popular presenter for Sayan (a teacher-mentoring program), Hidden Sparks, and the Consortium of Jewish Day Schools. She is a frequent contributor to Hamechanech Magazine and The Journal for Jewish Day School leaders. She will be answering your education-based questions and writing articles weekly for The Jewish Home. Mrs. Siegel can be reached at ettisiegel@gmail.com.

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Health & F tness

Plant-Based Alternatives: Are They Healthier?

By Tehila Levine-Soskel, RDN, CDN

C

onsuming a plant-based diet has grown immensely in popularity, attracting individuals to the allure of tasty foods that look almost identical to the real thing. Is it worth the hype?

They look almost the same as other foods, taste great, but what are the nutritional differences? Let’s dig deeper into the realm of plant-based nutrition and potential benefits that make it an enticing choice to many.

To begin, a compelling factor of plantbased food is the nutritional profile of many of the animal-based food items.

Many of these foods are rich in essential nutrients like vitamins, minerals, and fiber, all crucial to a well-rounded balanced diet. There have been numerous health benefits associated with consuming plant-based diets. Some include lower blood pressure, decreased risk of heart disease, and improved weight management. Prioritizing whole, unprocessed plant foods has also been associated with enhanced overall health and well-being.

With that being said, deciding to strictly eat a plant-based diet may vary based on individual dietary needs, which

differs from simply including plant-based foods into your diet. Some may prefer a fully plant-based diet, but others might find a balance of incorporating animal-based foods and plant-based foods is more fitting for their lifestyle.

Plant-based product alternatives have

is how these alternatives have grown in popularity. There is so much versatility in plant-based cuisine making it accessible and enticing to those who prefer to eat this way.

Some of the plant-based meat alternatives are free from saturated fat and

It’s important to be aware of these products and opt for whole plant foods with little processing to ensure you gain the most health benefits you may get from eating a plant-based diet.

become almost a replica of some of the animal-based products that are out there.

The taste and texture are almost clones of the original animal-based products. The options are endless, from plant-based burgers to dairy-free ice cream, which

sodium which many try to limit for heart health, although this depends on the specific product. According to the American Health Association, the leading cause of death in the United States is cardiovascular disease (CVD). Furthermore, some

research has linked an increased intake of red and processed meats to an increased risk of health diseases such as certain cancers. It’s important to be mindful of portion sizes and the frequency of consuming foods as such.

Fiber, which is known to help reduce the risk of many health diseases, is often lacking in many diets. Plants are an excellent source of fiber, thus including more whole foods and plants help ensure we are increasing our fiber intake along with other nutrients.

While there are certainly many benefits of plant-based meat alternatives, there are cons to be aware of. With the many pros to plant-based eating, a common debate is that animal-based products and plant-based products are, in fact, not created equal. Some of the popular processed plant-based items contain an excess amount of salt or sugar and may contain additives and preservatives, lessening their nutritional value. For example, some highly processed products like Impossible Burgers may have just as high amounts of fat as the comparable animal product.

Lightly Salted or Light in SodiumThere is at least 50 percent less sodium than the regular product Common names other than salt listed on the ingredient list can be sodium nitrate, sodium citrate, monosodium glutamate (MSG), or sodium benzoate.

The best way to ensure you are monitoring your salt intake is to be your own chef. Start with less salt when cooking as you can always add. Additionally, your taste buds can learn to adjust by using less.

So, if you are trying to figure out which plant-based alternative to have, choose the one in the most original, whole form. Legumes like beans, peas, and lentils can work great in many recipes. These foods are full of important nutrients and are inexpensive. You can add them to salads, soups, stews, and veggie burgers.

Here are some plant-based foods to add to your grocery list for the next time you go shopping: Lots of fruits and vegetables to ensure you are getting lots of vitamins, minerals, fiber, and antioxidants. Whole grain products like quinoa, oats, whole grain wraps and breads contain B vitamins, magnesium, phosphorus, zinc, copper, and many more important nutrients our

bodies need. Chickpeas, hummus, peanuts/peanut butter, and legumes specifically contain the essential amino acid lysine, which our bodies don’t make.

Nuts are not only a source of healthy fats but are also a good source of protein and fiber. Luckily, there are so many plantbased milks out there to choose from, as well as dairy-free yogurts. As you can see, adding plant-based foods to your shopping list is easier than you thought.

Consuming a plant-based diet can be beneficial for one’s health. Still, it’s imperative to opt for whole, minimally processed foods to maximize the nutritional benefits. So, is eating a plant-based diet for you? Only you can answer that question. Be sure to include lots of wholesome foods into your diet, as I’ve mentioned above. * * * Here is a delicious low-sodium veggie burger recipe I came across.

• 1 cup broccoli, minced • ½ cup red onion, minced • 3 eggs beaten • 2/3 cup panko breadcrumbs • 1 teaspoon garlic powder • ½ teaspoon black pepper • 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce • 2 tablespoons olive oil

instructions 1. In a large bowl, add 3/4 of the black beans and mash them using a fork. Add remaining whole beans, breadcrumbs, mushrooms, broccoli, onion, egg, garlic powder, black pepper, and Worcestershire sauce. Shape mixture into eight 3-inch patties.

2. In a medium non-stick skillet, heat oil over medium heat. Place patties onto heated skillet and cook 3-5 minutes per side until golden brown and crust has formed on each side. Enjoy!

Veggie Burger recipe ingredients

Tehila Soskel is a registered dietitian nutritionist with a private practice in the Five Towns. She sees clients for weight loss, diabetes, and other various diseases. Appointments

• 2 cups mushrooms, chopped • 1 15 oz. can low sodium black beans, drained & rinsed

can be made for in-person or virtual sessions: 516-457-8558, tehilasoskelrd@gmail.com, tehilasoskelnutrition.com.

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It’s important to be aware of these products and opt for whole plant foods with little processing to ensure you gain the most health benefits you may get from eating a plant-based diet.

In order to make certain you are avoiding ingredients that you don’t want to consume, read the nutrition label. Specifically, look at the sodium and fat content. According to the American Heart Association, it’s recommended not to consume more than 2,300 milligrams of sodium per day. Did you know that the average American eats more than 3,400 milligrams of sodium each day?

The most surprising aspect to this fact is that these amounts are not coming from the saltshaker rather from packaged and restaurant foods.

Here’s a breakdown on sodium-related terms that you may find on a food package.

Salt/Sodium Free- There is less than 5 milligrams of sodium per serving Very Low Sodium- There are 35 milligrams or less per serving Low Sodium- There are 140 milligrams or less per serving Reduced Sodium- There is at least 25 percent less sodium per serving than the usual amount of sodium

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jewish women of wisdom

Omi’s Legacy

By Miriam Liebermann, MSW

M

y dear mother, Malka bas Reb Yechiel Hakohen, Margot Pollak, a”h, was a remarkable woman in many ways. At a very recent family simcha, it was evident that her legacy has truly been passed on to the next generation, many of whom proudly carry her name. By now, ka”h, we are a family of royalty with ka”h quite a few queens, many “Malkas.” May all these precious children continue to bring us joy and bring eternal merit to their great-grandmother.

And now for the story.

Yuda and Suri were planning their son’s bar mitzva. They had arranged to host the Shabbas seudos in the social hall of their shul, of which they are prominent members. They live quite close to this shul, and being quite hospitable, often host the guests of the baalei simcha, who are hosting in that shul. Several weeks before the simcha, Suri gets a call, “We’re hosting a simcha close to your home. Would you be able to help us host our guests?”

“Which Shabbas?” asks Suri.

“Netzavim-Vayelech,” was the response.

“And where is your simcha?” asks Suri.

“Bais Pinchus.”

“Oh,” thinks Suri, knowing that her own son was supposed to be celebrating his bar mitzva in that hall, that Shabbos. Obviously, the hall had been double

booked. There must have been a misunderstanding at some point. Suri then informed the woman that she herself would be hosting a simcha that very Shabbos and would be unable to help her. She then called her husband to inform him of the latest developments.

Yuda contacted the caterer and explained what had just transpired. Yuda added, “I understand that there must have been a miscommunication. It’s not a problem. We will be mevater.” The caterer then called the rav of the shul and informed him of this unfortunate double booking. The Rav was understandably upset and immediately called Yuda. The Rav suggested that they contact the other party and try to find a more equitable solution.

“It’s OK,” says Yuda. “Let me tell you a story and then you’ll understand where I’m coming from.”

“It was many years ago. I was a young boy at the time. My grandmother, a”h, would take us to a hotel for Pesach. She would arrange for a private room for the Sedarim. Seder night finally arrived. We headed to our designated room, a conference room, carrying our matzos, our pillows, our Haggados and our projects from school. We eagerly entered the room and were delighted to see the large comfy armchairs encircling the table.

We were thrilled and excited to set up and get started. And then, to our utter shock, a door opened at the other end of the room, and another family entered the room, also fully equipped for the Seder.

Obviously, this room had been double booked. Our Omi approached the head of the family and explained that this room had been assigned to our family. This man was not pleased at all and was very aggressive in demanding the room for his family. Although we had been guests in this hotel, with our Omi treating us, for many years, whilst the other family was new to this Pesach program, Omi gestured to all of us, and we left the room without a word. Omi was mevater. We then enjoyed our Sedarim in the lobby of the hotel.

“So you see,” Yuda said to the Rav. “Omi had set a precedent for our family.

We will be mevater as she was. We will host our seudos in our home.”

Yuda then spoke to his lovely wife Suri. She agreed with his approach and declared that she would be fine hosting at home. But now, they had to discuss this with the bar mitzvah boy. Yuda explained the situation to his son Avromi.

Without missing a beat, Avromi perked up and exclaimed, “This sounds just like Omi’s story in the hotel! We’ll be mevater just like Omi had been. And then

one day, my children and grandchildren will talk about how I was mevater at my bar mitzvah!”

This story of Omi being mevater had obviously become part of our family lore. The children had taken the lesson to heart, and now, so many years later, Avromi was continuing to carry out his great grandmother’s legacy, with a big smile and a heart filled with warmth and love! Mazal tov dear Avromi! What a nachas and a joy! Hodu L’Hashem ki tov!

As the years rush by, many of us may be concerned over the legacy we will be leaving behind. Transmitting a legacy is not a one-time occurrence; it’s an accumulation of a lifetime of living, sharing and giving. We are role models for our families, 24/7. We are modeling for them during our every waking hour. What a responsibility. And what a privilege!

May I add another crucial point. Do share these sort of stories with your progeny. Implant within them seeds of spiritual heroism. G-d willing, we will merit to watch these seeds blossom and grow!

JWOW! is a community for midlife Jewish women which can be accessed at www.jewishwomanofwisdom.org for conversation, articles, Zoom events, and more.

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A Marblespoon Menu

by Vera Newman

Short Rib Gnocchi Meat | Yields 6-8 servings

It’s probably quite easy to imagine what this dish tastes like just by reading through the recipe and envisioning the aroma in your kitchen while it cooks.

Well, take all that and amp it up several more notches. This appetizer OR full meal, if you want, is truly irresistible.

I find that cooking the meat and the gnocchi separately, building those layers of flavor and then combining them, is the best way to create a very complex yet spectacular dish that will be sure to create a memorable dining experience. * 1 large onion, sliced * 3 lb flanken or short ribs * 1 packet (4 Tbsp) onion soup mix * 1½ tsp garlic powder * 1 tsp onion powder * 1 tsp paprika * 1 tsp sea salt * ½ tsp black pepper * 1½ cups chicken broth * 1 cup white wine Gnocchi * 2 (16-oz) packages gnocchi, cooked according to package instructions * ¼ cup oil * 1 packet (4 Tbsp) onion soup mix * 3 Tbsp teriyaki sauce, such as La Choy * 2 Tbsp soy sauce * 2 Tbsp honey

* ½ tsp garlic powder * ½ tsp sea salt * ¼ tsp black pepper Prepare the meat: Preheat oven to 325°F. Place onions into a 9x13-inch pan. Add flanken. Season with onion soup mix, garlic powder, onion powder, paprika, salt, and pepper. Add chicken broth and wine. Cover tightly; bake for 5 hours.

Remove from oven; let rest until cool enough to handle. Remove and discard bones, cartilage, and extra fat. Using gloved hands or a fork, shred the meat until you are pleased with the size of the pieces; you can leave it chunkier or shred all the way. Set aside.

Prepare the gnocchi: In a large frying pan, heat oil over medium-high heat. Sauté cooked gnocchi for 4-5 minutes, stirring occasionally, until gnocchi begin to crisp up slightly.

Add onion soup mix, teriyaki sauce, soy sauce, and honey; stir well to coat.

Season with garlic powder, salt, and pepper; stir again to combine. Cook for 1-2 minutes. Add meat with some of the onions and about ½ cup of pan sauce; stir again. Add more sauce, if desired.

Variation Crockpot Method: The ribs can be prepared in a crockpot following the same method. Cook on low for 6-8 hours, until meat is buttery soft.

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Dairy | Yields 6-8 servings This is a popular menu item in the dairy restaurants we frequented as teens. My friends and I would pretty much always order this appetizer on Saturday nights when we were going out. This dish reminds me of my teenage years and my class friends. I’m not sure if this was invented in Panama or if it’s an actual Greek dish, but either way, I know you’ll enjoy it if you love Greek salad.

Another fun way to serve this is as pita chips and dip. Simply cut pitas into quarters, toast and serve with the dip, veggies, and feta on the side. * 1 (16-oz) package pita (5) * 1 (8-oz) block feta cheese, shredded (see note) 4 * Roma tomatoes, chopped small * 5 Persian cucumbers, peeled and chopped small * ½ red onion, finely chopped * 1 cup chopped kalamata olives * fresh mint, chopped, for garnish, optional Greek Yogurt Dip * 1¼ cups plain Greek yogurt * ¼ cup sour cream * 2 garlic cloves, minced, or 2 frozen garlic cubes, defrosted 2 * Tbsp olive oil * 1-2 Tbsp fresh lemon juice * 1½ tsp sea salt * ¼ tsp black pepper * 1 tsp garlic powder Preheat oven to 350°F. Separate each pita into two rounds; place on 2 baking sheets. Bake for 8-10 minutes, turning once, or until toasted.

Prepare the Greek yogurt dip: In a mixing bowl, combine all dip ingredients until well incorporated. Set aside.

In a second bowl, place tomatoes, cucumbers, red onion, and olives; stir or toss to combine.

To assemble: Spread some dip on toasted pita rounds, top with veggies, and garnish with shredded feta and mint (if using). Serve immediately.

Note To grate soft cheeses, such as feta, freeze the cheese for 30 minutes. It will be easier to grate and result in neater shreds.

Tip This dish is best enjoyed fresh. Do not freeze.

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Ladopsomo

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Meatball Nood le Soup Meat | Yields 6-8 servings

If your kids are spaghetti-and-meatballs fans and they love soup, they’ll love this cozy take on the classic dish. I dream about this soup and it is actually one of my go-to dinners in the winter, because to me, this is the epitome of comfort food, and when comfort food is also kid friendly, I call that a massive win!

Meatballs * 1 lb ground beef * ½ small onion, minced (about ¼ cup) * 2-3 Tbsp fresh parsley, chopped * ½ tsp allspice * ½ tsp sea salt * ¼ tsp black pepper * 1 Tbsp oil Soup * 2 Tbsp oil * 1¼ cups extra-fine egg noodles, lightly crushed, or vermicelli * 3 garlic cloves, minced, or 3 frozen garlic cubes * ¼ cup tomato paste * 32 oz chicken broth * 3 cups water * 1 chicken bouillon cube * 1 tsp garlic powder * 1 tsp sea salt * ½ tsp black pepper * chopped fresh parsley, for garnish, optional In a bowl, mix ground beef, onion, parsley, allspice, salt, and pepper until just combined. Form 25 mini meatballs, approximately the size of a quarter.

Heat a saucepan over medium-high heat. Add oil; sear meatballs on both sides, 1-2 minutes per side. Transfer meatballs to a plate.

Reduce heat to medium. Add noodles; sauté for 30 seconds. Add garlic and tomato paste, stirring well. Cook for 1 minute, stirring constantly.

Add chicken broth, water, bouillon cube, garlic powder, salt, and pepper.

Stir well. Add meatballs; bring to a boil.

Reduce heat to low; simmer, uncovered, for 20 minutes. Garnish with parsley before serving.

Tip This soup can be kept frozen for 2-3 months when properly stored in an airtight container. Defrost overnight in the refrigerator. Heat, covered, on the stove over low heat until heated through.

Recipes reprinted with permission from Marblespoon at Home by Vera Newman, published by Artscroll.

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In The K tchen

Kaiserschmarrn

By Naomi Nachman

I spent Shabbat with friends in Vienna, and their daughter Devorah is a fan of my show, Sunny Side Up, on kosher.com as she loves to cook and bake. We made her version of this Austrian dessert which we ate for Melava Malka.

This was one of Emperor Franz Joesph I’s favorite desserts. It is a torn-up pancake and is served with confectioner’s sugar and ja m.

Ingredients

◦ 4 large eggs, separated ◦ 1/8 teaspoon salt ◦ 3 tablespoons granulated sugar ◦ ½ cup milk ◦ ½ teaspoon vanilla extract ◦ 1 cup all purpose flour ◦ Optional: 2 TBS raisins (soaked in brown rum)

3. Heat butter and oil over medium heat in a large frying pan.

4. Pour all the batter into the hot pan, spread evenly, and bake for about 1 minute.

If using raisins, scatter them over the batter.

5. Cook the batter till it starts to firm up and small bubbles begin to form.

6. Once the pancake gets a bit firmer, quarter the pancake with a spatula and flip

◦ 1 tablespoon butter plus 1 tablespoons neutral-tasting oil

each section of the pancake to finish cooking through. Cook the quartered pancake

◦ Powdered sugar for dusting

on low heat until cooked.

◦ Plum compote or any compote or fresh fruits or your favorite jam, for serving

7. Once the pancake is cooked, cut each quarter further into pieces with two spatulas.

Preparation

1. Beat the egg whites until soft peaks form. Set aside.

2. With a hand whisk, whisk together the egg yolks, milk, vanilla, and sugar. Stir

in flour until you get a smooth batter. Then, carefully fold in beaten egg whites.

8. Transfer the Kaiserschmarrn to a platter and generously dust with powdered sugar.

9. Traditionally, Kaiserschmarrn is accompanied by a fruit compote made with plums. However, you can serve it along with any fresh fruit or compote or jam that’s in season.

Naomi Nachman, the owner of The Aussie Gourmet, caters weekly and Shabbat/ Yom Tov meals for families and individuals within The Five Towns and neighboring communities, with a specialty in Pesach catering. Naomi is a contributing editor to this paper and also produces and hosts her own weekly radio show on the Nachum Segal Network stream called “A Table for Two with Naomi Nachman.” Naomi gives cooking presentations for organizations and private groups throughout the New York/New Jersey Metropolitan area. In addition, Naomi has been a guest host on the QVC TV network and has been featured in cookbooks, magazines as well as other media covering topics related to cuisine preparation and personal chefs. To obtain additional recipes, join The Aussie Gourmet on Facebook or visit Naomi’s blog. Naomi can be reached through her website, www.theaussiegourmet.com or at (516) 295-9669.

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Mind Y

ur Business

4 Steps to Bring Your Desired Strategy into Action

T

his column features business insights from a recent “Mind Your Business with Yitzchok Saftlas” radio show. The weekly “Mind Your Business” show – broadcasting since 2015 – features interviews with Fortune 500 executives, business leaders and marketing gurus. Prominent guests include John Sculley, former CEO of Apple and Pepsi; Dick Schulze, founder and Chairman Emeritus of Best Buy; and Beth Comstock, former Vice Chair of GE; among over

400+ senior-level executives and business celebrities. Yitzchok Saftlas, president of Bottom Line Marketing Group, hosts the weekly “Mind Your Business” show, which airs at 10pm every Sunday night on 710 WOR and throughout America on the iHeartRadio Network.

On a previous 710 WOR “Mind Your Business” broadcast, Yitzchok Saftlas (YS) spoke with guest Keita Demming (KD), Director of Development of Innovation at The Covenant Group.

Keita spoke about his latest book, Strategy to Action: Run Your Business Without It Running You, and how to bring strategy from thought into action. * * *

I

was once talking to a potential client and I told him, “Tell me about your company.” He said to me three times, “We value our people, and we invest in our people. Our people are our number one priority.”

So I asked him, “How much money do you set aside to invest in your people on an annual basis?”

He said, “Good question. I’m not sure.

I don’t think we’ve ever deliberately set

aside money for our people.”

I asked, “How much time do you set aside to invest in your people on an annual basis?”

He responded, “Good question. I would have to look into that and get back to you.”

I told him, “You’ve said three times that you value your people, and you want to invest in them. Yet, you couldn’t answer those basic questions. That’s a very clear gap. You can tell what people value in two ways: how they spend their time and how they spend their money. If you’re not spending time or money on your people, yet you’re saying that you value and invest in them, they will begin to resent you, because there’s a gap between your intention and your action.”

I see similar stories to this over and over again. People will declare that their company’s whole mission is about one purpose, and yet there is almost always a

gap between their stated intentions and their actual actions. So, what can we do to develop our declared mission into an actionable strategy?

ical service of my desired future?” That’s a very profound question to ask yourself, but it is essential to developing a path that will bring your goals into reality.

1. Set your desired future.

2. Determine the complexity of the problem.

There are four overarching questions that building a desired future comes down to. First, you need to determine what your desired future is. Where do you want to be 5-10 years now? Second, what are you prioritizing right now to ensure that you make that future a reality?

Third, how are you creating alignment in your world, so that everything you do from the moment you wake up in the morning to the moment you go to bed, is in service towards your desired future?

Finally, where are you allocating your resources to ensure that they go towards supporting your stated desired future? In summary, with each action you take, you need to ask yourself, “Is this action in rad-

People often don’t understand the nature of the problem that’s in front of them. For example, there was once a big problem with rats in Vietnam. Those in power decided to solve this by getting citizens to bring them rat tails in exchange for money. What happened was, people started to breed rats and bring them the tails. Once the leaders started to see little rats running around the city with no tails, they realized that people were becoming very entrepreneurial about how to get their reward.

Most people will simply look at this as an unintended consequence. I disagree with that notion. The problem was that

3. Have conversations.

I like to say that conversation is the action. We can’t do anything without first having a conversation with ourselves. “I should move this pen. I should start writing my book.” Self-talk is how we drive

behavior. There are three things human beings do better than any other animal on the planet: our capacity for language, our ability to set goals, and our ability to have shared goals. Those are the three things that make us the only species that has impacted the planet in the way that we have.

Those are the fundamental things that have made us able to build skyscrapers

nothing we can accomplish in this world without conversation. Conversation is the heart of every single thing we do.

4. Prepare for the long-term.

Most people fall short of achieving their vision, because they’re not prepared to pay the price today for a bigger return tomorrow. To put it simply, if I decide that

“Most people fall short of achieving their vision, because they’re not prepared to pay the price today for a bigger return tomorrow.”

in New York or send people to the moon.

And you cannot do any of those three things without conversation. That’s what I mean by “conversation is the action.”

We have to move away from thinking of conversations like machines and trying to get performance from our employees through carrot and stick. The way to get performance is to use conversations to get people to buy into your vision. There is

in order to get in shape, I am not going to have ice cream right now and that I’m going to have an apple instead, that’s a short-term cost for a long-term gain. This is hard to do, especially when the goal is intangible. The more intangible the goal is, the harder time people have paying the upfront costs for it. People are more comfortable with things that are personal, immediate, and certain. They’re less com-

fortable with things that are organized, deferred, and a gamble. Things that are organized, deferred, and a gamble tend to be the things that redefine and help you make leaps in your life. This brings us full circle, back to Step 1. What are the longterm goals that we can develop to service our desired future? By always thinking ahead towards our desired future, we can ensure that every action we take brings us closer to those long-term gains.

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initially, they assumed that the problem was simple. They thought, “If I do this, then I’ll get a particular outcome,” instead of “If I do this, maybe I’ll get a particular outcome.” There’s a big difference between “if, then” thinking and “if, maybe” thinking. For simple problems, “if, then” makes a lot of sense. “If I put these three ingredients together, then I can make this recipe.” But, once you introduce complex variables or human beings to a problem, the thinking that gets you ahead is “if, maybe.” The “maybe” piece is where you have to apply strategy. “If we put this new idea in place, maybe we’ll be successful.” Now, this mindset takes some thinking and careful analysis to plan and really understand that “we are not 100% sure that this is going to work, but we’re pretty confident, given what we know, that if we do this, we will beat our competition.” That’s why you need to determine if you’re dealing with a simple or complex problem.

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Notable Quotes “Say What?!”

I am very disappointed that my daughter, like so many, she has no understanding of G-d’s honor, G-d’s truth.

– Actor John Voight responding on social media to his actress daughter accusing Israel of war crimes

Israel was attacked by inhuman terror on innocent babies, mothers, fathers, grandparents…. These animals want to wipe out the Jews, Christians.

– Ibid.

What the mainstream media is saying about the indiscriminate fire and the actors... You literally have paid actors who are pretending to be killed, pretending to be treated… Stop trusting the mainstream media that corrupts the minds of every single American at home.

- Rep. Cory Mills (R-FL) talking about how Hamas fakes deaths and the media goes along with it

I am horrified by the reported attack in Gaza on an ambulance convoy outside Al Shifa hospital.

- Secretary-General of the UN António Guterres decrying an Israeli attack on an ambulance…which was transporting uninjured Hamas terrorists

Our ambulances were intentionally torched and blown up by Hamas terrorists to prevent any attempt to save victims. Antonio Guterres, why are these deliberate attacks on Magen David Adom, Israel’s Red Cross, not worthy of your “horror”? You will forever be remembered as the UN Secretary-General who aided terrorists and refused to condemn the murder of Israelis.

I think when we look at this as a whole, I would encourage the other side to not so lightly throw around the idea of “innocent Palestinian civilians,” as is frequently said. I don’t think we would so lightly throw around the term “innocent Nazi civilians” during World War II… There are very few innocent Palestinian civilians.

- Rep. Brian Mast (R-FL)

In my opinion, he fundamentally hates humanity.

- Magen David Adom director Eli Bin responding to Guterres

– Elon Musk, talking to Joe Rogan about George Soros

I heard this word “genocide” tossed around. Hamas actually does have genocidal intentions against the people of Israel. They’d like to see it wiped off the map. They’ve said so on purpose. That’s what’s at stake here.

He’s doing things that erode the fabric of civilization. Getting [district attorneys] elected who refused to prosecute crime, that’s part of the problem in San Francisco and L.A. and other cities. So why would you do that?

- White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby responding to the pro-Hamas claim that Israel is committing “genocide” against the Palestinians in Gaza

- Ibid.

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What Hamas did was horrific, and there is no justification for it. And what is also true is that the occupation, and what’s happening to Palestinians, is unbearable… You have to admit that all of us are complicit to some degree.

- Former President Barack Obama

Nah, man. Not all of us are complicit. It’s just you.

It’s you, because you’re the one who gave that stentorian speech about red lines in Syria and then sat by and did nothing as those red lines were crossed and Assad continued to slaughter his own people, allowing the Iranians and the Russians to creep in and fill the vacuum left by your devastating lack of leadership.

It’s you, because you’re the one who came up with the idea of empowering Iran, the world’s premiere exporter of terrorism, Holocaust denial, and chaos, all the while telling the American people you were merely trying to stop Teheran from getting a nuclear bomb. Billions of dollars and thousands of dead later, we can all see how well this idea—which you, with the eloquence only a professor could muster, called “regional integration”—is working.

It’s you, because you’re the one who delivered a parting gift to the region, ending your final term as president by reversing four decades of American bipartisan support of Israel and abstaining from a U.N. vote condemning Israeli settlements, while funneling $400 million in annual payments to the despotic Palestinian Authority, which then promptly used this money to fund its pay-for-slay program, doling out large cash payments to any Palestinian who murdered Jews.

So, please, Mr. President: Spare us your opinions.

- Tablet Magazine’s Liel Leibovitz

Fact Checker: The president said he had “no confidence” in the figures issued by the Hamas-run health ministry, but it has a good track record on reporting death tolls.

- Tweet by the Washington Post

Guys, stop lol. You’re gonna make Hamas blush!

- One of many mocking tweets in response

Hamas fact checkers approve of this article.

– Ibid.

You mean like the 500 dead in the hospital explosion where the hospital didn’t even get touched?

- Ibid.

When writing to the international community, Hamas begs for a ceasefire on humanitarian grounds, but to the Arab world, the murderous organization pledges to repeat the October 7th attacks and sacrifice as many Palestinians as necessary to destroy Israel.

– Wall Street Journal editorial

Hamas pledges more massacres in Arabic while asking for humanitarian aid in English. Hamas knows from experience that many in the West are gullible enough to fall for this.

- Ibid.

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I will need 24 minutes, not more [than] 24 minutes, to explain to President Trump that he can’t manage this war. He can’t bring peace because of Putin.

- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” responding to Trump’s claim that he can end the RussiaUkraine war in 24 hours

We built the tunnels because we have no other way of protecting ourselves from being killed in airstrikes. We are fighting from inside the tunnels.

Seventy-five percent of the population of Gaza are refugees, and it is the UN’s responsibility to protect them.

- Hamas dog Moussa Abu Marzouk, who hides out in Qatar, when asked in a TV interview why Hamas spends so much money building tunnels but never built any shelters to protect Gaza citizens during bombings

FoxNews gave up on DeSanctimonious. Now they’re pushing Birdbrain. They just haven’t learned, and probably never will!

- Trump criticizing Fox News for promoting his primary opponent Nikki Haley

Joke is on you. I had a stroke. I can’t fully understand what you’re saying.

- Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) who has been one of the most outspoken supporters of Israel, responding during a speech to a pro-Hamas heckler

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Political Crossfire

As the U.S. Fights Over Aid, Ukraine’s Hopes Hang in the Balance

By David Ignatius

H

ouse Republicans who question U.S. military assistance to Ukraine should meet some of the military amputees who are gathered at a hospital in Lviv learning to use their new limbs and, if possible, return to the battlefield.

“Don’t be afraid to fall. Learn to get up.” That’s the admonition that Olga Rudneva gives to amputees struggling to walk. She runs the prosthetic clinic called Superhumans that I visited in early October. Her words could be a motto for Ukraine itself.

If the Biden administration can’t gain congressional support for its supplemental aid package, even more soldiers in trenches and minefields fighting Russian aggression may end up in clinics like this, or worse. Continued American aid is a desperate concern, too, for millions of Ukrainian civilians who may freeze in the dark this winter if Kyiv lacks enough air-defense systems to stop Russian drones and missiles from striking at its energy infrastructure.

As the Ukraine war grinds on, the world’s attention has shifted to the bloody battle between Israel and Hamas. The danger for Ukraine is that if out of sight, it may be out of mind – and become a casualty of American political squabbles.

“If you stop supporting us, forget about Ukraine, it’s as simple as that,” Col. Hennadiy Kovalenko, a Ukrainian defense ministry official, worried in a meeting in Kyiv with American visitors.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) put new Ukraine aid in jeopardy when he separated it from military assistance to Israel, which the House passed Thursday.

But Johnson has said he favors helping Ukraine, and President Biden hopes he’ll deliver. “The idea that the Ukraine situation isn’t urgent is profoundly mistaken,”

a senior administration official told me.

The Ukraine war is nearing another inflection point, according to Kyiv’s top general, Valery Zaluzhny. To break out of the bloody stalemate, “Technology is the answer,” he wrote in the Economist this week. He said Ukraine needs more drones, missiles, jet fighters, air-defense weapons, and electronic-warfare and mine-breaching tools to “escape from that trap.” This aid can come only from America and its partners.

The tragedy is that this assistance – a cheap price to pay for stopping Russia’s advance – seems caught up in the politics of Donald Trump’s campaign for the presidency. ABC’s Jonathan Karl recounts in a book, “Tired of Winning,” to be published this month, that former Fox News host Tucker Carlson told him Trump’s opposition to Ukraine assistance is “more radical” than he states publicly. “I hate the war in Ukraine more than anything,” Carlson told Karl. “And [Trump is] like the only person who agrees with me on that.”

Visiting Ukraine in October, I heard firsthand why American help is needed to break through a war of attrition that is exhausting Ukrainian soldiers and civilians.

Mines have been a special problem: As Ukraine launched its counteroffensive this spring, the first wave of troops found the minefields “impenetrable,” Kovalenko said.

The casualties were horrific. You can see the impact at the clinic in Lviv. A soldier named Alex who had the left side of his body ravaged by an explosion now learns to kick a soccer ball with his prosthesis. A double amputee named Vadim wobbles as he tests his new legs.

Many of these soldiers can’t return to battle, but others, less badly wounded, are rejoining units. “Every time I hear they want to go back to the front lines, I hate it,” Rudneva said. But she’s working hard to help make it possible.

My visit was organized by the McCain Institute, as part of its Ukraine Business Alliance, a group of companies working with the Ukrainian government, includ-

ing tech giants Microsoft and Palantir and other firms.

Drones are crucial in this war, but they’re a double-edged weapon. Ukraine at first imported its drones from Turkey, the United States and other countries, but it’s now manufacturing more than half its fleet at home, Oleksandr Kamyshin, Ukraine’s minister of strategic industries, told us.

But Russia is using waves of drones – many supplied by Iran – to attack Ukraine’s energy supplies and power grid.

Ukraine’s anti-drone missiles can be 10 times more expensive than their targets.

“That disparity can’t continue,” said Jon Gruen, chief executive of Fortem Technologies and a member of the business alliance. His company is providing Ukraine an inexpensive anti-drone system that uses nets to catch incoming attackers – one of the items Zaluzhny said he needs.

Russian mining has spawned Ukrainian innovations in demining technology, including autonomous systems that can detect and detonate mines. “Without a robust humanitarian demining effort, restarting critical prewar industries, including agriculture and steel production, will be near impossible,” said Evelyn Farkas, the McCain Institute’s executive director, who led the group.

“Technology is the only way to bring Ukraine to victory,” argued Natalya Kushnerska, chief operating officer of a project called “Brave1” that’s trying to coordinate domestic defense technology innovation.

Her group is funding 70 projects for unmanned vehicles, robotics, demining and electronic warfare.

But the Russians keep coming. And unless the U.S. Congress gets its act together, this will be a very cold and bitter winter in Kyiv. (c) 2023, Washington Post Writers Group

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Political Crossfire

By Marc A. Thiessen

W

hen Joe Biden declared his candidacy for president in 2019, he began his announcement video with two words: “Charlottesville, Virginia.” With footage of marchers chanting “Jews will not replace us!” playing in the background, Biden called the infamous antisemitic rally a “defining moment for this nation.” He condemned the right-wing bigots with “veins bulging … chanting the same antisemitic bile heard across Europe in the ’30s.” He was right.

Well, today, there are dozens of Charlottesvilles taking place across the country. But now, the marchers are left-wing bigots who openly celebrate the massacre of innocent Jewish civilians and call for the destruction of Israel.

This, too, is a “defining moment” for our nation – and for the Democratic Party, which needs to purge the antisemitism in its ranks. Yet the president has failed to adequately confront the antisemitic bile coming from the left.

Many people of goodwill on the left have been shocked by the outpouring of bigotry. As CNN anchor Jake Tapper put it last month, this has been “a real eye-opening period for a lot of people – a lot of Democrats, a lot of progressives – in terms of antisemitism on the left.” But while antisemitism exists across the spectrum, right-wing antisemitism is largely a fringe phenomenon. You don’t see students at Ivy League schools holding neo-Nazi rallies.

Left-wing antisemitism, by contrast, is an elite phenomenon.

Recently, antisemitic marches have been taking place at some of our nation’s most prestigious universities. On campuses where kids complain that speech is violence, students have celebrated actual violence against Jews: women and girls raped and mutilated; children slaughtered and burned; fathers with eyes gouged out; victims decapitated

Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) addresses a crowd in Washington on Oct. 18 amid violence between Israel and Hamas. (credit: Bill O’Leary/The Washington Post)

with farm equipment; even terrorists’ mass slaughter of youths their own age at a music festival. “They’ve got tanks, we’ve got hang-gliders, glory to the resistance fighters!” a crowd of students at George Mason University chanted.

At the University of Washington in Seattle, dozens of students chanted, “There is only one solution!” At Cooper Union in Manhattan, a group of Jewish students were locked in the library as pro-Hamas protesters banged on the doors, shouting, “Globalize the intifada from New York to Gaza!” At George Washington University in D.C., students projected antisemitic messages onto the side of a school library named for Jewish benefactors. A Cornell University professor declared at a rally that he was “exhilarated” by the Hamas killing spree. A Columbia University professor called the Hamas attacks “awesome” and “astounding.” At Harvard, where there have been multiple rallies, a speaker declared to about a thousand demonstrators that the perpetrators of the massacre were “not terrorists” but

“liberators.” At another Harvard march, pro-Hamas students physically pushed and harassed a Jewish student – echoing recent harassment of a young Israeli hostage in Gaza.

“It’s a love fest of hate,” Harvard professor emeritus Ruth Wisse tells me. “The people on the campuses shouting, ‘From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!’ … well, what they are really chanting is ‘Death to the Jews!’ because from the river to the sea is the land of Israel.”

A Harvard-Harris poll finds that 62 percent of Americans between the ages of 18 and 24 acknowledge that Hamas’s attack against Israeli civilians was “genocidal,” yet a 51 percent majority of that same age group said those attacks “can be justified by the grievances of Palestinians.”

And 64 percent said Hamas and Israel have “equally just causes” – even though 58 percent say that Hamas is “trying to destroy Israel.” That is horrifying.

Meanwhile, antisemitism festers on Capitol Hill without cost or consequence.

Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) declared

at an Oct. 18 rally that hundreds of Palestinian civilians were killed in an Israeli strike on a hospital in Gaza, a claim that had been debunked as Hamas propaganda. She has faced no penalty for spreading this blood libel, nor for accusing her House colleagues of dual loyalty – a classic antisemitic trope – by declaring in 2019 that “they forgot what country they represent.”

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) has said that pro-Israel politicians “push for allegiance to a foreign country” and that U.S. support for Israel is “all about the Benjamins.” Yet both remain members in good standing of the House Democratic caucus.

Responsible leaders on the left need to step up and purge the antisemites in their midst. Universities would never allow a neo-Nazi to teach, so why are professors who support the murder of Jews and destruction of Israel tolerated on their faculties? Banks and law firms would rightly refuse to hire someone who chanted “Jews will not replace us!” in Charlottesville, so why would they hire students who chant, “There is only one solution”? Foreign students and others who openly support the murder of Jews by a designated terrorist organization, or who bully and menace Jewish students, should have their visas revoked. And the Biden administration should use federal civil rights laws to investigate and prosecute those who threaten and intimidate Jewish Americans, as happened to the students at Cooper Union.

We all have a responsibility to police our movements. Democrats don’t get to criticize Donald Trump for failing to adequately ostracize fringe alt-right antisemites and then tolerate virulent antisemitism on their own side. They should heed the admonition of scripture: Before you point out the splinter in your brother’s eye, remove the beam from your own. (c) 2023, Washington Post Writers Group

NOVEMBER 9, 2023 | The Jewish Home

Antisemitism On the Left Needs to Be Called Out, Too, Mr. President

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Israel Today

Why are the October 7 Atrocities Being Denied?

By Caroline Glick

O

n its face, Holocaust denial makes no sense. The physical evidence of the genocide exists.

The testimony of survivors and of Nazis and their collaborators exists. And they are all irrefutable.

Beyond that, the Nazis were proud of the fact that they killed 6 million Jews. By denying the Holocaust, contemporary Nazis and Nazi fans seem to be demeaning their heroes. Why would they do that?

The mystery of Holocaust denial is no mere puzzlement from a distant past.

Understanding its purpose is essential as we contend with our present predicament.

Immediately after word got out about Hamas’s sadistic slaughter of more than 1,400 Israeli men, women and children on October 7, Hamas’s supporters worldwide launched a concerted effort to deny that anything had happened.

Just as neo-Nazis both celebrate the Holocaust and deny it, so do those who rapturously greeted the stories of slaughtered and decapitated Jewish babies and men, and raped and dismembered Jewish women and girls, insist that Hamas didn’t commit any of those crimes.

A notable aspect of the atrocities is that Hamas’s mass murderers didn’t try to hide them. Instead, they broadcast them worldwide as they carried them out.

Armed with Go Pro cameras and the cellphones of their victims, the Palestinian terrorists in southern Israel filmed the assault, dismemberment, torture and execution of their victims on their victims’ own phones, posting them in their victims’ family WhatsApp groups and Facebook pages as they carried them out. They did the same with their own social-media platforms. No one needed researchers to comb through Hamas archives. The directions for the slaughter were found in documents that the terrorists carried with them into Israel.

So why are supporters of Hamas tearing down posters of kidnapped Israeli children, women and men being held hostage in the Gaza Strip? They celebrate the hostage-taking on their social-media postings. Why are they insisting to their fellow students on campuses or subway riders in New York and Johannesburg that there are no hostages in Gaza, and this is all a Zionist conspiracy? A gas-lighting?

To understand what is happening and what it represents, we need to look at the most popular and powerful form of Holocaust denial today. As Izabella Tabarovsky meticulously demonstrated in a Tablet magazine article last January, this form of Holocaust denial was coined by the Soviets. It was popularized by a Palestinian terrorist of some repute: Palestinian Authority chairman and Palestinian Liberation Organization chief Mahmoud Abbas.

In 1982, Abbas wrote a doctoral dissertation at the KGB’s Institute of Oriental Studies, which he later turned into a bestselling book. His thesis, titled “The Relationship Between Zionists and Nazis, 1933-1945,” is the basis for Holocaust education in Palestinian schools.

Abbas claimed that the Zionists were Nazis. He insisted that just as the Nazis defined themselves as Aryan racial supremacists, the Zionists defined themselves as Jewish racial supremacists.

Abbas claimed that the Holocaust was a collaborative effort between the Nazis and the Zionist leadership in the land of Israel.

David Ben-Gurion, he wrote, had agents in

Europe who collaborated with the Nazis.

Their goal, Abbas said, was to support the genocide of European Jewry in order to win international sympathy for the Zionist effort to establish a Jewish supremacist state in the land of Israel, aka “Palestine.”

As Tabarovsky explained, the allure of Abbas’s claims for Palestinian Jew-haters and Soviets alike is clear. First, it enables them to avoid accounting for the role they played in the murder of 6 million Jews. It was the Palestinian Arab leader Haj Amin al-Husseini—not Ben-Gurion or any other Jew, Zionist or not—who collaborated with Hitler to annihilate the Jews in Europe and throughout the world. And it was the Soviet Union—not the Zionist leadership—that signed a non-aggression pact with the Nazis. By insisting that it was the Jews who collaborated with their own destruction, both the Soviets and the Palestinians were able to project their own culpability onto their enemy: the Jews. They were also able to deny the Jews moral legitimacy as victims.

After all, if the Jews did it to themselves, then no one else had anything to own up to. And more importantly, the

Jews’ alleged venality meant that the Nazis were right. The Jews are evil and deserve to be wiped off the map.

The same malevolent, genocide-supportive rationale guides Hamas’s supporters worldwide today.

Over the past several days, more and more information has come out about how the victims of Hamas’s atrocities were murdered and tortured with a sadism that was inconceivable until Oct. 7. And as that information is disseminated, Hamas supporters’ efforts to demonize those disseminating the information have expanded exponentially.

Consider just one example. Over the weekend, Eli Beer, the head of United Hatzalah rescue organization, told an American Jewish audience the story of a baby from Kfar Aza. The baby, he said, was placed in an oven and burned alive. It was later reported that the baby’s father was shot and left to bleed to death as his wife was assaulted and executed, and his baby burned alive.

I posted the story on my X-platform (formerly Twitter) account. Within hours, the post went viral. By Wednesday morning, it had been viewed by more than 2.5 million people. Thousands had reposted, and thousands more had responded.

By Monday afternoon, I realized that most of the reposts and comments were supportive of Hamas. Many made jokes about the atrocity. But most of the posts were sheer denials that the crime even took place. Posters demonized me as a “Zionist Nazi” who propagates lies. Some pro-Hamas posters created memes declaring me a liar.

Once I understood what was happening, I asked multiple people for confirmations, which I received directly and indirectly from the Israel Defense Forces, the Israeli government, the American government, ZAKA (the body retrieval society, and in this case, body parts) and other sources.

I also learned that the case that Beer revealed was not a lone event. Several bodies of babies were found with grill marks, indicating they had been burned alive in ovens.

Professor Chen Kugel, head of the Israel National Institute of Forensic Medicine, oversees the process of identifying the bodies of the victims. In media appearances since Oct. 7, Kugel has repeatedly described the corpses of victims who were burned alive. They can be distinguished from victims whose bodies were burned after they were executed by the presence of soot in their lungs. The soot indicates that they were breathing while they were burning.

emigration to pre-state Israel and his direct role in carrying out the Holocaust. Just so, Hamas supporters are now accusing Israel of killing its own people or fabricating their victimization at the hands of the terrorist organization in order to build a case that Israel is the villain of this story. This enables Jew-haters worldwide to feel comfortable expressing their own loathing of the Jews.

If the Jews are the villains, then it is mor-

Their purpose is to gaslight hundreds of millions of people, to cause them to question their own grip on reality and intimidate them into silence. leagues received were balls of charcoal.

Archaeologists from the Israel Antiquities Authority have been brought in to sift through the ashes of burned-out homes to separate the human remains from burned furniture and walls.

Despite the mounting forensic and testimonial evidence, the denials continue and expand. When seen in the context of Palestinian Holocaust denial, they can be understood to serve three related goals.

First, the denials enable people who are accustomed to supporting the Palestinians, but who like to be seen as truthful, to feel comfortable casting doubt on the truth. For example, Eric Levitz, a progressive writer for New York magazine published the following on X on Oct. 22: “Last night I asserted that this report [related to the slaughter of October 7] indicated that babies were beheaded. This was an overstatement. I should have said that the report established that babies were found headless, a fact that lends plausibility to claims of beheading, but which does not prove them.”

This week, the Yale Daily News published a similarly depraved correction of an opinion column that related to the fact that Hamas terrorists beheaded and raped their victims. The Yale student paper insisted the allegations had not been substantiated.

The second purpose of Hamas supporters’ denial is to criminalize Israel. If Hamas isn’t guilty, then obviously Israel is. Abbas accused the Jews of responsibility for the Holocaust in order to reject the moral legitimacy of the State of Israel.

He did it as well to avoid contending with Palestinian culpability for the genocide despite Husseini’s role in blocking Jewish

al to hate them. It is moral to stand with Hamas. And it is immoral to support the Jews and the State of Israel.

Finally, once truth is cast into doubt and Israel is castigated as the villain, the denials of Hamas’s crimes facilitate the continuation and expansion of those crimes. Hamas’s declared goal, like Abbas’s Fatah Party, is the elimination of the

Jewish state. That is, its goal is to enact another Holocaust. With Israel castigated as a liar and the villain, the next step is to wipe it out.

To Jews and their supporters, Hamas apologists now terrorizing Jews on college campuses and in cities throughout the United States and Europe and running rampant on social media platforms seem crazy. How can they deny the undeniable fact of Hamas culpability?

But Hamas’s boosters are not delusional. They know exactly what they are doing.

They are waging a psychological war against Western governments and publics.

Their purpose is to gaslight hundreds of millions of people, to cause them to question their own grip on reality and intimidate them into silence. At the same time, they seek to embolden their allies and fellow travelers to stand openly with Hamas by showing they have nothing to lose from doing so.

If they are successful, their efforts will produce an international climate conducive to the achievement of their common goal of eradicating the Jewish people and the Jewish state. If they are partially successful, Israel’s war effort will be undermined, and assaults on Jews worldwide will increase. (JNS)

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Sifting Through the Ashes

The process of identifying the victims is protracted because Hamas directed its murderers to burn the bodies of their victims. Kugel and others have described the remains of many of the bodies as what can be seen from a crematorium. Avigail Gimpel, a volunteer at the Jewish burial society Chevra Kadisha who prepared dozens of victims’ bodies for burial, shared that several of the bodies she and her col-

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The Jewish Home | NOVEMBER 9, 2023

Forgotten Her es

Bronze and Silver Star Recipients

By Avi Heiligman

The Silver Star Medal

N

ot all acts of bravery on the battlefield are awarded with the Medal of Honor or Distinguished Service Cross. Medals like the Silver Star and the Bronze Star were established for deserving members of the armed services. The Silver Star is awarded for gallantry in action, and the Bronze Star is given for heroic achievement or meritorious service while in combat. The servicemen that have been presented these awards and their stories are history not to be forgotten.

The Ritchie Boys, based at Camp Ritchie in Maryland, consisted of many Jews born in Germany and other European countries. They were trained by military intelligence as cultural and language experts and were used to interrogate prisoners of war and for counterintelligence. One of the most successful Ritchie Boys was a German-born Jewish refugee. Born in Hildesheim, Germany, Guy Stern left Nazi Germany and came to the United States in 1937. He settled in St. Louis, living with his aunt and uncle but was unable to get the rest of family out of Europe.

Guy was drafted to the U.S. Army in 1943 and joined the Ritchie Boys a year later. His team was sent to France during the D-Day landings, and that’s where his unit, IPW (interrogators of prisoners of war) Team 41, began to provide very valuable information critical for the war

how the Nazi war machine operated. For his work in Europe during the war, Stern was awarded the Bronze Star.

Some naval officers went ashore during the D-Day invasion at Normandy, France, on June 6, 1944. Lt. Bennie Berger from Chicago had participated in

A large enemy force began attacking the Americans, but Grossman skillfully was able to pull back his now outnumbered unit.

effort. Using tactics that were acceptable under the Geneva Convention, they were able to extract information from prisoners that ranged from details about the train networks to weapons systems. Often, they employed their knowledge of the enemy and their interests when talking to the enemy prisoners. This made the captured soldiers comfortable, and soon Stern and his men were learning all about

the landings in North Africa and Sicily and was attached to the Fifth Ranger Battalion that landed on Omaha Beach. His job was a fire control officer who was to communicate with naval assets in support of the Ranger’s operations. Omaha Beach was under heavy German fire, and many Rangers’ strengths were hit. Berger came in with the first waves of infantry and, despite the dangerous situation, re-

layed information to cruisers in position waiting in the English Channel. The naval fire helped the Rangers gain the heights.

Berger continued with the Rangers as they made their way inland as they made contact with other units. The Shore Fire Control Party was without an officer, so Berger took control of the unit as they called in for naval support fire. Berger was awarded the Silver Star for his actions on D-Day. The 80th Infantry Division was activated in 1917 and saw extensive action during the Meuse-Argonne Offensive during World War I. They were deactivated for two years but have been part of the U.S. Army in some capacity since 1921. During World War II, they first saw action in Northern France in July 1944 and fought until the German surrender in May 1945. 1st Lt. Benjamin Grossman of New York served with the 317 th Infantry Regiment, 80th Division and saw combat throughout the campaign, including at the Battle of the Bulge. Towards the end of the war on April 3, 1945, Grossman’s company was near Harlehauser, Germany, when they started taking sniper fire.

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He volunteered to take a platoon to maneuver around the enemy. At that point, they discovered that the Germans had more than snipers in the area. A large enemy force began attacking the Americans, but Grossman skillfully was able to pull back his now outnumbered unit. He was wounded in the fight but continued to lead his men until they were in a safe area. Grossman was awarded the Silver Star and the Purple Heart for his bravery that day. He was also awarded two Bronze Stars and another Purple Heart for other acts of valor in combat.

Researching history can sometimes produce strange but fascinating results.

Guy Stern, left, with a fellow member of the Ritchie Boys

Two soldiers named Leonard Goldman had many similarities, with both men having served with the 42nd Division in Europe. They both hailed from Minneapolis, Minnesota, and were awarded the Silver Star. As far as this author can tell, they weren’t related but they were both Jewish. Technician Fifth Grade Leonard W. Goldman was a medic with the 242nd Infantry Regiment, 42nd Division when, on January 25, 1945, his platoon’s position near Haguenau, France, was overrun by the Germans. The men had to withdraw, but Goldman stayed behind with the wounded men who could not be evacuated. The soldiers were captured,

First Lt. Benjamin Grossman

but through Goldman’s knowledge of the German language, he was able secure the release of three enlisted men. Goldman himself spent the rest of the war in a POW camp in Germany.

Staff Sergeant Leonard M. Goldman served with Company L, 3rd Battalion, 232nd Infantry Regiment, 42nd Infantry Division. On April 8, 1945, near Buchold, Germany, his platoon came under heavy enemy fire from a larger German force.

Exposing himself to enemy fire, Goldman used hand signals, radio and a telephone to direct tanks to fire on the German positions. He also arranged for medics and led them to a group of wounded American

soldiers. Goldman was wounded himself but was able to prevent the capture of several of his fellow soldiers.

Only a relative few servicemen and women are widely recognized for their courageous acts on the battlefield. Forgotten Heroes like the soldiers written about above deserve to have their stories told and is history to be remembered.

Avi Heiligman is a weekly contributor to The Jewish Home. He welcomes your comments and suggestions for future columns and can be reached at aviheiligman@gmail.com.

NOVEMBER 9, 2023 | The Jewish Home

The Ritchie Boys

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The Jewish Home | NOVEMBER 9, 2023

Jewish History

Poisoning the Jews, Then and Now

By Rafael Medoff

A

Hamas terrorist who took part in the recent pogrom was found to have plans for creating a cyanide-based chemical weapon, President Isaac Herzog has revealed. But perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised, since Palestinian Arab terrorists have tried it previously—in 1944.

President Herzog said that other documents found on the terrorists included “extensive plans to target an elementary school and a youth center and kill as many people as possible” and “manuals with instructions on how to torture and kidnap those they found.”

The document describing how to prepare “a device for dispersing cyanide agents” is eerily reminiscent of a 1944 plot masterminded by the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin el-Husseini, the political leader and senior Muslim religious authority of the Palestinian Arabs.

During the 1920s and 1930s, the Mufti instigated mass Arab violence against the Jews and British authorities in Mandatory Palestine. Then he fled to Baghdad, where, in 1941, he helped engineer a short-lived pro-Nazi coup.

After a short stay in Tehran—where he holed up in the Japanese embassy— the Mufti headed to Rome, where he was warmly welcomed by Mussolini. Then it was on to Berlin, together with a large entourage of aides and advisers.

Throughout the Holocaust years, Husseini remained in the Nazi capital, on the Nazis’ payroll. He met with Hitler. He recorded pro-Nazi radio broadcasts that were beamed to the Arab world. He recruited Bosnian Muslims to join an all-Muslim unit of the SS; thirty-eight of its officers were later tried as war criminals.

L e a fle t s aut hor e d by Na z i propagandists and translated into Arabic by the Mufti’s staff were dropped

by German planes over Arab regions of Palestine. Some featured headlines such

The Mufti meeting with Hitler, ym"sh

as “Kill the Jews and the British!” and were printed on the back of facsimile British pounds or American dollars, so they looked like money and immediately attracted attention.

Some of the Mufti’s broadcasts and leaflets promised that those who

In May 1943, Husseini caught wind of a Nazi plan to permit 4,000 Jewish children, accompanied by 500 adults, to travel to Palestine in exchange for the release of 20,000 German prisoners of war. Both the Germans and the British had agreed to the exchange, but the

“The laboratory report stated that each container held enough poison to kill 25,000 people, and there were at least ten containers.”

squad parachuted into Mandatory Palestine.

The details of that mission were chronicled in the 1983 book The Quest for the Red Prince, by Michael Bar-Zohar, a Labor Party Knesset Member, and journalist Eitan Haber, who was later Yitzhak Rabin’s senior speechwriter.

The five parachutists were armed with maps of Tel Aviv and canisters of “a fine white powder.” Their instructions were to dump the powder into Tel Aviv’s water system.

The squad was captured before it could carry out its plan, and the canisters of powder were sent to a police laboratory for analysis.

“I remember how amazed we all were,” district police commander Fayiz Bey Idrissi recalled. “The laboratory report stated that each container held enough poison to kill 25,000 people, and there were at least ten containers.”

The population of Tel Aviv at the time was approximately 200,000.

Today, there are two schools in Hamas-controlled Gaza named in honor of Hassan Salameh, one of the five would-be poisoners. There is also a school named after the Mufti in the Palestinian Authority-governed city of El Bireh.

The discovery that a Hamas terrorist had plans for a chemical attack is a reminder that both the goals and methods employed by the Mufti are more than a matter of history.

Dr. Medoff is founding director of The David

attacked Jews would be rewarded with “the most beautiful of the Jewish girls” after Palestine’s Jewish community was conquered. It is especially chilling to think of that message in the aftermath of the assaults committed by Hamas terrorists during the recent pogrom.

Germans backed down when the Mufti objected. The children were instead sent to Auschwitz.

Sabotage squads organized by the Mufti for the Germans were parachuted behind Allied lines both in Europe and the Middle East. In 1944, one such

S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies and author of more than 20 books about Jewish history and the Holocaust. His latest is America and the Holocaust: A Documentary History, published by the Jewish Publication Society & University of Nebraska Press.

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NEW TO THE MARKET Hewlett-Woodmere school district.

4 bedroom 3 full bathroom home features living room with a fireplace, formal dining room leading out to the deck, eat-in-kitchen with granite countertops, stainless steel appliances, 2 dishwashers, double oven, new microwave, primary bedroom with an en-suite bathroom, plus 3 additional bedrooms and 2 full bathrooms, large family room, central air conditioning, gas heat, in-ground sprinklers, hardwood floors, modern high hat lighting, custom window treatments, driveway has recently been done, 2 car garage, beautifully landscaped plus so much more.

Mark Lipner Associate Broker Berkshire Hathaway Laffey International 516-298-8457 mlipner@bhhslaffey.com HEWLETT Lovely & Spacious 2 Bedrooms, 2 Updated Baths Unit on First Floor with Wonderful Terrace to Enjoy The Outdoors. Formal Dining Room Leads to Large Living Room, Granite Countertops in Kitchen. Prime Location. Steps Away From LIRR, Parking, Shopping, Restaurants + More! Don’t Miss Out! Must See!!!

Mark Lipner Associate Broker Berkshire Hathaway Laffey International 516-298-8457 mlipner@bhhslaffey.com

spacious patio. Luxurious master suite with a spacious bedroom, a lavish ensuite bathroom and a large walk-in closet. Additional bedrooms.

High-end finishes, premium flooring, and custom details throughout. Call for pricing Mark Lipner Associate Broker Berkshire Hathaway Laffey International 516-298-8457 mlipner@bhhslaffey.com WOODMERE Spacious home within school district 14 with exquisite upgrades and central air conditioning, splendid kitchen with dual sinks, five bedrooms. Main level encompasses a spacious great room, office space, complementing the formal living and dining areas.

Unfinished basement, detached garage. Expansive lot, measuring 80 x 100. Conveniently located near shopping, railroad, restaurants and places of worship. Mark Lipner Associate Broker Berkshire Hathaway Laffey International 516-298-8457 mlipner@bhhslaffey.com

WOODMERE Spacious home within school district 14 with exquisite upgrades and central air conditioning, splendid kitchen with dual sinks, five bedrooms. Main level encompasses a spacious great room, office space, complementing the formal living and dining areas.

Unfinished basement, detached garage. Expansive lot, measuring 80 x 100. Conveniently located near shopping, railroad, restaurants and places of worship. OPEN HOUSE SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 11:00-12:30PM 223 HICKOX AVENUE. Mark Lipner Associate Broker Berkshire Hathaway Laffey International 516-298-8457 mlipner@bhhslaffey.com VALLEY STREAM Meticulously cared-for high ranch with four bedrooms and two full baths. Expansive dimensions, measuring 58 x 133. Two-zone, gas-heated system, central airconditioning, and an inground sprinkler system. The upper-level features three inviting bedrooms, accompanied by a full bathroom.

The well-appointed living room, elegant dining room, and an eat-in kitchen complete this level. On the ground floor, you’ll find an additional bedroom and bathroom, a spacious den with sliding doors that lead to the backyard, convenient washer and dryer facilities, and an attached garage. Great access to schools, shops, restaurants, and public transportation. Mark Lipner Associate Broker Berkshire Hathaway Laffey International 516-298-8457 mlipner@bhhslaffey.com

Classifieds

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HOUSES FOR SALE

HOUSES FOR RENT

APT./COOP/CONDO SALE

APT./COOP/CONDO SALE

WOODMERE Introducing a stunning 14-side hall colonial home in the Hewlett Woodmere School District.

Formal living room, formal dining room, den with a skylight. Eat in Kitchen, two sinks, a double oven, a warming draw and a microwave.

First floor bedroom, a full bathroom and laundry room. Two-car garage.

Upper level has four bedrooms, two full bathrooms. Finished basement with playroom, storage and utilities.

Well-groomed exterior with porch adjoining the master bedroom.

Hardwood floors and back patio.

Central air conditioning, inground sprinkler system, alarm system. Close proximity to schools, shopping centers, restaurants, and transportation options.

Mark Lipner Associate Broker Berkshire Hathaway Laffey International 516-298-8457 mlipner@bhhslaffey.com

WOODMERE

WOODMERE 1 bedroom apartment, elevator building, eat-in kitchen, full bath, hardwood floors, plenty of closet space. Ceiling fan in bedroom & kitchen, laundry room in the basement. Close to the railroad, shopping, and houses of worship. $179k Mark Lipner Associate Broker Berkshire Hathaway Laffey International 516-298-8457 mlipner@bhhslaffey.com

HEWLETT Totally renovated 1 and 2 Bedroom, Apartments with washer/dryer, kitchen with quartz countertops, stainless steel appliances. Recessed lighting, hardwood floors, storage in basement. Close to RR, shopping, and houses of worship. Mark Lipner Associate Broker Berkshire Hathaway Laffey International 516-298-8457 mlipner@bhhslaffey.com

Just listed - House Rental 6 bedroom residence. Living room with soaring vaulted ceilings and fireplace. Oversized den with fireplace. Family room. Central air conditioning. Five bedrooms on a single level. Close proximity to the railroad, shopping destinations, and houses of worship. Mark Lipner Associate Broker Berkshire Hathaway Laffey International 516-298-8457 mlipner@bhhslaffey.com

OFFICE SPACE/STORAGE LARGE ROOM Available for rent in Far Rockaway.

Private entrance.

Call or text 917-678-4121

WOODMERE Welcome to this exquisite and expansive 1 Bedroom co-op in the highly sought-after and prestigious Heathcote. Recently renovated, generously sized foyer. Vasr Eat-InKitchen. Situated in a classic pre-war building, this residence features 9-foot ceilings that add an air of elegance and sophistication. The convenience of an elevator ensures easy access to all levels, making everyday living a breeze. Private storage room. Mark Lipner Associate Broker Berkshire Hathaway Laffey International 516298-8457 mlipner@bhhslaffey.com

LAWRENCE New to the market Generously sized 1 bedroom 1.5 bathroom coop in an elevator building, with a 24 hour doorman, underground parking, double terrace, central air conditioning, washer/dryer and storage on the floor, eat-in-kitchen, living room and dining room, no steps into the building or to the apartment, minutes from shopping, park, transportation, and houses of worship. $479,000 Mark Lipner Associate Broker Berkshire Hathaway Laffey International 516-298-8457 mlipner@bhhslaffey.com

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The Jewish Home | NOVEMBER 9, 2023

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Classifieds

classifieds@fivetownsjewishhome.com • text 443-929-4003

APT./COOP/CONDO SALE

APT./COOP/CONDO SALE

APT./COOP/CONDO SALE

APT./COOP/CONDO SALE

LAWRENCE JUST LISTED This amazing two-bedroom two full bathroom condo Features a luxurious lifestyle in the beautiful city of Lawrence. What more could you ask for? The building has a 24-hour doorman and elevator access, with a social room, library, washer/dryer inside the unit, and terrace. Plus, the added benefit of having a live-in super to ensure maximum safety and security! And don’t forget about your new kitchen complete with a gas stove, refrigerator, microwave, and even two dishwashers! The living room and dining room are spacious and have recessed lighting installed throughout. Both bedrooms feature lots of closet space for storage. To top it off, there’s even garage parking available to make your life just that much easier! Don’t miss out on this incredible opportunity. Please call for a private showing Mark Lipner Associate Broker Berkshire Hathaway Laffey International 516-298-8457 • mlipner@bhhslaffey.com

WOODMERE Generously proportioned, first-floor apartment in an elevator-equipped building in the heart of Woodmere.

This Co-op boasts three bedrooms, two full bathrooms. Lofty ceilings, spacious foyer, formal living area and dining space. Expansive kitchen with gas stove, microwave, dishwasher, washer-dryer. Hardwood floors provide an elegant touch, and the comfort of five air-conditioning units ensures year-round climate control. Three bedrooms, with the primary bedroom having en-suite full bathroom. Dedicated storage. Near shopping centers, railroad, dining and places of worship. Mark Lipner Associate Broker Berkshire Hathaway Laffey International 516-298-8457 mlipner@bhhslaffey.com

LAWRENCE Spacious 2BR, 2 Full Bath Apt with an enclosed terrace in the heart of Lawrence. Well maintained & manicured building. New hardwood floors, updated Eat-in Kitchen with gas stove. warming draw, dishwasher & microwave. New windows on the enclosed terrace & one of the bedrooms. 3 New A/C Units & New Refrigerator. Close to shopping, transportation, library, schools, and houses of worship. $339K Mark Lipner Associate Broker Berkshire Hathaway Laffey International 516-298-8457 mlipner@bhhslaffey.com

WOODMERE Well maintained 1 Bedroom apartment. Elevator Building. Pet Friendly, SD#14, Corner Unit, Bright + Sunny, Hardwood Floors, Eat-in Kitchen, Full Bathroom, 3 Closets, 2 Ceiling Fans, 1 A/C Unit, Full Time Super on Premises. Minutes from the Railroad, Shopping, Houses of Worship, and Laundry Room on Premises. Mark Lipner Associate Broker Berkshire Hathaway Laffey International 516-298-8457 • $175K

TJH Classifieds Post your Real Estate, Help Wanted, Services, Miscellaneous Ads here.

Weekly Classifieds Up to 5 lines and/or 25 words 1 week ................$20 2 weeks .............. $35 4 weeks .............. $60 Email ads to: classifieds@fivetownsjewishhome.com Include valid credit card info and zip code

Deadline Monday 5:00pm

CEDARHURST 1, 2 and 3 bedroom apartments, totally renovated private entrance , central air conditioning, hardwood floors, washer/dryer, garage parking, dishwasher, recessed lighting, private playground, close to railroad, park, shopping and houses of worship.

Call for more details Mark Lipner Associate Broker Berkshire Hathaway Laffey International 516-298-8457 mlipner@bhhslaffey.com

ISRAEL REAL ESTATE RAMAT BEIT SHEMESH G1 *Available this summer in RBSG1* 5 bedroom/4 bathroom (3 full- 1 half) 1st floor • Building w/ an elevator Quiet street • Close to bussing (local and to Yerushalayim) Across the street from a few different Shuls Walking to G1 Mercaz Available July 12 - Aug 9 with flexibility For more info WhatsApp 347-831-5128 or call 053-412-7194 VILLA IN RAMAT SHLOMO 5.5 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms, fully upgraded, sifria, 4 porches, private parking & 5 fully-furnished rental suites. 11.95 Million Shekel. i.dealhomes18@gmail.com 516-303-4450

LAWRENCE New to the market Jr. 4 apartment in an elevator building with a terrace and underground parking, laundry on premises. Kitchen with granite countertops, 2 sinks, ss appliances, spacious step down living room with high ceilings, guest room/ office, spacious primary bedroom with 3 closets, full bathroom with full vanity, medicine cabinet, toilet and lighting, custom blinds, near the railroad, shopping and houses of worship.$289K Mark Lipner Associate Broker Berkshire Hathaway Laffey International 516-298-8457 mlipner@bhhslaffey.com WOODMERE Totally renovated bright and sunny 1 bedroom corner unit apartment with a washer/dryer. Features quartz countertops, ss appliances, recessed lighting, bathroom with chrome fixtures, close to the railroads, shopping and houses of worship.

Call for details Mark Lipner Associate Broker Berkshire Hathaway Laffey International 516-298-8457 mlipner@bhhslaffey.com LAWRENCE One Bedroom Renovated Apartment In Prime Lawrence. Efficiency Kitchen, Renovated Bathroom.

Sunken LR, Dining Room, Close to All, Transportation, Shopping, Worship. $275k Mark Lipner Associate Broker Berkshire Hathaway Laffey International 516-298-8457 mlipner@bhhslaffey.com

Classifieds

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HELP WANTED

HELP WANTED

HELP WANTED

HELP WANTED

DELIVERY PERSON NEEDED to deliver Newspaper every Thursday morning to locations in Brooklyn. Must have Minivan or SUV and availability to work consistently every week!

Please e-mail gabe@fivetownsjewishhome.com or call (917) 299-8082

5 TOWNS BOYS YESHIVA Seeking Elem Gen Ed Teachers Excellent working environment and pay. Only lic/exp need apply.

Email resume to yeshivalooking@gmail.com

A YESHIVA IN QUEENS is looking for an experienced part/ full time secretary, 2-year-old morah, kindergarten morah, kindergarten morah assistant and Pre-1A English teacher for the 2022-2023 school year. Nice and timely pay. Please email resume to mshelt613@gmail. com or call/text 718-971-9799.

MDS REGIONAL NURSE 5 Towns area Nursing Home management office seeking a Regional/Corporate level MDS Nurse to work in our office.

Must be an RN. Regional experience preferred. 2-3 years MDS experience with good computer skills required.

Position is Full Time but Part Time can be considered.

Great Shomer Shabbos environment with some remote options as well.

Email: officejob2019@gmail.com

ORTHODOX SHUL IN Hewlett looking to hire a youth coordinator for Shabbat and Sunday.

Good opportunity for young couple to make extra income.

Please email to sch.shul@gmail.com SEEKING ELA TEACHER Teaching position for Gr. 6.

Mon.-Thurs., afternoon hours. Far Rockaway/5T area. Great salary, warm, supportive environment. Training in our curriculum is provided.

Teachersearch11@gmail.com

JOIN OUR TEAM! ABA company located in the 5 Towns looking to fill multiple full-time administrative positions Knowledge of Central Reach a plus, but will train the right candidate Great work environment Call 516-670-5374 or Email your resume to: Careers@supportivecareaba.com IMMEDIATE OPENING ELA teaching position for Gr. 5.

Mon.-Thurs., afternoon hours. Far Rockaway/5T area. Competitive salary, warm supportive environment.

Teachersearch11@gmail.com

BOOKKEEPER Excellent growth potential, Frum environment, Excellent salary & benefits. Email resume to: resumetfs1@gmail.com DEVELOPMENT ASSISTANT A multi-tasker needed for general office work. The ideal candidate is someone who is detail-oriented, responsible, and can take ownership.

Looking for someone who is eager to learn, and expand his/her skill set while possessing the ability to work independently and as part of a team.

Experience with Excel required. Five Towns location. In-office position only, not remote. Please send resume to 5tpart.timecareer@gmail.com

ACCOUNTANT With 2+ years experience to assist a nursing home back office company with financial statement preparation.

Great benefits & pay. Reach out to Lakewoodjobs@fcc-corp.com

MISC. SHMIRAS HALASHON Text 516-303-3868 with a time slot of your choice to be careful on lashon hara. Be a part of the 1,000 people for klal yisroel!

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The Jewish Home | NOVEMBER 9, 2023

Your

Money

Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?

By Allan Rolnick, CPA

W

hat’s the last thing you want to read about for fun, and why is it taxes?

Writing about taxes is easy. Every day, there’s something worth reporting. Someone is always introducing legislation. The IRS is always issuing regulations. The Tax Court is always issuing opinions. Several news outlets, including Bloomberg, Politico, and Law360, publish weekly or even daily roundups. The problem with all of them is that “snoozefest” would be a generous description.

Writing something fun about taxes is harder. Fortunately, there’s often something entertainingly tax-related in the current news, like Microsoft getting a 28.9$ billion IRS bill, or a celebrity tax cheat heading off to Club Fed. If not, we can look at the calendar and see what silly holiday we can cover with a tax angle. And every so often, there’s a story so compelling we just have to cover it, even if there’s no obvious tax hook, which brings us to this week’s story.

Technology has changed the way most of us do our work. Computers, robots, and videoconferencing have liberated millions of Americans from geography, letting them work from across town or even across the country. But some jobs stubbornly resist those changes. There’s no “Zoom massage therapist,” for example.

And while there are huge opportunities for cybercriminals, there are no Zoom cargo robbers.

Last week, federal prosecutors filed charges against four lowtech Philadelphia-area bandits. Six refrigerators mysteriously fell off the back of a truck, along with 60 cases of Jose Cuervo tequila, televisions, frozen meat, shrimp, and crab legs. But the real haul,

cious.) Another ran thousands through Coinstar machines, the same kind you use to turn the change in your couch cushions into an Amazon gift card.

Have you ever seen one of those slick movies where the criminal mastermind recruits a team of experts to pull off the perfect heist? The world’s best safecracker (who dropped out of MIT), the world’s best hacker (with a grudge against the

But the real haul, which they poached from a tractor-trailer in a Walmart parking lot, was more than two million dimes, worth $234,470.80.

which they poached from a tractor-trailer in a Walmart parking lot, was more than two million dimes, worth 234,470.80$.

Think about the practicalities here.

A dime weighs just 0.08 ounces. But two million dimes weigh over 11,000 pounds.

And how do you launder them into something remotely spendable? One of the mooks traded thousands of dollars worth through local banks. (Totally not suspi-

NSA), the former actress with the chip on her shoulder, and their equally flawed genius friends? Well, our Philly bandits obviously never saw those movies. They didn’t switch vehicles between jobs. They texted each other to brag about their exploits. One of them even kept his coin machine receipts!

So where do taxes come in? Section 61(a) of the code defines “gross income” as

“income from whatever source derived.”

That means our bandits are on the hook for reporting their haul. Section 63 provides that “taxable income” equals gross income minus specifically authorized deductions. Sadly, there’s no exception for “11,000 pounds of dimes that you pried out of a tractor-trailer that just left the Philadelphia Mint.”

On the bright side, Section 162 lets our felons deduct “ordinary and necessary” business expenses. Should they take the standard 65.5 cents/mile allowance on those trucks, they should have swapped out? Or would they be better off taking actual expenses? A good proactive planner could save them a buck or two!

Prosecutors haven’t filed tax charges here – the robberies happened earlier this year, so there’s no tax crime yet. Odds are good they won’t bother – at least one of the robbers will drop a dime on his fellows for a lighter sentence. More importantly, we’re here to help you make the most of all your legitimate business endeavors.

You know where to find us!

Allan J Rolnick is a CPA who has been in practice for over 30 years in Queens, NY. He welcomes your comments and can be reached at 718-896-8715 or at allanjrcpa@aol.com.

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Life C ach

NOVEMBER 9, 2023 | The Jewish Home

Nothing Like Teamwork Art by MichoeL MuchNik

By Rivki D. Rosenwald Esq., LMFT, CLC, SDS

M

assage it Medicate it.

Acupuncture it Sleep if you can get and forget it.

Swim if you can.

Ice it.

Heat it.

These are just a few things we do to make pain go away.

Sometimes, we ignore it, if it lets us, and then out of the blue, we discover it’s gone. Those are the dream cases. We love those! But barely can we bank on that!

Because often, we have no such luck.

We need to wrap ourselves around a solution.

One helpful solution often is to give it time. But who has time to give it time?!

Who wants a headache, a backache, a muscle ache, a pull, etc.? We want to feel good. Can we blame ourselves?

Sometimes, just getting out and walking helps a situation a lot. You start walking and things loosen up. So, you walk some more. And you feel a drop better.

You begin to think if you can keep walking you can walk away from it all. But, alas, obligations and realities hit, and the pressures bring awareness back to the aches again.

I’m not saying it’s just psychological, however, sometimes there is a psychological component operating, but who has time to explore that?!

We’ve got to get back to dealing with the immediate problems, therefore, the added components get pushed to second or third or fourth place. Though, it keeps occupying front and center in its own inimitable way.

What’s a human to do?

Pain is a pain! Ergo, the list I started

There’s nothing to help cure the body like a positive mindset.

No one likes to go around feeling off.

There’s so much we want to get done.

And suddenly, did you ever notice, it’s even more dire when we can’t get it done? Suddenly, even that broken faucet that was there for weeks bothers us more because we can’t just adjust it ourselves.

We need people more and they’re not always around to help or dare I imply, willing.

with. Of course, there are chiropractors and therapists, PTs, and OTs, and MDs and probably every other talented initial we can think of. The problem is sometimes pain just lingers and wants to run its course. And its course uses you as its depository!

What’s the healthiest solution?

Well, here’s a combo: • Listen to your body; it’s been

Rivki Rosenwald is a Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist working with both couples and individuals and is a certified relationship counselor. Rivki is a co-founder and creator of an effective Parent Management of Adolescent Years Program. She can be contacted at 917-7052004 or at rivkirosenwald@gmail.com.

with you for some time.

• Listen to your mommy; she usually has had years of experience.

• And finally, believe you’ll get better. There’s nothing to help cure the

body like a positive mindset. After all, body and mind were programmed from birth to work together.

• And, there’s nothing like teamwork!

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