Five Towns Jewish Home - 12-31-15

December 31 —January 6, 2016

Distributed weekly in the Five Towns, Long Island, Queens & Brooklyn

Your Favorite Five Towns Family Newspaper

Pesach Vacation Section Starts on Page 125 Pages 9, 10, 11, 13 & 15

94

YEAR IN REVIEW pg

Yeshiva Mercaz Hatorah of Belle Harbor: The Torah World’s Best Kept Secret pg Page 5

PAGE 26

– See pages 3 & 33

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DECEMBER 31, 2015 | The Jewish Home

& FivE TOWnS A Continuing Torah Partnership

‫בראש זקן הרבנים‬ ‫באזור חמש הערים‬ ‫ליותר מיובל שנה‬

‫הרב הגאון ר‘ בנימין‬ ‫קמנצקי שליט“א‬ ‫ ישיבה תורת חיים‬,‫ראש ישיבה‬

Committee:

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Shabbos Schedule : ‫אכסניא‬: mr. & mrs. aron solomon ‫מנחה וקבלת שבת‬: cong. aish kodesh · rav moshe weinberger ‫שליט“א‬ 894 woodmere place · 4:29 pm ‫סעודת שבת‬: mr. & mrs. steve landau · 45 derby avenue ‫עונג שבת‬: mr. & mrs. Yehuda Biber · 1016 crestwood road · 8:15 pm ‫דברי פתיחה‬: rav Zvi ralbag ‫שליט“א‬, rav cong. Bais ephraim Yitzchok ‫שחרית ומוסף‬: Bais medrash of cedarhurst · rav david spiegel ‫שליט“א‬ 504 west Broadway · 9:00 am ‫קידוש‬: kehilas Bais Yisroel · rav Berish friedman ‫שליט“א‬ 352 west Broadway · Sponsored by mr. & mrs. mendy haas ‫סעודת שבת‬: mr. & mrs. naftali Tepfer · 376 rugby road · dessert 2:00 pm ‫מנחה\סעודה שלישית‬: kehilas Bais Yehudah Tzvi rav Yaakov feitman ‫ · שליט“א‬391 oakland ave. · 4:00 pm ‫אבות ובנים‬: Yeshiva gedolah of the five Towns rav Yitzchok knobel ‫שליט“א‬, rosh kollel rav moshe Zev katzenstein ‫שליט“א‬, rosh Yeshiva 218 mosher avenue · 6:30 pm ‫דברי פתיחה‬: rav Yitzchok knobel ‫שליט“א‬ Yeshiva of south shore ‫ מוצאי שבת‬learning in khal anshei chesed: rav mordechai kamenetzky ‫שליט“א‬ rosh Yeshiva 1170 william street · 6:50 pm ‫דברי פתיחה‬: rav simcha lefkowitz ‫שליט“א‬ rav khal anshei chesed

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DECEMBER 31, 2015 | The Jewish Home

Dear Readers,

I

am barely comfortable writing 2015 on my checks and now the year is coming to a close. Looking back and reading through our Year in Review section, I realize that there weren’t many events that brought smiles to the world’s faces this year. That doesn’t mean that we weren’t happy in 2015; the happiness came from within despite the overwhelmingly harrowing events. I hope that 2016 will bring a calmer, more peaceful aura to the globe.

Some people have asked us why we have our Year in Review issue at the end of December. After all, we are a frum publication and we understand that the year for us as a People starts in Tishrei and ends in Elul. But if you look at the events that we highlight in our Year in Review section, these are global events. It would not be appropriate to highlight Donald Trump, the Mets and El Chapo the drug lord right before we head into Yom Hadin. No one wants to be reminded of Assad, Abbas and Kim Jong Un as we prepare to beseech our Creator. At that time, we look back at the year and consider how it was for us as a member of the Jewish nation – were we stringent in our mitzvos? Did we look out for our fellow brothers? Were we negligent in certain areas?

In Elul we examine our souls; in December we analyze what went on in the world around us.

You’ll notice when perusing the Year in Review section that there were some events that were highlighted, others that we downplayed and still others that were not mentioned at all. There are a number of reasons for that. First of all, a year is 365 days and a lot goes on every day. It’s obvious that we need to pare down the issues we cover and write about what we feel is most important for our readers to remember about 2015.

Additionally, although some pieces of news dominated the headlines almost daily, we hope that they don’t dominate your thoughts. Terror attacks, stabbings and murder were unfortunately too prevalent in 2015. We endeavored to remind you of the lighter side of the previous year to bring back some warm memories of the year that just passed.

Our readership is broad – from young readers to parents and grandparents and beyond. As a publication, we try to appeal everyone who will be reading our magazine. Some articles are meant for younger readers, others are meant for those who enjoy divrei Torah or history or cooking.

We hope that our Year in Review section does just that – provides a snapshot of the year for every reader of TJH. Wishing you and your families a wonderful week, 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 Berish Edelman Mati Jacobovits Design & Production Gabe Solomon Distribution & Logistics P.O. BOX 266 Lawrence, NY 11559 Phone | 516-734-0858 Fax | 516-734-0857

Classifieds

classifieds@fivetownsjewishhome.com text 443-929-4003 The Jewish Home is an independent weekly magazine.

Opinions expressed by writers are not neces­ sarily the opinions of the publisher or editor. The Jewish Home is not responsible for typographical errors, or for the kashrus of any product or business advertised within. The Jewish Home contains words of Torah. Please treat accordingly.

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The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 31, 2015

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DECEMBER 31, 2015 | The Jewish Home

Contents LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

8

COMMUNITY Readers’ Poll

8

Community Happenings

46

Yeshiva Mercaz Hatorah of Belle Harbor by Malky Lowinger

90

NEWS

110

Global

14

National

35

Odd-but-True Stories

41

2015 Year in Review

94

ISRAEL Israel News

23

PEOPLE The Heroes of Israel by Avi Heiligman

106

PARSHA Rabbi Wein

78

The Shmuz

80

JEWISH THOUGHT A Burden Shared by Eytan Kobre

82

Where the Sidewalk Ends by Rabbi Jonathan Gewirtz

84

JEWISH HISTORY The Incredible Story of Ignatz Timothy Trebitsch-Lincoln, Part IV By Rabbi Pini Dunner

86

HEALTH & FITNESS Due Diligence by Deb Hirschhorn, PhD

110

128

112

Calm Your Cravings by Aliza Beer FOOD & LEISURE

The Aussie Gourmet: Kosher on the Go 118

Dear Editor, In the amazing article, “They Light up the World,” one of the shluchas commented that it’s hard that her child doesn’t have friends because they live so far away. I would love to tell her that the grass is definitely not greener on the other side.

In my neighborhood, all the girls go to one school. My girls go to a different school. They could have so many friends their age right where they live. But they don’t. The girls aren’t friendly to them because they look at them as different. I try so hard to facilitate friendships and playdates but to no avail. I pray for someone to have the brains and/or the heart to be nice to my girls. I grew up in this exact same neighborhood and remember being their age and playing with girls on Shabbos from other schools or grades. Why is it the halacha now to only be nice to people who fit exactly into your box? When my girls are home playing with each other on Shabbos, it breaks my heart. Of course it’s a bracha that they have each other but I wish they can have friends in our neighborhood.

I thought this paper would be a good forum to get the message across. I beg anyone that reads this to please look around at your neighbors/people in shul – whether they’re children or adults – be sensitive and make a nice gesture if you think they can use it and include them.

Thank you, C.J.

Dear Editor, I enjoyed – as I always do – Rafi Sackville’s article on the underpinnings of Israeli systems. What struck me was the incongruity of his article on the bungling, perhaps irrational, machinations of the school system juxtaposed with the feel-good article

by Brendy J. Siev, “How The World Runs on Israeli Products and the Antidote to the BDS Movement.”

I don’t get it. Either Israel is light years ahead of the world – as this article clearly makes the case for – in science, technology, and medicine, or it’s not. The Sackville article combines with another bit in the News section on complaints about the postal system. What gives?

Sincerely, Deb H. Dear Editor, After reading some of the responses to the young married lady in the past week’s “Navidaters” column, I was speechless. How is it possible that when a young woman, looking for a constructive solution to repair her relationship with her husband and approaches to seek advice, the panel (almost unanimously) jumps to suggest that she might be in an abusive relationship and should act as such?

Before I continue, let me provide an illustrative analogy: Suppose I receive an email from someone seeking medical advice. The patient, who I Continued on page 12

LIFESTYLES Choose Your Weapon, Part II by Rabbi Mordechai Kruger

113

Dating Dialogue, Moderated by Jennifer Mann, LMSW

114

Your Money

140

How’s your Cup? by Rivki Rosenwald, Esq., CLC

142

HUMOR Centerfold Uncle Moishy Fun Page

76 132

POLITICAL CROSSFIRE Notable Quotes

120

Bipartisan Agreement on Education Comes at Cost to Students by Michael Gerson

126

Food fads: Make Mine Gluten-Full by Charles Krauthammer

130

CLASSIFIEDS

134

It’s almost 2016. Do you make New Year’s resolutions?

28

%

YES

77

%

NO

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 31, 2015

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DECEMBER 31, 2015 | The Jewish Home

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The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 31, 2015

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DECEMBER 31, 2015 | The Jewish Home

Continued from 8

have never met before, writes to me that he is having a cough for the last three days. Now let’s say I reply by email to this patient by diagnosing him with metastatic lung cancer, referring him for a lung transplant followed by two months of chemotherapy. Most laypeople would take one look and call it for what it is – gross malpractice.

The same applies here. The panelists have never met the young lady.

They never spoke to her or to her husband, nor do they know the exact details of the actual situation. As a matter of fact, she wrote that her first six months of marriage were wonderful... Yet, some of the panelists’ initial response was to falsely read into this distressing (but likely innocuous) scenario, putting unsaid words in her mouth, and suggesting to this poor woman that she is in an abusive relationship with a mentally-ill individual. Then, they suggest escalating a situation five steps down the correct algorithm instead of resolving it step-by-step. Hayitachein? This is malpractice – in the strongest, most severe sense.

As an internist, I personally would defer to a psychiatrist before formally

making such a diagnosis as Bipolar Disease or OCD, even in a patient I know. Dear Mother/PA, the letter sets “alarm bells and sirens” in your head – is that how you arrive at your diagnosis? As a PA on this panel and having this specific question posed to you, merely suggesting such life-altering illness without having met the person is “Man-with-a-Hammer” Syndrome (“To a man with a hammer, everything becomes a nail”) – both destructive and unprofessional.

Do the panelists not realize what havoc and destruction they create between a couple when even merely suggesting that she is in an abusive relationship with a mentally-ill husband?

How will they answer the Eibishter after 120 when they find a destroyed Jewish home and destroyed lives of two individuals, a result of their very own pen? This is a matter of Deenei Nefashos.

To the young lady: By virtue that you have posed your question to the panelists, it is clear that you are seeking a true solution. I don’t know you or your husband, but consider the following: There are many changes that take place within a young man’s mind between his engagement until he has

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his first child. You married a young yeshiva bochur; he learned in yeshiva and absorbed many values, however, those values weren’t very relevant in his life until recently. Even while you were engaged, issues of chinuch were merely hypothetical and non-material. Then, a few months into his marriage, it suddenly hits him: He’s a head of the household, responsible for the physical, emotional, and spiritual health of his future children.

He shares the same values as you do: bringing up a family in a warm, Torah’dik, and Tznius’dik environment.

In trying to prepare his future family, he perceives (whether rightfully or wrongfully) that reading contemporary novels poses an obstacle to the vision which you both share. He wants to remove that obstacle…and that’s where he goes wildly wrong.

He doesn’t know how to address the topic with you, because he doesn’t have that much experience as a married man. That’s normal – you’ve only been married for 6 months! So instead of sitting down and addressing his concerns and fears with you, he makes demands. That is a big mistake on his part, but it can be fixed; in most likelihood, there is nothing pathologically wrong with him. He truly needs to learn how to communicate, but so do most young men (and women); not only at the beginning of their relationship, but throughout their lives! As Young Shadchan wrote, bring him under your umbrella. Ask him what his concerns are. Remind him (adamantly but gently) that you have been reading these novels for a long time, and probe him as to what it means to him. Maybe you can reach a solution – perhaps keeping these novels in your bedroom, out of the reach of children.

Obviously, if all fails, then turning to family and professional help (marital counseling first, not a psychiatrist!) will be the next step. However, the way you describe your relationship with your husband during your first six months sounds great; in most likelihood it can continue for the rest

of your lives.

May Hashem grant you and your husband with many decades of happiness, harmony, nachas, and growth together!

All the best, Yehuda Montjuich, MD Dear Editor, Although I don’t live in the Five Towns area, I eagerly anticipate receipt of your weekly publication.

Each week I am inspired.

Last week you paid tribute to the Chabad shluchos.

The Rebbe, zy”a, recognized the importance of the akeret habayit, stressing that building a firm Jewish foundation for her family is of the utmost importance while simultaneously reaching beyond the borders of home and hearth to connect with any Jew with whom she meets.

Having grown up frum but not Chabad, I learned from the Rebbe that there is more that unites than divides one Jew from another. The outstanding outreach of the Rebbe’s shluchim and shluchos is a testament to that truth.

As the proud mother of shluchim and shluchos, I am sending your most recent article as well as your outstanding tribute to them, to my children.

Yasher koacha! May you go mei’chayil el choyil!

Sincerely, Mrs. Penina Metal Crown Heights Dear Editor, I am a longtime reader to your paper, The Jewish Home. I really enjoy how this newspaper is really dedicated to Judaism and Eretz Yisrael. However, recently in the past two weeks, I have noticed that in the political section, the newspaper likes to post garbage about Trump. I am a college student who is a big supporter of Trump. As someone who knows and read up on Trump, I know that Trump is very fond of Israel and the Jews. It really bothers me that the

Views expressed on the Letters to the Editor page do not necessarily reflect the views of The Jewish Home.

Please send all correspondence to editor@fivetownsjewishhome.com.

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 31, 2015

one politician who said straight up in an interview with CNN that “the Jews have always been great to me” has the Jewish newspapers against him. I understand that not everyone is a supporter, however I would really appreciate if the newspaper could focus more on the politician’s view on Israel as this is a Jewish newspaper, not the New York Post or The New York Times. I am just asking you to please look into all the politicians’ policies towards Israel before you blindly support them. I really want what is best for Israel and the Jews and Donald Trump’s daughter married a Jewish guy!

I just want to express my concerns because I think that a lot of readers care about how the candidates view Israel and I think this should really be The Jewish Home’s main focus.

Thank you for your time, Jacob Roffe Dear Editor, I am writing as a “regular reader,” and I particularly appreciated this week’s “Super Soups” recipes because they did not have any sugar. You may think, “Well, of course soup doesn’t have sugar,” but that’s not so pashut.

I wouldn’t think that any main course should or would have sugar – why does it belong there? But nevertheless, in the past, recipes for ribs, chili, fish, chicken and soup all have had sugar. This week’s chicken Marsala has sugar. And not just a tablespoon here or there, but cups-full have been in past recipes.

I’m hoping that future recipes will have a balanced selection of sugar-free recipes (and please, no substitutes either). Incidentally, I’m not saying this because it’s known to be unhealthy but simply because I don’t care for the taste. Sugar seems to obscure the fresh and wonderful tastes of the vegetables, fruits, and enjoyable ingredients.

Sincerely, Dr. Deb Hirschhorn Dear Editor, Donald Trump’s proposed temporary moratorium on Muslim immigration into the U.S. has encountered rigid excoriation from both the political left and right. Though not personally a Trump enthusiast, it behooves me to defend his proposal on its legal and constitutional merits and to rebuff the arguments of his detractors.

It appears, in the first instance, that Trump’s ban strictly pertains to non-citizen Muslims presently residing in and foreign Muslims seeking

admittance to the U.S. Pursuant to the Plenary Power Doctrine, Congress retains unadulterated discretion on matters pertinent to immigration, and is virtually immune from judicial review—the power of the courts invested with such authority to invalidate legislative and executive actions if they violate constitutional law; and strict scrutiny—where courts presume that laws or government actions are unconstitutional, the burden is on the government to provide a “strong basis in evidence” proving both that the law achieves a “compelling” national interest, and must have narrowly tailored the law to achieve that interest. Trump’s ban merely adheres to years of legal precedent of immigration restrictions imposed by Congress which the Supreme Court, by no means, had declared unconstitutional. For instance, Congress passed the Immigration Act of 1924, which perscribed immigration quotas on Eastern and Southern Europeans, Africans, Asians and Arabs. These laws particularly impeded the migration of Italians, many of whom were accused of collusion with the Mafia; and the Chinese, who were deemed “inassimilable.” On account of the 1979 Iranian Revolution, President Jimmy Carter as well temporarily hindered Iranian immigration into the U.S. In fact, federal law expressly mandates (Section 1101(a) (42)(A) of Title, US Code) that the executive branch considers religion as an immigration factor. Indeed, Trump’s concern is derived from the notion that too many Muslims harbor the proposition that either Sharia law should supersede American Constitutional Law, or Israel should be eradicated, or that it is fine to murder non-Muslims or wage jihad against Americans. Trump has noted, however, that ascertaining which Muslims endorse or repudiate any of the aforesaid anti-American and anti-Israel sentiments constitutes an extremely arduous and onerous task; employing an ideological or religious test as determinants are presently our only legal recourse. Thus, in accordance with constitutional and federal law, Trump has proposed a temporary ban on Muslim immigration until the federal government, and the various federal agencies charged with executing our immigration laws can adequately reckon the confounding and precarious national-security situation at hand.

Sincerely, Rafi Metz

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The Week In News

Rags and Riches around the World

While North America is home to just 4.9% of the world’s population, it accounts for 24.7% of the world’s wealth. That doesn’t leave much left over for the rest of the world. In South Asia, though, there is the opposite problem. The region is home to 23.7% of the global population but owns just 3.3% of global wealth.

There are multiple ways to mea-

sure the wealth of a country.

The most common way to measure the wealth of the country is its gross domestic product (GDP) and gross national income (GNI). GDP is a measure of the market value of all goods and services produced within a country. GNI includes GDP as well as the net income of the country’s residents obtained outside the country’s borders. If an entrepreneur from San Francisco owns a factory in Mexico, for example, the factory’s profits would be included in the GNI, but not the GDP, of the United States.

While the wealth variation among countries and regions is a complex issue, there are certain commonalities amongst the 10 wealthiest countries.

They all have abundant reserves of oil, which they export as their primary economic activity, although this is certainly not a replicable business model. Qatar, the world’s wealthiest country, has the world’s ninth largest proven oil reserves. Through trade, oil accounts for a majority of Qatar’s economy.

Many wealthy countries, particularly in Western Europe, have balanced, diversified, and open economies. They maintain a slight trade surplus, heavily exporting and im-

porting a variety of products to nearby countries. They also take advantage of any natural resources at their disposal. Some wealthy countries make up for a lack of natural resources by developing highly specialized economies.

There are also several predispositions to poverty. Almost all of the world’s poorest countries are in sub-Saharan Africa, mired in political turmoil and violent conflict. Despite infertile land, their economies are largely based on agriculture.

Many run trade deficits, exporting low-value agricultural and mineral products in exchange for costly necessities. Some poorer countries rely heavily on foreign aid, a dependence which can hinder long-term economic development.

Going into 2016, what are the world’s wealthiest countries?

1. Qatar 2. Luxemburg 3. Singapore 4. Brunei Darussalam 5. Kuwait 6. Norway 7. United Arab Emirates 8. Honk Kong 9. United States 10. Switzerland

The ten poorest countries in the world are: 1. Central African Republic 2. Congo, Dem. Rep. 3. Malawi 4. Liberia 5. Burundi 6. Niger 7. Mozambique 8. Eritrea 9. Guinea 10. Madagascar

Saudi Prince Gives Lyft a Lift

Ridesharing service Lyft is getting a huge investment from a Saudi prince. Kingdom Holding Co., which

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DECEMBER 31, 2015 | The Jewish Home

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is 95 percent owned by billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, has invested $104.9 million in the San Francisco-based startup. The investment is equivalent to a 2.3 percent stake.

Kingdom Holding invested $31 million in a capital increase and spent $73.9 million to acquire preferred shares from other investors, it said in a statement. The statement did not identify the co-investors. Lyft announced an expansion of its alliances with Asian partners earlier this month, increasing its challenge to rival Uber.

Lyft is valued at $2.5 billion, while Uber has become one of the world’s most valuable startups, worth an estimated $50 billion. Kingdom Holding’s diversified interests range from the Euro Disney theme park and Four Seasons hotels to News Corporation and Citigroup. The Saudi tycoon and his firm also became Twitter’s second-largest shareholders in October.

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TORAH KNIGHTS OF KLAL YISROEL

Malaysia now has an Islamic airline. Rayani Air offers flights that adhere to Islamic rules, including prayers, no serving of alcohol or non-Halal food, and a strict dress code for Muslim female flight attendants.

The idea for Rayani Air grew out of much-publicized complaints by religious Muslims who believed that two major air disasters for the national Malaysia Airlines — Flight 370 that went missing in March 2014 and Flight 17 downed a few months later over Ukraine — were caused by “Allah’s wrath.� Their solution: Airlines must adopt strict Islamic customs to avoid divine retribution.

The reaction to the disasters, and the creation of the airline, is an example of rising hardline Islamic values in Malaysia, where Muslims account for about 60 percent of the country’s 30 million people. “We are answering the call of many Malaysians

who wanted an Islamic airline,� said Rayani’s managing director, Jaafar Zamhari. “We are not talking about being a holy airline or flying to holy destinations. We just want to provide an alternative to travelers, but we are open to all races and religions.�

Ironically, the people who answered the call of conservative Islam and started Rayani Air are Hindus.

The founders of the airline, which currently flies to three domestic destinations using two Boeing 737s, are Ravi Alagendrran and his wife, Karthiyani Govindan. They used parts of their first names for the airline’s name.

Rayani Air is the fourth Islamic airline in the world after Royal Brunei Airlines, Saudi Arabian Airlines and Iran Air.

Anti-Semitism, Anti-Israel Rampant in Sweden

Sweden is home to about 15,000 Jews. But anti-Semitism in Sweden is bourgeoning. Jehoshua Kaufman, head of communications for MalmÜ’s Jewish community, recalls walking one chilly fall day past a group of Arabs chanting, “Death to the Jewsâ€? and “More stabbingsâ€? in MalmĂś, Sweden’s third largest city. Perhaps the most puzzling fact about this incident was that Swedish politicians, including two parliament members, were present at the protest.

After Israel’s ambassador to Sweden, Isaac Bachman, condemned the event, the politicians distanced themselves, claiming they had not understood the meaning of the Arabic slogans. Kaufman questions how such an event had been permitted to take place, and why the politicians had not demanded a translation of the chants. “The politicians could have left and said, ‘We don’t know what you are saying, but we won’t participate

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 31, 2015

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DECEMBER 31, 2015 | The Jewish Home

unless we know what you are saying,’” he points out.

Hate crimes against Jews are on the rise in Sweden, with 2014 seeing a 38 percent increase in reported anti-Semitic incidents from the previous year, according to a report by the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention.

“Right now, a lot of Jews in Swe-

den are scared. Parents are scared to drop off their kids at the Jewish preschool,” Johanna Schreiber, a prominent Jewish journalist who lives in the country’s capital, Stockholm, relates. “People of all ages are scared of going to synagogue. There are many people who are taking off their Stars of David because they are too scared to wear it.”

Last month Schreiber received hateful comments and was targeted for identity theft after publishing an article where she called out political groups for not inviting Jewish organizations to ceremonies across Sweden commemorating Kristallnacht. The response by organizers was that Jews might not feel safe at the event.

According to residents, express-

ing pro-Israel rhetoric can be dangerous, and the police do not always provide proper protection at pro-Israel events. During a 2009 rally in Malmö organized by Kaufman, the small crowd of Israel supporters was forced to abandon the event after police were unable to stop thousands of pro-Palestinian backers from storming the barricades and running towards the group.

When asked whether he anticipates a similar turn of events were he to organize another rally today, Kaufman says: “Absolutely.”

The Swedish government is led by the left-wing Social Democratic Party under Prime Minister Stefan Löfven.

The party is known for its faithful support of the Palestinian cause and criticism of Israel. In 2014, the country became the first European Union member state to recognize the State of Palestine. More recently, Foreign Minister Margot Wallström was slammed by Israel for suggesting that the motivation for last month’s terrorist attacks in Paris, during which Islamist terrorists killed 130 people, stemmed from the frustration of Palestinians.

Wallström also suggested that Israel’s response to terrorism is “disproportionate,” and equated the Jewish state’s killing of Palestinian attackers with “extrajudicial executions.”

“When I say something [positive] regarding Israel I get a flood of hate mail and threats,” Hanif Bali, a member of parliament for the center-right Moderate Party, the largest party in the opposition bloc, says. Bali is of Iranian Muslim heritage. “The senders range from Palestinian or Arab immigrants to left-wing people in general, so the dialogue is very polarized and very aggressive. It’s hard to talk about the issue because you have to pay such a high price for it.

“People write openly anti-Semitic things to you, like ‘Jew lover,’ and ‘Jew swine’… crude anti-Semitic insults, even though I am not even Jewish. I can only imagine what it would be like if a Jew said something on the issue. There are a lot of Jewish people who contact me and thank me for supporting Israel publicly because they are not able to do so themselves, since the anti-Semitism that is expressed against them is so much stronger,” he explained.

Pro-Palestinian groups are eligible to receive governmental funds to conduct lobbying activities, further ingraining their perspective as part

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 31, 2015

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of the government’s official stance.

When Bali was asked if he could imagine a pro-Israel group getting access to such funds, he answered: “I think that would be very, very difficult. I cannot imagine that it could happen.”

Reunited with her Grandmother – 39 Years Later

After 39 years of searching, the long-lost granddaughter of a founder of an Argentine rights group that fights to find babies stolen by the 1976-1983 military dictatorship has been found. Clara Anahi Mariani, who was abducted at three months old when regime agents killed her mother, is the 120th stolen baby to be found since her grandmother, Maria

“Chicha” Mariani, helped found the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo to look for the lost children.

Mariani helped create the foundation in 1989. Between 1976 and 1983, an estimated 500 babies were stolen

by Argentina’s military regime. The regime would regularly abduct, torture, and kill its opponents and suspected sympathizers. Some 30,000 people were killed or “disappeared” during the dictatorship. Babies born in captivity to political prisoners or orphaned by assassinations were given to families sympathetic to the regime.

The case of Clara Anahi drew international attention through a series of open letters that Mariani, who is nearly blind, had written her.

“My dream, at 91 years old, is to hug you and recognize myself in your eyes.... The greatest wish that keeps me going is for us to find each other at last.”

Clara Anahi was abducted by a police officer on November 24, 1976, when regime agents killed her mother, Diana Teruggi de Mariani, in a raid on their house in the town of La Plata, 60 kilometers outside of Buenos Aires. Diana was a member of the Montoneros, a leftist guerrilla

group that opposed the regime.

In 2012, former dictators Jorge Videla, who has since died, and Reynaldo Bignone were sentenced to 50 years and 15 years in prison, respectively, over the regime’s theft of babies.

Saddam’s Missing Stolen Fortune Check your wallet and you might find some money that was stolen by Saddam Hussein.

When Hussein was still in power, he stole around $1 billion from the Central Bank of Iraq – without firing one bullet. On March 18, 2003, one day before American cruise missiles began to rain down on the Iraqi capital, three large trucks pulled up to the Central Bank and loaded a steady stream of metal boxes filled with $900 million in U.S. hundred dollar bills and $100 million in euros. The heist didn’t require guns or explosives, only a handwritten note handed to the bank’s governor insisting that the extraordinary measure was necessary to prevent the money from falling into foreign hands.

The man delivering the signed note was Qusay Hussein, the head of Iraqi security forces. The signatory of the note was his father and the soon-to-be-deposed Iraqi dictator, Saddam Hussein. But despite Saddam’s best efforts, the truckloads of cash did eventually fall into foreign hands.

It was not surprising Saddam felt he could treat his country’s cash reserves as his own private piggy bank. The megalomaniac had consolidated his power and surrounded himself with yes-men to such a degree that nobody dared challenge him. So when Saddam, who had wrongly assumed that the Americans would never invade Iraq, made the last-minute demand for $1 billion, no one at the Central Bank requested a legitimate financial rationale for the withdrawal. “When you get an order from Saddam Hussein, you do not discuss it,” said an unidentified Iraqi official.

As it turns out, Saddam was not as good at hiding things – including himself – as his reputation implied.

Even before the U.S. had learned of Saddam’s bank heist, American troops had discovered hundreds of aluminum boxes, each containing

about $4 million in hundred dollar bills, at one of Saddam’s palaces. The money was secretly flown to Kuwait, where military personnel were busy counting it.

When John Taylor, the U.S. Treasury Department’s undersecretary for international affairs, learned of the money, he pressed top administration officials in the Situation Room to return the funds to where they rightfully belonged at the Central Bank. But the White House and Pentagon decided to keep the money and have the newly created Coalition Provisional Authority distribute it to military commanders on the ground to use as they saw fit.

Over the next few years, the $100 bills were doled out rather indiscriminately, and Saddam’s ill-gotten gains, along with the billions of dollars of shrink-wrapped cash that U.S. planes flew into Iraq, became one of the American soldiers’ greatest temptations. “The money quickly began to disappear into the rucksacks and footlockers of the officers and enlisted personnel who had access to it,” James Risen chronicles in his new book Pay Any Price. “[S]ome was mailed home to wives and girlfriends. The stealing in Iraq reached epic proportions.”

Soon, pieces of Saddam’s stash started turning up in places like Yuma, Arizona, where the FBI found 91 deposits (totaling more than $440,000) made by Maj. Mark Richard Fuller, a Marine assigned to count cash in Fallujah. Army Capt.

Michael Nguyen, in charge of dispensing money in Anbar province, made close to $700,000 disappear, drawing suspicion when he paid cash for a Hummer and a BMW after returning home to Oregon. All told, around 35 U.S. service members were convicted of such theft between 2004 and 2008, and, according to Risen, “the biggest thieves have been far more elusive.”

“Intensified Efforts” to Negotiate Peace in Syria The United Nations is attempting to convene peace talks between Syria’s government and opposition on January 25. The death of opposition chief Zahran Alloush appeared to derail a plan to evacuate thousands of

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 31, 2015

jihadists and civilians from southern Damascus. Alloush, 44, was the commander of Jaish al-Islam (Army of Islam), the predominant opposition faction in the Eastern Ghouta rebel bastion east of Damascus.

The group has remained firmly opposed to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and to the Islamic State jihadist group. A senior member of Jaish al-Islam said planes had targeted a “secret meeting” of commanders, confirming Alloush was among those killed. Syria’s regime claimed responsibility for his death, which was seen as dealing a heavy blow to the nearly five-year uprising and also complicating the fragile peace process.

UN special envoy Staffan de Mistura’s office said he has “intensified efforts” to convene talks on January 25, hopefully including the “broadest possible spectrum” of opposition representatives. He “counts on full cooperation of all the relevant Syrian parties in this process,” his statement said, adding: “Continuing developments on the ground should not be allowed to derail it.”

Syria’s conflict erupted in 2011 with anti-government protests but has spiraled into a multi-sided civil war. The talks are the first step of an ambitious 18-month plan endorsed by the UN Security Council to end Syria’s war, which has killed more than 250,000 people.

correspondent for French news magazine L’Obs, wrote an essay, “flagrantly championed acts of terrorism and acts of cruelly killing innocents, triggering the Chinese people’s outrage,” said the foreign ministry statement.

Citing her failure to make a “serious apology to the Chinese people,” the statement said, “It is not suitable for her to continue working in China.” It added, “China will never support the freedom to champion terrorism.”

But people expressed confusion over their own purported indignation, as most had not read or even heard of Gauthier’s article, which has no Chinese-language version and remains inaccessible on the mainland’s censored internet in its original French. Many on social media platforms have expressed outrage as most have never heard of the journalist or read her work.

Entitled “After the attacks [on Paris], Chinese solidarity is not without ulterior motives,” Gauthier’s article spoke of China’s anti-terrorism policies in the country’s western region of Xinjiang. Xinjiang is often hit by deadly unrest and China blames the violence on Islamist separatists, but rights groups point to Beijing’s own actions as a driver.

If Gauthier’s press card is not renewed, she cannot apply for a new visa, forcing her to leave China.

Gauthier would be the first foreign correspondent to be expelled since the 2012 expulsion of Melissa Chan, a correspondent for Al Jazeera.

While the domestic media in China is subject to strict control and many topics are taboo, the foreign media is free to publish on any topic. However, foreign journalists frequently complain of harassment by the authorities while conducting routine reporting.

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ten years, tech-savvy Sweden has become hooked on the convenience of paying by app and plastic. The country, home to the music streaming service Spotify and the maker of the Candy Crush mobile games, has been lured by the innovations that make digital payments easier. It is also a practical matter, as many of the country’s banks no longer accept or dispense cash.

But not everyone is embracing the change. Sweden’s love of electronic payments has alarmed consumer organizations and critics who warn of a rising threat to privacy and increased vulnerability to sophisticated Internet crimes. Last year, the number of electronic fraud cases surged to 140,000, more than double the amount a decade ago, according to Sweden’s Ministry of Justice.

Older adults and refugees in Sweden who use cash may be marginalized, critics say. And young people who use apps to pay for everything or take out loans via their mobile phones risk falling into debt. “It might be trendy,” said Bjorn Eriksson, a former director of the Swedish police force and former president of Interpol. “But there are all sorts of risks when a society starts to go

cashless.”

Advocates, though, cite personal safety as a reason that countries should go cash-free. Mr. Ulvaeus switched to using only card and electronic payments after his son’s Stockholm apartment was burglarized twice several years ago. “There was such a feeling of insecurity,” said Mr. Ulvaeus, who carries no cash at all. “It made me think: What would happen if this was a cashless society, and the robbers couldn’t sell what they stole?”

Cards are still king in Sweden – with nearly 2.4 billion credit and debit transactions in 2013, compared with 213 million 15 years earlier. But even plastic is facing competition, as a rising number of Swedes use apps for everyday commerce. At more than half of the branches of the country’s biggest banks, including SEB, Swedbank, Nordea Bank and others, no cash is kept on hand, nor are cash deposits accepted. They say they are saving a significant amount of money on security by removing the incentive for bank robberies.

The government has not sought to stem the cashless tide. If anything, it has benefited from more efficient tax collection, because electronic trans-

actions leave a trail; in countries like Greece and Italy, where cash is still heavily used, tax evasion remains a big problem.

Sweden’s love of “tech money” has even spread to churches where members text donations, and in Stockholm, many homeless people use credit card readers to panhandle.

Can India and Pakistan Come to Terms?

For the first time in over a decade, the prime ministers of India and Pakistan have come together for a meeting. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi made a surprise stopover in Pakistan to meet Nawaz Sharif last week. The visit, requested by Modi just hours earlier before he flew back home from Afghani-

stan, raised hopes that stop-andstart negotiations between the nuclear-armed neighbors might finally make progress after three wars and more than 65 years of hostility.

Sharif hugged Modi after he landed at the airport in the eastern city of Lahore and the two left by helicopter for Sharif’s nearby family estate.

Modi phoned Sharif earlier in the day to wish him well on his birthday and asked if he could make a stop in Pakistan on his way home. “Among the decisions taken was that ties between the two countries would be strengthened and also people-to-people contact would be strengthened so that the atmosphere can be created in which the peace process can move forward,” a spokesman said.

The Lahore visit comes after India and Pakistan resumed high-level contacts with a brief conversation between Sharif and Modi at climate change talks in Paris late last month, part of efforts to restart a peace dialogue plagued by militant attacks and long-standing distrust. A close aide to Modi said the visit was a spontaneous decision by the prime minister and National Security Adviser Ajit Doval, and that it should not be seen as a sudden shift in India’s position.

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“But yes, it’s a clear signal that active engagement can be done at a quick pace,” the aide admitted.

France’s WWII Nazi Collaboration Revealed

Between 1940 and 1944, French police and paramilitary organizations worked closely with Nazi officials to round up tens of thousands of Jews and send them to their death.

Countless documents revealing the hidden details of the collaboration of France’s Vichy Regime, led by Marshal Philippe Petain, with their Nazi occupiers during the Holocaust have now become publicly available.

Kept secret for 75 years, the documents include harrowing stories of how French Jews were betrayed as well as the names of these Nazi collaborators. Nearly 76,000 French Jews, mainly from major cities including Paris, were deported during the war. All but an approximate 3,000 were killed in the extermination camps.

The newly opened archives can be “freely consulted” by civil servants and historical researchers “subject to the declassification of documents covered by national defense secrecy rules.”

The directive comes six years after France’s Council of State ruled the Vichy government also bore “responsibility” for the deportations and that anti-Semitic persecution was not forced upon the French

by Germany but rather carried out by choice. At the time, the Council urged a “solemn recognition of the state’s responsibility and of collective prejudice suffered” by the victims.

Post-war French governments had earlier refused to admit any wrongdoing by the Vichy government during the Holocaust.

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Plea Deal for Rock-Throwing Murderers

A plea bargain has been arranged by the attorneys of the five terrorists who hurled rocks at the Biton family car in 2013 and critically wounded two-year-old baby Adelle, ultimately resulting in her death two years later.

The plea finds them all guilty of manslaughter – not murder – and they will serve 15 years in Israeli prison.

Each of them will also pay 30,000 shekels to the Biton family.

Adelle was critically wounded when the family car was attacked outside the city of Ariel by Arab terrorists, who hurled rocks at the vehicle and caused it to veer off the road and crash headfirst into a truck. The fist-sized rock struck Adelle directly in the head, leaving the two-year-old baby critically wounded and in mortal danger. Doctors said her recovery from the blow was nothing short of miraculous.

Adelle had been in and out of the hospital for two years following the attack in a grueling rehabilitation period, and died in February of this year after her condition deteriorated rapidly from a bout of pneumonia.

Adele’s mother, Dr. Adva Biton, responded on her Facebook page to the plea bargain, writing, “So unfortunately it ended in a plea bargain of 15 years!!! For the murderers of my wonderful Adelle. The legal system of the State of Israel prefers to disconnect itself from the reality on the ground.”

Biton said that throughout the trial of the five terrorists, there was a concern that the court would claim that there was no causal connection between the rock attack and Adelle’s death. “This is a delusional arguContinued on page 27

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The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 31, 2015

ment; we preferred to accept the plea bargain rather than going for broke, in light of the legal precedents in our country when it comes to enforcement of laws against rock throwers,” she explained.

The bereaved mother criticized the fact that the terrorists will be convicted only of manslaughter. “How much longer will this continue? So many cases, so many casualties. We frequently witness incidents of rock throwing that result in death. Alexander Levlovich who died from a rock thrown at him last Erev Rosh Hashanah, Yonatan and Asher Palmer and others. In these cases too there is no causal connection! What a disgrace!!!

Unfortunately, every day in our country people are murdered for nationalistic reasons. A nation which wants to live must protect itself. We must act these days as we do in times of war,” wrote Adelle’s heartbroken mother.

Weapons Found in Falafel Stand Weapons sweeps in East Jerusalem have uncovered two pipe bombs,

bullet magazines and ammunition in a falafel stand. Police removed the weapons from the stand located on Sultan Suleiman Street. The owner of the fast food stand, a resident of the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Wadi al-Joz, was taken away for questioning.

suspect in the case.

Jerusalem District Commander Moshe Edri said the police operation to uncover the weapons, which were “likely to be used for terror or criminal activities,” prevented a “serious attack on innocent people and the security forces.” Officers continued to sweep the area for more weapons with a focus on Ras al-Amoud, police said.

Longest Life Expectancy for Charedim Police said that as part of the ongoing operations against crime and terror, weapons searches were carried out at two places in East Jerusalem.

In the courtyard of a house in Ras alAmoud, also in East Jerusalem, police found arms wrapped in plastic bags and buried in the ground. The cache included six pipe bombs, two stun grenades, a Carl Gustav submachine gun, magazines and ammunition. The owner of the home was arrested as a

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Good news for charedim in Israel. According to the Taub Institute’s annual reports, residents of cities that have a high concentration of “ultra-Orthodox” Jews have a much higher life expectancy than expected based on their socioeconomic status.

The report showed that the vast majority – 73.6 percent – of charedim defined their health as “very good,” compared to 50 percent among other population segments. 18.7 percent reported suffering from health problems – compared to double or more that rate among other populations.

Further research showed a relationship between reporting good health and high social capital. This supports a belief that the charedi communities in Israel have high social capital and a sense of better health. The relatively high social capital manifests in a proliferation of friendships, high satisfaction from family relationships, a supportive social system, and community volunteer work.

The report found that the average life expectancy among charedi men was about three years higher than would be expected based on their socioeconomic status. For women, life expectancy was two-and-a-half years

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DECEMBER 31, 2015 | The Jewish Home

higher than expected.

The Taub researchers did speculate that the findings may be related to charedi social norms, which do not encourage complaining.

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1st Sgt. Izzy Ezagui struggles with daily life because he is missing a limb.

Ezagui lost his arm in combat but that didn’t force him to retire.

The determined soldier overcame seemingly insurmountable bureaucratic obstacles and got a posting on a base in the Negev. Ezagui is the only combat soldier with an amputation to serve as an officer in the Israel Defense Forces reserves. For him, returning to the army meant proving to himself that his life could still be the same even with a single arm.

Seven years after his injury, Ezagui travels around the United States advocating for Israel’s moral standing and giving motivational speeches about overcoming injury.

He says his most challenging task yet has been to convince the IDF to allow back on the battlefields.

“When I woke up [after the attack], everything was difficult,” Ezagui said. “Whether by force or innovation, there was always a solution waiting for me. I imagined that would translate to combat as well.”

Ezagui, 27, is actually an American citizen. He grew up in a Chabad community in central Florida, moved to Israel with his family in 2007 and enlisted in the IDF in 2008. He was stationed on the southern border that December, about to take part in Israel’s invasion of the Gaza Strip, when a mortar shell hit him, knocking him out and ripping off his dominant left arm.

Ezagui said he resolved to fight again in the army shortly after wak-

ing up at the Soroka Medical Center in Beersheva. He is a whole-hearted Zionist and feels a deep obligation to serve his country and his people. But he said his main motivation for returning to the IDF was a desire to restore his old life as much as possible.

“I feel whole when I’m back,” he said. “I don’t feel held back because of what happened, but I thought for sure I would never see combat again.”

When Ezagui was recovering in the hospital, many officers visited him and he begged each one of them to assist him in getting back into uniform. There responses were all the same: it would be impossible – until he met Maj. Gen. (res.) Yoav Galant, then head of the IDF Southern Command. Galant took Ezagui’s aspirations seriously, and pushed his request through IDF bureaucracy.

“Not just getting back into the army, but getting into the army as a combat soldier would be something illogical,” said Galant, who is now Israel’s housing minister. “But he was determined, with a lot of willpower.”

About a year after his injury, in December 2009, the IDF agreed to reinstate Ezagui on one condition: That he pass all the tests combat soldiers take during their training – no modifications, no exceptions. Ordinary privates get eight months to pass the tests; Ezagui got just one.

“I made sure to come off very secure in the fact that it would work, and I’m pretty sure I fooled everyone,” he said. “I probably fooled myself too.”

As part of the test Ezagui was required to climb a rope and throw a grenade. He lived on an army base while he trained and climbed a rope outside a cafeteria before every meal.

To unpin his grenade with one hand, Ezagui wrapped scotch tape around the pin and pulled it out with his teeth. He learned to load his rifle with one hand. “If I kept pressing, that darkness would dissipate, and I was boosted with adrenaline,” Ezagui said. “I was shooting better because of the injury. I was seeing the target clearer. Time was slowing down.

What started out as a flaw became a potent weapon for me.”

Ezagui passed all the tests without a hitch. He served until December 2011, spending much of that time in Hebron. When he was called back on reserve duty in 2012 for the next round of fighting in Gaza, he found himself once again stationed on the border. The troops ended up not invading, but the setting brought

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 31, 2015

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Ezagui back to his 2008 injury.

Ezagui now lives in Brooklyn, New York, and is writing a memoir.

He returns to Israel every year for reserve duty, something most male Israeli veterans do until age 40 or 45, completing exercises and trudging through the mud with the rest of his unit.

“It’s a part of who I am today,” he said. “I’ve done so much, it was such a struggle to make it back. It would feel like a waste to not continue.”

ISIS Leader Targets Israel

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Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of ISIS, has issued an explicit threat against Israel. In a social media audio recording, al-Baghdadi warned that his forces will “soon meet [the Jews] in Palestine.” The terrorist group’s elusive head added that “Israel will pay a heavy price at the hands of our fighters.” The recording is the first such indication from the organization’s head that the Jewish state is on his agenda.

“The Jews thought that we forgot about Palestine and diverted our attention from it. Never, Jews. We have not forgotten Palestine for a moment,” said al-Baghdadi. “The leaders of the jihad fighters will surround you on a day you think is far, but we see it as close. We are coming closer to you day by day,” he concluded.

Several days beforehand, the Islamic State addressed an Israeli audience for the first time ever in a Hebrew-language video, warning that “no Jew will be left [alive]” once its fighters conquer Jordan and arrive at Israel’s borders. “This isn’t just talk.

We will advance toward you from everywhere, from the north and the south, from Sinai, from everywhere,” said a masked man in green fatigues in fluent, if slightly Arabic- and French-accented Hebrew.

Ehud Barak in the Clear

Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein said on Tuesday that former Prime Minister Ehud Barak will not be investigated for revealing to his biographers classified information about alleged Israeli plans to attack Iran while he was defense minister.

The Justice Ministry said that the Channel 2 program in August which aired recordings of the interviews went through the standard military censorship evaluation prior to broadcast. The recordings were not found to have had the potential to harm Israel’s security, as they did not include specific operational details.

In the recordings, Barak details aborted plans to strike at Iran in 2010, 2011 and 2012. Barak, who was defense minister at the time, says that he, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and then-foreign minister Avigdor Liberman wanted to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities, but were thwarted by opposition from other senior officials.

The tapes, whose broadcast Barak fought unsuccessfully to block, include his claims that he and Netanyahu wanted to attack Iran in 2010, but that then-chief of staff Gabi Ashkenazi indicated that there was no viable plan for such an operation; that they were thwarted in 2011 by the opposition of fellow ministers Moshe Ya’alon and Yuval Steinitz; and that a planned 2012 strike was aborted because it happened to coincide with a joint Israel-U.S. military exercise and Israel did not want to drag the U.S. into the fray.

The airstrikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities were ostensibly planned to take place because Netanyahu and Barak feared that Iran was on the cusp of reaching a “zone of immunity,” in which its facilities were so well-protected or developed as to render an attack either a short-term solution or entirely futile.

In the wake of the broadcast, reports emerged of widespread “anger” at Barak among the Israeli leader-

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 31, 2015

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DECEMBER 31, 2015 | The Jewish Home

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ship, and that numerous senior political and security officials were also privately intimating that Barak’s version of events was not entirely accurate. The Prime Minister’s Office did not issue an official response to the broadcast.

Record-Setting Shas

A record was set for Jewish antiques on auction this week when a 16th-century set of Shas was sold for $9.3 million. The set was bought at Sotheby’s in New York by businessman Leon Black.

The rare edition of the Shas Bavli was printed by Daniel Bomberg in the 16th century and was estimated to fetch about $5-7 million. Bomberg was the first person to print the full edition of the Babylonian Talmud, making the manuscripts extremely valuable. Only 14 complete copies of the Talmud printed by Bomberg are known to exist in the world.

The $9.3 million Talmud was the crown jewel of the auction by the Valmadonna Trust Library, a major private collection of Hebrew manuscripts whose custodian is Jack V. Lunzer. Twelve books were on offer at the auction, out of a collection containing some 13,000 rare Hebrew books. Lunzer considered selling in the past, but always on the condition that the collection be purchased in its entirety, that it remain accessible to researchers, and that the purchaser agree never to break it up.

Now 92, Lunzer suffers from dementia, and the trustees decided to sell some of the rarer and more precious books after failing for years to find buyers willing to pay for the complete collection. Researchers who banked on Lunzer’s demands to keep the collection complete and accessible are outraged. “It would be a terrible loss to the Hebrew book lore to have the rest of the printed book collection dispersed,” said Brad Sabin Hill, the curator at the I. Edward Kiev Judaica Collection at George Washington University. “I would consider

that to be unfortunate.”

The trustees, however, said it was necessary to sell the books in order to make the full collection more affordable. The 12 items in Sotheby’s auction were sold for a total of $14.9 million, which included $3.6 million for a 12th-century Chumash.

“I Don’t Hate the Policeman who Shot my Father”

Ofek Ben Ari, the daughter of a man who was killed by friendly police fire while attempting to prevent a stabbing attack in Jerusalem, has said that she feels no anger towards the policewomen who shot her father. Ofer Ben Ari, 46, and Rabbi Reuben Birmajer, a rabbi in the Spanish program of the Aish Hatorah yeshiva, were killed on Wednesday in a stabbing attack by two Palestinian terrorists at the Jaffa Gate entrance to the Old City.

“I’m not angry at all at the policewomen. They did their duties and tried to neutralize the terrorists,” said Ofek Ben Ari. “My father was a hero and I’m sure he supports what they did.”

“I’m very happy to speak with them. I can’t imagine the feelings of guilt and remorse that are haunting them. We would be happy if they came and spoke [to us], even if only to calm them and tell them we are not angry – the opposite is true,” she added.

Ofer endeavored to save Rabbi Birmajer’s life and tried to prevent the terrorists from stabbing him to death.

A third man remained in serious condition after sustaining stabbing wounds during the attack. Palestinian media identified the attackers as Anan Abu Habsah and Issa Assaf, both 21, from Qalandiya in the West Bank.

Both of them had been arrested and imprisoned previously.

The Old City of Jerusalem has seen multiple stabbing attacks against Israeli civilians and security personnel in recent months, although most have been around the Damascus Gate, the main entrance to the Old City’s Muslim Quarter.

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 31, 2015

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DECEMBER 31, 2015 | The Jewish Home

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ber; Wissam Tawabte from Beit Fajjar, a town south of Bethlehem, who murdered 21-year-old Hadar Buchris in a stabbing attack at the Gush Etzion Junction in November; Samir al-Sarisi from Jenin who tried to stab security forces at the Tapuah Junction; Muhammad al-Shubaki from Hebron, who seriously injured an IDF soldier in a stabbing attack in November; and Issa Haroub from Hebron, who tried to ram Israeli soldiers with a car in December.

Israel’s Defense Ministry permits the return of bodies of terrorists killed at the scene by Israeli security forces on the condition that the funerals do not become mass gatherings, for fear that they will descend into violence.

For over three months Palestinians have carried out near daily attacks on Israeli civilians and security forces including stabbings, shootings, and car ramming attacks. More than 20 Israelis have been killed and dozens injured.

Israeli authorities in some cases delay the return of the bodies in order to prevent or at least dampen the mass-rallies that accompany the terrorists’ funerals, where participants often call for the murder of Israelis and urge new terror attacks. The delay is thought to lessen the significance attached to any particular attacker, and so to reduce participation in the funeral. Some of the bodies handed over this week were in Israel’s hands for over a month.

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Olmert Heads to Jail for 18 Months

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Israel Hands over Bodies of 7 Terrorists This week, Israel turned over the bodies of seven terrorists to the Palestinian Authority. They were killed

while carrying out recent attacks on Israelis.

Palestinians say that Israel still has possession of some 50 bodies of terrorists killed during attacks over the past three months, some one-third from the Hebron area, which saw the highest share of attacks.

Among the bodies returned were

those of Muhammad Zahran from Kafr Addik village near Nablus, who stabbed and injured two security guards at an industrial park outside the West Bank settlement of Ariel last week; Raed Muhammad al-Khatib from Bethlehem, who attempted a stabbing attack at the Gush Etzion junction at the beginning of Decem-

On Tuesday, Israel’s Supreme Court partially upheld the conviction of Ehud Olmert in the Holyland corruption trial, making history by sending the former prime minister to prison. Olmert was one of eight former officials and businessmen convicted in March 2014 in a real estate corruption case officials have characterized as the largest in Israel’s history.

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 31, 2015

While it struck down one bribery conviction for Olmert’s part in the so-called Holyland scandal, the court upheld another, reducing the former prime minister’s sentence from six years to 18 months. He and others whose convictions were upheld this week will begin to serve out their sentences on February 15.

Speaking to reporters after the decision was handed down, Olmert sought to emphasize his relief over his acquittal in the more severe of the two bribery counts, while maintaining his innocence in the second one as well.

“The last four years were difficult,” he admitted, describing “a dark cloud that hung over” him and his family, and asserting that “a heavy weight had been lifted” from his shoulders.

Olmert, 70, was convicted in 2014 of accepting bribes when he served as mayor of Jerusalem and as minister of industry and trade, in exchange for helping win municipal approval for the Holyland residential development near the capital’s southern Malha neighborhood. Tel Aviv District Court Judge David Rozen originally sentenced Olmert to six years in prison and two more of probation, alongside a million-shekel ($260,000) fine and the confiscation of some NIS 500,000 ($130,000) in assets.

Rozen had ruled that the former prime minister – felled from his lofty office in 2009 as multiple corruption investigations made it difficult for him to function as premier – had to have been aware that NIS 500,000 was given to his brother Yossi and NIS 60,000 ($15,400) more to his longtime secretary Shula Zaken by businessman Shmuel Dachner, who would become a state’s witness in the trial.

This week, though, the Supreme Court ruled that there was insufficient evidence to assert that Olmert was aware of the money being funneled to his brother, but that he knew of the cash that Dachner was giving to Zaken.

As expected, the court drastically reduced the sentence of former Jerusalem mayor Uri Lupolianski – from six years behind bars to six months, commuted into community service. In Lupolianski’s case, the bribes did not go to him directly, but to the Yad Sarah charity he leads. The former Jerusalem mayor also suffers from ill health.

He said after the ruling that he would seek to continue “to offer assistance to the public.”

Olmert faces an additional eightmonth prison sentence in the so-called Talansky affair, which was also delayed

until his Holyland appeal options were exhausted. He was found guilty earlier this year of accepting envelopes full of cash from American businessman and fundraiser Morris Talansky in exchange for political favors during his decade-long stint as mayor of Jerusalem. His sentence included a fine of NIS 100,000 ($26,000).

Including Olmert and Lupolianski, the court on Tuesday handed down judgments on a total of eight appeals against convictions given by the Tel Aviv District Court in the case, partially accepting some of the petitions and rejecting others outright.

The six individuals who challenged the convictions alongside Olmert and Lupolianski were developer Hillel Charney, businessman Avigdor Kelner, developer Meir Rabin, former Jerusalem city engineer Uri Shitrit, former deputy Jerusalem mayor Eliezer Simhayoff, and businessman Danny Dankner.

Olmert was first elected to Knesset in 1978, at the age of 28, and quickly gained a reputation as a tough corruption buster. In 2006, following Ariel Sharon’s incapacitating stroke and after almost three decades in a series of public offices, he took over as prime minister.

His term in office included the 2006 Second Lebanon War and an unprecedented 2008 offer to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: Olmert offered to withdraw from the entire West Bank with one-for-one land swaps, to divide Jerusalem into Israeli and Palestinian areas, and to relinquish Israeli sovereignty in the Old City in favor of an international tribunal. Abbas did not accept the terms.

He stepped down in 2009 as corruption allegations mounted against him.

What’s Your Money Worth?

One hundred dollars is one hundred dollars, right?

Well, no, not really. Your $100 bill is actually worth less if you live in certain zip codes. According to the cost of living across all 50 states and

hundreds of metropolitan areas, the Tax Foundation shows exactly how much or rather how little your 100 bucks is actually worth. Validation for Californians and New Yorkers coming up as usual…

California and New York are two of the worst states in terms of getting a bang for your buck. $100 in each state is worth just $89.05 and $86.73, respectively. Washington, D.C., is even worse, where a Benjamin is worth only $84.96.

Southerners and Midwesterners got a lot more coming to them. In those regions the cost of living tends to be much lower, according to the report, which is based on Bureau of Economic Analysis data from 2013.

Looking to cash in? In Mississippi, your $100 will buy you more than in any other state – $115.21 worth of stuff. In South Dakota, $100 is worth $114.16. Ohio is another low-

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price state, where $100 can buy $111.61-worth of bananas.

“You could think of this as meaning that Ohioans are, for the purposes of day-to-day living, 11% richer than their incomes suggest,” says the report, co-authored by economists Scott Drenkard and Alan Cole.

There is also variation within states. For example, within New York there is a range. As you’d expect, outside of the New York City metropolitan area, purchasing power greatly improves. In Albany, $100 is worth about $101 and jumps to $106 in Buffalo. New York was one of the states with the greatest price variation, along with California, Illinois, Virginia, and Florida. The starkest difference: in Chicago, $100 is worth $93.81, and in Danville, Ill., it comes to $126.26.

According to the analysis, the trend seems to be that within highly populated cities your dollar is worth less but increases as you travel away from the metropolis area. But not all big cities have a low rate. Houston, Texas, for example, has a high rate for their dollar – $100 is close to its value at $99.40.

“If you look at some smaller cities, you can do even better,” Cole

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DECEMBER 31, 2015 | The Jewish Home

points out. “For example, Cincinnati ($110.50) manages to find plenty of room to expand both up and out, and maintains substantially cheaper-than-average prices.”

What’s in your wallet?

Athlete of the Year

NBA player Stephen Curry has become a legend in his own right for his record-setting shooting numbers. Curry isn’t freakishly tall or an athletic protégée; he says he just perfected the simple shoot, dribble, pass method.

In the last year he has dominated basketball courts around the country and earned the Golden State War-

riors some attention.

“The way that I play has a lot of skill but is stuff that if you go to the YMCA or rec leagues or church leagues around the country, everybody wants to shoot, everybody wants to handle the ball, make creative passes and stuff like that,” he said. “You can work on that stuff.

Not everybody has the vertical, or the physical gifts to be able to go out and do a windmill dunk and stuff like that. I can’t even do it.”

Curry won the well-deserved MVP this year and The Associated Press 2015 Male Athlete of the Year title. This is the Golden State’s first title in 40 years. Curry finished first in a vote by U.S. editors and news directors, with the results released on Saturday. He joined LeBron James, Michael Jordan and Larry Bird as the only basketball players to win the honor in the 85 years of the award.

The athlete beat out golfer Jordan Spieth, who won two majors, and American Pharoah, who became the first horse since 1978 to win the Triple Crown.

“That’s a real honor,” Curry said.

“I’m appreciative of that acknowledgement because it’s across all different sports. ... It’s pretty cool.”

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As expected, Curry’s jersey is the bestseller in the league, his team’s games get record television ratings, and even his 3-year-old daughter Riley became a star by overshadowing her dad at playoff news conferences.

“Steph actually looks different,” ESPN analyst Jalen Rose said. “Like the best player in the league usually is also physically opposing – 6-6 plus, scowl on his face, menacing.

With the attitude that we appreciated because like a Michael Jordan or Shaquille O’Neal, or Kobe Bryant, you know, just a cutthroat nature.

Steph allows us into his living room.

We see him on a national stage be a son, a dad, a husband, a father, a brother. And he does all of it while continuing to improve.”

Curry has improved his scoring from 23.8 points per game to 30.8 – the biggest one-year jump ever by an MVP – prompting Rose to say that Curry could be the most improved player and repeat as MVP this season in a remarkable tribute to the offseason work he put in even after winning a title.

Curry attributes his drive to succeed to the fact that he got no major scholarship offers coming out of high school – nothing was offered to him on a silver platter like many other athletes. He was the third point guard taken in the 2009 draft and he settled for a below-market contract extension three years ago because people questioned his durability following ankle injuries.

“The thing I would say about Steph, what makes him who he is, is that nobody has to challenge him to get to the next level because he does it on his own,” coach Steve Kerr said. “I didn’t think he could get that much better from last year but I do think he’s gotten considerably better, which is quite a feat when you’re the reigning MVP.” Curry has become a role model for younger people, showing them that hard work pays off.

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Iran Hostages Receive Compensation What is the price to make the fear, loneliness, and distress of being locked up for 444 days go away?

53 American hostages who were held in the United States Embassy in Tehran in 1979 have finally earned

restitution for the real-life nightmare they lived through more than three decades ago.

Buried in the huge spending bill signed into law last Friday are provisions that give each of the hostages or their estates up to $4.4 million. Victims of other state-sponsored terrorist attacks such as the 1998 American Embassy bombings in East Africa would also be eligible for benefits under the law.

“I had to pull over to the side of the road, and I basically cried,” said Rodney V. Sickmann, who was a Marine sergeant working as a security guard at the embassy in Tehran when he was kidnapped along with the other Americans by an enraged mob that overran the compound on November 4, 1979. “It has been 36 years, one month, 14 days, obviously, until President Obama signed the actual bill, until Iran was held accountable,” he said.

Like most of the hostages, Mr. Sickmann learned of the imminent legislation in a conference call with their main lawyer, V. Thomas Lankford, on December 16.

“It became clear that we were sort of inextricably linked to the nuclear negotiations,” Mr. Lankford said in an interview. “Those negotiations resulted in an understanding that an inevitable next step in securing a relationship was to address the reason for the rupture, which was our kidnapping and torture.”

“As valuable as stopping the spread of nuclear arms is,” he added, “it’s equally important to establish the precedent that in one way, shape, form or another, a state sponsor of terrorism will not be permitted to walk away.”

As part of the agreement that released the hostages in 1981, seeking restitution was barred. Since then the hostages’ legal claims were repeatedly blocked in the courts, including an appeal denied by the Supreme Court.

Congress tried but failed to pass laws granting them relief. But this year, vindication came in a decision that forced the Paris-based bank BNP Paribas to pay a $9 billion penalty for

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 31, 2015

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DECEMBER 31, 2015 | The Jewish Home

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violating sanctions against Iran, Sudan and Cuba. A chunk of that money was suddenly available for victims of state-sponsored terrorism. Of the $9 billion penalty paid by BNP Paribas, about $1 billion will be put into a compensation fund for victims of terrorism, with more money and assets potentially added as a result of continuing litigation. An additional $2.8 billion will aid victims of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks and their family members.

Some of the Iran hostages claimed to have been subjected to physical and psychological torture during their capture.

It is not clear whether all the former hostages or their families will receive full payments. The $4.4 million total authorized by Congress depends on the outcome of efforts to collect on judgments won in earlier court rulings involving victims of terrorist attacks, as well as on the number of victims who file claims. The law authorizes payments of up to $10,000 per day of captivity for each of the 53 hostages, 37 of whom are still alive.

Spouses and children are authorized to receive a lump payment of as much as $600,000.

“Time and time again, we thought we’d get a bill,” said David M. Roeder, a retired Air Force colonel who was an attaché at the embassy in Tehran when he was taken hostage. “We were pushing toward the goal line, and our portion would get stripped out.”

Mr. Roeder called the experience “the epitome of the roller coaster ride.” He added, “We were sent into harm’s way by our government and then nobody seemed to want to do anything about it.”

Mr. Sickmann said that he would have preferred that Iran pay compensation directly, as Libya did for victims of the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, but that he did not expect an apology from Iran. “I don’t believe that they will ever, ever apologize,” he said.

“They don’t believe that they did anything wrong.”

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State Department’s Screening System is Flawed Over the last several weeks the Obama administration has insist-

ed that it is perfectly safe to admit 10,000 Syrian refugees into the U.S. because there are “very extensive screening procedures” in place. “It involves our intelligence community, our national counterterrorism center, extensive interviews, vetting them against all the available information,” deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes recently declared.

However, these procedures allowed the San Bernardino terrorists to enter the U.S. with ease. In fact, State Department records show that four times as many suspected terrorists were let into the country than those who were kept out.

The State Department admitted to Congress last week that it had revoked the visas of 9,500 individuals since 2001 who were believed to have either engaged in terrorist activities or were associated with a terrorist organization. Think about what that means: Nearly 10,000 people considered too dangerous to enter the United States because of suspected terrorist activity or its association were mistakenly granted visas to lawfully enter the country.

They successfully penetrated our defenses, beat our screening system and got their hands on U.S. visas.

That’s bad, real bad. Even worse is that after officials realized their mistake and revoked the visas, they lost track of the visa holders. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, pressed Michele Thoren Bond, assistant secretary for the Bureau of Consular Affairs, to explain what had happened to the 9,500. She admitted: “I don’t know.”

This is proof that the system Obama heavily relies on for national security is so broken it’s ineffective.

Since 2001, 2,231 individuals were denied visas due to suspected terrorist ties or activity and during that same period, the State Department granted U.S. visas to 9,500 people who it later figured out posed a terrorist threat. Meaning, the screening

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 31, 2015

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DECEMBER 31, 2015 | The Jewish Home

partment “didn’t revoke his visa after Mr. Abdulmutallab’s father alerted U.S. officials to his son’s potential radicalization.”

President Obama maintains that Republicans are “betraying our values” for their refusal to admit 10,000 Syrian refugees, a number that is ironically close to the 9,500 unaccounted for individuals whose visas have been revoked.

Periods and Commas in Texts?

system is so bad, it let through more than four times as many suspected terrorists as it stopped. If a National Hockey League goalie let in more than four times as many goals as he blocked, he would be fired.

It is important to note that the 9,500 visa revocations are just the

number of suspected terrorists that officials are aware of – how many are there that have not yet been detected?

Tashfeen Malik, one of the San Bernandino terrorists, was one of those who slipped through the cracks in the visa screening process. So did

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the 2009 so-called underwear bomber who nearly blew up a plane over Detroit in December 2009. His father walked into a U.S. embassy and reported that his son was involved with terrorists. Yet the Wall Street Journal reports that the State De-

Nice guys finish last and they also don’t use periods when they text.

After extensive research, Binghamton University psychology professor Celia M. Klin concluded that people who use periods in a specific type of text message are generally perceived as less sincere than those who use no punctuation.

“Study confirms that ending your texts with a period is terrible,” the Washington Post wrote in a headline.

Sounds odd – what does one have to do with the other?

Speaking to the Times of Israel, Klin claims that her research was misunderstood by many reporters.

“First of all, we’re not giving anybody any advice and saying, ‘Don’t use periods in your texts.’ That’s where a lot of people went. What we’re saying is the period carries meaning, that’s all.”

Klin also clarified that her study analyzed a very specific, constrained scenario.

That scenario involved 126 Binghamton undergraduates who were recruited to read and rank a series of exchanges via text. In each of these, the sender invited the receiver to an activity. For instance, “Dave gave me his extra tickets. Wanna come?”

The receiver’s response was always a one-word positive reply: “Okay,” “Sure,” “Yeah” or “Yup.” In some cases the reply was followed

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 31, 2015

with a specialist to prove that her body sometimes seems as if it’s drunk without imbibing any alcohol.

a

“I would say it is not safe to drive a car if you are in an auto brewery syndrome flare,” Dr. Anup Kanodia, an Auto-Brewery Syndrome expert who monitored and tested the woman, said. “But it’s a brand new disease and we’re still trying to understand it.”

Unbelievably, he believes that between 50 and 100 people have been diagnosed with the disorder, and that it’s likely that upward of 95 percent of sufferers don’t know they have the condition.

Essentially, the bodies of those suffering with the syndrome use excess intestinal yeast to turn ordinary food into alcohol, resulting in breathalyzer readouts that generally would indicate life-threatening intoxication. A flare-up can result from a high-carb diet.

Though not widely known, the syndrome is beginning to attract media attention, with sufferers reporting bouts of goofiness after eating French fries and false accusations of alcoholism.

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by a period and in some cases it was not. Text messages that ended with a period were rated as less sincere than text messages that did not end with a period. In other words, “yup.” was rated as less sincere than “yup” with no punctuation.

“It wasn’t a huge difference in how sincere they found it to be, but it was a clean finding,” says Klin.

“Yup.,” she says, “seemed to be less enthusiastic, less positive. The period seemed to give it an edge of some sort.”

“Because these texts were really informal and chatty, the period was too formal and so it seemed to carry some meaning for some people. My sense is it’s like if you say to someone, ‘How are you?’ and they say, ‘Fine.’ What kind of ‘Fine’ is that?

That’s our sense, that it gave it some sort of stiffness.”

It’s not just “yup.” that has an underlying meaning. Klin, who describes her age as “50-ish,” was recently discussing with her graduate students about the response “K” as opposed to “Okay.”

“K with a period, they say, is nasty.”

Klin was surprised, as she had never heard such a thing. “But I asked many people who are 18-25.

They all agreed to this… We’re going to test that one in our lab.”

Klin explains, “When we have conversations, a lot of the emotion, tone or attitude is conveyed in non-verbal information like hand gestures, facial expressions and tone of voice. It seems what people are doing is they’re using what they have – emoticons, punctuation, capital letters – to put in the kinds of meaning that they’re needing.”

This, says Klin, shows that although “we’re very clever as language users, texts are a new way of having a conversation and people have developed new kinds of cues.

For me, this is an incredible opportunity to watch language change.”

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DECEMBER 31, 2015 | The Jewish Home

He was searching for blackfish and wasn’t successful – and then the day got even worse.

“He texted me and said his day was going wrong. I said, ‘Don’t worry you will find the fish,’” recalled his wife Meagan. “He texted me back, ‘It’s not the fishing, I lost my ring in the water.’ I nearly threw up.”

So Jay came home without the fish and without his ring. But he still had his determination.

A few days later, he and his boat captain, Nick Barsa, returned to the exact spot to search for the lost ring.

They brought along salvage diver Mark Thompson. Using GPS coordinates to the exact location where the ring was lost, they dealt with 35-mileper-hour winds and a big southeast swell.

“People thought I was crazy to try and go back for it,” Barsa admitted.

“The odds are against finding it. It’s a big ocean out there.”

Thompson, who said he has found people’s lost cellphones and watches in the ocean, dove in and searched rock ledges and sifted through thousands of mussels. After ten minutes, he found the treasure, resting on a rock.

“When they found it I was ecstatic, I was amazed,” Meagan said.

Jay, though, has learned his lesson. He says he will likely wear a cheap metal or rubber ring when he goes back out fishing.

This Dime Nails It

Is it a dime? Or is it a nail? Maybe it’s both. Whatever it is, it sure is worth a lot.

In probably one of the oddest items to come to the world of coin collecting, Dallas-based Heritage Auctions has announced the sale of a Roosevelt dime that was accidental-

ly (or some say deliberately) struck onto a zinc nail.

The dime/nail is estimated to be worth roughly $10,000.

In the billions of coins it has made over its history, the U.S. Mint has made more than a few errors.

There were Lincoln pennies that were struck onto the material for a dime, Washington quarters struck more than once, wrong dates on coins, etc. Most errors are caught by the Mint, but occasionally a few make it out into circulation. Those error coins have been highly sought by collectors.

This error coin coming to auction in January in Tampa, Florida, is one of the more bizarre errors to come to public attention. In a weird linguistic twist, another name for the 2-inch nail is a sixpenny nail.

“It is certainly the most unusual item I have had to catalog in my career,” said Mark Borckardt, the senior numismatist at Heritage New York-based Auctions. A numismatist is person who studies or collects coins or bank notes.

It is not the first coin printed onto a nail, however, said Fred Weinberg, a coin dealer considered one of the

top experts in error coins. A few pennies in the late 1970s were struck onto nails. This dime/nail is undated, so there is no way to tell when the item was created. Weinberg said it is possible the dime/nail was made on purpose by a rogue Mint employee.

Despite it not being one of a kind, Weinberg says, there are probably only about a half dozen coin/nail examples known and only two dimes.

He expects the dime/nail to sell for roughly $10,000, but public interest could raise that amount.

The Heritage auction that includes the nail/dime also includes several other notable error coins.

There will be a 1943 Lincoln penny struck in bronze, which would seem not out of the ordinary except for the fact that the U.S. Mint changed the composition of the penny in 1943 to steel to save copper for the war effort. 1943 bronze pennies typically sell for $200,000 to $300,000.

On the flip side, Heritage will also be auctioning a 1944 penny that was struck in steel, not bronze.

The auction for the dime/nail will be held on January 6 as part of a larger Heritage auction. Electronic bidding for the coin has already

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started, however. The current price for the item is $3,200.

Seems like it costs a pretty penny.

Chief for the Day

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motion was a surprise, but exciting for the family.

Big Boss Carter was by-the-book and just-the-facts when asked what he thought about being chief: “Really cool.”

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One boy, Carter Widmer, visited his father at work last week – and got to boss him around. The sevenyear-old is the son of a Detroit Police Department lieutenant and was sworn in as “Chief for the Day” last Wednesday by the department’s official chief, James Craig. He flew into headquarters via helicopter, slapped some handcuffs on his father, Lt. John Widmer, and spent time with a police dog.

Widmer has a special place in his heart for the police dog unit. He donated $250 of his money to the Detroit Police K-9 Unit.

The proud police chief says he wants to follow in his dad’s footsteps into law enforcement. His father admitted that his son’s temporary pro-

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Love doing yoga? Enjoy spending time with your four-legged friend?

Well, now you can do both activities at the same time with doga, the latest form of exercise that lets you practice your downward-facing dog with an actual dog.

Dogs in doga can help participants and are sometimes used as weights in some poses.

Dog owner Jocelyn James thinks it’s great. “It’s been very powerful for me and Peanut Butter ... she has allergies and a little anxiety. Everything that breathes needs a little healing.”

“Doga is a partner yoga class that people do with their dogs,” says Kari Harendorf, owner of East Yoga in New York City and star of Animal Planet’s “K9 Karma.” The long-time doga enthusiast, who has partnered with her 10-year-old Husky, Charlie, for many years, began teaching doga classes in 2004. “It’s very much like a dance, using the dogs as we would use a traditional dance partner … just as a teacher might assist you to push deeper into the pose.”

Humans who practice yoga are either a yogi (male) or yogini (female). The canine equivalent is a dogi (male) or dogini (female).

“Like yoga, doga balances, harmonizes, purifies and transcends the body and mind of the practitioner,” says doga teacher Madhavi Bhatia.

“What makes doga unique is the practice and benefits that create a harmony and synchronization of energy flow between the owner and dog.”

Seems like you can teach an old dog new tricks.

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 31, 2015

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Around the

Community

Community Comes Together to Play 4 Israel to Benefit One Israel Fund

PHOTO CREDIT: EXPRESSIONS CINEMA

Students Inducted into DRS “Nedivei Lev” Service Society

L

ast Friday, DRS held its fifth annual Nedivei Lev Service Society Induction Ceremony.

This special ceremony recognizes DRS students that have shown exemplary service to their community and school through extraordinary acts of chessed and kindness. The ceremony honored members of the senior class who have served their school and the larger community with great distinction. The ceremony was attended by the entire student body, as well as faculty and parents. Menahel Rabbi Yisroel Kaminetsky gave opening remarks and discussed the Nedivei Lev Service Society as well as the concept of chessed and giving to others. Rabbi Shmuel Marcus, Mora D’Asra of Kehillas Ishei Yisrael, served as the keynote speaker and praised the students on their commitment to serving others.

What made the program truly unique was that the students were given awards by the directors and founders of many of the organizations that were the beneficiaries of the great chessed done by DRS students.

Mr. Andy Lauber and Mrs. Annette Kaufman of i-Shine presented Dan-

iel Attias, Jeremy Brody and Willie Solomon with an award for their involvement mentoring boys who have a family member struggling with illness. Mrs. Madeline Rosenberg spoke about Yitzchak Carroll’s work at DRS as a teaching assistant, internship coordinator and public relations associate. Mrs. Rebecca Schrag honored Eytan Aryeh and Baruch Weissman for their involvement in Yachad and its Youth Leadership Council. Rabbi Natan Farber commended Eitan Kaszovitz for his dedication to D’varim Hayotzim Min HaLev, DRS’s weekly Torah publication, which Eitan has

run for the past two years. Jacob Goldsmith and Natan Davidowitz were recognized for their involvement in Lev Leytzan, a medical clown program. Mr. Feivy Fuchs extended his deep appreciation to Mordechai Abbitan for helping him put on his tefillin every day and wheeling him to shul on the weekends. Rabbi Aaron Fleksher honored Simcha Sommer for his work as an information technology associate at DRS as well as for founding DRS Live, the school’s broadcasting arm. Rabbi David Friedman commended Michael Fagin for his work heading DRS’s Israel Advo-

cacy Club. Mr. Mark Weingarten presented Jakob Deutsch with an award for his participation in the Music Verse program, which provides musical entertainment to the elderly. Finally, Mrs. Batsheva Borenstein honored Rafi Thalheim, Josh Kantrowitz and Jared Willner for their work in the Friendship Circle, in which they mentored special needs children in the community. A big yasher koach to all the honorees on their chessed and to Student Activities Director Rabbi Eli Brazil who coordinates all chessed opportunities in DRS.

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 31, 2015

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DECEMBER 31, 2015 | The Jewish Home

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2nd Annual Wisnicki & Assoc. Basketball Tournament to Benefit Madraigos is a Slam Dunk

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n Sunday, December 27, Wisnicki and Associates sponsored the 2nd Annual Madraigos 5 on 5 Basketball Tournament at Island Garden in West Hempstead. Judging from the highly competitive nature of the games, exciting finishes and wonderful sportsmanship between teams from all over the tri-state area, the tournament was a “smashing” success. The tournament slogan, “Teamwork makes the dream work: step up for our youth,” fit the competitive but respectful atmosphere to a tee, as teams combined fast breaks with deliberate play and unselfish team work. The players were given a swag bag filled with sponsored giveaways and enjoyed snacks throughout the night. They appreciated the very strong competition and remarked that “it feels great to have fun and help out a great organization.”

The tournament was generously sponsored by supporters and friends of Madraigos in the Five Towns and greater tri-state area.

In addition to being the title sponsor, Mr. Dovi Wisnicki of Wisnicki and Associates enthusiastically dedicated his basketball savvy to Madraigos as a player for one of the teams vying for the tournament title.

Madraigos’ mission is an important component of Dovi’s community service, as evident by the fact that he currently serves on the Madraigos Board of Directors.

Madraigos wishes to sincerely thank the other generous tournament sponsors including our top sponsors: The Federal Savings Bank, Dependable Abstract, Saxony Title, Riverside Abstract, The Noah Family, Doctors on Call, MK Creative Group, LOBOS, and OK Uniforms. Rabbi Dov Silver, Founder and Executive Vice President of Madraigos, expressed words of appreciation, “We are grateful to Dovi Wisnicki and delighted that we can connect a good time with help-

THE CHAMPIONS

ing our organization do its life-saving work.”

The program started with eleven teams in two preliminary rounds to determine the seeding process. The top three teams received a “bye” to sit out the first round. After the first tournament round, the winning teams were combined with the “bye” teams for the quarter-final series. The excitement re a ch e d a crescendo when the two teams still standing for the final championship round were the Dovid Jungreis-led team and the Mike Tabak-led team. The performance of these two teams in the championship round was about as entertaining and thrilling “as it gets.”

The final outcome was that the Dovid Jungreis-led team was this year’s tournament winners.

His strong team consisted of Yitzy and Ephraim Wieder, Ephraim Lowy, Yehuda Gutkind, Jared Stein and Dovi Wisnicki.

Congratulations to all the teams on a tournament that was well-played.

Credit for the huge success of the tournament is due in large part to the dedicated efforts of Yehuda Shur who used his extensive familiarity and connections with tri-state basketball leagues to attract very competitive teams to the tournament. With regard to marketing the event, Madrai-

gos expresses its sincere gratitude to Moshe Klein of MK Creative Group, who in addition to assembling and playing with one of the teams, managed the very attractive “hoopsforthem” website which was instrumental in organizing the entire event and designed the ads as well. Mr. Klein also created the aforementioned witty tournament slogan.

“We are thrilled with the outcome of our basketball tournament,” said Rabbi Josh Zern, Executive Director at Madraigos. “The continued support of our community has allowed Madraigos to be an innovative and highly regarded youth service provider in the Five Towns/Queens community and beyond. The nightly ‘Lounge’ activities, support groups and School Based Services program continue to grow and gain stronger momentum as more and more schools partner with us. We have to make sure this expansion moves forward.”

Funds raised at the event will assist Madraigos in providing valuable mental health, social and spiritual services to help young adults cope

and navigate their way through challenges in an increasingly turbulent world. For more information about Madraigos, please visit www.madraigos.org.

Madraigos, a 501c-3 not-forprofit organization, offers a wide array of innovative services and programs geared towards helping teens and young adults overcome life’s everyday challenges one step at a time Our goal is to provide all of our members with the necessary tools and skills to empower them to live a healthy lifestyle and become the leaders of tomorrow.

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DECEMBER 31, 2015 | The Jewish Home

Around the Community

Packed Crowd at Gesher’s Community-Wide Parenting Workshop

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onsistent with its goal to introduce quality educational resources for the community, the Gesher Early Childhood Center has initiated a new venue. Gesher will be providing professional workshops for parents, educators, and providers.

While initially conceived as a means to serve its own parent body, the administration at Gesher recognizes that providing quality tools and support to the greater population is equally important. It is a natural progression, as Gesher is staffed with educators and professionals who are trained to identify areas of education that need reinforcement.

The large turnout at the most recent workshop confirmed that sentiment. A significant portion of the attendees were not Gesher parents.

They included parents from other Yeshivas, related service providers, local teachers, and even a number of Preschool Directors.

The feedback from those in attendance is very helpful as Gesher

prepares to make more resources available. Suggestions for future topics were gathered at the end of the evening.

The topic chosen for this workshop was based on the recommendation of many parents and educators who are in close contact with Gesher.

One of the most challenging aspects of chinuch is the successful extension into the home environment.

Many parents feel overly challenged

as they are not trained educators and are trying to do their best after a long day of school and work.

Gesher researched and networked to find a resource that would specifically focus on this area of education. Many of the staff are familiar with PESI, one of the leading providers of professional development in the country. Through this connection, Gesher was able to locate a local specialist to address this subject.

Cindy Goldrich is a highly sought after lecturer for PESI. She is a Board Certified Educational Coach and an acclaimed author as well. Her strategies focus on executive functioning.

Mrs. Goldrich is the founder of the Pathways to Success Coaching Program.

The topic of the workshop was “The Impact of Mindset on Learning.” In it Mrs. Goldrich described how to create a “Growth Mindset” for our children that would help them to view themselves as successful learners.

The feedback from the crowd was incredibly positive. Most importantly everyone came away with tools and techniques to use in their respective educational situations.

Parents, educators, and related service providers are encouraged to contact workshops@gesher-ecc. org for information on upcoming workshops and professional development courses.

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 31, 2015

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DECEMBER 31, 2015 | The Jewish Home

Around the Community

Yeshiva Ketana of Long Island: Celebrating Two Decades of Chinuch Habonim

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rom its humble beginnings in North Woodmere to its current sprawling campus in Inwood, Yeshiva Ketana of Long Island has held fast to its commitment of small class sizes thus providing each and every student with unparalleled personal attention from Rebbe and teacher alike. On Monday, January 11, at the Sands Atlantic Beach, Yeshiva Ketana of Long Island will celebrate two decades of chinuch habonim. YKLI has been tremendously successful in providing chinuch for the children of our community and this year’s Annual Journal Dinner will provide an opportunity for parents, supporters and friends to join together to pay tribute to this wonderful mossad.

Rabbi Zvi Bajnon, Rosh Yeshiva, explains, “The yeshiva has an excellent academic standard in both limudei kodesh and limudei chol, but at the same time, it is a place where the students enjoy being. There’s a great ruach.”

Rabbi Tzvi Krigsman, Menahel, emphasizes the “unparalleled dedication of the wonderful rabbeim and staff who are not only great teachers but warm, loving, geshmak and devoted to the wellbeing and growth of the talmidim.” Rabbi Shlomo Dovid Pfeiffer serves as S’gan Menahel alongside Rabbi Bajnon and Rabbi Krigsman.

It is most fitting that the recipients of the Harbotzas Torah Award are Rabbi & Mrs. Eliyohu Schloss. Rabbi Schloss has been the yeshiva’s first grade rebbe for the past eleven years.

He was hired as the first parallel track rebbe when the average class size was 15. In his own words: “We have grown not only in size and capacity, we have at the same time grown and improved in quality both in ruchniyus and gashmiyus, in limudei kodesh and secular studies as well as in our surround-

ings.” Rabbi Schloss understands the classroom environment and nature of his students. He creates a warm atmosphere where the boys flourish. With his multifaceted experience he is able to provide each talmid with gentle guidance and encouragement to succeed while instilling in them a love for learning.

The Hakaros Hatov Award will be going to Mr. & Mrs. Shlomo Katz, parent of seventh grader Ezra and third grader Avrohom. The Katzs run the Elite Caterer’s hot lunch program at the yeshiva. Shlomo and Deborah are role models for leadership in the greater Five Towns community. Shlomo is a dedicated Hatzolah member, paramedic in Camp Simcha and go-to person for anyone in need. Shlomo and Deborah are renowned for their unparalleled hachnosas orchim, renovating their basement with bedrooms exclusively open for guests. The Katzs are committed, devoted parents genuinely involved in the chinuch of each of their children. The personal example they set for their children speaks volumes and makes them a fitting choice for this year’s Hakoros Hatov Award.

The final honorees of the evening are Dr. & Mrs. David Simai, who will receive the Kesser Shem Tov Award.

Proud parents of eight children, bli ayin hara, first grader Yaakov Daniel, fourth grader Yitzchak Elchanan, sixth grader Moshe Chaim, and seventh grader Eliyahu, Dr. & Mrs. Simai feel overwhelming gratitude for the love of Torah and Yiddishkeit that their boys are developing. Dr. Simai is a popular and well-loved pediatrician in his Five Towns practice since 2005. He attended Yeshiva University, SUNY Downstate Medical School and completed his pediatric Residency at LIJ – Cohen Children’s Hospital in 2003.

Dr. Simai was raised in a family of physicians who actually enjoyed practicing medicine. His father, Dr. Elias Simai, taught by example, developing innovative surgical techniques and going the extra mile for every single patient he treated.

Dr. Simai is also well-known for his melodious voice and inspiring davening on yomim noraaim in Aish Kodesh Congregation. The Simais are extraordinary parents who are devoted to the chinuch of their children and

to the needs of their community. They will be honored at the dinner in recognition of their care and concern for others and for their unwavering support of the yeshiva.

The honorees are integral contributors to YKLI’s ability to realize its goal of nurturing future generations of b’nei Torah. These couples, along with the entire cadre of talented rabbeim and faculty, work tirelessly to provide an extraordinary educational experience.

YKLI strives to nurture our students’ curiosity and cultivate their imagination, while developing good middos and inspiring a love of learning.

Join the YKLI family on Monday, January 11 at the Sands Atlantic Beach to celebrate two decades of chinuch habonim.

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Around the Community

HAFTR Middle School Day of Learning

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n Friday, December 25, 13 of Tevet, HAFTR Middle School held its first massive parent-child boker iyun, morning of learning. Over four hundred people participated. This event was organized by Rabbi Judah Hulkower, our student activities coordinator. The morning began with a beautiful tefillat Shacharit which was jointly attended by parents and the boys and girls. The MPR was filled to capacity and the “amens” resonated throughout the room. The “kahal” was welcomed by Rabbi Dovid Kupchik, Menahel k-8. Breakfast was provided in various locations and the crowd quickly divided itself into the designated classrooms. On each grade level, the Rabbeim and Morot led interactive, inspirational and thought-provoking sessions on the topic of tefillah. We thank Rabbi Simcha Loiterman, Rabbi Judah Hulkower, Mrs. Jennifer Hucul, Mrs. Yehudeet Gore, Ms. Alyson Jacobs, Mrs. Nechama Landau, Rabbi

Ari Glazer, Rabbi Ben Zion Kirsch and Rebbetzin Teitelbaum for leading the various sessions. We also thank Mrs. Einat Rabinovich, Mrs. Ricky Gaerman, Mr. Yeshaya Lieber, Dr. Rochelle Brand, Mrs. Leslie

Rappaport, Mrs. Rachelle Rohde, Rabbi David Lamm and everyone else who lent a hand in ensuring that all of the logistics of the morning went smoothly. We also thank our custodial staff who set up and

cleaned up quickly and efficiently so that the building was back in order for classes to continue. May this be the beginning of a tradition for years to come.

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DECEMBER 31, 2015 | The Jewish Home

Around the Community

Father-Daughter Breakfast at SKA

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n Friday, December 25, ninth grade fathers joined their daughters for a wonderful morning at the Stella K. Abraham High School for Girls. Davening for all took place in the SKA gymnasium, and the fathers then posed with their daughters on the auditorium stage for a photo which was given out at the end of the event as a memento in a frame with a tefillah.

After everyone enjoyed a delicious breakfast buffet, the program

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began, facilitated by Rabbi Yosef Zakutinsky, Director of Student Programming. Mrs. Helen Spirn, Head of School, warmly welcomed the fathers – and their daughters – to the event, and in her speech skillfully applied Rabbi Jonathan Sacks’ work on women leaders in Tanach to leadership and women in our time. Representing the freshmen grade, Elisheva Ismach, daughter of Dr. Malka Ismach, an alumna of the first graduating class of SKA, delivered an excellent d’var Torah. The enthusiastic fathers-daughter pairs then learned together from prepared handouts – Taking the Next Step – and heard a shiur from Rabbi Daniel Eisenbach, Mashgiach Ruchani, about what they just learned. The second half of the program divided the participants into groups to play “Jeopardy.” It was a wonderful bonding experience for all!

SKA’s Father-Daughter Breakfast was generously sponsored by Mr. and Mrs. Lewis Barbanel in memory

PHOTO CREDIT: IRA THOMAS CREATIONS

of Alice Barbanel a”h; Dr. and Mrs. Jay Fenster in memory of Dovid Aryeh ben Yehoshua a”h; Mr. Nechemiah and Dr. Chanie Ginsburg in memory of Michal’s beloved grandfather Mr. Zoli Brenner a”h; Mr. and Mrs. Elisha Graff in honor of Zaha-

va’s grandfather and in memory of her great-grandfather; Mr. and Mrs. Daniel Mandelbaum for a refuah sheleima for klal Yisroel; and Dr. and Mrs. Kourosh Mehrnia for hatzlacha and good health of Moshe ben Sarah.

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DECEMBER 31, 2015 | The Jewish Home

Around the Community

In honor of Parshat Vayechi and the bracha of “Hamalach Hagoel,” Nursery Aleph at HANC ECC West Hempstead had a pretend sleepover and crafted Hamalach Hagoel signs to hang in their bedrooms.

HANC Chag HaChumash

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azal tov to all the Kitah Bet students at HANC’s Samuel & Elizabeth Bass Golding Elementary School on receiving their very own Chumashim! Kitah Bet students joyfully performed songs about their love and enthusiasm for learning Torah and their excitement about receiving their Chumash. And the packed house of parents, siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles and teachers couldn’t have been prouder!

The Kitah Bet morot, Morah Rebecca and Morah Wasser, with the help of Morah Zimerman and Morah Ahuva, did a wonderful job of preparing the children for this memora-

ble occasion and we thank them for working so hard to instill a love of learning in our students.

We extend a special thank you to Rabbi Shapiro for supplying the musical accompaniment for the program and to our PTA and the collation committee for the delicious snacks.

We also acknowledge the generosity of our Chag HaChumash sponsors.

Thank you to Sylta Gravely, Jeannie Toplin and our custodians, Omar and Santiago, for their help in all the behind the scenes work that went into creating a very meaningful milestone for our students.

Boys from Rabbi Sussman’s eighth grade class in Yeshiva Darchei Torah provided music entertainment at their Rebbi’s daughter’s vort on Sunday night at “The Brick Room” in Cedarhurst. Chaim Applebaum was on the keyboard, Ari Zutler and Akiva David provided vocals. They guests said they were wonderful – very leibedik and professional.

Levi Yitzchak Library Hosts the Writer’s “Block Party”

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ooking for something to do this Motzei Shabbos? The Levi Yitzchak Library wants to bring in the New Year with you! Come experience spoken-word poetry at The Writer’s “Block Party” featuring exhibits from the latest and greatest of our community’s youth. The entire community is invited to the program which will be held this Motzei Shabbos, January 2, 2016, at 8pm to The Levi Yitzchak Library to experience a

creative writing exhibition and spoken-word poetry performance.

Everyone needs some inspiration to bring in the New Year…come join us for some food and fun! All ages welcome!

For sponsorship opportunities and more information contact LY Library co-founder and director Mrs. Lisa Hawk at 516-374-2665 or email 5townswritersblock@gmail.com.

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 31, 2015

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DECEMBER 31, 2015 | The Jewish Home

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Chasdei Chashie L’Kallah Chinese Auction Event

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kallah’s expenses can quickly accrue leaving little leftover for basic items. Hundreds of applicants a year are fortunate to receive crucial furnishings – beds and sometimes a dinette set – from an organization which can discreetly deliver brand new essentials to an otherwise empty apartment. Started as a zechus for a refuah sheleima, and now as aliyas neshama for Mrs. Chashie Weiss and manned solely by volunteers, Chasdei Chashie L’kallah (CCL) assists brides all over the tri state area and beyond.

On Monday night, December 28, Ahuva Berkowitz hosted their third annual event here in the Five Towns, li’luy nishmas her grandfather, Baruch ben Asher Zelig Halevy. In an ambiance of tasteful elegance, set with gorgeous decor and gustatory

delights, Rebbetzin Batya Krasnow, a kallah teacher in Far Rockaway, opened the event with stories about kallahs in our community that have been recipients of CCL. Guests of the event were treated to a video presentation describing its mission.

Esti Goldberg, founder, provided the historical background of CCL. It was started over a decade ago by family and friends hoping to provide a zechus for Mrs. Chashie Weiss, Esti’s ailing mother. Beds were noted to be a neglected aspect of hachnosas kallah, and they set to fill that void.

Unfortunately, Mrs. Weiss, a woman of bitachon and simchas hachayim, succumbed to her illness followed very shortly after by her husband.

Left orphaned of their parents, the 11 Weiss children were determined to continue the legacy of chessed. Field-

ing over 75 phone calls a day, few organizations can stretch their budget as efficiently as this one.

Today, over 2,500 kallahs later, CCL is still a relied upon resource for many more. The outpouring of the Five Towns support gives much chizuk to their committed volunteers.

Thank you to the hosts, Ahuva Berkowitz and her husband Heshy and to Heshy for his indispensable technical assistance. Together with sisters Daniella Schwartz and Malka Malone, Ahuva helped create a beautiful evening for the neshama of their grandfather, Baruch ben Asher Zelig Halevy. May his neshama have an aliya and may he be a meilitz yosher for the entire Mapah family. Thanks as well to Miriam Leah Ungar for her constant help in all aspects – from mailing invitations

to soliciting prizes and everything in between – and to Chaya Ungar for coordinating refreshments each year at the Five Towns events. Thanks to “D Squared,” Devorah Dreifus and Dina Rogoff, for their tablecloths and decor, and to Mrs. Vera Solomon, Machi Muller, Esther Malka Jeidel, Dovid and Tzvi Ungar, Batsheva Golding, Mimi Schreier and Rachel Solomon for all their time and effort and for all the guests who generously purchased auction tickets.

The live drawing will take place on January 13. If you missed the Cedarhurst party, another one will be held next week at the home of Mrs. Karen Portal on January 3, at 138 Elm St in Woodmere. Rebbetzin Sori Teitelbaum will be speaking.

You can also purchase tickets online at www.helpakallah.org.

Tichon Meir Moshe High School: Remembering Sarala Ginzberg A”H

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s all members of this readership surely know, our neighborhood suffered a grievous loss five weeks ago with the petirah of Sarala Ginzberg. The loss was felt sharply, keenly, and achingly in the halls of Tichon Meir Moshe, the high school Sarala attended. By all accounts, of staff and students alike, Sarala was universally loved for her ability to enjoy and initiate good, clean, fun; for her emotional healthiness; and for her positive perspective on all kinds of people and situations.

As one administrator put it, “Sarala was great at appropriate and fun nonsense, but she had no capacity at all for the nonsense and drama of high school politics. In fact, she was the one to diffuse many a potentially explosive situation among her classmates.” Her popularity was further enhanced by the open and welcoming household her parents, Rabbi Aryeh Zev and Rebbetzin Avigayil Ginzberg, provided. Class get-togethers were invariably held at the Ginzberg home, the side-splitting rendition of Sarala as Amelia Bedelia “dressing a chicken” was performed there; and the TMM classic of Sarala “hanging around” on a hanger in a closet was filmed there.

Her petirah hit the high school very hard. Sarala’s vitality forever stilled was almost impossible to

comprehend. The girls missed her fiercely. And how could they reconcile the intensity of their tefillos for her recovery with the eventual outcome? The principals knew they had to do something to help their talmidos deal with the tragedy and their unresolved feelings. Sarala’s shloshim provided the forum to address these issues.

On Thursday, December 24, after 30 days of grieving for their cherished friend, TMM held a shloshim tribute for Sara Chaya bas R’ Aryeh Zev. After a seudah in the Ateres Nechama Liba Simcha Hall, a group of very talented TMM young women performed a song and dance presentation that was both poignant and inspirational. The song was an original composition by Gitty Kleinberg and Temi Kadar about tefillah; and the dance, choreographed by Bracha Barak and Sarala Weinberg and performed by Bracha Ackerman, Basya Bender, Kayla Zar, and Michal Dina Friedman, was deeply evocative of the emotions involved in beseeching Hakadosh Baruch Hu. Following this moving presentation, Mrs. Gornish, TMM Menaheles, conducted a workshop on tefillah. The high school was divided into study groups to work on locating the sources in Tanach for various ma’amarei chazal which speak about tefillah.

It was a communal research project on a topic that the girls desperately wanted to understand. There is no greater motivation for seeking out an answer than the sincere desire to understand.

The next day, Erev Shabbos Kodesh, saw the students gathered again – this time to hear from Mrs. Michal Horowitz (noted educator and lecturer) and Mrs. Zahava Farbman LMSW (Associate Director Project Chai). Regular classes were cancelled and the day was devoted to imbibing the wisdom that these two women had to offer. By using R’ Shimshon Pincus’ sefer, She’arim Betefillah, Mrs. Horowitz and Mrs. Farbman showed the girls how different types of tefillah can be utilized in ways practical and relevant to a teenage girl’s life. They were extremely articulate and their message was extremely impactful. They validated the girls’ feelings and gave them the tools to move forward. The program ended with a choral rendition of a song composed by the gifted Temi Kadar. This was the same song that Rabbi and Mrs. Ginzberg played at the gathering for Sarala’s shloshim on Thursday night in Congregation Beth Shalom (in a version taped and sung by a young boy). This was the same song that had the hundreds of men and women who attended that

shloshim sobbing unrestrainedly.

Miss Kadar’s song spoke of the longing for Sarala’s smile, the acknowledgement that she was smiling from above, and the sheer heartbreak of missing her.

The tribute continued on Monday.

Rabbi Menachem Nissel, world-renowned lecturer and author, helped the girls realize that their tefillos were not ignored. Hashem did not say “No” to all their davening and hoping. Perhaps He used those tefillos in another way to help Sarala.

But He did not and does not ignore.

He does not reject. He does not say “No.” Rabbi Nissel provided an invaluable service for the girls, giving them a lesson for life in the value of their personal and private tefillos. It was an empowering and validating lesson. Knowing that their personal approach to tefillah is appreciated and beloved by Hashem gives each girl the impetus to keep davening, even in the darkest of times.

The TMM tribute to Sarala Ginzberg may have ended officially on December 28, but there is no doubt that the tribute will go on in many unofficial ways for a long time to come. Every time a girl speaks kindly to a classmate, shares a smile, tells a joke, strikes a cute pose, lights up a room – it will be a tribute to Sara Chaya bas R’ Aryeh Zev, a”h.

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 31, 2015

Around the Community

Bringing the Pyramids to Life

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ixth graders in Morah Terry’s social studies class at HANC just completed a unit on ancient Egypt. As part of the unit the students learned about the three kingdoms, pharaohs, Egyptian gods, life in Egypt, and, of course, the pyramids! To culminate all they learned, the students created models of pyramids, like the pyramids found in Giza, complete with mummies, hieroglyphics and plenty of riches. The students did a wonderful and very creative job!

Governor Signs Bill to Ensure Due Process in Traffic Court

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ssemblyman Todd Kaminsky announced that legislation he cosponsored (A7230) was recently signed into law by Governor Andrew Cuomo. The bill prohibits municipalities from collecting any fine, surcharge, forfeiture or fee unless an individual charged with a traffic violation is found liable in a court of law. The measure was sponsored

by Assemblyman Michael DenDekker and Senator Tony Avella.

“A basic tenet of our legal system in America is that only individuals who are found guilty through the due process of law face consequences,” said Assemblyman Kaminsky, a former prosecutor. “This legislation will ensure that only those who are found guilty of violating a traffic law will be penalized, while keeping money in the pockets of hard-working middle class families.”

Kaminsky cosponsored the bill in response to feedback from motorists irked by “driver responsibility fees” and other administrative fines levied

by municipalities and counties on drivers whose summonses are dismissed. “Individuals who come to court to fight a traffic summons must sacrifice time away from work, their family and other responsibilities only to find out they owe a fee for merely showing up, even after their violation is dismissed by the court,” said Assemblyman Kaminsky. “Such fees place an undue burden on citizens and this legislation ensures that motorists who are not found to be liable for a traffic violation are not penalized.”

“I have represented many clients and have helped them get their tickets dismissed in court. But it was always unjust to see them pay an administrative fee even though they had done nothing wrong,” said Long Beach attorney Sean Schaefer. “I applaud Assemblyman Kaminsky for his support of this legislation, which will ensure that individuals whose traffic summonses are dismissed do not pay a dime in unjust fines.”

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HANC Middle School Students Visit the Museum of Jewish Heritage – A Living Memorial to the Holocaust

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n Thursday morning, December 24, the eighth grade girls of HANC had a most memorable trip. The girls went to the Museum of Jewish Heritage – A Living Memorial to the Holocaust. This trip was part of the NAMES NOT NUMBERS program directed by Mrs. Tova Rosenberg. As soon as the students arrived at the museum, the mood was set. The museum is beautiful. The students entered and were greeted by Dr. Paul Radensky, the manager of educational programs at the museum. Dr. Radensky went through a brief timeline of the major events leading up to, during and at the end of the Holocaust. Next, the students were divided up into two groups and each went with their own docent through the museum. Both of the docents were excellent and they gave meaning to each of the parts of the exhibit. There were so many interesting things that we saw. One of these included a b’samim box that was taken by one of the Jews in his bag. The do-

cent explained how poignant this was because the Jews were only allowed to take one bag of items. The fact that this b’samim box was one of the items was incredible. The students thought about what they would take if they were presented with the same scenario. Another memorable item was the dress and bag that were sown after the liberation. Of course, the Jews needed clothing to wear and one of the women sewed a dress. Next to the dress was a bag which she sewed from the pajamas/uniform that she was given to wear during the Holocaust. It was

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a prime example of hope for the future and never forgetting the past. In fact, there are two quotes toward the entrance of the exhibits reminding everyone of these two themes.

After a delicious lunch, the students were treated to an interactive discussion with Dr. Radensky. The students were given pictures of artifacts and they were asked to come up with what they thought was the story behind these artifacts. After Dr. Radensky helped them go through the story, he revealed the actual story.

The students did a great job with this.

One of the items discussed was a little comb. It was revealed that during the Holocaust a girl made this comb out of whatever little metal she could find even though the Nazis had shaved her head. She wanted to remember what it was like to comb her hair and to be prepared for when she would once again have that opportunity.

The girls boarded the buses back to HANC with an even greater appreciation for the events of the Holocaust.

We thank the museum, the docents, Dr. Radensky and Mrs. Rosenberg for making this day possible.

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DECEMBER 31, 2015 | The Jewish Home

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Yeshiva of Far Rockaway Alumni Melava Malka

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n Motzoei Shabbos Parshas Vayeshev, December 5, the Yeshiva of Far Rockaway held its third annual Lakewood alumni Melava Malka.

The Rosh Yeshiva, Rabbi Yechiel Yitzchok Perr, and the Menahel, Rabbi Aaron Brafman, were in attendance. It was a great pleasure and a chizuk for them to meet several dozen of the Yeshiva’s married alumni. Among the select group of talmidei chachomim are a number of roshei chabura, raamim, poskim and mechabrei seforim. All are true bnei Torah of whom the Yeshiva is very proud.

The Rosh Yeshiva gave a shmuess in honor of the upcoming yom tov of Chanukah about the underpinnings of the struggle between the Greek-Hellenist culture and that of Klal Yisroel and its practical application for our times.

The melava malka was hosted by Mr. and Mrs. Matis Miller. Mr. Miller, a loyal talmid of the Yeshiva, is a prominent psychotherapist in Lakewood. The Millers have graciously opened their home each year to host this special event.

Pesach with the Gross and Schechter Families at the Hilton Doubletree in Somerset, New Jersey

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esach is all about generations of family members celebrating the Pesach seder together in a warm and inviting atmosphere. The Gross and Schechter families, three generations of Jewish hospitality for almost a century, help you create lifetime memories. Three sumptuous daily meals include the traditional foods of Pesach updated for the sophisticated palette.

Our full day programming opens up a realm of classes that range from basic computer programming classes, new to our schedule, to shiurim, Daf Yomi, Aleph Beta video presentations, and current events in the United States and Israel. We have classes on contemporary topics of interest in the Jewish world. We offer classes on defensive driving, CME classes for lawyers and cooking demonstrations

which serve to help you in your daily life. Our scholars­in­residence are world-renowned in their fields. We round out our programming with art and culture classes, book reviews and wine tasting, always a delight to our guests. ...Or pull yourself off the grid and enjoy a game of mah jongg, canasta, a myriad of board games available upon request. Swim or play tennis, enjoy the grounds or explore the surroundings searching for antiques, golf, horseback riding, Camden Aquarium, Liberty Science Center, Statue of Liberty and more. Manhattan is a short ride away if working or playing in “the city” catches your fancy.

Our nights light up with daily entertainment. Marvel at magicians, sing along with musicians. Our shows include well-known acts and enter-

tainers from around the country, and Ohad joining us from Eretz Yisrael.

Nightly entertainment always followed with special themed dessert galas, sweet and savory to complete your day.

Dynamic day and night camp programs have always been one of the highlights of the Gross/Schechter program. We understand that parents are only as happy as their kids are, and we provide them with on­ site fun, their own computer classes, swimming, carnival and imagina-

tion/creation activities. All day game room, bowling and mini­golf are sure winners every year for our children.

Introducing this year, the renowned children’s author, Ann Koffsky, who will headline our special night activities for the children, which include drama­filled story­telling fun.

Join our family of guests at the Gross/Schechter program at the Doubletree Hilton for a Pesach program founded on tradition, peppered with entertainment and topped off with fun for every generation.

Is Gluten-Free a Fad? See Charles Krauthammer on page 130

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 31, 2015

Around the Community The Five Towns-Far Rockaway Women’s Rosh Chodesh Shiur was held this past Sunday at Congregation Shaaray Tefila in Lawrence.

The lecturer was Yitzy Weinberg, a prominent speaker on the Upper West Side. His topic was “Mysteries Surrounding a Father and Son—Did Yaakov Avinu Ever Find Out What Really Happened to Yosef?”

PHOTO CREDIT: IVAN H NORMAN

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G RE E AT SH W IP ED W DI O NG RL DW GI F ID T! E!

Learn & Live

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t this week’s Learn & Live program, there was chaff, seeds & beards flying everywhere as R’ Nachum Dinowitz was back for some more Half $s Giveaways and an exciting presentation of the melacha of zoreah (winnowing).

R’ Dinowitz first went through the steps leading up to zoreah and went back to dush. Some boys were called up to thresh some wheat stalks and put in in a bucket. Then R’ Dinowitz

huffed and puffed a live winnowing with straw and stuff in his “beard,” pun intended. Then some boys got a chance to winnow with the chance to get a half dollar if they removed the chaff and a rock was able to be seen.

We even got some fathers to join in and help out their sons. Now that’s called father & son learning!

For more information regarding the Learn & Live program, email learnandlivefr@gmail.com.

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Around the Community

YOSS ECC Siyum on Sefer Bereishis

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re-1A at Yeshiva of South Shore celebrated a on Siyum Sefer Bereishis. The children davened together, had their first “faher” on the parshiyos, and enjoyed singing and delicious Torah cookies.

The celebration continued as the boys went to the shul, to find the os that starts their name in the Torah, as we prepare to learn Sefer Shmos.

Milestones for Shulamith First and Second Graders

THE SECOND GRADE CHUMASH PLAY

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he month of December ended with some very special moments for Shulamith first and second graders. Each class had the opportunity to perform on stage for their parents and grandparents, and each talmidah was called upon to receive a most precious gift.

On Sunday, December 20, it was the first graders who took to the stage to sing shevach to Hashem. Their teachers, Morah Adina Katz and Morah Masha Hoffman, and assistant teachers, Morah Rayna Deutsch, Morah Miri Fried, and Morah Breindy Wahrman, had been

preparing them for months for this momentous occasion in their lives.

Each talmidah was beaming as her name was called, and she stepped up to receive her customized leather covered siddur from Lower Division Principal, Mrs. Joyce Yarmak.

A second simcha took place on Friday, December 25 and on Sunday, December 27, as the three second grade classes each had a turn to host their guests for a cantata that included songs about Sefer Bereishit, Birchat Shehechiyanu, and the famous story of Hillel who yearned to learn Torah and climbed onto

THE FIRST GRADE SIDDUR PLAY

the roof of a Beit Medrash to listen, remaining there even after it began to snow. Wearing flowered headbands and performing in front of a backdrop depicting Har Sinai, the second graders ended their performance with a song for the well being of our family and friends in Israel, tefillah l’shlom hamedinah. After their heartfelt presentation, the moment they had been anticipating for months finally arrived: Mrs. Yarmak distributed personalized Chumashim to each of the eager young talmidot. Morot Naomi Hollander and Rivka Sassoon and assistants

Lindsey Weinreich, Miriam Giller, and Shayna Rosenberg enjoyed the nachat of watching the girls perform to perfection.

To top off the festivities, a DVD of the girls was shown and everyone was invited upstairs to a collation with their families. Each student received a framed picture of herself holding her Chumash, as well as a beautiful purple Shulamith lunch bag.

There is no doubt that our talmidot will forever remember this milestone in their lives. Mazel tov to all!

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 31, 2015

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Baruch Bodner, a seventh grader at Yeshiva Darchei Torah, prepared and gave the Daf Yomi shiur at Rabbi Blumenkrantz’s shul last week at 6am.

Assemblyman Goldfeder Calls on MTA to Expand Sundown Service on Erev Shabbos

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fter receiving numerous complaints from Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) commuters racing to make it home for Shabbos, Assemblyman Phil Goldfeder (D - Far Rockaway) is calling on the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) to add additional trains to its Friday “sundown” schedule to better accommodate Shabbos observance.

“I appreciate that the MTA made the effort to accommodate our families with its LIRR ‘sundown’ schedule,” said Assemblyman Phil Goldfeder. “However, the current schedule barely gets commuters home in time for candles, let alone make all their necessary preparations on Erev Shabbos. That’s why it’s so important the MTA expand its ‘sundown’ schedule and ensure our families can properly observe Shabbos.”

In a letter to Long Island Railroad President Patrick Nowakowski, Assemblyman Goldfeder requested the agency add additional Friday afternoon trains to its current schedule.

This, Goldfeder wrote, would allow commuters ample time to arrive home before sunset and properly prepare for the Sabbath.

The Assemblyman pointed to the agency’s own policy of implementing schedule changes throughout the year. LIRR makes multiple considerations for various entertainment, shopping and holiday needs, the letter states. In recent weeks, the MTA has announced multiple schedule

increases for the Christmas and New Years holidays, including on the Far Rockaway line.

Last month, the MTA announced the return of its “Sundown Service,” which includes one additional eastbound train on Friday afternoons on the Far Rockaway Branch. This extra train, the agency states, is intended for commuters “who must be home before sundown for religious purposes.” The extra trains leave Atlantic Terminal in Brooklyn at 3:05 p.m. and Penn Station at 3:07 p.m., connecting at Jamaica to the 3:31 p.m., arriving in Far Rockaway at 4:05 p.m.

However, the Assemblyman’s office recently received numerous concerns from commuters who say the current expanded schedule doesn’t meet their needs. In his letter, the Assemblyman suggested that adding a 2 p.m. train would help provide some relief during the shorter winter days. For Goldfeder, this would be a considerable accommodation for many in the community.

“I appreciate the MTA accommodating the frum community, however this small change to the schedule will go a long way in helping our families better balance their work and home lives,” concluded Goldfeder. “I will continue to work with the MTA to ensure future schedule adjustments are done to best maximize transit options for the Shabbos observant community.”

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Around the Community

Yeshiva College Physics Professor Shares $412,000 NSF Grant to Study Charge Distribution in Nanoparticles

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or Dr. Fredy Zypman, professor of physics and chair of the physics department at Yeshiva University’s Yeshiva College, the key to big advances in the creation of everything from medicine to electric cars might lie in a better understanding of something small: nanoparticles.

Along with his research colleague, Dr. Steven Eppell, associate professor of biomedical engineering at Case Western Reserve University, Zypman has been awarded a $412,000 grant by the National Science Foundation to develop a groundbreaking technique that will allow scientists to map and measure electrical charge distribution on the surface of nanoparticles and tiny molecules.

Eppel will collect the experimental data, while Zypman focuses on the theoretical analysis and software development at YU. Woodmere, New York, resident Yitzchak Fried is among four student researchers at Yeshiva College who will conduct research with Zypman for the grant.

Charge distribution plays a critical role in many natural processes. For example, it determines the communication that allows some proteins within the bodies to create tissue, a mechanism called “self-assembly” which in and of itself could yield revolutionary advances in biology and disease treatment if it was

better understood. By providing scientists with a tool to determine exactly where charges are located and what the charge value is within a specific molecule, Zypman’s research could provide valuable insight into how that process could be recreated for medicinal purposes.

“If we knew where charges were located in a protein, we would also know what the forces of interaction were that would cause them to self-assemble correctly, but the main problem for us is that we don’t know where those charges are,” said Zypman. “We’re at a very primitive stage of understanding the charge content of very small systems. Proteins, nanoparticles—we’re talking about systems that are 10,000 to 100,000 times smaller than the thickness of a hair. People commonly use 100-yearold techniques to measure charges in systems like this.”

According to Zypman, the key to advancing our understanding of these systems is hidden in the sensor of an atomic force microscope, a high-resolution device that allows scientists to study objects at a resolution higher than 1,000 times the magnitude of a standard optical microscope. Zypman’s goal is to develop a technique that will help researchers understand the sensor’s behavior so they can retrieve and analyze that data, a feature that hasn’t

been developed by the companies that produce the microscope. To achieve this, he and his student researchers— currently four Yeshiva College students assisting him with the project and supported by the grant, along with a PhD student who will join them next fall—have to analyze the dynamics of the atomic force microscope in an unconventional way.

“We’re measuring the tiny forces that are active at a substance’s surface, which lets us ultimately figure out how much electric charge the substance surface contains,” explained Woodmere resident Fried, a junior majoring in mathematics.

“We study a rod that bends and vi-

brates due to the forces exerted on it by our sample. By measuring the way the rod vibrates, we can derive the forces acting on it.”

Ultimately, Zypman hopes to create a graphic user interface and package the software he and his students design to make this information easily accessible to researchers and industry, because understanding charge content and location in small systems could solve problems in fields that range from biology and chemistry to environmental science and car design. He anticipates the new grant will help him and his collaborators to see meaningful results from their work in a few years.

Avreichim in Pinsk, Belarus Spend Vacation Taking Dirshu Tests

By Chaim Gold

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ne of the greatest manifestations of the ideal of “netzach Yisrael lo yishaker – the eternal nature of Yisrael will never cease,” are the seeds and blossoms of Torah growth in the former Soviet Union. After more than 70 years of Communist, dictatorial rule, Torah is once again being learned there. Even more impressive is that in Belarus, just miles away from Radin, the sefarim of the Chofetz Chaim – both his Mishnah Berurah and Shmiras Halashon – are being learned daily in the Dirshu Daf HaYomi B’ Halacha Program. Moreover an entire group of yungeleit is

also taking the Dirshu tests monthly!

Who would have believed that Communist atheist Russian-born and educated Jews would be devoting a significant part of their day to learning Mishnah Berurah and reviewing it numerous times so that they – like their counterparts in Eretz Yisrael and all over the world –can take the monthly tests?

Today, in the city of Pinsk there are about 300 Jewish families. Most are not shomrei mitzvos. In the yeshiva in Pinsk there are twelve avreichim and four bochurim, nearly all of whom learn and take the Dirshu Daf HaYomi B’Halacha tests.

This month, Dirshu’s hanhala

received an unusual request from the Dirshu Chabura of Pinsk: “Being that at the end of the secular year in Russia,” began the query, “the whole country goes on vacation, we have extra time to learn. Would it be possible for us to learn ahead [during that time] and next month take the test on the material for both Chodesh Teves and Chodesh Shevat?”

Yes! The Dirshu learners of Pinsk want to use their free time on vacation to go further and dedicate themselves to better learning and reviewing the Mishnah Berurah.

This is the degree of dedication of the lomdei Dirshu who live in Pinsk, Belarus, all of them baalei teshuvah!

What a profound Kiddush Hashem!

Mr. Eytan Kobre: Sharing your Friend’s Burden Page 82

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 31, 2015

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ADVERTORIAL

Israel’s Newest American-Style Community Underway Monsey’s Rav Rudinsky to Participate in Establishing Shul, Yeshivas In Ramat Givat Zeev

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av Bezalel Rudinsky, rabbi of Congregation Ahavas Yitzchok and Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshivas Ohr Reuven and Yeshivas Darchei Noam of Monsey, has joined in the development of a brand-new, American-style community in Ramat Givat Zeev, located minutes from Jerusalem.

Rav Rudinsky plans to help establish an American-style yeshiva in the neighborhood and assist in the overall religious and educational functions of the community, aiming to facilitate in the integration of American families moving to Eretz Yisrael—whether part-time or permanently.

“The idea, bezras Hashem, is to help members of our community here in the States to have everything that we have here but with the zechus of being in Eretz Yisrael, with a unique emphasis on building an all-inclusive community where everyone feels connected,” said Rav Rudinsky. While the community is still in the preliminary stages of construction and development, many families have begun to take an interest in relocating to Ramat Givat Zeev. In addition to helping establish chinuch institutions in the neighborhood, Rav Rudinsky plans to spend some of his time in the new community with his family while still

continuing all of his responsibilities in the States.

“The concept is basically to create a unified communal lifestyle in Eretz Yisrael,” Rav Rudinsky explained.

“And for the families with younger children, to have in place an educational system similar to what we have in the U.S.” According to Rav

Rudinsky and many members of his community, Ramat Givat Zeev provides the perfect setting for this, aiming, bezras Hashem, to create a communal hashkafa of openness that integrates a frum family-centered lifestyle and quality of living in Eretz Yisrael.

Under the planning and manage-

ment of Chish Nofei Israel, Ramat Givat Zeev will be an upscale, Torani community built to include high standards of construction and infrastructure located in the outskirts of Jerusalem. The neighborhood will blend Torah living with modern recreational and commercial centers, complete with all necessary services and amenities. With construction slated to finish in the next two years, Ramat Givat Zeev will be a gated neighborhood that includes schools, yeshivas, shuls, shops, and a country club.

In addition, the neighborhood will feature wide streets, walking paths and LED street lighting. There will several expansive parks and playgrounds, and beautifully manicured gardens, as well as fountains and sports clubs.

Some 200 families, including English-speaking families in Israel and North Americans planning for Aliyah in the near future, already have purchased private homes and luxury apartments in the neighborhood. Select apartments remain.

Ramat Givat Zeev is bound to be a magnificent, dream-come-true community for those looking to invest in a future in Eretz Yisrael.

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Around the Community

YCQ Students Make Klee Commitment

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tudents at the Yeshiva of Central Queens have made the “Klee Commitment.” Following the reading of the book Caleb and Kayla Create the Klee written by Rochelle Zupnik, under the direction of Mrs. Linda Benson and the YCQ art program, students created and decorated their own klee, a vessel that will be kept filled with products from Israel. Their uniquely decorated klee will serve as an ongoing reminder of the love and support they have for the Land of Israel and her people. Six year old Ariel Pinkhasov said, “Israel doesn’t have much money so we need to give some to them. I learned that this will help.” The students have also learned the importance of purchasing products made in Israel and how that helps the Israel economy, as well as

showing the people living there and protecting our homeland that they are thought about and supported always.

When asked if she thought the project was important, grade 1 student Dalia Leitner said, “I want to buy

Making Tefillah Meaningful at Shulamith

Israel’s products to try and give more money to Israel. If they have more money they could have more people.”

The project was starts by ACHI (American Communities Helping Israel), a non-profit organization founded to keep the love and enthusi-

YHT Annual Parent-Child Day of Learning

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eshiva Har Torah held its annual Harry Friedman Parent Child Day of Learning this past Friday, December 25. Parents of students in grades 7th and 8th gathered for tefillah, followed by a delicious breakfast. Parents and students then proceeded to the Beit Midrash for chavrutah learning on the topic of “Blessing One’s Children...Not So Simple.” Source booklets were distributed which allowed the chavrutahs to follow the topic of blessing one’s children from the source in the Torah, through the Talmud and

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ast Wednesday, Shulamith Middle School students attended an enlightening session on the topic of tefillah. Panelists Gila Goldstone, a teacher in Yeshiva Darchei Torah; Mindy Futersak, a teacher in Shulamith Lower Division; and Suri Weingot, a mechanechet in Bnos Bais Yaakov; fielded questions supplied by the students. Their responses to questions such as, “Do you have a role model in tefillah?” and “How do you maintain your concentration while davening?” were powerful and inspiring. The panelists spoke about the importance of looking at the words in the siddur and studying the meaning of the words,

making tefillah a priority in one’s life, and remembering that Hashem loves us and wants us to daven to Him. Each panelist left the students with a motivational message. Morah Futersak reminded students that Hashem wants and cherishes the tefillot of tinokot shel beit rabban; Morah Gila used a beautiful mashal to remind students that Hashem is their Father; and, as her baby began to cry, Morah Weinstock imparted the girls to “cry to Hashem like a baby cries to his mother.”

Thanks to Morah Chana Schwartz for organizing this very meaningful and practical program.

asm for Israel alive around the world.

The hopes of the organization is to boost morale, as well as the economy and to create an awareness of the importance in helping our brothers and sisters in Eretz Yisroel.

ultimately to the later opinions in halacha. The Menahel, Rabbi Gary Menchel, then delivered a beautiful shiur tying the sources together, explaining the significance of blessing one’s children and the specific ways to do so.

YHT is privileged to continue the legacy of the Friedman family through this annual day of learning where parents, children, teachers and faculty gather to learn Torah on a day when many parents are home from work.

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 31, 2015

Around the Community

Dr. Hylton Lightman, veteran community pediatrician, gave some of his precious time to speak for Yeshiva Nishmas Hatorah. It was an open and honest discussion about all the relevant concerns and challenges that bochurim today face and grapple with. It was an eye-opener and a chizuk in all ways.

This continues the Yeshiva’s mission of making today’s bochurim aware of the potential pitfalls and giving them the tools to avoid them and only use these opportunities as a means of bettering ourselves and of those lives around us.

Pugatch Realty Corp Celebrates 25 Years in Business in The Five Towns and Vicinity

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ugatch Realty celebrated 25 years in business with a party at the Lawrence Yacht and Country Club on December 16. The staff and agents celebrated while watching snapshots and videos of the past 25 years at Pugatch Realty.

Everyone had a great time enjoying the memories of the last 25 years and looking forward to the next 25 years.

The Royalton Caterers did a stupendous, fabulous and delicious job.

Barry and Susan Pugatch applauded their staff and agents with this celebratory party. A milestone has been reached.

Repairing the world through Judaism’s timeless wisdom

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Around the Community

Lunch and Torah at ECG Resources

By Rabbi Mordechai Kruger

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hat if there was something better than a free lunch?

Once a month, executive recruiter Dave Glaser invites the men of the community to his Inwood office for a Rosh Chodesh Torah Shiur/ lunch experience which promises “no charge, no solicitation, just Torah!” with a complimentary catered lunch.

And as any of the 20 or so regulars who mark it on their busy calendars can tell you, it’s way better than a free lunch.

Glaser is the president of ECG Resources, a boutique executive search firm focusing on the wealth management industry. With over 30 years in the business, Glaser moved his office to the historic Landmark Building at the corner of Doughty Blvd. and Elizabeth St. in Inwood nearly 15 years ago. There he decided that an active presence of Torah learning had to be part of his business environment. To

meet that need, there has been a daily Torah study session in which all of the firm members participate, even if for only 5 minutes, every business day since. With wide-ranging interests, they have completed books on Jewish thought, prayer, and a variety of areas of halacha. Pleased with the results, Glaser was looking for a way to do more.

Rabbi Mordechai Sitorsky moved to Bayswater over 11 years ago. A longtime talmid of Yeshiva Torah V’Daas, he had a close relationship with and received semicha from the revered Rosh Yeshiva, Rav Avraham Pam zt”l. He also delved deeply into the wide-ranging shiurim of the Mashgiach, Harav Moshe Wolfson, shlit”a, which inspired him to study many of the works of the great Chassidic masters, particularly the B’nai Yissaschar.

He also developed strong ties to many Rebbes, especially the Lubavitcher Rebbe, zt”l, attending nearly every fabreng for many years. Soon after

PHOTO CREDIT: IVAN H NORMAN

arriving in Bayswater, he became the baal koreh in the Agudah of Bayswater. People in Bayswater began getting calls from friends in Brooklyn saying, “Ask him to give a shiur – you’ll be glad you did.” Soon the members of the Agudah realized that Rabbi Sitorsky had uniquely eclectic insights on the parshios, yomim tovim, and many other areas that were both fascinating and exciting, and he was willing to share them.

One of the long-standing shiurim at the Agudah is a morning Gemara Amud Yomi Shiur, which was begun over 15 years ago by Rabbi Yoel Zwickler, a”h. After Rabbi Zwickler’s untimely passing, the shiur was given by a series of outstanding volunteers, until it came to the capable hands of Rabbi Sitorsky nearly eight years ago, where it has remained ever since.

Dave Glaser has long been a daily participant in that shiur, and after some years of enjoying his daily dose of Rabbi Sitorsky’s teaching, he decided he wanted to do more.

Starting about six years ago, on or about every Rosh Chodesh, Rabbi Sitorsky has delivered a shiur on, well, Rosh Chodesh. He develops themes that give structure and order to the Hebrew months, the events and parshios that occur in them, and their deep connections to the letters of the aleph-bais and to many other Torah ideas, as found in the works of the great Chassidic masters and brought together with clarity and great skill by Rabbi Sitorsky. Even after addressing

each month’s themes several times, he has not exhausted the reservoir of Torah thought. Each shiur reveals new and often startling ideas that give depth and excitement to the coming Hebrew month.

Dave Glaser notes that he had two goals in establishing the monthly shiur. The first was to bring more Torah to his workplace, and that has been achieved. But his dream is that many more businessmen will hear about the shiur, and, after enjoying a few samples, they will decide to bring Rabbi Sitorsky, or some other Torah resource, to their own offices. “Keeping our office as a makom Torah is the key to any success we may enjoy and I appreciate all those who attend to bring kedusha to our business. I’m hoping for the day when Rabbi Sitorsky goes the whole month without eating lunch at home. Then I’ll know that the excitement he brings to my world is reaching as many others as possible.”

The next Rosh Chodesh shiur will be on Monday, January 11, at 1 PM in Dave’s office at 148 Doughty Blvd., Inwood, on the third floor. Doors open at 12:45 and Mincha will follow. If you haven’t been there before, leave a message for Jordana Feinberg at 212812-9800, x19, or jordanafeinberg@ ECGResources.com so they’ll know you’re coming. Dave always wants to make sure there’s enough lunch for everyone. You can also download the shuirim from www.ECGresources. weebly.com, or ask Dave to burn you a CD for your commute.

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 31, 2015

CHAI LIFELINE LIGHTS UP CHANUKAH FOR TENS OF THOUSANDS

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A toy store’s worth of gifts greeted children at the New York Chanukah Gala.

HOLIDAY PARTIES AND EVENTS BRIGHTEN HOLIDAY FOR 50,000 CHILDREN AND FAMILY MEMBERS; TOY DRIVE DELIVERS TENS OF THOUSANDS OF GIFTS; GOVERNOR HOGAN JOINS FESTIVITIES IN MARYLAND Chanukah was an opportunity for Chai Lifeline to touch 50,000 lives with the light and joy of camaraderie, support, recreation, and family time. And oh, yes…all those toys!

The Honey Engel Toy Drive in New York, Leon Korol Toy Drive in Chicago, and dozens of other toy drives across the United States and Canada netted 50,000 toys, stuffed animals, games, dolls, and electronics for kids of all ages. Volunteers sorted through the offerings, then packaged them for delivery to Chai Lifeline families. Gift boxes included toys selected for each child, assuring that no one was left out of the fun this year.

Several communities link Chai Lifeline supporters with their families in a special Chanukah Angels program. In Los Angeles alone, more than 150“Angels” fulfilled the wish lists completed by families. The gifts, accompanied with handmade, heartfelt cards and wishes, were delivered by Chai Lifeline before Chanukah.

“It’s a wonderful program,” stated Randi Grossman, MPH. “Both sides feel very touched by the personal connection.”

Rabbi Simcha Scholar (l) and Rabbi Mordechai Gobioff (r) join Governor Larry Hogan in lighting the menorah.

ed children’s games and activities, arts and crafts, concerts, festive meals, and of course, presents for both patients and their siblings.

Getting ready for the Family Chanukah party in Los Angeles.

Rabbi Shlomo Crandall with some of the wrapped packages for Midwest families.

“

Chai Lifeline’s regional offices in Fort Lauderdale, Chicago, and Los Angeles, as well as volunteers in Pittsburgh and other cities, held events that brought families together for laugh-

These children are inspiring. They’ve gone through so much more than I.

”

ter, friendship, and peer support. Around the world, Chai Lifeline affiliates in London, Belgium, and Israel also made sure that illness took a back seat to joy this holiday season.

Partygoers thanked Cross River Bank, the NY Gala’s sponsor.

IT’S PARTY TIME! EVENTS REACH AROUND THE WORLD, INTO HOSPITAL WARDS In Baltimore, Chai Lifeline partygoers were joined by Governor Larry Hogan at the Top of the World, one of the city’s star attractions.. The party was extra special for the governor, who battled cancer while in office and still carries the “scar,” a bald head.

“These children are inspiring,” he marveled as he spoke to the youngsters and their parents. “They’ve gone through so much more than I.” In the greater New York area, holiday galas in Brooklyn and Rockland County, NY, and Lakewood, NJ drew thousands. Each gala event includ-

Unfortunately, too many children spend Chanukah as inpatients or as outpatients receiving treatment for cancer or other serious illnesses.

Chai Lifeline makes sure they are not forgotten. In addition to parties and children’s activities in almost two dozen hospitals and pediatric medical centers, the organization donated toys and gifts that were distributed to children in hundreds of hospitals, children’s hospices, and pediatric medical facilities in the US, Canada, Europe, and Israel.

Rabbi Simcha Scholar, Chai Lifeline’s executive vice president, estimated that Chai Lifeline’s holiday effort, which began before the first candle was lit on December 6 and will continue for the rest of the calendar year, reached more 50,000 children and adults impacted by illness or loss in their homes.

“Chanukah celebrates both a miracle and a victory over adversity. We are delighted that we are able to share it not only with Chai Lifeline’s children, but with the tens of thousands of volunteers and supporters around the world who gave of themselves to bring smiles and warmth to others. This united effort impacts all of us year round.”

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Thank You!

Our Toy Drive could not happen without the dedication and untold hours of work of Chani Traube & family, Celia Gindi and the Melnicke Family. Once again, we are indebted to Rabbi Menny and Basya Schwab, the Cohen and Dweck Families of Lot Less Closeout, Chabad of Binghamton University, and the Bergen County Toy Drive.

Thank you for bringing Chanukah joy to our

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children.

NEW YORK REGION Benefactors Sammy Braha DYNAREX CORP Martin and Lauren Geller Janet Hod Joseph Khabati L & R Distributors/Marc Bodner Chaim Silber Menucha Publishers Mostly Music Mr. Nutz Rite Lite Volunteers: Chanie Backman Aviva and Shalva Berkowitz Yocheved Bornstein Leah Brody Moshe Cohen Dina Danielchik Mrs. Shaindy and Rachelli Edelstein Leah Einhorn Miriam Leahla Erlich Perela Frank Chani Freund Gedalya Fried Elisheva Friedman Ratzy Gabioff Jason Geller Chaya Ginsberg Yitzy Gluck Netta Goldgrab Brachi Gross Gitty and Etty Grunfeld Ruchi Guttman Shevy Haas Anell Hakimian Richard Hampton Toby Ihrenstein Adina Ihrenstien Leah Itzkowitz Frumi Jankelowitz Goldy Justman Reva Kiss Miriam Krausz Shifra Kreisel Chana Malka Krupenia Goldy Kupchick Sara Lang Rivky Lefkowitz Shaindel Leiberman Ruchie Maimon Aidy Markowitz Adina Markowitz Tzivi Markowitz Pinchus Melnick Pessy Melnicke Ruchy Melnicke Chani Melnicke Chana Esther Milworm Aidel Malka Mintz Chayala Mintz Mally Mossberger Devorah Neuman Rochel Okalica Yizhor Pero Miriam Pilkcher Frumie Rabinowitz Frady Rokach Surelah Rokeach Tzipyy Rokeah Toby Rosenbaum Sari Rosenbaum Esti Rosenbaum Miriam Rosenberg Eli Rosengarten Chaya Rubin Binyomin Rubin Pinchus Rubinfeld Yosef Hirsch Rubinfeld

Nuchem Sanders Shaindy Schwartz Binyomin Schwartz Neema Senter Adina Sheinfeld Libby Sheinfeld Miri Shtierman Chaya Liba Shtierman Eli Spiegel Tzvi Spiegel Momo Spiegel Ruchy Sporn Esty Taub Chaim Traube Baila Traube Yaakov Yechiel Traube Decorah Traube Blimy Weber Suri Weingarten Perelah Wertzberger Baila Wigdor Schools: Adolf Shreiber Hebrew Academy of Rockland-Ashar Ahavas Torah Ateres Bais Yaakov Bais Brocho Karlin Stolin Bais Esther Satmar Bais Malka Girls’ School of Belz Bais Shifra Miriam Bais Trany of Monsey Bais Yaakov Academy Bais Yaakov Adas Yeraim of Williamsburg Bais Yaakov Avir Yaakov Bais Yaakov Avir Yaakov Bais Yaakov Chofetz Chaim Bais Yaakov D’Chasidei Gur Elementary School Bais Yaakov of Adas Yereim Bais Yaakov of Eighteenth Avenue Bais Yaakov Oz Vehodor Barkai Yeshiva Bas Mikroh Girls School Belz Girls School Bet Yaakov Ateret Torah Beth El New Rochelle Beth Rochel School Bnos Chaya Bnos Esther Pupa Bnos Malka Academy Bnos Menachem Bnos Yaakov Pupa Bnos Yisroel Girls’ School of Viznitz Bnos Yisroel Girls’ School of Viznitz Bnos Yisroel Viznitz School Bnos Zion of Bobov B’Not Rachel High School For Girls Bobov Chabad at Tufts University Chabad Early Learning Center Chabad Jewish center of Greenville and the Upstate Chabad Jewish Center of Suffern Chabad of Tribeca Chai Center Chessed 24/7 Chofetz Chaim Preschool Congregation Yeshiva Beis Chaya Mushka Davis Renov Stahler Yeshiva East Midwood Jewish Center Fifth Avenue Synagogue/Creative Play School Flames of Giving Ganeinu Preschool of Fresh Meadows Gesher Yehuda H.A.N.C. Hafter Halb

Ha’or Beacon School Hebrew Institute of Riverdale Hebrew Institute of Riverdale Huntington Jewish Center Jewish Heritage Day School Kinneret Day School Lev Bais Yakkov Magan David Mazel Day School Mazel Day School Mesilas Bais Yaakov Midreshet Shalhevet Mirrer Yeshiva K’Tana Monsey Beis Chaya Mushka Mount Sinai Jewish Center New York Hebrew Ohel Blima Ruchel Bobov Park East Synagogue Positive Beginnings Preschool of the Arts Preschool of the Arts Preschool of the Arts Prospect Park Yeshiva Sanz Klausenberg Girls SAR Academy Shulamit of Long Island Shulamith School for Girls Siach Yitzchok Solomon Schechter School of Queens Stein Yeshiva of Lincoln Park Stella K Abraham Girls Hs Talmud Torah Adas Yereim Talmud Torah Bobov Talmud Torah Me’or Hachaim Viznitz Talmud Torah Me’or Hachaim Viznitz Temple Beth Shalom The Cheder The New Bais Yaakov The Ramaz Lower School The Ramaz School Torah Vedas Westschester Jewish Center YDE Pre-School & Girls Elementary YDE School Yeshiva and Mesivta Torah Temimah Yeshiva Bais Dovid Yeshiva Bais Hachinuch/Children’s Learning Center Yeshiva Bais Mikroh Yeshiva Boyan - Rizhin Tiferes Mordechai Shlomo Yeshiva Chasam Sofer Yeshiva Darchai Menachem Yeshiva Darchei Noam Yeshiva Darchei Noam Yeshiva Degel Hatorah Yeshiva Derech HaTorah Yeshiva Eitz Chaim / The Skill Building Center/Bnos Bracha Yeshiva Ketana of Manhattan Yeshiva Machzikei Hadas Belz Yeshiva of Central Queens Yeshiva of Spring Valley Yeshiva of Spring Valley-Bais Sarah Yeshiva Shaare Torah Yeshiva Shaare Torah Girls Yeshiva Tiferes Elimelech Yeshiva Toras Emes Kaminetz Yeshiva University High School for Girls Yeshivah Chaim Berlin Elementary Yeshivah of Flatbush Elementary School Yeshivah Prep High School Yeshivat Ohel Torah Yeshivat Ohr Chaim Young Israel of Scarsdale

We were delighted to bring families together for fun and relaxation.

“

The amazing part for us was watching our kids open a massive box of toys. It brought so much joy…we will never forget it.

”

MIDWEST REGION Volunteers Roni Berkowitz Devorah Bider Shaindel Bider Tzippy Bider Effy Brownstein Sima Cohen Yehudeet Counne Elky Davis Tehilla Ehrlich Goizman Family Esther Harris Sonny Hartman Korol Families, in memory of Leon Korol Michelle Levinson Ella Liberman Penina Perlman Bracha Prawer Benzy Reifer Raylie Reifer

Malky Reifer Dassy Spinrad Naomi Zissman Schools Arie Crown Hebrew Day School, and 8th Grade Boys with Rebbeim Rabbi Yosef Cohen and Rabbi Shlome Neuberger Yeshivas Tiferes Tzvi/Joan Dachs Bais Yaakov Elementary School Akiba Schechter Day Jewish School Bernard Zell Anshe Emet Day School Philip and Rebecca Esformes Cheder Lubavitch Girls School Chicagoland Jewish High School Chicago Jewish Day School Yeshiva Ohr Boruch Veitzener Cheder Special Thanks To Golan Moving & Storage Inc.

Ethan Harris Yehudis Hickson Shainde Hollander Bracha Ickovitz Nicole Jordan Robin Kerzer Ronit Kornbluth Joy Kustin Family Leibowitz Family Lewinger Jenifer Malka Aliza Markovich Shaindel Minkes

C M B D C Y H Y M

V S S E N C R B D E J C R D E B F T S R G T M C T R A A H N A

C

SOUTHEAST REGION Family Berkower Galina Bieberman Rachel Brier Ruthie Brier Jennifer Chames Jennifer Coanne Heidi Paiul Deautsh Sara Fish Meredith Garfinkel Karen Glick AJ Goodman Yaffa Gordon Libby Gulitzer

S B B C D F H M M P R s S S S S S S T T Y

Wendy Munter Family Pearl Stephanie Pollack Winkler Rachel Sabti Family Shainberg Moran Shvili Family Sommer Edan Toorgman Casey Weberman Shauna Weberman Sivan Wittner Shari Wolkenfeld Susan Wolkenfeld

A A K A P B B B B B B b B C

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 31, 2015

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Special thanks to Freddie Balas Sammy Braha Martin and Lauren Geller Joseph Khabati Chaim Silber

We couldn’t have done it without you!

Even the wrapping was a gift at the Mid-Atlantic Gala.

NEW JERSEY REGION Sponsors/ Supporters: Benny’s Educational Toys

By Invitation Only Chaim & Bayla Parnes Dalgar Caterers Face Craze NJ Honey Engel Toy Fund Meir Kolko Music in Our Lives Prêt -a-Partee Rabbi & Mrs. Yisroel Braunstein Sakar- Jermey Sulton Shapiro’s Bake Shoppe Shloime Friedman Orchestra Simcha Leiner Star Pediatric Steiner Events The Balloon Shoppe Truly Divine WSS Yitz Henkin Coordinators: Miri Brecher Bobbi Engel Dina Fried Chashie Gruman Yitty Pluchenik Hindy Shlossberg Yehudis Schlaff Malky Stein Volunteers: Shana Appelbaum Shalva Ben-Moshiach Esti Brecher Nechama Brecher Chani Brody Rivky Dembinski Bashie Dorfman Dina Ellinson Emmy Egert Jamie Fawcett Chaya Rivka Fischl Rochel Flikshtein Devorah Friedman Elisheva Geller Blimi Green Faigy Green Toby Green Simi Green-Mandelbaum Rachela Greenman Gina Haber Tzippy Holland Malky Hirth Chumy Katz Tziporah Jakobowitz Racheli Joseph Ahuva Landau Andi Leow Hadassah Lieberman Nechama Lieberson Aviva Lopian

Esther Lopian Nechama Mandelbaum Lieba Matzliach Tzippy Newman Tiki Nussbaum Chaya Suri Podrigal Rivky Rabinowitz Ruchi Reisz Bluma Rothkopf Nechama Rothkopf Rochel Silberberg Dina Stefansky Michal Stefansky Chaya Steinfeld Machla Szmidt Miriam Tennenbaum Fraidy Tessler Chayala Thillim Batsheva Vann Leah Weingarten Rochel Weinreb Toby Weintraub Malky Weisblum Rivkala Weisblum Chayala Werdiger Rivky Yarmove Rikki Zweiback Sponsor Families: Ackerman Family Bamberger Family Bek Family C. Z. Blumenfeld Family Cohen Family E. Blumenfeld Family Edelstein Family Eisenstein Family Engel Family Fawcett Family Feldhamer Family Greenstein Family Haber Family Haimowitz Family Hartman Family Hellman Family Hess Family J. Slater Family K. Slater Family Kaminetzky Kessler Family Krasne Family Lazar Family Lench Family Leow Family Lieber Family Lieberman Family Miller Family Ray Family Reisz Family Rosenbaltt Family Schraf Family Seeve Family Sekula Family

WEST COAST REGION Soltan Family Starkman Family Weiss Family Institutions: Astor Chocolate Ateres Tziporah Bais Faiga Bais Kaila High School Bais Rivka Rochel Bais Rochel Bais Shaindel High School Bais Tova Ben Porat Yosef Bet Yaakov of the Jersey Shore Bnos Bracha Bnos Devorah Bnos Esther Malka Bnos Yaakov Bnot Yisrael Buriah Yeshiva Division C- Teen of Delaware Chein Bais Yaakov Cherry Hill Torah Links Community Torah Center of Bucks County Cong Ohev Shalom - Marlboro Jewish Center Cong Sons of Israel Eastern Union Hillel Yeshiva Ilan High School JCC Bridgewater Jewish Educational Center of Elizabeth JFCS of Southern New Jersey J-Link High School- Adgath Israel Kellman Brown Acadamy Kesser Bais Yaakov Kosloff Torah Academy LTC Moreshes Bais Yaakov Netivot Oros Bais Yaakov High School Politz Day School Rabbi Pesach Raymon Yeshiva SCHI Shaare Tzion Shiras Chaim Shiras Devorah High School Talmud Torah Bais Avrohom Tehilas Chaya Sara Temple Beth Or The Above and Beyond Daycare Tiferes Bais Yaakov Tiferes Chaya Yachad - Cong. Ahavas Achim Yeshiva Ohr Yehuda Yeshivat Noam

Chanukah Angels The Lobel Family The Ahdoot Family The Ahl Family The Akiva Family The Andron Family The Arastoozad Family The Arnold Family The Aron Family The Ashkenazi Family The Aslmand Family The Axelrod Family The Babay Family The Banafsheha Family The Banafshe Family The Barlava Family The Beron Family The Birnbaum Family The Borenstein Family The Breskal Family The Brookler Family The Buchman Family The Chumash Indian Tribe The Cosgrove Family The Croll Family The Daneshrad Family The Danialian Family The Edidin Family The Edwards Family The Emrani Family The Esfandi Family The Eshaghian Family The Farahnik Family The Farhadi Family The Farzan Family The Farzan Family The Feldman Family The Fitterman Family The Friedman Family The Gabay Family The Gabbaian Family The Green/Dayan Family Torah Day School of Phoenix, Kitah Vav Girls The Gutis Family The Guzik Family The Hallegua Family The Hanasab Family The Harouni Family The Harouni Family The Hayempour Family The Hyman Family The Javid Family The Kahenasa Family The Kamiava Family The Kamran Family The Kashani Family The Khorshidi Family The Kleinman Family The Families of Adat Shalom The Kozak Family The Labib Family

The Lainer Family The Lamishaw Family The Lavine Family The Lawrence Family The Lebovitz Family The Leifer Family The Leman Family The Lepson-Schrager family The Leshem Family The Levian Family The Lewis Family The Lieberman Family The Liechenger Family The Lovelady Family The Magna Family The Manoo Family The Mansoury Family The Mathalon Family The Meyer Family The Moskowitz Family The Neman Family The Newman Family The Nussen Family The Paul Family The Pompan Family The Putnam Family The Raiss Family The Remeny Family The Rodef Family The Rollman Family The Rosenthal Family The Rostamiam Family The Samuels-Brown Family The Schutzer Family The Seaton Family The Shabatian Family The Shakib Family The Shuchatowitz Family The Smith Family The Soroudi Family The Spero-Schneider Family The Spratt Family The Nayssan Family The Szew Family The Tabibi Family The Tsarovsky Family The Turobiner Family The Wachtel Family The Waldorf Family The Wallack Family The Weindling Family The Weiner Family The Weiser Family The Weisz Family The Wohlberg Family The Yadegari Family The Yerushalmi Family Chanukah Volunteers Avital Abraham Rivka Abrams Tere Atri Shmuel Barak

Felice Barak Jonathan Bitton Celine Bohbot Ron Bookbinder Yaeli Braverman Avi Brummer Jenny Buchman (Maimonides toy drive) Moshe Buchman Srula Chaiton Yonah Darrison Sahar Darvish Jackie Deutch JJ Duchman Kovi Elkus Ariella Etshalom Roni Etshalom Tova Feldman Chanie Friedman Sarah Frieman Ellie Gofman Joey Goldstein Basya Greenberg Rachel Hecht Nathan Hakakian Avraham Kaminker Kayla Kamornick Ilan Kappenstein Aviv Kiss Yaakov Klein David Kreisberg Sylvia Lowe Tzipporah Mayesh Elianna Meltzer Avishai Mermelstein Bahar Nem Laura Nickowitz Claire Peikon (Maimonides toy drive) Sara Sacks Yosef Schuchatowitz Andrea Smith Phyllis Steinberg Esther Tendler Zev Tyner Jaron Wallack Randy Weiser Deena Weiss Hillel Well Moshe Winter Chanukah Toy Drives Adat Shalom Brentwood Country Club Daniel Dalal Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles Maimonides Academy OhrLA Phyllis and Allan Steinberg Pressman Hebrew Academy Young Israel of North Beverly Hills

CANADA Ahavat Israel Hebrew School Associated Hebrew Schools, Kamin Campus Associated Hebrew Schools, Posluns Campus Bais Chaya Mushka Bais Yaakov Elementary Beth Radom Congregation Beth Sholom Synagogue Beth Torah Beth Tzedek & Robbins Hebrew Academy Bialik Hebrew Day School Chabad of Flamingo

Chabad of Markham Chabad of Midtown Chabad of the Avenue, Gan Shalom Preschool Community Hebrew Academy of Toronto [North & South Campus] Eitz Chaim Forest Hill Jewish Centre Gan Shelanu Hamilton Hebrew Academy Holy Blossom Temple Kensington Place Leo Baeck Day School [North

Campus] Loving Care Day Care Netivot Hatorah Day School Ohr Haemet Or Chaim Temple Sinai The Toronto Cheder Tiferes Bais Yaakov NCSY Torah High & NCSY Jewish Student Union (Thornhill Secondary School) Ulpana Orot High School

Our children and families had a brighter Chanukah thanks to the hundreds of individuals, schools, retailers and community groups that worked so hard to make the 2015/5776 Honey Engel Toy Drive our best yet. Volunteers collected, sorted, and distributed more than 50,000 toys to 12,000 children and families across North America.

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DECEMBER 31, 2015 | The Jewish Home

FIGHTING ILLNESS WITH LOVE IS MORE THAN A SLOGAN. IT’S WHAT WE DO. When Jake was diagnosed, getting him better and keeping their family functioning became his parents’ only priorities. So they became Chai Lifeline’s priority as well.

We Care For 4,300 Children and Families Around the World.

And One Jake Katz.

Jake’s parents breathed easier in the cradle of Chai Lifeline’s hospital support: hot kosher meals that nourished bodies and souls, transportation assistance and the support of caring volunteers.

His brothers benefited from the attention of Big Brothers and i-Shine after school activities. And the whole family thrived during retreats, recreational activities and our new Family Camp Adventure.

Two summers at Camp Simcha have given Jake the confidence he needs to face painful treatments, and the friends who will help see him through them.

Chai Lifeline took care of the entire Katz family, so they could take care of Jake.

151 West 30th Street, New York, NY 10001 (877) CHAI-LIFE (212) 465-1300 www.chailifeline.org Hospital Support: Meals | Transportation assistance | Hospital visits | Respite Children’s Programs: Big Brothers and Sisters | Recreational activities | Creative arts and art therapy | Music programs | i-Shine Sibling activities | Trips Friends ‘n Fun weekends | Camp Simcha/Camp Simcha Special Family Programs: Advocacy and information | Retreats | Insurance Advocacy | Family Recreation | Counseling |Bereavement services Community Programs: Project CHAI

facebook.com/chailifelinepage

twitter.com/chai_lifeline

youtube.com/chailifelinechannel

gplus.to/chailifeline

Photo for illustrative purposes only.

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 31, 2015

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Around the Community

Five Towns Marriage Initiative Celebrating our Differences

I

n last week’s parsha, when Yaakov blessed the Tribes, we are taught that each tribe was given their own unique blessing. In truth, each quality that was specified for any given tribe was also intended to be for all the brothers. For instance, the blessing for kingship was given to Yehuda but the blessing was also meant for all the brothers to have an ability of rulership, to rule over their own inclination. For the blessing of wealth this was specified to Zevulan but all of the brothers were blessed as well with their ability to have necessary wealth to function.

We later see that when all the tribes crossed through the Yam Suf, it was one sea that split, but there were multiple paths in the sea and each tribe went through its own path. As one nation, we see that there are countless different streams, stripes and types of Jews, and many different ways of serving our Creator. This began from inception with each tribe having their own way to fulfill their purpose and accomplish their life’s goal. We know there are different approaches and way to serve our Creator, even within the confines of a clear understanding of our obligations.

The different ways we go about serving our Creator attest to the truth of Judaism which was designed to be kept by man, each with his own different style and personality.

The uniqueness of every individual is a topic that is equally noteworthy in marriage. The differences are what pull the marriage together in the same way that every Jew is part of the orchestra of Judaism where each man’s music is needed to make our service to our Creator complete. Each spouse’s unique contribution to the marriage is what enables it to be whole and what keeps the marriage running.

The qualities each spouse brings into the marriage helps define the relationship and the give and take becomes necessary when each spouse has what to give and what to take because each is not a whole without their spouse. This healthy dependency where each partner contributes something while gaining in the process is what makes marriage so beautiful. This is accomplished in a healthy way when each spouse is able to view themselves as a complete person that is perfected by the togetherness of the marriage relationship.

At times the spouse might give

more to the relationship and at other times the spouse might need to be in a taking position, but there will always be a reciprocal relationship going on throughout the life of the marriage.

Rather than letting our differences come between us, let us celebrate those

differences that provide the groundwork for a beautiful partnership with our spouse.

Five Towns Marriage Initiative provides educational programs, workshops and referrals to top marriage therapists. FTMI will help offset

counseling costs when necessary and also runs an anonymous shalom bayis hotline for the entire community Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday evenings, 9:30-11p.m. For the hotline or more information, call 516-430-5280 or email dsgarry@msn.com.

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DECEMBER 31, 2015 | The Jewish Home OCTOBER 29, 2015 | The Jewish Home

TJH !

Centerfold

You gotta be kidding

A Polish immigrant went to the DMV to apply for a driver’s license.

First, of course, he had to take an eyesight test. The optician showed him a card with the letters. On the bottom row were these letters: C Z W I N O S T A C Z. “Can you read this?” the optician asked.

“Read it?” replied the Polish man, “I know the guy!”

*

?

Riddle me

this?

You are in a race and you overtake the person who is in second place. What is your position now?

See answer on next page

2015 Sports Roundup Trivia

1. On June 19th, when Alex Rodriguez hit his 3,000th hit, it was a home run to right/ center field that was caught by Zack Hample.

What is the title of the book that Zack Hample authored in 1999? a. How to Snag Major League Baseballs b. A Look At Baseballs Best Hitters c. How To Make Your Kid A Great Hitter d. Teaching Tips For Little League Coaches 2. Who won the 2015 Men’s NCAA basketball championship? a. Wisconsin b. Duke c. Kentucky d. Uconn 3. Who was the top pick in

the 2015 NFL draft? a. Jameis Winston b. Marcus Mariota c. Dante Fowler, Jr. d. Amari Cooper 4. Which team won the 2015 Stanley Cup Finals? a. Tampa Bay Lightning b. Anaheim Ducks c. Chicago Blackhawks d. New York Rangers 5. Who was not one of the highest paid athletes (salary & endorsements) in 2015? a. Cristiano Ronaldo b. Lionel Messi c. Roger Federer d. LeBron James 6. Who had the highest batting average in the MLB last season? a. Dee Gordon

b. Miguel Cabrera c. Bryce Harper d. Buster Posey 7. Which team lost the World Series this year…

OUCH! Answer Key 1. A- Hample, who wrote a book titled, How to Snag Major League Baseballs, has caught more than 8,000 balls in majorleague stadiums. He became a Yankees seasonticket holder last year and picked the right field area because it’s a “good spot.” He returned the ball to the Yankees in return for a $150,000 donation to charity and Yankees memorabilia.

2. B 3. A 4. C 5. D- The top 5 paid

athletes of 2015, in order were: Floyd Mayweather ($300M); Manny Pacquiao ($160M); soccer player, Cristiano Ronaldo ($79.6M); soccer player, Lionel Messi ($73.8M); and tennis player, Roger Federer ($67M). LeBron James comes in sixth place at $64.8 million.

6. B- Miguel Cabrera finished the season with a .338 batting average.

Scorecard 5-6 correct: You hit it out of the ballpark! (Did Zack Hample catch it? I can negotiate with him for you.)

3-4 correct: You are not bad, but not really good.

You are exactly what the Yankees were this year.

0-2 correct: Sorry we didn’t ask about the WNBA.

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 31, 2015 The Jewish Home | OCTOBER 29, 2015

s Resolutions ’ r a e Y w e N y M

see what once a day to ts a ch pp A ts 00 Wha ok at my 97,0 # I will only lo bout nothing. have to say a w no k t n’ do I people Un’s pantsuits. and Kim Jung s n’ to lin C ry a Hill making fun of t pull it off # # I will stop mp # I just can’ ru T ld a on D e my hair lik trying to comb # # I will stop he doesn’t. table. the way that to the kitchen ge rid f e th m ro g room. board to get f oom to the livin dr using my Hover be op y m st m ill w ro I f # # es like going for long distanc it e us ly on ill the I w him run around t le I n he w g t on the do putting my Fitbi or it. ## I will stop to be falling f em se t no es do belt backyard. My ead of just has to say inst s er nd a S e ni t Ber listening to wha u serious?” ## I will start inking, “Are yo th nd a f f ru dand looking at his anishes. itching to e-D sw by t bi ha Danish my chocolate ## I will break ll, they s loss, after a ie er S ld or W ets’ mourning the M ## I will stop 2042. e in no time# in er th ck ba be will joint session to speak at a t no e m s sk a speak. ident ect and won’t ## If the pres sp re er op pr e will show him th ed lion of Congress, I lling the stuff ca op st ill w correct and more politically be to y tr ill ## I w the Lion.” carnival “Cecil e th t a on w I opponent of that on’t accuse my w I , ox B X ll on my Madden footba ## When I lose . d his footballs having deflate people flew to at a bunch of th w no ps cu foam erence. t breeding Styro al warming conf ob gl a ## I will stop or f ed nd gather private jets a rrent Paris on their ttention to cu a e or m y pa telligent and a little more in be to y tr ill ## I w . events in 2015 to the when it comes w vie of t in po le’s dress is see other peop you think the to y re tr su e ill k w a I m ## st want to in life. (OK, ju gs in th nt a rt impo ?!) blue and black

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DECEMBER 31, 2015 | The Jewish Home

Torah Thought

Parshat Shemot

By Rabbi Berel Wein

I

t should be obvious to all that Moshe is a very unlikely choice to head the Jewish people, to redeem them from Egyptian bondage, and to bring the Torah down from Heaven to the Jewish people and eventually to all of humankind. It is also clear that Moshe would not be the likely one to guide them through the vicissitudes of war, thirst and forty years sojourn in the desert of Sinai.

Jewish history in a great measure has been formed by unlikely heroes, unexpected champions and surprising personalities.

Rambam writes that Moshe was of short temper. The Torah records for us that he was raised in the palace of the Egyptian Pharaoh. He kills an Egyptian and covers up his deed. He is a shepherd for a pagan priest of Midyan and marries one of his daughters. He is separated from his people for sixty years before returning to them and proclaiming himself as their leader.

Not really too impressive a resume for the greatest of all humans and of the Jewish people! But there it is for all to see and study. So, what is the message that the Torah is sending to us with this narrative?

Who needs to know of his previous life before becoming the Moshe we revere? After all, the Torah does not explicitly tell us about the youth experiences of Noach, Avraham and oth-

er great men of Israel and the world.

So, why all the detail – much of it not too pleasant – about the early life of Moshe? The question almost begs itself of any student of Torah. The Torah is always concise and chary of words, so this concentration of facts and stories about Moshe’s early life is somewhat puzzling.

What is clear from biblical narrative and Jewish and world history generally is that Heaven does not play by our rules nor does it conduct itself by our preconceived norms and notions.

We never would have chosen David as our king, Amos as our prophet, or Esther as our savior from destruction.

Jewish history in a great measure has been formed by unlikely heroes, unexpected champions and surprising personalities.

It is almost as if Heaven wishes to mock our pretensions and upset our conventional wisdom. Oftentimes it is our stubborn nature, our haughtiness to think that we are always privy to G-d’s plans and methods that has led us to stray far from truth and reality.

The greatness of the generation that left Egypt was that it not only believed in the G-d of Israel but believed in His servant Moshe as well.

Throughout his career as leader of Israel, according to Midrash, the rebels would always hold Moshe’s past against him. They could not come to terms with Moshe as being their leader for he did not fit the paradigm that they had constructed for themselves.

Eventually this disbelief in Moshe translated itself into a disbelief in G-d as well and doomed that generation to perish in the desert of Sinai.

G-d’s plans, actions and choices, so to speak, are inscrutable. The prophet taught us that G-d stated: “For My thoughts are not your thoughts and My ways are not your ways.” Moshe’s life story is a striking example of this truism.

Shabbat shalom.

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 31, 2015

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DECEMBER 31, 2015 | The Jewish Home

Torah Shmuz

Parshas Shemos Your Middos are Killing You

By R’ Ben Tzion Shafier

“But as much as they would afflict it, so it would increase and so it would burst forth; and they were disgusted because of the Children of Israel.” — Shemos 1:12

Y

osef, his brothers, and their entire generation had passed on. A new era was beginning in Mitzrayim, and with it came a new attitude. When the Jews had first entered the land, they were received as celebrated guests. After all, they were brothers of the great Yosef who had saved the nation. That sense of appreciation was gone. No longer were the Jews respected and revered, no longer were they welcome.

They had become a thorn in the side of Mitzrim.

And it went downhill from there.

As has happened so often in history, the Jews were soon viewed as outsiders and as foreigners — unwanted, unwelcomed and feared. That fear turned to hate when the common wisdom said, “If a foreign people shall attack, the Jews in our midst will join them in battle and throw us out from our land.” The Jews had become the enemy of the state.

The only choice was to get rid of them. The first step was to oppress them, then to torture them, and finally to enslave them. Yet, despite the hardships placed upon them, the Jewish nation flourished. The Mitzrim found themselves confounded by this despised enemy within their borders who would soon outnumber them.

DISGUSTING IN THEIR EYES

Interestingly, when the Torah describes their hatred toward the Jews, it doesn’t say, “They found the Jews disgusting,” or “They were disgusted with the Jews.” It says, “They were disgusted because of the Jewish people.”

Rashi explains that because of their hatred of the Jews, their own lives had become disgusting. They had become disgusted with themselves.

This Rashi is difficult to understand. How did the Mitzrim’s hatred toward the Jews make their own lives disgusting? Wasn’t it the Jews they hated, not themselves?

The answer to this question can be understood with an observation about human nature.

We humans are highly social. Our interactions are governed by many subtle cues and conventions. One of the skills needed to get along well with others is the ability to know how they perceive us and what they are feeling. Is that guy in a good mood or bad? Is he open to my advances or not?

Most of us do this intuitively. Before we say something, we look at the other person and instantly know if they are pleased or upset, happy or distressed, and we modify our exchanges accordingly. Many children, however, find this skill elusive, and they must be taught to recognize the physical signs that correspond to different emotions.

One of the techniques used is to teach the child to “read faces.” A therapist will show the child a picture of a person’s face, and then help him or her identify the emotion that that person is most likely feeling. “See, when the end of the mouth curves up, that’s a smile, and it means he’s happy. When his forehead crinkles up, and his mouth moves down like that, it means he’s angry.”

While most feelings have distinct physical appearances and are easy enough to distinguish, there are two that are remarkably similar: anger and hatred. In both, the person’s face shows displeasure. In both, the person looks genuinely unhappy. And in both, the person seems to be in pain.

As a result, teaching a child which face represents hate and which represents anger is very difficult. One thing is clear, though: neither face is smiling. Because both anger and hatred aren’t satisfying, enjoyable experiences. Quite the opposite, they are dramatically unpleasant.

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RUINING YOUR LIFE

The Gemara (Pesachim 113b) tells us, “If someone is accustomed to anger, his life isn’t a life, and he is never happy.” Why is this? Because powerful emotions are like a

And he suffers. He suffers with an incurable, burning pain that wells up within him, stealing his attention and eclipsing all other sensations. And so, he can’t enjoy the food he eats. He can’t appreciate

The Mitzrim were consumed with a hatred of the Jews. They walked around with a tape playing in their brain, “I hate those Jews. Those slimy, ugly Jews!”

gas that spreads till it fills whatever container it is in. When a person is enraged, his entire consciousness is consumed. He can’t think about other things. He can’t concentrate on other ideas. The flames of anger occupy his entire mind.

music or poetry. All of his wealth and possessions are for naught because he can’t find the peace of mind to enjoy them. He has ruined his life.

This seems to be the answer to this Rashi. The Mitzrim were consumed with a hatred of the Jews.

They walked around with a tape playing in their brain, “I HATE those Jews. Those slimy, ugly Jews!

They are despicable. They fill me with RAGE!” And it wasn’t once or twice a week that the Mitzrim had to see them. “They’re everywhere! In the marketplace and in the bathhouses! In the stable and in the barn!

Each morning when I walk to the river, I see them. UGHHHHHHHH! I CAN’T STAND THOSE VILE JEWS!” And so all day long, they were racked with burning feelings of hatred, animosity, and disgust, till their very existence became a misery. The Mitzrim destroyed their very lives.

LIVING A PLEASURABLE LIFE

This concept is eye-opening.

Many mitzvos focus on developing our character traits. We often think

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of these as ways of making ourselves into better people. They make us easier to get along with, more pleasant company. While this is true, there is another benefit: I am more at peace with the world and with myself. And as a result, I am happier.

The ways of the Torah are pleasant. When a person follows them properly, he becomes more giving and caring. He learns to overlook others’ flaws, and he becomes more patient and calm. By doing so, he becomes greater, he earns his portion in the World to Come, and he enjoys a better life in the here and now.

Rabbi Shafier is the founder of the Shmuz.com. The Shmuz is an engaging, motivating shiur that deals with real life issues. All of the Shmuzin are available free of chaarge at the www. theShmuz.com or on the Shmuz app for iPhone or Android.

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DECEMBER 31, 2015 | The Jewish Home

Between the Lines

A Burden Shared

By Eytan Kobre

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n a 2009 study, Jody Osborn and Stuart Derbyshire showed images and films depicting painful events to 108 participants, nearly a third of whom reported feeling physical pain in response. Seeing others in pain, Osborn and Derbyshire concluded, produces a shared emotional experience that activates brain areas processing the emotional – and sometimes physical – component of pain (see Pain, Volume 148, Issue 2, Pages 268-274).

The Osborn and Derbyshire study confirms physiologically what the Torah expects of us.

We are privy to only four tidbits from Moshe Rabbeinu’s first 80 years: he ventured from Paroah’s palace to see his people suffering (Shemos 2:11); he saw an

it. Not quite the curriculum vitae you’d expect of perhaps the greatest Jewish leader ever.

Or is it?

The four incidents are passing and vague, but they share a commonality. Time and again Moshe sought out and joined in the suffering of his people. He was the consummate “noseh b’ol im chaveiro” – one who shares the burdens of others – and he personified its two basic tenets.

RULE #1: SEE THE PAIN – FROM THEIR POINT OF VIEW

When Moshe ventured from Paroah’s palace “out to his brothers and he saw [with] their burdens,” he didn’t just see – “he gave his eyes and heart to be troubled

Moshe could easily have remained in his ivory pyramid, far removed from the toil and terror of his people. But he didn’t. On the contrary, he went out of his way to witness and be part of their suffering because he had to experience their pain in the way they were experiencing it.

Hagar, in contrast, could not bring herself to do this.

When her son, Yishmael, became ill, she remained at a distance, declaring, “Let me not see the death of the child” (Bereshis 21:16). Yishmael’s suffering was too painful for her to witness.

But, in a sense, that’s selfish.

Moshe had to witness his people’s suffering, if for no other reason than to share it with them.

And Moshe did more than simply observe the peo-

Asked to explain himself, the Chofetz Chaim responded, “Our people are refugees, homeless, freezing, and starving, and Jewish young men are in trenches with death all around them. How could I sleep peacefully and comfortably in my bed?”

Egyptian hit a Jew, and he killed that Egyptian (Shemos 2:12); he reprimanded a Jew who had hit another Jew (Shemos 2:13); and he protected Yisro’s daughters from local Midyanite shepherds (Shemos 2:17). That’s

on their behalf” (Shemos 2:11 and Rashi and Ramban ad loc.). Moshe wasn’t content with sitting back and watching news reports of the Jewish people’s suffering, only to sigh and change the channel, so to speak.

ple’s suffering. He didn’t “see their suffering” as a detached observer; “he saw with their suffering” (Shemos 2:11). His was an observation of participation. “He saw their suffering and would weep and say, ‘I have pity for you! If only

I could die for your sake!’”

(Shemos Rabba 1:32). He had to see it and experience it and feel it, just as the people saw it and experienced it and felt it.

Bygone generations were praised for their Torah scholarship despite living in times so dire that only one shawl was available to cover six students (Sanhedrin 20a).

Troubled by how one shawl could possibly cover six people, R’ Chaim Shmulevitz suggests that their greatness was not in their Torah learning but in that they shared each other’s burdens. They demonstrated how one shawl could suffice for six people – so long as each one saw matters from the perspective of the other five (Sichos Mussar, No. 36).

G-d does the same thing.

“And G-d saw the Jewish people, and G-d knew” – as Moshe had, “He gave His heart upon them and did not avert His eyes” (Shemos 2:25 and Rashi ad loc.). Indeed, He kept sapphire-like brickwork at His feet throughout the Jewish people’s time in Egypt to remember His people suffering with bricks (Vayikra Rabba 23:8). We cannot comprehend the preternatural significance of brickwork at G-d’s feet, but this much is certain: when we are in pain, He is too.

The ability to see and

share the pain of others is the reason “a blind person is considered dead” (Nedarim 62b) – it is precisely the ability to share common pain that makes us members of a cohesive society (see also Sichos Mussar, No. 63; Maharal, Avos 6:7). It also is the reason that, in lending money to those in need, you are to “view yourself as if you are the poor person” (Shemos 22:24 and Rashi ad loc.; see also Sifsei Chaim, Middos pg. 382). To fully grasp the suffering of others, you must attempt to see things from their vantage point – not your own.

RULE #2: SHARE THE PAIN – NO MATTER WHAT

If seeing the pain is the first rule, sharing in it is the second.

The story is told of a little child who ran an errand for her mother and was late in returning. The child explained that a friend of hers had fallen and broken her doll, and she had helped out.

When the mother asked the little girl how she possibly could have helped, the girl explained, “I just sat down and helped her cry.”

There were approximately three million working-age Jews in Egypt, and Moshe obviously could not assist them all. But he would at

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least share their pain. He actually went out and helped as many of his fellow Jews as he could (Shemos Rabba 1:32).

Indeed, while the tribe of Levi was not subjected to slave labor, they did not just bury their heads in the Egyptian sand: Levi wished to share the Jewish people’s pain in some way, so he named his sons fittingly: “Gershon” – they were strangers in a foreign land; “Kehas” – they gritted their teeth in suffering; and “Merari” – their lives had been embittered. Levi was not tortured and forced into slave labor, but he still joined in his brethren’s suffering (Shelah, Shemos 6:14).

Moshe did the same later in his life. When the Jewish people fought Amalek, he prayed on a stone – not a pillow or a cushion – so

as to share their pain, even though doing so wouldn’t help win the war or ease the suffering (Da’as Torah, Shemos 17:12 and Shemos 24:10). Similarly, “when the public is in a state of suffering, one should not say I will go to my house and eat and drink and be at peace; rather, a person should join in the public’s pain” (Ta’anis 11a). Abstention certainly won’t help, but it is a way of sharing in the pain.

During World War I, the Chofetz Chaim’s wife once awoke in the middle of night to find him sleeping on a bench, his hands supporting his head instead of a pillow. Asked to explain himself, the Chofetz Chaim responded, “Our people are refugees, homeless, freezing, and starving, and Jewish young men are in trenches

with death all around them.

How could I sleep peacefully and comfortably in my bed?”

Likewise, after a massive fire ripped through Brisk in 1895, R’ Chaim Soloveitchik worked tirelessly to re-establish homeless families, and he would not sleep at home, but on the sloping hallway floor of his shul. “I cannot sleep in a bed,” R’ Chaim explained, “while so many Jews lack a roof over their heads.”

R’ Elchonon Wasserman lived – and died – by this creed. Just prior to the horrors of World War II – when they already were a fait accompli – R’ Elchonon was in the United States collecting money for his Baranovitch yeshiva. And while he was powerless to prevent or alleviate the looming calamities, he nonetheless returned

to Europe to join in the suffering. His host, Shraga Block, had begged him not to return, but R’ Elchonon wouldn’t hear of it: he had 400 students back home, and he would not allow them to suffer alone. His return to Europe only to be murdered

by Lithuanian Nazi puppets was the consummate act of sharing the pain of others.

G-d embodies these same ideals. “In all their troubles, He is troubled” (Yeshaya 63:9; see Tehillim 91:15).

Indeed, G-d first appeared to Moshe in a thorn-bush because He was “a partner in the suffering [of the Jewish people]” (Shemos Rabba 2:5). “When man suffers, what does G-d say? My head hurts, my arm hurts” (Sanhedrin 46a). * * * * So many of life’s problems

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cannot be fixed or eased.

Kindness is about providing assistance to others; sharing the pain of others is so much more – it is about giving to others a piece of your very being (Sifsei Chaim, Middos, pg. 379). It is about joining in their suffering even when you can’t improve their plight. It is about creating a bond of shared pain.

And yet, somehow, that always seems to help.

Because as anyone who has suffered knows, a burden shared truly is a burden halved.

Eytan Kobre is a writer, speaker, mediator, and attorney living in Kew Gardens Hills with his wife and children. Questions? Comments? Suggestions?

E-mail eakobre@outlook.com.

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DECEMBER 31, 2015 | The Jewish Home

The Observant Jew

Where the Sidewalk Ends Illustration by Shel Silverstein

By Rabbi Jonathan Gewirtz

I

n 1974, Shel Silverstein published a poem called, “Where the Sidewalk Ends.” It was very popular and quickly became known as a classic. I don’t have permission to reprint it here but it speaks of an almost magical place between “where the sidewalk ends and the street begins.” Literary analysts

jor road near my home, it popped into my mind. They had poured some cement for the sidewalks but had not finished and though I had a nice path to tread upon as I came home from shul, I got to one point where there was a large, muddy block. I looked for the drier spots and managed to get to the street

What would happen, though, to little children who wouldn’t know the warning signs? How would they know what to do “where the sidewalk ends”? say it suggests the fact that children have great imagination and can find beauty and adventure in places that old fogies like me are too stodgy to appreciate. It’s about playing instead of working, and subtly suggests that adults should consider the importance of play.

Though I didn’t know the poem by heart, it’s a famous enough title (it’s also the title of his book which is still in print) that I knew it as a phrase. When they were installing a sidewalk on a ma-

without getting dirty.

As I did, I thought of something. I’m older, experienced, and aware of the mud and the various signs of dryness or moistness. I knew how to navigate the empty spaces. What would happen, though, to little children who wouldn’t know the warning signs? How would they know what to do “where the sidewalk ends”?

Of course, I wasn’t just concerned with the square of mud in front of me. I was thinking of the more global

fact that in life, sometimes there isn’t a clear trail. We get thrown into situations for which we were not prepared.

How do we know how to navigate?

Yes, you might say that it’s something that comes with age, but I also think that it’s something that must be taught. If not, until a person learns, they’re going to get stuck in the mud quite often.

I thought about the fact that when we educate our kids, we tell them, “Don’t go there,” or “Stay away from that bully.” But do we train them what to do when they somehow end up, Dorothy-like, in that place we warned them about? Do we teach them what to do when the bully is next to them on the bus?

Someone sent me a letter that a school sent home.

It said that on a particular Motzei Shabbos, during specific hours, teachers from the school would be at two restaurant locations to take the place of parents and then the students would be permitted to visit those establishments. Any other night or times were prohibited.

Not knowing the school or the restaurants, I’d assume that these were places in which teenagers congregate and “hang out” so the

schools didn’t want them going there. On this particular night, though, it would be OK because the teachers would be there to ensure that no “un-kosher” activity took place. They were also hinting that parents should really be chaperoning their own kids.

While I admire their self-sacrifice, I wonder if this will be enough “training” to help the students make the right decisions when the teachers are not there. I once went to a store where I saw some young ladies acting appropriately, but when they faced a challenging situation, they handled it incorrectly. I called the head of their school who told me that if they were at that store, they weren’t “good girls.” I argued that they seemed to be very good girls, they just hadn’t been taught how to behave in this situation and it was a great teachable moment. She thanked me and assured me she’d address it.

I found out that the way she addressed it was by gathering all the girls in the school and reiterating what a terrible thing it was to go to this place and that they made a chillul Hashem by going there. Strike three!

You’ve just set these girls up to stumble when they get to a place where there is no clearcut path or they wander in despite the warnings.

In my humble opinion, we need to teach our children

how to blaze their own trails when they get to uncharted territory. They need the tools and the lessons to know what to watch out for so they don’t get stuck in the mud and covered in muck when there are no adults there to guide them and they can’t “avoid the area.”

As the literary types would tell you, sometimes the world off the beaten path seems magical and attractive. If we just leave it to the children’s imaginations they might follow that adventure and stumble off the edge. So, I think we’d all be wise to pay attention to how we prepare our young people for that day down the road when we’re not there to tell them what to do – when they need to find their own way.

As the poem says, “The children know … where the sidewalk ends.”

Jonathan Gewirtz is an inspirational writer and speaker whose work has appeared in publications around the world.

You can find him at www.facebook.com/RabbiGewirtz and follow him on Twitter @RabbiJGewirtz. He also operates JewishSpeechWriter.com, where you can order a custom-made speech for your next special occasion. Sign up for the Migdal Ohr, his weekly PDF Dvar Torah in English. E-mail info@JewishSpeechWriter.com and put Subscribe in the subject.

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The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 31, 2015

CELEBRATING THE COMPLETION OF OUR CAMPUS

Inaugura ing Our New S uden Residence

Mo zoei Shabbos Parshas Mishpa im February 6, 2016 · 27 Shva 5776

Mr. & Mrs.

Shlomie Hershkop

At the Yeshiva Campus 802 Hicksville Road Far Rockaway, New York 11691

Guests of Honor

Mr. & Mrs.

MR. MOSHE MAJESKI Dinner Chairman

Uriel Feldman

Esteemed Alumni Awardees

MR. CHAIM BALTER . MR. MOTTI FOX MR. CHARLES HARARY . MR. DOV WARMAN Dinner Committee

Rabbi & Mrs.

Yossi Yaroslawi z Marbitzei Torah Awardees

Yeshiva of Far Rockaway 802 Hicksville Road Far Rockaway, NY 11691 P: (718) 327-7600 F: (718) 327-1430 E: dinner@yofr.org W: www.yofr.org

MR. DANIEL WOLFSON Journal Chairman

MR. SHMUEL BACKENROTH . MR. YOCHANAN BODNER MR. YOSSI DEUTSCH . MR. YEHOSHUA GELB MR. MORDECHAI MENDLOWITZ Alumni Committee

‫י בה דרכ‬ ‫ששי מרנ רבי אברהמ יפה‘נאזיצ‘‘תנ‬ ‘‘‫ע‬ ‫ל‬ Yeshiva of Far Rockaway

Yaakov & Ilana Melohn campus in memory of Reb Yosef Melohn z’’l

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9

Jewish History

Adventurer, Missionary, Conman, and Political Activist The Incredible Story of Ignatz Timothy Trebitsch-Lincoln

By Rabbi Pini Dunner

The story so far: Ignatz Trebitsch was born in 1879, in Paks, Hungary, to a devoutly Orthodox Jewish family. A troubled boy with a history of petty theft, he converted to Christianity to marry a gentile girl from Hamburg, Germany. They moved to Canada where he became a missionary, but after a couple of years they moved to England, and Trebitsch abandoned his religious calling to work for a wealthy British industrialist. In 1910 Trebitsch was unexpectedly elected to the British Parliament, but after just ten months he was forced to resign when it emerged he was financially bankrupt. He quickly bounced back and began promoting various dubious business projects in Eastern Europe, duping countless investors out of their money. When the businesses collapsed Trebitsch was reduced to taking loans using forged letters of guarantee. Fearing arrest, Trebitsch tried to become a professional spy for the British, who were at war with Germany, hoping to make enough money to pay off his creditors.

The scheme quickly fell apart, so to avoid arrest Trebitsch fled to New York where he fabricated a fantastic story of his involvement in espionage and intrigue and sold it to a newspaper for money.

He was arrested by the police and extradited back to London, where he was imprisoned for three years. Upon his release he went to Germany and joined forces with a group of extremist right-wing radicals, with whom he took a leading role in the abortive five-day Kapp Putsch of 1920.

Part IV

W

hen the Kapp Putsch collapsed, most of the principle instigators went into hiding or left Germany to avoid arrest. Trebitsch obtained a false identity but remained in Berlin, while the authorities argued amongst themselves whether or not to arrest him. Eventually he left Berlin for Munich where he joined the other conspirators who had taken refuge there, protected by the right-wing sympathetic government of Gustav Ritter von Kahr. He reconnected with his new friend, the right-wing reactionary and former military commander Colonel Max Bauer, who had written a defensive pamphlet about the Putsch and its intentions.

Trebitsch went back to Berlin to try and find a publisher for the pamphlet, but once again he came to the attention of the Berlin police who were

now looking to arrest him.

He returned to Munich where he holed himself up in a house in which some of Germany’s most notorious right-wing extremists were in hiding. These included Bauer and General Erich Ludendorff, the commander of Germany’s military forces during the First World War and a bitter opponent of postwar peace arrangements.

Although there were many Germans who felt bitter about postwar arrangements, what the Kapp Putsch had proven to both Ludendorff and Bauer was that there was not yet a critical mass of people who could effectively oppose the British and French influence over Germany and take control. But instead of giving up and moving on, they came up with an audacious plan to form alliances with similarly disenchanted groups in other countries, so that the right-wing reactionary forces in Europe could return the continent to its prewar arrangements. German

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militarists, Russian czarist sympathizers, Austro-Hungarian conservatives, and a range of anti-communists and malcontents would unite together in an unbeatable force to liberate Europe from the weak and ineffective governments that had emerged after the Versailles Treaty.

The only government in Europe that was potentially sympathetic to such a cause was the recently formed right-wing regime of Admiral Miklós Horthy in Hungary. Bauer decided to travel to Budapest with Trebitsch to convince Horthy to support a transcontinental revolution. But first Trebitsch was sent to Berlin to raise money. Characteristically he refused to keep a low profile, and within a matter of days he was arrested and thrown into jail. In addition to his arrest the investigating officers found him in possession of a cache of documents that not only incriminated him,

rather than arrest Trebitsch, he allowed him to leave Munich and escape across the border into Austria. To pay for his travel and other expenses Trebitsch arranged for a correspondent of the Hearst newspaper empire to interview Ludendorff in hiding for a hefty fee, which Ludendorff immediately sent to Trebitsch.

Bauer and Trebitsch made their way to Budapest, arriving there on May 15, 1920. Hungary had been in turmoil since Horthy had launched his violent coup a few months earlier against the Soviet-sympathetic regime of Jewish-born Béla Kun (originally Kohn). Although he was now in complete control of the country, forces loyal to him and other armed militia groups continued to kill suspected communist sympathizers, and the leading world powers refused to recognize the regime. The only way Hor-

with Hitler, with devastating consequences for Hungarian Jewry).

In the middle of May 1920, with the demands of Versailles hanging over them and the treaty still unsigned, the new regime was ready to talk to anyone who might help keep their country intact. The timing of the arrival of the two insurrectionists from Germany could therefore nor have been more fortuitous. They were given five-star treatment and feted wherever they went. Within a couple of days Horthy met them privately, as a result of which he designated three of his closest reactionary collaborators – all of them squalid ultra-nationalist extremists – to discuss and formulate their proposal.

One of them was a brutal paramilitary murderer, Pál Prónay, commander of a violent “white terror” militia group who was also a

At the first meeting with Bauer and Trebitsch, Prónay agitatedly pulled Bauer aside and, glancing across at Trebitsch, exclaimed in a hoarse whisper, “Colonel, your dark, fat friend is a Jew! I don’t feel safe talking in front of him!”

but also Bauer, Ludendorff, and many others, for being involved in activities that the German authorities labeled “High Treason.” Incredibly, Trebitsch managed to escape from jail and he disappeared from Berlin, much to the dismay of the authorities.

The Munich chief of police was informed and requested to locate Trebitsch and incarcerate him immediately.

But the police chief was a right-wing sympathizer, so

thy could gain international recognition was if he would sign the proposed postwar peace treaty, which meant making humiliating territorial concessions. Within a matter of weeks after Bauer’s and Trebitsch’s arrival in Budapest the treaty was forced on the Hungarians by the Allied powers, a development that was to lead to deep and bitter resentment (much later on, this was one of the reasons Horthy joined forces

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vicious anti-Semite. At the first meeting with Bauer and Trebitsch, Prónay agitatedly pulled Bauer aside and, glancing across at Trebitsch, exclaimed in a hoarse whisper, “Colonel, your dark, fat friend is a Jew! I don’t feel safe talking in front of him!”

Bauer laughed, shook his head and placed a reassuring arm around Prónay’s shoulders, telling him, “I would put my hand in the fire for that man – you can

General Erich Ludendorff, former commander of the German army and a friend of Bauer, who knew Trebitsch but ultimately did not publicly support him and Bauer

talk in front of him without any fear whatsoever.” Prónay was skeptical and remained extremely suspicious of the “dark, fat Jew” throughout their liaisons. Bauer, meanwhile, would soon enough have cause to regret his confidence in Trebitsch.

For the next few days there were intensive discussions and a plan was formulated that described a strategy to combine the forces of all the nationalist, anti-communist, postwar disillusioned groups of Hungary, Germany and Russia into one force that would then militarily and politically undo the new realities that had been imposed on Europe in Versailles. The plan relied on a cast of characters that included Russian political and military émigrés in Germany, leading German military heroes such as Bauer and Ludendorff, and the new Hungarian government together with its array of reactionary supporters. Funding was glossed over, but it was assumed that the Hungarian government would take on the initial expenses and that as the revolution crystallized money would materialize from a number of sources.

The plan was completed

and written up by Trebitsch and signed by Bauer on May 26, 1920. In early June, Hungarian representatives went ahead and signed the peace treaty at the Trianon Palace in Versailles, leaving Hungary with just 28% of the territory it had controlled before the war. Undoubtedly the attitude towards signing had softened with the knowledge that a plan now existed that would potentially render the peace terms irrelevant within a short space of time. Even as the ink was drying on the newly signed treaty, the conspiracy was gathering pace in Budapest. Russian czarist generals and Hungarian officials met secretly with Bauer and Trebitsch to finalize the proposed alliance which would lead to “a great Russia, a great Germany, and a great Hungary.” There was even the suggestion that Trebitsch should go and meet with the emerging fascist leader in Italy, Benito Mussolini, to secure his support for the revolution, but that meeting never materialized.

Then, in the month of July things began to unravel. Trebitsch became very frustrated that Ludendorff – who commanded enormous respect in Germany

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and beyond and whose public support for the plan was crucial – had remained aloof and refused to join him and Bauer in Budapest. The plan also relied heavily on Hungarian government support, but Horthy and his coterie of advisors had begun to lose interest. For all kinds of reasons they had become reluctant to stir up a hornet’s nest across Europe, particularly if doing so involved a collection of embittered nationalists with nothing more in common than a desire to turn their resounding defeat into a vindicating victory. In addition to this, in the previous month the tide had begun to turn against the anti-Soviet White Army in the Russian civil war, which reduced the importance of the Russian collaborators.

Meanwhile, the political pendulum in Europe had visibly started to swing to the right, which meant that a violent right-wing pancontinental coup was less urgent.

With each passing week, Horthy became less inclined to take the lead in what he realized could turn out to be an utter fiasco.

At around the same time, Trebitsch became aware of a plot to kill him. An odious German nationalist involved with the plotters, Franz von Stephani – who was possibly Jewish – wrote to an associate in Budapest asking to have Trebitsch eliminated.

Somehow Trebitsch saw the letter and confronted Bauer, who told him he had nothing to fear. But Trebitsch was naturally anxious. He was well aware that many of the people they were dealing with were coldblooded murderers, and he must certainly have been aware that they were rabid anti-Semites. Stephani’s letter abruptly woke him up to the fact that he wasn’t involved

in some shifty business deal, or a diplomatic row with an ambassador, or a parochial political skirmish. The people he was now involved with were by-and-large amoral schemers for whom life was cheap and whose readiness to kill was undeniable. In early September, while on a “mission” to Vienna, Trebitsch suddenly disappeared from sight, taking with him a suitcase full of documents containing all the intricate details of the conspiracy.

Bauer was horrified by his disappearance and even more so by the theft of the documents. He desperately tried to locate Trebitsch, but to no avail. He then asked Prónay to find Trebitsch and bring him back to Budapest by any means. Prónay dispatched two associates to track Trebitsch down, kidnap him, and bring him back, but although the pair managed to find him, they were unable to carry out their orders.

Trebitsch was in hiding, desperately trying to secure his safety and his financial security. He approached both the British and the French embassies in Vienna and tried to sell them the documents with the claim they contained vital military and political information that would guarantee the future security of Europe.

The irony of this dreadful treachery was not that it had been so presciently predicted by Prónay only a couple of months earlier, as much as it had been Trebitsch who had himself formulated much of the material that he was now offering for sale. The British were understandably wary of Trebitsch. The French were similarly disinterested and rejected his offer. So Trebitsch shopped the documents around and discovered that the Czechoslovakian government was

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extremely eager to get their hands on them. The newly formed country of Czechoslovakia was made up entirely of territory taken from Hungary and Austria, and its leaders were terrified that Hungary would join forces with reactionary forces within Czechoslovakia and attempt to repossess what they had lost.

Trebitsch journeyed to Prague to negotiate the sale.

Once there he managed to secure a substantial price for his document collection.

The Czechoslovak government immediately attempted to use the information contained in the documents as propaganda by contacting a variety of international newspapers with the story of the conspiracy. They also reached out to diplomatic contacts in various countries to inform them of the impending threat. But what they discovered on both fronts was that Trebitsch was considered so unreliable that no one paid too much attention to what he had shared with the Czechs, and the British Foreign Office actively dismissed the information as “concoctions.”

For Trebitsch this was the last straw. For the first time he had actually been in possession of valuable intelligence information, having been at the very heart of a nascent reactionary movement that threatened the stability of the free world, a movement that was the beginning of a trend that would ultimately morph into fascism and Nazism. But Trebitsch’s tarnished reputation militated against anyone of note taking anything he said or conveyed in documents remotely seriously. Even if there were those who believed he had been involved with Bauer and Ludendorff, Horthy and the Russians, his very participation in the

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Admiral Miklos Horthy, the Regent of Hungary, who met with Trebitsch and Colonel Max Bauer in Budapest in May 1920

events he described meant that the plot must be fantasy, and the plotters fantasists.

In late December 1920, The Times newspaper in London published a three-part summary of Trebitsch’s documents in which his name featured frequently. Editorial comment scorned the entire conspiracy, referring to it as the hopeless dreams of a bunch of powerless and delusional ideologues, proven principally by the fact that they had involved Trebitsch.

The one who suffered most from Trebitsch’s latest shenanigans was his former mentor and “friend,” Colonel Max Bauer. Ridiculed and criticized in equal measure by friend and foe, Bauer went into hiding near Munich, where he wrote a number of confused and confusing accounts of his involvement with his former protégé, which he admitted had been utterly foolish. But his credibility as a political force was shattered.

Trebitsch was also being discredited by the media and the authorities, who claimed variously that he was a fantasist, or a forger, or both.

He was compelled to react, particularly to the charges of forgery, as if he was guilty

of fabricating the documents this meant the Czechoslovak government would not pay him the remainder of his money. He launched a lawsuit against the Czechs to demand that he be paid what was due to him. This public legal challenge could not be ignored and resulted in his arrest in Vienna in February 1921. He was summarily charged with two contradictory crimes: High Treason – a criminal charge punishable by death – and forgery, on the basis of the complaint by the Czechs that the entire cache of documents he had sold them was fabricated for financial gain.

NEXT TIME: In the next and final chapter of the Trebitsch saga, learn what happened at the end of the trial, his shenanigans on American soil, and his ultimate and final role as a Buddhist monk.

Rabbi Pini Dunner is the Rav of Young Israel North Beverly Hills in California.

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 31, 2015

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DECEMBER29, 31,2015 2015| The | TheJewish JewishHome Home OCTOBER OCTOBER 29, 2015 | The Jewish Home

Yeshiva Mercaz Hatorah of Belle Harbor The Torah World’s Best Kept Secret

By Malky Lowinger

Welcome to Yeshiva Mercaz HaTorah in Belle Harbor where the talmidim enter as sincere and dedicated yeshiva bochurim and emerge as true bnei Torah. Where the focus is not just on Torah learning, but also on the development of a love of learning.

Where talmidim maintain a vibrant kesher with their rebbeim that lasts a lifetime. And where they grow and flourish at their own rate, without the pressure usually associated with yeshivos of its caliber.

S

ounds too good to be true?

Just ask any Mercaz HaTorah parent. It’s not unusual for several boys of one family to be enrolled as talmidim of

the Yeshiva. That’s because their parents are delighted to watch their sons develop into outstanding bnei Torah before their very eyes. “Belle Harbor,” as the yeshiva is

affectionately known, could possibly be the best kept secret in the Torah world.

Yeshiva Mercaz HaTorah is a Mesivta and Beis Medrash

located in Belle Harbor. It was established twenty nine years ago by Rav Levi Dicker, zt”l, as an in-town yeshiva with an out of town mentality. Today his son, Rav Shmuel Zev Dicker, serves as Rosh Yeshiva.

The Yeshiva boasts a fully accredited high school program as well as a three year Beis Medrash. Today there are a total of 110 bochuirm in the Mesivta and Beis Medrash, which is a testimony to its continued growth. It’s not unusual for talmidim of Mercaz HaTorah to go on to

learn in renowned yeshivos in Eretz Yisroel such as Reb Dovid (Brisk), Rav Sholom Schechter, or Rav Tzvi Kaplan. They are also among the most sought after talmidim at Mir Yerushalayim.

If you are interested in attending Yeshivas Mercaz HaTorah, you can relax. The process will not be intimidating. You won’t be farhered on twenty blatt of Gemara. You won’t be asked to chazer over everything you’ve learned during the past few months.

And you won’t feel pressured to perform.

The 31, 2015 TheJewish JewishHome Home| DECEMBER | OCTOBER 29,

Instead, you will be asked to present a piece of Gemara, a Rashi, and two Tosfos. You will be evaluated for your sincerity and your cheishek for learning. Says Rabbi Yossi Goldstein, Menahel of the Yeshiva, when describing the type of bochurim that they are looking for says, “We are looking for boys who are ehrlich, with middos tovos and yiras Shamayim. If you have toichen and a serious desire to grow, if you have a yearning to shteig and to accomplish, then you’re probably a good candidate for our yeshiva.”

According to Rabbi Dicker, this is a serious yeshiva with a cheerful ruach. That

might sound like a contradiction, but it’s true. “The boys are happy and satisfied because the gashmiyus – the food and the accommodations – are quite good. That allows them to focus on the ruchniyus.” The hanhalah also understands that bochurim perform better when they are given the opportunity to release their energy in a constructive supervised setting. They are encouraged to utilize the basketball court during bein hasedorim and a nearby gym is rented for Motzei Shabbos and Sunday afternoons. “It rejuvenates them,” says Rabbi Dicker.

His father, he says, chose the Belle Harbor location be-

cause of its peaceful serenity and natural beauty. “It’s far enough from the distractions of the central New York neighborhoods,” he points out, “but close enough for the boys to easily travel home for off Shabbosim.”

There’s a sense of achdus at the Yeshiva between all the talmidim, who come from various different communities. According to Rabbi Dicker, “The older Beis Medrash bochurim are warm and welcoming to the new talmidim. It’s like one big family.”

The Yeshiva’s mission is to develop bnei Torah with a true geshmak for learning. “We feel that it’s more real,” explains Rabbi Dicker, “when the bochurim develop the cheishek on their own without being forced into it.

That way they will continue to maintain a love and appreciation for learning for the rest of their lives.”

The focus is on Torah combined with middos tovos.

“We prepare bochurim,” explains Rabbi Dicker, “to care not just about themselves but also about other bochurim in the yeshiva, and for the community and Klal Yisroel.”

In fact, alumni consistently make a difference wherever they are, even as they maintain a strong and vibrant kesher with the Yeshiva.

So much so that an alumni Yeshiva Shabbos is held annually at a local hotel, drawing former talmidim of all ages. “It’s a nachas for

us and a big source of chizuk for them,” says Rabbi Dicker.

“It’s an opportunity to reconnect and get inspired, to remind themselves of their wonderful years in Yeshiva.”

49 91

aged to maintain a perfect balance at Mercaz HaTorah.

“It’s not a pressure cooker,” explains Rabbi Goldstein, “Limud haTorah is taken very seriously but the atmosphere

“If you have toichen and a serious desire to grow, if you have a yearning to shteig and to accomplish, then you’re probably a good candidate for our yeshiva.”

The Rebbeim of the Yeshiva are invariably talmidei chachomim yet they are also devoted to the personal hatzlacha of all their talmidim. Rebbeim are available to discuss hashkafa issues, a personal sheilah, or just to schmooze. It’s not unusual for Rebbeim of Mercaz HaTorah to redt shidduchim for their talmidim, often with successful results. “I’ve been called up many times for a bracha under the chupah at a talmid’s chasunah,” says Rabbi Goldstein.

“That’s almost unheard of at an intown Yeshiva.”

There’s also a warm rapport between the Mesivta and Beis Medrash bochurim, who learn together b’chavrusa during night seder. “They serve as role models,” Rabbi Goldstein points out. “That’s a key element to our success.”

The hanhalah has man-

is relaxed.” There’s tremendous shmirah in the dorm and safety is the top priority.

But the Yeshiva understands when parents would like their sons to attend an occasional family simcha and accommodates them.

The result is that talmidim become confident and mature, ultimately leading them to grow as bnei Torah and ba’alei midos. “The change in the bochurim,” says Rabbi Dicker, “is already noticeable in the first few months at our Yeshiva.

They come in here as young boys, but we watch them develop and mature before our very eyes.”

Says Rabbi Dicker, “It’s really a pleasure to watch.”

For more information about Mercaz HaTorah, contact the Yeshiva at 718-4743064.

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DECEMBER 31, 2015 | The Jewish Home

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 31, 2015

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DECEMBER 31, 2015 | The Jewish Home OCTOBER 29, 2015 | The Jewish Home

2015 YEAR

IN REVIEW People and Things of 2015 >>>>>>>>>>>>> RICHARD MATT AND DAVID SWEAT

C

onvicted murderers Richard Matt, 48, and David Sweat, 35, escape from the maximum-security portion of Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, New York.

January - May 2015: After cutting a hole in the back of his cell and then another one in the back of Matt’s cell, Sweat waits until after the 11:30pm head count before he crawls through the hole, shimmies down a series of pipes going down several stories and begins roaming the tunnels. He returns to his cell each morning before the 5:30am count, camouflaging his portal to the maze below, and starts his daily routine.

Around May 4- Prison’s heating system is shut for the season, allowing Sweat to cut through a 24-inch steam main. Over 4 weeks he methodically works to cut holes into and out of the pipes that are large enough for the men to crawl through and emerge out of a manhole cover outside of prison.

June 5 - Sweat and Matt escape from prison after the 11:30pm headcount. A massive manhunt ensues.

June 6 - Joyce Mitchell, 51, of Dickinson Center, Franklin County, a civilian who worked in the prison tailor shop and supervised Matt and Sweat, goes to the hospital with a panic attack. She was supposed to meet the duo and help them escape after first killing her husband.

June 26 - After Matt fires a gun at a camper trailer in the area of Franklin County in which the search had focused, police find Matt and kill him after he refuses to drop his weapon.

June 28 - Sweat is captured in the afternoon after being shot and wounded by State Police Sgt. Jay Cook as he walked along an isolated road in the small town of Constable, Franklin County, a few miles from the Canadian border.

FREDDIE GRAY

F

reddie Gray is arrested on April 12 and denied his request for medical attention while being transported in a police van, resulting in his death from spinal injury. After days of peaceful protests, on April 27, after Gray’s funeral is held, Baltimore explodes with violent riots.

200 plus – Businesses destroyed during the riots 144 – Vehicles set on fire $16 million – Cost of a new senior housing/community center which was 40% complete when it was set ablaze and destroyed by rioters 0 – Amount of fans in the stands at Camden Yards when the Orioles played the White Sox on April 28, in a game which was closed to the public as a safety precaution due to the ongoing riots

It’s a very delicate balancing act because while we tried to make sure that they were protected from the cars and other things that were going on, we also gave those who wished to destroy space to do that as well.”

- Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, at a press conference talking about policing the protestors

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 31, 2015 The Jewish Home | OCTOBER 29, 2015

CONFEDERATE FLAG

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VLADIMIR PUTIN

A

A

fter Dylan Roof massacred nine innocent black churchgoers in South Carolina, on July 10 the state removed the Confederate flag, which many consider a banner of hate, from their statehouse grounds. Other states, such as Texas, Maryland and Virginia, stopped issuing vanity license plates containing the Confederate flag.

fter Putin was universally condemned for annexing Crimea in 2014 and sanctions were put into effect against Russia, he emerged in 2015 as an unwounded and dominant leader. At home his approval ratings are in the high 80% range and he was named most powerful person in the world

by Forbes. On the international stage he is a force to be reckoned with after displaying his willingness to go it alone and take on ISIS.

GYROCOPTER

A

pril 15 – Florida postman Doug Hughes flies 70 miles from Gettysburg, PA, and lands his gyrocopter packed with 535 letters—one for each member of Congress—on the lawn in front of the Capitol building, requesting campaign finance reform. On Nov. 20 Hughes pled guilty to flying the gyrocopter without an airman’s license. In return prosecutors dropped the other five charges against him. He awaits sentencing, but asked the judge for that to be delayed so he can participate in an upcoming civil disobedience protest called Democracy Spring.

The Dress Is it white and gold or blue and black?

EMAIL SERVER

I

n March 2015 it is disclosed that Hillary Clinton used a private email sever rather than the official state department server while Secretary of State. She graciously turned over the server to investigators...after first deleting 30,000 emails. As to whether she wiped the server before handing it over, her response to that question when posed to her at a press conference was, “What, like with a cloth or something?” The FBI investigation into whether she unlawfully emailed classified information through her non-secure server continues.

REUSABLE ROCKETS CECIL THE LION

O

n December 21, Elon Musk’s company Space X completes a vertical landing of a rocket which had flown into space and back.

Jeff Bezos’ company Blue Origin accomplished a similar feat on November 23, but Musk points out that his rocket went much deeper into space than Bezos’. Creating reusable rockets is one of the keys to lowering the cost of space travel, which could make space tourism more feasible.

A DONALD TRUMP

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n June 16, “The Donald” entered the Republican race for president and promised to “make America great again.”

Many assumed that this was a publicity stunt which quickly went bad when he began making wild statements which violated every rule of effective campaigning. But with less than a month before the first primary votes are cast, according to most polls, he maintains a comfortable 20 point lead over his nearest rival, Ted Cruz. Whether it is in fact a publicity stunt remains to be seen.

well-known male lion who had been living for 13 years in the Hwange Game Reserve in Zimbabwe was lured away from the sanctuary of the park and hunted on July 1 by Minnesota dentist Dr. Walter Palmer, who paid $50,000 for professional hunters to help him hunt and kill Cecil the Lion.

1,358,140 - Amount of people who signed a petition calling for Justice for Cecil 213,203 - Amount of people who signed the petition to stop ISIS’s genocide of Christians

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DECEMBER 31, 2015 | The Jewish Home

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The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 31, 2015 The Jewish Home | OCTOBER 29, 2015 The Jewish Home | OCTOBER 29, 2015

BRIAN WILLIAMS BRIAN WILLIAMS

O O BOMB BOMBCLOCKS CLOCKS

14 14

-year-old is suspended suspendedfrom fromschool school -year-old Ahmed Ahmed Mohamed Mohamed is in Irving, Texas, after bringing a homemade clock in Irving, Texas, after bringing a homemade clock inina a suitcase and looked lookedlike likeaabomb bombtotoschool. school. suitcasewhich which was was ticking ticking and When asked what his contraption was, according to James When asked what his contraption was, according to James McLellan of the Irving police department, Ahmed became McLellan of the Irving police department, Ahmed became “passive “didn’t offer offer any any explanation explanationasastoto “passive aggressive” aggressive” and and “didn’t what it was for, why he created the device, whyhe hebrought brought what it was for, why he created the device, why itittotoschool.”

When the story gains national attention, Pres. school.” When the story gains national attention, Pres.

Obama tweets, “Cool clock Ahmed.

Want to bring it to the Obama tweets, “Cool clock Ahmed. Want to bring it to the White House?”

When it is uncovered that Ahmed’s father is White House?” When it is uncovered that Ahmed’s father is a a 9/11 has been been trying tryingto tobe beaaspokesman spokesman 9/11truther trutherwho who for for years years has against “Islamophobia” and likely set this whole thingupup against “Islamophobia” and likely set this whole thing purposely, all those who were circling Ahmed’s wagon quietly purposely, all those who were circling Ahmed’s wagon quietly scuttle off to their next cause celeb.

Clock Boy did get to meet scuttle off to their next cause celeb. Clock Boy did get to meet the president at the White House, but he didn’t get to bring the president at the White House, but he didn’t get to bring his invention. hisbrilliant brilliantbomb bomb look-a-like look-a-like invention.

Feb5, 5,thethethen-top then-top n nFeb rated anchor admits rated anchor admits on his nightly NBC news on his nightly NBC news broadcast, “l made a misbroadcast, “l made a mistake in recalling the events take in recalling the events yearsago,” ago,” after it is ofof1212years after it is uncovered that he has been uncovered that he has been lyingforforyears years about being lying about being in a helicopter that was shot in a helicopter that was shot down in Iraq while he down in Iraq while he waswas coveringthat thatwar. war.Several Several covering days later, when other days later, when other lieslies he he said come to light, he is sussaid come to light, he is suspended from NBC News pended from NBC News forfor sixmonths monthsand and replaced six is is replaced by Lestor Holt.

When

by Lestor Holt. When hishis suspension is up suspension is up he he does not return does not return chair to to hishis chair at at the nightly the nightly new desk new desk butbut is banished is banished to to CNBC. CNBC.

JOAQUIN“EL “ELCHAPO” CHAPO”GUZMAN GUZMAN JOAQUIN

T

hehead headofofthe theSinaloa SinaloaCartel, Cartel,which which generates more than he generates more than $3 billion in annual revenue from drug trafficking, $3 billion in annual revenue from drug trafficking, es-escapes fromaamaximum maximumsecurity securityMexican Mexican prison June capes from prison onon June 11 11 through a 1 mile long tunnel, 62 feet under the maximum-sethrough a 1 mile long tunnel, 62 feet under the maximum-securityprison. prison. curity $5 million-U.S. U.S.award awardfor forinformation information that will lead $5 millionthat will lead to to Guzman’s arrest Guzman’s arrest

Witsare arebetter betterthan thanstrength strength and that has Wits and that has workedfor forme.” me.” worked Lifetakes takesmany manyturns, turns,one one day you’re Life day you’re inin thehole holeand andthe thenext nextday day you’re top.” the you’re onon top.”

Tweetssent sentfrom fromGuzman’s Guzman’s Twitter handle --Tweets Twitter handle several weeks after his escape several weeks after his escape

JONATHANPOLLARD POLLARD JONATHAN On November November20, 20,the theonly only On Americanever eversentenced sentencedtotolife life American in prison prisonfor forspying spyingfor foran anally, ally, in JonathanPollard, Pollard,61, 61,isisfreed freedbyby Jonathan the Obama Obamaadministration administrationafter after the serving30 30years yearsin inprison. prison. serving

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LET’SGET GET LET’S TOGETHER TOGETHER Some of the biggest Some of the biggest mergers took mergers thatthat took place in 2015 place in 2015 (pending regulators’ approval) (pending regulators’ approval)

DOW CHEMICALS & DUPONT DOW CHEMICALS & DUPONT merge to become DowDuPont, merge to become DowDuPont, the the world’s largest chemical company world’s largest chemical company worth $130 billion worth $130 billion

MARRIOTT agrees to purchase MARRIOTT agrees to purchase STARWOOD for $12.2 billion, STARWOOD for $12.2 billion, to to

make it the largest company make it the largest hotelhotel company in in universe, 5,500 hotels in 100 universe, withwith 5,500 hotels in 100 countries countries

WALGREENS purchases RITE WALGREENS purchases RITE AID $17.2 billion, resulting AID for for $17.2 billion, resulting

a combined 13,000 stores, in aincombined 13,000 U.S U.S stores, surpassing which 7,800 surpassing CVSCVS which has has 7,800 stores in the stores in the U.S.U.S.

ANHEUSER-BUSCH INBEV ANHEUSER-BUSCH INBEV agrees to buy MILLER for $104 agrees to buy rivalrival MILLER for $104

billion.

If approved by regulators, billion.

If approved by regulators, the the company would be largest the largest company would be the beerbeer maker in the world annual maker in the world withwith annual salessales of $64 billion of $64 billion

Health insurance giant ANTHEM Health insurance giant ANTHEM agrees to purchase CIGNA agrees to purchase CIGNA in a in a

billion deal.

If approved $54$54 billion deal.

If approved by by regulators, company would regulators, the the newnew company would have $115 billion in annual revenue have $115 billion in annual revenue

STAPLES OFFICE DEPOT STAPLES buysbuys OFFICE DEPOT for for $6.3 billion $6.3 billion

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OCTOBER 29, DECEMBER 31,2015 2015| |The TheJewish JewishHome Home

World Map 2015 >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> EUROPE GERMANWINGS PLANE CRASH

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hile flying from Barcelona, Spain, to Düsseldorf, Germany, Germanwings flight 9525 crashes in the French Alps on March 24 killing all of the 150 passengers and crew on board. The investigation quickly uncovers that co-pilot Andreas Lubitz, who had a history of severe depression, deliberately downed the plane.

EUROPE MIGRANT CRISIS

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ore than a million migrants and refugees, mostly from Syria, crossed into Europe in 2015, sparking a crisis as countries struggled to cope with the influx and creating division in the EU over how best to deal with resettling these people.

972,551 - The number of those that arrived by sea 1,000 - Amount of Syrian refugees that are being housed in the German village of Sumte, which previously had a population of 100 100,000 - The amount of Syrian refugees that U.S. Secretary of State Kerry announced the U.S. will take in over the next 2 years 31 - Number of U.S. states whose

governors expressed opposition to taking Syrian refugees due to security concerns “Un-American” – President Obama’s description for those who oppose taking Syrian refugees into the U.S. due to concerns that ISIS may have infiltrated and may attempt to enter the U.S. through the refugee program

RUSSIAN PLANE SHOT DOWN

R

ussia’s Metrojet Flight 9268 crashes on October 31 after departing from the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh for the Russian city of St. Petersburg, killing all 224 people on board. ISIS claims responsibility.

GREEK DEBT CRISIS

June 26 - As a debt payment becomes due, Greece and its creditors attempt to agree on bailout terms, requiring steep austerity measures.

But the Greek government objects to harsh measures being placed on it.

People rush to withdraw their money from Greek banks. Communist party supporters start to pour into Syntagma square in Athens to protest against the creditors’ demands for more austerity.

June 28 - Greek parliament votes to have a referendum in which Greek citizens will decide whether to accept the austerity measures in return for the bailout. Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras announces that banks will be closed for the next two weeks

and withdrawals will be limited to 60 euros a day.

July 5 - 61.3% of Greek voters reject a referendum calling for austerity measures, which included raising taxes and slashing welfare spending, in return for a Eurozone bailout.

July 9 - After European lead-

ers set a new deadline of July 12 by which Greece has to capitulate to their demands for financial reform or be cut off from the Eurozone, the Greek government capitulates to the demands of its creditors.

July 20 - Banks reopen.

August 14 - Greek government

TheJewish JewishHome Home| DECEMBER | OCTOBER 29, The 31, 2015

997

YEAR OF TERROR IN PARIS January 7 - Gunmen storm a meeting of cartoonists at the office of French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo, which in the past featured a cartoon depicting Muhammad, and murder 11 people while screaming, “We have avenged Muhammad.” The terrorists escape and kill one police officer. A massive manhunt ensues.

January 8 - Suspects kill a female police officer in a Paris suburb.

January 9 - 9AM: After two suspects rob a gas station, a police chase ensues. Suspects drive to an empty printing company and barricade themselves in. After an 8 hour standoff, they emerge while shooting at the police and are killed.

12PM: Terrorist walks into Hyper Cacher market, in eastern Paris’s Porte de Vincennes neighborhood, while patrons are shopping for Shabbos and kills 4 Jews. After a 5 hour standoff, police move in, kill the terrorist, and release 16 surviving hostages.

August 21 - Radical Muslim terrorist armed with assault weapons begins shooting at passengers on a high speed train between Amsterdam and Paris. Luckily, before any passengers are hit, three American childhood friends who are on the train charge and tackle the terrorist, preventing a massacre.

November 13 - ISIS terrorists attack 6 sites, including a soccer stadium where French President Hollande is watching a soccer match, killing 130 people and injuring hundreds more.

3.7 million - Amount of people, including dozens of world leaders, that participated in an unprecedented anti-terror rally in Paris on January 11th 0 - Number of senior U.S. officials who attended the peace rally Text exchange between Yoav Hattab, 21, and his friend, shortly before Yoav was taken hostage and killed in the Hyper Cacher supermarket:

Yoav: This is a difficult time in France for Jews. At least try…Do not do everything, but at least try to do something.

Yoav: Try to make the Shabbat as soon as you arrive.

Friend: Okay, don’t worry; of course I’ll do it.

Friend: This Shabbat is very stressful. I have exams tomorrow morning and I’m taking a flight, but the next Shabbat for sure.

Yoav: You’re the bomb.

Friend: LOL, thank you.

ASIA NEPAL EARTHQUAKE

N

epal struck by an earthquake on April 25, registering 7.8 on Richter scale, that kills over 9,000 people and injures more than 23,000.

secures a three year bailout. $356 billion - Amount Greece owes to various countries and banks within Europe 50% - Amount public sector wages grew by between 1999 and 2007, leading to the current crisis 26% - Greek unemployment rate

“Easier to address a far-away humanitarian disaster than the nearby one of Israel’s making in Gaza. End the blockade!”

- Tweet by Human Rights Watch’s Ken Roth after Israel sent 260 doctors, nurses and personnel to aide in the search and rescue mission in Nepal

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DECEMBER 31, 2015 | The Jewish Home OCTOBER 29, 2015 | The Jewish Home

MIDDLE EAST IRAN NUCLEAR DEAL

Sec. of State Kerry during his negotiations with the Iranians, after he broke his leg during a bike ride while taking a breather from the negotiations on May 31 “Of course, yes, death to America!”

- Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, at a rally after the Iran deal was signed and on the same day that President Obama hailed the deal as an “ historic opportunity.”

July 14 - After two years of negotiations, the U.S. along with five other nations and Iran agree to a nuclear deal, known as a seven-nation deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

“The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) is not a treaty or an executive agreement, and is not a signed document…The success of the JCPOA will depend not on whether it is legally binding or signed, but rather on the extensive verification measures we have put in place.”

- State Department assistant secretary for legislative affairs Julia Frifield, in a November 19 letter to Representative Mike Pompeo (R - Kan.). Frifield wrote the letter in response to a letter Pompeo sent Secretary of State John Kerry, in which he observed that the deal the president had submitted to Congress was unsigned by the Iranians and wondering if the administration had given lawmakers the final agreement 24 days - How much time the deal allows Iran to delay if inspectors ask to search certain nuclear sites $150 billion - Amount of frozen money being released to Iran as a result of their “agreeing” to the deal 56% - Percent of Americans who thought that Congress should reject the deal with Iran Crutches - Item necessary for

56 - Number of Democrats (including Congressman Gregory Meeks) who heeded the White House’s implicit call to boycott Prime Minister Netanyahu’s March 3rd speech to Congress about the dangers of the then-pending nuclear agreement with Iran.

TURKEY DOWNS RUSSIAN JET November 24 - Turkey shoots down a Russian fighter jet that was carrying out bombing attacks on ISIS in Syria after it allegedly invades Turkish airspace for several seconds. One Russian pilot is killed.

One ejects safely. Putin calls Turkey “accomplices of terrorists” and warns of “serious consequences.”

Turkey refuses to apologize and says that it has a duty to protect its airspace.

ISIS CONTROL IN SYRIA AND IRAQ

A

ccording to leading global security firm HIS Inc., since the beginning of 2015, ISIS has lost 14% of the territory it previously controlled in Syria and Iraq. Even so, despite airstrikes by a U.S-led coalition and separate airstrikes by Russia, ISIS, which is estimated to have approximately 30,000 fighters, maintains control of major portions of key cities in Syria and Iraq. ISIS has also expanded into several other countries and has continued to inspire radical Muslims to carry out attacks wherever possible.

PALESTINIAN WAVE OF TERROR

Between September 13 and December 23, 2015, 24 Jews have been killed, Hy”d, and 259 wounded (24 of them seriously) in the latest round of Palestinian violence which began when Palestinian leaders used the usual “fuse” and warned that Israel planned on taking over the Temple Mount. According to the IDF, in that period there have been 120 stabbings, 45 shootings and 21 car rammings. Approximately 100 Palestinian perpetrators were killed by their intended victims or security forces.

“This is a peaceful uprising.”

– PA President Mahmud Abbas, 11/26/15

Ezra Schwartz, 18, of Massachusetts, killed in a terror attack

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NORTH AMERICA CUBA EMBRACED

BY U.S.

O

n July 20, the United States and Cuba reopen embassies in each otherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s capitals. Both had been closed since 1961. Kerry attends U.S. flag raising at the embassy in Cuba on August 14. The U.S. trade embargo against Cuba, which cannot be lifted without congressional approval, remains in place.

1 million - Estimate of annual U.S. tourists visiting Cuba if Congress approves lifting travel restrictions. Delta Air Lines, JetBlue Airways, Hilton Worldwide, Marriott International and the Carnival Corporation are all clamoring for that business

TERROR IN THE U.S. May 3 - Two gunmen with ties to ISIS open fire outside a complex in Garland, Texas, that was hosting a contest featuring cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. Thankfully, both gunmen are instantly killed by security officers. One security officer is injured in the shootout.

July 16 - Mohammod Youssuf Abdulazeez, 24, who came to the U.S. from Kuwait, unleashes a barrage of gunfire at two military recruitment centers in Chattanooga, Tennessee, killing four Marines and wounding two other service members and a police officer. The Marines are defenseless due to a law which prohibits military members from possessing firearms at military recruitment centers.

December 2 - Radical Muslim terrorists Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik, who are mar-

ried, leave their 6 month old baby with family members and attack a county employee holiday party in San Bernardino, California, killing 14 and wounding 22. Many of those killed and wounded participated in a baby shower for the couple just a few months earlier. The terrorists

are killed within hours of the attack once police spot them driving and a shootout ensued. Tashfeen Malik, who came to the U.S. from Pakistan after marrying Farook, passed three background checks by American immigration officials, despite her many social media postings prais-

ing violent jihad and proclaiming that she wanted to be part of it. Due to the Obama administration policy, immigration officials are prohibited from reviewing social media postings when considering visa applications.

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DECEMBER 31, 2015 | The Jewish Home OCTOBER 29, 2015 | The Jewish Home

With 24 seconds left in Super Bowl 49, the Patriots were leading 28-24.

Yet, it looked like Bill Belichick and Tom Brady would once again lose the big game on the final drive, as they had in their previous two Super Bowl appearances against the Giants. The Seahawks had marched up the field and were at the 1 yard line. All hundred million people watching the game knew that at 2nd and 1, on the goal line, the best running back in the league, Marshawn Lynch, would simply go “beast mode” and run the ball into the end zone, making the Seahawks back-to-back Super Bowl champs. But, in what is now hailed as the worst call in Super Bowl history, a throwing play was called. QB Russell Wilson threw a slant pass and Patriot’s corner, Malcolm Butler, made his first-ever NFL interception, sealing the Patriots first Super Bowl victory in 10 years.

The U.S. team defeated Japan 5-2 to win the 2015 FIFA World Cup title. The game was a rout as midfielder Carli Lloyd quickly scored a goal in the third minute of the game. She went on to score two more goals, all within the first 16 minutes of the game. On July 10, the team was honored with a tickertape parade down New York City’s Canyon of Heroes, marking the first time a women’s sports team received such an honor.

r Majo Champ Golf

Jordan Spieth, 22, quickly earned the official rank of #1 golfer in the world after he won the 2015 Masters Tournament and 2015 U.S. Open. Spieth made a total of $22 million in prize money in 2015, surpassing the previous $20.9 million record set by Tiger Woods in 2007.

After Tom Brady and the Patriots eviscerate the Indianapolis Colts, 45-7, to advance to the Super Bowl it is disclosed that the Patriots had been using under-inflated footballs, a violation of League rules.

A halftime inspection find 11 of the 12 footballs maintained by the Patriots for the game to be under the required inflation level. After attorney Ted Wells issues his 243 page report and notes that “it is more probable than not that Tom Brady [the quarterback for the Patriots] was at least generally aware of the inappropriate activities…” NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell suspends Tom Brady for 4 games. Just a week before the NFL season begins, a federal judge rules that the suspension violates the NFL’s collective-bargaining agreement and tosses the suspension.

“Tell Tom Brady, I’m sorry.”

         

   

U.S. Women’s Canyon of Heroes Parade

Deflategate

– Courtroom sketch artist Jane Rosenberg, after her unflattering courtroom sketch of Brady went viral

American Pharoah

The Interception

Sports Stories of 2015 >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

5 1/2 lengths – Distance American Pharoah won the Belmont Stakes by, becoming the first horse in 37 years to win the Triple Crown

“After I looked into our records I saw how it was submitted.”

- American Pharoah’s manager admitting that when he submitted the horse’s names to the horsing commission, he misspelled the name $250,000 - Amount Ahmed Zayat purchased American Pharoah for in 2007 $100 million - The amount American Pharoah is expected to net for his owners over the next ten years

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 31, 2015 The Jewish Home | OCTOBER 29, 2015

’ n i z a m A n n A o s a e S

Soccer Scandal On May 27, as FIFA officials gather for the world governing body of soccer’s annual meeting in Zurich, police descend on the Baur au Lac hotel and arrest 7 high level FIFA officials in a bribery scheme uncovered by the FBI. $1.5 billion - Amount of money FIFA has in reserves $151 million - Amount of money investigators have identified as kickbacks and bribes in exchange for selling broadcasting and marketing contracts for tournaments 24 years - How long the FBI states the corruption scheme had been going on

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        

Raining money - Prankster Simon Brodkin shows up at FIFA’s President Sepp Blatter’s press conference on July 20 and showers Blatter with dollar bills

rks o w Fire ent d i c Ac

A Big Pile Of Dough

While lighting fireworks on July 4th, Giants star defensive end JasonPierre-Paul blows off his right index finger and severely damages his right thumb and middle finger. In the ensuing days the Giants front office is kept in the dark about the extent of his injuries and the medical personnel that they send to visit him at the hospital are turned away. On October 28, he returns to the team. After going the first 5 games without a sack, he records three solo tackles and a sack in week 15 against the Panthers.

Although the May 2nd boxing match between Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao was a 12 round snooze fest, it was certainly historic. 4.4 million people paid to see it, resulting in $595 million in revenue. Mayweather, who was the unanimous winner and holds a record of 49-0, walked away with $210 million and loser Pacquiao earned a measly consolation prize of $143 million.

July 30 is a typical humid mid-summer day in New York. In Citi Field the Mets are playing an afternoon game with the Padres. They are in hunt for the National League Wild Card spot and it looks like they are about to beat the Padres. They are up 7 to 5 with two outs and one strike, in the top of the ninth. But first they have to deal with nature – a rain shower comes blowing through Citi Field. When play resumes after a 44 minute rain delay, the Padres stay alive with back-to-back singles. Justin Upton then comes to the plate and hits a three-ring homer. The Padres are now up 8-7, but the Mets can still try to salvage the game in the bottom of the ninth. However, they have to step aside once more for nature. This time there’s a 2 hour and 52 minute rain delay. When play resumes, the Mets retire in order and are now 4½ games back in the Wild Card chase.

Typical day at Citi Field. Perhaps Mets fans are just born to suffer.

But the very next day, just minutes before the trade deadline, the tectonic plates suddenly shift for the Mets. They pickup Yoenis Cespedes from the Tigers for a pair of minor league pitchers, adding a powerful bat to their lineup.

Fast forward two months and they finish the season 90-72 and win the National League East.

Armed with the best young pitching staff in baseball, they take on the Dodgers in the division series and beat them in 5 games. In the National League Championship round they face the young and feisty Chicago Cubs, who beat the Mets each of the 7 times that they played during the regular season.

It’s the eighth inning of game four of the NLCS and Daniel Murphey is batting for the Mets.

Pop! By now, Mets fans know what that sound means. Their hardworking second-baseman, who had hit a pedestrian 14 homeruns in the regular season, has just broke the Major League record and hit a homer in six consecutive postseason games. Moments later the Mets are headed to the World Series after sweeping the Cubs 4-0.

Fate is on their side. Even young fans are starting to remember the magic of the Amazin’ in 1969. The Mets gunslingers will put away the Kansas City Royals; the only question is how many games it would take.

But, as fate giveth, fate taketh. Matt Harvey chooses to throw heat on the first pitch of the series. Set the tone early. Kansas City shortstop Alcides Escobarhits takes a swing and hits the ball into deep left field. He rounds the bases and records an in-the-park homerun. In hindsight, that may be the moment that the Mets magic was let out of the balloon. Kansas City dominates and wins the series 4-1.

Upsetting for Mets fans? Yes. But, not bad for a team which just several months earlier couldn’t even lose a game without having to first sit through a grueling 2 hour and 52 minute rain delay.

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The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 31, 2015

vru,v ,jnac ujnau uaha

Yeshiva Ketana of Long Island expresses our cuy kzn wishes to

Harav Dovid Teitelbaum t"yhka u p o n

h i s

s i y u m

h a s h a s

We were honored that the talmidim experienced Rabbi Teitelbaumâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s thrill of completing the entire Shas, as they participated in this monumental celebration. Rabbi Teitelbaumâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s passionate words of excitement and chizuk inspired the boys to forge ahead in their own learning. May the inspiration carry them through the winter Zman and beyond!

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DECEMBER 31, 2015 | The Jewish Home

Forgotten Her es

The Heroes of Israel

By Avi Heiligman

Abraham Avigdorov

Emmanuel Landau

For decades before the Israeli War of Independence the Jews living in Eretz Yisrael had been fighting Arabs. There were several underground units but the one with the most experience that later became the backbone for the IDF was the Palmach. After the bombing of the King David Hotel in 1946, there was a change in tactics for the underground units. Instead of directing their forces against the British, the Palmach and other units performed several raids on Arab targets in retaliation for terrorist attacks on innocent Jews.

In early 1948, the Palmach switched tactics again – this time they were targeting Arab sites of military importance. In one of these operations two young men were awarded Israel’s highest medal for their actions.

A

braham “Bimchik” Avigdorov was born on a moshav in 1929 called Mitzpa. His father had been an active member of the defense group HaShomer but was killed in an Arab revolt when Abraham was only seven. When he was only 18 he joined the Palmach and was assigned to the Yiftach Brigade. The brigade was

quite active during the War of Independence and many of its members had seen action before the war officially started. Abraham and other Palmach soldiers were to ambush a convoy of Arab vehicles in the Kiryat Motzkin area.

Another member of the ambush team was European immigrant Emmanuel Lan-

dau. Many members of his family had been musicians in Warsaw before the war and escaped to Russia early in the war. After a journey through Iran, which was under British rule, Emmanuel and his sister made aliyah in 1943. They were placed on a kibbutz and Emmanuel went to agricultural school. After graduation he joined the Pal-

Zerubavel Horowitz

mach and became a soldier in the Yiftach Brigade.

A convoy of important supplies for the Arabs was being led by one al-Haniti who was the commander of the garrison in Haifa.

Another officer wanted the supplies to be transferred by sea but al-Haniti decided against it even though there had been ambushes on that road in previous months. The convoy was carrying hundreds of thousands of bullets, a thousand grenades, hundreds of rifles and five grenade launchers, most of which was supplied

by England and France. The Palmach knew all about Arab troop and convoy movements and were ready to attack this one that was vital for the defense of Haifa.

Reports do not seem to show how many Palmach soldiers were involved in the ambush but both Landau

and Avigdorov were ready to attack it near the central square of Kiryat Motzkin on March 17, 1948. Avigdorov fired first, aiming his submachine gun at the first truck.

The two machine-gunners on the truck were killed immediately. However, Avigdorov was seriously wounded in the attack and had to be evacuated. Meanwhile, Landau ran towards a truck that was driverless with the intent to transfer the contents to the Palmach. The truck was full of weapons and exploded when some Arabs shot at it, killing Landau.

Al-Haniti and many Arab soldiers were also killed in the attack and the convoy was destroyed. The destruction of this convoy became even more important once the war started. Haifa fell to the IDF just one day after the British left. The Arabs were very short of supplies and if the convoy had reached the

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 31, 2015

garrison, the battle could have dragged on for weeks.

Avigdorov had been wounded so badly that he was pronounced dead. But after showing signs of life, he was taken out of the morgue and spent the next two years recovering from burns and a broken jaw. He passed away in 2012 at the age of 83.

There were four other members of the Palmach and other underground movements who were decorated with the Hero of Israel title in the months leading up to the Israeli War of Independence. Yair Racheli was the first to be awarded the honor for destroying an enemy position near Shefa Amr. It took place on January 19, 1948 but no further information is available on that particular action. Zerubavel Howoritz was an officer in the Haganah tasked with

Waiting to receive their decoration. From left to right: Yohai Bin Nun, Arieh Atzmoni, Emil Brig, Aharon Feller, Yair Racheli, Ben-Zion Leitner and Abraham Avigdorov

breaking the Arab blockade on Gush Etzion. They were ambushed and after several hours of fighting Horowitz told his men to escape. He was last seen protecting the wounded soldiers and was in a vehicle when it exploded.

Yizhar Armoni was killed at Nebi Yusha and received the award because he had covered the retreat of other

Receiving their medal: Yohai Bin Nun, Arieh Atzmoni, and Emil Brig

soldiers and protected the wounded.

The last person to be awarded the honor of Hero of Israel before Israel actually became a country was Sergeant Emil Brig. Born in Poland in 1927, Emil joined the underground partisans to fight the Nazis. He was caught and was about to be executed. Russian soldiers

saved him and other underground members when they arrived in the nick of time.

After ending the war in a Russian uniform fighting the Germans, Emil immigrated to Eretz Yisrael and joined the security service. The day that the State of Israel came into existence, May 14, Emil blew up a bridge preventing Arab soldiers from advanc-

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ing on his unitâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s position.

The next day, Iraq, Jordan, Egypt and Syria invaded Israel.

One year after the ambush, Avigdorov and Landau were awarded the Hero of Israel citation. In 1973, all of the Hero of Israel awardees automatically received the Medal of Valor.

These men showed selflessness for a country that didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t even exist yet. Israel was much more than a concept and these men put their lives on the line to protect her. Sadly, four of the soldiers were just privates and are mainly forgotten today.

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.

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DECEMBER 31, 2015 | The Jewish Home

⇺The Far Rockaway Dialogue⇻

O Basketball, what’s the best camp around here?

I don’t have anything to say, so I’ll just show a picture worth 2,000 words.

I can answer that for you, Rabbi Shonek. Just follow my pointer!

Rabbi Moshe Shonek, Head Counselor

Rabbi Ben Czelanicki, Pre-K Director

No-Use Asus Publishing & Design 718-327-8611

The community camp where learning comes first!

Rabbi Braun & Rabbi Brafman, Learning Directors

I have some pictures here.

Rabbi Menachem Engel, Intermediate Division Head

Rabbi Afki Klein, Junior Division Head Plus, we’re located on the Yeshiva of Far Rockaway campus, and we’re only $575 per half, or $1,050 for the whole summer!

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Your son can be here!

For More Info: 718-327-2567 asbrafman@aol.com

Rabbi Dovid Libman, Senior Division Head

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 31, 2015

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DECEMBER 31, 2015 | The Jewish Home

Dr. Deb

Due Diligence

By Deb Hirschhorn, Ph.D.

M

y heart is broken when I read the Dating Column in this newspaper. How I wish people could be spared the pain they are in. And this is amplified by the pain that people share with me every single day from their marriages and families.

So I thought that perhaps, today, I would create a checklist for daters out there to do their due diligence on the people they are considering for marriage.

Before I do that, I would like to give a plug to Joy Glicker Lieber’s Perfect Matches game. It is a set of cards with a board and dice – all to remove the heavy feeling that goes along with asking personal questions of someone you are dating. (You can find it on Facebook and Amazon.)

Let’s take a big-picture look at the kinds of questions in the game and the ones I have in mind.

We all put on our best face for the world, and certainly in the dat-

ing parsha. We don’t want to appear to be angry, hostile, petty, OCD, demanding, whiney, uncertain, or any other possible less-estimable personality.

Yet, the dater herself or himself has some of these or other not-sopretty traits. We all do. So we know they are there and they exist. The real question is: How bad are they?

Can we live with them?

As an example, someone I know and respect who writes and speaks publicly all the time, saying insightful things (that I happen to agree with!) nevertheless has an amazingly disorderly pile of papers on his desk (or at least used to; I haven’t been there in a few years).

If a person’s desk is disorderly, what does that mean? Does it imply a disorderly mind? Or is it simply the result of being too busy with more important things than to keep on straightening it? Or, could it simply be that the owner of the mess can find everything he needs anyway so it works for him?

The dater has to know which one of the above it is. Really. Because if it is the symptom of a disorderly mind, then she or he can never have a rational conversation with that person.

All conversations will end in frustration.

This is a small example, but the key takeaway idea here is that whatever you find, however small, is always the tip of the iceberg.

Here’s another example. You unexpectedly get accused of something that was not your intention. What does this mean? Should you excuse

the behavior because you want to be dan le’chaf zchus? I would not recommend that course of action.

Going with the principle that whatever you see is the tip of the iceberg, you now know that this person may read unfavorable things into people. Not a good quality.

Here’s another example someone told me about a number of years ago.

They had a guest stay over who they did not know before. The young man slept with the bedroom door open.

This seemed odd enough to the host that he mentioned it to me. It is a bit unusual. Doesn’t this individual have boundaries? Could it be he was claustrophobic? Or maybe he was just really warm.

It seemed like such a small thing that at the time, it was forgotten.

However, the young man married shortly after that and two years later this host learned the marriage was in trouble. Was his unusual behavior an indication of a problem? We will never know.

Of importance is that if we never see such things, that still doesn’t mean they are not there. As mentioned in the beginning of this article, if we take the other principle that we all have un-pretty qualities, then it is definitely necessary to find out what those qualities are so that we can decide if we can live with them.

In other words, the key idea is that we do need to pass judgment on those qualities because we will find ourselves doing that anyway – and sooner is better than later.

So if the person never exhibits any warning signs, then what? How

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 31, 2015

do we know the rest of the iceberg if we can’t even see a tip?

That’s where the real due diligence comes in. You’ve spoken to the best friends, the Rosh, the parents’

this is going to be a second marriage, it may be the time to speak to an ex.

Are you wondering why all five siblings made Aliyah and visit less than once a year? What’s the other

In counseling prospective kallahs and chassans when we’ve had the tough discussion over the things people wish were not there, they will say, “Yeah, I kind of saw that but I didn’t want to focus on it.”

best friend. All good. Now it’s time to speak to the siblings. Now it’s time to speak to the married sibling’s spouses. Now it’s time to speak to your prospective match’s parents’ machatanim. These people have the inside scoop and you will know if they are not being fully candid with you. If

side of the story behind a nasty (or pleasant) divorce? Why is there a machlokes with the date’s sister?

Here are some of the tough questions that must be answered: Does anyone in the family have a temper?

Has anyone in the family ever

said that another member of the family hurt their feelings frequently? If so, you need to find out just what was going on. Never dismiss anyone’s position.

Is anyone on medication for depression, anxiety, or mental illness?

Are there medical illnesses in the family?

If this will be a second marriage, how are the children doing? What are their needs?

This doesn’t mean that you cannot marry someone whose family has undesirable answers to these questions. After all, the human spirit is capable of overcoming almost anything. The question is: Did the person in question indisputably overcome the challenges?

Perhaps next week, I will focus on each of the bullet points above to show what the implications are.

In answering that question, get quiet, clear your mind of all thoughts – don’t argue with yourself – and listen for the answer inside.

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I say this because, invariably, in counseling prospective kallahs and chassans when we’ve had the tough discussion over the things people wish were not there, they will say, “Yeah, I kind of saw that but I didn’t want to focus on it.”

But don’t hesitate to get help from a dating coach or therapist, your Rav or teacher if need be. This is all about the rest of your life.

Dr. Deb Hirschhorn is a Marriage & Family Therapist and best-selling author of The Healing Is Mutual: Marriage Empowerment Tools to Rebuild Trust and Respect—Together. Attend the Food For Thought lectures at Waffelino Restaurant at 310 Central Avenue in Cedarhurst on Tuesdays at 9:45 AM. Any questions, call 646-54-DRDEB or check out her website at http:// drdeb.com. All stories in Dr. Deb’s articles are fabricated. See Dr. Deb on TorahAnytime.com.

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DECEMBER 31, 2015 | The Jewish Home

Health & F tness

Calm Your Cravings

By Aliza Beer

It happens every time you start a diet to lose weight: you start craving foods like chocolate, cookies, muffins, chips, or other high calorie, high fat foods. Food cravings can be both physiological and psychological, but you can beat both kinds.

Here are eight simple ways to fend off food cravings.

1. Eat Every 3 hours: A physiological reason, such as hunger, can have you craving food.

If you go longer than four hours without food, your blood sugar will drop and your cravings will begin.

Eat snacks between your meals like fruit or popcorn.

2. Eat Protein: To help fend off food cravings, every meal should include some source of lean protein, such as skinless chicken or tur-

key, fish, eggs, or low fat cheese or yogurt. Protein helps control blood sugar patterns and can help prevent food cravings. Foods containing protein also help you feel fuller by stimulating production of cholecystokinin (CKK), a naturally occurring appetite suppressant.

3. Wash Away Food Cravings: Dehydration can cause some people to crave salty foods. The solution is simple: drink more water. An 8-ounce glass of water can also help you feel full and get your mind off your food cravings of the moment. In fact, quite often what you think are food cravings may actually be thirst. Quench your thirst, and the food cravings will go away too. Keep a water bottle handy throughout the day, and try to consume one cup of water every hour.

4. Find a Distraction: When the craving is psychological, it is meeting a need different from hunger. Many food cravings are caused by boredom, anxiety, or other emotions, so find an activity that will take your mind off your craving. Go online, watch TV, listen to music, or read a book.

5. Exercise: If you start to

exercise and your cravings aren’t physiological, you’ll feel better almost instantly. If they are physical, you’ll never be able to really get into your workout, which is a sign that you need to eat.

6. Wait: Real cravings stay with you, but psychological ones don’t. If you have eaten enough and are sufficiently hydrated, wait 15-20 minutes before eating; most cravings will have dissipated by then.

7. Brush and Floss: If you are eyeing a bag of chips or chocolate chip cookie, then you can literally wash that taste right out of your mouth. Brush and floss your teeth, even swish with some minty mouthwash. Once your mouth is feeling clean and fresh you either won’t want to spoil it with salty chips, or won’t eat because you will be too lazy to brush up again!

8. Eliminate Refined Foods: Research suggests that people can become addicted to refined foods, such as white bread, white pasta, and sugar. Eliminate these foods from your diet and you will curb your food cravings. Go the extra step by replacing these foods with whole grains and fiber. The fiber will make you feel fuller, slow down

the rise of your blood sugar, and improve your digestion.

And when absolutely nothing else works, give in – but rarely!

Every so often you will probably cheat. This can be okay if you can limit amounts. Have a square of dark chocolate instead of a whole candy bar. Have 10 chips instead of the whole bag. Most importantly, don’t let one bad evening turn into a 3-day binge! When you eliminate a food from your diet it tends to take 2-3 weeks to lose your craving for it. Treating yourself every other day will not help you eliminate the cravings, but it will trigger them by stimulating the receptors in your brain to crave these foods. Follow the aforementioned suggestions and you will live a primarily crave-free life!

Aliza Beer is a registered dietician with a master’s degree in nutrition. She has a private practice in Cedarhurst, NY. Patients’ success has been featured on the Dr. Oz show. Aliza can be reached at alizabeer@gmail.com.

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DECEMBER 31, 2015 | The Jewish Home OCTOBER 29, 2015 | The Jewish Home

Dating Dialogue

What Would You Do If… Moderated by Jennifer Mann, LMSW of The Navidaters

Last week’s panel generated a lot of conversation and debate. It’s important for our readers to understand that our intention is not to diagnose per se or even offer any definitive conclusions to any particular question. Obviously, from such a short snapshot of an issue and without the benefit of an actual discussion, the panel’s role, as is the role of The Navidaters, is to offer a range of possibilities. We hope to open up meaningful conversation and individual exploration.

Rivky and I were best of friends for many years. Growing up, we spent enormous amounts of time in each other’s homes. Rivky had an older brother named Moshe who I got to know over the years. I guess you can say I had a little crush on him. But even though I knew him for years, we really never had that much to do with each other.

I’d see him around, he’d always be friendly and polite. He was a lot like Rivky. The same fine qualities that I saw in Rivky, I saw in Moshe.

During my year in Israel, I learned that Moshe became engaged and married. I was definitely heartbroken to hear the news. I guess I had a dream, which I never mentioned to anyone, that maybe someday Moshe and I could actually date and maybe even marry. When I was young, it was the fantasy of a child. But I continued to admire him over the years.

Dear Navidaters,

Recently I learned from Rivky that Moshe was getting divorced. He had one child with his wife and apparently, according to Rivky, his wife didn’t want to be frum anymore. Rivky and I talked about how wonderful it would be for me to now go out with Moshe and whether it could lead to something serious and we would actually become sisters-in-law someday.

I love children and the idea that Moshe is divorced and has a child doesn’t bother me in the least. Moshe is still Moshe and there isn’t any other Moshe running around who isn’t married with a child. When I mentioned this to my parents, they were beyond horrified. They couldn’t understand why their 21-year-old daughter would ever want to go out with a divorced man and they forbade me from pursuing it.

I’ve gone out quite a bit over the past few years and no one seemed to hold a candle to Moshe. I guess he was always my standard for what a wonderful person would be like. I don’t want to give up on my dream of seeing whether there is a future for me and Moshe. And yet I’m not the type of person to defy her parents. How can I make my parents understand me better and allow me to give this a shot? At this point, I’m not even interested in dating anyone else.

The Panel The Rebbetzin Rebbetzin Faigie Horowitz, M.S.

W

hile you may feel that Moshe is date-worthy and have discussed this with his sister Rivky,

your friend and peer, there are several questions you have to ask yourself and discuss with a rav/professional/ mentor of your own – way before seriously contemplating dating Moshe.

Basic questions to explore are what is teenage fantasy and what is your understanding of marriage. You

are barely out of your teenage years and you cannot have dated “for the past few years,” if you are only 21 and went to Israel for seminary. The way you posed this and the weight you give to Rivky’s opinion lead me to think that you have unrealistic ways of seeing things and may be harbor-

ing other fantasies about people and times in your life.

You have not mentioned which of Moshe’s attributes you so admire.

What about him is the standard for a potential husband? It doesn’t seem like you have examined that at all.

Do you know what your goals are in

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 31, 2015 The Jewish Home | OCTOBER 29, 2015

Moshe is not still Moshe, as you say. He is not the fun older brother of your teenage memories in Rivky’s house.

terms of maturity and awareness of how relationships and people work.

You need to seek serious guidance about marriage and life. That should be the next step for you, rather than talking to your parents about Moshe.

The Mother Sarah Schwartz Schreiber, PA

dating? What you are looking for in a husband specifically? What you are offering as a potential spouse?

You need to get help with more than just the focus and process of frum dating.

Furthermore, Moshe is not still Moshe, as you say. He is not the fun older brother of your teenage memories in Rivky’s house. He probably dated for a while before settling down. He committed to marriage with his ex-wife. He had a child. He probably was in couples counseling before deciding on a divorce. He probably worked on his relationship and tried to make it work. He has dealt with the spiritual aspects of his life and his shared life with his ex. Moshe has grown and changed through each stage in this process of several years.

You have not. You are stuck in a time warp and are not progressing in

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he Childhood Crush: Conjures up images of Charlie Brown and the elusive red-haired girl. Your hyperbolized impression of Moshe, your BF’s older brother, may boil down to fantasy. Your question is peppered with statements like “give up my dream” and “he was always my standard of what a wonderful person could be.” Seriously?

I have to side with your parents on this one. To a young divorced man with a child, a guy who’s been through a tumultuous marriage and subsequent split, you are the dream shidduch. After all, you are a known entity to the family – sweet, optimistic, unfettered by a pervious relationship and, best of all, endorsed and beloved by Rivky.

Proceed with caution.

I would not go out with Moshe – at least not yet. Date other guys; assess each one on his own merits rather than a fictitious

standard. If you still pine for Moshe, spend time around him at Rivky’s – perhaps Shabbos afternoons with baby or while he’s eating falafel or fried chicken (no one looks attractive with techina or breadcrumbs dribbling from his chin). If bashert, time will either ignite or fizzle the attraction.

The Dating Mentor Rochel Chafetz, Educator/Mentor

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ou write that no one seems to hold a candle to Moshe. He was always your standard for what a wonderful person would be like.

However, you write that even though you knew him as Rivky’s brother, you never really had that much to do with each other – that he was polite and friendly. If that is the case, how can you compare him to others when you never really even got to know him at all? You say you continued to admire him. What exactly did you admire about him?

I think your parents are right.

This may be just a fantasy. You never really knew him. You don’t know much about him now. How could you possibly know how “wonderful” he is and what does that even mean?

There are some very key questions you need to answer for yourself.

Pulling It All Together The Navidaters Dating and Relationship Coaches and Therapists

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he heart wants what it wants and yours is set on Moshe.

When you learned that Moshe was engaged to be married, it left you heartbroken. Any fantasy you had of riding off into the sunset together and living happily ever after was taken from you.

Fast forward to the present and you have learned that Moshe is divorced,

with a child. You have dated for a couple of years and in your mind, no one held a candle to Moshe. It would seem that the stars are aligning as you find yourselves single together. However, when you approached your parents about

dating Moshe, they forbade it. You wrote into the panel with a specific question: “How can I make my parents understand me better and allow me to give this a shot? At this point, I’m not even interested in dating anyone else.”

Becoming a stepmother and entering a ready-made family is a tall order. While many women turn down shidduchim left and right because of previous marriages and potential stepchildren, others embrace this role because of their commitment and love

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The Single Irit Moshe (pen name)

I

am a hopeless romantic and I recall having a similar crush on my girlfriend’s brother, as well. And funny enough, he also was divorced with one child, though he’s not your Moshe. I need to caution you that divorce changes a person. As a divorced woman myself, I have met singles, singles who married, singles who married and then divorced, both women and men. And every one of them and those who know them throughout their life changes will attest that they are not the same person they were pre-marriage or while married.

Also, realize that no matter what, you will always play second fiddle to his child, scheduling-wise for dates and sometimes when it comes to your needs. If you can handle that, who he has become and the occasional eruptions that occurs with his ex-wife, then by all means, at least try. Get your “what if” out of your system and see if he and you can make a go of it. This would involve empowering your parents by saying, “I love you and respect your opinion, but I am an adult and I need to see this through for myself. If it doesn’t work out, you can tell me you told me so. As my loving and caring parents, I would love for you to be there as my safety net to catch me if I am wrong.”

I wish you much luck with your situation.

for the men with whom they want to spend the rest of their lives. It boils down to the way the individual woman views the situation, the way she manages her new life and responsibilities, and if she is up for the task. With that being said, the concerns brought up by various panel members are valid.

There is something about your written word that is signaling to the panel that you are living in a fantasy.

Rebbetzin Horowitz is adamant that your feelings for Moshe are the result of an immature fantasy and thinks your question shouldn’t be “how can I make my parents un-

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derstand me better?” but should be turned inward to question your values about marriage and life. Sarah Schwartz Schreiber believes this to be the result of a childhood crush and advises you to date other guys without comparing them to Moshe, and if the two of you are meant to be, it will happen. Rochel Chafetz has some questions for you regarding what you actually know about Moshe that lead you to believe he is the one. And finally, Irit Moshe notes some practical difficulties that may arise while dating a divorced father, but encourages you to see this through and gives you tips on how to speak to your parents in a mature, assertive and respectful manner. The panel has spoken and is 3:1 in favor of your feelings being the result of some kind of immature fantasy.

Here you are writing in about how to speak to your parents and you are bombarded with the notion that you live in a fantasyland. Just checking in with you … how are you doing after reading that? From your corner of the

word, I gleaned that Moshe is someone whom you always adored because of his fine qualities and time spent in his home growing up. Those feelings never went away and now that he is single you are intent on seeing if the two of you have what takes in reality to be a couple. The limitations of this column is that we cannot have a back and forth dialogue. I am curious to learn about your reaction to the fairly unanimous feedback of the panel. If their idea resonates with you and you consider their reactions to be a welcome wake up call, then the column ends with their advice. If, however, you feel the panel missed the mark and discounted your adult feelings for the adult Moshe who is a divorcee and a father of one, as some sort of fairy tale or make believe, then by all means, keep reading.

I am going to respond to your time-sensitive question. If you are intent on pursuing Moshe and your parents’ permission to date him, then it may be prudent to take some

time and think about what it is about Moshe that you find attractive and why you want to date him. Certainly, your parents will want to know so you will want to be prepared. Some people find it helpful to make a list. What qualities does he have that make him a perfect match for you? Is it his work ethic, sense of humor, commitment to Torah, family values, the kind of father he is, the kind of husband he was, the chessed he is involved with, the tzedakah he gives…his friendships, middos, special talents, a chemistry you’ve always felt, etc., etc. Your parents are going to have some questions and concerns, probably very similar to the responses of the first three panelists. Internally responding to the concerns of the panelists can serve as great preparation for your conversation with your parents.

Let’s try to tease out some of their potential concerns so you are prepared. Your parents may worry that you can’t conceive of the responsibilities you will be taking on marrying a divorced father. You don’t mention Moshe’s custody arrangement with his ex-wife, but whatever the case may be, you will step into the role of “stepmother.” The nuanced and often complicated issues that arise between stepmother and mother, between new wife and ex-wife, the diaper changes and endless physical and emotional duties of parenthood, the potential arguments your parents may foresee you having with Moshe regarding parenting a child that is not yours are perhaps some of their reasons for forbidding this shidduch that my mind anticipates. And with regard to life experience, Moshe has experienced marriage and fatherhood and your parents may wonder if you are getting in over your head. Your parents may also wonder about Moshe’s divorce.

Sure, you heard from Rivky that his ex-wife is no longer frum and that may be entirely true and has been the grounds for many a divorce. It also may be entirely untrue or a piece of a larger puzzle.

If you absolutely want to date Moshe and believe you are realistic in your expectation to build a real relationship with him, then you have to follow your heart and speak to your parents and fight (fairly and respect-

fully) for what you believe in. When having the conversation with your parents, come prepared, answer their questions calmly and intelligently. Do not fight with them. Acknowledge and validate their concerns and then respond. Would it be helpful to drive home the idea that you aren’t looking to marry him tomorrow, but that you want to go out once or twice to learn more about Moshe and see for yourself if you can handle being in this relationship? Taking their concerns into account and slowing this down for them a bit may be helpful in winning their approval. If they forbid you from dating him, you will have to decide what your next move is. Do you defy your parents and follow your heart to see this through or do you honor their order?

People have childhood crushes.

Some people marry their childhood sweethearts. And sometimes a childhood crush is divorced with a baby. It is not an outlandish idea that makes me think you need to be sitting in a therapist’s office. However, being that you need your parents’ permission to date a specific person, if you find you are having unproductive, circular conversations with your parents about this, you may want to invite them to a family session in a therapist’s office to help guide the three of you through this sensitive terrain. All the best to you!

Sincerely, Jennifer Please note: This column is not meant to diagnose or otherwise offer comprehensive resolutions to any questions.

The Navidaters are dating and relationship coaches and therapists. Located in Lawrence, NY, their services include date debriefing, dating skills coaching, couples counseling, premarital and marital counseling. Sessions are held in the office or via phone or Skype. The Navidaters can be reached at 516.224.7779. If you have a dating or relationship scenario you would like to be featured in WHAT WOULD YOU DO IF, email thenavidaters@gmail.com.

Check out their website, thenavidaters. com for more information. Follow TheNavidaters on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 31, 2015

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In The K

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tchen

Kosher on the Go

By Naomi Nachman

Many of my readers know that I am a travel junkie. I love to travel to places across the globe, find the local kosher restaurants and then dine there. However, there are times when there are no local kosher restaurants or (gasp!) even kosher sections at the local supermarkets, so then we have to bring our own food.

It also helps to bring our costs down when travelling with the family to have one or two home-cooked meals prepared in advance. In those cases, I will make some comfort food that the whole family likes that freeze well and which are easy to reheat.

Of course, this also depends on what your accommodations are like. I usually pack a plug-in electric coil burner, a small parve pot to boil noodles or eggs, a small meat pot to reheat meatballs, and a small dairy frying pan. I also bring a flexible parve cutting board and a sharp knife to cut up vegetables. Even if there are no local kosher restaurants, I usually visit the local supermarkets to buy dry goods, fresh produce and drinks.

If you are staying in a villa, apartment or renting a house, you can always place the food in the oven once you have kashered it.

I have taken schnitzel, eggplant parmesan, cranberry chicken, and roast beef along with us on trips. The key is to deep-freeze it well after you have made it. Wrap it well in silver foil, place it in a Ziploc bag, then in a freezer bag right before you pack it in your suitcase. If you are dedicating one bag for the frozen meals, then it’s a good idea to line the suitcase with towels. I have taken my homemade frozen meals to Hawaii and to Israel without any problems; when the food is under the plane in your suitcase, it is at sub-zero temperatures, so it is still frozen when you arrive.

Traveling Turkey Meatballs Ingredients 2 pounds of ground turkey ½ cup Panko crumbs (makes the balls light and fluffy) Two large eggs ¼ cup ketchup 1 tsp of garlic powder 1 tsp onion powder Salt to taste Sauce 32 oz. can of tomato sauce 2 cups of water ½ cup of sugar ½ cup ketchup ¼ cup brown sugar Two fresh lemons, juiced Preparation Mix the ground turkey, panko crumbs, eggs, ketchup, and spices in a large bowl and set aside.

To prepare the sauce: In a large pot add tomato sauce, water, sugars, ketchup and lemon juice and bring to a boil.

Roll the turkey mixture into balls and drop them into the sauce. Simmer on low for 2 hours.

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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Notable Quotes “Say What?!”

I would say it is not safe to drive a car if you are in an auto brewery syndrome flare, but it’s a brand new disease and we’re still trying to understand it.

- Dr. Anup Kanodia of Ohio, an Auto-Brewery Syndrome expert, explaining why a woman who was arrested for DWI was acquitted by a Buffalo judge since she has a condition which causes her to become intoxicated without consuming any alcohol

Muslims across the globe are not threats. They are threatened.

- Rana Elmir, an American Muslim and deputy director of the ACLU of Michigan, in an article titled “Don’t ask me to condemn terrorism just because I’m Muslim”

If the Congress law is implemented as it is, it would definitely be a breach.

It reminds them of the old days.

- Radhika Agarwal of ShopClues, a major online retailer in India, explaining that people order cow dung patties to burn because the smell brings them joyful memories

- Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, stating that America becoming more restrictive with travel visas would violate the nuclear deal Iran recently agreed to

Too busy watching Netflix.

The allegation that I would do something like that is complete garbage and is totally made up. It never happened. Never. I really can’t believe somebody would put something like this on the air. Whoever said this is making stuff up.

- Statement by Peyton Manning denying a report that contends the Denver Broncos quarterback received human growth hormone through his wife during his recovery from neck fusion surgeries in 2011 in Indianapolis

The only problem I’ve got when I’m here is having to work out with Marines in the gym. Because I generally feel like your commander-in-chief is in pretty good shape, and then I get next to some guy, you know, curling 100 pounds and it makes me feel small.

I have to take my goldfish to the vet.

Sorry mate, I don’t want to risk dying before the next Star Wars comes out.

I’ve got a note from my mum saying I don’t need to.

I’m not Muslim but I’m giving up drinking for January so need something to do. I’m not very outdoorsy though, is that ok?

Oh, dude, can I join? I’m actually an infidel, but I’ve nearly finished Fallout 4 so I’m going to have loads of time free.

- Tweets in response to a tweet by ISIS calling for people to join their terrorist organization

- President Obama speaking to troops at the Marine Corps Base in Hawaii, where he is vacationing

MORE QUOTES

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 31, 2015

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The Jewish Home | OCTOBER 29, 2015

19

It’s a warm scent, a textured scent.

It’s soft but at the same time it’s very firm.

- Vladislav Rekunov, the perfumer who concocted a new perfume inspired by Vladimir Putin, describing the perfume that’s aptly named Leaders Number One (price: $85)

You have families out there paying 6, 8, 10 percent on student debt but you can refinance your homes at 3 percent. What sense is that?

- Economically ignorant tweet by Bernie Sanders

A bank can repossess a house. They can’t repossess your brain if you quit paying student loans. Though, you make me wonder.

– A response posted to Sanders’ tweet

Our next commander-in-chief must define a strategic vision for the country and accept accountability for past actions. Hillary Clinton should be called to account for her inept leadership that brought about the chaos in Libya and the power vacuums that resulted in the rest of the region.

– Facebook posting by former 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Jim Webb

Hello, is this planet Earth?

- British astronaut Tim Peake, when he intended to call home from the International Space Station but accidentally got the wrong number

I’d like to apologize to the lady I just called by mistake saying, “Hello, is this planet Earth?” – not a prank call...just a wrong number!

Crowd-sourcing: Name of the new party we’ll have to start if Trump wins the GOP nomination?

Suggestions welcome at editor@weeklystandard.com.

- Tweet by conservative columnist Bill Kristol

If you’re going to take on Donald Trump, you’ve got to take him out with a headshot.

- Pat Brady, co-chair for the John Kasich campaign, during a radio interview last week

Not too much ticks me off, but making fun of my girls, that’ll do it. It used to be for a long time the rules across the board was that kids are off limits. That should be the rules. Don’t mess with our kids. Don’t mess with my kids. Don’t mess with Marco’s kids. Don’t mess with Hillary’s kid. Don’t mess with anybody’s kids. Leave kids alone. And if the media wants to attack and ridicule every Republican, well that’s what they’re gonna do. But leave our kids alone.

- Sen. Ted Cruz criticizing the Washington Post after they published a cartoon depicting his two young daughters as dancing monkeys, a parody of a campaign ad they were featured in

Bringing Peace, Security to Syria.

– From a recap of the State Department’s 2015 accomplishments, written by spokesman John Kirby

- Ibid, in a tweet, shortly after his error

7 things Hillary Clinton has in common with your abuela.

– Title of a pandering article on Hillary Clinton’s website.

Abuela is Spanish for grandmother

Work hard; enjoy yourself and your life.

- Advice from Alice Fischer of Walpole, MA, who turned 110 last week

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Political Crossfire

Bipartisan Agreement on Education Comes at Cost to Students

By Michael Gerson

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he nation’s capital is experiencing something of a thaw in polarization and partisan-

ship. And the largest iceberg that that has broken free is the Every Student Succeeds Act, the most con-

sequential education reform in the last 15 years.

Sen. Lamar Alexander, the Republican chairman of the Senate Education Committee, called it a “… present” to American children.

President Obama proclaimed it a “… miracle.” The president of the American Federation of Teachers said the law marks “a new day in public education.”

What does this mean for students?

Let’s start, as educators are wont to say, with a review. In 2001, No Child Left Behind, the last major federal education reform, mandated yearly testing in the basics of reading and math for children in third through eighth grade. Schools were required

to be labeled failures, which made administrators feel like they were, like, you know, failing or something.

Many teachers didn’t like the relentless emphasis on testing, which ate into their time for the unmeasurable joys of learning. Gov. Jerry Brown of California spoke for many when he recalled the formative prep school experience of an exam that consisted entirely of one question, asking students to give their impressions of a green leaf. That question, he said, has “haunted me for 50 years.”

“You can’t put that on a standardized test,” he explained.

The Every Student Succeeds Act ends the backseat driving of the fed-

States and localities are pleased that they can declare all their schools successful, or at least to make accountability a fuzzy, gentle, toothless friend.

to show yearly progress for students of every background (including every racial background). If a school consistently failed, it was required to implement reforms and, in the worst cases, hire new teachers and reorganize. The law set the utopian goal that every child should be “proficient” in reading and math by 2014.

The whole thing was a mess from the start. Failing schools didn’t like

eral government in education policy.

State and local officials will now be free to set academic goals and to determine if schools are meeting them.

While the law still mandates consequences for the worst-performing schools, states will determine what those consequences actually are.

Student testing will still take place, but it won’t mean as much. This, according to Obama, will relieve

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 31, 2015

“undue stress for educators and students.”

California, for example, is so happy to be free from the tyranny of testing that it has suspended the California High School Exit Examination and ordered schools to retroactively reward diplomas to students who failed the test during the last decade. It has also suspended its Academic Performance Index, which allowed parents to see how the test scores achieved by their local school compares to other schools. In California, accountability will now be imposed according to “multiple measures” in eight “priority areas,” leaving parents entirely mystified about the actual performance of their local school.

The Every Student Succeeds Act is a win-win-win for everyone who counts. Most Republicans are pleased that the federal role in enforcing educational standards has been effectively abolished.

Many teachers are pleased to see lower stakes on standardized tests.

States and localities are pleased that they can declare all their schools successful, or at least to make accountability a fuzzy, gentle, toothless friend.

The problem? We actually have some experience in how education systems operate in the absence of accountability enforced from above.

Before No Child Left Behind, only 29 states had real accountability systems; 11 states did not disaggregate by race at all; only 22 states reported graduation rates by high school. What will happen with the end of federal nagging? “We’ll continue to see some high-flying states doing really creative, good things for students,” concludes education researcher Chad Aldeman.

“But we’ll see a lot more just kind of getting by and doing the bare minimum, particularly when local politics and inertia prevent state leaders from pursuing bold changes on behalf of disadvantaged students.”

This is the group that loses in the Every Student Succeeds Act – disadvantaged students, particularly African-American students. Their betrayal by our educational system can now be more effectively hidden in the proliferation of priorities.

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Political Crossfire

Food Fads Make Mine Gluten-Full

By Charles Krauthammer

W

hen the federal go v e r n m e nt ’s 1980 “Dietary Guidelines for Americans” warned about the baleful effects of saturated fats, public interest activists joined the fight and managed to persuade major food companies to switch to the shiny new alternative: trans-fats. Thirty-five years later, the Food and Drug Administration finally determined that trans-fats are not just useless but unsafe, and ordered them removed from all foods. Oops.

So much for settled science. To tell the truth, I never paid much attention to the fat fights in the first place. From my days as a medical student (and prodigious consumer of junk food), I’ve seen so many solemnly proclaimed “findings” come and go that I decided long ago to ignore – and outlive – them all.

So far, I’m ahead. Never had an egg substitute in my life. I figured trans-fats were just another fad waiting to

be revoked and renounced.

Moreover, if I was wrong, the green eggs and ham would take so long to kill me anyway that I was more likely to be hit by a bus first.

Either way, win-win.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t advocate this kind of jaunty fatalism for everyone.

This is a private affair. I do, however, preach skepticism.

Remember that most venerable piece of received medical wisdom – 98.6 degrees as the average adult human temperature? In 1992, three researchers bothered to measure – and found that the conventional wisdom (based on an 1878 German study) was wrong. Normal is 98.2.

After that – 114 years of error – one is inclined to embrace Woody Allen’s “Sleeper” theory that in 200 years we’ll discover that smoking is good for you, fruits are not.

I still love peaches, but I eat them for the taste – and the memories – not because they might add a month to my life (in the ICU when I’m 90).

I don’t mean to be cynical, just realistic. Take fish oil.

For at least 10 years the National Institutes of Health has strongly recommended omega-3 fatty acids and fish oil for the prevention of cardiovascular disease.

I held out, trusting both my gastronomic prejudices (more turf than surf) and my faith that time ultimately undoes all of life’s verities.

I waited. My orneriness has not been fully vindicated – NIH still recommends dietary fish oil – but it does find omega-3 supplements to be useless.

Exhibit A for medical skepticism, however, remains vitamin C. When Linus Pauling, Nobel laureate in chemistry (not nutrition), began the vitamin-C megadose fad to fend off all manner of disease, the whole thing struck me as bizarre. Yes, you need some C to prevent scurvy if you’re seven months at sea with Capt.

Cook and citrus is nowhere to be found. Otherwise, the

megadose is a crock. Evolution is pretty clever. For 2 million years it made sure Homo erectus, neanderthalensis, sapiens, what have you, got his daily dose without having to visit a GNC store.

Sure enough, that fashion came and went.

But there are always new windmills to be tilted at. The latest is gluten.

Now, if you suffer from celiac disease, you need a gluten-free diet. How many of us is that? Less than 1 percent. And yet supermarket shelves are groaning with products proclaiming their gluten-freedom. Sales are going through the roof.

Another crock. Turns out, according to a massive Australian study of 3,200 products, gluten-free is useless. “The foods can be significantly more expensive and are very trendy to eat,” says Jason Wu, the principal investigator. “But we discovered a negligible difference when looking at their overall nutrition.”

Told you so.

Why then am I not agitating to have this junk taken off the shelves?

Because of my other obsession: placebos. For which I have an undying respect, acquired during my early years as a generalhospital psychiatrist. If you believe in the curative powers of something – often encouraged by the authority of your physician – a sugar pill or a glass of plain water can produce remarkable symptom relief. I’ve seen it.

I’ve done it.

So I’d never mess with it. If a placebo can alleviate your pain, that’s better than opioids. If going gluten-free gives a spring to your step, why not? But please, let the civility go both ways. Let the virtuous Fitbit foodie, all omega-3’d and gluten-free, drop the self-congratulatory smugness. And I promise not to say it’s all in his head.

Live and let eat. (c) 2015, The Washington Post Writers Group

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 31, 2015

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The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 31, 2015

Hire

133

Education

Choose Your Weapon

By Rabbi Mordechai Kruger

Part II

W

e established in the last article that our imaginary job hunter, Beryl Klein, seems to have some skills that could be used in sales, and he is definitely willing to pursue sales as a career. At this point most job counselors would advise Beryl to get a good resume, possibly by hiring a professional resume writer. Then they would teach him how to search want ads, perhaps with some introduction to social media like Facebook or LinkedIn. If he lands an interview, some preparation might be in order. In our previous articles we have explored the chances of finding a job this way, and they’re not encouraging.

A job search coach (I know one) would tell Beryl that “sales” is way too broad a category. It could include everything from selling hats in a small retail store to selling hi-tech medical equipment. Which type of sales position is right for Beryl can depend on many things, including the work environment, the level of technical knowledge needed and the extent to which the customer expects to have a personal relationship with his vendor.

It is also critical to consider issues like the amount of

travel that might be required and the impact of Beryl’s Jewish values. Beryl needs to consider all of these factors and use his conclusions to create a job description.

Then he will focus his search so that he can locate that job and get himself hired.

Before Beryl can write his job description, he needs to learn more about the world of sales. The most powerful method to investigate the world of work is to have a series of carefully focused conversations known as informational interviews. Often, when I begin describing this technique to a client, he will protest, “I’ve already talked to a bunch of people, and it didn’t get me anywhere!” But informational interviews are very different than the common schmooze. They begin with setting up an appointment with a potential resource, even if that resource is already a close friend, for the express purpose of asking questions that focus on that person’s experiences in the world of work. Beryl should explain that he is not going to ask for help with finding a job. Rather, he is gathering information from a number of people so that he can make a good decision about his future and about the kind of work that will offer him the best chance of success.

It’s really important to

stop for a moment and think about what’s happening to Beryl as he calls people setting up these appointments.

When I introduced this fictitious client, he was a somewhat sheltered, possibly naïve scholar who seemed nearly helpless as he contemplated moving into the working world. That very fact handicapped his efforts at outreach because people – even well-meaning, helpful people – saw him as needy or weak. But that hatin-hand beggar hoping for a job-handout now is asking for information that he will use to make a good decision about his own future. Beryl’s requests for help are no longer pleas for rescue but efforts to identify and access resources which can become the first building blocks of his professional network. Our former Herschel Milquetoast is becoming someone very different, and both he and the people closest to him are very aware of it.

Because Beryl is starting with a relatively blank slate, his goal should be to set up 10 to 15 appointments with people who work in sales in as many different areas as possible. These do not need to be personal friends – a friend of a guy who works with your uncle may be a great resource. When the interview takes place, Beryl will ask what I call “the

4 questions” which I developed to help my clients understand the nuances of each position: What do you sell, and what activities consume most of your time?

Who are your customers and what does your product do for them? What are the key skills you use and how did you learn them? Do you enjoy your work and why?

There are two questions that Beryl (or any other job hunter) will not and should not ask. Even if well-meaning people want to discuss their opinions about these two issues (and they will) Beryl should not listen. First, he should not ask if there are good job prospects in this field. No one has prophecy, and people tend to be pessimistic about their own fields.

Secondly, Beryl should definitely not ask if a particular field would be a good option for him. Once Beryl has gathered and analyzed enough information, he – and only he – will be able to decide on the field that’s right for him.

This goal of this effort is to narrow Beryl’s job search to a specific job description.

This critical step is often skipped in the rush to find “something, just anything!”

Job hunting without focus is like duck hunting by aiming a shotgun towards the nearest lake. You might hit something. But the odds are that it won’t be a duck, and certainly not a duck you want to bring home. As Jim Hopkinson writes at Salary.com, when it comes to job hunting, you can’t use a shotgun.

You need a sniper rifle.

For those who are not NRA members, let me explain the metaphor. Shotguns fire a lot of bullets at once, which all basically go in the right direction. Most of the bullets won’t hit anything, but the hunter hopes that at least one might. A sniper rifle is a precision instrument, used by a highly trained expert, who systematically searches for the right opportunity, takes one carefully aimed shot, and accomplishes his mission.

A job hunter should do the same. His first step must be to carefully define the job that he will pursue. Because he has built that definition based on his own research in which he matched his own talents, skills, and goals to the job, he knows that this job really is for him. He can pursue it with enthusiasm and excitement because it won’t be an unfortunate burden but an opportunity to fully express his uniqueness, to accomplish something that really matters.

Studies show that when a job searcher targets a goal that is meaningful and important to him, he can expect a success rate above 90%. So now that Beryl has learned how to choose the right target, we’ll teach him how to get started on that hunt.

Rabbi Mordechai Kruger’s Job Search for Champions has helped clients of all kinds find the jobs they really want. He can be reached at jobsearch forchampions@gmail.com

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Classifieds classifieds@fivetownsjewishhome.com / text 443-929-4003 SERVICES

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Lg Cottage 2BR, 2 Bath, Charming 3BR Cape, LR, Lg 3BR, 2BA Ranch, FDR, Legal 2 Family, 4BR, Huge Basement.. $259K FDR, Eik, Near All..$339K Eik, FDR, Bsmt...$429K Low Taxes. .. $489K

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Classifieds classifieds@fivetownsjewishhome.com / text 443-929-4003 HOUSES FOR SALE

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DECEMBER 31, 2015 | The Jewish Home

Your

Money

Smile!

By Allan Rolnick, CPA

“Bar Rafaeli” sounds like a happening watering hole in a trendy part of Brooklyn — the kind of place where bearded hipsters rocking flannel shirts and man-buns tip back craft beers and artisanal cocktails with their tattooed friends. But Bar Rafaeli is actually a 30-yearold Israeli model. She’s appeared on dozens of magazine covers and she’s also hosted television programs, acted in television and films, and co-founded an online retailer.

M

odels use all sorts of tricks to fool the camera. Smearing Vaseline on their teeth to keep them from sticking to their lips? Check. Stretching pantyhose over the lens to create a gauzy, soft-focus look? Check. But Rafaeli stands accused of creating some new tricks to fool the taxman instead —

and her next photoshoot may be a mugshot. That’s because last week, the Israeli Tax Authority questioned her mother Tzipi and her on charges that they avoided millions of shekels in taxes. (A shekel is worth about 27 cents right now.)

outside the country to avoid tax.

Investigators accuse her of living in apartments in Israel rented under her mother’s name and brother’s name. (She claims the apartments were merely convenient alternatives to a hotel when she returns to her

But Rafaeli stands accused of creating some new tricks to fool the taxman instead — and her next photoshoot may be a mugshot

Israel’s tax law provides that citizens who live outside the country don’t have to pay tax on the income they earn outside the country. (That’s not the case here in the U.S., where citizens are taxed on their worldwide income wherever it’s earned.)

While that’s great for expatriates, it also gives the country’s top earners a pretty obvious incentive to leave the country — or at least look like they left the country — to avoid those taxes, which reach 50% on income over 811,560 shekels.

That said, then, the first allegation against Rafaeli is that she created the false appearance of living

homeland — and since she doesn’t actually “live” there, why should they have been in her name?)

The Tax Authority also accuses Rafaeli of failing to report over a million shekels worth of benefits she received in exchange for promotional consideration. These include a Lexus and Range Rover from a rental car company in exchange for a secret agreement to be photographed in their cars. They also include use of an apartment at Tel Aviv’s chi-chi YOO Towers in exchange for “leaking” her residency there to promote it.

Finally, they claim she failed to report a million shekels she received

in the form of “celebrity discounts,” like the 100,000 shekels worth of interior design work she got for 40,000 shekels (and even more publicity).

Naturally, the model denies the allegations. “There is no drama,” her attorney says. “In the end, this is just a civil dispute. No one cheated anyone else. It will all clear up soon.” In the meantime, Rafaeli and her mother have been ordered to turn over their passports. Neither can leave the country for the next 180 days without getting government permission and posting a 750,000 shekel bond.

It’s too bad Rafaeli isn’t an American citizen! She would have thousands of pages of tax law, regulations, and court cases to help her pay less tax legitimately. We could have given her a plan to use them all to her advantage. But while it may be too late for her to avoid modeling the most stylish prison garb, it’s not too late for you to take steps to pay less.

So call us and see how much you can save!

Allan J Rolnick is a CPA who has been in practice for over 30 yea rs in Queens, NY. He welcomes your comments and can be reached at 718-896-8715 or at allanjrcpa@aol.com.

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DECEMBER 31, 2015 | The Jewish Home

Life C ach

How’s Your Cup?

By Rivki D. Rosenwald Esq., CLC, SDS

I

was at a eulogy and was completely inspired by one line someone said. We are always told to see life as if the cup is half full, rather than half empty. And we all find it a tough task at times. But this child, speaking of his father, emphasized that his father’s greatness was that he always saw the cup as completely full. Wow – that blew me away. What a concept: not just seeing what’s there from a better perspective, but to see whatever’s there as it should be. Complete!

So all week as I was about to have a negative thought or get upset about something that went wrong – and we all know that can happen a lot – I stopped and said the cup’s all full. Seriously, I almost drown myself with all that liquid. Or more correctly, optimism. But it was actually quite soothing. I mean so much seemed to have gone wrong but I was just not owning it. I was saying basically it was exactly as it was supposed to be!

In Yiddish the word “cup” means head. Now that kind of makes this interesting. If your head is full, you have no questions. You get it. So I guess this individual had peace of mind. His head was full. And that was what was going on for me all week. Not just a better perspective on a negative but that this or that is somehow still all right.

I guess this is the thinking: When the cup is half empty, it sounds like you feel the need for more or you just can’t be satisfied with the way it is! But then again when the cup’s half full what exactly is your state of mind? Do you still need more to make it all full? Or is half full good enough? Or are they just giving a content update from a better angle?

Everyone’s been taught that this is optimism. But now take a half empty cup and call it full. What’s that? That certainly seems optimistic! Or is it just delusional thinking or confusion due to dehydration?!

Because, if every half full cup is seen as full that person never gets enough hydration to their head. But, what about seeing it this way: this is someone who doesn’t sweat life! They don’t lose water all day. They are not generating all that perspiration to get through everything. They are coasting because they exist on calm waters.

Now that sounds good to me. It sounds like a very good way to get through life. We do get slammed but after the fact, you’ve still got all you need somehow! It’s not struggling to change your perspective, but rather having a peaceful calm that there is only one perspective. The cup is all full! Try saying it. Try seeing it!

It will actually get you out of your “cup” and give you a lot more time to get a lot more living in and time to drink up the best life has to offer.

And guess what? Even when you gulp it all down, the cup can still be all full.

Rivki Rosenwald is a certified relationship counselor, and career and life coach.

She can be contacted at 917-705-2004 or rivki@rosenwalds.com

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 31, 2015

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