Five Towns Jewish Home - 12-24-15

December 24 —December 31, 2015

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

Pages 9, 10, 11 & 15

Around the

Community

58 Assemblyman Kaminsky Visits the Holy Land

Completing Tanach in Ezra Schwartz’s Memory

72

PG

90

64

Bais Yaakov of Queens, CIJE’s Newest Bridge Builders

PG

98

Page 57 PAGE 26

– See pages 3 & 33

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DECEMBER 24, 2015 | The Jewish Home

Dear Readers,

B

ullying starts when we’re young. It’s in the playground and then advances to the classrooms and ultimately to the workplace. Sometimes it’s obvious and other times it’s subtle. It can happen on a small scale, between individuals, and it can take place on a grander scale, between nations.

The BDS movement makes a lot of noise.

They charge that Israel is the bully of the world, committing terrorism on a daily basis.

“Let’s boycott Israel,” they thunder. Fine, you want to boycott one of the smallest nations in the world? It’s not going to be easy. Israel is more than just oranges and hummus.

Only 8 million people live in the Holy Land, but they have all been busy. Have a smartphone? There’s Israeli technology making it work. Use a computer? Chances are you’re using a program helped developed by Israel.

Going for a certain procedure? Perhaps Israeli technology will be behind the doctor’s technique. A person who truly wants to boycott Israel will have to tread very carefully not just when visiting the local grocery store, but even when just living their life.

Why does the BDS movement make so

much noise if it’s so hard to put into practice?

So many people who are thundering from the rooftops, college campuses, and in the media know that the only thing they’ll personally be forgoing in their righteous boycott is Ahava products and Sodastream. But if you listen close enough you’ll hear the subtle message in their thunder. It’s not about the boycott. It’s about knocking down the world’s perception of Israel. It’s their way of perpetrating a character assassination without looking like bullies. They’re the ones standing up in the face of injustice. They’re righting a wrong. They’re the ones exposing a cruel entity. And although it’s subtle, the world hears their message loud and clear. It seeps into their collective consciousness and clouds their views.

I don’t know how to combat the BDS movement, especially when they are given the loudest megaphones. But I do know that if we understand what the movement is essentially about, we can attempt to fight it. Because, as they say, if you know your enemy – and his strategy – you can win the war.

Wishing you a wonderful week, Shoshana

Yitzy Halpern PUBLISHER

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The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 24, 2015

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DECEMBER 24, 2015 | The Jewish Home

Contents LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

12

COMMUNITY Readers’ Poll

8

Community Happenings

46

NEWS Global

13

112

National

27

Odd-but-True Stories

40

ISRAEL Israel News

21

Almost Qualified by Rafi Sackville

88

Live Your Life: How the World Runs on Israeli Products and The Antidote to the BDS Movement by Brendy J. Siev 90 PEOPLE Leon Bieder and the USS Barb by Avi Heiligman

98

PARSHA Rabbi Wein

78

The Shmuz

80

JEWISH THOUGHT G-d Bless You by Eytan Kobre

82

Wave of the Future by Rabbi Jonathan Gewirtz

84

G-d of My Ancestors, G-d of Mine by Rabbi Naphtali Hoff

86

JEWISH HISTORY The Incredible Story of Ignatz Timothy Trebitsch-Lincoln, Part III

By Rabbi Pini Dunner

94

HEALTH & FITNESS Bratty Teens by Deb Hirschhorn, PhD

100

Yogurt and Its Many Health Benefits

by Cindy Weinberger MS, RD, CDN

102

Dear Editor, I would like to commend and thank the Village of Lawrence and the mayor for putting up large emergency lights on the 878 so residents aren’t walking and driving blindly at night. I appreciate them looking out for their residents.

On that note, I would encourage all my neighbors to reach out to our local politicians (mayor, trustees, assemblymen, legislators, councilmen) regarding the lack of lights on the 878 in Lawrence. I don’t know who is responsible for keeping the town lit, but I am sure that our wonderful representatives can get in touch with them and put the lights back on for us!

Wishing everyone a safe winter, Charlie Stern Dear Editor, Because it’s the “holiday” season, many people are showing their appreciation to those who have helped them during the year. I think this is vital – for us and for them.

It’s important for us to show appreciation because it helps us become more thankful people. In turn, we will become more appreciative towards our children, our spouse, our neighbors and family.

But it’s also important for those who have helped us throughout the

year. They truly deserve our thanks.

Can you imagine if our mail delivery was sporadic, with some letters coming on time and some not at all? Can you imagine if our garbage was left by our house for days? What about not knowing if your children ended up safely in school after putting them on the bus in the morning? It’s these people who help us live our lives and promote our quality of life.

We truly owe them our appreciation.

Thank you, Chana F. Dear Editor, Last week someone wrote in reference to your dating column.

They brought up the issue of how conversations between the genders in our society is not encouraged. I appreciate that the writer feels that there needs to be some balance between mingling and menschlechkeit. I would like to add one thing: the menschlechkeit of speaking with others when you are teenagers and the person is of the opposite gender is important. But I believe that that should be done in the presence of adults. At the Shabbos table is perfect. On a street corner on Central Ave is not.

Hatzlacha, A Reader Continued on page 12

FOOD & LEISURE The Aussie Gourmet: Super Soups

108

LIFESTYLES

130

Dating Dialogue, Moderated by Jennifer Mann, LMSW 104

It’s warm outside!

Your Money

Do you think we’ll be getting any snowstorms this winter?

132

Inside Out by Rivki Rosenwald, Esq., CLC 134 HUMOR

Centerfold

76

Rocky’s Rant: Presidential Pandemonium

122

Uncle Moishy Fun Page

124

POLITICAL CROSSFIRE Notable Quotes

110

Unseriousness Rises to the Top by Michael Gerson

118

Legacy or Bust by Charles Krauthammer

120

CLASSIFIEDS

126

79

%

YES

21

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NO

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 24, 2015

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DECEMBER 24, 2015 | The Jewish Home

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The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 24, 2015

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DECEMBER 24, 2015 | The Jewish Home

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Dear Editor, Your article on Chabad was so interesting but made me feel very small. You see, I am busy with my family – making suppers, cooking for Shabbos, preparing for yom tov.

But I do it on a small scale. I cannot imagine what these women do. They are an oasis in a desert devoid of Judaism. And they do it all so blithely, so happily.

In high school, I was on a bus with a few girls from a Lubavitch school. I was amazed by their conviction. They were in twelfth grade, yet they all knew that they were going to do shlichus and they were all excited about doing it. They had all the answers for our rapid questions about their way of life. They were religious about reciting their Tanya every day and yet they were really cool girls. I could imagine how they could draw in people who are curious about the frum way of life.

Two things that truly struck me about these girls: their enthusiasm and their conviction. Both those traits are vital in their daily work and in making their homes warm, exciting and full of love in cities where the number of Jews may be less than a percentage.

One more thing: regardless of what some may think about Chabad, we all need to express our hakaras hatov to them. When we travel, we know we can rely on them. If G-d forbid we are stranded in middle of nowhere, we know we can rely on them. They bring a kiddush Hashem wherever they go, as they provide services and smiles to those who are frum, not-yet-frum, and those who are not part of the Chosen Nation.

Thank you for an enlightening ar-

ticle. They do light up the world.

Sincerely, Yoni T. Dear Editor, This week you spoke with two men in France. One of them was quoted as saying that Jews should make Aliyah – but not make Aliyah out of fear. I would like to point out that there are two reasons why people make a drastic move in their life: one is out of fear and one is out of love. There are those who move to Israel or to another destination because they have a love or a true desire to settle in that place.

But others make the move out of fear, or desperation, or a discomfort with where they’re living. Both reasons are valid reasons. Both reasons result in the same outcome: a resettlement in a place they see is better for them or their families.

So there are two reasons why some would make Aliyah. Some do it out of their sincere love or desire to settle Eretz Yisroel. Others do it because they need a change – they need a new place to settle because of fear they feel, or hardships, or just a desire for a new beginning.

Let us remember that Jews poured into Israel after the War. Before the War, the land was sparse. After the War, when Jews knew that they were not wanted in their lands, they headed to better pastures. And they were the pioneers of the State of Israel.

In galus, we sometimes need to feel uncomfortable in the lands where we live. It is normal – and important – because it reminds us to pray and look forward to the Ultimate geulah.

Sincerely, Yoni Fisher

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 24, 2015

The Week In News

Denmark to Refugees: You’re not so Welcome

Denmark is taking a strong stance against any refugees entering the country. In September, Danish authorities published an ad in Lebanese newspapers with the clear message: “Don’t come to Denmark.”

The Danish government is now considering, and is almost certain to pass, a law that would allow authorities to confiscate jewelry from refugees entering the country. “The bill provides the Danish authorities with the power to search clothes and luggage of asylum seekers — and other migrants without a permit to stay in Denmark — with a view to finding assets which may cover the expenses,” the Danish Ministry of Integration said. The law would also impact refugees already in the country. It is included in an asylum policy bill that is expected to pass Parliament in January and would be set to take effect by next February. Police authorities would be allowed to seize valuables and cash amounts they deem valuable.

According to the Integration Ministry, “The new rule on seizure will only apply to assets of a considerable value.” Foreigners are expected to be able to “keep assets which are necessary to maintain a modest standard of living, e.g. watches and mobile phones. Furthermore, assets which have a certain personal, sentimental value to a foreigner will not, as a main rule, be seized unless they have [considerable] value.”

The Danish Integration Ministry is trying to emphasize that current

rules already required refugees with sufficient financial means to pay for their stay themselves. Although the seized valuables are supposed to pay for refugee-related expenditures, the financial impact could be of less consequence. Experts say the Danish government is more interested in sending a message.

Denmark’s Integration Ministry defended the law. “Denmark does take a share. However, [too many refugees] put pressure on the Danish society and make it more difficult to ensure a successful integration of those who come to Denmark. Refugees who have been granted a residence permit can make full use of the free Danish school, education and health system on the same level as everyone else in Denmark,” the ministry said. Denmark also provides integration procedures that run up to three years and include language as well as job training, for instance. “The aim of the Danish integration effort is to support refugees in order for them to become participating and financially independent citizens,” the statement emphasized.

Critics say that Denmark has tried hard to portray itself as a destination few refugees would want to go to. Recently, the Danish government cut social benefits for refugees by up to 50 percent.

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Softening its backing of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Russia has made clear to Western nations that it has no objection to Assad stepping down as part of a peace process.

Like Iran, Russia has been a firm ally of Assad and is intervening militarily on his behalf against anti-government forces in the five-year civil war that has claimed more than a quarter million lives. Both Russia and Iran

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DECEMBER 24, 2015 | The Jewish Home

have long insisted Assad’s fate should be decided in a nationwide vote.

Western powers, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and others reluctantly agreed to allow Assad to remain in place during a transition period, a compromise that has opened the door to a shift on the part of Russia, Western diplomats said. “What you’ve got is a move that will end up with Assad going,” a senior Western diplomat related on condition of anonymity.

“And the Russians have got to the point privately where they accept that Assad will have gone by the end of this transition – they’re just not prepared to say that publicly,” he added.

The United States and Russia, along with Iran, Saudi Arabia and major European and Arab powers, have agreed on a road map for a nationwide ceasefire, to have six months of talks between Assad’s government and the opposition on forming a unity government to begin in January, and to hold elections within 18 months. The third round of talks was in New York this week at which U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and over a dozen other ministers aimed to keep up the momentum to garner a deal to end the war.

Diplomats say that Russia has moved further than Iran on the question of abandoning the Syrian president if a transition plan can be agreed to. For years, Iran has backed Assad with its own military personnel and, like Russia, with weapons, and it would lose face and influence if it gives up. According to one senior Western diplomat, Russia already has a list of possible replacements for Assad.

Could China’s Landslide have been Prevented?

At least 75 people are missing and one person killed after a huge mound of mud and construction waste col-

lapsed at a business park in southern China and buried 33 buildings in the country’s latest industrial disaster.

Premier Li Keqiang ordered an official investigation into Sunday’s landslide in the southern boomtown of Shenzhen, just across the border from Hong Kong, which took place four months after huge chemical blasts at the northern port of Tianjin killed more than 160 people.

The mud and waste smashed into multi-story buildings at the Hengtaiyu industrial park in the city’s northwestern Guangming New District, toppling them in collisions that sent rivers of earth skyward. Most of those who are missing are migrant workers.

Speaking to the official Xinhua news agency, a local worker said: “I saw red earth and mud running towards the company building.”

Xinhua said 14 people had been rescued and more than 900 people had been evacuated from the site by Sunday evening.

Rescue operations were slowed by numerous obstacles, including continued rain, low visibility overnight, and mud.

State television showed scenes of devastation, with crumpled buildings sticking up from heaps of brown mud which stretched out across the edge of the industrial park. The mud had covered an area of more than 60,000 square meters (72,000 sq. yards) and was six meters deep in parts, state media said.

Many believe that this disaster could have been prevented.

Until a few days ago, Wang Shanjie, a stocky Hunanese truck driver, made a living hauling tons of dirt and debris from building sites across the southern Chinese boomtown to a massive, ever-growing heap at the Hong’ao Construction Waste Dump.

On Tuesday, two days after that unstable pile collapsed and engulfed dozens of buildings, Mr. Wang was undoing his work, one of hundreds of truck drivers who were hauling away the same dirt while rescuers searched for survivors swallowed up by it.

As he waited his turn, he voiced a sentiment repeated by many residents there: The risks presented by the mountain of debris were plain to see. “My personal view is that it had to collapse sometime,” he said. “Even we were afraid,” he added. “I don’t know what to think. We brought the dirt here, and now we have to haul it out.”

The deadly mountain was built to solve a problem, the haphazard dumping of dirt and construction

waste in sometimes dangerous or environmentally hazardous ways.

Shenzhen has undergone breathless growth since the 1980s, each phase of its evolution bringing a fresh wave of building, demolition and encroachment on farmland. The Guangming New District, the site of the landslide, is on the outskirts of Shenzhen, near the scrappier manufacturing zone of Dongguan. And throughout the district, older, dilapidated factories were being torn down to make way for bigger, more modern plants. A subway is also being built through the district.

Construction waste has been an unwelcome byproduct of that transformation process across China. The rate of construction waste recycling is low in mainland China compared with neighbors like Hong Kong, Japan and Taiwan. And China’s management of the massive amounts of dirt, broken concrete and other materials is far weaker.

The dump in the former quarry opened around 2013, when another dump site became overfilled.

Operation of the site was originally contracted out to the Luwei Property Management company, which in turn subcontracted the site to another company, Yixianglong Investment.

Residents and drivers say that it soon began taking in huge amounts of material, with the din of trucks rattling through the early hours of the morning.

The local government promoted the dump at Hong’ao Village in its 2014 work report as part of efforts to provide “strong protection” for “construction waste from the new district’s key projects.”

But as the mountain of earth grew, blaring alarms were ignored. In January, an environmental consulting firm, Zongxing Technology, published an assessment warning that erosion at the site was “threatening the safety of hills and slopes.”

Work was suspended “because of previous irregular operation methods,” the environmental assessment said, according to the Legal Daily, a newspaper run by China’s Ministry of Justice. But how long the suspension lasted is unclear.

Trucks were still dumping soil days before the landslide Sunday morning, according to drivers and neighbors.

“This is not just a problem for Shenzhen, but a problem for all of China,” said Yuan Hongping, an associate professor at Southwest Jiaotong University in Sichuan Province who

has researched construction waste disposal methods in south China.

Life Sentence for Canadian in N. Korea

A Canadian pastor has been sentenced to life in prison with hard labor by North Korea’s Supreme Court.

Hyeon Soo Lim, who pastors the Light Korean Presbyterian Church in Toronto, was given the sentence after a 90-minute trial. He has been in detention since February.

Lim’s “crimes” include harming the dignity of the supreme leadership, trying to use religion to destroy the North Korean system, disseminating negative propaganda about the North to the overseas Koreans, and helping U.S. and South Korean authorities lure and abduct North Korean citizens. He is also accused of assisting defectors from the North.

State prosecutors sought the death penalty.

Lim’s lawyer asked the court to take into account the fact that Lim is a fellow Korean and that he had frankly confessed to everything the prosecution had brought up. Lim pleaded to be given a chance and said if the court gave him one he would not do anything unlawful again.

In July, Lim appeared at a news conference organized by North Korean authorities in Pyongyang and admitted to plotting to overthrow the North Korean state. Other foreigners detained in North Korea and then released have said they were coerced into making similar statements and confessing guilt during their detentions.

Lim traveled on January 31 on a humanitarian mission to North Korea last year where he supports a nursing home, a nursery and an orphanage. Advocates said Lim, who is in his early 60s, has made more than 100 trips to North Korea since 1997 and that his trips were about helping people and were not political. North

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 24, 2015

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a 15-year sentence. Bae, whose arrest received worldwide attention, suffered medical issues while in detention. He was freed along with another American detainee after a secret mission to the reclusive Communist country by James Clapper, the top U.S. intelligence official. He is reportedly planning a book about his 2-year detention.

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Korea has very strict rules against any missionary or religious activities that it sees as threatening the supremacy of its ruling regime. Merely leaving a Bible in a public place can lead to arrest and severe punishment.

Both the U.S. and Canadian governments warn against travel to North Korea. Canadian Prime Min-

ister Justin Trudeau expressed “tremendous” concern with the harsh sentence and noted Canadian consular officials have not been allowed access to Lim while he’s been in custody. “We have tremendous concern about it. The issues of North Korea’s governance and judicial system are well-known,” Trudeau said. “We are

very concerned about someone being sentenced to life in North Korea and we certainly hope to be able to engage with this individual and stand up for his rights.”

Last year, North Korea released Kenneth Bae, a Korean-American missionary who was convicted of anti-state crimes and had been serving

The Jewish community of Bonneuil-sur-Marne in France called in emergency services this week when a sudden strong burning sensation was felt in their eyes and on their skin. It was discovered that the keypad of an electronic lock of the shul had been covered in a toxic substance.

25 firemen rushed to the shul, which is under police and military protection whenever it is open. They treated congregants who were poisoned and traced its source to the lock. Described as a nonlethal irritant, the substance found on the pad was sent for analysis at a police forensic lab.

The substance was applied to the pad when the shul was closed and the military personnel guarding it were not present. Two of the victims filed a police complaint against unidentified individuals believed to have been responsible. Police believe the substance was deliberately placed there to cause harm.

Tourists in China Called Out for Bad Behavior The Chinese tourism authority is working on banning tourists who show poor behavior when visiting their country. Another five tourists were added to the shameful “uncivilized behavior” list this week.

Three of the new additions

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were two women and a man who brawled after one woman’s seat was bumped during boarding of a flight from Cambodia to the western city of Chengdu. The three were forcibly removed from the plane under captain’s orders and the flight was delayed for one hour, the China National Tourism Administration said.

Another man was listed for bad behavior after he was arrested for assaulting a convenience store clerk whom he accused of disrespecting his wife. The last was a woman who attacked her tour guide with hot tea after learning the price of her son’s ticket to a western China scenic site was not included in the tour. Their names and a description of their alleged misbehavior were entered onto the administration’s list and will remain there for one to three years. Over that period, they can be refused service by travel agents, airlines, hotels and scenic sites.

In a further step, the administration said it was working with major Chinese airlines on “enacting definite restrictive measures” against those on the list, which currently includes 16 names in total. The government has grown concerned about the negative impact on China’s image stemming from numerous incidents of bad behavior by Chinese tourists at home and abroad, ranging from fighting with air crews to defacing cultural artifacts.

Rising incomes, relaxed regulations and cheap flights have helped record numbers of Chinese travel in recent years. Among other frequent complaints by Chinese tourists are line-cutting, smoking in banned areas, littering, and fouling public toilets.

ISIS has Thousands of Stolen Passports According to a German newspaper, ISIS may have stolen “tens of thousands” of blank passports that could be used to smuggle its fighters into Europe as refugees. Welt am

Sonntag cited Western intelligence sources as saying that ISIS could have acquired the stolen travel documents in the areas of Syria, Iraq and Libya it now controls.

According to reports, ISIS has already launched a money-spinning operation with the fake documents, selling them on the black market where they fetch up to $1,630 each.

European authorities have repeatedly warned of the potential threat posed by refugees travelling with counterfeit documents. The two unidentified Stade de France attackers in Paris have been tracked back to two fake Syrian passports used to enter Europe.

“The large influx of people who are travelling to Europe unchecked represents a security risk,” said Fabrice Leggeri, the head of EU border agency Frontex. Leggeri said that passports issued in war-ravaged countries such as Syria where conditions are chaotic mean that no one can guarantee “that documents that look real were actually issued by an official authority.”

The German Interior Ministry offered a similar assessment. “In light of the large number of entering mi-

grants, it cannot be ruled out that among them are, for example, criminals, war criminals, members of militant groups or terror organizations or individuals with extremist views,” a spokesman said. “At the same time, it cannot be ruled out that these people are carrying fake documents.”

The German government said last week that it had initially overestimated the proportion of people entering the country with fake Syrian passports, which was in fact far less than the 30 percent announced by the interior minister in September. Germany has to date maintained an opendoor policy for Syrians escaping their country’s bloodshed, giving them “primary protection” – the highest status for refugees. Germany is Europe’s top destination for refugees, most of whom travel through Turkey and the Balkans, and expects more than one million arrivals this year.

Opinions on Obama’s Usage of “ISIL” ISIL or ISIS? Media analysts con-

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tinue to offer explanations as to what message Barack Obama is giving by insisting on using the term ISIL for the terrorist organization. Obama, alone among virtually all world leaders and most news media, consistently calls ISIS, the world’s worst terrorist group, by the name ISIL. The former stands for Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, while ISIL stands for The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

The Levant is a much larger area than merely Syria, including Cyprus, parts of Turkey, Lebanon, Israel, Jordan and parts of Egypt. Some analysts say that Obama is quite purposeful in his terminology. Chuck Todd, of NBC’s Meet the Press, has opined that “since the Obama administration has shown much more willingness to attack ISIS in Iraq than they have to attack them in Syria, they seem to have decided it is in their best interest to

leave the ‘S’ out of the name.”

On the other hand, Harris Faulkner of Fox News, agreed with those who said that Obama is “tipping his hat” to ISIS by calling them ISIL. “Levant is a bigger territory,” she said.

“That’s why they want to embrace that name and it includes many, many more countries than just Syria.”

Analyst Liz Peek of The Fiscal Times wrote last year that by referring to such large territorial magnitude, the U.S. president “takes the focus off the two countries that many believe define Obama’s continued failure in the Middle East.”

“Most likely,” Peek continued, “he would rather eliminate the connection between the chaos in Iraq with his inaction in Syria.” Interestingly, Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump said – well before he became the front-runner in the race – that “there’s a reason” why Obama prefers to use “ISIL” – but he declined to reveal what it was.

Israel advocate media personality Ari Abramowitz has another explanation. “The main difference is that Israel is included when you call it ISIL, whereas ISIS keeps the conflict limited to Iraq and Syria,” he said. “This allows Obama to tie Israel to the con-

flict and blame Israel for it, and to say that ISIS is fueled by Palestinian suffering, etc. In addition, Obama is actually saying that our land in Judea, Samaria, Jerusalem – belongs to the Islamic State!”

Notorious Lebanese Killer Dies in Airstrike

Samir Kantar of Lebanon was responsible for one of the most notorious attacks in Israel’s history.

This week, Lebanese Hezbollah announced that Kantar was killed in an Israeli airstrike near Beirut. Hezbollah officials have pledged to avenge the death, sparking fears of escalation in an already volatile region. In a possible first response, three rockets

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were fired into Israel from Lebanon on Sunday.

In Lebanon, Kantar is known as “the dean of Lebanese prisoners,” a reference to his 30 year jail sentence.

In Israel, he gained notoriety for the kidnapping and grisly killing of Danny Haran and his 4-year-old daughter in Nahariya. Kantar was 16 at the time, and a member of the Palestinian militant group, the Palestine Liberation Front. He also killed a policeman during the attack.

Kantar was imprisoned in 1979 in Israel and sentenced to three life terms, but was released as part of a prisoner swap with Hezbollah in 2008. While many in Israel were outraged at his release, in Lebanon he received a hero’s welcome – the following year he was awarded Syria’s highest medal by Syrian President Bashar Assad.

Israel and Hezbollah are bitter enemies. The two countries battled to a stalemate during a month long war in 2006 during which Hezbollah fired thousands of rockets into Israel and Israel’s air force destroyed wide areas in Lebanon. Since then, Israeli military officials say Hezbollah has upgraded its capabilities and now possesses tens of thousands of rock-

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ets and missiles capable of striking anywhere in the country.

Many Israeli officials, though, believe Hezbollah is currently in no position to open a new front with Israel, as it is bogged down aiding its close ally, President Assad, in the Syrian civil war. Nevertheless, Hezbollah legislator Ali Ammar vowed to avenge Kantar’s killing, saying the militant group will not allow his blood to go “betrayed.” Ammar said the group’s military arm would determine the timing and methods chosen “to punish the killers, specifically the Israeli enemy.”

In January, the Lebanese group accused Israel of carrying out an airstrike on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights, which killed several Hezbollah members and a prominent Iranian general. Around ten days later, Hezbollah militants fired a salvo of missiles at an Israeli military convoy in a disputed border area, killing two soldiers and triggering deadly clashes that marked the most serious escalation since the 2006 war.

Gil Rabinovich, the former head of the Israeli military intelligence counter-terrorism unit, said it was impossible to predict how Hezbollah would respond, in part because Israel has not claimed responsibility for Kantar’s killing. He noted, however, that Kantar was not a member of Hezbollah’s “inner circle,” reducing the probability that the group would open a new front against Israel.

take the day off. The decisive victory was achieved thanks to the cooperation between Israel’s Permanent Representative to the UN, Ambassador Danny Danon, and the United States Permanent Representative of the UN, Ambassador Samantha Power.

“Yom Kippur is the holiest day of the year for the Jewish People, and the UN should have recognized this holiday many years ago. Today we finally have an official place for the Jewish religion in the world’s parliament,” Danon asserted. The partnership with America prevented the anti-Israel majority at the UN from blocking the resolution. “The American-Israeli partnership at the UN stands for good versus bad and right versus wrong. The value of justice, anchored in Jewish tradition and thought, will finally find its place in the family of nations, and be a part of the UN’s history,” Danon added.

Until today, the UN recognized 10 official holidays, including Christmas and Eid Al Fitr, but no Jewish holidays. The international recognition of the holiday’s importance will allow Jewish UN workers to observe the holiday without the need to take a day off. Last year, ambassadors to the United Nations from 32 countries asked the UN to recognize Yom Kippur as an official holiday, noting that the Jewish Day of Atonement is an annual day with a “universal” message.

Israel is the 18th Best Country to Live In Yom Kippur Now a UN Holiday

Yom Kippur is now recognized by the United Nations as an official UN holiday. As part of the decision, from now on no official meetings will take place at the United Nations on Yom Kippur and employees can choose to

18 stands for chai, life, and it seems like Israel is a great place to live.

The United Nations Human Development Index, or HDI, has put Israel as the 18th best country to live in. Published annually, the HDI ranks 188 countries in terms of economic strength, education, health,

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average life expectancy, and gross national product per-capita, as some of the parameters related to quality of life.

For the 12th year in a row, Norway has earned the top spot on the HDI list and was followed by Australia (2) and Switzerland (3). This year, Israel came out ahead of Japan (20), France (22), Spain (26), and Italy (27). Israel has gone up one place in the ranking since last year.

The country ranked last on the index was Niger. The bottom of the list included other African countries like Eritrea (186), Chad (185), and

Burundi (184). Most Middle East nations were not given high rankings – Egypt (108), Jordan (80), and Lebanon (67). The Palestinian Authority, considered a country by the UN, was ranked at 113.

The top 20 countries to live in, according to 2015 Human Development Index: 1. Norway 2. Australia 3. Switzerland 4. Denmark 5. Netherlands 6. Germany 7. Ireland

8. United States 9. Canada 10. New Zealand 11. Singapore 12. Hong Kong 13. Liechtenstein 14. Sweden 15. United Kingdom 16. Iceland 17. South Korea 18. Israel 19. Luxembourg 20. Japan

Shabbos Bill to go to Knesset Floor

The Knesset will consider a bill that will close all business-related locations on Shabbos and yom tov in Israel. The bill was already unanimously approved by the Ministerial Committee for Legislation. The Weekly Day of Rest Bill will go to the Knesset for a first reading within days.

The bill is also to be considered by a special executive committee appointed by the government. The committee is supposed to complete this work within six months. Spearheaded by MK Miki Zohar, it calls for only entertainment and dining establishments to be permitted to stay open: restaurants, cafes, cafeterias, theaters, movie theaters, gas stations and hotels. Furthermore, the bill would forbid employers from stipulating that workers must be willing to work on Shabbos in order to be hired.

Failing to abide by the bill would result in financial sanctions and up to a year in prison or a fine equaling three times the income made by breaking the law – and no less than NIS 4,000 for any violation of the law. “The bill is intended to prevent losses for all businesses that are not active on Saturday,” said MK Zohar.

“We will thus ensure that employees will not be forced to come to work on Saturday and will also be able to use the day as a day of leisure. The municipalities will no longer be able to do whatever they want.”

Zohar rejected the possibility that the move would be damaging to Israel’s four million secular Jews and Arabs. “Everyone will be happy for the Sabbath to become a day of rest and not a day of work. After all, that’s how we lived until a few years ago.

The majority of people don’t even go shopping on the Sabbath and there’s no reason for a clothing store to be open on the Sabbath. It’s over.”

Continued on page 22

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Israel’s Snail Mail Facing Criticism

Israelis are taking to social media to voice their complaints about the post office. Frustrated mailers are posting pictures of long lines and turtles with envelopes on their backs.

Just how bad is Israel’s postal system? Pretty bad, if you judge from posts on Israeli social media. There is even a Facebook group with 5,000 fans, “The Israel Postal Company has crossed every line,” devoted exclusively to complaints about the government-owned corporation.

Earlier this month, a fresh scandal erupted when consumers reported that sellers on eBay were refusing to sell to Israelis, not as a political boycott, but because their packages weren’t arriving at their destination.

Maya Avishai, a spokeswoman for the Israel Postal Company, concedes that there were isolated incidents of “one or two” sellers who refused to ship to Israel, but to put this in context, it was “out of tens of thousands of sellers throughout the world.” In fact, says Avishai, the number of packages entering the country increased by 30 percent in the last year, and this fact “proves that there is no boycott.”

A 30% increase in a single year is a staggering number, one that can potentially explain the long lines and complaints about service at post offices. With the rise of email and online bill paying, postal carriers around the world have been in decline, and the Israel Postal Carrier has cut staff and reduced mail delivery days. Some experts argue that postal systems no longer have any reason to exist. But the global surge in e-commerce (25% growth worldwide in 2015) is giving them a new lease on life.

Avishai singled out Next and AliExpress as companies that send a huge volume of packages to Israel.

“We’ve seen a 40 percent increase in packages from Next,” she says, “and people buy all kinds of things related to cell phones from AliExpress.” Avishai says the postal service is coping by adding more than 120 new package distribution centers, extending

opening hours till 8 p.m., sending package notifications by SMS, and allowing people to make appointments to pick up mail rather than waiting in line, among other improvements.

In a 2014 Harvard study, Israel’s postal system ranked 35th in the world. Israel ranked below countries like the United States, Finland, Morocco and Romania, but above France and the United Kingdom.

PA to Issue “State of Palestine” Passports

Mahmoud Abbas has announced that in the next year the Palestinian Authority plans to change its name on passports it issues to State of Palestine. Current passports are issued by the “Palestinian Authority.”

Abbas spoke after talks with Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras. Greece’s parliamentary Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee has unanimously called on the Athens government to recognize Palestinian statehood.

Tsipras’ leftist-led government is trying to balance improved relations with Israel with his party’s longstanding support for a Palestinian state.

Tsipras visited Israel last month, meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He also met with Abbas in Ramallah, West Bank.

A government source said that the Greek parliament is set to recognize the state of Palestine in a parliamentary vote to be attended by Abbas during his visit this week. A ceremony will accompany the vote on the resolution as Greece joins dozens of other countries that accord recognition to Palestine, the source said. The resolution is nonbinding and does not constitute a full government recognition of Palestine as a state.

David’s Sling Ready to Go

The highly anticipated David’s Sling air defense system has been put through its last phase of trials by the Israeli Defense Ministry and the Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency. The Israel Air Force is expected to take possession of the system in the first quarter of 2016.

The trials took place in southern Israel and were led by Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, which is developing David’s Sling together with the U.S. defense company Raytheon. David’s Sling can intercept short-range to medium-range rockets and ballistic missiles, including guided projectiles, cruise missiles, aircraft and drones. Its range of coverage means it can destroy incoming threats over enemy territory, away from Israeli skies.

“In trials, the system’s capabilities were tested in a number of scenarios that simulate the threats it was designed to deal with,” the Defense Ministry said. Target missiles were fired, which were detected by a multi-mission radar that transmitted the coordinates to a fire-control center, which fired David’s Sling interceptors. “The missiles were successfully fired, and carried out all of the flight stages, destroying the targets as planned,” the Defense Ministry said.

Yair Ramati, director of the Israel Missile Defense Organization, said multiple mock targets were hit in the trial. The successful trials will “enable us to go to the next stage of development.”

“This weapons system is ripe and ready. The result is excellent. We have an efficient, fast, deadly missile,” he added.

The system has entered the production stage. David’s Sling will be based in two national sites, and its launch sites will be mobile.

The system was described by defense officials as “new and revolutionary in the family of interceptors in the world,” enabling greater efficiency in dealing with aerial threats, as part of a multi-layered defense coverage that includes Iron Dome, Arrow 2 and Arrow 3 air defense batteries.

Murderer is Unofficial Leader of Hamas

A series of personnel changes were made this week in the upper echelons of the Hamas government in the Gaza Strip. Saleh Abu Sharkh, the commander of the security agencies, stepped down from his position to become director-general of the Transportation Ministry. Tawfik Abu Naim, one of the men freed in the 2011 exchange of 1,027 prisoners for kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, was appointed to replace him.

The main concern in this shakeup is Yahya Sanwar. Already a high-ranking Hamas operative, Sanwar is emerging as Hamas’s uncompromising new strongman in Gaza.

Sanwar is on the way to a takeover of Hamas’s security agencies in Gaza, including the police and the internal security service that is the Shin Bet’s counterpart in Gaza.

Sanwar, 54, was released from prison in Israel just four years ago as part of the Shalit deal. Sentenced to life imprisonment in 1989 for murdering collaborators, he had spent 22 years in jail. Since his release, Sanwar has established himself in Hamas and is gradually becoming its unofficial but unquestioned leader in Gaza.

He is considered a man of great influence in Hamas’s military wing because he was one of its founders.

He is also believed to be the highest-ranking political figure of Hamas in Gaza, above former Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, who is younger than him and lower in status. He is fanatically opposed to any compromise in its policies regarding the Palestinian Authority and Israel. Even from prison, Sanwar was one of the main opponents of the Shalit exchange deal because he saw the terms, one soldier for 1,027 prisoners, as a surrender by Hamas to Israel’s conditions.

Despite his high position in the

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The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 24, 2015

movement, Sanwar avoids contact with the Arab and Palestinian media.

Even though he speaks Hebrew, he does not give interviews to the Israeli press either.

Netanyahu’s Three Children

Prime Minister Netanyahu has been photographed with his family many times – with his wife, Sara, and his two sons, Yair and Avner. Recently, his Twitter profile declared he was the father “of Yair and Avner.” But Netanyahu has one more child – a daughter Noa, who he has from a previous marriage.

The mistake was noticed by Israeli blogger Uri Breitman, who took to his own Facebook to share the omission.

Next to a photo of Netanyahu’s Twitter profile, Breitman asked: “Ummm, didn’t you forget your daughter Noa?” The post was shared hundreds of times and seemed to get through to the prime minister himself, as his profile was changed on Sunday to read, “Prime Minister of Israel, Chairman of the Likud Party, husband of Sara, father of three.”

Thirty-six-year-old Noa Roth is the only child of Netanyahu and his first wife, Dr. Miriam Weizmann. Noa was born in 1978 shortly before her parents split.

Yair and Avner are the children of Netanyahu’s third and current wife, Sara Ben-Arzi, who he married in 1991.

On Friday, the Hebrew daily Maariv reported that Noa, now religious and married to businessman Daniel Roth, had moved to the ultra-Orthodox neighborhood of Mea She’arim in Jerusalem. In 2009 she gave birth to Netanyahu’s first grandchild; she had a second son in 2011.

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Americans Check their Phones More Often than Ever

How many times a day do you check your cellphone? Be honest.

A study recently released by Deloitte found that Americans collectively check their smartphones upwards of 8 billion times per day. That number is based upon the average number of looks per day multiplied by the number of smartphone users in the United States, which the firm says is 185 million.

The average person in the United States checks their phones 46 times per day, according to Deloitte. In 2014 it was just 33 times a day.

Although 46 checks per day is the overall average, that number varies by age group. Individuals between the ages of 18 and 24 look at their phones most often, with an average of 74 checks per day. Americans in the 25-34 age bracket look at their devices 50 times per day, and those between 35 and 44 do so 35 times each day.

Common times that people check their phones is while shopping, watching television, and during leisure time. However, Deloitte also found that 81% of Americans spend time looking at their phones while dining out in restaurants. “Some of this is going to require new etiquettes emerging,” says Craig Wigginton, Vice Chairman and U.S. Telecommunications Leader for Deloitte.

Most respondents admitted to checking their phones within five minutes of waking up every morning.

26% of those in the 18-24 age range said they look at their phones imme-

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diately upon waking. The first thing most people do on their phones in the morning is now text messaging, not checking email, which was the most popular answer in 2014.

Now the burning question: why are Americans checking their phones more often than ever? Wigginton believes it is because more people

are using their phones for financial transactions. Mobile payment apps have been around for years, but companies like Apple, Google, and Samsung have all launched new tap-to-pay services in the 2014-2015 timeframe. “We’re seeing a perfect storm of technology in the device, technology in the store, and securi-

ty being put into the retail environment,” says Wigginton.

So next time you travel in an elevator and don’t check your phone, congratulate yourself – it’s pretty rare and a wonderful form of etiquette.

Sheldon Adelson is regarded as one of the richest men in America.

The proudly Jewish billionaire casino mogul is the new owner of the Las Vegas Review-Journal. The media company was purchased last week by an anonymous buyer until the family of Adelson finally confirmed him as the new boss on Thursday.

In a statement printed on page 2 of Thursday’s edition, the rumor was confirmed. The week prior, the paper announced that it was sold for a second time this year to an unidentified buyer and at a markup, prompting scrutiny about the lack of transparency.

“We understand the desire of the hard-working staff at the R-J and others in the community to know the identity of the paper’s new owners, and it was always our intention to publicly announce our ownership of the R-J,” the statement read.

The Adelsons say they withheld their identity because they didn’t want the announcement to distract from Tuesday’s Republican presidential debate that was held at the Venetian, the casino-hotel on the Las Vegas Strip that is part of Adelson’s empire. Adelson, a major GOP donor, said at the debate that he had “no personal interest” in owning the paper.

Many speculators are questioning the timing of the sale and its purchase price, theorizing that Adelson bought the largest newspaper in a swing state in order to influence the presidential election. Nevada is fourth in the primary process, with balloting in February. In the 2012 campaign, the Adelson family spent more than any other donor, about $90 million, on the election.

Last week’s sale showed a $38 million increase in its purchasing price. In March, New Media Investment Group supposedly paid $102.5 million for the newspaper.

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The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 24, 2015

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DECEMBER 24, 2015 | The Jewish Home

lisher of the rival Las Vegas Sun, is expecting vastly different political views in the two papers, “but that just makes for good reading.” Greenspun is a former classmate of former President Bill Clinton – the two attended Georgetown University together – and Greenspun has publicly supported Hillary Clinton’s candidacy.

Sheldon Adelson’s current net worth is $28.9 billion.

Breach of Democrat Voter Files

There has been a lot of mystery and secrecy surrounding Hillary Clinton’s past political career. It seems she gets special treatment in Washington but there’s not much anyone can do about it but speculate.

Her rival, Bernie Sanders, just isn’t satisfied with that reality and decided to fight back – but not without a little blood on his hands. U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Sanders took the Democratic National Committee to court accusing the party leaders of attempting to undermine his White House bid in order to help his rival Hillary Clinton. He was successful and on Friday, Sanders regained access to crucial voter files.

Previously, the DNC had blocked access to the voter data after a Sanders campaign staffer improperly accessed Clinton’s voter files, prompting charges of theft from the Clinton campaign and setting off a bitter political fight in what had been a relatively peaceful Democratic nominating race.

The DNC agreed to restore access after the Sanders campaign provided information about the breach and promised to cooperate with an investigation.

“Based on this information, we are restoring the Sanders campaign’s access to the voter file but will continue to investigate to ensure that the data that was inappropriately accessed has been deleted and is no longer in

possession of the Sanders campaign,” DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz said.

The conflict escalated just one day before the Democratic debate on Saturday night causing tension amongst the candidates. Sanders and his fellow presidential hopefuls accused the DNC of limiting the number of debates and scheduling them on low-viewership periods like Saturday nights, another move they felt was aimed at helping Clinton.

“In this case it looks like they are trying to help the Clinton campaign,” Sanders campaign manager Jeff Weaver said at a news conference on Friday afternoon before filing the lawsuit. He accused the DNC of taking the Sanders campaign “hostage” by blocking its access to the files.

“We need our data, which has been stolen by the DNC. That’s what we want back,” Weaver said.

Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook told reporters in a conference call the Sanders staff had taken vital data that constituted a “strategic road map” for the campaign’s voter turnout models and strategies. “The Sanders campaign stole data from our campaign,” Mook said. “There is some damage here that cannot be undone.”

In its defense, the Sanders campaign claims that the security breach of the confidential files, which contain information such as past voting and donation history, was an isolated incident and the person responsible has been fired from the campaign.

The DNC’s software vendor, Washington-based NGP VAN, has been blamed for the breach. Supposedly they dropped the firewall between the various Democratic candidates’ data. The DNC rents access to its master voter list to campaigns, which augment the data with their own information. The firewalls are supposed to block campaigns from spying on their rivals.

Stu Trevelyan, chief executive officer of DNC software vendor NGP VAN, acknowledged the breach in a statement and called it a “brief isolated issue” that was immediately fixed, although the incident is being investigated.

According to his LinkedIn account, Trevelyan is a former campaign and White House staffer for Hillary Clinton’s husband, former President Bill Clinton. He also donated $403.20 to Ready PAC – an outside group then known as Ready for Hillary PAC that supports Clinton

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 24, 2015

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DECEMBER 24, 2015 | The Jewish Home

– in December 2013, according to records filed with the Federal Election Commission.

An audit released by the Clinton campaign showed the breach was more extensive than the Sanders campaign described, with at least 24 occasions when the Sanders campaign “saved” lists of Clinton data, from four different users.

“We are asking that the Sanders campaign and the DNC work expeditiously to ensure that our data is not in the Sanders campaign’s account,” Clinton campaign spokesman Brian Fallon said.

Clinton is currently in the lead with 60% support from Democrats while Sanders lags behind at 29%, according to a recent Reuters/Ipsos polling.

From Rags to Riches to a Jail Cell Martin Shkreli was young and successful. At the age of 32, he had

what most middle-aged American men only dream of: a highly successful business and seemingly lots of money and opportunity. Shkreli was the CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals and a former hedge fund manager.

However, instead of making headlines for charity like some of his peers, he earned the public’s disapproval earlier this year after he raised the price of a drug used to treat life-threating infection by more than 4,000%. When Shkreli increased the price of Daraprim, an anti-parasite drug, from $18 to $750, he was harshly criticized.

Now he is not only facing the public’s disapproval, he will be facing the judge’s gavel. On Thursday, Shkreli was arrested and accused of multiple charges of securities and wire fraud in what federal prosecutors call a “Ponzi

scheme” that spanned several years.

Robert Capers, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, told reporters that Shkreli allegedly defrauded investors in two hedge funds, MSMB Capital and MSMB Healthcare, and also plundered Retrophin, the biopharmaceutical company he ran as its CEO, in an effort to pay back debts related to the now-defunct hedge funds. Prosecutors allege that Shkreli lost all of the investments in MSMB Capital but continued to provide inflated and false performance updates to its investors. According to the indictment, Shkreli told one investor that the value of his $1.25 million investment was now worth slightly more than $1.3 million, even though MSMB Capital had ceased trading almost a year before and had no assets.

“Shkreli essentially ran his company like a Ponzi scheme,” Capers told reporters, explaining that Shkreli then allegedly concealed the collapse of MSMB Capital from potential clients in order to get them to invest in MSMB Healthcare. Capers explained that Shkreli next proceeded to use the money invested in MSMB Healthcare

5 TOWNS KITCHEN & BATH

to pay off his previous debts. He is also accused of creating fraudulent transactions of money out of Retrophin in order to pay off personal and professional debts. Prosecutors say, as a result, Retrophin and its investors lost in excess of $11 million.

“As alleged, Martin Shkreli engaged in multiple schemes to ensnare investors through a web of lies and deceit,” Capers told reporters.

Retrophin filed a lawsuit against Shkreli in August, alleging he used the company to “enrich himself” and pay off claims to other investors, according to court documents. The company sought $65 million in damages from the former manager. Shkreli called the lawsuit allegations “untrue at best and defamatory at worst,” in a post on Investorshub.com. “I am evaluating my options to respond,” he said.

“Every transaction I’ve ever made at Retrophin was done with outside counsel’s blessing.”

Born in Brooklyn, New York, to immigrant parents who worked hard as janitors, Shkreli grew up in Sheepshead Bay and had big dreams. He and his siblings grew up on the top floor of six-story apartment building on

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 24, 2015

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DECEMBER 24, 2015 | The Jewish Home

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‫הרה״צ ר׳ חיים פנחס שיינבערג זצ״ל ויבלח״ט הרה״צ ר׳ יעקב אידלשטיין שליט״א‬ ,‫ והרה״צ ר׳ גמליאל רבינוביץ שליט״א‬,‫ הרב אדרת שליט״א‬,‫הרה״צ ר׳ דוד אבוחצירא שליט״א‬ Letter of Recommendation from Rav Scheinberg zt"l Rebbetzin Aidel Miller, is a granddaughter of the known Rabbi Yakov Yosef Herman ‫זצ"ל‬, who did much to strengthen yiddishkeit in America.

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May Hashem grant her much siyata dishmaya to continue her work, and may Hashem the healer of of the broken heart heal all those in need of help.

Ocean Avenue. As of 2015, his parents and two other family members still lived there.

He attended Hunter College High School and kept mostly to himself, according to classmates. He was asked to leave the school before his senior year for failing to show up.

Supposedly he received the credits he needed to graduate through a program that placed him in an internship at the Wall Street hedge fund Cramer, Berkowitz and Company at the age of 17. He earned his Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from Baruch College in 2004. From there he climbed his way to the top and got himself into many boardrooms – and eventually into a jail cell.

Later in the day on Thursday, Shkreli was released on $5 million bond. He resigned as CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals and was replaced by board chairman Ron Tilles.

If convicted, Shkreli faces up to 20 years in prison.

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School Closures Due to Threats Deemed Hoax

Last Tuesday, the Los Angeles school district shut down all schools over an electronic threat, affecting more than 640,000 students. Later on in the day, the threat was revealed to be a hoax.

On Thursday, similar threats were made against schools in New Jersey, Washington, D.C., Florida, and Texas. The majority of those threats were dismissed as hoaxes as well. However, three suburban Indianapolis school districts reported potentially serious threats, with two districts shutting down on Thursday and another canceling classes for Friday.

All-clears were given after bomb threats on Thursday at East Orange Campus High School in New Jersey and at Anacostia and Frank W. Ballou Senior high schools in Washington, D.C., according to officials, although the two schools were temporarily evacuated.

However, the Indiana threats

seemed different from the hoax emails sent to the larger school districts elsewhere in the country, Danville Community School Corporation Superintendent Tracy Shafer said.

“This seems to be more of a local situation and the perceived threats were posted to social media and were specific to our schools,” Shafer said.

After midnight on Thursday, two students from Danville High School west of Indianapolis were arrested, a freshman and a senior. They are accused of making a separate set of threats on Wednesday before the social media threats that prompted the closures. The two juveniles could be charged with intimidation and other crimes.

Wright and Shafer both said that further threats were made on Facebook after the arrests, apparently by another person who is still being sought. The later threats involved schools in Plainfield and Danville, prompting both districts to shut schools on Thursday.

Of course many schools are taking extra precautions as the country still reels from the terror attacks in San Bernardino, California, and Paris.

School officials in Texas and Florida said they increased school security to be on the safe side.

“At this time, we do not believe the threat is credible, but as a precautionary measure, law enforcement officers are in the process of conducting random sweeps of school district buildings to ensure student safety,” the Houston Independent School District, with about 215,000 students, said in a statement.

Many criticized the Los Angeles shutdown, calling it an overreaction.

Allegedly New York City officials received an identical threat the same day and chose to keep classes in session.

Due to the many hoaxes, all districts are reviewing threats very carefully before making any quick decisions.

CAIR Doesn’t Represent all Muslims Council for American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is regarded as the nation’s most well-recognized Islamic advocacy group. However, many Muslims around the country are saying that they cringed upon hearing CAIR’s statements at a press confer-

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 24, 2015

ence hours after the San Bernardino attacks.

CAIR representatives partially blamed U.S. policy for the attacks, accused gunman Syed Rizwan Farook’s co-workers of making fun of his beard, and sought to downplay comments by Farook’s father linking him to ISIS – sentiments not echoed by many Muslims.

“CAIR is a primary obstacle in the effort of many honest American Muslims who recognize our need to own up and lead long-overdue reforms against the root causes of radicalization: Islamism and its separatism,” said Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, an ex-U.S. Navy officer who founded and heads the American Islamic Forum for Democracy.

Jasser says that true moderates are honest and explicit in condemning acts of violence carried out in the name of Islam.

“CAIR’s information is marketed and packaged so it seems that they speak for all of us, but they don’t speak for me and my group,” said Raheel Raza, president of the Council for Muslims Facing Tomorrow. “CAIR does not and has never represented the majority Muslim voices which are as diverse as Muslims in America.”

Muslims Facing Tomorrow is one of more than a dozen moderate Islamic groups from the U.S., Canada and European countries that have joined the Muslim Reform Movement, an alliance put together by Jasser.

The Muslim Reform Movement rebukes violent jihad, advocates for a separation of “mosque and state,” and celebrates individual freedom, human rights, gender equality, and secular democracy, according to its founders, who also reject the idea of an Islamic State and its Sharia Law. “We are in a battle for the soul of Islam, and an Islamic renewal must defeat the ideology of Islamism,” read a statement from the group, which formed following the November 13 attacks in Paris and met for the first time in Washington just two days after the San Bernardino attack.

While CAIR also does not publicly support an Islamic State, Sharia Law

in the U.S. or acts of violence, they have past links to Hamas. In 2007, CAIR was named an unindicted co-conspirator in a 2007 federal trial in Texas brought by the government against the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development charity and five of its officers.

The Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development and its officers were accused of funneling millions of dollars in donations to Hamas and found guilty of providing material support for terrorism, leading to the federal government shutting down the organization in December 2001.

The FBI broke off its ties with CAIR as a result of the case, even though CAIR was not directly tied to any of the criminal activity.

“CAIR has a strategy of delegitimizing U.S. government counter-terrorism operations, often distributing articles that make it sound as if the War on Terror is manufactured by the FBI and a Zionist/anti-Muslim conspiracy machine,” said Ryan Mauro, national security analyst for the Clarion Project, a New York-based nonprofit that monitors Islamic terrorism. “They reflexively cast doubt on the agency, rather than the terrorism suspect, almost every single time that

35

an arrest is announced.”

“CAIR may condemn the acts and means of radical violent Islamists, but no one should be fooled for a moment that CAIR’s singular fixation on stoking the flames and raising funds off the exaggerated narrative that Muslims are under siege by ‘bigoted Americans’ is not a major part of the separatism that radicalizes members of our Muslim communities,” Jasser said. “They are feeding the global movement against America.”

In response, CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper didn’t answer specific questions posed by FoxNews.com about the organization. He passively provided a link to two CAIR reports on its website, including one critical of Jasser.

Founded in 1994 with a stated goal to “enhance understanding of Islam,” CAIR has grown to 32 chapters in 20 states. The self-styled anti-defamation and civil rights group operates on $3 million in donations a year, and also solicits contributions for special projects, such as $500,000 from Prince Alwaleed bin Talal of Saudi Arabia, to fund distribution of the Koran in the U.S. According to its website, CAIR was formed “to challenge anti-Mus-

36

DECEMBER 24, 2015 | The Jewish Home

lim discrimination nationwide.”

This isn’t the first time that CAIR is being accused of having outside ties to terrorism. Other critics have alleged that CAIR is tied to the Muslim Brotherhood and federally designated terrorist organizations Hamas and Hezbollah. CAIR has in the past called such accusations “false and misleading.”

Jasser says his ultimate objective is to join progressive Muslims who share American values, yet still practice their faith in their own way, and reject the idea that one agenda-driven group speaks for them.

“We want to wake up the 85 to 90 percent of Muslims in the U.S. who are sitting at home, who don’t go to mosques, but love their religion,” Jasser said.

Mistrial for First Officer to be Tried in Freddie Gray Case The city of Baltimore was on edge on Thursday as they waited to hear if there was going to be a retrial for the

police officers being tried for charges related to the death of Freddie Gray.

Judge Barry Williams declared a mistrial on Wednesday after the jury twice concluded it could not reach a unanimous verdict in the case of Officer William Porter, who was charged with involuntary manslaughter and other offenses. Porter’s case is vital because he was the first of six officers to face trial in the death of Gray. If Porter’s case would have come to a verdict, he would have been able to testify in the subsequent cases of the other officers. Now that his case will probably not be concluded before their trials come to be, the prosecution has lost a key witness.

As of the weekend, prosecutors had not publicly or officially revealed their decision on Porter’s case. Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., who represents most of Baltimore, said he was told that the state’s attorney intends to retry the 26-year-old African-American officer — and that the other officers will go on trial as scheduled early next year.

“I know that many of my neighbors have been following this trial closely, and many may be disappointed by today’s outcome,” Cummings said in a statement calling for calm.

“Each of us will continue to struggle with the very raw, very real emotions the death of Mr. Freddie Gray invokes.”

Protests after the mistrial was announced were mostly peaceful. Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said she appreciated the jury’s efforts and was grateful that the “vast majority” of residents respected their decision.

“The men and women of the Baltimore Police Department and our regional partners did an amazing job yesterday, and we continue to monitor social media,” she said. “We will have the assets that we need in place to respond as necessary” should protests in coming days grow surly.

William “Billy” Murphy, the lawyer for the Gray family, stressed the outcome was not a disappointment for either side in the racially charged case.

“This is just a temporary bump on the road to justice,” Murphy said during a news conference after the mistrial was announced. “It happens.

It’s part of how the system works.”

Generally hung juries are retried, with 70% of them eventually resulting in a conviction, Murphy said.

Gray, 25, was arrested on minor charges April 12 following a foot pursuit involving multiple officers. He was shackled and placed in a van, but officers did not restrain him with a seat belt. After a 45-minute ride that included several stops, Gray was unresponsive when the van finally arrived at the police station and died a week later. An autopsy indicated he died of a severe spinal injury.

Porter, charged with manslaughter, assault, misconduct and reckless endangerment, was not involved in the arrest. He was accused of failing to belt Gray into the van and then failing to provide medical assistance when Gray asked for it. Trials for the other five officers — three white, two black — are set for early next year.

The driver, Caesar Goodson, faces the most serious charge, second-degree depraved murder, which carries a sentence of up to 30 years in prison.

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On Monday, Republicans blasted Secretary of State John Kerry for suggesting in a letter to his Iranian counterpart that the administration could help the country get around new visa restrictions passed by Congress.

“Instead of bending over backwards to try to placate the Iranian regime, the White House needs to be holding it accountable for its recent missile tests, its continued support for terrorism, and its wrongful imprisonment of Americans,” House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce, R-Calif., said in a statement.

At issue are tightened security requirements for America’s visa waiver program, which allows citizens of 38 countries to travel to the U.S. without visas. Under changes in the newly signed spending bill, people from those countries who have traveled to Iran, Iraq, Syria and Sudan in the past five years must now obtain visas to enter the U.S. Top Tehran officials, however, complained the changes violate the terms of the nuclear deal, which says the U.S. and other world powers will refrain from any policy intended to adversely affect normalization of trade and economic relations with Iran.

Kerry responded to these concerns in a December 19 letter to his Iranian counterpart, Mohammad Javad Zarif and suggested the administration could simply bypass the rules for Iran.

“I am also confident that the recent changes in visa requirements passed in Congress, which the Administration has the authority to waive, will not in any way prevent us from meeting our [nuclear deal]

commitments, and that we will implement them so as not to interfere with legitimate business interests of Iran,” he said.

Kerry’s letter to Zarif assured that the U.S. would “adhere to the full measure of our commitments.” As for changes to the visa program, Kerry floated several alternative options for easing any impact on Iran – including waiving the new requirements.

“To this end, we have a number of potential tools available to us, including multiple entry ten-year business visas, programs for expediting business visas, and the waiver authority provided under the new legislation,” he wrote.

The legislation indeed includes a provision allowing the Homeland Security secretary to waive the requirements if the secretary determines this “is in the law enforcement or national security interests of the United States.”

But that is not what Congress intended in this provision. “Contrary to what the Secretary of State seems to be saying to Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, it was not and has never been Congress’s intent to allow the Administration to grant a blanket waiver to travelers from Iran in order to facilitate the implementation of the Iran deal,” House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said in a statement.

McCarthy said the point of the legislation was to strengthen security and “keep the American people safe from terrorism and from foreign travelers who potentially pose a threat to our homeland.”

He also points out that Iran has flagrantly violated certain provisos.

“Instead of undermining Congressional intent regarding the visa waiver program, the White House should instead focus on Iran’s repeated violations of the U.N. Security Council’s bans on missile tests,” McCarthy said.

“Iran’s unwillingness to follow these international agreements should be a red flag that the Iran nuclear deal isn’t worth the paper it is written on.”

The Kerry letter initially was obtained and published by the National Iranian American Council. The State Department confirmed the document’s authenticity on Monday.

Las Vegas Car Ramming It has been revealed that Lakeisha

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 24, 2015

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N. Holloway, the woman responsible for the Las Vegas car rampage this week, was homeless and living out of her car. Holloway, 24, and her 3-yearold daughter had supposedly been living in the vehicle for about a week.

On Monday, Holloway was charged in the rampage that killed one and wounded at least 35 others on Sunday night. She is being charged with murder, first-degree child abuse or neglect and failing to stop at the scene of an accident. Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson said he anticipated also filing several counts of attempted murder. The charge of fleeing the scene is a felony and, as of October 1, is a non-probationable offense.

Officials reported that the suspect appeared “stoic” when cops encountered her soon after the 1996 Oldsmobile sedan she was driving plowed into a crowd on the Las Vegas Strip

multiple times. Her child was in the backseat.

“She didn’t appear to be distressed due to her actions,” Sheriff Joe Lombardo related.

“The act is going to be very hard to explain at face value,” said Lombardo, who reiterated that whatever the ultimate classification, cops believe the carnage was “an intentional act.” Authorities don’t believe it was terrorism, although they were not initially ruling anything out.

According to witnesses, the driver “went up and off these streets, two or possible three times,” Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Lt. Dan McGrath said. The attack occurred at around 6:40 p.m. local time and it is believed that the woman’s car appeared to be travelling about 30 to 40 mph.

The suspect then allegedly drove off before being apprehended outside the Tuscany Casino. After Holloway pulled into the casino lot, Lombardo said, she left her child in the car, approached a valet and told him “she ran over some individuals on Las Vegas Boulevard.”

At the time of the incident Holloway did not demonstrate signs of being under the influence of alcohol, Lombardo said, though a police ex-

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pert believed she was under the influence of “some sort of stimulant.”

Results of a blood test are pending.

The woman who was tragically killed in this incident was Jessica Valenzuela, 32, according to Clark County Coroner John Fudenberg.

Valenzuela, of Buckeye, Arizona, was visiting the city with her husband.

When a Dollar is Worth More than a Dollar

Like my dollar? Well, it’s not just any dollar – it’s a “fancy” dollar.

Currency collectors are always on the lookout for money that’s worth more than just its popular value.

They spend time looking at the serial numbers on bills and have their favorites.

For example, low serial numbers—think 00000001—are a favorite among the group and have some of the loftiest values, sometimes in the thousands if the condition is topnotch. But fans of fancy notes also look for all sorts of other configurations and curiosities that go by a variety of names. There are radars, like 12344321, where the digits read the same both ways as with a palindrome; repeaters such as 20152015, in which the numbers repeat in some fashion; solids like 77777777, which speaks for itself; and ladders like 12345678 where the digits ascend, or descend as the case may be, in order.

These notaphilists—as currency collectors are broadly known—have largely remained on the fringe, buying and selling among themselves via fan forums on the Web and scoping their wallets for finds. But the hobby has had something of a star turn over the past year, with attention from the likes of late-night TV host Stephen Colbert stirring up interest from treasure-seekers looking to cash in on

their cash.

Don’t knock this serious pastime.

“I thought the Colbert bit was funny, even though it’s always a little painful to have people mock your hobby,” says Dave Undis, a longtime fancy-serial enthusiast who has written about the hobby and runs CoolSerialNumbers.com, a website dedicated to fancy bank notes.

“People see stuff like that and they start looking in their wallets and start thinking they’re going to get rich,” says the 61-year-old Undis, a retired insurance executive in Nashville, Tenn. “If you go in as an investment, it’s probably a mistake.”

To be sure, some notes can command significant premiums. Low serial numbers often carry the best values for their popularity. One example: A seller on eBay recently was asking $114.99 for a professionally graded $1 bill with the serial number 00000046. Make sure to check your wallets.

But it’s not all quick-rich schemes.

Most fancy bills trade only slightly above face value. And many of the most sought-after by collectors really have only sentimental or personal value, like their child’s birthday or an anniversary (04072004, say, for April 7, 2004); ZIP Codes (00090210, where the final five digits in this instance represent the postal designation for Beverly Hills, Calif.); tombstones (19182014, here representing the birth and death years of a long life as they might appear on a gravestone); and others known by such names as Fibonaccis after the mathematical sequence and flippers whose digits look the same right-side up or upside down.

One well-known fan in this universe of collectors, Jim Futrell, for a long time focused on bills featuring the number 27 in some fashion—for example, 27000027. “The number 27 is pretty special in my family,” he says. “Not only is it my birthday, but my mom’s, grandfather’s and at least 10 others that I know of.”

Mr. Futrell, a 35-year-old office manager in Washington, D.C., got started in the hobby through a fancy-note message board on the currency-tracking site Where’s George, where he offered an old-style $20 bill and received $22 for it. “I was hooked from there,” he says.

He became such an avid collector that at one point he used to go to banks and withdraw $20,000 in $2 notes every week to sift for additions to his collection, before redepositing

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 24, 2015

the remainder. Mr. Futrell eventually got bored with 27s and moved on to other sorts of notes.

Uncle Sam is always on the lookout to make some money too. The Bureau of Engraving and Printing sets aside some choice notes—none with serial numbers below 100, however— from its print runs for sale to collectors. One series sold by the bureau included “one $10 note from each of the 12 Federal Reserve Banks with the lowest serial numbers available.” The set went for $359.40.

The bureau also pitches its Lucky Money collection. One example is the bureau’s $1 Fortune Notes, where “each uncirculated note has a serial number beginning with ‘8888’ enclosed in an attractive folder festively adorned with Chinese art and symbolism.” It aims to capitalize on the 8 being seen as a lucky number in Chinese culture. A single $1 bill in this series goes for $5.95, plus shipping and handling, though customers who buy in bulk can get volume discounts of up to $2 per note for 1,000 or more.

What’s in your wallet?

England Smiles Wide

It’s a longstanding stereotype that people from England don’t have the best teeth. But that belief has been busted by a light-hearted study that revealed that U.S. citizens do not have better oral health than English people.

“Contrary to popular belief, our study showed that the oral health of U.S. citizens is not better than the English,” wrote the authors of the study called “Austin Powers bites back.”

The study found that on average out of the thousands of men and women aged 25 and over who were surveyed, U.S. citizens had slightly more missing teeth than English people – 7.31 compared to 6.97.

The team of researchers from University College London, the National University of Colombia and the Harvard School of Public Health said the misleading view “dates back at least 100 years, with toothpaste adverts extolling the virtues of American smiles.”

It found greater inequality in dental health in the United States, with rich people likely to have good teeth but poorer people much worse off, perhaps due to different access to health services.

“Those in the lowest socioeconomic position levels tended to be better off in England,” the study found. In Britain, dental care is largely provided through the publicly-funded National Health Service, unlike in the U.S. where dental insurance predominates.

Obviously, the study has Englishmen gloating. “Smile! American teeth worse than ours” was the headline in The Times, while the Independent chose, “In the teeth of American bias, our dentistry wins out.”

“Experts claim Yanks are wrong to mock us for having wonky or missing gnashers,” wrote The Sun. Published in the British Medical Journal, the study examined the dental data from the Adult Dental Health Survey 2009 for England, and the U.S. National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2005-08.

Factors analyzed were the number of teeth each person was missing, how people rated their own oral health, and the impact of oral health on daily life.

America, keep smiling – and keep brushing.

Trump Says He’s Undeserving of “Lie of Year” Award Donald Trump is not one to shy away from awards. In fact, sometimes it seems as if he gives himself awards without even being nominated. This accolade, though, is one he felt –in all honesty – he had to reject.

During an interview with ABC, he said that he does not deserve the “Lie

of the Year” award by the fact-checking site Politifact.

“Politifact is a group that if I said something right down the middle they are always going to be negative,” he told ABC News’ Jon Karl after taking the stage at a rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan. “They are leaning in a certain direction, and no matter what you do with them, I mean they are a very dishonest group in my opinion.”

In the bestowing of their ignominious award, Politifact included Trump’s allegations that thousands of Muslims in New Jersey celebrated the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. They also said that of the 77 statements they fact-checked, 76 rated “mostly false,” “false” or “pants on

41

fire.”

“Donald Trump doesn’t let facts slow him down,” Politifact wrote.

“Bending the truth or being unhampered by accuracy is a strategy he has followed for years.”

The interview with Trump happened after the 2016 frontrunner battled with Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton over her contention that ISIS was using his disparaging statements about Muslims as a recruiting tool.

“He is becoming ISIS’s best recruiter. They are going to people showing videos of Donald Trump insulting Islam and Muslims in order to recruit more radical jihadists,” Clinton said during Saturday’s Democratic debate on ABC News.

During his speech, Trump again repeated his demanded for Clinton to apologize for her accusations during Saturday’s debate.

“She’s terrible. ‘Donald Trump is on video and ISIS is using him for the video to recruit.’ And it turned out to be a lie,” he said. “She’s a liar. No, it turned out to be a lie.” “[ISIS members] are using lots of things I imagine to recruit but they didn’t use me on a video and I am not sure they used me at all frankly,” he said.

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DECEMBER 24, 2015 | The Jewish Home

It’s nice to know that there are some things – namely certain videos and awards – that the bombastic politician shies away from.

Air in a Can

Last week, we wrote about a restaurant in China that was charging patrons for clean air. The pollution and smog is so bad in China, it’s getting hard to breathe. But don’t worry, Troy Paquette and Moses Lam are the answers to your breathing problems.

The duo sold sealed plastic bags of air on eBay (the first for 99 cents, the second for $168 after a bidding war), and have started Vitality Air in 2014.

Based in Edmonton, Vitality Air claims to fill cans with the purest air found in the Rockies and Lake Louise in Banff. Their process, “a bit of a trade secret,” Paquette told Vice, involves filling “massive cans through clean compression, locking in the pure air without any contamination.” Then, back at their facility, they fill canisters “to the brim.”

A can of Vitality Air contains about 150 sprays. A single can goes for $14 (before shipping), while a double pack can go for as much as $43. It’s no bargain. According to the Telegraph, one can is “about 50 times more expensive than a bottle of mineral water in China.”

Vitality Air’s China sales representative tells the Telegraph that most customers are affluent women “who buy [cans] for their families or give [them] away as gifts.” Night clubs and senior homes are also buying in.

The company’s first shipment of 500 bottles sold out in less than a week and 4,000 more are on their way, according to Lam. Enthusiasm is palpable on the company’s customer testimonial page: “IT TASTE LIKE AIR VERY GOOD THANK U,” says an eloquent reviewer by the name of “Xi.” The only listed U.S. vendor of the air product is Brown Dog Distributors in Jacksonville, Florida. Owner Teresa Davis says she reached out to Vitality after struggling with the elevation on a trip Springboat Valley, Colorado.

Feeling better after taking hits from a $15 can of oxygen she bought at a

convenience store, Davis is a believer.

Since then, she has sold 60 cans in two months and reaches out to exercise studios in hopes of reaching the coveted healthy-and-affluent demographic.

Lam and Paquette’s venture into the business of selling air isn’t totally new to China. Liang Kegang, an artist in Beijing, sold a glass jar of air from southern France last year for nearly $800.

The eccentric millionaire Chen Guangbiao sold cans of air from less-polluted parts of China in 2013 for $0.80 each.

With no signs of China solving its unhealthy air problem, more absurd solutions are sure to arrive on the market.

Can’t wait to see what’s in the air.

The Cat Candidate

Tired of the dog-eat-dog politics in their Russian city, the residents of Barnaul say they want a cat to be their next mayor.

The Siberian city of 650,000 people, which lies 2,900 kilometers (1,800 miles) east of Moscow, is to get a new mayor next week when a commission comprising the city council and the regional governor choose from among six candidates.

But none of the six appear to spark much affection among Barnaul’s residents. An informal online poll asking residents to express their preferences among the six and a Siamese cat named Barsik showed the feline nabbing more than 90 percent of the vote.

Barsik has attracted much amused attention in the Russian news media.

Still, some local politicians understand there’s a more serious message coming from the people of Barnaul, which like many Russian cities has been riddled with alleged corruption.

“Through the image of Barsik the cat, our people are sending definite wishes to the future head of Barnaul,” says regional Gov. Alexander Karlin.

“The conclusion has been made that there’s absolutely no trust among voters for any of the candidates,” said local Communist Party official, Ivan Karpov.

They all look like the cat that ate the canary.

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 24, 2015

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DECEMBER 24, 2015 | The Jewish Home

Around the

Community

Pugatch Realty Corp., together with the U.S. Marines, collected for Toys For Tots this year. The toys were picked up on December 17 at Pugatch Realty Corp. at 950 Broadway in Woodmere, NY. We give back to the community and hope to double up for next year.

At the Lawrence Village holiday party at the Lawrence Country Club last week L-R: Village Trustee Michael Fragin, Councilman Bruce Blakeman, Councilman Anthony Santino, Lawrence Mayor Martin Oliner, Lawrence Deputy Mayor Shimon Felder, Legislator Howard Kopel

Director of PTACH Addresses Principals’ Conference

T

his past November, Dr. Judah Weller, Director of PTACH, was one of the featured presenters at a professional development training for Torah Umesorah’s Chevras Yesud Ma’aloh, the National Fellowship for Principals of Boys Schools, in Stamford, CT. The Fellowship is composed of experienced administrators who study together for two years and each represent a different yeshiva from all over North America. The Fellows receive 32 days of advanced group training and 24 hours of individualized mentoring.

Dr. Weller’s topic was: “Understanding and Addressing Learning Differences.”

Dr. Weller opened the presentation by highlighting the importance of having a basic understanding of the eight pathways of learning and being able to understand each child through

a “neurodevelopmental lens.” Having this basic knowledge of the learning process is the key for educators in recognizing their students’ strengths and weaknesses which leads to more efficient management of students’ needs. He then posed a question to the principals, asking them if any of their students struggle with attention, memory, language or cognition issues. The principals acknowledged that they indeed have many such students with these difficulties, underscoring the need for educators to have this basic knowledge of the learning process. For example, if a student is struggling with attentional issues and the teacher can pinpoint the specific component of attention as the root of the issue, they are better able to deal with the problem appropriately.

Dr. Weller described many different methods and techniques for recogniz-

ing the core impediments that would hinder a child’s development.

Dr. Weller emphasized that regardless of how effective a teacher may be when it comes to giving over academic skills, having a child who is emotionally prepared to learn is crucial. Children with higher emotional intelligence are better prepared to manage their emotional lives so that they can focus, learn and do their best in school. This past spring PTACH hosted a well-attended training on the topic of E.IQ. (emotional intelligence) with presenters from the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence.

This principals’ group was introduced to the R.U.L.E.R. method, which is an acronym that stands for Recognizing, Understanding, Labeling, Expressing and Regulating emotions, a scientifically created method to help develop E.IQ. The principals received hand-

outs such as the “Mood Meter” which is one of key components of developing E.Q. In closing, Dr. Weller told the group that in today’s world of diverse learners, educators need to come to the classroom with a basic understanding of how children learn based on the latest research in education.

Dr. Weller is PTACH’s National Director. For further information or to come visit one of PTACH’s center-based model programs located at Bais Yaakov D’Rav Meir Elementary, Yeshiva University High Schools, Yeshiva Rabbi Chaim Berlin Elementary and High School, please call 718-854-8600 x 102

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 24, 2015

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DECEMBER 24, 2015 | The Jewish Home

Around the Community

This Shabbos: Opening the Discussion Together

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here are few instances in halacha where one is obligated to override other mitzvos in the Torah in order to keep one mitzvah. Two such instances are pikuach nefesh, when a life is threatened, and mes mitzvah, when a fellow Jew may not be given the respect that Jewish burial provides.

The Torah explains the reasoning for the value of life, when prohibiting the taking of another’s life, by saying, “Ki b’tzelem Elokim osah es ha’adom,” man was created in the image of Hashem.

The same reasoning is used when the Torah mandates the respect given to the body after death, as the Torah says in Ki Saitzai, “Ki killas Elokim talui,” the image of Hashem would be defiled if a body is not buried immediately.

The common thread connecting these two mitzvos is the recognition of and the prominence given to each and every individual, as every person represents a tzelem Elokim.

Many people do not fully understand the modern-day practical applications of these concepts. Pi-

kuach nefesh today involves making the proper medical decisions to ensure that one’s life is prolonged. Mes mitzvah is no longer a body found in the field that needs to be buried, but rather someone in good health making a choice to be cremated instead of choosing traditional Jewish burial.

This Shabbos Parshas Vayechi (12/26/15) is the Shabbos designated

by TEAM, the Traditional End-of-Life Awareness Movement, to generate awareness about the inherent sanctity of life, the significance of making appropriate end-of-life decisions and

the importance of traditional Jewish Burial.

In our world, the medical ethic defines life by its quality. Hospitals and medical institutions frequently push patients to pull the plug and minimize medical procedures, ending their lives prematurely.

There is a widespread lack of knowledge and awareness about the importance of every moment of life, the Torah view on the afterlife, and the requirements of kevurah k’halacha. Therefore, people within our community, and certainly many of our relatives, acquaintances and co-workers, make end-of-life choices that are contrary to Torah values.

We have an overriding obligation to educate our community. It’s time we open the conversation.

With the involvement of over 250 rabbis and communities in more than 130 communities, TEAM Shabbos hopes to engender awareness of the meaning of these issues, the severity of the current situation and the steps we can take to bring about change.

Utilizing the teachable moment of Parshas Vayechi, which covers the topics of Yaakov Avinu’s illness and direction to his children, his request for chessed shel emes and his arrangement for burial, TEAM will encourage people to consider and deal with these infrequently discussed issues.

“Preparing people to make proper end-of-life medical decisions and educating klal Yisroel about kevurah k’halacha are very important causes,” says Rabbi Shmuel Fuerst of Chicago, Illinois. “I encourage every Rav to join Rabbi Zohn and NASCK in this TEAM Shabbos movement.”

“TEAM Shabbos is a very important initiative, and I encourage all rabbanim to join and create a national awareness about these topics,” says Rabbi Moshe Heinemann of Baltimore, Maryland.

Interestingly, the parshios in the Torah that mention the topic of death are called Vayechi and Chayei Sarah, which both have the noun “life” at their roots. Because death is not the end, it’s the transition to eternal life.

The Torah’s perspective on endof-life matters is not easy to talk about.

TEAM is looking to change that now.

If your shul has not yet signed up to join the TEAM, visit teamshabbos.org today.

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 24, 2015

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B AY S WAT E R AGUDATH ISRAEL OF BAYSWATER K’HAL CHESED V’EMES YESHIVA ZICHRON ARYEH YOUNG ISRAEL OF WAVECREST & BAYSWATER C E DA R H U R ST AGUDATH ISRAEL OF THE FIVE TOWNS KEHILLAS AHAVAS YISRAEL KEHILAS BAIS YISROEL FA R RO C K AWAY AGUDATH ISRAEL OF WEST LAWRENCE BAIS MEDRASH ATERES YISROEL CONG. KNESETH ISRAEL - THE WHITE SHUL KEHILLAS BEIS YISROEL KEHILLAS YAKOV - SULITZA K’HAL NESIV HATORAH KHAL ZICHRON MOSHE DOV YESHIVA ATERES SHIMON YOUNG ISRAEL OF FAR ROCKAWAY I N WO O D BEIS TEFILA L AW R E N C E AGUDAS ACHIM BEIS MEDRASH HEICHAL DOVID BEIS MEDRASH OF HARBORVIEW BEIS MEDRASH OF LAWRENCE BOSTONER BEIS MEDRASH CONGREGATION BAIS AVROHOM ZEV SHAARAY TEFILAH WO O D M E R E BEIS HAMEDRASH ISHEI YISROEL BAIS MEDRASH OF WOODMERE N O RT H WO O D M E R E BEIS HAKNESSES OF NORTH WOODMERE KEHILLAS BNEI HAYESHIVOS

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DECEMBER 24, 2015 | The Jewish Home

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 24, 2015

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DECEMBER 24, 2015 | The Jewish Home

Around the Community

OHEL Lights up the Lives of its Children and Families During Chanukah

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hanukah is a special time for many of us, and these eight unique days of simcha are especially a time when many OHEL Children’s Home & Family Services residences and individuals feel the joy and warmth of the holiday.

As in previous years, OHEL’s Volunteer department ran a very successful Annual Chanukah Gift Drive and OHEL thanks the many hundreds of schools, shuls, organizations and families who contributed thousands of gifts to children and families at OHEL. On the second night of Chanukah, OHEL hosted its annual Chanukah party. Every year OHEL staff, volunteers, and board members all gather to celebrate Chanukah together with hundreds of OHEL individuals. The OHEL Chanukah Party, which saw over 800 people in attendance, was again graciously sponsored by Sammy and Lea Trencher. Smiles warmed hearts, and together with entertainers including face painters, balloon sculptures and a magician, attendees

enjoyed dancing, food, and sufganiyot sponsored by Jerry Weisman of OMNI Managed Health.

The highlight of the evening was a fabulous performance by the Shloime Dachs Orchestra which had the whole room up on their feet and dancing.

There were gifts and giveaways on every table, and nobody left the party emptyhanded!

OHEL also held a special Chanukah Foster Party for OHEL foster parents and children in foster care. It provided a much appreciated opportunity for parents, families, and children in similar situations to enjoy a fun night of food, dancing, doughnuts, complete with a fun and interactive magic show.

To top off the evening, each foster child received a present to take home.

Shulamis Marcus, a Homefinding Associate for OHEL Foster Care, conveyed that a highlight of the evening was when all the fathers got together for a game of Simon Says. “It was really a moving moment to see all of the children watching their fathers and foster fathers participate.”

The Chanukah festivities continued throughout the week, with Day Habilitation Chanukah parties in North

Shore Hebrew Academy High School, Yeshiva of Central Queens (YCQ), Westchester Day School and Torah Academy of Bergen County (TABC).

For over 46 years, OHEL has provided help to individuals with developmental and psychiatric illness, to children abused and neglected, and to families with nowhere else to turn.

All of these individuals are part of the OHEL family, and without OHEL they would have nowhere to turn and no place to call home. They all deserve simcha and the ability to celebrate with our community members.

Since 1969, OHEL Children’s Home and Family Services has served as a dependable haven of individual and family support, helping people of all ages effectively manage disability, surmount everyday challenges, heal from trauma, and manage with strength and dignity during times of crisis.

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 24, 2015

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DECEMBER 24, 2015 | The Jewish Home

Around the Community

Assemblyman Todd Kaminsky Visits Gesher

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he Gesher Early Childhood Center was proud to host Assemblyman Todd Kaminsky earlier this week. Mr. Kaminsky had been hearing about the unique program that Gesher offers the community and wanted a chance to see it firsthand.

Consistent with his tireless efforts to bring innovations and improvements to his district, Mr. Kaminsky noted the exceptional model of education that Gesher employs. He noted the community benefit of having more individualized programming and options.

The focus on community and cooperative planning was a common theme in the classrooms at Gesher as well. As the children have wrapped up learning about Yosef and his brothers the lessons learned were brought to life.

Group activities lend themselves to many educational opportunities.

Facial expression was one of the follow up focus points in the Blue Room.

As part of the “Incredible Flexible You” curriculum the class learned about reading their friends’ emotions based on their facial reactions. This skill was very important to Yosef in all of his dealings with his brothers.

In the Yellow class group dramatic play was one of the tools used to absorb the parsha ideals in a multi-sensory and healthy social way. Groups of children were given the chance to prepare a parsha story puppet show.

They practiced together and performed for their friends. In this way the storyline and the principles were combined to effectively reinforce the curriculum.

Probably the most exciting collective activity is the upcoming Siddur Play of the First Grade. The children are so excited and are working together to prepare a smooth performance. Receiving their siddurim now is so appropriate as the class has been mastering their kriyah and their letter writing. While the Morahs have been focusing on encoding and decoding skills, the children are simply enjoying using their newly learned abilities.

With the onset of the fast of Asara B’Teves the children were exposed to the negative effects that come from not getting along. The destruction of the Beis Hamikdash that resulted from unwarranted hatred is a constant reminder to work together and see positive traits in one another.

HANC Student Council Initiatives

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he members of the Student Council at HANC’s Samuel & Elizabeth Bass Golding Elementary School in West Hempstead were very excited to get down to business!

The students launched the school year with Waffle Wednesday and a West Hempstead Food Bank Drive.

The inaugural Waffle Wednesday was a yummy success, with over 150 waffles sold! Students debated how they liked their waffles best – plain, with maple syrup or with chocolate sauce – but they all agreed it was a delicious breakfast treat. The students can’t wait for the next Waffle Wednesday!

Learn & Live

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t this week’s Learn & Live Program, R’ Avrohom Sebrow was back to present the melacha of Dush. We weren’t sure how but we all knew that R’ Sebrow would tie in fire somehow and, yes, right in the beginning he squeezed olives and made oil and lit a wick for his first part of Dush. R’ Sebrow continued

with other Dush-related stuff, e.g. grapes, olives and more.

At the end of the presentation, five boys were called up to cut lemons and R’ Sebrow showed all the boys how to make lemonade in a permissible way for Shabbos. While the lemons were being cut all the boys got a chance to squeeze lemons on sugar and made lemonade

the permissible way to make it on Shabbos.

Of course, the night ended with R’ Sebrow’s famous fire shooting out of the bottle (somehow again tied in to Dush). For more info about Learn & Live, email learnandlivefr@gmail.com.

The West Hempstead Food Drive was also a wonderful success. Student Council members spearheaded the food drive, which brought in more than a trunk load of food and other non-perishable items!

Rabbi Michael Merrill, faculty advisor for the Student Council, explained, “The goal of the Student Council is to teach the students a sense of responsibility and about the joy found in giving back to your school community and greater Jewish community.” The Student Council will continue to run events throughout the year that drive home the message about participating as a member of the school and Jewish community.

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 24, 2015

Kehilas Aish Kodesh is honored to welcome

‫כ״ק אדמו״ר הרה״ק מקאלוב שליט״א‬

The Kalever Rebbe shlita World-renowned for his advice and brachos.

The Rebbe’s holy life-mission overrides his current physical limitations, and will be sharing his valuable time seeing individuals and families at our Shul

Sunday, December 27th 6:00 pm - 10:00 pm

For information please call 917-407-0236 (No appointments necessary) Kehilas Aish Kodesh 894 Woodmere Place Woodmere, NY 11598

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DECEMBER 24, 2015 | The Jewish Home

Around the Community

YOSS Rebbeim Open their Homes

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t Yeshiva of South Shore the connection between the Rebbeim and talmidim goes beyond the classroom. This Chanukah, each Rebbe in the Mechina division hosted a special mesiba for their boys at their home. Â We would like to thank the Breuer, Broder, Kunstler, Sussman and Taubenfeld families who also helped out by hosting for

Rebbeim who do not live locally. Â The mesibos included ruach-filled singing, games and divrei Torah making it a memorable event for all, and were capped off by an uplifting and achdus-filled Melave Malka for the Mechina rebbeim at the home of the Menahel HaMechina, Rabbi Rafi Draiman.

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 24, 2015

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DECEMBER 24, 2015 | The Jewish Home

Around the Community

Assemblyman Kaminsky Visits Israel on Solidarity Mission

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ssemblyman Todd Kaminsky visited Israel from December 14-20 on a solidarity mission coordinated by the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York.

Kaminsky was part of a delegation of New York state legislators, including Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, who attended the mission to show their support for Israel.

“Israel is a steadfast and integral ally of the United States and it is incumbent upon us to do all we can to defend and protect the Jewish homeland,” said Assemblyman Kaminsky.

“It was a privilege to visit Israel and speak to government and military officials as well as residents to learn about their daily lives and the fight against terrorism. I am determined to do all I can to stand up for Israel and continue to lead the fight to support and defend the Jewish state.”

The delegation traveled around the country, from the Golan Heights region near the Syrian border down

to the Western Negev desert by the Israeli-Gaza border. The assemblyman met with the courageous res-

idents of southern Israel who have endured thousands of rocket attacks in recent years. In the region, streets are lined with bomb shelters, as residents have less than 10 seconds to

place to protect citizens from terrorists who seek the destruction of the Jewish state and its inhabitants. The assemblyman visited a Beit HaChayal — a hostel for lone soldiers serving the country — and spoke with soldiers about their experiences protecting Israel. “The bravery and resilience of the residents of Israel in the face of constant terror is unbelievable,” said Kaminsky. “I am fully committed to doing all I can to protect these fortitudinous people from their enemies who seek their destruction.”

The group heard from Professor Reuven Hazan, the chair of the political science department at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, on the Israeli political system as well as journalist Reuven Hazan, the founding editor of The Times of Israel. Kaminsky met with three young CEOs in the Tel-Aviv the area remain resilient and in good Stock Exchange about the vibrant spirits as they go about their daily field of high-tech startups in Israel business. Assemblyman Kaminsky and spoke with Israeli elected officials met with Adele Raemer, a teacher and about the partnership and shared inlocal resident of Kibbutz Nirim, who terests of New York State and Israel. spoke about her experiences during “Bound by a steadfast commitment to Operation Protective Edge in 2014 democracy, Israel and New York are as well as daily life near the border. partners in government, security and In fact, Kaminsky was informed that trade, and a strong, flourishing econrockets were targeted at the area just omy between the two is essential to a few hours after the delegation left. our collective future as a nation and At his visit to the Western Wall, the as a people.”

Assemblyman Kaminsky is a assemblyman prayed for the wellbeing of the area’s residents in the face staunch supporter of Israel, recently co-sponsoring a resolution condemnof terrorism.

Assemblyman Kaminsky was ing the Boycott, Divestment and shown the communities in which ter- Sanctions (BDS) movement and reafror tunnels, built by Hamas terror- firming New York State’s support for ists, are used in attempts to infiltrate Israel. Kaminsky also co-sponsored Israel and attack civilians. Kaminsky legislation in June to prohibit indiwas also briefed by military officials viduals and businesses who boycott on the current situation and various Israel from doing business with New security and border protections in York State. run for safety when a siren alerting to incoming rocket fire sounds. Despite the constant terror, civilians in

It seems that Israel can’t catch a break See Rabbi Naphtali Hoff on page 86

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 24, 2015

Around the Community

Commemorating Ezra Schwartz’s Shloshim

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tudents at DRS were moved and inspired by a program commemorating Ezra Schwartz’s shloshim, this past Monday. More than 40 yeshiva high schools across North America participated in the program, which was held through videochat. Ezra Schwartz Hy”d, an 18-year-old studying in Israel for the year was murdered by terrorists a month ago while performing a chessed mission, as he delivered food to Israeli soldiers.

In DRS, a yeshiva-wide siyum on Tanach was first held, as sophomore Eitan Carroll recited that last few pesukim of Divrei Hayamim. Many students took upon themselves to learn a portion of Tanach in Ezra’s memory, as Ezra had taken upon himself to complete Tanach shortly before his tragic death. Then, 10th Grade Rebbe, Rabbi Ephraim Polakoff, addressed the yeshiva on the legacy Ezra left behind.

DRS Menahel Rabbi Yisroel Kaminetsky emceed the national program, which was live-streamed on the internet and watched across the globe. Following Rabbi Kaminetsky’s opening remarks, Rabbi Gotch Yudin, the rosh yeshiva of Yeshiva Ashreinu where Ezra was learning, spoke

about a tzaddik’s legacy and how an individual who dies al kiddush Hashem never truly dies, as their spirit lives on eternally. Representatives from yeshiva high schools across the United States, including Ida Crown Yeshiva in Chicago, YULA in Los Angeles, and the Yeshiva High School in Boca Raton, each read a Mishna from each portion of Mishnayos to complete Shas in Ezra’s memory.

Rebbetzin Chana Henkin, a noted educator who recently lost a son and daughter-in-law in a terrorist attack, spoke about what each and every one of us can do to further Ezra’s life and legacy and Rabbi Efrem Goldberg of the Boca Raton Synagogue spoke about living life to the fullest of one’s potential, just as Ezra did. Eitan Katz played songs in memory of Ezra, including “Acheinu,” as students across the continent swayed with arms around each other. Rabbi Dov Huff, a principal at the Maimonides School who shared a close relationship with Ezra, recited a Keil Malei Rachamim prayer in the slain teen’s memory.

The program concluded as Mrs. Ruth Schwartz, Ezra’s mother, thanked everyone for the constant, tremendous outpouring of support in the wake of this tragedy.

Pictured: Eitan Katz playing “Acheinu” as over 40 other yeshiva high schools around the country join together via livestream in unison

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DECEMBER 24, 2015 | The Jewish Home

Around the Community

Yeshiva Darchei Torah Dinner To Be Held January 10 A look at the honorees, Part 2 of 2: Mr. and Mrs. Alon and Chanie Goldberger, Parents of the Year lon and Chanie Goldberger, the proud parents of five children, including Meir, a sixth grade talmid at Yeshiva Darchei Torah, and Shimmy, a third grader, are truly extraordinary parents who go above and beyond the call of duty to help the Yeshiva grow and succeed.

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Alon, an attorney by profession, is the consummate klal person, as

he is eager to help any institution or individual in Klal Yisrael that needs his help. Since 2008 he has been an active member of the Yeshiva’s executive board, giving generously of his time, advice and expertise to ensure the Yeshiva’s financial stability.

The Yeshiva is blessed with an active board and Alon is a critical part of its success.

Chanie has been a driving force on the presidium of the Women’s League for the last six years, which has spearheaded what can only be described as a revolution – taking an already exemplary organization on a quantum leap. The Women’s League plays a vital role in augmenting and helping to finance many of the Yeshiva’s educational programs and is a headquarters of activism and chesed for Darchei’s mothers.

A glimpse at the list of Women’s League activities can be dizzying. From its annual “supperette,” an event for and by women that is well-attended and talked about for weeks afterward, to its pre-Chanuka

and pre-Purim rabbeim/teacher appreciation campaigns, to the regular shiurim for mothers delivered by the Rosh HaYeshiva in various community homes, to the special prizes and incentives for contests developed in conjunction with the Hanhala, the programs and initiatives are truly amazing and enhance the Darchei Torah chinuch experience in a tangible way.

The Goldbergers’ work for the tzibbur does not stop at the boundaries of Darchei’s campus. Whether it is their involvement in Bnos Bais Yaakov or Adopt-A-Kollel, hosting a parlor meeting for a national chesed organization, helping individuals in need, supporting the sacred work of Achiezer or helping countless local families recover after Hurricane Sandy, the Goldbergers are engaged in a myriad of areas – quietly, in a dignified manner, and with no expectation or desire for public acclaim. Yeshiva Darchei Torah is proud to have them as parents.

Rabbi and Mrs. Dovid and Dvorah Morgenstern Harbotzas Torah Award ne of the secret ingredients of Yeshiva Darchei Torah’s success is its ability to focus on each individual talmid in its care, even as the Yeshiva continues to grow. This is accomplished by the dedicated rabbeim, teachers and menahelim – three critical components that are encompassed by Rabbi and Mrs. Morgenstern.

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need and deserve. As a former rebbi himself, Rabbi Morgenstern viscerally understands the classroom environment, its joys and its challenges. With his superior organizational skills and his multifaceted experience he is able to provide each rebbi and talmid – and the parents – with a listening ear and on-target guidance and encouragement. The heartfelt care and concern that he brings to every interaction with a talmid is as palpable as it is genuine.

Beyond his principal duties of coordinating the curriculum and ensuring the smooth functioning of his division, Rabbi Morgenstern has introduced, perfected and implemented numerous programs over the last two decades to enhance the learning experience of the talmidim, from the annual Sukkah Fair to an array of projects that enhance the tefillah, halacha and parsha curricula.

Rabbi Morgenstern’s talents and passion have not gone unnoticed by the wider chinuch world. Seven years ago he was asked by Torah Umesorah to develop a number of trailblazing programs, including their recent initiative to train mashgichim for elementary schools.

Mrs. Dvorah Morgenstern, a creative mechaneches in her own right, is currently in her fifth year as a morah in the preschool. Her colleagues attest that she invests her whole heart into each child in her charge and will not rest until his needs – academic, social and emotional – are addressed.

She transmits not only fundamental skills and knowledge but a perceptible love for the Ribbono shel Olam to each talmid in her care. The Morgensterns have four children, including Aharon, a bachur in Beis Medrash Heichal Dovid.

The Mesivta Chaim Shlomo Class of 2001 – Celebrating 15 Years of Accomplishment eshiva Darchei Torah is proud to pay tribute to the third graduating class of Mesivta Chaim Shlomo, the Maurice and Edith Lowinger Mesivta High School, which was founded in 1995. Until that year the Yeshiva ended at the eighth grade. The establishment of the Mesivta – and subsequently, Beis Medrash Heichal Dovid – significantly

Y In his capacity as menahel of the Upper Elementary School, Rabbi Dovid Morgenstern oversees three grades – third, fourth and fifth – enabling him to give each talmid and rebbi the time and attention they

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 24, 2015

Top row, l-r: Yaakov Hack, Moshe Moussai, Peretz Strickman, Mayer Farajian, Yosef Scott, Yoel Meir Lerner, Mechael Cabessa, Shalom Rosen, Yisroel Salamon, Yitzchok Mark, Dovid Gerstel, Moshe Cherney, Yitzchok Kolodny, Yisroel Adler, Chaim Zev Aron, Yosef Bensoussan, Shloime Rubin, Yaakov Bier, Chaim Goldgrab and Ashi Lederer.

Second row, l-r: Menachem Pollack, Dovid Noson Stern, Mayer Simcha Rosenberg, Shaya Lloyd, Michael Mandel, Heshy Raskin, Chananya Schuss, Yigal Dinewitz, Moshe Mandel, Chayim Dovid Akerman, Akiva Krieser, Eliezer Alperin, Avi Burstein, Shua Statman, Baruch Pelcovitz, Avroham Zev Wunsch, Moshe Weiss, Yoel Halpern, Yekutiel Stern, Yitzchak Katzburg and Moshe Mordechai Herzog.

expanded the Yeshiva’s scope and impact in harbotzas Torah.

The parents and talmidim of the class of 2001 took a leap of faith in a barely-tested mesivta. Under the caring leadership of devoted rabbeim, teachers and Hanhala, those talmidim succeeded over the ensuing four years in developing not only their own learning skills, middos and hashkafa, but also the foundation of what has truly become one of the great yeshivos of North America.

Fifteen years after graduation and nearly two decades after they first entered the ninth grade, the members of the class live in diverse geographic locations, from Yerushalayim to Los Angeles, and excel in fields that run the gamut from chinuch to real estate to law. Many have settled in the Far Rockaway and Five Towns area and have children of their own in the Yeshiva. The common denominator shared by each member of the class is that he exhibits the Torah knowledge and values gained during his years at the Yeshiva and continues to be mekadesh shem Shamayim in all of his endeavors.

Alumni Leadership Awards ach one of the five alumni leadership awardees has impacted others in his own singular way.

Michael Mandel served for over a decade as a devoted instructor in the Yeshiva’s renowned Weiss Vocational Center, where he imparted his

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Third row, l-r: Shlomo Kozlov, Tzvi Sussman, Dovid Indig, Ari Geliebter, Tuli Einhorn, Rav Zevi Trenk, Rav Yaakov Bender, Rav Binyomin Cherney, Avi Singer, Aron Elchonen, Shalom Nadler, Avrohom Chaim Markovits and Meir Gros.

Bottom row, l-r: Moshe Harbater, Pinchas Rekant, Meir Sternberg, Ezra Friedman, Betzalel Leibowitz, Benzion Cohen, Chaim Mordechai Dienstag, Dovid Sichel, Moshe Dov Deutsch and Sholom Goldberg.

Not pictured: Moshe Bloom, Elie Bodner, Shelomo Sarway and Shimmy Sussman.

knowledge and considerable talents to a new generation of talmidim. The owner of a plumbing and contracting business, Michael volunteers for Hatzoloh and is ready to drop everything on a moment’s notice to help a Jew in need.

Moshe Mandel, a Harvard Law

helped him establish Yeshiva Ateres Shimon, which has developed into one of Far Rockaway’s most vibrant batei medrashim. A member of Hatzoloh, Menachem works in the real estate management field and owns a windows replacement company.

Tzvi Sussman was one of the

ber of the Yeshiva Darchei Torah Alumni Committee who cherishes his relationship with his rabbeim at the Yeshiva, where he learned for Mesivta and Beis Medrash. In Eretz Yisrael he learned at Yeshivas Brisk and continued learning in Kollel for eight years after his marriage. Shimmy works

Tzvi Sussman

Shimmy Sussman

Michael Mandel

School alumnus, is a litigation associate at O’Melveny & Myers LLP in New York. Sensing the need for a shul that would cater to a younger demographic in Lawrence, Moshe and a small group of friends established the Beis Medrash of Lawrence which has become a community hub of Torah and tefillah. He and his wife graciously hosted the inaugural barbecue fundraiser of the YDT Alumni Association in the summer of 2014.

Menachem Pollack, the father of two current YDT talmidim, is a loyal talmid of Rav Mordechai Groner and

founding members of Yeshiva Darchei Torah’s Alumni Committee in 2008, which has revolutionized the relationship between the alumni, the Yeshiva and each other – launching successful fundraising campaigns, reunions, shiurim and the nascent Alumni Business Network. A pioneer in the Inwood neighborhood of the Five Towns, Tzvi is the executive director of Joseph I. Sussman, P.C., a law firm based in the Five Towns. He is a proud YDT parent.

Shimmy Sussman, today a resident of Lakewood, is a devoted mem-

as an asset manager at the Kochin Group in New York City.

The other honorees at this year’s dinner are: Mr. and Mrs. Hillel and Shani Moerman, Guests of Honor; and there will be a memorial tribute to Harriet Keilson a”h and the naming of the Harriet Keilson Early Childhood Center.

For more information about the dinner, please call 718.868.2300 ext.

237, email dinner@darchei.org or visit www.darchei.org/dinner.

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Around the Community

Five Towns Marriage Initiative: A Home of Joy

R’

Chaim Kanievsky discusses the role fear should play in our lives. Our Sages teach praiseworthy is the person who is always afraid. R’ Chaim explains that this is referring to the fear we should feel regarding our possible lacking in spiritual matters. The Gemara in Brachos that references this quote is discussing a person who constantly reviews what they learns because they were afraid to forgot their Torah learning, and such an attitude would be appropriate. This does not mean that a person should constantly be afraid, however. He explains that there are people that

are afraid of sickness, war, traveling or confronting evil, and they can become so afraid to the point they won’t leave their own house.

R’ Chaim explains that fear stems from a place where there is a lack of emunah. If a person fully believed that nobody could raise a finger in this world unless it was decreed, he would realize that he has nothing to fear.

If something is decreed regarding his life, there would be nothing he could do to outsmart Hashem’s plan.

If it was not decreed a certain way, worrying and fear would make no difference anyway. The only fear we

need to have is fear of Hashem and the only worry we need to have is worry that we will come to sin or neglect to perform a mitzvah. R’ Chaim ends the discussion on fear by stating that Chazal praised those who were constantly happy and made others happy, saying that those kind of people are going to merit the World to Come.

When we build a home as a couple we can choose to make our home one of fear and anxiety, one of stress and worry, or one of joy and happiness. Let us choose the latter option and we should merit to have the kind of home that Chazal praise which is BS”D

& ARE PLEASED TO PRESENT

The Menuchah Principle in your Marriage and Family Life An Experiential Relationship Workshop for Married Couples

Presented by Shaya Ostrov, L.C.S.W.,

Author, The Menuchah Principle in Marriage and the Menuchah Principle in Life

Join us for a two session Couples Workshop that will transform your marriage and family and enhance your quality of life.

Two consecutive Sunday Evenings after Chanukah December 20th and 27th, 8:15-9:30 (after Maariv) at Kneseth Israel, The White Shul, 728 Empire Avenue, Far Rockaway, NY The two session couples workshop will feature:

Session I: December 20th - The Intimate link between Menuchah and Ahava Session 2: December 27th - From Dream to Reality: Cultivating and Growing Menuchah in your Marriage and Family Life - admission $20 per session per person or $30 per couple FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THIS PROGRAM CONTACT FIVE TOWNS MARRIAGE INITIATIVE AT:

516 430 5280 or email info@fivetmi.com

Five Towns Marriage Initiative provides:

Educational Programs/Weekly Shalom Bayis Newsletter Sun/Tues/Thur 9:30-11 Shalom Bayis Hotline/Referral Line (above #) Daily Free Shalom Bayis Inspiration line (above #) Referrals to local therapists & programs with financial assistance as needed

full of happy people that gladden all those around them. A marriage in such a home will be a marriage that has the capacity to contain shalom bayis and tranquility.

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.

Young Israel of Long Beach Annual Concert

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he Young Israel of Long Beach will be holding their annual Scholarship Concert on Motzaei Shabbos, January 9, 2016 at 8:00 PM. It will take place at the new Long Beach Hotel at 405 East Broadway, Long Beach, New York 11561.

The concert will feature the renowned musical entertainer Simcha Leiner who will entertain the audience with his vast repertoire of popular and Chassidic Jewish music.

The Young Israel of Long Beach is the cornerstone of the Orthodox Jewish Long Beach community and is led by Rabbi Dr. Chaim Wakslak.

Rabbi Wakslak and Joseph Langer, a past shul president, conceptualized this scholarship concert nineteen years ago. Since that time, the proceeds from this scholarship concert has allowed many local community youngsters to attend Yeshiva and/or overnight summer camps. Ten years

ago, following the untimely p’tirah of Robert Chiger z”l, a young vibrant member of the congregation, it was decided that his memory would be most appropriately perpetuated by re-naming this scholarship fund the “The Robert Chiger Scholarship Fund.” Bob had a unique connection to the youth of the synagogue and cared for their religious and character development. He was also a strong proponent of the YILB youth and sports programs. This concert is strongly supported each year by Beth Chiger and Neil Sambrowsky and Beth’s children, Michele & Eric Ehrenhaus, Andrea & Ariel Gantz, Elliot & Chana Chiger, and David & Rachel Chiger.

General Admission tickets can be purchased for $30. For further information or to order tickets, please call (646)285-5301, (516) 431-9715 or look at the website WWW.YILB. ORG.

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 24, 2015

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DECEMBER 24, 2015 | The Jewish Home

Around the Community

Bais Yaakov of Queens, CIJE’s Newest Bridge Builders

B

ais Yaakov of Queens’ eighth grade STEM class finished their unit on Civil Engineering and Public Works Projects by designing and building their own bridges.

After a unit on forces the class studied different aspects that civil engineers need to consider when planning and designing public projects. They learned the differences between static and dynamic loads and the structural forces that exist. They then learned about the different types of bridges and how to tell when a truss is stable.

After discovering that environment plays a role in how different

were fantastic! One of the bridges held more than 33 pounds!

The STEM components have generated such excitement into the eighth grade science curriculum at BYQ! Thanks to CIJE’s newest initiative for yeshiva students, the girls learned how engineers work as a team to plan and carry out a project. They anticipated problems and made design corrections as needed.

They learned to consider constraints and make tradeoffs in order to build a structure that meets or exceeds its specifications.

structures are designed, for example, hurricanes are considered in Florida while earthquakes play a role in California, the students, supervised by their teachers Mrs. Sharon Erlbaum and Mrs. Rina Korman, went on to plan, sketch and ultimately build their own bridges. They were given constraints as well as design specifications just like real engineers. The bridges were to support at least 5 pounds and had to be made using at most 200 Popsicle sticks and glue.

No other materials were allowed. The bridges were to be suspended at least a foot above the ground. Their results

DRS Students Awarded YU Honors Scholarships

T

he Department of College Guidance at DRS is pleased to announce that all three early decision applicants to Yeshiva University’s Honors Program were accepted and awarded distinguished early decision binding scholarships.

Brian Chernigoff and Elimelekh Perl were accepted to the Jay and Jeanie Schottenstein Honors Program at Yeshiva College, and Yitzchak Carroll was accepted to the Sy Syms Business & Entrepreneurial Leadership Honors Program. Collectively, the three were awarded $280,000 in merit-based scholarships.

At DRS, the coordinated efforts

amongst the college guidance office, the students, their parents, teachers,

and the administration provided a comprehensive forum to help each

Pictured: Rabbi Yisroel Kaminetsky, Yitzchak Carroll, Brian Chernigoff, Elimelekh Perl, Dr. Gerald Kirshenbaum

student achieve his goal. The college guidance office and DRS staff personally advocate on behalf of the students. Mrs. Madeline Rosenberg, director of college guidance, and Dr. Gerald Kirshenbaum, General Studies Principal, visits colleges in the spring and fall in order to establish relationships with admissions officers and sending the message of scholarship and achievement in the dual-curriculum high school. The relationship that DRS has forged with secular colleges and Yeshiva University is grounded in respect, affording its students strong consideration when they apply for admission.

To culminate their science unit of forces and motion, the fourth and fifth grades of Yeshiva of South Shore took a trip to United Skates of America in Massapequa. There, “Professor Mills” delivered an engaging lesson on the physics of skating, involving friction, force and mass. Using various types of skates, the boys experimented and took notes of their findings. Following the lesson the boys were treated to an hour of free skating on the rink.

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 24, 2015

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66

DECEMBER 24, 2015 | The Jewish Home

Around the Community

Yeshiva of South Shore 8th Grade Lightens up the Children at HASC

C

hanukah is the time when we celebrate our ways Highlighted with the oil that lasted eight days.

A miracle, a nes, Chanukah reminds us every year

That something as simple as oil, which burns so clear, Even though it’s obvious as anyone can discern Oil’s natural property, if you light it, it will burn.

But Hashem runs the show and nature is only real Because Hashem makes it that way, that how He makes us feel, To appreciate our nature and thank Hashem for our life, His gift

Waiting in Line

By Rabbi Zev Meir Friedman, Rambam Mesivta

W

e decided to go and the wait began. We called the travel agent and were put on hold. Finally, after some delay, we were able to confirm our tickets for a proposed trip to Israel. Arriving at Kennedy Airport on the date of our flight, we were met with a long line of people going to check in. This was followed by another queue as dozens of people waited to pass through security.

Boarding the plane was another test of patience as hundreds of people waited to embark and take their assigned seats. After takeoff, pangs of hunger were relieved only after food service worked its way slowly down the narrow aisles.

Once we landed at Ben-Gurion Airport, the wait began anew. After disembarking we joined hundreds of people and lined up around the luggage carousel to be reunited with our bags. We watched silently as hundreds of suitcases passed before our eyes, some more than once. We heard others mutter, “What takes so long?” “Mah haba’yah? (what is the problem?)”, or “Nu!!” indicating their sense of frustration at the prolonged wait. The collective mood was one of annoyance and was rife with complaints of seeming inefficiencies which had caused a delay for all travelers. The line for customs was yet another hurdle to deal with before we could be greeted by our relatives who had come to pick us up.

After all, we no longer live in a world of dial-up, having transitioned to broadband years ago. The one hour photo kiosk we used to run to is now defunct, giving way to instant photos on our phone. Our children and grandchildren can’t imagine when

YOSS takes the eighth grade to HASC, to give the special children a lift.

We sing and we dance and bring them simcha and joy Then we go to all the classes and give them each a toy.

What’s the most amazing part of this yearly excursion, Is to remember this is life, it’s not some diversion, So we learn a lesson as we go to HASC to entertain, It’s giving to others in life which is our biggest gain.

Bein adam la’chaveiro is not just with our closest friend, Teaching us we all are one – that’s the biggest dividend.

we speak about dropping off film to be developed and waiting three days to relive the “Kodak moment” we created. We have become addicted to instant gratification. If we are not addicted, we have come to expect it and when our expectations are frustrated, so are we…

While waiting in the crowd, I began to reflect on the muttering and seemingly endless rotation of the carousel laden with black suitcases adorned with red ribbons tied in different configurations. I pondered, where else had I seen this picture?

And then it struck me…

75 years ago our parents and grandparents experienced an eerily

similar scene, albeit under terribly different circumstances. They too waited, to board trains, not planes, on the way to a destination they did not choose. They too waited for food but it never came. They too hoped to be with their children and parents, who were soon “sent to the left.” They too waited to retrieve their luggage which was ripped away from them and pillaged. They too hoped to hear a familiar language upon arrival and heard the barking of dogs and Germans armed with machine guns. And so I realized how lucky we all were standing in a line in a Jewish country, hearing helpful instructions in Hebrew, seeing soldiers with guns there to protect us and waiting to be embraced by relatives who came to meet us.

Suddenly the frustration of waiting for luggage turned to mirth as I gazed upon the sign, Bruchim haBaim L’Yisrael: Welcome to Israel.

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 24, 2015

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Around the Community

Chanukah at YOSS

Y

OSS marked Chanukah with a myriad of special programs. In addition to every class of the Mechina Division enjoying evening Chanukah parties with their Rebbies, the Yeshiva held a mesiba for every grade.

The younger grades were treated to a Chanukah puppet show which

was enjoyed by all. The older boys had a special event including a lavish catered lunch where they had the zechus to meet and hear Divrei Torah by Rabbi Meir Braunstein, Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshiva Gedolah Ateres Yaakov. There were also seforim and prizes raffled off to lucky winners.

The final Chanukah program at

the Yeshiva was the Motzei Shabbos Learning Program - Chanukah Extravaganza. Over 300 boys and their fathers came to learn in the overflowing Beis Medrash. True, the light of the menorah was aglow on the south wall, but the light of Torah was aflame in every corner as the cacophony sounds of learning filled the air.

After learning, the boys were treated to a fabulous show starring “Ned the Magnificent,” sometimes known as “Cousin Nachum” of Uncle Moishy fame. To sweeten the program even more, each boy was given a jumbo menorah or dreidel cookie and chocolate gelt sponsored by Gourmet Glatt.

Rabbi Meir Braunstein, Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshiva Gedola Ateres Yaakov, addressing the boys

Boys singing and enjoying at the elementary Chanukah Mesiba

Fourth grader Avi Burns, the lucky winner, holding his new piano

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DECEMBER 24, 2015 | The Jewish Home

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DECEMBER 24, 2015 | The Jewish Home

Around the Community

Bnos Malka’s Not-So Secret Code

T

he term “coding” for some may conjure up images of intrigue and even espionage, while sixth grade students of Bnos Malka understand its current implication as the heart of almost everything we use.

Mrs. Batsheva Dalezman, the computers teacher at Bnos Malka Academy, demonstrated to the students the wide range of coding applications, from the obvious computer programs and apps to automobiles, microwaves and so much more. “Virtually everything we use today has a form of computer technology at its core. The students came to realize that coding provides the instructions for them to operate.”

After an introduction, the girls then worked independently on projects using the coding language, Java Script. Each skill was taught through a video tutorial with guided practice as a follow up. Their first project will be to create a self-portrait through the use of code.

Mrs. Shuly Zuckerman, the middle

school assistant principal, explained, “We have designed the program to allow the girls to advance at their own pace and to develop the skills in coding, which has become so essential in today’s society and workforce.” Mr. Jay Wengrow, the CEO of “Anyone Can Learn to Code,” takes it a step further, “Learning to code is not just valuable for its own sake. Computer programming contains elements of logical analysis and problem solving that can serve as a basis for a wide variety of other subjects. Developing these skills at a younger age can better equip our children with tools to tackle complex problems they’ll encounter in school and later in life.” Mrs. Dalezman shared, “I didn’t know what the reaction would be from the girls towards coding. But from the moment that I handed out the papers with their login information, their excitement was palpable. Students asked if they can start at home.”

Bnos Bais Yaakov: Learning Science In An Innovative Way

W

hat better place to mix, pour, and experiment than a fully-stocked, stateof-the-art science lab? This is where the BBY elementary school girls get the opportunity to learn about the scientific method and have fun at the same time. Rather than the chaos that might ensue in such a creatively enticing environment, the classes under the tutelage of Mrs. Sori Schwartz are orderly and purposeful.

Mrs. Schwartz dons a lab coat before her classes. That little touch reminds the girls that science is serious. Mrs. Schwartz also has a series of drills regarding lab rules and behaviors that ensure that the students remain focused on the task at hand.

Using scientific terminology, grades 1 – 5 have already discovered how plants germinate, the functions of each part of a plant, and the unique properties of various animals. The girls have learned that the scientific method involves observing, hypothesizing, experimenting, and conclud-

ing. Via this method, they have created controlled explosions and beautiful lava lamps, and they have even learned how to draw up a whole egg yolk into a container without breaking the yolk, as well as the principles behind these processes.

Throughout all the experimentation, Mrs. Schwartz keeps up her interesting and informative patter, thereby maintaining the children’s interest, decorum, and creativity. The success of her methods is quite obvious. The students can barely contain their enthusiasm as they wait patiently (sort of!) to enter the science lab to witness the niflaos haBorei at their fingertips. To extend the lesson, each student has her own folder in which she takes home a copy of that day’s experiment and some ways in which it can be replicated at home. This allows for further experimentation as well as dialogue with parents about the amazing things their daughter experienced that day in science lab.

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 24, 2015

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DECEMBER 24, 2015 | The Jewish Home

Around the Community

The HANC High School Community Unifies to Complete Tanach in Memory of Ezra Schwartz Hy”d

I

n an emotional and moving assembly on Monday morning, December 21, HANC students, fac-

ulty, and parents joined for a Siyum Tanach in memory of Ezra Schwartz Hy”d.

Rabbi Shlomo Adelman addressing the students

Ezra, a young man from Sharon, Massachusetts, was spending his gap year in Yeshiva in Eretz Yisroel when

Rabbi Eliyahu Alpert making the Siyum

he was brutally gunned down by terrorists.

The HANC Israel Action Committee led by Zehava Weiss immediately initiated a drive to fulfill Ezra’s unfinished dream of completing Tanach this year. The Siyum and commemoration was held on the morning of the shloshim of Ezra’s murder and was livestreamed to the HANC community. Rabbi Eliyhu Alpert recited a soul-stirring hadran and kaddish that left many in tears. Students Zehava Weiss and Eric Lenefsky delivered addresses as well. A siyum breakfast was sponsored by numerous parents and patrons.

HANC is proud to have undertaken this accomplishment. May we be zocheh to see the ultimate geulah and no longer know of tragedy and suffering.

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The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 24, 2015

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DECEMBER 24, 2015 | The Jewish Home

Around the Community

Central Ping Pong Star Wins US Nationals

Y

eshiva University High School For Girls freshman Estee Ackerman won the Under 2000 Tiered Super Round Robin at the 2015 US Nationals Table Tennis Championship held on December 14-19 at the Las Vegas Convention Center. In the final, she defeated fifteen year old Karthik Talluri from CA, 3-2 in games by scores of 11-13, 12-10, 11-8, 7-11, 11-5 in a close and tense match with many exciting points and rallies. There were 24 rating events and the U2000 was the fifth highest rated event which had 164 players entered. Ackerman, 14 of West Hempstead, has been undergoing intensive practice leading up to this tournament including traveling to Philadelphia over the Thanksgiving holiday to play the Butterfly teams event where she finished 11-3. This is the second gold medal for her as she also won the Under 1800 rating event back here in 2013. In the Under 2000 Junior Rating event which had 77 players, Ackerman got the silver medal, losing in the final 3-1 in games. She also snagged the bronze medal in the Junior Girls Team event with her partner Amanda Malek from CA. Her attempt to become the first Orthodox athlete to make a USA National Team came up a bit short, after winning her first match, she trailed 0-1 in games and 4-8 in game two before rallying to win in four games to make the final 12.Two groups of six players then played five round robin matches with the top two in each group advancing to the team. Ackerman finished 1-4 in group play – her only win coming against the overall #4 seed but finished in positions 9-12.

Ackerman was also a quarterfinalist in Women’s Doubles and made the round of 16 in Women Under the

age of 21. Overall, she had an outstanding final match record of 25-10 in singles and 2-3 in doubles.

She also attended a Chanukah Menorah lighting with Rabbi Mendy Harling of Chabad, visited the Venetian Hotel Theater the day before the Republican debate, and went to the USA Table Tennis Hall of Fame dinner, where her friend and 2016 USA Olympian Tahl Leibovitz was being inducted. Gordon Kaye, the CEO of USA Table Tennis, and President Donna Sakai made special arrangements for the Ackermans to have specially wrapped glatt kosher meals at the Flamingo Hotel dinner. Ackerman spent Shabbos at the Young Israel Aish of Las Vegas and during the shalosh seudot, Rabbi Yitz Wyne spoke about her accomplishments during his dvar Torah.

Up next for the ping pong prodigy will be the 2016 USA Olympic Team Trials which will take place on February 3-6-2016 in Greensboro, North Carolina.

Rocky’s take on the new president See more on page 122

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 24, 2015

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Around the Community

Torah and Tefillah at SKA

T

efillah on the morning of Asara B’Teves, Tuesday, December 22, was especially inspirational at the Stella K. Abraham High School for Girls. Thanks to the efforts of the TTYL (Turning Tefillah Into Your Life) Committee, students had the opportunity to create their dream siddur by choosing four out of twelve prayers taken from spiritual works and putting these tefillot in their own siddurim in the places they are the most meaningful. The tefillah workshops on these topics – Hashem’s will, miracles, guarding one’s speech, among others – helped the students form a greater connection to the words they say every day.

SKA’s TTYL Committee, made up of both students and faculty members, is dedicated to making tefillah more meaningful in our lives.

The Torah learning the morning before was dedicated l’ilui nishmat Ezra Schwartz, a”h, who was murdered by Arab terrorists in Israel last month. On Monday, December 21, SKA’s SPARKS Committee, a

Torah lishma initiative, divided the Five Chamishei Torah so that every SKA student received a portion to learn. Within two hours, the entire Chumash was completed by the SKA student body. The girls then participated, together with 40 high schools across the world, in an inspiring siyum Mishnayot l’ilui nismat Ezra a”h. The speakers and singing at the

siyum, transmitted in a large screen in the auditorium, created a strong sense of unity and chizuk for everyone in the room.

Our sincere thanks goes to Mrs. Elisheva Kaminetsky, Director of Religious Guidance, Mrs. Leah Feinberg, Head of the Tanach Department, Ms. Shira Stavsky, Grade Level Advisor, Ms. Avi Chesner, Senior Madricha,

and the SKA SPARKS Committee – Rachel Ash, Ayelet Aharon, Chaya Sorah Bodek, Atara Charnowitz, Devorah Greenberg, Elisheva Greenberg, Shoshana Lunzer, Shira Sasoon, Chanie Schoenfeld, Penina Torczyner and Rivka Zimmerman – for their work in putting the event together.

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DECEMBER 17, 2015 | The Jewish Home OCTOBER 29, 2015 | The Jewish Home

TJH !

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You gotta be

kidding

Two cows are in a field. The first one says, “Moo.” The second one says “Baaaa.”

“Why did you say ‘baaa’?” asks the first cow.

The second cow replies, “Because I’m learning a foreign language.”

?

Riddle me

this?

A cowboy rides into town on Friday, stays for three days and leaves on Friday. How did he do it?

See answer on next page

What Happens When Corporations Have Two Cows…  AMERICAN CORPORATION: You sell one, and force the other to produce the milk of four cows. You are surprised when the cow drops dead.

 ITALIAN CORPORATION: You don’t know where they are because you were busy drinking wine, eating lasagna, and listening to the opera.

 CHINESE CORPORATION: You milk the two cows… to feed the 1,000 people stuffed in a sweat shop working on iPhones twenty hours a day.

 BRAZILIAN CORPORATION: You enter into a partnership with an American corporation. Soon you have 1,000 cows and the American corporation declares bankruptcy.

 FRENCH CORPORATION: You go on strike because you want three cows.  JAPANESE CORPORATION: You redesign them so they are one-tenth the size of an ordinary cow and produce twenty times the milk.  RUSSIAN CORPORATION: You count them and learn you have five cows. You count them again and learn you have 42 cows. You count them again and learn you have 12 cows. You stop counting cows and open another bottle of vodka.  MEXICAN CORPORATION: You have two cows but no employees…because they all went to the U.S.  SWISS CORPORATION: Yes, there are two cows, but nobody knows who they belong to.

 ISRAELI CORPORATION: You have two cows. You teach them how to talk and sell them to Google.  CANADIAN CORPORTATION: You have two cows… and they both play hockey (or “huky”)  AUSTRALIAN CORPORATION: You have two cows and they both walk backwards.  IRISH CORPORATION: You have two cows…and they are both drunk.  ENGLISH CORPORATION: You have two cows and they both have yellow teeth.  NORTH KOREAN CORPORATION: One cow is the president and the other is his double.

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ANIMAL TRIVIA

a.

2. What food makes up nearly all (around 99%) of a Giant Panda’s diet? a. Fruits b. Insects c. Bamboo d. Sweet potatoes 3. What is the largest type of shark? a. Whale sharks b. Great White sharks c. Basking sharks d. Great Hammerhead sharks 4. How many stomachs do cows have? a. 1 b. 2 c. 3 d. 4 5. What is a baby female horse called? a. Colt b. Foal c. Filly d. Stallion 6. Approximately how many years

does the average wild lion live for? a. 14 b. 28 c. 52 d. 78 7. Approximately how many distinct noises can chickens make to communicate? a. 7 b. 30 c. 70 d. 200 8. What is a marsupial? a. A mammal which chews its cud but does not have split hooves b. A mammal whose members are born incompletely developed and are typically carried and suckled in a pouch on the mother’s belly. c. A bird which does not migrate to warmer climate in the winter but actually dies if the weather is too warm d. A bird which preys on its own species 9. What is the largest member of the deer family in the U.S.? a. Moose b. Caribou c. Elk

d. Mule deer 10. African elephants range in weight from 5,000 to 14,000 pounds. What is the average size of an adult blue whale? a. 25,000 lbs. to 40,000 lbs. b. 55, 000 lbs. to 70,000 lbs. c. 85,000 lbs. to 120,000 lbs. d. 200,000 lbs. to 300,000 lbs.

Answers 1. A 2. C 3. D 4. D 5. C 6. A 7. D 8. B 9. A 10. D Wisdom Key

8-10 correct: You are a reincarnation of the Crocodile Hunter!

4-7 correct: You are not bad for a filly.

0-3 correct: If you really want to learn about animals, start with the basics. There are some great CDs that you can get to memorize all 200 sounds that a chicken makes. It’s a great place to start. Good luck! Study hard!

Answer to riddle: The horse’s name is Friday

1.

Which type of dog has the fastest running speed, at up to 45 miles per hour? a. Greyhound b. Vizsla c. Jack Russell Terrier d. Doberman Pinscher

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Torah Thought

Parshas Vayechi

By Rabbi Berel Wein

T

he conclusion of the book of Bereishit reaches its climax this week with the recording for us of the death of our father Yaakov and of Yosef. The era of the founders of our people ended in relative tranquility and contentment, albeit on foreign soil. It will be a long and arduous journey for the descendants of Yaakov to return home to the Land of Israel.

A dark and forbidding era is about to begin but, though still in the future, it was foretold already many years earlier to our father Avraham. From the simple meaning of the words of the Torah, it is apparent that the family of Yaakov found themselves comfortable and well settled in their home in Goshen.

The promise of Yosef that the L-rd would take them forth from Egypt was certainly remembered and passed on from one generation to the next. Nevertheless there was no sense of immediacy regarding this promise and its fulfillment, and the Jews would view Egypt as their home rather than the Land of Israel for a long time.

They hastened to return home after burying Yaakov in the Cave of Machpela, seeing Egypt as their home and the Land of Israel as a far distant goal and dream that would somehow eventually be realized but that had no immediate bearing on their day-to-day living.

This attitude remained constant throughout the long history of the Jewish people and of its various exiles, in Egypt, Babylonia, Persia, Europe and today the entire world, outposts that have hosted and still host the Jewish people in our farflung diaspora. The Jewish people

were never in a hurry to leave any of these places and to return to the Land of Israel. This still seems to be the case in our time as well.

It is difficult to understand why the holy family of Yaakov seems so

Nevertheless there was no sense of immediacy regarding this promise and its fulfillment, and the Jews would view Egypt as their home rather than the Land of Israel for a long time.

passive and unresponsive in relation to the Land of Israel. There are commentators who state that they were aware of the heavenly decree that they would have to be strangers in a strange land for many centuries and that they accepted their lot and decided to make the best of it under the circumstances.

However, as Maimonides points out regarding the Egyptian enslavement of the Jewish people, Egypt was not preordained to be the oppressor and enslaver of Israel. And, it was also apparently not

preordained that those early generations of Jews living in Egypt were to fulfill the vision of Avraham to be strangers and slaves in a land that did not belong to them.

Apparently according to Maimonides the Egyptians had a choice as to whether to enslave the Jews, and the Jews before their enslavement occurred had an equal choice of leaving Egypt and returning to their ancestral home in the Land

of Israel. However we will deal with this baffling issue, there is no question that this represents a template for all later Jewish exiles and for Diaspora Jewry in all times and places. Apparently only tragedy moves the Jewish people…and throughout our history tragedies abound. Let us hope that somehow history does not repeat itself in our time as well.

Shabbat shalom.

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Torah Shmuz

Parshas Vayechi Gedolim Had It Easy

By R’ Ben Tzion Shafier

“And Yaakov lived in the land of Egypt seventeen years; and the days of Yaakov — the years of his life — were one hundred and forty-seven years.” — Bereishis 47:28

T

he Ba’al HaTurim explains that the gematria (numerical value) of the word vayechi (lived) is seventeen. The Torah is telling us that vayechi — the life of Yaakov was seventeen years. Up until that point, he had suffered so much that his years couldn’t rightfully be called a life. The sum total of the years that he spent without torment

Repairing the world through Judaism’s timeless wisdom

was the seventeen years that he lived in Mitzrayim. That was his life.

With this, the Ba’al HaTurim gives us a perspective on the life of Yaakov: he had a rough existence.

For the first sixty-three years of his life, he suffered at the hands of his twin brother Eisav. From the time that they were in the womb together, they fought about this world and the World to Come. That period ended when he ran for his life because Eisav was plotting his murder. Yaakov then spent the next fourteen years hiding out as a fugitive in Yeshivas Shem v’Ever.

When it was time to marry, he found himself in the home of Lavan, “the devious one.” For the next twenty years, Yaakov was an unwelcome intruder in a culture alien to his nature, eating at the table of a father-inlaw who attempted in any way possible to swindle and cheat him. That period came to an end when Lavan chased him down. Once again, he escaped as a fugitive. Immediately after that, he met up with Eisav, who had set out with four hundred men to kill him. Barely escaping with his life, he settled in Eretz Yisrael, only to have the tragedy of Dina’s kidnapping befall him. After this, his most beloved and precious son, Yosef, was stolen from him. And for the next twenty-two years, he lived in a state of mourning, not sure if Yosef was alive or dead. Finally at the age of 130, he settled in Mitzrayim, where he enjoyed seventeen years of peace.

The Ba’al HaTurim is telling us that the Torah uses the expression, “And Yaakov lived in the land of Egypt seventeen years,” to teach

us this point. He suffered so acutely during the earlier part of his life that it couldn’t be called living. This was the first time that Yaakov lived peacefully, without affliction.

This concept becomes difficult to understand when we focus on who Yaakov Avinu was. Chazal tell us that Yaakov was the greatest of the Avos. He was born with a father and grandfather who were his rebbeim.

From the time of his earliest youth, he spent his days in the tent of Torah, completely immersed in the sea of learning. Surely he didn’t need a difficult life. Surely he could enjoy this world and not become distracted by the glitz and the glitter. So why did he need to suffer?

The answer to this question can be understood with a mashal.

THE GYM AND THE SPA Picture a very exclusive health club with two separate sections. On the left is the spa, and on the right is the gym. The spa is where people relax. Whether sitting in the steam room, lying in the Jacuzzi, or lounging in the sauna, the mode of activity is to loosen up and enjoy. The gym is where people exercise. They push themselves, they strain, and they challenge their bodies.

Imagine that the first time you visit this health club, you decide to go straight to the spa. By mistake, instead of turning left, you turn right and find yourself in the gym.

You look around, and all you see are red-faced men lifting heavy loads, grunting, groaning, and sweating away. The first thought that comes to your mind is, “What kind of lousy

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spa is this? What is all of this straining? The red faces? The grunting and groaning? I thought people are supposed to be lying around, chilling out, enjoying?”

be for eternity. We were put into this world to grow. This world is the gym. The World to Come is the spa.

It is the place where we will enjoy the fruits of the work that we put in

Should life be fun? The answer is yes. But it is focused. It has a plan and a purpose.

This is an apt parable for life.

When Hashem made man, He created two worlds — this world and the World to Come. Each has its plan.

Each has its purpose. This world is the place of growth. The World to Come is the place that we enjoy that which we accomplished.

We are put into this world so that we can go through all the challenges of life: resisting temptations, choosing that which is right, and thereby shaping ourselves into who we will

while in this world. It is the place of reward.

The reason that many people have difficulty understanding life is because they confuse this world for the World to Come. As a result, they have many, many questions. Why does man have to work so hard?

Why are there so many challenges?

Why is there suffering in the world?

Once a person clearly understands the purpose of life, many of his questions naturally fall away. But

until a person adopts an Olam HaBa approach to life, nothing makes sense — not work, not challenges, and surely not pain and suffering.

If you ask a person who regularly works out if he enjoys the training, the answer will be a resounding “Yes!” But it is work. It is focused and often difficult. To grow one must strain. No pain, no gain. On the whole, the activity may be enjoyable, but it often isn’t easy.

Hashem created us to use this world for its intended purpose — to grow. Should life be fun? The answer is yes. But it is focused. It has a plan and a purpose.

GEDOLIM DIDN’T HAVE IT EASY We often take the attitude that gedolim had it easy. Sure, to be Avraham Avinu, that would be a cinch.

After all, Hashem spoke directly to him. He knew where he was headed in life. For him, life was a walk in the park. But me, I suffer. I have it rough.

The reality is that every human suffers. That is a part of life. But it’s not by accident, and it’s not because Hashem isn’t clever enough to figure out a way to create man without pain and suffering. Quite the opposite, these situations were handcrafted as part of the challenges that man needs to grow. This life is the great laboratory of growth. When a person understands this perspective, life itself has meaning and significance.

He will understand both the purpose of his existence and the reason for his life settings. With this vantage point, he can truly enjoy his stay on the planet, knowing the meaning and depth behind everything that he lives through.

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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Between the Lines

G-d Bless You

By Eytan Kobre

M

y mailbox has been stuffed lately with glossy advertisements for charities promising great stuff to those who donate generously. One brochure trumpets some rather outlandish promos: 40 consecutive days of prayer at Kever Rochel; 516 prayers at the Western Wall (516 being the numerical value of “Va’eschanan” (“and I prayed”), of course); recitation of Tehillim “without letup throughout the day.” Unspecified rabbis will give you their “personal blessing” for a mere $26.

Now, I’m all for blessings and

charity, but the promise of salvation gets my goat. One charity urges donations “because of the yeshuos (salvations)… The connection between the contribution and the yeshua is so swift and immediate, so clear – that it’s simply impossible to err and think otherwise… If you contribute, too, chances are good you will experience a yeshua.” You can’t make this stuff up.

If nothing else, these ads underscore the sad fact that so many of our brethren are desperate and searching for help. But while some religions might promise such salvation, ours

does not.

Don’t get me wrong. There is no question that blessings can be effective. Indeed, one who falls ill is encouraged to seek out the prayer and blessing of a wise person (Bava Basra 116a); at times, G-d Himself seeks out blessings (Berachos 7a). And even “the blessing of a simple person should not be taken lightly” (Megilla 15a; Berachos 7a).

But these ads are deliberately misleading because you don’t necessarily get what you ask for. Not all of Yaakov’s sons received rosy blessings. “And this is what their father spoke to them and blessed them, each one according to his blessing he blessed them” (Bereishis 49:28).

In fact, Yaakov excoriated some of his sons because that’s what was best for them. The promise of a blessing that makes all our dreams come true simply isn’t realistic because, whether we know it or not, we don’t always know what’s in our best interest.

R’ Shimon bar Yochai once sent his son to obtain the blessings of two of his students, who offered the following “blessing”: “You should plant but not reap; bring in but not take out; take out but not bring in; your home should be destroyed and the hotels should be filled to capacity; your table should be confused; and you should not see a new year” (Moed Katan 9b). Understandably disturbed, the son complained to R’ Shimon that he had been cursed, not blessed. When R’ Shimon heard what his students had said, he understood their intentions immediately. In fact, they had blessed his son that he should have children that would not perish, his children should marry, and neither he nor his wife should die. We don’t necessarily get what we want (or what we think we want); we get what’s right for us.

No less troubling than the prom-

ise of making dreams come true is the notion that a blessing can be utterly impersonal, without the blessor and blessed even knowing or meeting one another. Indeed, according to R’ Simcha Zissel Broide, Yaakov exerted himself to sit up when Yosef brought his sons for a blessing specifically because he needed to form a personal connection with those he was to bless (see Bereishis 48:2). And upon recognizing that he could not form the requisite connection due to his poor eyesight, he kissed them and embraced them, also to develop a connection (Bereishis 48:10).

All this, because a blessing is not a prayer: the latter forms a connection between man and G-d, while the former depends upon a connection between man and man.

In fact, Yaakov went yet further to develop this connection, not content to bless Menashe and Ephraim simply by dint of being their grandfather (see Chofetz Chaim, Bereishis 48:10). Instead, he asked Yosef who they were (see Bereishis 48:8-9 and Ohr HaChaim ad loc.). He wanted to know that Menashe and Ephraim were worthy of blessing (see Tanchuma, Vayechi 6; Rashi and Malbim ad loc.), and only once Yosef assured that they were did Yaakov agree to bless them.

The personal connection between the one doing the blessing and the one receiving it is critical to the blessing’s efficacy: “The blessor recognizes that the blessing and the impact that he desires on behalf of those dear to him comes only from G-d. Through this recognition, the blessor attaches to and makes himself insignificant in relation to G-d, the source of all blessing. And who causes [the blessor] to be able to do so? The blessed, whose needs bring the blessor to this level” (Michtav M’Eliyahu, Vol. 2, pg. 207).

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Even more critical than the blessor-blessee connection is the recognition that it is G-d Who ultimately bestows blessings (or chooses not to)—not man. As with the Priestly

an exigent matter. The Maggid told the woman that he would gladly give her the blessing, provided she gave him the immense sum of 100 gold coins to distribute to the poor. The

The Satmar Rebbe explained that, naturally, everyone took the credit for their respective rebbes. “But I’ll tell you a secret,” the Satmar Rebbe whispered. “It was really G-d.”

Blessings, “the receipt of blessing does not depend upon the Priests but upon G-d” (Rambam, Nesias Kapayim 15:6-7). Indeed, the Chofetz Chaim often asked those who sought his blessing, “Is it possible that where the king is available, people make requests of his servant?”

A woman once came to the Maggid of Kozhnitz to receive his blessing for

woman objected to the demand for so large a sum, but the Maggid remained steadfast.

The woman later returned and dumped 80 gold coins on the Maggid’s desk. “I went to great lengths to procure this large sum, and I simply do not have 100 gold coins,” the woman explained. “Please consider this as payment in full.”

But the Maggid insisted on the

full amount. “I will not give you a blessing for less than 100 gold coins.

You’ve wasted your time bringing these 80 gold coins to me.”

Now the woman lost it. “I’m done with you! Forget it. I’ll rely on G-d for my needs; He will help me!”

Hearing this, the Maggid changed his demeanor instantaneously. “That is what I was waiting for you to say.

You see, when you first came to me, it was clear that you were placing all your trust in me. One can never forget that G-d is the source of all blessing. I never wanted your money.

I demanded it only so that you would adjust your attitude and place your trust in G-d. Now that you have done so, my heartfelt blessings are yours.”

A prominent communal lay leader once fell gravely ill, requiring risky surgery to save his life.

Before the procedure, he visited many a rebbe to seek their blessings that the surgery would be successful and his life spared. When the surgery was indeed successful, the followers of every rebbe claimed that it was the blessing of their rebbe—not those of the others—that had secured the favorable outcome.

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A follower of the Satmar Rebbe asked him, notwithstanding the boasts of the others, which rebbe truly was responsible for the miracle. The Satmar Rebbe explained that, naturally, everyone took the credit for their respective rebbes.

“But I’ll tell you a secret,” the Satmar Rebbe whispered. “It was really G-d.”

To attain G-d’s blessings, we need not travel great distances or make large donations to unspecified righteous men. G-d Himself offers a straightforward formula: “In all places that [you] mention my name I will come to you and bless you” (Shemos 20:21). Mention His name. Pray to Him. Learn His Torah. Abide by His commandments.

When we do that, “G-d bless you” will be not just a nicety, but a guarantee.

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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The Observant Jew

Wave of the Future

By Rabbi Jonathan Gewirtz

W

hile crossing Ocean Parkway one Shabbos, I hurriedly half-jogged across, as I noticed cars waiting to turn. I saw another young man also crossing but he didn’t seem to be in any hurry. I told him, “Hurry up, cross quickly!” and he did, though he wasn’t quite sure why he was doing it.

As we passed the cars, I gave a small wave as if to say, “Thanks for waiting for us.” On the opposite curb, I explained. “There were peo-

have two broken legs and a blind person’s red and white stick (yes, I passed the driver’s test!) without acknowledging that there are other people with whom they are sharing the road. They keep their eyes down and slowly amble across as if they have all the time in the world, because they probably do.

It’s even worse when I motion someone to cross, and then instead of giving me a thank you wave and hurrying across, they give me a look that says, “Yes, I

Now, when I go there, I wave to everyone, even the pool guys and the Fed Ex driver. You know what? They smile and wave back!

ple waiting to turn,” I said.

“Even if we have the right of way, they are still letting us go.” He had not thought about the fact that cars were waiting to turn, he told me, and thanked me for pointing it out.

I’ve often noted, especially as a driver, that pedestrians will take their time crossing even if they don’t

own the street,” and then mosey along. It shows that they not only don’t acknowledge that I did them a favor, but even if they did, they don’t appreciate it.

If I stop to let a car in, or make a turn, the driver better put up his hand to the rearview mirror to say thanks, or I’ll be inclined to ram him. I won’t actually

do it, but missing that little wave is an insult. It means, “You don’t matter.” And to myself, at least, I do matter.

Now, sometimes, I’ll allow pedestrians to cross or cars turn and they will not acknowledge me. I have done them a favor but they remain stone-faced. I will give the benefit of the doubt in certain cases and say “it’s a religious thing” but women, please hear me out: It is not a violation of tzinius to smile and wave a thank you to a man who does you a favor. In fact, it’s a violation of halacha not to acknowledge the good that someone does for you. So take a second, please, and give me just a little wave that says, “I appreciate that you gave me deference.”

Sometimes, it’s not even a thank you. When I was in Florida for yom tov, I was told that in that development, you wave to all the residents. It just shows friendliness; that we’re good neighbors. Now, when I go there, I wave to everyone, even the pool guys and the Fed Ex driver. You know what? They smile and wave back!

In my own neighborhood, I’ll wave at the schoolchildren waiting for the bus. Sometimes they giggle, sometimes they shyly look

away, but they know that they matter to me. They know that I acknowledge their existence. They start to realize that they are important to people, and that’s an amazing thing! What a self-esteem booster to know that an adult cares enough to wave to you, who are but a child.

Of course, when I pass by and there are mothers there, I still wave. There is actually one woman who always waves to me when I pass by.

She gives me a big smile and a floppy, childish hand-wave that her children copy. It gives me such joy to get that warmth from someone that I remark about it to my own children when they’re in the car. I hope she’s getting a smile from reading this because I’m sure she knows who she is.

The truth is that every person is created in the image of Hashem, b’tzelem Elokim, so when you greet another person, you’re greeting the Shechina, Hashem’s presence. When you make them feel special, you’re fanning the flame of G-dliness in their hearts, thus adding more holiness to the world.

And that’s exactly why you have to wave; it mimics the movement of fanning the flame!

On the flip side, if you

don’t wave and acknowledge what others do for you, instead of increasing G-dliness, you’re causing a chillul Hashem, chas v’shalom. You’re saying, “This is MY world,” and negating the greatness and kindness of others. You may even cause them to be meaner and less courteous to others.

I’m sure many of you didn’t realize this, so I’m pointing it out to you like I did to the fellow on Ocean Parkway.

The next time someone lets you go ahead of them, or does something nice for you, or even if you see them and they don’t initiate, give them a hand and a friendly little wave. It can change a lot of futures.

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@Je w i s h S p e e c hWr ite r. com and put Subscribe in the subject.

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A Fulfilled L fe

G-d of My Ancestors, G-d of Mine

By Rabbi Naphtali Hoff

D

id you ever wonder why it is that every time we begin to recite the amida, the silent prayer that serves as the cornerstone of each tefilla service, we refer to Hashem as “our G-d and the G-d of our fathers?” We then proceed to list each of our three forefathers that accepted

fear and awe in divine service. Yaakov is the epitome of absolute truthfulness amongst men. By labeling Hashem as the G-d of these great personalities, we suggest that He is also the source of all of these desirable traits, which helps us to better appreciate who we are addressing.

that valued divine service through kindness to others. Together with Sarah, Avraham brought scores of people under the wings of His shechina. Their efforts would be furthered by their children, who each used their unique qualities and inclinations towards a higher purpose.

Actions that are considered appropriate, normal and necessary for other nations’ function and survival are routinely condemned if the word “Israel,” “Jewish,” or “Zionist” can be attached to them.

Him as G-d, as if it is necessary to clarify exactly which “fathers” we mean. Why is it necessary for us to add such detail and what lesson are we to learn from it?

One explanation is that each of our Avos possessed unique qualities for which they are known and appreciated. Avraham is the paradigm of kindness.

Yitzchak is the model of

I would like to add another approach, one that emphasizes Hashem’s role as the G-d of Jewish (and world) history.

Jewish history traces back four millennia to the birth of Avraham. It was our forebear who first preached a monotheistic message to a world of unethical pagans.

Avraham told his society of a single, caring G-d

Much has occurred to our nation over the subsequent four thousand years.

We have endured abject suffering and witnessed great deliverance. We have dwelt for centuries in our ancestral homeland and even more time as an oft-persecuted minority in others’ lands. No other nation has survived such a challenging reality and been able to re-

tain their identity and core sense of mission. We have also managed to influence the world with our unique value set, transforming and elevating humanity in the process.

“The Jews gave us the Outside and the Inside – our outlook and our inner life. We can hardly get up in the morning or cross the street without being Jewish. We dream Jewish dreams and hope Jewish hopes. Most of our best words, in fact – new, adventure, surprise; unique, individual, person, vocation; time, history, future; freedom, progress, spirit; faith, hope, justice – are the gifts of the Jews.” (Cahill, Thomas, The Gifts of the Jews, p. 240 – 241, Doubleday, 1998) When we begin each prayer with the recognition that Hashem is the G-d of our ancestors, we should pause and reflect on our miraculous history and our special role within it. We ought to acknowledge that the same G-d who provided the ancients personal care and promises of a brighter tomorrow is also our G-d, today in the 21st century.

We, too, are invested with

a special mission and purpose to inspire humanity to become something nobler and greater, a humanity that will one day be able to embrace G-d and His Torah as their moral compass.

In many ways the initial phrase of the amida parallels the commencement of the Torah. The opening seven words, which establish Hashem as the world’s creator, also clarify His purpose in creating the world.

Rashi, commenting on the verse’s apparent error in syntax (the word “Bereishis” literally means “in the beginning of,” implying a process, yet no process is described) suggests that the opening word should be divided into two: “B” and “reishis,” with the letter bet becoming short form for the word “b’shvil,” or “for the sake of.” The verse now reads, “For the sake of ‘reishis’ did Elokim create heaven and earth.” Reishis, Rashi tells us, refers to both the Torah and Israel. Thus, the opening sentence reads like a mission statement.

The world was created for the sake of the Torah and the people that study and promulgate its values.

This idea ties neatly

The Jewish Home | OCTOBER 29, 2015 The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 17, 2015

into Rashi’s very first comment in the entire Torah.

He opens his commentary by wondering why the narrative begins with creation rather than the first mitzvah that was granted to the Jewish nation in Egypt (that of sanctifying the first month.) Rashi answers that creation was needed so that we can tell the world who created it and that He has the right to gift any parcel of land (specifically Eretz Yisrael) to the nation of His choosing. As with the Torah, the land was bequeathed to the Hebrew nation to help it fulfill its historic calling and justify creation.

I oftentimes wonder why it is that Israel and the Jewish nation can’t ever seem to catch a break.

From the laughable, imbalanced collection of international leaders and officials that meet on Manhattan’s east side or in Geneva, to a skewed media and a deluded White House, to ruthless and largely uniformed commentators on social media, as well as virulent BDS demonstrators and activists who seek to raise awareness for the desperate plight of “innocent” Palestinians by undercutting Israel’s economy, Israel and its Jewish people are always at fault.

Actions that are considered appropriate, normal and necessary for other nations’ function and survival are routinely condemned if the word “Israel,” “Jewish,” or “Zionist” can be attached to them. Even Israeli humanitarian aid for devastated

countries, such as Haiti and Nepal, cannot be offered without some form of begrudged admiration if not backlash.

I must admit that such events sometimes give me pause when I read Rashi’s explanation about the Torah’s choice of where to begin its narrative. Sure, it sounds all nice and good that we can justify our “occupation” of our homeland because of the divine mandate that lies behind it. But how does it really help us if so many others who we were meant to influence – gentile nations as well as our “self-hating” brethren who push their J-Street, anti-Israel agendas right up to the Oval Office – view us as oppressors who have established our own form of

apartheid?

Perhaps the answer is that Rashi’s comment is for us, not our enemies. It is easy to get sucked into the hyper-virulence that confronts us at every turn and think that if so many people – politicians, celebrities, and countless others – are lined up against Israel, then she must be doing something terribly wrong. But any clear-headed analysis shows that the Jewish State, while far from perfect, is by far the most civil, tolerant, and democratic nation in the Middle East and perhaps the most balanced and fair-minded nation in the world, despite the many challenges and threats that continually confront her.

We, the Jewish people in Israel and throughout

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the Diaspora, need to be confident that we have every right to this land. It was promised to our great forefathers four thousand years ago by the G-d who created this world and the peoples that inhabit it. It is ours today and it is ours to keep.

May we speedily merit seeing the day when the entire world will come to that same recognition, when the G-d of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob becomes the accepted G-d of the entire world.

Rabbi Naphtali Hoff is an executive coach and president of Impactful Coaching and Consulting (ImpactfulCoaching. com). He can be reached at 212.470.6139 or at president@ impactfulcoaching.com.

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Israel Today

Almost Qualified

By Rafi Sackville

I

was awarded my postgraduate degree in Education in 1985 in Melbourne, Australia. The award was soon followed by my registration as a qualified secondary school teacher. For over thirty years I have been plying my trade. It’s a job I love.

Before moving to New York in 2000 I taught in Israel for 16 years.

Apart from an occasional visit by the English inspectorate, they were trouble-free times.

A few years ago the English direc-

torate in the Ministry of Education decided to clamp down on teachers entering the field. They were concerned about too many new immigrants teaching English without proper certification. Despite their experience, they also targeted those already teaching.

When we returned to Israel in 2013 I found myself facing a lengthy process to become fully accredited.

Along with a moderately-sized group of both new and experienced teach-

ers from the north of the country, I began a six month course a year ago to become fully certified.

The course was a mixture of revelation and misery: a revelation because we were fortunate to have some amazing lecturers whose expertise allowed us to hone the finer points of teaching, like test writing and vocabulary strategies; misery because we were forced to suffer outrageously antiquated courses. Why we had to sit through 20 hours of lectures about how children learn their first vowels when we were all high school teachers is beyond me.

After six months we finished the course, but that wasn’t enough for the Ministry of Education. There were other requirements: another six month Hebrew course, which included civics, Hebrew, Jewish history and Tanach. To my great relief I was granted an exemption after I was able to prove my proficiency in all of these subjects. We also had to be paid a visit by a state inspector.

Taking interest in my situation my principal arranged for me to be observed during the last week of the school year.

I had completed all my requirements. So, was I set? Was I qualified after almost 30 years in the classroom? Not quite.

Megan, Ruth, Yolanda, Mark, Gail and Sarah were among those with whom I studied. I recently received an email from Megan. She informed me that, like me, she had completed all the course requirements, but

her paperwork was sitting in some nondescript office in the Ministry of Education. As a result she was not paid for September. Not long into the school year the school inspector told her she was not allowed to work in school at all because she wasn’t insured. She’s still at home awaiting word that the nondescript office now has a name and an address.

Gail informed me that there was a delay receiving their certificates because they were sent to the wrong address. Not paying attention, her neighbor inadvertently opened the envelope and tore the certificate.

Ruth is in a similar situation to Megan, although she has not been kept off her school grounds. Yolanda has been waiting since May for a Hebrew course to open in the north. No exemptions for her. She is currently looking at Tel Aviv as an option. She tells me her situation looks bad. She wants to complete the course, but cannot do so if she can’t find a course close to home.

I was in a situation similar to Ruth’s. Being certified is important because it allows one to join the new education reforms. This translates into more hours in school and an almost 53% increase in wage.

That’s for high school. There is a different reform for junior high, but it amounts to the same. In my case I would become an active member of both reforms because this year I am teaching in both our junior and high schools.

For the month of September I received no salary from the junior

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high. From the high school I received no more than enough to cover our food expenses.

Was I concerned? Yes. Did I panic? What was the point? This is Israeli bureaucracy at its most annoying.

Hey, I had done everything under my control to advance my case. I succeeded in contacting the person

I explained to her that I hadn’t been paid. That my circumstances were dire.

“Can’t you get an advance?” she asked.

“That’s besides the point. I just want any outstanding problems resolved.”

“That brings me to the second

Did I panic? What was the point? This is Israeli bureaucracy at its most annoying.

in charge of new immigrants at the Ministry of Education.

“Oh, yes. I’ve heard all about you,” she said. “Your files were sent to us in early September, although we only received them about a month ago.”

“That’s heartening,” I replied.

“We have two problems. The first is that the person who runs these meetings has been out. You’ll have to wait another week before we get to sit on your case.”

problem,” she said. “The University of Monash, where you did your postgraduate work, the name of the city doesn’t appear on the diploma.”

It took me a moment to absorb this latest twist in the dog’s tail.

Monash University is one of the most respected colleges in Australia.

“Are you telling me the lack of the word ‘Melbourne’ on my graduation certificate is preventing me getting my Israeli teaching license?‫״‬

“I’m afraid so. Before you get too upset let me calm your nerves by telling you I have heard about Monash University’s prestigious standing in the academic world. I am more than prepared to fight for you. I’ve done research and I’m going to help you get through this.”

“You want to help me get through a problem – a road block as it were – not of my making, but created out of thin air by the Ministry of Education?”

“That would be one way of looking at your predicament,” she said.

I sat on tenterhooks for two weeks. It was on the last Sunday in October that I finally received word that the special committee sitting on my files in Jerusalem had come to the wonderfully logical conclusion that Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, not only existed, but was recognized by the powers that be in the Ministry of Education in Jerusalem.

“We’re going to send you your certificate by mail,” the woman on the other end of the phone told me.

My experience told me that waiting for the mail alone might take two or

three weeks, which would run into my next payday.

“Please send me a copy by fax,” I requested. I waited by the fax machine in the school’s main office with the excitement of a little schoolboy.

The machine churned into motion and I was soon standing with a copy of the certificate in hand.

I took the certificate to Miriam, the woman in charge of manpower.

“That’s it? I’m done, right?” I asked her.

“Not quite,” she replied without a hint of humor across her usually smiling face. “Now we have to make the request to the school office, the departments at the Ministry of Education, and the new reform board.”

“And how long might all of that take before I’m officially in the books, before I get a real salary?”

“Who knows? Maybe a month, maybe two, maybe more,” she said.

She took my certificate and walked out of her office leaving me alone, feeling quite lonely and quite lost and almost qualified.

Rafi Sackville, formerly of Cedarhurst, teaches in Ort Maalot in Western Galil.

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Live Your Life

How the World Runs on Israeli Products and The Antidote to the BDS Movement

By Brendy J. Siev

The BDS (Boycott, Divest, Sanction) movement, a thinlyveiled anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic crusade, gained a victory a month ago: the EU declared that all agricultural and cosmetic products made in the “settlements” must be labeled as such when sold in Europe. (Those from the West Bank, but not from “settlements,” are to be labeled “product from Palestine” or “Palestinian product”).

The idea is to keep the consumer, as the BBC puts it, “fully informed.”

T

hese sanctions on agriculture and cosmetics could cost the Israeli economy $50 million.

Total exports to Europe from Israel, though, were worth $14 billion in 2014 alone. Therefore, these new “labeling sanctions” will hurt less than a percent (.3%, if our calculations are correct) of Israel’s total export revenue from Europe.

Why, BDS? Why limit sanctions

to agriculture and cosmetics? The impact seems paltry and rather useless; this does not count as true “economic pressure” that will ultimately “end colonization of Palestinian land.”

The truth is that excluding all Israeli products and exports from daily life would mean much more than avoiding SodaStream and paying for pre-made seltzer.

What it would mean is: You’d need to find a payphone, because you couldn’t use a cellphone, especially not a 4G phone or one that sends (we shudder to think) texts. And try finding a payphone: even Superman’s at a loss on that one.

You’d have to toss your computer. Intel’s processors were developed in Israel.

You’d need to pick up a map at your local rest stop. Waze is an Israeli export.

You’d need to wait in the rain for a cab. Forget about Uber; the app was developed in Israel.

You’d have to drop your

What’sApp group. And you know how crazy that is. When What’sApp wouldn’t share users’ private info with the Brazilian government, a Waspish judge ordered the app blocked. Just how crazy did 100 million Brazilians go? In a country where people ask for “your What’sApp” instead of “your phone number,” it took a mere 48 hours for another judge to reverse the ruling. (...And don’t think you’d be able to use Facebook. Too many addons and apps are from Israel.)

You’d have to go back to using Linux and Unix (you can look those up). No Windows XT for you.

And, don’t invest too much in your new computer, because you’re pretty much guaranteed to get a computer virus fairly quickly. Firewalls and anti-virus technology originated in Israel.

You’d have to buy a used answering machine at a flea market.

Voicemail was developed in Israel. Since you wouldn’t have a cellphone, this shouldn’t be so hard.

You’d have to become better friends with your mailman, because you’d have to stop emailing.

The algorithm for sending emails was developed in Israel too. (Yes, you forgot to get him a gift, and he remembers.)

You’d have to go beyond avoiding Israeli oranges. You’d have to make sure not to eat cherry tomatoes. Ever. Again. They were developed in Israel.

You’d have to go natural. No more Pampers. The dry-weave that keeps your baby’s bottom dry is made in Israel.

You couldn’t drink the water in parts of California. The water has been desalinated with Israeli methods and technology.

You couldn’t eat fruits and vegetables from most of Africa, China, India, Indonesia (a Muslim country), and Nepal. They’re using Israeli agricultural products and irrigation methods.

You’d have to find a really old toilet, because Israel gives water-saving technology to more than half the planet.

You’d have to cut up your credit cards. Chances are your credit card company uses Israeli security monitoring.

You couldn’t use your favorite gaming consoles, because most have Israeli technology embedded in them.

You’d have to refuse that USB drive with those family photos/ your mother’s will/your favorite

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cat video. USB drives were developed in Israel.

And don’t even ask us to list the medical and pharmaceutical advances and medications that you’d have to give up. Try telling someone with HIV or diabetes or cancer or Parkinson’s or multiple sclerosis or epilepsy to walk away from a treatment, because it was “made in Israel.” Try telling a person on the kidney transplant list that she would have to wait for a perfect match, because only through Israeli technology could a person receive a kidney from an imperfectly-matched donor. Try telling a mother to expose her child to radiation when radiation-free x-rays have been developed in Israel. Try telling a man with a head wound to bleed out when the innovative Israeli bandage can save his life (ask Arizona Senator Gabriella Giffords about her amazing recovery).

Not even the terrorists are doing that (see: December 17 Israeli Medical Association ruling that

terror in the Middle East.

Because that is what it does. As the Israeli foreign ministry said regarding product labeling: labeling would not advance the peace process, but “strengthen the radical elements advocating a boycott against Israel and denying Israel’s right to exist.”

Perhaps the real issue is jealousy.

What makes Israel so remarkably successful and so worthy of the world’s envy?

Dan Senor and Saul Singer examined this in their 2009 book, Start-Up Nation: The Story of Israel’s Economic Miracle. Israel, with its population of less than ten million, had, in 2009, 63 Israeli companies listed on NASDAQ, more than any other foreign country. Israel has more high-tech start-ups and a larger venture capital industry per capita than any other country.

The authors claim that mandatory military service and immigration are the source of this

“While Israel has much to learn from the world, the world has much to learn from Israel.”

stipulates that Israeli medics must treat wounded based on injuries.

That possibly means treating attackers before victims. We haven’t heard the terrorists BDS-ing that.)

Should someone actually choose to divest, he need only read two paragraphs up to see what he would be sacrificing for his cause, a cause that condones supporting

Israeli rescue teams in the Philippines after a super-typhoon hit

extraordinary innovation. Army service gives people more skills and contacts and the Israeli army’s structure empowers people with responsibility under minimal guidance. Not only that, but nine out of ten Israelis are immigrants or children of immigrants. Immigrants are hungry to succeed and try hard to realize their dreams. And the proximity of a small country helps as well.

Perhaps certain Israeli-Jewish traits also contribute to these successes. To an extent, we value chutzpah, especially when combined with bitzua, a word that means “getting things done” and rosh gadol, a contemporary Israeli idiom for someone with a “can-do and responsible attitude...without the limits of formal authority.”

Senor and Singer’s findings

PillCam, the alternative to colonoscopies

aside, basic Jewish culture celebrates creativity and success borne of education and brains. Consider even the most recent iteration of Adam Sandler’s popular Chanukah song: we don’t have a cartoon about reindeer, but we conquered polio.

While Sandler’s lyrics are meant tongue-in-cheek, they reveal a basic Jewish pride-ism: we are the people who count Dr. Salk, Albert Einstein, and the founders of Google (rhymes, according to Sandler, with kugel) in our ranks. That kind of thinking, whether hummed in a supermarket or imparted to children by their parents, motivates us: we are innovators, and we are thinkers.

Some prime examples:

WHATSAPP In 2007, Jan Koum and Brian Acton left Yahoo, disillusioned that Internet companies were more about advertising sales than communication. Their idea: an easy-touse messaging product that would completely shun advertising. By 2014, they had 450 million monthly users (double that of Twitter), and Mark Zuckerberg had bought their company in the largest Internet deal since Time Warner merged with AOL in 2001.

Why was Koum so passionate about privacy? Koum was born in the Ukraine where phone lines were often tapped, and so he wanted an app that wouldn’t collect your personal information: your name, your gender, your address, or your age. He and Acton also wanted smartphone users to be able to message each other outside of their phone carriers’ messaging limits. In fact, they initially relied on word-of-mouth recommendations and did not even hang a sign outside their offices. The only venture capital firm they invited to join

them was Sequoia Ventures, led by Yoav Andrew Leitersdorf (now of YL Ventures), an Israeli venture capital firm.

GOOGLE SUGGEST You can’t imagine doing a Google search without the handy auto complete feature, once called “Google Suggest.” This feature was developed in Google Israel, a Google outpost located on the outskirts of Haifa with another office in Tel Aviv. The size and fervor of the office make it feel like a startup that draws on the talent of the Technion, but with Google values.

Google Israel focuses on “search and knowledge.” Google Suggest makes your searches quicker and “smarter,” by auto-filling as you type, based on popular searches. After you hit “enter” on your search, you’ll see “Live Results” pop up – the most up-to-the-minute information about your search (rather than the most popular), another Israeli feature.

Ever sent a group email through your Gmail account? Google will ask you if you’d like to add other people you usually include in these group emails. This also originated in Israel. They call it the “Don’t forget Bob” feature.

During natural disasters – think Hurricane Irene – Google will immediately offer shelter maps and emergency information when a specific search is entered. Another Israeli feature.

Google offers employees “20 percent projects,” where they get to spend 20 percent of their time working on a creative passion or project of their own. In Israel, this led to a project of love: one that has brought Yad Vashem’s massive holdings online so people can search specific names and families

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are invasive procedures involving anesthesia and radiation. But PillCam is a tiny pill containing a camera and light, weighing no more than four The Theo and Ora Coster family receiving the paper clips. Once 2012 Lifetime achievement TAGIE Award swallowed, the PillCam takes hundreds of thousands of pictures of to learn about their plight during the esophagus and colon, providthe Holocaust. This same digitization technology has been applied to ing necessary diagnostic information to the patient’s doctor. The putting the Dead Sea Scrolls online.

PillCam has become a given in the industry.

GUESS WHO? Does your person have a beard?

Red hair? Facial hair? Is it a girl?

SHVAT SHAKED Holocaust survivor Theo Coster AND FRAUD SCIENCES and his wife Ora of Tel Aviv have Shvat Shaked had a startbeen major game players and game up called Fraud Sciences. Scott changers since 1965. Their story Thompson was president of PayPal, the largest Internet payment started when Ora was home on system in the world. They met, bedrest, pregnant with their secbecause Shaked “claimed to have ond child, and trying to keep their older son occupied. To do so, Ora, a solution to the problem of online payment scams, credit card fraud, an artist, created a little map of Isand electronic identity theft.” rael game for him, with tokens and Thompson was bored and busy. pieces for playing.

He heard Shaked out – “We believe The Coster’s friend, a gas stathat the world is divided between tion owner, liked the game so much good people and bad people, and he asked the Osters to manufacture the trick to beating fraud is to it for him as a giveaway for his cusdistinguish between them on the tomers. This became the beginning Web” – with little patience. After of a booming business, initially all, PayPal had 2,000 staffers, incalled “Matat” (as in “gift”) but eventually renamed “Theora,” after cluding 50 PhD engineers, working on the same problem.

Theo and Ora. The difference was in the One of their early inventions how: how Shaked would separate was Icetix, a Popsicle stick that, the good guy from the bad guys. once you finished the ice cream, turned into a building toy. These Shaked and his co-founder Saar were so popular that Borden Dairy Wilf used the same approach he had used in the IDF when hunting in the United States distributed terrorists online. Terrorists moved them; 12 billion sticks were promoney online using fake identiduced over 11 years. ties. Shaked had to find them – Over the years, Theora – still using their core team of Theo, Ora, and had, for 40,000 transactions.

Good people, he explained, leave and their two sons – has made digital footprints all over the place, more than 155 different toy conbecause they have nothing to hide. cepts. The one you probably have It’s the people who don’t that you in your toy closet in Guess Who?, should worry about. marketed in the United States by So Thompson gave Fraud Hasbro. In fact, in November 2012, Sciences a shot. He gave them Hasbro awarded the Costers with the lifetime achievement award in 100,000 transactions to analyze, transactions PayPal had toy-making. processed. PayPal removed the personal data from it for privacy PILLCAM, reasons, making the task much

BY GIVEN IMAGING Not everyone can sustain a harder. “See what you can do,” he told Shaked on a Thursday. colonoscopy or endoscopy. Both

He thought he wouldn’t hear from Shaked for months. But by Sunday, Fraud Sciences emailed Thompson to say, “We’re done.”

The PayPal engineers spent a week matching their results, and found that Fraud Sciences had better results over shorter period of time with less data than PayPal’s entire team. They were five years ahead of PayPal. And so, Fraud Sciences was hired and acquired by PayPal for $169 million. Thompson was moved by the pride and enthusiasm his new employees had for their new company, and the intense focus each employee had on him during their first big meeting.

But along with that laser focus came questions during the Q&A that were “penetrating” and “unconventional.” These employees were ready to challenge PayPal’s practices in ways that most American employees would not and in ways that would ultimately benefit the company.

And we haven’t even gotten

cleanup (China, the United States, South Africa), We would oppose the anti-BDS movement, but the truth is that most people are already, unknowingly, part of it. That’s because Israeli products and technology are ubiquitous; you can’t help but support Israel in your daily life.

The antidote to the BDS movement and EU labeling is to continue living your life. Because BDS cannot and will not work. It merely works as a public smearing campaign about Israel without acknowledging all the good that Israel has done for the world.

There’s something sinister about BDS and its EU supporters as well, something that makes BDS less about human rights and terror and more about anti-Semitism and green-eyed envy. While BDSers claim they want to raise awareness about the injustice ongoing in the Middle East, they ignore wholesale the goings-on in Syria, in Lebanon, in Iran, and

Try telling someone with HIV or diabetes or cancer or Parkinson’s or multiple sclerosis or epilepsy to walk away from a treatment, because it was “made in Israel.” started on Waze and Viber, both of whom have changed the ways we navigate our streets and call home.

Nor have we listed the countries that benefited from Israeli rescue teams (the Congo, New Zealand, Japan, Haiti, India, El Salvador, Turkey, Mozambique, Colombia, Venezuela, Pakistan, Peru), from technological aid and neonatal units to save their babies (Ghana and Romania), from the milk of special high-yield Israeli cows (Vietnam), from solar-powered refrigerators to hold their vaccines (Uganda), from emergency rooms (Kenya), from free eye operations (the Maldives), and from medical training and oil spill

in Saudi Arabia. The European Union does not raise awareness against pumping gas of Middle Eastern origin into cars, despite the appalling human rights violations embedded into Middle Eastern daily government and cultural activities. In fact, should we choose to divest from the Middle East, we would lose and boycott a few products and would simply limit ourselves to South American and American oil.

But it would be terribly hard to truly BDS Israel.

Because, as Senor and Singer say, “while Israel has much to learn from the world, the world has much to learn from Israel.”

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9

Jewish History

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

Trebitsch in Berlin, c.1920

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, after the death of his father in 1899, he converted to Christianity to marry a gentile girl from Hamburg, Germany. The couple moved to Canada where he missionized to the Jews of Montreal. The mission was not successful and they moved to England. After inheriting money following the death of his wife’s father, Trebitsch abandoned his religious calling, and began working for a wealthy British industrialist, Benjamin Seebohm Rowntree. In 1910 Trebitsch was

Part III

I

n December 1914, Trebitsch contacted the British War Office and presented them with an outrageous plan to help beat the Germans in the horrific war that was gathering pace with each passing week. As a fluent German speaker and a former Member of Parliament, he suggested he might present himself to the Germans as

a traitor and gain their trust, and meanwhile he would report back to the British if he came across any useful information. His ultimate goal would be to gain their complete trust so that he could inform the British of any plans involving the German war fleet, enabling the Royal Navy to surprise and destroy German warships in an epic naval battle that would change the course of the war.

It is fair to say that Captain Kenny at the Secret Ser-

unexpectedly elected a Member of Parliament, but after just ten months he was forced to resign when it became clear that he was financially bankrupt. He quickly bounced back and began promoting various dubious business projects in Eastern Europe, duping countless investors into giving him their money.

Eventually the businesses collapsed and Trebitsch was reduced to borrowing money using forged letters of guarantee from Rowntree. When the forgeries came to light, Trebitsch’s creditor threatened to call the police. But Trebitsch had a new scheme up his sleeve – he had decided to become a spy.

vice department in the War Office (if that was his real name) did not take Trebitsch too seriously. He suggested that Trebitsch travel to Holland to find out how much cocoa Germany imported via Rotterdam. Perhaps Kenny was being facetious or maybe he was telling Trebitsch politely that his services were not required, but either Trebitsch didn’t get the joke or he was so desperate for a formal role that he chose to treat the ridiculous quest as an offi-

cial mission. He would later claim his discussion with Kenny was a double bluff, and that he had always intended to lead the Royal Navy into defeat against the German war fleet, not the other way around. In reality his desperation had allowed him to drift into a world of wild fantasy and make-believe, a one-way trip from which he would never return.

On December 18, 1914, Trebitsch arrived in Rotterdam, where he arranged to

meet with the German Consul-General, Carl Gneist, to offer his services as a double agent. Gneist considered Trebitsch rather odd, but in times of war even the strangest people can become an asset, and so he decided to give him some innocuous information to take back to London. Although Gneist was only testing the waters, Trebitsch saw this mission as official validation and, of course, a financial opportunity. He rushed back to London where he met with

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Kenny, who immediately sent him to the Director of British Naval Intelligence, a formidable man called Reginald Hall, later an Admiral and a Member of Parliament. Hall was extremely suspicious of Trebitsch, and after hearing him out and taking copies of the German information, he told him he would be in touch to discuss payment and future missions in due course.

But the wait was unbearable for Trebitsch, who was under phenomenal pressure.

At any time he could be arrested for fraud, and within a matter of weeks several loans would come up for repayment and angry creditors would be at his door demanding money. A fugitive from the law, and completely broke, he tried to put pressure on Hall by getting in touch with contacts from his parliamentary days. One former parliamentary colleague owned a popular Sunday newspaper. Trebitsch met him and presented his story as a complaint about Hall, whom he said was missing a unique chance to end the war. He also wrote to Sir Winston Churchill, who as First Lord of the Admiralty was directly responsible for the Royal Navy. Neither of these approaches produced results, so Trebitsch began peddling the story of his espionage experiences to a number of newspapers, in the hope they would pay him. But the idea that any newspaper would pick up the story was ludicrous. Any war-related news story needed to be cleared by the censors and publishing a story without going through the censors was a criminal offense.

Predictably, Trebitsch’s frantic efforts came to the attention of the War Office, and Hall decided that a line needed to be drawn. He summoned Trebitsch to his office, and in an uncomfortable meeting informed him that he would not now, nor ever, be required to work for the British government in any capacity, and that the papers he

Colonel Max Bauer, the extreme right-wing anti-Semite who befriended Trebitsch in Berlin

had brought with him from Holland were worthless and he would not be paid for having obtained them. As if this was not shocking enough, Hall told him that he was also fully aware of Trebitsch’s financial situation and criminal activities, and that it was not the habit of the British authorities to engage felons as secret agents.

The meeting was nothing less than a bombshell. It was clear Trebitsch had reached the end of the line and had no place left to turn. He rushed back to his wife and informed her he would need to leave the country immediately. In the early hours of January 30, 1915, Trebitsch slipped out of the grubby boarding house where they lived and made his way to the southern coast of England, where he boarded the ocean liner Philadelphia, bound for New York. When he arrived, he made contact with his three brothers who lived there.

But none of them was in any position to support him or even offer him a place to stay.

Unperturbed by this setback, Trebitsch turned to some fellow passengers whom he had befriended while on the ship to New York to ask them for financial assistance. Remarkably he was able to obtain loans to keep himself going while he worked on finding a source of income that would propel him back to the lavish lifestyle he desired.

Raymond Street Jail in Brooklyn, NY, where Trebitsch was jailed in 1915

He contacted the German embassy in Washington, DC, to offer them information he claimed to have about British war plans, but a telegram from Berlin informed the embassy staff to “have nothing to do with Trebitsch.” But in truth espionage was not at the forefront of Trebitsch’s mind.

His negative experiences with the War Office in London had more than convinced him that the secret service was not financially lucrative. Instead he decided sensational news stories were where the money was. In May, the widely read New York World magazine ran a screaming headline: “Revelations of I.T.T. Lincoln, former Member of Parliament, who became a German Spy.” The story that followed in two separate articles saw fantasy embrace fiction, with nuggets of truth used only as a launch pad for dramatic and self-aggrandizing escapades involving Trebitsch and an entire cast of tertiary characters. Trebitsch claimed he had tried to gain the trust of the British authorities by bringing them secret codes from the Germans, but somehow his intentions were discovered and he had been forced to escape for his life. Incredibly, he defended his hatred for the British as a natural reaction to their arrogant prejudice towards foreigners and particularly those originating from the Austro-Hungarian Empire. This, from a man

who had not only been elected to Parliament by British citizens, but who had systematically defrauded every British individual with whom he had ever come into contact.

For a few weeks after the articles appeared Trebitsch found himself in the limelight, as his incredible “exploits” were reported around the world. But his triumph was short-lived. The British government may have allowed a fugitive from the law to remain at large while they were involved in a major military effort, but the embarrassment caused by the articles, particularly when they were delightedly used as propaganda by the Germans, meant that this irksome troublemaker had to be caught and silenced. Hall at the War Office made arrangements with the famous Pinkerton Detective company to apprehend Trebitsch, which they did on August 4, 1915. The following morning he was arraigned in front of a judge in Brooklyn. Trebitsch claimed the accusations of fraud were false, insisting his crime was espionage, and he tried to claim political asylum. But the judge dismissed his indignant protestations, and he was remanded at the infamous Raymond Street Jail in Brooklyn while the court awaited papers from London.

For the next few months the British authorities struggled to organize Trebitsch’s extra-

95

dition, even sending a senior police officer to New York to accompany the prisoner back to London. But the judge was in no hurry to comply, and the disgruntled British policeman was forced to return emptyhanded.

Meanwhile Trebitsch had managed to charm the prison authorities and gain their trust. He became a celebrity prisoner and was granted privileges that allowed him to leave and reenter the jail almost at will.

In January 1916, as the painfully slow justice system worked through the extradition process, Trebitsch published a scurrilous book titled Revelations of an International Spy in which he made the fantastic claim, among others, that his espionage exploits had begun long before the onset of war and had included his European work for Rowntree going back almost a decade. More startling than this “revelation” was the fact that by the time the book hit the bookstores, Trebitsch had escaped from jail and completely disappeared.

Some days after his escape he made an unannounced visit to the offices of the New York American newspaper, where he gave an impromptu press conference to the astonished editorial staff before disappearing again. As the police desperately sought his whereabouts, journalists from multiple media outlets received letters from Trebitsch on an almost daily basis. Each letter contained ever more incredible claims and threats. With the police looking clumsier with each passing week, it became evident that his escape and agitation were a remarkable publicity stunt. The entire run of his book sold out, and his notoriety grew exponentially.

Trebitsch was eventually recaptured on February 20, 1916, after being betrayed by an acquaintance with whom he had arranged to meet. He was thrown back into jail, this time with stringent su-

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DECEMBER 17, 2015 | The Jewish Home The Jewish Home | OCTOBER 29, 2015

pervision. His extradition was still not finalized and his lawyers appealed for clemency to the United States Supreme Court. They were in no mood for leniency, however, and on May 8 issued a ruling that he be extradited back to England at the earliest opportunity. Once again a police officer was dispatched from London to accompany him back to England, and after sailing back across the Atlantic, Trebitsch finally appeared for his arraignment at Bow Street Police Court in East London on June 6.

Within a month he was at trial, and although he presented an impassioned defense on his own behalf, the jury found him guilty of all the charges without even retiring to consider their verdict. Bearing in mind that he was being tried for petty fraud his sentence was unusually harsh – three years high security incarceration at Parkhurst Prison on the Isle of Wight. The decision to treat him so severely was undoubtedly influenced by his anti-British activities

bitsch was unceremoniously deported to mainland Europe. Instead of making his way back to Hungary, however, he journeyed to Berlin, where within weeks he had joined forces with an extreme right wing group, for whom he wrote anti-British articles in the Deutsche Zeitung, a disreputable rag that ranted against anyone who was thought to have contributed to the humiliation of Germany’s defeat in the recently concluded World War. It was at around this time that Trebitsch got to know Colonel Max Bauer, a former senior German military strategist whose bitter resentment of the German political class – who he blamed for Germany’s capitulation and surrender – was pathological. Bauer was deeply involved in revolutionary agitation against Germany’s new leaders, although he remained widely respected by huge swathes of the German public. He was also a vicious anti-Semite, but strangely enough this does not seem to have affected his relationship

In reality his desperation had allowed him to drift into a world of wild fantasy and make-believe, a one-way trip from which he would never return.

in New York, activities that had caused enormous embarrassment to the British during this period.

In the summer of 1919 Trebitsch was released and, his British citizenship having been revoked, arrangements were made for his deportation. At first there was a reluctance to let him go, with senior British officials inexplicably concerned that he would join forces with the new Communist government in Hungary, but when that government collapsed Tre-

with Trebitsch, even though he must have known that Trebitsch was born a Jew. Bauer, like so many others before him, was taken in

by Trebitsch’s charm and intelligence, and adopted him as his protégé. In the fullness of time – again, like so many before him – this was a decision he would live to regret. By October 1919 Trebitsch had become Bauer’s closest advisor, and also his principal public representative. Very soon Trebitsch was caught up in various in-

11

ex-military sidekick would not have caught his attention.

One can only speculate what might have happened had they met under different circumstances.

In May 1915 screaming headlines in New York World magazine announced that Trebitsch was a German spy

trigues involving every kind of unsavory political character engaged in trying to reestablish the German monarchy under the rule of Crown Prince Wilhelm, son of the recently abdicated and exiled Kaiser Wilhelm II. Then, in March 1920, Trebitsch took on a leading role in one of the most remarkable of all the interwar national insurrections – the notorious Kapp Putsch of 1920. The five-day chaotic and ultimately abortive coup lasted between March 13 and March 18, 1920 and was led by a right-wing East Prussian bureaucrat, Wolfgang Kapp.

It was an abject disaster from the very beginning. Although initially the recently installed German Weimar government was frightened enough to flee to Dresden, within a couple of days a general strike was declared by the unions, and it became clear that the military had not seriously sided with the plotters, leaving them utterly powerless on every front. The coup collapsed in shambles.

During the five days of frantic activity, however, at least one person seemed to revel every moment – Trebitsch. Appointed by Kapp as his “Minister of Public Information,” Trebitsch became the official spokesman of the revolution, and its censor. No telegram could leave Germany without his permission, and no information could be published unless he had personally approved it. The foreign correspondents in Berlin reacted angrily and vehemently, but to no avail. Trebitsch took particular delight

in ripping up the telegrams of British correspondents in front of their faces. Within a couple of days the “revolution” had started to unravel, and on March 17, Kapp, seeing that the game was up, summarily resigned and fled to Sweden. Other conspirators also fled, or were arrested, as law and order was reestablished and the Weimar government took back the reins of power.

One of the last senior Kapp conspirators to leave the Reich Chancellery building at the end of the coup, on March 18, was none other than Trebitsch. On his way out he encountered two men who had flown in especially from Munich to join the now defunct revolution. One was 52-year-old Dietrich Eckart, a poet and journalist who had recently established the Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, forerunner of the Nazi party.

The other was a young former corporal from Austria and future Chancellor of Germany, Adolf Hitler. Many years later Hitler’s press secretary referenced this chance meeting in his memoirs, noting that Hitler would recall that Eckart had prevented him from talking to Trebitsch on account of his Jewish origins.

Trebitsch himself never mentioned the meeting and was possibly not even aware that it took place. As he rushed out of the Chancellery building that day he was probably so absorbed in planning his survival following yet another catastrophe, that the sight of a middle-aged journalist accompanied by a scruffy

IN THE FINAL PART OF THIS SERIES find out how Trebitsch became a prominent member of the secretive White International fascist organization that plotted the takeover of Europe, ultimately leading to his arrest and imprisonment.

Following his release from custody he meandered from country to country under various aliases, unable to settle anywhere. But it was his astonishing decision to convert to Buddhism and become a monk that surely ranks as his most bizarre move of all. And yet, rather than confine him to the margins, Trebit sch the Buddhist monk continued to be a constant source of agitation to a wide range of people and countries until the end of his life, through his involvement with Chinese warlords, Japanese imperialism and even the Nazi war effort. The remarkable life-journey of Ignatz Trebitsch remains enthralling and absorbing until the very end.

Rabbi Pini Dunner is the Rav of Young Israel North Beverly Hills in California.

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 17, 2015

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DECEMBER 2015 | The Jewish Home OCTOBER 29,17, 2015 | The Jewish Home OCTOBER 29, 2015 | The Jewish Home

Forgotten Her es

Leon Bieder and the USS Barb

By Avi Heiligman

A few weeks ago, after writing a series on the history of submarines, I was contacted by a man who said that his father served on a submarine with an incredible war record. The submarine sunk 17 merchant vessels, an aircraft carrier and somehow blew up a railroad train on the Japanese home islands. Relatively few Jewish sailors became submariners due to the high casualty rate but some braved the depths and Bieder served on two. This is the story of the USS Barb and New York native Leon Bieder.

M

ost American WWII-era submarines were named after fish with the main exceptions being the R and S class which were called by their hull numbers (the USS Volador was named after an ancient Mexican dance ritual – more on that a different time). The barbus is a fish that is found worldwide and was known to the ancient world as a delicacy when pickled. The U.S. Navy has named two submarines after the fish, shortening the name to barb. The first had the hull number of SS-220 and was active during WWII. The second, a nuclear-powered submarine, had the hull number of SSN-596 and was active during the Cold War. The USS Barb (SS-220) had her keel laid down before the attack on Pearl Harbor but wasn’t commissioned until July 1942. She was of the Gato class and was sent to operate out of Scotland. Her first five patrols were in the Atlantic and Mediterranean and were mainly uneventful. She did participate in Operation Torch off of Morocco which was the first Allied invasion of German-held territory. On subsequent patrols

she went on patrols in the Norwegian Sea, Bay of Biscay and North Atlantic but saw very little action. In an unfortunate incident, the Barb sank a neutral Spanish tanker that was mistaken for a German ship. Then, in July 1943, the Barb went back to the U.S. for a brief overhaul and was sent to the Pacific.

The USS Barb went to the coast of China for her sixth war patrol and managed to damage two enemy ships. By this time American torpedoes had been fixed and were working as advertised (there is speculation among historians that if the torpedoes had been working properly at the start of the war the American navy could have finished in Japan by 1943. Many Japanese ships – especially carriers – escaped because the torpedoes failed to explode). The Barb took full advantage of this and sank a total of seventeen ships with an unknown number damaged.

One of the crewmen onboard the Barb when she went into the Pacific was Leon Bieder. Born in 1923 in Brooklyn and raised in Williamsburg and Bedford Stuyvesant, Bieder was a veteran

of submarine action. Before joining the navy, he signed for the Merchant Marines. Almost as dangerous as submarines, the ammunition ship he was on blew up off the coast of North Africa.

Luckily the ammunition that they were carrying had just been offloaded but still one crewman was killed.

Bieder wanted to get a chance to shoot back at the enemy so he chose the navy to continue his war service. While on leave, he married and moved to New London, Connecticut, where the

The 17,2015 2015 TheJewish JewishHome Home||DECEMBER OCTOBER 29,

The crew of the USS Barb

One of the most Leon Bieder with his street hockey successful U.S. submarine team. He was number 13, his lucky commanders in World number. He died on April 13 War II, Eugene Fluckey

submarine school was located.

Bieder had served on the USS Rock which had some close shaves with the Japanese destroyer Asashimo. Veteran submariners were periodically transferred from ship to ship to help the “newbies” get acquainted with the unusual lifestyle of living under the ocean. Bieder was probably the only Jewish sailor on the Barb during her war patrols and was one of the few Jewish American submariners during the war. On one attack, Leon remembered being depth charged

Bieder was probably the only Jewish sailor on the Barb during her war patrols and was one of the few Jewish American submariners during the war. (explosive dropped in the water set to explode at a certain depth or upon impact) for an excruciating 18 hours. Their antagonist was a Japanese sub chaser and conditions onboard the sub were very uncomfortable especially since the fresh air intake system had to be shut off to avoid detection. He was highly decorated for his service and received the Navy American Theater Medal, the Asiatic-Pacific Medal, and the WWII Victory Medal.

On September 17, 1944, the Barb sighted a coveted prize – a Japanese aircraft carrier. It was the 20,000 ton escort carrier Unyo sailing about 220 miles southeast of Hong Kong. Three tor-

pedoes from the Barb sent the Unyo to a watery grave along with about 250 of her 1000 sailors.

In the last year of the war there were slim pickings for the submarines. Japan was suffering from a severe oil shortage and her merchant ships were sunk at a very high rate during 1944.

American subs had to venture deeper into enemy waters to find targets and even these were smaller ships than they were used to sighting. Commander Eugene “Lucky” Fluckey took the Barb to the Formosa Straits and the dangerous waters of the East China Sea for her eleventh patrol. She sank four enemy merchant ships as well as a number of smaller vessels. Then, on January 22, 1945, Fluckey maneuvered the sub into the heavily mined and shallow (30 feet deep) Namkwan Harbor where 30 Japanese ships were docked.

After firing a spread of torpedoes she hightailed it out of there before the enemy could chase her.

Eight hits were recorded on six ships. Fluckey was awarded the Medal of Honor for this patrol and the rest of the crew received the Presidential Unit Citation.

For her twelfth patrol, the Barb went to the coast of Japan to employ a new type of weapon for submarines. Rockets were launched on four coastal cities and then sank a Japanese escort which was designed as a submarine hunter. Then on the night of July 22-23, eight submariners readied themselves for a covert mission usually left to professionally trained commandos. Bieder was not on the raiding party because they didn’t want married men in harm’s way more than necessary. The Barb crept very close the shore of Karafuto, Japan, and the men paddled to shore in small boats. They left behind a Japanese captive who promised not to run away. Their target was railroad tracks where they would place explosives that would detonate when a train passed. At 1:45 AM, the saboteurs were only halfway back to

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Members of the submarine’s demolition squad pose with her battle flag at the conclusion of her 12th war patrol.

Taken at Pearl Harbor, August 1945

the Barb when a train detonated the explosives.

It went up in an impressive fireworks display as the Barb recovered her crewmen and slipped away. The men watched topside as the train continued to explode. This ended the war patrols for the Barb.

The Barb and her crew had served bravely during the war but were put out of commission shortly after it ended. She was recommissioned twice during the Korean War and was loaned to Italy. Eventually, she was sold for scrap. The Barb earned eight battle stars for her actions. Another USS Barb (SSN-596) was commissioned in 1962 and was sponsored by Commander (then Rear Admiral) Fluckey’s wife.

More Jewish submariners joined the navy after WWII and the Barb was commanded by Philadelphia native Bernard Kauderer from 1966-1970. Kauderer eventually became a vice admiral and held several top submarine posts for the navy. He is also responsible for several Jewish projects in the U.S. Navy including bringing the first Jewish chapel to the Naval Academy in Annapolis.

Leon Bieder died in 2004 and his family proudly carries on his legacy. In 2011 his wife, Francine, now of Boca Raton, and three sons placed his name on the Wall of Honor at Eisenhower Park.

Note: The author is very grateful to Jeff, Frank and Cliff Bieder for the information on their father and giving The Jewish Home permission to print these pictures.

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 17, 2015 | The Jewish Home OCTOBER OCTOBER 29, 29, 2015 2015 || The The Jewish Jewish Home Home

Dr. Deb

Bratty Teens

By Deb Hirschhorn, Ph.D.

Y

aay! I finally overcame my Equipment Confusion Disorder and got the Torah Anytime camera to record correctly. So if you missed my talk on Avraham Avinu both times – in the morning at Waffelino and the night at my house – you get the chance to see it in the comfort of your own house or wherever your phone might be (Torah Anytime has a free app). The link is at http://www.torahanytime. com/video/how-avraham-avinu-

avoided-anxiety-disorder/ My next talk, coming up on January 5, due to requests for night possibilities, will also be given at 8PM, again at my home, on January 11. (Please RSVP.) My title is, “The Challenge of Teenagers” and will reflect on some of the story of Yosef HaTzaddik.

If I could share a rule that I developed while my children were going through their adolescent years, one that I reminded myself

again and again, it was, “Be patient; they’ll outgrow it!”

Parents of teens are torn between two opposing stances: On one end is the recognition that the child needs guidance and his or her wild ideas must be reined in, and the other end is the notion that teens deserve the respect for their growing status and therefore should be left alone.

Finding the sweet spot in between can be challenging. Let’s first look at both extremes to see how the child interprets them.

WHAT’S WRONG WITH TELLING IT LIKE IT IS? Well, do you like to hear someone higher in rank tell you “like it is”? I didn’t think so. No one does.

Here is what happens inside the child’s head when a parent “lays it on the line”: 1. The child feels strangled, choked, stifled. At this stage of life the child needs to try out many different things in order to figure out not only who he is but who he wants to be. Giving him more room to make mistakes will, paradoxically, bring the child “back home” when home is a safe place to return after exploring the world. Getting on top of him will chase him out when he really isn’t ready to be “out.” That explains the gang phenomenon.

2. The child feels stupid, or at least he believes that you think he is. Often, the things a parent shoves down the adolescent’s throat are indeed things that the child already

thought of and perhaps even rejected. You telling him what he already knows makes him feel like you must not have much faith in him. He then may argue with you even though he has rejected whatever that bad idea was, just to let you know how frustrated he is with you.

3. The child may actually feel you hate him. I’ve had teens tell me this. Parents, full of love and worry for their child, are full of disbelief when this comes out, but it is how the child interprets your emotional outbursts when you want to “guide” him and he isn’t buying.

WHAT’S WRONG WITH LETTING THE CHILD ALONE TO MAKE MISTAKES? Nothing is wrong with that provided there is sufficient contact to give the child security. Children who have been spoiled since early years may yell and scream at parents because they are used to running the show. But as they get older, they encounter the scariness of the outside world and they definitely need a place to feel safe. That’s what home should be.

If the parent backs off too much, the child is left alone in a world he doesn’t yet know. This may also drive him into gangs and those sorts of groups, or it could lead him to hole up in his room, isolated.

Both are not healthy places. Teens don’t have the inner resources to cope on their own without any support or sense of which end is up.

The 17,2015 2015 TheJewish JewishHome Home| |DECEMBER OCTOBER 29,

You’ll notice I did not ask: How much guidance do you give to a teen?

That is the wrong question because to the adolescent who is exploring his world, any guidance will probably feel like too much.

If this perplexes you, think of some of the great bosses you’ve had or great teachers. What was their method of getting you to take on a new idea, be okay with it, and even think it was theirs?

Here are some ways: Encase it in a “spoonful of sug-

And that is why I came up with the sneaky formula for giving guidance: Give it such that the child doesn’t realize you’re giving it.

And that is why I came up with the sneaky formula for giving guidance: Give it such that the child doesn’t realize you’re giving it. In that way, he gets as much as you feel he needs and he isn’t upset with you for it.

ar,” i.e., fun. So, in the course of doing fun things, whether it’s a trip or sports or shopping, an idea can be casually slipped in.

Ask the child an innocent question to get him to consider possibil-

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ities that he hadn’t thought of.

Always be respectful of your child. His neshama is holy (just as yours is). That means listen, don’t interrupt, and consider his ideas thoughtfully.

Tell a story that makes your point, but do it in a way that doesn’t try to spell out the “hidden meaning” in the story (or it won’t be hidden anymore and you will also insult his intelligence that way).

Don’t be predictable. When your child expects you to say or do the same thing you’ve always said or done, he will tune you out.

The key to making this happen has to be a good relationship. And a good relationship is based on love, respect, giving, and mutual enjoyment.

We know you love your child; that’s a given. And so is giving a given. If anything, parents give too much, at least materially, to their child.

Respect is something that a parent may actually have to conscious-

ly work on because it may not come naturally. If he was not himself treated with respect by his own parents, then for sure, that’s what he has to do.

Yaakov Avinu had all the right parental qualities, according to this, so did he go wrong? And can we, as parents, learn anything about our own parenting skills from Yaakov’s challenges? Come to my January talks to hear more on this.

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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HOW DO YOU GIVE GUIDANCE TO A TEEN?

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27

Health & F tness

Yogurt and Its Many Health Benefits

By Cindy Weinberger MS, RD, CDN

H

ave you noticed that lately yogurt is dominating the dairy section of supermarkets? It’s getting harder to find cottage cheese and sour cream amongst the sea of yogurts.

However, this prime real estate location in the supermarkets is befitting for yogurt due to its vast variety of health benefits. Aside from its popular taste and texture, yogurt has been found to have numerous health benefits. Yogurt is a dairy product made from fermentation of milk. As unappetizing as it may sound, yogurt is greatly enjoyed as a breakfast, snack or dessert. Here are some of the many health benefits of yogurt and why people should add it into their diet.

First and foremost, yogurt consumption has been associated with weight loss.

Research has shown that the calcium found in yogurt triggers fat cells to create less cortisol. Cortisol is a hormone that is related to the accumulation of belly flab. Eating yogurt can help eat away your belly fat! The weight loss effects of yogurt can also be contributed to the fact that yogurt tends to be lower in calories and substitutes other unhealthier snacks. Studies have also shown that yogurt is very filling and results in less hunger. This full feeling is credited to the protein found in yogurt.

Yogurt is a rich source of protein. Most yogurts help meet approximately 20% of the daily protein requirements. Besides being a rich source of proteins, the culturing of the milk proteins during fermentation makes these proteins easier to digest. Protein is a major source of energy and is essential for body tissue maintenance.

Another term well associated with yogurt is probiotics. Probiotics literally means for life, referring to the bacteria that result in health benefits. Your body requires an adequate amount of “good” bacteria in the digestive tract, and many yogurts are made using active, good bacteria. Studies suggest that probiotics found in yogurt can improve gastrointestinal disorders such as lactose intolerance, constipation, diarrhea, colon cancer, inflammation, and H. pylori infection. In addition, some probiotic strains may boost the immune system, thus enhancing resistance to disease and hastening the recovery from infection. Experts feel that probiotics should be taken simultaneously with antibiotics to help protect the gut microflora. When taking antibiotics, many people suffer from unpleasant side effects such as diarrhea, intestinal pain and/or bloating. This is because the antibiotics upset the balance of bacteria in the

digestive tract by destroying the “bad” bacteria. Eating foods rich in probiotics – the “good” bacteria – may help relieve these side effects of antibiotics by bringing the bacteria back up to the appropriate balance.

Calcium is another key nutrient found in yogurt.

Calcium is necessary for strong bones and teeth and plays a major role in preventing and treating osteoporosis. However, many people fall short of the daily recommended amount of calcium. When the body is short of calcium from the diet, it pulls the calcium directly out of the bones, resulting in weaker, more fragile bones.

The combination of calcium and probiotics in yogurt is favorable since the probiotics help increase the absorption of calcium.

Yogurt also provides potassium, iodine, zinc, pantothenic acid and B vitamins, particularly thiamin and riboflavin. Research has shown that potassium reduces blood pressure, and in turn reduces the risk of stroke and coronary heart disease. One such study demonstrated a 50% reduction in the risk of developing high blood pressure among participants who consumed 2-3 servings of low fat dairy daily compared with those without any dairy intake. Evidence also suggests that adequate dietary potassium protects the body

from age-related bone loss and reduces kidney stones.

Yogurt also contains vitamin B12, which maintains red blood cells and helps keep your nervous system functioning properly. Adequate levels of vitamin B12 are particularly important among the elderly population and vegetarians. Vitamin B12 is found mainly in meat and dairy products. Vitamin B12 is also synthesized in our gut. However, as we get older, there is less motility in the gut and less vitamin B12 being made. Therefore, it is essential that vitamin B12 is consumed adequately in the diet. Deficiency of vitamin B12 can easily go unnoticed and results in Alzheimer’s disease, dementia, memory loss, depression, cancer, cardiovascular disease, anxiety, chronic fatigue, and pernicious anemia. Consuming yogurt regularly can help maintain adequate stores of vitamin B12 and prevent these complications.

Aside from the many health benefits, the beauty of yogurt is its convenience.

Yogurt is inexpensive, made by many different companies and flavors so you can choose exactly which one you like best, or you can keep to a variety of different companies and flavors. If you want to create your own flavored yogurt, start with your favorite company of plain yogurt and add in different foods

and flavors. Flaxseeds, chia seeds, granola, and wheat germ spice up the consistency of yogurt and provide fiber. If looking for something sweet, add strawberries, peaches, pineapple, blueberries, or bananas. Some like to sprinkle cinnamon, coffee, or coconut to create a distinct flavor. Frozen yogurt has also become a very popular dessert, and many people are even throwing yogurt into salad dressings.

My favorite feature about yogurt is that it can easily be eaten on the go. Take your yogurt to work with you for a great morning or afternoon snack. Don’t forget to put your name on it when refrigerating it, because someone will easily snatch up all that creamy goodness!

Cindy Weinberger MS, RD, CDN, is a Master’s level Registered Dietitian and Certified Dietitian-Nutritionist.

She graduated CUNY Brooklyn College receiving a Bachelor’s in Science and Master’s degree in Nutrition and Food Sciences. Her Dietetic Internship was completed under Brooklyn College primarily in Ditmas Park Care Center and Boro Park Center where she developed clinical and education skills to treat patients with comprehensive nutrition care. She is currently a dietitian at Boro Park Center and a private nutrition consultant. She can be reached at CindyWeinberger1@gmail.com.

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Dating Dialogue

What Would You Do If… Moderated by Jennifer Mann, LMSW of The Navidaters

Dear Navidaters,

I’ve been married now for approximately six months. Up until a few months ago, everything between me and my husband was great. We shared so much in common. Same goals, same hopes for our future, plus I felt like an equal to him.

Recently, my husband Chaim, started changing. At first it was so subtle, I thought maybe it was my imagination.

But when he started making demands on me that were never an issue before, I realized that something was going on. For instance, I love to read. I’ve never read trashy novels, but I do enjoy contemporary novels that I can learn from and reflect upon. About a month ago, Chaim told me that he didn’t want me reading secular books anymore. I was shocked to hear him demand this of me. To begin with, he never had

a problem with me reading novels beforehand. But maybe even worse, he never demanded things of me in such a way. Usually, we would have a discussion about things and come to some compromise. But he didn’t want to discuss it. He said it’s no longer O.K. for me to buy and read such books.

There have been a number of other changes that he’s been trying to initiate into our home. In fact, by now, too many to list. I can respect the beauty of a person deciding to move further and further to the right with time. But in a marriage, I believe there has to be a conversation and both people need to be on the same page. That is not happening right now in our marriage. For better or for worse, I was quite content with the way we were living our lives together, before his changes.

Now I’m being told that it’s not good enough and my opinion doesn’t seem to matter. Though I know that many people would respect the growth in Chaim toward his Yiddishkeit, I still feel as though what he’s doing isn’t fair and I’m not sure how to handle it.

What are your feelings about this situation?

The Panel The Rebbetzin Rebbetzin Faigie Horowitz, M.S.

A

s you indicate, there seems to be control issues in your marriage, not just spiritual ones. A good marital therapist will help you navigate this and determine whether there are also communication obstacles as well. A seasoned professional will look at whether you are being cut off from family and friends and help you

determine whether or not there are other red flags lurking in your marriage that point to unhealthy patterns within your relationship.

Feeling safe enough to communicate and to share effectively is going to be an important aspect in the assessment. Be patient. Put in the work of going to the therapist and doing the homework s/he suggests. It’s a process that takes time and should involve your husband’s spiritual mentor as well. Chaim may need to hear some messages from someone he re-

spects spiritually. Get your team together and get to work!

The Mother Sarah Schwartz Schreiber, PA

A

larm bells. Sirens. When I read your letter, I heard these loud and clear.

Your husband’s radical turn of character is alarming because be-

havioral change occurred suddenly after six months of relative calm. As a medical professional, I am concerned that there might be a medical, organic basis for his altered personality. The stress of a life-altering event (marriage, for example) can trigger certain behavioral chemical imbalances. In other instances of diagnosed psychological disorders (bipolar disorder or OCD, for example) patients may suddenly experience symptoms when they abruptly discontinue or decrease the dose of

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 17, 2015 The Jewish Home | OCTOBER 29, 2015

prescribed medications. Scary stuff for a new kallah.

Other triggers that may have caused Moshe Jekyll to morph into Yossi Hyde may be certain influential figures in his (outside of the marriage) milieu. Does he have a new chavrusah? Is the rebbe he reveres, suddenly too close for comfort and chafingly intrusive? Are his well-meaning parents or siblings unduly meddlesome and inquisitive?

Whatever is undermining your marriage or whether the problem has a medical, psychological or social basis, you must not attempt to handle this on your own. Your first stop: Family. Be honest, open and mature. Express your commitment to your husband without being defensive, dramatic or histrionic. Never blame yourself (“If only I wore a shorter sheitel or longer skirts”) for your husband’s newfound scrupulosity. Other valuable resources: your kallah teacher, and/or your spiritual advisor (rebbetzin or rabbi). Finally, consult a qualified psychologist or marriage counselor once psychiatric or medical problems are ruled out.

Young Married Shadchan Michelle Mond

I

t’s very unusual that someone wakes up one morning and has a completely different outlook than he used to. There’s an analogy I heard once that teaches us a lot about how a couple who are not seeing eye-toeye can easily come together after a disagreement. Being on two separate pages and in conflictual mindsets is likened to two people arguing outside in the rain. Instead of both of you standing out there in the rain feeling upset and both being too stubborn to admit he/she might be wrong, you can come to a closer place just by lovingly bringing him an umbrella and sitting under it together.

When trying to get to the bottom of what is causing his change of heart, it’s important to do it in a caring way rather than going about it in an argumentative/victim mode. I would imagine this can be challeng-

When trying to get to the bottom of what is causing his change of heart, it’s important to do it in a caring way rather than going about it in an argumentative/ victim mode.

ing for you, because until now, you didn’t have to deal with his demands.

However, by broaching the topic lovingly, “bringing him the umbrella and sitting under it with him,” so to speak, you will create a safe environment in which to discuss the matter.

Is it possible that Chaim switched rebbeim recently to one who holds him to much higher standards? Has he made new friends recently, who have a different and more yeshivish bent? These are possible causes for his change in behavior – but you won’t know for sure unless you’re able to have a safe conversation with him. Certainly it would be helpful to sit down with his rav or a therapist to help mediate the conversation and come to a conclusion that you can both be happy about, which reflects some sort of compromise.

Through this difficult period, try to remember all of the amazing qualities your husband has and how wonderful your marriage was before this turn of events. Through proper intervention and open communication, you both can hopefully return to that happy place. Hatzlacha!

The Single Irit Moshe (pen name)

B

ased on what you have given us in your question, I am inclined

to agree with you that demanding is no way to be speaking to a spouse.

A spouse should respect and accept their spouse’s choice of Yiddishkeit, which obviously was good enough not so long ago, when the two of you got engaged. To suddenly make stricter demands is unacceptable.

Yiddishkeit and Jewish practice reflects one’s relationship with his/her Creator, Hashem. It is personal and in no way should one’s spouse dictate or make demands. Within a marriage, each of the spouses are constantly moving up or down the Yiddishkeit ladder, at different speeds, perhaps in slightly different directions and both have their individual areas of strengths and weaknesses.

Of course you should both strive to be positive influences on one another – but without criticism and/or negativity. Raising children brings up very specific challenges, but hopefully that is something that you two discussed before you got engaged.

In the majority of convention-

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al Orthodox marriages, the couple should be within the same ballpart with one another upon agreeing to marry. Hopefully, they will stay within a similar ballpark as the marriage continues. But if one wishes to strive for greater heights in Yiddishkeit, then typically there is a conversation that is had and it is agreed upon by both to encourage each other to reach their goal, either together or alone or lagging behind. All of this must be done within a respectful and positive framework. It doesn’t sound as though that is happening between the two of you. Therefore, I recommend you consult with your husband’s rav, a ( frum) therapist or someone your husband personally respects – to act as a mediator.

If your husband does not change in his approach after you both have sought counselling from a rav or a therapist, then you will need to evaluate what is best for you in regards to your relationship with this man. I wish you much luck.

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DECEMBER 17, 2015 | The Jewish Home OCTOBER 29, 2015 | The Jewish Home

Pulling It All Together The Navidaters Dating and Relationship Coaches and Therapists

I imagine this is a confusing and scary time in your life. You are a kallah (bride), living in marital bliss and suddenly without warning your husband drastically changes.

All your compromises and agreed upon values are suddenly gone. Your husband has not only begun to make demands of you, but he has also inadvertently stripped you of your ability to please him. He has handicapped you. Not only are you unable to “get it right,” but everything you do is wrong. Living in such an environment is a hotbed for impaired self-esteem, stress, anxiety, depression, and somatic symptoms. And with all this upheaval, you had the sense and courage to write into the panel. I want you know how much I applaud you.

There is something very unhealthy festering in your marriage right now and you don’t know what exactly it is and neither do I. But frankly, whatever its origin, this is not a marital issue. In order for conflict to qualify as marital, in my mind there must be two participants contributing to the conflict. From your email, I have gathered that this is distinctly a Chaim issue. I will say it again. Not a marital issue, a Chaim issue. And again: not a marital issue, but a Chaim issue. Sometimes, it doesn’t take two to tango.

Based on your description of recent past events, you will not be able to live up to Chaim’s list of demands.

In other words, there is no head covering too tzinius, no book too appropriate, no skirt length too acceptable to quell Chaim’s insatiable compulsion for order and edict in his home.

And it is not your job to acquiesce to his unquenchable demands. Under no circumstances does that make you a bad wife. This isn’t your fault.

You didn’t create the problem, you aren’t responsible for the problem and

you can’t fix the problem.

If you take nothing else from this panel, let it be that.

The panel has provided some insightful feedback regarding your situation. The Rebbetzin suggests seeing a marital therapist to address Chaim’s control issues and any other communication issues that may be present. Sarah Schwartz Schreiber sees red flags and believes these flags may suggest an organic, medical or possibly psychiatric issue at play.

Michelle Mond suggests broaching the subject lovingly and exploring the possibility that Chaim’s behaviors are speaking to a new influence in his life. Irit Moshe highlights an important point which is that even when religious changes occur in one spouse, an open conversation should occur; one which is missing the demanding nature that Chaim maintains. The single most important matter to be highlighted with regard to Chaim’s new behaviors is the possibility of a medical or psychiatric issue that isn’t being addressed properly or at all. (G-d forbid, a stroke, drug abuse, OCD, major depressive disorder, etc.)

I have to wonder if Chaim has a mental health issue or mental illness that you may or may not know about. There is no way to know what that is through an email or without meeting him, but his behaviors are suggestive. What strikes me most is that things were hunky dory, and then suddenly out of the blue with no warning he dramatically changed and began placing demands on you.

Things that were once agreed upon and acceptable to him were no longer OK. You mention one or two examples but go on to say that there are too many initiated changes to list.

Clearly, Chaim needs medical and/

or psychiatric attention to rule out any organic or psychiatric root to his sudden personality change. In order for any effective and lasting changes to take place and make this relationship tolerable for you, I believe the aforementioned must be addressed immediately.

In an ideal world, you would tactfully approach Chaim about the new situation in the relationship and let him know how it is affecting you negatively and he would gladly see his doctor and go for therapy with you and/or by himself. That would be a win and let us hope it will be as simple as that. You must however be prepared for the possibility that things will not go as smoothly. You can ask him to get help, demand him to get help or even give him an ultimatum if it comes to it … but Chaim will only get help if Chaim wants to get help. And regardless of what he does, a good idea would be to call The Shalom Task Force Hotline to speak to someone anonymously and get a professional opinion as to whether or not Chaim’s behavior qualifies as abuse. They listed two numbers on their website, 1-888-883-2323 1-718-337-3700.

There is the possibility that Chaim may not see his behaviors as harmful and may further justify himself and rattle off his rationalizations, whatever they may be. In other words, he may spin this so that you are the bad one; you are the crazy one; you aren’t as committed to your lifestyle as he is.

Let us be hopeful that he will heed your plea and address this first medically and then therapeutically.

If that is not the case, then you will need to speak to a mental health professional to receive support and have a safe and objective place to consider your next move. In your own individual therapy you can take a load off and first and foremost, take a breath and process what is happening and that it is really happening. You will slow it all down a bit, and at the same time make some good sense of your thoughts and feelings. You may explore if this is a marriage in which you can feel good about yourself.

You may explore your tolerance for Chaim’s behaviors and what motivates you to stay with him. And ultimately if you want to stay or leave.

Let’s now speak exclusively about you. During times like this it can feel natural to cocoon yourself from family and friends. Whatever the reason (shame, fear etc.) now is the time to find support. Is there someone in your life who knows about this?

A best friend, your kallah teacher, sister, mother, father, neighbor.

You can’t keep this to yourself. We are only as sick as our secrets and though you may not want to shout it from the rooftops, this isn’t your secret to keep. Be sure you are speaking to someone regularly.

When Chaim finds his next area of complaint, remind yourself that it is his problem and not yours. If you have a well-meaning person in your life telling you to give in by way of “so just get rid of the book,” or “cut the sheitel the way he likes it” or “just wear the stockings” or “be nicer to him, kinder to him, wear the lipstick he likes, don’t wear lipstick at all…” please stop all contact with this person at least for the time being while you begin to make sense of what is going on here. Very often, well-intentioned people do not understand when mental illness is at play. They don’t understand that you could stand on your head and spit wooden nickels and the abusive/mentally ill partner will say, “I wanted dimes.”

Take care and best of luck to you.

May you find clarity and peace.

Sincerely, Jennifer

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.

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In The K

17

tchen

“Super” Soups

Tortellini Chicken Soup

Vegetable Soup with Kale, Apple and Cabanossi Sausage

By Naomi Nachman

What a crazy winter we are having. It has been either freezing cold or unseasonably warm. Chilly days inspire me to make warm soups, and the few days we have had of cold weather has driven me to write some delicious new soup recipes.

I love a soup that is thick and hearty and can fill you up while staving off the effects of the wintry temperatures outside. I will typically serve it with some warm crusty bread and a side salad. This soup is perfect for those cold days when you need to warm your soul (and your toes!) and make a fresh hot meal for your loved ones.

Tortellini Chicken Soup Ingredients 1 ½ Tbsp olive oil 1 large loose carrot, diced 1 cup celery, diced 1 medium onion, diced 4 cloves garlic, minced 2 quarts chicken broth 1 ½ tsp Italian seasoning Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste 12 oz. frozen tomato tortellini by NY Pasta Authority or parve brand of your choice 2 -3 cups shredded rotisserie chicken or from leftover chicken 3 cups fresh spinach or kale Directions Heat olive oil in a large pot over medium heat.

Add carrots, celery and onion and sauté 3 - 4 minutes. Add garlic and sauté 30 seconds longer. Stir

in chicken broth, Italian seasoning and season with salt and pepper to taste. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat then cover and boil 15 minutes.

Add tortellini, cover and boil 6 - 8 minutes longer. Stir in chicken and spinach and cook until heated through and the spinach has wilted, about 2 minutes.

Serve with crusty bread.

Vegetable Soup with Kale, Apple and Cabanossi Sausage Ingredients 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil 1 cup diced onion 1 large jalapeño pepper, seeded with ribs removed 1 cup diced celery

1 cup Gala apples, peeled and chopped 1 - 6oz. package Chicken Cabanossi from Hod Golan, sliced into ½ inch rounds 1 bunch kale, chopped, about 6 cups 2 cloves garlic, minced 1 teaspoon cumin 4 cups chicken or vegetable broth 1 can (14.5 ounces) diced tomatoes, undrained 1 can (15 ounces) white beans, such as Great Northern, drained and rinsed ½ teaspoon salt, or to taste ¼ teaspoon ground black pepper Dash sriracha (optional) Directions In a large soup pot heat olive oil over medium-high heat. Add onions, pepper, celery, apples and sausage. Sauté, stirring, until onion is just tender.

Reduce heat to medium-low. Add kale, garlic and cumin; cover and continue cooking for 2 minutes. Add remaining ingredients; cover and cook for 15 to 20 minutes, until vegetables are tender.

Taste and adjust salt, pepper and cumin, as needed.

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?!”

Well, I would — I might oversleep that day… because he used to make these speeches: “Remember President Dole? Do you remember President McCain?” The inference was that we were all a bunch of liberals, and only he is a true conservative. And he uses the word “conservative” in — more than he ever uses the word “Republican,” the party.

So, it would be difficult.

– 1996 GOP presidential nominee Bob Dole on MSNBC when asked whether he would vote for Ted Cruz if he gets the GOP nomination

You had Hillary Clinton the other night saying that we’re exactly where we want to be on ISIS. Here’s my suggestion to her: Suspend your campaign, get on a plane to Paris, and go and look in the eyes of the families of those dead victims and tell them we’re exactly where we want to be on ISIS. - Gov. Chris Christie

A new report claims ISIS has been using American weapons in their fight against the United States. The weapons include tanks, rifles, and Donald Trump.

– Conan O’Brien

According to a new poll, Newark Liberty is the country’s least favorite airport. But only because LaGuardia is technically classified as a prison.

– Seth Myers

Jeb Bush has fallen to just 3 percent in a new poll, and his numbers continue to drop. Jeb says this isn’t the time to panic — because the time to panic was, like, five months ago.

– Jimmy Fallon

Donald Trump said last night that despite calling Ted Cruz a “maniac,” he has since learned that Cruz has a “wonderful temperament.” And if Donald Trump thinks you have a “wonderful temperament,” you’re probably a maniac.

– Seth Myers

I have no idea what Mr. Trump has in mind, and I don’t think Mr. Trump has any idea of what he has in mind.

— Attorney Eugene Fidell, demanding that GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump stop calling his client, Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, “a no-good traitor who should have been executed”

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8 billion - The number of times Americans throughout the country look at their mobile devices on a daily basis, according to a recent survey by Deloitte

I saw that after his recent comments about Muslims, Donald Trump was fired as a global ambassador for Scotland.

Which is ironic, because if there were ever a human version of bagpipes, it’s Donald Trump.

– Jimmy Fallon

We err on the conservative side.

They’re a little bit like a cautious student driver or a grandma.

— Dmitri Dolgov, principal engineer of Google’s driverless car program, on whether strict adherence to traffic laws is leading to crash rates double those of human-driven vehicles

It’s come out that last year: a man was able to get past the Secret Service and speak with President Obama by pretending to be a congressman. The Secret Service realized he wasn’t a congressman because he was willing to be seen with President Obama.

– Conan O’Brien

Just one other thing, I gotta get this off my chest – Donald Trump is a jerk.

- Jeb Bush at town hall meeting in New Hampshire

He’s an embarrassment to the Bush family and in fact, he doesn’t even want to use the Bush name, which is interesting. Jeb is an embarrassment to himself and to his family.

- Trump responding to Jeb’s comments, on Meet the Press

Bernie Sanders just unveiled a new climate change plan, and he promised to cut back on fossil fuels. Bernie really wants to cut down on fossil fuels — especially because they’re made from his high school friends.

– Jimmy Fallon

I’m very humble, man. It’s been an unbelievable time for myself and my family, and I’m just grateful that Nike and [Nike founder] Phil Knight and everyone over there just believed in a skinny-old, skinny 18-year-old kid from Akron, Ohio, and I’m happy to be a part of such a great company.

– LeBron James talking to the press about his recent $500 million lifetime contract with Nike

Last night at a casino in Las Vegas, Donald Trump declared, “I expect to win Iowa.” Which is odd because usually when Trump is around a casino, the only thing he declares is bankruptcy.

– Conan O’Brien

Bush has sent an email to his supporters promising that … if you give him $25, you won’t receive any more email requests for cash the rest of the year. It’s a political strategy borrowed from the mob. “Hey, this is a real nice inbox you got here. I would hate to see something happen to it, if you know what I’m saying. Gimme $25, and that problem goes away. I’m Jeby the Knuckles, and I approved this message.”

– Stephen Colbert

A golf course owned by Donald Trump is no longer being considered to host a major golf tournament due to remarks that Trump has made about Mexicans and Muslims. You know there’s a problem when your views on race are too extreme for a private golf club.

– Conan O’Brien

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Hopefully it won’t take me another 90 years to get another one.

- 98-year-old Joe Sepic, who hit a hole-in-one on a Florida golf course last week

In Florida, a 98-year-old man shot a hole-in-one. The 98-year-old was shocked, mostly because he had no idea he was playing golf.

He is a bright and talented person without any doubt… He is an outstanding and talented personality without any doubts.

- Vladimir Putin talking about Donald Trump at his annual news conference

It is always a great honor to be so nicely complimented by a man so highly respected within his own country and beyond.

– Part of a statement released by Trump’s campaign in response to Putin’s compliments

- Conan O’Brien

The Department of Health announced it’s extending the enrollment period for Obamacare to January 1st. What better time to sign up for Obamacare than the day we all lie to ourselves about being healthier.

Then they said, “You know, he’s killed reporters,” and I don’t like that. I’m totally against that. But I do hate them. I hate some of these people, but I’ll be honest, I would never kill them.

- Trump at a rally discussing being called out by the media for cozying up to Putin, who has supposedly had reporters killed

– Jimmy Fallon

Target has stopped selling hoverboards after reports that they catch fire. Meanwhile at Costco, they’re selling them as the “George Foreman Grill on Wheels.”

– Conan O’Brien

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DECEMBER 17, 2015 | The Jewish Home

They already had my resignation, so what was the point of just continuing to try to destroy me? I don’t know what the purpose was. To this day, I’m still mystified by that. But I move forward. I’m proud of my service.

- Former Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel in a recent interview with Foreign Policy magazine, discussing how he was mistreated by the Obama administration at the end of his tenure as Secretary of Defense

If you are referring to specific strains in the Republican Party that suggest that somehow I’m different, I’m Muslim, I’m disloyal to the country, et cetera — which, unfortunately, is pretty far out there and gets some traction in certain pockets of the Republican Party and that have been articulated by some of their elected officials — what I’d say there is that that’s probably pretty specific to me, and who I am and my background.

- President Obama when asked in an NPR interview if he figured out yet why some people don’t approve of him

The Jewish Home | OCTOBER 29, 2015

21

A London architect has come up with a concept for a floating hotel that is selfsustaining and could potentially move around the world. Great job, architect.

You just invented the cruise ship.

– Seth Myers

If I believed that I could be influenced by a million dollars or a thousand dollars or fifty dollars, then I’m in the wrong place, and I should resign immediately.

- Governor Andrew Cuomo explaining why he has no plans on returning $1.2 million in donations from Glenwood Management, the real estate firm implicated in the Sheldon Silver and Dean Skelos trials (Silver and Skelos also both argued at their trials that they were not influenced by the donations)

A new study claims the stress of being president takes three years off your life. So suddenly everyone is thinking of voting for Trump.

– Conan O’Brien

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DECEMBER 17, 2015 | The Jewish Home OCTOBER 29, 2015 | The Jewish Home

Political Crossfire

Unseriousness Rises to the Top

By Michael Gerson

T

he Republican field, on the evidence of its fifth presidential debate, is beginning to sort itself by seriousness.

Donald Trump alternately advocated war crimes (kill the

families of terrorists), embraced liberal isolationism (end America’s military role in the Middle East and spend the money on bridges), displayed astounding ignorance (badly bluffing through a question

on the nuclear triad) and lapsed into looniness (steal oil from the Middle East and give it to wounded warriors).

Trump may, for all I know, gain 10 points for what supporters may regard as out-of-the-box thinking. It is still disqualifying for the presidency. Americans will realize this, either before or after the destruction of the Republican Party.

If Trump is in constant search of a darting spotlight, Ted Cruz is always looking for the best applause line. As a presidential candidate, his superpower is to sense exactly where the right is at any given moment and get there himself, with a flourish that leads to a standing O. The problem for Cruz is that the conservative soul has been divided on foreign policy over the last decade, leaving him in an uncomfortable straddle.

In 2013, libertarian ideas seemed ascendant. When Rand Paul engaged in a -13hour Senate filibuster warning that the outof-control national security state might use drones to kill Americans in sidewalk cafes, Cruz joined the protest, describing Paul as a “modern ‘Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.’” When Paul filibustered against the NSA metadata collection program earlier this year, Cruz again rose in support, praising Paul’s “passionate defense of liberty” and warning of the government’s ability “to track the location

of every American citizen, no matter where we walk.”

Both of these efforts were based on ideologically driven, conspiracy-minded fantasies. The drone and bulk-data programs were constrained by careful procedures and neither had been abused. Now, in the light of the Paris and San Bernardino attacks, Cruz is attempting to reconstruct his demolished defense and foreign policy credentials.

The result is part isolationist, part realist and part pipe dream.

The Islamic State, he says, can be defeated by “overwhelming air power” – though few, if any, military authorities would agree with him. The main obstacle to victory is “political correctness” – which would come as a surprise to allies facing weapons and fanaticism.

Somehow the fog of war would clear if an American president said the words “Islamic radicalism” as a kind of incantation. And Hosni Mubarak, Moammar Gadhafi and Bashar al-Assad were really our best bets – rather than the despotic authors of their own downfalls.

Having shifted his views on immigration and on a number of foreign policy issues, Cruz has a particular difficulty. He is a conviction candidate with the challenges of a chameleon.

The contrast with his likely rival, Marco Rubio, is stark. Rubio’s foreign policy ideas were clearly the most serious and developed on

the debate stage. He has mastered a key presidential campaign skill: the three-part answer. So first, in his view, we will need Sunni boots on the ground against the Islamic State, not air power alone; second, we will need broader integration of American special operations forces; and third, we need to win the propaganda war by denying the Islamic state territory and victories.

The three-part answer works on pretty much any topic, but it requires a candidate who can master his briefing book and has a genuine familiarity with issues (sorry, Ben Carson).

Cruz has a particular difficulty.

He is a conviction candidate with the challenges of a chameleon.

The Jewish Home | OCTOBER 29, 2015

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During a solid, reassuring performance, Rubio schooled Trump on nuclear strategy, offered a serious critique of President Obama’s Syrian policy, explained the complications of building a Sunni alliance while doing outreach to Iran, defended the collection of metadata and showed a knowledge of budget issues without lapsing into legislative-speak.

But when it came to the largest moral controversy of the Republican race – Trump’s unenforceable and offensive proposal to bar noncitizen Muslims from America – Rubio punted, choosing to “understand” the motivation before rejecting the measure.

This may have demonstrated good political skills (thought it also highlighted Rubio’s main vulnerability: a reputation for politically motivated malleability).

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But Jeb Bush deserves credit for playing this role, and thereby showing his own character. “If we want to destroy radical Islamic

terrorists,” he explained, “we can’t disassociate ourselves from peace-loving Muslims.” The point is irrefutable. Whatever else happens in this campaign, we will know this

about Bush: He was offended by offensive things. (c) 2015, Washington Writers Group

Post

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DECEMBER 17,2015 2015| The | TheJewish JewishHome Home OCTOBER 29,

Political Crossfire

Legacy or Bust

By Charles Krauthammer

L

ast Saturday, Barack Obama gained the second jewel in his foreign policy triple crown: the Paris climate accord. It follows his Iran nuclear deal and awaits but the closing of Guantanamo to complete his glittering legacy.

To be sure, Obama will not be submitting the climate agreement for Senate ratification. It would have no chance of passing – as with the Iranian nuclear deal, also never submitted for the Senate ratification Obama knew he’d never get. And if he does close Guantánamo, it will be in defiance of overwhelming bipartisan congressional opposition.

You see, visionary thinkers like Obama cannot be bound by normal constitutional strictures. Indeed, the very unpopularity of his most cherished diplomatic goals is proof of their prophetic farsightedness.

Yet the climate deal brought back from Paris by Secretary of State John Kerry turns out to be no deal at all. It is, instead, a series of carbon-reducing promises made individually and unilaterally by the world’s nations.

No enforcement, no sanctions, nothing legally binding. No matter, explained Kerry on “Fox News Sunday”: “This mandatory reporting requirement ... is a serious form of enforcement, if you will, of compliance, but there is no penalty for it, obviously.”

If you think that’s gibberish, you’re not alone. NASA scientist James Hansen, America’s leading carbon abolitionist, indelicately called the whole deal “[garbage].”

He’s right.

The great Paris achievement is supposed to be global “transparency.”

But what can that possibly amount to when you can’t even trust the reporting? Just three months ago, the world’s greatest carbon emitter, China, admitted to having underreported its burning of coal by 17 percent, a staggering error (assuming it wasn’t a deliberate deception) equal to the entire coal consumption of Germany.

I’m a climate-change agnostic.

But I’m realistic enough to welcome prudent hedging against a possible worst-case scenario. I’ve long advocated for a multilateral agreement (unilateral U.S. actions being climatically useless and economically suicidal) negotiated with the most important players – say, India, China and the European Union – containing real limits, real numbers and real enforcement. That would be a genuine achievement.

What the climate-change conference produced instead was hot air, applauded by 196 well-fed participants. (Fourteen nights in Paris, after all.) China promises to begin reducing carbon emissions 15 years from now. India announced it will be tripling its coal-fired electricity capacity by 2030. Meanwhile, the Obama administration is effectively dismantling America’s entire coal industry.

Looking for guidance on how the U.S. will fare under this new environmental regime? Take a glance at Obama’s other great triumph, the Iran nuclear accord.

Does the American public know that the Iranian parliament has never

approved it? And that the Iranian president has never signed it? Iran is not legally bound to anything. As the State Department freely admitted (in a letter to Rep. Mike Pompeo of the House Intelligence Committee), the deal “is not a treaty or an executive agreement, and is not a signed document.” But don’t worry. Its success “will depend not on whether it is legally binding or signed, but rather on

er told a congressional hearing last week, “discussions are a form of U.N. action.”

The heart sinks.

It was obvious from the very beginning that the whole administration promise of “snapback” sanctions was a farce.

The Iranians knew it. Hence their contempt for even the prospect of American pushback: two illegal

As U.N. Ambassador Samantha Power told a congressional hearing last week, “discussions are a form of U.N. action.”

the extensive verification measures” and our “capacity to reimpose – and ramp up – our sanctions if Iran does not meet its commitments.”

And how is that going?

On Nov. 21, Iran conducted its second test of a nuclearcapable ballistic missile in direct contravention of two U.N. Security Council prohibitions, including one that incorporates the current nuclear agreement – which bans such tests for eight years.

Our response? After Iran’s first illegal launch in October, the administration did nothing. A few words at the United Nations. Weren’t we repeatedly assured that any Iranian violation would be met with vigorous action? No worry, again. As U.N. Ambassador Samantha Pow-

missile launches conducted ostentatiously even before sanctions are lifted and before they receive their $150 billion in unfrozen assets early next year.

Why not? They know Obama will ignore, downplay and explain away any violation, lest it jeopardize his transformative foreign policy legacy.

It’s a legacy of fictional agreements. The proliferators and the polluters are not bound. By our own volition, we are.

Only Guantanamo remains.

Within a month, one-sixth of the remaining prisoners will be released.

Obama will not be denied.

(c) 2015, The Washington Post Writers Group

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 17, 2015

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DECEMBER 17, 2015 | The Jewish Home OCTOBER 29, 2015 | The Jewish Home

Rocky’s

Rant

Presidential Pandemonium

By Rocky Zweig

First press conference of the newly sworn in President of the United States of America, January, 2017 SCENARIO ONE:

Ladies and gentlemen… the President of the United States!

Applause, cheering, etc., then…

Mr. President! Mr. President! Mr. President!

President: Awright, awright guys, settle down.

Everyone will get a chance.

Well, maybe not that shlubby guy in the back, but…

Mr. President! Mr. President!

President: Okay, let’s get this show on the road. Um… you, with the ugly tie.

Ugly Tie: Thank you, Mr. President. How does it feel to finally be here after confounding all the naysayers who all kept predicting that you’d eventually put your foot in your mouth one time too many and flame out?

President: I’m way too smart to listen to that garbage. I knew all along that

with my looks and my money, there was no way anyone was gonna beat me. Um, okay, you…with the $10.00 haircut. $10.00 Haircut: Mr. President, as you know there has been growing consternation over your choice for Vice President. What do you have to say to those who think your choice is nothing short of outrageous?

President: Okay, first of all, what’s wrong with outrageous? Being outrageous got me here, didn’t it? And besides, I stand by my choice.

Everybody tells me they want my administration to have diversity, right? And they also tell me I have a problem with women, right?

Well, Ivanka is not only a woman, she’s also a Jew! So see what I did right there? I killed two diversifications with one stone. You wanna know what Ivanka calls that?

Seichel! Okay you here, in the front.

Front Guy: Mr. President…

President: Whoa. Listen, fella: if you’re planning on sitting way up front like

that, you’re gonna have to do something about the ol’ halitosis.

Front Guy: Um…okay, sure Mr. President. Anyway, when do you…

President: Because right now I feel like I’m being smacked over the head with that provolone you had for dinner last night, know what I mean?

Front Guy: Yes, yes, of course. Sorry, Mr. President.

I’ll take care of it. [Aside, whispering: psst…Anyone have a Tic Tac?] Anyway, as I was saying, when do you anticipate starting the wall along the southern border?

President: Starting?

Haven’t you guys been paying attention? Started it as soon as the election results were official. Got some of my gardeners and a few of my maids, you know, for women’s rights and all, they got some of their cousins, you know they all share a home anyway, and sent ‘em all down there with some bricks and mortar. Gotta tell ya, I love the Mexican people. They’re amazingly hard workers. Except the ones

that rob and kill and steal.

Um, lessee…you, over there: the young lady who shops at H&M. H&M Girl: Oh…is that me? Thank you Mr. President. Mr. President, I’m sure you’re aware that many people find…

President: Tell me miss, what is that ghastly perfume you’re wearing?

H&M Girl: Mr. President, I happen to be wearing Chanel.

President: Chanel, huh?

Cute. Listen, tell you what: the Vice President has a gorgeous new fragrance that’s all the rage. Best part is, it’s got my name on it. See me after the press conference and I’ll hook you up with Ivanka and make sure you get a nice gift package.

How’s that?

H&M Girl: Peachy. Anyway, as I was saying, I’m sure you’re aware that many people find your choice for Secretary of Defense rather puzzling. Would you care to comment on…

President: Okay, first of all, I want to address the myth that the Secretary of

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 17, 2015 The Jewish Home | OCTOBER 29, 2015

Defense and I have ever been involved in some kind of feud. Rosie O’Donnell and I have been close friends for many, many years. Then she made the mistake of mocking my hair on TV and I got upset and said a few things,

she said a few things, that’s how stuff gets started, you know? But most of it was just for show.

H&M Girl: You called her fat, crude, obnoxious, and dumb.

President: And your

First press conference of the newly sworn in President of the United States of America, January, 2017 SCENARIO TWO:

EMCEE RICHIE: Ladies and gentlemen, as you know, the president is feeling a little under the weather, so the press conference is going to be run by his press secretary, whom you all know of course, as a former colleague. Ladies and gentlemen, give it up for Chris Matthews!

(Standing Ovation, Applause, Cheering, Whistling, Etc.) CM: Well, thank you all for coming. As Richie said, Uncle Bernie is a little tuckered out, what with all the dancing and drinking and partying over the last few nights, so he just decided to put his jammies on and call it a night.

Jonathan Karl, ABC: Chris, it’s 8:00.

CM: C’mon, Jonathan, haven’t you ever been to Century Village? Okay, Ed?

Ed Henry, FOX: Chris, seriously? Does he actually want everyone to call him Uncle Bernie instead of Mr. President?

CM: Absolutely. He feels too much emphasis is put on titles and people’s station in life and he wants people to think of him as accessible, like a sweet, old, doting uncle.

Ed: Does he even wants other world leaders to call him Uncle Bernie?

CM: Of course not, Ed, don’t be ridiculous.

Ed: Well, that’s a relief.

CM: No, they’re going to call him PUB. Ed: PUB? CM: President Uncle Bernie. And before I forget, the Vice President doesn’t like his title, either. He prefers Comrade DeBlasio.

Okay, Jim? Jim Acosta, CNN: Chris

123 37

point is? Look, I figure if anyone will put the fear of G-d into all those maniacs over there cutting people’s heads off, it’ll be Rosie. I mean, have you seen that punim? I’m thinking maybe I could send her in to nego-

tiate with them and take out the leadership. Cut off the head of the snake, you know?

Listen guys, that’s it for today. I gotta go back to the Oval Office and blow up some ISIS oil fields. I have the bombers set up on my

desktop like a video game. I sit down, grab my joystick, take ‘em out personally one at a time and just watch those babies burn. There’s a buffet in the next room, all catered. Help yourselves.

See ya next time.

is it true that the president paid a visit to Mrs. Clinton recently?

CM: Yes, he went to see Secretary Clinton up at Bedford Hills Correctional a few days ago. She wants everyone to know that she’s doing fine, having a bit of trouble adjusting but hey, that’s to be expected, right? She doesn’t like the way the orange pantsuits look on her.

But she has a really friendly Black Lives Matter young lady as a cellmate, and I think after a while they’re going to get along famously.

Between me and you, I have a feeling she may have gotten her advice about how to how to handle unfortunate internet correspondence from Huma Abedin. Yes… um…okay, Major?

Major Garrett, CBS: Chris, of course you’ve heard the rumblings about using the 25th Amendment to remove the president from office, due to his inauguration speech. There are those, especially on the right, who are convinced that he is mentally incapacitated and unable to fulfill his duties.

CM: Major, is this the Popeye thing again?

Major: Yes, Chris. If a new president quotes Popeye the Sailor Man during his inauguration speech, there are those who believe that would be cause for concern.

CM: All he said was, “I am what I am.”

Major: Yes, but then he started waving around a can

of spinach.

CM: The right is just mad that one of their wackos didn’t get in instead. Peter?

Peter Alexander, NBC: How does the president make decisions? I mean, does he have a close group of advisors that he brainstorms with?

CM: Oh, no, Uncle Bernie doesn’t think he needs any advice. He just goes into the Oval Office, shuts the door, and consults his Magic 8 Ball. Yes, Margaret?

Margaret Talev, Bloomberg TV: Can you tell us if there’s anything new on the free tuition problem?

CM: Well, Uncle Bernie called in every last left wing economist we could find and asked them for suggestions.

Turns out, if we were to confiscate 100% of all assets of all millionaires and billionaires, it would be enough to fund our all colleges and universities for about eighteen months. And if we did that, of course, all those guys would high-tail it to the Cayman Islands.

Margaret: So…where are we with this signature issue of the president?

CM: He had the door to the Oval Office closed for a few hours today, so I assume he was working on it. Anyway guys, I have to go prepare Uncle Bernie’s chicken soup; he gets very cranky if I’m late. Good night. Drive safe.

was the Editor-in-Chief of the late and decidedly unlamented Modieinu, the mimeographed (remember mimeographs?) newspaper of the Tenth Avenue Pirchei of Boro Park, where he wrote everything from stories to news articles to hashkafa articles to...yes (now it can be told!)...letters to the editor.

Rocky was sixteen a very long time ago. He is the proud father of three marginally neurotic children. He has been married three — count ‘em — three times and has finally determined that he’s probably not very good at matrimonial bliss. He lives in his Fortress of Solitude in Flatbush with a small menagerie: Clarice, a European Starling; Rabbi Horatio LeZard, a Bearded Dragon; an aquarium filled with Lake Malawi African Cichlids; and a ten gallon tank that functions as a Home for Unwanted Goldfish, or H.U.G., collected over the years by his grandkids and great nieces and nephews at myriad street fairs and carnivals (rather than face the unpleasant task of flushing these unfortunate piscine creatures when they are eventually, inevitably ignored by their own obnoxious progeny, the parents simply call Uncle Rocky who then feeds them and cares for them until their ultimate natural demise three or four or even ten years down the pike).

So apparently Rocky seems to get along better with animals than with his fellow homo sapiens. Or sapienses. Or whatever. Rocky’s column will be appearing every other week in The Jewish Home. Rocky can be reached at anidaati@aol.com.

Rocky Zweig has been writing since he was sixteen and

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DECEMBER 17, 2015 | The Jewish Home

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 17, 2015

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WOODMERE: Completely Renovated 3BR, 2BA Ranch, Updated Eik, Formal DR, MBR Suite, Den W/Fplc & Vaulted Ceiling, Lovely Property, SD#14…$625K Call Carol Braunstein (516) 295-3000 www.pugatch.com WOODMERE 6 Bdrms, 2.5 Baths, new trex front porch, brick patio, in ground pool, koi pond with water fall, central A/C, gas/steam heat, wood floors, security system with cameras and remote control front gates Asking $799,000, taxes $14,800.

Please call 516-569-9042

HOUSES FOR SALE Don’t Get Stuck With a Two Story House Ya Know, It’s One Story Before You Buy It But a Second Story After You Own It! Call Dov Herman For An Accurate Unbiased Home Inspection Infrared - Termite Inspection Full Report All Included NYC 718-INSPECT Long Island 516-INSPECT www.nyinspect.com WOODMERE NEW CONSTRUCTION 5 BR, 3.5 Bths, Center Hall Colonial.

Master Suite w/2 Walk in Closets, Guest BR wFull Bath on First Floor. Radiant Heat on First Floor, Granite Kosher EIK………………….….. $1.3M

By Owner NO Brokers 646-634-4642

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Lg 3BR, 2BA Ranch, FDR, Charming 3BR, 2.5BA Col, Legal 2 Family, 4BR, 3BR, 2.5BA Colonial, Eik, Basement...$629K Low Taxes...$489K Eik, FDR, Fin Bsmt...$429K Eik, Fin Bsmt…$435K

Great Potential Investment, 4BR, 3Fbth Colonial, Den, Bright 5BR, 3BA Hi-Ranch, Elegant 5BR, 4.5BA Ranch, Legal 2 Family, 6BR..$699K Lg Eik, Prime Loct..$825K IG-Pool, Deck…$999,995 Set On 1 Acre Ppty..$2.2M

Susan Pugatch

Carol Braunstein

(516)

Call or Text

(516) 592-2206

295-3000

www.pugatch.com

spugatch@pugatch.com

3BR, 2BA, Heat & 2BR Colonial, Den, 2BR, 1BA, 2nd Flr, 1BR In Elev Bldg, Near All..$1,495/mo 1 Car Pkg..$1,645/mo Fin Bsmt.$2,500/mo Water Incl..$2,795/mo 1251+/- SF Heat Incld Luxury Bldg Ideal for Any

Medical or Professional Use

Various Sized

Offices & Suites Full Service Great Location Ideal for Any Professional Use

90128

DECEMBER 2015 | The Jewish Home DECEMBER 24,17, 2015 | The Jewish Home

Classifieds classifieds@fivetownsjewishhome.com / text 443-929-4003 COMMERCIAL RE

COMMERCIAL RE

COMMERCIAL RE

FIVE TOWNS: 1200 +/- SF Office Space in the Finest Building in the Five Towns, Available Feb 1st, Must See!!! $32PSF in Premiere Building, For Lease …Call Ian for More Details (516) 295-3000 www.pugatch.com

VALLEY STREAM: Office Space in Professional Hi-Rise Building, Can Be Built to Suit, Various Suites Available, $28 RSF Full Service, For Lease...Call Randy for More Details (516) 295-3000 www.pugatch.com

CEDARHURST OFFICE SPACE LOWEST PRICES IN TOWN! 500-5000 square feet very nice office space with cool conference room & Kitchen. Onsite parking Great Location. Lots of options! Will divide and customize space for your needs!

Call 516-567-0100

FAR ROCKAWAY: Development Property in the Heart of Bayswater, Investment Opportunity, 1 Acre Land For Sale …Call Lenny For More Details (516) 295-3000 www.pugatch.com

CEDARHURST: 500-3000 +/- SF Professional Office Space Available in the Heart of Cedarhurst, For Lease... Call For More Details Broker (516) 792-6698

INWOOD OFFICE SPACE LOWEST PRICES IN TOWN! 500-7000 Square feet gorgeous office space with WATERVIEW in Inwood!

Lots of options. Tons of parking. WIll divide and customize space for your needs! Call 516-567-0100

HEWLETT: 1800 +/- SF Retail Space, Can Be Used For Office. 2 Bathrooms, 2 Offices, 8 Car Parking On 1 Floor. 8 Ceilings, Rear Door, For Lease …Call Lenny for More Details (516) 295-3000 www.pugatch.com

ROCKVILLE CENTRE: Professional Space in Elevator Building, 2000 +/- SF Available, Exam Rooms, Reception, Lobby, 40 Car Parking, Handicap Accessible, For Lease... Call for More Details Broker (516) 792-6698

LAWRENCE: PROFESSIONAL SUITE In The Plaza Bldg, Central Ave, 24hr Doorman, 3 Treatment Rms, Reception & Waiting Area. For Sale…

Call For More Details Broker (516) 792-6698

WOODMERE: Follow The Leader To Woodmere, Now Is The Time To Act!!! No Metered Parking, Various Retail/Office Spaces Available, For Sale/Lease...Call For More Details (516) 295-3000 www.pugatch.com

APT FOR RENT

INWOOD Commercial mixed use building + Lot. Private parking, corner property, high traffic area 1st floor offices, 2nd floor: 2 Apts. Asking 849k.

Call 212-470-3856 Yochi @ WinZone Re

LAWRENCE Large 2 bedroom apartment on the second floor of a private home in Lawrence available for rent.

Near LIRR and Shaaray.

Call 516-318-9153

LAWRENCE: Renovated 3 Bedrooms, 2 Bath Apt on Lovely Street, CAC, Use Of Yard & Driveway, Close To All, Includes All Utilities Except Cable…$2,750/Mo. Call Carol Braunstein (516) 295-3000 www.pugatch.com FAR ROCKAWAY Near everything. 2 bedroom apartment for rent on 3rd floor in a 3 floor house.

APT FOR RENT

Upgraded kitchen and bathroom.

FAR ROCKAWAY: NEW TO MARKET! Beautifully renovated 2 BRs starting at $180; 3 BRs $2100 + no fee Zarate Realty 516-514-7525

Available now. Heat, hot and cold water included in rent No problems with parking. Please call: 516-322-6515, 516 -225-4558

355 Central Avenue, Lawrence NY 11559 (Across the street from Seasons)

P: 516.791.6100 | F: 516.374.7059

www.WeissmanRealty.com CEDARHURST COOP

HEWLETT

INWOOD

MOVEIN READY Amazing 2 Bdrm, 2 Full Bth. Huge oversized granite kitchen great cabinet space & storage, 2 Dishwashers & a washer/dryer!!! Lrg LR opens to the balcony & FDR. Call Sherri 516-297-7995

$319K

All new 4BR, 2.5 Bth ranch house.

Completely ren. w/ full n. bsmnt w/ high ceilings. Brand new appl. & upgraded xtures throughout. Beautiful reenished. lrg deck & fenced-in bckyrd, private drvwy, All new electrical upgrades!! Move-in ready, a must see for all!! $550K

FAR ROCKAWAY APARTMENT RENTALS

Clean & kept 4 bdrm, large kitchen, LR, Den, enclosed porch, beautiful backyard, bsmnt w/ laundry. Over 2,000 square ft. Great for a family. Asking Call Moshe 516-697-2504

$550K

5 TOWNS & CEDARHURST OFFICES 1-2 Rm executive offices available all utilities & internet included. Varied conference room.

Locations & pricing. Call Sherri 516-297-7995 Large 4 room suite 2,250 Sq. Ft. 4 private offices, kitchen and reception, Cedarhurst location.

Call Sherri 516-297-7995

#1 Far Rockaway and 5 Towns Rental Specialists

TheJewish JewishHome Home| DECEMBER | DECEMBER24, 17,2015 2015 The

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Classifieds classifieds@fivetownsjewishhome.com / text 443-929-4003 APT FOR RENT

HELP WANTED

HELP WANTED

HELP WANTED

Brand new luxury 3 bedroom 2 bath apartment in central Far Rockaway 2 Family home. Features: Private entrance, 1 car off street parking, Sukkah porch. Large eat in kitchen with new appliances, Living room, Dining room, Additional storage in attic, Separate heat, A/C, hot water, Washer/Dryer Hook Up, Walk to all Call 1-917-415-0055

SECRETARY POSITION IN FAR ROCKWAY OFFICE Immediate opening for qualified applicants.

Responsibilities include customer service, data entry and general office work.

Warm, friendly and frum environment with growth potential.

Please email resume to readyvoicedata@yahoo.com

GREAT OPPORTUNITY Looking for class B CDL DRIVER with clutch for a heimishe lumber co.

Great pay, Call: 718-369-3141 Ext. 348

REAL ESTATE MANAGER R.E. Management Co. in Bklyn seeking capable & hard working individual . No experience necessary.

Pls email resume to REALTY@CGMAIL.NET (Pls enter resume in subject) or fax to 718-851-3511

CEDARHURST 500-3,500 +/- SF Beautiful, newly renovated space for rent. Ideal for Retail or Executive offices. Prime location.

Convenient Parking. Call Sam @ 516-612-2433 or 718-747-8080 ON SEAGIRT AVENUE 2 & 3 bedroom. Newly renovated.

Washer and dryer hook up. Granite countertops.

More info call or text 917-602-2914

HELP WANTED Due to engagement, Torah Academy for Girls is seeking qualified experienced, 6th grade Limudei Kodesh morah.

Please fax resume 718-868-4612 att: Morah Drillman.

EXPERIENCED REAL ESTATE SALES AGENT needed for a HIGH Producing real estate office who is seeking an opportunity to Earn & Learn more!!!

Call Today (516) 295-3000 x 128. All calls kept confidential.

SECRETARY Real Estate Management office in Boro Pk is seeking a F/T Secretary with gd phone manner, able to multi task & have computer knowledge. No experience necessary Pls email resume to REALTY@CGMAIL.NET (Pls enter resume in subject) or fax to 718-851-3511

SERVICE COORDINATOR ASSISTANT F/T for Queens office Proper candidate will have: good computer skills, ability to multitask and office experience.

Prior early intervention experience a plus.

Will Train. Competitive comp. pkg.

Fax Resume 718-261-3702 Att. Bella Or email: cara.challenge2@thejnet.com Dayhab Trainers Full time position available in Far Rockaway for caring individuals to involve adults with developmental disabilities in skill development while encouraging them to become more independent. Responsibilities include supervising and joining in activities to foster independent living as well as escorting consumers to community sites. Valid driver’s license and ability to drive 15-passenger van required.

For more information contact OHEL Bais Ezra 718-686-3102 or go to www. ohelfamily.org/careers to apply!

Local F.T. Accounting Office Seeks P/T JR. ACCOUNTANT proficient in Q.B. knowledge of payroll tax, sales tax, business tax and individual taxes Qualified applicants should please e-mail resume to: 5towntaxoffice@gmail.com CATAPULT LEARNING Teachers for Title I in Boro Park andWilliamsburg Chassidic boys schools *College/Yeshiva Degree Required *Strong desire to help children learn *Excellent organizational skills *Small group instruction *Competitive salary Email resume: nyteachers@catapultlearning.com.

Fax (718) 381-3493

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Real Estate | Jobs | Services Products | Vehicles

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DECEMBER DECEMBER17, 24,2015 2015| The | TheJewish JewishHome Home

Classifieds classifieds@fivetownsjewishhome.com / text 443-929-4003 HELP WANTED

SITUATION WANTED

Physical Therapist Assistants (PTA’s)

LICENSED PRACTICAL NURSE seeks position in homecare with the elderly or pediatric care. I am skilled, caring and dependable.

Please call me at 631-759-0025

& Occupational Therapists Assistants (COTA’s)For 200+ bed Nursing Home in Queens. Must have Hospital or Nursing Home experience. Please email resume to promrehab@aol.com ACCOUNTANT/BOOKKEEPER Growing company in the 5 Towns seeking motivated employee for Full Time accounting/bookkeeping.

MUST have professional accounting experience previously to be considered, strong teamwork skills required.

Submit qualified resume to admin@ getpeyd.com for details.

Dry cleaner looking to hire

MISC Tutors desperately needed for Zichron Etel, a gemach providing free tutoring to those who cannot afford it.

Now in Brooklyn and the Five Towns!

Kindly visit our website at www.zichronetel.com Yehalomim Shelanu Special Programming presents an after school program for the special children of our neighborhood! Every Monday afternoon from 4:45- 6:15 Fun & educational run by talented and experienced staff. Call 516-732-2949 for more info or to register

EXPERT SEAMSTRESS / TAILOR to work in dry cleaning store asap.

Main Street (Queens) location.

Established clientele. Generous compensation split and opportunity to make extra money. Set your own hours. If interested please call Marc 917-612-2300

Reach Your Target Market

Classifieds

COMPUTER

GRAPHICS LEARN ADOBE INDESIGN,

WORKSHOP

ILLUSTRATOR & PHOTOSHOP

New Session Starts Mid January.

Workshop meets twice a week.

Day or Eve. Flatbush location.

Small groups.

Seasoned instructor with 10+years of experience in print & web design.

Basic computer skills, labtop & software required. Ask about Adobe student software discounts.

For more info call 917-771-6996 or email computergraphicsworkshop@gmail.com

TJH Classifieds Post your Real Estate, Help Wanted, Services, Miscellaneous Ads here.

Weekly Classifed Ads Up to 5 lines and/or 25 words

1 week ................ $20 $10 2 weeks .............. $35 $17.50 4 weeks .............. $60 $30 Email ads to: classifieds@fivetownsjewishhome.com Include valid credit card info

Deadline Monday 5:00pm

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 17, 2015

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DECEMBER 17, 2015 | The Jewish Home The Jewish Home | OCTOBER 29, 2015

Your

5

Money

Share a Coke with the IRS

By Allan Rolnick, CPA

C

oca Cola has earned a lot of headlines this year for their “Share a Coke with…” marketing campaign, printing bottles and cans with 1,000 of the most popular names in the country, along with nicknames like “Mom,” “Dad,” Soulmate,” and “BFF.” You can even go online to customize your own bottle for just five bucks. (Just imagine the possibilities: “Share a Diet Coke with Your Yoga Instructor” for fitness fanatics. Or how about “Share a Koke with your krazy kousin Keith.”

The Center for Science in the Public Interest even created a “Share a Coke with Obesity” can.)

A few months ago, our friends at the IRS decided to open a little happiness of their own. And apparently, they want more than just a can or two of fizzy sugar water. Coca Cola Enterprises filed a Form 8-K with the Securities and Exchange Commission revealing that, after a fiveyear audit, the IRS is dunning them for $3.3 billion in extra taxes. Plus interest! (Fun fact: the audit covered just three tax years from 20072009. That means the IRS spent more time auditing Coke’s income than Coke spent earning it!)

The issue centers on “transfer pricing,” which governs how businesses set prices between controlled

or related entities. Let’s say Coca Cola sells a bottle of their delicious Vanilla Coke in Bermuda. (That sounds especially delicious, right?)

How much of their profit should be taxed in Bermuda, where the average effective tax rate for multinational corporations is just 12%? And how much of it should be taxed back here in the U.S., where the rate tops

tax rates on a few cents of income per drink can really add up. Transfer pricing issues may sound boring (and they are), but they’re a big deal. The very serious lawyers who specialize in these sorts of disputes work out of stuffy offices in highrent big-city buildings, and they’ve never even heard of casual Fridays.

Naturally, the folks at Coke don’t

A few months ago, our friends at the IRS decided to open a little happiness of their own. And apparently, they want more than just a can or two of fizzy sugar water.

out at 35%? That may not sound like a huge difference on something you can buy for a pocket change at a highway rest stop. But Coca Cola sells a lot of beverages — $46 billion worth last year. And 57% of that revenue comes from international markets.

With all that money sloshing back and forth across international borders, you can see how shifting

think it will be especially refreshing to send the IRS an extra $3.3 billion: “The Company has followed the same transfer pricing methodology for these licenses since the methodology was agreed with the IRS in a 1996 closing agreement that applied back to 1987. The closing agreement provides prospective penalty protection as long as the Company follows the prescribed methodology,

and the Company has continued to abide by its terms for all subsequent years. The Company’s compliance with the closing agreement was audited and confirmed by the IRS in five successive audit cycles covering the subsequent 11 years through 2006, with the last audit concluding as recently as 2009.”

Coke says they plan to file a notice challenging the deficiency in Tax Court. They’ve reassured shareholders that they have “adequate tax reserves,” which means they can pay up if they lose. And if all else fails, they’ve got that secret formula locked up in a vault in Atlanta.

That’s got to be good for something, right?

Here’s the bottom line. Coke makes billions of dollars a year. But they understand it’s what they keep that counts, and they’re willing to fight to keep more. Shouldn’t you be working for the same goal? Make sure you have a plan, and pay for your next Coke with the savings. It’s the real thing!

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.

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 17, 2015

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OCTOBER 29, DECEMBER 17,2015 2015| The | TheJewish JewishHome Home

Life C ach

Inside Out

By Rivki D. Rosenwald Esq., CLC, SDS

B

oy and girl used to be a great starting point for a match.

Now it’s TV, no TV. Black hat, no black hat. As if that couldn’t change in a day – and does!

Can we look at something a drop deeper? Like does he treat me well?

Help around the house? Really care?

Seriously did a learner ever start earning or an earner ever start learning? Sometimes in the blink of an eye!

But did a selfish or critical person ever just turn it around in a second?

Give me one example!

I’m not saying that the commitments we take on don’t matter. They do! But as we grow, we flow. Sometimes certain outer trimmings become less defining of who we are, while inspiration of your mate helps us take some trimmings on.

But working on controlling inner instincts or, even tougher, being about the other person not just yourself, this is a major ongoing struggle if it doesn’t come naturally to a per-

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son. Without motivation you never get there and even with it, it’s a trek.

If you meet someone who already has these qualities, that’s the gift you are looking for.

I was working night arraignments as an ADA (assistant district attorney) after law school. A blind date told me he’d pick me up at 6:00 at the courts when I was done. I said, “How will I know you?” (After all you know some blind dates fit right in with the seedy elements you can be attempting to prosecute). He said, “I’ll be in a navy BMW.” I said, “That won’t help me at all; I don’t know anything about men’s suits.” After he had a good laugh, at my worldliness, he said, “It’s a car – not a suit designer!” Car/suit it’s all external. He can decide the next day he wants some other item to represent who he is. I had to see how he treated me!

My point: we can change our outer manifestations in a moment. But as much as a person might try and fake it, if they are not motivated to be good to their mate, life will not be a smooth ride.

Middot. Me dote. That is what is most important. Someone who doesn’t question: who, me dote?! But rather someone who dotes on the other person with devotion and pleasure.

As your children, friends, students, or you yourself who are dating go through the process of finding a life’s partner, remember this: Maybe someone is still on their journey heading where you are already. Maybe they didn’t put on the black hat or chuck the TV or finish their degree but they may be heading there and can use your strength and

impact. Maybe you can get her to cover her head. It’s all a discussion!

But if they ask: Me dote on someone? Rather than declare it with their very nature and actions...Run don’t walk to the nearest shadchan! And opt for the person with a good heart who is growth-full. Success will be a much shorter journey this way.

If you meet someone who already has these qualities, that’s the gift you are looking for.

A new wardrobe, a change in home appliances, a new look, even the path one pursues is way easier to change than the inner workings of their interactions and goodness.

When you wear something outside out, you look good. But the inside tells you what it’s really made of. Take time to appreciate the inside out. And then the outside may easily and naturally follow.

Rivki Rosenwald is a certified relationship counselor, and career and life coach.

She can be contacted at 917-705-2004 or rivki@rosenwalds.com

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