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VOL 12, NO 5 Q FEBRUARY 1, 2013 /21 SHEVAT 5773

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Mount Sinai unveils plan for their ‘heimische approach to healthcare’

By Karen C. Green

Photo courtesy of Mission of Hope

Israeli astronaut Ilan Ramon was an inspiration and pride to so many.

With seven weeks till the referendum vote scheduled for March 20, Simone Development has released its ďŹ rst rendering of their proposed development of the number #6 school. Subject to voters’ approval, Simone Development , a noted major healthcare developer, and whose bid, $12.5 million, was higher than three others including, Shulamith Yeshivah, Hebrew Academy of Long Beach and the Jewish Community Center, plans to lease the property to the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital, who would operate the facility. In addition to being the highest bid, Simone Development’s proposed use is the only project of the four that would go on the tax rolls and generate $1 million in annual property taxes for the school district. The Jewish Star reported in the January 25 issue that the JCC is actively pursuing a new

location in the Five Towns and is in the process of bidding.

The proposed plans, which keeps the exterior of the existing building unchanged and not enlarged, would be home to the 60 doctor, 30 specialty health care facility and an urgent care center. The facility will be a “unique advanced ambulatory care center,â€? noted Dr. Simeon Schwartz, a Mt. Sinai consultant. “It is coordinated efďŹ cient quality care. Coordinated because doctors share both a physical location and a common electronic record. On the quality side, the new facility has the necessary computerized analytical systems that can measure quality. Mt. Sinai will provide improved access for complicated services at their Manhattan campus. “It’s a top priority for Mt. Sinai that care is patient centered. Whenever a patient needs to have something done, they have a choice where to go. We are not

telling people where to go to get care, we are just making quality options available,� continued Dr. Schwartz. In addition to primary-care physicians, there will be specialists in cardiology, dermatology, endocrinology, orthopedics, obstetricsgynecology, neurology, nephrology and general, plastic and vascular surgery.

On the topic of coordinated care, Dr. Schwartz makes note of what can be an anxiety-ridden experience for women. A woman that needs a mammogram, could schedule same day surgery for a biopsy and obtain a diagnosis within 24 to 36 hours. Typically the diagnostics and the surgery could take anywhere between a few days to several weeks. “This is the heimishe approach to the future of medicine,� noted Dr. Schwartz, a native Brooklynite, and a graduate of Yeshivah of Flatbush. “Mt. Sinai’s commitment to Continued on page 3

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Students protest Brooklyn College BDS forum support

By Malka Eisenberg Students and politicians are mobilizing to denounce Brooklyn College’s president and political science department for supporting and sponsoring an anti-Israel presentation on campus on February 7th.

The forum “BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanction) Movement Against Israel� will feature two speakers, Omar Barghouti, a founding member of the Palestinian Campaign for

By Karen C. Green To be in the company of Peri Finklestein, of West Hempstead, is a delight. To have the pleasure of meeting her on her birthday made it even more special. The West Hempstead resident, a Chai Lifeline Camp Simcha Special camper who celebrated her 13th birthday on December 31, is participating in the upcoming ING marathon in Miami on Sunday, January 27, 2013, along Continued on page 3

the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (and who is currently studying in Tel Aviv University), and Judith Butler, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley. Both are BDS supporters and outspoken anti-Israel, anti-Zionists.

Notes American Friends for a Safe Israel, “sponsorship of such an anti-Israel event by a Department of the College is something that would not occur with any other country.

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Photo courtesy of Michael Fragin

Michael Fragin discussing the damage to the community with Congressman Gregory Meeks following the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy.

The Columbia Business School and Yeshiva University grad who has been actively involved in many campaigns including Bloomberg, and Bush 2004, isn’t interested in just having political candidates as his guests. “I

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want to sharpen people’s understanding of the political world. People come to the ballot box and don’t know what to do. They don’t have a grasp of certain political issues. The Continued on page 3

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Karen C. Green says ‘So long...’ Page 2 Juda Engelmayer: electing Israel’s Chief Rabbi Page 3 Bookworm: the intersection of Purim and Pesach Page 6 Who’s in the kitchen: Karen Page 11

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Vol 12, No 9 n March 1, 2013 / 19 adar 5773

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Shabbat across America

Prepping for Pesach

By Malka Eisenberg The Young Israel of Hewlett is continuing the message of Purim, uniting Jews with Torah and mitzvoth (commandments) this Shabbat, as they participate, for the third time, in Shabbat Across America and Canada.

The program was initiated in 1997 by NJOP, the National Jewish Outreach Program, to “get thousands of Jews to celebrate what unites all Jews,� said Larry Greenman, Assistant Director of NJOP. “It’s a campaign to take Shabbos and make it their own.�

The program at YIH currently has 80 signed up for the dinner but, said Chana Freedman, they are expecting more. Friday night will begin at 5:30 pm with a Carlebach davening for Kabbalat Shabbat led by Jason Mayer, featuring rousing and inspiring singing, followed by a Shabbat dinner with explanations of the customs and observances by Young Israel of Hewlett Rabbi Heshy Blumstein. At 7:30 pm there will be a dessert kumzitz (sing along) for adults and children and at 8 pm a magic show will keep the children entertained while the adults listen to guest speaker Rabbi David Fohrman, author of “The Queen You Thought You Knew, Unmasking Esther’s Hidden Story.�

Shabbat morning will have Carlebach prayers in the main shul at 8:30 am, with an explanatory service led by Rabbi Blumstein at 9:45 am in a class separate from the main davening. “We will be talking about the purpose and power of Tefilah, taking out certain tefillot and explaining them,� said Blumstein.

Among the prayers to be discussed will be Adon Olam and Kriyat Shema, he said. He said that he has done this before. “Most people find this to be the most pleasure-full experience with tefillah that they have ever Continued on page 3

By Karen C. Green “The perception is that Passover is so expensive,â€? remarked Gourmet Glatt purchasing manager Howie Klagsburn, referring to the eight page Pesach circular that will reach every household this weekend consistent with the store’s Pesach opening and offerings. “The fact is you can’t buy many of the items at these prices during the year.â€? Matzoh ball mix for 99 cents, 2/$4 matzo meal, Quinoa, Shmerling chocolate, 3lb block American cheese, these prices do not exist at any other time of the year, “ continued Klagsburn. We started our preparation before Chanukah this year, the first time we started that early. “ Gourmet Glatt is scheduling its official Pesach opening on March 3rd. “Passover comes in such a short window, demand is high. I’m buying quantity at one shot. It gives me the opportunity to squeeze manufacturers for crazy prices‌ crazy low prices that we pass on to the consumer. What creates this perception is that we need everything at one time. If you look at the per item retail, it’s fantastic.â€?

Last year, Passover came just a few short months after the store rebounded from a fire. This year, on top of the sluggish economy, people are recovering from Superstorm Sandy. Some are still not in their homes, some are home but still under renovation, some can’t host family. “This community became a model for what a community can do together. We were born as a nation on Pesach.

As a Yomtov it’s the most unifying,� noted Klagsburn.

In the midst of the interview, Klagsburn takes a call

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Photo by Donovan Berthoud

Howie Klagsburn and the Gourmet Glatt staff are preparing for the major onslaught shoppers with a wide variety of Pesach products.

Shabbat Candlelighting: 5:28 p.m. Shabbat ends 6:28 p.m. 72 minute zman 7:00 p.m. Torah Reading Parshat Ki Tisa, Parshat Parah

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OU cha r ra es 5 Towns F ght for Jew sh un ty

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Shabbat Candlelighting: 4:24 p.m. Shabbat ends 5:27 p.m. 72 minute zman 5:55 p.m. Torah Reading Parshat Shemot This Shabbos is Mevorchim Hachodesh Shvat

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It’s been over eight years since he ďŹ rst began his tenure as Executive Assistant to then New York State Governor George Pataki, (2004 – 2007) and, in the course of time since, Michael Fragin has become a household name in most any discussion about local politics.

It’s no wonder, almost a natural evolution, that the current Village of Lawrence trustee , former LIPA trustee and former political columnist for The Jewish Star would take to the airwaves to share his views on political issues. SPINCLASS, which airs Thursday evenings live at 8 p.m. and encores twice weekly on NachumSegal.com and JMintheAM.org, is an outgrowth of Nachum’s expansion of his network and roster of shows, to include a talk show about politics.

Launched after Succos and right before the election, Fragin is already getting feedback from listeners who often approach him in shul, in Gourmet Glatt, and in town. Thus far, SPINCLASS has featured journalists, political bloggers and public relations executives, such as recent guest Juda Engelmayer, Senior Vice President of 5W Public Relations. “Michael Fragin is informative and fair and offers his guests ample time to speak.�

W.H. family makes a run for it

Shabbat Candlelighting: 5:08 p.m. Shabbat ends 6:05 p.m. 72 minute zman 6:35 p.m. Torah Reading Parshat Mishpatim. Shabbat Shekalim. Mevorchim Hachodesh Adar.

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Three speakers sat on stools in front of a rapt audience of 25 men and women in the Ganz family home in Woodmere Saturday night, explaining the ups and downs, ins and outs of foster parenting.

In the ďŹ rst step of a long process to recruit potential parents through OHEL for foster children, OHEL presented the fourth recruitment meeting in two years, noted Derek Saker, Director of Communications for OHEL Children’s Home and Family Services. “We are always looking to increase the pool of foster parents,â€? he said. “There is a shrinking

pool of parents available to take foster children.â€? Currently, OHEL has 70 foster parents in their jurisdiction but they are having recruitment meetings “because there is a greater need for more foster parents.â€? He said the need is “especially acuteâ€? for adolescents and children with special needs. “There isn’t a number of how many foster parents are needed,â€? said Saker. “We can’t predict how many foster children will come into foster care at a given time. We need many foster parents from diverse backgrounds and with various family compositions to ďŹ nd the best match to meet the indi-

5 Towns in NYC to ‘Celebrate Israel’

By Karen C. Green

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By Malka Eisenberg

Yoshuv. The gym there had an �enormous amount of things,� she said. Many families were affected by the storm, large families, and she took things in the sizes those families needed and gave them out. “I had a dream as a little kid that I always wanted to open a children’s clothing store,� she said, laughing. “My friends know that, but I never did it. I love shopping for my kids.�

She saw the �amazing� gemach set up in Shor Yoshuv immediately following the storm, even before the power was returned

the words gemilut chasadim, or act of kindness, for free children’s clothing distribution “to beneďŹ t our community and those affected, to help those hit by the storm as well as needy families,â€? said Jessica, the woman who is seeking more donors for the gemach. “Boruch Hashem our home was not affected by Hurricane Sandy,â€? said Jessica. “We had a generator for ďŹ ve houses.â€? The homes in her area jointly connected to a generator providing minimal power but not enough to run the machines to do laundry.

Needing pajamas for her children, she went to get some from the gemach then in Shor

Local pundit gives his SPINCLASS

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“The members of the Woodmere Fire Department can look forward to the leaderLenny Cherson will be ship of a dedicated chief that installed as Woodmere works tirelessly and cares Fire Department Chief deeply for his community, as on Saturday night at the well as his members.�

Woodmere Country Club.

A member of Young Israel He has the distinction of of Woodmere, Cherson, and being the ďŹ rst Orthodox his wife Raizy are parents to Jewish chief in the departRebecca 18, and Sarah, 16. ment’s 124 year history.

He’s proud of the CommuAs an eleven year vetnity Chometz burning that eran of the Woodmere the Department started on Fire Department, Cherson its own close to 10 years ago rose up the ranks from as a practical service to resiprobationary ďŹ re ďŹ ghter, dents and a very important to ďŹ reďŹ ghter, Lieutenant safety measure. “Last year of Hook and Ladder, CapLENNY CHERSON over 1000 people came to tain of Hook and Ladder, our ďŹ re house to participate.

2nd Assistant Chief, and 1st Assistant Chief. The Woodmere na- This was implemented in response to some tive and HILI alum is also an emergency individuals using chemicals and gasoline to medical technician and has roots with the start ďŹ res to burn chometz,â€? noted CherNew York City Mayor’s OfďŹ ce of Emergency son. Other important ďŹ re safety information is conveyed to the community through Management.

Cherson, who spoke of the Department’s seasonal mailings. In the winter there is a annual activity as averaging 700 calls per pamphlet focused on maintaining boilers year, 967 to be exact in 2012 due to Super and hot water heaters; in the spring the Storm Sandy, looks forward to implement- Department stresses BBQ grill and propane ing his two agenda items as Chief of the De- use safety.

The Woodmere Fire Department boasts partment. “I want to increase training due to new regulations required by the State of one of the largest rosters of Jewish memNew York and OfďŹ ce of Safety and Health bers in Nassau County, with approximately Administration (OSHA), as well as updat- 30 active Orthodox Jewish members. Outside of serving the community, the meming standard operating procedures.â€?

The Department which currently has ap- bers often have social gatherings such as proximately 70 volunteer members, 40 of watching the Superbowl, and often they which are active, do not work in shifts. “We convene over schwarma at Delicious Dishare fortunate to have enough local cover- es, a glatt kosher Israeli restaurant, who is age during the day. In addition, we work a neighbor of the Department. “Best Chief very closely with the Hewlett, Lawrence/ in town, he’s number one, we wish him Cedarhurst and Inwood Fire Departments. the best of luck ,we love him,� expressed We have very detailed mutual aid with all owner Benny Roth, and his family Dorit, the departments,� noted Cherson. “Sixty Oren and Leo .

The Department, which dates back percent of our calls are ďŹ re responses, and forty percent are EMS related.â€? Fellow to 1889, is also installing three assistant WFD member, Lieutenant Marc Deutsch Chiefs, and department and line ofďŹ cers on conveyed the Department’s sentiment. Saturday night.

OHEL seeks foster homes Simone Development’s newly unveiled rendering of the Mount Sinai ambulatory care center that will reside in what was previously the Number 6 school.

As the areas devastated by Hurricane Sandy continue to struggle to return to normal, others continue to ďŹ nd ways to help put their neighbors back on their feet.

In the days after the storm, those not seriously affected rushed to donate clothing, but many of the clothing gathering sites, the gemachs, were damaged. One woman in Bayswater, now seeing the need and the demand for children’s clothing, is working to ďŹ ll that gap.

It is a gemach, the word a consolidation of

By Karen C. Green

Calling all parents: Photo courtesy of Simone Development

By Malka Eisenberg

Woodmere F.D. installs ďŹ rst Orthodox Chief Photo courtesy of OHEL

Ten years ago this week, the world watched as the son of a Holocaust survivor conveyed a message of faith, hope and survival from the height of achievement in a display of unity of purpose, only to later watch his and his crewmates untimely death.

On Thursday, January 31, at 10:30 pm, PBS WNET NY, Channel 13, will premiere Space Shuttle Columbia: Mission of Hope, the story of Israeli Astronaut Ilan Ramon on the 10th anniversary of the shuttle disaster.

Many can recall the great pride felt by Israel and the world Jewish community when Ilan Ramon suited up for his space trip and knowing that he was determined to observe Shabbat and kashrut while in the space shuttle. This ďŹ lm traces Ilan’s life and the multiple historical ties of Jewish survival, ties leading to the fulďŹ lling of a promise and a mission on the space shuttle. “I grieve for Ilan Ramon and his son who was #1

Continuing to help in the wake of Sandy

Diane Liebman Braid, and Erica Liebman, Peri’s counselors at Camp Simcha Special, parents Paul, Lori, Peri’s brother Joel, and Peri.

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Bayswater Gemach:

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VOL 12, NO 6 Q FEBRUARY 8, 2013 / 28 SHEVAT 5773 One happy family: from left, Sara, daughter Meira, and Azriel Ganz, foster and then adoptive parents through OHEL.

Five Towners sense of pride for Ilan Ramon

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Remembering Ed Koch Page 2 Kosher Bookworm: The Hillel legacy Page 5 Who’s in the kitchen: Frozen hot chocolate Page 7 Laughter to beneďŹ t Emunah - Five Towns Page 10

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Kosher Bookworm: Exodus and the Emancipation Page 5 Creativity to yeshiva curriculum Page 6 Who’s in the kitchen: lost and found Page 7 Agudath convention coverage Page 14

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Jeffrey Weisenfeld: College supported anti-Semitism Page 2 Bookworm: Tribute to Aryeh Kaplan Page 5 Who’s in the kitchen: Super snacks score big Page 7 Juda Engelmayer’s trip to the Temple Mount Page 10

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Mercy! Catholic hospital provides The ďŹ x is on room for Shabbat food, rest, prayer Bus crunch riles

By Malka Eisenberg With a growing number of Shomer Shabbat patients arriving at Rockville Centre’s Mercy Medical Center, a member of Catholic Health Services of Long Island, the need for hospital-based bikur cholim assistance has been increasing.

A kosher kitchen and two suites — each with two beds and a bathroom — had been opened by Chabad of the Five Towns in 2007.

After Dr. Aaron Glatt, assistant rabbi at the Young Israel of Woodmere, joined Mercy as Chief Administrative OfďŹ cer in 2011, he arranged to open an adjoining shul, with a mechitza available for use as needed. Then, last May, Achiezer, an organization that facilitates care and aid for residents in need in the Five Towns and Rockaways, assumed the kitchen responsibilities.

With the help of Gourmet Glatt, the kosher superstore in Cedarhurst, Achiezer opened a new kitchen, putting the crowning touch on a section of the hospital’s second oor that is dedicated to assisting Jewish caregivers during the week, on Shabbat and the holidays. “The beauty of Judaism is that even in times of struggle and stress, the yom tovs go on,â€? said Gourmet Glatt General Manager Yoeli Steinberg. “We need to maintain our strength, cheer, and good mood, to go onâ€? — and

yeshiva parents

Photos by Penny Frondelli

The Shabbat room refridgerator at Mercy is well stocked, thanks to deliveries from Gourmet Flatt. should not be compelled to do without kosher necessities or miss having a seudat Shabbat, he said. “Achiezer and Gourmet Glatt — it’s wonderful,â€? said Dr. Glatt. “The patients and I thank them for providing this additional beneďŹ t.â€? He noted that there will

be a mincha minyan in the shul at Mercy, Monday through Thursday at 1 p.m.. after November 4.

Tova Brill, a pharmacist at Mercy, exContinued on page 16

ByJeffrey Bessen Responding to the complaints of yeshiva parents that their children’s rides to and from school were taking way too long, the Lawrence Union Free School District and the Independent Coach bus company worked over the Jewish holidays to make the runs more efďŹ cient and the trips shorter.

Superintendent Gary Schall said four buses were added and that routes were changed for some students.

Also, because the yeshivas were closed, drivers had time to conduct practice runs and coordinate drop-offs and pickups at schools that are closest to one another.

Lawrence’s transportation system is complex. More than 7,500 students are bused to more than 75 schools across Long Island and into Brooklyn and Queens, along more than 450 routes. Schall blamed a willingness to accommodate registrants after the April 1 deadline for this year’s problems, because the late registrations necessitated pickups that weren’t included on the initial route lists. He said that the district would hold to the deadline next year.

The Jewish holidays “gave the district time to regroup and look to see where the problems were,â€? Schall said. Students returned to the yeshivas on Monday. “We have a ďŹ scal responsibility to the taxpayers, and don’t add buses until we demonstrate a need,â€? Schall Continued on page 16

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Torah Reading Parshat Noah. Friday and Shabbat Rosh Chodesh Mar Cheshvan.

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Signs of growth: Jewish Inwood Boy Scout troop welcomes new old Sefer Torah 613: For Jews,

Tying knots, making ďŹ re

By Malka Eisenberg With music and dancing, more than 400 men, women and children welcomed a century-old Sefer Torah rescued from Europe into the growing and vibrant Bais TeďŹ la of Inwood at Yeshiva Ketana of Long Island, 321 Doughty Blvd. The event was originally planned for last autumn, but was delayed by Hurricane Sandy, that wreaked havoc one week before the scheduled date.

Rabbis from across the Five Towns and Far Rockaway participated, in an inspiring display of unity. The Torah was carried with great respect and joy “very kavodik and laibydick (lively)â€? down Doughty Boulevard that was closed off by police, said Adam Mayer, board member and gabbai at Bais TeďŹ la.

In the procession, from a shul member’s home on Morris Avenue to the yeshiva, congregants brought out the yeshiva’s and shul’s existing Sifrei Torah and the crowd danced jubilantly with them.

Participants then had a “full sit down seuda (meal)� in the Yeshiva Ketana dining room. It “was packed, standing room only,� Mayer said.

The old Torah was “still usable� but had to be repaired, said Yehuda Zachter, a member of the shul’s board. The anonymous donor wanted to put it “in a vibrant

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community that could utilize it,â&#x20AC;? he explained. The Torah was donated by the Zachter family. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The Torah was in pretty good shape,â&#x20AC;?

Mayer pointed out. â&#x20AC;&#x153;It is symbolic, taking a Torah from the ashes of Europe into

a young growing community. That was a big part of the simcha, the symbolism.â&#x20AC;?

Mayer said a few â&#x20AC;&#x153;pioneersâ&#x20AC;? moved to Inwood and the shul â&#x20AC;&#x201D; located within the Five Towns-Far Rockaway eruv â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Continued on page 16

Massive funeral for a great rabbi

Judy honors Mariano Rivera The Jewish Starâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Kitchen columnist cries over the retirement of â&#x20AC;&#x153;an amazing human being,â&#x20AC;? and creates a delightful dish sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s calling MARIANOated fruit salad. Page 15.

Photo by Yonatan Sindel/Flash90

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Woodmere FD volunteers, from left, Chief Ben Nelson, Donny Metzler, Adam Slotnick, Josh Kirschner, Darren Moritz, Jason Hagler and Chief Lenny Cherson.

The Woodmere event will run from noon to 5 p.m. at the Woodmere Fire House, 20 Irving Place, and include ďŹ re truck rides, kosher food, live demonstrations and prizes.

A ďŹ re prevention company will present a â&#x20AC;&#x153;live burn,â&#x20AC;? with emergency responders demonstrating how they get out of a house, â&#x20AC;&#x153;climbing down the walls with a rope while wearing the full 75 pounds of equipment.â&#x20AC;? Emergency medical technicians will stage a fake accident with a fake victim and ambulance to show â&#x20AC;&#x153;how they take someone out of a car accident.â&#x20AC;?

Overall, the goal of this Continued on page 16

VOL 12, NO 39 Q OCTOBER 11, 2013 / 7 CHESHVAN 5774

Baruch Dayan Emet: Rav Chaim Ovadia Yosef, zâ&#x20AC;?l

Fun and ďŹ re safety coming to Woodmere

By Malka Eisenberg Woodmere Fire Department volunteers will be opening their home on Sunday, Oct. 13, for a day of fun, ďŹ re education and recruitment.

Darren Moritz, a volunteer ďŹ re ďŹ ghter, noted the importance of learning ďŹ re safety, He recounted two incidents in Woodmere when children put a pizza box in the familyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s stove to heat up the pizza inside. â&#x20AC;&#x153;There was a ďŹ re in the oven,â&#x20AC;? he recalled. â&#x20AC;&#x153;A ďŹ re extinguisher puts it right out â&#x20AC;&#x201D; but it destroys the oven.â&#x20AC;? Fire ďŹ ghters will demonstrate how to put out a ďŹ re using both water and ďŹ re extinguishers.

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By Malka Eisenberg Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, one of the greatest halachic, Torah and Talmudic minds of our generation, passed away on Monday at the age of 93 in Jerusalem.

Police reported that as many as 800,000 attended his funeral that evening, ten percent of the population of Israel. The funeral procession inched along the streets of Jerusalem, through the crush of mourners, from Yeshivat Porat Yosef, where the Rav had attended school as a youth and eulogies were delivered, to his burial at the Sanhedria cemetery. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a tremendous loss,â&#x20AC;? said Rabbi Yitzhak Simantov of Congregation Shaare Emunah, the Sephardic Con-

gregation of the Five Towns on Oakland Avenue in Cedarhurst. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We saw the unity. All the gedolim (leading rabbis) closed the yeshivot, they sent the kollelim to the levaya.â&#x20AC;?

The mourners reďŹ&#x201A;ected a cross section of Israeli society, from charedi to secular, since his rulings and teachings touched many. He is survived by ten children, one the current Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Israel. He was buried next to his wife, Margalit, who passed away at age 67 in 1994.

Rabbi Yosef was born in Baghdad, Iraq, Sept. 23, 1920, the day after Yom Kippur. He immigrated to Jerusalem, then under British rule, at age four with his family. He excelled in his studies and reContinued on page 16

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Torah Reading Parshat Lech Lecha

THE JEWISH A fre chen Chanukah!

May he u h be w h you

By Malka Eisenberg Want to build a ďŹ re, tie a knot and learn ďŹ rst aid â&#x20AC;&#x201D; all in a Jewish context?

These and other life skills are experienced by boys in sixth through 12th grades at Boy Scout troop number 613, now recruiting, in West Hempstead.

Dr. Steve Mermelstein founded the troop ďŹ ve years ago at the Young Israel of Woodmere, when his son Andrew was involved in scouting. When Andrew, who attained the highest rank of Eagle scout, left for a year of study in Israel, Steve Kahn of West Hempstead became Scoutmaster and the troop moved to Congregation Anshei Shalom, where Kahn is president. Two of Kahnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s sons are in the troop.

Troop 613 follows typical Boy Scout programs, â&#x20AC;&#x153;except that they are kosher and focus on mitzvot, especially if they are camping overnight,â&#x20AC;? Kahn said.

A Shabbat overnight camping trip would include a Sefer Torah with leining (Torah reading), and learning the laws of and building an eruv before Shabbat.

A two-week summer camp is run with Boston-based Jewish troop 54.

Over Sukkot, troop 613 joined with Brooklynâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Jewish troop 611 at Camp Pouch on Staten Island for a two-night camping trip. They built a sukkah out of bamboo poles and rope, ate in the sukkah everyday, davened, and slept in tents, said Kahn.

Troop 613 currently has 21 members and generally meets twice a month on Sundays from 6:30 to 8 pm, working through the different advancement requirements, accruing ranks and titles, learning skills and completing projects to earn merit badges to advance in rank. The titles run through scout, tenderfoot, second class, ďŹ rst class, star, life and the highest is Eagle Scout.

Kahn noted that some of the skills the scouts learn include ďŹ rst aid, CPR, cooking, ďŹ re making, hiking, camping, knowledge of the United States Constitution and, speciďŹ cally for this Jewish troop, Jewish knowledge. Some of the Jewish knowledge includes Torah, history of Israel, Jewish laws and customs, and the Jewish calendar.

The scouts can earn two Jewish badges: the Ner Tamid Award for 6th to 9th graders, a prerequisite to the second Jewish badge, the Etz Chaim Award for 10th to 12th graders. When the requirements have been completed the scouts have to â&#x20AC;&#x153;demonstrate proďŹ ciency in those areas to three members of the scouting committee.â&#x20AC;?

The Jewish committee on scouting operates under the Boy Scouts of America, said Kahn. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The goal,â&#x20AC;? explained Kahn, â&#x20AC;&#x153;is to develop a wellrounded individual who enters the world and is preContinued on page 16

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By Malka Eisenberg Yeshiva Shor Yoshuv in Lawrence, a hub of aid after Sandy to those devastated by the hurricane, ďŹ lled with an overďŹ&#x201A;ow crowd of more than 2,000 men, women and children this past Sunday for a Tehillim (psalms) rally to thank G-d for surviving the storm. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The power of TeďŹ la (prayer) from tinokos shel bais Raban (Torah-learning children) is very special,â&#x20AC;? explained Achiezerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Eli Weiss, who organized the event. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The schools and shuls did a tremendous job of promoting and encouraging attendance and involvement and we owe them a great debt of gratitude for contributing to the success that Bâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;H it was.â&#x20AC;?

Men and women, seated separately since it was a prayer rally, and many children ďŹ lled the cavernous rooms on the main ďŹ&#x201A;oor of Shor Yoshuv, 1 Cedarlawn Ave. Lawrence, with the crowd spilling into the entrance hall where video screens were set up to enable the crowd to see the speakers and read along as chapters of Tehillim were displayed.

As people entered for the hour-long event, they were handed colored markers

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for the children and a book of Tehillim for the adults. Each seat had a bottle of water and either a bag of cookies or pretzels. A feeling of achdus (unity) and the intensity of a gathering to pray, electriďŹ ed the packed spacious sunlit room.

Achiezer President Rabbi Boruch Ber Bender spoke ďŹ rst, acknowledging the

Photo courtesy Achiezer

more than 50 rabbanim seated at the dais. He said that in Sandyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s wake, Shor Yoshuv opened its building to the community even though it had no electricity, serving as a center of the chesed and assistance that ďŹ&#x201A;owed to those in need in the nearby ďŹ&#x201A;ooded and damaged areas.

Continued on page 9

Mangano tells OU he backs Sandy shul aid Nassau County Executive Ed Mangano said on Monday that he believes the Federal Emergency Management Agency should assist houses of worship damaged

by Hurricane Sandy.

Republican Mangano, seeking reelection next Tuesday, addressed a crowd of Jewish community, synagogue and day school lay leaders at the Orthodox Unionâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Manhattan ofďŹ ces.

During the OU Advocacy-NY-sponsored forum, Mangano discussed issues of importance to the Jewish community, including cutting the deďŹ cit, job creation, expanded housing options, and other ways Nassau County residents can alleviate the damage incurred by Hurricane Sandy.

Last week, OU Advocacy hosted Manganoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Democratic rival, former Nassau County Executive candidate Tom Suozzi, who also supported Sandy aid for shuls.

On Wednesday, Nassau Countyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s largest community newspaper group offered kind words for Suozziâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s vision but endorsed Mangano. â&#x20AC;&#x153;If we felt Suozzi was capable of delivering on his grand vision in any

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meaningful way, our choice would be a no-brainer,â&#x20AC;? the Herald newspapers, that includes the Nassau Herald in the Five Towns, said.

The editors called Suozzi a â&#x20AC;&#x153;grand visionaryâ&#x20AC;? but said that Mangano â&#x20AC;&#x153;seems

With more than 275 vendors displaying their wares at this weekâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s KosherFest in the Meadowlands, there were plenty of tasty takeaways.

But one vendor, instead of marketing a food item or service, was drawing a jocular crowd with â&#x20AC;&#x153;kosherâ&#x20AC;? diapers, a product just now breaking into kosher supermarkets and convenience stores in frum neighborhoods. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s as good as Huggies and Pampers but cheaper, like Luvs,â&#x20AC;? boasted Premium Kosher Diapersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; representative Yechiel Kohn.

The diapers rely on Velcro rather than tape to stay tightly closed, avoiding a potential Shabbos violation, explained diaper man Terry Goldin.

The diapers, which have been available by mail order for some time, have been stocked by Kosher World in Far Rockaway for a few week. â&#x20AC;&#x153;There is a demand for it [but] I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t think (people) know too much about it,â&#x20AC;? store manager <HFKLHO .RKQ SURPRWHV ÂłNRVKHU´ Benny Blackman told GLDSHUV DW .RVKHU)HVW Jewish Star The Jewish Star.

Blackman recalled that â&#x20AC;&#x153;some rabbanim in Boro Park mentioned that it was a good thing but I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t remember if it was a chumrah (stringency) or halacha (Jewish law).â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x153;An ehrlicha yid (a Jew with integrity) wants to do something special for Shabbos,â&#x20AC;? he said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a good idea; it could pick up a lot.â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x153;People are makpid (careful) on this,â&#x20AC;? he said, but added, â&#x20AC;&#x153;I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t think there is an issue with the other ones. I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t make halacha.â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x153;I myself donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t use it,â&#x20AC;? he said.

Among other campy highlights on the showâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ďŹ rst day: The unveiling by Empire Kosher Poultry of the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s largest chicken nugget, weighting over 45 pounds and measuring 3.25 feet long by 2 feet wide.

More KosherFest photos on page 13.

Ashley Macdam/Michael Priest Photography

better able to build consensus and get things done in a Republican-dominated county.â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x153;Mangano has a better shot at getting Nassau moving forward again.â&#x20AC;?

Another OU photo is on page 9.

Shabbat Candlelighting: 5:33 pm. Shabbat ends: 6:33 pm. 72 minute zman: 7:02 pm. Torah Reading: Toldot >> If youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d like to distribute The Jewish Star in your shul or store, email your request to EWeintrob@TheJewishStar.com <<

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Long Beach woman cheers 113th

By Alexandra Spychalsky Goldie Steinberg, a longtime resident of the Grandell Rehabilitation & Nursing Center in Long Beach, turned 113 last week, and the Grandell staff held a party so she could celebrate with her friends and family.

Steinberg is officially the 14th-oldest person in the world and ninth-oldest in the country, born on Oct. 30, 1900 in Kishinev, Romania, known today as Chisinau, Moldova.

One of eight children, she immigrated

to the United States in 1923, after her uncle offered her and her sister the opportunity. She and her husband, Phillip Steinberg, who died in 1967, lived in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, and she remained in the same apartment for 72 years.

She worked as a seamstress, and the dress she wore to her birthday party was one she had sewed years earlier, said Moishe Heller, corporate administrator at Grandell. Steinberg has a son, a daughter, four grandchildren and seven greatgrandchildren. She moved to Grandell in

2004 to be closer to her daughter, Anne Teicher, who lives in Hewlett.

Heller said the amazing thing about Steinberg isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t just her age, but how active she is. He said she still tells stories and remembers many details of her life.

And she is very strong-willed, Heller said.

Steinberg loves to crochet, read the newspaper and root for the Yankees.

Heller said that she always puts others before herself. Steinberg once told him that when a person dies, the only thing Continued on page 15

By Malka Eisenberg His chances of survival were slim. But now almost ďŹ ve years after severe wounds from Operation Cast Lead, Aharon Karov triumphantly crossed the ďŹ nish line at the New York City Marathon this past Sunday, helping to raise $50,000 for an organization that helped him and other victims of terror and their families.

Aharon Karov was commander of a paratroop brigade and responded to return to duty for Operation Cast Lead in 2009 the day after his wedding. The house the soldiers entered in Gaza was booby trapped and blew up, collapsing on him, embedding more than 500 pieces of shrapnel in his body and severely damaging his brain and face, affecting his motor skills and speech.

Dr. Steven Jackson, a top $KDURQ .DURY ÂżQLVKHV UDFH neurologist at Rabin Hospital was called in. The country and Jewish communities world wide were called upon to pray for Karov. After a 12 hour operation, Jackson comforted Aharonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s wife, saying that he would be the mohel at their sonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s brit. Three weeks later, Continued on page 12

75 years after Kindertransport, Far Rockâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Belle remembers

By Malka Eisenberg It was a chink in the ironclad Nazi killing machine, a narrow glint of light in the suffocating darkness.

On Nov. 15, 1938, ďŹ ve days after Kristallnacht, British Jewish and Quaker leaders mobilized to enlist the British government to permit the temporary entry of Jewish children ďŹ&#x201A;eeing the Nazis. For nine months, until the declaration of World War II on Sept. 1, 1939, 10,000 mostly Jewish children from Europe were transported to the United Kingdom, with the last group of children arriving May 14, 1940.

Mrs. Belle Silverstein (nee Messing), a long time resident of Far Rockaway and one of the Kindertransport children, will introduce a ďŹ lm, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Into the Arms of Strangers,â&#x20AC;? about this endeavor this Saturday night, Nov. 9, at the Young Israel of Lawrence-Cedarhurst. This commemorates the 75th anniversary of Kristallnacht, the pogrom that triggered the Kindertransport.

Kristallnacht, Nov. 9 and 10, 1938 was the ďŹ rst explosion of death and destruction

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in the build-up of anti-Jewish economic, social and political sanctions and persecutions instituted by the Nazis beginning in 1933.

During that night more than 90 Jews were killed, 30,000 taken to concentration camps, more than 1,000 synagogues were burned and 7,000 Jewish businesses destroyed or vandalized, their glass fronts and windows shattered, giving this pogrom the name â&#x20AC;&#x153;the night of broken glass.â&#x20AC;?

Silversteinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s parents came from Poland but she and her brother, anthropologist Dr. Simon Messing, grew up in the â&#x20AC;&#x153;vibrant Jewish communityâ&#x20AC;? of Frankfurt. She attended the Samson Raphael Hirsch School there. â&#x20AC;&#x153;It was the ďŹ rst school in the world that had a secular and Hebrew educationâ&#x20AC;? for boys and girls, she said, in a slight Scottish accent. â&#x20AC;&#x153;It was the model of all modern yeshivot, founded in 1925. It was fantastic.â&#x20AC;?

Recalling that period, she said that her parents sheltered her, but she was aware of the tightening noose around the Jewish com-

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munity: doctors were banned from practicing, shechitah was not allowed, men had to add the name â&#x20AC;&#x153;Israelâ&#x20AC;? and women â&#x20AC;&#x153;Sarahâ&#x20AC;? to their identity cards, professors lost their jobs.

Silverstein headed to school on the morning of November 10 and met her English teacher. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Go home! Go home!â&#x20AC;? she recalled her saying. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Teachers in Germany donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t speak to their students. So when she spoke to me I knew something was wrong. I smelled smoke; our shul was burning. I saw a Jewish woman being dragged, windows smashed.â&#x20AC;?

Silverstein and her mother went to her fatherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s business, wholesale menswear textiles on the second ďŹ&#x201A;oor of a building. They called the police who did nothing but stand and Continued on page 12

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VOL 12, NO 45 Q NOVEMBER 22, 2013 / 19 KISLEV 5774

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â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Israel will defend itselfâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;

By Malka Eisenberg Naftali Bennett, pivotal Knesset member and head of the Jewish Home party, warned of the continuing Iranian threat and the importance of the eternity of Israel in a 35 minute speech Saturday night at the Young Israel of Woodmere.

He stressed the importance of Israel as the home of the Jewish people and not just as a â&#x20AC;&#x153;shelter stateâ&#x20AC;? and that Israel is a â&#x20AC;&#x153;lighthouse in the stormâ&#x20AC;? of the turbulent Middle East. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Is Israel really the safest place for Jews?â&#x20AC;? he asked. â&#x20AC;&#x153;There are other places: Teaneck, New Jersey; Woodmere; Perth, Australia. If our whole meaning is to be a shelter

MK Bennett reminds Woodmere YI that Torah is Israelâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s raison dâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ĂŞtre state, thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not a good enough reason. There is a better reason â&#x20AC;&#x201D; itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the Torah [that is Israelâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s] raison dâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ĂŞtre.â&#x20AC;?

Bennett said the principal mission of his current U.S. visit is to raise alarms over the crisis with Iran. â&#x20AC;&#x153;They donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t want to break out now, they want to keep the pipeline and are waiting for the right moment, when the sanctions are relieved, when the West is preoc-

cupied with something. Maybe in 10 months, 20 months, but the moment they break out it is done ala North Korea. The current deal of the P5+1 is a bad deal. They can keep the ability to break out at any given moment. A good deal would be to dismantle the whole thing.

Then it would take them three years to rebuild from scratch.â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x153;In any event,â&#x20AC;? he continued, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Israel has the capability to defend Continued on page 12

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Bearded cadet fought â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;lawâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;â&#x20AC;&#x201D;and won LIRR vandals

By Malka Eisenberg The ďŹ rst step in the reinstatement of a Chabad-Lubavitch New York City Police Cadet was handed down in a ruling on Friday by a federal district Judge in Manhattan who upheld the constitutional claim of the cadet that his First Amendment rights were denied.

Fishel Litzman was â&#x20AC;&#x153;thrown outâ&#x20AC;? of the Police Academy for refusing to trim his beard to one millimeter in length, said Nathan Lewin, Litzmanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s attorney.

Litzman has never trimmed his beard, as is customary with Chabad Chasidim, but even so, it naturally only grows about a half inch from his skin. Judge Harold Baer noted that there are many exceptions to the New York City Police Departmentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s unpublished rule limiting facial hair to a one millimeter length and the rule was not applied uniformly.

Lewin said that â&#x20AC;&#x153;Judge Baerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s opinion properly emphasizes the discrepancy between the NYPDâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s announced limitation on facial hair and the Departmentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s fail-

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ure to enforce that rule against ofďŹ cers other than Fishel Litzman.â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x153;This is a great day for religious freedom in America,â&#x20AC;? Litzman, 39, said of the decision that â&#x20AC;&#x153;will enable me to carry out my life-long dream of serving the people of the City of New York as a uniformed police ofďŹ cer. I am very grateful for the

support I received from those inside and outside the New York City Police Department during this long ordeal.â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x153;The Lubavitch standard does not allow him to trim his beard,â&#x20AC;? Lewin told The Jewish Star. â&#x20AC;&#x153;He applied for religious accommodation. He had been training for months and was at the top of his class.

It was his life-long ambition to be a New York City Police OfďŹ cer. It was unconstitutional to throw him out â&#x20AC;&#x201D; of course they have to take him back.â&#x20AC;?

The next step for Lewin, who has argued 27 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court and is widely known as a champion of civil rights and Jewish causes, is to ďŹ le a proposed order requesting that Litzman be reinstated.

Litzman, a resident of Monsey and father of ďŹ ve, worked since 2002 for Maimonides Medical Center as a paramedic and from 2006 for New York Presbyterian Hospital and the village of Kiryas Joel as well. In 2009 he took the Police OfďŹ cer Continued on page 12

The biz of holiday mashup

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By Jacob Kamaras, JNS.org Nov. 28 marks Thanksgiving Day, as well as the ďŹ rst day of Chanukah.

It would be a natural reaction for an American Jew, when noticing that overlap during a casual reading of the calendar, to smile or even laugh. But Dana Gitell took things much further.

A marketing professional living in Norwood, Mass., Gitell coined and trademarked the word â&#x20AC;&#x153;Thanksgivukkah,â&#x20AC;? launched a website as well as Facebook and Twitter pages for the joint holiday, and partnered with Juda-

ica retailer ModernTribe.com on a line of t-shirts and greeting cards to mark the occasionâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;one that, according to one analysis of the Jewish and Gregorian calendars, wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t occur again for more than 75,000 years.

Gitell, who had known â&#x20AC;&#x153;Thanksgivukkahâ&#x20AC;? was coming for ďŹ ve years, said the more she thought about it, the more she came to appreciate the signiďŹ cance behind the overlap of two holidays which â&#x20AC;&#x153;both celebrate religious freedomâ&#x20AC;? and have â&#x20AC;&#x153;similar themes.â&#x20AC;?

Continued on page 3

Shabbat Candlelighting: 4:13 pm. Shabbat ends: 5:17 pm. 72 minute zman: 5:45 pm. This weekâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Torah Reading: Vayeshev

triple attacks in Five Towns

By Jeffrey Bessen In the ďŹ rst 10 months of this year there have been three times as many bias grafďŹ ti incidents at Five Towns Long Island Railroad train stations as there were in 2012, according to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

Last year there were four such incidents, all at the Cedarhurst LIRR sta- 6ZDVWLND DW &HGDUKXUVW VWDWLRQ tion. So far this year, 3KRWR FRXUWHV\ -HIIUH\ /HE the MTA has reported seven incidents at Cedarhurst, four in Lawrence and one in Hewlett, a total of 12.

On Oct. 30, Cedarhurst resident Jeffrey Leb saw a swastika scratched onto a panel of one of the stationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Continued on page 12 passenger shelters.

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Tehillim said by children thank G-d Now on sale in Far Rock for sparing our lives during Sandy Kosher diapers with Velco beat Pampers

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Hereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s happening: The Starâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Calendar is back Page 2 Mt. Sinai is coming to Hewlett Page 6 Bookworm: Creation, ďŹ&#x201A;ood, tefďŹ lin, mezuzah Page 6 Election season: Nassauâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s county exec Page 14

Salk, the current vaccinations should prevent transmission of the poliovirus, according to news reports in Israel.

IPV has been used exclusively in the United States since 2000, usually in combination with other vaccines.

It is administered as part of the child vaccine protocol in four doses at age two months, four months, six to 18 months and a booster shot at four to six years of age. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Different polio vaccines are indicated for different scenarios,â&#x20AC;? said Rabbi Dr. Aaron Glatt, Chief Administrative OfďŹ cer at Mercy Medical Center in Rockville Centre and a spokesperson for the Infectious Disease Society of America. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I am sure they know which one

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Facing evidence that poliovirus has spread through the sewer system in several communities, Israel has begun an emergency vaccination program to reach 500,000 children.

The Health Ministry will initially inoculate 200,000 children, age four months to nine years, at the countryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Tipat Chalav (â&#x20AC;&#x153;drop of milkâ&#x20AC;?) well-baby clinics.

The push follows the discovery by doctors of hundreds of people carrying the disease, although none, bâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ezrat Hashem (with G-dâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s help) were suffering with symptoms of polio or paralysis. The poliovirus was found in sewage from the Bedouin city of Rahat in May, and later in sewage in Beer Sheva, Ashdod, Tel Aviv and other nearby towns. The virus reportedly came to Israel from Egypt.

The clinics will be using the attenuated (weakened but live) oral poliovirus vaccine (OPV), pioneered by Albert Sabin in the 1950s.

Although Israeli children â&#x20AC;&#x201D; along with ninety-eight percent of all people in Israel â&#x20AC;&#x201D; have been vaccinated with the IPV killed poliovirus vaccine (inactivated poliovirus vaccine) pioneered by Jonas

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By Malka Eisenberg Older Five Towns singles have a new place to meet and mingle: The Young Israel of Woodmere’s Singles Initiative.

The YIW group has been organizing highquality matchmaking events, and on Dec. 21, greeted a capacity crowd at Masago Asian Fusion restaurant, 1034 Broadway in Woodmere for wine tastings, an elegant four course meal, and lots of networking. The event, for men and women aged 45 to 55, was billed as A Sterling Evening.

In the run up to the event, organizers got calls and emails with requests to attend from Florida, Missouri and Europe. Because of a lack of space and to maintain a controlled atmosphere, they needed to cap the event at 70 men and women and had to close registration, turning people away.

Rabbi Aaron Glatt, assistant to the rabbi at YIW, welcomed the men and women on behalf of the YIW and gave a short dvar Torah. Amir Besterman of Yarden Wines walked among the tables and explained each of the wines presented. YIW member and Judaica expert Jonathan Greenstein, host of The Jewish Channel’s “Jewish Gilt” program, presented a 15-minute interactive slide show about antique silver.

The YIW’S 20 member Singles Initiative Committee plans events, activities and programs to facilitate matchmaking among all age groups. Previous events included a Salad Wars program where groups of men and women worked together on a salad making task, and a Dine ’N Meet program at a community Shabbaton, both for younger singles.

The singles, evenly divided between men and women, were seated at tables in the dining room and the men rotated after each course to the next table, enabling the men and women to meet in a relaxed way.

As the program came to a close, the men, dressed in jackets and ties, and the women fashionably dressed as well, continued talk-

Facilitators at A Sterling Evening (from left): Baila Sebrow, Jonathan Greenstein, Sima Greenstein, Batsheva Donner, Sheri Hammer, Adam Kaufman, Shari Kaufman, Margie Glatt, Sandy Klein, Malky Galler, and Mark Bernstein.

The Jewish Star photo by Donovan Berthoud

ing animatedly, in a warm, relaxed and yet high-energy atmosphere.

Facilitators assisted the men and women in introducing and answering questions, providing a list to each participant for future contacts.

This vibrant event committee from the Young Israel included Marjorie Glatt and Sima Greenstein (also online connectors with YUConnects), Shari Kaufman, Sheri Hammer, Sandy Klein, Batsheva Donner, Mark Bernstein and Bonnie Sigman. Malky Galler and Baila Sebrow (matchmakers with SawYouAtSinai) lent a hand for the night

and will assist with follow-up. The Orthodox Union’s Singles Connection and SawYouAtSinai helped publicize the event.

One woman took a list of participants and as she left told one of the facilitators that the event was in “very good taste, very nice. I didn’t feel uncomfortable. It was an upscale place and the food was delicious.”

A man, glass in hand, commended one of the facilitators. “You did G-d’s work,” he said. “Bringing people together in a pleasant, informal setting allowed people to try to get to know each other in a somewhat relaxed fashion and the food was great.”

“It was a good experience,” said another man as he left, and smiled, “I got two numbers.”

“It was a successful event,” assessed Sebrow, one of the facilitators. “There was positive energy and hopefully positive outcomes.”

“It was a different kind of event,” said Hammer. “They see potential here. We tried to make it an interesting event with things going on throughout the evening. It was diverse and yet homogeneous. Something good should come from this.”

For more info or to get emails on upcoming events, visit YIWmeet@gmail.com.

Sensitivity training panel teaches tolerance at HALB

By Malka Eisenberg Three Kulanu Academy students joined two teenage shadow students from Kulanu’s Sunday Program to teach sensitivity to 120 girls at the Hebrew Academy of Long Beach’s elementary school.

The three Kulanu students have different

CORRECTIONS L 6KLQH

In last week’s front page article about the Nassau Herald’s “people of the year” award, The Jewish Star neglected to properly identify Deena Intrator as one of the three founders of i-Shine along with Annette Kaufman and Stacy Zrihen.

In a letter to the editor in this week’s Herald, Zrihen writes: “It is important to note that this recognition also belongs to Deena Intrator, an original founder of the i-Shine program and dedicated volunteer since its inception.

Deena’s vision and hard work helped make i-Shine what it is today.”

.XODQX

Last week’s coverage of Kulanu’s gala misstated Beth Raskin’s title. She is Executive Director of the 13-year-old organization.

disabilities — one has Down syndrome, one is a high functioning autism student, and one has attention deficit disorder and learning disabilities; one of the shadows is from SKA and the other is from HAFTR. The students listened raptly as the Kulanu panelists — Jonah Goldstein, Shaya Martin and Mashi Nockenofsky — discussed what it is like to have a disability and how they feel lonely when other children do not socialize with them. The student with autism said that she considers her disability a gift. She explained that Hashem made her differently and all she asks is that people treat her with tolerance and the same as everyone else. She made no apologies for her disability, said the event’s organizer, Jonathan Cooper, LCSW, Kulanu’s Director of Inclusion and Community Services. “That’s the way it should be.”

The panel’s presentation, with shadows Nicole Odinsky and Shira Fagan participating, “brought the house down,” Cooper said.

“Everyone got a big ovation. The kids went up to the Kulanu kids. It made them very approachable.”

One shadow witnessed an example of the intolerance of people as they interact with the disabled — a regular student “high fiving” a Kulanu student and then wiping his hand on the shadow as if wiping off dirt. “If you want to say ‘hi’ don’t be mean about it,” she said. “There is no joke about this, they can’t help what they have.”

“That’s why we need this program,” stressed Cooper. “Despite Kulanu being here for 13 years, there is still a certain amount

of prejudice and misunderstanding with the special needs population. Kids need to be more sensitive. These children have invisible disabilities and the assumption is that they should be acting like everybody else. Kids fill in the blanks with prejudicial statements and negative feelings when they don’t understand the behaviors of somebody.”

The shadows “represented the aspect of volunteerism and spending time with kids very different from them, seeing the gifts and abilities they have and beginning to appreciate people’s differences,” explained Cooper.

“When they spend time close up, they can get to know them and not feel frightened but appreciative and in awe of those with disabilities.”

“This (program) will help stop bullying,” he added. It helps “fill in the blank with someone who looks or acts different. It creates a sense of tolerance.”

“Bullying is a natural occurrence,” said Cooper. “Ten percent of the population are bullies, 80 percent are bystanders and 10 percent are victims. In the special education population, 50 percent are bullied. They are misunderstood and easy targets for various reasons.”

This is the second time Kulanu students have participated in a panel but the first time at HALB as a panel, said Cooper, noting that he has been doing sensitivity training for 13 years at Kulanu. He said that he has presented sensitivity training to the entire school at HALB except for the junior high boys. He has also presented in South Shore, HAFTR, Ram-

bam, HANC and at Kulanu’s Sunday Program for students from public school and other yeshivot.

This program is geared for children in third grade and up.

“The schools often request it and ask me to do something,” explained Cooper. “It’s always been a service we’ve offered.” He noted that it’s a 40-minute program and he does individual programs of 40 minutes per classroom as well.

The individual program offers “different exercises that disable (the students) physically and cognitively to develop empathy and understanding (about) what it’s like to be a child with special needs.” One activity is a “mirror maze,” he explained. “The students have to trace a maze through a mirror. It confounds the brain, they get to see what it’s like to have a disability.”

In another activity, students make a paper airplane with their less dominant hand, and in another activity they read a paragraph without the first sentence to give the students a feeling of what it is like to have attention deficit disorder.

Cooper has been at Kulanu for 13 years and in the field for close to 40 years. He has a degree from Simmons School of Social Work in Boston and is the recipient of the Far Fund Fellowship on developing a method to deal with bullying for children on the autistic spectrum in a school setting.

For more information contact Jonathan Cooper at 516-569-3083 x135 or at jonathanc@kulanukids.org.

THE JEWISH STAR January 3, 2014 • 2 SHEVAT 5774

YI Woodmere singles event’s target: 45—55

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January 3, 2014 • 2 SHEVAT 5774 THE JEWISH STAR

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The Jewish home: Key to our survival, and the world’s W

alk into any Jewish home and ask yourself: What distinguishes it as a Jewish home? There is actually no ritual, biblical obligation concerning the Jewish home, save one: the mezuzah.

One would expect to find this symbol, therefore, in the center of our homes, the living room or dining Rabbi Binny room. Yet we place Freedman our mezuzah in the doorway at the entrance to the home, a place we only pass through, never really stopping to focus on much of anything.

Imagine a close friend gives you an incredible gift: an original painting by Monet. And the next time he comes to visit he is shocked to discover you have hung the painting … outside your front door! He would probably be horrified! Why do we place our mezuzah in the doorway, rather than hanging it somewhere special inside our home?

Rav Ephraim Oshri, the last Rabbi of Kovno, Lithuania, in 1941, was asked a fascinating question in the ghetto: One of the Jews wanted to know if there was a mitzvah to place a mezuzah in a home in the ghetto, given the horrible conditions the Jews were forced to live in. Would such a place constitute a home, requiring a mezuFROM THE HEART OF JERUSALEM

zah? His intent, in the event there was such an obligation, was to make it his mission to share with every Jew the beauty of the mitzvah, and to teach them the blessing.

Amazingly, given the danger inherent in such a practice, and the fact that public Jewish ritual in the ghetto was often punishable by death, there was no question as to whether they should try and hide the mitzvah somewhere inside the home, as opposed to the front door. Yet, it was a given that a mezuzah only makes sense on the front door.

To understand this strange mitzvah, we need to take a closer look at the origins of the mitzvah of mezuzah, whose sources are to be found in the Exodus from Egypt, in this week’s portion, Bo: After 210 years of slavery and nine plagues, G-d announces that the end is finally at hand, the Jewish people will finally be redeemed.

Hashem will bring one more plague on Egypt, and this one He will do Himself.

But one week before the redemption, on the tenth day of Nissan, each family (actually, each “home”) must take a lamb, and tie

it up in front of the house (Exodus 12:3).

Then, on the fourteenth day of Nissan, they must slaughter this lamb in the middle of the afternoon (12:6). What is the purpose of this strange sacrifice? And why are the Jewish people, enslaved by the most sadistic and evil society in history, made to wait for four days before being redeemed — just so the lamb can remain tied up in the front yard?

But that’s not all.

Even stranger is what happens after the lamb is slaughtered: the Jews have to collect the lambs’ blood and paint their doorjambs with it!

And strangest of all is the explanation G-d gives (12:13) for this bizarre ritual: The blood will serve as a sign for G-d when He passes through Egypt at midnight.

And wherever G-d sees blood on the doorjamb, He will pass over that house and spare the family from the plague of the first-born.

Why does G-d need a sign to implement the tenth plague? Indeed, the Torah tells us (12: 24-25) that we need to safeguard this ritual for our children, and our children’s children, forever!

Every Jewish family placed a sign on their doors that declared: through this doorway the gods of Egypt will not pass. The beginning of our emergence as a free nation was the birth of the Jewish home.

Incredibly, this condition is somehow so crucial to the story of the Exodus from Egypt, that the festival we celebrate to commemorate these momentous events, Passover, takes its name from this part of the story. Why does this represent the essence of the Exodus? hirty-two hundred years ago, in what was then the darkest place on earth, the Jewish people were given the opportunity to take a stand. One of the gods of ancient Egypt was the lamb. So Hashem asked the Jewish people to take this lamb and tie it up outside their homes on the tenth day of Nissan, and leave it there for four days. Then, they had to slaughter this lamb, and paint their doors with the blood.

No Jew could hide behind closed doors.

While the first-born of Egypt were dying around them, they marked their front doors with the blood of the god of their masters.

Imagine how difficult this must have been.

Mordechai Anielewicz, in the diary he kept during the Warsaw ghetto uprising, points out how incredible it was to these embattled Jews that their bullets could kill the Nazi “übermentschen.” After nearly ten years of Nazi rule, the Jews could barely imagine their masters as men of flesh and blood, just like them.

Imagine how challenging it must have been for the Jews in Egypt to kill the god of their masters who had enslaved them for 210 years. In fact, the slaughtering of the paschal lamb takes place on the eve of Passover in the middle of the afternoon, Continued on page 14

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As Judaism meets Mother Goose, extremism is no virtue T

here are a number of mitzvot associated with the Korban Pesach — the Paschal Lamb sacrifice that was first commanded in Egypt and eaten the night before the Exodus — that apply anytime the Korban Pesach is offered and eaten.

One concerns how it is to be prepared: “Do not eat it raw or [very] Rabbi Avi Billet cooked in water, but only roasted over fire; its head (on) its legs and (on) its internal organs” (Shmot, Bo, 12:9).

The term translated here as “[very] cooked” appears in the Torah in the oftcalled “double language” of “vashel m’vushal,” which indicates a more severe degree of having been cooked than what Mother Goose might call “just right.” In the Sefer Luach Erez, the author suggests the Torah is telling us how a person should conduct oneself when eating: don’t be so impatient that you’ll eat the food raw, but don’t be so lazy that you’ll wait until it’s overcooked before you take it off the fire.

As anyone who roasts meat knows, undercooked is worthless, overcooked is burnt: it has to be “just right.”

The Luach Erez notes that one who follows eating it “only roasted over a fire,” merits (in a homiletical sense) to achieve having “his head on his legs and on his internal organs.” In other words, his head, which governs his thought process and emotions, will PARSHA OF THE WEEK

have control over his legs and his organs, the sources of his desires.

While this interpretation is certainly not to be understood as the simple understanding of the Torah (the Torah is talking about different parts of the animal that will be eaten), the lesson is compelling. What does it take to get a person not to be an extremist, to come to his senses, and to do what is mandated of him? Answer: Following a middle path.

Eating something roasted – in a manner in which it is “just right” – is a metaphor for doing any activity just right.

Of course, such a definition is relative, and people will have different understandings of what is considered the best way. Maimonides spoke of the Golden Mean, not to be extreme in either direction, and his instructions in Hilchot De’ot, when followed, could be extremely helpful. hat is considered extreme?

Heaping stringency on top of stringency is one extreme. Tearing apart the fabric of our society for the sake of liberalism is a different extreme.

Running to a rabbi for every question, putting absolute faith in rabbis at all times, defending rabbis who are fallible humans when their actions prove they are not beyond reproach, is one extreme. Calling rabbis fools or other ad-hominem names, just because you disagree or think they are not fit to have an opinion on a matter, is also an extreme.

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Dialogue is good. Making it personal is not.

Saying kashrus certification is corrupt and can’t be trusted is one extreme. Saying you can look at ingredients and decide for yourself what is OK is another extreme. Unfortunately, there is a lot more to every commercial food prepared than meets the eye.

Defining modesty in dress, which applies to everyone, though is more often a discussion regarding women, whose acceptable options in society are so much more varied in terms of lengths of sleeves, skirts, slits, shorts, collars, pants, etc., is one extreme because these set-in-stone or objective definitions are different depending on the society and local culture.

And, frankly, people can follow all the guidelines and still be immodest.

Skin-tight clothes, ten thousand dollar sheitels, hip boots and gaudy fur coats are anything but modest.

Even in spring and summer time, or yearround at the gym, men and women make choices that can either be extreme in one direction (sleeveless — men and women; shirtless — men; really short shorts — men and women; what does the top cover — women), or in the other direction, such as wearing clothes that do not fit the activity at all (such as a suit and tie when playing basketball).

Even Torah learning can be taken to an extreme. One can neglect one’s hygiene,

Heaping stringency on top of stringency is one extreme.

Tearing apart the fabric of our society for the sake of liberalism is a different extreme.

health, or responsibility to provide for a family on account of extreme Torah learning. One can also neglect Torah learning and growth as a Jew altogether, which is the opposite extreme.

Some choose to write off those who practice Judaism differently from their own little box as outside of what they consider mainstream Judaism (the left and the right are very fond of this). This is extremism.

Some choose to push the envelope beyond the very large fence that includes adherence to halakha as defined by the Shulchan Arukh and Maimonides (which have been accepted as the main Codes of Jewish Law) to either go outside the box, or to include stringencies which were never intended. Both of these are also extremism. re you familiar with the image of the family around the fireplace, perhaps roasting marshmallows, sitting and enjoying one another’s company? That feeling that things are just perfect, and everything is just right?

That is what it means to roast one’s Korban Pesach to perfection, and to have one’s “head on his legs and on his internal organs,” when sechel (common sense), guided by adherence to a halakhic system, dictates how one controls one’s desires — but also helps make proper choices that are not guided by extremism.

Our challenge is to avoid negatively imposing one hashkafa (Jewish outlook) on our Jewish brethren, who may look at things differently, while encouraging a way of life that is fulfilling and meaningful.

May we be so lucky to achieve such perfection.

Columnist@TheJewishStar.com

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we should remember what we found regarding prayer. As we saw, Avraham learned and taught us that prayer is an opportunity to go beyond simple acceptance of G-d’s plan to make creative, productive suggestions about how better to shape the future.

To be plausible, such ideas build upon a deep understanding of what G-d sees as a positive direction for the world, but that standard is flexible enough to leave room for human input in both conceiving the future and acting to bring it about.”

I found this vignette rather interesting, almost as an invitation to the composition of spontaneous prayer texts to either supplement or replace the standard siddur texts.

He then cites the following observation by Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, zt”l: “The problem with American Jews is that they don’t want to daven; they want to have davened.”

According to Rabbi Rothstein this means as follows: “In many synagogues, people show great devotion to attending communal prayer but then fail to actually pray. They open the siddur and recite the words printed there but do not register what they are saying, let alone recognize the invitation to plead their case before G-d. Prayer, from what Avraham Avinu taught us, challenges us to express our individual religious autonomy, to become expert enough at understanding G-d’s goals so as to be able to make creative and original contributions towards achieving them; synagogues today too infrequently convey that perspec-

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tive.”

While this is not specifically and directly stated, it is my opinion that these sentiments can only be practiced, in part, with the recitation of some of the prayers in the vernacular, coupled with a healthy dose of silent meditation. While such worship choreography is hardly the norm in orthodox shuls, some allowance may have to be considered in the years to come.

Just consider the increasing sales of traditional prayer books in linear type, something that would have been unheard of not too long ago. The very presence of the English translation on the very same page of the original Hebrew text was anathema to many super traditionalists.

While I am certain that this was hardly the intent or motivation behind Rabbi Rothstein’s writings here, the practical value of what he states only reinforces the impression that an element of some formatted change might be in order to effectuate the practice of an effective prayer experience for many.

For starters, please note: A contrasting viewpoint is seen in Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi’s latest book, “Davening: A Guide to Meaningful Jewish Prayer” [Jewish Light, 2012]: “Jewish prayer begins with kavanah. To daven with kavanah means to pray with focus, intention, meaning. It means praying from the heart, rather than prayer centered solely in the mind. … Our inner search for kavanah might at first be satisfied with a momentary boost of intention. Ultimately,

though, we want our kavanah to be transformational. We seek a complete realignment of the soul, a mesirut nefesh — a handing over of the soul to G-d’s work. We wish to become the very intention and kavanah of G-d.”

Let me conclude this week’s essay with the following from Rabbi Avraham Davis, the greatest living interpreter of Jewish liturgy, who was a pioneer, the first to apply the revolutionary linear style to the siddur and tehillim.

He teaches us the following, taken from the introduction to his English tehillim: “Sefer Tehillim has had the greatest influence upon the development of the Jewish mind and spirit. It has truly become the book of the people, many of whom recite its chapters with a frequency and fluency that no other sacred book is accorded. It enjoys this popularity because we identify ourselves with the problems and yearnings portrayed in it.

“We draw strength, comfort and security from its words. It is basically for this reason that we published in the linear style. This style of linear translation gives the reader an excellent opportunity to understand the meaning of the words while reciting them in the original Hebrew text. It permits him to capture the essence of each praise and prayer. It allows the tehillim to be ‘said’ without the cumbersome apparatus of lengthy commentaries.”

Perhaps Rabbi Davis’ work, serving as the ideal model, can be evaluated anew, and reprinted with the Koren typeset, as applied to the linear nusach of Rabbi Davis, and be brought to the public for the enhancement of their davening experience. Hopefully, with time, this would bring our liturgy back to its originators’ intent as a meaningful worship experience for all.

Columnist@TheJewishStar.com

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much neglected book was recently brought to my attention by my friend, Yitzy Gruen of Brooklyn’s famed Judaica Place on Avenue M, published by the OU, entitled “Missing the Point: What’s Wrong with the Orthodox Jewish Community and How to Fix It.” Its author is Rabbi Dr. Gidon Rothstein of Riverdale.

Alan Jay Gerber While its theme claims to offer solutions to various synagogue-centered problems, my focus in this brief review will center on his treatment of prayer and its application in our faith community. Some of the good rabbi’s observations are worth your attention as well as your adoption on a selected basis.

In a chapter titled, “Synagogues as a Place of Worship of G-d,” the author opens his thesis with the following challenge: “Schools may prepare children for adulthood, but — as a sociological fact rather than a halachic one — synagogues are where Jews live out that adulthood. Before even thinking about those institutions, I stress that synagogues are, at best, an efficient organizing tool for religious life, not the sum total of it. My question here, therefore, is whether synagogues serve their basic function: helping congregants get closer to G-d.”

Further on, focusing on the essence of prayer within the synagogue’s purpose, the rabbi states this rather sober observation: “As part of our discussion of synagogues, KOSHER BOOKWORM

THE JEWISH STAR January 3, 2014 • 2 SHEVAT 5774

You don’t have a prayer? Reviving the shul experience

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January 3, 2014 • 2 SHEVAT 5774 THE JEWISH STAR

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Hamas closes 2013 with a whimper

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srael ended 2013 in much the same way as previous years: facing a surge of terrorist activity from the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.

On Dec. 24, Salah Shukri Abu Latyef, a 22-year-old Israeli Defense Ministry worker who was repairing the border fence with Gaza, was killed by a Palestinian sniper.

Ben Cohen, JNS Latyef’s murder was followed by a series of rocket attacks that provoked response strikes from the Israeli military — the assault deemed a threat to the 13,500 Israelis living near there — on weapons manufacturing facilities in Gaza.

Israel’s explanation was a little different from previous years. “The manufacturing of rockets in Gaza has no other purpose except to target Israel and its sovereignty, putting thousands of lives at risk,” said Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, the IDF’s spokesman. Exactly three years after the so-called Arab Spring descended on the region, bringing both the promise of political change and the threat of even deadlier violence from jihadi groups, the fundamental menace that Hamas represents has remained unaffected. Israel is still the Islamist group’s eternal enemy, and its aim of destroying the Jewish state remains sacred.

But what has been profoundly altered is Hamas’s room for maneuver. In the past, Israel’s military reaction might have stretched well into January. Quite simply, Hamas does not enjoy that kind of clout anymore.

Over the past 12 months, the fortunes of the Muslim Brotherhood, the parent organization of Hamas have gone from a peak to a trough. In Tunisia, the governing Islamist Ennahda party was chastened by a coalition of secularist groups, and is currently in the final stages of handing over to a caretaker government. And in Egypt, where the Brotherhood was first formed in the late 1920s, the regime of Mohamed Morsi that came to power in 2012 was unseated by the Egyptian miliVIEWPOINT

tary, following angry demonstrations against the Brotherhood that, left unchecked, might have resulted in a nasty civil war.

In these conditions, Hamas is just about clinging on to power in Gaza. The Gaza Strip’s Palestinian residents are becoming more and more fed up with Islamist rule. Recently, a fuel crisis triggered by Egypt’s destruction of tunnels from Sinai into Gaza that had been used for smuggling, as well as a tax hike on fuel prices engineered by the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority in Ramallah, compelled Hamas to cancel its 26th anniversary celebrations. When leading Palestinians gathered for a political unity conference in Doha, Qatar, the proceedings merely underlined their deepest differences. Fatah, reported the Saudi Gazette, has been left “with a feeling of impasse,” while Hamas “is hardly more ebullient. The lack of a shared vision—the Islamic militant group depends on force and Fatah continues to negotiate—only deepens the sense of fragmentation, said participants.”

All this suggests that a killer blow to Hamas might be dealt as early as 2014—and will emanate from Egypt. One IDF officer even spoke of an Egyptian “strategic decision to paralyze Hamas.”

Such a decision is in keeping with Egypt’s strategy towards the Muslim Brotherhood and its determination to defeat the jihadi fighters in Sinai. Following the recent suicide bombing against a security compound in Mansoura, that left 16 dead and more than 100 wounded, the Cairo authorities banned the Brotherhood by declaring it a “terrorist organization.” Freedom and Justice, the Brotherhood’s Orwellian-sounding newspaper, has been shut down, and a huge number of their social and welfare organizations have had their bank accounts frozen.

Should Egyptian pressure lead to the collapse of Hamas, Gaza’s problems are unlikely to be solved overnight. The Palestinian Authority will find it difficult to assert itself in the Gaza Strip, while smaller and more radical jihadi groups could mushroom amidst the vacuum. Crucially, in neither the West Bank nor Gaza has a political force emerged to give Israel confidence in the negotiating process.

For the foreseeable future, then, Gaza will retain all the trappings of a failed state but with a diminished capacity to wage terror.

Fortunes of Muslim Brotherhood, parent of Hamas, have gone from a peak to a trough.

Weinstein is not just a captive, he’s a human being. A good one at that

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l-Qaeda terrorists have held 72-year-old Warren Weinstein since mid-August 2011. On Wednesday, Al Qaeda released a video with Dr. Weinstein asking President Obama to negotiate his release.

We know that he was alive when the video was made, but we don’t know when it was made and if he is Jeff Dunetz alive now. The mainstream media covered the release of the video, but I knew Warren Weinstein; he is a human being, a good one at that.

“You are now in your second term as president of the United States and that means that you can take hard decisions without worrying about reelection,” said Weinstein, who was recorded sitting against a white wall wearing a gray tracksuit top and a black woolen hat. No one else appeared in the video.

The video included the logo of As-Sahab, alQaeda’s media production outlet, and was sent in an anonymous e-mail to several journalists who have reported from Afghanistan.

Included were links to a handwritten note purportedly from Weinstein. The note is dated Oct. 3.

A State Department spokeswoman and a member of Weinstein’s family said Wednesday night that they had not independently received the note or video. The Washington Post provided a copy to both of them.

Weinstein said that his captors have agreed to arrange for relatives to visit him in custody if the United States releases unspecified prisoners as part of a “quid pro quo.” He also addressed Secretary of State John F. Kerry, telling him his captors have kept him abreast of peace deals that the top U.S. diplomat has sought to broker. Weinstein said a “first step” to getting him released would require taking “action with respect to their people who are being held as prisoners.”

Most news outlets reported that Warren Weinstein was a government contractor when he was kidnapped, which is true. His work in Pakistan was to boost the country’s dairy development, which according to his company, resulted in $63 million in new investment to Pakistan, at least 2,150 new jobs, and a 25 percent boost in producer productivity.

My first year and a half in college was spent at the State University of New York at Oswego.

I was a political science major and Dr. Weinstein was a favorite professor and my department adviser. As president of the Hillel (the Jewish Student Union), I also worked closely with Dr. Weinstein who was our faculty adviser. He always impressed me as a man with a big heart. It is not a surprise that when his kidnapping took place he was teaching people how to get more food out of their land. That’s the type of person he is. Warren Weinstein was the guy who would invite students over to his house when they were stuck in Oswego for the Jewish holidays.

It was Dr. Weinstein who first taught me what liberalism did to City University. He talked of studying with Hans J. Morgenthau at Brooklyn College when it was known as POLITICS TO GO

the “Poor Man’s Harvard.” Once New York City decided that college was a G-d-given right, and everyone was allowed into any school no matter what their grades were, Dr. Weinstein said Brooklyn College quickly became a sub-standard school.

Dr. Weinstein also taught me that one person could make a difference, which is exactly how he has lived his life. He encouraged me to stand up for what I believed, as when a Palestinian professor, Dr. Faiz Abu-Jabbar, verbally attacked me in class because I didn’t accept his anti-Israel rhetoric as truth.

To most who read the reports of Warren Weinstein’s capture, he is a faceless government contractor kidnapped by the bad guys.

The media will talk about him for a few days and then forget about him. To those who know him, such as his family, or his students who he treated like family, Warren Weinstein is a good man who helped to spark an interest in politics, which continues through till today. Although we lost touch after I left Oswego, I remember Warren Weinstein as a political science mentor who was a lifeline, who helped me get through a year and a half of college life in a student body that was not very friendly to Jews.

So this is the scum the United States is fighting: a group that would kidnap a 72-year-old man with a heart condition, a man who was only in Pakistan to help people become more successful. Warren Weinstein is someone who would go anywhere in the world to help people.

His captors would go anywhere in the world to hurt people.

As for the United States’ refusal to negotiate for Weinstein’s release, it seems strange that the same government that is releasing terrorists from Gitmo and is pushing Israel to release people who have killed innocents through terrorist acts, will not negotiate the release of a 72-year-old scholar who’s greatest crime is teaching people to get more milk from their cows.

Please join me in praying for Warren Weinstein’s good health and for his quick release back into the loving arms of his wife Elaine and the rest of his family.

Columnist@TheJewishStar.com

Warren Weinstein is someone who would go anywhere to help people. His captors would go anywhere to hurt people.

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Shalhevet hears Web woe

HAFTR hosts alumni day HAFTR High School hosted Alumni Day for all of its High School students on Dec. 23.

This unique program provided an opportunity for HAFTR alumni to return to their alma mater and offer insights on what students might expect from the world once they leave HAFTR’s halls.

The alumni were divided into college and career panels, and students were able to pick the panels they were to attend.

Career panels included Business, NonProfit, Law, Education, Arts and Media.

Colleges represented included Princeton, Binghamton, Columbia, Queens College and University of Michigan.

High school student moderators ensured a steady flow of questions and answers. The students walked away with extensive knowledge as they prepare for their future as modern orthodox Jews living in a modern world.

With the advance of technology, use of the Internet is at an all time high. People of all ages are using the Internet for business, school, and personal use. However, the Internet possesses many dangers as well.

Midreshet Shalhevet hosted Police Officer Galvin, who works in the Community Affairs department, who spoke with the students about the dangers of the Internet and how to protect themselves. Officer Galvin explained that once something is posted on the Internet it can never be fully erased. Even if a picture is private, there are ways to find it. She also stressed how important it is to stay away from strangers.

Many people pose as others on the Internet, tricking you into believing they are somebody else. Office Galvin also spoke about cyber bullying and how it is destroying the lives of teenagers and children all over the world. Officer Galvin noted that if someone feels they are being cyber bullied they should not be scared to speak up and get help.

The Shalhevet students walked away from the presentation with a new outlook on the Internet. They felt it was very eye-opening to learn about its dangers. Midreshet Shalhevet would like to thank Officer Galvin for imparting this crucial lesson to them.

Rambam alumni in Israel

LI girls at NCSY’s Yarchei Kallah Three-hundred-thirteen teens from all over North America (313 this time), including Levana Massihesraelian of West Hempstead and Maytal Babajanian of Roslyn, traveled to Stamford, CT during their winter public school vacations to participate in NCSY’s Torah study program, Yarchei Kallah.

Rabbi Micah Greenland, NCSY International Director and a Yarchei Kallah graduate himself, says with pride: “Yarchei Kallah is the premier Torah learning experience for Jewish public high school teens in the world.”

On Friday, the teens traveled to Teaneck to observe Shabbat with local families and participate in activities at Keter Torah, having bonded as a group and taken a major step on the road to becoming more knowledgeable of Torah Judaism and their Jewish heritage.

History and pretzels at HANC Fifth Graders at HANC’s Samuel & Elizabeth Bass Golding Elementary School in West Hempstead, are learning about and baking their way through the original 13 Colonies.

Students learned that the Middle Atlantic Colonies were called the “bread basket” because they grew most of the wheat in the area. Students also learned that although the colonists living in Pennsylvania were called Pennsylvania Dutch, they were actually not originally from the Netherlands, but from Germany. They were called Pennsylvania Dutch because they spoke

Deutsch (German). In honor of the Pennsylvania Dutch, who introduced pretzels and mustard to the colonies, the students baked their very

own pretzels! It was a very yummy lesson!

Thank you to Mrs. Goldberg, Mrs. Lovy and Mrs. Strauss for baking help.

In what has become a two decade old tradition, Rambam graduates and their Rosh Mesivta, Rabbi Zev Meir Friedman, joined together for an amazing and inspiring Shabbaton in Israel.

As soon as talmidim graduate, plans begin for the annual Shabbaton to continue building on the kesher that is the hallmark of Rambam and its talmidim. Talmidim anticipate and look forward to this event because spending a Shabbat together is a special bonding experience, one that cannot be captured through a simple “get together.”

This year’s Shabbaton was scheduled to be held at Yeshivat Har Etzion with talmidim travelling from Yerusahlayim, Kerem b’Yavneh, Bet Shemesh and Shaalvim from their respective Yeshivot to join this much anticipated event.

Despite the unusually stormy weather and the snow that was predicted for the area, talmidim planned to brave the elements and the possibility of road closures and make it to the Shabbaton. However, the snowstorm prevailed with close to 36 inches falling in the Gush Etzion area and 23 inches in Yerushalayim and all roads were closed. But the group was undeterred. Calls went out and plans were drafted to reschedule for the following

Shabbat. By Monday night another location was found and thanks to the generosity of Rabbi Samuel Wagner of Yeshiva Ohr Yerushalayim, the dorm and the kitchen were made available.

So, for parshat Shemot the boys reshuffled their Shabbat plans and made their way to Beit Meir.

A mini-reunion was held Friday afternoon and the cameras were out in full force as talmidim took group shots and shared experiences. With the advent of Shabbat, the boys welcomed the day with a rousing and beautiful lecha dodi in the Yeshiva Beit Medresh.

It was followed with divrei Bracha and divrei Torah by Rabbi Friedman on the topic of kavod Shabbat and Kabbolat pnei HaScheena and Maariv.

The Friday night seuda was filled with zemirot, divrei Torah, chevra and ruach.

Talmidim asked for updates on Rambam and heard about the night time and lunch learning Masmidim program that attracts approximately 80 boys a week, the recent chaggigah, the rally outside the home of a Nazi war criminal living in Queens, the winning sports teams and so much more!

At the conclusion of the meal, an impromptu tish was held in the dormitory that lasted late into the night.

Jubilant faces are a rare sight after a devastating loss by the home team, yet it was all smiles for the thousands of Jews who participated in CTeen’s Jewish Heritage Night during Chanukah at the Brooklyn Nets Game at Barclays Center.

19,000 spectators didn’t ride the train home talking about three pointers and game passes. Instead, the spotlight of the sold out game was on the celebration of Chanukah and Jewish pride, emphasized by the loudest standing ovations of the night awarded to Benny Friedman for his stellar national anthem rendition, as well as to the Maccabeats for their halftime Chanukah performance.

Visible from every corner of the stadium and captured on the giant screens during every foul shot, was a giant basketball menorah, lit by Elias Rosner, a CTeen member from Woodcliff Lake, NJ. The menorah was lit in the stadium and was visible to the millions of fans who watched the game on the YES Network.

Riding back to Hewlett in a menorah decked limo, 14-year-old Adam Jaffe remarked, “The night showed that we are one, as a whole; we all support each other.” For Adam, the highlight of his night was shooting a basket on the court with fellow Jewish teens.

Signaling the beginning of the game, Chanukah messages were delivered by Park Slope’s Chabad rabbi, Shimon Hecht, and CTeen leader Maddie Rosen from Teaneck, New Jersey.

“Teens love sports. We want our teens to understand that being a sports fan, celebrating Chanukah and being proud of your Jewish heritage can all go hand in hand,” says Rabbi Mendy Kotlarsky, director of CTeen’s executive committee.

For most of the teens from the 34 CTeen chapters participating in the event, Torah and mitzvos are rituals they reserve mainly for the synagogue and home. “Tonight, it was all about stepping into the hub of their day to day life wearing their Yiddishkeit,” explains CTeen’s director Rabbi Shimon Rivkin.

“When a teen stands in the high five line, proudly wearing his yarmulke while greeting NBA players, it gives him the pride to wear his Yiddishkeit no matter where he is.”

Story and photos by CTeens.

THE JEWISH STAR January 3, 2014 • 2 SHEVAT 5774

CTeens light a fire at Nets match in Barclays

9

A tale of two apartments, a bris and a brisket ing Jerry, he finally had to be told by a woman that if he didn’t push his way on he would be stuck in Tel Aviv. As soon as the next sherut came by the woman said, “Quick you get my bags on and I’ll get you on.” So Jerry lifted her bags on and she lifted him.

After hours of traveling around on slippery snow-covered roads, he arrived at his apartment, a one bedroom rental right next door to his daughter’s apartment. He planned on spending most of the time in his daughter’s apartment and just use his for sleeping. After playing with the grandchildren, he retired to his apartment to get some much needed sleep. Just as he was about to fall asleep the power went out in the entire building except for one wall in Jerry’s apartment.

Thankfully, the electric heaters and the outlets for the kitchen were working. Jerry had to abandon his heated, comfortable apartment that he was so looking forward to, and had to head into the frozen abyss of his daughter’s apartment, while she and the three kids took refuge in his.

The next morning it continued to snow heavily. Jerry looked into his suitcase for some warm clothing. Polo shirts, crocks and light pants stared back at him. He packed for Israel; turns out it would have been far more advisable if he packed as if he were going skiing in Vermont. It was going to be a tough few days.

The eruv was down so the bris had to take place on Shabbos in Jerry’s little heated apartment. Good news was the bakery order was ready, bad news was there was no way to have it delivered. Good news was their

Jerry had to continue camping out in the other frozen Siberia-like apartment with his son-in-law for a few more days, warmed only by the thought that his daughter and grandsons were enjoying the warmth of his little apartment. Jerry loves nature but didn’t anticipate encountering nature so intimately and vividly on this particular trip to Israel, but so it goes.

The baby was named Alexander Yoel, and ironically the storm was named Alexa.

This week’s recipe is roasted BRISket, preferably served warm.

Tender Oven Roasted Brisket friends picked up the soda and liquor, bad news was they couldn’t deliver it. Good news was the caterer was able to prepare all the chulent and kugels, bad news for him he had to haul these huge pots by foot and crawl over the huge tree that fell right at the entrance of their building.

Unfortunately, most women couldn’t make it as there was no eruv and it was blizzard conditions. Most men showed up frozen and dressed as best they could for snow. Not easy as no one really has snow gear.

Although the bris was planned to take place in the shul, followed by a hot Kiddush for 100 people, it took place in a tiny apartment filled with about 40 people who dared to venture out. After husbands left, their wives stopped by. Turned out, it was the only game in town that had hot food. What could have been a nightmare situation, ended up being a warm, beautiful and intimate affair.

Everyone wanted to lend a hand. It was a beautiful showing of friendship and support.

4-5 pound brisket salt to taste 2 large onions, sliced 1 (12 ounce) can of beer 1 tablespoon brown sugar 2 cubes Bloch’s Beef flavored cubes 2 tablespoons coarsely ground black pepper 1 bay leaf 4 cubes crushed frozen garlic 2 tablespoons corn starch 2 tablespoons water

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F Season brisket with salt, and place in a baking dish. Cover the entire roast with onion slices. In a medium bowl, mix together the beer, brown sugar, beef bouillon, pepper, garlic and bay leaf. Pour over the roast. Cover with aluminum foil.

Bake for 4 hours. The brisket should be very tender at this point. Mix together the cornstarch and water; stir into the juices in the baking dish to thicken. Remove the bay leaf. Slice and serve.

Columnist@TheJewishStar.com

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To cover local news that’s important to Long Island’s Jewish communities, The Jewish Star is seeking fast-paced print-centric reporters and writers and also individuals with Web and video experience.

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M

y stepdaughter Yardena gave birth to her third bouncing boy a few weeks ago and my husband Jerry was planning to head to Israel for the bris.

He had such wonderful memories of the last trip to Israel for the last bris that he wanted to replicate it. I advised against a nineWHO’S IN THE hour layover in RomaKITCHEN nia, as it would be best if he spent more time with the grandchildren than in the airport. Boy did he ever owe me for that advice. Had he taken the layover, he would have gotten to Israel after all roads to Yerushalyim from Tel Aviv were closed due to snow.

Turns out Jerry Judy Joszef didn’t sleep at all during his flight and by the time he arrived in Tel Aviv he was exhausted.

He gathered his luggage and was online for customs, when he heard the snowstorm was starting to close highways, schools and businesses in Yerushalayim.

He thought he was first on line for the sherut-taxi but didn’t realize it was all a pushing game. As soon as one came by, ten people pushed in front of him and before he knew it, it was full. This happened two more times. I asked him why he didn’t get on first since he was there first. He said he didn’t believe in pushing himself on. Had I been there we would have been the first one on; I believe in pushing if I was there first and others ran over in front of me. But Jerry be-

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January 3, 2014 • 2 SHEVAT 5774 THE JEWISH STAR

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By Robert Gluck, JNS.org Why has education been so important to the Jewish people?

Author Maristella Botticini says a unique religious norm enacted within Judaism two millennia ago made male literacy universal among Jews many centuries earlier than it was universal for the rest of the world’s population.

“Wherever and whenever Jews lived among a population of mostly unschooled people, they had a comparative advantage,” Botticini tells JNS.org. “They could read and write contracts, business letters, and account books using a common [Hebrew] alphabet while learning the local languages of the different places they dwelled. These skills became valuable in the urban and commercially oriented economy that developed under Muslim rule in the area from the Iberian Peninsula to the Middle East.”

Emphasizing literacy over time set Jews up for economic success, say Botticini and Zvi Eckstein, authors of the 2012 book “The Chosen Few: How Education Shaped Jewish History.”

An economic historian, Botticini earned a B.A. in Economics from Università Bocconi in Milan and a Ph.D. in Economics from Northwestern University. After working at Boston University, she returned to Italy and works at her alma mater. An economist, Eckstein received his B.A. from Tel Aviv University and his Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota.

He spent five years as the Bank of Israel’s deputy governor, and is now dean of the School of Economics at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzylia.

In their book, which they describe as a reinterpretation of Jewish social and economic history from the years 70 to 1492 CE, Botticini and Eckstein say that Jews over those years became “the chosen few”—a demographically small population of individuals living in hundreds of locations across the globe and specializing in the most skilled and urban occupations. These occupations benefit from literacy and education.

“Our book begins with the profound and

well-documented transformation of the Jewish religion after the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE at the end of the first Jewish-Roman war,” Eckstein tells JNS.org.

“Judaism permanently lost one of its two pillars—the Temple in Jerusalem—and consequently the religious leadership shifted from the high priests, who were in charge of the Temple service, to the rabbis and scholars, who had always considered the study of the Torah, the other pillar of Judaism, the paramount duty of any Jewish individual.”

The Jews’ new religious leadership set their people on a path to become “a literate religion, which required every Jewish man to read and study the Torah and every father to send his sons to a primary or synagogue school to learn to do the same,” says Eckstein.

From an economic point of view, the authors write, it was costly for Jewish farmers living in a subsistence agrarian society to invest a significant amount of their income on the rabbis’ imposed literacy requirement. A predominantly agrarian economy had little use for educated people. Consequently, a proportion of Jewish farmers opted not to invest in their sons’ religious education and instead converted to other religions, such as Christianity, which did not impose this norm on its followers.

“During this Talmudic period (3rd-6th centuries), just as the Jewish population became increasingly literate, it kept shrinking through conversions, as well as war-related deaths and general population decline,” Botticini tells JNS.org. “This threatened the existence of the large Jewish community in Eretz Israel (the land of Israel) and in other places where sizable Jewish communities had existed in antiquity, such as North Africa, Syria, Lebanon, Asia Minor, the Balkans, and Western Europe. By the 7th century, the demographic and intellectual center of Jewish life had moved from Eretz Israel to Mesopotamia, where roughly 75 percent of world Jewry now lived.”

Like almost everywhere else in the world, Mesopotamia had an agriculture-based econ-

Zvi Eckstein, co-author of “The Chosen Few: How Education Shaped Jewish History.”

omy, but that changed with the rise of Islam during the 7th century and the consequent Muslim conquests under the caliphs in the following two centuries. Their establishment of a vast empire stretching from the Iberian Peninsula to India led to a vast urbanization and the growth of manufacture and trade in the Middle East; the introduction of new technologies; the development of new industries that produced a wide array of goods; the expansion of local trade and long-distance commerce; and the growth of new cities.

“These developments in Mesopotamia increased the demand for literate and educated people—the very skills Jews had acquired as a spillover effect of their religious heritage of study,” Eckstein says.

Between 750 and 900, almost all Jews in Mesopotamia and Persia—nearly 75 percent of world Jewry—left agriculture and moved to the cities and towns of the newly established Abbasid Empire to engage in skilled occupations. Many also migrated to Yemen, Syria, Egypt, and the Maghreb; to, from, and within the Byzantine Empire; and later to Christian Europe in search of business opportunities.

“Once the Jews were engaged in these

skilled and urban occupations, they rarely converted to other religions, and hence, the Jewish population remained stable or grew between the 8th and the 13th centuries,” Botticini says.

The book does not whitewash the persecution that took place during the 15 centuries of Jewish history it examines, Eckstein says.

“When [persecution of Jews] happened, we record [it] in our book,” he says. “[But] what we say is something different. There were times and locations in which legal or economic restrictions on Jews did not exist.

Not because we say so, but because it is amply documented by many historians. Jews could own land and be farmers in the Umayyad and Abbasid Muslim empire. The same is true in early medieval Europe. If these restrictions did not exist in the locations and time period we cover, they cannot explain why the Jews left agriculture and entered trade, finance, medicine. There must have been some other factor that led the Jews to become the people they are today. In ‘The Chosen Few’ we propose an alternative hypothesis and we then verify whether this hypothesis is consistent with the historical evidence.”

Botticini says the key message of the book “is that even in very poor communities or countries, individuals and families should invest in education and human capital even when it is costly and it seems to bring no economic returns in the short-run.”

“Education and human capital endow those individuals and those communities that invest in them with skills and a comparative advantage that pays off and can bring economic well-being and intellectual achievements in many dimensions,” she says.

“A motto in which we strongly believe [is] go to the local public library and borrow a book and read it,” adds Botticini. “Even when you end up disagreeing with or not liking a book, it is never a waste of time reading a book. Reading and studying are precious gifts. This is the bottom line message of ‘The Chosen Few.’”

Confab tackles inclusion of Jews with disabilities

By Simone Ellin, JNS.org Weekly services, Torah studies, aliyot to the Torah, sitting shiva, and even trips to Israel. These are experiences shared by many Jewish Americans affiliated with synagogues and Jewish communal organizations. But for Liz Weintraub and her husband, Philip, full inclusion in life events such as these wasn’t always a foregone conclusion. That is, until they became members of B’nai Israel Congregation in Rockville, Md. Although Liz Weintraub, 47, grew up in a family that was engaged in Judaism in Virginia before she joined B’nai Israel, her involvement in synagogue life was merely peripheral. Due to her intellectual disability, Weintraub usually found herself on the sidelines, not truly part of the Jewish community.

But when a group from B’nai Israel traveled to Israel last year, the Weintraubs were part of it.

“We were fully included — just part of the trip,” said Weintraub.

Steven M. Eidelman, a professor of human services policy and the leadership and faculty director of the National Leadership Consortium on Developmental Disabilities at the University of Delaware, looks forward to a time when the Weintraubs’ experience is not unique. As the former CEO of The ARC and a past president of the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Dis-

Shelly Christensen speaks at the inaugural Jewish Leadership Institute on Disabilities and Inclusion.

Photo by Marc Shapiro

abilities, Eidelman said he has seen a big gap, both in the Jewish communities’ willingness to change their attitudes toward Jews with disabilities and in the scarcity of leaders in Jewish organizations with the skills to implement such change.

With funding from the Ruderman Family Foundation and the Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation (which helped pay for institute participants’ travel expenses), Ei-

delman directed the first Jewish Leadership Institute on Disabilities and Inclusion at the Pearlstone Center in Reisterstown, Md. While Eidelman, who grew up in Baltimore, acknowledged that gains are being made, he and others at the institute stressed that Jewish communities could be doing much more to make their institutions inclusive to those with disabilities.

“If we can do this [institute] a couple of times a year, maybe we’ll get a cadre of 500 people involved. That might be enough to start a movement,” he said.

On their trip to Israel, the Weintraubs weren’t the only group members with disabilities.

“It was neat,” Liz Weintraub said. “There was a family on the trip who had a son with severe autism. They were really nervous about going on the trip, so the rabbi suggested they bring their own therapist. When he had problems during the day, the therapist worked with him. That way, his disability didn’t take away from the experience of the parents or their other child.”

Weintraub believes the bonds that were formed when she and her husband traveled with the B’nai Israel group set the stage for their deepening involvement with the congregation. In January 2013, when her mother passed away, many friends from the Israel trip, as well as the congregation’s two rabbis,

Senior Rabbi Jonathan Schnitzer and Rabbi Michael J. Safra, were there sitting shiva with her. Next week, she said, her husband will have an aliyah to the Torah to celebrate the 28th anniversary of his bar mitzvah.

Shelly Christensen, author of “Jewish Community Guide to Inclusion of People with Disabilities” and one of the institute’s faculty members, said at the Jewish Leadership Institute on Disabilities and Inclusion conference that when talking about inclusion, both professionals and lay people need to learn to distinguish between “meaningful” inclusion and including a person with a disability as an act of kindness.

“Look at a person and see the divine in them, see their humanity. Treat them like everybody else,” she said.

“A Jew with a disability should be accepted as a full congregant just because he or she is another Jew, not as a mitzvah project,” Eidelman said.

Although not all disabilities advocates agree, Eidelman and Christensen don’t favor separate or “special” programs, classrooms, or housing.

“It’s not them versus us, it’s us,” said Christensen. “No Jew should ever feel they can’t enjoy the richness of Jewish life if they want to. We’re dealing with organizations that don’t get it yet. That’s why we started Continued on page 14

THE JEWISH STAR January 3, 2014 • 2 SHEVAT 5774

Reading through history help set Jews apart

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Glatt Kosher food is available in the coffee shop located in the main lobby of the hospital.

Shabbos candles and kosher refrigerators are available to patients.

Mincha minyan services are held in the hospital chapel, Monday through Thursday at 1:30 pm.

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January 3, 2014 • 2 SHEVAT 5774 THE JEWISH STAR

12

By Alex Traiman, JNS.org Upsurges in Palestinian terrorism have often accompanied progress—and eventual breakdowns—in Israeli-Palestinian conflict negotiations over the past 20 years. The latest round of talks, brokered by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, is proving to be no different.

Palestinian attacks on Jewish military and civilian targets have been on the rise since a Lebanese sniper killed an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldier in mid-December. A civilian hired by the IDF was murdered Dec. 24 while repairing the Israel-Gaza border fence.

A bomb exploded on an evacuated bus in the heavily populated city of Bat Yam, just south of Tel Aviv, on Dec. 22.

A police officer was stabbed and moderately injured Dec. 23 while directing traffic at a busy intersection along the Ramallah bypass road in Samaria, and Jewish drivers have reported several potentially deadly stoning attacks. In one of several recent Palestinian rocket attacks from Gaza that provoked Israeli retaliatory airstrikes, one rocket landed near a bus stop used by schoolchildren near Ashkelon.

“Unfortunately and regrettably, it’s quite typical to the junctures in which political decisions and painful compromises are expected to be taken by the negotiating parties,” Gilead Sher, who served as chief of staff and policy coordinator to Israel’s former prime minister and defense minister Ehud Barak, told JNS. org regarding the uptick in Palestinian terror.

“Time and time again, we see the leash loosening for these kinds of acts, that typically characterize the Palestinian response to the kind of progress that seemingly is what is happening within the negotiating room,” said Sher, who was a chief peace negotiator at the Camp David summit in 2000 and at the Taba summit in 2001, in addition to taking part in several other extensive rounds of

covert negotiations with the Palestinians.

Mark Regev, a spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, tweeted that the recent terror attacks “are a direct result of the incitement and hatred propagated in Palestinian schools and media. We are disappointed that so far [Palestinian Authority] President [Mahmoud] Abbas has not condemned these acts of terrorism, as one would expect from a partner in peace talks.”

Sher, who currently serves as a senior researcher at Tel Aviv University’s Institute for National Security Studies, told JNS.org, “[The recent terrorism is] intolerable, and I believe it has to be quite explicitly explained by the Americans and the international community to the heads of the PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization) and the PA that it is their responsibility and duty to subside those acts, and to prohibit these kinds of acts emanating from their territory against Israeli civilian and military targets.”

The rise in terrorism has stirred a heated debate among Israeli defense officials and parliamentarians about the need to continue pursuing U.S.-brokered Israeli-Palestinian conflict negotiations. Israeli Economy Minister Naftali Bennett, head of the Jewish Home Party, said, “Israel is continuing with the diplomatic process as though there’s no terror, while the Palestinians are continuing with the terror as though there’s no diplomatic process.”

Bennett echoed the messages of Netanyahu spokesperson Regev and Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon, attributing the attacks to Palestinian incitement.

“When you educate your children to terrorism from kindergarten, when your television broadcasts paint Jews as monsters, when even Tel Aviv is missing from your map—you’re a terrorist,” Bennett said in a statement.

Ya’alon stated, “As long as the Palestin-

Israeli police and rescue personnel at the scene of an explosion on a passenger bus in Bat Yam, near Tel Aviv, on Dec. 22.

Photo by Gideon Markowicz/FLASH90

ian Authority continues instigation against the State of Israel and its citizens and does not encourage a culture of peace, we will be forced to deal with terror attacks. This is an intolerable state of affairs as we see it.

Responding particularly to the rocket attacks, Ya’alon added, “We will retaliate forcefully and painfully to this shock to our sovereignty and harm to our civilians and soldiers.

If there is no peace in Israel, there will no peace in Gaza.”

Sher believes that while Israel is “always looking for as little collateral damage to the political process as possible,” the Jewish state “cannot by any means agree to have it in a way taken hostage or be handicapped in terms of its response and retaliation because there is a political process.”

“These two elements should be completely separated,” Sher told JNS.org.

Israel is planning to free 26 Palestinian terrorist prisoners next week in the third

phase of a prisoner release it agreed to as a gesture to the PA for the restarting of the current negotiations. Deputy Defense Minister Danny Danon condemned the planned release amid the terror surge.

“In a normal country, when a bus explodes on Sunday and a police officer is stabbed on Monday, you don’t release terrorists as a ‘gesture’ the following week,” Danon said.

Meanwhile, the violence is doing little to increase the already-low confidence of Israelis that the latest U.S.-brokered talks will be more successful than previous rounds of diplomacy.

In a new Israel Hayom poll, 85.8 percent of respondents said the current negotiations would not lead to a peace agreement.

“I personally don’t think it has reached a level of violence that actually affects the confidence significantly. I don’t think there is a lot of confidence anyway. I don’t think there is a lot of trust in the first place, so there is not too much to harm,” Sher told JNS.org.

Bedouin resettlement in doubt after apparent cancellation

By Alex Traiman, JNS.org Several weeks after Bedouin and global anti-Israel elements celebrated the apparent cancelation of a plan to resettle tens of thousands of Bedouin in Israel’s southern Negev region, the fate of the plan remains unknown.

In a dramatic press conference on Dec.12, former Israeli minister Benny Begin, placed in charge of the implementation of the “Prawer Plan,” resigned his post and announced that the plan would be withdrawn. Just days later, however, Knesset members continued to meet to discuss the plan’s continuation.

“As for whether or not the plan will move forward in the aftermath of Begin’s resignation, no one can say with certainty,” Ronit Levine-Schnur, a member of the Faculty of Law at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, told JNS.org.

According to Levine-Schnur, the plan’s apparent cancelation stemmed not only from Bedouin protests, but also from the fact that lawmakers from both ends of the political spectrum opposed it in its current form.

“Begin had assured lawmakers that Bedouin supported the program,” Levine-Schnur said. “And the Knesset members supported the plan, on the basis that the Bedouin themselves supported the program. Not only are the Bedouin not in favor, they are publicly demonstrating against it.”

According to Regavim, an NGO in Israel that focuses on illegal Arab building, more than 90,000 of 210,000 Bedouin live in more than 2,000 separate unauthorized encampments, covering 800,000 dunams (200,000 acres) in the northern Negev between the cities of Beersheva, Dimona, and Arad.

Bedouin often live in structures built be-

Demonstrators outside the Knesset protest the Israeli government’s “Prawer Plan” to resettle CFlash90 Bedouin residents of the Negev desert.

low modern standards, without basic services such as electricity and water that are provided legally by national infrastructure.

Israeli police are often carrying out courtmandated evacuation orders, particularly when new encampments are built.

According to Levine-Schnur, the only Bedouin legally residing on the land they possess are those who agreed to join one of seven pilot cities that were built to begin urbanizing the nomadic Bedouin several decades ago. The problem is that conditions in these recognized towns are significantly lower than other Israeli cities.

“If you look at the seven existing Bedouin villages established by the government, no Bedouin want to join them,” she said. “These cities are clearly known as social failures, with rampant poverty, and lacking in education, civil and social services.”

The purpose of the Prawer Plan would be to legalize some of the larger unauthorized encampments, while offering a combination of land and monetary compensation to officially and legally resettle Bedouin residing in other encampments. As part of the plan, all Bedouin would receive proper title—either on lands in which they are permitted to stay,

or on new land granted by the government.

Many of the costs included in the plan would be to improve infrastructure and civil services in legalized Bedouin communities.

Yet the plan’s future is now unknown since Begin was unable to garner Bedouin support, and lost the support of Israeli lawmakers.

“Begin got up, and said that after discussions with the Prime Minister, the plan was suspended,” Ari Briggs, director of Regavim, told JNS.org. “Well the plan has not been suspended. The only part of this that has been suspended is Begin, who has resigned his position. They are going to find somebody to replace him, somebody who can implement the plan.”

“The plan might look a bit different,” Briggs said. “But the government is still very interested in implementing a plan, because they realize the situation is only going to get worse, and not better.”

There is no need to “give up on seven years of efforts to find a solution” to the Bedouin issue, Briggs believes.

“You might need to make some changes to the plan, and some are needed,” he said.

Additionally, according to Levine Schnur, the Prawer Plan provided no preliminary hearing procedures, and did not provide legal recourse, meaning that Bedouin had no way to appeal any evacuation decisions in court — unlike most such pieces of legislation.

But given the current legal status of Bedouin, and the fact their population is growing at more than twice the national average — due to a combination of high birth rates and the cultural practice of polygamy — the plan offers the framework for ending at least certain parts of a widening legal and social problem.

THE JEWISH STAR January 3, 2014 • 2 SHEVAT 5774

Palestinian terror parallels negotiations. Again.

13

The Jewish home…

And this is the essence of the mitzvah of mezuzah. It is not accidental that the mezuzah is placed in the doorway; it is a sign that you are entering a Jewish home. And it is a challenge: what really makes each of our homes a Jewish home?

What influences do we bring in to our homes from the world, and what message do we carry forth when we go out into that same world? Are we proud to be Jews? Are we ready to define ourselves as such for the entire world to see?

Three millennium ago, a people, written off as one more culture that was about to disappear, began an incredible journey. Against all the odds, defying every rule of history, and confounding historians and scientists alike, the Jewish people began their odyssey to make a difference.

Thirty-two hundred years later, the beginning of that journey, the Jewish home, is still the secret both to why we are still here, as well as to what we have to offer the world.

Shabbat Shalom.

Columnist@TheJewishStar.com

Jews with disabilities…

Continued from page 11 the institute.”

Elisha Paul, a Baltimore native who now resides in Silver Spring, Md., called the institute “groundbreaking.”

Paul is head of Sulam, a Rockville program for Jewish students with special needs that enables them to thrive in day school environments.

“If I had a dollar for every family who told me they disengaged from the Jewish community because their kid was not welcomed in a Jewish school, I’d be a rich man,” said Paul.

“Once they leave, they don’t come back. We have a box that doesn’t fit everyone. We need to open the box. And it’s everyone’s responsibility.”

Another institute faculty member, Lynne Landsberg, senior adviser on disability issues for the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism (RAC), was an advocate for passage of the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) long before she became disabled herself. Until a near-fatal car accident that resulted in a traumatic brain injury in 1999, Landsberg never dreamed that her advocacy work would impact her own life so directly.

After her accident, the Landsberg spent six weeks in a coma followed by a four-month hospital stay. She required years of rehabilitative therapy in order to regain the ability to talk, walk and read.

Once she was well enough to leave her home, the Landsberg was confronted by a devastating reality. Despite the passing of the ADA, discrimination against the disabled was alive and well, in both the Jewish and greater communities.

“I was in a wheelchair, and when I went to a restaurant with my husband, the waiter would ask him what I wanted to order,” she said.

“Just because I was in a wheelchair, he thought I couldn’t talk. I used to shop in stores where salespeople would fawn all over me, but when I came back using a cane, no one came near me.”

About a year after the accident, her former employer, David Saperstein, director and counsel at RAC, asked her to return to work there. The invitation changed everything for the Landberg, both professionally and personally.

“I couldn’t do anything without a script, and I could only work a couple of hours a day. But my social action neshama (soul) was still intact,” said Landsberg. “I told him I wanted to work solely on disability issues.

The fact that Saperstein invited me back and the support I received from the Jewish community, without that I wouldn’t have gotten better as fast as I have.”

Landsberg is hopeful that disabilities advocacy will eventually make it possible for other Americans with disabilities to enjoy the professional productivity that has been so meaningful for her.

“Synagogues worry — and rightfully so — about access to the bima. What about access to jobs?” asked Landsberg, who pointed to statistics on unemployment in the disabilities community; for instance, 60 percent of Americans with disabilities are unemployed or underemployed.

Yet progress is being made, according to Landsberg and many others at the institute.

She is especially proud of Hinenu (“We are here”), which is an initiative that came about from the alliance between Landsberg and an Orthodox disabilities advocate from Yachad, the Orthodox Union’s National Jewish Council for Disabilities. Hinenu has grown to include human rights and disability professionals from each of the four religious streams working together to promote inclusion in synagogues for people of all abilities.

Weintraub urged Jews to consider discrimination against those with disabilities in the context of Jewish history.

“We were excluded in the past,” she said.

“If we can’t include people, what does that say about us?”

This story was first published by the Baltimore Jewish Times.

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Continued from page 4 when everyone could watch — and the doors of all the Jewish homes that slaughtered the Egyptian god were marked with its blood.

You see, before Hashem would take us out of Egypt, we had to be willing to take Egypt out of ourselves. The reason we celebrate Pesach on the night of the tenth plague when we were still in Egypt, is because it was on this night that we took a stand and set ourselves free. This tremendous act of faith was the first step in the long process of the Jewish path to freedom.

On that night every Jewish family placed a sign on their doors that declared: through this doorway the gods of Egypt will not pass.

The beginning of our emergence as a free nation was the birth of the Jewish home.

It was easy for G-d to take the Jews out of Egypt. It was much harder to take Egypt out of the Jews. G-d did not spare the Jews by virtue of seeing the sign on their doors; the Jews saved themselves by declaring themselves, for the entire world to see, worthy of being redeemed.

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â&#x20AC;˘Send events to Calendar@TheJewishStar.com â&#x20AC;˘Events MUST include a contact number or email â&#x20AC;˘Deadline is Thursday 5 pm, one week before publication

7+856'$< -$1 /81&+ /($51 with Rabbi Shalom Axelrod of YI Woodmere.(See photo below.)

6$785'$< -$1 7+(0(6 ,1 7$1$&+ Continuing series on Biblical themes by Rabbi David Fohrman.

7 pm. Young Israel of Woodmere. Free.

021'$< -$1 (;3(5,(1&( :25. A customized, 4 week, intensive skill development and employment preparation program for job seekers 50 years of age and older. The program cost is $125 and takes place at 80 Vandam St., Manhattan. This session will take place on Mondays and Tuesdays from Jan. 6 to 28 (except on Friday during MLK Day week), 9:30 am to 4:30 pm. For questions or assistance, email Experience2Work@fegs.org. /(&785(6 )25 :20(1 Educator Devorah Kigel discusses â&#x20AC;&#x153;Ohel Rachel: Mystical View of 3 Womenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Mitzvot. 8:30pm.

Young Israel of Woodmere. 516-000-0000.

:('1(6'$< -$1 %(,7 2527 annual dinner, honoring Aaron Liberman and Marsha and Jeffrey Schreiber.

Master of Ceremonies will be Jewish radio personality Nachum Segal; dinner chair Seth Schreiber. Crowne Plaza, Times Square, NY. 6 pm. 201 530-0210. info@beitorot.org.

7+856'$< -$1 7$5*(7,1* +,''(1 -2% 0$5.(7 This workshop teaches how to access the hidden job market unique to you and your background. Hear stories from the front lines of job search wars, with Jamie Petrizzo, a former

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recruiter. 11 am to 12:45 pm. 300 Forest Drive, East Hills 516-484-1545, ext. 177. /81&+ /($51 with Rabbi Shalom Axelrod of YI Woodmere. (See photo below.)

:('1(6'$< -$1 5($'< 6(7 *(7 $ -2% Searching for a job is more than submitting your resume to job boards or company websites. Learn what it means to hunt for a job and prepare yourself for a better job search. Review the impor-

tance of having an organized job search â&#x20AC;&#x153;campaign.â&#x20AC;? 11 amâ&#x20AC;&#x201C;1 pm. 300 Forest Drive, East Hills 516-484-1545, ext. 177.

25$/ &$1&(5 6&5((1,1* Free early detection at Mercy Medical Center. 5 to 7 pm in Pre-Surgical Testing suite on the main ďŹ&#x201A;oor of the hospital. Ample free-parking available.

Call by Friday, Jan. 10 for required reservation, to 516-62MERCY. for the screening, but advance registration IS required. 1000 North Village Ave., Rockville Centre.

7+856'$< -$1 /81&+ /($51 with Rabbi Shalom Axelrod of YI Woodmere. (See photo at left.)

:('1(6'$< -$1 &29(5 /(77(56 7+$1. <286 A well written cover letter entices the reader to learn more about you by reading your resume.

This workshop focuses on different types of cover letters and how to make your skills and experience stand out. Session will consider style, content and timing of the Thank You Note, which follows an interview. 300 Forest Drive, East Hills. 516-484-1545, ext. 177.

7+856'$< -$1 /81&+ /($51 with Rabbi Shalom Axelrod of YI Woodmere. (See photo at left.)

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+2//<:22' $1' +,7/(5 Author Thomas Doherty in conversation with David Denby of the New Yorker. Doherty offers a provocative look at how studio heads, writers, and other important players wrestled with difďŹ cult business and artistic decisions that arose with the Nazisâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; rise to power.

Recapturing what ordinary Americans saw on the screen during the emerging Nazi threat, Doherty explores forgotten ďŹ lms, such as Hitlerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Reign of Terror (1934), a pioneering anti-Nazi docudrama by Cornelius Vanderbilt, Jr.; I Was a Captive of Nazi Germany (1936), a sensational true tale of â&#x20AC;&#x153;a Hollywood girl in Naziland!â&#x20AC;?; and Professor Mamlock (1938), an anti-Nazi ďŹ lm made by German refugees living in the Soviet Union. Presented in conjunction with the exhibition Against the Odds: American Jews and the Rescue of Europeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Refugees, 1933-1941. Tour the exhibition at 6 p.m. Pre-registration for the tour is suggested.

$15, $12 members. 92Y at the Museum of Jewish Heritage, 36 Battery Place, Manhattan.

646-437-4337.

7+856'$< -$1 /81&+ /($51 with Rabbi Shalom Axelrod of YI Woodmere. (See photo at left.)

681'$< -$1 ',))(5(1&(6" +23(" Is there hope in the conďŹ&#x201A;ict between Israelis and Palestinians?

Is anything different now? Delve into Secretary of State John Kerryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s current negotiations with David Makovsky, director of the Project on the Middle East Peace Process at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and coauthor with Dennis Ross of â&#x20AC;&#x153;Myths, Illusions, & Peace.â&#x20AC;? 10 amâ&#x20AC;&#x201C;12:30 pm. $40 includes light breakfast. 92nd Street Y, 1395 Lexington Ave., Manhattan. 212-413-8841.

:('1(6'$< -$1 œ675$1*(5 ,1 0< 2:1 &28175<¡ with author Yascha Mounk, who describes growing up Jewish in postwar Germany and vividly portrays a country still struggling with the legacy of the Third Reich. Yascha Mounk is Krupp Foundation Dissertation Completion Fellow, Center for European Studies. His writing about European and U.S. politics has been published in the New York Times, Die Zeit, and the Wall Street Journal. $15, $12 members. 92Y at the Museum of Jewish Heritage, 36 Battery Place, Manhattan. 646-437-4337.

7+856'$< -$1 /81&+ /($51 with Rabbi Shalom Axelrod of YI Woodmere. (See photo at left.)

:('1(6'$< -$1 '(0(17,$ Symposium for caregivers of individuals dealing with Alzheimerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s and other forms of dementia, hosted by Margaret Tietz Center with Samuel Field Y and the Queensboro Council for Social Welfare. 9:30 am breakfast and registration; speakers including A. Levine, Jane C. Bardavid and Joan Serrano Laufer from 10 to 11:30 am.

Margaret Tietz Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, 164-11 Chapin Pkwy., Jamaica Hills.

RSVP to Linda Spiegel at 718-298-7838. Valet parking available.

THE JEWISH STAR January 3, 2014 â&#x20AC;˘ 2 SHEVAT 5774

Jewish Star Calendar

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January 3, 2014 • 2 SHEVAT 5774 THE JEWISH STAR

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