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Around theCommunity
PAGE 20
Chanukah Mesiba for the Yeshiva Celebrated at Baltimore’s Yeshivas Ner Yisrael
Chai Lifeline Chanukah Party at The Inner Harbor
Baltimore Chanukah Festival Kicks Off The Chanukah Celebration Throughout The State
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Editor’s Note: The author traveled with two of her daughters to the Litman wedding in Israel with a special gift from the Baltimore community.
When I first heard the tragic story of the Litman family on Erev Shabbos a few weeks ago – the murder by Arab terrorists of the father and brother of a kallah whose chasunah was just days away – the pain in my heart was all too real. As a family we too had suffered a loss when my father-in-law passed away the night of his daugh-ter’s wedding. We too struggled with joy and sadness as we approached a chasun-ah. We too stood under the chuppah trying so hard to smile, trying so hard to let joy conquer pain.
Delivering a banner signed by 5,000 people and students from 13 different schools in Baltimore to the chasunah in-volved a sequence of events that clearly indicated Hashem blessed our trip. From beginning to end, doors were opened wide, enabling us to join the badeken, the chup-pah, the chasunah, and even the sheva be-rachos, and spend the short hours between those events visiting the Kotel, the shuk, and Kever Rachel. The skies were bright blue, the sun was glistening, and all was calm for the three days we were in Eretz Yisrael –an incredible gift in itself.
When we arrived at Binyanei Hauma and entered the room where the badeken was taking place, even before we saw the kallah we saw the large posters, the beau-tiful pictures of Yaakov and Netanel Lit-man, a”h, lit up by yahrzeit candles. Five feet away was the kallah, Sarah Techiya Litman. We didn’t want to interrupt her,
to make her pause in her tefillos, to tear her away from her siddur. After a few mo-ments, others approached her and we had a chance to whisper a few words, to give a kiss, a hug, to tell her we had come to share in her simcha and to let her know that across the world a lot of people were thinking of her and her chassan and their families, sharing in their pain and their joy.
How does one describe a chuppah full of angels – those under the tallis and those surrounding them? Joyous music, heartfelt berachos, tears, smiles – and a wrenching “Im Eshkachaich” followed by a broken glass that mirrored broken hearts but no broken spirits.
How difficult it was to watch the kallah’s mother, brother, and sisters, their pain so real and their joy so real, holding onto each other for comfort and support as they walked the kallah around the chas-san, laying the foundation for a new bayis ne’eman.
After the chuppah, the manager of Binyanei Hauma, another Jew with a very large heart, helped us hang the banner, the one with thousands of signatures from Jews of all ages, on the mechitzah in or-der to allow so many others to share in the simcha from near and far. But then, this is not a story about a banner.
We did not stay for the seudah, as we had not been invited and did not feel right interfering. At 10:30 we came back to the wedding hall to share in the dancing. We met others who had traveled from distant places – the U.S., Canada, Europe, even Australia. We knew there would be many people, and we were not sure if we would
get back into the room where the dancing was taking place.
But it didn’t matter, because we saw other dancing – beautiful dancing. We saw every type of Jew you can imagine dancing – there were Sephardim and Ashkenazim, haredim and chassidim, Yerushalmim and chilonim; soldiers, mothers, sisters, broth-ers, grandparents, babies, children; white yarmulkes, black yarmulkes, knit yarmul-kes, no yarmulkes – all joined in song, in dance, in unity, to bring joy to the chassan and kallah.
Most of the people outside did not know the chassan and kallah and yet they danced with such vigor and emotion, as if they were at the wedding of their own sister or their own brother, because indeed they were.
The air was punctuated with the beau-tiful words that are ours alone – anachnu ma’aminin, Hashem melech, tanya, mel-ech malchei hamelahcim – for hours and hours, songs of unity, songs of beauty, songs of pain, songs of sharing, above all songs that bound Klal Yisrael together. No differences within our hearts even though we all looked different.
We never did get into the hall – there were just too many people – but remem-ber, this isn’t really a story about a wed-ding, or the tens of thousands of people dancing outside the wedding.
Erev Shabbos at the Kotel and in the shuk, Shabbos in Yerushalayim – who needed sleep when we could watch the gorgeous rolling hills, the men hurrying to and from shul, the children playing with joy? It ended too quickly but it ended in beauty.
Motzaei Shabbos we went to the Kotel again and then walked up into town. The place where we wanted to eat was full, so
we walked a few more blocks, all part of a Master Plan when we found ourselves at a small corner restaurant where we were invited, with pleasure, to join the Litman sheva berachos. More hugs, more whis-pered tefillos, another chance to tell the kallah and the chassan how far we had come to show how much we cared.
We stood with them for an hour, hon-ored to join in the kumzitz of all kumzitzes –songs of Yerushalayim, of longing, of joy, of sadness, of conquering – feeling once again the pulsing heart that belongs to Klal Yisrael.
After the sheva berachos we went to Kever Rachel and then – too quickly – the trip was over; fifty-nine whirlwind hours during which we experienced the full gam-ut of emotions and enjoyed the absolute best of every aspect of Eretz Yisrael. Never once did we not feel safe; never once did we not feel welcomed and loved.
Back at work on Monday, I gath-ered the girls in the high school where I work, trying to do justice to a trip that was more than I could ever have hoped for. “This isn’t a story about a banner,” I told them. “It isn’t a story about five thousand signatures representing thirteen schools. It isn’t even a story about a wedding.
“It’s a story about the beating heart that is called Klal Yisrael. It’s a story about every Jew knowing that – no matter what, no matter when, no matter where – he or she is never, ever alone.”
And then I told them the rest of the story.
Ahuvah Heyman is School Director of Bnos Yisroel of Baltimore.
Reprinted from the Jewish PressInbox
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The Baltimore Jewish Home is an independent bi-weekly newspaper. Opinions expressed by writers are not neces sarily the opinions of the publisher or editor. The Baltimore Jewish Home is not responsible for typographical errors, or for the kashrus of any product or business advertised within. The BJH contains words of Torah. Please treat accordingly.
Dear Readers,
Haneiros halalu anu madlikin, the song is still playing in my head. Every year we ignite these lights to commem-orate the great miracles. The miracles of years past and the miracles taking place today.
On Chanukah we had the opportunity to reflect on the miraculous survival of Yiddishkeit through the most challenging times. These are challenges from within and without. These candles have been with us through thick and thin. Whether golden years or times of mesiras nefes, Yidden would make sure to light the me-norah, illuminating the world in which they lived.
Ki ner mitzvah v’torah ohr, for mitzvot are candles and Torah is light. Through-out our exile we have shown, whether liv-ing in peaceful times or times of war, we were faithful to the Torah. We have done the best we can to have its light shine in and through our souls.
The Rambam writes in the laws of te-shuvah that, “Torah has guaranteed that in the end of exile the Yidden will return (to Hashem) and they will be redeemed immediately.” In the past few decades we have seen an unprecedented return to the Torah by Jews the world over. Many entirely changing their lifestyle, other’s committing to specific Mitzvos. More-
over, one can safely assume that all Jews, us included, have at one point regretted our spiritual and moral deficiencies. As the Rambam rules in regards to the laws of marriage, if one has feelings of teshu-vah in his heart, he is considered a com-plete Tzadik on the spot. After our long journey we are definitely worthy of re-demption.
The Rambam has another ruling in the laws of teshuvah, “therefore one should view oneself and the world at large as half guilty and half meritorious. …Each mitz-vah tips the balance to the side of merit, both for himself and the world, causing redemption and salvation.
The world needs us to add light. It’s easy to sit back and point to others hy-pocrisy, foolishness and self-righteous indifference, but that’s not our focus. Our calling is to light one additional candle, more than we did the previous night, and then again the next night. Every single candle, mitzvah and act of charity tips the scale, and who knows? Maybe this act will be the final one which tips the scales for good and eternity.
May the menorah we just lit in our homes, bring about the lighting of the me-norah by the Kohen Gadol, in the rebuilt Beis HaMikdash speedily in our days.
Wishing you all a good Shabbos,
Yaakov
COMMUNITYAround the Community . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
JEWISH THOUGHT Climbing the Hill . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
Halachos of Asara B’teves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
Rabbi Wein . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
Vayigash – Learning To Let Go . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
The Infamous Case of the “Get of Cleves” . . . . . . . . 52
HUMOR & ENTERTAINMENTCenterfold . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Notable Quotes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
COVER STORYChanukah Around Town . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
They Light Up the World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
LIFESTYLES613 Seconds with Josh Zaslow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
7 Ways To Save On Winterizing Your Home . . . . . . 49
Au Contraire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
A Night Versus a Lifetime . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
Why Take the Trump Stunt Seriously? . . . . . . . . . . . 59A Peek Inside Kosher Restaurants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60Kickstart Your Metabolism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
NEWSGlobal News . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
National News . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Israel News . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
That’s Odd . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
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Around the Community
Maalot Baltimore’s Exploring Career Opportunities
“There was an excitement and en-ergy that filled the rooms as the invited guests shared their stories and advice.” This quote, from one of the present-ers at MAALOT’s recent “Exploring Career Opportunities,” encapsulates the feelings of both the presenters and students who were privileged to take part in this beautifully orchestrated event. The program was designed by MAALOT, with characteristic atten-tion to detail and organization, in or-der to offer current students, alumnae and Baltimore high school seniors a panoramic view of many of today’s most popular professions suitable for a Bas Yisroel.
Opening remarks by MAALOT’s Menaheles, Mrs. Ettie Rosenbaum, and Academic Dean, Dr. Leslie Klein, gave perspective and direction to the students on career choices in light of
their primary roles as mainstays of homes and communities. Thereafter, three panels of speakers, each in a different room, detailed their profes-sions: Business & Technology includ-ed presenters describing careers in healthcare management, independent business initiatives, accounting, com-puter programming and cyber securi-ty; Education & Psychology featured professionals in Chinuch, School Psy-chology, Mental Health Counseling and Social Work; Medical & Health Sciences was comprised of specialists representing the fields of Speech Pa-thology, Nursing/Nurse Practitioner, Physician Assistant, Physical Therapy, Occupational Therapy and Ultrasound Technology.
The panelists represented a cross-section of impressive, dedicat-ed, frum women - a significant number
of whom were MAALOT’s own grad-uates, who described their career path, the training they received, finding their first jobs, managing the work/life balance, and the most rewarding (and most challenging) aspects of their job. Concurrent themes emanating from all rooms and across every career path included:
Intern and shadow, when possible, before choosing a career path.
Exude positivity - enjoy what you do.
Put forth real effort - be an effi-cient, responsible worker.
Be a team player - work well with others.
Be consistent in keeping your stan-dards - others will respect you for it.
Be articulate, write emails proper-ly, dress and speak professionally, and act confidently.
The positive responses of so many of the students in attendance, high-lights the success of MAALOT’s “Ex-ploring Career Opportunities”:
“The program was so eye-open-ing; it was a wonderful way to connect with people in the field in which I’m interested.”
“This program was informative and very well organized. It’s obvious a lot of effort was put into it.”
“This was such a great experience! I’m so thankful that MAALOT orga-nized it.”
The enthusiastic responses of the presenters echoed the sentiments:
“I was so inspired by the students and their enthusiasm, and by the other presenters and their wealth of knowl-edge and excitement.”
”This was truly an empowering ex-perience for everyone in attendance.”
Credit is due to Mrs. Ethel Fisch-er, MAALOT Director of Develop-ment, for spearheading the event; to Mrs. Rosenbaum and Dr. Klein for their leadership and guidance which directed this program and guides all MAALOT activities; and, to the in-defatigable MAALOT administrative staff, whose combined talents and ini-tiative make MAALOT a forerunner of innovative education and hadracha for so many of our young women.
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Around the Community
Chai Lifeline Chanukah Party at The Inner HarborPhoto Credit: Adina Levitan & URI ARNSON
Imagine a night of pure and holy brightness. A night filled with light and love. A night without darkness and de-spair. Imagine a night permeated with a joy that radiated and illuminated the hearts of everyone and anyone. Last night our community witnessed such a night, and the entire city of Baltimore saw it too.
Over this past week, Chai Life-line’s LIGHT UP THE NIGHT party took the meaning of Chanukah to the next level. Literally. High above the city in the Observational Level of the World Trade Center overlooking the Inner Harbor of Baltimore, over two hundred Chai Lifeline family mem-bers joined together to celebrate the holiday of Chanukah. With a breath-taking three-hundred-and-sixty de-gree panoramic view of the city, Chai Lifeline’s mantra of “Fighting Illness With Love” was on display for the en-tire city to see in all it’s magnificent splendor.
The evening began with beautiful-ly articulated opening remarks from the Executive Vice-President of Chai Lifeline, Rabbi Simcha Scholar. The intrepid leader and founder of Chai Lifeline, Rabbi Scholar addressed an amalgamation of families from all over Maryland, Washington DC, and Virginia who are facing life-threaten-ing and life-long illnesses. Drawing parallels between the mission of Chai Lifeline and the message of Chanu-kah, Rabbi Scholar highlighted the idea that Chai Lifeline will always strive to be the light in the darkness of pediatric illness.
As someone who battled a partic-ularly aggressive form of non-Hod-gkin’s lymphoma this past year, Governor Larry Hogan is the living embodiment of perseverance and fortitude. A benevolent man who can personally identify with the families of Chai Lifeline, Governor Hogan was the honored guest at their Cha-nukah party. Governor Hogan shared with the families of our community his heartfelt sentiments. “They inspire me. They’re really wonderful. They’re
fighting tougher battles than I ever went through,” said Hogan.
Tonight marks an incredibly mo-mentous milestone for Jewish commu-nities in our area. Under the continued guidance and support of local rabbini-cal figures and community lay-leaders, Chai Lifeline announced the imminent opening of the first formal Mid-At-lantic Regional Office. Committed to caring for the ever-growing needs of the Jewish communities situated in and around Baltimore, the Mid-At-lantic Regional Office will be better equipped to support the needs of over 130 families that are already being of-fered limited services. As Tzvi Haber,
the director of Chai Lifeline’s current operations in our community put it, “You can see from looking around this room, our families are already here. With the inauguration of a formal Chai Lifeline office in our community, now we can be here for them for years to come.”
A volunteer for Chai Lifeline for over six years, Tzvi Haber currently spearheads a Chai Lifeline presence in our community boasting over one hundred and twenty volunteers in varying capacities. Consisting of a talented and passionate fleet of vol-unteers from the Talmudical Academy of Baltimore, the Beth Tfiloh Dahan
Community School, The Yeshiva of Greater Washington, and the Hebrew Academy of Silver Spring, it is truly astonishing and indeed inspiring to see the youth of our community unite to bring happiness and love into the homes of families who need it most. Under the banner of Chai Lifeline, there are no boundaries. Rabbi Moshe Hauer of Congregation Bnai Jacob Shaarei Zion articulated this idea so eloquently. “The worldwide Jewish community as a whole owes a tremen-dous sense of gratitude to Chai Life-line. Who would have thought, twenty years ago, that the coolest thing a Jew-ish teenager in today’s society could do was volunteer his or her summer to care for the sick children at Chai Life-line’s Camp Simcha.”
With families hailing from Balti-more, Bethesda, Brookeville, Poto-mac, Rockville County, Washington DC, and Silver Spring, the tangible feeling of community and solidarity between a wide-range of children with a plethora of different illnesses was incredibly special to behold. As the DJ began to play music and the crowd faced the windows overlooking the city of Baltimore, the symbolism was striking. Together on the holiday of Chanukah, as a family, Chai Lifeline continues to light up the night.
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250+ AABJ&D, West Orange, NJ | Adas Bnei Israel, Baltimore, MD | Adath Israel, San Francisco, CA | Adath Israel, Elizabeth, NJ | Adath Israel of the JEC, Elizabeth, NJ | Agudas Achim Cong. of Canton, Canton, OH | Agudas Achim North Shore Cong., Chicago , IL | Agudah Bircas Yaakov, Passaic, NJ | Agudath Israel Bikur Cholim, Chicago, IL | Agudah of Baltimore, MD | Agudah of the Five Towns, NY | Agudah of Greenspring, MD | Agudath Israel of Madison, Brooklyn, NY | Agudah of St. Louis, MO Agudah of West Lawrence, NY | Ahavas Torah Ctr., Henderson, NV | Ahavat Achim, Fair Lawn, NJ | Aitz Chaim, West Palm Beach, FL | Alevy Chabad Jewish Ctr. de Las Cruces, NM | Am HaTorah Cong., Bethesda, MD | Anshe Emes, Los Angeles, CA | Anshe Motele, Chicago, IL | Anshe Sfard, New Orleans, LA | Anshei Chesed Cong., Boynton Beach, FL | Anshei Sphard Beth El Emeth, Memphis, TN | Arkansas Jewish Ctr., Little Rock, AR | BACH Jewish Ctr., Long Beach, NY | Bais Avrohom Zev, Lawrence, NY | Bais Dovid D’Lantzut, Queens, NY | Bais Medrash of Bergenfield, NJ | Bais Medrash of Harborview, NY | BAY Shul, Buffalo Grove, IL | Beth Jacob, Beverly Hills, CA | Beis Haknesses of N. Woodmere, NY | Beis Tefillah of N. Woodmere, NY | Beit Edmond J. | Safra Synagogue, Aventura, FL | Beth David, West Hartford, CT | Beth David, Binghamton, NY | Beth Israel, Miami Beach, FL | Beth Israel Synagogue, Omaha, NE | Beth Jacob Cong., Atlanta, GA | Beth Jacob Cong., Kitchener, ON | Beth Sholom, Rochester, NY | Beth Sholom, Lawrence, NY | Beverly Hills Synagogue, CA | Bnai Jacob Shaarei Zion, Baltimore, MD | Bnai Zion Nusach Hari, St. Louis, MO | Shaaray Tefilla, Boca Raton, FL | Boca Raton Synagogue, FL | Brith Sholom Beth Israel Synagogue of Charleston, SC | Brothers of Israel, Long Branch, NJ | Chabad at Stony Brook, Lake Grove, NY | Chabad Lubavitch of Ottawa, ON | Chabad of Chesterfield, MO | Chabad of East County, La Mesa, CA | Chabad of Long Island, NY | Chabad of Mid-Suffolk, NY | Chabad of South Bay L.I. , Massapequa, NY | Chabad of Staten Island, NY | Chabad of West Bay Chai Ctr., Warwick, RI | Chabad West Orange, NJ | Chicago Community Kollel, IL | Chofetz Chaim Torah Ctr., Cedarhurst, NY | Cong. Dor Tikvah, Charleston, SC | Cong. Ahavas Yisroel, Flushing, NY | Cong. Bnai Yeshurun, Teaneck, NJ | Cong. Ohev Sholom, Williamsport, PA | Cong. Agudas Israel/Golf Manor Synagogue, Cincinnati, OH | Cong. Agudath Achim, Little Rock, AR | Cong. Agudath Israel, Highland Park, NJ | Cong. Ahavas Israel, Passaic, NJ | Cong. Anshei Chesed, Hewlett, NY | Cong. B’nai Torah, Longmeadow, MA | Cong. Bais Mayer Chevra Shas, Monsey, NY | Cong. Beth Hamedrosh, Wynnewood, PA | Cong. Beth Hamidrash, Vancouver, BC | Cong. Beth Israel Abraham & Voliner, Overland Park, KS | Cong. Beth Jehudah, Milwaukee, WI | Cong. Beth Tefillah, Scottsdale, AZ | Cong. Beth Yehudah, Staten Island, NY | Cong. Chofetz Chayim, Tucson, AZ | Cong. Darchei Noam, Fair Lawn, NJ | Cong. Etz Chaim of Flatbush, NY | Cong. Havurat Yisroel, Forest Hills, NY | Cong. Kehilas Yaakov, Los Angeles, CA | Cong. Kesser Israel, Portland, OR | Cong. Machane Chodosh, Forest Hills, NY | Cong. Mikveh Israel, Philadelphia , PA | Cong. Netivot Shalom, Teaneck, NJ | Cong. Ohel Moshe, Baltimore, MD | Cong. Ohev Shalom, Dallas, TX | Cong. Ohr Torah, N. Woodmere, NY | Cong. Ohr Torah, West Orange, NJ | Cong. Shaaray Tefila, Lawrence, NY | Cong. Shaare Tefillah, Teaneck, NJ | Cong. Shaarei Tefillah, Newton Ctr., MA | Cong. Sha’arei Torah, Cincinnati, OH | Cong. Shomrei Torah, Fair Lawn, NJ | Cong. Sons of Israel, Allentown, PA | Cong. Tiferes Yisroel, Baltimore, MD | Cong. Toras Emes of Staten Island, NY | Cong. Torat Emet, Bexley, OH | Cong. Zera Abraham, Denver, CO | Cong. Zichron Eliezer, Cincinnati, OH | Cong. Zichron Mordechai, Teaneck, NJ | Darchei Tzedek, Baltimore, MD | Degel Israel, Queens, NY | Derech Chaim, Baltimore, MD | Elmora Hills Minyan, Union, NJ | Etz Chaim Cong., Flushing, NY | Fountain View Shul, Monsey, NY | Great Neck Synagogue, NY | Greater Community Kollel of Las Vegas, NV | HILI Beth Medrash, Far Rockaway, NY | Hebrew Orthodox Cong., South Bend, IN | JEM Center of Beverly Hills, Beverly Hills, CA | Jewish Heritage Ctr., Flushing, NY | Kehal Tiferes Avraham, Brooklyn, NY | Kehilas Moreshes Yaakov, Brooklyn, NY | Kehilat Chovevei Tzion, Skokie, IL | Kehilat Ohr Yitzchak, Flushing, NY | Kehilat Sephardim Ahavat Achim, Flushing, NY | Kehilath B’nai Torah, Baltimore, MD | Kehilath Jacob Beth Samuel, Chicago, IL | Keneseth Beth Israel, Richmond, VA | Kesher Israel Cong., Harrisburg, PA | Kew Gardens Synagogue, NY | Khal Adas Yereim, Kew Gardens, NY | K’hal Mekor Habracha, Flushing, NY | K’hal Nachlas Avos, Richmond Hill, NY | Khal Nachlas Yitzchok, Flushing, NY | Kingsway Jewish Ctr. , Brooklyn, NY | Lake Park Synagogue, Milwaukee, WI | Landfield Ave. Synagogue - Chabad, Monticello, NY | Lido Beach Synagogue, NY | Lubavitch Chabad of Northbrook, IL | Mercaz Torah U’Telfilah, Baltimore, MD | Mt. Sinai Jewish Ctr., NY, NY | New Springville Jewish Ctr., | Staten Island, NY | New Synagogue of Palm Beach, FL | Ohr Chaim , Miami Beach, FL | Ohr Hamizrach, Baltimore, MD | Old Broadway Synagogue , NY, NY | Orlando Torah Ctr., FL | Passaic Torah Institute, NJ | Persian Hebrew Cong. of Skokie, Skokie, IL | Pittsburgh Shul - Chabad, PA | Plainview Synagogue, NY | Queens Jewish Ctr., NY | Rockwood Park Jewish Ctr., Howard Beach, NY | Schomre Israel of Poughkeepsie, NY | Sephardic Jewish Cong., Flushing, NY | Sephardic Torah Center of Dallas, TX | Shaaray Tefillah, N. Miami Beach, FL | Shaare Torah Cong., Pittsburgh, PA | Shearith Israel Cong., Baltimore, MD | Sons of Israel, Cherry Hill, NJ | S.E. Hebrew Cong., Silver Spring, MD | Suburban Orthodox Cong., Baltimore, MD | Synagogue of the Suburban Torah Ctr., Livingston, NJ | T.I.C.K. Chesterfield, MO | The Bialystoker Synagogue, NY, NY | The JEC Elmora Ave. Shul, Elizabeth, NJ | The Ohel Leah Synagogue, Hong Kong | Torah Ctr. of Hillcrest, Flushing, NY | Union Hill Cong., Manalapan, NJ | Utopia Jewish Ctr., Hillcrest, NY | White Shul, Far Rockaway, NY | Woodside Synogogue Ahavas Torah, Silver Spring, MD | Yeshiva Kesser Torah, Flushing, NY | Yeshiva of New Haven, CT | Y.I. Ezras Israel of Potomac, MD | Y.I. Jamaica Estates, Queens, NY | Y.I. Lawrence-Cedarhurst, NY | Y.I. of Bal Harbour, Surfside, FL | Y.I. of Boca Raton, FL | Y.I. of Briarwood, Jamiaca, NY | Y.I. of Cherry Hill, NJ | Y.I. of Deerfield Beach, FL | Y.I. of E. Northport, NY | Y.I. of Far Rockaway, NY | Y.I. of Flatbush, Brooklyn, NY | Y.I. of Forest Hills, NY | Y.I. of Great Neck, NY | Y.I. of Greater Cleveland, OH | Y.I. of Greater Miami, FL | Y.I. of Harrison, NY | Y.I. of Hewlett, NY | Y.I. of Hillcrest, NY | Y.I. of Hollis Hills-Windsor Park, Queens, NY | Y.I. of Hollywood, FL | Y.I. of Houston, TX | Y.I. of Huntington, NY | Y.I. of Kendall, FL | Y.I. of Kew Gardens Hills, NY | Y.I. of Main Line, Bala Cynwyd, PA | Y.I. of New Hyde Park, NY | Y.I. of New Rochelle, NY | Y.I. of N. Bellmore, NY | Y.I. of N. Woodmere, NY | Y.I. of Orange Cnty., Irvine, CA | Y.I. of Ottawa, ON | Y.I. of Pelham Parkway, Bronx, NY | Y.I. of Phoenix, AZ | Y.I. of Queens Valley, Flushing, NY | Y.I. of Riverdale, NY | Y.I. of St. Louis, MO | Y.I. of Staten Island, NY | Y.I. of Sunnyside, Queens, NY |
Y.I. of West Hartford, CT | Y.I. of Woodmere, NY | Y.I. Shomrai Emunah, Silver Spring, MD
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Around the Community
NCSY Chanukah Party at Tov Pizza
On Wednesday, Baltimore NCSY “spun” things around with a Chanukah Pizza Party at Tovs! With tons of pizza, hanging out with friends, and a major dreidel
competition, it was lots of fun! Shot out to Shterna Angster for winning the competition and receiving a Tovs gift Card!!
2015 Hapoel Soccer End
2015 Hapoel Soccer End-of-Season Banquet. There were numerous player and team awards as well as these three “Big Awards”!
Play Hard/Hasmada Award - Tzvi Goldman
Play Smart/Tshuva Award - Miriam Liebman
Richard H. Stewart Jr. Kavod/Leader-ship Award - Menucha Shmidman
Baltimore JSU Shopping Extravaganza!
Associated Raises 1.4 Million In One Day On National Giving Tuesday
At 10PM on Thanksgiving Night, Baltimore JSU traveled to Arundel Mills Shopping Mall for all-nighter shopping ex-perience. With teens coming from Owings Mill, Carver and Franklin High school. Teens were able to shop and hang out until returning back home at 3:00AM!
Bikur Cholim of Baltimore http://baltimorebikurcholim.org/
Executive Director SEARCH
Bikur Cholim of Baltimore provides a broad range of services to patients and their families in the hospital and at home, including visitation, kosher meals, hospital pantries, lodging in the community and near hospitals, transportation to medical appointments, free loan medical equipment and a host of other services. This position reports to the Board of Directors. Primary Responsibilities
Assuring provision of case management and continuum of care services to every client and family
Visiting hospital patients and families, offering chizuk, addressing unmet patient needs
Supervising programs, coordination and staff and volunteer supervision Fostering and managing hospital relationships Managing operations, finance/accounting, office Fundraising, grantsmanship
The successful candidate will have experience and expertise in
Direct service provision, coordination and supervision Small organization management Staff supervision (employee and volunteer) Budgeting, fundraising Community relations
He/she will also be familiar with Baltimore’s Orthodox community and its resources, and be empathetic, friendly, organized and articulate.
Please send nominations, letters of interest and resumes, in confidence to [email protected]
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Josh Zaslow Shomrie Emunah Youth Director
How did you end up in Balti-more?
I grew up in Bensalem, PA, a suburb of Philadelphia. As chance or divine providence would have it, all three of my siblings happened to end up in Baltimore during the 2000/2001 school year. In order to have our whole family together, my parents decid-ed to move to Baltimore just for that year. We kept our house in Bensalem and rented a house in Baltimore for a short period of time. Our one year plan was to re-pack the truck and go back to Bensalem. As the saying goes, man plans, and G-d laughs. We ended up loving Baltimore and here we are a decade and a half later!
What school did you go to?TA. It was prodigious and positive
experience all around. I would not be the individual I am today if not for the erudition, guidance and support of my principals, Rabbeim, teachers, and friends during that time period. They have helped me develop a love of
learning, academia and Torah values which I hope to instill in my growing family.
What do you do for a living?I am employed as a School Psy-
chologist for Baltimore County Public Schools, I provide a continuum of psy-chological consultation, assessment, and intervention services to address the learning, behavioral, and mental health needs of the students. I am also the Youth Director at Shomrei Emu-nah, where I help facilitate weekly Shabbos groups, Yom Tov program-ming and year-round events for kids of all ages. Lastly, I work for Shoresh as one of the Teen Directors. This gives me the opportunity to work with teens from a multitude of backgrounds, while helping them build their Jewish identity through our fun and engaging year-round programming.
How do you find the time to do all of those things?
Days, nights, weekend. The time is there to be found when you enjoy what you do.
If you could wave a magic wand over the Jewish people.....
I would create everlasting peace, unity, and prosperity while we live out our days with complete happiness and serenity in the holy land.
How would you describe your-self in under ten words?
“Josh Zaslow: Indescribable in un-der ten words.”
What keeps you up at night?My fantasy football team. My
playoff chances wane with each pass-ing day. But mostly, Aylee does. He’s three and always needs something, whether it’s a drink, a night light, or a midnight stroll just to say “Daddy, are you sleeping!?”
What will Josh Zaslow be doing in 10 years?
I would love to work within the schools in our community by advocat-ing for, and helping all students thrive
and succeed in school, regardless of background, ability level, or life cir-cumstance.
We understand from your many jobs and roles that you have a lot of nicknames, what are they?
Definitely depends on the context. The most popular ones are: Jay-Z, Rabbi J, and Dr. Z. (full disclosure, I’m not actually a doctor, rabbi, or fa-mous rapper). Of course, then there is the one student, who, after seeing my yarlmuke for the first time, assumed that I must be an artist. Ever since that encounter, he calls me “Mr. Art man”. I laugh every time.
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Kollel Chatzos Meron Celebrates Siyum on Seder KodashimUplifting Siyum Was a Source of Chizuk for Kollel Members and Their Families
Deep feelings of joy and gratitude to Hashem for the privilege of learn-ing his holy Torah was palpable at the uplifting siyum on Seder Kadoshim that the choshuva talmidei chachamim of Kollel Chatzos Meron, one of four Kollel Chatzos branches worldwide, celebrated.
Kollel Chatzos Meron is wide-ly renowned as a rare makom Torah where extraordinary yungerleit from Tzfas toil in Torah at the auspicious hour of chatzos. The specialness of the hour is compounded by the holy loca-tion where the learning takes place, the tzion of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, who discusses the greatness of chatzos many times in his hallowed work, the Zohar.
The uplifting siyum served as a source of chizuk for the chashuva yun-
gerleit and their wives, who sacrifice with devotion to enable their husbands to toil in Torah at this special time of night.
A rich meal was served in honor of the occasion. The attendees broke out in impromptu song, singing niggu-
nim of ahavas haTorah and thanks to Hashem for the unparalleled zchus of learning Torah at chatzos.
Inspiring speeches were given throughout the meal, with each of the speakers extolling the greatness of lim-ud haTorah in general, the chashivus of learning at Chatzos in particular, and above all, the exceptional zchus of Torah at the holy tzion of Rabbi Shi-mon Bar Yochai. The lineup of speak-ers included Reb Shimon Halperin, menahel of Kollel Chatzos Meron, who served as master of ceremonies; Rav Dovid Zev Reich, Av Beis Din of Sanz in Tzfas and a regular guest at the kollel; Rav Eliezer Ehrenster, Av Beis Din of Kiryas Meor HaChaim of Tzfas with several choshuva sons who learn in Kollel Chatzos; and Rav Ye-huda Meir Halperin from Bnei Brak, who himself arises at chatzos and is the father of the menahel of the kollel, Reb Shimon. Finally, the Nadvorna Rebbe of Tzfas imparted divrei bracha to the attendees.
The speakers also praised the members of the hanhala of Kollel Chatzos who expend great effort for the hatzlacha of the kollel, specifically Rav Nechemia Hoffman, the founder of the kollelim, who works day and night to ensure the success of the four branches worldwide. Heartfelt thanks was expressed for the Kollel Chatzos partners, whose support is what made this siyum – and all the learning at Kollel Chatzos Meron – possible.
Special emphasis was placed on the role played by the wives of the
kollel members, who all accept extra responsibilities upon themselves with-out complaint to enable their husbands to learn at the special hour of chatzos. One of the esteemed speakers stated, “We know that this is not easy for the wives, but you should know that all of the Torah is only in your zchus. We cannot fathom the nachas that the Torah learned at chatzos, especially at such a holy site, creates in the upper worlds, and the zchus of all of it is ap-plied to the women who are assembled here tonight.”
Beautiful gifts were given to the kollel members in honor of the com-pletion of yet another masechta, and to their wives to underscore that all of the Torah is made possible only thanks to their mesiras nefesh.
To conclude the event, a beauti-ful slide presentation with footage of the talmidei chachamim learning at the kever of Rashbi was shown to the women, to give them a glimpse into the elevated atmosphere that reigns at the kollel every night.
The attendees of the siyum left uplifted and inspired, with renewed vigor to continue their learning in the winter weeks ahead. May the zchus of the Torah learned nightly at the tzion of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai at the powerful hour of chatzos continue to bring blessing for the choshuva kollel members, the Yidden who partner with their learning, and all of Klal Yisroel.
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NCSY Senator Ben Cardin Jewish Scholars ProgramPhoto Credit: Mordy Spero
This week Isaac Yitzy Schleif-er spoke at the Senator Ben Cardin Jewish Scholars Program. He gave a captivating talk on the “Importance of being an Activist”. The Cardin Program, as the teens call it, is Atlan-
tic Seaboard NCSY’s elite leadership program for public school teens. The goal of the program is to develop fu-ture generations of active, effective Jewish leaders with a strong sense of Jewish identity, a commitment to the
Jewish people, and a love of Israel. Over the twelve week course, teens are given mentorship and engaging education by influential Jewish lead-ers in the fields of law, finance, gov-ernment and the nonprofit sector. The
program concludes with hands-on ad-vocacy day in Washington, DC and a opportunity to spend an life-changing NCSY summer experience in Israel.
Rebbetzin Tap Delights Kids in Baltimore Schools
Some 1,000 girls in Baltimore schools were treated to music, song and dance with entertainer and speaker “Rebbetzin Tap” - so named for her use of tap dance.
“The girls enjoyed every second of it,” said Miriam Trout from Bais Yaakov of Baltimore. “It was interactive, the kids were on stage. Even the teachers were dancing. We had such a wonderful time.”
Rebbetzin Tap is best known for her two “musical adventure” children’s DVDs, “Get Ready for Shabbos” and “Jewish Holiday Celebration,” which have original songs and storylines. Her latest projects have a slightly different angle. “I wanted to get kids moving,” says Rebbetzin Tap, “to teach the joy of dance and movement.”
Her new DVD, “You Can Dance: A Sing and Dance Along,” features music from ten different Jewish female artists, with a dance for every song. In addition, she has just put out an online tap dance course for older kids.
Her Baltimore concerts definitely got
the children moving. “It was so interactive. The kids were up and about the whole way. I think everyone had a good workout,” said Yehudis Hexter of Bnos Yisroel of Balti-more.
Every song had an interactive compo-nent. There was a dancing dreidel game, an inspirational song about faith, a Latke
song complete with chef hats for the kids, and one of her signature songs about Cha-nukah that everyone dances to, “The Big-gest Light.”
She introduces this song, “This song is about the light inside of each one of us that we can use to light up the entire world.”
Rebbetzin Tap is the project of David
and Kerry Bar-Cohn. Using their film and performance backgrounds, they created “Rebbetzin Tap & Friends” to foster a love for being Jewish, and to provide girls a fe-male role model to show that being Jewish is a fun, healthy, joyous experience.
You can find out more about Rebbetzin Tap & Friends at www.RebbetzinTap.com.
Around the Community
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THE BALTIMORE JEW
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Ohr Chadash Celebrates Five Years School Committed To Centrist Jewish Education
By Justin Katz
If there is one issue all schools grapple with, it is how to keep stu-dents interested, excited and learn-ing, all at the same time. The parents, teachers and administration of Ohr Chadash Academy believe they have the solution.
“We’re cognizant of what the stu-dents want to do. What does that look like?” said Rabbi Moshe Margolese, principal at OCA. “How do we create an atmosphere so that students want to be a part of the school and the com-munity?”
OCA recently celebrated its fifth anniversary, and while the community is excited about the future, Margolese said that celebrating what’s been ac-complished is sometimes overlooked.
“There’s always work to be done and growth to occur, but I think it’s important as educators, parents and individuals to stop and celebrate our success together,” said Margolese. “I think that’s a piece we miss a lot of the time.”
The school, which accommodates students up to grade 5, was launched following the closing of Yeshivat Rambam, a day school with more than two decades of history in the Balti-more community. Ken Gelula, former executive director of Comprehen-sive Housing Assistance Inc., is the school’s board president.
“Ohr Chadash started simultane-ously with the closure of Rambam,” said Gelula, whose grandchildren at-tended OCA. “Parents who had their kids in Rambam were committed to a centrist Jewish education for their children and [started OCA].”
The school, which began opera-tions at the Park Heights Jewish Com-munity Center, has grown to more than 150 students and is located at Temple Oheb Shalom. Terri Rosen is vice president of marketing at OCA and, like many others on staff, is a parent. The two oldest of her four chil-dren had attended Rambam before it closed, and she was a part of the orig-inal group of parents who decided to form OCA.
“There was no other school similar
to Rambam,” said Rosen. “We [need-ed] a school that fit with the more cen-tral part of the Jewish community.”
Rosen added that while the team-work of the staff is impressive, it’s the relationships between the students that make the school shine.
“The kids all know each other; my son will tell me he plays with the kindergarteners. You come into the school and all these kids look up to the older students,” said Rosen. “It’s great to have that camaraderie within the student body as well.”
Randi Orshan, director of teach-ing and learning as well as a parent of three, echoed Rosen’s sentiments.
“The kids are so excited, and they have such a sense of belonging that I haven’t seen anywhere else,” said Orshan, who has taught at schools in Baltimore, Pennsylvania and Ha-waii. “They feel ownership over their school, and that is what makes me love my job.”
Orshan added that although she hopes to see the school continue to grow, it is taking advantage of its small size through several initiatives such as tennis and scrapbooking elec-tives as well as a healthy-food pro-gram through a partnership with Trad-er Joe’s.
Gelula attributed the success of the school not only to the board members and faculty, but also to the community at large that supports OCA.
“I am committed to Jewish com-munity of Baltimore, and we are suc-cessfully building an excellent centrist Orthodox day school. It’s exceeding my expectation [in terms of] parent satisfaction and growth,” said Gelu-la. “I’m very pleased and optimistic that the schools reputation is going to continue to grow and with it both the number of students and quality of the educational experience.
Re-printed with permission from: Baltimore Jewish Times
From The Left: Ken Gelula, School Board President; Rabbi Moshe Margolese, Principal; Terri Rosen, Vice Presi-dent Of Marketing; Rosemary Warschawski, Board Member; Ari Taragin, Immediate Past Board President (Malky Hochberg)
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Baltimore rejoices with Sarah and Ariel Beigel at the Million Person Wedding
TEAM Shabbos: Opening the Discussion
With three large mazel tov banners of support, Baltimore and Frank Storch sent a heartwarming message to Israel’s new-lyweds Sarah and Ariel Beigel. Thousands and thousands of Jews came together in Jerusalem, Israel, and brought their soli-darity, support, love, and joyous voices to celebrate the wedding of Sarah Litman and Ariel Beigel in the midst of heartbreaking tragedy. On November 13th, four days be-fore Sarah and Ariel were to be married, Sarah’s parents and five siblings, were travelling to spend the last Shabbos before her wedding with the Beigel family. A Pal-estinian gunman opened fire on their ve-hicle and killed Sarah’s 40 year old father Yaakov, HY”D, and 18 year old brother Netanel, HY”D. The wedding was post-poned until November 26th, so that Sarah and her family would be able to sit shiva.
In a truly inspirational response, Sar-ah and Ariel quoted the prophet Micah on
their new wedding invitation, “Do not re-joice over me, my enemy, for I have fall-en but I have gotten up.” The couple then invited Am Yisrael and called the wedding a “million person wedding”. They moved the wedding venue to the Jerusalem Inter-national Convention Center to accommo-date the crowds. Among the thousands of attendees were Chief Rabbis David Lau and Shlomo Amar, Sarah Netanyahu, the Prime Minister’s wife, as well as popu-lar Chassidic singer Avraham Fried, who surprised the crowd with a joyous perfor-mance. Some guests even flew in from Baltimore, Montreal, and Australia to par-ticipate in the wedding
Last week, in Baltimore, MD, not-ed community askan and activist Frank Storch, impressed with the couple’s re-silience and desire to bring fellow Jews together to rejoice, wanted to send the couple a message of unity and support.
Since Frank is involved in many time-sen-sitive community security initiatives and could not attend the wedding himself, he had three 4’x15’ large mazel tov banners created and signed by over 5,000 com-munity members. The following schools, organizations, and local businesses were involved in the banner signing: Bais Yaa-kov of Baltimore, Bais Yaakov Conven-tion, Beth Tfiloh, Bnos Yisroel, CBMI/Lev Shlomo, Cheder Chabad, Community Kol-lel Tiferes Moshe Aryeh, Jewels, Maalot Baltimore, Neimus Hatorah, Ohr Chadash, Talmudical Academy, Yeshiva Gedola Ohr Hatorah, Yeshivas Toras Chaim, Yesodei Hatorah, Star K, Goldberg’s Bagels, and 7 Mile Market. Baltimore’s own Governor Larry Hogan took time to sign the banner as well. Frank then had someone fly to Israel to present the banners to Sarah and Ariel. They were presented to Sarah before the chuppah and then hung on the mechitzah.
Throughout the wedding, guests continued to sign the banners in what became called the “Mazel Tov Sign-In Registry” for the couple to remember the love the world has shown them.
Sarah and Ariel share Frank and Dan-ielle Sarah Storch’s commitment to the community and to bringing people togeth-er in achdus. May Hashem answer all of our prayers and may Sarah and Ariel and the entire Jewish nation know of no more suffering.
For more information about the var-ious security and community initiatives Frank Storch is involved in please visit www.keepyourcommunitysafe.com. For any questions or comments call 410-340-1000, 410-486-0800 x113, or email [email protected]
TEAM, the Traditional End-of-Life Awareness Movement is uniting hundreds of shuls and communities across the coun-try. Their mission is to raise awareness about the importance of respecting life, preparing for illness and death, making proper end-of-life decisions and other rel-evant matters.
The Torah perspective on the value of life and its concerns about illness and death are not easy to talk about. Because of this, many people are not fully prepared for the many serious issues that arise. 40 percent of non-affiliated Jews choose cre-mation due to a lack of proper appreciation
and awareness of the significance of Jew-ish burial.
TEAM is here to change that.Shabbos Parshas Vayechi talks about
Yaakov Avinu’s illness and death, his di-rection to his children, his request for Chessed-Shel-Emes and his arrangement for burial. By utilizing the teachable mo-ment that this parshah provides to discuss these timely and relevant topics, TEAM will address some of the issues that are of-ten ignored.
On Shabbos Parshas Veyechi, 12.26.15., (and/or throughout the preced-ing week) rabbis and communities will
dedicate their sermons, present lectures or run programs to discuss these subjects. Addressing some of the most fundamen-tal and far-reaching obligations of every Jewish community and individual, they will encourage the community to increase awareness and respect for life.
TEAM is a project of NASCK, the National Association of Chevra Kadisha. It is an organization dedicated to promot-ing Respect for Life, Here and Hereafter. Under the leadership of Rabbi Elchonon Zohn, TEAM and NASCK are endorsed by many leading rabbis and community leaders. They have only the highest praise
for this vital organization and the tremen-dous, sincere and holy work it does.
They describe NASCK as, “the most wonderful resource to our congregations and communities, as they have been at the forefront of raising the level of Kovod Hames and fighting the growing trend of cremation across the US, and have pro-vided standards, training and guidance to rabbis and chevros kadisha nationwide.” In describing the importance of TEAM Shabbos, a rabbi remarked: “In these days where humanity seems to have forgotten what it means to be human, TEAM Shab-bos is an opportunity to proclaim that the Tzelem Elokim yet endures and demands that we honor the Kedusha which Hashem Yisborach created and implanted within each of us.”
Hundreds of rabbis and communities nationwide have already signed up to be a part of this fundamental cause. And the number is only growing!
You can help spread this mission and raise awareness throughout the greater Jewish community. Encourage your Shul and community to join the TEAM - and encourage others to do so as well - to Re-spect Life- Here and Hereafter.
Register your shul today by consulting with your rabbi and visiting teamshabbos.org.
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14 Year old Yeshiva Bochur Lectures Obama on Capitol Hill about the Threat of ISIS
Reprinted: Onlysimchas.com
14-year-old Michael Insel was fed up with reading the daily headlines about Israel’s never ending fight with terror.
The delay in the president’s re-sponse to the murder of Ezra Schwartz however was the impetus that caused the Yeshiva Bochur from Baltimore to write a letter to the US President.
Michael wrote the letter about a month ago. His proud mother post-ed the letter on her Facebook page to share with friends and family.
Eli Gold, Vice President of the London Center for Policy Research, saw the letter and felt compelled to share this with an even larger audi-ence.
Gold, who runs a defense meeting on Capitol Hill once a month, invit-ed Michael to come along to read his letter at Capitol Hill and to discuss his point of view of what he thinks should be changed.
Michael was very excited to seize the opportunity presented by Gold as he has always desired to take up a ca-reer in politics.
Michael subsequently spoke at the meeting this past Sunday and after that he was invited to further discuss U.S.-Israel relations with Congress-man Trent Franks. He has since start-ed a petition at change.org .
Below is the letter in it’s entirety.My name is Michael (מיכאל) In-
sel (אינזעל). I am an 8th grade student at TALMUDICAL ACADEMY OF BALTIMORE (TA).
I am writing to you today about my concern for the security of ISRA-EL. I feel that your administration has not done all in its power to help the state of Israel at this time. How could you stand by and not properly condemn the murder of an 18 year old American boy who was killed while bringing food to soldiers fighting ter-rorism in the streets? When France
was has hit with devastating terrorist attacks you held an hour long press conference with President Hollande. You stated “we are all French now”. When 3 innocent teenage boys in Is-rael were killed, were we all Israeli? Was the Washington arch in NY the colors of the Israeli flag? Was the 408 foot tall spire on top of one world trade center the colors of the Israeli flag?
NO they were NOT!!! Mr. Presi-dent- we have a saying in hebrew “״ חבירו בעול which means “Every נושא man can carry another man’s burden”.
Before a monday night football game between the New England Pa-triots and the Buffalo Bills something extraordinary happened. For the first time since the Munich massacre in 1972 a murdered Jew was remem-bered with a moment of silence.
This was done by 80,000 people at the stadium and 16 million people at home. This brings me back to my original point of “ Every man can car-ry another man’s burden”. That night 1 and a half days of cumulative morn-ing was observed in just the stadium alone.
If the Jewish people have to reach out to an owner of a football team to get a moment of silence for a mur-dered American jew , before the pres-ident of our country appropriately condemns it, we have a problem !! Also, I am disappointed in your han-dling of ISIS. You have yet to call them what they are “Radical Islamic Extremists”. You simply call them “killers with good social media ”. I can tell you that they are a heck of a lot more than that!! Just this month ISIS has:
Blown up a Russian plane killing all 224 passengers
Brutally murdered 128 in the Paris attacks
Carried out countless beheadings of Americans and others
Killed and continues to kill hun-dreds a day in Syria and Iraq
Inspired the San Bernardino at-tacks killing 14
They are more than just mere-ly “killers with good social media”! These are Radical Islamic extrem-ists!!! These people must be stopped at all costs before more innocent blood is spilled. President Obama, I hope my letter has found you well. All I ask of you is that you support Israel and the Jewish people and you put an end to all the madness of terrorism. Let’s go back to the days where the bond between our great nations was unbreakable!!
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The Week In News
The Week In News
Angela Merkel: Time Person of the Year
Time magazine has named German Chancellor Angela Merkel its Person of the Year. The publication high-lighted her policies regarding the Syr-ian refugee crisis and the Greek debt crisis as part of their reasoning. The
magazine also cited Merkel’s strong response to “Vladimir Putin’s creep-ing theft of Ukraine” and on its cov-er called her “Chancellor of the Free World.”
Merkel, 61, is just the fourth wom-an since 1927 to be chosen to grace Time’s annual cover and the first since opposition leader Corazon C. Aqui-no of the Philippines in 1986. She is the first German since Willy Brandt, the West German chancellor named in 1970 for “seeking to bring about a fresh relationship between East and West” during the Cold War. In 1999, Time picked the German-born – and Jewish – Albert Einstein as Person of the Century.
Not everyone welcomed Merkel’s selection. She has been criticized for demanding unduly harsh terms for Greece as the country struggled to pay its debts and remain on the euro. Maria
Dimopoulou, a public sector worker in Greece, said that Merkel “may be wom-an of the year for Europe and the world in general but for Greece she is disaster of the year and all of the past years.”
Another dissenter, for different reasons, was Donald Trump. He was a finalist for Person of the Year and for months has topped Republican polls for the 2016 U.S. presidential election and dominated headlines. “I told you
@TIME Magazine would never pick me as person of the year despite being the big favorite,” he tweeted soon after Time’s announcement. “They picked a person who is ruining Germany.” He came in at number three.
The number two on Time’s short list this year was the leader of ISIS, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. He was fol-lowed by Donald Trump, Black Lives Matter, and Hassan Rouhani.
Who’s Living Longest – And Why
According to the World Health Organization, the majority of the hu-man population will live into their sixties. Based on life expectancy at
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The Week In News
60 years of age, people in Japan will live longer than in any other country. Coming a close second are a string of countries spanning the Mediterranean and East Asia, as well as countries with strong economies and healthcare systems. By measuring life expectan-cy at age 60, factors such as child-hood illness and issues earlier in life are discounted and longevity is more related to an individual’s lifestyle and environment during older age.
Many different factors are being given credit for the longevity of the Japanese people. Japanese people who make it to age 60 will live on to an average age of 86 – longer than anywhere else in the world. More than a quarter of the country’s population are now over the age of 64 and the communities of Okinawa house the greatest proportion of centenarians of anywhere worldwide.
“Part of that is the traditional Jap-anese diet,” says John Beard, direc-tor of Aging and Life-course at the World Health Organization (WHO). That diet includes plenty of fresh fish and vegetables, combined with low levels of meat and saturated fat. “But the traditional diet has changed,” says Beard, speculating there is more to it than simply food. ”Another part of it is lifestyle ... and that they have systems which identify and treat key issues like blood pressure.” Active lifestyles into older years are the norm in Japan, helped by the country’s ex-tensive rural landscape getting peo-ple outdoors, and further aided by a well-established health infrastructure.
Sarah Harper, professor of Ger-ontology at the University of Oxford,
cites other reasons for Japanese lon-gevity. “They tend to have a society which tends to promote a strong fam-ily set up and stress-relieving cultur-al activities,” she says. Furthermore, Japan has less social inequality than many other countries, enabling every-one to experience these benefits.
In the other countries outliving the rest of the world, good health comes from wealth – and the consequences
of a strong economy and health sys-tem. Singapore, Monaco, Andorra, Australia, Canada, Luxembourg, New Zealand and Switzerland are all on the list for a joint silver medal for life ex-pectancy at 60 of living to 85. “Plac-es like Monaco have a huge wealthy immigrant population,” says Harper, who believes immigration can also plays a role in the diet of a country’s population and therefore its longevity.
“Countries like Australia, Canada and New Zealand have large European populations that are probably eating similar kinds of diets,” she says.
In general, countries with a small-er wealth and class divide have a healthier aging population. “[In Sin-gapore] there’s a range of wealth and advantage; there are very few people at the bottom,” Beard points out. This uniformity means more members of
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the population can live the lifestyles needed to ensure good health well into their eighties.
One thing helping us all live lon-ger is that our lives today are easier than those of our ancestors. “If you compare the lives of somebody in the 21st century to the life of somebody in the 19th century, we’re not struggling on a day to day basis to survive,” says Beard. “One of the things that’s driv-ing the aging of populations is proba-bly that we’re generally living a less stressful life than our forebears.”
Iran: We have Infiltrated the Mossad
The semi-official Fars News Agency of Iran boasted on Tuesday that Tehran’s intelligence agents have infiltrated “those countries that have taken a hard line on the Islamic Republic.”
The claims were made by Hojja-toleslam Gholamreza Safayee, chief of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s Office for Ideological and Political Affairs.
“We have infiltrated the enemy’s spy agencies,” claimed the senior of-ficial in Tehran on Tuesday, without given any other details whatsoever.
The article was accompanied by an image with the symbols of the CIA, the UK’s MI6, and the Mossad, in a clear indication of which “hard line” countries Fars was insinuating were infiltrated.
Safayee also claimed that the “in-side job” was to credit for the “cap-ture of the executed ringleader of [the] Jundollah terrorist group four years ago,” referring to Abdolmalek Rigi, who founded and led the Sunni militant group that opposes Iran’s oc-cupation of Balochistan before being executed in 2010.
Despite the assertions, Fars has a long history of far-fetched claims, such as when it reported in late Oc-tober that an IDF colonel had been captured fighting for Islamic State (ISIS) in Iraq. A commander of the
Iranian-backed Iraqi Shi’ite mili-tias claimed to the paper that “the Israeli colonel’s name is Yusi Oulen Shahak and is ranked colonel in Go-lani Brigade of the Zionist regime’s army with the security and military code of Re34356578765az231434.”
The patently false nature of the claim was clear not least of all from the “military code” – IDF soldiers have a seven digit personal identifica-tion number that appears on their dog tags and military ID cards, which is not even remotely similar to the gar-bled string of letters and numbers list-ed in the report.
The lack of precision regarding the simple matter of IDF personal numbers would also seem to further belie the claims of Iranian infiltration of the Mossad.
While an Arab Muslim IDF sol-dier did recently betray Israel to join ISIS in Syria, as reported last Thursday, the alleged soldier Iran reported on was identified as a Jew.
Iranian officials have long claimed Israel and the U.S. created ISIS, with Brig. Gen. Mohammad Reza Naqdi, head of Iran’s Basij paramili-tary force, just last month claiming Is-rael was behind the lethal Paris attacks instead of ISIS.
Hungary to Honor WWII Anti-Semite
The U.S. government expressed its shock when told of Hungary’s plans to erect a statue of Balint Homan, who contributed to murderous anti-Sem-itism in Hungary in the 1930s and ‘40s. “From the U.S. government perspective we feel very strongly that history and the damage that this man did to Hungarian citizens who hap-pened to be Jewish cannot be ignored, and to put up that statue seems incom-prehensible,” said Ira Forman, special envoy against anti-Semitism.
Hungary’s Jewish community has called on the right-wing government of Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s Fidesz party to block the statue. The private Balint Homan Foundation in Szekesfe-hervar, west of Budapest, says it wants to honor a man who was an eminent historian and minister of religion and education before and during World War II. Homan was a proponent of an-ti-Jewish laws and a Nazi supporter to the end of the war. After the ar, he was jailed and died in prison in 1951.
The central European nation still grapples with its past, including its active role in deporting half a million Jews. Forman travelled to Hungary to discuss Homan’s wartime role at a conference this week. On Sunday he attended a Hanukkah candle lighting ceremony at the small square in Sze-kesfehervar where the statue could stand.
“We think it’s important to know what this man did to Hungarian cit-izens in the 1930s and ‘40s, taking away their citizenship rights and then arguing for them to be deported, which eventually meant going to Auschwitz,” Forman said. “Honoring a man like that – we’re shocked by it. It’s not our decision but we’re here to say we are shocked by it and we think the world should know about who this person [was] and that people are considering putting a statue up.”
Forman was joined in lighting the eight Hanukkah candles by top Israeli and Canadian diplomats in Hungary, as well as leaders of the Hungarian Jew-ish community. “Tonight we celebrate the last candle of Hanukkah,” Israeli Ambassador Ilan Mor said. “Let us hope that the light of the candle we will chase away darkness, that the light of these candles will show the way to the people of Szekesfehervar, the leaders of the city, to the right decision, not to
erect this statue.” Szekesfehervar’s Mayor Andras
Cser-Palkovics, a Fidesz member, on Friday appeared to retreat from his earlier support for the statue, saying external pressure was so high that the foundation behind the project should “reconsider” its plans.
Gaddafi’s Kid in Trouble
Hannibal Gaddafi, the high-living son of the late Libyan dictator, has been charged by the Lebanese gov-ernment with withholding information about a missing Lebanese Shiite cleric.
Gaddafi was kidnapped last week by an unknown armed group in Leb-anon’s eastern Bekaa valley, but was freed several hours later and then taken in for questioning. He was interrogated for more than three hours by judicial investigators, who charged him with “withholding information on the disap-pearance of Shiite imam Mussa Sadr.”
Sadr went missing in 1978 during an official visit to Libya along with an aide and a journalist. Beirut blamed the disappearances on longtime Liby-an strongman Muammar Gaddafi, and the Gaddafi family was branded per-sona non grata by Lebanon, especially among members of the Shiite Muslim community.
Gaddafi’s lawyer, Shadi Hussein, speaking outside the courtroom, said the Libyan businessman was charged because “the crime is still ongoing, since those kidnapped” remain miss-ing. “And because the charged man is one of the sons of the main accused in this case, Muammar Gaddafi,” Hussein added.
Gaddafi’s mysterious abduction
The Week In News
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The Week In News evidently occurred in the Bekaa “while he was travelling from Syria.” Bekaa is an eastern stronghold of the Leba-nese Shiite movement Hezbollah.
The lavish lifestyles of Gaddafi’s family and entourage helped fuel the anger in Libya that sparked the protests that eventually led to the madman’s ouster and killing in 2011. Two other sons of the late dictator, Saadi and one-time heir apparent Seif al-Islam, are in detention in Libya. Three more were killed during the Libyan revolt.
Car Ramming Incident in Jerusalem
A miracle took place on the last day of Chanukah in Yerushalayim.
A terrorist from East Jerusalem plowed his car into a group of Israeli civilians at a bus stop at the entrance to Jerusalem on Monday afternoon. Thankfully, there was not one fatal-ity. The terrorist was quickly neu-tralized by a civilian. Officials later found an axe and screwdriver in his car, presumably the terrorist, Abed el-Muhsen Hassuna, 21, planned to attack the victims.
Fourteen people were injured, three moderately, including a 15-month-old baby and an elderly woman in her 70s. The infant’s moth-er was among the injured as well.
Hassuna drove his white Mazda sedan onto the sidewalk, plowing into pedestrians at a bus stop, close to the Chords Bridge and near the capital’s central bus station, police said. The car struck a fire hydrant, sending wa-ter shooting into the air, making the traumatic scene more chaotic.
A member of the security forces, a security guard and an armed civil-ian who saw the attack taking place shot the attacker before he was able to exit the vehicle and approach the
civilians. The civilian was the first to respond, and shot the driver, and is be-ing healed a true hero.
Jerusalem District Police Chief Moshe Edri hailed the three shooters who brought the incident to an end. “Their quick and accurate action, which neutralized the terrorist pre-vented a more serious attack,” he as-serted.
Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat, speaking at the scene of the attack, urged residents to be on the alert for further attacks, but also stressed the need to “go on with your daily rou-tine, and not let the terrorists win.”
Barkat added that the municipali-ty will soon install protective posts to prevent car-rammings at bus stops in the city, focusing on areas where there is the greatest risk of attacks.
Back Home 68 Years Later
Rachel Elkayam left Israel six-ty-eight years ago when she was a teenager and has now, for the first time, returned home to her country. Her story is almost too unbelievable to be true, but she did in fact spend the past seven decades of her life living as an Arab woman in Syria.
The third of 10 children, Ra-chel was a 16-year-old girl living in the mixed Jewish-Arab city of Hai-fa in 1947 when her parents moved the family to Tel Aviv. Rachel, a re-bellious child, married an Arab and moved to Haifa with her husband’s family. Her family never heard from her again.
Not long after their secret mar-riage, her husband was killed and she was then married off to her brother-
in-law. Over the years, she bore eight children, but constantly pined for her home. When she and her second hus-band would fight, she related, “I would curse him in Hebrew.” She’d also call other members of the family “a bunch of old shoes” in Hebrew, she said. It was a small pleasure, she smiled, to be able to insult them in a language they couldn’t understand.
Elkayam said she “always want-ed to come back, but I couldn’t” giv-en the relentless hostilities between the two countries. When major wars broke out, she would secretly listen to Israel Radio on a transistor, praying not to hear the name “Elkayam” read out among the dead. As a minor act of defiance, she also kept her personal phone book updated in Hebrew.
Rachel would have died in Syria, her story never known to her family in Israel, were it not for the actions of one of her grandsons. In London last year, he went to the Israeli Embassy and told a staffer that his grandmother in Syria had told him that she was ac-tually an Israeli Jew from Haifa. And so it was that Geula Elkayam, one of Rachel’s siblings, received a phone call from London asking her if she had a sister named Rachel.
On the third day of Chanukah, Ra-chel Elkayam, now 85, was flown to Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport. Members of her family were in the airport wait-ing for her, some of whom she had not seen for 68 years, others whom she had never seen at all. They cried over her as she was pushed out to them in a wheelchair and wrapped her in an Is-raeli flag, which she kissed.
Her family then drove her home to Haifa, where her brother Amnon, 71, a toddler when she disappeared, took her on a small tour of the neighbor-hood and the city. She visited her par-ents’ graves and was wheeled to the view she said she most wanted to see, of the Mediterranean coast — with Syria, where she had spent her life, to the north.
Rachel has already re-registered as an Israeli citizen and been given her new Israeli identity card. The clerk at the Interior Ministry had assumed, speaking to her, that she was a Mus-lim, the report said. She had proved that she was Jewish by reciting Kriyas Shma.
IDF Vets Detained For “War Crimes”
A reserves officer in the IDF who fought in Operation Protective Edge was detained upon landing in the Brit-ain a few weeks ago due to a com-plaint made against him that he was involved in war crimes. Any soldier who fought in the 50-day war, whose details or photos were posted online, may find himself on the blacklist of pro-Palestinian organizations who filed and are still filing complaints at European police stations.
The officer, who came to Britain on a business trip, was released a few hours after being detained, thanks to the intervention of the Foreign Min-istry with the assistance of the IDF’s Operations Directorate and the IDF’s international law division. British au-thorities apologized to Israel follow-ing the incident.
The defense establishment be-lieves that the name of the reserve officer, who served on the home front during the operation, got mixed up in the lists of soldiers and officers which pro-Palestinian organizations drew up. These organizations submitted these names to countries worldwide, especially in Europe, claiming that the soldiers and officers were alleged-ly involved in war crimes against Pal-estinians in the Gaza Strip.
“Every soldier and officer who served in Operation Protective Edge whose name and picture were pub-lished in the media in the standard manner by the army but also on so-cial networks is liable to encounter such incidents while abroad,” said a source from the IDF’s prosecutor’s office. “This includes 60 recipients of citations for excellence during the Op-
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The Week In News eration whose names and photographs were released by the IDF. For the Is-raeli public, it’s a badge of honor, but for pro-Palestinian organizations it’s the bread and butter of their de-legiti-mization war against Israel.”
These complications can also af-fect soldiers who took part in incidents in the current wave of terror attacks. A month ago, the IDF Spokesman’s Unit released a visible facial image of Corporal T, a fighter in the Kfir Bri-gade who killed three terrorists in two attempted attacks at the Gush Etzion junction. The official image of the sol-dier became the focus of Palestinian threats against him and calls to harm him on social media. Simultaneous-ly, the IDF is attempting to take pre-ventative action against the arrests of soldiers and officers abroad by the IDF’s prosecutor’s division’s attempt to brief soldiers and officers about traveling abroad. They also work with foreign countries regarding the issue and in exceptional cases also provide security to senior officials who travel abroad.
Israel’s Anti-Social Media Campaign Found Lacking
The amount of videos on the in-ternet that are promoting Palestinian violence is shocking. One particularly appalling video making the rounds on social media over the past few weeks shows in blood-chilling detail how to commit the optimal stabbing attack against Jews. “Your little finger must be placed on the edge of the knife’s hilt, to stop the knife from slipping,” explains a masked man in a cold, me-chanic voice, and then goes into great-er detail: What stabbing movements
are the best, which area in the body it is best to aim at, and what to do with the knife after stabbing, all so it would “cause the greatest amount of damage possible in the enemy’s body.”
Israel now has the technology to stop a considerable amount of the in-citement on social media, and in many cases to apprehend the people behind it – and bring them to justice. But it almost never happens.
A recent investigation found that despite the fact hundreds of experts in the different security agencies are working on the cyber-incitement is-sue, eradicating social media incite-ment is at the bottom of the list of pri-orities. Why is that? Each agency has its explanation. Military Intelligence and the Shin Bet feel it is not their job because they deal primarily with stop-ping terror attacks. And Israeli Police does not feel they are an intelligence agency and cannot investigate social media accounts because they do not systematically monitor the informa-tion like Military Intelligence or the Shin Bet.
Since the beginning of the current wave of terror attacks, 2,000 people have been arrested; of those 2,000, only 55 were arrested on incitement charges – meaning 2.75 percent. From these 55, only 16 were indicted for in-citement.
Bus Stops Secured in Jerusalem
Concrete safety barriers are to be constructed at hundreds of Jerusa-lem’s bus stops to protect travelers from Palestinian car-ramming attacks. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the safety barriers hours af-ter a car-ramming terrorist injured 14 Israelis earlier this week.
Netanyahu consulted with Jeru-salem Mayor Nir Barkat, Transporta-tion Minister Yisrael Katz, and Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan. The plan, proposed by Barkat, will see protective posts designed to prevent car-rammings temporarily installed at bus stops throughout the capital, focusing on areas where there is the greatest risk of attacks.
The mayor’s initiative is set to cost the municipality some NIS 2 million. Katz vowed to work with the munic-ipality to secure the required budget from the Finance Ministry. Barkat welcomed Netanyahu’s directive and thanked the prime minister for his swift response to the attack. “I would like to thank Netanyahu for initiating the meeting and advancing the munic-ipality’s plan for protecting bus stops, and Minister Katz for offering to help allocate the funds, even though it’s not his responsibility to do so,” the mayor said.
Barkat urged residents to be on the alert for further attacks, but also stressed the need to “go on with your daily routine, and not let the terrorists win.”
Abed el-Muhsen Hassuna, a 21-year-old man from East Jerusalem, plowed his car into a group of people waiting at a bus stop at the entrance to the city on Monday afternoon. Among the 14 people injured in the attack were a 15-month-old baby.
Jerusalem has been one of the two focal points of terror attacks since the latest wave of violence began in Oc-tober, with the city of Chevron being the other. More than 20 Israelis have been killed since the start of the vio-lence, and hundreds more have been wounded.
Mother of Slain Soldier Begs Hamas to Return Body
The bodies of slain IDF soldiers Hadar Goldin and Oron Shaul have not yet been returned. Both soldiers were allegedly killed during Opera-
tion Protective Edge in Gaza last sum-mer. MK Eliezer Stern is calling on the State of Israel to increase pressure on Hamas to return the bodies to their families but not through a prisoner ex-change or terrorist release.
Stern, who is personally close to the Shaul family, began his en-treaty by noting that the government has been actively engaged in try-ing to return Goldin’s and Shaul’s bodies. While the families are aware of some of the State of Isra-el’s efforts, some remain classified.
Zahava Shaul, the mother of the slain soldier, turned directly to Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh during an emo-tional press conference on Sunday night, begging for her son’s remains. Even so, Stern added, Haniyeh is ac-tually not responsible for holding the soldiers’ bodies.
“We need to move to the next level and present a different kind of pressure, such as preventing visits to Hamas prisoners in Gaza,” Stern urged, in an interview on Mon-day. “The defense establishment has various departments which have that role [of determining a captured sol-dier’s status],” Stern asserted. “There are intelligence agencies and remains found in the area which were tested by technological and medical institu-tions.”
“It was based on the basis as well of the declaration of the chief military rabbi, who approved them to sit shi-va,” he added. But Stern opined that that decision was “wrong.”
“He should have let them con-duct a full funeral with the parts that were found,” Stern stated. “A family who has a grave prepared, but who are waiting for the body to be brought back from the other side, will contin-ue to demand to make efforts to re-turn the body – but it’s different than a family waiting for a soldier who’s alive on the other side.”
“What Zahava is asking for here is
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The Week In News proof that he [Oron] is alive because Hamas is playing a nasty game,” he reflected. Hamas has led her to believe that there’s a small chance that Oron is alive, he said, despite the fact that sev-eral family members know for sure he is not –- and have attempted to explain that to the bereaved mother.
“I told them right from day one, take into consideration that whoever listens to them is not only the Jewish people and the Prime Minister, but Hamas - whose goal is not to make right by Zahava Shaul, but to do them wrong, just like they want to [do wrong by] all Israeli citizens.”
Stern proposed that the State offer incentives to improve living condi-tions in Gaza in exchange for the sol-diers’ bodies.
“There should be sticks and carrots here,” he said. “Sticks: I would begin by [banning] family visits to Hamas prisoners from Gaza; and carrots: to offer to give more [humanitarian aid] to Gaza residents if they return the
bodies.” Stern added that he has al-ready spoken with Internal Security Minister Gilad Erdan over the issue.
Can Turkey and Israel Be Friends?
Turkey’s president has hinted to repairing ties with Israel. At the mo-ment, the Turks are isolated – they have managed to alienate Syrian Pres-ident Bashar Assad, Russian President Vladimir Putin, and Egyptian Presi-dent Fattah Abdel al-Sisi and they are
desperately seeking allies. Diplomatic officials say that it
seems that Ankara wants to normal-ize relations with Israel and is espe-cially interested in the natural gas plan which will see Israel establishing a pipeline from their fields to Turkey and other places in the world.
The Turks have been following the reports about Israel’s growing ties with Greece and Cyprus over the natural gas plan with great concern. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to host a summit with his Greek and Cypriot counterparts next month, which will revolve around the natural gas plan and the possibility of installing a pipeline which would lead gas from Israel through Cyprus and Greece and on to Europe. The Turks understand that if they don’t act soon they will lose both Israel’s natural gas and the ability to renew strategic ties with Jerusalem, Israeli officials said.
Turkey, though, is not coming without demands. This comes after they received an apology from Israel in March of 2013 over the 2010 Mavi Marmara raid, which claimed the lives of 10 Turks, and may receive as much as $20 million in payments to the vic-tims. They are also demanding that Jerusalem promise to end its blockade on Gaza. Officials in Jerusalem on their part say that the Turks can “for-get about it.”
“We apologized and were ready to pay compensations. He should stop talking nonsense about the removal of the Gaza siege, because Turkey knows that there is no such thing, and we are not about to pay more for normaliza-tion,” officials in Jerusalem said.
Rumors have been swirling that Netanyahu sent an envoy to Turkey in order to conduct negotiations aimed at normalizing ties. Word spread on Friday that Foreign Ministry Direc-tor-General Dore Gold had flown to Ankara to hold secret talks with the Turkish foreign minister. However this rumor was quickly discarded after Gold was seen shopping for Shabbat in Jerusalem. Both the prime minis-ter’s office and the Foreign Ministry denied that an envoy had been sent to Turkey, but Netanyahu himself said during a hearing on the natural gas plan in the Knesset that he intended
to send envoys on his behalf to both Turkey and Egypt to discuss the deal in the future.
Israeli and Turkish energy com-panies are pushing officials in both countries to take advantage of the opportunity and normalize relations, saying it will be beneficial for both parties.
The Shrinking of the Middle Class
The rich are getting richer and the poor and getting poorer – and the proof is that the middle class in the United States is steadily shrinking. The downward trend has been an is-sue since 1971 but recently it seems to be close to “a tipping point,” Pew Research Center says.
According to new analysis by Pew in 2015, middle-income Amer-icans are only half the U.S. popula-tion. That’s about 120 million people, about the same as the total number (121 million) of Americans in the oth-er economic tiers combined.
The share of Americans in the lowest-income segment has grown from 16 percent in 1971 to 20 per-cent in 2015. On the other end of the spectrum, the richest segment has more than doubled from 4 percent of the U.S. population to 9 percent. In 2014, almost half the total income in the U.S. was earned by the wealthiest class of the population, compared to 29 percent in 1970.
Although the middle income class has decreased in size, its income has grown overall since 1971, by 34%.
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The upper tier’s income increased by 47% and the lowest income house-holds have increased 28%. The fact that the upper tier grew the most sig-nals “economic progress,” Pew says. It means that Americans who were previously in the lower income tiers may have advanced up. The likeli-hood of economic mobility, however, varies greatly by demographic group. Black Americans, for example, still remain more likely to be in the lower income band than Americans overall, even though they’re better off than they were 40 years ago.
If you would like to find out exact-ly where your household falls out in terms of income, go to PewResearch.org and use their income calculator.
America the Beautiful
As proud Americans, we know a lot about our country. But it seems that many people don’t know that much about the national attractions that make America the wonderful country it is.
According to a survey conducted by Intrepid Travel, as much as 57% of Americans around the nation did not know where the Grand Canyon is. Hmm…if you’re still thinking, we’ll let you know: it’s in Arizona.
70 percent of those surveyed claimed they knew their national land-marks. And still, 63 percent could not tell pollsters that the Space Needle is located in Seattle. In fact, 17 percent thought it was in Cape Canaveral, Florida.
Love your presidents? Do you know where Mount Rushmore is? 40 percent of Americans surveyed in this poll didn’t know it’s in South Dakota.
And what about our breathtaking, beautiful national parks? Did you know that Yellowstone National Park is found in Wyoming, Idaho and Mon-tana? Only 31 percent of those sur-veyed actually knew that answer.
The findings might make some Americans shake their heads in dis-gust, but Intrepid Travel spokesperson Leigh Barnes hopes they give people a reason to make U.S. travel a priority.
“Exploration and discovery fuel curiosity and make us smarter, more aware,” Barnes said. “America has so
many treasures and unique sites to ex-plore, hopefully people get out there and see all this country and the world have to offer.”
Start planning your midwinter va-cations.
Monster MealI’m sure you can commiserate
with this thief after eating all those latkes.
Recently, a 38-year-old Czecho-slovakian man thought of a way to eat a meal on the house. The hungry crook
The Week In News
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Yitzie & Nancy PretterGuests of Honor
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hid in the restroom of a Prague restau-rant until all the staff hid for the night. He then emerged – and proceeded to gorge himself on a busload of food. Thought you ate a lot over Chanukah? Think again. This man ate, according to the Prague Post, a meal that con-sisted of “six baked geese, weigh-ing about five kilograms each, three ducks, a four liter jar of pickles, [and] six kilograms of goose fat and liver,” plus several packages of butter as well as poppy seeds (for garnish, perhaps?). This was all washed down with “sev-eral” bottles of wine, naturally. To give him credit, not all the food was eaten in its entirety; some of the dish-es just had bites taken out of them.
After the monster-sized meal, the crook was no longer hungry. Now he was full – really full. Which meant that he couldn’t just walk it off. At 9am he was discovered by a cleaning woman who smartly called the cops. Police said that he ate around $814 worth of food.
I hope he enjoyed it. He’s facing two years in prison – and I doubt they serve goose there.
One Plus One Equals Two?
Terrorists in Mali are shaking in their boots. This week, the country of Luxembourg announced that it will respond to France’s call for assistance in Mali by doubling its anti-terror force in the African nation.
And so, Luxembourg sent another soldier to the region. Yes, initially the country provided one lone soldier to help in the effort. Now, they’ve dou-bled their reinforcements to two.
The Luxemberger Wurt reported
that after France enacted a clause in the Lisbon Treaty requiring EU states to help a member country in need – a move taken in the wake of the Islamic State (ISIS) attacks in Paris last month that left 130 murdered – Luxembourg lost no time in responding. The sec-ond, very vital soldier will arrive in early 2016 to help the EU training mission there.
Luxembourg is home to just over half a million citizens, and in addition to sending one whole soldier, it also has promised to send 2 million euros ($2.2 million) to the Malian army to help it fight terror.
Those funds are to be used for training, equipment, medical supplies, and efforts to stop the campaign of in-citement turning Mali’s children into Islamist jihadists.
Air for a Fee
There’s not much that’s free now-adays. We seem to pay for everything – except for the air we breathe.
But if you live in China, even air costs money.
A restaurant in Zhangjiagang city, Jiangsu province, had been charging diners extra to cover the cost of its new air purification system, according to multiple reports. The business add-ed what it called an “air cleaning fee” of 15 cents per customer to diners’ food bills.
Diners, though, were none too happy about the expense and com-plained to the pricing bureau. Offi-cials ruled it was an illegal addition to the check because it was the com-pany’s obligation to provide a healthy environment for diners.
“Since customers haven’t asked to
purchase ‘purified air,’ the restaurant owner couldn’t sell clean air as a com-modity,” CCTV News notes. The fee has since been dropped.
Clean air, though, is high priori-ty in many cities in China, as heavy smog is blanketing the city. Last Monday, Beijing issued its first three-day pollution “red alert.”
I’m sure patrons breathed a sigh of relief when they saw the extra charge on their restaurant bills being waived.
Bike the Nobel
Malala Yousafzai, Barack Obama, Al Gore…and the Bike.
Remember how you had to guess which of these things didn’t belong way-back-when on Sesame Street? It may seem that the bike doesn’t belong among those three people, but you never know.
An Italian radio program has launched a campaign for the bicycle to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2016.
Caterpillar, a popular program on Italy’s Rai Radio 2, is collecting sig-natures for an online petition as part of their “Bike the Nobel” campaign to nominate the bicycle for a Nobel Peace Prize.
The station believes that the bi-cycle should be rewarded for its role as a peaceful means of transportation and cited its use by liberation and re-sistance movements throughout the world.
“The bicycle is an instrument of peace,” the show’s blog reads. “It’s the most democratic tool of transport for all mankind, it does not cause wars
and pollution, it decreases car acci-dents.”
A symbolic relay is planned for February 2016 in Oslo to deliver the bike’s candidacy.
I’m sure the bike is “wheelly” ready for its roll – I mean, role – as Nobel Peace Prize winner.
The Lucky Number 99
She’s 99 and she’s still shopping. After all, she’s just won a shopping spree – at the local 99 cent store.
Donna Goldstein was awarded a 99 second shopping spree at a local 99 Cents Only store in Beverly Grove, California, in celebration of her 99th birthday.
A regular customer, Goldstein was chosen over other candidates after she was seen shopping for Thanksgiving gift baskets for needy families at the store. During her free spree, the nona-genarian also was thinking of others. She bought $162.76 worth of items which she went on to donate to chil-dren in need.
“Sometimes we don’t realize how much is needed,” she related. “I feel bad that I can’t do it for everyone, but it makes me feel very good that I am able to do what I can.”
Goldstein was also presented a
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birthday cake and a certificate of rec-ognition from the store in addition to her shopping spree.
Word of the Year
It’s small but powerful. Merri-am-Webster has announced its word of the year and it’s not even a word. It’s a suffix.
“Ism” has been crowned the word of the year. But not just any ism. The top isms to earn high traffic spikes and big bumps in lookups on the dictio-nary company’s website in 2015 over
the year before are socialism, fascism, racism, feminism, communism, capi-talism and terrorism.
“We had a lot on our minds this year,” mused Peter Sokolowski, the Springfield, Massachusetts-based company’s editor at large. “It’s a seri-ous year. These are words of ideas and practices. We’re educating ourselves.”
Pinpointing reasons why words go on the run at Merriam-Webster is an educated guess. The dictionary company tracks corresponding news events to link lookups to real life. And its researchers also crunch data in a way that filters out common words frequently looked up year after year after year when making their top an-nual choices.
Lookups of racism were high all year but had two noticeable spikes, one after the South Carolina church shootings and another amid the Uni-versity of Missouri protests.
Sokolowski, a lexicographer by training, said one spike in lookups
for feminism came in April and cor-responded with reports on an Ohio middle school student who wore a T-shirt with the word printed on it in a school photo, only to have it digitally blacked out by school administrators. The school later apologized.
The word socialism has Bernie Sanders to thank for its popularity.
“The big spikes have been associ-ated with the fact that we have a pres-idential candidate who identifies as a Democratic Socialist,” Sokolowski said. “We saw that even though so-cialism was in the Top 10 of the most looked-up words in the whole histo-ry of the site, it increased in a spike beginning in late July when Bernie Sanders had a multicity rally that was organized through social media and attracted about 100,000 people in 3,000 communities or more around the country.”
In October, lookups for socialism spiked again during the first Demo-cratic debate featuring Sanders and
Clinton.Other ism words on the move at
Merriam-Webster.com this year were professionalism, federalism, pragma-tism, existentialism, and Marxism.
But it’s not all about the isms. Oth-er words that sent people to the site in high numbers include marriage, hypo-crite, respect, inspiration and minion.
“Inspiration still kind of baffles us,” Morse said. “I can’t really tell you what it is in the world of 2015 that is so much different from ‘14 that inspiration has moved up.”
The company began picking a word of the year in 2003. It went with “culture” in 2014.
Other sites crowned their words of the year as well. This year’s word of the year at Dictionary.com is identity. The folks at Oxford Dictionaries went with a pictograph, an emoji called the “Face with Tears of Joy.”
We’ve truly become a well-versed nation.
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Climbing the Hill Rabbi Eli Scheller
It Could Have Happened To You
My friend Michoel Berg decided to print a weekly d’var torah for the shuls in his community. This would benefit him by forcing him to pay more attention to the weekly Torah read-ing, and would benefit people in shul who might not have time to prepare a d’var Torah for the Shabbos table. He would print a few hundred copies of his parsha insights erev Shabbos and leave a few dozen in each shul in his neighborhood right before Shabbos so the shul goers would pick up a copy to read and hopefully share with their families.
For the first few weeks the task for him was enjoyable as he received much positive feedback from those who took the time to read his work. Several weeks later the formerly exciting endeavor had turned into an exhausting chore, and week by week he wondered where he would get the energy to produce the next offering.
One late Thursday night, about 2 months into the project, after a long day spent out of town, Michoel realized to his horror he had not even begun the weekly parsha submission. He mentally shrugged his shoulders and rationalized an off week for him-self, thinking- doesn’t every program contains built in breaks and vacations? And are people really going to miss just one week of a unsolicited hand-out?
As he got ready for bed he became upset with himself. Hadn’t he promised himself to persist week by week? Didn’t he know there would be weeks where the task would be difficult? He threw on a robe and went to his desk to honor his commitment. He finished very late that night and emailed the d’var Torah to the printer so it would be ready Friday morning after davening.
Erev Shabbos he made the rounds of his local shuls, leaving a few dozen copies in strategic locations near the front doors to insure congregants would notice the sheets. So he was more than a little disappointed Shab-
bos morning when he went to daven at the largest neighborhood shul and discovered that someone had moved his coveted parsha sheets to a hidden corner of the shul. Only one sheet was visible on a shul table. “All that ef-fort!” he thought, “and for what? Per-haps this wasn’t the smartest idea, and maybe my time would be better spent on a more productive project?”
Michoel returned to the shul for seuda shlishis. The Rav stood to give his usual d’var Torah and announced, “At this time I usually speak about my own insights regarding the parsha. To-day I’m making an exception because I saw an inspiring and important d’var Torah in a parsha sheet lying on one of the shul’s tables.” The Rav quoted the d’var Torah almost verbatim, and when he was done he gave credit to the author sitting in the audience. He suggested that everyone present at the seuda find a copy of the d’var Torah and read it for themselves.
My friend sat there, stunned by the Rav’s words. He had decided to work hard at something to benefit the klal and Hashem had praised and com-mended his hard work via this great Rav. After seuda shlishis the gabbai retrieved the overlooked copies of his Dvar Torah and handed them to those present for maariv.
My friend walks past the Rav’s shtender weekly, and to his great joy sees his d’var Torah carefully placed between the Rav’s siddur and chu-mash.
I’ve recognized this pattern in my own life when I consider achieving a new goal. There is the first stage of confidence-of course I can take on this new commitment! Next comes the plateau-the excitement is gone but the commitment can still be met. Finally, the hill appears. It seems much too steep to overcome. This is the point that separates the accomplished from the ordinary - climbing the mountain even though you have every reason not to.
by Yitzchok SaftlasPresident of Bottom Line Marketing Group, radio show host of the weekly 77WABC “Mind Your Business” program and noted lecturer and columnist.
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OCTOBER 29, 2015 | The Jewish Home 59The Jewish Home | OCTOBER 29, 201558
TJH Centerfold
A 6-foot long horse is attached to a
24-foot chain and wants an apple
that is 42-feet away. How can the
horse get to the apple?See answer on next page
One day, Yankel slipped on ice and hurt his legs. Hatzalah arrived and took him in the ambulance. They put a pillow under his head and a blanket over his stomach. The kind paramedic then asked him, “Sir, are you comfortable?”
Yankel looked up and said, “Vell, I make a living!”
EVERYTHING DecemberAnswer to riddle: The chain is not attached to anything other than the horse
If you drink a diet soda with a candy bar, the calories in the candy
bar are cancelled out by the diet soda.
If you eat something and no one sees you eat it, it has no calories.
When you eat with someone else, calories don’t count if you don’t eat more than they do.
Food used for medicinal purposes never count, such as hot chocolate, brandy, toast and Haagen-Dazs ice cream.
If you fatten up everyone else around you, you look thinner.
Cookie pieces contain no fat – the process of breaking causes fat leakage.
Things licked off knives and spoons have no calories if you are in the process of preparing something. Examples are peanut butter on a knife making a sandwich and ice cream on a spoon making a sundae.
Foods that have the same color have the same number of calories. Examples are: spinach and pistachio ice cream; mushrooms and white chocolate.
Foods that are frozen have no calories because calories are units of heat. Examples are ice cream, frozen pies, and Popsicles.
If you eat really fast, your body may forget to register the calories.
If it’s whole grain, it’s a “freebie.” That means you can eat unlimited whole grain rice, bread, cookies, etc. In fact, it’s healthy for you. And if it’s gluten-free, forget about it—it is healthier than yoga!
If you eat the food off someone else’s plate, it doesn’t count.
A balanced diet means holding a cupcake in each hand.
Eat whatever you want on Shabbos (translation: Thursday night to Sunday night). After all, it’s only one day.
Diet Rules to FollowNow that the sufganiot (all 38 of them) are behind you (or shall I say on you),
here are some diet tips to shed those pounds (so that you can be once again indulge in ridiculous amounts of donut eating):
Everything December
1
2 3
4
5
6
7
8 9
10 11
12 13
14 15
16
17
Down
1. Propels the U.S. into WWII
2. These brothers finally get it right in 1903
and take off
4. Every worker hopes for one this month
6. Ben’s book about weather predictions,
Across
3. Many will get eaten this month
5. Currency of European Union
7. Tea overboard in Boston Harbor
11. Winter begins
12. Third span across the East River in NY
Down
1. Propels the U.S. into WWII
2. These brothers finally get it right in 1903 and take off
4. Every worker hopes for one this month
6. Ben’s book about weather predictions, humor, proverbs, etc.
8. Impeached for perjury and obstruction of justice
9. Completely deaf by the time he wrote his Ninth Symphony
10. Alcoholic beverages outlawed in the U.S.
13. First 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution
15. African-American woman sparks Civil Rights movement in Alabama when she refuses to go to the back of the bus
Across
3. Many will get eaten this month
5. Currency of European Union
7. Tea overboard in Boston Harbor
11. Winter begins
12. Third span across the East River in NY City opens to traffic in 1910
14. First state to adopt the Constitution
16. Despite his foreign last name, ______________ van Buren is 1st U.S. president born in the U.S.
17. This once powerful republic breaks apart on December 8, 1991
Down:1. Pearl Harbor
2. Wright
4. Bonus
6. Poor Richards Almanac
8. Bill Clinton
9. Beethoven
10. Prohibition
13. Bill of Rights
15. Rosa Parks
Across:3. Jelly Donuts
5. Euro
7. Boston Tea Party
11. Winter Solstice
12. Manhattan Bridge
14. Delaware
16. Martin
17. USSR! ?
*You gotta be kidding
Riddle me this?
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OCTOBER 29, 2015 | The Jewish Home 59The Jewish Home | OCTOBER 29, 201558
TJH Centerfold
A 6-foot long horse is attached to a
24-foot chain and wants an apple
that is 42-feet away. How can the
horse get to the apple?See answer on next page
One day, Yankel slipped on ice and hurt his legs. Hatzalah arrived and took him in the ambulance. They put a pillow under his head and a blanket over his stomach. The kind paramedic then asked him, “Sir, are you comfortable?”
Yankel looked up and said, “Vell, I make a living!”
EVERYTHING DecemberAnswer to riddle: The chain is not attached to anything other than the horse
If you drink a diet soda with a candy bar, the calories in the candy
bar are cancelled out by the diet soda.
If you eat something and no one sees you eat it, it has no calories.
When you eat with someone else, calories don’t count if you don’t eat more than they do.
Food used for medicinal purposes never count, such as hot chocolate, brandy, toast and Haagen-Dazs ice cream.
If you fatten up everyone else around you, you look thinner.
Cookie pieces contain no fat – the process of breaking causes fat leakage.
Things licked off knives and spoons have no calories if you are in the process of preparing something. Examples are peanut butter on a knife making a sandwich and ice cream on a spoon making a sundae.
Foods that have the same color have the same number of calories. Examples are: spinach and pistachio ice cream; mushrooms and white chocolate.
Foods that are frozen have no calories because calories are units of heat. Examples are ice cream, frozen pies, and Popsicles.
If you eat really fast, your body may forget to register the calories.
If it’s whole grain, it’s a “freebie.” That means you can eat unlimited whole grain rice, bread, cookies, etc. In fact, it’s healthy for you. And if it’s gluten-free, forget about it—it is healthier than yoga!
If you eat the food off someone else’s plate, it doesn’t count.
A balanced diet means holding a cupcake in each hand.
Eat whatever you want on Shabbos (translation: Thursday night to Sunday night). After all, it’s only one day.
Diet Rules to FollowNow that the sufganiot (all 38 of them) are behind you (or shall I say on you),
here are some diet tips to shed those pounds (so that you can be once again indulge in ridiculous amounts of donut eating):
Everything December
1
2 3
4
5
6
7
8 9
10 11
12 13
14 15
16
17
Down
1. Propels the U.S. into WWII
2. These brothers finally get it right in 1903
and take off
4. Every worker hopes for one this month
6. Ben’s book about weather predictions,
Across
3. Many will get eaten this month
5. Currency of European Union
7. Tea overboard in Boston Harbor
11. Winter begins
12. Third span across the East River in NY
Down
1. Propels the U.S. into WWII
2. These brothers finally get it right in 1903 and take off
4. Every worker hopes for one this month
6. Ben’s book about weather predictions, humor, proverbs, etc.
8. Impeached for perjury and obstruction of justice
9. Completely deaf by the time he wrote his Ninth Symphony
10. Alcoholic beverages outlawed in the U.S.
13. First 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution
15. African-American woman sparks Civil Rights movement in Alabama when she refuses to go to the back of the bus
Across
3. Many will get eaten this month
5. Currency of European Union
7. Tea overboard in Boston Harbor
11. Winter begins
12. Third span across the East River in NY City opens to traffic in 1910
14. First state to adopt the Constitution
16. Despite his foreign last name, ______________ van Buren is 1st U.S. president born in the U.S.
17. This once powerful republic breaks apart on December 8, 1991
Down:1. Pearl Harbor
2. Wright
4. Bonus
6. Poor Richards Almanac
8. Bill Clinton
9. Beethoven
10. Prohibition
13. Bill of Rights
15. Rosa Parks
Across:3. Jelly Donuts
5. Euro
7. Boston Tea Party
11. Winter Solstice
12. Manhattan Bridge
14. Delaware
16. Martin
17. USSR! ?
*You gotta be kidding
Riddle me this?
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THE HALACHA CORNER
Halachos of Asara B’tevesBy Rabbi Yosef Wagner
Kollel Avodas Levi
The fast day starts at alos hashachar (day break).1 A meal should not be started within a half hour of this time.2 If one goes to sleep and would like to eat before the fast begins, he should make a condition that he doesn’t accept the fast when he goes to sleep.3 This condition doesn’t have to be verbal.
The fast ends at nightfall.4 If one is traveling east or west on a fast day, the fast ends at nightfall where ever the person is at the end of his fast.5
1 SA 564:1. Some poskim say day break is 72 minutes before netz hachama (sunrise) while others say it is when the sun is 16.1 degrees below the horizon. See Yisrael Vihazmanim pg 2 for all the opinions on this issue. If one ate after day break but before sunrise, the aneinu tefila (which is added in shimone esray for fast days), may not be recited according to most authorities. See Yisrael Vihazmanim pg 570. 2 MB 89: 27. This includes more then two ounces of mizonos type foods according to Pri Megadim Eishel Avraham 431: 4 3 SA 564:1. MB 564: 6 says that lechatchila; this should be done for drinking as well unless one always drinks water after he goes to sleep. Kovetz Halachos pg 36 says if one went to sleep and accidentally ate before daybreak without making a condition, he can still recite the aneinu tefila in shimone esray.4 SA 561: 1. There are different opinions regarding when this time is ranging from 42 to 72 minutes after sunset.5 This is true whether one is making his fast longer or shorter. See Iggeros Moshe OC 3: 96
Fasting
A healthy person must fast on Asara B’teves.6 If a person knows he will be-come sick by not eating, he should eat smaller amounts (shiurim).7 A chasan/kallah during sheva brachos must also fast.8
Some poskim say that pregnant/nursing ladies should try to fast9 while others say that they do not have to even try to fast.10
A choleh shein bo sakana (sick per-son) is exempt from fasting.11 6 SA 549: 1 and SA 550: 17 Biur Halacha 554 s.v. dibimakom choli, Halichos Shlomo pg 400, and Emes Lyakov pg 226. One has broken his fast if he ate a kzayis (one ounce) of solid food or a cheek full of liquid in a certain time period. One should eat less then this amount so he doesn’t become sick. A Rav should be consulted for which shiuirim to follow, but one ounce of liquid every nine minutes is acceptable to all authorities. 8 Biur Halacha 549 s.v. chayavim lehisanos. If the fast day is pushed off (nidcheh) from Shabbos to Sunday, some poskim say that a chasan/kallah do not have to fast. Biur Halacha 559 s.v. nidcheh says one must fast, but Shaarei Tziun 559: 34 says one doesn’t have to. 9 Rema 550: 1 says that lechatchila a pregnant lady should try to fast, unless she is in a lot of pain.10 SA 554: 5. See also Aruch Hashulchan 554: 7, Mikadesh Yisrael 4, and Yichave Daas 1: 35. 11 MB 550: 4. Some say that this is anyone who is bed ridden (SA 328: 17) but Kovetz Halachos pg 16 says that anyone who fasts worse then the average faster is exempt. This seems to be the
Children are exempt from fasting.12
Someone that must eat because of health reasons should only eat simple foods.13
If accidentally, someone ate some-thing he must still fast the rest of the day.14
It is not permitted to wash ones’ mouth out with water. However, if he is in pain this is permitted if he bends his neck forward so the water isn’t swal-lowed.15
One may wash his mouth out with mouthwash if it is not edible.16 Others say that this is only permitted if he is in pain.17
One may take Tylenol on a fast day even if he isn’t bedridden. If liquid is needed, he should be pogem the water (mix with vinegar). If it is to difficult opinion of Iggeros Moshe OC 4: 114. If one isn’t sure if he is halachicly sick one should eat with shiurim according Chazon Ish (Orchos Rabenu vol 2 pg 143).12 MB 550: 5, Aruch Hashulchan 554: 7, and Halichos Shlomo pg 398. See however Daas Torah who cites the Chida 549: 1 who says there is chinuch for fasting.13 MB 550: 5 and Aruch Hashulchan 549: 514 MB 549: 3 and Even Yisrael (vol 9 pg 109).15 MB 567: 11. See however Aruch Hashulchan 567: 316 Ashrei Haish pg 449 and Beer Moshe 8: 9417 MB 567: 11 with understanding of Kovetz Halachos pg 33
too drink water that is pagum, one may drink a little regular water.18
If one is not fasting, aneinu may not be recited during shimone esray.
One may say aneinu during shimone esray as long as he didn’t break the fast before saying shimone esray.19
One should only serve as the chaz-zan if he is fasting.20
In order to read Vayichal (torah por-tion for fast day) at least seven men of the minyan must be fasting.21
One should only get an aleyah if he is fasting.22
Other Prohibitions on a fast day
A hot shower should not be taken on a fast day, but a lukewarm shower is permitted.23
Music should also not be listened to.24
18 Ashrei Haish pg 44919 Rema 562: 120 SA 566: 521 MB 566: 14. Iggeros Moshe OC 4: 113 says only six men fasting is necessary. See Tzitz Eliezer 14: 5622 SA 566: 6. One must be planning to finish the fast in order to get aleyah.23 SA 550: 2 says bathing is permissible but Shaarei Tziun 550: 8 says one may take a cold shower or his face, hands, and feet may go in to a hot shower. Aruch Hashulchan 550: 3 says that one should not take a hot shower. 24 Kovetz Halachos pg 27
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Parshas Vayigash
Torah Thought
By Rabbi Berel Wein
The opening verses of this week’s Torah reading are among the most dramatic
and challenging in the entire To-rah. Two great, powerful personal-ities in the house of the children of Yaakov, Yehudah and Yosef, engage in a clash and debate of epic pro-portions regarding the release of their brother Binyamin.
At first glance it seems obvi-ous that Yosef has the upper hand in his struggle. After all, he is the viceroy of Egypt, the commander of the palace guard who are armed and ready to do his bidding. On the other hand, Yehudah has very lim-ited options as to what to say and what to do in order to obtain the release of Binyamin. Yosef’s po-sition of power appears to prevail but the impassioned plea and tone and contents of the words of Yehu-dah are not to be easily ignored.
So in a sense one could say that
Yehudah will himself prevail over Yosef. But in a clear analysis one should come to the conclusion that neither of the two great antago-nists, the leaders of the tribes of Israel, is the victor in this clash of ideas and worldview.
The true champion that will emerge from this entire baffling and fascinating story is Yaakov, seemingly isolated back there in the land of Canaan, mourning and despondent as to what has hap-pened to his family. In anguish, he shouts: “Yosef is no more, Shimon is no more; both of them will be lost to me!”
It is that image of their father that haunts both Yehudah and Yosef. And each, in his own way, wishes to do justice to their father and to everything that he rep-resents. And it is this image of Yaa-kov that brings Yosef to the climax of the story and to his ability, nay, necessity to reveal and reconcile himself with his brothers.
Jewish rabbinic thought over the ages has always attempted to make the story of Yosef and Ye-hudah relevant to each individual generation of Jews. I think that the most relevant message that all of us can gain from this great narrative is that it is the image of our ancient father Yaakov that tru-ly hovers over all of our current struggles.
It is our task, not merely to win the debate with our other brothers or even with outside powers that are seemingly stronger and greater than we are, but rather to some-how remain faithful to the old man that we can no longer see but who is somehow always with us. What gives both Yehudah and Yosef trou-bling pause in the midst of their
impassioned debate is the question as to what their father thinks of their words and their actions.
It is this unseen presence of Yaakov that drives the brothers to reconciliation and to restoring a common purpose in their lives and those of their families. In effect they are thinking: “What would our father think of this conversa-tion and of this confrontation?” Father Yaakov has looked down at all of the generations of the Jewish
people and in one way or another, every generation has been forced to ask itself what would Yaakov think of us, our words and our be-havior.
It is that ever-present idea in Jewish life that has been an aid and a boon to our seemingly mi-raculous survival as a people and as a faith. We may not see him but we can be certain that he is there with us today as well.
Shabbat shalom.
What gives both Yehudah and Yosef troubling pause in the midst of their impassioned debate is the question as to what their father thinks of their words and their actions.
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They Light Up the World
From Aruba to Anchorage, Alaska, These Women Bring Yiddishkeit to Jews All Over
By Malky Lowinger
As impressive as the shluchim are, their wives, the shluchos,
are perhaps even more amazing. Idealistically – and literally – they follow their husbands to the ends of the earth. There, they deal with the logistics of feeding tens (sometimes hundreds) of guests every Shabbos in areas where ko-sher food is difficult to come by. They live with the reali-ties of raising large families in an environment where the lifestyle and culture are alien to them. They are con-stantly on call, serving as teachers, educators, and role models. All too often, their efforts are undervalued and unappreciated.
As far as they are con-cerned, they wouldn’t have it any other way. They con-sider it an honor and a priv-
ilege to serve the Jewish communities they live in. They light up the world with their candle lighting and their challah baking and their aleph bais classes. But most of all, they light up the world by just being there.
THE POWER OF A BABKA CAKE
Rivky Gurevitch grew up in Crown Heights, but is now living as a shlucha in Eu-gene, Oregon, with her hus-band and twin baby girls. Shlichus was always part of the culture in her home. “We grew up surrounded by the shlichus mindset,” she says. Ever since she can remem-ber, her family hosted shlu-chim and guests on a reg-ular basis. And when they moved to a larger home, Rivky remembers her father saying, “This house is not
ours. This house belongs to the shluchim. When they leave, we can use it.”
That attitude, plus her Chabad education, con-vinced Rivky that shlichus was a privilege she wanted to undertake. When she dated her husband, she says, “We both agreed that we would, come what may, go on shlichus no matter what the challenges.”
Then, an opportunity presented itself in Eugene, and the Gurevitches decid-ed to check it out. “We used our wedding money to travel there and meet the commu-nity, as well as the students at the local University of Oregon.” The closest shlu-chim who live nearby? The Perlstein family in Salem, Oregon, about an hour away.
Shlichus, says Rivky, is not a part-time job. “We de-
vote every part of our lives to it. While I’m feeding my girls, I’m thinking about our next program. We nev-er close up shop. Everyone here has our cell numbers and we are reachable at all times.”
Erev Shabbos is hectic at the Gurevitch household. “Generally, I start cooking on Thursday afternoon,” Rivky relates. “Students will come over to help cook and babysit but I usually don’t have time to sit down before the Shabbos meal. I go straight from preparing
and cooking to serving and entertaining.” She adds, “As hard as it gets, I love every second of it.”
Opportunities to reach out to fellow Jews present themselves at any time. “My husband walked into Trader Joe’s to buy a babka cake,” says Rivky. “A wom-an nearby asked him where he found it in the store and he then asked her if she was Jewish.” They traded phone numbers and that lady is now thrilled to be involved in various Chabad activities. ”Never underestimate the
To most of us, Chabad shluchim are an enigma. We can’t imagine what it must be like to live in the outermost reaches of the world as committed Jews who are on a mission to help others. On the other hand, they are the very first people we turn to when we find ourselves stranded in unchartered territory.
Chanukah packages in Eugene, Oregon
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OCTOBER 29, 2015 | The Jewish Home 49The Jewish Home | OCTOBER 29, 201548
power of a babka cake!”It’s challenging, Rivky
admits, to live so far away from family and friends. But “when students tell us that our home is their home away from home, when we develop such strong and close relationships, that makes it all worthwhile.”
“WHAT TOOK YOU SO LONG?!”
Frumie Posner has been living as a shlucha in Bir-mingham, Alabama, for the past twenty eight years. Back then, when a cou-ple went on shlichus, they were given a bracha by the Lubavitcher Rebbe. Frumie and her husband arrived in Birmingham with two lit-tle babies and eventually their six other children were born there. Her Israeli-born husband came to Birming-ham without even knowing English. “But he’s a very hartzige guy,” says Fru-mie. And he successfully communicated through his warmth and energy. “Today, of course, he speaks English fluently.”
Frumie teaches in the lo-cal Jewish school, takes care of the Chabad mikvah, does taharas when necessary, and welcomes new families to the area. There’s a uni-versity hospital nearby and occasionally they will host patient’s families.
The Posners are not alone in Birmingham. After a few years, they hired another couple to work with them
on shlichus, Rabbi Yossi and Miriam Friedman. And to Frumie’s delight, one of her married daughters recently moved back to Birmingham to run a Friendship Circle, an organization that pairs teens with special needs children.
Cholov yisroel milk and kosher food products are delivered from Florida via refrigerated truck every few months, and Frumie says that’s how they fill up their huge walk-in freezer at the Chabad house. The system works well most of the time. “We sometimes run out of milk,” she concedes, “and we learn to do without cheese and yogurt if we have to.”
When her children were growing up, Frumie says, she explained to them very clearly what they can or can-not eat in other children’s homes. “It’s not awkward,” she insists. “My kids are not afraid to say, ‘I can’t have that’. And most people real-ly respect us for this.”
Some moms, Frumie points out, are totally un-derstanding. “One woman asked if she could bake her child’s birthday cake in our home so that our daughter can eat it at the party. “
As a mother, Frumie says the most challenging part of shlichus is when you have to send young children away to school. When you put your children on a plane at a young age, “it’s a real tear jerker.” Still, she says, “the Rebbe taught us that
when we take care of the Ai-bishter’s children, He will take care of ours.”
That particular chal-lenge has eased significantly with the advent of Chabad’s Online School. “It’s a whole school on the computer, with interactive lectures and tests. Everybody can see each other and the kids can ask questions.” With Skype, cellphones, and of course, online shopping for children’s wear and toys, other aspects of shlichus have also become easier over time.
Chabad shluchim are re-sponsible for their own fund-raising. In that respect, Fru-mie feels especially blessed. “At first it was difficult, of course,” she says. “We were a mom and pop operation and we did everything in our home. But then a wonderful woman in our community who was incredibly philan-thropic helped us build our beautiful state-of-the-art Beis Chabad. After seeing our work, she understood the mission of the Rebbe and she helped us in a remark-able way. Sadly, she passed away at a young age. Our preschool, the Jo Ann Hess Morrison Chai Tots Pre-school, is named after her.”
It’s all about devel-oping relationships, says Frumie. “Everyone wants to feel cared about.” She remembers that when one particular woman moved to town, Frumie was debating with herself on whether she should approach her about the mitzvah of taharas hamishpacha. Would she be receptive or would she
be offended? When Fru-mie finally did begin that conversation, the woman looked at her and respond-ed. “What took you so long? I was waiting for you to ask me!” Frumie asserts, “That taught me an important les-son. “
“SOMETIMES YOU THROW A PEBBLE INTO A POND”
Yentie Lasker, who is a Chabad shlucha in Brus-sels, Belgium, is very much accustomed to the shlichus lifestyle. She grew up in Stockholm where “there were no other frum families when I was a child.” Her family wasn’t Chabad, but they had an open and wel-coming house for travelers and guests.
She and her husband came to Brussels in 1984 with two little babies. Today they have eight children, five of whom are married. Some of her couples are also on shlichus, the closest one in Amsterdam, about an hour and a half away by train.
“In the old days,” says Yentie, “you would ask the Rebbe if he agrees to the city you have chosen. As soon as he gave his haska-ma, that was it. You went.”
Yentie speaks French and so does her husband, so there was no significant language barrier when they moved to Brussels. They are also just sixty minutes from Ant-werp, a thriving community with chinuch opportunities for their children. Yentie organized a bus service that brings the children back and forth every day. And there
are now two kosher stores in the area.
Today there are about twenty thousand Jews liv-ing in Brussels, but most are assimilated. “Whoever decides to become more re-ligious,” she says, “usually moves to Antwerp.” The local airport is situated between the two cities, so frum travelers often call inquiring about minyanim and restaurants. “Some-times we advise them to go to Antwerp instead where there are minyanim all morning and a greater selec-tion of kosher food. “ Still, the Laskers are constantly hosting guests, especially on Shabbos which Yentie calls, “the highlight of the week!”
Shabbos guests are al-ways welcome. “My kids can give you a description of the many different types of guests we’ve had over the years,” says Yentie. “I think it’s so rewarding. Children should know that there are all kinds of people in the world and that they are all Yiddishe neshomos. Every-one is special in their own way.” Most important, says Yentie, is that the guests should see her own family as “normal, human, wel-coming, friendly, and nice.
It should be a positive expe-rience. Perhaps something they too would eventually like to try some day.”
Unfortunately, Muslim extremism is rearing its ugly head all over Europe, and the Laskers are feeling the change. Just a few short weeks ago the city of Brus-sels was on lockdown while police were searching for
Lighting the menorah in New Orleans, Louisiana
“It’s not about being organized,
or being dynamic, or being good
with children. It’s about caring.”
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terrorists. “It was like a war zone,” Yentie recalls. “The whole city was closed down. The market was empty. The streets were empty. “
Most of the Jewish com-munity lives in the outskirts of the city, but the Laskers are in the center, where the situation is most intense. Does anti-Semitism affect them? “Yes, but mostly for my husband as he is dressed more obviously Jewish. Boruch Hashem so far it’s been nothing worse than nasty comments, which he just shrugs off.” Many of the local Jews, though, are considering moving away. “They are saying there’s no future for their chil-dren here.” The Laskers, of course, are staying put.
Those families who have made significant lifestyle changes are also advised to move onwards. It’s so much easier to live a religious life-style when the frum infra-structure exists, especially
with young children. “You have to be very strong to stay here and remain frum.”
Sometimes, the Laskers make a huge impact and they don’t even know it. “My son, who’s 20, came to Yeshiva in Crown Heights and met a madrich who told him, ‘My parents be-came frum because of your parents!’ It turned out that many years ago his par-ents, a young Russian cou-ple, spent Shabbos with us. They saw something special and thus decided to move to Eretz Yisroel and become shomer Shabbos.” When Yentie’s husband came to Crown Heights for the an-nual kinus shluchim, this bochur approached him, re-lating, “I am here in Yeshiva now because you invited my parents for Shabbos in Brus-sels many years ago. They came to Israel saying they’d like to run their own home just like yours.”
Sometimes, Yentie mus-
es, we have an effect that we’re not even aware of. “You throw a pebble into a pond and then it ripples. “ Her message to her fellow Jews? “You can make a kid-dush Hashem wherever you are. If you are doing the right thing and behaving properly, people will notice and they will be impressed.”
A PLACE WHERE WE COULD MAKE A DIFFERENCE
Chaya Blasberg is about to become a very busy lady. As the Chabad shlucha in Noord, Aruba, she and her husband are preparing for the winter crowd to come flying down. They are the sole shluchim on the island.
Chaya grew up in Leeds, a city in northern England where her parents were – and still are – shluchim. “I grew up with it,” she says, “but of course every shlichus is different.” Chaya has three young children and
she says, “I want them to have the same upbringing that I had.”
Chaya’s husband grew up in Yerushalayim in a very open and welcoming home. The young couple decided to come to Aruba after speak-ing to many people, includ-ing business travelers, who felt there was a need.
There are around a hun-dred Jews living year round in Aruba, and thousands of timeshare owners, part time residents, business people
and vacationers from all over the world. “We have a Shabbos shul and Shab-bos meals. We do all the yomim tovim as well.” Their Chabad house is located within walking distance to the hotel area, and some-times there are enough vis-itors that minyanim are held on a daily basis.
Aruba is actually an is-land onto itself, about nine-teen miles long. “It’s beau-tiful,” says Chaya. Kosher meat comes by ship from Mi-
The Blasbergs with Aruban Prime Minister Mike Eman at their son’s upsherin
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ami, otherwise, the closest Jewish community would be in Venezuela, which is about a half hour plane ride away.
Chaya homeschools her children, as they’re still very young. But she’s not worried about the future. She used to teach on the Chabad Online School network, so she is familiar with how it works. “It’s very interactive,” she says. “The children can talk to the teachers and draw on the whiteboard. It’s a fully functioning school.”
IF YOU KNOW ALEPH, TEACH ALEPH
She grew up in Flatbush and now lives in New Orle-ans. That’s quite a change, but Malkie Rivlin says that when she dated her hus-band “we both knew that we wanted to go on shlichus – we just didn’t discuss the details of where.” After two years as a Kollel couple in Crown Heights, they decid-ed to settle in New Orleans, where her husband’s parents have been shluchim since 1975. Malkie is now living there with her family for al-most nineteen years.
There are currently nine Chabad shluchim families living in Louisiana, each one with its own mission. “It’s really nice that we have each other,” Malkie comments. “Especially for the kids.” Ten thousand Jews live in the New Orleans metropoli-tan area, a city that she says is “very culturally and his-torically beautiful.”
In 2005, Hurricane Ka-trina devastated the area and that was a turning point for this community. “It changed a lot,” Malkie admits. “So much was de-stroyed that some people made the decision not to come back to the mess.” A large segment of the com-munity moved onwards, to Miami or to Memphis or to Eretz Yisroel.
But others decided to re-build. “It was a challenging time for us,” she says. “And
also very rewarding. We had tremendous help from around the nation, and those of us who stayed banded to-gether. It’s amazing to see the change and the growth that has been accomplished since then.”
Malkie is a teacher in the Torah Academy School in Metaire. She also directs extracurricular activities. “There’s constantly stuff go-ing on,” she comments. All this is aside from raising her own large family, the youngest of whom is only six-months-old.
Much of shlichus hap-pens in the kitchen, no mat-ter what community you live n. And often it can get hec-tic. On yomim tovim, says Malkie, “we have to prepare for 60-100 people for each meal. And we can’t cater the whole thing.” Instead, everybody pitches in to help. “You have to coordinate the volunteers and delegate the salads, the kugels, the meat dishes. My older daughters also help. They will bake ten cakes or they will do some of the cooking, what-ever is necessary. We also hire a woman who helps us. The main thing is the coor-dination and remembering the details of who is doing what.” She muses, “All this is probably happening in every other Chabad houses , not just ours.”
Cholov yisroel milk is purchased by the case and then frozen. And whenever anyone travels to New York, they go armed with a list of what to bring home. For Malkie, it’s important that the children understand they are part of the shlicus. “We try to involve them in everything,” she says. They help cook and set up the program. They give out the bentchers. They say their divrei Torah. They help in the shul. It’s part of their life.”
The most challenging thing about shlichus, Malk-ie says, is “the stereotyping of Chabad. You just want
to share the warmth and the love and the Yiddish-keit and people who aren’t familiar are sometimes so wary.” Still, some of those apprehensive first timers often end up becoming close friends.
Also challenging, she says, is the fundraising. “People think Chabad is centrally funded but we are all independently run and it takes a lot of hard work to raise the money to keep our programs running. It can take many years to break in until the community under-stands that what we are do-ing benefits everyone.”
Women in Chabad are very much part of the shli-chus. “The Rebbe,” says Malkie, “was always pro-moting women in Yiddish-keit. We have so much to of-fer, in a tziniusdik manner.” He also insisted that every-one can be a shaliach, no matter who they are or what they know. He famously said, “If you know aleph, then teach aleph.” Malkie points out, “We all equally have the Torah as our inher-itance and there are others out there waiting for us to share the beauty.”
The nicest part of shli-chus, says Malkie, is “when you meet a Jew and you see the bulb light up! You just want to share with them and you feel a beau-tiful connection. We’re all equally Jewish whether we’re frum or not. To see them light up, to give them this gift, it’s a beauti-ful thing!”
THE MOOSE IN THE MIKVAH
The frosty weather in Anchor-age, Alaska, doesn’t seem to be much of an issue for Esther Green-berg, a shlucha who is originally from Detroit. But maybe that’s because of all the warmth that em-
Chaya and Ahron Blasberg of Aruba
“Children should
know that there are
all kinds of people
in the world and
that they are all
Yiddishe neshomos.
Everyone is special
in their own way.”
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anates from the Chabad House that she and her husband run. Originally, the Rebbe had sent yeshiva bochurim to Anchorage on shlichus on a temporary ba-sis, as there were not enough Jews living there to warrant a full-fledged program. But all that has changed. There are today about 3,000 Jews in Anchorage and another 3,000 scattered throughout the state.
In 1990, says Esther, the community requested a full-time rabbi. Most cou-ples weren’t ready to live in that far-flung area, “but we were crazy enough to try it.” The greatest challenge back then was the lack of a mikvah facility, the nearest mikvah being in Seattle, a three hour plane trip away. Eventually, though, a mik-vah was built on the local Army Base. And in 2001, with the help of a nation-wide fundraising campaign, a new mikvah was built.
Today, the Anchorage Chabad boasts a beautiful 10,000-square-foot build-ing built with a grant from two philanthropic families. This is a tremendous help to Esther, who had been basi-cally running her programs out of her home for seven-teen years. “It took a while,” she says. “A long while.”
Finding friends for her children, says Esther, is difficult. And of course ac-quiring kosher food isn’t easy. The Greenbergs have five upright freezers and a big commercial freezer in the Chabad House. When there are mistakes in de-liveries, she doesn’t make a fuss. “Maybe a cut of meat is not what we ordered. Or the wine bottles shattered in the cold. All this can be worked out,” Esther assures. There’s only one really tough challenge, though. “Send-ing your children away for school.”
Like other mothers, Es-
ther sings the praises of the Online School, “It has totally changed the face of educating the children of shluchim. My kids and many others have totally benefited from it. They now have some kind of social life with other Chabad children online. And they can stay home with us much longer.” Nowadays, she says, the children don’t leave home until they are in high school.
Esther must be doing something right, because her two married daugh-
ters came shlichus, one of them moving even deep-er into Alaska than she is. She proudly speaks of her daughter who, at the age of nine, was teaching the aleph bais to a young girl studying for her bas mitzvah. “Being so far out of town makes you become more resourceful.” Eventually that girl’s young-er brother was also prepared for his own bar mitzvah by Esther’s family.
Chabad in Alaska’s claim to fame is no doubt the sto-ry about the encounter with
a moose in the mikvah that was published in a Jewish magazine. Esther once ac-companied a woman to a local lake late at night when, lo and behold, a moose de-cided to jump in and go for a midnight swim. Even Es-ther, who’s braved plenty of other bizarre scenarios, was startled. Chalk it up as an-other unique experience as a Chabad shlucha.
A moose in a mikvah. Shat-tered wine bottles. Sub-de-gree weather. The lives of Chabad shluchos are some-times amusing, sometimes intriguing, but always in-spiring. Says Esther, “You need to believe in what you are doing. If your heart’s not in it, it’s not going to happen. It’s not about be-ing organized, or being dy-namic, or being good with children. It’s about caring. That’s what’s really im-portant. And that’s what works.”
Chanukah in New Orleans Shaking lulav in New Orleans
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Vayigash – Learning To Let GoRabbi Shmuel Silber
A Parsha Thought
The mounting tension reached a pinna-cle with Yosef’s revelation of his true iden-tity to his brothers. The much anticipated reunion finally occurs. The emotional dam breaks and a deluge of tears envelop the sons of Yaakov. Tears representing the pain of the past intermingled with tears of joy for what all hope will be a peaceful and loving future. The brothers are speechless. They have no words for the brother they maintained was dead. They have no re-sponse to the simple statement, “I am Jo-seph.” They are overwhelmed, ashamed and profoundly broken. Yosef sensing his brothers anxiety makes an amazing statement, “And now, you did not send me here, but God, and He made me a father
to Pharaoh, a lord over all his household, and a ruler over the entire land of Egypt (Bereishis 45:8).” It wasn’t you my dear brothers who sent me to this place, it was God! This was all part of the plan. But how can Yosef say this? Was it his right to purge his brothers of their iniquitous sin? Did Yosef really believe that his brothers were blameless simply because everything worked out in the end? How can Yosef say, LO ATEM SHE’LACHTEM OSI - it wasn’t you who sent me here! Was it not these very brothers who stripped him of his clothing and dignity, threw him in a pit to die and afterwards decided to spare him by selling him to a group of Ishmaelites? And now - it wasn’t them! Furthermore, Yosef
seems to convey a very different message just a few verses earlier, “But now do not be sad, and let it not trouble you that you sold me here, for it was to preserve life that God sent me before you (Bereishis 45:5).” In this verse Yosef clearly states that it was the brothers who sold him. True, God had a plan, but the brothers still bear the re-sponsibility of having sold Yosef.
Was Yosef absolving his brothers of all responsibility since it was all part of the Divine plan or were the brothers respon-sible for their brutal behavior despite the fact that all worked out?
The Midrash (Tanchuma Vayigash Si-man 5) sheds light on this dynamic. Im-mediately prior to Yosef’s revelation, the exchange between Yosef and his brothers becomes heated and was dangerously close to turning violent. Yosef understood that he must reveal his identity. “Yosef said to his brothers, ‘Did you not tell me that your brother died? In fact I purchased him and I will bring him out to you.’ At this point Yosef called out, ‘Joseph son of Ja-cob come to me, Joseph son of Jacob come to me and speak with your brothers who sold you.’ The brothers began scanning all corners of the room to catch a glimpse of their long lost brother. Yosef turned and said to them, ‘Why do you look here and there - I am Yosef your brother.’ In that moment their souls left their bodies and they were unable to answer him.”
Yosef was conflicted; on one hand he was overjoyed to see his brothers and feel a sense of belonging and familial se-curity. On the other hand, Yosef realized that these were the very men who turned an indifferent ear to his cries; these were the men who were supposed to be his be-loved protectors but instead became rage-filled antagonists. These were the men who were ready to murder their own flesh and blood. Perhaps, I cannot have a rela-tionship with them. Perhaps, it is better to remain distant and repay them in kind so they can suffer as I did. And so Yosef calls out, “Yosef the son of Yaakov come to me, Yosef the son of Yaakov come to me” - he is looking for his self, for his identity. Who should I be? What should I do? Should I seek revenge or reconciliation?
Yosef finds resolution with one simple phrase - I am Yosef your brother. I choose to be your brother and not an indifferent,
vengeful tyrant. I make this choice not because you have earned it – I make this choice because it is best for me. Yosef understood that if he held on to the rage and animosity it would consume him from within. In order to continue to lead a healthy and productive life – he had to let go of his pain.
We now understand the apparent con-tradiction in Yosef’s approach. When Yo-sef first revealed himself to his brothers he placed the responsibility for his circum-stances on their shoulders. As the conver-sation continues Yosef says, “Despite your responsibility and culpability, I choose not to focus on what you did to me rather, I will focus on the Divine Providence in this entire episode.” “It wasn’t you who sold me,” is not a statement of fact, but a state-ment of emotional resolve and strength. I choose not to focus on the hurt and pain you have visited upon me. I choose to fo-cus on the positive results of this tumultu-ous episode.
This emotional strength was the foun-dation of Yosef’s identity. “And Joseph named the firstborn Manasseh, for “God has caused me to forget all my toil and all my father’s house (Bereishis 41:51).” I have to learn to “forget” and let go in or-der to build a future. The Torah continues, “And the second one he named Ephraim, for “God has made me fruitful in the land of my affliction (Bereishis 41:51).” No matter how much success he encountered - Egypt was a land of suffering and affliction for Yosef. Yet, he became “fruitful” - how? Because he was able to let go, he was able to “forget,” he was able to release the an-ger, animosity and hurt that was rightfully his. It was this forgetfulness that allowed Yosef to grow, thrive and build a success-ful life.
We each have certain things that keep us tethered to our past and present while preventing us from building a future. For some it may be pain caused by another, residual anger from a failed relationship, or some unresolved life issue that has been too difficult to address. There are pain-ful realities that sap us of our emotional strength and prevent us from self-actualiz-ing. Yosef teaches us to find the strength to identify those things that hold us back and to look within to find the courage to finally let them go.
Please Join: Jen & Josh Erez | Avraham & Shaindy Kelman
Yaakov & Ester Gur | Ronnie & Sandy Rosenbluth
Monday, December 21, 2015 • 7:30pm - 8:30pmAt the home of
Avraham and Shaindy Kelman6306 Benhurst Rd, Baltimore MD 21209
In Support of:Isaac “Yitzy” Schleifer
Candidate for 5th District, City Council
RSVP to [email protected]
By authority of: Vote Schleifer, Hillel Soclof, Treasurer
www.VoteSchleifer.com
Thank you to our previous events hosts:
Jules & Nechama FriedmanRobyn & Ed Ho�man
Shira & Shmuel Perlman
Adam Ben-Zev | Avi BernsteinYoni Chesner | Andy & Lisa Diamond
Aaron Dinowitz | Yona EhrenfeldJosh Erez | Howie Freidman
Levi Friedman | Naphtali Grayman
Ari Gross | Yanky Katz | Yossi KelemerDov & Shira Ocken | Sam & ZC PressYaakov Rappaport | Moshe Meir Rubin Gershon Seidel | Asher SondhelmJe� Spatz | Danny StegerShuie Steinharter | Dovid Wealcatch
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7 Ways To Save On Winterizing Your HomeSubmitted by: Ben Schwartz | Founder
VacancyFillers.com
Real Estate
Still recovering from the sticker shock you got from your last heating bill? These simple tricks can help low-er your costs and keep you warm this winter.
When the temperature dips below freezing, cranking up the thermostat — and leaving it there — is an easy fix to fight off the cold. But it’s an ex-pensive one, as you’ll realize once you receive your first heating bill for that house you bought in the spring.
So, short of shivering all winter, what’s a home dweller to do? Learn how to winterize a house with these tips, which can save you money — without sacrificing warmth.
Invest in a programmable ther-mostat
Doing so allows you to keep your house warm while you’re home (in the morning when you’re getting ready, at night when you come home from work) without having the heat run all day. “They cost under 100 bucks and they’ll last forever,” says Mitchell In-german, president of Aurora Energy Advisors, an energy consulting firm in New York.
Buy one that has at least four set-tings (so that you can set it for differ-ent times on weekdays and weekends) and set the heat to increase about a half-hour before you’ll be home. Tip: Fight the urge to turn the heat way down when you’re out. “Expecting the heat to go from 60 to 70 degrees in a half-hour isn’t efficient either,” says Ingerman.
Deal with drafty windows and doors
It’s easy and inexpensive to seal entry points, and you’ll save heat — and money — from being thrown out the window. Ingerman suggests purchasing a weather-stripping kit or
caulking the frame around doors and windows. If you already have weath-er-stripping but it’s worn or old, re-place it. Bonus: Making your home more energy-efficient can boost your home’s value too.
Localize your heat sourceIf you spend most of your evening
in one room (e.g., dinner and home-work in the kitchen), consider buy-ing an electric heater, says Ingerman. You’ll be able to keep the thermostat low, and the room you’re in will stay toasty. Just be sure to turn off the heat-er before going to bed.
Don’t fall for companies that claim they can lower your utility bills
You probably get fliers in the mail from third-party energy suppliers that guarantee savings on your elec-tric bill. “Energy prices fluctuate, so these companies will wait until it’s at a high point to contact you and offer to lock you in at a lower rate,” says In-german. “You may save a few dollars for the first few months. But after that, the price will go down and you’ll be locked into a higher rate.”
Use reusable furnace filtersInstead of replacing your filter ev-
ery few months (or not at all because you don’t want to spend the money), buy a permanent filter that can be hosed off when it’s clogged. They’re more expensive upfront, but you’ll save money after a year or so of not buying disposable filters month after month.
Buy a chimney balloonEven if the flue is closed, hot air
can still escape from your chimney. An inflatable chimney balloon will stop this from happening. Bonus: It’ll
automatically deflate if you forget to remove it before lighting a fire.
Let the sun shineInto your house, that is. Keep your
curtains open during the day and al-low the sun to help warm your rooms, which will keep your furnace from running constantly. Subsequently, close your curtains at night to keep out drafts — and nosy neighbors.
Are you wasting time, money and pa-tience trying to find a tenant for your va-cant property? Are you constantly being
distracted from you family and career, and stressed because you are not get-ting results from your current placement efforts? VacancyFillers.com can help! We are your one-call tenant placement solution! For more information, please visit: www.vacancyfillers.com or call 410.941.4813
Fresh Flower Gemach!
In memory of our grandfatherMenachem Mendel ben Mordechai Yaakov
Be m’sameach other simchas!Donate your fresh flower arrangements
and we will match your simcha date with simchas following yours.
To donate or obtain flower arrangements
call or text:516-509-5503
or 443-695-0314.
Share your Simcha flowers!
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OCTOBER 29, 2015 | The Jewish Home 41The Jewish Home | OCTOBER 29, 201540
Over the weeks fol-lowing the terror at-tacks in Paris, world
leaders have professed their support and commitment to the French people and con-demnation of those who ter-
rorize civilians. The media has continually reported on arrests and investigations of those who committed, ac-cording to French President Hollande, “an act of war.”
But over this same month, what people may not
recall or consider is a less-er-known attack committed a mere four days later on No-vember 18. This was not an overt “act of war” or attack against the French per se, but, for French Jews, a more
personal one: the stabbing of a Jewish teacher in Mar-seilles by three men, in-cluding one wearing an ISIS t-shirt.
Is it time for the French Jews to leave their home-land?
Last year, Benjamin Ne-tanyahu famously declared that it is. But we spoke with two French community lead-ers who have a different out-look on whether the time has come.
Benjamin Zagzag, a Jewish community activist and for-mer employee of the World Jewish Congress, believes that French Jews should stay in France.
“Many people,” he relat-ed, “are talking about moving to Israel. But you should go to Israel because you love Israel, not because you are afraid.”
Zagzag feels that peo-ple should not “flee. It’s not brave to flee.”
“An attack,” he claims, “is not a reason to leave. It’s a reason to unite.”
He sees the attacks as
reason for the diverse French community to look at Jewish communities in other coun-tries for inspiration on how to better and strengthen the French Jewish kehilla. The British work-life balance and collegial communica-tion should serve as a model for improved business prac-tices. The Swedish people trust individuals more and therefore have better rela-tionships. American Jews sometimes welcome non-Jews into their JCCs, a move that makes non-Jews per-ceive their Jewish neighbors as regular Americans.
The strengths of other cultures should not inspire French Jews to move, says Zagzag. Au contraire.
“France was the first country to take Jews in Eu-rope,” he points out. It was
the first country to offer Jews citizenship. Many Jews have been there for more than a thousand years. And now, the Jewish culture there is rich: Paris boasts more than 200 kosher restaurants, a museum, and a memorial. It also offers the “French art of living.” Zagzag considers France one of the most beau-tiful countries, a country that “respects life and the individual.”
Furthermore, despite the acknowledged fear of terror, the army and French gov-ernment are truly “taking care of us. They realize,” Zagzag asserts, “that every citizen is important and that Jews are key to the economy. They know that Jews have been there for centuries.”
Of course, the French culture and outlook believe
Au ContrairePerhaps the French Jewish Future
is Still in FranceBy Brendy J. Siev
“But you should go to Israel because you love Israel, not because you are afraid.”
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in making people French and that people must assim-ilate. Napoleon, for example, hoped to make Jewish blood French. Because of that, the French often believe that all Jews are Israelis and that all Israelis and Jews are perse-cuting Palestinians.
With the recent attacks on Paris, however, the per-ception is changing. The French are seeing that Israe-lis are not the villains and are starting to understand that French Jews, while they may support Israel, are part of the French culture as well.
We asked Zagzag about his opinion on the refugee crisis. He told us, “While it’s not irrelevant to com-pare the Jewish refugees [of 1939] with the Syrians, there’s one major difference:
Jews during the World War II era had no country. The Syrians do and should fight for it… Europe should stop being the policeman of the world, but Europeans are traumatized by what they did [and did not do] during World War II. However,
Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, Kuwait are very rich. Why do they not take care of the Syrians?”
Jeremy Navon was born in France to Ashkenazi parents of Polish descent. His grand-parents came to France in 1910 and remained there during World War II. He too considers France “the first country where Jews had freedom and equal rights.”
Navon lived in Dub-lin, Ireland, for two years,
served in the Israeli army, and then returned to his native France to create Ne-vatim, a network of young Jewish entrepreneurs.
When he talks about more recent French history, he begins his story 15 years ago, at the outset of the sec-ond Intifada. The French media then was rife with anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian images. Jewish journalists were fired from their job, because they did not sup-port this stance and were “off message.”
Today, Navon contends, we are seeing the repercus-sions.
Ten percent of the French population is Muslim. French and Muslim youth grew up with this anti-Jew-ish and Israeli sentiment, and every year “something big happens,” he says: some-one is tortured, synagogues are bombed, and people are assaulted. Every day, he de-clares, is a hassle.
This hassle was particu-larly apparent to Navon and his family when his sister, who lived in New York, in-vited her religious American fiancé to meet the family in France. “We had to tell him to remove his kippah on the Metro,” and so they realized how enmeshed anti-Semi-
tism and fear of terror is in the French-Jewish experi-ence.
Of course, not everyone is assaulted and not every Jew confronts anti-Semi-tism daily. But the fact that the government and French media so supported the Muslim and Palestinian cause came at a steep cost: in turn, radical Islam flour-ished in France. The results are extreme, so much so that some French suburbs are dangerous to all women who are at risk of being attacked by terrorists.
Still, Navon believes that, in Paris, Jews can live a Jew-ish life and attend pro-Isra-el rallies. The environment is not pre-war Germany, he says, as some people may think.
With the Paris terrorist attacks on November 13, the government has finally become supportive of Jews and wants to stop radical Is-lam. Bias against Israel has begun to decrease. His hope is that the recent French election has sent a clear message: France does not want to become a Muslim country.
Those who are leaving France, Navon claims, are mostly Sephardic Jews from North Africa who came
to France in the ‘60s and ‘50s. They do not feel fully French, as their French lega-cy barely spans half a centu-ry. But other French Jews, those who have a deeper and longer French legacy, “do not want to be driven out,” he asserts. “This is our culture. We were born here. Jews have been here since antiquity.”
Muslim imams are now approaching the Jewish community, and in Par-is and the big cities a more moderate Islam is taking hold. “This [anti-Semitism] problem,” Navon vows, “is going to find a solution.”
Like Navon, Zagzag says, “The situation in France has changed, but the country is still rich in Jewish history. It’s a pity to stop because of fear. Now, with the recent terror attacks, there’s fear in France for everyone. This is why the situation for Jews can be better, because the concept of danger could be understood by everyone.”
And Navon agrees. “Sometimes things are not as bad as we hear. If Jews truly felt threatened, they would leave. But there’s a vibrant community here. Many of us don’t feel we have to leave. We’re investing in a stron-ger Jewish French life.”
His sister, who lived in New York, invited her religious American fiancé to meet the family in France. “We had to tell him to remove his kippah on the Metro.”
Jeremy Navon Benjamin ZagZag
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PART II
Before we continue the story, let us take a look at what might be the basis for a divorce annul-
ment in Jewish law, based in insan-ity or incompetence. The Mishna in Tractate Gittin states that “if a man is seized with kordiakos and says: ‘Write a get for my wife’, it is as if he has said nothing. If he says, ‘Write a get for my wife’ and is only then seized with kordiakos, during which time he says ‘don’t write it,’ his latter words are considered null and void.”
According to the Gemara that explains this Mishna, kordiakos is a form of mental illness with symp-toms that are similar to the behavior of someone who has become com-pletely incapacitated after drinking a potent wine directly from a fermen-tation barrel. Such a person cannot be taken seriously as he is not lucid, which means that when he issues the command to write the get, even if the get is written properly, and even if af-ter he later recovers from his mental episode and says he wants to divorce his wife, the get written while he was incapacitated is not valid and cannot be used for a divorce.
The big question that hung over the Get of Cleves was Isaac’s sanity at the time he instructed for the get to be written and given to Leah. Was he someone who suffered from a chron-
ic mental illness that diminished his competence? Or were the strange incidents at the time of his wedding just a temporary mental breakdown and did he then recover? Perhaps it was possible, however remote such a possibility, that his life was in genu-ine danger for reasons he could not reveal. Even if he was in the throes of a mental breakdown, did that in-validate his instructions to Rabbi Lipschuetz for the get to be written?
Isaac’s father was insistent that his son had been in the midst of a mental breakdown when he issued the instruction in Cleves to write a get, and on this basis lobbied franti-cally for the divorce to be annulled, even if it could be proved that Isaac had since recovered and wanted the divorce to stand. Isaac’s father cit-ed the various episodes of Isaac’s strange behavior before and after the wedding, and claimed that when Rabbi Lipschuetz of Cleves had agreed for the get to be written, he had been unaware of the full histo-ry and therefore the get had no legal status.
Those who advocated for the get to be annulled were also disturbed by how it had been obtained so un-derhandedly. Isaac’s parents had not been informed in advance, they argued, and no attempt had been made to inform them subsequently. The claim was that this was suspi-cious behavior. They also questioned as to why had the divorce been exe-
cuted in Cleves, which was a remote community. There were other larger cities with more substantial commu-nities closer to Bonn, such as Dussel-dorf and Koblenz, with outstanding rabbis who were perfectly capable of putting together a proper get. Why had Leah and her family traveled the greater distance to Cleves? And final-ly, why had the get proceeded before the couple had even had time to es-tablish their physical relationship, which had ceased after the marital act on the night of the wedding?
The advocates for the annulment drew the conclusion that Isaac was crazy or had been at around the time this had all happened, and therefore Leah’s family had arranged a get be-low the radar to ensure that Leah did not become lumbered with a lunatic husband. They manipulated Isaac into divorcing her and arranged for it to happen in a remote location with no oversight and without informing the rabbi that Isaac was not compe-tent to execute a divorce.
Those opposed to the Get of Cleves also cited the Talmudic dic-tum which states that no one spends a fortune of money and wastes time getting married, only to divorce his wife immediately afterwards. It was well known that Isaac’s family had invested an enormous amount of time and money into his marriage to Leah. Isaac himself had borrowed a large sum of money to pay for his marital wardrobe. That being the
The Infamous Case of the “Get of Cleves”
Jewish History
By Rabbi Pini Dunner
In the late eighteenth century a strange wedding followed by an even stranger divorce evolved into one of the most bitterly fought Jewish legal controversies of the era. In Part I we saw how the “Get of Cleves,” executed without the knowledge of the husband’s parents, was challenged by them and their rabbi, who approached the Frankfurt beit din to ask for the divorce to be annulled. But was the husband legally incompetent at the time of the divorce, as they claimed, or were their claims overblown and without foundation? And even if he was incompetent, did that mean that the divorce could be reversed?
Rabbi David Tevele Schiff, Chief Rabbi of London (1722-1791) interviewed Isaac in London for the Frankfurt beit din
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case, it was inconceivable that Isaac would have divorced his wife a couple of weeks later, unless he was clinical-ly, and therefore halachically, crazy.
Despite these arguments, the rab-bis and others who supported Isaac’s parents were in a distinct minority. The majority view was that the only thing Isaac had done that put his san-ity into question was his unexpected and unexplained disappearance with the money on the morning of the Shabbat after his wedding. Since he had only acted abnormally on that one occasion, he could not be judged as someone who had totally lost his reason. Some rabbis felt that the Shabbat incident may not necessari-ly have been an “insane” act, as Isaac genuinely believed that he was being targeted by some person, or group of people, and thought his life was in danger. Although he had no proof this was true, or had not offered any, that did not mean his story was a fabrication or simply a figment of his imagination. It was perfectly possible that his life was in danger, in which case his Shabbat disappearance was perfectly reasonable.
In any event, the Shulchan Aruch
states unequivocally that “a man who fluctuates between lucid and crazy – when he is lucid he is to be regarded as completely normal in ev-erything he does, and if he divorces his wife in that time, his get is con-sidered valid.” Rabbi Lipschuetz of Cleves maintained unequivocally that throughout the divorce proceed-ings Isaac had been completely lucid. Six members of the Cleves Jewish community who were present at the proceedings also testified that Isaac had behaved completely normally – not just during the proceedings, but throughout his stay in Cleves. Rabbi Copenhagen, who had accompanied Leah and Isaac to Cleves and was present throughout the divorce, also confirmed that Isaac’s behavior had been reasonable the entire time.
There was another relevant issue that began to emerge as more rab-bis and community leaders became involved in the dispute, and the con-troversy grew. Many people felt that it was entirely out of place for the Frankfurt rabbis – however distin-guished and respected they were – to interfere in an affair that was beyond their jurisdiction. The get had been
granted by Rabbi Lipschuetz and was therefore his sole responsibility. It had always been the custom in Ger-many that a beit din in one location did not interfere with or intervene in the decisions and activities of a beit din in another location. It was there-fore felt that the Frankfurt beit din was out of line expressing an opinion on a matter that was essentially none of their business.
Despite the eminence of the Frankfurt rabbinate, numerous rab-bis across Germany announced their full support for Rabbi Lipschuetz. Furnished with the details of the sto-ry, and knowing him as a man of un-impeachable integrity and as a rabbi well versed in the laws of Jewish di-vorce who knew the implications of a non-divorced woman marrying an-other husband, they simply refused to believe that he would allow such a travesty to unfold simply to protect his reputation.
The man who had originally trig-gered the controversy by writing to the Frankfurt rabbinate, Rabbi Tev-ele Hess of Mannheim, unexpected-ly died shortly after the controversy began. His plan had been simple, if somewhat naive. He had wanted the rabbis of Frankfurt to nullify the get and then have Isaac interviewed by a panel of experts upon his return from London to Mannheim. If he was found to be perfectly sane – as all those who supported the get claimed he was – he would simply be asked to issue a new get and the problem would be resolved.
When Rabbi Hess died, however, the baton was grabbed by the daya-nim of Frankfurt, and their agenda was totally different to his. They be-lieved that they had to take a stand against sloppy rabbinic practices, and it was their opinion that the only reason Rabbi Lipschuetz of Cleves had not realized that Isaac was suf-fering from mental illness was be-cause he had not been fed all the de-tails of Isaac’s strange behavior. This exposed his lack of professionalism, a failing that had resulted in an un-tenable and unsupportable get.
Rabbi Lipschuetz himself was incredulous at the obstinacy of the Frankfurt beit din, and in the fall of 1766 wrote a formal ruling validat-ing the Get of Cleves and dispatched a copy of his ruling to Frankfurt. In a subsequent letter to Frankfurt he included witness statements from
several residents of Cleves who had come into contact with Isaac. Some of these witnesses had even partic-ipated in the divorce proceedings. They all agreed that Isaac had acted normally throughout. But despite this, and the halachic arguments presented by Rabbi Lipschuetz, the
Frankfurt beit din did not even ac-knowledge the letters, and Rabbi Lipschuetz never even received the courtesy of a reply.
This refusal to engage with Rab-bi Lipschuetz was extremely un-orthodox. It also reflected badly on the Frankfurt rabbinate in light of the way another rabbi whom Rabbi Hess had approached had reacted to his original letter. When Rabbi Hess had sent his missive to Frankfurt re-questing the annulment, he had sent an almost identical letter to Rabbi Naftali Hirsch Katzenellenbogen of Pfalz. The first thing Rabbi Katzenel-lenbogen had done was to reach out to Rabbi Lipschuetz to find out the exact details of the divorce. Rabbi Lipschuetz responded immediate-ly with a comprehensive timeline. Upon receiving this Rabbi Katzenel-lenbogen wrote to Rabbi Hess to tell him that the Get of Cleves was per-fectly fine, and the divorce stood. He also castigated Rabbi Hess for having written to anyone else before con-tacting Rabbi Lipschuetz, describing this as an unforgivable breach of pro-tocol.
Rabbi Hess had also asked Rab-
Rabbi Shaul Lowenstamm of Amsterdam (1717-1790) obtained evidence independently and rejected the Frankfurt Rabbinate’s claim of sole jurisdiction
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bi Katzenellenbogen to consult with his brother and brother-in-law, both rabbis. They concurred that the get was valid. The brother-in-law, Rabbi Josef Steinhardt of Fuerth, was evi-dently so incensed by the behavior of the Frankfurt rabbinate that he wrote a strong letter to Rabbi Abish, the chief rabbi of Frankfurt, to make his feelings clear, but his pleas for Frankfurt to cease their involvement were to no avail.
As the months rolled by it became evident to Rabbi Abish and his rab-binic colleagues that Rabbi Lip-schuetz was not going to roll over and concede and that they needed to counteract his efforts against them. So they summoned Rabbi Copenha-gen to Frankfurt, along with mem-bers of Bonn’s Jewish community, on the pretext that they needed to thoroughly investigate the events surrounding the divorce. Rabbi Co-penhagen, believing they were now looking for a face-saving way to re-verse their position, agreed to come to Frankfurt and gathered together
a delegation of senior community figures to accompany him. The del-egation arrived in Frankfurt during Chanukah of 1766 and stayed there for three weeks. At hearing after hearing they were questioned and cross-examined by the Frankfurt rabbis about every detail of the epi-sode, including the divorce itself. Ev-ery word was faithfully recorded by the court scribe, and Rabbi Copen-hagen was convinced the evidence provided was a slam-dunk in favor of the get.
But within a couple of weeks the Frankfurt beit din sent a letter to Bonn curtly informing the com-munity leadership that after having carefully considered the testimony presented, they had concluded that their original view was correct and
the get could not be used – meaning that Leah was forbidden to remarry, and if she did remarry, her children would be mamzerim.
Despite being so belligerently confident, the Frankfurt rabbinate were clearly conscious that their po-sition was controversial and so they also wrote to a former Frankfurt rabbi, Rabbi David Tevele Schiff – who was now chief rabbi of London – and asked him to interview Isaac in London to find out if he was sane or whether he was in fact suffering from mental illness, as was being claimed by his father. They were also interested in hearing Isaac’s version of events. Rabbi Schiff met up with Isaac and they spoke for some time. In a letter back to Frankfurt he de-scribed how he had found Isaac to be completely and utterly sane, although Isaac had admitted that his behavior around the time of his marriage and divorce were objectively irrational. In terms of Jewish law his admission was irrelevant, though, because had he insisted he was totally insane at the time of the divorce, if the presid-
ing beit din did not think so, all his protestations to the contrary – and certainly at a later date – would be ignored.
Another senior European rabbi, Rabbi Shaul Lowenstamm of Am-sterdam, hearing about the London interview with Isaac, wrote to his nephew, Rabbi Meshulam Zalman Emden – also a London resident – and asked him to meet Isaac and report back. Rabbi Emden met Isaac and wrote back that his meeting had gone well, and he seemed lucid and rational. This new “evidence” came to the attention of the Frankfurt daya-nim, and they demanded that Rabbi Lowenstamm send it to them imme-diately on the basis that they were the sole arbiters of the validity of the ‘Get of Cleves.”
Rabbi Lowenstamm agreed to send them a copy of the transcript, but queried their claim of sole ju-risdiction. He also expressed his view that on the basis of what he had seen and heard he was satisfied that the get was valid, irrespective of their contrary opinion. The Frank-furt dayanim were not cowed by his forthright rejection of their self-pro-claimed role and replied that they were entirely within their rights to claim sole jurisdiction, as they were the only ones who were painstakingly collecting testimonies about the epi-sode. They added that notwithstand-ing their view that the get was inval-id, Rabbi Lipschuetz’s reputation was not in any danger, as he had clearly been deliberately kept in the dark about Isaac’s history.
Although they seemed to be sticking to their guns, the tone of their letter did indicate that they were conscious of the fact that their high-handed approach – which they had perhaps imagined would bolster their reputation as “no-nonsense” impartial jurists – had in fact result-ed in the perception that they were a bunch of arrogant, dismissive, ivo-ry-tower bound snobs.
As all this was happening, Leah’s father was busy writing to any rab-bi he knew to ask them to support the divorce. He was extremely con-cerned that if the Frankfurt ruling was accepted, his daughter would never be able to remarry. Meanwhile, Rabbi Lipschuetz was getting more and more agitated with each pass-ing week at how his reputation was being called into question, and he also began to write letters to rabbis everywhere asking them to consider the details of the story and back his position.
In March 1767, Rabbi Yaakov Em-den, the elder statesman of the Ger-man Jewish rabbinate, declared in response to a letter from Rabbi Lip-schuetz that in his view the get was completely valid, and Leah was free to remarry. That same month, Rabbi Arye Leib of Metz, author of Sha’agat Aryeh, wrote an open letter in which he stated Leah was free to remarry, despite the objections of Frankfurt.
Incredibly, despite the universal support for the Get of Cleves from every rabbinic authority besides for Frankfurt, the Frankfurt dayanim remained completely unrepentant and even began to issue public dec-
larations voiding the get. Rabbi Yaa-kov Emden sent a message to the Frankfurt rabbinate suggesting that they stand down, as they were mak-ing fools of themselves. He told them that a minority opinion must always give way in the face of an overwhelm-ing majority, and it was evident that the vast majority of rabbis supported the Get of Cleves. But the Frankfurt beit din was in no mood to listen to him, despite his seniority, nor would they heed anyone who did not concur with their view. And so, despite the avalanche of opposition to Frank-furt’s inflexibility, the campaign against the get and all its supporters continued unabated.
NEXT TIME: In the next and
final part of this article series
you will discover how the
Frankfurt beit din’s refusal
to acknowledge the majority
view resulted in them being
publicly condemned by the
most illustrious rabbis of the
era. But how did it all end?
Did Leah remarry using the
Get of Cleves, or was she
condemned to spinsterhood
and childlessness as a
result of the Frankfurt beit
din? The answers to these
questions depend on who
you ask, and in the final
part of this series you will
encounter an incredible
postscript to the Get of
Cleves saga as produced by
an apologist for the Frankfurt
rabbinate in an obscure book
published a century after the
events actually occurred.
The conclusion to this tragic
episode is, as you will learn,
even more perplexing and
disturbing than the original
story itself.
Rabbi Pini Dunner is the Rav of Young Israel North Beverly Hills in California.
Rabbi Yaakov Emden sent a message to the Frankfurt rabbinate suggesting that they stand down, as they were making fools of themselves.
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Life C ach
A Night Versus a Lifetime By Rivki D. Rosenwald Esq., CLC, SDS
Invite everyone you know; no, keep it small?
Have the beautiful view of the water; no, the bigger dance floor? Use the caterer with a flare; no, the less expensive caterer! These are some of the struggles, and yes, even arguments you go through when planning a wedding and that’s before you even get the other family involved! You and your child are slugging out the details and then you still have to deal with the other side!
So how does it all get resolved? Ah, my friends, that is the very question that families, young
couples, and the Magi themselves have been asking for centuries?.
Clearly it usually all does work out because the invitations do go out. And all the guests, or maybe only the ones who made the negotiated cutoff, are there at the wedding to celebrate.
Is it stressful? It could be! It de-pends on how it all goes down! If you are blessed, you can keep your eye on the endpoint – a couple is start-
ing their lives together. This is only one night, albeit an important one! But if the flower arrangements, the band, or the locale are more import-ant than the families having harmo-ny, oh yeah, things can get sticky or rather more appropriately, repellent.
Is there a formula to abide by to keep things healthy and balanced?
I guess prayer would be my first suggestion. Pray that you have the self-control to back off from all that you want. Use a sharp memory would be my second suggestion. Remem-ber everything you need for life you learned in kindergarten, “You get what you get and you don’t get up-set.” Remember your sports lessons, “It’s not whether you win or lose it’s how you play the game.” Remember what free choice means: we don’t control the challenges presented to us only how we respond to them. Do you see a pattern developing here?!
Most importantly, make an eye doctor’s appointment. Try to get rose colored glasses in order to see every-thing in a positive light.
Many parties have envisioned this day. Unfortunately, all different-ly!
So far there are no mediators pursuing the career of wedding ne-gotiator. That might be an idea for party planners to add to their skill-set. Kind of like a good matchmaker, they can fudge the sentiments a little to help things move forward success-fully.
Marriage is all about compro-mise. Why isn’t this as good a time
as any to start modeling it?!This is not a boxing match. The
ring used is not one where everyone climbs in together; rather it’s worn to commemorate love. The money exchanged by the attendants at the event is not for betting on the out-
come; rather it’s to support a positive one. The parties are not returning to separate corners; they are march-ing off together to the same one. The towel is not being thrown in, it’s be-ing monogrammed with both their names. And the winner is not one or the other, it’s the union!
The best way to make it all work out despite the many parties and opinions at play is to remember:
The food ordered is gone that night, in seconds, with each swallow.
The clothing worn gets discarded the next day relegated to the attic or the depths of the closet.
The band is on to another event, the very next night.
And within the week the flowers die.
But the couple and their families need to survive a lifetime togeth-er. Is whether a kneidel was served versus a crepe, a rose used versus a carnation, a bassoon played versus a violin, or the color sage worn versus burgundy worth a battle that affects
a lifetime of shared births, bar mitz-vahs, graduations, anniversaries and so much more?
This is what you need to keep in mind as you sit down to negotiate a wedding. It’s a night versus a life-time. I bet there have been times you’ve fallen asleep early and missed out on a night, not always one you wanted to miss, but at least it’s just one night. You certainly would never want to miss out on a whole lifetime!
Rivki Rosenwald is a certified rela-tionship counselor, and career and life coach. She can be contacted at 917-705-2004 or [email protected]
Most importantly, make an eye doctor’s appointment. Try to get rose colored glasses in order to see everything in a positive light.
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Notable Quotes “Say What?!”
MORE QUOTES
The New York Times analyzed the 95,000 words that Trump used in speeches last week and found patterns that aren’t common in most presidents’ speeches. Apparently Abraham Lincoln never insulted Rosie O’Donnell. - Jimmy Fallon
Last week was the 23rd anniversary of the first text message. Coincidentally, it was also the 23rd anniversary of the first rear-end collision. – Conan O’Brien
Time Magazine today revealed their Person of the Year, German Chancellor Angela Merkel. She is the first woman to be named Person of the Year on her own since Corazon Aquino. I know that because that issue of the magazine is still in my dentist’s office. – Jimmy Kimmel
Of course Donald Trump weighed in on this. He tweeted today, “I told you Time Magazine would never pick me as Person of the Year. Despite being the big favorite, they picked the person who’s ruining Germany.” Even in defeat he’s gracious. – Ibid.
People will buy into stop eating meat one or two days a week – you have to start slowly. It’s a very big challenge but it doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be done.- Former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger advocating during an interview with the BBC that people should go meat-free one or two days a week to protect the climate
In a new interview…President Obama said that his favorite book of the year was a novel called “Fates and Furies.” While Hillary Clinton said her favorite book of the year was “Whatever yours was.”- Jimmy Fallon
I first would allow the guilty bankers to pay … back anything over 100 million in personal wealth because I believe in a maximum wage of 100 million dollars and if they’re unable to live on that amount then they should go to the reeducation camps, and if that doesn’t help, then be beheaded.- Actress Roseanne Barr in an interview on RT News
Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer has a severance package that would pay her $160 million if she gets fired. Which will mark the first time somebody actually tries to get drunk at their office holiday party. – Jimmy Fallon
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MORE QUOTES
Things haven’t been going too great for Jeb Bush, but he’s not giving up. His campaign has spent the most money on TV ads: $30 million. I don’t want to say Jeb’s run too many ads, but his new Secret Service code name is “Geico.” – Jimmy Fallon
I also stand here with my fierce family of clergy and Black Lives Matter activists who took to the streets of Ferguson to stand firm until all members of the community would see G-d in the face of the other…. I stand here to light these lights that say no to the darkness of Islamophobia…and racism and anti-Semitism and all the other isms that dare to dim our hope…. And today, friends, we stand with the President of the United States and the President of Israel, who today stand together in this critical moment in history when we must do everything to ensure security for Israelis and justice for Palestinians as allies committed to a lasting peace for all people. Insh’Allah, Insh’Allah, Insh’Allah, Insh’Allah. – A portion of “Rabbi” Susan Talve’s speech before she lit the menorah at the 2015 White House Chanukah party
Yet again, Obama disrespects Jewish people, this time on Hanukkah… Does anyone remember a White House Iftar dinner calling for an end to Islamic persecution of Jews? I didn’t think so.- Radio personality Mark Levin
If elected, Mr. Trump, I can state unequivocally, will be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency.- Trump’s physician, Dr. Harold Bornstein, in a letter released by the Trump campaign regarding the candidate’s health
Despite losing games left and right my heart hurts more for those affected in the #SanBernardino shooting. - Tweet by Laker Roy Hibbert
Some good news for the White House. They just announced that Obamacare added a million new customers in its third open-enrollment season. They say more people are signing up for healthcare due to the looming deadline, low costs, and the sales of Hoverboards. – Jimmy Fallon
You are a disgrace not only to the GOP but to all America. Withdraw from the U.S. presidential race as you will never win. – Billionaire Saudi Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal echoing the sentiment of the U.S. media
We do not estimate that the current U.S. administration, any administration, will implement these racist suggestions. This is a pathetic attempt to attribute terror exclusively to Muslims.- Ismail Radwan, a Hamas leader and spokesman in Gaza, joining the PC war against Trump
[L]ast week Senate Republicans passed yet another bill to try to repeal Obamacare — a bill they knew that I would veto as soon as it landed on my desk. You may not be able to point to a lot of legislative accomplishments with this group of Republicans in Congress, but you’ve gotta give these folks credit for their chutzpah. – President Obama in a fundraising email
A California man miraculously escaped unharmed when he went through two compaction cycles in a garbage truck after sleeping in a trash can. When asked how he’s doing, he said, “Not that great. I sleep in a trash can.” – Seth Myers
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MORE QUOTES
Before delivering my modest message, I feel obliged to alert college students, progressive academics and all other deeply sensitive souls that these words may contain phrases and ideas that challenge your prejudices — in other words, I formally declare this room an “unsafe space.” - News Corp CEO Rupert Murdoch at the outset of his address accepting the Hudson Institute’s Global Leadership Award, before criticizing President Obama and John Kerry
Kim Jong Un will be sending his personal all-girl band to China next week in an effort to improve the relationship between the two countries. They’ll be playing all their hits, like “Never Let Me Go,” “Can I Stay Here Awhile,” and their newest single, “Seriously Though, I’m Begging You Please Don’t Make Me Go Back There.” – Seth Myers
With regard to strikes from a submarine. We certainly need to analyze everything that is happening on the battlefield, how the weapons work. Both the [Kalibr] missiles and the Kh-101 rockets are generally showing very good results. We now see that these are new, modern and highly effective high-precision weapons that can be equipped either with conventional or special nuclear warheads. – Russian President Vladimir Putin, at a meeting in the Kremlin, discussing the war on ISIS and the possibility of using nuclear weapons to defeat themOCTOBER 29, 2015 | The Jewish Home 21The Jewish Home | OCTOBER 29, 201520
Donald Trump got a lot of people upset when he released a statement yesterday that called for a ban on Muslims entering the United States, and even Dick Cheney said he’d gone too far. You know it’s bad when Dick Cheney steps in to say, “Come on, have a heart, any heart.” - Jimmy Fallon
Doing what I did is me saying that I am like, I don’t know, Jason Bourne. ... I had this fantastic idea that I was going to prove to the world that I was the real thing. — Suspected Army deserter Bowe Bergdahl, describing his plan in leaving his post in Afghanistan to the podcast “Serial”
And also “animals”? I mean, call them what they are, bad people. But what’s this “animal” thing that Christie’s throwing around?-MSNBC’s Chris Matthews taking umbrage with Gov. Christie referring to ISIS as “animals”
We have a president who believes that the SUV in your driveway is a bigger threat to national security than ISIS. — Sen. Ted Cruz
One of our major demands is that police be defunded and that that money used to fund police be used to fund black futures and be used to fund our communities and things that we need.- Breanna Champion, a Chicago Black Lives Matter leader, telling MSNBC what the goal of the Chicago protests are
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Political Crossfire
Why Take the Trump Stunt Seriously?
By Charles Krauthammer
So how exactly does this work, Donald Trump’s plan to keep America safe from Islamic
terrorism by barring entry to all Muslims? He explained it Tuesday on TV. The immigration official will ask the foreigner if he’s a Muslim.
“And if they said, ‘Yes,’ they would not be allowed in the country?”
Trump: “That’s correct.”Brilliant. And very economical.
That is, if you think that bloodthirsty terrorists – “people that believe only in jihad, and have no sense of reason or respect for human life,” as Trump describes them – will feel honor-bound to tell the truth to an infidel immigration officer. They kill wantonly but, like George Washing-ton, cannot tell a lie. On this logic hinges the great Maginot Line with which Trump will protect America from jihad.
I decline to join the chorus denouncing the Trump proposal as offensive and un-American. That’s too obvious. What I can’t get over is its sheer absurdity.
Here’s a suggestion (borrowed from my Fox News colleague Chris Stirewalt) to shore it up. At every immigration station at every airport in America, we will demand that ev-ery potential entrant – immigrant, refugee, student or tourist – eat a bacon sandwich. You refuse? Back home you go!
True, the Stirewalt Solution casts the net a bit wide, snaring innocent vegetarians and Orthodox Jews. But hey, as Trump said Tuesday, “We’re at war – get it through your head.”
Can’t get squeamish about collateral damage.
Dozens of others have already pointed out how strategically idiotic is Trump’s exclusion principle. Absent a renewed Christian crusade against radical Islam – with those fabulous Hollywood-wardrobe tu-nics – the war on terror will only be won in alliance with moderate Muslims. Declaring them anathema is not the best beginning to coali-tion-building.
To take but the most obvious example: Our closest and most effective allies on the ground in the Middle East are the Kurds. Trump would turn them back at the Orlando airport. No Disney World for them. Or does he not know that they are Muslim?
It is embarrassing even to embark on such arguments. To treat “no Muslims allowed” as a serious idea is to give credit to what is little more than a clever stunt by a man who saw Ted Cruz beating him for the first time in the Iowa Monmouth poll and five hours later decided it was time to seize the stage again.
This got the thinkers going again. National Review’s Andrew McCarthy, whom I (otherwise) hold in considerable esteem, spent 1,000 words trying to tart up the ban in constitutional and statutory livery, stressing – hilariously – that he is dealing with the Trump proposal “in its final form.” As if Trump’s barstool eruptions are painstakingly vetted, and as if anything Trump says about anything is ever final.
Take his Syria policy. In September, he said we should wash our hands and just let Russia fight the Islamic State. Having, I assume, been subsequently informed that Vladimir Putin’s principal interest – and target – is not the Islamic State but the anti-Assad rebels, Trump
now promises to “bomb …” out of the Islamic State.
I’m sure there’s a Trump apologist out there working to explain the brilliant complementarity of these two contradictory strategies. Just as a few months ago there was a frenzy of learned scholarship about the constitutional history of the 14th Amendment following another Trump eruption – the abolition of birthright citizenship.
Whatever the final outcome, Trump’s campaign has already succeeded, indelibly affecting both this race and the Republican future. At a time of economic malaise at home and strategic collapse abroad, Trump has managed to steer the en-tire GOP campaign into absurdities,
like mass deportation of 11 million illegal immigrants, and impossibil-ities, like the exclusion of Muslims from our shores.
“No Muslims allowed” is the per-fect example. President Obama’s Oval Office address on Sunday night marked a new low in his presidency.
The shopworn arguments, the de-tached tone, the willful denial that there might be anything wrong with his policy was deeply unsettling for left, right and center. Even The New York Times had to admit “Obama’s Plans to Stop ISIS Leave Many Democrats Wanting More,” which is Timesese for Democrats Stunned by Vacancy in the Oval Office. Here was an opportunity for the Republican field to launch an all-out takedown of the Obama (and Hillary Clinton) foreign policy.
Within less than a day that opportunity was wiped out. Once again, it’s the Donald Show.
(c) 2015, The Washington Post Writers Group
At every immigration station at every airport in America, we will demand that every potential entrant – immigrant, refugee, student or tourist – eat a bacon sandwich. You refuse? Back home you go!
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Gong Bao Chicken
Gong Bao Chicken From Dini’s Kosher Restaurant
Owner: Chabad Beijing Location: Beijing, ChinaYield: 4 servings Category: meat
At Dini’s, Beijing’s only kosher restaurant, the chefs cook authentic Chinese food along with traditional Jewish dishes and Western favor-ites that travelers expect (there’s a sushi bar too). The restaurant is named for Dini Freundlich, the lo-
cal Chabad shlucha. Local Chinese residents also enjoy eating at Dini’s because they feel that kosher food is safer to eat; the Chinese term for ko-sher is “Jie Shi,” “clean food.”
Ingredients1 lb. chicken breast, cubed3 Tbsp cornstarch2 Tbsp waterPinch coarse black pepperOil, for frying2 Chinese leeks or scallions3 Tbsp salted peanutsSauce:2 tsp soy sauce2 Tbsp sugar4 tsp vinegar2 tsp hot sauce4 tsp ketchup
PreparationPlace chicken into a small bowl.
Sprinkle with cornstarch; top with water and black pepper. Mix to coat the chicken. Let stand for 2 minutes.
Meanwhile, heat oil in a wok or sauté pan over high heat. When oil is very hot, add chicken cubes in batch-es; fry for 4-5 minutes. Remove from pan and drain on paper towels.
Drain oil from the pan. Add soy sauce, sugar, vinegar, hot sauce, and ketchup. Cook until sauce thickens slightly, 2-3 minutes. Add chicken and scallions; toss to coat. Top with peanuts.
Tidbit: Dini makes her own ver-sion of hot chili sauce to use in the restaurant. She says it’s the Asian equivalent of Israeli red schug.
Home Cook: We’ve tested this with all different types of hot sauce and they’ve all been successful. Halve the quantity if serving this dish to children –Leah
Quinoa Salad From Borochov 88
Location: Ra’anana, IsraelYield: 4 servings
Category: pareve
Before the 2013 elections, Naftali Bennett, Ra’anana resident and head of the Israeli political party
Churros Quinoa Salad
A Peek Inside Kosher Restaurants
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Bayit Yehudi, would hold meetings with fellow Knesset members at Borochov 88. They’d eat lunch there every day while planning their campaigns.
Ingredients1 cup tri-colored quinoa1 Tbsp olive oil2 cups water1 tsp salt2 Persian cucumbers, diced2 tomatoes, diced1 red onion, diced1 Tbsp chopped parsley3 Tbsp dried cranberriesDressing:2½ Tbsp lemon juice½ Tbsp sugar1 tsp salt1 garlic clove, crushed7 Tbsp olive oilTechina:1 Tbsp lemon juice1 garlic clove1 Tbsp fresh chopped parsley½ cup tahini paste½ cup water (add gradually, may not
need all)Pinch cumin1 tsp saltPinch black pepper
PreparationWash and drain quinoa. Add oil
to a saucepan over medium heat. Add quinoa; toast for 20 seconds. Add water and salt; bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low; cook for 15-20 minutes, until water is absorbed.
Transfer quinoa to a large bowl. Add cucumbers, tomatoes, red on-ion, parsley, and cranberries.
Prepare the dressing: In a small bowl, whisk together lemon juice, sugar, salt, and garlic. Drizzle in ol-ive oil while whisking. Add dressing to quinoa; stir to combine.
Prepare the techina: In a blender or food processor, combine lemon juice, garlic, and parsley. Add tahini paste and blend. Add water, a little at a time, until techina is desired con-sistency. Season with cumin, salt, and pepper.
To serve, drizzle some techina over each serving of quinoa.
Feel free to use store-bought te-
china. Home Cook: When I couldn’t
find tri-colored quinoa at my gro-cery, I used ½ cup white quinoa and ½ cup red quinoa so I could still have those different quinoa textures in my salad. -Leah
Home Cook: When I want to prep this in advance, I keep the quinoa, vegetables, dressing, and techina separate and toss them all together when I’m ready to serve. –Leah
Churros
From T Fusion
Location: Brooklyn, NYYield: 8 ChurrosCategory: pareve
After Chef Daniel Rivera’s Bour-bon BBQ Ribs were one of the most popular recipes in Secret Restaurant Recipes, we returned for another gem. These churros were the most requested recipe we were asked to include in our second edition. “What is the secret to that delicious dipping sauce?” people asked. We learned that little secret, and once again, it became clear why diners forgo Manhattan, with a restaurant of T Fusion’s caliber right in the neigh-borhood.
Ingredients2 sticks (1 cup) margarine2½ Tbsp sugar1¼ Tbsp salt2½ cups water2½ cups flour5 eggsoil, for fryingStrawberry-Ginger Coulis:1 pint strawberries, hulled½ cup sugar¼ cup water1-inch ginger, peeled
PreparationIn a saucepan, combine marga-
rine, sugar, salt, and water. Bring to a boil, allowing the margarine to melt. Add in flour all at once; mix with a wooden spoon to form a ball of dough. Remove from heat; transfer dough to bowl of an electric mixer.
With the mixer running on low speed, add eggs, one at a time, until eggs are fully incorporated.
Heat oil in a deep fryer to 350°F. Add batter to a piping bag fitted with a 1M tip. Pipe into hot oil: Us-ing a knife, cut batter at about every 4 inches, allowing strip to drop into oil. Repeat, frying in batches of 4 churros until golden, about 4 min-utes.
Prepare the strawberry-ginger coulis: Combine strawberries, sug-ar, and water in a saucepan. Bring to a boil; lower heat and simmer until strawberries are soft. Purée.
Using a microplane, zest the fresh
ginger to extract the liquid (about 1 teaspoon). Add liquid to the purée to taste. Serve alongside churros.
Home Cook: Though you don’t use the ginger solids in this recipe, don’t waste them. I like to zest the whole piece and freeze the fresh gin-ger in an empty frozen-herb cube tray. -Victoria
“I find that ginger often has dif-ferent strengths. That’s why I add ginger liquid to taste, and not a specific amount, until the coulis is perfectly balanced.” - Chef Daniel Rivera
Recipes from Everyday Secret Restau-rant Recipes by Leah Schapira and Vic-toria Dwek, reproduced with permission from the copyright holders, ArtScroll/Mesorah Publications.
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Health & F tness
Kickstart Your MetabolismBy Aliza Beer, MS, RD
We all believe that we have slow me-tabolisms and
that only two-hour runs or boot camp can speed it up. Not so. In fact, all the little decisions we make through-out the day regarding eating and moving impact our me-tabolism in a big way. Our metabolism isn’t fixed, and we can speed it up signifi-cantly with changes to our daily diet and activity. Adopt a few of the following strat-egies to get the metabolism you crave in the time that you have.
1. Exercise, Lift Weights: Weightlifting builds muscle, and the more muscle you have the more calories you burn. This cal-orie burning continues long after your last rep. In a study at Southern Illinois Universi-ty, exercisers who did just a 15 minute resistance routine burned 100 extra calories a day for 3 days afterward! Strength training causes mi-cro trauma to the muscles, and then the body has to re-build muscle. It does that by torching additional protein
and carbs. Try doing resis-tance exercises three days a week.
2. Exercise, Cardio: Lift first, do cardio second. Exercisers who pumped iron 20 minutes before cycling melted more fat than those who didn’t lift or those who waited longer between lifting and doing cardio.
3. Drink Water: Drinking 8-10 cups of water a day will rev up your me-tabolism, helping to burn more calories. German re-searchers did a study and found that when participants drank just 16 ounces of water their metabolic rate jumped a third within 10 minutes of drinking the water and re-mained high for another 30-40 minutes. The researchers estimated that, over a year, increasing your water con-sumption by 1.5 liters (about 6 cups) a day would burn an extra 17,400 calories, or about 5 pounds worth. Since much of the increased meta-bolic rate is due to the body’s efforts to heat the liquid, make sure the water you’re drinking is icy cold.
4. Spicy Foods: Some studies show that very spicy foods can temporarily in-crease your metabolism. They boost production of fat burning hormones. Incorpo-rating hot peppers or spicy mustard into your foods is an easy way to rev up your me-tabolism.
5. Grapefruit: Studies indicate that eating grape-fruit can reduce insulin lev-els. Lower insulin levels af-ter meals can help your body process food more quickly and efficiently. This means that you burn more calories and store less fat.
6. Eat Breakfast: This is the most important meal of the day as far as metabo-lism and weight loss is con-cerned. Breakfast eaters lose more weight than breakfast skippers do, according to studies. Our metabolism slows while we sleep and doesn’t rev back up until we eat again. So if you bypass breakfast, your body won’t burn as many calories as it could until lunchtime. Aim for a breakfast with plenty of high fiber carbs. When
researchers at the University of Sydney in Australia com-pared the effects of high fat and high fiber-carbohydrate breakfasts, they discovered that people who ate the fat-ty meal got hungry sooner afterward. High fiber carbo-hydrates take longer for your body to digest than fats and therefore don’t cause rapid changes in blood sugar, so the hunger is kept at bay lon-ger. Some good choices for a great breakfast are: high fiber cereal with low fat milk or almond milk; low fat cot-tage cheese with berries and high fiber crackers; egg white veggie omelet with whole grain toast.
7. Nibble All Day: Eating 5-6 mini meals rather than 3 big meals will keep up your metabolism. Try not to let more than 4 hours lapse between meals, otherwise you will overeat at the next meal.
8. Skip Alcohol: Hav-ing a drink before a meal causes people to eat around 200 calories more at that meal, several studies show. Other research has found
that the body burns off the alcohol first, meaning that the calories in the rest of the meal are more likely to be stored as fat.
9. Get a Good Night’s Sleep: Skimping on sleep can derail your metabolism. In a study at the University of Chicago, people who got four hours of sleep or less had more difficulty process-ing carbohydrates. When the body lacks energy to do its normal day-to-day func-tions, the metabolism is au-tomatically lowered.
The next time you feel like blaming your metabolism or bad genetics, try some or all of the aforementioned tips, and you will see the pounds being shed, and most impor-tantly, you will feel so much better.
Aliza Beer is a registered di-etician with a master’s degree in nutrition. She has a private practice in Cedarhurst, NY. Patients’ success has been fea-tured on the Dr. Oz show. Aliza can be reached at [email protected].
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