Baltimore Jewish Home - 1-21-21 by Moshe Rubin

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CONTENTS COMMUNITY

THE BALTIMORE JEWISH HOME

JANUARY 21, 2021

Around the Community . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6 Community Calendar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

JEWISH THOUGHT Rabbi Zvi Teichman. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 Delving into the Daf. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

PEOPLE 613 Seconds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

FEATURE Sheldon Adelson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

HUMOR & ENTERTAINMENT Centerfold. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 Notable Quotes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

LIFESTYLES My Israel Home. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 Israel Today. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 Parenting Pearls. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 The Wandering Jew. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 From Boss Time to Bath Time. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 Exposing Hezbollah’s Economy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 Dating Dialogue. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60 MythBusters of the Covid Vaccine. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64 Mental Health Corner. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66 Gluten Free Recipe Column. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68 Your Money. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70 Life Coach. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71

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NEWS Israel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 National. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 That’s Odd. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

The Baltimore Jewish Home is an independent bi-weekly newspaper. All opinions expressed by the journalists, contributors and/or advertisers printed and/or quoted herein are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinions of BALTIMORE JEWISH HOME, their

Dear Readers, In the oral history of my family there is a description of my great grandfather, R’ Uziel Chazanow, a’h, arguing with his siblings about the virtue of communism. They felt it was a liberating movement that would finally get rid of the czar and his anti-semitic decrees. He disagreed, arguing that it was a G-dless thirst for power that would end in a lot of bloodshed. He quipped: families are routinely torn apart dividing assets from an inheritance and you expect a country of strangers to divide resources evenly? Foolishness! Greed masquerading as virtue has heavy consequences. We know how it turned out. Communism resulted in more deaths than Nazi Germany. Despite this reality, when my great aunt Fanye left Russia at the end of the 80s, she was totally unaware and indeed surprised to discover that Stalin, yemach shmo, was an evil person. There was absolute control of what people saw. Which brings us to current events. Leftist activism currently rules the day in almost all universities. Students who voice opinions not in line with the mob get shamed, bullied or even physically attacked. Mainstream personalities such as Ben Shapiro were either outright denied permission to speak and if they got permission, needed a huge police presence to protect those students wishing to hear his lecture. Leftist activism caused the reality of increased Anti-Semitism to be practically ignored because it doesn’t fit with the narrative of the left caring for minorities. Indeed, just one year ago NYC had a string of attacks targeting visibly Jewish persons without stealing anything from them, and yet next to nothing was done by Mayor De Blasio. In LA, the mob - ostensibly rioting about civil rights - showed frightening expressions of Anti-Semitism, it was brushed under the rug. In this week alone, three restaurants in Portland serving Israeli cuisine were vandalized. Where’s the outrage? Leftist activism created an extreme reality of cancel culture where they can target a corporation or business and in no amount of time shame them into falling in line. This is a very dangerous reality. Leftist activism attacked relentlessly attacked Bush McCain and Romney yet pretends this is about Trump. Leftist activism created the slogan #notmypresident, made the power of impeachment a political tool and created a pressure campaign for athletes and companies to boycott routine visits to the White House. Leftist activism allows for the looting and wanton destruction of body and limb for months straight, while calling them “mostly peaceful protests,” allow-

ing groups and individuals to use their social media platforms to create spontaneous protests. On the international front leftist activism supports sending 1.7 billion in cash to the country responsible for the most deaths in the middle east in the past hundred years yet will call for the financial boycott of peaceful Israel. Leftist activism allows for personal attacks against politicians you disagree with, calling for lists and public shaming of anyone who worked in the previous administration. It looks like the mob, it smells like the mob - because it is the mob. And when the mob controls most of the media, it’s a recipe for disaster. There isn’t a single mainstream public figure who wasn’t authentically disgusted by the violence at the Capitol last week (a mere fraction of the hundreds of thousands of respectful, hardworking people who were there.) The same cannot be said when the perpetrators are Antifa or far-left activists. There’s a great idea expressed by civil rights attorney Alan Dershowitz. Don’t judge people by how they treat upstanding individuals, judge them by how they treat people who made mistakes. Their reaction tells you exactly who they are. The collusion of a few individuals in removing the Parler app from the world wide web should shock anyone wary of so much power in the hands of so few. We believing Jews have a fairly good ability to see past tyrannical leaders who claim their power grab was for the people, for public safety or for public health. Perhaps that’s the reason we were always the first target of the newest dictator on the block. Knowing all this doesn’t change the reality, and perhaps the only thing most of us can do is register our disgust by deleting the Facebook owned WhatsApp app and switching to Signal, but it does give us a starting point of at least knowing what’s going on. But I digress. World events are completely in the hands of Hashem. We are in great Hands. We will continue to increase our acts of holiness, goodness and kindness. And we have complete bitachon in Hashem that even while we are still in golus we will have light, joy and gladness. With Hashem’s help, we look forward to seeing how current events are ushering us into the time when there shall be no more greed or strife, for the world shall be filled with knowledge of the Creator. Wishing you a wonderful Shabbos, Shalom

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What do those words mean to you? It's not just about the way we eat or how many hours we sleep. Sometimes health and wellness means taking care of yourself and your family. Why does such an obvious thing come as such a novel idea?

Around the Community

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JANUARY 21, 2021

Agudath Israel of Maryland Statement Upon The Passing Of Longtime Maryland Senate President Thomas V. “Mike” Miller By: BJLife Newsroom BaltimoreJewishLife.com/Jeff Cohn

gudath Israel of Maryland joins in mourning the loss of former Senate President Mike Miller. President Miller was a man of faith and family who dedicated his life to public service and to making a difference in the lives of others during his 50 years in the Maryland General As-

sembly. First elected to the state legislature in 1971, he went on to the lead the state senate for 33 years until stepping down due to illness last year. President Miller was a staunch advocate for the education of all Maryland students. He was vital to ensuring that the state invest in the future of Maryland’s nonpublic school children, especially those with financial need. He was a friend and mentor who

would warmly welcome and engage the leaders and members of our community whenever he was presented

with the opportunity, sharing personal stories and reflections of his life and experiences. We extend our most sincere condolences to the Miller family and to the multitudes of colleagues and admirers who grieve over this loss and whose lives are impacted by his passing. May his memory serve as a blessing to all who knew him and may his legacy in Annapolis live on for years to come.

Mayor Scott Lifts City Dining Restrictions By: Staff Reporter BaltimoreJewishLife.com/Jeff Cohn

altimore Mayor Brandon Scott has announced the lifting of dining restrictions in Baltimore city. Scott announced a 50% capacity for outdoor dining and 25% capacity for indoor dining with an hour limit. “The reopening of outdoor dining

and limited indoor dining comes with the reminder that these are still locations where masking -- one of the best ways to reduce the spread of novel coronavirus -- cannot be maintained at all times,” Baltimore City Health Commissioner Dr. Letitia Dzirasa said. “I urge residents to continue to be cautious and provide up-to-date contact information to the restaurants who will now be required to have contact

sheets so that our contact tracers can quickly notify you if an outbreak oc-

curs,” she continued. Additionally, other new mandates set to take effect at 6 a.m. Friday include: Gym classes permitted -- socially distanced with masks required -- and limited to 10 people Indoor recreation sites can reopen at 25% capacity Outdoor gatherings remain at the 25-person limit and indoor gatherings remain at the 10-person limit

Maryland Governor, Leaders Get COVID-19 Vaccine By: Staff Reporter

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BaltimoreJewishLife.com/Jeff Cohn

aryland’s governor and state leaders received their COVID-19 vaccinations Monday morning.

Gov. Larry Hogan, Lt. Gov. Boyd Rutherford, their wives and Maryland Deputy Health Secretary Dr. Jinlene Chan received their continuity of government COVID-19 vaccines. “We’re all looking forward to the day when we can take off and throw

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“At 95% efficacy, these vaccines are very effective at protecting you from the virus,” Hogan said. “The likelihood of any side effects is less than 0.05%, and when they do occur, they’re just normal signs that your body is building up protection against the virus. Starting Monday, Maryland moved to Phase 1B of the COVID-19 vaccination protocols, so all Marylanders 75 and older and select others can get the vaccine. “Getting vaccinated is the only way to keep you, you family, your friends and your community healthy and safe, and it is absolutely critical to preventing more illnesses, more hospitalizations and more deaths. It’s the only way to end the damage to our economy and to bring this pandemic to an end,” Hogan said.

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JANUARY 21, 2021

Biden Taps Intelligence Veteran For New White House Cybersecurity Role Politico By NATASHA BERTRAND

resident-elect Joe Biden plans to pluck a career intelligence official from the National Security Agency to serve in a newly created cybersecurity role on his National Security Council. Anne Neuberger, who joined the NSA more than a decade ago and has been serving as the agency’s director of cybersecurity since 2019, will be named deputy national security adviser for cybersecurity in the incoming NSC, according to two people familiar with the plans. Neuberger’s hiring indicates that the Biden White House intends to reelevate cybersecurity as a key national security priority, after President Donald Trump eliminated the role of cybersecurity coordinator in 2018. Neuberger will be responsible for coordinating the federal government’s cybersecurity efforts, with a likely emphasis on responding to a massive cyberespionage campaign carried out last year by suspected Russian hackers, which the government is still struggling to unravel. Neuberger

will be well-positioned for the role — in her capacity as the NSA’s first director of cybersecurity, Neuberger was tasked with managing intelligence information sharing between the NSA and other government agencies, as well as the private sector, about threats to critical infrastructure. A transition spokesperson declined to comment on personnel but said in a statement that “the Biden-Harris Administration will make cybersecurity a top priority, elevating it as an imperative across the government from day one. We will strengthen our partnerships with the private sector, academia, and civil society; renew our commitment to international norms and engagement on cyber issues; and expand our investment in the infrastructure and people we need to effectively defend the nation against malicious cyber activity.” Biden has spoken out forcefully about the cyber breach and faulted the Pentagon for not sufficiently briefing the transition team on the fallout last month. “Cyberattacks must be treated as a serious threat by our leadership at the highest level,” Biden said. “That means making clear and [public] who’s responsible for the attack and

taking meaningful steps to hold them to account.” Trump has refused to blame Russia for the hack, and said in a tweet last month that China could be responsible. But his own intelligence community has publicly pointed the finger at Russia. A spokesperson for the NSA declined to comment. Neuberger is widely respected throughout the cybersecurity and intelligence community, and is well-known among the congressional intelligence committees who have worked with her during her tenure at NSA. One congressional staffer said Neuberger had “proven herself to be one of the most capable and respected cyber experts across government throughout her decade-plus of experience at NSA.”

The staffer described her hiring as “a big loss” for the NSA but emphasized that her experience is “needed now more than ever at the highest levels of government, especially in light of recent events and the shifting cyber threat landscape. It’s also such a welcome development to see a woman leading in such a critical national security issue, especially given the dearth of women in senior national security roles.” Legal expert Ben Wittes, who has collaborated with Neuberger on legal and intelligence topics in the past, called her “unusually talented” and said her appointment sends a “very positive message” about the incoming administration’s approach to cybersecurity. Eli Sugarman, the director of the Cyber Initiative at the Hewlett Foundation, was similarly complimentary, saying Neuberger “brings a unique blend of policy acumen, operational experience, and deep relationships across government, industry and the policy community to this critical role. I can’t think of someone better equipped to protect U.S. national security while also balancing civil liberties and other vital equities.”

The President and Board of Trustees join the entire Touro College and University System in congratulating our distinguished alumna

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ANNE NEUBERGER Touro’s Lander College of Arts and Sciences (Flatbush), Class of 1997 Member, Advisory Board, Touro’s Lander College for Women-The Anna Ruth and Mark Hasten School on her historic appointment to the National Security Council of the United States in the newly created position of Deputy National Security Advisor for Cybersecurity.

A career intelligence official, she exemplifies leadership and professionalism coupled with steadfast commitment to Jewish values. May she continue to create a Kiddush Hashem as she serves our country at the highest level. DR. ALAN KADISH PRESIDENT

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Baltimore County Vaccinates Most People In MD

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By: Staff Reporter BaltimoreJewishLife.com/Jeff Cohn

oronavirus vaccination in Baltimore County has surged past other jurisdictions, according to the county executive. Nearly four weeks after Baltimore County received its first doses of the coronavirus vaccine, officials said the health department administered nearly 11,000 doses. “As of today, more people in Baltimore County have been vaccinated than in any other jurisdiction in Maryland,” County Executive Johnny Olszewski Jr. said in a statement. “Baltimore County is set to vaccinate another 8,000 residents this week.” Additional resources will be sent from the Maryland National Guard to assist, he reported. “As we ramp up to vaccinate even more residents, we are set to receive additional support from the Mary-

land National Guard,” Olszewski said Tuesday, noting nine guard members will provide more clinical and logistical support to the county. The vaccine is being rolled out in phases outlined by the state of Maryland. Hospitals and nursing homes have vaccinated their own workers and residents. Starting Monday, Maryland entered phase 1B of its vaccine distribution program, which enables those at least 75 years old; people involved in education and continuity or government; and assisted living and other congregate setting residents to be vaccinated. More than 72,000 have said they were interested in the four days since, and over half are at least 65 years old, according to county officials. The registry does not guarantee an appointment but instead puts people in the queue to get contacted by the health department.

receive them,” Olszewski said. “Our neighbors are still getting sick,” he said, encouraging people to continue wearing masks, keeping social distance and washing their hands. “Personal decisions we make now matter more than ever before,” Olszewski said. “Together we will get vaccinated, together we will crush this virus.”

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What is your position at WITS? My official title is Director of Marketing and Development. My primary roles are marketing, alumnae engagement and fundraising. However, there are endless opportunities for creativity, and I love coming up with

What are some other plans you have for WITS? One of my next projects is launching a Career Mentorship Program. The goal of the program is to pair students and alumnae in the same fields. This will give students the opportunity to gain an insider perspective on navigating their chosen career/industry and open new networking oppor-

Anything else you would like to share? I am constantly amazed by the Baltimore community. The schools here are all of the highest caliber and there are resources for every need.

However, what moves me the most is seeing so many incredible women in leadership roles: starting and running organizations, serving on boards, taking achrayus for others in whatever way they can. I’ve never seen anything like it! I was fortunate to spend some time with our President and one of the original founders, Rebbetzin Dr. Aviva Weisbord, Aleha Hashalom. Rebbeztin Dr. Weisbord showed us all what it meant to blend aishes chayal, modesty and achruayus into one woman. My only hope is that she is looking down from shamayim, watching all the women in Baltimore, promising to carry on her legacy and values, and that we make her proud.

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Tell us a little bit about yourself? My husband Shmuel and I moved to Baltimore with our 5 children in 2019. Prior to Baltimore, we were the Rav and Rebbetzin of a shul in Seattle, WA called “Ashreichem Yisrael”. I was very involved with the women in our community; running programs, teaching classes, and really enjoyed being part of a strong circle of growth-oriented women. I also ran a web/graphic design business for 10 years and ironically enough, many of my clients were from Baltimore.

What are some things you are working on for WITS? On Feb 3rd and 4th we will Be’ezras Hashem be running an online fundraising campaign in order to develop state-of-the-art science and computer labs, as well as upgrade our technology throughout the school. To date, our students have had to travel off-site, to local college campuses, for their science lab coursework. Providing an environment in line with Torah values is at the root of our seminary and college. With our regularly increasing enrollment and the great demand for women trained in STEAM fields (Science, Technology, Engineering, Graphic Arts, Mathematics), this campaign is a priority.

tunities. Another initiative we are working on is building our Alumnae Association. We just launched a WITS/Maalot Alumnae Podcast, featuring shiurim from our Rabbonim and Mechanchos. Other ideas are to develop a job database, hold class reunions, and offer continuing education courses. There is so much we can do and the alumnae are eager to get involved.

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Abbas Announces New PA Elections

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas ordered the PA to prepare for its first election since 2006. Abbas issued a presidential decree on Friday ordering elections for the PA’s three branches of government to be held in three stages. The initial round will see Palestinians elect members to the Palestinian Legislative Council and will take place on May 22. A presidential vote will then be held on July 31, while Palestinians will return to the ballot box on August 31 to choose delegates for the PA’s National Council. All Arab residents of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza will be eligible to participate in the election. “The president instructed the election committee and all state apparatuses of the state to launch a democratic election process in all cities of the homeland,” read the decree, adding that Abbas expected full participation from Arabs “in all governorates of Palestine, including East Jerusalem.” With the majority of Jerusalem’s Arab residents holding Israeli citizenship, Israel has traditionally blocked them from voting in Palestinian parliamentary and presidential contests. However, authorities allowed voting to take place in 1996 and 2006 following pressure from the U.S. The elections would be the first since Hamas won a surprise victory in 2006 that deepened the rift between the Islamist political movement and the secular Fatah. Hamas’ shocking win led relations between the two political movements to fall apart, even-

tually deteriorating into an all-out civil war that saw the fundamentalist group take over Gaza. Hamas has ruled Gaza ever since, splitting the Palestinian Authority into two competing branches and complicating Israel’s attempts to reach a political settlement. Abbas has refrained from holding new elections to prevent a repeat of Fatah’s humiliating defeat 15 years ago. Hamas hailed the recent announcement, deeming new elections an opportunity to widen its electoral gains from 2006 and take over the Palestinian Authority completely. “We have worked in the past months to resolve all obstacles so that we can reach this day,” the terror group said in a statement. Hamas also called for fair and open elections in which “voters can express their will without restrictions or pressures.” It added, “It is necessary to expedite the holding of a comprehensive national dialogue in which all Palestinian factions participate without exception.” The contest between the two domestic rivals is expected to be tight, with a poll in December by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research giving Fatah as 4% lead over Hamas.

Sa’ar Hires Lincoln Project

Gideon Sa’ar has hired the anti-Trump Lincoln Project to assist him in his effort to oust Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from power. Sa’ar is a veteran Likudnik who split from his longtime political home in December to found his New Hope party. The former Education and Interior Minister has vowed to end Netanyahu’s lengthy reign at the helm of the Jewish state and has described the prime minister as “the biggest threat to Israel’s future.” On Sunday, a Channel 12 report said that Sa’ar recruited Lincoln Project founders Steve Schmidt, Rick

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The Week In News Wilson, Stuart Stevens, and Reed Galen to build his campaign’s messaging strategy. Sa’ar is said to have been impressed by the former GOPs’ work opposing Donald Trump and seeks to replicate it amongst right wingers turned off by Netanyahu. The ex-Republicans will visit Israel when it becomes legally possible and are slated to spend at least two weeks working from Sa’ar’s Tel Aviv headquarters. A New Hope spokesperson confirmed the report but refused to provide any additional details. The Lincoln Project was launched in 2019 by longtime Republican strategists who opposed Trump’s hold on the GOP. The founders included the party’s most renowned spin doctors, including former Steve Schmidt, who managed John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign, and the husband of senior Trump advisor Kellyanne Conway. Contending that the GOP strayed from its longtime conservative principles, the Lincoln Project vowed to install Joe Biden in the White

House and released a slew of biting ads mocking Trump. Yet the Lincoln Project failed in persuading Republicans to switch sides, with Trump’s vote sharing increasing by 3% in 2020 from 2016. The Lincoln Project has since enjoyed enormous popularity amongst Democrats, leading it to launch a full-fledged media group after the election. Since leaving the Likud in December, Sa’ar has repeatedly accused Netanyahu of betraying his rightwing principles in order to cement his hold on power. Upon announcing his departure from the Likud, Sa’ar alleged that the premier created a “cult of personality,” echoing longtime claims made by anti-Trump Republicans.

Israel Approves 800 Settlement Homes Israel approved construction plans

for 800 homes in Judea and Samaria, only three days before President Joe Biden was sworn into office. The Civil Administration’s Higher Planning Committee said in a statement that hopes for construction are scattered across various locales. Some of the housing units have yet to be built, while others were constructed illegally and received retroactive approval.

Included in the approvals were 107 homes in Tal Menashe, the hometown of 52-year-old Esther Horgan who was bludgeoned to death by a Palestinian terrorist in late December while jogging. An additional 150 were earmarked for Havat Yair, a rural farm near Petah Tikva, while 123 units were green lighted in Itamar, 152 in

Shavei Shomron, 66 units in Oranit, and 24 in Karnei Shomron. The move was hailed by settler leaders and right-wing politicians, who deemed the retroactive approvals long overdue. Samaria Regional Council head Yossi Dagan pointed out that many of the homes were built decades ago but remained without electricity and running water until Sunday’s “historic achievement.’ Despite the excitement by many Israelis over the development, the approvals were condemned by left-wing movements and the international community as something that would attribute to making it more difficult to establish a Palestinian state in the future. “By promoting hundreds of settlement units, Prime Minister Netanyahu is once again putting his personal political interests over those of the country,” said the Peace Now NGO. “Not only will this settlement activity erode the possibility for a conflict-ending resolution with the Palestinians in the long-term, but in the short-term, it needlessly sets Israel on a collision course with the incoming

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Biden administration.” The European Union said in a statement that all Jewish construction in Judea and Samaria is “contrary to international law and further undermines the prospects of a viable twostate solution.”

East Jerusalem Arabs to Vote? The Palestinian Authority (PA) has requested that Israel permit East Jerusalem’s 500,000 Arab residents to vote in this summer’s elections. PA Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh said on Monday that he passed the request to the Israeli government via the appropriate channels. “We will officially ask Israel to allow our people in Jerusalem to formally participate in the elections, whether as voters or as candidates,” Shtayyeh tweeted.

The request came after President Mahmoud Abbas announced that the PA would hold its first elections since 2006 for all three branches of government. According to a presidential decree issued by the aging Palestinian leader, the elections would occur on three different dates in May, July, and August. Despite Abbas’ order last Friday, many Palestinian experts doubt that elections will eventually occur. Predicting that it would likely result in the Hamas terror group taking over the PA, they said that the ostensible return to the ballot box is a means for Abbas to ingratiate himself with the Biden administration. “Right now, there is an announcement of an election with a date, but there are no elections yet. It is currently under negotiation between Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas, because they have not reached agreements on a number of other issues and this is a good presentation for

Biden,” said defense expert Ehud Ya’ari on Monday. Israel has traditionally prevented East Jerusalem’s Arabs from participating in PA elections, viewing them as Israeli citizens and not Palestinian subjects. An estimated half of those living in East Jerusalem hold Israeli citizenship while the rest are defined as residents who are entitled to apply for citizenship at their discretion. In the previous two PA elections in 2005 and 2006, Israel originally banned East Jerusalem residents from voting only to reverse the decision after international pressure. Allowing the capital’s Arab residents to participate is often cited as a key reason for Hamas’ shock victory, as the terror group enjoys widespread popularity in Jerusalem.

The Gift of Sight

Jamal Furani is now able to see. The 78-year-old blind man from Haifa regained his sight after he was implanted with an artificial cornea developed by CorNeat Vision, the biomimetic implant firm said. It is the first such successful implant. The artificial cornea, which fits into the eye wall, was implanted earlier this month by Prof. Irit Bahar, director of the Ophthalmology Department at Rabin Medical Center in Israel. Upon removal of his bandages, Furani was able to read text and recognize family members. Furnai, who suffered from edema and other diseases, had a damaged cornea, causing a decade of vision loss and defining him as legally blind. CorNeat’s product, made out of 100% synthetic, non-degradable porous material, replaces scarred or deformed corneas and requires no donor tissue. It uses cell technology and nanoscale chemical engineering to mimic the existing cell environment. When implanted, the material integrates with the live tissue and stimulates cellular proliferation, leading to even more integration. Because of

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The Week In News this, the implant thus does not trigger an adverse immune system response. Corneal diseases account for the second leading cause of blindness in most developing world countries. The World Health Organization estimates that some 2 million patients a year suffer from corneal blindness. “Unveiling this first implanted eye and being in that room, in that moment, was surreal,” said Dr. Gilad Litvin, CorNeat Vision’s co-founder, chief medical officer, and the inventor of the CorNeat KPro. “After years of hard work, seeing a colleague implant the CorNeat KPro with ease and witnessing a fellow human being regain his sight the following day was electrifying and emotionally moving, there were a lot of tears in the room. This is an extremely important milestone for CorNeat Vision.” The implantation process is fairly simple and takes less than an hour.

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Antibody Increase After receiving a second dose of the Pfizer vaccine, there is a six- to 12-fold increase in the amount of antibodies produced to defend against coronavirus, according to studies by Sheba Medical Center in Tel Hashomer. Those who received the vaccine had more antibodies than people who were severely infected with the virus and recovered. “The results of the survey are in line with Pfizer’s experiment and even better than expected,” Prof. Gili Regev-Yochay, director of Sheba’s Infectious Disease Epidemiology Unit, said this week. “I expect that the survey results of the other employees participating will be similar. There is certainly reason for optimism.” Interestingly, two people in the study did not develop antibodies, including one who is immunocompromised, Regev-Yochay said. At last count, 7,106 Sheba employees have been vaccinated with the first dose, or approximately 80% of all staff. Of those, 4,484 received their second dose as of Monday. Although the study only involved 102 cases, others were being evaluated, Regev-Yochay said. The study is specifically looking at immunoglobulin G (IgG) antibod-

ies, which determine whether a patient has developed immunity. The study does not indicate how long the immunity will last or if a person who has antibodies can still carry the virus and infect others. However, she said it appeared to her that people who have been vaccinated will not shed the virus, meaning they will not pass it on to others.

A New Twitter Acct

Twitter in a statement. A spokesperson added that “the company goal was to support the archiving and transition of accounts across administrations.” Twitter’s decision frustrated Biden’s transition team, which first pressured the social media giant to reverse the policy shift before going public with its concerns. “They are advantaging President Trump’s first days of the administration over ours,” said Rob Flaherty, directs Biden’s digital team. “If we don’t end the day with the 12 million followers that Donald Trump inherited from Barack Obama, then they have given us less than they gave Donald Trump, and that is a failure.”

WhatsApp Halts Privacy Change

Popular messaging app WhatsApp walked back proposed changes to its privacy policies amid mounting criticism from users. Joe Biden will be forced to use a The company announced that it Twitter account with zero followers would halt plans to share user data on his first day in office after the so- with parent company Facebook, decial media giant refused to gift him laying the change from February 8 to President Donald Trump’s 88 million May 15. followers. “We’ve heard from so many peoBiden launched a new account un- ple how much confusion there is der the @PresElectBiden handle on around our recent update,” WhatsApp Saturday. The account becomes the said. “This update does not expand official @POTUS (President of the our ability to share data with FaceUnited States) after he is sworn in on book,” WhatsApp added, highlightWednesday, January 20 to become the ing that users would be allowed to 46th President of the United States. “gradually review the policy at their The president-elect gained 400,000 own pace before new business opnew followers within 12 hours to tions are available on May 15.” add to the 24 million followers on WhatsApp also stressed that it Biden’s personal Twitter account. does not share sensitive customer inHis transition team also launched @ formation across its other platforms. FLOTUSBiden for Jill Biden and @ “We can’t see your private mesSecondGentleman for Doug Emhoff, sages or hear your calls, and neither husband of Vice President Kamala can Facebook,” the service said. “We Harris. don’t keep logs of who everyone is Biden was forced to start from messaging or calling. We can’t see scratch after Twitter refused to award your shared location and neither can him Trump’s followers in what Facebook.” marked a shift from past instances. Since being purchased by FaceWhile Trump had inherited Obama’s book, WhatsApp has provided its 13 million followers after entering the parent company with reams of data, White House in 2017, the social me- including a history of customers’ fidia giant informed the Biden team in nancial transactions and information December that it would not continue about their handset. But last week, this policy. WhatsApp began sending its users “These institutional accounts will notices that it would begin sharing not automatically retain the followers their data and gave them until Februfrom the prior administration,” said ary 8 to approve the changes.

The notices resulted in the company’s 2 billion users to mistakenly assume that the data sharing policy was new, leading to privacy fears and a consumer backlash. Competing app Signal was downloaded 8.8 million times within five days of the announcement, up 246,000% from before WhatsApp’s announcement. Telegram, a messaging app launched by Russian developers, said that downloads jumped by 5 million over the past week alone, hitting half a billion users for the first time in its history.

Accolades for Abraham Accords Team The members of the Trump administration responsible for brokering the recent wave of peace agreements between Israel and four Arab countries were recently honored for their formidable efforts. Known collectively as the Abraham Accords in homage to the biblical ancestor shared by Jews and Muslims, the agreement saw Israel establish full diplomatic ties with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan, and Morocco. The breakthrough was overseen by a small coterie of Trump administration officials, including Jared Kushner, Avi Berkowitz, assistant to the president and Special Representative for International Negotiations, and communications chief Dan Scavino.

Last week, the Pentagon honored the aforementioned group for the geopolitical triumph, presenting them the Department of Defense medal for distinguished service. The Defense Department’s highest civilian honor was presented in White House ceremony attended by President Donald Trump. “Humbled and greatly honored to receive the department of defense medal for distinguished public ser-

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The Week In News vice. Serving our country is a great source of pride to me,” wrote Scanino on his Facebook account. On Friday, Kushner and Berkowitz were honored by Morocco in an Oval Office ceremony celebrating their role in orchestrating last month’s normalization agreement with Israel. The two were awarded the Grand Cordon du Wissam Al Alaoui medal by Ambassador Princess Lala Jourmala on behalf of Morocco’s King Mohammed VI. President Trump was given the Order of Muhammad, the Kingdom’s highest honor, along with a personal letter from the Monarch. “It’s been a tremendous honor to serve the country and work on the Abraham Accords with Jared Kushner and the team,” said Berkowitz. The awards are a rare honor for the Trump administration for its role in overseeing the Abraham Accords. Despite engineering what many call the Middle East’s greatest diplomatic shift over the past century, Trump and his associates have largely failed to reap international acclaim.

Del Monte Mistake

A sticker from a bunch of bananas is making a twenty-dollar bill blow up in value. The banknote has a Del Monte sticker attached to it. The security numbers of the bill and the U.S. Department of the Treasury seal are printed on top of the sticker in a slipup that is officially called “an obstructed printing error with retained obstruction.” Now, the banana banknote is worth around $57,500. “Most obstructions fall off shortly after printing, leaving behind a blank

area of paper lacking the design, but errors with objects that ‘stick’ to the note and enter circulation are very rare,” notes the website for a Texas dealer putting the note up for auction. “When this note was printed at the Fort Worth western currency facility, it went through the first and second printings normally before the Del Monte sticker found its way on to the surface,” the seller continued, describing the misprint as “one of the greatest paper money errors in history.” The bill was from the U.S. Treasury’s 1996 design series and was released into circulation in 2004. It was sold at auction in 2006 for more than $25,000. Two years earlier, though, the note was sold on eBay by a student who received it as part of an ATM withdrawal. The student sold the bill then for a mere $10,000. All U.S. banknotes produced since 1968 go through three print stages. The colorful banana sticker, bearing the words “Ecuador Del Monte Quality” and the number #4011, would have been added after the first two stages, printing the front and back

of the note, but before the final print that added the security logo and individual identification detail. Because of this, Heritage said, “most would conjecture that this error note was no accident and probably the result of some very bored or creative BEP employee.” Notaphilists – people who collect paper money – prize misprinted banknotes. Sounds like they’ll go bananas over this one.

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70,000 recordings of screaming since the project launched. “Never in my life would I have expected so many people to actually pick up the phone, dial a number, and record themselves for the world to hear,” he said. “But we’re all screaming on the inside right now, so I guess I should have figured.” Need to scream at something – anything?! Better pick up the phone stat. The hotline will stop accepting calls on January 21. After that, Gollmar said he will pick a new project to work on. “I’ve always intended it to be a limited-term project -- a reflection of this point in time when, in addition to all the stress of the pandemic, we’re also experiencing political turmoil in the United States,” he said. “I’ve started thinking about it like a time capsule, in a way.” Aaaaahhh!

The Scream Machine

A copy of the world’s most expensive painting is now in safe hands. “Salvator Mundi” by Leonardo da Vinci was recovered by Italian police after it was stolen from a museum in Naples. The 16th century copy – which was likely painted by one of da Vinci’s students – was found in an apartment during a search by police in Naples. Although it is not known who created this particular “Salvator Mundi,” it is thought to have been painted towards the end of the 1510s by someone from the artist’s workshop. Numerous copies of the portrait were made during da Vinci’s lifetime by his students and assistants. The Museum of San Domenico Maggiore owns this painting. The museum asserts that, although it’s not clear who painted this copy, the “most convincing” theory of its artist is that it was created by da Vinci’s student Girolamo Alibrandi in Rome. The original “Salvator Mundi” made history in 2017 when it sold for $450.3 million at Christie’s in New York. Once dismissed as a copy, it sold in the UK for just £45 ($61) in the 1950s. It is widely thought that the record-breaking bid was made on behalf of Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman.

Feeling a bit frustrated? Need to let out some of your emotions? Introduction Just Scream! The hotline was created by elementary school teacher Chris Gollmar, who wanted to reduce tension for those needing to let off a bit of steam. People can call the hotline and scream for as long as they want before hanging up a bit more relaxed. “I wanted to find a prompt that people would respond to and screaming seemed to be a good fit!” Gollmar told CNN. He came up with the idea in September 2020 (hello, start of the school year!) and launched it right before Election Day. Gollmar has been involved with other “hotline” projects before. He has worked on participatory art projects that invite people to call a phone number and leave a voicemail for others to hear. This time, he said, he “thought it would be funny and unique to create a phone line just for screaming.” Where do all those screams go? The calls are recorded and then put on the website that Gollmar created for this purpose. So far, Gollmar has received

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Torah Thought

Let’s Remain Good Friends By Rabbi Zvi Teichman

In one house shall it be eaten... The Torah requires the eating of the Korban Pesach, the paschal sacrifice, to be consumed in one place. Reb Meir Simcha of Dvinsk and the Alexander Rebbe both see in this requirement a precursor of the goal that was accomplished at Mount Sinai where the nation camped, ‫כאיש אחד‬ ‫בלב אחד‬, like one man, with one heart. )‫ שבועות‬- ‫ ישמח ישראל‬,‫(משך חכמה יב כא‬ During the many difficult years of slavery, the moral fiber of this remarkable nation was put to test. When Moshe discovered that two amongst his own people, Dasan and Aviram, informed on him after slaying the Egyptian taskmaster, he bemoaned the deteriorated morals of the people that perhaps were deserving of their miserable fate. Although the Midrash states clearly that many among the nation refrained from betraying one another, nevertheless Moshe sensed that the rat race they were forced to live in - forcing them to vie to simply survive amidst the beatings, deprivation, and abuse - fostered a selfishness that eroded their otherwise inherent goodness. After finally being redeemed from their crushing slavery, they were in need to rehabilitate toward sensing a greater unity, through respecting, and having genuine concern for one another. To engender that camaraderie the Torah instructed them to bring together, family, neighbor, and friends, forming a ‫חבורה‬, literally a ‘coming together’, in celebrating this great moment and its ritual of eating the sacrifice, as one. The Talmud records two diverging opinions as to what extent is one restricted from ‘leaving the group’. The verse states ‘in one house ‫’יֵאָ כֵל‬.

The way tradition instructs us to ‘read’ it, it translates as: it shall be eaten. The way it appears, however, in its written form, absent of vowels, implies ‫י ֹאכֵל‬, meaning he shall eat. There is a debate as to which version defines the halachic implications of the verse. Rabbi Yehuda follows the ‫מסורה‬, the masoretic (pure transmitted) text. Rabbi Shimon follows the ‫מקרא‬, the read version. According to Rabbi Yehuda the verse is addressing the person eating the sacrifice, directing him to make sure he eats it in the ‘group’ he aligned with, remaining with them the entire time, and prohibited from joining anyone else. According to Rabbi Shimon the subject in the verse is the Korban, with the Torah instructing that ‘it’, i.e., the lamb, must be completely consumed by one group, within one house. The animal cannot be split between two divergent groups. Rabbi Yehuda requires the individual to remain with the group he is associated, but the animal may be divided by two separate groups. Rabbi Shimon would maintain that what is primary is the entire animal being consumed within one house, but an individual from within that group may opt to leave his group and eat it elsewhere. ‫(פסחים פו שיטת רש"י עפ"י‬ )‫המהרש"א‬ Rabbi Yehuda’s structure of the verse would seem to emphasize the validity of different groups among society, with the intimation that one must however be loyal to the group he identifies with. The Holy Bnei Yissoscher, in his treatise on the mitzvos, Derech Pikudecha, asserts just that. One must follow the group and its leaders his soul identifies with but

maintaining respect for others who may have a different approach. ‫(דרך‬ )‫פקודיך מצות לא תעשה טו‬ Perhaps then we can suggest that Rabbi Shimon alternately, understands the verse to be teaching us a subtlety within that notion. Although a group and its adherents must support its beliefs, with a single-mindedness, it must never suffocate and stifle those among them that at times find the need to nourish their souls from other perspectives. (Based on an essay in ‫ספר‬ ‫איים בים‬, Rav Aharon Yosef Rosen) This is not only true about theological issues, but equally so in interpersonal relationships. Loyalty and commitment are certainly vital ingredients to fostering healthy and meaningful relationships and friendship. Oftentimes, though, we question the authenticity of that connection when the other party acts in a manner that seems at odds with one’s allegiance. A true friendship allows and encourages each partner to act according to one’s needs and understanding, without having to fear the friend will doubt his intentions. So, both formulas are critical in restoring bonds between people. Certainly, friendship requires of us to be there consistently for the other. At the same time there must be legroom in the relationship to be accepting of a friend’s choices even when they may seem at odds with our perception. That is what trust is all about. My dear friend, Reb Nechemia Feldman shared with me a charming, but powerful, anecdote that brings this point home. His late father, the beloved Reb Dovid Feldman, an authentic Galitzianer Yid with all the warmth, charm, wit, and wisdom associated with that title, davened regularly and famously at the legendary Rabbi Taub’s Shul. Although he lived nearby, as he aged it became increasingly difficult for him to make the trek, especially

since it necessitated his crossing over a main thoroughfare, Park Heights Ave. His dear wife worried about the danger and begged him to stay safely on their side of the street and daven at the Shul that shared the same side of the avenue, Cong. Bnai Jacob. Reb Dovid knew that his longtime friend, Rav Amram Taub, would try to sway him from his decision, and it would be an exercise in futility trying to convince him of his reasoning. He certainly couldn’t just disappear from his cherished Shul and would have to tell Rabbi Taub the ‘bad’ news. Reb Dovid tentatively approached Rabbi Taub and conveyed his decision. Rabbi Taub was obviously taken aback at his long time mispallel and dearest friend’s decision and immediately began to badger him about it. Reb Dovid not wanting to get into a debate, looked Rabbi Taub deeply and warmly in the eyes and said the following words. “Reb Amram, isn’t it true that we are wonderful and longstanding friends?” Rabbi Taub concurred instantly, nodding emphatically in the affirmative. Reb Dovid then added, “Oib azoi, lummir bleiben gitter chavierim!”/ “If so, let’s keep it that way and remain good friends forever!” No more words or further explanations were necessary. So often treasured relationships go quickly south because of dashed expectations of behavior we anticipate from our friends, who have let ‘us’ down. Sometimes it is justified to clarify and inquire to understand their actions. But most often, if we are true friends, we can look the other way with confidence in the friendship and giving the other the benefit of the doubt. Let us always aspire ‘tzu bleiben gutten chaverim’, to remain good friends. It is so much easier. It is so right.

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Delving into the Daf

Korban Pesach Conundrums By Rabbi Avrohom Sebrow

here is a well-known line we recite in the beginning of the Haggadah in the paragraph of Ha Lachma Anya. “Anyone who wants, may come and eat; anyone who wants, may come and join in the Pesach.” Seemingly, this line is a throwback from when we had the Korban Pesach. In the times of the Beis Hamikdosh, we used to invite any interested parties to partake of the Korban Pesach. Nowadays, when we sadly no longer have the Korban Pesach, we still say the same text. However, this theory could not possibly be true. To partake of the Korban Pesach, you must have been one of its subscribers before it was slaughtered (Pesachim 61a). It is too late on Pesach night to decide that you want to partake of a particular Korban Pesach. The Korban Pesach was already sacrificed on Erev Pesach. Indeed, this actually explains a rather peculiar custom that developed in certain communities. The custom was not to have guests for any meal the first two days of Pesach. Furthermore, they altered the text of the aforementioned line to read, “Whoever wants can come but may not eat anything.” This actually could be a throwback from when we had the Korban Pesach. You couldn’t invite last minute guests to partake of the Korban Pesach. Therefore, even if someone came and visited, they could observe but not eat. The Bnei Yissaschar, however, explains the meaning of the text as it is recited by most of world Jewry. Indeed, he explains the flow of the first two sentences. We recite, “This is the poor man’s bread that our fathers ate in Egypt. Anyone who wants, may come and eat; anyone who wants, may come and join in the Pesach.”

The Bnei Yissaschar explains that we eat matzah before and after the meal at the seder. The matzah before the meal is to fulfill our biblical mitzvah of eating matzah. However, the matzah after the meal is eaten as a remembrance of the Korban Pesach. The Korban Pesach was not eaten when one was starving, but after some food was eaten. Therefore, we eat the afikomen as a remembrance of the Korban Pesach that was also not eaten on an empty stomach. (Contrary to popular belief, one should still be somewhat hungry when he eats the afikomen. If one eats the afikomen on a full stomach, he has not fulfilled the mitzvah in the choicest manner. Understandably, this fine point in halacha is hard to fulfill.) This then, suggests the Bnei Yissaschar, is the connection between the two statements. “We are eating poor man’s bread to fulfill the mitzvah of matzah of which anyone may come and join. We will also use the same matzah at the end of the meal to remember the Korban Pesach.” Im-

plied in that statement is that since we do not have an actual Korban Pesach, anyone can even join in the seder at this late point.

Whole Wheat or White Flour? One can offer a totally different interpretation of the first part of Ha Lachma Anya. Many hand matzah bakeries give the customer a choice of 100% whole wheat matzah and regular matzah. Regular matzah does have some bran, but not as much as the whole wheat version. Which matzah is preferable? It is clear that either option is acceptable to fulfill the mitzvah. The Nechamas Yosef suggests that perhaps the choice depends on what the matzah symbolizes. If it symbolizes the cheap bread that we ate as slaves, then certainly it should be minimally processed whole wheat. The Egyptians didn’t spend the time to sift the flour to make a better product. However, if the matzah symbolizes what we ate when we left Egypt, it should be made with the finest flour.

Before they left Egypt, the Jews were not in a rush when they prepared fine flour and dough. They had to leave in a hurry and did not have time for the dough to rise. However, there is no reason to assume they didn’t take the time to prepare fine well sifted flour before they made the dough. Therefore, to achieve this symbolism, we should use matzah made from fine, well-sifted white flour. This leads one as to a quandary as to which symbolism to choose: Slave food of whole wheat flour or “freedom matzah” made of fine flour. Whatever one chooses is fine. We recite, “This is the poor man’s bread that our fathers ate in Egypt.” Therefore, choosing whole wheat is fine. “Anyone who wants, may come and eat.” Since one serves his guest the best food, serving matzah made with finely sifted flour is also acceptable. What if one has no guests? “Anyone who wants to partake of the Pesach may do so.” This alludes to the other reason for eating matzah. After Hashem skipped over the Jewish houses, the Bnei Yisrael left Mitzrayim. Anyone who wants to symbolize the matzah that was eaten at that junction may do so. This permits finely sifted flour. As noted above, the Shulchan Aruch rules that one may fulfill the miztvah of matzah in the preferred manner with matzah that is either made with whole wheat flour or with finely sifted white flour.

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

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The Jewish Home | OCTOBER 29, 2015

The Israel-Philippines Connection By Gedaliah Borvick

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President Quezon with the Frieder brothers in 1940

Several Jewish refugees with Mr. and Mrs. Frieder in the Philippines, 1940

This article is dedicated in honor of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, which falls every year on January 27 – the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.

Jewish nation, which harkens back to pre-World War II. The Philippine Commonwealth was one of the very few governments – and the only nation in Asia – that came to the rescue of the beleaguered Jews in World War II. In 1939, the Philippine government attempted to issue over 10,000 visas to the Jews and set up Jewish refugee settlements in the country. However, due to resistance from the U.S. State Department and the fact that the war broke out a few months later, only 1,300 Jewish refugees were able to avail themselves of these precious visas. This act of kindness came about over a friendly game of poker. The Frieder brothers owned a cigar business in Cincinnati, Ohio, and set up a manufacturing plant in Manila. Well-connected, they would often play poker and enjoy cigars with President Manuel Quezon, U.S. high commissioner to the Philippines Paul McNutt, and American Colonel Dwight Eisenhower, who was Quezon’s military

aifa is a beautiful city located in northern Israel which offers its residents a rich quality of life. The country’s third largest city, Haifa is on the comeback trail after having fallen into a sixty-year decline following Israel’s independence in 1948. Accordingly, a number of clients have rediscovered Haifa and purchased apartments there, either for their own use or as investments. One of these clients sent me a photo of a property on Manila Street. The street name piqued my interest, as I wondered: what’s so special about the capital of the Philippines that a street in Haifa was named in its honor? I then discovered an extraordinary long-standing friendship between the Philippines and the

President Quezon welcoming Jewish refugees at a new hall that was built on his own property to house the refugees

advisor and a rising star in the U.S. military. Alarmed by the deteriorating situation for Jews in Germany, and aware that most countries were closing their doors to immigration, the Frieder brothers saw the writing on the wall. Encouraged by their successful involvement in the 1937 evacuation of 28 Jews from Shanghai to Manila, in which they formed the Jewish Refugee Committee in Manila to help the new arrivals get settled, the Frieders devised an immigration program to rescue thousands of Jews. Their fellow poker enthusiasts Quezon, McNutt and Eisenhower were highly principled individuals and were happy to cooperate. They helped cajole a reluctant President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and an openly hostile U.S. State Department to begrudgingly grant visas to Jews. Although the original plan was to rescue 10,000 Jews, the rapidly deteriorating situation in Europe and foot-dragging by American diplomats short-circuited the plan.

After the war, the Philippines continued its friendship with the Jewish nation. In 1947, the Philippines was the only Asian nation that voted in favor of the UN Partition Plan of Palestine and cast the decisive vote that created the State of Israel. Ten years later, in 1957, the Philippines established diplomatic relations with Israel. The Philippines’ kindness towards the Jewish refugees is but a small story of heroism in the larger saga of the Holocaust. However, it was a rare ray of light in a very dark and gloomy world and epitomized the message of altruism, morality, and hope in the face of global prejudice, indifference, and despair.

Gedaliah Borvick is the founder of My Israel Home (www.myisraelhome.com), a real estate agency focused on helping people from abroad buy and sell homes in Israel. To sign up for his monthly market updates, contact him at gborvick@gmail. com.

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Israel Today

Innovative Treatment “Reprograms the Immune System” to Battle Cancer By Sharon Gelbach Dr. Ben Boursi

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groundbreaking study led by Senior GI Oncologist Dr. Ben Boursi with senior oncologist Professor Gal Markel and MD PhD

student Erez Baruch of the Sheba Medical Center in Israel proved that it is possible to reprogram a recalcitrant immune system, compelling it to fight

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cancer, by changing the patient’s gut microbiome. The results of the study were published in the peer-reviewed journal Science. “For the first time in the world, we have successfully fought cancerous tumors by changing the gut microbiome,” Dr. Boursi said. Dr. Boursi and his team launched the study on terminally ill patients with metastatic melanoma who in the past had not responded to immunotherapy and who’d exhausted all other existing treatments. The idea was to stimulate patients’ immune systems by replacing their own gut bacteria with that of cancer survivors that responded to immunotherapy. “In the first stage, we eradicated the patient’s existing microbiome, after which we transplanted gut microbiota from cancer survivors who’d had melanoma, but who had responded well to immunotherapy and who had been cancer-free for at least one year.” The microbiome was initially transplanted via colonoscopy. Two weeks later, when it was clear that the patients had absorbed the donor microbiota, they resumed immunotherapy and received 3 months of odorless, flavorless pills containing the same bacteria. Out of the 10 study participants, two patients exhibited tumors that had shrunken

considerably, and in a third patient, not only did the tumor disappear entirely, but the patient was cured. In those patients, Boursi and his team identified an immune response on the cellular level as well as in gene expression profiles. “Currently, immunotherapy works for only 40 percent to 50 percent of patients. We anticipate that, with the help of this revolutionary treatment, we will see as many patients as possible transforming from non-responders to responders,” said Boursi. Additionally, while many of the participants had experienced severe side effects during their earlier (failed) round of immunotherapy, following the gut microbiota transplant, the immunotherapy caused no significant side effects. “This alone is a tremendous achievement,” said Boursi, adding that the team is also exploring the treatment’s use in combatting immunotherapy side effects. Dr. Boursi noted that it was an emotionally charged experience for melanoma survivors to be able to donate their gut microbiota to help cure other cancer patients. Explaining that the treatment has been shown to be “simple, safe and relatively inexpensive,” Dr. Boursi and the team at Sheba are currently employing it on melanoma patients as well as patients with lung cancer, one of the most common causes of cancer death.

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JANUARY 21, 2021

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OCTOBER 29, 2015 | The Jewish Home

Parenting Pearls

JANUARY 21, 2021

The Real Parenting Moments

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By Sara Rayvych, MSEd

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any parents tend to place a lot of focus on proper punishment and how to properly give consequences for bad actions. It is a major topic, and there is much debate on how to do so correctly. In this article, I’m not going to discuss in-depth my thoughts on punishing kids. I think that giving children a proper, relevant consequence to their actions is a fine art. I want to clarify that I’m not among those who subscribe to the belief that children should never be told “no.” I do think that giving children clear guidelines and fair expectations are crucial to their development and something that benefits the child. How to strike that fair balance will also not be the subject of this article. There are differences between punishments and consequences, but that’s not a discussion for today. Now that I’ve devoted an entire paragraph to what we’re not discussing, let’s get to the topic at hand. I don’t remember where I first heard this particular idea, but I remember how surprising it was to me at the time. I think it came from a book for educators but I’m not positive. The basic premise is that chinuch or educating a child doesn’t happen with punishment. Punish-

ment is to stop the bad behavior, but it’s not the ultimate lesson. The main chinuch lessons generally occur afterwards or at other times. This doesn’t mean children should be allowed to run wild because you can’t educate a child who is acting out. Additionally, nobody benefits when a child is permitted to misbehave, certainly not the child himself. But it means we need to appreciate that whatever misbehavior we see, or area that needs to be corrected, needs to be dealt with at a later time if we want to truly educate. It is incorrect to rely on the time-out and say our job is complete. I personally think of it as the two phases of dealing with misbehavior. One phase is stopping the child’s negative behavior. While we commonly think of this as punishment or consequence, it can also be redirecting, calming, or distracting the child. An example would be a hungry child tantruming – he just needs to be fed. A child who is overstimulated would be best off being held or removed from the situation. Kids are young and don’t have the same ability to control themselves that adults should have. Not every mistake needs to become a big deal. The second phase is giving the appropriate chinuch lessons so the child

will actually learn. This can be anything from explaining what the child did wrong (they don’t always know!), to showing a better way of handling the situation. I want to point out that not every misbehavior will warrant the second phase. A two-year-old who writes on the wall with markers doesn’t need a lecture or even rebuke because the parent just needs to keep the markers out of reach (the child can help with the cleanup, though). There is no “one size fits all” in parenting, and there are times that a consequence will very effectively match the misbehavior. I can’t say the consequence will never be sufficient to educate the child; I’m simply saying that the consequence isn’t enough in most cases.

How does this change things? The difference is subtle and you may be wondering why this is worth mentioning. This principle changes the equation in small, yet important ways. One difference is that, depending on the behavior, you can sometimes stop what they’re doing with other methods. Not everything needs an immediate, full consequence. For example, toddlers can often be distracted and many misbehaviors by

little ones may not require the full response. There are many times that you can simply distract a child, redirect, or simply remove them from whatever is going on. I can’t tell you how many times a passing truck or construction project has saved the day. “Look kids, truck!” Suddenly, they forget whatever mischief they’re into and off they go to stare out the window. I’ve also found that sometimes the most effective means with teens is to quickly stop the behavior and have that sincere conversation later when they’re calm. Trying to punish or yell back will just escalate the situation, and nobody benefits. It’s been my personal experience that teenagers, in particular, can remember later on what they did and think more clearly once they’re past the initial crisis. An example of this is if a teenager is cursing. Rebuking or punishing them during that time will just cause more cursing. Finding a creative way to stop the behavior in the heat of the moment will stop the cursing and give them a chance to cool off. Later on, once they’re more receptive, you have the chance to succinctly point out that they can’t do whatever it is they did. You may not need to say as much since they may have already thought

can be made if your child hurt you. Then, I think demonstrating some hurt can be appropriate. “I was really shocked/offended/hurt when you spoke to me that way” can give over the lesson that their actions can hurt others. Yelling in anger can alienate, while displaying emotions can be effective for some but ineffective for other kids. Parenting is complex but rewarding. It can be reassuring to know that our best parenting moments don’t need to happen when our kids are acting poorly or when they’re being penalized. The best parenting opportunities can happen when you’re both calm and you have the leisure for a warm, bonding moment.

There are times when an immediate consequence can be counterproductive.

in your voice, and the words you use properly convey the love you intend with it. Any method needs to come from a place of love and not anger. It’s about your child and their need to grow – not parental ego. In my humble opinion, I would say an exception

Sara Rayvych, MSEd, has her master’s in general and special education. She has been homeschooling for over 10 years in Far Rockaway. She can be contacted at RayvychHomeschool@gmail.com.

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depth discussion and you certainly want to be prepared in advance with an effective means of communicating your concerns. Demonstrating appropriate behaviors can often tell a child more than just saying “don’t.” Often, we assume kids understand what they should be doing when we tell them what not to do. Saying, “Don’t hit Mommy” doesn’t tell them what is the correct way to get an adult’s attention; it just tells them one way that is wrong. Demonstrating a gentle way of getting someone’s attention or how to say they need something will fill in that gap. You may need to remind them occasionally of the proper way to do something but they will eventually learn. I often try to remind myself that children are young and newer to the world. It often takes repeating the same lesson many times before it becomes ingrained. It also takes some maturity to learn to control oneself. Try to have patience while knowing they’ll probably hit their sibling again before they can have the self-control to stop themselves. Along with demonstrating appropriate behavior is role playing and acting out the lesson. These methods, especially for younger children, are quite effective. Taking the time to practice their various options can really bring the lesson home. Young kids naturally learn through play, and this is a gentle, natural way to teach them. Even older kids can benefit, since it makes the lesson more concrete and helps them internalize your teachings.

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Since giving a punishment isn’t the most reliable method for chinuch, we should mention a few potentially more effective means. You’re probably already using most of them but let’s discuss them anyway. These alternative options are useful for when the negative behavior has already been stopped. The age of the child and the issue being addressed will dictate whether an immediate response is warranted or if you’re better off waiting till the smoke has cleared and the world is again at peace. Also, some methods are more effective for different ages and personalities. It’s important to note that your ability to communicate effectively is often based on your connection with that child; a connected child is more receptive. Discussing the issues is pretty effective for many children. You can take the time to speak to your child and let them know what’s wrong with what they did and what they should have done instead. Keep it brief and relevant while avoiding lecturing. You will want to have an idea in advance of what you want to say. For a younger child, you may not want to say more than “hitting hurts” because they will

Some children may benefit from enjoying a book on the topic. There are wonderful books on various topics, and there are some children who may prefer relaxing with a book over having a discussion. Be careful how this is done so it doesn’t backfire and any potential benefit is lost. Make sure the content of the book, the tone

JANUARY 21, 2021

Alternative options

become lost after that. A long d’var Torah on Kayin and Hevel will not hit the target. With teens, you may be able to just say simply, “We don’t speak that way” or something to the point if you can tell they’ve already thought about the issue and have some regrets. On the other hand, some behaviors will require an in-

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a bit about what happened. When you approach them, you can often see if they’re feeling remorse or if they require a more thorough discussion. Older children have the ability to remember earlier events and can be spoken to in a more mature fashion. Younger children often don’t remember their actions minutes (or seconds) later, so this particular method may not be effective with them. It’s up to parents to use their best judgement for when these techniques can be utilized. Parents should have many tools in their toolboxes and use their discretion for when it’s best to utilize any particular tool. What will work beautifully in one situation can be a disaster in another. While not every situation is best dealt with in this manner, there are times when an immediate consequence can be counterproductive. Knowing your options and using your best judgment (along with lots of davening) can help you decide what to do in each situation.

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JANUARY 7, 2021 | The Jewish Home

The Wandering JANUARY 21, 2021

From Vienna to Arosa Part I

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By Hershel Lieber

Uncle Joel, Miriam and Harry in the early ’60s

M B A LT I M O R E J E W I S H H O M E . C O M

Jew

y father’s brother, Joel, survived the Holocaust and married and had an only son. He was named after my grandfather, Hershel, but was called by his secular name, Harry. They lived in Munich, Germany, and I had the opportunity to meet him and his wife on three occasions. The first time, Joel came by himself to New York, in the early ‘60s, was to meet my father, a”h, after being apart for more than twenty-five years. The next time was in January 1967, when I visited him, his wife Miriam, and Harry in Munich. The final time I saw him was in January of 1972 when both Pesi and I traveled to the bar mitzvah of my cousin Harry. Over the ensuing years, we corresponded regularly by mail, and I called him every year before Pesach and Rosh Hashana. When Joel and, later on Miriam, passed away, I continued the correspondence and phone calls with Harry who had since gotten married. Harry and his wife, Iris, had two children, Danni and Debby. Being

Debby, the kallah, with her mother, Iris, and Pesi

that I traveled often to Poland, every few years, I made it my mission to visit them in Munich. Unfortunately, Harry’s health became compromised not long after Debby’s birth, and he became confined to a wheelchair or bed. As his health further deteriorated, he lost much of his hearing, but we still wrote each other by email.

Walking to the chuppah. R-L: Rabbi Avrohom Yonah Schwartz, me, Zwiky, and his father Moshe Kratz

gious. They went to synagogue on certain holidays, participated in some community events, and Debby even attended a Jewish preschool. Nevertheless, being in Munich made it difficult to maintain the standards that Orthodox Jews abide by. Upon hearing that Debby was engaged and getting married, my first thoughts

This magnificent palace and its stunning gardens are alone worth a trip.

He regrettably died in his early fifties and, because his levayah was on a Sunday, I could not be there. When Iris called me about the unveiling of Harry’s monument many months later, she also shared the news that Debby became engaged. My uncle Joel kept many of our Jewish traditions, but he and his family were not particularly reli-

were: to whom? Iris told me that the bridegroom was from Vienna and that the family was Jewish. This was definitely a relief to me, but my concern was still for the spiritual welfare of the future generations of my grandfather Hershel. It was Chol HaMoed Pesach, and I was driving home with my family after spending the first days of yom

tov by my children in Lakewood. I got a phone call in the car from Debby, who asked me if Pesi and I would walk her down to the chuppah. Although I immediately accepted, I was concerned who the officiating rabbi would be. When I asked her, she told me that the choices were between four of the most prominent Orthodox rabbis in Vienna, all whom I had met before. This was very reassuring to me. When I spoke to Iris later, she informed me that Debby became very observant and was marrying into a religious family. Not long after, her chosson, Zwiky, called to ask if we could come before Shabbos to join his family by the aufruf and if I could speak at the kiddush. We arrived in Vienna on Thursday, July 14, 2011. Debby met us at the airport, and after settling into our hotel, she picked us up and we walked over to Danube River. We sat at the riverfront for two hours as she told us her journey to Yiddishkeit. We were amazed as we realized the hashgacha pratis that guided her to reconnect to the mesorah of her great-grandparents. In the evening,

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The view of Durnstein an der Danau

The parade at Innsbruck

Tram to Fortress Hohensalzburg

JANUARY 21, 2021

The quaint streets of Salzburg

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we met Zwiky, his parents, and siblings and were delighted that Debby would become part of that family. Friday night’s seudah was at the Alef-Alef restaurant, and the Shabbos morning aufruf was at the Agudas Yisroel shul. I davened Shacharis and spoke at the kiddush in German. I am still astounded that I can speak German fairly well, since I picked it up in bits and pieces from here and there. The next seudah was at the Mizrachi shul and included many of Debby’s new friends from the Vienna community. The whole time we were experiencing a true oneg Shabbos. Sunday was the big day. As is common in European Jewish communities, the chuppah was in the early afternoon, and Zwiky’s father and I walked him from the Chabad building through the streets into a garden where an aisle led to the chuppah. Pesi joined Zwiky’s mother in walking Debby down the aisle with Iris at her side. The mesader kiddushin was Rabbi Avrohom Yonah Schwartz from the Chassidishe Kehilla. Rabbis Eisenberg and Pardes had brachos under the chuppah.

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A few hours later, we joined the chosson and kallah at their wedding feast. There were many people who attended, which made the simcha lebedig and full of joy. Danni also came in from Germany and joined his mother Iris in the festivities. There was spirited dancing, grammen, speeches and a delicious smorgasbord to choose from. This chasunah was one that both Pesi and I will long remember. On Monday morning af ter Shacharis, we went shopping for the food that we would need for the next four days. We rented a Mercedes because it had automatic transmission, loaded our baggage, and began our journey towards Switzerland. The weather was lovely, sunny, and warm. The sky was a bright blue dotted with puffy white clouds. We were heading in the direction of Salzburg, driving along the calm waters of the Danube River. We passed small towns and the occasional castle perched on a mountaintop high above the river. The three-hour ride was so pleasant and the scenes so calming, which set the mood for the next two

weeks. We made a one-hour stop in a charming village of Durnstein an der Danau. This town is known for its vineyards and quality wines and for its apricots, which are made into compote and marmalade. Walking around the delightful streets with its enticing food shops was a challenge which we naturally had to overcome. From Durnstein, we headed straight to Salzburg, where we would stay overnight. Salzburg is synonymous with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Mozart’s birthplace is replete with so many attractions that highlight the history of this world-famous composer. The rich musical heritage is showcased in his family home and museum and at various festivals featuring his compositions. We arrived in time to settle in and take a tram up to the Fortress Hohensalzburg, where we enjoyed a concert featuring his best symphonies. The next morning, we toured a UNESCO World Heritage Site, a city that has a history dating back to year 696. The buildings, fountains, squares, and narrow alleys are full of charm. We could have spent a full

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day seeing all the sites but left early so that we could manage to spend time at Schloss Hellbrunn, which is nearby. This magnificent palace and its stunning gardens are alone worth a trip. Add to that the dozens of fountains, many which can only be described as “trick fountains,” which Salzburg’s Prince- Archbishop Sittikus installed, are so fascinating and humorously entertaining. We spent two full hours there and then drove for another two hours through the winding mountain roads and tunnels of the Alps until we reached Innsbruck. Although Innsbruck has the title of the Winter Sports Capital of the Alps, summer was not been bereft of recreational activities. The colorful buildings on the River Inn that faced our hotel were a feast for our eyes. When we started to discover the city by foot, we encountered a marching military band snaking through the streets. As they played their instruments, we and hundreds of other tourists followed them into a large square which was set up with chairs. There, we enjoyed a lively concert of Austrian Military Marches. The sun was setting as we strolled on the cobbled streets alongside horse drawn carriages with their lit lanterns back to our hotel. Tomorrow was another day and would surely bring us new adventures.

Hershel Lieber has been involved in kiruv activities for over 30 years. As a founding member of the Vaad L’Hatzolas Nidchei Yisroel he has traveled with his wife, Pesi, to the Soviet Union during the harsh years of the Communist regimes to advance Yiddishkeit. He has spearheaded a yeshiva in the city of Kishinev that had 12 successful years with many students making Torah their way of life. In Poland, he lectured in the summers at the Ronald S. Lauder Foundation camp for nearly 30 years. He still travels to Warsaw every year – since 1979 – to be the chazzan for Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur for the Jews there. Together with Pesi, he organized and led trips to Europe on behalf of Gateways and Aish Hatorah for college students finding their paths to Jewish identity. His passion for travel has taken them to many interesting places and afforded them unique experiences. Their open home gave them opportunities to meet and develop relationships with a variety of people. Hershel’s column will appear in The Jewish Home on a bi-weekly basis.

At a castle near Melk

Pesi at a Durnstein vineyard

Apricots, the specialty of Durnstein

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Sheldon Adelson

From Boston to Billionaire BY SUSAN SCHWAMM

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It’s

perhaps not an exaggeration to say that Sheldon Adelson, who passed away this week at the age of 87, had helped to stem the tide of intermarriage in the Jewish world. Adelson and his wife, Miriam, were the primary backers of Birthright trips to Israel. For many Jewish non-aﬃliated teens, the free trip to Israel was their only connection to the Holy Land and its people. For many, it awakened in them a desire to connect back to their roots – or at least, not to throw away their esteemed heritage. FROM CABS TO CASINOS Adelson started out from humble beginnings. His father, Arthur, drove a cab in Dorchester, Massachusetts; his mother worked in a knitting store. Sheldon became an entrepreneur at a young age when he borrowed money from his uncle to obtain a license to sell newspapers in Boston. He was 12 years old. Since that endeavor, for 75 years, Adelson made his name in business,

using his keen eye to turn what some saw as dust into gold. His gilded hands lit up Las Vegas and Asian cosmopolitan cities with his casinos, and he turned business conventions into a rewarding, proﬁtable industry. “If you do things diﬀerently, suc-

At 55, Adelson started in the casino business. He was the ﬁrst to build a convention hall in his Sands casino in 1989 – a move that other owners replicated – when he purchased it for $128 million. The convention hall would keep rooms full during the

“If you do things differently, success will follow you like a shadow.” cess will follow you like a shadow,” Adelson said during a 2014 talk to the gambling industry in Las Vegas. Adelson never graduated college, dropping out of City College of New York before graduation and serving in the Army. After a series of starting small businesses, Adelson hit his stride in the ‘80s with a technology trade show, starting computer convention COMDEX in 1979 before selling his stake in 1995 for more than $800 million.

week, filling the casino’s coffers with patrons and roulette players Monday through Thursday. Adelson expanded his enterprise into Asia, bringing casino gambling to Macao, the only place in China where casino gambling is legal. A lack of land didn’t present a problem to the entrepreneur. He built land there by piling up sand to create the Cotai Peninsula. Rapidly, Adelson’s Macao’s casino revenue outstripped profits from his Las Vegas holdings.

His success in Macao led him to expand to Singapore, where his Marina Bay Sands hotel and its inﬁnity pool became a signature of the skyline.

GOING POLITICAL It wasn’t just slot machines and roulette where Adelson made his mark. Adelson poured money into politics as well, donating with record-breaking funds to politicians and parties he aligned with. As such, Adelson had a number of domestic and international leaders who listened to his advocacy. President Trump, in particular, was the recipient of sums of Adelson’s money. Adelson donated $25 million for Trump’s beneﬁt in 2016 and another $75 million in 2020. In fact, Sheldon and his wife, Miriam, sat front and center at Trump’s inauguration four years ago. In 2018, President Trump honored Miriam Adelson with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. “To protect the sacred heritage of the Jewish faith, Miriam and Shel-

The Jewish Home | OCTOBER 29, 2015

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Adelson bought his first casino at the age of 55

Sheldon and Miriam with Amb. David Friedman

JANUARY 21, 2021

Prime Minister Netanyahu with Sheldon and Miriam

Sheldon and his wife Miriam at the Trump inauguration

to key places in Israel, cementing a love for the Land and instilling Jewish values at a seminal age. The 19th-richest American used his $35 billion fortune to help shape policy when it came to Israel. It was in the ‘90s when Adelson began pour-

ISRAEL IN MY HEART Although Trump had many advocates for Israel on his team, Adelson was extremely influential in pushing for the Jewish State. In 2017, Adelson asserted, “I’m a one-issue person. That issue is Israel.” Sheldon and his wife, Miriam, poured at least $410 million into Birthright trips, bringing thousands of Jewish teens on trips to the Holy Land. Those trips brought youngsters

ing his money into Israeli causes. He began underwriting congressional trips to Israel run by AIPAC. When George W. Bush was president, Adelson tried to get President Bush to deter Condoleezza Rice from pursuing Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. Bush told Adelson that Sheldon and his wife shouldn’t worry about Rice’s negotiations, because “at the end of the day, it’s going to be my policy, not Condi’s.” Adelson endeavored to influence

President Obama into bombing Iran. Instead, Obama infamously signed the Iran nuclear deal with the rogue nation. But Trump, a few years later, walked back the deal, an action that Adelson thoroughly supported and encouraged.

“Even though I am not Israeli-born, Israel is in my heart.” Adelson was a key advocate for moving the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. President Trump made the record-setting move in May 2018. A few months ago, in September 2020, Adelson bought the U.S. ambassador’s palatial residence in Herzliya for a record $67 million, ensuring that future administrations would have a hard time reversing Trump’s move. Adelson’s influence also helped President Trump and his adminis-

tration to recognize the legitimacy of settlements in the West Bank and Jerusalem. In January 2019, Trump reversed long-standing bipartisan U.S. policy that saw settlements as illegitimate obstacles to peace because they make a geographically viable Palestinian state impossible. Adelson, with a heart of gold, lent Jonathan Pollard a private plane so Jonathan and his wife could fly freely to Israel after sitting 30 years in jail in the United States. Adelson, with his Israeli-born wife, truly felt “libi ba’Mizrach.” In a 2010 speech, Adelson, a U.S. Army veteran, lamented that “the uniform that I wore in the military, unfortunately, was not an Israeli uniform.” He added: “All we care about is being good Zionists, being good citizens of Israel, because even though I am not Israeli-born, Israel is in my heart.” On Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Adelson “will forever be remembered” for his work strengthening ties between the U.S. and Israel.

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don have supported Jewish schools, Holocaust memorial organizations, and helped Jewish Americans visit the Holy Land,” Trump said during a reception in the White House’s East Room. “The world has lost a great man,” President Trump said after Sheldon’s passing. “Sheldon lived the true American dream. His ingenuity, genius, and creativity earned him immense wealth, but his character and philanthropic generosity gave him his great name.”

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JANUARY 21, 2021

OCTOBER 29, 2015 | The Jewish Home

rF om Boss Time e to Bath Tim FOUR FEMALE ENTREPRENEURS TALK ABOUT WORK-LIFE BALANCE IN THE HOLY LAND By Rivkah Lambert Adler

WOMEN ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN ISRAEL IS TRENDING. Each year, the Mastercard Index of Women Entrepreneurs reports on the progress of women businessowners worldwide. In their 2020 global rankings, Israel secured the #1 slot for the first time since the annual reporting began in 2017, ahead of the U.S. and Switzerland. The Mastercard Index suggested that support for entrepreneurial success is especially strong in Israel and that “Israeli women [are] slightly more driven than men…to pursue business opportunities to improve independence, economic self-reliance, as well as to generate income.” We spoke with four very different Jewish women entrepreneurs in Israel to learn more about their businesses, their challenges, and their successes.

The Jewish Home | OCTOBER 29, 2015

businesses can help them succeed at aliyah. Based on Garson’s experience as a mentor, lack of self-conﬁdence and self-worth are among the main challenges Jewish women entrepreneurs face. Social expectations are also limiting. She notes, “Women in Israel are still regarded as the primary caretaker of their children, and the husband’s career is still the priority in the household, even when the women’s business can potentially bring a very good revenue to the family. “Very often, I see women with businesses that have potential to make a lot of money, but they don’t reach that level of growth because they don’t have the

“OUR BUSINESSES ARE EXTENSIONS OF WHO WE ARE.”

A Happy Work-Life Balance H

adassah Levy, originally from Great Neck, NY, came to Israel to attend a gap year program in 1992 and never left. Today, she lives with her husband and children in the community of Eli. For the past 16 years, Levy has been a freelance digital marketer (i-pointmediagroup.com) with a specialty in

Jewish and Israel-related content. “I help companies with marketing strategy, website content, email marketing, social media management and advertising. In the past, I have managed teams of employees and freelancers, but I currently work on my own,” she explains. Her move to entrepreneurship happened “largely by accident” in 2004.

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time or the resources to invest in their business. The mentality still needs to evolve,” she asserts. “In order to be a successful Jewish woman entrepreneur in Israel, you have to be very determined and very clear about your goal and how you will be able to reach it. You have to have an unshakable long-term vision and strong faith.” Garson advises prospective entrepreneurs: “The ﬁrst thing to do is to look inside at what they truly feel passionate about and then to see how to align this passion with their life purpose and with the lifestyle that they want to have…and not the other way around. Our businesses are extensions of who we are, so the closer it is to our life purpose and to the life we want to live, the better chance it has to not only survive but be very successful.”

She teaches women to “look at your business from the inside out, as an expression of your soul’s purpose and your gifts that you want to share with the world. It’s true that you need to make sure that there is a need for your services, but that should not be the first question.” Garson calls owning a business “the best personal development tool. It always takes me outside of my comfort zone and challenges me to step into my greater self. It allows me to share the essence of who I am in a way that I would not have been able to do in any other job. And it is the best way to increase my income, doing what I love.” Initially, Garson worked with a variety of businessowners. Over time, she narrowed her niche to focus on “Jewish women who already had a business and who wanted to grow it or scale it. This took courage to do. It’s not easy to identify with such a specific niche, but now that I have taken that step, I am very happy. I am officially positioning my business to empower Jewish women entrepreneurs around the world. I feel that this is aligned with who I am and what I want to offer.” In that spirit, she recently launched a Global Online Business Network for Jewish women (nathaliegarson.com/global-online-business-network). “I am hoping that this network will create bridges between Jewish women entrepreneurs in [and outside of] Israel, to start strategic partnerships and working relationships. I am really excited about that,” she concludes.

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rench-born Jerusalem resident Nathalie Garson is the CEO of Born To Do Business and the founder of the Born To Do Business Global Community. Her work encourages women entrepreneurs to create successful businesses that both align with their deeper purpose and integrate with their chosen lifestyle. Garson was born to be an entrepreneur. “I always knew that I wanted to be an entrepreneur. I knew I had something special to offer to the world,” she says. “I needed to use all of my creativity, my drive, and my thirst for meaning and purpose in creating my own business. “I started my professional career as an employee because I was a single mom of two, and I could not afford to invest all my time and resources in my business. As soon as they became older, I invested everything I had in my business and I never looked back.” She relies on mentors to grow her own business and mentors others. In her practice as a mentor, “I use a mixture of coaching and consulting tools. On the coaching side, I empower them to go outside of their comfort zone, to challenge their beliefs and to open their mindset to see a new version of themselves. On the consulting side, I offer them concrete business strategies to take their business to the next level. “The result is magical – this combination of personal development with business strategy makes them own their role in self-confidence and have the clarity to implement the vision they have inside themselves.” When COVID-19 hit, Garson initiated a 21-Day Challenge for entrepreneurs whose businesses were negatively impacted by the pandemic. She followed that with a Global Online Leadership Summit, attended by over 350 businessowners from 14 countries. Among the speakers were 12 successful Anglo-Israel women entrepreneurs, demonstrating to Jewish women around the world how creating and running

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An Expression of Your Soul

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“I initially became a freelancer because I was offered a lucrative project with a client in the U.S. who didn’t want to open an office in Israel. I soon grew to appreciate the flexibility and the ability to work from home, so when that project ended, I continued to work for myself.” She adds, “I love that I get to choose which clients and projects to take on, that I don’t have to report to anyone if I want to take my child to the doctor or take the day off and that I don’t have to waste tons of time on a long commute in heavy traffic. In short, I am grateful for the ability to choose a work-life balance that makes me happy. “Over the past few years, I have collected a number of long-term clients who provide steady work on an ongoing basis. This gives me the stability that is often missing from the entrepreneurial journey and allows me to be adventurous in my choice of shortterm projects.” As a child, Levy attended school in Israel for two years when her parents spend their sabbatical in Israel. Although she is fluent in Hebrew, most of her

work in done in English. Levy believes that the administrative burdens of running a business in Israel dim the enthusiasm of some entrepreneurs, so she outsources that. “Many women in Israel turn a passion into a business, but are then disillusioned by the bureaucratic diﬃculties and administrative tasks that come along with running a business. After many years of doing my own [bookkeeping], I began working with a payroll company that takes care of all of that and takes the burden oﬀ of me, so I can focus on doing what I love.” Levy shares some critical advice for religious Jewish women to be successful entrepreneurs in Israel. She says, “As in other aspects of Israeli life, it’s important to be assertive. Women tend to be taught that assertiveness is not attractive and can be seen as aggressiveness. This is even more ingrained in religious women who have been educated in the value of tzniut. “But in order to succeed in Israel, you need to

unashamedly talk about your skills and talents. You need to state your price ﬁrmly and actually believe in it. You have to be willing to turn down jobs if they aren’t what you want or don’t pay enough, and you need to use protechtzia to get the jobs you do want. In addition, she advises, “There’s a certain amount of ‘rolling with the punches’ necessary when you own your own business. Business goes up and down, there are no paid sick days or vacation days, and there’s no one else to blame when things go wrong. You are often reminded that parnassa comes from Hashem and that doing your best and giving up ultimate control to Him is the only way forward. “At the end of the day, there’s nowhere else I would rather live my life and run my business. Life in Israel is a continual bracha, and I am thrilled that I get to live here and raise my children here. “I like to see other women succeed in business and in digital marketing in particular, and am always happy to oﬀer free advice to women starting out and to colleagues who want to brainstorm,” she concludes.

Purses & Pockets T

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racey Lipman’s name is her brand. She works as a sole proprietor, designing and sewing “organized purses and wallets, clever accessories for smart women with an eye for gorgeous fabrics. Pockets are my specialty. As we don’t have enough pockets on our clothing, I do my best to make sure you have enough in your purse and wallet to be able to find what you want when you need it.” Lipman was born in Israel but spent most of her life in the UK until returning to Israel 15 years ago. Her business was created, in part, from failure. “Even though I have been to ulpan three times, I have not learned Hebrew well enough to be employed in Israel. I chose to find a way to work in English, in a job that gave me the flexibility to be there for my children when they need me,” Lipman shares. “Lack of Hebrew is my weak point, so I chose to sell on Etsy in English (etsy.com/il-en/shop/TraceyLipman). The Anglo and Israeli markets are very different and, because of poor Hebrew, I gravitated towards the Anglos. It has not helped me to learn Hebrew, but it has been the right decision for my business.” Her greatest challenge is lack of sleep. “I am a full-time parent and a full-time business woman and homemaker. There are times I think, ‘How can I get it all done?’ There are times I go to bed in the early hours of the morning exhausted, but I love all my jobs. I do, however, need

to get more sleep.” Support from other women is crucial to Lipman’s successful formula. “I surround myself with strong, talented, driven women who lift each other up and support each other in our business ventures. I call these women ‘my work village’; we need a village of support to run a small business.” She advises, “Surround yourself with women who will lift you up and make you the best version of

“I LOVE ALL MY JOBS. I DO, HOWEVER, NEED TO GET MORE SLEEP.”

yourself that you can be, because that is the best thing for you and for your business.” Lipman’s business was born 11 years ago from her own frustrations with the design of women’s purses and wallets, but it is her stubbornness to which she attributes her success. “I learned to sew in school, but beyond that, I had no formal training,” she says. “I am very stubborn and won’t quit until I have tried everything possible to get a design right. It takes a few

prototypes, trial, error, learning from mistakes, re-designing and re-making until the picture in my head is a finished product. “I have used my stubbornness and perseverance to teach myself to get better at what I do, to turn my hobby into a business. I have grown my one-woman business and sold thousands of products. I have learned to design, create, source quality supplies, promote and finance. I learned to find the information I need to grow. I grew as a person and as a business. “I am really proud of that.” Lipman encourages women entrepreneurs to cut themselves some slack. “There are times we will get it wrong, spend money on a service that didn’t work out, or spend time going a route that wasn’t the best. Each mistake is a lesson learned and has so much to teach about how to do it differently next time. Each mistake is one step closer to getting it right,” she notes.

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business exponentially. “I generally think big, but when I went to a marketing talk many years ago, I was advised to open a Facebook group. Facebook was still in its infancy, and I thought maybe a hundred people would join. It grew beyond my wildest dreams. “Living Financially Smarter in Israel is now at 31,000 members, all real people who are screened to make sure they live in Israel or might be making aliyah. The exponential growth on Facebook has opened so many doors when it comes to talks, to meeting people, to getting clients. My Facebook group is the largest and most valuable Israeli English financial discussion group,” she s Her clients are all English-speakers, but keeping up with the financial industry in Israel requires her to use her fluent Hebrew, which she also uses to translate important financial information for her clients. Besides “technical things, like the high tax rate and VAT, any other challenges I have had were on a personal level [stemming from] my own hesitations. I haven’t experienced challenges specific to being a Jewish woman in Israel.” Reflecting on lessons learned, Lebowitz says, “So much has been about the personal growth aspect,

about learning and sharing and having a strong network of other incredible business ow ners to learn from and bounce ideas off of. Listen and learn and don’t be scared to lead when needed or to ask when needed.” She encourages others to “share ideas, knowing there is more than enough business” to go around. Lebowitz believes in the power of confidence, along with offering a quality product or service coupled with a solid financial and business plan. She encourages prospective entrepreneurs to avoid being held back by old ideas and limiting beliefs. “Don’t have any negative ideas that belong to 1980 in your head, such as it’s hard to make it in Israel,” she advises. “My lesson to myself always is: no excuses. Be open to new ideas. Think big. You never know where things will go.”

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orn and raised in Scotland, Rifka Lebowitz left a secure position in Israel’s banking world to begin her entrepreneurial journey. As a banker, she found herself assisting other English-speaking olim adjust to banking in Israel. “I felt very strongly that I had something to offer and was disgruntled working at the bank, where felt like I was making money for someone else,” she says. Additionally, “Israeli society is so open and supportive, that starting your own thing is so many people’s ideal.” Today, with just one part-time employee, Lebowitz offers financial planning services to English-speakers in Israel (rifkalebowitz.com). She published a guide to understanding Israeli banks called Smarter Israeli Banking, which is given to all Nefesh b’Nefesh olim, and created The Financially Smarter Couple, an online course available on-demand. “I created an online course for couples to talk about money, to really learn to understand each other’s financial needs and plan together,” she explains. As her business grew, Lebowitz worked with coaches and strategists and marketing people. “It’s so helpful to have someone who can see the business from the outside and strategize with you” she says. “One tip from a marketing person grew my

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Beyond My Wildest Dreams

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EXPOSING

Hezbollah’s Economy BY SHAMMAI SISKIND

ne morning in late December, thousands of Lebanese citizens woke up to find their most sensitive personal details had been leaked to a public webpage. The massive data dump included bank account numbers and even personal addresses. From the tens of thousands of names exposed on the page, there was one commonality to all of them: every one of these individuals were clients of a particular Lebanese financial institution by the name of Al Qard Al Hassan (AQAH). AQAH is a very unique organization in Lebanon. Founded in the mid-1980s, Al Qard Al Hassan (which translates from the Arabic to “The Benevolent Loan”) is officially a charitable organization. It allows depositors to funnel money to various social causes and also offers interest-free loans in accordance with Islamic law. However, behind the innocuous-sounding name and inconspicuous-looking logo, Al Qard hides a dark secret. In actuality, AQAH is none other than the private bank of the Lebanese-based Shiite militant group Hezbollah. From its very inception nearly four decades ago, the Al Qard Al Hasan “Association” has been subordinate to, and under direct control of, Hezbollah’s Executive Council. Officially, AQAH’s purpose was to engage in quasi-banking activity, consisting primarily of providing loans and operating charitable community funds. The Association specialized in extending loans in relatively small amounts to members of the Shiite community, which form Hezbollah’s political support base. These loans, which were quickly and easily accessible, provided a much needed financial lifeline to impoverished swaths of the Shiite demographic. In this way, Al Qard played an important role in Hezbollah’s populist strategy of securing support for its political wing. But the charity work of AQAH, as valuable as it may have been for the organization, provided cover

for the more nefarious activities Hezbollah undertakes.

Follow the Money Running a militant enterprise is actually rather expensive. This is especially true of one like Hezbollah with interests that spread far from Lebanon’s borders and across the entire region and even the globe. Hezbollah has, since its earliest years, acted simultaneously as a Lebanese political faction, an armed paramilitary organization, an international smuggling ring orchestrator, and the Lebanese branch of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. These roles mean Hezbollah has its hands full with everything from major geopolitical episodes to illicit business dealings on a regular basis. Hezbollah was instrumental in crushing rebel armies during the Syrian civil war. It is constantly on the ready for the possibility of clashes with the IDF and frequently engages in low- to medium-level operations targeting Israel. Hezbollah’s black market businesses and drug dealing enterprises have a presence in both Western Europe and South America. Needless to say, this colorful spectrum of activities requires large amounts of capital to maintain. This is where an organization like Al Qard comes in handy. Whether it’s for its proﬁts from bootlegging or donations from the Ayatollahs, Hezbollah needs a place through which it can funnel its money – and store it securely. Al Qard has, for all intents and purposes, all the capabilities of a regular bank. It can receive deposits, transfer money, and even deploy ATM machines for the convenience of its account holders. And since Al Qard has always remained under the direct control of Hezbollah leadership, it is a perfect place for the group’s funds to be kept. Even more importantly, Al Qard provides to its Hezbollah overlords the invaluable asset of complete concealment from government scrutiny. As it

is oﬃcially a charity, Al Qard is exempt from most, if not all, of the disclosure requirements and other regulations banks have to abide by in Lebanon. This has allowed AQAH to operate with total impunity in the country for years, all the while providing vital ﬁnancial services to one of the world’s most dangerous militant groups.

Under the Radar No More The massive amounts of dark money regularly ﬂowing though Al Qard remained a secret for a while. But, already in 2007, the U.S. State Department identiﬁed AQAH and its strategic role in Hezbollah’s activities. It was designated and sanctioned by the United States and other counties. Yet this did not prevent Al Qard from keeping its doors open. Al Qard was able to continue its operations for a few reasons. First and foremost was Hezbollah’s political clout in the country. Holding a large portion of the Lebanese parliament and controlling many important government agencies, taking down Al Qard (like any action against Hezbollah) is easier said than done. Second is the plausible deniability Al Qard was able to maintain. Weak scrutiny and exemption from serious oversight meant the Lebanese people or their policymakers were never able to see overwhelming conclusive proof of the Hezbollah-AQAH connection. Now, this has all changed. The cyber-attack executed last month on the Al Qard Association was beyond thorough. The hacking group that took responsibility, SpiderZ, gained access to seemingly all of the data belonging to the bank’s clientele. Hackers even wrested control of the security camera systems at individual branches of Al Qard – possibly throughout the entire country. Actual bank statements of thousands of Lebanese and internationals were posted online to the hackers’ website, a page supported by Sites.Google and still currently up and running. Scrolling through the site, one can observe, in neat categories, all of

The Jewish Home | OCTOBER 29, 2015

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Qard as an organization will suﬀer tremendously – perhaps even collapse. This could come in one of two ways: either authorities will be forced to clamp down on the bank’s activities, or, the more likely scenario, a lack of public conﬁdence in Al Qard will lead to a liquidity problem the bank will simply be unable to deal with. Already, reports from around the country are indicating bank runs on AQAH branches are becoming more and more common.

The Fallout Hezbollah has already been under tremendous strain for years. U.S. sanctions on Iran have meant the ﬂow of funds from its main benefactor have been all but been cut oﬀ. This has meant the loss of tens of millions in annual funds which has already had real ef-

Hezbollah has, since its earliest years, acted simultaneously as a Lebanese political faction, an

an international smuggling ring orchestrator, and the Lebanese branch of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. fects on Hezbollah’s ability to operate – especially in places like Syria. At home, Hezbollah has been facing increasing pressure to acquiesce to international demands for policy reform, demands that have become conditions for international aid being delivered to the teetering country. Now, with one of its key institutions under threat, Hezbollah may actually feel more emboldened to take drastic measures. It seems more than a bit noteworthy that the

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armed paramilitary organization,

Al Qard incident has coincided with an increase in Hezbollah activity to its southern border. For at least two weeks now, the IDF’s Northern Command has been warning of increased threats of Hezbollah incursions. In late December, several suspects coming from the north approached the security fence between the two countries. One of them climbed over the barrier and walked several meters into Israeli territory before fleeing back to Lebanon. This followed another incident only months before when Israel thwarted an infiltration attempt by up to five Hezbollah gunmen, an event which is extremely rare on Israeli borders in recent times. According to the most recent assessment by an unnamed Israeli Northern Command high-up, “a resumption of aggression by the Shi’ite Lebanese terror group Hezbollah against targets in northern Israel is merely a matter of time.” Considering the escalation over the recent period, “there’s high probability that the northern border would see a resumption of full-blown hostilities. This requires us to prepare accordingly; the chances of a sudden escalation are on the increase.” What Israeli troops are sensing on the ground seems to be the result of a pattern long in the making. The Al Qard crisis is only the most recent incident, and perhaps one of the most devastating, in this trend. It is only logical to conclude Hezbollah feels the walls are closing in on it. In addition to being cut off from its long-time sources of cash and being under the gun from authorities at home, Hezbollah is now being pursued internationally, as more and more governments in the West are cracking down on the group’s activities. Months ago, Germany executed a nationwide raid on Hezbollah-linked entities. Even today, Hezbollah-connected individuals are being increasingly targeted even regionally, as occurred recently in Morocco with the arrest of a 57-year-old Hezbollah agent. The saber-rattling of Hezbollah leaders (including by its Secretary General Hasan Nasrallah) containing bombastic threats against the U.S. and Israel and bragging of the terror group’s improved missile arsenal only add weight to the theory that the group is, at the moment, feeling extremely desperate.

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the bank’s most sensitive assets. Accounts linked to actual Hezbollah members value in the millions. Beyond the rank and file members of Hezbollah are the numerous business moguls that support Hezbollah’s business activities that hold accounts in the bank. Many of these individuals have long been suspected of links to the militant group, but little evidence has been available. Also posted to the site are the locations in which AQAH maintains foreign currency and other assets such as gold bars, with some of these facilities containing tens of millions of dollars in various valuables. This revelation in particular is very important in light of the current situation in Lebanon. For the past two years, the Lebanese people have been in the midst of the greatest economic crisis in the country’s history. The root causes of this collapse – primarily negligent monetary policy – have only had their effects accelerated by the COVID crisis. For months, with the entire country on the edge of total collapse, strict rules have been put in place regarding currency valuations and trade in foreign money. Its hoarding of dollars and other international notes mean that Al Qard (again, through its unique legal status) has managed to circumvent rules that are making life exceedingly harder for other citizens. In short, the expose showing Al Qard actively supporting a militant group and its billionaire business partners, along with skirting restrictions everyone else needs to live with, has, shall we say, tainted the organization’s image. The public backlash that has ensued in wake of the hack has been tremendous. After having their personal data dumped online, a large group of Al Qard clients formed a Facebook group with the goal of publicizing the episode and calling for action against the AQAH. “We affirm that our names and all our details mentioned in the regulations published by the pirates are correct,” reads a pinned post on the group’s page. “We, the customers of the Foundation and those affected by Al Qard, have established this page to express our tragedies suffered since the start of the economic collapse.” As more and more Lebanese have caught wind of this unprecedented scandal, there is no question Al

OCTOBER 29, 2015 | The Jewish Home

TJH

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Centerfold

Play on Words What do all these sentences have in common (no outside information necessary)? 1. Never odd or even. 2. Madam, I’m Adam. 3. Sit on a potato pan, Otis. 4. Go Hang a Salami, I’m a Lasagna Hog! 5. Was it a bat I saw? 6. Norma is as selfless as I am, Ron. 7. Lee had a heel. 8. So many dynamos. 9. “Reviled did I live,” said I, as evil I did deliver. 10. Are we not drawn onward, we few, drawn onward to new era?

You Gotta be Kidding Me! Bubba and Jimbo were standing at the base of a flagpole, looking up. A man walked by and asked what they were doing. “We’re supposed to find the height of the flagpole,” said Bubba, “but we don’t have a ladder.” The man took a wrench from his pocket, loosened a few bolts, and laid the pole down. Then he took a tape measure from his pocket, took a measurement, and announced, “Eighteen-feet, six-inches,” and walked away. Junior shook his head and laughed. “Wow, that guy is not smart. We asked for the height, and he gives us the length!”

11. “Do nine men interpret?” “Nine men,” I nod. 12. Ten animals slam in a net 14. Was it a cat I saw? 15. Lived on Decaf, Faced no Devil 16. Cigar? Toss it in a can. It is so tragic 17. A man, a plan, a cat, a ham, a yak, a yam, a hat, a canal - Panama. 18. Live on time, emit no evil. 19. Now sir, a war is never even sir, a war is won. 20. Step on no pets. 21. A nut for a jar of tuna. Answer: They are all palindromes – these sentences are the same whether read correctly or backwards. Go ahead read them backwards, and you will see what I mean.

Riddle Me This? A man falls 150 feet without a parachute. He flips upside down six times and lands safely on the ground. How does he do this? Answer below

Answer to Riddle: He was riding on a roller coaster.

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13. Rise to vote, sir

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1. Ten inches of snow will melt down to how many inches of rain? a. 10 inches b. 7 inches c. 4 inches d. 1 inch

4. Tornado Alley is the name for which area of the United States? a. Brooklyn, especially on a Sunday while trying to get a parking spot on Avenue J.

6. How is a blizzard defined? a. As your bedroom closet b. Constant wind gusts of 50 mph or more, AND visibility below 1/2 mile, AND more than 12 inches of snow must fall c. Constant winds or gusts of 35 mph or more, AND visibility below 1/4 mile with heavy snow and/or blowing snow, AND all of these things must last for at least 3 hours d. Heavy snow, hurricane force winds AND visibility under 1/8 of a mile

Weather Report 5-6 Correct: “Now, with traffic and weather on the eights, we turn to (please insert your name)” 3-4 Correct: You are somewhere between a drizzle and a thunderstorm. Perhaps you could get a job at 1010 WINS. Dingalingadingalingdingalinga… You give us 22 minutes we give you the world. 1-2 Correct: Feeling foggy?

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3. What exactly is a jet stream? a. The trail left by an airplane high in the sky b. A narrow and shallow stream of wind which is usually westerly, strong and concentrates in the upper troposphere of the sky c. Precipitation caused by extremely high winds in the upper atmosphere d. Condensation particles that are starting to form clouds

5. When sustained winds are immediately expected to be over forty miles per hour for at least one hour in an area, what kind of advisory does the National Weather Service issue for that area? a. Strong Wind Advisory b. High Wind Alert c. High Wind Warning d. Wind Advisory

Answers 1. D- 1 inch of rain is equivalent to about 10 inches of snow. The difference comes from the air trapped in snow ice crystals and the density of the snow. This can be seen by simply filling a tall water glass with snow and watching it melt. The lighter and fluffier the snow, the faster it melts. 2. D-The cirrostratus cloud is a high-level, sheet-like cloud composed of ice crystals. They can cover the entire sky and be thousands of feet thick, but because they are quite transparent, we can easily see the moon or the sun through them. 3. B- A jet stream is a highspeed flow of air in the upper troposphere. It is like having rivers of air several hundred miles wide. This air generally moves from west to east, marking the boundary between two global air masses that have differences of temperature that are significant. 4. B 5. C 6. C

JANUARY 21, 2021

2. Some clouds produce a kind of halo effect around the sun or the moon. The halo is a result of refraction of light by the ice crystals in the clouds. Cirrostratus clouds produce this effect. How do you identify the cirrostratus cloud? a. Low-level and layered b. Mid-level and wispy c. High-level and puff y d. Sheet-like and high level

b. Mid-Western United States, which includes Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Iowa, and Texas, T-5 c. The NorthEastern part of the U.S. d. The SouthEastern United States, including Georgia and areas of Tennessee.

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Weather Trivia

OCTOBER 29, 2015 | The Jewish Home

Notable Quotes “Say What?!”

I offered to donate 25% or £52.5 million [approximately $71.7 million] to the city of Newport in order to distribute to all local residents who live in Newport should I find and recover the Bitcoins. This would work out to approximately £175 ($239) per person for the entire city (316,000 population). Unfortunately, they refused the offer and won’t even have a face-to-face discussion with me on the matter.

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- British IT investor James Howells who threw away a hard drive in 2013 with approximately $275 million in bitcoin data on it, after he thought he had backed up all the information, talking to CNN about the landfill operator’s refusal to look for the hard drive

I mean, they put these rules in place. They’re not even following their own rules. I mean, how many people have gotten caught? “Don’t travel. Don’t leave the state.” Oh, here’s so-and-so on a vacation. Oh, here’s so-and-so at a salon. “Don’t eat out at a restaurant unless you’re wearing a mask and separate.” Oh, here’s a picture of the governor of California violating those rules. Oh, public schools are closed, but I can send my kids to a private school in person .- Packers quarterback Aaron Rogers on The Pat McAfee Show talking about politicians’ hypocrisy when it comes to Covid and why he made a large donation to the Barstool Sports’ fund to assist small businesses that have financially suffered due to strict lockdown measures

This is the most offensive thing I’ve ever heard. No one should ever question the loyalty or professionalism of the Texas National Guard. @TexasGuard I authorized more than 1,000 to go to DC. I’ll never do it again if they are disrespected like this. – Texas Governor Greg Abbott, after it was announced that the National Guards who are protecting Washington are being vetted for extremist views

Our election was hijacked. There is no question. Congress has a duty to #ProtectOurDemocracy & #FollowTheFacts. – Recently resurfaced tweet from 5/16/17, by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, not resulting in censure and not even containing a Twitter warning about false information

It’s really important to understand that Israel is a racist state, in that they would deny Palestinians like my grandmother access to a vaccine, that they don’t believe she’s an equal human being who deserves to live. - Jew-hater and Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (D-MI)

I had a dream Trump was on trial for sedition. And outside the courthouse, a noose was hung from a makeshift scaffold. The noose was made of recycled Covid masks. - Tweet by actor Alec Baldwin, which was not censured by Twitter

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58 I would love to see his phone records, to see whether he was talking to Putin the day that the insurgents invaded our Capitol. But we all know that not just him, but his enablers, his accomplices, his cult members, have the same disregard for democracy. - Hillary Clinton, during a joint podcast interview with Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi

To your point who is he beholden to — as I’ve said over and over…as I pointed to him, with you Mr. President, all roads lead to Putin. - Pelosi’s response

Congressman Brian Mast, a Republican from Florida – who lost his legs, by the way, fighting for democracy abroad, although I don’t know ... about his commitment to it here in the United States.

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- CNN’s Jake Tapper talking about Congressman Mast, who lost both of his legs in an IED attack in Afghanistan while fighting for the U.S., after Congressman Mast angered Jake Tapper because he gave a speech opposing Trump’s impeachment

If the ceremony on the White House lawn means anything, these turkeys should be given a chance to live as turkeys should — but instead, they’re serving a life sentence without so much as the opportunity to enjoy the outdoors. PETA is asking Virginia Tech to let us give these turkeys a chance to enjoy companionship, fresh air, and sunshine at a reputable sanctuary, as they deserve.

One of the other purposes of impeachment, in this case, is to make sure that President Trump is not able to run for federal office again, that he’s not able to seek the presidency. -Rep. Joaquin Castro, (D-TX) on ABC’s “This Week”

I got the vaccine down here. I probably wouldn’t have gotten it by now in New York. - Former New York State Democratic Party leader John Sullivan, who worked for Gov. Andrew Cuomo, telling the New York Post that he received the vaccine in Florida, which has been much more efficient at distributing the vaccine than New York

- PETA Senior Vice President of Cruelty Investigations Daphna in a letter to the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Virginia Tech, where the turkeys that President Trump pardoned in 2018 are housed

Let’s not just give ordinary Americans a one-time $2,000 check. With our new majority and a worsening crisis, let’s meet the need: $2,000/month, every month, until this crisis is over. - Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA)

MORE QUOTES

OCTOBER 29, 2015 | The Jewish Home

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The Republicans arguing against impeachment are looking to absolve Bin Laden because it might “inflame” Al Queda (The Base). That’s a chump’s way out. Truth and Justice will be the first seed of unity. Impeach. – Tweet by Hollywood actor Sean Penn, referring to 79 million Americans as terrorists

JANUARY 21, 2021

I wonder if you have thought through kind of how Republicans begin what someone on my team earlier today called deBaathification of the Republican Party? - MSNBC’s Joy Reid talking to a co-host, inferring that the Republican Party is similar to Saddam Hussein’s Baath party

Let’s not confuse 5,000 people with 74 million. – Bill Maher, HBO, who has an inclination towards logic, warning liberals that they are going too far by demonizing millions of peaceful Trump supporters

I am blessed with good health, so turning 99 is no different than turning 98. - Actress Betty White talking about her recent 99th birthday

Here’s a quote: “I just don’t even know why there aren’t more – why there aren’t uprisings all over the country and maybe there will be.” Or, “Sadly, the domestic enemies of our voting system and honoring our Constitution are right at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue with their allies in Congress.” We were called “enemies” of the state. Those were all quotes from our speaker.

- Rep. Louis Gohmert (R-TX) during a congressional session, arguing against impeachment

This is also the last madness of Pompeo — Mr. Lies. - China’s foreign minister responding to Sec. of State Mike Pompeo’s assertion that Covid was started in and leaked from a Chinese lab

- Former acting DNI Ric Grenell, on Fox News

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Now, on our side, we didn’t take those to be impeachable because we didn’t believe she surely meant that. But by the Democrats taking this action, you’re telling me, “No, when we say those, we actually mean to incite violence.” That’s what this [impeachment] action is saying.

I think you need to watch Susan Rice very closely. She will be the shadow president.

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JANUARY 21, 2021

OCTOBER 29, 2015 | The Jewish Home

Dating Dialogue

What Would You Do If… Moderated by Jennifer Mann, LCSW of The Navidaters

Dear Navidaters,

Mazal tov to our columnist, RENA FRIEDMAN, upon her engagement!

I’ve never written to a magazine before, but I have no clue who else to ask. I really like the styles of each of your panelists, and I think you could help me.

I’m 26 and have been dating since I was 21. I don’t live at home anymore, for reasons that will become obvious as I continue. I’m dating a guy seriously – let’s call him Chaim. I am petrified to bring him home to meet my

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parents, because I know my parents will sabotage it. They won’t do it to his face, but as soon as he leaves, their critique will begin. Either he’s too short, too tall, not tall enough, doesn’t have a good enough family, doesn’t “look” like our family, doesn’t have a good enough job, etc. I’ve been through this before, which was why I moved out. Chaim and I want to get engaged, and I have been putting it off because I don’t want my parents to start their negativity train. Things feel so much safer with them in the dark. Chaim knows how I feel regarding my parents. How should I go forward with this? Thank you, Leah*

Disclaimer: This column is not intended to diagnose or otherwise conclude resolutions to any questions. Our intention is not to offer any definitive conclusions to any particular question, rather offer areas of exploration for the author and reader. Due to the nature of the column receiving only a short snapshot of an issue, without the benefit of an actual discussion, the panel’s role is to offer a range of possibilities. We hope to open up meaningful dialogue and individual exploration.

B”SD

Kaplan Family “. . Our chasuna is forever, because our parents invested in an artist.” Feinberg Family “. . Watching the film we

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“. . .Unbelievable! I am crying like a baby. It was absolutely awesome.“

laughed, sang, clapped,

to behold.” Frenkel Family “. . My Advice: Stop looking, You just found your wedding filmmaker.”

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The Panel The Rebbetzin Rebbetzin Faigie Horowitz, M.S. eah, I hear your dilemma. I am glad you have found your soulmate and the two of you are ready to finalize a lifelong commitment. I am going to make some assumptions based on what you have written. The first is connected to your relationship with your parents. The second is connected to your relationship with Chaim. You did not move out only because your parents are hypercritical of the boys you date. There were and are other serious issues in the relationship which have not yet been worked out. You have also been in therapy to deal with the root issues that cause this. You are living independently and have a profession by now. You also have mentors to whom you turn. Therefore, think back to what your therapists and mentors have advised you about communicating with them. Consider what has worked in the past. Consider going to your therapist and mentors with Chaim. Consider telling people in their life (their rabbi/mentor/ close friend) in advance about your pending engagement so that they are ready to deal with their reaction and will feed them appropriate advice. A strategy you may decide on is letting them know the engagement is happening and giving them a choice. In other words, informing them of the impending news and telling them you have a choice: to participate in the simcha with happiness and dignity or not. Whatever you decide to do together with your team and Chaim, remember not to fall into the traps and patterns of the past. Don’t let their reaction and your reaction to old patterns drive you to say things you will later regret. Don’t let old behaviors get triggered by them. You may need to prepare scripts and practice them. I am assuming that you have been open with Chaim about your parents, the issues that remain between you and them, and their possible reactions.

Have you shared your personal journey in separating from them? Is your relationship strong enough to weather short-term and long-term negativity from your parents? Has he had experience dealing with toxic relationships and grown from it? Does he have mentors? Can he stick to the script you decide on? Does he have the capacity to give you what you need when you have stress? How does he deal with major stress? Do you have the capacity to give him what he needs to support him through his stress? These are important questions to work through so that you two will weather not only this stress but future stressors that life inevitably brings. Take the time to work through this looming challenge and your later challenges as a couple will be easier to handle as you will have forged a strong bond of mutual support. B’hatzlacha.

The Shadchan

self-confidence is strong enough to use this tool to your advantage. I can infer from details in your letter that you understand the unhealthy patterns in your parents (hence your move out of your home, etc.). Go to your childhood home with Chaim, a box of chocolates, a bottle of wine, and some red clown noses. You already recognize your parents have a problem, and you know what to expect. That is most of the battle. Now you just need to get over with it, introduce him, and create an environment where you are not taking them too seriously. You are speaking to an audience of clowns; no need to get all intimidated. You know your relationship with Chaim, and you are a self-aware young woman who can hold her own. Your parents love you and will love Chaim. You just have to get through these next few months with a grain of salt and a sense of humor.

The Single

Michelle Mond

s a shadchan, I have seen the scenario you describe play out many different ways over the years, so much so that I can basically predict an outcome if I have enough information. If you and Chaim are being completely honest with each other, I would give your relationship a good prognosis. You will get through the engagement and marriage process; you will tiptoe around your parents negativity. You might need to learn some creative coping techniques. Place the phone on your pillow while your parents go on monologues about their fears and woes regarding your new relationship. Make sure you have healthy mentors to provide you with guidance along the way. They say the best way to battle stagefright is to pretend your audience is a bunch of clowns. Suddenly the task of public speaking is not so daunting because you are actually imagining yourself speaking to the least intimidating group of people on earth. I advise you to do the same. Hopefully your

Rivka Weinberg

eah, I’m so happy to hear you and Chaim are looking to get engaged! Im yirtzeh Hashem it should be b’sha’ah tova u’mutzlachas. Bringing a boy home can be exciting, as well as scary and overwhelming. From the way you describe your situation, I can understand why you are hesitant to do so. Each family circumstance is different, and I think it’s important to remember that the words “should” and “normal” are not meant to exist in the realm of shidduchim. One of my rebbeim once told me that people are so busy “shoulding” themselves and comparing their situations to others’ that they self-sabotage. If you believe having Chaim meet your parents too far in advance before the engagement would cause more harm than benefit, then don’t put yourself in that situation. With that being said, I think it’s important for someone whom you respect and trust to meet Chaim to get that validation we all seek from our

The words “should” and “normal” are not meant to exist in the realm of shidduchim. loved ones when we bring home “the one.” I suggest you reach out to a rav, rebbetzin, or mentor to set up a time to meet with him/her and Chaim to allow yourself the menuchas hanefesh we all crave. Once that validation has been acquired and you are fully comfortable and confident with the decision to marry Chaim, you can introduce him to your parents. The fact that Chaim is aware of how you feel about your parents is healthy and shows a level of communication and depth in your relationship. When being vulnerable with him and sharing your feelings, watch how he responds and determine for yourself if you feel heard emotionally in the relationship. However, keep in mind that Chaim is 50% of the relationship as well. Have you asked him what his thoughts are on the situation? Just because he is aware of your feelings towards your parents, doesn’t mean he is okay with them preventing your relationship from progressing. Have an open and honest conversation with Chaim to ensure you are both truly on the same page with regard to a timeline. As difficult as it may be, work on being securely attached and enough for yourself to prevent your parents’ opinions from penetrating your own. I have heard that dating is a microcosm for marriage, so being able to face this challenge head-on with Chaim will allow you to build that necessary foundation which, iy”H, will guide the two of you throughout life. Most importantly, remember Hakadosh Baruch Hu has a plan and turn to Him for the strength, courage, and clarity necessary to navigate this tekufa in your life.

OCTOBER 29, 2015 | The Jewish Home

it’s not that funny. But the point is that parents have optimistic matrimonial expectations for their children, and it is sometimes difficult or impossible for children to satisfy those expectations. So, Leah, ask yourself: Are your parents’ past criticisms completely offthe-wall, over-the-top, unreasonable, and unfounded? Or, do they mean well and are there some hard-for-you-to-admit truths to their past critiques? If you feel absolutely certain and confident that this is the chosson for you, despite how your parents might feel, you need to sit down with them before the momentous meeting, and say, “Mom, Dad, I love you, and I’m looking

Pulling It All Together

forward to you meeting Chaim. I know that you love me and want the very best for your daughter, but I am asking you, very strongly, to not say anything negative to me about him. Chaim and I want to have a long, loving, healthy relationship with you. So, no matter how strongly you feel, please never, ever express any criticisms about him.” Good luck and best wishes.

After you meet with your parents, it will be done with. I suggest that you and Chaim do something together that makes you feel very safe. Is there a place you can visit that has significance to you? Maybe a cup of coffee or tea together would help. Or writing a poem or journaling. Maybe a conversation with a “safe” relative. Something or someone safe, immediately afterward. Your parents may always have something negative to say about your life. Be it a life partner, your first house, the timing of your children, the career of your choice, or the way you part your hair. Or maybe it will be Chaim’s hair that is parted improperly. When we are criticized as youngsters, we often try to please our parents (and others) for the rest of our lives. Some of us may put up walls to protect ourselves from ever getting hurt. And we lose out on being our authentic selves and feeling the liberating sensation of being an individual. The fact that you have moved out truly does speak volumes about you. For what it’s worth, you deserve to be with the man who lights up your heart; who puts a smile on your face; and who makes you happy every day for the rest of your life. Sincerely, Jennifer

Jennifer Mann, LCSW is a licensed psychotherapist and dating and relationship coach working with individuals, couples, and families in private practice at 123 Maple Avenue in Cedarhurst, NY. She also teaches a psychology course at Touro College. To set up a consultation or to ask questions, please call 516-224-7779, ext. 2. Visit www.thenavidaters.com for more information. If you would like to submit a dating or relationship question to the panel anonymously, please email thenavidaters@gmail.com. You can follow The Navidaters on FB and Instagram for dating and relationship advice.

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Do not convince them of anyThe Navidaters thing. That is not your job. Do not Dating and Relationship Coaches and Therapists ask them to like him. That is not your responsibility. Don’t prepare them with a speech about how great he ear Leah, is. Their opinion of him derful! I can’t imagine Thank you for writing into our is of no importance to you. Simply what you may feeling at the column! tell them that you have met someone thought of introducing Chaim First and foremost, I think you are special and you would like to make to your parents. Chaim is preincredible for taking the difficult steps an introduction. Ask them about their cious to you. And when you bring to move out of your parents’ home. schedules and coordinate the meeting. him in front of your parents, from Living with hypercritical family has Before the meeting, I want you to your description, they will most likely the potential to make people both breathe. Deep breathing. Your body pick him apart. I can completely unemotionally and physically unwell. If may be dysregulated beforehand bederstand your hesitation! Why would you’ve tried talking with them about cause of all the times your parents have anyone want to subject herself and her it and they are unable to understand, criticized you and/or the men you have loved one to this? You may know that hear you or make changes for your brought home. It is likely that you will their words are completely beyond the emotional safety and comfort, further be feeling emotional. Your goal is to pale, but still, you are only human… talking and communication around simply regulate your body so that when and words hurt. Seeds get planted. this issue may likely be unhelpful and the criticisms begin to flow, you will reIdeas begin to sprout. To be picked unhealthy for you. It is not for me to main grounded and calm. apart and feel as if Chaim will not “be surmise what is driving your parents to You have created a safe zone for enough” in their eyes will most likely “nitpick” you, but it is my place to valyourself where you are safe from your hurt. And the realization that parents idate your very wise decision to leave. parents’ nitpicking and degrading. can be so limited is hurtful for a child You chose mental sanity and peace by And now, you are faced with the prosof any age. creating a boundary between yourself pect of going back into an emotional And yet, for good reason, I’m sure, and their hurtful words. space where you will not be protected. your parents continue to be in your You have met a wonderful man How brave of you. You need to know life and you will be introducing Chaim with whom you want to spend the rest how brave you are. This is not easy. to them. Here is my practical advice. of your life. Mazal tov! How won-

Remember not to fall into the traps and patterns of the past.

JANUARY 21, 2021

Dr. Jeffrey Galler here’s an old joke: A young woman comes home from a singles’ weekend and excitedly tells her parents, “I’m so happy! I met the most wonderful man. We love each other and want to get married! I can’t wait for you to meet him. I’m sure you will love him.” The parents are happy for their daughter and say, “That’s great! When can we meet him?” The daughter replies, “I knew you’d

say that. I brought him home with me, and he’s standing on the porch right now!” She opens the door and introduces her parents to her boyfriend. He’s wearing a loincloth, his body is completely covered with tattoos, his long hair is festooned with bones, his belt is adorned with shrunken human skulls, he has a live snake wrapped around his neck, and he is carrying a long spear in his right hand. The girl’s mother shrieks, “No, no! I told you to marry a rich doctor! Not a witch doctor!” Okay, okay,

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The Zaidy

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OCTOBER 29, 2015 | The Jewish Home

MythBusters of the Covid Vaccine By Karen Schaeffer, MD, & Ellie Carmody Stone, MD, MPH

With facts and rumors swirling about the new vaccines on the market combatting Covid-19, we present to you six common misconceptions along with the true facts behind the vaccines.

Myth #1: I can get Covid from the vaccine. The Facts: The coronavirus vaccines cannot give you Covid-19. There are several different types of vaccines in use for other viruses. Live vaccines, like those for polio or varicella (chicken pox), are weakened versions of the virus itself. In very rare circumstances, these can be reactivated and cause or spread the disease. The Covid vaccines are very different. These vaccines do not contain a live virus. Current vaccines in distribution work by delivering the messenger RNA (mRNA) strand that codes for a piece of the Covid “spike” protein to our body’s cells. Our cells then use this genetic template, or instruction manual, to make the spike protein piece using the body’s own cellular machinery. The protein is displayed on the cell surface, where it is recognized by the immune system, and we begin to generate immunity and make antibodies, similarly to what happens in natural infection with Covid-19. If your body sees this protein again (i.e. if you get exposed to Covid-19 in the future), your antibodies and other branches of your immune system would protect you.

Myth #2: The Covid vaccine has not been tested enough to prove it is safe. The Facts: All vaccines receiving authorization in the United States have been tested in preclinical, phase I, II and III trials to determine safety and efficacy. This sequence upholds the gold standard for testing of new vaccines and medications in the field of medicine. Phase III trials have blinded, placebo-controlled, randomized controlled trials, constituting the highest standard of clinical research methods. These trials have each involved over 30,000 participants for each vaccine candidate, conforming to the number necessary to carefully observe adverse event (side effect) patterns and determine efficacy with a confident level of precision. Multiple layers of scientific review have ensured us that research results are valid and trustworthy. While many patients experience side effects for a few days after receiving the vaccine, including fever, fatigue, and arm soreness, these side effects resolve. As

Myth #3: If I have had Covid, I do not need to get the vaccine.

The Facts: There is no evidence that the Covid vaccine affects fertility. The Covid vaccine uses our own cell machinery to create the single spike protein shared by the Covid virus. If this protein caused infertility or miscarriages, the Covid virus itself would cause these, which it does not. As does the Covid virus itself, the vaccine contains a short part of an amino-acid sequence shared by syncitin-1, a protein important in placental attachment. But the spike protein and syncitin-1 are not remotely the same protein. The antibodies produced against the Covid-19 spike protein will not block syncitin-1, as it is not at all similar enough for the antibodies to recognize. We have not seen an increase in first-trimester pregnancy losses in those with Covid-19 infection, suggesting that there is no association between antibody to spike protein and placental attachment. In the vaccine trials, there were pregnancies that occurred, and these happened at similar rates between the vaccine and placebo groups. This lends further evidence that the vaccine has no association with fertility. The American Society of Reproductive Medicine has published a statement supporting the use of the vaccine in women trying to become pregnant and in women undergoing fertility treatments.

The Facts: We don’t know how good our body is at creating a long-lasting immune response to Covid-19 infection. Some people create a robust immune response, whereas others do not. Some people have clearly gotten Covid-19 more than once. The large Phase III trials of U.S.-authorized Covid-19 vaccines included some people with prior evidence of SARS-CoV2 infection. Evidence of prior SARS-CoV2 that hadn’t been known to study participants was discovered by checking antibodies on the first day that they were enrolled and received their first injection. Among these with prior SARS-CoV2, fewer cases were detected in the vaccine group than the placebo group, suggesting that these vaccines may reduce the risk of reinfection in those who have already had Covid-19. Since we do not know how long the immune response to natural infection lasts, because the response varies from person to person, and because these vaccines may reduce risk of reinfection, the CDC recommends people who had Covid-19 in the past still get vaccinated. The CDC does provide the following caveats: Anyone currently infected with COVID-19 should wait to get vaccinated until after their illness has resolved and after they have met the criteria to discontinue isolation. Since current evidence suggests that reinfection with the virus that causes COVID-19 is uncommon in the 90 days after initial infection, people with a recent infection may delay vaccination until the end of that 90-day period if desired.

Myth #5: The Covid vaccine causes infertility and miscarriages.

JANUARY 21, 2021

form an adequate immune response with the vaccine due to an immune deficiency.

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with all vaccines, allergic reactions to the Covid-19 vaccines do occur, but these appear to be rare. Like any other medication that comes out, more information will be gathered over the next year or so as millions of people receive these vaccines to ensure their continued safety. The important thing to remember here is that the risks of allergy or long-term side effects from the vaccines are very low, but the risks and long-term effects of getting coronavirus are known and significant, including lung damage, permanent loss of sense of smell or taste, cognitive changes, vascular damage, and even death.

Myth #6: The vaccine changes your DNA. The Facts: The Covid vaccine uses a molecule called mRNA (messenger RNA),

The Facts: “Herd immunity” is a term that got thrown around a lot at the beginning of the pandemic. The idea of herd immunity is if enough people are immune to the virus, the virus can’t continue to circulate. If the virus can’t maintain a toehold in a community, even those who don’t have antibodies are protected by the community’s (i.e., the herd’s) overall immunity. The problem with this reasoning is simple: we have not yet reached the level required to achieve herd immunity. Earlier in the pandemic, some mathematical models estimated that around 30% of people would need to possess immunity to provide herd immunity. Now that we know more about the virus, most estimates are that herd immunity would be reached when 70-80% of individuals are immune, either by having had the virus already or by being vaccinated against it. It is also important to know that “herd immunity” does not mean that everyone in the community is completely protected, even though that may be the goal. Because of this, it is not sufficient to rely on “herd immunity” to protect you unless you cannot be vaccinated, such as someone with a known allergy to something in the vaccine or if you would not

Karen Schaeffer MD and Ellie Carmody Stone MD, MPH are members of the Jewish Orthodox Women’s Medical Association (JOWMA). For more information about Covid-19 and the Covid vaccine, check out JOWMA’s Preventative Health Podcast, available on all major podcast platforms. Or call the JOWMA Preventative Health hotline at 929-443-9868. Karen Schaeffer, MD, is a surgical intern at Tulane University. She also writes for NoiseFilter Podcast which posts daily updates on Covid-19 and helps to promote access and understanding of news about the pandemic. Ellie Carmody, MD, MPH is an Assistant Professor, Division of Infectious Diseases at NYU School of Medicine. She serves as Director of the Infectious Diseases Clinic at NYC Health + Hospitals / Bellevue.

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Myth #4: My community has “herd immunity” so I don’t need to get the vaccine.

which, while related to DNA structurally, does not actually get anywhere near our DNA. It is not DNA even though the words are similar. We actually have lots of mRNA in our own bodies. Our DNA is packaged off in the nucleus of our cell. RNA is like the imprint of DNA. When our body wants to make proteins, it copies one piece of DNA into a strand of RNA which is removed from the nucleus. Outside of the nucleus, this RNA gets turned into proteins. This vaccine delivers the mRNA into this outside portion of cells, and it gets turned straight away into proteins. It does not interact with, integrate into, edit, or alter our DNA. Here’s to wishing all those who are ill a complete and speedy recovery and a refuah shelaima.

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JANUARY 21, 2021

Mental Health Corner

Secure Attachment Between Parents and Children By Rabbi Azriel Hauptman

Parents from time immemorial have wondered if their children will emulate them or if they will be pulled astray by negative influences. There are countless variables that contribute to a child’s development and therefore there is no definitive way to predict the path that an individual child will follow. However, the degree to which a child feels connected to his or her

parents is undoubtedly an important factor. For this reason, in this article we will discuss a concept in psychology known as attachment theory and how this relates to the parent-child relationship. Attachment theory posits that in order for a child to develop properly there must be an attachment to at least one primary caregiver. If a child trusts

that the caregiver is responsive to his or her needs, then the child feels free to explore the world and seek new experiences and social interactions since the caregiver is viewed as a safe base that can offer protection. The attachment system begins very early in life when a baby realizes that caregivers are providing safety and protection. For example, when the baby is separated from his mother, which for a baby can merely mean that the mother is in a different room, the baby will feel frightened and cry out as it seeks its mother’s protection. When the mother responds to the baby’s cry and picks up and sooths the baby, the image of the mother as an attachment figure is reinforced. Eventually, the baby will feel secure enough to act more independently since the caregiver is always there in the background as a safe base to offer safety and protection. The concept of a safe base is analogous to learning how to swim. First, you hold on to the wall and get comfortable in the water. Once you are certain that the wall of the pool is your safe base, you push out into the water knowing that in case you have trouble you can always reach out and grab onto the wall. Similarly, as children develop from infancy all the way into adulthood, the presence of a reliable and responsive attachment figure makes the process easier. The attachment in early childhood is usually dependent on close physical proximity. As the child develops, the child can feel safe away from the parents since they know that if they are in genuine distress their parents are only a phone call away. Even in adulthood,

when one no longer relies on parents for shelter and safety, when the child is securely attached to his parents, he or she knows that they can always turn to their parents in times of emotional distress for their moral support and guidance. All of this is assuming that the parents are responsive to the child’s needs and they do not neglect or mistreat the child. When the child does not feel secure with the primary attachment figures, then a non-secure attachment can result. Such a child has greater challenges in their development as they do not have a safe and secure base. Additionally, being responsive to the child’s needs is also not enough, for when a parent imposes no discipline on their child, there is a great risk that the child will remain irresponsible, impulsive, or immature well into their adult years. The message for parents is that if you want your child to turn to you for guidance and direction as they emerge into adulthood, you need to foster a healthy relationship with them. This requires a combination of the structure provided by traditional parenting and also a heightened sense of responsiveness to the child’s needs. This blend creates an image in your child’s mind of his or her parent as a rock of stability and protection that can be utilized for advice, a sense of direction, and comfort. This is a service of Relief Resources. Relief is an organization that provides mental health referrals, education, and support to the frum community. Rabbi Yisrael Slansky is director of the Baltimore branch of Relief. He can be contacted at 410-448-8356 or at yslansky@reliefhelp.org

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Blackberry Swirl Pareve Cheesecake what you will need:

preparation:

1 ready made Mi-Del gluten free 9 inch graham cracker pie shell 2 packages plain Tofutti cream cheese ½ cup sugar 1 ½ Tbl. potato starch ½ Tbl. vanilla ½ cup Tofutti sour cream 2 eggs 1 ½ Tbl seedless black berry jam whisked until smooth

1. Pre-heat oven to 325. 2. Beat Tofutti cream cheese, sugar, potato starch, and vanilla with mixer until blended and smooth. Add sour cream and then the eggs one at a time, mixing on low speed after each addition. Pour over crust. Gently drop small amounts of blackberry jam all over batter; swirl gently with knife. 3. Bake 1 hour or until center is almost set and edges are light brown. Refrigerate 4 hours. Enjoy! Can be made with regular cream cheese and sour cream as well.

THE BALTIMORE JEWISH HOME

JANUARY 21, 2021

B A LT I M O R E J E W I S H H O M E . C O M

The Jewish Home | OCTOBER 29, 2015

B A LT I M O R E J E W I S H H O M E . C O M

THE BALTIMORE JEWISH HOME

JANUARY 21, 2021

Your

Money

It Was a Very Good Year By Allan Rolnick, CPA

t’s not just a new year, folks. 2020 is finally…finally…finally over! While most of us were perfectly happy to see it in with a whimper instead of the usual bang, we’re all looking forward to the day when murder hornets, Tiger King, and (“gestures wildly in the air”) all the rest have faded from the headlines and start popping up on Jeopardy. (“I’ll take Dystopian Nightmares for $200” — but no “Alex,” because…2020.) Have we ever needed a fresher start? This particular January is an

especially promising time to look towards future goals. If you’re like most people, you’ve got a stack of resolutions staring you in the face. Eat less, check. Exercise more, check. And would it kill you to call your mom more often? But what if you’re really looking to make 2021 count? Career success? Fame and fortune? How can you make the leap to accomplishing those lofty goals? Scott Galloway is a tech entrepreneur, author, and business school professor who’s spent much of the

past few years making himself as ubiquitous as possible through books, podcasts, and social media. There’s a YouTube clip making the rounds (taken from a longer 2019 interview with MSNBC’s Stephanie Rule) where Galloway tells you how to succeed in 2021. And it’s the complete opposite of what you might expect: “Don’t follow your passion.” Galloway starts by dismissing that advice as fragrant barnyard waste before stating flat out: “If someone tells you to follow your passion, it means they’re already rich. And typically, the guy onstage telling you to follow your passion made his billions in iron ore smelting.” Galloway, by contrast, recommends a much more practical route: “Find something you’re good at, and then spend the thousands of hours…to become great at it.” Because once you’re great at it, he continues,

to do interesting things which, by the way, makes them passionate about tax law.” Galloway finishes his rant by acknowledging that, yeah, following your passion sometimes works. He’s just saying don’t count on it. “Jay-Z followed his passion and became a billionaire. Assume that you are not Jay-Z.” Where does that leave boring tax and finance pros like us? We’re doing just fine, thank you. We do fascinating things every day. We get to help clients just like you to plan for the brightest possible future. We secure comfortable retirements. We put children and grandchildren through college. We solve complicated business and financial challenges. We may never get our face on magazine covers or bubblegum cards. But that doesn’t mean we don’t get to help you live your dreams — and maybe even

“Find something you’re good at, and then spend the thousands of hours…to become great at it.”

the rewards of being great will kick in “and make you passionate about whatever it is.” So, what does Galloway offer as his ultimate example of turning boring expertise into passion? Where do you go if the doors to the glamorous smelting world are closed? Taxes, of course. “Nobody grows up thinking, ‘I’m passionate about tax law.’ But the best tax lawyers in this nation fly private and have a much broader selection of mates than they deserve. And they get

get your face on those covers. We’re not entirely out of the woods. 2021 will bring a different set of challenges, hopefully with fewer murder hornets. But we’re looking forward to being here for you whatever the year brings! Allan J Rolnick is a CPA who has been in practice for over 30 years in Queens, NY. He welcomes your comments and can be reached at 718-896-8715 or at allanjrcpa@aol.com.

OCTOBER 29, 2015 | The Jewish Home

Life C ach

THE BALTIMORE JEWISH HOME

Some Things are Hard to Face Unarmed Rivki D. Rosenwald Esq., LMFT, CLC, SDS

JANUARY 21, 2021

beds, there is the size thing to tackle. Do we get twin, full, or queen – or if we’re feeling like we need lots space, should we go with the kingsize? And do we bother with desks in the kids’ rooms? Well, that depends: do they even bother with homework? How about closet design? Lots of hanging or lots of shelves? That depends, too. Is there a uniform in their school? If yes, then, actually, maybe we don’t even need to bother with a closet! Just a little area for the three navy pants or plaid skirts accompanied by their four plain tops, and you’re good to go! And then that kind of answers the mirror-or-no-mirror question, too. If there’s no different outfit to put on daily, who’s going to bother looking at themselves each day? They can just stare at any kid in school, and they’ll basically get a good idea of what they look like. So that kind of covers most of the upstairs. Though, the mom and dad’s room may require a separate conversation. Yet, very often, parents will put a lot of thought into this decor and in actuality only use this room to pass out in! So, let’s address the rest of the house first, instead. Dining rooms make me think of autumn. Leaves, leaves, leaves.

How big do we want the original table and how much bigger do we want it to get? That is always the first dining room challenge. The second is the size and comfort of the chairs. Which we usually swap out for those terrible little folding chairs whenever we have company anyway. So why do we lose sleep over this, I wonder?! Can we now talk couches? Somehow, we need them everywhere! The living room, den, playroom, breakfast area, basement, guest room, sunroom.... We apparently like to sit! There are endless reasons for sofas and endless choices. When we talk couches, it sounds like we are talking about anything but seating: Love or straight? Modern or old fashioned? Armless or without legs? Starting to see what I mean?! And then there’s the comfort, the fabric, and the style to figure out as well. And, of course, then there are the two most important rooms to figure out: kitchen and bathrooms. And to tell you the truth, there are people who specialize in both because they have so many of their own features to navigate. So, let’s put them on hold in terms of analysis, and just agree to recognize that

once the plumbing, electric, and fixtures are worked out there’s still a lot more design to design. So, when you feel like redoing or redecorating a room or a house, don’t think you’re the only one who gets overwhelmed by it all. There’s endless aesthetics and pragmatics of everything to decide all coming together at once. There’s way more of it to deal than there are even people in any family to use it – no matter how big your family. So, take it slow, give yourself a break. Remember there are pros and cons to everything! Now if that thought only calms you for a second, sit down on your “armed” or “armless” couch and let me help you “shoulder” the burden. I’ll give you an added bonus: if you’re really overwhelmed, here’s the scoop. The “SDS” sitting there weekly at the end of my name stands for Space Design Specialist. If you like, reach out to me, and I’ll give you that needed helping “hand!” No one should have to confront these endless choices “unarmed!”

Rivki Rosenwald is a certified relationship counselor, and career and life coach. She can be contacted at 917-7052004 or rivki@rosenwalds.com.

B A LT I M O R E J E W I S H H O M E . C O M

hat’s a person to do? When it comes to home décor, choices abound and we’re confronted with which way to go. Let’s take floor treatments, for example. Carpets can be so reassuring – such a good way to make sure there are no tender bruises or bumps for our little ones. Then again, floors are a lot easier to sweep, and we certainly don’t need to worry what in the world is hiding out in there. Everything on a floor is upfront and personal, as they say! Or how about what to do with the walls?! It’s easy enough to paint, assuming you can stand the reality that the paint you choose never actually resembles the sample you had loved in the store. Paint has no seams or themes to concern yourself with either. Yet, it may feel a lot less decorative and more boring. And should we talk beds? Bunkbeds are certainly space-saving and really exciting for kids. Yet, they’re a lot more nerve-racking for parents. Kind of makes the carpet choice thing a lot easier, though. Standard height beds, in the alternative, are way easier to make up in the mornings and a lot closer to terra firma and therefore tend to give parents way more peace of mind. But then again, with picking

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