Five Towns Jewish Home 10.19.23

Thousands Gather in Support for Israel in

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Women Join Unity Challah Bake

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Sending Chizuk, Tefillos, and Support for Those in Israel

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Dear Readers,

Last week, in Parshas Bereishis, we read about the creation of the world. The Torah details what Hashem created on each day, a Master designing His Masterpiece with care for each detail. After each day (except for Yom Sheini), Hashem “looked” at what He created and “saw that it was good.”

We are told that, in order to become more perfect beings, we need to emulate G-d and His ways. Looking at Creation, we see that one step in creating a more perfect world is seeing the good in this world. Being able to see the good is a G-dly attribute.

But sometimes, it’s hard to see the good. There is so much darkness and so much pain. So much horror and so much tragedy. Sometimes, the good is obscured and hidden and uncertain. We know it’s there. We know it’s hiding behind clouds of destruction, behind the gloom of despair. But it feels almost impossible to grasp a glimpse of a glimmer of the good in a situation.

Right now, looking at the pain and the terror that is enveloping the Holy Land, I am hardpressed to see past the gloom. Our hearts are so heavy and too filled with mourning.

But I am trying, trying so hard, to find the light in the darkness.

And I’m finding the light within ourselves.

You see, when I hear about the thousands of children writing letters of support to our brave soldiers, I am heartened. I see their innocent pictures, their colorful scrawl, and I see the light.

When I hear about the hundreds of people spending time shopping and packing and loading

and sending packages to Israel, I am encouraged. The duffel bags, the flashlights, the batteries…simple things, but they are indicative of the light in our lives.

When I hear of individuals visiting the hotels housing the hundreds of families who have been displaced, I am amazed. The chizuk they bring them, the creative games that they play, the support that they extend is heartwarming.

When I see the throngs and throngs of people joining together for Tehillim and tefillah, I am awed. Their fervent understanding that our success and salvation only comes from the One Above is inspiring.

But I don’t only see the light in the multitudes who are uniting to do good. There are so many individuals who, on their own level, are actively bringing the light into their lives. For one person, it is saying a perek of Tehillim that they may not have said before. For another, it’s bringing Shabbos into their homes a bit earlier than usual. Or singing at the Shabbos table. Or eating shalosh seudos. For another person, it’s reaching out to the lonely neighbor on the block. For another, it’s offering to buy groceries for someone who is struggling.

There are so many people who are trying to rise above the darkness and are actively bringing the light into the lives.

Together, hopefully, we will bring the Ultimate light of redemption to this world.

Wishing you a wonderful week, Shoshana

Yitzy Halpern, PUBLISHER publisher@fivetownsjewishhome.com

Yosef Feinerman, MANAGING EDITOR ads@fivetownsjewishhome.com

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Contents

Dear Editor,

As the Jewish people reel in fear, mourning, and prayer in the wake of the horrible devastation, many things remain uncertain, but one thing becomes clear: Our enemies don’t care whether we’re secular, Charedi, Religious-Zionist, chassidic, Modern Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, Sepharadi, Ashkenazi, or Teimani.

When beset by such overwhelming tragedy, we realize how the differences between us pale in comparison to what binds us together – our Jewishness. That alone should make all of our brothers worthy of our love and respect.

Let us make sure that this is reflected in the way we think about them, treat them, and speak about them, even when we disagree.

Yehuda Dov Reiss Yerushalayim

Dear Editor,

My non-Jewish neighbors have been asking me why they have not seen any major pro-Israel demonstrations. I have no answer. It has been almost two weeks since the Hamas massacre , and our major Jewish organizations are yet to be heard from. Where is Young Israel? The OU? Agudah? Why haven’t they organized major demonstrations backing Israel? We can all recall the massive outpourings for Soviet Jewry at the U.N. And the hundreds, if not thousands, of busses carrying Jews of all persuasions to Wash-

ington, D.C. in support of Israel. Why are they quiet now?

I say that the Young Israel and the OU and Agudah coordinate with roshei yeshivot and chassidic rebbes to initiate a mass turnout of Jews in support of our brethren. Let the world see that Jews care about other Jews.

If I were in a position of leadership, I would enlist Mayor Adams to entice Cardinal Dolan to bring out his troops as well. All civilized people must stand together.

This is an “eis la’asos.” I am waiting for someone to cry out, “Mi la’Shem eylai.”

Rabbi Schaye Schonbrun Kew Gardens, NY

Dear Editor,

President Trump, the best U.S. President for Israel in American history, is continually vilified by many American Jews who exhibit “Trump Derangement Syndrome,” hating someone without being able to support those feelings based on policy decisions. I have personally witnessed it in our community. When called to account for that feeling, people make vague allusions to President Trump’s personality and his name calling. However, Trump’s policies, both domestic and foreign, are never mentioned. It reminds me of the “Wizard of Oz” where the Democrat party says, “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain”; in this case, the man

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represents Biden’s Administration policies. I feel like Toto who pulls back the curtain and exposes the fraud.

The Biden Administration has continued the Obama’s soft on Iran policies with the delivery of pallets of cash that made the U.S. the greatest funder of terrorism. The Biden Administration has looked the other way when it came to Iranians having the money from oil exports despite the U.S. embargo. They also made, and are continuing to make, direct payments to the Palestinians. This means that Iran’s proxies Hamas and Hezbollah get the money to strike Israel. The Wall Street Journal has detailed the Iranian involvement in the barbarous October 7, 2023 attack, but the Biden Administration still has not acknowledged Iran’s role in it. Remember this when you vote in 2024!

Jan Henock

Woodmere, NY

Dear Editor,

The Torah and Chazal tell us that Moshe could not see G-d’s face, only His back. What was G-d wearing on the back? Tefillin. What’s the meaning of this? The Chasam Sofer explains that we can’t understand G-d’s actions in real time, only when we look back will we understand G-d’s ways. Though there’s no “why,” there is “what.” What must now be done to react to the current situation? For this, we can look towards the tefillin.

The Gemara explains that in G-d’s tefillin is the verse, “Who is like my nation Israel...” In our tefillin is the parsha of Shema, representative of kabbalat ol malachut Shamayim. We say, “Hear Israel, Hashem Elokeinu Hashem Echad.” If we adopt the depth of this verse, it’s saying, Hashem that is Elokeinu, of justice, and Hashem of mercy, is one. We accept that G-d is perfect and to make G-d one in this world we must consecrate our leather straps of tefillin, representative of absolute physicality, to G-d. Every desire,

thought and action must be transformed towards serving G-d and then G-d will pronounce, “Who is like my nation Israel...” and initiate redemption.

Steven Genack

Dear Editor,

In April 1945, World War II Supreme Allied Commander Dwight E. Eisenhower was shocked at the Nazi brutality he witnessed at the Nazi Ohrduruf concentration camp. He was afraid that future generations might not believe that the horrors of the Holocaust were real. To preserve history for future generations, he had the media record the scene. He also had American soldiers along with Germans who lived in the adjacent communities view the atrocities for themselves. Hamas recorded their barbaric acts of death and bodily mutilation against babies, children, adults, seniors and Israel soldiers on cell phones and video for all to see. There is no question about atrocities committed by Hamas as they were proud to document their evil work.

Sincerely,

Larry Penner

Great Neck, NY

Dear Editor,

The horrific slaughter of our people is shocking, to say the least. But after the massacre, there are people whitewashing the events, asserting that Israel is to blame for the 1,400 citizens who were murdered by Hamas militants. We wonder: are these people sane? But the answer is that these people are evil. They side with evil; they support evil; they partner with evil.

No clearer is that definition than now, when the burnt bodies of our fellow Jews have not yet been identified or buried. We must speak up against evil. We cannot sit by and remain silent! We must speak up online and in the media against the evil in this world.

Ruti Lerman

Japan Goes After Unification Church

The Japanese government is going after the country’s Unification Church, alleging that the religious institution has illegally exploited its members for financial purposes.

The government, which is currently led by the Liberal Democratic Party, requested on Friday that the Tokyo District Court strip the organization of its legal religious status, citing 5,000 pieces of evidence provided by the Education Ministry which, according to investigations, prove that the Unification Church used fearmongering and other manipulative, cult-like tactics to convince its followers into donating large sums of money.

“It is our deepest regret that the Japanese government made the serious decision based on distorted information provided by a leftist lawyers’ group formed for the purpose of destroying our organization,” said the church, whose full name is the World Peace and Unification Church. “It will be a stain in Japan’s Constitutional history.”

The legal battle will likely last for quite some time, but if the court sides with the government, the church’s tax exemption status would be revoked since the organization would no longer be considered a religious one. While the church would most certainly lose some money, it would be allowed to function otherwise normally in the event that it loses in court.

According to Masahito Moriyama, the Education Minister, the Agency for Cultural Affairs has recorded thirty-two civil lawsuit cases against the Unification Church in which 2.2 billion yen ($14.7 million) in all was awarded to 169 plaintiffs. Another 20.4 billion yen ($137 million) was awarded as part of in and out

of court settlements to 1,550 people, he added.

The organization claims that it did have problems in the past which did bring the church a large amount of donations, but such concerns have been dealt with for over ten years. Nevertheless, the Unification Church has promised that it will continue to address any remaining issues. These accusations come over a year after one man’s hatred of the Unification Church motivated him to murder former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who is said to have had connections to the organization. The Liberal Democratic Party’s relationship with the church has inclined many to criticize the government and has caused a decline in Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s popularity. Some have accused the government of going after the church as a means of distancing itself from Abe’s assassination and thus by extension improving its political standing, but Kishida has made it clear that his government’s pursuit of the Unification Church is solely motivated by the facts and the truth and not political gain.

Terror in Brussels

On Monday evening, a gunman in Brussels, Belgium, shot and killed two Swedish nationals in a terrorist attack. A third person was injured in the attack. The murderer then fled on a motorcycle. Early the next morning, police killed the terrorist in a café after an overnight manhunt.

The attack on Monday night came as Belgium hosted Sweden in a Euro 2024 qualifier soccer game at the King Baudouin Stadium 3 miles from downtown Brussels, forcing the match to be abandoned at half-time. The stadium was later evacuated.

The two victims were on their way to the soccer match.

In a video posted after the attack on social media, a man identifying himself as the gunman claimed “to be inspired by the Islamic State.” He has also shared a number of messages in support of the Palestinian people on social media. Still, prosecutors say they don’t see a link between the attack and the war raging in Israel.

The terrorist has been identified as Tunisian Abdesalem Lassoued

“Horrified by the terrorist attack that claimed two victims in the heart of Brussels,” Belgian Foreign Minister Hadja Lahbib posted to X, formerly known as Twitter. “All necessary means must be mobilized to combat radicalism. Our thoughts go out to the victims, their families, and our police forces.”

Following the attack, the terror threat level for Brussels was raised to 4, the highest level, while the French Interior Ministry said it had “strengthened” checks at the Franco-Belgian border.

World’s Coolest Neighborhoods

You may like your neighborhood, but is it the world’s coolest neighbor -

hood?

According to Time Out, Laureles, a city in the area of Medellin in Colombia, is the coolest neighborhood in the world.

Every year, Time Out polls its staffers and contributors from around the globe to assemble a list of the 40 most fun, interesting and fashionable neighborhoods.

According to the magazine, up-andcoming Laureles has a “pretty laid-back reputation” despite being home to the Estadio Atanasio Girardot soccer stadium and a famed nightlife street. Traditional fruit vendors still push their carts through the streets of the neighborhood.

Five of the top 10 coolest neighborhood are in Europe, with waterfront Havnen in Copenhagen and the historic Smithfield section of Dublin both appearing on the list for the first time. In Asia, Hong Kong’s buzzy Sheung Wan neighborhood gets the nod, and the best showing for a neighborhood in the U.S. is Mid-City, home to some of the best food – and that’s saying a lot, considering the whole city is known for great (non-kosher) food – in New Orleans.

Following Laureles, Smithfield in

Dublin, Ireland, took slot number two. Carabanchel in Madrid, Spain, nabbed spot number three. Havnen came in at number four. Sheung Wang rounded out the top five.

New NZ Government

New Zealand’s Labour Party has been in control of the island country for six years now, but on Saturday, Prime Minister Chris Hipkins announced that his party’s rule had ended.

Over 98% of votes from Saturday’s election have been counted, with the National Party, a center-right party headed by Christopher Luxon, having amassed about 40% of the vote. The Labour Party did not receive the number of votes necessary to form a government.

“The result tonight is not one that any of us wanted,” Hipkins said in his concession, according to the RNZ news station. “I gave it my all to turn the tide of history, but alas, it was not enough.”

Luxon, an entrepreneur who was once in charge of the country’s flag carrier, Air New Zealand, and a politician who has led the National Party since 2021, celebrated his party’s win.

“Tonight, you have given us the mandate to take New Zealand forward,” he said to the crowd of supporters, adding that his party will immediately begin forming a coalition, a government made up of members from different parties. Coalitions have been commonplace in New Zealand since the system’s debut in 1996.

Support for the Labour Party has declined in recent years in light of the pandemic response, soaring inflation rates, and a deteriorating economy. New Zealand’s strict coronavirus policies helped the country suffer from far fewer COVID cases but came with extremely serious lockdown rules and border restrictions and resulted in an economic situation which has yet to recover from the crisis. Each of the campaigning parties vowed to combat the island country’s economic challenges by creating more jobs, generating better health and educational conditions, and providing relief for high costs

of living and housing.

The National Party plans on focusing on several issues in the first one hundred days of its rule, pledging to cut taxes, fight against inflation, eliminate excessive business regulations, and implement stricter rules and police authority in order to lower the crime rate.

Boat Capsizes in Congo

Many people lost their lives on Friday night when a boat carrying more than 300 people overturned near the town of Mbandaka in northwestern Democratic Republic of Congo on the Congo River. So far, the bodies of 52 people have been recovered. Many others are still missing.

Didier Mbula, provincial health minister for Equateur Province, said, “We have recorded 52 bodies that were pulled out. The search teams are still in the field, working. This is still a provisional toll, and it may increase further.”

Deadly boat accidents are frequent on Congo’s rivers and lakes, where vessels are often loaded well beyond their capacity. The country has few tarred roads across its vast, forested territory, and river travel is common.

On Monday, Transport Minister Marc Ekila noted that the boat that capsized should not have been navigating at night, was overloaded, and had not properly identified its owners or the number of passengers on board.

In a statement, he promised to implement rules to improve the safety of river transport and “minimize the recurring tragedies.”

Another Earthquake in Afghanistan

The people of Afghanistan live in a state of shock in the aftermath of some of the deadliest earthquakes the country has ever seen. On Saturday, October 7, a 6.3 magnitude earthquake struck the

18 Herat province and Herat city. The next day, another quake of the same magnitude hit northwest of Herat, according to the United States Geological Survey’s readings. The earthquakes and their aftershocks have killed over two thousand people, turning several villages into mere rubble. On Sunday, October 15, another 6.3 magnitude quake shook western Afghanistan, just 20 miles from the Herat area.

“The situation in Afghanistan was already extremely dire,” Mawlawi Mutiul Haq Khales, a member of the Afghan Red Crescent Society, said. “People were just starting to recover when another series of massive earthquakes hit us, all within less than a week. On top of that, winter is coming, and there’s an urgent need for shelter, food and healthcare.”

Ninety percent of the people killed in the earthquakes were women and chil-

dren, according to members and agencies of the U.N. Too Young To Wed, a U.S.based charity organization, alleged that the reason why the vast majority of victims were female is because the Taliban forces women and girls to stay inside their homes; a female cannot go to school, get a job, or partake in most normal societal practices.

“They have been systematically stripped of their rights over the last two years. So instead of being at school and at work on a Saturday, they were home, confined to their homes, imprisoned in their homes. It’s a country where half the population is under house arrest,” said Stephanie Sinclair, the founder of Too Young To Wed.

The Taliban’s rule has also made it more difficult for aid groups to help badly injured and trapped residents. The governing group, which is recognized as a terrorist organization by the U.S., has been of little help to survivors, victims say.

“Afghanistan is home to one of the world’s worst humanitarian and child rights crises. This is by far the worst earthquake it has endured in many years,” said Siddig Ibrahim, the chief of UNICEF Afghanistan’s Field Office.

Stockholm Targets

Gas Cars

Starting in 2025, it will be much harder to find a tailpipe in a central district of Stockholm.

Sweden’s capital said last week that it would ban conventional diesel- and gas-powered vehicles from entering a significant part of its downtown, in what is one of Europe’s most ambitious efforts to combat automobile emissions.

The plan, announced last Tuesday by the vice mayor for transport, Lars Strömgren, will allow only vehicles that run on electricity or natural gas in a 20-block zone. The only exceptions are plug-in hybrid vans and vehicles driven by certified physically impaired drivers, police and emergency workers.

“I think it’s a bold plan,” said Anna

Moen, 51, an account manager for an insurance company on the northwest corner of the designated area. “We can’t live like this forever,” she said, gazing at the morning traffic.

Other European cities, like London; Paris; Hamburg, Germany; Barcelona, Spain; and Athens, Greece, have similarly tried to discourage the use of private emission-producing cars, but Stockholm appears to be the first Western European city to ban those cars outright on such a large scale.

In London’s Ultra Low Emission Zone, which was recently expanded to reach outer London, for example, cars that do not meet strict emission standards must pay a daily fee of 12.50 pounds (about $15.20). In Stockholm’s new zone, the consequence of driving in the zone with a gas-powered car would be a traffic ticket, which starts at 1,000 Swedish krona (roughly $91).

Many cities in Europe have low-emission zones, but most of those zones are focused on limiting diesel engines or only the most polluting gas-powered cars. Other cities have focused on creating new pedestrian and bicycle-friendly infrastructure.

But the city government of Stockholm, with a population of 1 million, is taking a

more direct approach.

“Petrol and diesel cars are prohibited, period,” Strömgren said in an interview. “One goal is to push technology and innovation within the transportation sector.” He said that delivery and transport companies will have to upgrade their fleets to be able to operate in the zone.

The zone extends over 45 acres in the center of Stockholm and is bordered by four major thoroughfares. It includes a classic downtown district in the capital,

where few people live but many work and shop. (© The New York Times)

Polish Opposition Parties Win

In the latest general election in Poland, the Law and Justice Party, which has been the governing party since 2015, won about 35.64% of the vote; the Civic Coalition party received around 30.48%.

“This is the end of the bad times. This is the end of the PiS government,” said Donald Tusk, a former Prime Minister of Poland and current leader of the Civic Coalition party, on Sunday. “Poland won; democracy has won.”

On Sunday night, in an address to his voters, Kaczynski said that he is unsure if his party’s “success will be able to be turned into another term in power.”

Following the projected election results, the Polish stock market rose 6%, while the value of the European country’s currency, the zloty, also rose in value.

The PiS Party has been heavily criticized in recent years, with many warning that the party is pushing the country away from democracy. Some assert that the government has taken over the judiciary with judges who favor the ruling government, and many have criticized the state media for allegedly being biased towards the Law and Justice Party. Critics have pointed to the fact that most of the election night coverage focused on Kaczynski’s speech, with little time allotted to Tusk.

The new government will likely not take effect until after December, at which point President Andrzej Duda will allow the winner of the election to attempt to form a majority coalition in order to respect Polish tradition. If, at the time, the PiS party is unable to do so, the opposition parties will likely be able to form their own majority coalition in parliament.

Ecuador’s New President

While the ruling party, run by Jaroslaw Kaczynski, has technically won the race, it will be unable to amass the 231 parliament seats necessary to make up the majority, as the three opposition parties – the Civic Coalition party with about 30% of the vote, the Third Way party with approximately 14.4%, and the New Left with around 8.5% – combined can form the majority in the Polish parliament, with 249 seats out of 460. The Populist Law and Justice Party will only have 211 seats.

Daniel Noboa, a thirty-five-year-old businessman, was declared the winner of the Ecuadorian presidential election on

24 Sunday, making him the youngest president to ever be elected in Ecuador.

Noboa beat out his main competitor, Luisa González, with a four percent lead. González quickly conceded and congratulated Noboa and his supporters.

Ecuador has been overrun with crime and chaos in recent years, building up to the assassination of presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio in August. The murder rate in 2022 was more than four times what it was in 2018. The South American country’s economy has also been deteriorating, while the border has been swarming with drug trafficking.

While campaigning, Noboa said he would fight against those bringing drugs into the country by securing the borders and ports and said he would also seek to take power away from gangs by moving them to prison ships. He has additionally pledged to create new jobs for the youths of Ecuador.

Following his win, Noboa addressed the people of his country and promised that he would “give back a smile and peace to the country.”

“Tomorrow, we will start working for a new Ecuador, to reconstruct a country battered by violence, by corruption and hate,” he added.

Generally speaking, Ecuadorian pres-

idents serve a four-year term. However, since the last president, Guillermo Lasso, resigned and abolished the national assembly, Noboa will continue where his predecessor left off, with his first term going until 2025, at which point he will be eligible to run for a second term.

Noboa is part of one of the richest families in Ecuador and is the son of Alvaro Noboa, the owner of a highly successful banana company and a five-time presidential elect who was never able to secure a win.

many were killed.

Among many of the foreigners killed or captured by Hamas were also migrant workers from Asia, who hail from mostly poor, rural families and work in the country’s agricultural, construction and healthcare sectors.

Foreigners Also Killed

When Hamas terrorists slaughtered 1,400 people last week, they didn’t just kill Israelis. Dozens of those killed came from countries like the United States, Canada, the UK and France, with many holding dual Israeli citizenship and living in the kibbutzim targeted by Hamas gunmen or partying at the music festival where so

At least 10 Nepali agriculture students were killed when the Hamas militants stormed the Alumim kibbutz and another Nepali is missing, the country’s ambassador to Israel said.

Two Filipinos were also killed, according to the Philippines government.

At least 21 Thai nationals have been killed as of Thursday, according to Thai authorities, with at least 14 others believed to have been captured by Hamas, their current whereabouts unknown, Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin confirmed.

“Thailand has dominated the foreign migrant worker market in Israeli agriculture for the past decade,” noted Phil Robertson, Deputy Asia Director at Human Rights Watch.

so we can have better lives,” he added. “I am begging for my son’s release. I need to have him back, in good shape – like before he left Thailand.”

Migrant workers from Asia make up more than half of Israel’s foreign work force, often taking on jobs as caregivers and within the construction industry.

Human Rights Watch called for the “immediate and unconditional release” of all hostages and said that Thai workers, along with Nepalese and Filipinos, “were simply there to earn money to support their families.

“Such targeting of civilians is clearly a war crime and inexcusable in any circumstance,” said Robertson.

A Unity Government

“As many as 20,000 Thai workers were living on various remote farms and desert areas all over Israel, including areas close to the Gaza Strip.”

One of the hostages, Manee, had been on the phone with his father, Chumporn, before the attack.

“I had spoken with Manee in the morning and we were supposed to talk again in the evening,” Chumporn told CNN.

At the time, rockets were being fired toward Israel and this reminded the older man of his own experiences living and working there. Aware of how quickly the dangers could escalate, the 50-year-old urged his son not to go outside, other than to find a bunker and hide if he needed to.

But hours later, Chumporn saw photos circulating on social media showing his son with his hands behind his back, sitting barefoot and cross-legged with other male hostages in front of an armed fighter pointing a rifle.

“I couldn’t believe it. I thought it was some kind of prank,” Chumporn said. “I called him several times but there was no answer – that was when I started to believe it was real.”

“We (Thais) are not involved in any of the conflict between Israel and Palestine. We are just there to work and earn money

Due to the crisis in Israel, an agreement was reached last week between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Benny Gantz’s National Unity party to form an emergency government as the country deals with the aftermath of last week’s massacre.

A small war cabinet to direct the war with Hamas will be created which will include just Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and Gantz.

Former IDF general National Unity MK Gadi Eisenkot together with Minister Ron Dermer will serve as observers in the war cabinet.

For the duration of the war, five members of the National Unity party will be added to the broader security cabinet which operates under every government — Gantz, Eisenkot, MK Gideon Sa’ar and two others yet to be determined.

A position in the war cabinet has been left open for Opposition Leader Yair Lapid, who has refused to join the government if the Religious Zionism and Otzma Yehudit parties remain in it.

No legislation in Knesset or government resolutions will be advanced during the war that are not related to managing the war.

Gantz told Israeli citizens that the newly formed government was “united” and ready to “wipe this thing called Hamas off the face of the Earth.”

99 Senators Support Israel

Every lawmaker in the U.S. Senate except for Republican Rand Paul has signed on to a resolution expressing support for Israel in the face of the Hamas onslaught.

The resolution “reaffirms Israel’s right to self-defense and is committed to helping Israel safeguard its people from future aggression.” It also expresses support for restocking Israel’s weapons supply and urges additional sanctions against Iran over its support for terror proxies.

Separately, in the House, 13 of the body’s most progressive lawmakers have introduced a resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.

The resolution “urges the Biden administration to immediately call for and facilitate de-escalation and a cease-fire to urgently end the current violence” and to

speedily facilitate the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza.

Biden Visits Israel

In a show of strong support for the Jewish state, U.S. President Joe Biden visited Israel this week, sending a message to Israel and to the world that the United States stands with Israel after the horrific October 7 massacre in which 1,400 Israelis were slaughtered.

His trip marks the first time an American president visited another country during time of war.

During remarks with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Biden explained why he felt it was important for him to personally come to Israel at this time.

“I wanted the people of Israel – the people of the world – to know where the United States stands. … The world

is looking. Israel has a value set like the United States does, and other democracies. And they’re looking to see what we’re going to do,” Biden told Netanyahu, who called Biden’s presence as the first American president in Israel at a time of war “deeply, deeply moving.”

Netanyahu thanked Biden for the “unequivocal support” and “unprecedented” cooperation between the two nations.

“From the moment Israel was attacked, you’ve rightly drawn a clear line between the forces of civilization and the forces of barbarism,” Netanyahu told the U.S. president.

Biden compared the Hamas pogrom to the Holocaust and to the September 11, 2001 attacks on American soil.

Recounting the horrors against Israeli civilians, Biden said, “There’s no rationalizing – no excusing, period. The brutality we saw would have cut deep anywhere in the world. But it cuts deeper here in Israel,” he said, noting that October 7 was the deadliest day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust.

“It has brought to the surface painful memories and scars left by millennia of antisemitism and the genocide of the Jewish people,” he said. “The world watched then, it knew, and the world did nothing. We will not stand by and do

nothing again. Not today, not tomorrow, not ever,” he said.

And while he noted that the attacks were proportionally “like 15 9/11s” to Israel’s population, he acknowledged the “shock, pain, and all-consuming rage” as he warned Israel’s leaders to be “deliberate.”

“I caution this: while you feel that rage, don’t be consumed by it. After 9/11, we were enraged in the United States. While we sought justice and got justice, we also made mistakes,” Biden said.

He continued, “I’m the first U.S. president to visit Israel in time of war. I’ve made wartime decisions. I know that choices are never clear or easy for the leadership. There’s always cost, but it requires being deliberate – requires asking very hard questions. It requires clarity about the objectives, and an honest assessment about whether the path you’re on will achieve those objectives,” calling for the protection of civilians as humanitarian conditions deteriorate in Gaza.

Recalling the at least 200 people –there is still not an exact count – who are being held hostage by Hamas, Biden said he will do everything possible to garner their release. There are at least 13 Americans being held hostage.

“There is no higher priority than the

release and safe return of all these hostages,” Biden said. He said he also backed Israel’s call for Hamas to allow the Red Cross to visit the hostages.

Later in the day, Biden and Netanyahu led a meeting of the Israeli war cabinet in Tel Aviv. Before the meeting, Biden stressed that the U.S. “will continue to have your back.”

He recalled that Israel’s founders said that the nation would be based on “freedom, justice, and peace. The United

States stands with you in defense of that freedom, in pursuit of that justice, and in support of that peace, today, tomorrow, and always, we promise you.”

After the meeting, Biden met with first responders and doctors who had witnessed the aftermath of the horror, as well as with families of those killed or missing, before also sitting down for a closed-door meeting with President Isaac Herzog.

Looming over Biden’s trip was the

President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi in Amman, Jordan, on Wednesday. After the blast, the summit was called off.

“I was deeply saddened and outraged by the explosion at the hospital in Gaza yesterday. And based on what I’ve seen, it appears as though it was done by the other team, not you,” Biden said in Tel Aviv about the blast. “But there’s a lot of people out there who’re not sure. So we have to overcome a lot of things,” he said, later calling it “the result of an errant rocket fired by a terrorist group in Gaza.”

The president later said that he was led to that conclusion by “the data I was shown by my Defense Department.”

Throughout the visit, Biden pushed for humanitarian aid for the people of Gaza. He announced a new agreement toward providing Gaza with humanitarian assistance through Egypt upon the conclusion of his meetings Wednesday.

“The people of Gaza need food, water, medicine, shelter. Today I asked the Israeli cabinet, who I met with for some time this morning, to agree to the delivery of lifesaving humanitarian assistance of civilians in Gaza based on the understanding that there will be inspections and that the aid should go to civilians, not to Hamas. Israel agreed that humanitarian assistance can begin to move from Egypt to Gaza,” Biden said.

He warned that if Hamas “diverts or steals the assistance, they will have demonstrated, once again, that they have no concern for the welfare of the Palestinian people” and that such action will stop the international community’s provision of aid.

Biden also announced $100 million in new U.S. funding for humanitarian assistance in both Gaza and the West Bank. That will support displaced Palestinians and other emergency needs in Gaza. He also vowed to ask Congress for an “unprecedented support package for Israel’s defense,” expected later this week.

strike at Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza City in which 500 people were killed. Hamas has tried to blame the blast on Israel; Israel, in turn, has intelligence that shows that Palestinian Islamic Jihad was behind the rocket strike. United States intelligence has come to the same conclusion: that the rocket strike was originated by the Palestinians.

Biden had been set to meet with Jordan’s King Abdullah II, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Egyptian

“The Jews have been subject to abuse, prejudice and attempts to wipe them out for, oh, G-d, over a thousand years,” Biden told 60 Minutes’s Scott Pelley. “For me, it’s about decency, respect, honor. It’s just simply wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. It violates every religious principle I have and … every single principle my father taught me.”

Hamas Commander Killed

On Tuesday, an Israeli airstrike in the Gaza Strip killed the head of Hamas’s

28 Central Gaza Brigade, a senior commander in the terror organization.

Ayman Nofal was also a member of the organization’s General Military Council. He was killed in a strike in the Bureij refugee camp. The IDF said the airstrike was carried out following intelligence efforts by the Shin Bet security agency and Military Intelligence Directorate.

Additionally, 14 people were killed in a strike on a home belonging to the family of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, including his brother and nephew. Haniyeh himself lives in Qatar.

According to the IDF, Nofal, as part of his role, carried out “numerous attacks against Israel and security forces.” The IDF said Nofal was also previously involved in the production and development of weapons and had been involved in the kidnapping of IDF soldier Gilat Shalit in 2006.

The military added that Nofal was “one of the most dominant senior officials in the organization, and was close to Muhammad Deif,” Hamas’s military leader.

Earlier, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said members of Hamas had two options in the ongoing war: to surrender or to die.

“Our warplanes will reach everywhere… Every missile has an address. We will reach each and every one of the members of Hamas,” Gallant told pilots and technicians of the Israel Air Force’s F-35 fleet at the Nevatim airbase.

“Hamas members have two options: Either die in their positions or surrender unconditionally. There is no third option. We will wipe out the Hamas organization and dismantle all of its capabilities,” Gallant said.

The Israel Defense Forces has in recent days assassinated several Hamas commanders, including a number of individuals who led the pogroms inside Israel on October 7.

Since then, the military has been bombarding Gaza with thousands of airstrikes as it targets Hamas and other terror groups and has deployed tens of thousands of soldiers to the border area ahead of an expected major ground of-

fensive. Israel’s leaders have said they plan to eradicate the terror group that has ruled the enclave since 2007.

The military has also instructed all civilians in northern Gaza to move southward ahead of intensifying operations. Hamas has been setting up roadblocks to deter people from fleeing to safety.

Al Jazeera in Israel

Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi has proposed regulations that would empower him to shut down foreign media outlets, including Al Jazeera news station. On Monday, the security cabinet pushed off a vote on the measures following concerns voiced by Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara.

Karhi’s proposed regulations are designed to shut down the Al Jazeera news station, which he has accused of harming national security and inciting violence. Critics such as the Association for Civil Rights in Israel have argued that the proposals would harm freedom of the press.

The proposed regulations would give Kahri the authority to instruct the Cable and Satellite Broadcasting Council to revoke a foreign media’s broadcast license, shut down its offices, and seize its equipment if he believed that the outlets broadcasts were harming state security.

Such a decision would need the approval of the security cabinet.

Karhi’s office has said it cannot provide details of broadcasts that have given rise to concerns about Al Jazeera due to security restrictions, although the Kan public broadcaster reported that the Mossad has supported closing the Qatari media outlet for, among other things, allegedly exposing the location of the IDF’s mustering zones on the Gaza border as well as other sensitive locations.

On Monday night, the security cabinet decided that the defense establishment will formulate a more in-depth legal opinion to justify the minister’s proposed regulations and that the regulations will then be brought to the full

government cabinet for approval.

As the debate in the security cabinet was underway, Karhi took to Twitter to denounce Baharav-Miara’s “warped worldview” and called on the cabinet to approve the regulations regardless.

“It would be clear to any thinking person that this process needs to be carried out,” Karhi wrote. “[But] what does Barahav-Miara say…? That there is a constitutional obstacle to passing regulations that would close Al Jazeera.”

The Association for Civil Rights in Israel said giving Karhi the power to shut down media outlets would “lead to the silencing of critical voices, the imposition of fear on media outlets under the cover of security, while the voices of minorities and positions opposing the government, and the exposure of governmental and military failures, would be silenced in a manner which would stymie [efforts] to rectify them and hide crucial information from the public.”

Sderot is Almost Empty

By Sunday, nearly all of the thousands of residents that had lived in the 25 small communities within 2.5 miles from the Gaza Strip had been evacuated. Only a handful of residents still remain in Sderot.

On Sunday, coach buses pulled into the community to bring residents to hotels sponsored by the government and away from the frontlines. Just a few days earlier, on Simchas Torah, another coach bus had loaded up 13 Sderot residents for a day trip during the holiday. But it never made it out of the city and was gunned down by Hamas terrorists who infiltrated into Israel during the early hours of the morning of October 7. The blood-spattered vehicle still sits on the street, surrounded by the burnt shell of a car hit by a rocket.

In recent years, Sderot had grown to a population of 30,000. By Sunday morning, only a third remained within city limits, and by evening, that sank to a tenth.

Instead of receiving a compulsory and full military evacuation, Sderot, southern parts of Ashkelon, and 32 communities located between four and seven kilometers from Gaza — so close that they only have

30 fifteen to thirty seconds to run to shelter once an air raid siren rings — have received what the military calls a “rejuvenation” incentive.

Brigadier General (Res.) Yoram Laredo, head of the National Emergency Management Authority, which coordinates housing those displaced by the war, said in a Sunday briefing that this second group will be funded for hotel stays in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and Eilat for a week, renewable by military decision.

The government budgeted NIS 134 million ($33 million) for relocating and aiding the evacuees. For those receiving “rejuvenation,” the government has set aside another NIS 70 million ($17 million).

Among those who have chosen to remain in the city, despite the Israel Defense Forces’ imminently expected Gaza ground incursion, are residents who see their continued presence as a necessary reminder of what Israel is trying to accomplish.

“We, the residents here, we don’t give up and we won’t let our government and our army stop in the middle. Even if there is pressure from the world” to reach a ceasefire, “we can’t live like that,” said Sderot Deputy Mayor Elad Kalimi.

Hamas, which murdered over 50 people in Sderot on October 7, “is much worse than ISIS and they have to die,” Kalimi

said. “This is the war between good and evil, and we expect our government and the IDF to finish the job, to kill them all,” he added.

Likud lawmaker Danny Danon, who visited Sderot on Sunday with a small group of European and African ambassadors to Israel, made a similar point.

“Women and kids were butchered here,” he said. “We need to go into Gaza and find the Hamas terrorists and kill them.”

“To see with my own eyes what’s happening, so we can pass the message, there are too many people saying it’s not true,” said the Czech Republic’s incoming ambassador, Veronika Kuchynova Smigolova, who had toured the burnt city. “We need witnesses to say it’s true.”

struggling to choose a nominee for the speakership. The initial GOP frontrunner was Steve Scalise, the House Majority Leader, until last Thursday, when he announced his withdrawal from the race.

“I just shared with my colleagues that I’m withdrawing my name as a candidate for the speaker designee,” Scalise said.

Scalise’s exit from the election came after a small faction of House Republicans threatened to vote against the Speaker pick, an action which would give the win to Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic Speaker of the House nominee.

Scalise Out, Jordan In

Ever since a small group of House Republicans kicked out Kevin McCarthy as Speaker of the House, the party has been

After Scalise backed out of the race, Jim Jordan, an Ohio GOP congressman, won the nomination, but his path to victory will not be without challenge. In order for Jordan to become House Speaker, he needs to win the votes of 217 Republicans out of 221. A few House Republicans said they would not vote for the GOP nominee, but Jordan has made progress in winning over divided Republicans who see him as a potential unifier. For example, Reps. Mike Rogers and Ann Wagner, of Alabama and Missouri respectively, had previously said they would not side with Jordan but changed their minds after he addressed some of their concerns. Rep. Matt Gaetz, who is responsible for McCarthy’s ousting, has also said he would vote for Jordan.

While Jordan initially said he would only call for the Speaker vote once he secured enough Republican support, due to the ongoing Israel-Hamas war, he announced that he has decided to force the speaker vote on Tuesday.

“You can’t open the House, and do the work of the American people, and help our dearest and closest friend Israel if you don’t have a Speaker,” said Jordan.

Long Covid

A team of scientists is proposing a new explanation for some cases of long Covid, based on findings that serotonin levels were lower in people with the complex condition.

In their study, published Monday in the journal Cell, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania suggest that serotonin reduction is triggered by remnants of the virus lingering in the gut. Depleted

serotonin could especially explain memory problems and some neurological and cognitive symptoms of long Covid, they say.

This is one of several new studies documenting distinct biological changes in the bodies of people with long Covid — offering important discoveries for a condition that takes many forms and often does not register on standard diagnostic tools such as X-rays.

The research could point the way toward possible treatments, including medications that boost serotonin. And the authors said the biological pathway that their research outlines could unite many of the major theories of what causes long Covid: lingering remnants of the virus, inflammation, increased blood clotting and dysfunction of the autonomic nervous system.

“All these different hypotheses might be connected through the serotonin pathway,” said Christoph Thaiss, a lead author of the study and an assistant professor of microbiology at Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.

“Second of all, even if not everybody experiences difficulties in the serotonin pathway, at least a subset might respond to therapies that activate this pathway,” he said.

Researchers analyzed the blood of 58 patients who had been experiencing long Covid for between three months and 22 months since their infection. Those results were compared to blood analysis of 30 people with no post-Covid symptoms and 60 patients who were in the early, acute stage of coronavirus infection.

Maayan Levy, a lead author and assistant professor of microbiology at Perelman School of Medicine, said levels of serotonin and other metabolites were altered right after a coronavirus infection, something that also happens immediately after other viral infections.

But in people with long Covid, serotonin was the only significant molecule that did not recover to pre-infection levels, she said.

There are caveats. The study was not large, so the findings need to be confirmed with other research. Participants in some other long COVID studies, in which some patients had milder symptoms, did not always show depleted

32 serotonin, a result Levy said might indicate that depletion happened only in people whose long Covid involves multiple serious symptoms. (© The New York Times)

NYC Tackles Migrant Crisis

Migrant families staying in New York City shelters will be required to leave those facilities after 60 days and reapply for placement, according to a new rule announced by Mayor Eric Adams on Monday.

The move is the administration’s most significant attempt to date aiming to reduce resources dedicated to more than 64,000 migrants currently in the city’s shelter system.

The new rule takes effect next week. Notices will be given out on a rolling

basis to those families who have been in the system the longest.

More than 126,000 migrants have arrived in New York City since last spring and the city estimates there are 64,100 migrants currently in the shelter system.

As part of the change in policy, the city is also expected to open a new shelter site at Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn in the coming weeks designed to serve about 500 families with children who are seeking asylum. It will house families in a “semi-congregate setting,” and provide “privacy dividers with locks.”

The Legal Aid Society and the Coalition for the Homeless criticized the new change over fears how it could, among over things, impact educating migrant children.

“This new policy, along with the City’s announcement that it will place families with children in semi-congregate settings at Floyd Bennett Field, will disrupt access to education, which has provided much needed stability for our newest neighbors and also cause chaos for school administrators. We are also concerned about access to medical care and other vital services,” the groups said in a statement.

As it struggles to keep up with the demand, the city has issued emergency orders that allow it to bypass several rules and laws that govern how it manages the homeless shelter populations and the standards they are required to keep up – such as guaranteeing access to stoves and private bathrooms for families and access to clean linens and beds that are properly spaced out in congregate settings.

“Sheltering families with children in cramped and open cubicles at Floyd Bennett Field not only raises serious legal questions, but runs afoul of this Administration’s previous statements to provide safe and appropriate shelter to this extremely vulnerable population,” Legal Aid and the Coalition for the Homeless said in a statement. “Private rooms, not open cubicles, are needed to ensure the safety of families with children and to reduce the transmission of infectious disease, among other obvious reasons.”

Last month, the city imposed a new rule forcing migrant adults to leave the shelter system after 30 days. After vacating, adults are sent to the Roosevelt Hotel in Manhattan, which has become a one-stop center for migrants in need of city services. Once at the hotel, adult migrants are required to reapply for shelter, a complicated process that is often long and results in hours-long wait times, which advocates say is disruptive to people who are already struggling to establish themselves in a new country.

Middle Eastern Migrants Arrested

Since the beginning of October, a large number of Middle Eastern migrants have been arrested while trying to cross over the U.S.-Mexico border. As the Israel-Gaza War rages on, having been triggered by a series of unspeakable terror attacks which took the lives of more than 1,400 Israelis, with about two hundred kidnapped and thousands more wounded, many Americans fear that an influx of Arab illegal immigrants may present a danger to the wellbeing of this country.

“Since the first of October, Border Patrol agents have apprehended individuals from Afghanistan, Algeria, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya. Malaysia, Morocco, North Korea, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Tajikistan, Tunisia, Turkey, Uzbekistan, Yemen,” said Montana Sen. Steve Daines, sharing a fact that he learned during his recent visit to the southern border.

Daines added that since the beginning of the 2023 fiscal year, which ended on September 30, 151 illegal migrants who were stopped while trying to cross the U.S.-Mexico happened to be on the FBI’s terror watch. In comparison, in 2022, ninety-eight were on the list, while in 2021, only fifteen were.

“I’m very concerned about potential sleeper cells that can be coming across our southern border. I asked Border Patrol agents how Syrian, how Lebanese, how Middle Eastern country citizens can come in, and they told me they fly first and foremost to a airport in the Middle East — could be Saudi Arabia, could be in Dubai — and then from there, they take a flight to Colombia,” the senator said. “Then from Colombia. They’re taking a trip oftentimes by bus across Central America, across Mexico [to] our southern border.”

A Fox News report published on October 10 revealed that border patrol arrested over 10,000 illegal migrants from places like Afghanistan, Iran, Syria, and Egypt. While the Department of Homeland Security has in place security procedures which screens everyone at the border and in airports and other places through which one may enter the country to make sure there are no terrorists crossing, the system relies on U.S. criminal and terrorist databases and does not have access to terrorist or criminal lists from other countries. Thus, if a person is listed as a terrorist in another country but not in the U.S., the security system will be unable to identify the individual as a threat to U.S. security.

Trump’s Tax Returns Were Illegally Leaked

Charles Littlejohn, a thirty-eightyear-old contractor who worked for the IRS, has pleaded guilty to leaking the tax returns of thousands of people – most notably former President Donald Trump, who was seeking reelection at the time of the leak.

Beginning in 2019, the information was sent to The New York Times and ProPublica, an investigative journalism website, and was meant to expose how a large number of billionaires, including Trump, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, and Elon Musk, have been able to evade or lower the cost of their federal taxes.

On Thursday, October 12, Littlejohn pled guilty to getting confidential information via an IRS database he had access to. The leaked tax returns provided The New York Times with a story which was published just months before the 2020 election, and according to Trump’s lawyer, Alina Habba, likely swayed thousands who would have otherwise chosen Trump to vote for Joe Biden. Habba added that she believes that Littlejohn should get five years in jail for the crime.

According to the Justice Department, Littlejohn “saved the tax returns to multiple

personal storage devices” upon first leaking the information, and once he sent out even more tax returns a second time, he “then obstructed the forthcoming investigation into his conduct by deleting and destroying evidence of his disclosures.”

Out of the thousands of tax returns, the returns of “at least 152 victims” ended up being published “as a result of the charged unauthorized disclosure,” the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section said in the court filing.

Ana C. Reyes, the U.S. District Judge who is presiding over the case, condemned Littlejohn, firmly noting how there is no justification for breaking the law, regardless of whose expense it is at.

“People taking the law into their own hands is unacceptable,” said Reyes. “Everyone can be well assured that there will be serious consequences for this illegal act.”

“We remain concerned when whistleblowers who provide information in the public interest are prosecuted. The Times’s reporting on this topic played an important role in helping the public understand the financial ties and tax strategies of a sitting president — information that has long been seen as central to the knowledge that voters should have about the leader of our government and the candidates for that high office,” wrote

Charlie Stadtlander, a spokesperson for The New York Times. At the time of the publication, the Times said that the information “was provided by sources with legal access to it.”

The sentencing is set for January 29.

No More Love Locks in Grand Canyon

National Park Service rangers scoured the South Rim of the Grand Canyon in recent weeks, bolt cutters in hand, and took aim at their targets.

Hanging from fences were love locks, etched with the names or initials of partners who, perhaps, had seen the vast, everlasting expanse of mudstone beyond the precipice and believed that their love, too, would be as endless. Except the padlocks these visitors had placed were not emblems of passion but simply human-made litter, officials said.

“Love is strong,” Grand Canyon National Park said on Facebook this past week. “But it is not as strong as our bolt cutters.”

By Friday, rangers had removed dozens of love locks from fences at the Grand Canyon, one of the country’s most beloved national parks and, since around 2006, a magnet for romantic gestures involving the locks.

Jeff Stebbins, a spokesperson for Grand Canyon National Park, said rangers remove locks that accumulate on the fences every two years. The locks, he said, are “effectively vandalizing and littering and ultimately damaging public lands for both people and wildlife.”

The dangers they pose to wildlife are particularly troubling because the love lock custom typically involves throwing away their corresponding keys into the canyon, he said.

That could cause trouble for California condors, critically endangered birds that can have wingspans of nearly 10 feet. The park said that, “like a small child,” condors like to investigate strange things with their mouths, including shiny keys.

Wildlife officials worry that condors will ingest the keys — or other metallic items like coins, which people toss into

the canyon — and possibly die.

In some parts of the world, like Paris, the love lock custom has become so mainstream, there are people on a bridge selling padlocks for love-struck tourists strolling by.

Officials in certain cities, however, view the padlocks not as symbols of connection but as weighty barnacles encroaching on beloved landmarks.

In New York City, workers remove love locks from the Brooklyn Bridge. In Melbourne, Australia, officials made a similar effort on a bridge bearing the weight of around 20,000 love locks that was potentially beginning to wear because of them. And in Leeds, England, officials ordered that love locks be removed from several bridges because of structural concerns. (© The New York Times)

Biden Cracks Down On “Junk” Fees

On Wednesday, October 11, President Joe Biden announced that he is working on illegalizing junk fees and that there will be $2 billion in savings and $240 million in refunds given by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to aid the victims of this phenomenon.

“Unfair fees known as junk fees –those hidden charges that companies sneak into your bill to make you pay more because they can. Simply because they can. Charges that are taking real money out of the pockets of American families. These junk fees can add hundreds of dollars weighing down family budgets, making it harder to pay family bills. These junk fees may not matter to the wealthy, but they sure matter to working folks in homes like the one I grew up in,” the President said.

The Federal Trade Commission proposed rules that, if finalized, would make it mandatory for businesses to disclose the full price of the product or service prior to the purchase and would prohibit companies from taking advantage of customers with concealed or ambiguous fees. Regardless of the FTC’s proposal, companies are already banned from hiding

added post-sale charges.

The CFPB will also ban banks and credit unions “from charging fees for basic service like checking your account balance, retrieving old bank records, or looking up your balance on a loan,” Biden added. Additionally, if the proposed rules are put into law, banks would have to provide a safe and easy way by which users may switch to a different banking institution in order to “ensure financial companies compete based on service quality and up-front pricing, deterring junk fees.”

Rite Aid is Bankrupt

As Rite Aid struggles against its competition and faces legal trouble for having purportedly filed opioid prescriptions illegally, the well-known pharmacy chain opted to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Sunday.

Under the weight of giants like Amazon, Walmart, and Target, Rite Aid and its competitors, CVS and Walgreens, have been having trouble keeping up. CVS and Walgreens are also shutting down certain locations, but are in better condition than Rite Aid, which said it expects even more losses in the last quarter. The drugstore chain reported losing about $750 million, and it also lost another $307 million from March 2023 to May 2023. In all, Rite Aid has reported nearly $3 billion lost over the last six years.

In June, which marked the last time a financial report was filed by Rite Aid, the company only had $135.5 million in cash in its possession, with $3.3 billion in long term debt – which is almost $1 billion more than the worth of the company’s assets.

“It was always a matter of when, not if, Rite Aid would file for bankruptcy,” Neil Saunders, the managing director of GlobalData, wrote to shareholders. “The company has been deep in the red for the past six years.”

Now that Rite Aid has declared bankruptcy, it has been given $3.5 billion in loans. The company said that it would speed up the process of shutting down locations, and it would also sell certain

businesses that it owns, such as Elixir Solutions, in an attempt to help itself get back on its feet.

Additionally, Jeff Stein has become Rite Aid’s new CEO, as well as the head of restructuring, after about ten months without a permanent CEO.

“With the support of our lenders, we look forward to strengthening our financial foundation, advancing our transformation initiatives and accelerating the execution of our turnaround strategy,” Stein said. “In doing so, we will be even better able to deliver the healthcare products and services our customers and their families rely on — now and into the future.”

Rite Aid, which has over 2,200 locations throughout seventeen states, is in a legal battle against the U.S. Justice Department which has accused the company of “contributing to the opioid epidemic” by filing the prescriptions of addictive painkillers while ignoring “obvious red flags.” While Walgreens and CVS have faced similar legal issues, they were in a better financial state and were able to reach a settlement.

Trump Issued Gag Order

On Monday, a federal judge issued a gag order on former President Donald Trump, limiting what he can say about special counsel Jack Smith’s federal prosecution into his alleged attempt to subvert in the 2020 presidential election.

The order restricts Trump’s ability to publicly target court personnel, potential witnesses, or the special counsel and his staff. The order did not impose restrictions on disparaging comments about Washington, D.C., – where the jury will take place – or certain comments about the Justice Department at large, both of which the government requested.

“This is not about whether I like the language Mr. Trump uses,” Judge Tanya Chutkan said. “This is about language that presents a danger to the administration of justice.

“His presidential candidacy does not give him carte blanche to vilify public servants who are simply doing their jobs,”

the judge added.

If Trump is found in violation of the gag order, it could result in sanctions.

True to his character, Trump said he will appeal Chutkan’s order.

“WILL APPEAL THE GAG ORDER RULING. WITCH HUNT!” he wrote on Truth Social.

“Mr. Trump is a criminal defendant. He is facing four felony charges. He is under the supervision of the criminal justice system and he must follow his conditions of release,” Chutkan said Monday during the hearing.

“He does not have the right to say and do exactly what he pleases. Do you agree with that?” she asked Trump attorney John Lauro, who responded: “100%.”

Trump’s attorneys have attacked the proposed order as fundamentally antithetical to his First Amendment rights and suggested the order is simply a way for President Joe Biden and the Justice Department to hurt Trump’s ability to campaign.

Lauro accused the special counsel’s office of trying “to prevent President Trump from speaking out about the issues of the day,” adding, “Every single issue that relates to this case also has political issues.”

In social media posts, Trump has attacked Chutkan as a “biased, Trump Hating Judge” and called Smith “deranged” and a “thug” as well as attacked individual members of his team.

Harvard Faces Backlash

After a coalition of Harvard student groups said that Israel is “entirely responsible for all unfolding violence” after the gruesome attacks last week in which 1,400 people were killed, some organizations are cutting off ties with the Ivy League university.

The Wexner Foundation, a philanthropic organization focused on cultivating Jewish leadership, said it is “stunned and sickened” by Harvard’s failure to “take a clear and unequivocal stand” against Hamas’s “barbaric murders” of civilians in Israel, particularly after the student letter.

The university has become a micro-

38 cosm of tensions arising at U.S. higher education institutions, where donors have distanced themselves and protests have broken out on campuses — all over responses to the war.

For more than 30 years, The Wexner has partnered with the university to fund fellowships for Israeli government and public service professionals to pursue a master’s degree at Harvard Kennedy School. The organization donated more than $2.4 million to Harvard in the 2021 fiscal year. In the letter this week addressed to the Harvard Board of Overseers, the foundation writes that the two “are no longer compatible partners” and they will seek other ways to develop Israel’s leadership.

In a statement, Harvard Kennedy School pointed to leaders’ recent public condemnations of Hamas and said they are “grateful to the Wexner Foundation for its very longstanding support of student scholarships.”

The Harvard students’ letter did not mention Hamas and blamed the October 7 killings on what they called Israel’s “apartheid regime.” For years, “millions of Palestinians in Gaza have been forced to live in an open-air prison.” The groups wrote about targeted killings and family separations among other struggles, and

called on Harvard to “take action to stop the ongoing annihilation of Palestinians.”

Backlash to the letter came swiftly, including from fellow students, prompting some signatories to publicly retract their signatures. Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.), a Harvard graduate, said it was “intellectually weak and morally repugnant,” writing in a statement that “terrorism is never justified nor someone else’s fault” and “you can stand up for Palestinian rights while condemning Hamas terrorists.”

When Harvard did not immediately respond to the letter, the university’s former president Lawrence H. Summers wrote on social media that he was “disillusioned and alienated” and that the silence allowed the institution to “appear at best neutral toward acts of terror against the Jewish state of Israel.”

Harvard’s President Claudine Gay in a later statement condemned the “terrorist atrocities perpetrated by Hamas,” and added that the student groups that signed the letter do not speak for the university. Harvard Divinity School released a statement on October 11 calling for acknowledging “decades of oppression” faced by Palestinians when considering “the story about Hamas’ horrendous attack on Israeli civilians.”

On October 15, the Harvard Crimson

student newspaper reported that more 1,000 people protested on campus over the university’s stance toward Israel and “lack of support for Palestinian students.”

Kenneth Griffin, a billionaire who pledged $300 million to Harvard earlier this year, urged Harvard to more forcefully defend Israel in a call to a senior Harvard leader. Israeli billionaire Idan Ofer and his wife Batia quit the Harvard executive board, saying that they “denounce those who seek to place blame on the people of Israel.”

Meanwhile, students who signed the letter are feeling the heat of supporting a terrorist organization. Billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman wrote on social media last week that he had been asked by “a number of CEOs” if Harvard would release the names of members of organizations that issued the letter, so they could avoid hiring them. A billboard truck drove around campus with photos and names of the students said to have signed the letter, labeling them “antisemites.”

Additionally, the Huntsman family has halted donations to the University of Pennsylvania due to its response to Hamas’ terrorist attacks on Israel and the resulting war.

Jon Huntsman Jr. — the former governor of Utah and U.S. ambassador to China, Russia, and Singapore — penned a letter to Penn’s president Elizabeth Magill, alerting her of the Huntsman Foundation’s decision.

“The University’s silence in the face of reprehensible and historic Hamas evil against the people of Israel (when the only response should be outright condemnation) is a new low. Silence is antisemitism, and antisemitism is hate, the very thing higher ed was built to obviate,” he wrote in the letter, which was published by the student newspaper. “Consequently, Huntsman Foundation will close its checkbook on all future giving to Penn.”

The Huntsman family, which includes three generations of Penn graduates, has donated tens of millions of dollars to the school over the past three decades, including a $10 million gift in 1997 and a $40 million gift to its business school, Wharton, in 1998. The family has donated at least $25,000 annually to Wharton in recent years.

Huntsman’s letter was reportedly written before an email from Penn’s president Magill went out to the Penn community on Sunday.

“I want to leave no doubt about where I stand,” she wrote in the email. “I, and this University, are horrified by and condemn Hamas’s terrorist assault on Israel and their violent atrocities against civil-

ians.”

Last week, Apollo Global Management CEO Marc Rowan announced he would donate $1 — rather than his typical annual contribution — unless Magill and the chairman of its board of trustees, Scott Bok, stepped down. Rowan and his wife donated $50 million to Wharton in 2018.

MA Won’t Shelter Migrants

The emergency shelter system in Massachusetts has been stretched to its breaking point, Gov. Maura Healey said on Monday, and the state will no longer guarantee shelter placements for new arrivals beginning next month, despite a law that says eligible families must be offered temporary housing.

The announcement comes after months of escalating pressure on state leaders as an unprecedented influx of migrants, mostly from Haiti, has collided with a long-running housing crisis. Statewide, nearly 7,000 families — twice as many as there were a year ago — are staying in emergency housing, a mix of traditional shelters, hotel rooms and co-opted college dorms. About half the families are new arrivals from other countries.

The number of families in shelters is expected to swell to 7,500 by the end of October, and cannot safely expand beyond that, Healey, a Democrat, said in a statement stacked with references to what she and other elected officials around the country have described as a lackluster federal response to migration. Starting in November, she said, no new shelter beds will be added in Massachusetts, and priority will be given to incoming families with health or safety risks. Others will be placed on waiting lists.

“This level of demand is not sustainable,” she said in a news conference at the Statehouse, in Boston.

Healey stressed that the state was not doing away with its 40-year-old right-toshelter law, the only one of its kind in the nation. The law says that pregnant women and families with children who meet income guidelines and other criteria must be provided a place to stay.

An even broader New York City law,

40 which also covers homeless people without children, has led to protest and controversy; more than 100,000 migrants have arrived there over the last year. Many have made the long and dangerous trip to the United States because of unstable economic and political conditions in their countries; after entering through the southern border, thousands have been sent to New York and other cities on buses by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, while many others have made their way north on their own. (© The New York Times)

Bird Strike

The seagulls in Venice are infamous for stealing food from those eating outside. They are known to break dishes and grab sandwiches from those munching on their lunch alfresco.

Now, the winged mischief-makers are taking it a step further.

Last Friday, a flock of seagulls crowded at the end of the runway at Venice Marco Polo Airport, refusing to move

and causing an hour-long shutdown of the airport and two hours of chaos in the area.

The airport is the fifth busiest airport in Italy. Twenty incoming flights had to be diverted to other airports in northern Italy because of the bird strike.

In an attempt to get rid of the feathered pests, Venice airport used a resident falcon, who was dispatched by a falconer to disperse the 200-odd birds. “Fauna-friendly acoustic deterrents” were also used, according to a statement by the airport.

Finally, after over an hour, the birds moved on.

Such a bird-en.

Pepper X is Hottest

Move over, Caroline Reaper. There’s a new, hotter pepper in town.

According to a team at South Caro-

lina’s Winthrop University, Pepper X –which was grown by the same grower as Caroline Reaper – is officially the world’s hottest pepper.

Carolina Reapers average 1.64 million Scoville Heat Units, while Pepper X rates an average 2,693,000 SHU.

To put this into perspective, jalapeño peppers typically come in at 3,000 to 8,000 SHU.

Ed Currie, founder of Puckerbutt Pepper Company and creator of the Carolina Reaper pepper, unveiled Pepper X on the popular YouTube channel First We Feast. He said it took about 10 years of breeding to develop the super-hot pepper.

“When we started the cross, there were two peppers that I really loved the flavor of, but neither of them were gonna be hot enough for my tastes,” he said in the video.

Pepper X is being kept proprietary for the moment, meaning pods and seeds will not be made commercially available. The public will be able to try the pepper through the release of Pepper X hot sauces.

Too hot to handle.

Bungee Bonanza

Mike Heard’s head is spinning. The man from New Zealand unofficially reclaimed a world record by bungee jumping 941 times in a single day.

Heard originally set the record for the most bungee jumps in 24 hours outdoors with a 16-to-32-foot cord in 2017 with 430 jumps, but his record was broken in 2022 by François-Marie Dibon, who completed 765 jumps.

To prepare for his latest attempt, Heard held what he called “bungee boogies” with friends, bungee jumping for a few hours at a time to work out how to tighten his harness the best way, and how

to use the wind to stop himself spinning.

Recently, Heard live-streamed his efforts to recapture the record at the Auckland Harbor Bridge and completed 941 bungee jumps in 24 hours.

“From time to time you get sort of like a sea sickness or motion sickness feeling, but I just sort of pushed through that and got on with it. So it didn’t slow us down or affect us at all,” Heard said after completing his feat.

He fortified himself with “a wholesome diet” of chocolate, nuts, energy drinks, water and bananas, as well as a piece of pizza “that didn’t go down so well.”

The record attempt raised funds for the Mental Health Foundation.

“We’ve got a problem in this country, and I want to help expose that and get Kiwis talking, I want my kids to grow up with a positive state of mental health, and it’s a great platform and opportunity to do that,” Heard added.

Perhaps staying away from bungee jumping could help keep people sane.

Fat Bear Week

A large female bear’s combination of “skill and toughness” earned her the top spot in Katmai National Park’s 2023 Fat Bear Week, the National Park Service announced.

The bear, dubbed 128 Grazer, bested 11 other bears in the annual contest, which calls on members of the public to vote for their favorite rotund bears at the Alaska park.

The first-time champion won the final round of voting against 32 Chunk, described as a “mountain of a male” with a “prominent posterior.”

“Though she may be blissfully unaware of her new title in this imaginary competition, her success is real,” Katmai National Park said in an Instagram post about 128 Grazer. “In the bear world, fat equals success, and all the bears have been working endlessly to pack on the pounds needed to survive winter hibernation. It’s a competition where all the contenders are winners.”

We can “bear”ly believe it.

Around the Community

Thousands Gather For “Unite For Israel” Rally in Cedarhurst

In a display of unity and solidarity, thousands gathered in Andrew J. Parise Park this past Sunday afternoon to show their unwavering support for Israel in the wake of war.

The event, organized by the Village of Cedarhurst and JCC, brought together a diverse crowd, including politicians, religious leaders, and local officials. Surrounded by a sea of proud -

ly waving Israeli flags, the speakers conveyed their resounding message: “Enough is enough!” We wish that gatherings like this will no longer be needed in the future. Nonetheless, our dedication to supporting and defending Israel throughout the war remains unwavering.

Photos by Gabe Solomon

Did you know?

Over 1.5 billion pounds of pumpkins are grown every year in the United States.

YCQ Stands with Israel: Teshuvah, Tefilah, and Tzedaka for Eretz Yisrael

During these trying times, the YCQ family is doing their best to help their brothers and sisters in Eretz Yisrael. Students and staff have been working on strengthening their connection with Hashem and fellow Jews, by davening with more kavanah and providing support to Chayalim and Israelis in need.

Students throughout the yeshiva have been writing letters in Hebrew to show their appreciation and boost the morale of IDF soldiers. In addition to emotional support, students and staff organized a supply drive to send flashlights and

toothbrushes to specific groups of Chayalim that need the materials. They have verified the logistical details of the transportation and will ensure that everything gets to the soldiers.

Additionally, students have been leading their peers in Tehilim and tefillot every day after davening. On Friday, October 13, students had the special opportunity to come together virtually with dozens of yeshiva day schools across the

country to daven and sing together. The session was a beautiful show of unity and a powerful message that we stand united as a nation.

Another example of their unwavering support for Am Yisrael was shown when a first grade class graciously hosted an Israeli student this week. They performed the mitzvah of hachasat orchim for the grandchild of a staff member whose family was stranded in America unable to

catch a flight back home to Israel. Students plastered their door with welcome signs and instantly made the little girl feel part of their class.

YCQ continues to daven for the peace and security of all of Am Yisrael and Eretz Yisrael.

Rav Shlomo Avigdor Altusky, Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshiva Darchei Torah, delivered a shmuess at the start of the winter zman on Sunday. Due to the war in Israel, the zman of Darchei’s yeshiva gedolah and kollel began nearly two days earlier than planned.

Rosh Chodesh Kumzitz with R’ Dovi Brazil in Yeshiva Kol Torah

Rabbi Tzvi Krigsman giving a shmuz in Yeshiva Kol Torah

Medicare Annual Enrollment

The Medicare Annual Enrollment Period, which runs from October 15 through December 7, is the unique point in the year where insurance companies release their rates for the new year and allow you to enroll in a plan, no questions asked, for a January 1st effective date. Every year, the various insurance companies change premiums, drug tiers, and formularies on all of their plans. For example, last year, there was an insurance company that raised their premiums by over 60%. Many customers were unaware that this change was happening and were very unhappy when they saw their bills once the year turned on the calendar. Therefore, if you are already enrolled in a Part D drug plan, it makes sense to check that your current plan isn’t raising your premiums through the roof or changing the tiers on your medications to make them more expensive. Additionally, you might be taking different medications than when you first enrolled in you drug plan and a new plan may offer better coverage for the new

medications. During AEP, are allowed to switch your plan to save you money and to secure better coverage for the new year. Even if you have Medicare and have never enrolled in a Part D drug plan, you are allowed to enroll in the drug plan of your choice during the AEP.

Another interesting facet of the Medicare Annual Enrollment Period is the flexibility offered to those with Medicare Advantage plans. If one has an Advanatge plan, they are able to switch to a new Advantage plan if they want. Also, if they no longer like being on an Advantage plan, they are allowed to switch back to original Medicare by enrolling in a Part D drug plan. Note that this would mean that they would also need to find a supplement plan (Medigap) as well to replace their Advantage plan. If you choose to switch your plan, whether that means from Advantage to Advantage, Advantage to a Part D Drug Plan, a Part D drug plan to a different Part D drug plan, all you have to do is enroll in the new plan and the old policy will automatically can-

cel on December 31.

But what if you like your current coverage and want to stick with it? Then you’re in luck! You don’t have to do anything and it will automatically renew for the new year; no action needs to be taken. Hopefully this article was able to provide some clarity as to what you have to do during Medicare AEP to ensure that once the new year rolls around, you can avoid those unnecessarily high bills and keep those hard-earned dollars in your pocket.

If you or someone you know is turning

65, retiring, or losing employer coverage, please feel free to reach out to Medicare Menachem (Michael) Friedman at (347) 738-6846, at Insurancemd@gmail.com, or visit his website at Mindfulmedicaresolutions.com. He is a licensed Medicare insurance broker in 20 states, an expert in navigating the maze of Medicare, and has been providing a priceless service to his clients for over 15 years without ever charging a price.

Written by Josh Goldenberg, Staff Writer at Mindful Medicare Solutions

HAFTR students learn about the wondrous sights of nature through our own garden.

We love to see our plants growing!

HAFTR Does STEM

AMIT Children Launches “Help Heal the Children of Sderot, Israel” Campaign

In direct response to the Hamas terrorist attacks, AMIT launches “Help

Heal the Children of Sderot,” a relief campaign aimed to support one of the central communities AMIT has served for more than 40 years. This emergency initiative focuses on the epicenter of the recent attacks and is an urgent call to support Sderot’s children in their greatest time of need.

The southern city of Sderot and its children have suffered unimaginable psychological trauma. AMIT is committing to providing immediate, free counseling and PTSD therapy to the 4,333 AMIT children and educators who reside in Sderot.

AMIT is the major provider of education to Sderot. AMIT’s 257 educators in the area and in-school teams have established bonds with each of the students

and families, which makes them uniquely qualified to provide individualized support. AMIT is partnering with PTSD experts at the Arbel Institute and other top mental health service organizations to carry out this critical mission.

On Friday, October 13, the Israeli government determined that all Sderot must be evacuated with a significant number of residents moving to temporary housing in the Dead Sea region. As AMIT is responsible for the education of all students in Sderot, AMIT opened a school for Sderot children in the Dead Sea. Trauma services are being transferred with schooling to the area. AMIT continues to adapt and meet our children’s needs, wherever they are, as new scenarios arise in Israel.

Responding to the crisis, AMIT ini-

tiated the “Heal the Children of Sderot, Israel” campaign, focusing on providing early intervention and intensive therapy to those impacted. Child studies show that the first 30-45 days after a trauma is a critical time to get counseling, so AMIT understood the urgency in getting this effort underway. The campaign is designed for people looking for a way to directly support those impacted and to bring people from all over the world together to help Israel heal. To donate, visit: https://amitchildren.org/healisrael/.

“As a central part of the Sderot community, AMIT has critical work and a difficult path ahead. Our kids, their families, and our AMIT staff have suffered unimaginable psychological trauma and early intervention is the only hope to change the course of their lives,” says

Shari Safra, President of AMIT. “This is our community, and these are our children. It is important that they know they are not alone, and that AMIT will be there to support them as long as it takes to recover.”

The town of Sderot is located just over a half a mile from the Gaza border and has been a constant target and under attack for decades. 12,000 rockets have been launched at Sderot since 2000. Sderot suffered tremendous loss in the recent Hamas attacks.

Visit https://amitchildren.org/healisreal to contribute to this vital initiative. One hundred percent of all donations go directly to Israel and will bring the children of Sderot and Israel a step closer to healing, recovery, and renewed hope.

HAFTR students built fantastical creations using straw connectors. They also created amazing particle diagrams. We love our STEM program!

Assemblywoman Stacey Pheffer Amato had a thorough security briefing with New York Governor Kathy Hochul to discuss additional safety measures being implemented at synagogues and Jewish schools. The safety of our community continues to be the Assemblywoman’s first priority.

Around the Community

2023 Central Open House Extends Positive Spirit to Visitors

It’s a moment of excitement and pride when the Central community welcomes newcomers into the building. On Sunday, October 15, Central faculty, staff, and students had a chance to do just that during the school’s annual Open House.

Wildcats extended a warm welcome to prospective eighth-grade students and their families with a taste of life at YUHSG. The morning began with greetings and registration in the Central lobby, after which visitors were ushered upstairs into the gymnasium for remarks from Central’s Mashgiach Ruchani, Rabbi Joshua Goller, as well as Yeshiva University’s Vice President for Legal Affairs, Secretary and General Counsel, Mr. Andrew (Avi) Lauer, who extended a warm welcome on behalf of YU and talked about the value of a Jewish education at this critical moment in our history. All attendees joined in Tehillim and a prayer for Israeli soldiers, to show support for Israel. Head of School, Ms. Bracha Rutner, and Associate Principal, Ms. Leah Moskovich, also gave remarks.

The student perspective was given by senior Lois Rifkin in an elegant, heartfelt speech. “I was so proud to speak at the Central Open House,” she said. “Joining the Central family was truly the best decision I ever made, and I couldn’t wait to pass that message along. My past three years at Central have been the most amazing experience, and I am looking forward to the rest of this year.”

After introductions, parents and students split to attend their respective focus groups: parent sessions were led by Ms. Rutner and Associate Principal Ms. Leah Moskovich discussing student opportunities both in and out of the classroom. Dean of Students Mrs. Aliza Gewirtz and Dr. Ariella Gettenberg, school psychologist, discussed student support services. “We are thrilled to welcome prospective students and their parents into the building,” Mrs. Gewirtz said. “The Open House is always a celebration of the amazing events and opportunities happening at Central, and it’s a great pleasure to invite eighth graders and their families to take part in this celebration.”

Prospective students were treated to presentations on select classes, including Spanish with Professor Erez Bar-Levy and Chumash with Mrs. Rebecca Teper. At the end of these classes, they were offered the chance to assemble packages for Israeli soldiers, gaining a firsthand understanding of Central’s deep connection to Israel and the significance of the value of chessed. The student-oriented day included performances from Central’s choir, dance, and drama teams in “Central’s Family Feud!” while parents concluded with a talk on the Central legacy by Science Department Chairperson and Science Institute Director Mrs. Ruth Fried. Reunited parents and students

were then treated to a curriculum fair before closing out the day.

Central’s Assistant Director of Admissions and Office Manager, Ms. Kymmie Baker, is an integral force behind the organization of the day. She spoke to the significance of such a visit for those at the cusp of high school: “We always look forward to welcoming eighth graders and their families into the building – and into the Central family,” she said. “Open House events like the student life sessions and the creative performances are really special, because they give students a full picture of what Central has to offer. It’s an opportunity for visitors to experience the warmth that defines our building.”

Week 4 of the 5 Towns Flag Football League

What a week it was at the 5 Towns FM Home Loans Flag Football! One can hardly believe it is already week 4!

In the pre-1A and first grade divisions, the boys are really picking up the game and having fun with their friends!

In the second grade division, the Giants beat the Vikings, the Jets beat the Eagles, the Patriots beat the Jets, and the Broncos beat the Patriots led by Eytan Langsam who scored 4 touchdowns! In the third and fourth grade division, the Patriots beat the Steelers, the Giants beat the Saints, the Packers beat the Falcons, the Panthers beat the Raiders, the Broncos and the Vikings tied in a back-andforth battle, and the Jets beat the Seahawks with some amazing flag pulls by Yosef Packer! In the fifth and sixth grade division, the Packers beat the Falcons, the Steelers beat the Patriots, the Giants beat the Saints, and the Jets beat the Seahawks with some amazing catches by Eit-

an Reich! In the seventh and eighth grade division, the Broncos beat the Eagles, the Vikings and the Titans tied, the Raiders and the Panthers tied, and the Giants beat the Commanders with some great plays by Yehuda Rodin!

Here are the winners of this week’s Sportsmanship of the Week Award! 1st –Akiva Weber; 2nd – Judah Joszef; 3rd and 4th – Aaron Katz; 5th – Menachem Blumberg; 7th and 8th – Eli Silver.

Looking forward to the last few games of the regular season and then on to the Playoffs.

Packing with Care for Israel

Students in grades 1-8 at HALB packed bags filled with toys and treats for children in Israel. They also wrote letters to go in each bag. While we are far away, students want to bring

Supporting Israel

What can you do to support Israel when it needs it the most?

Show your support for Israel by purchasing products made in Israel.

The news is inundated with horrific reports about the war in Israel, and it’s difficult to fathom the extent of the challenges faced. After months of discord surrounding protests against judicial reform, on Simchat Torah, all the boundaries fell—between left and right, Sephardim and Ashkenazim, secular and religious. In one fell swoop, the people of Israel woke up to the timeless reality that they are all one in the face of a ruthless and barbaric enemy.

Jews and supporters around the world have issued an unequivocal response, opening their hearts and showing extraordinary generosity. Unprecedented assistance has been extended to many deserving causes, including rescue and response units, bereaved families, those with loved ones held hostage in Gaza, soldiers on the frontlines, food banks, and more.

What is it like to live through this nightmare? It’s fair to say that the entire country is united in grieving the losses, worrying about those who are kidnapped, and living in daily fear of sirens heralding missile attacks (as not all rockets are intercepted). People are anxious about what tomorrow will bring.

However, we can’t ignore the economic aspect. Less than two weeks into

some joy and hope and a little distraction to the kids living in Israel. Big thank you to HALB parents Rachel Jacobs and Katie Weisz for having the idea and making it happen.

the war, many businesses have closed. While some people can work from home, it’s not always an option. In this somber economic climate, Israeli businesses are looking to their brothers and sisters abroad to help them weather the storm and stay afloat.

Hazorfim, a brand synonymous with silver art and Judaica for almost as long as the state of Israel has existed, is making efforts to keep going. “Although our stores in Israel are mainly closed, we’re keeping the factory and head office open,” explains Ofira Gutman-Berrebi, Hazorfim’s deputy CEO. The company’s expert silver artisans and craftsmen come from all over the country, including the war-torn south.

“First of all, it’s our livelihood,” Ofira states. “We need to produce and are hoping that our U.S. clients will continue to purchase to make up the shortfall in sales from Israel. But it’s more than that. Here at Hazorfim, the work environment is like a second home, and it’s important for us to help our employees maintain a semblance of normalcy in these chaotic times. After it became known that the sister and family of one of our employees was seriously injured, the company and many of our employees have transferred funds to support them.”

For the Galil Mountain Winery in the northern town of Katzrin, the timing couldn’t have been worse, as it coincided with the end of the grape harvest. “In the best of circumstances, we need to work

three shifts every day, 24/6, in order to complete the harvest and process the grapes in time. We certainly don’t have the option to work from home,” says Yael Gai, the winery’s international sales and marketing manager. Further complicating matters, many workers have been called up for reserves, resulting in reduced manpower for this time-sensitive labor. Yael explains that the company is careful to adhere to the instructions of the IDF Home Front Command to minimize danger to employees. “Yesterday, there was a siren, and everyone went to the safe room until it was over. There’s no question; it’s tough working with all the stress and the threat of fire, but we are doing it!”

Avishai Navon, CEO of You Lingerie, had been anticipating the usual postHigh Holidays boost that comes with the onset of wedding season. But with malls and stores closed across the country, sales are practically non-existent. For business owners like Navon, the economic stress compounds the general tension experienced by the entire country. “We have no idea how long the situation is going to continue, and with the stores closed, we are entirely dependent on overseas sales to stay viable.”

Hazorfim is facing a similar challenge. “October is usually a busy month for us,” says Ofira. “Tourists who have come for the High Holidays like to shop for Judaica before returning home. And wedding gifts—silver menorahs, candlesticks, and

kiddush cups—are huge sellers around this time of year. But with the current mood in Israel, people are focused on surviving and taking care of their families and less on shopping – which means huge losses every single day.”

With restaurants closed, events canceled or scaled down, and no incoming tourists, local wine consumption has plummeted. “People are running to the supermarkets these days to stock up on water, wine not so much,” Yael Gai observes.

“We want to stay strong and viable, to support our employees and to continue to produce,” says Ofira of Hazorfim. “But to do that, we need to sell.”

Many Israeli businesses are struggling right now. Each one supports dozens, and for some, hundreds of families. They aren’t asking for donations. What they are requesting is for people abroad to show their support by purchasing their high-quality products online or from local distributors. Many Israeli businesses, both large and small, have points of sale across the U.S. But even easier is making an online purchase, such as through Hazorfim.com. By patronizing them, you are strengthening Israel’s economy during one of its most vulnerable periods. You are helping Israel survive.

“We’ve been through challenges before,” says Ofira. “We are strong, and with the strength and support of our people, we will overcome.”

Aish Kodesh organized a packing event for those in Israel on Tuesday, where girls and boys helped to pack duffels and knapsacks for our brothers and sisters in need

Around the Community HANC Supports Israel

Upon returning from Sukkot break, the Hebrew Academy of Nassau County came together in a display of unwavering support for Israel. On Monday morning, the students from the fourth through sixth grades gathered for a beautiful morning of community tefillah, offering heartfelt prayers for the safety and well-being of their brothers and sisters, soldiers, families

and friends struggling in their beloved homeland, Israel. Following the fervent davening, the students had the privilege of hearing inspiring messages from Rabbi Ouriel Hazan, Head of West Hempstead campuses, who shared that Haman knew he was defeated when he heard the children of Shushan praying. A powerful, moving moment followed when Mrs. Michal Wasser, Assistant Principal,

Torah Protects and Shields

The esteemed Shas Yiden Kollelim network opened the door of its seventh kollel, this time in Brooklyn, situating itself in the Sasregen-Sokolover Beis Medrash, bringing the number of enrolled yungeleit to 117 throughout the world.

shared a video message from her brother, Eitan, a HANC alumna and combat soldier, who spoke to the students from his army base about the zechut (privilege) of defending our beloved State of Israel. The program concluded with the recitation of Tehillim, a prayer for the safety of our Israeli soldiers, and the singing of Acheinu and Hatikvah.

On Tuesday, the entire school, in a remarkable display of solidarity and pride, wore Israel-themed apparel. Each class in the school, from kindergarten through sixth grade, created beautiful posters and pictures which the children held proudly as they marched into the auditorium for the school-wide rally. The HANC building buzzed with energy as students joined in the rally, proudly displaying their support for Israel. The messaging on the posters demonstrated their unwavering commitment and love for Israel and our people. The atmosphere was electric and filled with a sense of unity and purpose as students collectively recited Tehillim, sang “Acheinu”, and raised their voices in a powerful rendition of “Hatikvah.” Back in the classrooms, children wrote heartfelt letters to Israeli soldiers, encouraging them to be strong, as well as to those who were injured in the war. The letters were later delivered to local residents who will hand carry them to Israel to distribute to the brave chayalim across Israel. Providing necessary supplies became

Did you know?

the next mission for the HANC family. TJ Serber, a HANC Elementary School alumna, and her family, spearheaded a collection of much needed supplies for soldiers from their West Hempstead home. Individuals, reservists and families traveling to Israel took more than eighty duffel bags with them. The much needed supplies will be distributed to army bases, bringing comfort to the soldiers knowing that their fellow Jews in New York are thinking of them and doing everything they can to support their brave efforts to defend our beloved and eternal homeland.

On Friday, the students gathered for a truly unique Shabbat Assembly. This week, the students joined other schools along the East Coast, to read Tehillim together, recite the prayer for Israel, and sing Hatikvah and “Acheinu” together on zoom. They also viewed a video explaining that each of us can do our part to help in this fight, including writing letters of support, davening, learning Torah and spreading kindness. This tremendous achdut is an important component in the fight against evil.

HANC students will continue to pray, to write letters and collect supplies. Israel needs our support so that they can win the war and continue to remain a beacon of light for our nation and the world. Am Yisrael Chai!

The world’s heaviest pumpkin weighed 2,624 lbs.

United in Tefillah

Over 30 schools joined together, and united in tefillah for our brothers and sisters in Israel.

It was a very special experience for all HALB students and faculty.

HANC HS Thanks Local Police Officers

On Tuesday, October 17, members of the HANC High School Jewish Action committee, accompanied by Principal Rabbi Eli Slomnicki and Director of Student Life Rabbi Daniel Mezei, brought bagels & schmear and pastries to the Third Precinct of the Nassau County Police Department. The group thanked the officers for their support and for their concern for HANC students as

they presented the officers with a giant thank you card signed by the entire study body and faculty.

Maya Karavani, chair of the committee, spearheaded this endeavor and commented, “The officers were excited to receive the lunch and happy that we visited. It is important for us to express our hakarat hatov to law enforcement especially at this time.”

A Connected Classroom

HALB teachers Rabbi Steinberg, Rabbi Werner and Morah Wieder opened up their classrooms to students in Modiin this week. While

We are One

Israeli soldiers are guarding all the communities in the south. Shoshana Cohen, originally from Los Angeles and a mother of five, offered to host a

few soldiers for a few hours to get a wellearned rest, a place to shower and some food.

MAY Talmidim Doing Their Part

At this critical time for Klal Yisroel, the talmidim of Mesivta Ateres Yaakov have heeded the call of the Rabbonim and Roshei Yeshiva that we have all been “called up” to do our part for Eretz Yisroel.

schools in Israel are closed, HALB is providing an opportunity for students in Israel to connect and continue learning with our classes.

Upon their return from Bein HaZmanim, the Rosh HaYeshiva, Rabbi Mordechai Yaffe, addressed talmidim, reinforcing the message that “Torah and Tefilla are our biggest weapons when Klal Yisroel is attacked. And we are in the unit of Torah and tefillah, the unit of the yeshivas.”

Talmidim have been mechazek their daily tefillos and Tehillim and their rededication in their Limud HaTorah. The Mashgiach Ruchani, Rabbi Yehuda Horowitz, also mobilized talmidim in undertaking specific kabbalos in different areas of Avo-

das Hashem adding to the ammunition in the unit of the Yeshiva. 100% of the talmidim have accepted kabbalos for the z’chus of our brothers and sisters in Eretz Yisroel. Among the twenty-two suggested areas were adding time to their learning at nights, delivering divrei Torah on Shabbos, benching from a bencher, learning hilchos shemiras halashon daily, or giving tzedakah every morning.

In addition, the Menahel, Rabbi Yossi Bennett, has been organizing groups of MAY talmidim to join the community in the afternoons preparing and packing much-needed physical resources in Eretz Yisroel.

B’ezras Hashem, in the z’chus of the Torah, tefillah, and achdus of all of Klal Yisroel, everyone should be safe and calm should be restored to Eretz Yisroel soon.

Elected officials joined rallies in Support of Israel

O.K.A.Y. Members Show Up and Show Support at the Gural JCC

Some entered the O.K.A.Y. meeting last Thursday night at the Gural JCC hesitantly joining for the first time; others had been seeking out these welcoming moms regularly for over seven years. Some had children who had just made Aliyah, others had children and grandchildren living in Israel for over twenty-five years. The common thread?

All these women were moms whose children chose to live in Israel – some as singles, some as part of an adventurous couple, others as large pioneering fami-

lies with infants, toddlers, even pre-teens and teens. Some of our children joined as lone soldiers, others followed in their siblings’ footsteps, leaving their parents with not one but two or three children fighting on the Israeli frontlines. Some had children in settlements, others in big cities. Some settled up north, others down south. We all came together to give each other strength and support, to share stories and fears and hopes, to pray and cry and even to exchange an occasional brief smile.

The O.K.A.Y. (Our Kids Abroad in Yisrael) group has been meeting at the Marion and Aaron Gural JCC since February 2016 when Gural JCC staff member Rachayle Deutsch’s daughter, son-in-law and first two grandchildren unexpectedly decided to try living in Jerusalem and left one August with six suitcases, never to look back. Still in a daze, she decided to see if there were other local moms around in a similar situation. There were. Nearly two dozen moms gathered at that first meeting. They were of all ages and synagogue affiliations and even of different mindsets about their children moving to Israel. While some moms were still teary-eyed and had a difficult time accepting their children realizing their dreams, others were very supportive and stoic, claiming that we raised our children with a love of Israel and a need to be independent. How could we now be anything but proud?

Despite the differences of perspective, the group grew as more and more moms found themselves saying shalom and l’hitraot to their children and grandchildren. We decided that we would not allow the monthly meetings to be a place to kvetch and feel grief (although newcomers were allowed their few moments). We wanted our group to be a source of support, yes, but also a networking initiative where we could exchange valuable tips, especially about travel details such as flights, places to stay, health insurance and always, fun places to go with our families when visiting.

Last Shabbos, Shmini Atzeret, we all heard the unthinkable news of the devastation happening in Israel.

On Sunday night, when the holiday was over, our phones and computers lit up, trying to reach our loved ones in Israel and to check on their safety as we read of the nightmare unfolding all around them.

The O.K.A.Y. chat opened with members in shock but checking to see how others were doing and if their families were safe. The conversation immediately turned to calls for action – donations of protective gear, hygiene products, and other essentials, notices of packing sites and transporting of duffle bags and packages, collections to purchase necessities in Israel, to donate to Israel relief funds and, of course, calls for prayer and Tehillim.

On Tuesday, when we had been scheduled to meet to connect and to wish one of our own well who was planning to move to Israel next month, we called off our meeting to attend rallies and to join our communities in prayer. But by Thursday, many of our group voiced the need to meet, in person, with other O.K.A.Y. members. It was not our typical lighthearted meeting, but it was a couple of hours of much needed support and solidarity and a relief to be with those who so totally understood what we were feeling. There were many tears and much anguish but, as always, we faced it together. We ended with the prayer that our families in Israel would stay safe and strong, that our wounded and captive brethren would return home quickly and well and that our children on the frontlines would come back whole. And then, in turn, once again we would be O.K.A.Y.

If you, or anyone you know would like to join the OKAY group please contact Rachayle at (516)569-6733 ext.222, rachayle.deutsch@guraljcc.org. If you would like to speak to one of our social workers during this difficult time, please email byachad@guraljcc.org.

Names, Not Numbers at HANC Middle School

On Tuesday, October 10, HANC Middle School held its Names, Not Numbers program. Names, Not Numbers is a copyrighted oral history film project and curriculum which Mrs. Tova Fish-Rosenberg created that takes the teaching of the Holocaust and its lessons well beyond many previous efforts. Through the Names, Not Numbers program, HANC’s eighth grade students had the opportunity to document the teachings of the Holocaust and address questions about an individual’s responsibility to humanity.

The night began with a dessert reception for the students, their families and the survivors and their families. This allowed everyone to mingle and enjoy the company. In fact, the inter-generational component is a key aspect of the program.

After dessert, Rabbi Hecht, Middle School Principal, introduced the program. First, he spoke about the situation in Eretz Yisroel. The anthems were sung and special Tefillot and Tehilim were said. This part of the program concluded with everyone singing Acheinu. Next, the lights were turned off, and it was time for the feature presentation. The students

interviewed: Mrs. Lisa Baer, Mrs. Bronia Brandman, Mrs. Edith Gross, Mrs. Ray Kaner, Dr. Clem Loew, Mrs. Gabriella Major, Mrs. Fran Malkin, and Mrs. Chaya Small. At the end of the movie, there was loud applause, and when the survivors were asked to come to the front for a final time, the crowd of people erupted. Afterward, parents and students were effusive in their praise of this most powerful evening. May the parents and students always pass down the testimony from generation to generation.

Names, Not Numbers is generously supported by a prominent national foun-

dation. The following people sponsored as well: the Blass Family, the Brandler family, the Daitch family, the Grysman family, the Hackel family, the Nathan family, the Newman family, the Ritter family, the Silbiger family and the Weitzman family. A special thank you to Tova and Dov Rosenberg for their efforts with this program. The Names, Not Numbers© at HANC 2022-23 documentary will be included in the archives of The National Library of Israel in Jerusalem, Yad Vashem, and Yeshiva University’s Gottesman Library.

Touro’s Lander College for Women Appoints Scholar in Residence

“I’m here to teach Torah.”

As in-house scholar-in-residence at Touro’s Lander College for Women/The Anna Ruth and Mark Hasten School (LCW), Rabbi Yitzchak Gettinger will be leading Torah study with the students outside of their Judaic classes or requirements, simply for the sake of learning.

“There’s a certain thirst the students have for more Torah and definitely more connection and more passion,” he said. “This is an opportunity for them that’s not about a grade, a test, or a syllabus. It’s about real, personal connection to Torah on their own time, on their own schedule, in a more relaxed environment than the classroom.”

“Rabbi Gettinger’s excitement about teaching and learning Torah is magnetic,” said Dr. Marian Stoltz-Loike, Dean of Lander College for Women. “There’s

a deep interest among our students for more Torah on campus. Rabbi Gettinger’s involvement at LCW will enable our students to expand and deepen their understanding of Torah. Our goal is to enable them to comfortably continue their Torah studies after graduation from LCW and throughout their lives.”

Rabbi Gettinger grew up in South Bend, Indiana, and attended Yeshivas Toras Chaim in Lakewood, and then the Mir Yeshiva in Israel for eight years, before studying at Yeshivas Brisk, in the division led by Rav Avraham Yehoshua Soloveitchik. He lives in Manhattan and is the rabbi of Young Israel of the West Side and a member of West Side Kollel.

Rabbi Gettinger prefers to teach in a chabura setting, he said, because he wants to tailor the experience toward the students’ interests to enable them to get

the most out of this opportunity.

“My vision is being able to provide the students with an uplifting, inspiring experience outside of the classroom curriculum,” he said. “But beyond being inspiring, the shiurim should be motivating to them, a compelling kind of learning that’s text based and has depth. In order to connect with the students, the learning has to be high caliber.”

The topics of his shiurim will vary; some will be related to chagim and scheduled in advance, and others will be driven by student interest or suggested by the dean or members of the faculty. He also plans to delve into Jewish history and will integrate current events into his classes when necessary.

“No matter what,” Rabbi Gettinger said, “having a dedicated person to provide extra-curricular learning and in-

spiration

For

can do a lot of good for the students and for the institution.”

Let’s Rise for Israel

Over 200 women gathered at Chabad Five Towns for a unity challah bake this week to send spiritual protection to Israel in merit of the mitzvah of challah, uniting with other Jewish women and praying for our soldiers.

The evening opened with uplifting and powerful songs by singer Shaindel Antelis. Mrs. Shternie Ginsburg, author

of “Your Awesome Self,” then spoke about shining your light when faced with darkness.

Seven mothers of current IDF soldiers joined the event. They each led the crowd

in adding one of the seven ingredients of challah and connected it to a prayer for the safety and security of all of Israel.

Arguments for the Sake of Heaven by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks

What is the future of the Jewish people? In Arguments for the Sake of Heaven, first published in 1991, Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks explores the contemporary issues that influence Judaism and the controversies that affect its destiny.

Setting out the traditional alternatives proposed by Rabbis Samson Raphael Hirsch, Moses Sofer, Abraham Isaac Kook, and Joseph Soloveitchik, Rabbi Sacks uses these models to examine today’s Jewish communities in the United States, Britain, and Israel. He proposes that, in order to achieve Jewish unity,

there must be “a candid acknowledgment of what divides Jews and an attempt to locate those divisions within the framework of tradition.”

If the Jewish world is to be mended, Rabbi Sacks contends, Jews must move beyond sectional thinking and recognize alternatives within Judaism. The tradition of argument requires respect for positions with which one doesn’t agree; rabbinic texts imply more than one legitimate stance. It is in this spirit of healing that Jewish unity will be achieved, and “to see this is already to have begun the transition from Torah as the faith of

some Jews to Torah as the constitution of the whole Jewish people.” The ideas put forth in this book are still relevant three decades after its initial publication and should continue to be spread worldwide.

The Rabbi Sacks Book Club is a literary initiative dedicated to reintroducing readers to the profound teachings of Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, zt”l. Through this program, seven of his earlier books, including “Arguments for the Sake of Heaven,” “Community of Faith,” “Crisis and Covenant,” “Faith in the Future,” “One People?” “Tradition in an Untraditional Age,” and “Will

We Have Jewish Grandchildren?” are being republished over the coming year. These works encapsulate Rabbi Sacks’ unparalleled insights into faith, community, tradition, and the challenges of the modern world, offering readers an exclusive opportunity to engage with his enduring wisdom and guidance.

Arguments for the Sake of Heaven is the first book to be published by Koren Jerusalem as part of the Rabbi Sacks Book Club.

These mothers of IDF soldiers led the crowd in adding the ingredients. L-R: Bryna Flaum, Amy Bodner and Raylie Bodner (sister), Blimi Cheshire, Audi Hecht, Devorah Hornbacher, Simi Feigin, and Sarah Van Halem (grandmother).

Israeli Students (Virtually) Join Mercaz Academy’s Second Grade Classroom

Having just returned from spending Sukkot in Israel, Mrs. Aileen Kirschenbaum has more insight than many into the difficulties Israeli students are facing right now. Mercaz Academy’s second grade general studies teacher was aware that, with schools closed and outings limited, many Israeli children are missing the stimulation of the classroom and social interaction with friends at school.

So she decided to use some of the lessons she learned during the Covid lockdowns to do what she can to help.

On Monday, Mrs. Kirschenbaum conducted a joint in-person/online class in Mercaz Academy’s Grade Two. The remote learners – English-speaking Israeli children with Mercaz connections, including families of former students and staff – “zoomed in” to join the Mercaz students for a lesson.

Mrs. Kirschenbaum presented a fun and interactive examination of animal camouflage, equally enjoyable for students in the classroom and far away in Israel. After the Mercaz second graders welcomed their online guests, the stu-

dents explored why animals benefit from camouflage. Mrs. Kirschenbaum displayed photos of camouflaged animals on the screen, challenging students in the room and online to find the hidden animal. All the children colored a sheet of paper to provide the perfect camouflage area for a colorful selection of animal figurines (parents of Israeli students were forewarned and prepared with their own animal toys).

The Mercaz second graders and their new friends are all looking forward to their next class together and enjoyed

MTA Seniors Visit Museum of Jewish Heritage

On Monday, October 16, the entire senior grade at MTA was privileged to visit the Museum of Jewish Heritage as part of an extension of the Names, Not Numbers® Holocaust Oral History Documentary program. Although ordinarily closed to the public on Mondays, the museum opened for MTA with a full host of security staff and gallery educators.

“I’m glad that MTA brought us on this trip to the museum because it was an eye-opening experience with many real artifacts from the Holocaust,” commented Pinchas R., an MTA senior originally from Baltimore.

In groups, students explored the main exhibit showcasing the experiences of European Jewry from the 1930s through the end of the war.

“It was very informative. I learned from there it wasn’t just the camps and ghettos,” said another student, Ben J. from Riverdale.

Students also participated in a workshop on Ethical Wills, led by Senior Director of Education at the Museum of Jewish Heritage, Dr. Paul Radensky.

“The trip was really insightful. I thought [the Holocaust] started with the ghettos, then the labor camps, then

meeting new friends and comparing their camouflage skills. However, for the students and the teacher, it was the opportunity to support our faraway family in Israel that was most satisfying.

the death camps...I didn’t realize there were mass shootings, or how many death marches there were, and how much they targeted the children,” reflected Monsey senior Hillel K.

Students left feeling a deepened sense of connection to the Mesorah as well as

a renewed feeling of reassurance that the enemies of Yisrael will never win – certainly a needed message of comfort in light of the difficult situation in Eretz Yisrael today.

At the melaveh malka for Spink of Bayswater at the home of Reuven and Esther Guttman in Lawrence

A Special Week at HANC ECC

The yeladim in HANC’s Early Childhood Center in West Hempstead spent last week delving into Parashat Bereishis, learning about what Hashem created each day. Through songs, stories, and pictures, this important first parsha came alive for the children. To demonstrate what they had learned, the children were busy at work, creating beautiful projects utilizing their fine motor skills. The colorful projects were decorated with fun objects including cotton balls, stickers, dip dots and paint, and the songs they learned reinforced the many aspects of the creation of Hashems’s beautiful world. The children couldn’t wait to take their magnificent creations home to proudly share them with their families.

Instilling a love for Israel is important at every age level, and this has been a focus in HANC’s ECC as well. Remaining cognizant of their tender age, the morot and administrators spoke about our love for Israel and its importance for our people. During the week, the children created beautiful cards and posters for the people who are protecting Israel, giving even the youngest students a sense of appreciation for their role in keeping Israel strong.

Later in the week, the children gathered for a special assembly with Rabbi Ouriel Hazan, Head of HANC West

Hempstead Schools. Wrapped in a large Israeli flag, Rabbi Hazan spoke to the children about our love for Israel and the importance of unity for the Jewish people. Morah Kayli led the children in singing and dancing, and the joy on their faces showed how much they took this all to heart. “When you go home tonight, what will you tell your family?” Rabbi Hazan asked the children. “I love Israel, we love Israel, HANC loves Israel!” was their exuberant response.

Rosh Chodesh is always a special day in the ECC. In order to celebrate Rosh Chodesh Cheshvan and in honor of Parshat Noach, the children were presented with their own stuffed animal and a bag of yummy animal crackers. HANC ECC Director Trudy Rubinstein added, “We are happy that these young children could enjoy themselves with Rosh Chodesh activities.” They were also thrilled to visit the animal farm that came to visit HANC. In addition to petting and feeding the ducks, chicks, rabbits, goats and ponies, they learned about animal behavior, characteristics and temperaments. To make the experience complete, the children took a ride on the ponies, which was truly thrilling for them.

All of these opportunities for learning and celebration made it an educational and fun-filled experience for the young children at HANC ECC.

“Imo Anochi B’tzarah”

With the matzav in Eretz Yisrael on everyone’s mind, the girls at BYAM had an opportunity to put the lessons they learned of being “nosei b’ol im chaveiro” into practice. The girls were encouraged to take an active approach and do something to convey their care and concern for their brothers and sisters in Eretz Yisrael.

Across the grade levels, students wrote heartfelt letters to the chayalim (some were even in Hebrew!) expressing their solidarity with the soldiers while here on American shores.

The girls have been learning that the best tools in this war are the ones that are not weapons of destruction, but ones of tefillah, care and connection.

SKA Supports Israel

Along with all of Am Yisrael, our collective core was shaken as we arrived back to school after Sukkot break. The harrowing news from Israel has greatly affected our everyday lives. The SKA family gathered together to daven and recite Tehillim together during this time of crisis. Mrs. Kaminetsky addressed the girls and conveyed the message that although we are physically far away, our hearts and minds are always facing Mizrach. Rabbi Rice led tefillot for Tzahal, Medinat Yisrael and those being held captive.

Students were non-stop, busy trying to help in any way they could. From writing letters expressing thanks and support to soldiers and their families, to a Target run to buy socks, camelbacks, batteries, and power bars, to raising over $1,200 for a 12th grader’s brother’s unit in the IDF. Each student has been using their talents and resources to help as much as possible. SKA STUCO (student council) had prepared a unique breakout program but pivoted and asked Rabbi and Mayor Pilichowski from Mitzpei Yericho to speak. Their messages really brought home the situation to our girls.

On Thursday night, students from all the local high schools gathered together

At the Rosh Chodesh Cheshvan seudah at Siach Yitzchok

YOSS Expresses Appreciation

Yeshiva of South Shore joined in the community-wide initiative to extend appreciation to President Joe Biden for his support to Israel. Students in grades 3-8 wrote letters expressing gratitude for the President’s support of the Jewish people. Many boys who have family in Israel wrote personal notes asking the President to continue the support and keep their families safe. The children took great pride in being able to extend hakaras hatov to the President of the United States.

We daven that everyone should be safe, and this war ends soon.

for words of inspiration and tefillah as a show of achdut, exemplifying the idea that there is so much more that unites us than what divides. On Friday, over 10,000 yeshiva high school students from across the country gathered on Zoom to hear words of chizuk from Rabbi Efrem Goldberg and Rabbi Chaim Marcus and davened together for the safety and security of our brother and sisters in Eretz Yisrael. It was truly a remarkable event, and again showcased what makes us, Klal Yisrael, different.

As a people, we live and breathe b’lev echad. Although we are physically far, lebi ba’mizrach, our hearts and tefillot are focused on Eretz Yisrael.

A Unique Bake Sale at Shulamith

On Tuesday, October 17, Shulamith School for Girls had a unique kind of bake sale. The Shulamith families sent in dozens of baked goods to school to be “sold” to the girls, but money wasn’t used at this bake sale. Instead, each student recited Tehillim and received the baked item of her choice. It was nice to see our older students of our Chessed committee and our 7th grade saying perakim of Tehillim with the younger girls for the safety of our Chayalim in Eretz Yisrael. We hope that in the Zechut of all our students’ Tehillim, all of our Chayalim and those impacted by the horrific events should have health, safety, and nechama.

Thank you to all the bakers in Shu-

lamith for the delicious treats. We continue to daven for shalom al Yisroel. Am Yisrael chai!

Father-Son Learning Program

Generations bonded while learning Torah together at DRS’s annual Father-Son Learning Programs. This year, the yeshiva held two seperate programs: A Kinus Teshuva for sophomores, juniors and seniors, and a special freshmen program held last Sunday.

After davening, DRS Menahel Rabbi Kaminetsky addressed the fathers and

sons in the packed Beis Medrash about the unique relationships rooted in and revolving around Torah between a father and son. Following a delicious breakfast, parents and students headed up to shiur, as each DRS rebbe presented stirring shiurim on topics related to teshuva, the Yomim Noraim, and the recent situation in Israel.

Connecting from Afar

During this difficult time, all of Klal Yisroel are trying to do everything they can to help the people in Eretz Yisroel from afar. In Mrs. Gross’s second grade class at Yeshiva of South Shore, the boys used the skills they have been learning to write to the soldiers in the IDF. The boys worked together to write a letter showing our love and support for them. The boys wrote comforting sentences to send to the soldiers. As part of the activity, the class learned how to write and format a letter properly. All the boys completed the letters by signing their names in Hebrew and drawing a picture for the soldiers. IY”H we should only hear of good news going forward!

YOSS talmidim are generating zchusim and being mechazeik our brothers and sisters in Eretz Yisroel

JSL Week 3

The JSL by FM Home Loans resumed this past week with an incredible week 3. With the current situation in Israel, the league recited a perek of Tehillim before each game. The JSL Winter Registration is live and filling up quickly. Registration and more info at 5TJSL.com

JSL Juniors

K/P Hockey: Yehuda Wielgus scored two goals as Maidenbaum defeated Bright Futures 7-5. Town Appliance jumped out to an early 3-0 lead but PinIt Realty responded and pulled within 1 goal. But a late goal by Town Appliance sealed the 5-3 victory. PIP Printing beat Posh Home + Bath 4-0 behind Game MVP Ephraim Lowy who scored a goal and let up no goals in net. Ari Blobstein played great as John’s Automotive defeated Virtair 5 to 2.

K/P Soccer: Moshe Silberberg came in at goal for the second half and did not allow a goal as Simcha Day Camp beat Dead On Pest Control in a tight 2 to 1 contest. Island Roofing beat Target Exterminating 4 to 1 with great teamwork, team effort, and team hustle by all in this game.

1st Hockey: 5TownsCentral and Zahav Asset Management squared off for an intense game Sunday. Zahav took the lead twice but 5 Towns Central responded with goals of their own, taking the lead late and holding on for an exciting 4-3 victory.

1st/2nd Football: Eitan Greenspan was just incredible on Sunday, catching 3 long TDs to help Westwood Realty beat Pip Printing 7-6.. No winner could be decided between Target Exterminating and

Adventure Media as both teams played incredibly. Ephraim Groundland had 2 touchdowns for Target while the Bell twins played incredible for Adventure Media.

Basketball

3rd/4th: Moshe Schlachter for Traditions Eatery had an amazing And-1. Pinny Eisenberger recorded a double double for Maidenbaum in their 24-9 win over Miller Realty. Newman Dental defeated King David Contractors 19 to 6. Rafi Greenstein scored a sweet outside shot in the win.

5th-7th: Shaul Nathan of Island Roofing had the play of the day as Island Roofing defeated Wieder Orthodontics 36 to 14.

Hockey

2nd/3rd: Dovid Perl was a wall in goal and Shalom Kopelowitz supplied the firepower on offense as Believe & Achieve shut out Arielle Rosenblatt Interiors 3-0. Shlomo Greenspan continued his JSL dominance in goal with another shutout Sunday as I Am Your Chef beat Island Roofing 2-0.

4th/5th: Marciano Pediatric Dentistry played great in their win over AutoClick Carkeys 6 to 3. Posh Home + Bath poured it on offensively to remain undefeated and Tamir Law narrowly beat Miller Realty 4-2.

6th/8th: Chu’s Meat Market and Wieder Orthodontics both recorded double-digit points in their decisive wins Sunday Night.

Men’s Basketball

Yitzi Wieder was unstoppable in Mill-

Uniting in Tefillah at Ezra Academy

It is impossible to put into words what we as Jews are feeling right now, impossible to know what our brothers and sisters in Israel are feeling. As we continue to constantly monitor the tragic situation in Israel, each piece of news seems to be more earth shattering than the next. Somehow, when all seems hopeless, we must find a way to go on and we must find a way to be beacon of light and strength for our children and for the people of Israel. At Ezra Academy, we are taking that responsibility very seriously.

History has repeatedly shown us that the Jewish people are resilient, strong, and unified by our faith and love. Our primary goal is the mental and spiritual

er Realty’s 55-42 victory over I Am Your Chef. Yoni Oratz was robotic at the free throw line – with 10 free throws for Rita’s. However, Marciano (led by former YU superstar Ofek Reef who went off in the 2nd half with 23 points) narrowly emerged with the 56-55 win. Yosef Rudansky hit multiple long-range 3s as Island Roofing cruised to a 70-39 victory over Wieder Orthodontics.

Game of the Week

In the primetime Monday night 6th-8th hockey game, two legendary JSL/5TLL coaches, Yitzi Kohn and Charles Levine, squared off for an intense game. Yisroel Zev Hoshander started off the scoring for Extreme Vent Cleaning with a beautiful top-shelf shot. However,

BayRock was undeterred as Shaya Kohn, Yaakov Kopelowitz, and Aryeh Perl found the back of the net and Raphael “is a wall” Klein shut out Extreme for the rest of the game after the early goal, giving BayRock and Coach Kohn the 4-1 win and a 2-0 start to the season.

Game MVPs: Moshe Silberberg, Ephraim Lowy, Yehuda Weilgus, Eitan Greenspan, Issac Belsky, Ephraim Groundland, Joseph Bell, Pinny Bell, Shaya Muchnick, Moshe Wurzel, Bryan Revzin, Pinny Weinstein, Pinny Eisenberger, Dovid Perl, Sholom Kopelowitz, Rafi Greenstein, Akiva Greenspan, Nathan Putter, Ailey Greenspan, Yosef Bryks

health and growth of our students. Over the course of the last week, we have emphasized to our students the importance of family, the importance of kindness, the importance of remembering the Jewish community they are a part of inside and outside of school. When we are truly tested by G-d, it is in those moments that we must cling to our Jewish pride and Jewish identity even more dearly. We have been so moved to witness our students and the Ezra family rise to the occasion in so many different ways.

The week began with an assembly on Tuesday where we provided words of encouragement and support, followed by Tehillim and singing. All students were

advised to take upon one small mitzvah or middah to work on in the coming weeks in honor of Israel.

The students were then encouraged to take a soldier’s name and say Tehillim for that soldier each day. Each subsequent day, the school pauses classes for two minutes at 11:50 AM, to say Tehillim together for our personal soldier.

On Thursday night, Ezra had an inspiring night of chizzuk, tefillah, and achdut where our current seniors and many alumni came together to sing, light candles in memory of the fallen children, and pray.

Boys have begun raising money in school for those soldiers in need, and the

girls have begun collecting clothing and items to send overseas.

While our goal is to be a source of strength for our children, we would be remiss if we didn’t mention that it is our students who are regularly inspiring us. Let these vile actions by our enemies serve only to strengthen our bonds and remind us of what is truly important in our lives. Appreciate your children, appreciate your family, and most importantly appreciate the beautiful twothousand-year-old Jewish traditions and cultures that we’re all so lucky to be a part of.

Around the Community

HAFTR Stands with Israel

In response to the devastating terrorist attack on Israel, HAFTR mobilized its community to extend unwavering support to the Jewish homeland. Across all divisions in our yeshiva, students and faculty members rallied together, demonstrating their stalwart commitment to Israel. Students and staff came together, eager to make a meaningful impact in supporting Israel. Within hours of returning to school after the Sukkot break, the HAFTR community sprang into action, showcasing a remarkable display of unity and determination.

Our Lower School, Middle School, and High School Divisions held unified, inspiring assemblies where tefillot and words of chizuk were shared by administrators Mr. Joshua Gold, principal of the Lower and Middle School, Ms. Naomi Lippman, Head of School of the High School, and Rabbi Ira Wallach, Rosh Yeshiva. The Middle School joined a joint Zoom prayer recitation assembly. Our Middle School and High School created Tehillim groups where students are committed to daily recitations. Our Lower School recites them collectively every school day. These assemblies reaffirm the deep-rooted ties that bind the students to the Jewish homeland. In our Early Childhood Division, the children made cards and notes to send to the chayalim. We had our Shabbat Oneg on Friday morning, led by Rabbi Ben Apsan. During our Shabbat Oneg, our youngest students sang and danced along to Shabbat songs and songs about Israel.

On October 11, our High School welcomed one of its alumni to share his profound experiences in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and express his deep affection for Israel with our seniors. The event served as a powerful send-off for the alumnus, who later departed to stand in defense of our homeland. All the while, the students developed a dedicated davening campaign to offer spiritual support for HAFTR alumni currently serving in the IDF. Furthermore, our High School educators are engaging students in comprehensive discussions about the complex context of the conflict.

Additionally, various initiatives launched by the administration and students emphasized tangible support for Israel. Fundraising campaigns were swiftly organized by our community to aid relief efforts, reflecting our yeshiva’s steadfast commitment to our fellow Jewish brothers and sisters in Eretz Yisrael. Our 2020 alumni started their own fund to support IDF soldiers.

HAFTR quickly launched drives for equipment and needed supplies for the Israeli Defense Forces. Students and

Social Emotional Support

Located in the heart of Far Rockaway, PS 197Q boasts a diverse staff and student population. In a warm display of empathy, the principal, Ms. Villavicencio, pictured center, designated time for any impacted staff members to support each other in the aftermath of the horrific attack on Israel. In that safe space, the participants expressed con-

cern for their relatives and friends who are in the front lines of the battle, as well as those who need to shelter themselves from the rockets. Seen here are the school administrators, as well as the grateful Jewish staff members who participated in the therapeutic forum. Regardless of ethnicity and background, we all pray for peace – both locally and abroad.

community members contributed clothing, toiletries, electronics, and food. The High School initiated its own toy drive. Students organized and packed boxes that were then immediately shipped to Israel. To supplement the physical goods, our Lower School penned letters to soldiers imbued with words of encourage -

ment, praise, and blessing. These letters were placed into the same boxes.

The collective response from HAFTR’s students and faculty members serves as a testament to the strength of our yeshiva’s close-knit community. By actively engaging with the events in Israel, HAFTR educates its students about the significance of resolute support and also empowers them to take meaningful action in times of need. Through their unwavering support for Israel, HAFTR has not only uplifted the spirits of those directly affected but also inspired a generation of compassionate and socially aware future Jewish leaders.

Around the Community

Meir Panim’s Heroic Response as War Rages in Israel

By Hadassah Bay

As the world watches in disbelief and horror, Israelis and communities worldwide remain fixated on the relentless barrage of devastating events that began on Simchat Torah. In the face of these dire circumstances, Meir Panim has risen to the occasion, exhibiting unwavering determination to address pressing needs with the utmost urgency and thoroughness.

Across our nationwide branches, Meir Panim’s dedicated staff members have gone above and beyond, providing essential support and relief to their communities in the midst of turmoil. “Remarkably,” says Mimi Rozmaryn, Director of Global Development at Meir Panim, “they’re continuing these efforts while grappling with their own challenges as they endure the trials of war – shouldering the responsibility of caring for their children alone as their spouses are called up to military duty, and hosting families who’ve fled the war-torn south.”

All of this takes place against a back-

drop of ever-present fear and tension, as the uncertainty of each new day looms large.

In Or Akiva, one of the destinations for many displaced families from communities adjacent to Gaza, the Meir Panim team undertook to prepare huge quantities of Shabbat meals for southern families staying on their own as well as those hosted by family and friends, in addition to regular patrons and soldiers.

“Meir Panim prepared a full Shabbat-togo in a bag, including challahs and grape juice, all made and given with love,” says Mimi.

In the southern town of Dimona, meals are being packed and distributed to both Jewish families and Bedouins in need who reached out because they were unable to access food staples. At Meir Panim, all are welcome, no questions asked.

In branches where the dining room is closed due to the lack of a bomb shelter on the premises, Meir Panim has expanded its Meals on Wheels service.

Donation centers have sprung up at Meir Panim branches across the coun-

try, so that people can drop off goods and food items for residents of the south and for soldiers.

In Sderot, which at the time of this writing is still experiencing the brunt of Hamas aggression, Meir Panim staff are doing their utmost and more to connect with vulnerable teens and provide them with support and encouragement that are crucial at this time.

Each day brings with it its own trepidation, concern and uncertainty. But with the support of our brothers and sisters overseas, we are hopeful and confident that we will make it through this

rough period and emerge stronger.

Stand with Israel at this challenging time! Make your donation today online at www.mpdonate.org, through the toll-free number at (877) 7-DONATE / 877.736.6283 , or by mail to American Friends of Meir Panim at 88 Walton Street, Suite B1 Brooklyn, NY 112064479. All donations made in the US are tax-deductible under EIN# 20-1582478.

An Evening of Learning and Tefillah for Acheinu B’Eretz Yisroel at DRS Yeshiva

Last Thursday night, DRS Yeshiva held a special mishmar program that left a profound impact on its students. The event, titled “An Evening of Learning and Tefillah for Acheinu B’Eretz Yisroel,” was a heartfelt tribute to the brave soldiers serving in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and a powerful expression of solidarity during a time of crisis in Israel.

The program began with an emotional and inspiring address from Mr. Meir Rosenfeld. His son, Rabbi Josh Rosenfeld, a DRS alumnus from the Class of 2004, had served in the IDF. With heartfelt pride, Mr. Rosenfeld shared his personal perspective on what it means to be a father with a son in the IDF. He also offered insights into the emotions and experiences that parents of IDF soldiers may be feeling, particularly in the challenging times Israel is currently facing.

Following Mr. Rosenfeld’s moving speech, the students engaged in a thought-provoking learning session about the Significance of the Land of

High School Girls Unite

Israel. Guided source packets provided by the yeshiva helped the students delve into the deep historical, cultural, and spiritual connections that Jews have with the Land of Israel.

The highlight of the evening was the special guest, Rabbi Shay Schacter, Rosh Beis Medrash of the Young Israel of Woodmere. Unbeknownst to the yeshiva, Rabbi Schacter brought with him three remarkable guests – chayalim who were set to leave the following night to join their brothers and sisters in arms on the frontlines in Israel. Their presence in the room brought an overwhelming sense of unity and inspiration to the students. As the evening continued, the students and soldiers sang songs of tefillah and inspiration together. This harmonious display of unity and camaraderie aimed to provide the departing soldiers with much-needed chizuk as they embarked on their mission to protect Israel and its people. The program concluded with a collective recitation of Tehillim.

In the wake of the devastation and unfathomable loss of Shmini Atzeres, as we began to emerge from the paralyzing grief, thousands in our community mobilized to create light in a darkened world. Among the many responses of Tehillim, achdus, chessed, and morale for our soldiers, brothers, and sisters in Eretz Yisrael, the girls’ high schools of our community united last Thursday in an incredibly moving night of tefillah and connection.

Hundreds of high school girls filled the Young Israel of Lawrence Cedarhurst to participate in communal tefillos, hear words of chizzuk from Rabbi Yaakov Trump, and find strength in the stirring words of Acheinu and other meaningful songs, in a kumsitz led by Shaindel Antelis. Students representing all schools

in the 5 Towns and Far Rockaway, in addition to many from neighboring communities, left the event energized with feelings of love for all of Klal Yisrael and strength in being part of something bigger and greater than their individual circles.

As this agonizing situation continues, we share in the terror and relentless hope that our hostages are rescued. We share in the fervent tefillah that Hashem protects Tzahal and guides their hands until they emerge safe and triumphant. That Hatzalah, Zaka, and all volunteers in the field aren’t broken as they fulfill their holy missions. We stand united as a community in anticipation of the day when we see the fulfillment of the words, “U’machah Hashem kol dimah mei’al kol panim,” with the coming of Moshiach.

The Ganger Early Childhood Center at TAG had a petting zoo on Rosh Chodesh in honor of Parshas Noach

Parshat Noach integrated Torah messages as well as math, science and literacy at Shulamith ECC

Lev Chana stands with Israel

Breaking New Ground: The Elucidated Rashi on Chumash

“It’s Unlike Any Work on Rashi Ever Produced”

First there was the Schottenstein Edition Talmud.

Then there was the Schottenstein Edition Mishnah Elucidated.

Today, we present the Schottenstein Edition Elucidated Rashi on Chumash.

For centuries, the brilliant light of Rashi – Rav Shlomo ben Yitzchak of medieval France – has illuminated the world of Torah, earning him the esteemed title of “The Father of Commentators.”

With unrivaled clarity and grace, Rashi’s commentary on the Torah has become an integral – and truly indispensable – part of Chumash study. So brilliant are his commentaries that over three hundred works have been dedicated to dissecting his wisdom.

Behind the seemingly simple words lies a treasure trove of knowledge and profound thought. Rashi’s meticulous selection of citations from the vast literature of Chazal reveals the depths of his scholarship. Every word he chose carries a world of meaning and

significance, leaving a trail of insights for those who seek to comprehend his methodology.

The study of the Torah through the lens of Rashi has become a sacred duty for each generation. The barriers of language and limited understanding must be overcome so that fellow Jews may, in essence, sit in Rashi’s beis medrash and partake of his exploration of the Torah’s depths.

For decades, English speakers have relied on the Mesorah Heritage Foundation’s Sapirstein Edition Rashi to gain clarity and understanding of the Torah’s foremost commentary. It remains the most popular choice for teachers and students, who benefit from its translation of Rashi, highlighted and interwoven with explanatory words and phrases to ease and clarify the flow of Rashi’s text.

As we know, thanks to Hashem’s kindness, the world of Torah has grown. There are more people studying Torah today than ever before, and their level of

knowledge and sophistication is higher than ever. They want more. They wish to dig a bit deeper, understanding not just what Rashi says but the underlying concepts, along with deeper looks into Rashi’s thought process and those places where the commentators disagree with Rashi. What motivated Rashi with his specific remark? What counterargument does the Ramban put forth? How does the wording in the Torah reveal Rashi’s intended interpretation? To which passage in the Targum does Rashi allude?

Those who delve into the teachings of Rashi inevitably encounter inquiries of this nature. Beneath the deceptively straightforward exterior of Rashi’s commentary lies a depth that has captivated the intellects of esteemed talmidei chachamim for more than eight centuries.

Enter The Elucidated Rashi on Chumash.

This groundbreaking new series presents Rashi’s wisdom with unparalleled depth and clarity. Skillfullyadded explanatory words ensure the seamless flow of Rashi’s commentary, clarifying his points and connecting them with the text of the Chumash. Comprehensive notes offer additional insights into Rashi’s ideas and provide questions and clarifications from other renowned commentators.

“The Elucidated Rashi on Chumash is unlike anything published before in any language, Hebrew, English or otherwise,” says Rabbi Gedaliah Zlotowitz, president of the Mesorah Heritage Foundation. “Calling it ‘revolutionary’ is not an overstatement. No work on Rashi has ever been produced on this level.”

As mentioned, there are hundreds of commentaries on Rashi. “The Elucidated Rashi culls from them all,” says Rabbi Eliezer Herzka, General Editor of the project, “distilling them into a clear, comprehensive approach to Rashi. The work is designed to give a broad and indepth presentation of Rashi, clear enough for even the young student to understand, yet thorough enough for even the talmid chacham to appreciate.”

All seekers of deeper Torah understanding will undoubtedly embrace The Elucidated Rashi on Chumash, a reservoir of scholarly achievement.

Rebbi of Klal Yisrael Chazal tell us, “When a [deceased] Torah scholar’s words are repeated in this world, his lips move in the grave [as if he were still alive] (Yevamos 97a).

Using this standard as the criterion for “aliveness,” Rashi is possibly the most “alive” Torah scholar today. Virtually every student of Torah, from the child in elementary school to the greatest Torah sage, no matter what area of Torah he studies, refers to Rashi. It is for good reason that Rashi in Hebrew is seen as an acronym of “Rabban Shel Yisroel, Rabbi of Israel.”

In the year 800 of the fifth millennium, the glory of Israel went into exile with the passing of Rabbeinu Gershom Meor HaGolah. With this, the statement of the Sages on the verse “The sun rises and the sun sets” was fulfilled. The sun of Rashi rose.

Born in 4800 (1040 C.E.) in Troyes, France, Rashi hailed from a lineage of esteemed Torah scholars.

His mother was the sister of Rav Shimon HaZaken (“the elder”), a disciple of Rabbeinu Gershom, as attested to by Rashi in his comments to Shabbos 85b. His father, Rav Yitzchak, was also a Torah scholar. Rashi quotes him in his comments to Avodah Zarah 75a. Rav Yitzchak was descended from the Tanna Rav Yochanan HaSandlar, who was himself a descendant of King David.

Rashi left Troyes to study in the yeshivos of the students of Rabbeinu

Around the Community

Gershom. He first went to Mainz, where he studied under his principal teacher, Rav Yaakov ben Rav Yakar, of whom Rashi writes, “My heart, my logic, my understanding, came from him.” Rav Yaakov was noted for his humility, a trait emulated by his foremost disciple.

After Rav Yaakov’s death in 1064, Rashi moved on to the yeshivah of Rav Yitzchak ben Elazar HaLevi in Worms. He studied there amidst poverty even after his marriage.

Despite his greatness, Rashi never sought to hold rabbinic positions. Some stories suggest that he earned a livelihood as a wine merchant, yet his influence and standing in the Torah world were unparalleled. After his return to Troyes, he founded a yeshivah that attracted students from near and far, including France and Germany. He took three of them as his sons-in-law. Rav Yehudah ben Nassan married Rashi’s oldest daughter, Miriam. He completed the commentary to Tractate Makkos, which Rashi was working on at the time of his passing. His second daughter, Yocheved, married Rav Meir ben Shmuel. They were the parents of the best-known of Rashi’s grandsons, Rav Shmuel ben Rav Meir (Rashbam), Rav Yaakov (Rabbeinu Tam), and Rav Yitzchak ben R’ Meir (Rivam). The name of his third daughter is not known. She is believed to have married Rav Ephraim.

Rashi’s vast knowledge and dedication to Torah were evident as he nurtured the minds of future Torah giants.

His immense contributions to Torah scholarship lie in his commentaries, which he meticulously worked on throughout his life. Covering almost all of Scripture and the Talmud, Rashi’s commentaries

have become an integral part of Jewish education. From early childhood, Jewish children learn to appreciate Scripture through the lens of the Oral Tradition. As they grow older, they come to cherish the depth and precision of Rashi’s words, discovering new layers of meaning. For serious students of Talmud, Rashi’s commentary is an indispensable tool, without which the Talmud would be like an enigmatic puzzle. Using identical language, both Rav Yitzchak bar Sheshes (Rivash) and Rav Betzalel Ashkenazi (author of Shitah Mekubetzes) said that without Rashi, the Talmud would be “like a sealed book.”

On 29 Tammuz 4865 (1105 C.E.), Rashi’s physical presence left this world, but his impact continues to reverberate throughout the ages. His awe-inspiring works will forever ensure that his legacy lives on, shaping the minds and hearts of Torah learners for generations to come. As the sages proclaimed, when a Torah scholar’s words are repeated, it is as if their lips continue to move from the grave. Rashi’s lips will never cease to impart wisdom and enlightenment to all who seek the profound truths of the Torah.

The Illuminated Rashi on the Chumash, to be complete in 10 volumes –two on each book of the Torah – is set to illuminate minds far and wide, bestowing incomparable insight into Rashi’s teachings on the Chumash in what is being hailed as the most impressive contemporary treatment of Rashi’s commentary on Chumash. Released thus far, as of this writing, is the first volume, on Parshas Bereishis through Toldos.

TJH Centerfold

The Great Stuff That Fall Brings Us

The Battle of the Leaves: Raking leaves is nature’s way of making you question your decision to own a yard.

The Great Sweater Conspiracy: No one really knows where all those missing sweaters go. It’s as if they attend their own secret society meetings during fall.

Pumpkin Spice

Takeover: Suddenly, your shampoo, deodorant, and toothpaste are all pumpkin spice-flavored.

Self-Discovery: Fall makes everyone discover their inner “basic” self. Suddenly, you’re into apple-picking, flannel shirts, and reading self-help books on your couch while covered in a blanket.

Squirrel Frenzy: Squirrels frantically collect nuts…nature’s version of a Black Friday sale.

Weather Mania: One day, it’s sunny, and the next day, it’s as if the sky decided to dump the contents of all its buckets of rain.

The Foliage Photographers: Fall turns everyone into an amateur photographer…capturing every tree that changes color.

The Great Scarf Debate: Am I supposed to tie the scarf or just wrap it around my neck three times?

Daylight Saving Time Confusion: Did we gain an hour or lose an hour?

The “It’s So Cozy” Illusion: Convince yourself that being stuck indoors sipping hot cocoa beats being outdoors in the summer swimming, biking, and playing sports.

You Gotta be Kidding Me!

A hypochondriac told his doctor he was certain he had a terrible disease. “Nonsense,” scolded the doctor. “You wouldn’t know if you had that. With that particular disease, there’s no discomfort of any kind.”

“Oh no!” gasped the patient. “Those are my symptoms exactly!”

Fall Trivia

1. In the fall, what celestial event occurs when the moon appears larger and brighter in the night sky?

a. Solar eclipse

b. Blue moon

c. Meteor shower

d. Harvest moon

2. What is another name for the fall equinox when day and night are of approximately equal length?

a. Autumnal Equinox

b. Fall Solstice

c. Equinoctial Equinox

d. Harvest Moon

3. What is the primary reason behind the changing colors of leaves in the fall?

a. Decreased humidity

b. Decreased daylight hours

c. Lower temperatures

d. Pumpkin spice magic

Riddle Me This

4. What is the process by which trees naturally shed their leaves in preparation for winter called?

a. Leaf unveiling

b. Leaf cascade

c. Leaf exodus

d. Leaf abscission

5. What was fall originally called?

a. Harvest

b. Autumn

c. Equinoxal

d. Indian Summer

6. What is the official word for the sound of leaves and trees rustling in the wind?

a. Psithurism

b. Rustlitarium

c. Fallacious

d. Harvest peace

Answers:

1-D

2-A

3-B

4-D

5-A

6-A

Wisdom key:

5-6 correct: You have an equinoxal

3-4 correct: Not bad, although the decreased daylight hours negatively impact some brain cells. 0-2 correct: Maybe once we change the clocks and fall forward, you will do better! (On November 5, make sure to set your clock one hour ahead…and make sure to arrive at school on time!)

Mr. Brown takes all his kids to a fall fair. He takes his

5 daughters. Each of these daughters has a brother.

How many children does Mr. Brown take to the fair?

Answer: 6

Thought

Parshas Noach

By Rabbi Berel Wein

After the destruction of civilization in the Great Flood, a new generation arose and searched for a way to immortalize itself so that their existence would withstand any new natural disasters. They gathered in the Tigris-Euphrates valley, and there, they built the great city that would be called Nineveh. And to guarantee that their achievements would be forever remembered, they embarked on building a colossal structure – a great tower pointing towards – and seemingly even touching – the sky.

It was the first ancestor of our modern-day skyscrapers. This was the great

technological leap forward in the discovery of creating bricks as a building material, which enabled such a project to be imagined and executed. The Torah specifically relates to us that the sole purpose of this tower soaring heavenward was “to build for us a name” – a remembrance, an eternal monument to human technology and ability that later generations would gaze upon in awe and admiration.

It was a testament to the human ego and its accompanying hubris. That is perhaps what Midrash is implying when it states that, “…..we will prop up the heavens” with this tower. They were saying

that puny man could successfully defy G-d and nature and immortalize itself with its technological wonders and its insatiable ambitions.

Every dictator in history has sought to immortalize his achievements in stone and marble lest his greatness becomes unknown to future generations. Almost all of these memorials have failed to live

man beings who were themselves bent upon creating their own eternal monuments to their own achievements.

It is part of the inborn competitive nature of human beings to attempt to destroy the immortality of others as a means of guaranteeing one’s own immortality. Thus, we continue to hound people who are already in the grave, searching

It is part of the inborn competitive nature of human beings to attempt to destroy the immortality of others as a means of guaranteeing one’s own immortality.

up to their original purpose. The slaves who built the pyramids of Egypt are more well-known than are their pharaonic masters.

The Parthenon and Coliseum lie in ruins, and Nineveh itself has long since disappeared from the map of the world. And the great Twin Towers of the World Trade Center of New York City are also no longer with us.

The irony of all of this is that none of the great architectural monuments of the ancient, medieval and modern world were felled by nature. There was no need to prop up the heavens in order to save Nineveh from destruction. Nineveh and all of the other great monuments of the ancient world were all destroyed by hu-

for scandal and blame. The Torah itself tells us that the tower at Nineveh was never completed because people did not understand each other’s language – basically, they could no longer cooperate one with the other.

The fractiousness and parochialism of humans towards each other is what truly stands in the way of human immortality.

Rabbi Yisrael Lipkin of Salant summed up this lesson in his pithy remark: “Concern for the needs of others in this world is my entry ticket to the World to Come.” Torah values and its observance coupled with good deeds, not physical monuments, are our guarantors in achieving immortality.

Shabbat shalom.

We are people who learn Torah. We are believers. We cannot ignore the fact that major events are happening in the world today. Seismic shifts are occurring. So we must take up the mantle of Rabi Akiva who looked at the destruction left by the Romans on the Temple Mount and, instead of crying like the other sages, he laughed out of optimism because he saw the bigger picture (Makkos 24b).

War of the Worlds

It is clear that we are living in great times. And “great” does not necessarily mean pleasant. When major events happen in the world, as believers, we must recognize that they are part of the process of redemption. The precedent for such great world events is the first world war mentioned in Tanach, the war between the four kings and the five kings in next week’s parsha, Parshas Lech Lecha. The Midrash (Bereishis Raba 42:4) says, “If you see kingdoms contending with one another, await the footsteps of Moshiach, for in the days of Avraham, through the contention between the kingdoms with one another, redemption came to Avraham [through the rescue of Lot, the progenitor of Moshiach through Rus].” This is what Rav Kook was referring to when he said in Oros (Hamilchamah), “When there is war in the world, the power of Moshiach is awakened.”

The only way we can understand what is happening today in a deeper way is through penimius haTorah , a deeper understanding of Torah.

The whole war between the four kings and the five kings revolved around Avraham and set the groundwork for the

From the Fire

Parshas Noach War of the Worlds

By Rav Moshe Weinberger

Adapted for publication by Binyomin Wolf

redemption of Avraham’s descendants. The Arizal (Shaar Hapessukim, Bereishis 14) reveals the inner meaning of this war. There were great lights, great ideologies in the world at that time. But if great ideologies never enter vessels capable of containing them within a framework of social, moral, and civil laws, they are liable to destroy the world and fill it with horrible darkness, chaos, and destruction. That is what happens when the Olam HaTohu – the World of Chaos – floods the world.

But there is another world, the Olam HaTikkun – the World of Rectification. The Olam HaTikkun exists when light is enclothed in vessels which have the ability to contain it because the light is constricted such that it and the vessels in which it is contained are of roughly equal strength and power.

According to the Arizal, “These … kings were [the Olam HaTohu], stripped of garments [of rectification – Tikkun]. They had the power to ascend [to great heights because of the power of their light]… Therefore, [they] rebelled

against the root kings [of Tikkun] and overcame them. But even so, because they were the aspect of the roots [the Olam HaTikkun], they overcame [the kings of Tohu] and subdued them.”

Based on the words of the Arizal, we see that one group of kings correspond to Western, civilized society, the Olam HaTikkun , which is governed by laws, justice, morality, and ethics. The other group of kings, on the other hand, correspond to the Olam HaTohu , the fearsome world of destruction, chaos, and terrorism – the world of Yishmael, whose only desire is to subjugate the entire world to its great ideology of Sharia law under the banner of a worldwide caliphate. This corresponds to the world of Hamas, ISIS, Hezbollah, and their ilk, all financed and led by the kingdom of Iran. They lack any appreciation for the Western ideals of ethics, justice, fairness, law, and morality. Their modus operandi is murder, destruction, and terror.

According to the Arizal, there is a time in history when the forces of ter -

ror and chaos will prevail over Western civilization. We see today how, except for a few exceptions, the so-called civilized world, led by the U.N., bows and prostrates itself to the very forces of terror, murder, and chaos that seek to destroy it. Terrorism sometimes seems to be successful in disrupting the ability of normal, civilized people to live a peaceful life.

But we must know that it will not remain this way forever. There is a G-d in the world and a redemptive process at work. Our world is an Olam HaTikkun , a world governed by civil laws and basic ethics. In the end, modern, civilized society will defeat the forces of terror.

Chazal (Bereishis Raba 42:1) teach this same conclusion from two pasukim in Tehillim (37:14-15), which they say also refers to the war between the four kings and the five kings: “The wicked have drawn out their sword and have bent their bow to cast down the poor and needy and to slaughter those of upright ways. [But] their sword shall enter their [own] heart and their bows shall be broken.” The Midrash explains, “‘To cast down the poor and needy’ refers to Lot. ‘To slaughter those of upright ways’ refers to Avraham. ‘Their sword shall enter their [own] heart’ refers to (Bereishis 14:15), ‘And he [Avraham] divided himself against them at night, he and his servants, and he smote them.’”

A Higher Perspective

Tectonic plates are shifting. We must not become mired in smallness by obsessing over the insanely absurd BBC and CNN coverage of the events in Eretz Yisroel. We cannot sell the awesome power of the Olam HaTikkun short.

We must use our knowledge of these events to motivate ourselves to pick up our weapons, which the Gemara (Bava Basra 123a) says are our tefillos. We will overcome the enemies of civilization by connecting everything happening with Hashem through davening. We have to connect with the soul of Rabi Akiva, who was able to look at a disheartening sign of the lowest point in exile and see its role in the ultimate redemption.

We cannot view ourselves as spectators and news consumers without the ability to take part in or influence events. When we rectify our personal character, when we strengthen our commitment to sanctifying our eyes and our thoughts, or when we redouble our commitment to studying Torah, these actions have the ability to bring about “their sword shall enter their [own] heart.” Our enemies’ daggers will turn on them and bring them down.

The word for ark Teivah is the same as the Hebrew word meaning “word.” Just like Noach saved his family by entering into his ark, so, too, we can save our brothers and sisters in Eretz Yisroel by entering into the “words” of Torah and tefillah.

It is also clear from elsewhere in Chazal (Shabbos 77b) that these difficult times are a precursor to something much better: “Rav Zeira found Rav Yehuda at the door to his father-in-law’s home and he [Rav Zeira] saw that he [Rav Yehuda] was in a good mood so that if he [Rav Zeira] asked [Rav Yehuda] any question in the world, he would answer him. He said to him, ‘Why do goats travel at the head [of the flock] and then afterwards the sheep?’ He [Rav Yehuda] said to him [Rav Zeira], ‘It is like the creation of the world. In the beginning there was darkness [since evening, which is dark like goats, which are usually dark-colored] and afterward there was light [i.e., day, which is light, similar to sheep, which are usually white].’”

This Gemara is unbelievable. Rav Zeira could have asked Rav Yehuda anything. Why did he choose to seemingly squander this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to ask a basic zoology question? It is clear that Rav Zeira’s question and Rav Yehuda’s answer were about something much bigger than the order of animals in a flock. Rav Zeira had been bothered his entire life by his inability to understand why dark times (corresponding to goats, which are generally dark-colored) seem to always precede better times (corresponding to sheep, which are generally white). And Rav

Yehuda answered him that this pattern was already woven into the fabric of creation when Hashem created darkness before light.

The same pattern is reflected in this week’s parsha, which Noach sent out the black raven before the white dove. For

end and it will not fail, though it may be delayed. Wait for it for it shall surely come, it will not delay.”

We do not understand or know the date Hashem has decreed for the final victory of the Olam HaTikkun over the Olam HaTohu, but we can daven for that

We must use our knowledge of these events to motivate ourselves to pick up our weapons, which the Gemara says are our tefillos.

whatever reason, this is the way of the world. We can, however, find comfort in the knowledge that dark times will be followed by a much brighter future. The forces of darkness appear strong at night, but they will fall before the power of light when the dawn breaks.

The Navi (Chavakuk 1:1-4) laments the apparent injustices prevalent in the world when darkness seems to prevail over light, when the Olam HaTohu seems to overtake the Olam HaTikkun , when the world of fundamentalist Islam seems to be swallowing up the socalled civilized world. Sefer Chavakuk begins with the words, “The prophecy ( ha’maasa) that Chavakuk the Navi prophesied…” The pasuk uses the word “ha’maasa,” which literally means “burden,” to describe prophecy because of the horribly painful times he foresaw. He says, “Hashem, how long will I cry and You will not hear! I cry out to you because of violence [in Hebrew, “Hamas ”] and You do not save! Why do you show me iniquity and toil and look upon plunder and violence which are before me; yet the one who carries contention and strife [the wicked man] endures. Because of this, the Torah will be weakened [since people see the wicked succeeding] and that justice does not go out forever, for a wicked person surrounds the righteous. Therefore, justice goes out perverted.”

Chavakuk davened for Hashem to send the wicked their just deserts just as we must daven for the salvation of our people and the destruction of the forces of violence and chaos in Eretz Yisroel And Hashem finally answered him that he must look to the future (ibid. 2:3), “There shall be another vision for an appointed time. He shall speak of the

time and look with Rabi Akiva’s eyes at the world and see that everything happening is part of Hashem’s plan to bring forth the ultimate redemption.

May we merit not to drown in and obsess over whether the leaders of the nations of the world and reporters at the major news networks will ever learn to distinguish between the clearest forms of good and the basest forms of evil. May we merit to lift our eyes up over the

details of every news story and see the great events of the day as the footsteps of Moshiach.

We know Rabi Akiva was not insensitive to Jewish pain when he laughed as he saw the fox emerge from the Temple Mount because Rabi Akiva himself was the one who led the rebellion against the Romans. So, too, we are not insensitive if, in addition to feeling our brothers’ and sisters’ pain, we see the footsteps of Moshiach in the fearsome events in Eretz Yisroel, as long as it spurs us into action – if it motivates us to daven, learn, and improve our character to bring the redemption closer. May we soon merit to see the time when the dawn breaks, when the Olam HaTikkun emerges victorious, and those forces of chaos infesting the holy cities of Eretz Yisroel who attempt to harm us are permanently removed from the land with the coming of the complete redemption, may it come very soon!

Rav Moshe Weinberger, shlita, is the founding Morah d’Asrah of Congregation Aish Kodesh in Woodmere, NY, and serves as leader of the new mechina Emek HaMelech.

Delving into the Daf

Bar Mitzvah Bewilderment

By Rabbi Avrohom Sebrow

The following story takes place many years ago in Europe. It’s a true story that just hasn’t happened yet.

Shimon: My father told me that my bar mitzvah is this week Parshas Noach.

Boruch: Mazel tov! I can’t wait for the yummy kichel after you lain.

Shimon: I don’t think I’ll be laining my parsha.

Boruch: Why not?

Shimon: My father went on a business trip and never told the gabbai when my bar mitzvah is.

Boruch: That’s no problem. Just tell the gabbai yourself.

Shimon: The gabbai says he holds like the Siddur Bais Oved, that a child isn’t believed to say that he himself is bar mitzvah. Only a child who we know is already 13 is believed for that. Obviously, if we know he is 13, then there is no need to believe him!

Boruch: The Kaf HaChaim holds that a child is believed to say that he himself is 13. Further, I had a dream that a great gadol named Rav Shlomo Zalman , zt”l, will be born, and he will agree with the Kaf HaChaim.

Shimon: Well, that won’t help me for my gabbai. He doesn’t believe that this week is my bar mitzvah and won’t let me lain.

Boruch: Did you look for two witnesses that can testify that you are 13?

Shimon: I did, but I only found one, the Gadol HaDor.

Boruch: I just remembered. Your father was a long-time chavrusa with the Gadol HaDor. The Gadol HaDor must remember exactly when you were born!

Shimon: Right. But the Gadol HaDor went over to the gabbai and told him my bar mitzvah is this week. And you know what? The gabbai didn’t believe him!

Boruch: What?!? The Gemarra (Kiddushin 63b) clearly says that a father is believed to say his son is 13 even if the question is relevant to bringing a kor -

ban! If the father is believed, certainly a Gadol HaDor is!

Shimon: That’s what I thought! In fact, I even quoted to the Gabbai, Tosfos on Kiddushin 64a. The beginning of Tosfos says that the fact the father is believed is based on the concept that generally in non-marriage and non-monetary matters, one witness is believed. So the Gadol HaDor should be believed as well.

Boruch: Let me guess, the Gabbai said that he holds like the Tosfos Rid. He states that the father’s believability is based on another logic. Just like a father is granted special believability by the Torah to state who his first-born son is, he is believed to say his son is bar mitzvah. That special believability is only granted by the Torah to a father.

Shimon: Exactly! But I scored at least one point. I showed the Gabbai that the Mishna Berura in Siman 58 quotes Tosfos and rules like him and not like the Tosfos Rid.

Boruch: So he’s going to let you lain?

Shimon: No. He said that the Tosfos that I quoted goes on to say that one witness is only believed in matters under

his control. For example, a sole witness is believed to say he shechted a chicken properly.

Boruch: Then even a father should not be believed! He has no control when his son will turn 13!

Shimon: Turns out, Tosfos asks that exact question. He says that this case is an exception. Since a boy will definitely turn 13 at some point, we believe the father that he already turned 13 even though it’s not in his control.

Boruch: We are back to where we started, that logic should apply to the Gadol HaDor as well!

Shimon: Tosfos asks that, too! He concludes that since the father is acutely aware of his son’s birthday, the rabbis trusted him more than anyone else, even more than the gadol gador. Indeed, this is how the Mishna Berura rules. One witness is believed to say that a boy is bar mitzvah but only if it is the father.

Boruch: Hmm, but wouldn’t that same logic apply to your mother? She is also intimately aware of your birthday. She can tell the Gabbai your bar mitzvah is this week.

Shimon: Yes! I thought of that. The

Rogochover Gaon says the same. But my mother went shopping for a gown for the seudah next week and won’t be back until after Shabbos. She didn’t know there was an issue with the Gabbai.

Boruch: I’m so sorry. I guess you’re out of luck!

Shimon: It’s all from Hashem! I’ll spend extra time working on my bar mitzvah pshetl. Look, here is the Mikraos Gedolos Breishis my father uses. He even wrote my name and when I was born on the back cover. Many people in Europe have the custom of doing that.

Boruch: Wait! Can you prove that is your father’s handwriting?

Shimon: Sure, I have lots of examples of his handwriting all over the house.

Boruch: Quick! Show that to the Gabbai!

Shimon: If the Gabbai didn’t believe the Gadol HaDor, he won’t believe the writing in the back of a sefer.

Shimon: Yes, he will. The Taz discusses a relevant case. We know that a father is believed to say which of his sons is first born and entitled to a double portion of inheritance. Suppose, the father passed away without telling anyone which child is first born. However, we found inscriptions in the back of his seforim. The Taz ruled that we may rely on them! That is true even for monetary matters. Certainly, the Gabbai can rely on that to know when you are bar mitzvah!

Boruch: Amazing!

Shimon lained Parshas Noach beautifully for the entire tzibbur thanks to the old custom of inscribing seforim with the birthdates of Ines children.

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.

The Wandering Jew Sedona, Grand Canyon, & Phoenix

By Hershel Lieber

This 2005 trip was the first we took to the Western states, and it was an eye-opener to the vastness and beauty of the desert. We set ourselves an ambitious goal to experience the breathtaking vistas of the Grand Canyon in a single day. We also wanted to see the Red Rocks of Sedona and needed to spend a

Shabbos in Phoenix – and our time was limited to a five-day journey. We left New York on Monday, October 14, and after arriving in Phoenix, drove halfway to Sedona before retiring for the night. We started out early the next morning and made a number of scenic stops since we could not check

into our hotel before noon. One stop was at Tlaquepaque Art Village where we viewed Native American pottery, baskets, and shawls. The desert-themed colors and designs were stunning. Under a shaded tree, there was the world acclaimed musician and songwriter Robin Miller playing his compositions on a

keyboard. The music was soul stirring yet very soothing, and I still listen to the CD we bought from him very often. After checking into our pretty hotel, we went on a short hike in Boynton Canyon. The full trail is over seven miles, which we did not do in any form. The trail itself is flat, easy to walk, and is mostly shaded from the sun. The photos that we took there were definitely worth any strain caused by our hike. Following our hike, we drove along the Red Rock Loop with its stunning rock formations and were able to daven on an overlook as the sun was setting for the evening.

The next morning, we drove two hours north to the Southern Rim of the Grand Canyon. In preparation for our excursion, we went to see an IMAX film which gave us ample information about the history of the Grand Canyon and what we were going to experience when seeing it. Then, for the next six hours, we immersed ourselves in one of the world’s grandest wonders, the handicraft of the Ribbono Shel Olam in all its glory. We drove and walked along the southern rim and sought out different vantage points, each one a gem of Hashem’s natural wonders. Words could not suffice to

Red Rock National Park

Our hot air balloon ride

Cave dwellings at Montezuma National Monument

Grand Canyon Overlook

Desert Botanical Gardens

describe our feelings. Awesome, inspiring, breathtaking, stimulating, wonderous, and overwhelming are just a few of the adjectives that we would use to describe what we witnessed. We were not sure what to say in appreciation for being given the opportunity to see what we observed, so we said the entire Hallel and Borchi Nafshi as an expression of our gratitude. We also hopped on and off tour buses to take us where our car was off limits. Our day was truly exceptional and unique. Although we have seen many other natural sights throughout the States since that day, the Grand Canyon, as the first one, will captivate our memories forever.

The next morning, we were up at 5 a.m. We davened and headed out to catch sunrise in a hot air balloon. Yes, it did take some convincing and cajoling to get Pesi on the same page as me. I assured her about the balloon’s safety and that this adventure would not create anxiety or fear. After some discussion, Pesi agreed to take the plunge. Besides the pilot, there were two other people in our gondola. Other than an initial bump, our flight was smooth sailing for the entire thirty-minute duration. Watching the sun rise as we floated above the desert panorama was quite calming and relaxing. Our descent was uneventful other than a momentary bounce. Afterwards, we felt accomplished that we experienced this “placid” thrill.

After checking out from our hotel, we took a hike along a river in the Red Rock State Park and started to head south to Phoenix. We stopped at the Montezuma National Monument where we viewed the cave dwellings of the Native Americans who made their homes in the mountainside crevices. We continued our drive and checked into a Hilton Pointe Hotel located a few blocks away from Chabad, where we would be davening on Shabbos. We had a beautiful lux-

urious suite and looked forward for the final two days of our trip. We went out for supper to Segal’s, which also had an array of kosher grocery products. Then, after some winding down relaxation, we called it a night.

Friday was a short day, but we managed to visit Desert Botanical Gardens in Phoenix. The presentation of thousands

Chabad Shul of Arizona who graciously invited us for the Friday night seudah. We drove over before Shabbos and Pesi benthed licht at their home while I ran to the mikvah. The shul is a very large edifice and very impressive. After Kabbalas Shabbos, we joined Rav Zalman and Rebbetzin Tziporah for the Shabbos seudah together with eight other guests. The

Although we have seen many other natural sights throughout the States since that day, the Grand Canyon, as the first one, will captivate our memories forever.

of species of cactus are a spectacle of beauty beyond description. The layout of the gardens and the floral displays of plants from around the world made it very difficult for us to leave.

We rushed back to our hotel to get ready for Shabbos. I had previously contacted Rabbi Zalman Levertov of the

conversation was spirited, with everyone giving an introduction about themselves and the rabbi saying a vort on the parsha which led to a deep discussion among all participants.

Shabbos morning after davening we joined a kiddush at the shul and then walked back to eat in our hotel suite. The

streets are extremely wide and each block is exceptionally long, and in the blazing sun, the one-and-a-half mile walk to the hotel seemed like an eternity. We came back to shul for Mincha/Maariv and to hear Havdalah. After Shabbos, we took our car back to the hotel and ate Melave Malka. Chabad did not offer Shalosh Seudos, and we were ravenous. We relaxed for a while while we recalled some of the most significant highlights of our trip. Tomorrow morning, we would be heading back home with a treasure trove of memories.

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.

With Phoenix’s Rabbi Zalman Levertov

Desert Botanical Gardens

Boynton Canyon hike

A Firsthand Account:

Helping Survivors of Hamas Massacres Start Their Recovery

By Avi Moskowitz

On Monday, October 9, I traveled from Beit Shemesh down to the Dead Sea where several hotels are hosting evacuees from the south, together with fellow United Hatzalah volunteer Brynie Lezevnik. The hotel we were sent to had several families from Kibbutz Magen, Netivot and Sderot, and our role as members of the United Hatzalah Psychotrauma and Crisis Response unit was to alleviate the emotional shock suffered by the survivors of the massacres committed by Hamas on Saturday morning.

We arrived at around 4:30 in the afternoon. We saw kids outside, in the back of the hotel, and jumped right in, starting to engage with them. Some other volunteer groups had set up a bubble station and some art supplies. Other kids were running around and playing in the yard. We started by engaging the children and gaining trust and, at the same time, starting to build a rapport with the parents and grandparents (many families have several generations living on the kibbutz and in the cities). We spent a couple of hours with those families, learning that they had only just arrived at this hotel that same morning. Many of them started opening up, recounting their stories and how they felt during the roughly six hours that they had been locked up in their homes. All of these families knew each other, and their children were all friends.

After that, the families went to eat dinner, and we started connecting with the rest of the therapists who had arrived to help. Some were from organizations, and some were private individuals. There was an organizer on site who took everybody’s information and opened a WhatsApp group, and we started coordinating. The organizer sat with someone from the social services of Kibbutz Magen, who arrived with the evacuees, to learn what the needs of the community were. They

organized a list of groups that needed to be run for various ages, and we divided up the responsibilities for the next day.

The model of intervention that we were trained in is called The Six Cs, a system that signifies the six steps of the intervention itself. The first steps are communication and commitment. This is where the person intervening establishes communication with the person in need and commits to assisting that person. The goal of this is to connect with them, alleviating the sensation of loneliness. The next step is cognition, which encourages the person in need of help to focus on cognitive rather than emotional processing. The next step is continuity, or helping the person regain their psychological bearing and orientation. The fifth step is to challenge the person, presenting them with simple relevant and achievable tasks, thereby alleviating the sensation of helplessness. The sixth step is control, or asking short questions, thereby offering the person the chance to make simple decisions and regain a sense of control over their situation. All of this allows the person to have a cognitive and clear understanding of what happened enabling them to conclude, together with the person providing the intervention, that the threatening incident is indeed over and that they are safe.

After that meeting, we spent another couple of hours approaching families in the lobby of the hotel, letting them know who we were and allowing them to tell their stories. Almost everyone opened up with very little prying. People wanted to be heard. They were scared, frustrated, angry at the government, and most of all, unsure of how they could ever return to their homes and feel safe there. This was the number one concern across the board.

At the end of the day, even though we were meant to stay in a nearby hotel and

go home first thing in the morning, both Brynie and I decided there was too much work to do. We decided we would stay for another day.

After eating something, I made my way back to the hotel where we were working. Some of the kids I had met the day prior quickly came up to me, telling me what they had eaten for breakfast. This showed that we had made some headway in gaining their trust, allowing them to share with us even miniscule facts. The families slowly started to trickle in from their rooms and from breakfast, and I started to reconnect with them. Some new families from the kibbutz had arrived, and they were welcomed by their friends and family.

Brynie was tasked with running a group together for 7th and 8th graders while I was asked to run a group with a younger age group. Brynie relayed that the experience of running the group with five 7th graders was quite challenging as they opened up quite fully, relaying their experiences and fears. Included in the group was a girl whose father was still missing.

As I was meant to run the group for 1st-3rd graders, I went to find the room I was meant to be in and found out there was an entire kids entertainment center, with video games, ping pong tables and a whole room for young kids with ball pits, art supplies, and toys.

Instead of pulling the kids away from their fun, I engaged with them in the room, played with them, spoke to them, listened to their stories and fears, and checked in with the parents to see how they were holding up and how the kids were. The kids, generally, seemed quite happy, strong and resilient as kids are.

One of the interactions that left a mark on me was with a woman in her 90s who had great-grandchildren living on the kib-

butz. She had lived up north during the 1st Lebanon War and shared the flashbacks she was having.

Another was with a man who had 3 sons and 2 grandchildren who stayed on the kibbutz to help with security efforts after the evacuation.

I even accidentally approached a man who ended up being a hotel employee. At first, he thanked me for my work, but then he opened up about how traumatized he is about the situation. He himself is Muslim and married to a Jewish woman and has 2 kids serving in the army right now.

The survivors we met with have witnessed horrors and it will take way more than the few conversations we had with them for them to heal, but we hope to have helped them start their long journey towards recovery.

Avi Moskowitz is a volunteer in United Hatzalah’s Psychotrauma and Crisis Response Unit, which addresses the emotional needs of family members, witnesses, and bystanders during and after traumatic situations. He lives in Ramat Beit Shemesh.

When you think about what it means to be a Jew, you likely think of Torah, mitzvos, and the like, all of which are, of course, of unparalleled importance. But being a Jew is so much more than just fulfilling the commandments and living a certain lifestyle. If you’re part of Klal Yisroel, then you have an incredible mission in life: you are a messenger of Hashem, born with the responsibility of bringing light to the nations.

Ben Shapiro is a household name and he’s also, quite frankly, probably the most famous Orthodox Jew alive. As one of the most outspoken conservative political commentators, Ben hosts an incredibly successful show in which he unapologet-

In His Words…

Ben Shapiro: A Man Of Two Worlds

By Eliyahu RosEnBERg

ically discusses his world views. His YouTube channel has amassed over six million subscribers and two billion views, and he is the author of several New York Times bestselling books.

Ben is immersed in the world of politics and current events, and yet at the same time, he remains steadfast in his commitment to Judaism. He lives in a frum community in South Florida with his wife and four children, and wherever he goes, he wears a yarmulke on his head. He learns halacha with his chavrusa, goes to minyan, and places Shabbos as one of his favorites of the 613 mitzvot.

Born to a Conservative Jewish family, Ben Shapiro lived a mostly secular life until he was eleven years old. His fam-

if people took that responsibility a little bit more seriously, then they would think through their actions a little bit more. ”

Who doesn’t love shabbos? shabbos is the best pitch for Judaism. ”

israel is the great protection against world antisemitism. ”

g et out there and say what the world ought to be, because that is our core mission. ”

ily would keep some level of kashrus at home, but when out, they would eat at McDonalds or ar KFC. And on Shabbos, Ben and his family would just get in the car and drive to shul.

“I ended up going to an Orthodox day school when I was probably eight or nine years old, and I would ask, ‘Why are we not doing x, y, and z?’” he recalls. “And my parents would say, ‘Well, we probably should be.’ And so, we finally moved into an Orthodox community when I was eleven years old.”

One might think that Ben’s job and his belief in Judaism are separate parts of his life, and yet in truth, his religious and political ideologies relate to one another in deep ways.

“Judaism believes in fundamental values … [that] undergird a lot of major world religions and a lot of Western civilization,” Ben explains. “Things like the rules-based universe created by G-d, the notion that G-d made man in His image, the belief that the things you do in life actually have inherent value and that there are rules to life that are going to allow you to live a better and more fulfilled life.

“Those values undergird a lot of my politics. On the show, you don’t hear me quoting the Bible very much, but a lot of the values that I talk about are biblically driven.”

Simply put, Ben’s mission is to promote viewpoints that align with beliefs inherent in Judaism and to combat ideologies that are opposed to Torah and common sense.

“The fundamental basis of the Torah is that the actions that you have in life are things that G-d cares about, and so every element of what you do carries with it a certain level of duty and responsibility,” Ben shares. “And I think that we kind of live in a society where the opposite is held to be true: that nobody, including G-d, cares what you do with your own life. Why would G-d care about who I marry, or how I eat, or how I dress, or how I deal with other people? And the Torah is very much opposed to this.”

This semi-nihilistic, atheistic philosophy, Ben explains, has become more and more widespread in recent years because, as meaningless as it is, such an ideology is commonly assumed to be conducive to a life of liberty, freedom, and fun. And sadly, many are all too willing to trade in happiness for hedonism.

“The idea is that inherent in the universe are values that G-d has put into play, and so what you do matters an awful lot,” he imparts. “And I think that if people took that responsibility a little bit more seriously, then they would think through their actions a little bit more.”

Anyone who is familiar with Ben Shapiro knows that he’s a very logical person, and when debating with those on the left, he often repeats the sentiment that “facts don’t care about your feelings,” an iconic phrase that has become the political commentator’s catchphrase, and even the title of one of his books. In certain ways, Ben’s nature can present a challenge to certain

elements of his Yiddishkeit. For instance, Ben has admitted that he finds it rather difficult to daven and ask Hashem for things, as it’s hard for him to reconcile the fact that G-d is unchanging with the notion that one can pray for Him to fix and change that which has already been decreed. Ben notes that prayer is also about bringing us closer to Hashem, “reinspiring yourself and reorienting yourself.” He adds that the Rambam says that just because you can’t rationalize a mitzvah doesn’t mean you have to “get rid of it.”

“Just because I don’t understand something fully, or just because I disagree with something, doesn’t mean that I

have an alternative system to provide that has allowed for the flourishing of millions of human beings over the course of thousands of years,” Ben explains. “I greatly fear the idea that my own rationalism is supposed to overcome the historic weight of halachic decisions made over time.”

Ben Shapiro’s logical and rather blunt way of communicating controversial ideas has no doubt made him a few enemies over the years. And while vastly different ideologies and uncivil arguments seem to threaten the unity of this country, it’s important to note that humans tend to have a habit of incorrectly thinking that things are so much worse now than they were in the past. Many have claimed

that there is more disunity now than ever, but is that true? Just take a look into the Gemara, Ben notes, and you’ll see arguments which, while certainly done l’sheim Shamayim , often led to serious consequences in which certain rabbanim were exiled, unseated from leadership positions, and publicly embarrassed. Consider how during the Omer we mourn the death of tens of thousands of Rabbi Akiva’s students, who died as a result of disrespecting one another and how widespread fighting between Jews led to the destruction of the Beis HaMikdash. Just as people don’t get along now, he maintains, people did not get along in the past. Politics have always existed.

Ben says he doesn’t promote his views in order to anger people. Rather, he does so in the best way he possibly can, simply because he believes that it’s his responsibility to speak up for what’s right. As a Jew – as a messenger of Hashem and a spokesperson for Torah – isn’t it our responsibility to do the same, whether that be on a large scale when discussing pressing social issues, or just in our everyday lives when we witness an act of injustice or mistreatment? Each and every one of us can bring light to the world if only we surrender the mentality that it’s best to take a back seat and be silent. We must accept our G-d-given mission and speak up for what’s right.

This article is based on a podcast, “Inspiration For the Nation,” hosted by Yaakov Langer. To catch more of this conversation, you can watch it on LivingLchaim. com or YouTube.com/LivingLchaim or listen wherever you listen to podcasts (just search for “Inspiration For The Nation”) or call our free hotline: 605-477-2100.

Moshe, a bochur who was in Eretz Yisroel for Sukkos with his family, had a terrible earache. When the earache only got worse, they brought Moshe to the hospital on Chol Hamoed. After running a battery of tests, he was diagnosed with leukemia, r”l. The family set to try as best they could to finish out a joyous yom tov in Eretz Yisroel and planned to all fly back right after Sukkos and transport Moshe to an excellent hospital near their New York home for treatment.

Then Hamas hit.

After Hamas’s attack, their plans were disrupted.

Flights were canceled, doctors were called up to the front lines, and the hospital was not allowing Moshe to fly back without a paramedic accompanying him – perhaps not a complicated request in normal times, but a much harder one when priorities have shifted, paramedics were headed south, and hospitals were short staffed and treating massacre survivors.

To get Moshe to start chemotherapy within the tight timeframe the oncolo -

Chessed ArMy

Connecting Klal Yisroel through Caring & Connections

By yosef Zoimen

gist at Cornell Hospital recommended, he needed several miracles to fall into place. They needed clearance to fly from the Shaarei Tzedek medical team, a direct flight to NYC, and to locate a paramedic to accompany them, all within a few hours.

Not only did Moshe need a direct New York flight when 90% of Tel Aviv flights were canceled, he needed two business class seats, one for him and one for the paramedic, so he could be kept comfortable and medicated during the long trip. Multiple chessed agencies and askanim got working.

Miracle one occurred rather quickly. Kenny Rozenberg, El Al’s controlling shareholder, reserved three business class seats on a direct flight, set to leave Tel Aviv in five hours, for Moshe, a paramedic, and Moshe’s mother. This flight was one of the two rescue flights organized and chartered by Amudim, each flight bringing 250 people without other options to America.

But they still needed to get the paramedic.

The chemo would be starting in the New York hospital the next day; there was no time to waste. The family reached out to their contacts in the U.S. to see if anyone knew someone, and it got forwarded to Eli Langer, the Five Towns-based father and entrepreneur who had started a small WhatsApp group on Monday to serve as a central command, a shadchan to connect people who needed chessed with Yidden who can help, aptly dubbed “Chessed Army.”

Eli blasted the message out to the group.

Minutes ticked by.

Akiva Tepper, a fabulous Hatzalah member since 2006, had spent Sukkos with his family in New York. Right after yom tov ended, he said goodbye to his family and ran to JFK Airport to jump on a flight to Eretz Yisroel to help, along with two other paramedics. They were bringing over two tons of much needed medical equipment and supplies to Magen David Adom (MDA) and the IDF and planned to assist MDA on their ICU ambulances in Jerusalem. Akiva’s

flight was full of reservists, Israelis returning home, and fellow Yidden ready to roll up their sleeves.

Upon Akiva’s arrival in Israel, he saw Eli’s Chessed Army Post. Without time to let jetlag set in, he responded, “I’m in” –committing to get right back on a plane back to the U.S. to accompany Moshe and get him to treatment. This was Akiva’s tafkid (purpose) right now, why Hashem had him in Eretz Yisroel.

The paramedic was procured!

But there was a hiccup. The transport was more complicated than first thought. Medication would need to be administered, and the paramedic was not just going to be there in case of emergencies; he needed to be active and trained on the case. To bring Akiva up to speed, he needed to be guided pre-flight by a doctor who knew the case and spoke English.

There were only two and a half hours left until the flight.

The Chessed Army sent an urgent message to its group of volunteers, which had grown to 400 members, in search of a doc-

tor. Within 12 minutes, Dr. Shlomo Gensler, an Israeli volunteer doctor, was on his way from his home to Shaarei Tzedek to meet Akiva. Who forwarded Dr. Gensler the message? Perhaps it was Eliyahu Hanavi; we’ll never know.

But this Malach Gavriel draped in a doctor’s coat reviewed the case and gave a report over to Akiva, promising to continue to work hand in hand with him on what medications and steps needed to be taken while in flight. A new WhatsApp group was created between Eli, Paramedic Akiva, and Dr. Shlomo to keep them connected until Moshe was safely in the New York hospital.

With everything in place, the family and paramedic hurried to the airport. Moshe settled into his business class seat alongside Akiva. Sitting right next to the duo was Esti Seidenfeld, a trauma nurse with Hatzolah Air who “happened” to be on the flight and “happened” to be in the seat right next to Akiva and was able to assist him the entire flight. A hug from Hashem.

Upon landing in the United States, a Hatzalah ambulance with EMTs and paramedics met them on the jet bridge. They then took over care and accompanied Moshe to the hospital where his treatment began moments after arriving.

Moshe’s mother was amazed that in a country dealing with its biggest tragedy in

50 years, Moshe got on the flight to help save his life, through the help of Klal Yisroel’s Chessed Army, people who treat every child in need as their brother.

Forming a Chessed Army

After the attacks, the needs were great and coming in by the hour. While reservists were kissing their families goodbye to report to base, American Jews, hearts full of yearning for Eretz Yisroel, wondered how they could take part in any small way.

Within hours of yom tov ending, ordinary Jews, driven by their creativity, launched small projects. Each one became a precious soldier in Klal Yisroel’s expansive chessed army. Each of these small efforts took on a life of their own.

Money was needed, and donations to known organizations, like United Hatzalah, were going strong – $10 million donated within thirty hours. Makeshift organizations cropped up as well – from “Beiss Boys,” brothers called up to IDF infantry whose army unit needed basic supplies, to Ramat Beit Shemesh’s Ari Rabinowitz, who dropped off Shabbos packages to families whose Abba was away his first Shabbos on Milu’im (army reserve) – flowers for the wife, treats and board games for the kids.

Seventy families wanted to hold a challah bake and needed $200 to cover ingre -

dients. Meanwhile, a yeshiva with stressed bochurim sought funds for assistance. Opportunities abound.

A woman reached out to Eli on WhatsApp offering money to help sponsor so many of the initiatives being created. He never met her or heard of her. She asked, “How can I send you money for the needs you listed?” – “I can send you $4,000 now and disburse as you see fit” – “If you have a 501c I can send $18k, I’ll send Zelle now 4k so it’s immediate.”

This woman, whom Eli had only communicated with through text, donated $22,000 with the simple instruction: “Disburse it as you see fit.” Her faith in Klal Yisroel’s family was all the verification she needed.

She ended her exchange with “Am Yisroel Chai,” showing that family like this one is why Klal Yisroel is still here, neither Hamas nor the murderers before them being able to destroy us. Am Yisroel chai l’netzach.

But beyond money, what can Klal Yisroel do? They can use their ingenuity, use their connections, and help in ways they never thought possible. The message was sent out to meet at JFK Airport to see soldiers off and ask people traveling to take donated items with them to Eretz Yisroel. Eli Langer got a call an hour after the post

from the person who sent in the request, “I don’t know who you are or what you did, but hundreds of people showed up at JFK.” The power of tzibbur looking to help, launching rockets of chessed.

Ordinary people, thinking creatively, created and continue to create extraordinary ideas, tapping into Klal Yisroel’s network to make it successful.

Estee, a wife in Israel, volunteering to help mothers with cooking and taking care of their kids, for families whose fathers were called up to serve.

The Baum family in Cedarhurst collecting handwritten letters to chayalei Yisroel, getting them from the Five Towns to army bases across Eretz Yisroel, handing them to soldiers in JFK Airport getting on flights. Others, seeing the power these letters held and the images of soldiers putting the letters on their tanks and the impact on the children writing them, joining in the mission – outposts opening in Baltimore, Passaic, Los Angeles, and Toms River.

Shaya, a holy Yid in Miami, organizing a large shipment of tactical gear – vests and helmets – to Eretz Yisroel and using his expertise to shepherd it through the red tape of Israeli customs, where so many items were sitting.

Rochel Leah organizing a list of doulas in Israel who were willing to help wives of

soldiers called to defend Eretz Yisroel give birth with their help, all free of charge.

The Ramat Beit Shemesh community, coming together to make sheva brochos for a newlywed couple forced to flee, now sheltering in their community. Dancing this new couple in a frenzied mixture of simcha and pain.

A post-seminary elementary school teacher in Lawrence, NY, starting a makeshift drop off center, which has grown into a massive operation, with dozens of volunteers and hundreds of pallets going to specific army bases across Israel.

A request from Avi Z, from Clifton, NJ, trying to get the 200 duffel bags of supplies, donated by the Clifton/Passaic community, from his packing center on to planes heading to Israel, one duffel bag at a time.

A generous offer from Noam, offering to rescue items stuck at Israeli Customs, using his proficiency with cutting the red tape and getting the duffel bags where they were needed.

Gavi, who works for a frum-owned Israeli pharmaceutical company, assisting those in Eretz Yisroel with their prescription needs – taking care of both Israelis and visiting Americans whose medications they brought with them are running out.

Aharon, recognizing that so many of these duffel bags arriving in Israel need-

A sampling of the messages on the Chessed Army chat

ed transport to the frontlines, offering his van of chessed to pick up approved baggage from the airport and get it to army bases throughout Eretz Yisroel.

Bryant & Sharrat looking for groups of people in Yerushalayim to band together to make tzitzis for soldiers, to be protected the best way possible for the coming battles.

Simcha Fishman, a former Midwesterner now in Israel, using his incredible connections to rent AirBnBs across Yerusha-

who suffered the greatest loss, put together a list of shiva houses throughout Eretz Yisroel and gave Klal Yisroel the opportunity to fill those shiva houses with chizuk and hope.

As if that wasn’t enough, Shia’s next initiative was to put out a form for the global Klal Yisroel to write words of chizuk to those families, committing to print out these thousands of letters and personally deliver them to shiva houses

This woMAn, whoM e li h A d only CoMMuniCAT ed wi T h T hrough T ex T, donAT ed $22,000 wi T h T he siMple insT ruCT ion: “disburse i T A s you see F i T.”

layim to host families from the South and provide them with food, clothing, and the privacy that they needed.

A child’s birthday is so important and not having the father there, dampers that child’s simcha. A special Yid in Eretz Yisroel offering to organize and sponsor a birthday party for any child of an army family.

Shia, understanding the pain of those

across Eretz Yisroel.

With so many individual families and communities collecting supplies, Cross River Bank offered a shuttle service to pick up supplies and get it to Eretz Yisroel, taking the sometimes-hardest step in collecting these donations, so the organizers can focus on their mission.

Rabbi Menachem K, realizing the long haul soldiers have at the bases they now

call home, making sure every door on every base has the divine protection of a mezuzah.

Moishy G., an attorney by day, offering to help anyone with legal advice or legal resources. Mordechai M, a fellow attorney, offering any Israelis or Americans called up to draft their wills for them.

Matan, taking a small jet from White Plains to Tel Aviv, looking for Klal Yisroel to help weigh it down with tourniquets, vests, gloves, and bandages requested by army bases.

Pinchas, in his kitchen for hours a day, cooking warm, fresh meals for local families whose fathers have gone off to war, nourishing their souls with his chessed. His ingredients were funded by the Chessed Army members’ generosity.

Daniel and JJ Eleff of Dan’s Deals sending tefillin to frontline soldiers requesting their own pair for the first time. Menashe S., offering any soldier whose tefillin was damaged or lost a pair of fully funded tefillin.

Nefesh B’Nefesh offering its Cinema City campus in Yerushalayim to host weddings of couples from the North or South. Raz, offering her network of 60 photographers, to come to your simcha and event.

Leah and her Be’er Sheva family looking for a “kumzitz-er” to come sing and

play music at her impromptu barbeque she organized for soldiers heading South.

Assistance in the Air

While many were racing to Eretz Yisroel to help, there were families that needed to get to their homes and families in Chutz L’Eretz and needed the chessed network’s connections to make that happen.

Seven years ago, Alex and Galit made aliyah to Be’er Sheva, leaving their daughter and her family thousands of miles away. Nadiv, their grandchild, is 14 years old and was lucky to visit his grandparents for the Chag, a Sukkos that started so beautifully and ended so emotionally. Nervous that everything would shut down, Nadiv’s mother was desperate to get him back home and booked him on a flight from Israel to Madrid, where she would meet him. But she needed a Jewish family to accompany him on the flight; ElAl would not allow him to fly alone. The Chessed Army received the request.

Scrolling through the group, the now 1,000 WhatsApp group members area codes were the familiar 718, 516, 917, 845, 732, with a sprinkling of a few 443, 305, and 416.

Would they be able to help a request for someone flying to Madrid, Spain?

The connections Yidden have is remarkable.

The post was quickly picked up by the group’s travel agent squad, who were up late working non-stop to get people in need flights back home. Scrolling through their rolodexes of flights, they located a heimish family traveling on a flight to Madrid who could accompany the young teen. The family was willing to be Nadav’s chaperones to help a brother in need. The

night. Two teenage girls flew on this rescue plane, which landed in Athens. The parents were nervous as, though their computer screens in Toronto showed their daughters landed in Athens, they could not reach either of them. Every call went to voicemail.

Had they got on to the plane?

Were they lost in Greece?

Did they know which plane to take next?

The power oF T zibbur looking T o help, l AunChing roCke T s oF Chessed.

family accompanying him looked nothing like his own family, adding flavors to the beauty of this amazing chessed – to unite Nadav with his parents.

Countries with stranded citizens sprang into action, and state departments across the globe used every resource to help citizens that needed to leave. Canada chartered a rescue plane to give safe passage to Canadians. This flight was not going to Toronto, but to Athens, with citizens expected to make their own arrangements to get home.

The request came in well after mid-

For seven long hours, the parents were in limbo. No one they spoke to had seen their daughters in Athens airport. They called the airport and police, but to no avail.

The post went out to the Chessed Army looking for someone either in the airport or in the Jewish community who could run the search to locate these girls.

Within an hour of the request, a Chessed Army volunteer took it upon himself to find these girls, even though he was thousands of miles away – spending the time on the phone to cajole a woman

at the Athens International Airport police call center to put them in touch with an English-speaking police officer.

After two tries of using the PA system to make announcements to find the girls, the volunteer begged the officer to form a team and walk through the terminal to find these girls.

It worked! The girls were located by the police walking the terminal, and within just an hour of the post, these teenage girls were connected with their worried parents, who were able to verbally walk them through their next connecting flights to help get them home.

These are just a small sample of the chessed we have witnessed these past few harrowing days. Ordinary Jews turned into chessed machines, creating incredible z’chusim for the victims in the hospital, for the soldiers fighting, and for Klal Yisroel to bring Moshiach.

*** Some names and details have been changed.

Yosef Zoimen is a foot soldier in Klal Yisroel’s Chessed army and an attorney in private practice in Cincinnati, Ohio, and involved in the explosive growth of the city’s Torah community.

Five Towns Teen Spearheading Drive to Send Gear to Israel

by Dr. y vette Alt Miller

With Israel reeling from last weekend’s horrific Hamas attacks, 18-year-old Yonatan Bodner

“wanted to do something” to help. The American teenager is currently spending his post-high school gap year studying at EFG@Aish (formerly known as Gesher) in Jerusalem’s Old City. In an Aish.com exclusive interview, Yonatan explained how he and his family and friends are working to aid Israel in its hour of need.

On Motzei Shabbos, October 8, at the conclusion of the Simchat Torah holiday in Israel, Yonatan – like Orthodox Jews all over the world who avoided using their phones and computers over the holiday weekend – read the news on his phone and grasped the enormity of the attacks that had been rocking Israel since that previous morning. He sprang into action.

Aiding Israeli Soldiers

Yonatan spoke on the phone with his older brother

Ike in Tel Aviv. When Yonatan and his five siblings were young, his family spent several years living in Israel. His older brother Ike never left and served in

“i woke up the MonDAy Morning After they l AuncheD this project, by the tiMe i got to the office this thing hAD blown up… it wAs going cr A zy.”

Israel’s Air Force, and now lives in the Jewish State with his wife. Ike mentioned that some of his friends who are currently serving in Israel’s military could use

some extra supplies: perhaps Yonatan could help ask for donations?

The need is great. Israel mobilized 360,000 reservists, putting them on active duty over a 48-hour period. With so many soldiers suddenly on active duty, some units have found themselves stretched for supplies. Asking for donations for Israel’s active duty soldiers to supplement their equipment seemed an ideal way to help.

“We wanted to collect as much equipment as possible in America and bring it over to Israel,” Yonatan explains. “We didn’t think it would be this big.”

Tapping into Jewish Networks

Yonatan and his brother set up an online donation site and crafted a text to send to friends. They asked for people to either donate funds that could be used to purchase equipment, or else bring equipment themselves to Yonatan’s mom’s house back home in

Ike with his father, Moshe, on Ike's IAF base

Volunteers packing and sorting

New York. “Everything counts” their text read, noting that soldiers particularly needed gear such as sleeping bags, headlamps, G-Shock watches, tactical flashlights, first aid kids, battery chargers, and wearable water canteens.

Yonatan sent the text to everyone in his phone contact list, and it snowballed into reaching 7000 contacts. Other people forwarded his text to friends, who forwarded it in turn to their friends. Yonatan asked his mom to clear out her garage to accommodate any donations that might come in.

The Five Towns community propelled into action. People began dropping off supplies and gear, the local stores emptied their entire inventories to individuals who were lined up out their doors, and made deliveries directly to the Bodner home. They reached out to their suppliers to do the same. Hundreds of volunteers from around the tristate area arrived to help.

Within hours, it became obvious that this project was going viral. A garage – even several garages –would no longer be enough to accommodate all the donations that were pouring in.

Moshe Bodner, Yonatan’s dad, forwarded Yonatan’s text to his own friends, too. He recalls the moment he knew his son’s project was taking off.

ily raised $200,000 for their project, which they’ve dubbed “Soldiers Save Lives: In Memory of David Newman.” David grew up in the Old City and was Ike and Bucky’s close friend. He was murdered by Hamas that Shabbat morning. (They are collecting all donations through CauseMatch in partnership with Chayal to Chayal to make sure they comply with all charitable requirements.) Now he is trying to raise even more, both to fund future flights and to purchase even more equipment.

“Monday night we sent between 200 and 300 bags,” his father explains. A team of volunteers spent all day packing the large duffel bags with vital equipment and toiletries. “My son hired a professional logistics expert,” he notes with wonder.

Within hours, Yonatan, his parents Moshe Bodner and Amy Bodner, his siblings and friends created a major new charitable concern. In Israel, Yonatan mobilized scores of students to help collect funds and distribute gear.

“You Jews are Amazing”

As word has continued to spread about “Soldiers Save Lives,” Moshe has noticed that more and more

“ the whole jewish nAtion wAnts to help. if they see you helping, they’ll wAnt to bAck you up.”

“I woke up the Monday morning after they launched this project. By the time I got to the office this thing had blown up… It was going crazy.”

Moshe realized that his family needed a much larger storage space. He phoned up a friend who works as a caterer, and the friend instantly volunteered his truck and warehouse.

Within a day, Yonatan and his family secured additional warehouses, too. “Now we have a couple of warehouses in New York and New Jersey, and we plan to have locations in other states,” Yonatan explains.

Working with El Al

Ike and his best friend, Baruch “Bucky” Apisdorf, were on the phone with El Al, Israel’s flagship airline, negotiating ways to transport the massive amounts of donations he was receiving from the New York area to Israel. The young men found themselves running a major charity. They learned that El Al is flying special chartered flights to Israel right now to bring vital equipment. It’s pricey to transport goods: with all the taxes and fees required, Yonatan estimates that it costs about $40,000 to send a shipment of goods to Israel.

Within three hours of launching the project, Yonatan and his fam -

people in his area of suburban New York are getting involved. When he spoke with Aish.com, he said, “Right now, we’re unloading a huge truck we got from Teaneck,” a heavily Jewish suburb in New Jersey. Numerous Jewish schools and synagogues have started their own drives for equipment and are delivering them to the Bodners. “It seems like everybody’s working together.”

Moshe notes that in his area, big chain stores are running out of tactical gear as local Jews buy them to send to Israel. “Somebody said, ‘Wow, all these Jews are buying everything.’” In some cases, small independent store owners donate goods themselves, and moving companies have volunteered to transport goods. Scores of local students have volunteered their time to sort and pack goods for shipping. Moshe’s employers told him to take a day off to help work on the project. “I’ve been sitting on a computer all day tracking donations,” he notes.

Moshe has always displayed an Israeli flag in his office. His coworkers have requested that he bring Israeli flags for everyone. Moshe’s non-Jewish colleagues have been impressed with the way the local Jewish community has come together.

“‘Wow, you guys are amazing,’ they’ve told me.”

Everyone Can Reach Out and Help

Rabbi Dovid Rosman, the director of EFG@Aish, says, “I’m not surprised that Yonatan has spearheaded this effort. The students here inculcate the value of taking responsibility for the Jewish People.”

Yonatan observes that “a lot of kids want to know what they can do” in Israel’s hour of need. Yonatan advises people to reach out and try to aid those around them, without worrying about whether or not they’ll be successful.

“Remember that a lot of people around you want to contribute.” If you show other people a way to volunteer, donate, help or give, people will likely be grateful for your help.

“Whatever you contribute is meaningful,” Yonatan explains. “The whole Jewish nation wants to help. If they see you helping, they’ll want to back you up.”

Sending the items off to the airport

Volunteers packing and sorting

Yonatan on the rooftop of Aish

A Witness to the Massacre

Dov Hikind Sees the Aftermath

of the Horror Firsthand

By SuSan Schwamm

When news of the massacre perpetrated by Hamas spread, Dov Hikind was in New York. But two days later, the former assemblyman and activist knew that he belonged in Israel.

allow Jews to flee to safety. Ultimately, they died helping others.

“On Monday afternoon, as with many times in my life, I asked myself, ‘What can I do?’ I’ve always asked myself that question – what’s the extra that I can do?

“When we have problems, when we have challenges, and especially when it comes to Israel, I’ve always been here, whether it’s with the Scud missiles, whether it’s the Intifada, whether Jews are being stabbed, whether it’s the Lebanon War, I’ve always come to Israel during those periods of time. But, at first, I wasn’t planning on going to Israel. But that afternoon, I said, ‘I’ve got to do something.’”

Hikind found a flight to Israel, which wasn’t easy, and got on the last flight through Delta with Virgin Airways. He was joined by Israel Bitton, his partner at Americans Against Antisemitism.

“I’m gratified to be here,” Hikind says. “People say to me, ‘What are you doing here? You couldn’t get a flight out?’ But I tell them that I came here from the United States to give chizuk, and that gives people strength.”

Hikind recalls how he spent his day on Thursday representing Jews in the U.S. at 30 funerals at Mt. Herzl. Thirty soldiers were buried that day. Mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, friends and family joined together to send these heroes to their final resting places. The funerals took place one after another, a harrowing ordeal for those mourning their loved ones.

“I felt that I was representing all Jews in America who couldn’t be there,” Hikind explains.

At the end of the day, Hikind felt spent, worn out from seeing so much pain. He heard about how the brave soldiers defended the Jews in the south, to the best of their ability. Some managed to hold off the terrorists and

On Tuesday of this week, Hikind traveled to Sderot, Kfar Aza, and Nir Am, communities in the south of Israel which experienced true horror just days before. Hikind was there to witness the atrocities, to see the aftermath of the massacre firsthand and share those stories with the world.

But sometimes, words are not even enough. Hikind says that when he was interviewed by Sid Rosenberg on the radio on Tuesday evening about what he witnessed, he could barely speak. It took him time to gain his composure and share some of the tragedy with Sid’s audience.

Hikind and his group were taken from house to house in Kfar Aza. Before the pogrom, Kfar Aza was home to around 700 people. But when Hamas militants invaded the community on October 7, they left not one home unscathed.

“We were taken by someone in the military from house to house – we saw many of the houses,” Hikind recalls. He talks about the actions of the Hamas terrorists that he witnessed, “the most horrid, the most barbaric, the most cruel, the most evil things imaginable. Everything that I’ve read up until now – I was following everything very closely – it is so much worse than any of that.”

He explains, “We went into a house where there must have been 500 bullet holes in that little house where quite a few people were murdered. But it wasn’t just that they were murdered. They brutalized everybody.”

What Hikind describes is horror beyond belief, details that are not fit for a family magazine. In seeing the sadism of the murderers, Hikind grapples with how to accurately depict it.

“There’s nothing in the English language in our vo -

cabulary to describe the behavior of these barbarians,” he says. “There’s nothing to describe people doing these kinds of things and being proud of it.

“Don’t forget, they were the ones who put out the videos for everybody to see. The Nazis used to hide what they were doing to the Jewish people. And these barbarians, they put out the videos on their own to show their behavior. Who are these people?”

Hikind also joined with ZAKA, who brought him through the town. So far, Hikind says, only about 350 people’s bodies of those who were slaughtered have been able to be identified.

“Do you know what that means? That means they’re having a hard time identifying these people because of what was done to so many people.”

He describes the smell that permeates these communities. “I still feel it literally. I feel the smell of all the dead bodies. I’m afraid to go to sleep tonight, thinking about what I saw today.”

The community of Kfar Aza is empty of people, the burnt homes and piles of rubble remnants of once vibrant life.

In Sderot, where 57 people were murdered, Hikind witnessed ransacked homes, open refrigerators, where terrorists searched for valuables and jewelry and food. He saw bullets on the floors, pins from grenades littering the streets. He went to the police precinct that had been taken over by terrorists and where the Israeli police officers were slaughtered by the Hamas members.

Hikind notes that in order to perpetrate so much terror, there had to have been an organized effort by the terrorists. The area and the cities that they managed to infiltrate is a large area, and the terrorists managed to invade so many little towns, massacring families fleeing in cars along the way.

The contrast of cruelty of the terrorists to the com-

passion of the Jews is stark.

“When we were driving to Kfar Aza,” Hikind relates, “I saw a bunch of people from an organization in the field. We stopped the car, and we saw that two terrorists’ bodies were being put into body bags. Can you imagine?

We care to treat these barbarians with dignity. This is direct contrast to the atrocities that I witnessed.”

Speaking with the people left in town, Hikind says they’re “in shock – beyond shock. Everybody’s traumatized. Everyone’s afraid.”

But in the darkness, there is light.

Just a few days ago, prior to the attacks, the climate in Israel was ugly. It was Jew vs. Jew, secular vs. charedi, Labor vs. Likud. The demonstrations

being held were contentious and fiery. But now, these circumstances have brought us all together. Regardless of whether a kippah or cap adorns one’s head, we are united in the fight for our survival. Our eyes, as one, look towards the Heavens for our salvation and success.

“The Jewish world and the Jewish people, at least for now, for this week, next week – I hope forever –we’re united,” Hikind notes. “It doesn’t matter who you are, what you are, what kind of Jew you are, how much you daven, how much you don’t daven, you never daven, you don’t believe in G-d, you do believe in G-d. We’re all one right now.”

It’s not just Jews who are supporting each other. Hikind shares a story that took place last week. A past supporter, John Giuffre, who owned Bay Ridge

Toyota, had texted Hikind that he wanted to donate to the cause. Hikind told him to hold off until he gets to Israel and visits the communities to see exactly what was needed. But Giuffre was insistent that Hikind call him immediately. On the phone, mere days after the massacre, Giuffre gave Hikind $50,000 to donate to those impacted by the terror attacks.

Giuffre is not a Jew. He is a person who sees that this fight is one of good vs. evil, and he wants to support the good in this world.

Hikind emphasizes, “We need to be there for each other. Hashem runs the world, and we know that it will be OK. But we need to be there for each other because when there’s hate, that leads to terrible, terrible things.

“Let’s continue to be united. Let’s not let that change.”

Israel Today We Are in This Together

By Barbara Deutsch

Ihave been crying every day this week.

Sometimes, I can’t get through a sentence without a lump forming in my throat. I have an overwhelming feeling of sorrow flooding my being; I still feel that it’s a long terrible dream. I will wake up very soon.

Sadly, I’m not.

I hate the internet and the horrific scenes; I refuse to watch. Even though I can’t allow the horrific scenes to creep into my world, they still seep through. It is almost impossible to shut down the images and the spine-tingling cries.

I can close my eyes but all too many do not have that luxury.

I, along with so many, try to do our best to do more to help and give tzedakah. Somebody I know wrote 25 checks to a long line of people and organizations helping Israel.

I am in awe of the extraordinary civilians who have filled their homes with gigantic duffel bags loaded to the brim with long supply lists of what is needed in Israel. Thousands of people have cleared store shelves, shopped and “shlepped” to fill suitcases and cargo planes.

My friend Shelly is one of them.

Shelly got the post above this morn-

ing; she and her team have already packed and sent almost 200 bags. Three days ago, this bag was in her living room. It had the name and number of the donor on it. The chayal texted Tani to thank him and told him he is already using the stuff.

I walk every morning with my dear friend Autumn; she told me this great story about her son and daughter-in-law, Jacob and Kaylie. The young couple have been living the good life in Jerusalem.

When war broke out, they dropped everything and began to do all that they could to support people in need. As a couple, they spend their days buying what is needed for soldiers and families. They came up with a plan where people donate money into Kayla’s Venmo account and together they bring the shopping haul to a central collection base in the Great Synagogue for distribution.

A pretty grass roots endeavor.

One shopping spree, Jacob and Kayla left Asher Od, similar to Costco, with over 20 bags of supplies. Jacob is thin and tall, and Kayla thin and small; together they started the long walk to the car – over a 10-minute walk. They had heavy shopping bags hanging from every available spot on their arms and shoulders.

A woman with a sprained hand stopped and offered her one available healthy one; she insisted on helping. Soon they passed a falafel stand who offered two carts. Last, a policeman filled his police car.

Jacob and Kayla had a police escort to their car. I am so proud to know this amazing couple.

In all of my many years in education, as a teacher and principal, there has always been an opportunity to raise money for a war in Israel. When we were in Israel during the Intifada in July of 2008, we experienced firsthand the horrors of sirens and running for shelter.

We were in the middle of a delicious Italian dinner with our daughter Rachel whose kids were supposed to be sleeping a few blocks away when a siren went off. Our daughter threw down her fork and flew out of the restaurant.

Our waitress shrugged her shoulders and went about her business as usual. She shrugged her shoulders and handed us the menus, “This is nothing, it happens all of the time. Are you interested in dessert?”

When we got back to Cedarhurst that August, we joined so many others who

were buying basic essentials, socks, toiletries, underwear, etc.to be sent to the fighting soldiers.

It’s 2023, and here we go again.

At school, we held a rally for Israel. Seeing those small children holding up placards in support of Israel brought me overwhelming pride in the knowledge that we are passing on the legacy. A video of the rally was sent to family member soldiers. We were told that the chayal watched it before reporting to his base.

There is no nation like Am Yisroel; as a child of survivors who never lost hope and helped found Israel, I believe that it needs our support more than ever.

This Shabbos, let’s light an extra candle for peace and the safety of all our precious soldiers.

May it be a Shabbat shalom.

Mrs. Barbara Deutsch is currently the associate principal at HANC 609 and a longtime reflective educator, parent, grandparent, and new great-grandparent. Even after all these years, she still loves what she does and looks forward to working with kids every single day.

Israel Today How Can I Work?

Rabbi Avromi Mostofsky

Most weeks, my work occupies well above the standard forty hours. This week, even a single minute feels impossible.

How can one possibly focus on work? While we were dancing with the Torah, our brothers and sisters were being mercilessly slaughtered in Israel. As we celebrated renewal, they mourned destruction.

Here in America, we are, of course, all gathered in tefillah and doing our best to provide support in any way conceivable.

Yet, the weight of the question persists: how can I work?

I had the privilege of spending four years learning in Israel. The hospitality of my Israeli cousins made me feel like I was always a big part of their lives. Some of their children, having grown up before my eyes, are closer to siblings than mere cousins.

During that time, I traveled Eretz Yisrael as much as possible, often solo, trying to absorb as much of our land as possible. When my time learning in Jerusalem came to an end, I cried. I cried on the way to the airport, walking through security, and as I boarded the plane.

This week, a few people told me they’re contemplating leaving Israel, fearing for their children’s safety. My heart aches. How can I work, when every fiber of my being yearns to be back home and others are thinking of leaving permanently?

Before I left to yeshiva in Eretz Yisrael, my father told me I was only going on one condition: should war break out, I wasn’t to return to the States. Instead, I would reach out to family, particularly my cousins at Terem (the children of Dr. David Applebaum, Hy”d), to ask where I could be of utmost help. I willingly agreed.

Now, as I sit miles away, there’s an overwhelming feeling of not fulfilling that promise. How can I work knowing my best friend is pulling bodies out of the carnage near Gaza? How can I work

when my family stands resilient, protecting our homeland, and I’m oceans apart?

I’m also overwhelmed with anger. Anger towards those with influence who remain silent. Historically, antisemitic voices told Jews to “return to Palestine,” acknowledging our innate connection to our homeland. Now, the narrative shifts.

women and children when bombing Hamas.” “Two wrongs don’t make a right.” Yet Hamas is the one that continuously launches rockets from people’s apartments and surrounded by children.

Last week, two videos shook me deeply. In one, at the very end of the clip,

Before I left to yeshiva in Eretz Yisrael, my father told me I was only going on one condition: should war break out, I wasn’t to return to the States.

The blame is directed at us, questioning our actions, despite us only reclaiming what ours was historically. Even the “occupied” land only came back to us because the Arabs tried to destroy us, and G-d delivered them to us.

They accuse us of “killing innocent

a Palestinian child of around ten runs across the corner of the screen, holding two machine guns. The other was a video in which little children were hitting and laughing at one of the hostages, a little Jewish boy. They taunted him saying, “Call Ima, call Ima” in jest. Children,

committing literal torture of another child, simply because he is a Jew.

Yes, there might be innocent people in Gaza, just as there were in Nazi Germany. But the Gazans elected Hamas and allowed extremist ideologies to flourish. They arm their kids, instilling hatred for Jews from infancy.

Our unity now reflects our collective memory. Our enemies have vanished over time, but we remain. We’re certain of one thing: the threat from Hamas will be neutralized. They will be destroyed, becoming just another one of the groups we think of when singing at the Pesach Seder, “In every generation they rose up against us.”

It angers me that while some voices rise for Israel, many stay silent. Like the silence in Germany, it is deafening. It is a reminder of why we fought so hard to reestablish our homeland. It is a reminder why we will never give it up. Not an inch. Not again.

As I yearn to be back home, I once again ask, how can I work?

Tears are unending; anger is palpable. But hope persists.

This past year has been one of bitter ideological differences in Israel. Today, we are reminded that divided, our nation has always fallen. But when united, and filled with love for each other, Am Yisrael has ALWAYS prevailed. This gives me hope.

Watching videos of my cousin Shlomo Lipman, a soldier, defending our people while simultaneously singing at a wedding gives me hope – hope for better days, for prevailing despite global indifference, for achdut, and for G-d allowing us, as in days of old, to triumph over evil.

Rabbi Mostofsky lives with his family in New York. He studied in Jerusalem where he received Smicha at the age of 22. He is a board member of the American Zionist Movement and is a delegate for Eretz Hakodesh at the World Zionist Congress.

Hamas’s Deception –and Our Self-Deception

By Caroline Glick

Last Sunday, senior Hamas terrorist Ali Baraka told the tale of how Hamas duped Israel and the U.S. into complacency.

In an interview with RT (formerly Russia Today), Baraka said, “In the past couple of years, Hamas has adopted a ‘rational’ approach. It did not go into any war and did not join Islamic Jihad in its recent battle, [i.e., its missile assault on Israel in August 2022].

“We made them think Hamas was busy with governing Gaza, and that it wanted to focus on the 2.5 million Palestinians [there] and had abandoned the resistance altogether. All the while, under the table, Hamas was preparing for this big attack.”

In other words, Hamas pretended it was a credible partner for negotiations, and that the only problem was Palestinian Islamic Jihad, its Iranian-founded spin-off.

One of the frustrating aspects of Baraka’s admission is that there was nothing new about Hamas’s deception. Deception is an integral part of the jihadist doctrine, going back to the days of Muhammad. Just as important, and frustratingly, even those

who are unaware of—or willfully blind to— the centrality of Islamic jihadist doctrine and beliefs for Hamas, should still have been familiar with Hamas’s tactic.

It comes right out of the PLO’s playbook.

Five days after Hamas’s slaughter of more than 1,300 Jews in southern Israel, and on the eve of his meeting Friday in Amman with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, P.A. chairman and PLO/ Fatah chief Mahmoud Abbas released a statement.

cause they contravene morals, religion and international law.”

The lie of Palestinian moderation is the rationale for 50 years of nearcontinuous U.S. pressure on Israel to concede territory to the Palestinians.

“We reject the practices of killing civilians or abusing them on both sides be-

Abbas’s statement is notable for many reasons. It doesn’t name Hamas. It draws a moral equivalence between Israel’s counterattack in Gaza and Hamas’s orgiastic rape, torture, murder, immolation and kidnapping of babies, children, women and men. And it came after five days in which Abbas and the rest of Palestinian society did nothing but celebrate and defend Hamas’s atrocities while blaming Israel for the crimes against humanity Hamas conducted against its people.

In his speech on Oct. 10, President Joe

Biden intimated that Hamas isn’t representative of the aspirations of the Palestinians. In his words, “Hamas does not stand for the Palestinian people’s right to dignity and self-determination.”

The subtext was clear. Hamas is the bad guy. The Palestinian Authority is the good guy. And if that weren’t apparent as Biden spoke, Blinken’s decision to meet with Abbas made the point explicit.

Fatah and Hamas

For five days, Abbas had nothing but praise for Hamas and condemnations for Israel. As Palestinian Media Watch reported, the day after Biden’s speech, Abbas issued a statement of solidarity with Hamas. On Oct. 11, Abbas promised that the P.A. will “stand by our people, the Gaza Strip will not be alone.”

The PLO’s ruling Fatah faction (which Abbas also leads) gave gushing praise to Hamas. As MEMRI reported, on Oct. 9, Fatah’s Central Committee praised Hamas for its slaughter and called for national unity—that is, unity between the P.A. and Hamas.

The goal, Fatah stated, is “to rally in a

real and conscious fashion around the possibility of national unity, unity in the struggle on the ground, political and diplomatic unity with all means possible to us in order to wage this campaign in a united fashion.”

Fatah also called for all Palestinians to join Hamas’s jihad against Israel.

“The public must answer calls to confront and stand up to the aggression and crimes in Gaza and the West Bank and to escalate all the conflict zones with the occupier [Israel] throughout our homeland Palestine, in order to defend our people and stand with our residents in the Gaza Strip.”

Fatah’s terror franchise, the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, posted Koranic calls to jihad on its Telegram pages that are indistinguishable from Hamas’s propaganda. Quoting the verse from the Koran calling for the annihilation of all Jews that Hamas uses in its charter, Fatah exhorted, “Strike the sons of apes and pigs … slaughter everyone who is Israeli.”

Following along the lines of “diplomatic unity” that the Fatah Central Committee called for, the P.A. is serving as Hamas’s foreign ministry. On Tuesday, its U.N. ambassador Riyad Mansour wrote a letter to the Security Council accusing Israel of carrying out “war crimes,” and called its decision to stop providing Gaza with free water and electricity “nothing less than genocidal.”

On the ground in the Palestinian Authority, the crowds greeted the news of Hamas’s atrocities with jubilation. Celebrations, victory marches and public parties were held from northern Samaria to the South Hebron Hills. Palestinians mocked the Jewish victims on their social media accounts and celebrated their mass murder. In Huwara in Samaria, a pizzeria posted an advertisement featuring a Holocaust survivor grandmother who is now a hostage in Gaza, holding a pizza.

Sufficient to Convince Blinken

The fakery of Abbas’s milquetoast condemnation of Hamas’s atrocities is self-evident when seen in the context of his actions and statements and those of the P.A., PLO, Fatah and the Palestinian public. But it was clearly sufficient to convince Blinken that it is reasonable to meet with him and continue to base U.S. policy on the fiction that the P.A. represents a moderate force within Palestinian society that is willing to peacefully coexist with the Jewish state.

Abbas’s lies and deceptions are his modus operandi just as they were the modus operandi of his predecessor Yassir Arafat and their comrades in the PLO and Hamas. It is a testament to Abbas’s confidence, and

his contempt for the U.S., that he felt strong enough not to bother with a full-throated fake condemnation of Hamas.

In the P.A.’s early days in the 1990s, Arafat would routinely condemn Hamas terror attacks against Israel in English and then call for the Palestinians to slaughter the Jews through jihad in Arabic. Just months after the P.A. was formed in Gaza and Jericho in 1994, Arafat sent his security chief Mohammed Dahlan to negotiate a cooperation pact with Hamas. The deal that was forged gave Hamas a free hand to slaughter Jews so long as the PLO wasn’t implicated.

At the same time, Dahlan was the head of the PLO’s negotiations team on military affairs with Israel. He charmed his Israeli interlocutors by speaking to them in the pigeon Hebrew he learned in Israeli prison, where he was jailed on terrorism convictions in the 1980s. They viewed Dahlan as a moderate, as the tough guy who would take out Hamas for Israel. Dahlan smoked cigarettes with IDF generals at the same time that he closed a cooperation deal with Hamas terror master Mohammed Deif.

In times of calm, Hamas and the P.A. operated separately. And U.S.-funded and trained P.A. security services gave Israel valuable intelligence that led to the breakup of many Hamas cells. But in times of terror offensives, they worked together. The most murderous terror group that operated during the 2000-2004 Palestinian terror war (aka the Second Intifada) was the so-called “Popular Resistance Committees.” It was composed of terrorists from Fatah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

Hamas’s pretend separation from Islamic Jihad, and its use of Islamic Jihad to persuade Israel and the U.S. that it had moderated, was the same trick.

The Lie of Palestinian Moderation

Israel and the U.S. have refused to acknowledge that they have been played by the P.A. the same way they were played by Hamas for the past two years, and Hamas was able to deceive Israel and the U.S. for two years because they wanted to be deceived. Israel’s generals wanted to believe that the Palestinians writ large aren’t implacable foes. They can be appeased. We

don’t have to defeat them.

And the Biden administration, like most of its predecessors, wanted to believe the deception—and to still believe it in the P.A.’s case—because they want to believe that Israel is to blame for the violence waged against it. The lie of Israeli culpability is the foundation of 50 years of U.S. Middle East peacemaking efforts. The lie of Palestinian moderation is the rationale for 50 years of near-continuous U.S. pressure on Israel to concede territory to the Palestinians. It has been the justification and rationale for the U.S. opposition to any effort by Israel to defeat the PLO on the battlefield.

The constant assertion “There is no military solution to the Palestinian conflict with Israel” is predicated on the notion that there is a political solution.

But Saturday’s slaughter made clear— and not for the first or the hundredth time—that this isn’t a political conflict. It is an existential one. And it isn’t only between Israel and Hamas. It is between the vast majority of the Palestinian people, and the entirety of the Palestinian leadership, who actively seek Israel’s physical annihilation and the genocide of world Jewry, and the Jews, who seek to live in peace and freedom in the Jewish State of Israel. (JNS)

Palestinians march in Hebron in support of Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Oct. 13, 2023.

Photo by Wisam Hashlamoun Flash90

What Would You Do If…

Moderated by Jennifer Mann, LCSW of The Navidaters

Dear Navidaters,

I was wondering what I can do to simplify the process of shidduchim for my son.

We tend to wait about a week and a half after giving a “yes” to a young woman, giving her time to check references, sometimes getting a “no” from the young woman’s side in response. During the week or more that we have given a “yes,” we put things on hold and when other people reach out with ideas, we are honest that we had just given a yes to someone else. I am feeling that we miss out on opportunities this way.

What is the protocol and the honest way to go about the time between giving a yes and receiving an answer in response?

Thank you for your insightful column!

Baila G.

The Panel

The Rebbetzin

Rebbetzin Faigie Horowitz, M.S.

Timing is tricky and sometimes very frustrating in the traditional shidduch process where a parent checks someone out for suitability as a dating partner. It’s not just about missing opportunities for your child; it’s about the other party being busy after you have given a yes. And when their yes comes back, your child may be busy. It’s an issue of coordination as well, once you have done the work. It’s very time consuming to check people out and then the timing has to work for both parties. I don’t really know the answer to this question. It’s hard on everyone including the shadchanim.

However, being honest continues to be important. One can say directly: it

will take me about ten days to give you an answer. Meanwhile, we don’t expect the young woman to be on hold, waiting for an answer from us. If she gets a yes from someone else, she should feel comfortable going ahead with that person. This seems to be de rigueur.

Let us keep in mind, however, that young women usually get fewer suggestions than young men, unfortunately. And that mothers get bombarded with shidduch suggestions for their sons. Let’s try to be understanding and compassionate and treat others the way we want to be treated.

The Shadchan

Michelle Mond

Thank you for sending in this question. I can attest to this being a per -

vasive problem. This is generally a more common issue in the typical yeshivish dating world. I have seen people waste SO much of people’s time while looking into a shidduch, only to nix it in the end. This puts the other side in a very difficult and awkward position. In the more modern machmir world, it is common to give a guy or girl a chance without making hours’ worth of calls. I generally find this to be a better idea, since making a single wait while a family does FBI research, in my opinion, lacks basic menschlichkeit.

Baila, in your present conundrum, I would do the following. Be direct from the beginning with anyone who sets up your son. You may explain that, in the past, people have taken upwards of two weeks to get back to you with an answer. For the sake of efficiency, explain that you would prefer to know whether the young woman would like to proceed within three to four days. Communication up front will get you what you’re looking for. If the shadchan knows your son will move on after three days of research, she will do her best to move things along on the woman’s side.

Readers, please remember, treat others the way you’d like to be treated. Remember that in shidduchim there are feelings on the other side. With our genuine sensitivity towards others may we merit to see nissim and niflaos and Moshiach soon in our days.

The Single

Tzipora Grodko

Hmm, I’m not sure what the social expectation is in your community, but you need to follow whatever protocol works best for you.

The Zaidy

Dr. Jeffrey Galler

Iwon’t waste column space by reminiscing about how there was nothing

I do encourage you to use to your voice and assert yourself while you continue to remain the honest and ethical person you are.

wrong with how young men and women met, years ago, at shul events, or at kosher hotels, or in college classes. This week’s Navidater question exemplifies the frustrating nature of our very challenging and stressful contemporary shidduch system

Yes, yes, I understand that the system does work for many people. And, yes, I understand that my complaining does not help the person who wrote this week’s letter.

So, here goes. A good friend of mine, Pepi M, has some practical advice. In her family, when she responds “yes” to a suggestion, she gives the other side two days in order to respond. If the other party does not respond within two days, she feels free to move on to the next recommendation.

This technique seems perfectly reasonable to me. In this way, young people are not stuck in an indefinite holding pattern and are not in danger of missing out on other, perfectly viable opportunities.

I hope this response is helpful.

Please note that I am writing this on Monday, October 16, Rosh Chodesh Mar Cheshvan, while anxiously following events in the Middle East. Let us all pray that for our brothers and sisters in Israel, the coming days and weeks are filled with such good news, that we will feel compelled to forever remove the word “Mar” from “Mar Cheshvan.”

Pulling It All Together

The Navidaters

Dating and Relationship Coaches and Therapists

Thank you for writing into the panel! While I appreciate rules and systems, I personally don’t like all the rules and regulations around dating and shidduchim. The system, from soup to nuts, leaves much to be desired. I don’t like systems that induce powerlessness and helplessness and waiting. While I don’t en - courage you to completely break the rules, because I understand the social and practical ramifications this would have in this broken system, I do encourage you to use to your voice and assert yourself while you

continue to remain the honest and ethical person you are. You can also come up with your own “system” for how much time you are going to wait while you are waiting. In other words, take some control here.

I don’t have the answer to this common dilemma you are experiencing. I don’t think it’s fair for you and your child to wait on someone else who is taking their sweet time to get back to you. Would you consider saying to the person who is interested, “Thank you so much! We are so delighted. We’re waiting to hear back from someone. I am giving them another day or so as a courtesy. I will be in touch with you once I know.”

Treat others the way you’d like to be treated.

Here is a rule I learned about this life. Don’t wait around at the mercy of someone else. We all have the right to self-empowerment. Don’t let anyone take that away from you. We can balance this right with being honest and courteous with others.

Sincerely,

Jennifer

Jennifer Mann, LCSW is a licensed psychotherapist and certified trauma healing life coach, as well as a dating and relationship coach working with individuals, couples, and families in private practice at 123 Maple Avenue in Cedarhurst, NY. To set up a consultation or to ask questions, please call 718-908-0512. Visit www.thenavidaters.com for more information. If you would like to submit a dating or relationship question to the panel anonymously, please email JenniferMannLCSW@gmail.com. You can follow The Navidaters on FB and Instagram for dating and relationship advice.

Turning Towards the Source

By Sara Rayvych, MSEd

Life is a Divinely ordained classroom of hands-on lessons. Everything –no matter how small – is meant to teach us and change us into better people. If this refers to something as unremarkable as stubbing a toe, it certainly applies to the recent tragedies.

I am certainly not suggesting I know the reason for the recent events, nor do I know what we are meant to take from them. I leave these heavy issues for someone else. What I’d like to mention is simply some of my observations over the past week. As I saw Klal Yisroel rise to the challenges, I recognized some of the many powerful lessons our children can learn by observing our actions. While we never want nisyonos, teaching our children some productive ways to cope and work through tragedy is important. Life isn’t all happiness or cheer, and our children need to know there are ways to function – and even thrive – during these stressful periods.

Leading With Actions

As parents, we are not only on our own journeys, but also guiding our children on theirs. We are expanding beyond our previous limitations, and our children are following on our heels. They look to us to see how we respond, and without words, we are teaching them by our example.

We have the opportunity to show them how a Torah Jew acts during times of challenge and sorrow. They can see how we unite with others and are feeling the pain of those on the frontlines. They will learn how to act as they see our fervent prayers, extra Torah learning, and ma’asim tovim. Throughout it all, they will appreciate that our faith in Hashem grows as we acknowledge there is One Source for all that happens.

We could lecture for hours on end, but that would be pointless. Our example and our actions speak far louder than any

words ever could. We have an incredible teaching opportunity now.

United As One

We’re different than we were before yom tov, a time that seems shockingly innocent compared to the week that followed. As more information comes out, we are horrified anew. But, as each day passes, we are becoming a stronger people.

We’re attaining levels of achdus we haven’t been privileged to experience in the recent past. What divided us previously is now recognized as trivial. Where someone davens, which hechsher (if any) they use, and how they dress are unimportant – we only see they are our Jewish brother or sister.

There was a beautiful video that came out this past week, and it’s the only video I permitted my children to view. It showed a chareidi/chassidish shul filled with men devotedly attaching tzitzis to olive-colored garments. Our local media gives daily updates where to bring supplies as duffels fill with toothbrushes, deodorant and other necessities. A photo circulated of a tank covered in handwritten letters, many of them in English. Shuls are adding Tehillim with some mentioning the name of each hostage (may they come home safely) during the mi shebairach. Everyone has been pained over the situation, and we are each trying to help however we can.

Include your children (as appropriate, based on age and personal sensitivities) so they, too, can be a part of the solution. Their Torah learning, brachos or helping out extra around the house can all make an impact. They should recognize their strength and ability to move mountains with their actions.

Let them know their tefillos matter. We know Hashem is always listening, but it also gives tremendous chizzuk to the chayalim and the affected families to know we are behind them and love them.

One Source

The headline on the cover of this past week’s issue of TJH said it all –“Yisroel batach ba’Hashem,” the Jewish people trust in Hashem. We know where everything comes from and Who really controls our future. We do our part, but we know that ultimately success comes from Above.

Many perakim of Tehillim have been said. The words we have frequently spoken have taken on new meaning. We asked ourselves how it was possible for others to enter our holy land, but “Im Hashem lo yishmar ir ” (Tehillim 127), only Hashem can ultimately protect our cities.

We sought solace from the words of the weekly parsha and haftorah. Both described tragedy occurring but were immediately followed by our yeshua and Hashem’s guarantee of survival to us.

We proudly proclaim in the Shema that Hashem is One. Even after reeling from the news that came out, we still recognize and proudly declare Hashem’s ultimate unity. It can be easy to acknowledge Hashem’s role when everything is good, but it’s another level to see the Yad Hashem even in the pain.

It’s important to note there are those that will question the divine role or feel distanced from the Source following tragedy. We can’t judge them nor can we fully recognize the challenges they are facing. Neither mussar nor fire and brimstone is helpful as they process the pain. Give your child space to work through their feelings without judgment.

Gratitude

There are individuals from outside our community that have been support-

ing us. They deserve our gratitude and to know how much we appreciate what they’re doing. The police have an increased presence in the areas with large Jewish populations. Since the initial attacks, our local shul has had a police car with officers parked nearby. While our ultimate protection comes from Above, we certainly owe our gratitude to these brave men and women. We can say “thank you” and let our child know that we acknowledge when others help us.

Many of us have had gentiles express their support and concern. We had a neighbor that lived near us years ago reach out to us. Total strangers are inquiring if we have loved ones affected. I have been pleasantly surprised by the outpouring of concern, and it’s been very encouraging. We should appreciate their kind gestures, too.

Children easily take for granted those that help them. Our children can learn about gratitude from seeing us appreciate those around us.

We are each processing so much pain, and we have so many questions as our children watch us for our reaction. May we learn the important lessons Hakadosh Baruch Hu wants us to gain and bless us with shalom. I join everyone with fervent prayers that each chayal, hostage and all those on the frontlines return back safely.

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 Rayvych Homeschool@gmail.com.

School of Thought

By Etti Siegel

Q:Dear Etti,

My child’s teacher called and asked if my child is doing the required reading every night, as practice is so important and (perhaps, I am extrapolating here from what she said) my child is not as fluent as the rest of the class. I am not arguing, and I read your Rosh Hashana letter response about how important it is to catch issues at a young age. I also read the letter to the editor by Miriam Massouda who concurred with your response and made it even more clear that help in the early years is vital.

Here is the thing. My child does not want to read with me at night. After a whole day at school, she is not interested in bookwork. She makes reading time into a battle, and I do not want to fight with my daughter, so I don’t make her read with me. I am feeling guilty, but why can’t the school handle this? Why do I have to get into a battle of wills with my child every night? I am supposed to offer her love and security, and I resent being set up to have to struggle with her.

Am I the only parent with this issue?

What am I supposed to do?

-Mother of Frustrated and Struggling Reader

A:Dear Mother of Frustrated and Struggling Reader,

Thank you for following this column and writing in.

To answer your last question first, you are not the only one having this issue each night. Many parents have this struggle. It might be with doing homework in general, or with math, or with reviewing Chumash, or with reading, as you are experiencing.

Your relationship with your child cannot be affected by homework, and yet your child is falling behind in reading, a very serious problem that can affect her as she goes up through the grades.

I recommend a tutor who comes to the house and helps take over, or, for a less expensive alternative, a homework

helper (a middle school student who would feel great working with your daughter and making a few dollars a night). A free alternative is to sign up with high schools in your area to join their chessed hours program. There is no shame in bringing someone in. Your child will love the attention, and your relationship will be healthier without the cajoling and nudging you need to do to make HW happen.

Polling some parents offered some amazing and insightful words of wisdom.

Children who struggle with learning at school struggle with HW at home. Why would any child want to do more of what makes them feel stupid? Get your child tested so your child can get all the in-school support he/ she needs. -MR

Some children need some free time when they come home. They need time to unwind and relax after a long hard day. Have a snack ready if supper is later or serve supper right away and offer a snack later. I used to have my oven-timer beep at 6 PM and everyone knew that was homework time. All the kids settled around my dining room table (I am lucky to have a kitchen table for eating during the week) and everyone began their homework. The older kids help the younger kids when I can’t get to every child fast enough. The social aspect of everyone starting together at the same time works for my family. -FP

I had an old Candyland game, and every night we played Candyland with reading. Every sentence earned a square, and landing on a special square meant she could pick a card for her next move. We used Colorform pieces we had from another game, and it stayed stuck on the square we ended at, ready for the next day. When we finished the board, we had a trip to the grocery for a treat. It worked for us. She loved the Mommy attention time. -GH

I got a homework helper. It was the best thing ever. I paid her minimally and gave her occasional gifts. She was a sixth grader from down the block, and five dollars a night for 15-30 minutes of HW and reading was the best investment. My shoulders were not as stressed each night, and my daughter loved her “big sister.” -EL

In my house, my son sets a timer. He works for 15 minutes and then gets a break for 15 minutes. We keep

this up until he is done. -CS

It might sound crazy, but we do homework in the morning. My kids are early risers, and they are fresh and ready in the morning. In the afternoons, they come home wiped and have meltdowns at the idea of homework, but one of my kids started promising to do her HW in the mornings, and it worked for her. And soon her siblings started copying. It works for them, so it works for me! It would not have worked for me as a kid because I started school at 8:15, but my kids don’t begin school until 8:45. -SS

My kids get a choice when they get home. I always ask them if they want to do HW right away with a snack or if they want to do it right after supper. They like the control, and their answers surprise me; they decide differently all the time. -SW

I am amazed at the creativity and the wisdom of mothers!

One parent I know lets her daughter dress up and read. They then use funny voices to match the costumes. She can be a teacher, an old woman, a policeman… There are so many choices, and it is a way to make reading fun.

Another idea might be to pick a time that is not stressful and there is no reading to do and discuss it with your daughter. Have her think about some of the ideas listed and see if any interest her. Being part of the decision might help!

If there seems to be a lot of homework, I suggest reaching out to the teacher and asking her to prioritize the assignments for you, so if your child has limited patience, you can have her work on what the teacher feels is most important. In your case, it sounds like reading is the priority.

Does your daughter have siblings? If it is English reading she should be practicing, have her read books to her siblings.

Any reading can be done over Zoom or on the phone with grandparents. Spread the fun!

Above all, watch your daughter’s reading improve and her confidence grow.

Kol tuv, -Etti

Mrs. Etti Siegel holds an MS in Teaching and Learning/Educational Leadership and brings sound teaching advice to her audiences culled from her over 35 years of teaching and administrative experience. She is an Adjunct at the College of Mount Saint Vincent/Sara Shenirer. She is a coach and educational consultant for Catapult Learning, is a sought-after mentor and workshop presenter around the country, and a popular presenter for Sayan (a teacher-mentoring program), Hidden Sparks, and the Consortium of Jewish Day Schools. She is a frequent contributor to Hamechanech Magazine and The Journal for Jewish Day School leaders. She will be answering your education-based questions and writing articles weekly for The Jewish Home. Mrs. Siegel can be reached at ettisiegel@gmail.com.

Revisiting Lions And Tigers And Bears, Oh My

Our Anxious Children and Us in October 2023

By Hylton I Lightman, MD, DCH, FAAP

Dorothy and her compatriots in the “The Wizard of Oz” were on to something all those decades ago when they chanted, “Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!” on their odyssey to see the wizard. Our children were anxious enough to begin with. A study done by the National Institute of Mental Health has found that 25.1% of 13-18-year-olds suffered from an anxiety disorder at some point in their life. Yet the uptick in anxiety in recent hours and days is unparalleled since Hamas launched its unadulterated pogrom, its organized and systematic murder of Jews, over the recent yom tov.

Fear is built into the cycle of life. Normal development includes the stranger anxiety phase which usually sets in at about 7 months of life when your baby recognizes familiar faces like Mom and Dad, and then avoids the unfamiliar. As healthy attachment to parents grows, separation anxiety, as manifested through crying and sadness emerges, and then improves over the next several years. Generally, most children are past this stage by the end of kindergarten.

This is a period of rapid growth as the children’s world expands, bringing with it new and unfamiliar situations and real and imagined dangers from dogs and spiders to monsters and “boogey men.” Between ages 3-6, children are trying to figure out what’s real and what’s not; until this is resolved, they may have difficulties with costumed characters (remember Purim), shadows, the dark, the basement, closets and under the bed. As a child learns how to manage these fears, they can put them aside so they are able to sleep alone.

As long as these fears are real fears and not overly exaggerated, they form a natural, even healthful part of a child’s emotional growth.

This is normal. And now normal is over.

The world ceased being normal this past weekend. We raise our children with Mommy and Tatty and Bubby and Grandpa and Aunt and Uncle and Cousins in our lives. The unthinkable happened and catastrophe reigns. Tragically, Klal Yisrael will not be the same.

We as parents are challenged because we know that the best way to help kids overcome anxiety isn’t to try to remove stressors that trigger it. It’s to help them learn to tolerate their anxiety and function as well as they can, even when they’re anxious. And as a byproduct of that, the anxiety will decrease or fall away over time. But again, we are in a new world.

There is no one-size-fits-all solution for anxiety. However, there are research-based techniques that can help us to manage our anxiety and to help our children manage it.

Stop reassuring your child. Your child worries and you respond, “There’s nothing to worry about.” Yet your reassurance falls on deaf ears, and

the worrying escalates. Your child is not seeking to defy you. He just cannot help himself. Why?

During periods of anxiety, the chemicals coursing through the brain and body for survival reasons is unbridled. The prefrontal cortex — the “logical” part of the brain — gets put on hold while the automated emotional brain takes over. Simply put, it’s hard for your child to think clearly, use logic, or even remember how to complete basic tasks.

Teach your children that worry has a purpose.

Worry rings an alarm in our system and helps us survive danger. Teach your children that worry is normal and can help protect us; everyone experiences it at some point. The worry now is justified. We can daven . We can involve ourselves in community projects to help our Israeli brethren. We learn to think beyond ourselves.

Don’t avoid the “topic” just because it makes a child anxious.

Helping children avoid the things they are afraid of is a short-term fix at

best; it reinforces the anxiety in the long run and, most likely, the cycle will repeat itself. We want to help our children so that mental health issues do not become a way of life.

Anxiety has been triggered in our kids. Acknowledge it. Help them to put it into words. Discuss Jewish history with them and that, baruch Hashem, Titus and his so-called society are long gone yet we are here, millennia later.

Express positive but realistic expectations.

You can’t promise a child that her fears are unrealistic. What you can do is express confidence that she’s going to be okay, she will be able to manage it, and that, as she faces her fears, the anxiety level will drop over time. This gives her confidence that your expectations are realistic and that you’re not going to ask her to do something she can’t handle.

Respect feelings but don’t empower them.

Validation and agreement are not necessarily the same. If a child is terrified about going to the doctor because he’s due for a shot, you neither want to belittle his fears nor amplify them. Listen and be empathetic , help him understand what he’s anxious about, and encourage him to feel that he can face his fears. The message you want to send is: “I know you’re scared, and that’s okay, and I’m here, and I’m going to help you get through this.”

Don’t ask leading questions.

Yes, encourage your child to talk about her feelings, but don’t ask leading questions: “Are you anxious about our friends in Modiin?” It’s better to ask open-ended questions such as, “How are you feeling about your cousin in Beitar?”

Never reinforce the child’s fears. Acknowledge them.

Try not to say in words, tone of voice or body language: “You know, this might be something that you should be afraid of.” Unintentionally, you might be telling her, “Be worried.” State your concern about Acheinu bnei Yisrael hanisunim b’sura.

Think things through with the child.

Try talking through with your child, “What would happen if your fear came true? How would you handle it?” For example, “If I’m late picking you up at after karate, what would you (the child) do?” The child might answer, “I’ll tell the teacher my mom is not here.” The parent: “How would you ask the instructor for help?” The child: “He’ll offer to call you, or he’ll wait with me.”

Reduce and monitor time and content seen on social media.

This is a big one. Kudos to the social influencers who are out there combatting the negative media. Many have been “rewarded” by becoming targets of our enemies. Hashem should continue to strengthen them.

But we need to be beyond highly vig-

ilant about what our children see. The graphic images become emblazoned in our brains. It fuels anxiety. In a twisted way, when we see something, we begin to think it’s “normal.” No, this is not normal. Rather than doing damage control, try to avoid it in the first place.

Sleep.

Our children need sleep. We need sleep. Each person needs sleep. Sleep

kids hear and see you managing it calmly, tolerating it, feeling good about getting through it.

What do airplane pilots do in an emergency? They don’t wing it (pun intended). They have a checklist to review and set things on a straight(er) course. Instead of rationalizing away worry, help your child master the “FEEL” method:

• Freeze – Pause and take some deep breaths with your child. This can

Teach your children that worry is normal and can help protect us.

helps us to navigate better and more successfully.

Model healthy ways of handling anxiety.

There are multiple ways you can help kids handle anxiety by letting them see how you cope with anxiety yourself. Kids are perceptive, and they’re watching and absorbing how you handle anxiety. Let

help reverse the nervous system response.

• Empathize – Anxiety is scary. Your child wants to know that you get it.

• Evaluate – Only after your child is calm, figure out possible solutions.

• Let Go – Let go of your guilt. Giving your child the tools to manage their worry is one of the best things a parent can do for a child.

Thank Hashem that we have community.

The charter flights. Supplies purchased. Money raised. Volunteers. Thank Hashem that we are on the giving end of this unending chessed.

Don’t be shy about saying you need help.

We all need help right now. We need each other. It is so okay to recognize and say that you need help.

Remember, each person is born hardwired. It’s our job as parents to help our children learn to navigate life. This most tragic parsha is too part of life.

Be available to our children and others so they can talk and emote and process and learn and grow. One’s home should be their children’s safe cocoon. As Dorothy said, “There’s no place like home.”

As always – and now, more than ever – daven.

Dr. Hylton I. Lightman is a pediatrician and Medical Director of Total Family Care of the 5 Towns and Rockaway PC. He can be reached at drlightman@totalfamilycaremd.com, on Instagram at Dr.Lightman_ or visit him on Facebook.

Superfoods: Fact or Fiction

By Aliza Beer MS, RD, CDN

In the evolving landscape of nutrition and dietary trends, the term “superfoods” has gained significant traction. These foods are often regarded as nutritional powerhouses, capable of an array of health benefits. It’s undeniable that certain foods are packed with essential nutrients that contribute to overall health and well-being. Yet, the

attribute “superfood” has been used liberally and, at times, without the backing of scientific evidence. This article will dispel myths and misconceptions and will provide insights into how some superfoods can be effectively integrated into a balanced diet.

• Chia Seeds: Chia seeds provide a classic example of how health claims

can sometimes outpace science. While they are undoubtedly nutrient-dense, chia seeds’ fat-burning abilities are often exaggerated. It is commonly said that chia seeds can promote weight loss by expanding in the stomach and curbing appetite. Now, while chia seeds do absorb liquid and expand, the effect on appetite and weight loss is likely overstated. The expansion is not substantial enough to create a significant feeling of fullness. Sustainable weight loss is achieved through a combination of a balanced diet and regular physical activity. However, chia seeds are rich in omega-3 fatty acids, antioxidants, and most notably, dietary fiber which promotes digestion. Sprinkle chia seeds on top of fat-free yogurt or make a chia seed overnight pudding to incorporate them into your diet.

• Blueberries: Blueberries are rich in antioxidants, specifically anthocyanins, that play a vital role in shielding cells from damage and mitigating the risk of chronic diseases. However, it’s important to note that while blueberries indeed contain antioxidants, attributing the power to single-handedly prevent diseases solely to them might be an exaggeration. To ensure a comprehensive intake of antioxidants, consider integrating other sources like vitamin C and beta carotene into your diet. Depending solely on a handful of blueberries might not yield a substantial enough antioxidant quantity to yield noticeable effects. Incorporate a wide variety of fruit into your diet.

• Quinoa : Quinoa is an excellent superfood. It is often praised for its complete protein profile (containing all

nine essential amino acids) and array of vitamins and minerals. However, quinoa does contain some antinutrients, like phytic acid, that can hinder the absorption of certain minerals. However, the levels of antinutrients in quinoa are relatively low, and their effects can be mitigated through soaking, rinsing, and cooking.

• Greek Yogurt : Greek yogurt is a great source of protein, calcium, and probiotics. Probiotics promote gut health, while protein and calcium contribute to muscle and bone health. Greek yogurt is indeed nutrient-dense, but it can also be higher in fat and calories compared to some regular yogurts. Choose options with minimal added sugars and suitable fat levels.

• Spirulina : Spirulina is a bluegreen algae that has been promoted as a superfood due to its nutrient content and potential health benefits. A common claim about the algae is that it aids in detoxifying the body. The concept of “detoxing” is often overused and lacks scientific backing. While spirulina does contain chlorophyll and antioxidants that can support overall health, the idea that it specifically detoxifies the body is not scientifically proven.

• Seaweed : Edible seaweed offers certain nutritional benefits, including iodine, minerals, and certain antioxidants. Some types of seaweed, such as the kind commonly found in seaweed salad, contain levels of iodine that are too high. When iodine is consumed in excess, it can inhibit thyroid function. As with any food, moderation is key to reaping the true benefits of edible seaweed. Consulting with a healthcare pro -

fessional or dietitian is recommended before adding large quantities of seaweed to your diet.

• Eggs: Some people, particularly those with certain genetic factors or health conditions, may experience a rise in cholesterol levels from excessive egg consumption. For this reason, it is a good idea minimize your whole eggs consumption to no more than one or two yolks a day or try only eating egg whites a few times a week. However, there are many benefits that can come from eggs, such as their choline content. Choline is an organic compound that can regulate brain function, mood, and muscle control, just to name a few. Research has also shown that eating eggs can increase HDL (good) cholesterol, which may lead to a favorable reduction in heart disease.

• Green Tea: This caffeinated tea is originally from China and rich in antioxidants and polyphenolic compounds, which have strong anti-inflammatory effects. One antioxidant called EGCG helps protect against chronic diseases including heart disease, diabetes, and cancer. There is research that indicates the combination of the caffeine and the

catechins in green tea may help with weight loss but cannot be relied upon as a real weigh loss tool. Drinking a cup of tea after eating two slices of pizza will not banish the caloric and fat content that was just consumed. Those sensitive to caffeine should avoid drinking green tea in the evening.

• Olive Oil : This oil is one of the mainstays of the Mediterranean diet. Its biggest claim to fame is its high levels of monounsaturated fatty acids and polyphenolic compounds. Adding olive oil to your diet may reduce inflammation and your risk of certain illnesses such as heart disease and diabetes. Use olive oil when roasting vegetables and sprin-

kled over your salads for a delicious and nutritious dressing. However, it is still a high calorie food, and one should be mindful of their portions. Additionally, olive oil has a lower smoke point than avocado oil, so avoid using olive oil in high heat cooking.

• Garlic : Medical research has linked garlic to a number of health benefits including lowering blood pressure,

They are not magic bullets that can replace a balanced diet or negate the effects of an unhealthy lifestyle.

issues (such as excessive bloating/gas and heartburn) and bad breath. Garlic is easily incorporated into proteins and vegetables/soups, but it’s best to enjoy it in moderation.

In conclusion, superfoods can undeniably be helpful when added into the diet, but it’s important to approach their consumption with a critical eye. While these foods do possess nutritional benefits, they are not magic bullets that can replace a balanced diet or negate the effects of an unhealthy lifestyle. Embrace the potential benefits of superfoods while remembering that a diet rich in a variety of whole foods, fruits, vegetables, whole grains, lean proteins, and healthy fats is the cornerstone of good health.

reduced blood clotting, reduced risk of gastric and colon cancers, and the ability to fight bacteria, viruses, fungi, and even parasites. However, there are potential risks to eating garlic, including excess bleeding, drug interactions (especially blood thinners), digestive

Aliza Beer is a registered dietitian with a master’s degree in nutrition. She has a private practice in Cedarhurst, NY. Patients’ success has been featured on the Dr. Oz show. Aliza can be reached at alizabeer@gmail. com, and you can follow her on Instagram at @alizabeer

Fd for Thought Davry Restaurant & Bar

By Nati Burnside

Many of the fanciest kosher restaurants nowadays have a bar. In fact, it’s almost hard to get by in the high-end kosher space without spending real time, effort, and money developing a cocktail menu that will make people feel like the drinks on the menu are on par with the quality of the cuisine.

But having a bar as a focal point of a kosher restaurant is pretty uncommon.

One of the few places where that’s the case is Davry Restaurant & Bar. In case you thought that the bar being a main feature means that the food is an afterthought, I’m here to tell you otherwise. The vibe at Davry is cultivated by the bar, the food, and the screens.

The bar is fully stocked. They have more than two dozen cocktails ($15 each), multiple options for bottled and draft beers ($6-7), a handful of wines ($10 per glass), and about three dozen hard liquors that can be purchased by the shot. Let’s just say you have plenty of options if you want to go down that road.

Speaking of options, with more than a dozen screens, Davry likely has whatever sporting event you might want to watch. With football season coming up, you’ll want to make reservations if you plan on going any time between Thursday and Monday. Beyond that, they buy noteworthy pay-per-view events and stay open until the end of games in the playoffs for the NBA and MLB (even if those games are on the West Coast).

Almost all of the kosher sports bars closed during Covid for obvious reasons. No sports being played and the screens being indoors was a recipe for disaster. Davry was closed for almost two years before it reopened fairly recently. Now, they are putting an emphasis on hosting

all types of events and groups who are looking for a fun night out. They offer many levels of packages and have become a real destination.

When I was invited to check out the new and improved menu at Davry, I was impressed with some of the new items that had been recently added to the menu.

Arayes have been making their way onto more and more menus recently, and I’ve had quite a few different versions. The ones at Davry are certainly close to the top. A key component is the thickness of each piece which allows the meat to carry a juiciness similar to a plump hamburger. They also do a nice job making the pita exterior crispy, and the drizzle of tahini offers a great cooling factor. It comes with extra tahini on the side, as well as an amba aioli that is rather interesting and might be a huge hit depending on your preferences.

The Honey Glazed Chicken Tacos are also a recent welcome addition to the menu. These soft tortillas with pieces of grilled chicken are accompanied by a base of purple slaw, onions, a slice of avocado, and house dressing. A nice change of pace from some more common taco appetizers, these have a great balance of different flavors and textures.

The last of the noteworthy newcomers I want to recommend is the Ultimate Wrap. It’s uncommon to find a wrap of this nature on a menu that isn’t full of wrap options. Most places that carry only a couple of wraps will have the same two or three. But this is a deli wrap with some real flavor. A mixture of turkey pastrami and honey smoked turkey is paired with some greenery (lettuce and avocado) and a sauteed mixture of peppers and onions. This wrap looks almost as good as it tastes as it’s packed with flavor but

is still a lighter option than most items on the menu.

If you’re willing to go for something a little heavier, I’d suggest the Crispy Chicken Sandwich. With a large fried chicken breast stationed in a sturdy roll, it’s hard to go wrong. The purple slaw, dill pickles, and chipotle mayo add great components of crunchiness and tanginess with just enough heat to get your attention. With the fried chicken sandwich wars dying down in the treif fast food world, taking a bite of this beauty will provide you with a longing for a kosher version of that battle for poultry perfection.

While all the previous items I’ve mentioned are great choices, sometimes you just want to go all out. And one of the

great things about Davry is the portion size you get for the price point. This allows you to order the king of all sports bar items, BBQ Ribs, and have it not wound your wallet too badly. You get a whole rack of ribs (sous vide for 18 hours) served on a bed of fries with sides of coleslaw and pickles. There’s nothing fancy about these, but there doesn’t have to be. Ribs are one of those things that restaurants struggle to put on menus because of how difficult they are to eat (especially BBQ ribs due to the sauce). But this is a bar. There’s no white tablecloth. There’s no worry about judgment. There’s just you and your ribs, and sometimes that’s all you need.

Whether you are going to catch a game, hang out with a few friends, or planning a social event, Davry is surely a place to keep in mind. The vibe is certainly different from most kosher restaurants. And that might just be your thing.

Meat - Sports Bar - Waiter Service

722 Kings Highway, Brooklyn, NY 11223 (718)-682-3814 • DavryBar.com

Kosher

In The K tchen

Lentil Vegetable Soup

By Naomi Nachman

I’ve always been a big fan of soup. It not only warms my body but also invigorates my soul. This soup is the ultimate comfort food, with vegetables and lentils making it hearty –warming me up in the cold and staving off my hunger. This soup freezes well and doubles easily.

Ingredients

◦ 2 tablespoons canola oil

◦ 4 stalks celery, diced

◦ 2 medium onions, diced

◦ 2 large carrots, diced

◦ 2 medium zucchini, diced

◦ 1 tsp salt

◦ ½ teaspoon ground coriander

◦ ½ teaspoon ground cumin

◦ 1 pouch precooked Gefen lentils

◦ 4 cups vegetable stock

Preparation

Heat oil in medium stock pot. Add onion and sauté till soft, then add celery and carrots.

Sauté on low for 5 minutes and then add zucchini and spices and mix well. Add in lentils and stock.

Bring soup to a boil. Once boiling, then lower flame to a simmer for an hour.

Naomi Nachman, the owner of The Aussie Gourmet, caters weekly and Shabbat/ Yom Tov meals for families and individuals within The Five Towns and neighboring communities, with a specialty in Pesach catering. Naomi is a contributing editor to this paper and also produces and hosts her own weekly radio show on the Nachum Segal Network stream called “A Table for Two with Naomi Nachman.” Naomi gives cooking presentations for organizations and private groups throughout the New York/New Jersey Metropolitan area. In addition, Naomi has been a guest host on the QVC TV network and has been featured in cookbooks, magazines as well as other media covering topics related to cuisine preparation and personal chefs. To obtain additional recipes, join The Aussie Gourmet on Facebook or visit Naomi’s blog. Naomi can be reached through her website, www.theaussiegourmet.com or at (516) 295-9669.

5 Master Negotiating Tactics Mind Y ur Business

This column features business insights from a recent “Mind Your Business with Yitzchok Saftlas” radio show. The weekly “Mind Your Business” show – broadcasting since 2015 – features interviews with Fortune 500 executives, business leaders and marketing gurus. Prominent guests include John Sculley, former CEO of Apple and Pepsi; Dick Schulze, founder and Chairman Emeritus of Best Buy; and Beth Comstock, former Vice Chair of GE; among over 400+ senior-level executives and business celebrities.

Yitzchok Saftlas, president of Bottom Line Marketing Group, hosts the weekly “Mind Your Business” show, which airs at 10pm every Sunday night on 710 WOR and throughout America on the iHeartRadio Network.

On a recent 710 WOR “Mind Your Business” broadcast, Yitzchok Saftlas spoke with guest Richard Solomon, noted attorney.

Solomon drew from his experience dealing with courtroom negotiations to share his top master negotiating tactics to help you achieve better outcomes in any negotiation scenario.

1. Look beyond the numbers

The truth is that no matter what, numbers ultimately have emotions attached. Your starting number can force your mind to dig in until there’s no room left for compromise. Numbers become flashpoints that must be met, and as soon as you start

to go below or above, people on one side will get agitated, and that agitation leads to anger. That’s when a nuanced negotiation can turn into a tug-of-war where everything falls apart.

Instead of focusing on the numbers, try to look at the bigger picture and the underlying interests of both parties. By doing so, you can avoid getting stuck in a win/lose mentality and find creative solutions that satisfy everyone’s needs.

2. Do your homework

Before you enter a negotiation, you need to first understand the facts, the relevant laws, and the other side’s position. This will give you an edge and allow you to anticipate the opposition’s arguments and counter them effectively. For example, I was once given a file involving a client who had leased some equipment that was no longer usable. They believed that this case was all boilerplate and not much more could be done in their favor. But I did my homework and saw that the contract specified Wyoming law, even though everyone involved was located in Texas. After researching, I saw that this use of Wyoming law gave the opposition a lot of leeway. This realization gave us tactical leverage to negotiate a better resolution for the client. Just by doing the homework, I was able to change the entire dynamic between the two sides.

3. Bring in the right people

Negotiation is not a one-size-fits-all approach. Depending on the situation, you may need different people to represent your interests and communicate with the

other side. For example, when choosing your negotiator, you may want someone with authority who can make decisions on the spot, or you may want someone without authority that can defer to a higher-up and avoid committing too soon. Bringing in experts can also be very helpful for your case. You won’t always have the capability to do the homework or research for every situation. That’s why it’s important to bring in experts in those fields to share their insights. Negotiation requires facts and data to support the claims and demands of each side. Finding reliable experts will give your side essential support.

4. Be a good communicator

Negotiation requires so much more than just throwing numbers out there until one side folds. You need to communicate effectively with the other side by showing them respect and empathy. This brings a sense of humanity back into the room, preventing negotiations from becoming heated and spiraling out of control. Sometimes, it helps to let each side vent their frustrations and grievances, so that they feel heard and acknowledged. Sometimes, it helps to use a little humor to break the tension and lighten the mood, as long as it is done so with tact and respect. The most important thing is to show the other side that you understand their perspective. When the needs of both sides are clearly laid out and acknowledged, you can build up from there to reach an agreement.

5. Know when to walk away

This is a lesson that my father, a great

negotiator, taught me. One of the most powerful negotiating tools is the ability to walk away from a bad deal. Sometimes, the best outcome is no outcome at all. Don’t get trapped in a winning mentality that makes you accept terms that are not in your best interest. Winning doesn’t always have to mean walking away with a deal. Some cases are simply not deal-worthy. Be willing to walk away if the other side is unreasonable or unwilling to compromise. Alternatively, if you’ve reached a block in your negotiations, try getting creative. For example, if the opposition is unwilling to budge financially, perhaps there is an alternative service or resource that would be of value to you and that they would be willing to provide.

Negotiations are often viewed as a win/lose scenario, with each party firmly entrenched in their positions. If one party is forced to make a concession, that is viewed as a loss on their part. The plaintiff and defendant are completely polarized. This perspective, however, can hinder the potential for compromise and resolution. A more effective approach is to shift our perspective and view negotiations differently. Instead of seeing it as a tug-of-war, where one side’s gain is the other’s loss, we should strive for a solution that respects the interests of all parties involved. This shift in mindset can make all the difference in achieving successful outcomes in your negotiations.

Notable Quotes “Say What?!”

A blockade of a land they gave back?! They gave it back! Gaza is no longer occupied! The reason there’s a blockade is to stop [terrible things] like this from happening. That’s the whole point. They gave it back!

- Bill Maher to Bernie Sanders’s adviser Matt Duss, who blamed “Israel’s blockade against Gaza” for the pogrom

They gave it to them. And did they use it to build a state? No. They used it to bring in weapons and attack them.

- Ibid.

Genocidal means you’re trying to wipe out a whole people. Trust me, if Israel wanted to do that, they could. They’re not trying to. They’re trying to live in peace.

- Ibid, responding to the claim that Israel engages in “genocide”

Imagine being in a position to restore electricity, fuel, food, and water to 2,000,000 people by simply releasing 150 innocent people you just kidnapped. That’s the choice Hamas is facing, and their decision will likely to affirm they’re the enemy of Israelis AND Palestinians.

- Tweet by Rep. Dean Phillips (D-MN)

I met the pilots, the navigators, the operators, the aircrews, and the ground crews. We have something to be proud of, the enlistment rate is far greater than 100 percent and the corps carries out its missions very successfully. Our planes reach each and every point, this aircraft has many missions – but each missile has an address. We will reach each and every Hamas member.

- Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant at the Nevatim Air Force base

Hamas members have two options: either die where they are or surrender unconditionally. There is no third option.

– Ibid.

The UAW’s leaders have called us the enemy in these negotiations. But I will never consider our employees as enemies. This should not be Ford versus the UAW. It should be Ford and the UAW vs. Toyota and Honda, Tesla, and all the Chinese companies that want to enter our home market.

- Ford Motor Co. Executive Chairman Bill Ford addressing striking United Auto Worker union members

I’m deeply saddened and outraged by the explosion at the hospital in Gaza yesterday and based on what I’ve seen, it appears as though it was done by the other team, not you. But there’s a lot of people out there who are not sure. So we’ve got to overcome a lot of things.

- Pres. Biden while meeting with Prime Minister Netanyahu and reporters in Israel this week

There will be no refugees in Jordan and no refugees in Egypt. That is a red line.

- Jordan’s King Abdullah II at a press conference with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz

Audio released by Israel of two Hamas terrorists talking after the missile struck a Gaza Hospital: They are saying (the rocket) belongs to Palestinian Islamic Jihad. It’s from us?

That this was from us?

It seems that it was from us, yes.

Who is saying this?

They are saying that the shrapnel of the missile are local pieces and not Israeli shrapnel.

What are they saying [there]?

My G-d, from us, it didn’t just explode, but in a hospital!

They may have fired from the cemetery behind.

What?

It seems that they fired this from the cemetery behind the hospital, and it failed and landed on the hospital.

There is a cemetery behind it?

Yes, it is right in its area!

Where is it exactly? When you enter the general courtyard area?

When you enter the courtyard area, so that you do not continue towards the city, but instead from the right side, that is where the hospital is.

We cannot accept people from Gaza into this country as refugees. I am not going to do that. If you look at how they behave — not all of them are Hamas, but they are all anti-Semitic, none of them believe in Israel’s right to exist. None of the Arab states are willing to take any of them.

- Gov. Ron DeSantis while campaigning in Iowa

An analysis of IDF operational systems indicates that a barrage of rockets was fired by terrorists in Gaza, passing in close proximity to the Al Ahli hospital in Gaza at the time it was hit. Intelligence from multiple sources we have in our hands indicates that Islamic Jihad is responsible for the failed rocket launch which hit the hospital in Gaza. The entire world should know: It was barbaric terrorists in Gaza that attacked the hospital in Gaza, and not the IDF. Those who brutally murdered our children also murder their own children.

- Prime Minister Netanyahu, after an Islamic Jihad missile struck a hospital in Gaza and Hamas obviously blamed the IDF

An Islamic Jihad missile has killed many Palestinians at a Gazan hospital – a place where lives should be saved. Shame on the media who swallow the lies of Hamas and Islamic Jihad – broadcasting a 21st century blood libel around the globe.

- President Isaac Herzog

I am an avid hunter/fisherman, and I will always be. For the people who are asking me why I have my son with me, I am teaching him a very important life lesson… The beef, venison, poultry, fish, fruits and vegetables all come from somewhere, not just the grocery store.

- Toronto Blue Jays pitcher Erik Swanson tweeting in response to criticism for taking his young son hunting

Now when he hunts and he harvests his own food, he knows exactly where his food is coming from and what is in it. Next time you go to the grocery store or restaurant and order something, remember that it had to come from somewhere. Know what you are eating! Safe hunting to all!

- Ibid.

In Hamas, Israel Faces a Formidable, and Technologically Sophisticated, Foe

By David Ignatius

As Israeli troops gather at the gates of Gaza for an assault on Hamas that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promises will “reverberate with them for generations,” we should appreciate just how difficult this urban combat will be.

Israeli forces will be counterattacking through a maze of tall buildings, laced with hidden garrisons and booby-trapped passageways. On every floor of every building, there could be a threat. And underneath this hostile city, there are miles of tunnels hiding not just Hamas fighters but also up to 150 Israeli hostages.

“This will be one of the most difficult military operations in recent decades, exceeding the challenges we faced in Iraq,” says Norman Roule, former chief of the CIA’s operations against Iran. “Gaza’s urban area is crowded and large, but it also has a large number of multi-

floor buildings that must be cleared of weapons and terrorists who don’t wear uniforms. We should steel ourselves for heavy civilian and military casualties.”

The Gaza operation poses two agonizing challenges, which tragically seem to be in conflict. First, Israel must restore deterrence against its enemies –in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon and Iran – after last Saturday’s devastating surprise attack. At the same time, it must minimize civilian casualties and save the lives of as many hostages as it can. This seems like a macabre mission impossible.

We can’t know how Israeli commanders will organize their assault. But public comments suggest that the priority is the safety of Israel itself, rather than individuals. “The most important thing is that we teach the other side that there is no way that they can do this without us changing the reality,” Gen.

Dan Goldfuss, a paratroop commander, said last Tuesday.

“What other surprises do they have?” asks a former U.S. official. “For them to have planned this well, this long, there has to be another step to this.” Hamas must have anticipated that Israel would attack Gaza in revenge for the ghastly attack, he argues. What defenses did they prepare?

According to one Western official, the intelligence services of Jordan and Egypt have given Israel a grim warning. Their agents inside Gaza report that Hamas has prepared improvised explosive devices, antitank weapons, and other defenses along the avenues of approach into the enclave, according to this source.

Urban warfare is an especially brutal kind of conflict, with difficulties that confound even the most professional militaries. I reported on two examples

as a journalist – Israel’s siege of Beirut in 1982 and the U.S. Marines’ assault on Fallujah in 2004. Both offer vivid warnings now for the Israeli attack on Gaza.

The siege of Beirut was an example of how battle plans can go awry. The Israeli military burst into Lebanon on June 6, 1982, determined to drive the Palestine Liberation Organization from its sanctuary in West Beirut. Israeli tanks reached the city in several days. But rather than bolt and run, as some Israeli military planners had expected, the Palestinians stood their ground -and Israel began a two-month siege of the city, shelling it with artillery and bombing from the air.

As I wrote at the time, Israel’s problem was that its messages got mixed. The aim was to scare the Palestinians into leaving but reassure world opinion. Instead, Palestinians grew more stubborn, and global criticism of Israel

increased. In the end, the United States brokered a settlement that allowed PLO leader Yasser Arafat and his fighters to safely leave the city.

But after the PLO had gone, Lebanese militiamen massacred Palestinian civilians at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps, near the posts of Israeli troops supposedly safeguarding the city, harming Israel’s image. The Palestinian gunmen in West Beirut were replaced by the Lebanese Shiite militia that became Hezbollah. Some Israeli officials told me later that the invasion had been a mistake that had left Israel less secure.

Fallujah was the setting of another urban-war nightmare. A city of about 300,000 people just west of Baghdad, it was a center of Sunni resistance to the American occupation of Iraq that followed the 2003 U.S. invasion.

Against the advice of local Marine commanders, top U.S. officials ordered an assault on the city in April 2004. After a few weeks of heavy casualties, the Marines withdrew. Fallujah became only more rebellious, and the Marines attacked again in November 2004 in what proved to be the bloodiest battle of the Iraq War. The U.S. suffered 95

killed and 560 wounded in fierce houseto-house combat, across a city of 50,000 buildings.

Gaza is a far more difficult target than Fallujah. It has more than five times the population and a vast, con -

able 1982 or 2004. They probably have detailed computer images of every major building in Gaza, and they can use robots and drones to scout those buildings, find the Hamas defenders and kill them. Many of the terrorists who kid-

Their agents inside Gaza report that Hamas has prepared improvised explosive devices, antitank weapons, and other defenses along the avenues of approach into the enclave, according to this source.

founding mix of high-rises above and tunnels below. Israel will probably try to decapitate the Hamas leadership.

That was the goal of a January 2009 invasion, but the head grew back quickly.

The Israelis have some technology advantages this time that weren’t avail-

napped Israeli hostages were recorded on video – and it’s a safe bet that every one of them will be a target for Israeli revenge.

Technology might help, too, in finding and rescuing the hostages. But this will be difficult. Arab intelligence offi -

cials believe that some of the hostages were taken by freelance looters and thugs rather than Hamas fighters, according to the Western official. Finding where they’re hidden will be difficult and dangerous.

And after the assault on Gaza, what then? Does Israel really want to own this poor, hungry enclave that even today, 75 years after Israel’s birth, resembles a refugee camp? Perhaps Israel’s Arab friends, including a post-normalization Saudi Arabia, can create a stable post-Hamas government in Gaza that can bring prosperity and security to this place of misery and death.

Israel must answer Saturday’s terrible attack. The country’s very existence was shaken by the assault. And perhaps the aftermath will bring a happier future for Palestinians, who are one of modern history’s most ill-fated people. But as a colleague warned me many decades ago, when it comes to the Middle East, it’s an unfortunate truth that “pessimism pays.”

(c) 2023, Washington Post Writers Grou

Trump Drew a Red Line with Iran on Killing Americans. Biden Must Enforce It.

Not once in his 10-minute statement Tuesday condemning Hamas’s horrific attack on Israel did President Biden mention Iran – the regime ultimately responsible for last weekend’s brutal murder of some 1,200 people in Israel, including at least 22 Americans. Worse, he delivered no warning to Iran that the regime would pay a severe price if its terrorist proxy, Hamas, harmed a single American among those it has taken hostage. This was a dereliction of duty.

Let’s be clear: Hamas would not be able to operate without the support of the Iranian regime. Iran funds its terrorist operatives, arms them, trains them. Without that Iranian support, Hamas would never have been able to carry out an attack of this scope and sophistication. Iran works through proxies such as Hamas precisely so it can blur responsibility for attacks such as this. And the Biden administration appears more than willing to cooperate with that ruse to avoid having to acknowledge the catastrophic failure of its Iran policy and impose consequences on Tehran for the American blood on its hands.

When Donald Trump was president, he did not let Iran get away with hiding behind proxies. His administration drew a clear red line with Iran’s leaders, warning that if they or their stand-ins killed a single American, the United States would draw no distinction between Iran and the terrorists it sponsors; we would respond militarily against Iran.

For a time, Iran danced around Trump’s red line, careful not to cross it by taking American lives. It was blamed for attacks on Japanese and Norwegian oil tankers but did not attack American ones. It shot down an unmanned U.S. drone, while avoiding a manned American P-8

By Marc A. Thiessen

aircraft that was reportedly flying in the area (which Trump called “a very wise decision”). In each case, Trump showed restraint, tightening sanctions, approving a cyber-strike against Iran’s military computer systems and designating the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a foreign terrorist organization – all while warning Tehran that his restraint had limits.

Then Iran apparently miscalculated. Its proxy militia in Iraq, Kataib Hezbollah, was blamed for a rocket attack on a military base in Iraq that killed a U.S. military contractor and injured four U.S. service members. Believing his red line had been crossed, Trump struck back: He hit Kataib Hezbollah targets in Iraq and Syria. And after supporters of the militia set fire to the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, he launched a strike that took out both the militia leader and Iran’s terrorist mastermind, Qasem Soleimani, the commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps’ elite Quds Force. And Trump warned Tehran that if it retaliated against Americans,

“Iran itself WILL BE HIT VERY FAST AND VERY HARD.”

Iran backed down. Trump’s actions not only deterred Iranian aggression; they opened the door for peace in the region. In the wake of the Soleimani strike, Trump brokered peace accords between Israel and not one, not two, not three, but four Arab nations - the first such agreements in more than a quarter-century.

Now an Iranian proxy has crossed that red line again – and Iran knows that, unlike Trump, Biden is more afraid of “escalation” than Iran is. Biden inherited a strong deterrence posture in the Middle East and squandered it – begging Iran to rejoin the Obama nuclear deal, easing enforcement of oil sanctions resulting in tens of billions of dollars in Iran’s coffers, and releasing five Iranian prisoners plus effectively paying Tehran a $6 billion ransom for five American hostages. In the wake of last weekend’s Iranian-sponsored violence, it is time for Biden to recognize the folly of this approach and restore deterrence with Iran.

The first step would be to publicly declare that the red line Trump drew remains in force and that we will hold the Iranians responsible for any harm that comes to American hostages now held by Hamas. If a single American hostage is killed, Soleimani’s successor, Quds Force commander Ismail Qaani, should meet the same fate as Soleimani. According to the Wall Street Journal, Qaani is the official “leading the effort to wrangle Iran’s foreign proxies under a unified command,” including Hamas. The message to Iran should be: Every time you or your proxies kill an American, a Quds Force commander will meet his maker.

Biden should also reverse his policy of appeasement and fully enforce the crippling sanctions Trump imposed on Tehran. The president should further isolate the regime by banning all airlines (such as Air France and Lufthansa) that serve Tehran from landing in the United States. And if it is true, as the administration insists, that the $6 billion ransom Biden approved for Iran’s American hostages has not yet been distributed, then those assets should be restricted again.

Sometimes it falls to presidents to enforce red lines set by their predecessors. After Trump took office, he twice enforced President Barack Obama’s red line against Syria’s use of chemical weapons, striking the Assad regime when it used a toxic nerve agent on innocent men, women and children.

Now it’s Biden’s turn to enforce a red line set by his predecessor. Iran has already gotten away with the murder of 22 Americans. We cannot allow even one more to be killed with impunity.

Jewish History

Biden’s “Rules of War”? Not In World War II

By Rafael Medoff

In recent days, President Biden has twice publicly cautioned Israel to observe “the rules of war” when it strikes back at Hamas terrorists. He appeared to be referring to the importance of avoiding civilian casualties in Gaza. But exactly how far does he expect Israel to go in limiting its actions because of the presence of civilians?

The president’s description of Hamas as “pure, unadulterated evil” places the current conflict squarely in the category of a good-versus-evil conflict, like World War II. With regard to civilian casualties, the position of the United States and its allies in World War II was that civilian deaths were an unfortunate but inevitable consequence of their war of self-defense. Israel’s approach to the issue is similar.

Beginning in March 1944, the Americans and British carried out extensive attacks on railways across France, Belgium, and western Germany in advance of the June 6 D-Day landings. The breadth of the air strikes made it inevitable that there would be some civilian casualties; they averaged about 100 per bombing.

On May 7, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill told President Franklin D. Roosevelt he was concerned about “the number of Frenchmen killed in the raids on the railway centers in France.” Churchill estimated that the total number of French civilian deaths in the operation would reach 10,000, in addition to tens of thousands of injured. The British leader asked FDR to “consider the matter from the highest political standpoint,” because his war cabinet was unanimously convinced that continuing the bombings would “leave a legacy of hate” toward the Allies among the French populace.

Roosevelt responded: “However regrettable the attendant loss of civilian lives, I am not prepared to impose from this distance any restriction on military action by the responsible commanders

that in their opinion might militate against the success of [the upcoming D-Day landings] or cause additional loss of life to our Allied Forces of invasion.”

On October 31, 1944, British planes targeted the Gestapo’s Danish headquarters, on the campus of the University of Aarhus. The target was situated in the dormitory buildings, which were flanked by civilian hospitals on both sides. Nonetheless, the raid proceeded in broad daylight, because it was militarily advantageous to do so. Most of the bombs hit their mark but several stray bombs hit another campus building which was under construction, killing ten workers. Likewise, a British bombing raid on Gestapo headquarters in Copenhagen the following year destroyed the building, but some bombs accidentally hit a nearby school, killing an estimated 125 civilians.

The U.S. carried out bombing strikes on German oil factories in and around Auschwitz during daylight hours, when military planners had every reason to believe the factories would be filled with Jewish slave laborers. Civilian casualties were inevitable, but the administration felt that harm to the Jewish prisoners was justified in order to achieve America’s war

aims. For the same reason, U.S. bombers were sent to strike the V-2 rocket factory in the Buchenwald concentration camp in broad daylight, when it could be assumed that Jewish prisoners would be in the factory. Nearly 400 of them were killed in the bombing.

Not only was the Roosevelt administration willing to risk killing Jewish civilians in order to strike those military targets – it even was willing to endanger the lives of Allied POWs. About 1,400 British servicemen were imprisoned in Auschwitz beginning in the autumn of 1943, and six hundred remained there as of the summer of 1944, working as slave laborers in the oil factories. The U.S. and British governments were well aware that the POWs were there; in fact, the Red Cross regularly brought them food packages. One of the POWs, Charles Coward, smuggled information to the British government about the mass-murder process that was taking place in the Birkenau section of the camp. But the presence of the POWs did not deter the daylight air strikes on factories where British prisoners might be working. As a result, thirty-eight of the British prisoners were killed, and many others injured,

in the American bombing on August 20.

In some instances, the U.S. and its allies went further and undertook deliberate attacks on enemy civilians in order to advance the war effort. Beginning in February 1942, the British undertook what was known as “area bombing,” which meant attacking civilian areas in order to undermine the German public’s morale. The United States assented to this approach and participated in many of the most famous strikes on civilian targets. The British-American bombing of Hamburg in July 1943 left 40,000 dead, and the attack on Dresden by U.S. and British bombers in February 1945 killed tens of thousands more.

This approach was sometimes employed on the Pacific front as well. The Roosevelt administration’s firebombing of Tokyo in March 1945 caused over 100,000 civilian fatalities. The Truman administration selected two Japanese civilian centers as the targets of its nuclear bombs, leaving approximately 135,000 dead in Hiroshima and 64,000 in Nagasaki.

Israel does not deliberately kill enemy civilians, but one of the principles of its military actions in built-up areas such as Gaza resembles that of the Allies in World War II – that strikes against the enemy must proceed even if there are civilian casualties.

Will President Biden support Israel taking an approach comparable to what the United States did in World War II? Or will he expect Israel to do as he says, not as the U.S. has done? The answer will become apparent soon.

Dr. Rafael Medoff is founding director of The David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies and author of more than 20 books about Jewish history and the Holocaust. His latest is America and the Holocaust: A Documentary History, published by the Jewish Publication Society & University of Nebraska Press.

Prisoners in Buchenwald repairing damage to a munitions plant after an Allied bombing raid

Forgotten Her es

The Corps of Engineers

By Avi Heiligman

It takes a lot more than just frontline soldiers to fight a battle. Specialty units have been a part of the American military since the Revolutionary War, with both civilians and soldiers filling the ranks to meet the demands of the army. One particular unit has been around since 1775 and has a variety of duties spanning from construction of roads and bridges to breaching obstacles.

The Army Corps of Engineers has a fascinating history and has been the center of many important projects and battles in the United States since the 18th century.

The Army Corps of Engineers can trace their founding to 1775 when the Continental Congress authorized the position of a chief engineer and four years later the creation of the position of a chief engineer. In 1802, the Corps of Engineers became an independent unit that continuously operated and today is headquartered in Washington, D.C. Their missions and operations include construction positions for offensive and defensive actions, breaching obstacles, building bridges, placing and detecting landmines and explosives, detonating munitions, and clearing routes and can fight alongside infantry units when called upon. Engineers have been involved with every major American military conflict. Additionally, they have provided major assistance in civilian projects here in the United States and abroad.

The Engineer Corps worked on for -

tifications in the years leading up to the War of 1812. During that war, the forts became an integral part of the defenses that eventually helped the Americans defeat the British. It became clear that the Corps of Engineers would have to continue to build, upkeep and upgrade forts and defenses in the years following the war, and soon they were given another task.

In 1824, Congress passed the General Survey Act to allow the executive branch to survey for routes that would be suitable for roads and canals. Congress also passed an act that same year to allow for the improvement for transportation along the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers. It was the Corps of Engineers that was called upon to make the projects happen, and they were later used to improve the viability of other rivers and passageways. Starting in the 1840s, they were sent to the Great Lakes and other northern waterways to survey and publish charts and navigational aids. The survey of Lake Huron was completed in 1859, with the unit being led by future civil war commander General George Meade. The Lake Survey was officially completed in 1872 with the charts they produced being credited to the safe passage of the waterways. During this time, the Corps of Engineers, together with the navy, helped maintain lighthouse districts.

The Corps of Topographical Engineers was formed in 1838 and were used to map and design fortifications, civil

works and navigational routes. This unit was merged with the regular Corps of Engineers during the Civil War. Engineers played a key role throughout the Civil War. Union troops greatly benefitted from the extensive railroad and road systems set up by the Corps of Engineers as well as the numerous forts, defensive batteries and bridges. This gave the North a huge advantage over the South, although by the end of the war, the Confederates had more engineer officers serving in their ranks than in the Union Army.

One of the greatest feats of the Union engineers was the defensive ring they built around Washington, D.C. The city was vulnerable to attack from the Confederate state of Virginia so forts and barriers were built to help the Union troops defending the nation’s capital. By the end of the war, they had constructed sixty-eight forts near Washington, D.C., that could be defended by a skeleton defensive force. This defensive ring was put to the test in 1864 when Confederate General Jubal Early was sent by General Lee to attack the city. He attacked at Fort Stevens but Union troops made use of the extensive interconnecting road system that the engineers built and converged on the fort to defeat the Confederates. President Abraham Lincoln watched the battle unfold, even though the battle gave the residents of the city a bit of a fright. After that, the South did

not make another attempt to capture Washington, D.C.

After the Civil War, the Corps of Engineers were busy during the Reconstruction period and beyond. They were involved in several projects in and around Washington, D.C., including improving navigation of the Potomac River, improving the city’s water supply, completing the Washington Monument in the city, and building and designing important buildings like the Lincoln Memorial and the Library of Congress. Additionally, the corps was sent to many areas of the country to improve infrastructure like building levees along the Mississippi River to stop flooding and to improve navigation.

The Corps of Engineers were very busy during the 19th century. During wartime, engineers were employed by military commanders and were vital pieces in victory on the battlefield. Peacetime saw engineers conducting surveys and building roads, bridges and other important infrastructures. These unsung heroes were integral for America to succeed in the 19th century and were prominent in the successes going into the next century.

Avi Heiligman is a weekly contributor to The Jewish Home. He welcomes your comments and suggestions for future columns and can be reached at aviheiligman@gmail.com.

Building a pontoon landing during the Civil War

Helping to construct the Alaska Highway in World War II

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NEW TO THE MARKET

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WOODMERE

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WEST HEMPSTEAD

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WOODMERE

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WOODMERE

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FAR ROCKAWAY

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WOODMERE

Spacious home within school district 14 with exquisite upgrades and central air conditioning, splendid kitchen with dual sinks, five bedrooms. Main level encompasses a spacious great room, office space, complementing the formal living and dining areas. Unfinished basement, detached garage. Expansive lot, measuring 80 x 100. Conveniently located near shopping, railroad, restaurants and places of worship. OPEN HOUSE

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VALLEY STREAM

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FOR RENT

Office space/Storage Large room available for rent in Far Rockaway. Private entrance. Call or text 917-678-4121

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LONG BEACH

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WOODMERE

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WOODMERE

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APT./COOP/CONDO SALE APT./COOP/CONDO SALE

WOODMERE

Welcome to this exquisite and expansive 1 Bedroom co-op in the highly sought-after and prestigious Heathcote. Recently renovated, generously sized foyer. Vasr Eat-InKitchen. Situated in a classic pre-war building, this residence features 9-foot ceilings that add an air of elegance and sophistication. The convenience of an elevator ensures easy access to all levels, making everyday living a breeze. Private storage room. Mark Lipner Associate Broker Berkshire Hathaway Laffey International 516298-8457 mlipner@bhhslaffey.com

LAWRENCE

New to the market Generously sized 1 bedroom 1.5 bathroom coop in an elevator building, with a 24 hour doorman, underground parking, double terrace, central air conditioning, washer/dryer and storage on the floor, eat-in-kitchen, living room and dining room, no steps into the building or to the apartment, minutes from shopping, park, transportation, and houses of worship. $479,000 Mark Lipner Associate Broker Berkshire Hathaway Laffey International 516-298-8457 mlipner@bhhslaffey.com

LAWRENCE JUST LISTED

This amazing two-bedroom two full bathroom condo Features a luxurious lifestyle in the beautiful city of Lawrence. What more could you ask for? The building has a 24-hour doorman and elevator access, with a social room, library, washer/dryer inside the unit, and terrace. Plus, the added benefit of having a live-in super to ensure maximum safety and security! And don’t forget about your new kitchen complete with a gas stove, refrigerator, microwave, and even two dishwashers! The living room and dining room are spacious and have recessed lighting installed throughout. Both bedrooms feature lots of closet space for storage. To top it off, there’s even garage parking available to make your life just that much easier! Don’t miss out on this incredible opportunity. Please call for a private showing Mark Lipner Associate Broker Berkshire Hathaway Laffey International

516-298-8457 • mlipner@bhhslaffey.com

Classifieds

classifieds@fivetownsjewishhome.com

APT./COOP/CONDO SALE

HEWLETT

Totally renovated 1 and 2 Bedroom, Apartments with washer/dryer, kitchen with quartz countertops, stainless steel appliances. Recessed lighting, hardwood floors, storage in basement. Close to RR, shopping, and houses of worship. Mark Lipner Associate Broker Berkshire Hathaway Laffey International 516-298-8457 mlipner@bhhslaffey.com

CEDARHURST

1, 2 and 3 bedroom apartments, totally renovated private entrance , central air conditioning, hardwood floors, washer/dryer, garage parking, dishwasher, recessed lighting, private playground, close to railroad, park, shopping and houses of worship. Call for more details

Mark Lipner Associate Broker Berkshire Hathaway Laffey International 516-298-8457  mlipner@bhhslaffey.com

APT./COOP/CONDO SALE

WOODMERE

Generously proportioned, first-floor apartment in an elevator-equipped building in the heart of Woodmere. This Co-op boasts three bedrooms, two full bathrooms. Lofty ceilings, spacious foyer, formal living area and dining space. Expansive kitchen with gas stove, microwave, dishwasher, washer-dryer. Hardwood floors provide an elegant touch, and the comfort of five air-conditioning units ensures year-round climate control. Three bedrooms, with the primary bedroom having en-suite full bathroom. Dedicated storage. Near shopping centers, railroad, dining and places of worship. Mark Lipner Associate Broker Berkshire Hathaway

Laffey International

516-298-8457

mlipner@bhhslaffey.com

APT./COOP/CONDO SALE

LAWRENCE

Spacious 2BR, 2 Full Bath Apt with an enclosed terrace in the heart of Lawrence. Well maintained & manicured building. New hardwood floors, updated Eat-in Kitchen with gas stove. warming draw, dishwasher & microwave. New windows on the enclosed terrace & one of the bedrooms. 3 New A/C Units & New Refrigerator. Close to shopping, transportation, library, schools, and houses of worship. $339K Mark Lipner Associate Broker Berkshire Hathaway Laffey International 516-298-8457 mlipner@bhhslaffey.com

WOODMERE

Well maintained 1 Bedroom apartment. Elevator Building. Pet Friendly, SD#14, Corner Unit, Bright + Sunny, Hardwood Floors, Eat-in Kitchen, Full Bathroom, 3 Closets, 2 Ceiling Fans, 1 A/C Unit, Full Time Super on Premises. Minutes from the Railroad, Shopping, Houses of Worship, and Laundry Room on Premises. Mark Lipner Associate Broker Berkshire Hathaway Laffey International 516-298-8457 • $175K

LAWRENCE

New to the market Jr. 4 apartment in an elevator building with a terrace and underground parking, laundry on premises. Kitchen with granite countertops, 2 sinks, ss appliances, spacious step down living room with high ceilings, guest room/ office, spacious primary bedroom with 3 closets, full bathroom with full vanity, medicine cabinet, toilet and lighting, custom blinds, near the railroad, shopping and houses of worship.$289K Mark Lipner Associate Broker Berkshire Hathaway Laffey International 516-298-8457 mlipner@bhhslaffey.com

WOODMERE

Totally renovated bright and sunny 1 bedroom corner unit apartment with a washer/dryer. Features quartz countertops, ss appliances, recessed lighting, bathroom with chrome fixtures, close to the railroads, shopping and houses of worship. Call for details Mark Lipner Associate Broker Berkshire Hathaway Laffey International 516-298-8457 mlipner@bhhslaffey.com

LAWRENCE

One Bedroom Renovated Apartment

In Prime Lawrence. Efficiency Kitchen, Renovated Bathroom. Sunken LR, Dining Room, Close to All, Transportation, Shopping, Worship. $275k Mark Lipner Associate Broker Berkshire Hathaway Laffey International 516-298-8457 mlipner@bhhslaffey.com

ISRAEL REAL ESTATE

RAMAT BEIT SHEMESH G1

*Available this summer in RBSG1* 5 bedroom/4 bathroom (3 full- 1 half) 1st floor • Building w/ an elevator

Quiet street • Close to bussing (local and to Yerushalayim)

Across the street from a few different Shuls

Walking to G1 Mercaz

Available July 12 - Aug 9 with flexibility

For more info WhatsApp

347-831-5128 or call 053-412-7194

UNIQUE APARTMENT

In the old city of Jerusalem, one of a kind! Inside private and quiet courtyard, features living/dining room, kitchen with high quality built in wood cabinets in excellent condition, three bedrooms, high quality built in wood closets, two bathrooms, 135 meters, including two sun balconies, newly built from the foundation up (early 80’s, very few such apartments in the old city), located on Chabad Street. $2.9M (negotiable) Contact Yukie at 1-760 227-0287 (US), +972 50 850-1400 (IL)

HELP WANTED

ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT

Local school looking to hire a capable administrative assistant.  Job responsibilities include data entry, database management, assisting the administrator in his daily tasks.   Candidates must be detailoriented, organized, and have the ability to multi-task.  Prefer full-time but would consider part-time for the right individual. Proficiency in Microsoft Office required. Enjoyable working environment, personal, sick, vacation days offered, Yom Tovim and certain legal holidays off. Salary commensurate with experience. Please email resume to admin@shoryoshuv.org

BOOKKEEPER

Excellent growth potential, Frum environment, Excellent salary & benefits. Email resume to: resumetfs1@gmail.com

SEEKING ELA TEACHER

Teaching position for Gr. 6. Mon.-Thurs., afternoon hours. Far Rockaway/5T area. Great salary, warm, supportive environment. Training in our curriculum is provided. Teachersearch11@gmail.com

5 TOWNS BOYS YESHIVA

Seeking Elem Gen Ed Teachers

Excellent working environment and pay. Only lic/exp need apply. Email resume to yeshivalooking@gmail.com

Classifieds

classifieds@fivetownsjewishhome.com

• text 443-929-4003

HELP WANTED HELP WANTED HELP WANTED HELP WANTED

DELIVERY PERSON NEEDED

to deliver Newspaper every Thursday morning to locations in Brooklyn. Must have Minivan or SUV and availability to work consistently every week!

Please e-mail gabe@fivetownsjewishhome.com or call (917) 299-8082

JOIN OUR TEAM!

ABA company located in the 5 Towns looking to fill multiple full-time administrative positions

Knowledge of Central Reach a plus, but will train the right candidate Great work environment

Call 516-670-5374 or Email your resume to: Careers@supportivecareaba.com

IMMEDIATE OPENING

ELA teaching position for Gr. 5. Mon.-Thurs., afternoon hours. Far Rockaway/5T area. Competitive salary, warm supportive environment. Teachersearch11@gmail.com

A YESHIVA IN QUEENS

is looking for an experienced part/ full time secretary, 2-year-old morah, kindergarten morah, kindergarten morah assistant and Pre-1A English teacher for the 2022-2023 school year. Nice and timely pay. Please email resume to mshelt613@gmail. com or call/text 718-971-9799.

DEVELOPMENT ASSISTANT

A multi-tasker needed for general office work. The ideal candidate is someone who is detail-oriented, responsible, and can take ownership. Looking for someone who is eager to learn, and expand his/her skill set while possessing the ability to work independently and as part of a team. Experience with Excel required. Five Towns location. In-office position only, not remote. Please send resume to 5tpart.timecareer@gmail.com

MDS REGIONAL NURSE

5 Towns area Nursing Home management office seeking a Regional/Corporate level MDS Nurse to work in our office. Must be an RN. Regional experience preferred. 2-3 years MDS experience with good computer skills required. Position is Full Time but Part Time can be considered. Great Shomer Shabbos environment with some remote options as well. Email: officejob2019@gmail.com

ACCOUNTANT

With 2+ years experience to assist a nursing home back office company with financial statement preparation. Great benefits & pay. Reach out to Lakewoodjobs@fcc-corp.com

MISC. SHMIRAS HALASHON

Text 516-303-3868 with a time slot of your choice to be careful on lashon hara. Be a part of the 1,000 people for klal yisroel!

Your Money Don’t Do the Crime If You Can’t Do the Time

By Allan Rolnick, CPA

Last year, Americans earned about $21.8 trillion in personal income.

Uncle Sam stepped in to intercept $4.9 trillion of that haul in personal income taxes. Now, moving nearly a quarter out of every dollar America earns to Uncle Sam’s pocket is a pretty monumental task. So, our Internal Revenue Service works to manage that process. Usually, that’s an administrative task involving ordinary withholdings, collections, and reporting. Other times, it’s investigative, ferreting out taxpayers who cross lines to keep more in their pocket. If you’re doing things like backdating documents or hiding financial information, the IRS is probably going to want to know why.

But sometimes, the IRS and its associates cross lines themselves. A couple of recent stories shine a light on how that happens and raise questions about how to handle those offenses when they’re exposed.

Tax returns are supposed to be confidential. But that’s not always the case, especially if you’re rich and famous. A month before the 2020 election, the New York Times published a summary of 20 years of former President Trump’s returns. At the time, Congress was fighting in court for access to those documents. Clearly, someone had leaked them for political gain. Yet the Times stated that all of the information they obtained “was provided by sources with legal access to it.”

A year later, the independent newsroom ProPublica published an expose called The Secret IRS Files based on “a vast cache of IRS information showing how billionaires like Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, and Warren Buffet pay little in income tax compared to their vast wealth – sometimes, even nothing.” Among the salacious details: in 2011 ,

Bezos paid no tax and collected 4,000$ in child tax credits. (In all fairness, kids are expensive.) Clearly, someone leaked the information to embarrass

Now we know how the Times and ProPublica got their hands on that information. Last week, prosecutors announced they had charged a former IRS

If that’s enough to send someone to jail, what should the IRS do with their own miscreants?

the high-income, low-tax billionaires. Yet ProPublica declined to disclose how it got the returns in the first place and argued that “the public interest in knowing this information at this pivotal moment” outweighed legitimate privacy concerns.

contractor named Charles Littlejohn with leaking the returns. Littlejohn looks like he’s ready to plead guilty, and the charge carries up to five years in federal housing. But the story suggests the Service could do a better job protecting taxpayer information, even from its own

staff and authorized personnel.

Last month also brought news from an ongoing IRS fight against “syndicated conservation easements.” These arrangements let taxpayers invest in partnerships that buy land to donate for conservation. They typically reward investors with enough in tax deductions to cut their tax by more than their actual investment. The IRS has taken dead aim at these partnerships, claiming that abusive valuations are the secret to magically multiplying those savings.

But get this: it turns out that in several easement audits, IRS supervisors backdated signatures approving millions of dollars in penalties. (We can call that “the crime.”) Even worse, their attorneys swore the signature dates were accurate and misled courts for months after the falsification was discovered. (We’ll call that “the coverup.”)

The IRS has announced they’ll settle those specific cases and drop the penalties. Fine. But the IRS has won criminal convictions against easement sponsors and marketers who backdated signatures themselves. If that’s enough to send someone to jail, what should the IRS do with their own miscreants?

The bureaucrats who run the IRS are, for the most part, genuinely interested in administering the tax laws fairly, so that everyone pays their fair share under the law. But that has to be a two-way street. So count on us to help keep the IRS honest as we work to help you pay less!

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.

Life C ach

Where Are You Heading?

By Rivki D. Rosenwald Esq., LMFT, CLC, SDS

What country did you visit recently?

I’m sure not one you were planning to!

Perhaps Athens or Turkey, Rome or Paris or some other convoluted route to exit the Holy Land.

And I’m sure you weren’t in a touring mood. So it was just in and out, and shlep, shlep, shlep. We were just looking to get to our homes.

Suddenly, the one place we were all trying so hard to get into during Covid was the place we were scooting out of this year.

Why?

Not because we don’t love it.

We just didn’t make sense there right now!

We don’t want to compete with the schoolkids for the milk and cookies.

We don’t want to give the protective forces more people to worry about.

And we don’t want to be in Israel when they don’t benefit from our crazy out of control shopping, eating out, and touring.

After all, it’s not just our company they love.

We are back in our respective homes all scrounging around for where to donate and how to help save our brothers and sisters in Israel and keep them safe, short-term and long-term.

It’s always interesting to hear all the big “political pundits,” and I mean the

daring and dangerous. Let’s pray not.

The road may be circuitous. Let’s pray there is a straightforward plan.

But let’s remember one thing. We want to travel a straight route back to our homeland – from and to – and only take a detour when it’s our choosing.

Harmony is composed of different sounds, but each sound enhances each other and works off each other.

ones we are all married to, give their well thought-out and brilliant solutions to the issue at hand.

Yes, don’t we all wish it could be that easy. But as the old saying goes, easier said than done!

The road ahead may be long and arduous. Let’s pray not, though.

The road ahead may continue to be

So get on board toward the same journey, and let’s stay the course. Don’t let different opinions among us turn into differences of opinions.

We are all praying for the same destination: a united, peaceful, and harmonious homeland.

Harmony is composed of different sounds, but each sound enhances each

other and works off each other. Harmony within the land does not have to be about doing the exact same thing, rather it must be created and sustained by each of us respecting each other’s rights to do different things and finding the right place and space to make it happen.

Otherwise, we’ll be flying all over the place trying to get somewhere…just like last week. When instead, we want to be able to feel at home when we are with each other.

Reach out and love a fellow Jew this week who is different from you, because we are all one family, and families need to accommodate for one another. Do it with patience, kindness, and love.

And you will change you as well as them. And make our Parent proud!

Rivki Rosenwald is a Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist working with both couples and individuals and is a certified relationship counselor. Rivki is a co-founder and creator of an effective Parent Management of Adolescent Years Program. She can be contacted at 917705-2004 or at rivkirosenwald@gmail.com.

Supporting our soldiers spiritually